Hank Quense's Blog: Hank Quense's Blog, page 94

Memorial Day Freebie:

For today (5/30) and Monday (5/31) my collection of humorous short stories, Tales for the Troops, is avaialble as a free download at Smashwords.  Use coupon code VY95K.

BUT, this is an honor system offer.  Please do not download the collection unless you are A) a member of the military or B) will email the download to someone in the military to read on their laptop, ereader, smartphone, PDA, whatever

Tales From Gundarland now available

My newest collection of humorous stories is now available in number of ebook formats from Smashwords.  A print version will be available during the summer.

Laughter is like free health insurance: you can't get too much of it.  This book will give you[image error]enough laughs to boost your health. It's filled with delightful entertainment.  Without commercial interruption!

Gundarland is populated by humans, dwarfs, elves and other races; it's the backdrop for unique adventures, brilliant heroes and cunning ...

Apple Computer

Recently, I've read quite a few articles by "experts" deploring Jobs and his Apple empire.  These articles rip into the Apple refusal to use an open architecture, bemoan its "closed garden" approach, denounce its greedy control of software, and denigrate its response to the lost/stolen Iphone 4.  The quantity of articles seems to be increasing as is the acerbic tone they use.

Meanwhile, the ignorant masses, oblivious to the evils of the Apple Empire, keep right on buying thousands of Ipods...

Off-shore drilling

Something interesting has happened on TV since the oil rig exploded in the gulf.  Gone is a commercial in which an attractive young lady walks on stage and tells us how wonderful the oil industry is these days. They can drill, she says, and extract oil from undersea wells that are miles from the platform.  Not only that, she continues, the oil industry can do it safely while providing high-paying jobs.

If all this is true, why aren't the commercials seen anymore?  Could it be the oil industry ...

My Grandson and Bad Guys

My two-year-old grandson Sean Kelly is always on the lookout for bad guys that[image error] need vanquishing.  If he can't find any, he settles for a girl cousin.

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Tales for the Troops

This collection of ten short stories has been available only to military personnel since it became available in late 2007.  It now is available to everyone in a number of ebook formats.  For more information check out my website page on this collection.

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Characterization

The short essay below is based upon the material in chapter 5 of my book on fiction writing: Build a Better Story.

Today's topic is characterization and I'll concentrate of an aspect that you'll have trouble finding in how-to books on fiction writing: a character's philosophical outlook on life. Everyone has a philosophical outlook (but you may not be aware of it) and characters deserve one also because this attribute influences the way the character thinks and defines the character's...

Self-Publishing Checklist

While doodling with a mind map program, I developed this chart that can be used as a checklist for self-publishing a book.  I'm sure it isn't complete but it covers many of the issues and problems that must be addressed.  If you can't download it, contact me and I'll attach it to a email.

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Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

This is a book for guys.  It's about a company of marines in the Vietnam war.  The main character is Lt Mellas, a replacement platoon officer in Bravo Company.  His platoon and the rest of the company are holding on to a mountain called Matterhorn near the North Vietnam border.  Over the course of two months, the company is almost constantly on the mountain or in the jungles searching for North Vietnam Army units.  They stumble onto the fact that the North Vietnam Army has three regiments in ...

Story Construction

This material is taken from Chapter 2 of my book on fiction writing advice: Build a Better Story.

Plotting and story construction are very closely linked. While they are related, they are quite different. Both have to be done to get a finished story.

How-to-books sometimes allude to this subject, but they don't emphasize a very important fact about story construction: a skill in story construction is completely independent from good writing skills and is at least as important if not more...