Arshad Ahsanuddin's Blog, page 26
July 19, 2011
Delivered to Eternity
Today, as part of the Indie Writers Unite! blog tour, I have fellow vampire author Laura Yirak here to say a few words about her new book, Delivered to Eternity. For my part in the tour, you can find my essay on What Scares Me at Todd Russell's blog: http://toddrwrite.com/blog/2011/what-.... Author Bio: Laura was born [...]
July 17, 2011
Five Elements of Basic Storytelling Part 3
This is a continuation of my last two posts on the basic elements of a good story. We've already touched on the action elements of plot and dialogue, as well as the descriptive elements of setting and characterization. Now let us turn to the conceptual aspect. Once the basic elements of the story are fully [...]
July 15, 2011
Five Elements of Basic Storytelling Part 2
This is a continuation of my last post, in which I discussed the importance of plot and dialogue. Those are elements of action, so let's look at elements of description. Setting is the art of bringing the readers to the narrator's location, so that they experience the action with immediacy rather than from a remote [...]
July 14, 2011
Five Elements of Basic Storytelling Part 1
In my brief tenure as an author, I've learned a few things. Here is my take on what makes a good story (And, yes, I know I violate some these rules in my own work. Do as I say, not as I do.). The order of importance is debatable. The first element is plot, i.e. [...]
July 10, 2011
Trouble Down South and Other Stories
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a short story as an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot. Trouble Down South and Other Stories by Katrina Parker Williams is a collection of 12 short [...]
July 6, 2011
Smashwords Summer Sale
As part of the Smashwords Summer Sale promotion, my first book, Sunset (Pact Arcanum: Book One) will be available for FREE on that site during the month of July (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...). Simply enter the coupon code SSWSF at checkout for a 100% discount. Sunrise and Moonlight (Books Two and Three, respectively) remain available at the regular [...]
June 29, 2011
Book Review – Dollars & Sense
I was offered the chance to review an advance copy of this new book by Indie Book Collective (@IndieBookIBC) founders Carolyn McCray (@CraftyCMC), Rachel Thompson (@RachelintheOC) and Amber Scott (@AmberScottbooks). It purports to be a "Definitive Guide to Self-publishing Success" with a detailed roadmap to increased success in independent publishing. Based on my limited experience [...]
June 25, 2011
On the Etiquette of Hashtags
I read a blog post recently by a member of one the writers' groups I frequent (http://monkeypantz.net/?p=556) that harshly criticized the practice of using Twitter shotgun hashtags such as #FF (FollowFriday), #MM (MentionMonday), #WW (WriterWednesday) to try and build a reader base/platform. On one level, I can see his point, that often these tags are [...]
June 12, 2011
Story Engineering
I just finished Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. This is a relatively concise book on the essential elements of writing craft and structure. I read about a third of it on a two and a half hour flight, and immediately picked it up again after I got home to finish it. By distilling down the [...]
June 9, 2011
Writing Fiction for Dummies
This is a followup to my post of May 21, 2011. I finished reading Ingermanson and Economy's Writing Fiction for Dummies this week. As much as I was leery of reading a Dummies book when it was recommended to me, I found this to be an excellent review of the basic structural elements of storytelling [...]
