My name is Jim Doran and I love to write. Posted here are excerpts from novels, complete short stories, and other essay topics on writing, fantasy, and mystery I’ve created over the years. All content on this site is copyrighted, but you are welcome to read everything I’ve uploaded for free. The main pages represent different series I’ve authored throughout the years, often in the genre of fantasy, mystery, or horror. Illustrations are copyrighted and provided by Daniel Johnson. Please also check out his Gallery.
Do you remember when you were a young child—and I mean a very young child—and you stepped outside your house and wondered “How large is the earth?” If you could walk around it, did it take a day or a hundred thousand years? Do you remember looking at a map of the earth, selecting a spot, and thinking “What’s it like there?” and your mind conjured up something startling with castles with a hundred turrets or waterfalls that cascaded down on each other, the water a unique shade of cerulean? Did you have that one location in your neighborhood that was exceedingly mysterious? Perhaps it was a forest trail, an old house, a cave, or an open mesa? Maybe you imagined someone died there and turned into a ghost or that this was the site where pirates once buried treasure. As we age, we lose that sense of wonder, but here’s a great secret…we don’t have to. Sure, that old house turned out to be just an old house, no ghosts there, and we became disillusioned but what we don’t know is the history of the family that once lived there. They had stories to tell. I guarantee some of their stories were scary and some were funny and others were all over the spectrum still. “If these walls could talk” is a common saying, and if they could they would tell you some fascinating stories. This is how I approach my novels and short stories. Everything is possible given the limits of the genre, and like that child that stepped outside, I want to explore what actually did happen and write it down for you.
So what have I done? I’ve published multiple short stories in the industry (these are blogs about the stories, not the stories themselves – Beware Said the Man of Straw and Evicted). I’ve written and independently published four novels centered around a fairytale world called Kingdom. I’ve written adult horror, urban YA fantasy, contemporary MG with a Christian bent, and dozens of short stories – all different genres and age ranges. On the entertainer / social justice scale, I consider myself heavily on the entertainer end.
On this site, I have essays on writing, book reviews, interviews, updates on my works in progress. Most of all, I’m pleased to share with you my tales of fantasy, mystery, horror, romance, and other genres. In other words, this is my portfolio of fascinating stories.
If you want to contact me, please send me an email at jim.doran.author@gmail.com.
Twitter: @JDoran711
Instagram: jimdoranauthor
Come back often and see what’s new.