How to Get Published

by John Bowers

Writing fiction is hard work, but it’s also fun. As a writer you get to create everything, from the world in which your characters live to the characters themselves. You get to determine whether they live or die. But sometimes writing can be daunting; for example, giving your characters a name. How, exactly, does that work?

It could be very easy, of course, if you don’t mind using the same old names as everyone else. You could call your character Dick and his girlfriend Jane, but doing that might kill your chances at a sale before anyone read past the names. If you want your characters to be memorable, you need to give them names to remember. But with millions of novels out there, and ten times as many characters, how do you find such a name that hasn’t already been used? (more…)

by Al Kalar

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. -Ernest Hemingway

In one short sentence, Hemingway wrote the background for The Old Man and the Sea. The sentence tells the reader who, where, and what the story is about.

In times past, it was not unusual for the author to devote and entire chapter (or more) to tell the background scenery and information for the story. Modern readers won’t stand for that. (more…)