Recent content by Malik

I write the ending first. Then I write the logline and back-cover copy, so I know what the book will be about. Then I go to the end and flowchart it, backwards: "How did they get there?" "How did they get THERE?" "How did they get THERE?" and so forth. I use landscape yellow legal pads. When I...

The readers don't need backstory. You, the author, do. Backstory is critical to maintaining characterization; i.e., making sure the characters stay true to themselves. Only--ONLY--if there's a plot point hinging on some fact in a character's backstory, do you ever need to mention it. Even...

I posted the front cover further upthread. Here you go:

Thanks! I love that the soldiers are in modern military gear--as befits the story--but the rest of it has that classic 70's-80's Michael Whelan feel. The landscape could be from an Asimov magazine 40-50 years ago. She really nailed it.

Okay, fine. Here's the front. The full cover will follow when the copy is finished, and I have a definite release date, and it's up for pre-order.

And no, you can't see it yet. I'll be doing a reveal soon--I need to rework the back-cover copy--but I had to tell somebody. It is stunning. Movie-poster quality. I'll post it here when I do the reveal. That is all.

Also, and this is gonna hurt, but I'm here for the hard truths: You're going to be terrible at this for a long, long time. Writing a book is not enough writing to write a good book. I had written a dozen failed novels and had well over a million words under my belt before my "debut" novel. I...

This. I've been writing stories since I learned to read. There's no way to get good at it except to do it, and there's no way to find your voice but to do it for decades.

The choice of POV has nothing to do with whom you think the main character should be. The POV determines what information you want the reader to have. If you want to do this in multiple scenes or chapters with each one from a different character's perspective, great. You can do it in any sort of...

It's not the prose. It's the pacing.

Which makes Brooks and Tolkien quite similar.

Given its temporal location in the development of European martial arts, the rapier--in the right hands--was the deadliest weapon in existence at the time. It was an absolutely perfect melding of form and function given the circumstances within which one would expect to wield one.

There is money to be made. I sell my ebooks at $9.99 and I keep 75 points on the back end; I've moved over 25,000 copies and half of them have been full price. Paid off my Lexus in a year. . . . BUT . . . Don't count on it. Individual results may vary. I walked backwards into success...

Also this. In fact, this above all.

Damn. Half an hour wasted. Hey, have fun. Also, NOBODY likes prologues. Cheers.