Turlock’s Scott D. Roberts, who wrote “Vengeance is Now” and is already hard at work on his second novel “Hidden Agenda” will be a featured author at the California Capital Book Festival on Saturday and Sunday at the Sacramento Convention Center.

Roberts will be signing books at the 3L Publishing booth and will be a presenter on the topic of thriller novel writing vs. screenwriting.

Twice-named the “Best in New Fiction” for 2013, “Vengeance is Now” is about a down-and-out and disgraced former police detective and private eye Tate Holloway, who has turned to a life of soaking his sorrows in a bottle of Tequila, smoking weed, and turning tricks with high-class wealthy women to make a living. Balancing his empty life of surfing and keeping his secret life away from his girlfriend, Tate finds his entire world turned upside down when he’s set up, framed, and forced to go on the run for unspeakable crimes.

In the soon-to-be released book in the Tate Holloway series, “Hidden Agenda” Tate Holloway is back in a big way as readers follow his adventure from Seattle to Washington D.C. and Dubai.

 “There are always two sides to every story, which is evidenced by two individuals who witness the same crime,” Roberts says of his approach to novel writing. “According to law enforcement officials, statistics prove that those witnesses usually tell a different story or see things differently. In my storytelling, I like to write a chapter from one of the character's point-of-views and then immediately in the same chapter turn the tables and see the same scene or event from a different character’s standpoint. I feel this is important and interesting in character development and really gives the readers an insight to the character's mindset when experiencing or witnessing the same event. In my presentation, I'm going to lay out how ‘I become a serial killer’ by constructing a chapter using 3x5 index cards and braiding the A, B and C storylines into one cohesive, exciting story.

“In screenwriting, it’s very important that every word or scene must have a meaning to the overall thru-line of the story. I dissect each character's state of mind, thoughts, and motivation for each line of dialogue – and the exposition must be precise. The wonderful part about writing books is the ability to create a world and characters without thought to a budget, locations and/or if the director will see what you see. There is much more wiggle room in terms of creating the world through exposition.”