How to Get Published

by John Bowers

(NOTE: Some content in this article may offend the sensitive reader. Proceed at your own risk.)

In the science fiction novelist workshop where I grew up there has been a friendly, ongoing discussion of when and whether strong language should be included in a novel. Some feel strongly that it’s unnecessary, that “if you have to resort to profanity to tell your story, your writing skills are weak”, while others take the view that nothing is sacred when it comes to writing fiction.

Where do you stand? Or have you even thought about it?

A  Little Background

Everyone has become accustomed, at the movies and even on TV, to warnings about “content”. It all started back around 1968 with the motion pictures, when they first came out with a rating system. Before the rating system movie censors dictated what could and could not be shown or said in a film, based upon the moral principles of…well-no one was sure. Things got so nitty that a kiss in the movie could not last more than three seconds (whereupon the actors kissed each other for two seconds-repeatedly). (more…)

by Carl Turner

Freelance writing has been a fantasy of mine for many years. When I was a lot younger than I am now, I did not have the time or the income to pursue freelance writing full time. If you are a new writer or an unknown writer, attempting to write for a living as your only source of income it will probably not succeed unless you do not mind not eating and not paying the bills.

This does not mean that you cannot make a good living freelance writing. It just means that you should not quit your day job before you make a name for yourself and figure out a couple things like your niche market and your particular style or your voice. (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…)