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As you work on your mystery or thriller, you suddenly realize that you need to know more about guns. You want to do some research so that you can take advantage of a gun's individual characteristics in your story and what that says about your character. But you also want to avoid the most common mistakes. Where do you start?

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Writing is often described as a craft, and usually in counterposition to art. In the Romantic Era, art was seen as the precinct of special, sensitive people, who were inspired by a Muse. Craft, on the other hand, involved practice, tradition, and the perfection of skills. Today, professional writers are almost a single mind—writing is a craft, not an art.

writing

Once you get past GHOST's initial spleen-venting, the PALADIN OF SHADOWS series falls into a much-maligned, much-loved genre which, for lack of a better name, I call "Man Builds Stuff and Gets Lots of Pussy." This is, quite frankly, what got me reading the series: I am not much for stories of a guy just killing terrorists and getting laid a lot; but let him start building a small kingdom while killing terrorists and getting laid a lot, and I am there. I confess that have a soft spot for these kinds of stories. I suspect that *lots* of men do: even if we don't build things ourselves, we like to *read about* guys building things: castles, weapons, companies, societies. It's really very soothing; it combines the pleasures of fiction with a those of a do-it-yourself manual. The same impulses may explain why a lot of male writers aren't content to have their hero just carrying, say, a 1911 as his sidearm; they have to tell you what make, model, whether it's got an internal or external extractor, what aftermarket parts he's tuned it up with, and who he bought them from, until you know all about his Kimber's Ed Brown slide stop and Wolff springs.

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In November, The New York Times reported that approximately 9 million electronic reading devices are in use in the U.S. When holiday purchases are tallied, that number will most certainly go up. While there are many different kinds of e-readers, they share one thing in common: They need to be filled with books.

Two years ago, e-books constituted 1% of total book sales, a figure that's now closer to 10%. As electronic media accounts for a larger and larger portion of the book business, consumers are benefiting from lower prices for books, and manufacturers are enjoying massive sales. But how is the e-book revolution affecting authors?

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/i6HvYj

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Every December I do a post about resolutions for writers, and every year I add more of them. This year is especially interesting, because my latest advice goes against some of my earlier advice...

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10 Best Blogs for Indie Authors

writing publishing

A potter's field is a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people.

writing research

There is this thing currently going around tumblr about why dating a writer is good. I think it’s nice that this thing is going around, because I like writers, and lots of us could use more dates. As a writer who has dated people, though — including other

writing humor

There is an large untapped audience for more popular SF magazines.

There are millions of people who already read SF novels, and who watch SF based film and television. Even more people also read SF flavoured comics, play SF inspired computer games, liste

writing scifi

In the early days of Michael Moorcock's 50-plus-years career, when he was living paycheck-to-paycheck, he wrote a whole slew of action-adventure sword-and-sorcery novels very, very quickly, including his most famous books about the tortured anti-hero Elri

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We live in an absurd universe. And once you throw in stuff like time travel, fiction can get even sillier than real life. But how can you write speculative fiction that lives up to our ridiculous world, without being dumb?

writing humor

A writer's guide to diseases and injuries, and how to use them effectively in fiction

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Shatnerquake is a comparatively mild example of the Bizarro fiction genre. Bizarro fiction defines itself as the literary equivalent of the cult film section in a video store, taking inspiration from films such as Repo Man and Eraserhead. It aims to satis

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Everybody is becoming [a superhero]. In the past I've tried to say, 'Look, we are all crappy superheroes,' because personal computers and mobile phone devices are things that only Bat Man and Mr Fantastic would have owned back in the sixties. We've all go

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People act like the worst accusation you can hurl at storytellers is "They made it up as they went along." As if having a Master Plan is the same as good storytelling. In fact, it's frequently the other way around.

Often the best storytelling is improvis

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My neighbor had a lot to say. She had a MESSAGE. She talked longer than anyone, and over everyone and through everyone. Her message, as far as I could determine, was that the internet is all about getting out there and SELLING yourself.

“I’m a brand,” sh

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I've noticed an alarming trend in television finales, lately: God.

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