made by death

This Book is dedicated to

My family, my friends and my girlfriend

for being with me every step of the way in life.

And written in memory of my late and amazing grandparents

Joan Woodman

and

Edward Albert Woodman

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep

"Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn's rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there.

I did not die." -

Mary Frye

Warning: The subject matter in this novel is macabre and disturbing, those who have endured through incidents mentioned in this book such as murder, rape, paedophilia, racism, homophobia, domestic abuse and suicide should take extreme caution when reading this book. The deaths depicted in the story are inspired by real deaths and are extremely graphic, If you feel upset and depressed by the subjects mentioned, stop reading immediately, You have been warned.

Epigraph

"Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory." ~ Julius Caesar

Made by Death: The beginning

Growing up in my town as an aspiring film maker and editor, I knew the basics of telling a story and giving it detailed depth and meaning. I had delved into literature during high school and college I felt intimidated by the language used and the metaphors used by a myriad of authors, it almost made me feel like in order to be an author you had to be an academic in order to write a novel. But all that changed when I started to read numerous books, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S Thompson and "First Blood" by David Moral were the main 2 that inspired me to become a writer and improve on my own style of writing. When coming up with the plot structure for Made by Death, just like David Moral when he wrote First Blood, I to gained inspiration from not 2, but 3 different things. The first bit of inspiration comes from a video game series I adore called "Hitman", the plot of the game does share a similarity to this book, such as both my character and the character from the game known as "Agent 47" are clones, but I like to think of the Main character in this novel as Agent 47s Cousin. Through out the game series, Agent 47 follows direct orders from the ICA and his advisor Diana Burnwood, but the main Character in this novel is a rogue hit man following only the orders of the people who he gets contracts from. The second peice of inspiration came from a YouTube horror series known as "Something Scary" by the channel Snarled. The various stories read by the host Sapphire, are all written by many people around my age. So that built up my confidence towards being a writer, the idea that some of them presumably planning to do it as a career is amazing and defiantly helped me realise you don't need a university education in order to be an author.

Also many of the stories told are revolved around mysteries and folk lore tales, the idea that we are surrounded by many strange cases. And the final bit of inspiration that helped put together the overall structure was a Roleplay me and my girlfriend did together. The idea of a clone being trained into an assassin inside of a secret facility and developing human emotions after going rogue was unique, So at that point I knew I had to structure it out into a novel. Writing this book helped me focus and help get my mind off my grandmother passing away, to anybody out their who considers a career involving writing books, I hope this or any other book helps inspire you in creating something unique and magnificent. Writing to me isn't just telling a story from the mind, to me writing is a form of therapy and something that helps express your mind to others and allowing the reader to know a lot about your thoughts of the world. I hope you all enjoy my first ever Novel, Made by Death.