How to Get Published

by Al Kalar

Gordon R. Dickson was once asked, “What makes a story tick?” Dickson, one of the more prolific authors with a fan following in the millions, answered, “The time bomb that’s set to explode on the last page.”

He was talking about the type of story that becomes a race against time. The characters must accomplish something or be somewhere before the “bomb”, which can be a good or bad thing, goes off.

The Bomb

The beat of the time bomb needs to be felt throughout the story. Not necessarily on every page, but the reader should not be allowed to forget that it exists and it’s the main problem faced by the characters. (more…)

by Al Kalar

A good story requires conflict. Without it, you don’t have much to offer the reader. Perhaps a fictional travelogue can get by without conflict, but any good yarn is pretty boring without it.

I ran across a good checklist for conflict written by our old friend, Ben Bova. The list is his, the comments are mine. (more…)

The story…must be a conflict, and specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single person. - Maxwell Anderson

by Al Philipson

by LuMaxArt

For a story to be interesting, there must be conflict. If your goal is to describe some utopian society filled with all sorts of technological wonders, you don’t have a story, just a boring travelogue.  How interesting would Beowulf have been without Grendel, his mother, and the dragon?

Ben Bova once described “a story” as “a narrative description of a character struggling to solve a problem.”

So, what do you need to do to provide the problem or “conflict”? (more…)