Daniel Rodrigues-Martin's Blog: The Ark Series, page 3

Are Prologues Bad? | Writer Questions #1

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.




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Writer: "I've read that prologues are acceptable if written well and are not blatant info dumps. But I've also heard they are a death knell in the minds of agents and editors who might be considering a work and think they are amateurish."




Dear Writer,

If you are still in the process of writing, my recommendation would be to just write the story

Are Prologues Bad?

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.




********

Writer: "I've read that prologues are acceptable if written well and are not blatant info dumps. But I've also heard they are a death knell in the minds of agents and editors who might be considering a work and think they are amateurish."




Dear Writer,

If you are still in the process of writing, my recommendation would be to just write the story

On Becoming a Writer

WHY WE WRITE 


“Talent is interest applied.” —Bob Ross
Writers write because we must, but why we must is always a story in itself.

I started writing when I was eighteen—mostly poetry, mostly about unrequited love for a dark-haired girl who danced ballet and never did properly break my heart (sorry for the cliché; it’s just the truth). Years prior, my mother left me, which has plenty to do

The Writers of the Future Contest 2018 and My Honorable Mention

I was surprised to learn that I received an honorable mention for my third quarter, 2018 entry of the prodigious WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST.

Honestly, I submitted on a whim because it had been about six years since I'd tried.

Although I did not win, I consider this a win because it means professional, working writers and editors think highly of my work.One day I will win one of these things.

My Honorable Mention: The League of Utah Writers 2018 Writing Contest

Collect and celebrate the small victories. We reach our goals one hill at a time.

I'm happy to report that I received an honorable mention in 2018's Writing Contest for the category of *Prose: First Chapter (Novel).* This contest is judged by professional authors from outside Utah, so that's something.

If you don't follow my FB author page, Daniel Rodrigues-Martin, I'd love your support. I'm

Some Challenges of Fictional Languages in Worldbuilding

Languages in the Ark Saga are not any Earth Prime language. My philosophy of writing the characters’ idiom – how they speak and write as natives – was rooted in the principle that my narrative style is a direct translation of their fictional language (vocabulary, syntax, and grammar) into idiomatic American English.Years into writing the books, I formalized unique alphabets for two of the

How to Get Published: Two Takeaways from the League of Utah Writers Summer Symposium (2018)

On June 16, 2018, the League of Utah Writers (LUW) held its Summer Writers Symposium at the University of Utah. The symposium covered a broad spectrum of topics from the value of poetry to the agenting vs. independent publishing debate. I had two main takeaways from the event.


#1 Success at Self-Publishing Means Sustained Hard Work (…And Probably Isn’t for Me)

Indie romance author Cami

Mistborn Trilogy Review: 3/5 or 6.5/10

The Skinny: At the end of the day, there are better fantasy stories out there than Mistborn—probably from Sanderson himself.



Full Review: The Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson









In 2009 I broke ground on my first major sci-fi series.
Somewhere around two-and-a-half books into writing, I attended my first
writers’ conference in downtown Chicago, at an old hotel on Michigan Avenue.

Ark Book 2.5: Goddess from the Machine

After gaining some killer advice at the Chicago Writing Workshop 2016, I cut up the first Ark novel, An Autumn Veil, into the first two Ark novels: A Flood of Silence (previously: A Steel Horizon) and An Autumn Veil.

Book 3, A Labyrinth of Smoke, is still in the works, and book 2 has been undergoing restructuring now that it's standing on its own two feet. I've also been working on book 2.5:

Restructuring the ARK Series: An Autumn Veil and A Steel Horizon

In accordance with my first formal rejection for the ARK books, which, FYI, makes me a real author, I'm taking seriously the advice to not pitch a work exceeding 125,000 words in length. (One veteran speculative fiction agent said bluntly in panel at the Chicago Writing Workshop back in May, "I've never sold a sci-fi/fantasy book longer than 140,000 words.")



FYI: I attended the crap out of