Month: <span>February 2024</span>
Month: February 2024

Month: February 2024

Sexuality in Science Fiction

I’m going to approach this topic from two directions, so bear with me. The US and a bunch of other places have inherited British legal systems that dates back a Very Long Time™. A lot of places inherited Christianity as a “State Religion.” Both have a strong emphasis on heterosexual marriage (One Man, One Woman) as the basis for a lot of other things, including most of your rights as a person. In the old days, people had more freedom to be non-cissexual. Scientific research these days suggests that roughly ten percent of the population is definitively homosexual (a 6...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

Should I Write Military Science Fiction?

Military science fiction is for the action-oriented writer, someone for whom combat scenes flow naturally onto the page. Experience in the military, martial arts, marksmanship is a plus, but not necessary, for this military genre is more forgiving than most.

You should consider military science fiction if…

You love reading it

You're adept at writing action scenes (if you're not, try reading Adam's Writing Action article)

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

Testing Continues

Testing continues on apace. Glad to report that no bugs have been found; site is functioning great. Some typos and broken links have been discovered and fixed. Added chat for extra communication during testing. Got a great email from one tester who is loving the site. That was really great to hear, as we’ve put a lot of work into this site and we’re thrilled they are finding it useful. I wrote a 2k word article on breaking down bestselling book covers to find the commonalities and discover what elements are subtly signaling genre to potential buyers. This is an...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

Breaking Down a Book Cover

If you've read any of the genre guides, you've seen my cover breakdowns. I take six covers off the bestseller list and break down their commonalities in elements, fonts, and overall structure. But I don't do it randomly. There's a system, and I'm going to outline it below so you can do it yourself in whatever subgenre you're writing in...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

Military Science Fiction Guide

There are a LOT of military stories told in SF.  I’m guilty of writing them. As with romance and mystery, you can tell any sort of story in an SF military context, from exploration to alien invasion to humorous. Military, then is a journey, not a destination, if I may.

Writers should pay attention to details when building their space military or (especially) basing it on something.

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

History Blueprint

Dive right in and give us a scene from the era you're highlighting. Hook the reader with immediacy and detail. It can be from any portion of the story, but pick something exciting, engaging. Treat it like the first lines of a fiction book, a thriller if possible. You want people to think "What happens next?" even if they know (it's history, after all; they're only a Wikipedia article away from knowing what happened. It's your job to make them want to read your book instead of the article).

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

History Movies vs. History Books

Full disclosure: if this post sounds like it’s from a crotchety old man, it’s probably because I am a crotchety old man and you need to get off my lawn. All right, with that out of the way, I want to talk about how books about history are always better than movies. Yes, always. I said it. But it’s not for the reasons they say: movies are a compressed form, and changes have to be made to fit the narrative into it. Bullshit. If you want to change things for the narrative, write fiction. You can have any narrative in...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

Writing Success Isn’t up to You

You can do everything right: write a good book, get a good cover, write a great blurb and description, create good ads, run promotions with trustworthy promotion sites — and if your writing doesn’t connect with readers, your book won’t sell. And you have to be okay with that. Because that’s the business. Readers make the business go. Without readers, there are no writers. They are so important, I call writing a collaborative act between the writer and each individual reader. And you can’t force them to like your book. You can help them find it. You can encourage them...

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here

YA Predicted to Trend in 2024

In researching the nonfiction market, I came upon this excellent article from Blurb.com. It's an in-depth look into the stats of the last year, both from numerical data as well as surveys. And while everything in the article is interesting, I want to highlight their predictions for popular genres in the coming year. Blurb predicts that "young adult, romance, fantasy, mystery and thriller,

Membership Required

You must be a member to access this content.

View Membership Levels

Already a member? Log in here