How to Get Published

by Al Kalar

Writing is easy, “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” - Red Smith

Language

Know your language and its requirements. Grammar and spelling. If you flunked your language classes in school, it’s time to go back to school or hire a ghostwriter.

If you don’t know your language requirements, this blog isn’t going to help you learn. That’s another huge body of knowledge that is best addressed by educators and schools.

Purpose

Why are you writing this? If you don’t know where you’re going, (more…)

A Rerun

By Al Kalar

Introduction to the Series

Working for an eBook publisher as an acquisitions editor, I see a lot of manuscripts cross my “IN” basket. Many of them have a good story yarn or an interesting subject matter, but most of them are not written with sales in mind.

Some of the problems are because the writer is using a technique s/he saw in the writings of a popular author. What a new writer has to remember is that s/he is not a popular writer — yet. Popular writers can get away with a few bad techniques because their fans will buy their books anyway. Professors can write poor text books because they can require them for their course.

Most of the problems I see are a combination of poor English skills and problems in the construction of the manuscript (the order and manner in which the piece is written). (more…)

by Al Kalar

The movies

You’ve seen it dozens of times, most often in a disaster movie.

Picture by Shane H

• The opening scene is on a businessman in a meeting. For whatever reason, he has to get out of the meeting and fly somewhere.
• The next scene is a happy little family.  Well, maybe not too happy since the two pre-teen kids squabble all the time.  They’re getting ready for their vacation at Fun World in another state.
• Then the fighting married couple.  He’s a traveling salesman looser and she’s a shrew.  He storms out of the house with his luggage. Does it contain a bomb? (more…)

Photo by Laural Fan

by Al Philipson

A fight scene must be immediate and hard-hitting.  Whatever you do, don’t interrupt the scene for flashbacks, information dumps, long descriptions, or introspection.

Think of your fight as a scene in a movie.  The camera angles constantly change (too much in modern photography ’cause they can’t choreograph a fight worth beans in HollyWeird any more), People are swinging at each other and grunting as they get hit. (more…)