Recent content by Richard Sutton

Overall, it's not just the illustrative elements that make or break a cover. A book cover is an important marketing tool, so it has to work as one. Every element should work towards establishing the desire in the reader to "open the book up and read a sample of it". The typography chosen, the...

Yes. Simply overfed, they explode from the associated gastric issues that accompany fire breath, as in Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!

That sometimes happens to me. My progress from that point, is to write it out. Tell the story completely as I can, then go back in after an absence of a few days and add in situations that reveal the characters' internal conflicts and enough of their backstory to let the reader hook settle in...

All we do, as writers, is borrow, whether it's from our experiences, our friends and family, our world, our cultural background, etc., etc. However, when you adopt another writer's fictional world, you run the risk of being relegated to the "Fan Fiction" side of the aisle. That's not a terribly...

FB, and it, of course, showed up in another writing group!

$3000 a year for teaching back in the day? A gold mine! Why didn't I think of that, anyway? Lehrer's work is a treasure. Thanks for posting it and bringing it all back in a geeky, sloppy landslide...>sniff!<

I've always seen the border between scifi and fantasy as a wide demilitarized zone filled with the craters made by poorly conceived material falling at high speed. I'm wondering which hook, among all the many devices writers use, pulls you into a new world construct best? Place and character...

I misspoke. Jonathan Franzen is a word-smith. I am a storyteller... or maybe just a chronic complainer... or... Thanks, all for the warm welcome. Tolkien's Silmarillion is the only book I have read four times, complete. I'm now reading some Scott Lynch, because his facility linking profanity...

I hate it when that happens... nasty upholstery ashes flying around everywhere!

Glad to have found you all, gathered here in this rocky little dale of the net. I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone. I'll try hard not to annoy or blither too much. :rolleyes2:

I think trust is too broad a word. Do you trust TV commercials? How 'bout magazine articles? Glossy full page ads? Reviews have always been part of a complete book marketing campaign. Maybe money wasn't always exchanged, but a book review has always been an exchange of service or referral...