 
The Writing Soldier

Writing to be a Best Seller

Published by Altair Australia Books 2006

Copyright © Robert N Stephenson 2006

ISBN 0957 7238 14

© Robert N Stephenson www.altair-australia.com.au

About the Author

Robert N Stephenson is a published author of three books, the ghost writer of three more and

the editor of over 20 fiction and non fiction books. In his ten years as a professional writer he

has edited two best selling novels for SidHarta Publishers in Australia (Leathers by Donna

Gardner and Indonesian Gold by Kerry Collison) and tutored hundreds of students in the art of

professional writing through correspondence colleges in Australia. Through his company,

Altair Australia Pty Ltd he also acts as a literary agent for best selling authors and publishes

eclectic works by well known writers around the world. In his own words 'I am a writing

soldier, I put on my uniform every morning and get to work either creating my own material or

helping someone else realize their dream.' With over fifty published short works to his name

and many more being released over the next few years he is as direct as he is prolific. "The

Writing Soldier" isn't a book for those who wish to dabble a little in the world of writing, it is

for those who want to write, compete and then share their experience of the industry. He

believes that under the right conditions everyone can write a Best Selling novel.

He holds a:

Diploma in Arts - Advanced Professional Writing Certificate

IV in Work Place Training and Assessment

Has worked for editing companies in Australia and USA and now runs Altair Australia

Pty Ltd - Publishing and Editing company.

He has been nominated for the Advance Australia Award for his work with new writers

Won and Aurealis Award for his science fiction short story Rains of La Strange

And has two honourable mentions in Writer of the Future Contests

His novel Life Light was first publishing in Poland in 2005 and in English in 2015 via Satalyte

Publishing.

The novel Uttuku was serialized by Weird Tales in 2007 and was print published to amazon.com in 2009 and 10.

And sold over 100 short stories to markets around the globe.

As a publisher he has published 25 titles including free anthologies, From Out of the Dark, and The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror vol 1 on www.smashwords.com.

In his years as an agent he sold the rights to several Tony Shillitoe novels and the rights for Christy Jordon Fenton for Fatty Legs in Canada. He has since retired from agent work and now devotes his time to writing his own materials.

Contents

Introduction

Part One

•On Writing

•Writers Write.

•On the Best Seller & You

•Publishers & Editors

• Advances

• Editors

•The Environment

• Meditation

•The Work Place

•How Long Does a Novel Take

•The Start

Part Two

•Write What You Read

•The Genre

•The Exploration of the Idea

•How to Start & The Plot

•. How to Write the Novel?

•The Point of View & Voice

•What Was the Point in That? - Chapter One

•Characters, Scenes & Settings

• Settings

• What type of Character?

• Characters are people too

• Scenes

Part Three

• Dialogue - Speak to me

•Part Four

• Creating the Mood

• Action

• Editing

• Self Assessment

Part Five

• The Business of Publishing and the Writer

• Mainstream Publishing - The Big Press

• The Literary Agent

• The Presses

• The Big Press – Mainstream

• Small Press

• Self Publishing

• Promotional Stuff

Conclusion

Introduction

You want to be in the best position to write a Best Seller - a big ask but not impossible.

To write the Best Selling novel, means you will first have to become a writer; not just

any old writer but a toughened and dedicated Writing Soldier to join the growing army

of established and new authors filling the publishing ranks. It is a tough army and one

that will take an unwavering commitment to succeed. Best Selling books and authors

don't just happen. On the rare occasion it seems to work like that but, if you read into

the history of the writer and the book, you will find it took a lot of hard work. They

take blood, sweat and tears; they take effort.

Like any new recruit, I will take you through some basic training and teach you how

to use the new knowledge. I will display some advanced story writing and give

suggestions on how to approach the task of writing a novel. How will it become a

Best Seller? That is the hard part, well, all of this is hard, but creating the Best Seller

takes extra effort, smart writing and an understanding of the battlefield that is the

publishing industry.

Before you start, this is no 28 day guarantee or self-help gimmick. Writing Soldiers

learn, train, learn and train some more. They assess the writing situation, adjust their

skills and plan for success. There is no sure-fire formula for the Best Seller, despite

what you might have read. Just look at the eclectic nature of Best Seller lists; like

there is no sure-fire formula to win a battle. There is only knowledge, good

preparation and trained execution based on those two points. The Writing Soldier is

not someone who looks for the quick and easy path, he is dedicated to the task,

unflinching under the onslaught that will come from those who do not believe in their

ultimate goal. And despite set backs he will not try, but will actually complete, the

mission. This is not a book for the short cut artist, this is a book for writers who know

what it means to give themselves over to the tough assignment ahead.

That said, let's stand to attention, suck it up and leave the pretentious part of your ego

at the gate. Be prepared to get writing fit. The training you will experience might

feel intense, hard and fast. The reason for this is I want you thinking on your toes. I

want you writing almost from the word go. What about plans? What about mapping

out the novel? What about learning about all this writing stuff first? Some books will

tell you the necessity to do this before you begin but if soldiers had to know

everything about battle before they could be used, then each soldier would take years

to get ready.

Once they are fit, organized enough to follow guidance they are ready, the

intricacies of their training comes on the job. The Writing Soldier is no different.

Most of what you will learn will happen while you are actively writing. The early

part of your novel won't/ be lost or discarded as you gain confidence (well, not

immediately anyway) but as you progress through your novel, your possible Best

Selling novel, you will learn, you will adjust your style, you will improve your

writing and you will end up with a better book than when you started.

The idea of writing the best book from your first word, especially if you haven't

written before, is, to my mind, 'pie in the sky' thinking. Can you shoot a gun because

you read all about it, planned it out in your mind? No. You shoot a gun by picking it

up, struggle with its weight and fire a few rounds at a target. It is through practice

you become a better shot, and it is through practice you will become a better writer.

Are there any guarantees?

No. I can't guarantee your work ethic; can't guarantee your application and learning

ability. I can only give you the Writing Soldier's weaponry, armoury and show you

how to use it. I can't make you use it properly; I can't make you use it at all. I want

you to use it. I want you to write the next Best Seller and I am showing you how to

accomplish it, but it is up to you to make it all work.

I am giving you my experience, the whole experience. That I can guarantee. You are

the one who must make the first real choice in your writing life. Will you become a

true Writing Soldier or will you simply stand on the sidewalk and wave the writer's

flag as soldiers march on by?

In all professions the best people are those who are fit, in health and in mind, though

with the mind I have learned from personal experience and from talking with other

writers, that the mind can be a delicate thing. Many writers today suffer from

depression, some more chronic than others but a lot of writers seek out unhelpful

remedies for this affliction. Illicit drugs and alcohol. If you do suffer depression, then I

whole heartedly implore you to get proper medical attention, if you have not done so

already. Don't be fearful and suffer the condition any longer than you have to. The days

of suffering alone in a garret are over. I write creatively, I even make artwork in my

spare time, so being afraid that medications may dull your creativity isn't necessary.

Advances in medicine have made many of the dumbing down side effects a thing of the

past. Mental health helps you create greater fictions, greater stories and the Best Seller.

If you are thinking well you will finish the job at hand.

To be a Writing Soldier your body needs to be ready. Eat a healthy diet. No burgers and

cokes between chapters and definitely no smoking. This is a writer's curse. Hours alone

sitting in front of a monitor reading, writing and thinking can wear you down, widen

your girth. If you need to think, walk. If you need to eat, make a decent meal, take

time out, sit back and enjoy it. I go to the gym every day before I start writing. It

clears my head and gets my body ready for the hours of sitting down. So take a walk,

even if it is only around a garden or on the sidewalk. Breathe fresh air and steady your

mind. You might not be fit, but at the very least you will be healthy.

To become a Writing Soldier, it is much like becoming a real fighting soldier. There will

be times away from family and there will be arguments and complaints about the time

you spend writing. My wife considers herself a 'writer's widow' which is pretty close to

the truth when I am working on a big project, but I take breaks, take time to be with my

family. Full dedication is one thing, just don't be stupid about it. Writing is a solitary

career and not really relationship friendly, but you can make it all work; it is just about

finding a balance between family life and writing life. Treat it like a business and not

just something you do in your spare time and everyone around you will make

adjustments. We will look at setting yourself up and creating the writing environment

shortly but I guess I'd better say something motivational to help you along.

With the aid of this book, you will only be limited by your ability to learn and your

ability to apply the knowledge. The Best Seller is only the touch of your fingers away

and completing that very first full draft is an experience everyone one could benefit

from in life. I used to talk about writing projects all the time but, through my talking

about my writing, I found I didn't actually complete anything much. So I stopped

talking and started writing and not mentioning my story until it was finished. It

worked. Let this small piece of advice start you off on our mission together.

Those who can't, try

Those who can, DO!

Don't try, DO

Part

Where to Start

On Writing

The most common belief amongst first time writers is that writing a Best Selling

novel should be easy and quickly achieved; there are even books that tell you how

easy it is and just how fast you can write one. Some books will give a wide

assortment of advice and simplifications of the story writing process. While some

advice is very helpful to the aspiring writer, some just don't work. It is one thing to

have all the motivation in the world, all the time in the world to write that novel but,

to write something that will sell well. takes a modest amount of skill and blood thirsty

dedication. To be the best Writing Soldier will mean you having to run faster, jump

higher, shoot straighter and tell a better story than everyone else. That takes time,

commitment and a type of tenacity that shrugs off even the harshest criticism.

It takes dedication and a tenacity that shrugs off even the harshest criticism

Writing a novel isn't easy, let's get that straight from the start. Putting words on the

screen and putting words into big files is easy, but turning those words into a Best

Selling novel is hard, very hard, if authors of how to book-writers were being honest

with you.

You can buy books from the Step by Step Guides to the more popular 30 day Best

Seller novel programs or even a new 28 day book with only 1,000 words a day. The

minimum novel length is 80,000 words for all big publishers; good non fiction is

around 40,000 words, so already the numbers don't add up. Do these books work? For

some they do, but for the large majority of writers who try these programs they simply

fail; writers walk away defeated, disappointed and with their novels still trapped in

their heads, in their hearts. Being honest over being hip and popular is how I approach

writing. No short cuts.

In keeping with the Writing Soldier theme, I will make many military observations to

make my point. Of course you can make writing the Best Seller appear and even feel

easy, that is very different from the claim that it is easy. If I give you all the materials

you need, then the job will not be as difficult as if you didn't have the information. I'm

giving you the writer's gun, so to speak but, no matter how loud I scream, I cannot make

you fire it. I cannot make you make it work. I believe there is only one major rule to

adopt from the outset of creating the Best Seller novel.

Writers Write

There is really only one way to write. Every author does this and every writer does

this; they WRITE. That's right, the secret is actually writing. Open a blank file and

start typing down your ideas, your thoughts, your shopping list - explain the

products and their use to make the list more effective. In novel writing, some authors

plan it all out first and some just launch themselves into a novel making up the plan

as they go along (I am one of these writers) but all these authors and writers write.

This is usually the first hurdle for the new writer, they think a lot, they dream a lot,

they read dozens of books on writing, go to lectures and seminars, take notes and

watch their favorite author give signings but they don't write. They want to but they

don't really think they can. You can write, you can easily put your fingers on the

keyboard and start writing now, but you will probably stop before the first word is

fully out.

'That's just stupid!' or I can't do that!' suddenly appears in your thoughts.

The battle line has now been drawn, it is you against your subconscious. It is now you

who has to decide if you will put on your writing uniform, take up your mission to create

the Best Seller and join The Writing Soldiers. It might sound corny but, when you get

down to the basics of writing a novel, especially for the first time, you will discover that

the writing is only part of the grand battle plan. The completed book is only one small

battle in the war that rages between hundreds of thousands of new writers fighting for

those shrinking publishing spots. Yes, there are alternative publishing options, and I will

cover them lightly, but the main focus, the essential focus for you, the writer, is

writing something that will sell thousands, if not tens of thousands, of copies.

I am not talking about you writing a book for a small press publisher, a partnership

publishing group (Vanity Press) or self publishing in print or eBook form. I am

talking about publishing in the mainstream markets, in markets that buy your book

and sell it across the country and across the globe. A publisher that earns you money,

not costs you money.

Has the reality started to sink in yet? This is not a book to make writing easy for you,

it is a book that will make you a Writing Soldier and prepare you for the fighting front,

the heat of the real battle of creating and selling that Best Seller.

Those small doubts that have stopped you now, and have stopped you in the past will

be put to rest, blown away, squashed under your boots. Writing the Best Seller will be

hard work full of sweat and tears, full of elation and satisfaction. The campaign

begins now and this book is your battle plan.

John Grisham, Stephen King, Kim Wilkins, Dan Brown and Garth Nix were all first

time writers once and all have had a Best Selling novel in their careers, so why couldn 't

you be the next top selling author to come along - what is stopping you ?

On The Best Seller & You

Look carefully at yourself in a mirror, see the lines around the eyes, the experience of

life that face, that body has been through. There is history in that face, there is

emotion, character, life and death, happiness and sadness - you have it all, everything

a good novel needs to be successful. Yes, you can write a "Best Seller", but first you

need to learn how. Not the how of the 'How To' book craze but the how of the 'head

down, bum up' professional writer way. The Best Seller is not an eBook, is not a book

written about a book that shows you how to write a book about how to be a writer -

there are so manyof these on the Internet, it isn't any wonder publishers are becoming frustrated

with the new breed of writer coming through. The new breed just doesn't want to work, doesn't

want to make the serious effort it takes to write a Best Selling novel. I will say this plain

and simple - the 30 day Best Seller is a gimmick! If it could be done in 30 days then

why does it take Grisham a year to write a novel? A Best Selling novel! Just look

realistically at the Best Sellers on any newspaper's list. How many were written under

eight months? You might be able to write a draft of a novel in 30 days but how many

months will be eaten up through editing? This is a point usually glossed over in sales

pitches for such programs. If you are to become a Writing Soldier, then you will need to

prepare yourself, equip yourself for the long campaign. You can work to reduce the

length of the battle of course but let's not run before we can even crawl.

This isn 't a War Of Armies but a War of Words.

What is a Best Selling author and a Best Selling novel in the first place? The author is

just like you, a writer, but this writer completed his book, told a great story and wrote it

well enough to please the largest audience possible. He wasn't trying to be an artist, or

trying to be deliberately clever. He believed he could write such a book and put in the

long hours, days, weeks and months to do it, to create the opportunity for the Best Seller

to take shape.

The Best Selling novel isn't something magical or mysterious; it is simply a book that

sells more copies than the average run of the mill novel. I will show you what elements

tend to make up the best selling book and these are generally the same things an editor

looks for when considering books for publication. Some of these you might already

know, some you won't but The Writing Soldier is all about getting REAL, getting

prepared and then equipping you for the task at hand. If you think this is going to be

easy, something you can whip up during your holiday/vacation then think again. For the

next few months you are going to learn how to think, behave and write like a writer. I

am going to take you from just dreaming about it, just talking about it with friends, to

committing yourself, mind and body to writing the Best Seller. No magic, no secret

passwords or handshakes. I won't even throw in promises of lifetime guarantees and

money back offers to win you to the writing side. This isn't a book to make money from

other writers who go on to make money from writers, it is a book to teach you, the

writer, how to make money from publishers. How to create the product they need to take

to market and sell.

1.Are you ready?

2.Are you prepared to think?

3.Are you prepared to commit?

4.Are you prepared to work? \- work hard?

5.Are you ready to be a Writing Soldier?

Publishers & Editors

It is wise at this point to know and learn some important things. Publishers are not art

critics, they are not literary judges looking for exquisite prose above all else. They are

men and women looking to make money, and what you are asking them to do is spend

some of their hard earned cash on your creation. You are asking them to spend tens of

thousands of dollars (sometimes a $100,000) to publish your novel. Put yourself in that

position and then tell yourself you can only buy one book to spend this money on. Does

the difficulty of that decision take on a new perspective. You have to give them the

BEST. You have to make your work stand out from the rest, to get noticed. Easy 'How

To' books only give you the best you can do at that particular time and in the 30 days

allotted, it isn't the best you can write. To get the Best Seller, goes beyond the limitation of

days and goes well beyond some of the advertised hype. Publishers and Editors are not

interested in first drafts, they don't want to see the idea of a good story or mere version of

what will one day be a good story. They want that story ready to go from the outset -

editing influence will take place before publication, but that is an issue you will be glad to

go through once the advance money is in the bank.

No-one, and I mean no-one, is going to pay you for a book that still requires months

and months of tedious editing. If the publisher can buy a similar book to yours that

needs less editing, he will.

Advances

A typical book run in the United States can be around 30,000 copies with you getting

an advance of anywhere between $5,000 and $25,000. The publisher will earn back

the advance at the mid to three-quarter sales point and you start earning royalties

after this. Realistically you can earn $30 - $35,000, but this will take some

promotion work from you. If it sells high enough, it goes into reprint and you want as

many reprints as possible - from each reprint you get paid for the sale of each and

every book. Books do get remaindered after a time and this is usually because they

don't sell very well and the publisher must earn some money back. I don't have a

problem with this. If they earn back all their money, then they will buy another book

from you. If the book becomes a Best Seller, which is what you want, then you might

have a publisher that will stick with you for a few years to come. It is a business and

it would be best if you treated your writing as one small aspect of that business.

No-one owes you anything. This is the reality of being an author. Your payment on

a book can be between 8% - 10% royalty on each book sold< don't argue over this.

Remember, it is the publisher who is flipping the bill on the books creation,

distribution and sale. I would rather 10% of a book that sold 10,000 copies than 50%

of a book that sold 200 copies.

Editors

All editors have a check list somewhere in the back of their mind that helps them

weed through the slush (a very big stack of manuscripts beside the editor's desk -

sometimes it a large store room), and find what they have always been looking is for

\- The Best Seller. What they look for has no hard and fast rules but, as a writer, reducing the amount

of put offs in your work does set you up for a better chance at publication.

Here are just a few things some editors and their assistants will notice as they search

through that daily growing pile:

o Has the manuscript been neatly presented, i.e, does it conform to standard

submission Rules? Double spaced, paragraphs indented, dialogue on separate lines

for each character; small things like this will be noticed and may, in many cases, get

the manuscript tossed across the room to the secretary to reject. Presentation is a

must, not an option.

(Refer to Fig. 1)

o With any work of fiction, that opening line, paragraph and page needs to reach out

and grab the readers, bringing them into the book and the story immediately. You will

not have ten pages or even a chapter to ease your reader into the story. You have exactly

one sentence, one paragraph. I give you an example of this later, so reserve your panic

for then.

o Have you aimed for the widest readership possible, or have you written something

that may only appeal to a limited audience? Pick your subject and story well; if it is too

obscure, it will get tossed.

o Have you made the idea as fresh as possible? Have you tried to add originality to the work?

o Is what you will send in, the final, or as close to the final, copy of your novel? Too

many rewrites in the editing stage will mean the project would be expensive. Usually one

of the deciding factors behind rejections.

o Is the book too big or too small? Aim for 100,000 words if you are not sure, but don't go

over 140,000 with your first book. Ink is expensive and you are, after all, an unknown.

o Will the book date quickly? Remember that if a book can be easily reprinted for

many years, it is more money for the publisher - and for you.

Robert N Stephenson

my address

my city and post code (zip)

my country

my contact details

word count of book

Looking For March

Police Chief Jarryd James walked around the body. The woman on the floor of the shuttle

craft hadn't been dead all that long; the blood was still wet - sticky. She could have been in

her twenties, but it was hard to tell with all her skin removed. The med-bot he'd attached to

her neck fed vitals to his data-pad. She'd died quickly; a shock to the heart - and she hadn't

been sexually assaulted. The connection to March Carter was some skin cells found about the

body, mixed in with the victim's blood.

"Chief?"

Jarryd turned to the young officer assigned to help him track and find March Carter, a

councillor who was either a fugitive or a hostage; Earth council said the latter but Jarryd

didn't agree. So far in the investigation, evidence showed that March had been at the three

other murder sites along with another. He examined the data-pad, each victim appeared to

have been at the scene of the new crime, or at least their DNA was present.

"What evidence do we have?" Jarryd asked as he searched through the victim's clothing for

identification.

Figure 1 - Submission layout for manuscript text

There are also some things to note that will automatically get your novel bounced. These

are of course generalizations and will vary between publishers and the type of works they

handle. I have worked as an editor for many years now and these are things that really

turn me off:

o Poor presentation. Single spaced text on both sides of the page is not acceptable -neither

is emailed submissions or pitches. It is a tough industry so get the pedantic stuff right and

you will go further than most.

o Don't send horror work to a romance publisher - research the market, find an agent get

the submission process right the first time. It might seem to take a long time but and trust

me, it is the best route.

o Has the story got depth or is it a light view of the world? Is there life in the text, does the

story move along or is it dull, slow, heavy with description and setup but light on actual

story line?

o Be wary of laws on racism, sexism and sexual content. Be careful of political

correctness. What may sound humorous to you may be viewed as insulting and in bad

taste to a reading public, and of course our editor and publisher.

o Don't be heavy on the moralizing and when making bold statements be sure they have

been well researched in advance. Not all Christians eat their babies at birth, so don't say it.

o Above all this, please be mindful and careful with spelling, grammar and punctuation

\- this will sink a good story every time.

o Never ring the editor with your pitch.

o Never harass the reception staff.

o Never tell the editor how good your book is, they can read.

o Never hit them with a marketing pitch for the book, or throw in toy rights, film

adaptations and comic book series presentations. It might come after the sale,

but never before.

o Don't send in the whole book if the editor only wants three chapters - and

yes those three chapters should be 1,2 and 3.

o And no, the editor doesn't owe you an explanation for why they turned down

your work. Don't ring and ask, they will be polite but it won't change a thing - the

publisher doesn't want your book, that is all you need to know.

o Yes, all of the above sounds mighty harsh, but you need to know it, need to

understand it and then grow from the knowledge. The stronger you are the more

prepared you are, the better you will be equipped to deal with the highly

competitive nature of this industry.

o Never, never, give your manuscript to an editor at an engagement, meeting,

Convention, or festival. It is just plain rude. They won't take it home with

them anyway - too heavy.

If you are going to get that Best Seller off the ground you will serve yourself well

by acting in a highly professional manner.

Anyone can write a Best Seller; it can be achieved either with your first book

(extremely lucky) or with your second after all the bugs have been ironed out of your

constantly developing writing skills. Writing Soldiers can succeed where many have

failed. Why? Because they are aware of the rules of engagement and are more able to

write to suit the battleground. Writing Soldiers complete their tasks where others just

try, then run away. I am a notorious task master and I will ask more from you than

anyone else will. I not only want you to succeed, I expect you to succeed. What is

the point of my leadership if you don't?

The Environment

Get your head right.

Getting your head right is perhaps the biggest part of the writing process. You can't write

fiction if you are thinking about doing the washing, or mowing the lawn; like-wise you

can't write fiction if you are worried about paying bills or even finding a paying job. To

get your head right for writing, you need to step out of your day to day life completely.

This doesn't mean you ignore your life or you escape from it. If you do this, then you lose

all your inspiration, your contact with the world of ideas and the very essential human

contact you need to keep you connected with life in general. All you have to do, is settle

your mind for the time you have made for the writing pan of your day. This will take

some practice.

I Should Write a Novel

Changing your thinking is the first step. Read the above line. There is so much pressure

in that one small collection of words. This is something you might feel you have to tell

yourself if you are to become a Writing Soldier. I have learned to gain greater

productivity from myself and also from others by eliminating command heavy

statements. 'Should' statements are not beneficial to the individual. 'Should' is not a

helpful word whatsoever and 1 have deleted it from daily use. My stress halved over

night. Such a simple change.

I Could Write a Novel

or

I Would Benefit From Writing a Novel

The new statements above have already reduced the demands on you, haven't they? No

pressure and plenty of options still left open, the way you want to feel towards writing.

'Should' will stress you but being given a choice relieves the perceived pressure. You

want to write a novel because you feel its benefits to your creativity and the fulfilment

of your needs would enhance your well-being. Should you write a novel? You could,

what do you think?

This newer understanding in psychology was developed through the use of cognitive

restructuring or the alteration of how you think, or think of yourself, others and the

world around you. By creating choice you become more productive. Try it for a week,

pick yourself up every time you say shoulda, oughta, gotta, and change it for could or

would and feel the release and the control you have over your thoughts and feelings.

Getting your head straight for fiction and novel writing in most instances is a cognitive

restructuring process. If you tell yourself you are not good enough to write that Best

Selling novel, if deep in your mind you have cemented the failure concept, then of course

you aren't going to write the Best Seller. I would be surprised if you wrote anything at all.

You have to change the mindset and change it now! Not tomorrow, when you have more

time; not next week, when the kids are at their Auntie's house; but now, this very minute.

Look at this statement.

I can write as well as anyone else.

Not a tough ask is it? You can write as well as anyone else; it is just at this very minute,

the very moment you are reading this you don't believe it. And from today, you are going

to start believing it. Did Stephen King start off as a Best Selling author? No. But he

probably did start out believing he could write as well as anyone else and look where

that belief has got him.

Whenever you read a headline, an article, an ad on TV, or even a novel, think to

yourself, I can write as well as anyone else. Whenever you pass a mirror, think of

yourself and sit back with a warm cup of coffee, tea, or chocolate. Think and enforce, 'I

can write as well as anyone else'.

Don't compare yourself to anyone other than yourself. When you read your favorite

author don't think, I wish I could write that. Instead, change that thought as soon as you

think it. Hey, one day I will be able to write as good as this. Some experts may say this

transition of thought change can take a few weeks but that is with lab rats and super well

adjusted people with little else taking up their lives. It is well known that to create a real

habit in the human mind is to continually do something for around six weeks. Okay, you

don't get to start your novel today but when you do, after those short six weeks, you will

be prepared, your mind will be on the job and your new focus will build as the weeks

pass.

Meditation

(With thanks to Rob Parnell)

Meditation is a common trend in all new writing books and one of the few things I agree

with, so I want you to meditate before you write. Not the three days without food in the

mantis position type of meditation, but the time proven ten minutes it really takes. Sit in a

comfortable chair, don't lie down, close your eyes, clear your mind of the day's

happenings and start visualizing the statement below - your new way of thinking. The

Writing Soldier is always mentally ready and so will you be.

Relax your breathing, breathe in slow, hold it for a four count, then blow out. Do this

three times then count to ten slowly and do it again. See the statement, say it in

your mind over and over again. Tense your muscles, all of them, hold it for a count

of four then let loose, relax until you feel limp. When you feel totally relaxed - not

sleepy relaxed - when you feel your body is heavy and your breathing is deep and

slow open your eyes. Count to ten again, breath in and hold it, count to four then

blow the air out of your lungs. Do this three times. If you are taking the time for the

statement insertion then go about your day reminding yourself regularly that you

CAN DO IT!

I can write as well as anyone else.

Some of you may already have such a belief; if so, please continue.

The belief in yourself is hopefully in place and despite the litany of criticism that will

come your way, both from without and from within, you will soldier on regardless, you

will reach the end, you will ford that river of doubt and stand on the other bank with

your manuscript in hand. I will say this over and over again. It won't be easy - never,

never think it is or is supposed to be. Someone dedicated to hard work, focused work,

may, at the end of the writing journey, say that it was easy but when you get there you

will know, you will attest, that it took dedication, a strong mindset and the absolute belief

that you could do it. You're reading this book now, so that means I believe you can do it

as well. You get to the end of this book and complete your Best Seller novel. Then

everyone, including the doubters, will have no choice but to believe it.

Those who can't try

Those who can, DO!

The Work Place

In the early days of my writing career, I used to go out into my garden, or go for a walk

around the shopping center, to clear my head. I wouldn't need anything from either place, I

just needed to be somewhere else for about thirty minutes to an hour. Then I'd get home

and go straight to my writing spot, sit down and only think of what 1 was working on or

what I would write next. Some days, I would have to start with just a blank screen,

capturing my immediate ideas on what I might have read or of someone I might have seen

while out. It takes about five minutes but it readies my mind for the important task ahead,

the writing, the novel.

Getting into that head space every day takes practice, but if you are persistent you will

find that you will only need to go to the bathroom, walk from room to room to get your

mind into the right place and in about 6 weeks you won't have to do it at all, it will happen

as soon as you sit at the keyboard. Getting your head right, your thinking processes into

the right creating framework is just as important as writing the words down - more so as

your career grows and you move with publishing trends. The longer you stay in the field

of novel writing the harder it gets, the more rewarding it gets and the more emotionally

fulfilling it gets. You are developing a habit after all and, like all habits, it will happen

subconsciously and in time you may be able to write whole texts without the slightest

doubting distraction. The Writing Soldier breathes writing, lives writing, is writing. But

like all soldiers you will need and require times off, hours and days away from the creative

process. One is to keep your family and life intact (to work a day job, to raise your

children, to do things in your community) and the other is to keep your mind focused on

reality. It is from reality you get those ideas, those inspirations for your writing. All things

in life need balance, a working manner that is as inclusive as possible. Total exclusivity is

ineffective for the creative process and is a good way to alienate your family.

The location you choose to write in is of paramount importance. It would be best if the

location requires no shifting of furniture, rearranging of stuff, books or papers in order

for you to begin; these are distractions and they sap the writing energy you have stored up

for the day. Sitting at the dinner table with the cats meowing for food isn't ideal -find a

place where you can go each day, your place, a place that will stay as you left it until you

finish writing the book.

It has taken many, many years to develop my ideal place to write. I now use a laptop

computer; it is a place 1 take with me and whenever I open it I am at work. This of course

is an ideal situation, but first up you need to establish a solid working place, a permanently-cleared area for you to concentrate all your writing energy. One day, like me, you may be

able to have a shifting work area, but for now the stable area is best.

Find that place now. It might take a few hours, a few days or even a few weeks but find it;

it is as important as writing itself.

Come back to this book once you have established that place then read from your work

area, get used to thinking about writing whenever you sit there, whenever you touch the

computer - or whenever you read from these pages. What you learn from here on in can be

applied immediately and I want you to be able to access your work area if the need arises,

if an idea takes shape, if motivation grabs you. The Writing Soldier is an action book not a

passive reading book. You learn, you create, then you learn some more.

I give you a week - open the file, pick up the book once you have that place ready and you

are sitting there prepared for work.

How Long Does a Novel Take?

How much time you dedicate to writing each day is up to you. When I am being

productive I can write for about 4 hours a day, when I am struggling I put in about an

hour each day. I suggest an hour a day to start with, to set the habit. If you are a slow

typist, like me, you will create around 1000 new words a day. If you are a touch typist

then the word creation is limited only by the speed of your imagination.

To be a Writing Soldier, to write a Best Seller takes more than committing to writing, it is

also about committing to a certain way of life and mindset. Yes, I say again, there are

books that say write a book in 30 days or even 90 days, but none of these have become

Best Sellers in that time - the ideas they have created might have, but not the rushed

books themselves. Resign yourself to the reality of eight committed months of solid

writing (1,000 words a day plus editing - 2 hours in total perhaps) to come up with a book

that will be in the best position to become the next big thing to hit the shelves. You might

write the first draft in 30 days, it can be done, so don't get me wrong, but these write quick

schemes always fail to tell you that after the first draft it can take many months to get the

necessary editing done. 'How to Edit a Book in 30 Days' might be the right book to get,

but if all goes to plan you will learn that from The Writing Soldier as well.

To Start

To write the perfect book in one draft isn't really a feasible prospect and to expect to be a

perfect writer with your first book isn't good for you; it puts far too much stress on your

emotional state and family. The aim is to write a good story first off and to make it

better through editing. That is the direct approach and the more achievable mindset to

have. As you launch into writing, understand the task ahead, none of this – 'wade through

the shallows first' we are talking – 'into the deep end we go'. I wouldn't send you out with

only a half filled pack and I wouldn't send you into battle without ammunition. Think of it

this way. You wouldn't go to the market and only buy half the weekly groceries, would

you? The Writing Soldier is the full kit, the full pack, the whole grocery list for the novel

writer. The Best Selling novel writer. Say this as you read, say it often, say it out loud,

whisper it to yourself before you fall to sleep at night. You can write as well as anyone

else. And I will write a Best Selling novel.

You need to get the head space right. Write the book then edit, edit, edit...

How quickly you take this information on is entirely up to you. Take The Writing

Soldier section by section (much like an army takes a country town by town), spend a

week on each section so you can think through the ideas, experiment with your writing

and slowly develop the environment you desire to make the dream come true.

Part Two

Getting to Work

Write What You Read

Don't write Science Fiction if all you read are Westerns.

I have said this to many writers, to my students and even myself. Write what you

like to read. If you don't read Horror then it is quite doubtful that you will be able

to write a book within this genre – well. Write one that will sell. If you are a

Romance reader, or a Mainstream reader, then it makes logical sense to write in

this area; part of the hard work has already been done; you know the genre and you

understand the styles used to show the story. I encourage writers to develop an

eclectic taste in fiction (non fiction as well) so that over time they can write in as

many genres as possible. Why not have a Best Seller in two genres, no need to

restrict yourself, is there? But remember, research the genre, read widely in the

genre and get a good feel for what might be required. All reading, to me, is like

research and good research always makes a better book. For now we are starting

with what you know now, what you read and what you can realistically do.

Pick out your favorite book, or author and re-read one or two to refresh yourself

with the stories as well as take a more observational look at how the words are put

together, how the stories are told and shown - the pacing and structure. If you are

not yet comfortable with how you write, or don't know how to write in a particular

style, then I suggest you use your favorite author/novel as a mentoring tool. Please

make sure the book is less than five years old - styles do change. Read each

novel and remember the structure - do not copy text, storyline or even characters,

this is plagiarism and a punishable offence. You are using the selected novel only

as guide to story development and rules of the genre, nothing more. It is the overall

construction of the book you are mentoring yourself in.

Mentoring authors has become a business in itself these days, and though I have

carried out this kind of process for new writers you need to know up front that it is

expensive. To get an idea of how expensive, think about how much you want to pay,

then multiply this by ten. Got you scared? I hope so and I hope you think carefully

about such options before venturing into them.

The Genre

Today, novels or stories are broken down into many genres and sub genres. This has

made it easier for publishers to target their books for specific markets. It is important

for you to know these aspects of the publishing industry and understand the role of

genre categorization. It is becoming a hard fact of writing life that, if you can't place

your book within one of these publishing categories, then you will face rejection at

every turn; publishers like things to be simple and, if you look at the top ten percent

of Best Sellers, they can all be easily categorized. They fit into one, or a few,

genre(s).

First, we must comprehend what a genre is - simply put, it is a form of writing, a

story style. The most common genres/sub-genres are Science Fiction, Horror,

Romance, Fantasy, Chick Lit, Western, Cyber Punk, Historical, Erotica,

Supernatural, Thriller, Political Intrigue, Mainstream (which can be a combination

of many genres) and Literature (the artistic interpretation). There are of course quite

a few others and the list isn't exhaustive but you should get the idea. If you want to

write a Best Seller it will need to fall into one of these genres. These days, Horror is

a small to medium press genre and though they can sell well it is rarer for them to

become Best Sellers - the same goes for straight Romance.

The toughest genres you may encounter are the Mainstream and Literature genres.

These are hard to define. Even reading what is published under Mainstream, makes it

difficult to know what will sell under this category. Some Horror has been known to sell

under Mainstream and a few Westerns have been highly regarded in Literature. The

main thing to recognize with Mainstream is that it has a relevance to know or possess

an interest with the current way of thinking and uses strong characters to carry its

message. This is not to say that other genres are inferior, it is that Mainstream has

become harder to define.

Literature (the high artistic form) relies on author voice in its construction or on author

style. Sometimes, the story takes a backseat to the indulgences of the author but a good

literary novel combines both good story with the uniqueness of voice and style. Very

hard to do well. This style of writing is not for the faint of heart.

You might not want to have your work categorized like this, but be honest, who cares

what publishers put your book under, just so long as it sells and sells well. Let's not be

precious about this writing business. Do you want to have a Best Seller or a dust

collecting manuscript under the bed?

It is unfortunate, but in order to fit publisher demands and needs. this genre tool will be

used. This said, your book might fit a number of genres, so I would advise categorizing

it by highlighting the book's strongest elements, be it Romance, Thriller or Western. You

are also not limited in that category, if the book fails to sell in one it might sell in

another, so rather than limiting your sales options, you are expanding them.

The genre of your novel will become clear when you write the story outline and the plot

line. Don't think of the genre at this point, as you might not understand the requirements

of each, let us just focus on the story first.

The Exploration of the Idea

'Where did you get that idea?' How ho hum!

This question is so old, so over used that it almost makes every writer cringe when they

hear it.

'Oh well, it just kinda came to me' is a common enough response from many authors

There is no magic going on here and there is no little old lady in San Francisco that

emails ideas to the author once a week. There is no idea bank or even an idea maker.

Where do the ideas come from? They come from your head, where else do ideas come

from?

Look at the world you live in, look at your own life for example. In a way, you are

living a series of stories all interconnected. You have friends, who have a combination

of stories that make up their lives. You have family with their own mix of stories. You

go to the supermarket, read the paper, read magazines, watch TV; you dream. Everyone

dreams, it's just that not everyone remembers them. From this first basic gaze you will

find you are simply surrounded with story ideas.

I use this as an example:

You read a newspaper article about a bus crash in the Turkish mountains. The bus

burst into flames and everyone on board was killed.

You first ask this story - How? What? Who? When? Why? And Where? In no specific

order. The article will have its own answers but you are creating answers from your

imagination.

How? How did the bus crash? Did it roll over a cliff? Crash into another vehicle?

What? What happened? perhaps a suicide bomber, an alien beam blew the bus up,

two lovers got into a fight and caused the driver to take his eyes off the road.

Who? Who was on the bus? Who was involved in the crash? Who reported the crash?

When? What time of day did the bus crash? What year?

Why? Much like how, why questions the reason behind the crash, the deeper

concerns. We might know why but how did the event happen?

Where? The location, everything has a location.

From these questions you are coming up with a different view of the incident. Through

in a point of view, a character who the story is about and the idea takes on a whole new

dynamic. Do you view the crash through one of the rescuers eyes, a passenger on the

bus, the mother of a child killed in the crash or even a Hit man who set up the crash to

look like an accident.

From a story about a bus crash I can quickly come up with a plot for a novel:

Kate escapes a bus crash intended to kill her. She is on the run from the CIA and the

Russian Mafia who don't want her to reveal what she knows about a nuclear accident

in Poland.

We now have the start of a story and the idea came from a simple headline. Everything, every

event around you has a story, or a variation on the story, you just need to think, create, then

write it down.

See how I take what is a simple newspaper scene and start twisting it into something

adventurous and exciting. The plot for this became simple.

Ideas can be plucked from anything. Once you start thinking this way you will never

have to ask the question 'What should I write?'. It will become, 'What have I got time to write?'

or 'What could I write next?'.

Ideas are easy, no great secrets and no outlay of money to anyone. You simply need to ask

questions of your environment and create imaginary answers and situations to fill in the story.

The location of your story will set the structure of those questions. The genre will create the

mood you wish to write in.

How to Start & The Plot.

Before you start the novel (this means all the plotting, setting, background and character

work) I insist you write down, as simply and as succinctly as possible, the main elements

of your story; it needn't be brilliant prose, but it does need to be clear - what is the story

about? Who are the characters? Who do you want the reader to feel empathy for? I want

you to tell your story in a page, leave out all the details, the color and characterization;

leave out all the twists and turns of sub plots and minor characters. This brief story outline

must have an opening, a middle and an end. If writing books in a series, each book must

have its own conclusion while keeping the overall story open until the series ends. All

stories will have an ending or a solid conclusion. If your story does not, then you need to

give it one. This is fundamental.

From this basic outline, you will be able to assess which genre your story may fit into.

Several genre relationships are fine. If you do not understand the genre then you will need

to read books written for the genre. Readers of these books will have certain expectations

and wants from what they read. Horror readers generally get put out if they read a romance

book labelled Horror; it has failed to measure up to the genre's and the readers'

expectations. To find out what your story is or will become, here are some simple facts;

these can be found in all good writing books:

o What is the central or main plot line?

o What are your sub plots? What is the world setting?

o Do they turn evil - get possessed? Do they flee into space?

o What do you want to accomplish with your book? Is there a message? Is it primarily

entertainment? Do you set up resolution between emotional parties? Or do you simply want

to have the reader venture into worlds unknown and discover hidden wonders?

o What type of characters do you want in the story? Evil, mad, romantic, fun, nasty, happy?

Are you letting the reader become one with the character - putting the reader firmly in the

mind of our hero/heroine? What is the chosen point of view? We will address this later.

The answers to these points will generally determine what genre your story will fall into.

Get all the genre elements right and be sure your idea hasn't been repeated many times

before. You may have to come up with five or so ideas until you strike one that might

suit the purposes of your story and the publishing industry. Your first three ideas are

usually cliché so be forewarned. You don't want to spend eight months on a book only

to find the idea is so old hat that not even Moses would read it. Sorry, but it is better to be

true with yourself now rather than later.

A point worth noting is that if you do not have the answers to the above questions you

might just be missing vital story information and, if you have to write several pages of

answers, then the story, by all accounts, is too complex and will require you to tighten up

the direction you want it to go. Remember, a simple story with depth is far better than a

complex, shallow story.

NO BOOK IS EASY! Had to say that. Just because you have the idea, know a genre and

have a pretty good storyline doesn't actually make writing the book easy, it is easier but

still not easy. The same work ethic and regime needs to be set as mentioned above, you

will just find the work isn't as much a struggle as it would be if you didn't have

anything to work with.

What if I have already started a book and it's not working as I hoped?

No need to be concerned. Everything you write is important and useful, even if the

book you have started or have even completed doesn't go anywhere. The book is still a

learning tool and some of the mistakes made in that book you will not repeat in the next

and so on and so on. Nothing is ever wasted in fiction writing. You might one day

salvage a plot line, a character, or even a scene from the book for use in something

else - who knows, you might even be asked to submit it after you have made good on

your first Best Seller. Everything can be edited and I do mean everything. I turned the

first draft novel by Donna Gardner into the Best Selling 'Leathers' for SidHarta

Publishers in 2002. So don't throw your work away, keep it for later. It will be used,

eventually.

The Plot

This is the engine of your story, some say the backbone off which everything else

hangs. The plot is the key to everything, it is the reason readers want to read your book.

One of the first mistakes a new writer makes is creating a complex plot, or to my

mind, a complex storyline disguised as a plot. Plots are not complex at all, they are

simple, straight forward devices that give a story structure. A good plot is usually

summed up in a single sentence, sometimes two if you are running with dual point of

view characters. I will give you an example of both.

Single: Sarah must get to Berlin before an assassin finds her and kills her and her

child.

Dual: Sarah must get to Berlin before an assassin finds her and kills her and her child.

Her husband, Chris needs to get to Chicago to take out the crime boss who ordered the

hit, he will try and meet her in Berlin -where their child is undergoing treatment.

This first is quite a simple plot and by itself it doesn't appear all that interesting but, by

the time you add in other characters, threats, the chase, the locations and all the

emotions Sarah must go through; you start forming a reasonable storyline. From this

plot line you can of course develop sub-plots or as I have shown, a dual plot line as

Chris has his own point of view and separate task in the novel. The sub-plots are: their

child has leukemia which means Sarah has to get to a major Berlin hospital quickly

to save its life. The assassin has been sent to intercept Sarah, tracking her credit card

and hotel stays, he has also been given the task of killing the husband. Note that these

sub-plots run alongside the main plot; they don't run counter. Everything is heading in

a similar direction but all for different purposes. A successful book runs with a solid

backbone, a solid and dependable plot/s.

If you find yourself writing more than fifty words for your plot, then it is too complex;

you may be trying to do too much with the story. Many of the best books on the

shelves today have simple plot lines. The De Vinci Code is a simple murder mystery

with a clever, twisting storyline. If you can write your plot in a single sentence you

will be doing yourself and your book a favour; you will be setting yourself up for

success.

Soldiers, when going into battle, don't lay down a complex plan of attack - too many

things can go wrong - they know where they are and where they want to be and

essentially find the shortest route there; along the way they must overcome their enemy

to succeed. The writing soldier is no different. You know where your story starts and

you know where you want it to end. In the middle are all the obstacles that try to stop

this happening - this is what makes up the story.

You can of course write a plot-less story and try to fix it up later during the editing

process, but this can be a lot of hard work for nothing. Some new writers hire an editor

to re-work the novel into a stronger form.

Note: Paying for Editing

Do you know how much it costs to have your book edited by a Professional Fiction

Editor? Most writers cannot afford the fee and there are no guarantees that the edited

book will sell quickly. If you do contact an editor in this regard, make sure you are

sitting down. This goes for all pro editors by the way. The bigger the editor, the bigger

the hole in your pocket. The cheaper the editor! Well, let's say I have had to re-edit books

done by cheaper editors. You get what you pay for after all.

How to Write the Novel?

This is easily answered. What do you have on the bookshelf? Or, what do you borrow

most from the library? Write what you know, remember? If you don't read fiction, then I

must ask why do you think you can write it? All successful writers read truck-loads of

fiction, so to say you don't read it but want to write it just doesn't make sense. If you

don't read fiction, then why do you think someone would want to read yours? What do

you have to offer?

To rectify this incongruity, spend the next few weeks just reading some of the better

known fiction authors. Ask at your library or local book store who they are. Make sure

they are current novels. This is to give you a decent feel for what is being published and

perhaps solidify that novel you have been wanting to write and now have the storyline

for.

There is a man I see at the coffee shop most days, have seen him on and off for the last

four years. Each and every time he sees me, he says he has this wonderful idea for some

children's books and that he'd cut me in on the deal if I write them for him. I give him

my card, out of politeness (he has about ten now) and that is the last I hear of it. There is

a man who just dreams. He doesn't read fiction, or any other book for that matter, and

for some strange reason he expects me, a full time writer, to write him a book with his

idea. Ideas are simple and free and you can get them from the cat on the roof or the

butcher when he hands over some fresh sausage. It is the writing that is hard and, if this

man had ever read a book, he might understand this.

There are no short cuts. Get that straight in your head right now. No one else is going to make your dream happen. No-one else is going to write your book for you just for the possibility of fame. If you want this to happen then you have to make it happen. You have to become a Writing Soldier and enter the battle for the Best Seller.

If you want to be a writer you need to stop dreaming, stop talking about and stop

planning for the right day. Read some fiction books, study them as you read. Then you

open a blank word or text file and start with the first word (I will show you how to

choose those words in a later section) and you end the story with the last word.

Everything in between is dedication and the tenacity to finish no matter what, no matter

ridicule, no matter temptation to do something else, no matter any of the excuses you

throw up to delay the process. I didn't get to see my book in print because I took short

cuts, followed programs or joined expensive on-line writing seminars. I wrote it, I didn't

just dream the dream.

I had 400 rejections before I sold my first story. 400 reasons to give up. By the time I

sold my 50th story I had garnered 50 more rejections. Editors didn't suddenly start liking

my work, I started writing work that was publishable. This book has been designed to

reduce the rejection rate and make your book publishable by your first submission.

I am giving you the opportunity to learn in a few weeks what it took me twenty years

to learn through my continued participation in the writing/publishing industry.

Where to start is at the beginning and keep on going until the end, don't stop to edit

sections, don't stop to get that scene perfect, all that comes when you re-write it, when

you edit and when you relax with the knowledge that YES, you have completed the first

draft of a whole book.

We come back to the writer who doesn't really read. What to write is now purely

determined by what you will read over the coming weeks and months. By the end of

this book, you will be ready to start that novel and you will be able to start down the

right road to writing the Best Seller. If you have never read a Best Seller then how do

you know what to write, right?

Writing a book that sells is based on some straightforward things. Writers who take

heir work seriously, take the whole process seriously and will eventually be published.

It will be their determination and respect for their own work that will see them

through; if you don't have this then the book will never be completed, it is just fun, it

is a hobby, it isn't something to be taken seriously. It is true that you won't write

perfectly right off the bat, that is natural and expected, and it is true that what you

write first might not be publishable at all, again this is expected. What is true is that,

when you write you learn; you learn to use more words, to describe things better, to

integrate your characters and scenes better, to develop your characters further; all these

come with writing and the more you write, the more you will learn. Not everyone will

learn quickly and not everyone will finish their book in eight months but, everyone

who reads this book, will learn how to create that Best Selling novel. Everyone who

reads this book will become a Writing Soldier.

There will be demands made of you in the process; questions you will need to answer

while you write, read and learn. You need to read Best Sellers for a start, study

their simplicity, structure and style. Not all are the same and no two will tell the same

story, so the Best Seller could feel like an elusive fish in a very big pond. You will

need to understand that you are writing for someone else, the readership. The expectant

person sitting on his porch turning your carefully crafted pages. What he wants is to be

taken away on a journey, to get lost in a story, a good, exciting, touching, emotional

story that makes him forget he is even on that porch. Your writing will need to be better

than this sample.

Chris pulled back the hammer of the old .38 revolver. He had one bullet left and

he still hadn 't made the way clear for Sarah to escape. The blue gun smoke began to

clear revealing three bodies on the ground and one slumped over the steering wheel

of the car. These were Joe's men, they'd been tracking him and he'd led them straight

to Sarah.

"Let her go," Chris said, tilting his head towards Sarah and the baby clutched inher arms. It was crying.

"You didn't do the job," the bearded man said from behind the front of the car.

"You took the money and you know Joe don't just give that away."

"Chris!" Sarah cried. She gripped the baby tighter, it cried louder. "Please, Chris,get us out of here."

This of course is a thriller story; it is meant to create suspense, setting and character.

You will need to use every word to your advantage if you hope to keep your reader in

touch. But if you wanted this story to fit another genre audience you could strengthen

the romance elements. A wider readership means more sales and more sales equals

Best Seller. The Da Vinci Code ran on mystery and tight plotting around a murder.

This book is simple at its very heart, the plot easily put into a single sentence.

Sarah must flee across country to save her life and the life of her child.

To get you started I want you to write the story with the plot line as your guide. Write

the whole book idea in one or two pages - the shorter the better. This is like a synopsis

but not at all structured and pitched like one. This piece of writing is for your eyes, not

someone who you are hoping to sell the book to.

Read your idea through several times, making changes, additions and subtractions

until you are happy with the whole concept. This is only part one, now I want you to

ask questions, lots of questions. These are not difficult and of course they are not idea

specific. Ask How? What? Where? Why? and When? Nothing at all hard in that. This

isn't rocket science after all. Just remind yourself, these same questions were good

enough for Hemmingway so why shouldn't they be good enough for you?

Do it now - come back to this when you are done.

Pick up any writing book, go to seminars and author talks and all will tell you the

importance of plotting the novel, but all will have a different answer, a different way of

doing things. With all the mixed messages coming from ALL the professional sources it is

hard to know what is the right and what is the wrong way of going about designing the

plot-line.

Let's look at the first basic premise. Does your story have a beginning, middle and end?

Look at the rough story outline I had you write earlier, from this write a single sentence

(two at the most) that tell us the plot of the story? I have already started the ball rolling with

my brief outline. This is a very simple description of the book I am writing, and if I ever

get stuck, go off on a tangent or get lost within the work itself, I can always come back to

this sentence and find the solid direction I need to bring the novel back into order. A Best

Seller always has a solid plot line; it rarely moves away from the basic premise.

Write the single sentence now, it might take some thinking and a few attempts but you will

benefit from this, your book will benefit. Do it now.

One thing that often comes across in lectures, teaching, and in gimmick driven writer

books, is that the writers must always have fun while they create. This is all well and good

but does it always give you the results you are after? I enjoy writing and there are times

when I think it is fun, but I also know that I am writing to please a readership, to meet

deadlines and writing within genre forms. If I am writing the Best Seller, then sometimes it

isn't going to be fun, it isn't going to be easy. What The Writing Soldier is about has

nothing to do with hype, feel good pop-speak or setting unachievable goals. This book is

about preparing you for the work, giving you the tools for the job and then sending you into

the battleground of the Best Seller novel. For every Best Seller there are literally tens of

thousands of writers who fell on the field, who went in unprepared or who went in with

the wrong or faulty equipment.

Take this on board and remember it, commit it to memory. The average Best Seller was

written in around eight months. The average Best Seller sold to a publisher in around two

years. The average Best Seller can earn the author in excess of $100,000.

Have you written your sentence?

From that sentence, and from that rough storyline you picked the plot sentence, it is hoped,

by now, you know the genre of your story, or combined genres. Now look below and see

if that idea is going to be a Best Seller.

Here are some things that won't become a Best Seller for you:

o The bad marriage story - the empowered woman leaving her husband - unless you have a

very new twist on this tired idea it isn't a good choice.

o The Galactic Empire fights against pirates of space - it has a market but not Best Seller

material.

o Woman fights against family to be with her one true love - The Romeo and Juliet story.

Good for romance publishers but not a Best Seller.

o The child abused man or woman doing good in the NORMAL (?) world - overdone

already.

o Vampires - unless you come up with a very, very new twist on this tired archetype. Most

vampire books sell, but few like Anne Rice or Twighlight and True Blood.

o Children who go to wizard school - I need not explain further \- been done to death.

o Young adult novels dealing with bullying. Unless you create a fresh feel to these stories they

are always turned down.

o Novels based around the CIA and US government conspiracies - unless you have

something that hasn't already been done before. If the idea has appeared in film then it has

been exhausted already.

o The family struggle through poverty. A tough one but a story of this type needs to have

more than this idea as the backbone.

o The family struggle through racism - racism exists but as a driving force in fiction it isn't a

Best Seller choice - if the racism is part of a broader plot line then that is a different issue.

o Any story that has only one small aspect to it, or gimmick, or one small pay off at the end.

To be even handed here are some things to consider writing about:

o Family saga with unusual plot twists, characters who stand out from the norm and a

storyline that does not follow the tradition of the 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty' stereotype.

o Fantasy that builds on the standard form and utilizes more of the imagination and less of

the genres tropes. Originality that falls within the standard guides is a clue here - read

widely in the Fantasy genre before you start. This is a must.

o The love story that has a strong social and cultural focus, yet isn't cemented into cliché girl

meets boy, loses boy, gets boy or limited by the strictures of the traditional romantic love story.

Be they characters, two men, two women, a man and a woman, or a chipmunk

and a goat. These stories still proliferate publishers slush piles, but a very good one

stands a more than fair chance.

o The historical drama with a setting not commonly used. These do need to be well

researched, strongly plotted and be filled with characters who are stand outs. You can't

do a light touch here.

o The thriller is always popular but finding that new twist, finding the story that doesn't have a

disgruntled cop, a forensic scientist with sexual issues, or a Miss Marple, can be

difficult.

o Crime, like above, is a tired storyline but, if you can give it new life or new twists, it can and

usually does sell well. Remember, new ideas and new, strong plots.

o The ghost story. It might sound cliché but a good twist on the traditional favorite for

young adult readers is always a good chance for the Best Seller mantle.

o The macabre, which is usually a slight combination of the horror genre with romance,

fantasy, history and literature. If done well, these novels can sell many copies. A plot that moves

away from the devil and possession, the serial-murder investigation, or the cheating husband and

voodoo is what will work. Think along these lines:-

o Woman fulfils her desires for a new man in her life through learning to white

water raft, do aromatherapy and make goat's cheese.

o A gay couple discovers wealth through the marketing of pickled slugs fed entirely

on human flesh and re-runs of Gilligan's Island.

o A young boy, destined from birth to be the new village leader, shrinks himself to

hide inside the shell of a dung beetle. He must eat dung and teach the beetle love songs

until he can be free to return to his normal size.

The macabre is an under-explored part of novel writing, especially in Young Adult books.

These examples may seem quite odd and ridiculous but when incorporated into a novel they

change shape and take on an unexpected life of their own. Look at the slug scenario:

• Tony drops the woman's body into the pit and soon it is covered in the silver trails

of fat slugs. The consummation will be slow but Tony and David have time on their side and the pay-off from the last batch of slugs will keep them in comfort for a few years to come.

"I love the way they spread out over the skin like that, " David says, sipping his single

malt whisky.

"I wish you wouldn't drink so much," Tony says, giving David a kiss on the cheek, "And maybe you could shave a little more often as well? "

David shrugs and takes another sip from the crystal tumbler. The television casts a blue light over the pit, the sound is up loud and canned laughter covers the low level slurping coming up from the slugs.

"I love this bit. Cracks me up every time," David says, letting the silvery light draw him in. The Skipper takes off his hat and hits Gilligan over the head. David laughs and spills his drink.

"If the slugs didn't like this stuff so much I'd have that TV sent to the dump." Tony hates Gilligan's Island, but for some strange reason the slugs seem to thrive on it.

By using a bizarre scenario and writing it in a contemporary manner with characters that in

themselves are not weird you end up with a macabre story that could, if written well, sit on a

Best Seller list as either Horror, Fantasy or even Mainstream. Good stories written from good

ideas are what makes the Best Selling novel. THINK! Don't regurgitate what is already on

bookstore shelves, be as inventive as you possibly can.

Mainstream and Literature are harder to write and you will not get to them from

reading any books on the subject. Think strong author voice, strong narrative that is

almost devoid of story yet strong in imagery. To sell well in this genre takes clever

writing, odd writing and ideas that can sometimes be seen as obscure or mundane. This

area isn't for the faint of heart. Do it well and the world will remember you for a long

time to come. Do it badly and you would have simply wasted a year of your time. Here is

a sample of my own work, created just for this book.

Swim, swim, I swim to find that place, the small cool spot in the sea where I spent

summers with my father. The sun, bright, burning, duller than I recall, reflects off the

green waves: still I cannot find the place in the water, the space in my heart. Has it been

hours since I left the shore, left my house, fled my husband and his fists or have I simply

dreamed again: will I wake on the kitchen floor, bruised, sore, bloodied by another bad

meal. Swim, swim, I swim to that spot, that spot, that spot. My father's laugh catapults

me into the sky. I splash back into the water, the salt stinging my eyes. I am here, here in

the place I always feel safe.

'Mommy, mommy.' It is my daughter's cry. The waves break, the floor is hard, the lights are on and I am naked. 'Mommy, wake up.'

Unlike other genres mainstream and literature does not generally conform to guidelines,

so some experimentation can take place. I do suggest exploring genre writing first to get

your story writing ability in shape before breaking all the rules to write a full literary

novel. Though other genres aren't as rigid as they once were they still have specific

requirements.

Some writers don't bother to write a plot outline and others will write plot outlines that

read like a first draft of a book. You will of course choose what ever method suits you,

but I will encourage at least a one page plot exploration as opposed to your previous story

outline. If you want to write more than this, fine, if you want to write the page and then

forget about it that is fine also but, if we are going to get you to the point of writing that

Best Seller, for the time being you are just going to have to trust me.

From your storyline pick out your main character and the world in which they are set -

be it Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Horror, Thriller, Crime, Young Adult, Ghost

or Children's Literature. From this information you already have the main plot line, for

my story:

Sarah, with her baby, must get to her friend's house in another country

before she is killed.'

Storyline: 'Fleeing across country. On the run from killers. Protecting her child.

' Sub-plot: 'Husband is Hit man - whose last job was to kill her - he didn't and is now the

father of her child who is also on the run and wanted.'

The opening paragraph

This is where the plot you have developed comes into play. Read how I do it with the

information above and using information I would have written down in my story outline.

Sarah bundled Rebekah into her child seat. It was two hours to the German border. If Chris was right, the Hit man would be at her house in under twenty minutes. How didthey find her? She pulled her wool skirt in around her legs as she slipped behind the wheel of her Audi. It had only been two years before when Chris, himself, had been sent to kill her. Only now he was Rebekah's father and her very secret husband. Patting the Smith and Wesson Sigma 9mm on the seat next to her, Sarah hoped she didn't have to use it. Chris had shown her how and she. would if it came to it, but she hoped shifting countries and moving in with a friend in Munich would again afford her some protection, some safety.The mobile phone rang. She checked the number, it was Chris.

"Chris," she said, clutching the steering wheel.

"They've sent the Taker, " he said, urgency in his voice. "She is good, Sarah, so don't use any credit cards, don't book into any hotels or use toll roads and for God's sake, don't get picked up for speeding, she'll be able to flag you on the police network.

"Oh, God!" Sarah cried. She wished she'd ignored the world around her. She'd give anything not to have known anything about political dealings.

"Sarah, Sarah," Chris said.

"Yes," she couldn't manage any more.

"You got the gun?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"I'll find you, honey, " he said softly. "Don't tell me where you are going, I'll find you. Now throw your phone away, take out the SIM card first, destroy it. Give our daughter a kiss for me, okay. I love you." the line clicked off.

Sarah started the car and moved away from the curb and into the morning rush traffic...

From these few points I have the makings of an opening for my novel and likewise you

should have the elements for your own sitting on a sheet of paper or on a screen before

you. You will note that I have already introduced the plot, the main character, the

secondary character and for good measure I hinted at Chris' role in the sub-plot. Yet

nowhere have I been specific or have I deliberately told the reader what the story is

about, the characters, have done it all. We will look at this a little later but for now you

could find yourself in a better position to write that opening paragraph to launch yourself

into the novel's first real page.

In the space of a few pages we have a solid plot line, sub-plot line and storyline. We

also have the two principle characters. Okay, we still don't have a novel but we have all

the tools we need to write one and to write one that will sell. It might be a good idea to set

up the ending of the story now as well.

Why ?

If you know where your story is going to end, although this needn't be set in concrete, it

actually makes it easier for you to write the novel. Doesn't it make the trip across country,

or across town easier when you know your destination is your home, a friend's house, or a

place you are visiting. Knowing what is at the end, knowing there is a conclusion to the

journey makes the journey less arduous, less frightening. The ending of your book will

probably change by the time you get there and that is natural and expected but you do

need to have a direction otherwise you may find yourself writing aimlessly in the night, no

direction known, your characters lost without a home.

Knowing the ending also helps in strengthening the overall plot line. You will tend to

stay focused on the end goal and not be moved to distraction easily. You will review the

end from time to time as you write and you might even change it many times as the story

progresses, but it is still there, still waiting, like the porch light for the lost soldier.

Let's see what I have come up with and see if it still conforms with my initial plot line.

The last she'd see Chris he was laying at the foot of the stairs, blood streaming from his head. The house was full of noise from the broken steam heater and the gushing of water from the smashed kitchen tap. Sarah could see people gathering in the street outside the

apartment but she couldn't call out from her small bathroom window. She would hear her; she would kill her next. In the distance she heard the wailing of sirens. Police? Ambulance? She hoped they would arrive soon.

The bathroom door burst in, wood splintering with a crack, the door smashing into Sarah's chest. She fell into the shower, the cloth screen wrapping around her neck. There were two pops like a pop gun and she felt pain in her chest, in her shoulder.

Through tears Sarah looked up into the hard face of the Taker, the woman sent to kill her, the woman Chris had tried to stop. Her eyes were hard blue, cheeks flushed with effort. The woman's white shirt was ripped and blood stained around the neck, one arm hung loose. Injured?

The Taker lowered her gun and stared at Sarah, her eyes softened slightly as if seeing her for the first time...

This is the end of the book, well not quite but, but close enough to give you the idea. As

you can see I have remained within my plot structure. Obviously a lot has happened in

between and as a writer you will enjoy filling in that enormous blank spot. Some writers

will also write the middle paragraph of the book as well, just so they know when to hit the

right high point before the race into the end. You can do this if you want to, but that will

change more times that the ending will.

But we can't start just yet. What about your time line? What is the sequence of events that

make up your story. When do they occur? What order? Do parallel events match up? I am

not talking every detail, not every day, but major events and scenes. This is the area most,

if not all new writers are confronted with by the time they reach chapter three and in

almost 99% of cases the new writer stops, gives up and goes back to dreaming. 'I started a

novel once'. How many times have you heard that statement, or 'I've been working on a

novel on and off for the last five years', another common statement used by writers who

have simply screwed up their time line.

This might be tiresome; this might be just plain boring but I am not showing you how to

wash dishes here, I am trying to show you how to be a real writer, how to prepare for the

REAL publishing world and how to prepare yourself to write a Best Seller. If you give up

after three chapters then you would have given up doing the gimmicky thirty day

program as well.

Do you want to write? Do you want to write well? Do you have the tenacity, the guts and

the will to see your DREAM come true? Do you have the commitment to see this

through, to spend at least an hour a day for the next eight months writing the best book

possible?

As I said from the outset, writing a novel isn't easy, should never be seen as easy and

should never be promoted as something easily done in a few days. My own published

novel took two years and five re-writes and another year before it was published in

Poland. My collection of short stories, 'We Would Be Heroes' (www.amazon.com), took twelve months to put together and all of those stories were already written. So, I ask again. Do you want to be in the best position possible to write a Best Seller? Do you have the commitment?

The time line of your story needn't be a complex mapping out of events. I use a single

sheet of paper and with a pencil (I often change my mind) I simply draw a line down the

center of the page to signify the life of the novel, then I put in the branches, like a stick

tree, of where certain events take place, their time in the story. It might start at the top with

April 10th 2006 - Sarah finds out she is about to be killed. The next branch might be April

10th 2006 - Chris retrieves his backup gear from a storage shed in the city and

plans to intercept the assassin. These two events happen on the same day but, as the

story is primarily about Sarah, the book must start with her. With the book I am

planning here, there are chapters and sections dedicated to other points of view, so my

time line needs to be tight and accurate. If it is going to take Sarah three days to drive to

Munich and Chris is taking a plane, it is obvious they cannot arrive at the same time.

The Point of View & Voice

Whose story is this anyway?

The biggest selling element of your story will be from whose point of view the story is

coming. New writers or first time writers always make the mistake of writing from

everyone's point of view at the same time. Okay the big 'God' see all omniscient viewpoint

is fine to use but, unless you are a fantastic writer who understands just how

to create character balance and empathy using this point of view, I would say avoid it for

the moment. These stories are told well removed from the action and the characters and, in

many cases, the reader has a hard time relating to the characters, the world and the storyline.

Decide whose story you are showing, keeping in mind that the story on the whole will be

seen through this character's eyes. In my sample story the viewpoint characters are Chris

and Sarah and the structure I have chosen for the book is alternating chapters of each

viewpoint until they are back together, then I will switch to just Sarah's.

Who do you like the most in your story?

Who do want the reader to simply fall in love with and empathize with? You don't want to get

half way through the novel and discover you really like a second character more and want to use

their viewpoint. This would mean rewriting the whole book.

What voice do you want to use?

Omniscient? I don't recommend it.

First person? I did this; and I went here; then I found this; type of story. The drawback

to this voice is that you don't know what is happening anywhere else in the story. You also have

to tell the reader everything the character is thinking, no secrets and definitely no

unexplained lies. This viewpoint can be restrictive, but does work very well with Crime

investigation stories when you write from the cop's point of view. You discover the facts when

they do. Can work for the Best Seller but it is losing popularity in some genres.

Third person limited viewpoint? This is the most popular viewpoint today and the one

I am using for my sample story in this book. With this viewpoint, I can allow the reader

to see the story from each character's eyes for individual scenes, or I can write the entire

novel just using one character's vision (not so limited).

Second person? We are trying to write a Best Seller so we won't even go there.

If you have decided (against my urging) to just tell the story from the omniscient point of

view then I must say that the book will not become a Best Seller. In today's fiction writing

the readers are Kings/Queens and they like to be inside the characters' heads; they want to

experience the world and everything that happens to them. If at all possible, the author

doesn't have a voice in the book at all, but even the best authors can't manage this these

days, so I won't be too harsh on that aspect of novel creation.

This is a section from Chris' point of view (Third person) and I will follow it up with

Sarah's:

The car skidded sideways scraping along the rail of the bridge. Chris fought for control, but the vehicle was heavy, the steering sloppy. He should have rented a new car, but he couldn't afford to take the chance that the major car rental places were being watched.

The rear windshield shattered as the car behind, man hanging from the passenger side window, shot again. Chris fumbled for the phone. He had to warn Sarah. If she met him in the market like he wanted her to she would be out in the open. Another shot plumped into his passenger seat. He weaved the car over the road, trying to make it hard for the shooter to get a clear shot.

"Sarah!" she answered on the first ring. "No now," he said, interrupting her questions. "Don't go to the meeting place, " he said, struggling to hold the car on the road with just his left hand. He hung up and dropped the phone on the seat. He had to lead them away from village, he had to protect Sarah, protect his baby boy.

Sarah's POV (First person)

I put down the phone and wiped the tears from my face. Chris had sounded panicked, under stress. What had gone wrong? Joshua was crying but I didn't feel ready to stand and pick him up just yet. Had the Taker found out where I lived? Except for the service station on the autobahn I hadn't used any credit cards or given my real name to anyone. I hadn't even told my mother where I was going, as if she would have cared anyway.

"Please, Josh, " I call out in a soft voice, trying to calm the child from a distance. I know it won't work, has never worked. I had to pick him up, tell him everything was going to be okay. I just wish someone would pick me up, caress my hair and say. "It's okay, honey. Everything's going to be okay."

You will notice two differences here. At no time when in Chris' point of view do I give

any other viewpoint, and likewise with Sarah. But what if both characters are together?

As Sarah is the story's main viewpoint character 1 would only write from her point of

view with her making assumptions of the reasons behind Chris' actions and having inner

thoughts on what she should be doing in the situation.

"Why didn 't you tell me ? " Sarah said as Chris joined her in the restaurant's kitchen. He looked ashen, road weary.

"I didn't know until this morning. They are after me as well, you know?" He spoke softly. He looked like he hadn 't slept in days.

Sarah hugged him, pulled his stinking body close to hers. She loved him, despite his past, despite the danger he'd led her way. His arms were strong around her waist and his facial stubble scratched her cheek. She started to cry. She wished she brought Josh with her, let his father hold him.

"We don't have much time," Chris said. "I'll try and arrange another meeting in a few days, when I've led them further away." He gave her a new mobile with a new number. "Give me the other one. "

"Where are you getting all these phones?" Sarah asked, not really wanting to know, but she hadn't spoken to him for two days and just wanted to hear more of his deep voice.

Here I have both characters interacting with the story still flowing in the right direction,

but I have stayed with Sarah's point of view throughout the exchange. If I had used both

points of view in this small scene it would have been confusing and neither character

would have been able to grab the reader's emotions.

The other thing you would have noticed with Sarah's point of view after Chris' call is

that I wrote in the first person. Third person past tense (what I usually write in) and first

person past tense, another common voice are the two most popular voice choices, so

start thinking along these lines. I am showing you how to write a Best Seller, not be a

literary genius.

Most Best Sellers aren't even good literature, just damn good reads.

I don't want you to get lost in the details here. As much as this information is important to

know and use, it is best not letting it get in the way of actually writing. By this point in

The Writing Soldier I expect you to have written at least your first chapter - be it a very

rough draft. You haven't?

What do we have at this point?

Story elements in a page.

Plot and probably some sub-plots.

Some writing examples to give you an idea of the story.

The opening paragraph, or maybe two.

The explanation of point of view and voice. You may have started with something else,

but as this is only the start of the process it is easily changed.

That is a fair bit to start with, so stop reading, go back to your opening scene and write,

write, write. When you feel you have the first chapter done get back to me. I'll be

patiently waiting. The Writing Soldier tends to learn on the run, on the fly so to speak. Be

prepared to change tactics on a whim or when you learn something you can use

immediately. Don't fight it; this will only slow you down. You may still only be in boot

camp and there is still a lot to learn and understand but there is absolutely nothing

stopping you from using what you know now.

Some books will say get prepared, be well prepared before you start the novel. I am not a

great believer in stalling, finding the perfect moment, the ideal time and so forth. There is

the writing, period! I waited on writing my novel for three years, getting plots together,

reading books on writing (yeah, like this one) and following the lessons

religiously. But all the books, all the thinking, all the preparing did only one thing.

Stopped me from actually writing. I once packed up all my poetry writing and threw

them away. I told myself that I didn't want to write any more. I have read this is a good

thing to do but, looking back today, I don't really think it was all that helpful. Besides, I

lost 14 years' worth of writing that day. A bit of a waste when you think about it.

One reason you are reading this book is because you have been delaying the start, or

have gotten bogged down on research, motivation, impetus. Let's face it, all soldiers get

tired but they still go on. Why? Because if they don't they will forever have that lost

dream gnawing at their guts, pulling their insides out.

As a writer I am a very hard man, hard in all aspects of life if the truth be known, and I

believe it takes someone who doesn't wait, doesn't get everything perfect the first time

around to write a Best Selling novel. Not all people are like this, I know, and some of

you will, despite my urging, still take time to plan and map out your novel. Nothing

wrong with that if that is how you are made up, but I want you to examine how you go

about your writing business. Is all that planning only an excuse for not starting, or

worse, not finishing the novel? Do what I have asked please. Do that first chapter. Get

to it.

What Was the Point in That? - Chapter One

You will probably be wondering why go through the effort of finishing the first chapter

when you don't know everything yet? Because by the time you get to the end of this

book you would have forgotten half of what you have learned and I want you to start

writing now, not later, not tomorrow or next vacation. There is no better time to write

than right now.

By the end of the book, you will of course be writing differently from when you wrote

the first chapter, second chapter; you will be a different writer and have a very different

book by the time you hit the half way mark of the first draft (about 45,000 words).

Using what you know now is a good start and we can always come back later and rewrite,

edit and maybe re-write again. It is a process I want you to adopt. When you

learn something new, use it right away; incorporate it into your writing, into your

story. Best Sellers are best slowly grown and nurtured through the writing process. If

you force feed your tomato plants, quick grow them, the fruit tastes woody, light but,

if you take your time, slow grow them, the fruit is lush, juicy and so full of flavour

you can't help but eat them. That is what we are doing here.

Characters, Scenes & Settings

The great Science Fiction author, Joe Haldeman wrote an article for me when I was

editing Altair Magazine in 1998. He said that the pulling out of individual pieces of a

story is perhaps not the best way to learn how to write, and I would agree, but doing such

does have its purpose. This is why I have you writing as you read. I want you to not

only write your story but I want you to incorporate aspects learned as you write. Don't

rewrite the earlier material, just keep going forward. In this section I am going to look

at characters but I can't do it effectively without looking at characters in an

environment, a scene and setting, so all three are to be taken together. Like Joe says,

to separate them isn't the best way to do things as each piece relies on the other to be

functional. Of course you can write a setting without a character but in my mind it

often feels a little flat. Creating a setting as viewed from the character adds life and

purpose; it gives the readers a setting they can believe in.

The author Henry James points out that a story "is a living thing, all one and

continuous, like any other organism, and in proportion as it lives will it be found ...

that in each of the parts there is something of each of the other parts."

Joe Haldeman, in his article on Characterization (Altair issue 1 1998) quotes James

again. "What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the

illustration of character? It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on

a table and look at you in a certain way; or if it be not an incident I think it will be hard to

say what it is. At the same time it is an expression of character."

Settings

The setting is probably the easiest thing to look at first. It is the place or places where

everything happens; it is the picture onto which you place your characters and weave your

story around. These days I create the entire world I need in my mind and it stays there but

you would be best to make notes of your world, the place your story takes place. Some

stories only have two or three locations, or major locations and are easily noted down, but

some have many, many locations and places dotted around the world, or throughout the

universe. With these settings you will need to create a few pages of location information.

If the places are real places then visit them if you can or read about them and get the best

feel possible for the locations. Many first books are set pretty much in the area of the

author, which is fine but, if you are going to do this, then it is best served if you highlight interesting aspects of the place, local scenery and the colour and language of the people. You have to transport your readers to that location, make them believe they are there.

The writing of the setting can be small passages of narrative description but you can get

good effects by having some of the atmosphere of the place come across through the

characters. As you read some of my own writing samples, note the uses of setting

throughout. I don't lay it on thick or over describe. At this stage though I still wouldn't be

overtly concerned about how well you create your settings, the most important aspect is

getting you writing and keeping you writing.

Setting as a character is a favorite of mine. As you treat your characters to development

through interaction you can develop your setting this way. Your characters interact with

the setting, breathe the air, smell the flowers and restaurant; they can feel the humid

A major part of the setting is the use of the senses. You can deepen a setting, giving it

more life through the character's experience or sensing of the place. Smell the air, feel

the texture of stone buildings or wooden door frames, hear the busy streets, the chatter of

children and taste the foods or wines of the region. The setting needn't be just plain

description, delivered to introduce a scene, it can become a vital part of the scene, a vital

part of the overall story development. But, as you will see the separation of these

elements isn't ideal, you need to apply everything at once, use all you can to write a good

story at the same time.

It is difficult to show you just characterization without showing you setting and scene

work. The character functions within a scene and the scene has a setting. Perhaps one

simple explanation of a scene is an event that has people involved together in an incident

or even a set of circumstances either within or beyond their control. The characters have a

point of view within that scene and their very words and actions dictate in which direction

the story will take. What I will show you is how I think characters need to be drawn in

your novel. At this point you will be at least considering your second chapter (or writing

it) or maybe you are up to chapter three. If you are up to chapter three, then stop writing

for a moment and read to the end of this section, it will save you some time when you

head into the next chapter.

Let's look at those characters you have started writing about. At the moment they may

only be names and a few descriptions. The characters who need the most work are those

who will be carrying the story, the ones who, through their actions, reactions and

interactions will change the story's direction and dictate what will happen next. There is no

point me writing a detailed personal profile about the girl who will meet Chris at the bar in

my next sample scene. She is a flat character used to get aspects of Chris across. Her role

is only to help deepen Chris' characterization. In your book, you might have a number of

characters like this. The man in the grocery store, the school teacher or a man

on the street. For me, it might be the mobster's body guards, or the girl sent to kill Chris.

Yes, they are important to the story but their importance is more to the main characters and

how they react.

It might help you here to write a background of the story and characters. By the time I hit

the third chapter I usually stop and quickly sketch out some profiles, all the characters I

think I'll use in the main plot. Why am I leaving this so late? Because I want you to get

into the flow of writing. By the end of your chapter one you should have the start of how

you want the book to feel, what type of characters you are trying to create. With that

chapter under your belt you know what information you are going to need.

For each character write a few details down so that you can keep them consistent

throughout the work. If Chris has got blue eyes and hates a mess then he'd better be like

that at the end of the book as well. These notes help you to remember. You might also

like to write down details that won't appear in the novel. Family history, what type of

character he is, his emotional state, his loves, his hates. Why he thinks the way he does.

What is the relevance? Read on.

Chris dropped his glass, and panicked. He tried to catch it, stuck his foot out to break its

fall, but wine splashed up his trouser leg and the glass shattered on the tiled floor. The

din in the pub fell into silence as all eyes fixed on him. Chris grabbed a handful of paper

towels from the bar and tried to soak up the wine on his pants. He dabbed quickly,

deliberately. The wet patches remained, he could do nothing about them. He hated not

being able to control such things. People judged on such careless mistakes. The trousers

were ruined. What will people watching think of him? He smiled, tried to make light of

the situation but he knew they were all laughing. They probably thought he was drunk.

Maybe took his rough looks for a local man, probably a bar fighter or a woman beater.

Chris hated woman beaters.

Though I have not said this in any part of the story I have notes that say Chris is a

perfectionist who is out to look good at all times. He borders on full paranoia and his

childhood memories are of his father hitting his mother. The single scene above lets

some of this information out through the character. The author says nothing and not all

the information I know is important to the scene, but it is important to how he reacts to

certain events and stimuli. Your character on the page is only a small part of what you

really know. Every action and reaction, every decision and every motivation is dictated

by what type of person he is and what kind of background made him that way.

Oh, look at the time.

I have to drop this bit of information in right now because some readers will have to go

to bed or at least shut down their computers. Did you know that I hear writers on a

daily basis (remember, I teach writing) telling me that they just can't find the time to write. Not

sur e why they are doing my writing course if that is their problem. This is the number

one excuse given why a writing task cannot be completed. Can't find the time. Firstly, I

didn't know you could lose it and secondly the Best Seller won't write itself, will it?

I have written three novels, one text book, hundreds of short stories and articles while

tutoring 100s of writing students, from Creative to Advanced Professional writing, running a

literary agency, editing books for publishers and private clients and running a small

press publishing company. I also look after my two young children, do some cooking,

gardening and house work (the latter I am not very good at). I don't find the time for

anything. I make the time. I set aside the time I require to write. I set aside the time I

needed to write this book. I write between contract jobs. I write first thing in the

morning, last thing at night. I write in that forty minutes before dinner (not if I am doing

the cooking that is). If you truly want to write you will make that time. What happens if

you don't? NO BOOK! I can't make it any simpler than that.

Do you want to be a Writing Soldier? Do you want to write a Best Seller? Then start

reformatting your life and make the time to achieve this. Soldiers during WWII, the

Vietnam War, Desert Storm and now the war in Iraq wrote and write letters and poems

to their loved ones between battles, during the lulls in the shooting. If anyone could

be forgiven for taking a little time out to do nothing it is these people, but they make

the time to write. They seize the opportunity when it arises, and this is what I want

you to do. I don't want to hear the excuses. We all have hectic and damn busy lives,

that is the modern world. There is not one excuse you could make to me that I

haven't used myself or heard others use. I will not accept excuses (other than serious

illness or death) and neither would you if the main goal was to write a Best Selling

novel. To accomplish anything, be it swimming, soccer or chess you need to make

the time. To be a writer you need to make the commitment and sacrifice some of

your leisure time to the main objective. I hope I don't have to repeat what that is. I'll

be back in a moment, have to take the children to school.

What type of Characters?

In the Best Seller, the characters have to be strong, full bodied (not just names on a

page) and have real lives. They are of course fiction, but in order to have the reader

suspend belief your characters have to feel real, live realistic lives in the physical

sense. No-one can jump from a second story window and chase down a speeding

car, not unless you are writing fantasy fiction and our character has special strengths.

Make your characters believable. If you set up your world properly then anything

your character does will become believable but, right now, I want characters the

readers can get involved with. As soon as the readers identify with a character, they

are hooked into your novel and won't put it down. Your characters need to have

problems, faults, loves, hates, situations to overcome, and failures to live through.

Life is a bit of a wave motion so your characters will need to mimic this to some

degree. If your characters can create a relationship with the readers then you have

done a good thing. This is what a Best Seller does; it grabs reader's attention, a lot of

readers' attention.

Characters are people too.

Some of the best characters you will write about come from people around you, people

you know. (But never use real names or real people - they can and are within their

right to seek legal action against you. To make up names read the phone book, a baby

name book and foreign websites if you are after a little difference in your names.) One

of the characters in my novel 'Life Light' (Published in Poland 2005) is actually a

combination of my Dad and a writer friend who lived nearby (My Dad and Kurt von Trojan have since passed away, sadly). I used their strengths, weaknesses, and their quirks of personality. Most characters in fiction novels have an original basis in real people, though unlike the real person this new character

undergoes fiction stresses, fictional worlds and a fictional life. These created

characters have many parts and the jigsaw puzzle is the story. The more the story

unfolds the more of the character we see. Your characters need to fulfil a few criteria.

Motivation - what drives them to do what they do? What drives them though the

story? Why do they have to follow the plot? My character Sarah has to flee for her

life, she and her child are in danger. She will not feel safe until she gets to her

location.

Their agenda - what are they going to gain from the story, or what do they hope to

gain - the payoff for them?

Change - can they change? A good character has the potential to change with the

story. Not big changes in an instant but the slow wearing down change or deliberate

alteration to their mindset due to circumstances. A character that can change because

of external and internal influences is a reader's dream.

Character traits - the foibles and inadequacies of the personality. What makes or

breaks the character in the story. Do they smoke too much and that habit gets in the

way of a relationship? Small traits or large traits, capture them and exploit them to the

story's advantage.

You don't have to sit down and create a character from scratch. Remember, write what

you know. The more people you know, the more papers you read, magazines you study

and, to a lesser degree, TV you watch the more your mental data base of characters will

grow.

On TV. About six years ago I followed a writing book's direction to turn off my TV and

never turn it on again. The book said it dulls the senses and offers nothing to the writer.

My writing level declined, my wealth of ideas suffered. For me, certain TV shows, the

news and documentaries kept me in touch with the world. I would get ideas from the

TV. I would agree that watching too much TV distracts you from the writing task but no

TV cuts off one of the greatest sources of information at your disposal. I say keep that

TV plugged in but start to apply constraints over the programs you watch. A good

movie, or even an awful movie can give you good character traits you can use in your

fiction and a good documentary on police forensics can give you an accurate

investigative process for your crime novel. TV isn't all bad, but sitting back for half the

evening watching game shows is. Why watch others try and win money when you can

write the Best Seller and earn that money for yourself. You know it makes sense.

From our mental, and possibly written down, data on different characters we can now

develop them in the story in a fuller and more tangible fashion. Many novels, including

Best Sellers will have up to a paragraph of character description before the reader

actually gets to read the character's interactive part in the story. I prefer to see a more

layered effect. I refer to it as the tapestry of fiction. This is a softer and less intrusive

approach to the novel. While writing interactions between characters, either through

dialogue or action, you can add small touches of character traits and descriptions in the

tags, or in one sentence between replies. This then avoids the great character description

some writers use to get the vision and emotion of their characters across.

This is the standard character description:

E.g. Chris stood six two, had brown hair and blue eyes. His nose was crooked and he

had a silver cap on his front teeth. He had a noticeable shake to his hands when he

held a glass or a pen and if you looked carefully when he walked you could just

detect a slight limp.

What I feel works better:

Chris picked up his glass, the surface of the liquid trembling slightly. He sipped the white wine. Even with caps on his teeth the wine still touched the nerves and made him wince. He didn't want to stop overnight but he just couldn't keep driving. The little pub was at least set well back from the main road and a good crowd crammed its ancient stone walls. He sipped the wine again and shuddered. How long would it take until his meal arrived?

"Hello," a young woman said coming up to stand at his shoulder. She looked around twenty-five, quite younger than himself.

"Hello," Chris said, looking down at her. She would have been all of five eight and her gaping neckline gave away more than perhaps even she intended to show.

"I saw you walk in," she said, touching his arm. The touch was warm through his denim shirt. "You alone for the night?" He became conscious of his often broken nose. He had wondered many times what Sarah saw in his twisted face.

"Ah, yes," he said. "just passing through, really." He looked to the bar, hoping for the meal. He didn't need this kind of complication in his life right now.

"I noticed your limp, have you hurt yourself? " She sounded concerned. "An old accident, " he said, wishing the woman would go away.

"Made by a sniper's rifle, I presume?" she said. The smile lost its warmth. Chris looked past her breasts and to the handbag she was holding. Her hand was inside, the top opened enough to show him what she had in her hand. A small pistol with silencer.

"Take me up to your room and we can...you know...talk."

This character description is a little longer but note how it isn't intrusive on the flow of

the story. This is how I like to see characters delivered in good novels. Sadly, even in

Best Sellers this doesn't happen. If you can be consistent and tidy with your characters

like this, then you would stand more than an even chance of success. Mind you, I don't

want you to use every interaction for character description but I would like you to use

this method if you have to describe. When writing any interaction between characters

or even between character and setting you need to be ever mindful of the readers. They

want to live your story, they want to escape from the world and into yours, so don't

cheat them, help them become involved. In the above scene I have also included some

questions that would not have come out in a static description; a possible reason for

the limp. How does this young woman know about the sniper? Why had Chris been

shot by a sniper in the first place? And what has she in mind for Chris when they get to

the room?

These questions haven't been obviously presented, they come across in a natural

manner.

Of course, these questions will need to answered eventually and some sooner than

others. I often find it might be good to write the first draft of your book using the

heavy descriptive tone but in the rewriting adopt the interactive method. The major

reason for this is that you might not know all the intricacies at the point of writing

your scene (the book is developing as you write) so the small touches and question can

only be put in after you know everything there is to know about your story. The

completed first draft. My first drafts are usually about 50,000 words, which leaves me

50,000 words to work with when I rewrite and, as you see above, it won't take long to

add those words. If you write a draft of 150,000 words you might run into a few

problems in the rewrite; adding words and longer interactive scenes could blow your

book out into unpublishable proportions. Aim for a lower word count on the draft, you

will appreciate the writing \- space later on. In terms of the soldier, you first take the

battle ground and then you go back to clean up, weed out all the things you missed in

the first assault. To me it is the natural order of things.

Scenes

Much like setting and characterization (character development, descriptions, action,

reaction and interaction) scene setting really can't just be tacked on, it is an integral

part of the story process. You can write a scene without a character as long as the

event itself plays a role in the story's movement forward. I suggest that a good scene

will have action (not like Rambo or Brave Heart but action within the word choice and

use) and movement. Whatever you do in writing, do not use static prose - don't stop

the movement just for a description or to tell a little inner story, always use your

words, every one of them, to the advantage of the overall novel.

The above story text has been delivered in a single scene. Here we have the character

interacting with the environment, giving some description (setting) and some

characterization as well as moving the story forward. Scenes themselves have

beginnings middles and ends, though these are not in themselves short stories. A scene

in the story is, at its heart, an element of change for the character, by the end of the

scene something needs to have changed otherwise there is no logical reason for its

inclusion. The change can be subtle or it can be life and story changing, but it has to

be there and it has to be forward moving.

Characters cannot exist in the story without a scene to exist in. Well, some writers say

they can but it is usually a very bland piece of writing and we are not after bland we

are after Best Seller material. I am not wanting to make you a literary guru or a grand

master of the written word. I am trying to help you write a book that will sell, and sell

well.

Everything you write in the Best Seller must move the story forward, never forget it

and never ignore it. Under no circumstances have the story stop and tread water. If you

can leave the scene out and it makes no difference to the story flow, then leave it out.

Part Three Speak to Me Dialogue

I had to have a separate section for dialogue because it is one of the hardest aspects of

fiction writing to get right. There are many ways to deal with character dialogue and to

a lesser degree inner character dialogue - the thought. Most of your dialogue at this

point will be a little forced or stilted. I expect this and it is natural for the first time

writer or the untrained writer. Unlike me, I hope to have you creating clean dialogue

by the end of the section and not after ten years. Though, even after all these years,

there are still things I can learn and adjust. As a writer we would benefit greatly by

accepting that we will always be learning how to be better writers, how to write better

scenes, settings and characters.

One part of writing is the said-isms or dialogue tags. He said, she said aren't a

problem as, with time, the reader actually ignores their existence. Often when you try

to change these saids for different words, like bellowed (anger), begged (anguish) or

queried (inquiry) you actually draw attention to the word and distract the reader from

the actual dialogue. Many writers still use adverbs as their tags, ...ly words. These

are okay for young adult or children's literature but they tend to weaken the prose in

adult novels.

E.g. "I hate you!" Beth said angrily.

This seems harmless enough but you are asking the author to imagine how Beth

might act when she is angry and if we don't know her very well then the word angrily

loses all meaning. This, to my mind, is far better.

E.g. "I hate you!" Beth threw a glass at the wall, her face red with anger.

The new version is longer but it gives more away of the situation, the character and the

emotion. This is adult writing; the former lacks strength and is something I term as lazy

writing. I don't hold fast to this rule though, and neither would you benefit from doing

so. The adverb serves its purpose and sometimes a simple adverb in the tag will get you

past a tough spot or a spot that doesn't require the emotional development.

Adverbs not to use. There are a few that are just plain bad for fiction writing. Suddenly,

laughingly, impishly or jokingly, these are just wrong. Others include real words with ly

added on to make the adverbs, like procrastinatingly. Can you read how these sound

awful? Say them out loud, listen to them, listen to all the adverbs you use, it will help

you to decide whether or not to use one then try something else.

Dialogue is the natural exchange or conversation between characters in a scene. It

conveys information about the character, the story and the plot, but it is never used as

exposition between characters to get a solid plot or story element across. I have seen this

in early works where the author has tried to immerse himself in what is known as the

showing style of writing but, in doing so, the narrative voices dropped out entirely. It

would be good to write a novel without narrative voice at all, it can be done, but for our

purposes, for the Best Seller purpose, we will keep it. An example of exposition in

dialogue is like this.

"After all you know we are the only two people in this boat."

No-one states the obvious like this, no-one talks to another person like this, so use the

narrator to deliver this snippet of information. Before you start the dialogue between the

two characters write a short paragraph of narrative description to set the scene.

The boat bobbed in the middle of the lake like a fat cork. Two men, dressed in black sat

facing each other, a small kerosene lamp the only source of light between them.

"Then comes the dialogue..."

One common mistake that writers make is to write how we speak or how we think we

speak. I know you are trying to get a natural feel to the dialogue exchanges but next time

you are in a cafe listen to people talking to each other - could you really expect people to

read such exchanges?

Dialogue is more how we would want people to speak and how we want them to sound in

their particular situation. The character's manner of speech will be affected by what is

being discussed and when and where that discussion is taking place. If the character is

upset then use dialogue to show this. The word choices made make a huge difference in

how the reader interprets verbal exchanges.

"What do you know?" Charlie said, carefully placing his napkin on the table. "Your type wouldn't know anything about divorce."

"Easy now, Charlie, there's no need to get defensive. I'm only trying to help."

"Help! You can stick your help up your ass for all I care..."

"The Church isn't your enemy," Vanessa sat back in her chair, sipping wine.

"Hypocrites, " Charlie snapped. "All your holier than thou mumbo jumbo does no*one any good, especially me."

The verbal exchange here gives you a good impression of what is being discussed and of

how the characters may be feeling. I have also been careful with word choice for each

character, subtle differences here set the two characters apart. You don't want your

characters speaking the same, using the same words. Everyone has a distinct manner of

expression, be it vocal or with body language.

At this point of your novel, maybe a chapter or three, you have, I hope had several

interactions between characters. If not, don't worry about it, you will pick it up now and

include it in all your new chapters. Don't go backwards, don't edit the already written

sections; trust me, it is a pointless exercise, moving forward is what you want to do,

and need to keep doing.

A Little Deviation

Everything I have shown you to this point has been structured in the showing style of

writing, the point of view of the character; the whole view of the world, setting and

scenes through their eyes with minimal interruption or influence from the narrator. If

written in this style, the Best Seller will work better. For me, and for you, there was no

point in explaining the telling style, the older style of story creation. No point learning

what you are not going to use, is there?

With showing the story, the dynamics of your characters change from simply telling the

reader about them to showing the story through them. The story, as shown from the

characters, through their eyes and life, takes on its own motion and the text becomes

active. Not always, but in general terms.

A straightforward example of this, besides what I have already written, is explained here:

The black ball dropped into the pocket and the burly miner righted himself with a self-satisfied smile. It was his fifth win in a row over Tom.

"Five pounds," he said, lifting his jug of beer. Tom glanced at Philip, knowing his friend barely had a farthing. He had to do something or they would both wind up dead in one of the dark alleys surrounding the pub.

"Philip," Tom said making out he was reaching for his purse. "Your sister has been fornicating with someone other than her husband." He saw Philip's face redden then the light of understanding gleamed in his eyes.

"I suggest you withdraw such a remark," Philip said.

"You don't believe me?" Tom said, challenging Philip with the point of his word.

" You think I would lie about Mary to save my own skin ? " He knew Philip wasn 't thinking like that but, for the onlookers, he had to go through the pretence. It would save face for Philip and create the chance for them to flee.

"I believe you would consider it, old chap, " Philip said, stepping into the sword, letting the tip touch his tunic. "I think a duel at dawn would be the proper settlement. "He tipped his hat in mock politeness. The miners roared with approval. For the time being the pool players had forgotten the unpaid.

I have shown what is happening through the characters and even from this small sample

you get the elements of what the story might be about. Even when writing from the

narrator's point of view, try and write in an active tone, don't tell the reader anything.

Tom was a bad boy. He loved drinking in pubs. He and Philip went to the pub and

had some drinks with the local pool boys who worked the mines. Tom gambled too much

money away and owed the boys more than he and Philip had. In order to get free of the

boys and their debt Philip accused Tom of indiscretions with his sister and they

planned a duel for the morning. During the night they crept out of their room and fled

town. They were leaving in a few days anyway.

All this is a bit flat don't you think? And you might have written your first chapter like

that, not to worry, we've made the change today and everything you write now will

show not tell. In my showing section I didn't write everything in, it would have been too

long but I hope I have given you enough to consider and guide you along. If you want to

know more about the process of 'Show, Don't Tell', the best sources of accurate

information is at www.sfwriter.com, Robert J Sawyer's website under 'On Writing

Articles'. I could of course spend several pages explaining it all in intricate detail but I

already have you writing in this fashion, the Best Seller fashion, and I don't want to

interrupt you any more than I have to.

All these processes can be studied in further detail later if you wish. Back to

Speaking

Over the years, I have learned many ways to deliver effective dialogue, but I think the

most effective method I learned cost me nothing, is easy to use, and never requires

updating. I want you to read your dialogue out loud while writing it. You can feel the

emotions of your character while you speak, listen to the words, the tone, even the

inflections you think you might want to use. This little gem of a tool has improved my

dialogue a hundred fold. I have also learned not to be too heavy on dialect or inflection as

the reader might find it just too hard to translate or understand.

Getting dialect right

If you are writing a Scottish character with a thick brogue accent, it is best not to write

entirely in that accent. Believe me, no-one will understand a word of it. Instead, write the

occasional word in the accent within the dialogue, perhaps a word used often, or even a

phrase the character uses all the time. This establishes that he/she has an accent and the

readers will translate, in their heads, all his/her dialogue into the accented form. It is part of

getting the reader to delve into your book rather than just read the words

"Aye," Tavendish said, drawing on his pipe. "I see the wee baern this morning."

Note, I haven't used the accent on every word, like it would be if spoken, but I have used

just enough to create the impression. I have also used some minor description to help paint

the picture. I have told writers repeatedly that they can change the whole flow of a scene

with a single word or a sentence. Always they laugh and say it isn't possible. Well.

"Aye!" Tavedish said, wiping his bloody hunting knife on his sleeve. "I see the wee baern this morning."

A few words differently and you get a very different interpretation of the text, small as it

is. The dialogue is, in essence, one of the main facets of the characterization process, but

we already had that section crammed with a lot of stuff to remember already, so looking at

this away from the clutter will probably serve you better. Your dialogue is your

Characters' expression of the world, the interpretation of what they see and what others

might be thinking. This leads us to the inner voice, or introspection. Another form of

dialogue.

The inner voice.

The inner voice is the thought process of your leading point of view character/s. I have

shown this throughout with my samples. The character says one thing then thinks

something else, or the character simply observes something and formulates an opinion or

an educated guess as to what is happening. It is the use of introspection (The look inside -

the thought) that helps us get story elements across that would have no other way to

become apparent.

Chris, in my sample story, thinks about things that would not be shown to others. Sarah

thinks of Chris and her desires for him that would otherwise go unnoticed, as there is no

logical reason for her to speak these thoughts and the narrative is already trying hard no to

interfere too much in the story.

The inner dialogue, used to a lesser degree to regular dialogue, can get some crucial

information across to the reader; it is information only the principle character knows and

they are sharing it with the reader.

The main idea I want you to grasp and apply, is that each character has his or her own

voice traits within the story. Once you have established the tone of their voices and the

manner in which they speak, it will become possible to use their dialogue without tags at

all. This is great during conspiracies or arguments that are just verbal. You also need to

establish protocols for the character's manner of speech. When Chris talks to strangers, his

speaking manner is distant, formal, but when speaking to Sarah it is relaxed, informal. Be

mindful of these mannerisms when you are having your character conversing with other

characters. Tones change for different circumstances so work on the manner and voice

print (so to speak) for each character. Don't worry about walk on characters or flat

characters, no-one really cares how they sound, the focus is on our main characters, our

protagonists.

I have found that the self -mentoring technique I mentioned earlier is amazing at teaching

yourself how to create different voices. Read the De Vinci Code by Dan Brown and see

first-hand how he uses voice. Again, don't copy anything, use your own words, your own

inflections as to directly copy his text is illegal as I said previously.

Watch for repetition in your sentence structure. You might like a particular way a

sentence works and fall into the habit of using it all the time, or more often than it needs to

be. Sentences need to be variable, short and succinct in dialogue, don't create a pattern of

repetition; it is just plain boring. And avoid the talking head syndrome. Characters move

about, shift position, or do things while they talk, so capture snippets of this to give those

dialogue segments depth and colour.

Part Four

Beyond the basics

I hope you are writing every day, even if it is only a little bit and I hope you are moving

forward like I told you to. Applying the learned material to work as you are writing, is

better than learning it all first and trying to get it all right the first time. Sorry, despite

many books on writing stating otherwise, you have to actively write and learn while you

are writing to get the best out of all this information. Even while writing this book, I

learned some things to help me with my own writing. I am not an expert on any subject,

so I had to do a little research to get things straight for you and in that process I gathered

extra little bits of information for my own creative endeavors. I have shared them with

you, but still research all areas of writing yourself after you've completed the first draft.

There is more to learn than just my few words in this book.

I have shown you pretty much the basics of getting that Best Seller in motion but there

are things that will come in handy during the first re-write. These are the touches that

make the difference between a good book and a great book, but you need a book to work

on first. So complete the book, complete The Writing Soldier's basic training, then we can

move on to refining those skills.

Creating the Mood

The mood of the story is actually created within your setting, the support vehicle for

your scene. The mood of a scene can be determined on the location and the place the

event takes place. You get a different feeling from a death on a battle field compared to

a death in an emergency ward, or a death at home on the lounge chair. You, at this point,

will have many settings and scenes in your novel and most will probably have the right

mood but I want you now to go back through the book and closely examine how the

scene and setting are put together to create the appropriate mood.

Timing is a mood imperative. The time setting of your novel can dictate as much about

setting and scene as anything else you use in your book. Japan in 1924 is vastly different

from Japan in 2006, or even a possible Japan in 5026. You need, or would best to

consider, the mood of the world at that time. Your character of 1924 will not be

considering things outside a mindset of that era and likewise a character in 5026 would

not be thinking of history or in terms from 2006. These affect the mood of the story.

They are the finer points to be addressed in your re-write.

The mood of a scene and the whole book depends heavily on your word choices and

how you describe your settings. It is tough to imagine mood as it is such a subjective

aspect of the writing and each reader will have his own interpretation of the mood you

have tried to create. I am going to give you three examples of the very same scene but

create different moods for each.

Standard text

Chris unlocked his room door and gently pushed it inwards.

"Turn the lights on," the woman behind him said. He could feel the press of the silencer in his back. "Easy," she added with an extra prod.

The lights came on and Chris stepped into the room. The bed was made, his clothes were neatly folded on a chair in the corner.

"Turn the TV on. "

He moved to the bedside table and picked up the remote and selected a channel. The screen came to life with a commercial for washing liquid. In the brightness of the room. Chris could see that the woman's clothes weren't as crisp as he had first thought. There were fine wrinkles and small stains on the yellow material, and her hair, stylishly messy, was in fact just plain messy.

" Where is she? " The woman asked pushing the clothes off the chair and sitting down. She obviously wasn't in a hurry.

Darker

Chris squinted through the gloom of the hallway. With a slight shake he unlocked the room door and gently pushed it inwards. He could feel blood on his lips where the woman had hit him with the gun to get him to the right room. The smell of Sulphur stung his eyes, the red glow from the room quickened his heart.

"Leave the lights off, " the woman said. He couldn't see her but the sound of her voice prickled his skin as did the growing stink of the room. "Get in before I rip you heart out through your back," she added with an extra prod of the gun in his back. Chris stepped into the darkness, the door closed behind him with a solid click. He could hear his own breathing, see the dull misty glow of red light and hear the low growl of an animal.

"He's here," she said.

He moved to the bedside table, feeling his way down the side of the bed looking for his gun. The room shimmered. The woman became a shifting shadow. Her gun reflected the

light.

"Is he the one?" A deep voice asked. The light brightened slightly and a darker shadow moved to the bed.

"What's going on?" Chris asked, trying to step back but finding the wall behind him.

"This could get messy," she said.

Lighter

Chris unlocked his room door and gently pushed it inwards.

"Turn the lights on," the woman behind him said. He could feel the press of the silencer in his back. "Come on, I'm horny, " she added with an extra prod.

"What?" Chris said turning the lights on.

"You heard me, I'm in need."

He stepped into the room. The bed was made, his clothes were neatly folded on a chair in the corner.

"Turn some music on. " She dropped the gun on the bed and slid out of her dress to stand in her underwear before him.

"What is this?" he asked snatching up the gun and pointing it at her. "What are you doing? "

"My pickup lines are awful, so I have a little encourager to give them a boost," she said releasing the strap on her bra. "It's not a real gun by the way."

Chris checked. It was a replica. Real enough to look at but it didn't work. He reached behind his back and pulled out his gun. It was real and he didn't want to play the woman's game.

Three identical scenes; three separate moods. The mood of the scene changes with the

alteration of a few words - well, quite a few in some instances. We still get the sense of

the room, the gun, Chris and the woman. The motivations in each are very different. In

my sample story for this book the second mood is nothing like the story, the third is

inappropriate and gratuitous. The first would work well enough and would fit with the

overall feel of the book, which is a pacey, mystery, action thriller. You might find you

go back to scenes and change their mood to fit with other elements of your Best Selling

novel.

Consistency in mood is another story writing imperative. Don't have the mood between

scenes jump about or change too severely. If Chris' scenes are all tension with just a few

lulls then make those lulls have elements of tension, just down played. Think of yourself

if you have had a tough week at work, with the children or personally. When you

remove yourself from the situation that has been stressing you, does the stress simply go

away? No, it lessens to a degree, but it still hangs there like a bad smell. Remember your

characters are people to so have them react in the same way people do, this way you will

create a consistent mood for you novel as well as believable characters.

Action.

This isn't just the text action I wrote about but the real action. The Writing Soldier isn't

just a passive observer or creator of words, and the reader doesn't just want a nice story.

The reader wants to read about the characters in action scenes. A whole book of action is

boring, but a book with a measured amount of action will sell well, and will become a

Best Seller.

To write an action scene does take some skill. In your book you would have written, well

I hope you have written, some action scenes, be they car chases, fights or

arguments. Acts of violence are usually used in action but please don't make it

gratuitous. If this violent action is necessary for the plot, the characters and the story,

fine, but if you leave it out and the story still reads fine, then just leave it out.

Remember, everything needs to have a purpose in the Best Seller, even action scenes.

Actions scenes all lack elements you have been encouraged to write. They lack

characterization, they lack introspection and they lack deep settings. Why? Well think of

action. When you are playing a sport, are you thinking about the state of your car? Are

you thinking about your family or about the texture of the ball you are about to hit? No,

you are involved in the action, you are simply moving to connect with the ball, to get the

ball, to pass it or score.

If you are writing a fight scene, your characters are not thinking about the blows they are

laying, or even thinking about the pain they might be feeling. They have only one goal

-to win. So, no thinking beyond short considerations for motion, attack, defence or

escape.

Action scenes are made up of very short, snappy sentences. They can jump about and

even feel haphazard at times - depending on the action you are writing. A battlefield

scene would be like this. A simple fight scene would be a little like this.

Chris wrestled the woman to the ground. She punched and kicked. Hit him in the

groin. It hurt, but he held on. Tried to grab the gun. The woman broke free and

scratched at him. His face stung. He tasted blood on his lips. Chris punched. The woman

screamed. The gun went off and they both lay still. Chris rolled off the woman, he could

hear her ragged breathing...

No setting, no thoughts, but it gets the intensity of the moment across. Don't try to draw

out your action scene to fill space, it will show and the modern reader will get bored and

put the book down. You don't want the reader to willingly put your book down. Best

Sellers have the ability to totally engage the reader. If your action scenes are tight and

Well-spaced throughout the book the reader will not get the time to become bored.

If you had a fight in the first part of your novel, don't have a fight in the middle of the

book, unless the fight is very, very different and the outcome is the reverse of the initial

fight. Create variations in action and use all the variations you can think of to carry action

through the novel. The Writing Soldier is trained for action, the action of writing. The

Writing Soldier is also trained to forge on regardless of the obstacles. If action scenes

become one of your obstacles, then work on it; don't just try to get it right, get it right. You

can do it. I know you can do it. You are reading this small piece of text so I know you

have the knowledge and you are actively writing so I know you have the ability.

I like to see a little bit of action in each and every chapter - not the fight type action but

verbal action, physical action, story action. The text needs to breathe, it needs to gasp at

times and it needs to mellow at others. As you pour yourself into the writing you will

live the book and the book will live you. The readers will see your passion through your

words, they will experience the world you have created with the same passionate resolve

you wrote it with. The Best Seller does this.

Make good use of the senses. Seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting and touching. When

re-writing the book create a textured feel to it; it is an experience, not just a

journey through words.

Editing

The Writing Soldier would be useless if he didn't have the ability to self asses

and changes his approach to his task should situations arise to alter the order of

things. It is true, an editor from a publishing house, will work with you on your

novel after sale but, if that work looks too great, he will pass on your book as

fast as he can pass wind.

No text is perfect and, even after many months of editing, it will never be perfect, as

editing is a purely subjective perspective. Each editor is different; each publishing house

has different conventions and needs.

You can of course pay an editor to re-work your book and get it ready for submission to a

publisher, but as I have said repeatedly, this is expensive - there are cheap editors out

there but will they do the job required for the Best Seller? Usually not. I have edited

books that have been through an editing process paid for by the writer and it was very

clear the editor knew nothing about novels, genre or good story showing. And these

writers have paid several thousands of dollars for this editing. If you have to pay for an

editor, make sure he has a track record of some sort, that he has edited in your chosen

genre and that he doesn't charge by the hour. Always negotiate a set fee for the

completed book. These edits are usually structural edits, which reshape your story, your

characters and even the main plot line. Don't confuse this with copy editing or proofing,

they are separate issues. I am a structural editor, I do not offer proof reading done by

myself. I employ a specialist proof reader. They do not need to understand genre, only

correct grammar and punctuation. If you do get a proof edit done, try and hunt down

an English teacher who wouldn't mind a few extra dollars. A professional proof reader

will cost around $800 for a book of 80,000 words. If you have a good English teacher

you could get this service for about $300 - or like I did with my novel 'Life Light' a

carton of beer.

How much can you expect to pay for structural editing? If you were using me, it would

be a few thousand dollars, but I have edited over twenty full length novels with two

Best Sellers in two different genres, and a host of non fiction books. Most of these books

have been published and sold through book stores. To assess what you pay you will also

need to assess what a publisher might buy your book for. There is a point where the sale

price doesn't cover the money spent on editing, therefore you have lost money. The Best

Seller on the other hand will exceed what you pay.

Can I do this myself?

You bet. When I started out writing I had to teach myself all aspects of the process and it

was a slow and long learning curve. Today, you have access to hundreds of books on

writing and editing, though the best editors don't actually put out books on editing for

obvious reasons. Even I am only going to show you some basics. Remember this is my

livelihood.

When editing your novel, it is wise to put it aside for at least six weeks. This enables

your mind to let go of the novel and the story. Do some things you might have ignored

during the writing process, visit people or maybe even do the dishes. The greater the

distance you put between yourself and the novel, the more accurate your editing will be.

Some writing books have you editing in a matter of days - too close, not enough

objectivity. You will misread the novel as most of it is still fresh in your mind, those

obvious mistakes will slip past your guard.

The key to good editing is objectivity

Now you open your file and start to read through your text. You may cringe and think

the whole thing is load of rubbish and not worth saving. That is normal and all writers

feel this way when they sit down to edit. That doesn't make the work unusable. You are

now seeing the text for what it really is. You will see flaws and awkward language, you

will see characters who just make you shudder and you will find a storyline that has

more holes in it than the ozone layer. Sit back, have a few moments to yourself and let the

initial shock pass.

Knowing something needs fixing is the first step in the editing process. Knowing how to

fix it is the next. Sometimes this will be simple because, by the end of the first draft, you

would have changed considerably as a writer. Many times the first three chapters are

simply dumped and rewritten from scratch (I do this). Another point is knowing what to

leave out. If you have a piece of text (part of a scene or setting) that you feel is stand-out,

perhaps even the best thing you have written, that is the first thing you cut. Why? You

are after a book of consistency, a stand-out phrase or section of text will detract from the

rest of the book, it will draw attention away from the story as a whole. The idea is to

have a whole book of stand-out text or, for the Best Seller, a whole book that shows a

strong and consistent story that almost removes itself from the actual words.

There is no easy way to edit. The best and most effective way is to re-write and re-write

until the story and novel takes on a saleable form. I don't think there is any point in

having friends or relatives read the book and getting their comments, they are simply not

objective enough and getting a manuscript assessment only helps sometimes as the

comments they supply are at best superficial. A good assessment can give you direction

and can find a few weak points in the book, but it can't replace the editing/rewriting

process. For me, the editing process took about three years, but I had to learn everything

by myself, so you won't have to spend quite so much time doing this. Then maybe you

will; it all depends on your work ethic and application. It is best to put at least six weeks

between you and the finished first draft. The reason for this is to help you clear your

mind and separate you from the impact the book has had on your life. Soldiers, after a

battle, take leave to regroup and rethink their strategies, so too, The Writing Soldier.

Read books, take walks, get to know your family again during this time, the more you

distance yourself from the work the better equipped you will be for the editing job at

hand.

I am going to show you how it is done in the only way that will make sense to you. I am

going to create a poor piece of writing – unedited, then I am going to show you the

changes I make to get more out of the story and my characters.

The original story opening (Deliberately written in a hackneyed tone)

Running In Vacuum

The only intelligent life to be found in space can be found within our own minds, inner

space is the frontier we need to explore. The outer regions are barren.' A. D. Hustet,

Director,Alternative Reality Institute Betaville, Emerald.

The command room grew brighter with pulsating light, like a white dwarf flare contained in a compact tin can. Darkness followed, deep, black and silent.

"Shit!" cried the thin voice of Commander Soderstrom, slamming her opened palm into the darkness. Pain erupted as the impact reverberated up the length of her arm. "Shit!" She screamed, as she watched a few lights flicker to life on her operations board. "What in all space hells was that?"

"Calm down, Soderstrom, " crooned the thickly accented voice ofNarryn, the navigation officer. "Probably just some dust clouds, Gilba will have the problem fixed in no time, so relax."

In the darkness, Sei imagined she could see Narryn's glistening dark eyes squinting with malice. She could see his ugly scarred face, with its tight thin lips, grinning at her. She was angered by her imagination's image of the man seated next to her. She punched her balled fist into the internal comm stud on her system desk, one of the two systems displaying life. "Engineering!" Nothing. "Come on!" Trust me to end up with a ship full of dead beats. Her thoughts cursed her own lack of confidence and reminded her of the steady stream of command failures that had plagued her career.

"The man's probably busy Soderstrom, wait a bit," laughed Narryn.

She thumped the unit again. Sei noticed the recoil of her arm. Gravs as well! Shit and double shit. "Engineering! Come on Gilba, punch the stud. What's going on back there?"

"Take it easy," sighed Narryn, placing a hand on Set's shoulder. "Gilba and his computers can fix anything and what they can't fix, good ole Isaac will fix. No problems."

Sei shrugged off the man's hand. "That's the problem with you Military dead beats, you rely too heavily on your damn computers and artificial Mr Fixits. If you haven't

noticed, Narryn, the computers are what's dead and that was no bloody dust cloud we passed through."

"I know this ship, Commander. I 've been aboard this ship twelve years. I was with the Helycon when we met the..."

"I don't want to hear a tired old man's war stories Nav, especially when it includes this tired old bucket of scrap." Sei growled. Narryn fell silent. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm trying to think." She wondered if all the crew were this rude to new Commanders.

Sei touched the ship-to-ship communications stud on her headset and steadied her voice.

"Frenta Laynan, this is Helycon. We have an emergency." She waited but there was no response from the sister ship. "Captain Pengyl this is Commander Soderstrom, we have lost drive power and some essential systems have gone offline. Please respond."

Silence.

"Pengyl's an independent, he won't risk his command for us."

" You 'd better hope he proves you wrong Nav, otherwise we could be nothing more than frozen meat in a few hours." Sei shuddered with the thought of another failed mission. She turned in the direction of Narryn. "I want you to get off your fat ass and climb under this command system desk, find something wrong and fix it. "

"Not likely, Soderstrom, you..."

"That's a bloody order, Narryn," Sei roared. "Now you get under there and find something to fix before I jam my little girlie fist down your throat so far I'll be able to pull your stomach out past your larynx." Her words whipped across Narryn like the live end of an arching power lead. "And you are on report for questioning your senior officer." She felt better for saying it but knew no-one would care if she reported them or not.

Narryn said nothing more as he unbuckled his harness and slid under the system desk. Sei mentally calculated their relative distance from the Azure rim in an effort to calm her adrenaline shake. "Three months - a damn long way from anywhere," she grimaced.

"What?" called Narryn from his hidey-hole.

"Find anything?" Sei barked.

"Too dark, can't see a thing," he mumbled.

" Well stay there until I say you can come out." Looking down on the dead system desk the Commander of the Helycon pondered death, not for the first time.

The editing of the story

Running In Vacuum

'The only intelligent life to be found in space can be found within our own minds, inner

space is the frontier we need to explore. The outer regions are barren.' A. D. Hustet,

Director, Alternative Reality Institute, Betaville, Emerald.

The command room grew brighter with pulsating light, like a white dwarf flare contained in a compact tin can. Darkness followed, deep, black and silent. The command room flared. Something had hit them. The room blacked out.

"Shit!" cried the thin voice of Commander Krult (I originally had her name as Krult. That was such a silly name) Soderstrom, slamming her opened palm into the darkness. Pain erupted as the impact reverberated up the length of her arm. "Damn it!" she yelled, as she watched a few lights flickered to life on her operations board. "What in all space hells was that?"

"Calm down Soderstrom, Checkin' diagnostics now, Sir, " said crooned the thickly accented voice of Narryn, the first officer. "Systems are coming back on line, a few red lights, doesn't look serious. " Probably just some dust clouds, Gilba will have the problem fixed in no time, so relax."

Note the simplification of the text, the more direct nature of the information.

In the darkness, Soderstrom imagined she could see Narryn's glistening dark eyes squinting with malice; She could sec his ugly, scarred face creasing up at her brief show of panic. She didn't like him and the feeling was mutual, with its tight thin lips, grinning at her. She was angered by her imagination's image of the man seated next to her. She punched her balled fist into the internal comm stud on her system desk, one of the two systems displaying life . "Engineering!" Nothing. "Come on!" Trust me to end up with ship full of dead beats. Her thoughts She cursed her own lack of confidence and reminded her of the steady stream of command failures that had plagued this trip.

As you will see above, the deleted section is overwriting, saying too much. The new

writer and, of course, his first draft, will be littered with this type of writing. Read the

section without the deleted information and note that it doesn't suffer from its exclusion, if

anything, it is much improved. On the surface, the information looks imperative but, under

scrutiny, it just doesn't add anything vital to the story.

In the darkness Soderstrom imagined she could see Narryn's glistening dark eyes squinting with malice; his ugly, scarred face creasing up at her brief show of panic. She didn't like him and the feeling was mutual.

"Engineering!" Nothing. "Come on!" Trust me to end up with a ship full of dead beats. She cursed her lack of confidence and the steady stream of command failures that had

plagued this trip.

You will notice this type of writing most in your first few chapters. This is where you were

starting out and thought everything in your head was important. Sometimes, just starting

those chapters again using only a part of the original information works best. The

further you move into the book the more you will become comfortable with removing

dead text - text that does nothing to advance the story. You may need to change

character information (descriptions) in order for them to become more active.

There is nothing you have written to this point that cannot be edited - be open to changes

and be prepared to make those changes.

"The man's probably busy, Soderstrom, wait a bit," laughed Narryn. She thumped the system desk again, nothing. Comms were down. Sci noticed the recoil of her arm. Gravs as well! Shit and double shit. "Engineering!" She tried not to yell but did anyway. She was angry at Narryn and angry at herself. "Come on Gilba, punch the stud. What's going on back there?" She unbuckled herself from the command chair and reached up to touch the low bulkhead.

"Take it easy, " sighed Narryn, obviously enjoying the situation, placing a hand on Sci's shoulder "Gilba and his computers can fix anything, just give him some time. So relax." and what thev can't fix good old Isaac will fix. No problems."

Sci shrugged off the man's hand. "That's the problem with you military dead beats, you rely too heavily on your damn computers and artificial Mr Fixits. If you haven't noticed,

Narryn, the computers are what's dead and I happen to think that is serious. and that was no bloody dust cloud we passed through."

"I know this ship, Commander. I've been aboard this ship twelve years. I was with the Helycon when we met the..."

"I don't want to hear your tired old man's war stories, Nav, especially when it includes this tired old bucket of scrap." she growled. Narryn fell silent. "Now, if you don't mind, see if you can get the comms up so I can speak with engineering., I'm trying to think." Soderstrom hated insubordination but this wasn 't strictly a military ship any more, wondered if all the crew were this rude to nov Commanders. She touched the ship-to-ship communications stud on her headset and steadied her voice. "Frenta Laynan, this is Helycon. We have an emergency." She waited but there was no response from the sister ship. "Captain Pengyl, this is Commander Soderstrom, we have lost drive power and some essential systems have gone offline. Please respond. " Silence.

"Pengyl's gone full independent, he won't risk his ship command for us."

"You 'd better hope he proves you wrong, othenvise we could be nothing more than frozen meat in a few hours." Sci shuddered with the thought of another failed mission. She turned in the direction of Narryn. She drifted over to the hatchway that led aft. "I want you to get off your fat ass and climb under this command system desk, find something wrong and fix it."

"Not likely Sodcrstrom, you... "

"That's a bloody order, Narryn," she roared. "Now you get under there and find something to fix before I jam my little girlie fist down your throat so far I'll be able to pull your balls out passed your larynx." Her words whipped across Narryn like the live end of an arching power lead. "And you are on report for questioning your commander." She felt better for saying it but knew no one would care if she reported them or not.

Narryn said nothing more as he unbuckled his harness and slid under the system desk.

Sci mentally calculated their relative distance from the Azure rim in an effort to calm her adrenaline shake. "Three months is a damn long way from anywhere," she grimaced.

"What?" called Narryn from his hidy hole.

"Find anything?" Soderstom asked, trying to think of decisions that might save her crew if things got worse.

"Too dark, can't see a thing," he mumbled.

" Well stay there until I say you can come out." Looking down on the dead system desk the Commander of the Hclycon pondered death, not for the first time.

I think it could do with a lot more editing than I have done, but hopefully you will get

the idea. I have in effect cut about 50% of the words, as they were superfluous and

did nothing to advance the idea, the characters or the scene. This exercise shows

clearly the importance of distance between writer and his created work. You might

like to read some writing books while you wait that six weeks. Don't act on anything

they say, but just take the information on board for the time being. Also read a few

Best Selling novels just so you can get a better handle on what makes a good story -

not a literary masterpiece, but a damn good read.

Before you start altering the text, save a copy in a separate file for reference to later. You

might make changes that don't work out and find the original text would have been better.

You can cut and past from the original document. When you cut text, have a blank

document open and paste the cut sections in the document and save. You might never use

any of the text you cut but, as you can never be truly sure, this is a good way to save

yourself the hassle of trying to remember what you had in place before you cut.

Write the new text in place before you cut the old text; you might need to reference it as

you write. You can use your font colors to make this easier for yourself. Black for the

original text, blue for the new. I don't like the corrections manager in MS word (tracker) it

fills the screen with too much rubbish.

Nothing is set in concrete. Every bit of text in your novel document can be changed. Like

a soldier on the battle field, if one course of action doesn't feel right, then choose another

and another until it does feel right. Don't be afraid to kill off a character if it is getting in the

way of the story. Don't hang on to characters in a story if they serve no real purpose. If

their role can be transferred to another character good, it makes one less character to

worry about. Too many characters complicate things, but you are not going to

see this in the first draft. It is in re-writing and editing that you get the full impact of your

book and the full view of your characters in action. You can try to pre-empt this before

you write but I think it is just far too much to try and remember. The idea of the first draft

is to get everything down, then craft it into the Best Selling novel.

Self Assessment

It is during the rewriting and editing stages that you can confidently assess your own

writing - provided you put that gap between you and the completed draft. After your

rewrite you might want to do this again. It is free and all it costs is a bit of time.

To assess your work, read it all out loud, preferably in front of a mirror. I know it might

sound strange but it works and has worked for thousands of writers for many, many

years. Just hearing the story gives you a better feeling for it. Your speaking it out loud,

will give you a similar experience to the readers. Only they will use their internal voices.

Through this reading process, you will be able to hear those sentences that fumble and

bumble. If you stumble over phrases or words, it could be that they need replacing or the

phrase needs re-wording. Through reading, you will be able to hear if something makes

sense or not.

Why pay a few hundred dollars to an assessor, when this is about all he is really doing. You

can do this yourself and by doing it yourself you are learning, absorbing more information

about writing. It is only by actively writing and rewriting the book yourself do you really

improve as a writer. And that is what I want you to do. Write, improve, write some more

and improve some more.

Writing-books can only ever give you the basics of the craft. It can only ever direct you, it

cannot do the work for you and it can by no means make the process easy -easier, yes, but

not easy.

You are a Writing Soldier

You have come to the end of your basic training, you have a full kit bag, you have the

draft of your book, or are nearing the completion of the first draft, and you have writing

ammunition to go into battle and craft the Best Seller.

How long will it take?

How long does anything take? This is entirely up to you. Soldiers don't go into battle

knowing when it will end, they just know that one day it must. The Writing Soldier is no

different.

Part Five

The Business of Publishing and the Writer

This is where all the best laid battle plans fall into a heap. You've got the book, it has

been formatted as I have shown and the first three chapters have been printed out ready to

post. Now what? Well, you aren't quite ready for the posting stage for a start. You need to

write a synopsis of your book in under two pages. If you do it in a page and half I would

be very pleased. Then you need to find your market, an agent, and consider what you

really want to accomplish with your novel. Not all Best Sellers come from the big

publishing houses. Harry Potter came from a very small company (which is now quite big

due to this series success) and, on the very rare occasion, from a self-published book. The

author Matthew Reilly started this way, but he is now published by big press these days.

But we have to start somewhere.

Mainstream Publishing - The Big Press

Synopsis (which is required no matter which publishing stream you use)

To sell your book to a publisher will require a synopsis,' a break down of what the book is

about. You cannot avoid this part of the process so suck it up and let's get on with it.

The best way to write a synopsis is in the omniscient point of view, editors prefer this.

Write succinctly what the story (novel) is about. Show how you get from chapter 1 to the

end of the novel. Do not leave anything out that is imperative to the story. If the book is a

mystery, then you need to show how it is solved in the synopsis, no secrets, no

'then guess what happens next' ending to the piece. Editors need to know everything

about your main plot line, the high points, the building tensions and the conclusion. I

have read hundreds of synopses and most fall well short of getting me excited about the

books they represent and many of them do not show the skill of the writer. A good

synopsis is a selling tool, it sells the novel and it displays the skills of the writer.

Like all aspects of writing, the synopsis takes practice, a lot of practice. You can spend

several months on the synopsis alone just to get it right to catch the glancing eye of the

editor. Yes, you got it right, 'glancing eye'. A slow and boring synopsis isn't likely to

make me read the opening chapters of the book, and I dare say most publishing house

editors are of a similar mind.

If the novel is action, then present the action; if it is mystery, show how you have

developed it. If the book is historical fiction, then a paragraph on the accuracy of events

can be permitted at the end of the synopsis - not a three-page research paper, a paragraph.

I'm tougher than most editors so, if you can do this for someone like me, then the chances it

will work just nicely for other editors.

BUT! If the industry works how it usually does (no hard and fast rule on this I'm afraid)

then your synopsis will probably land on the editor's assistant's desk first and these are

tough, tough readers. You are going to have to convince someone to hand your book to the

very busy and time strapped boss. The Best Seller does this and the Writing Soldier

ensures what is presented to that assistant will make him hand it up the line.

You have spent a good many months preparing your Best Selling novel, you have

studied, researched, written and rewritten, you have edited until the text almost bleeds

from your mind - DON'T WASTE THAT ENERGY. Sit back, think, then prepare the

first draft of that synopsis, the draft can be as long as you want. Fifty pages if that is what

it takes. From the draft, you simply apply the same rewriting and editing protocols you

applied to the novel. It is in a different voice of course, but you will find for the synopsis

it is an easier voice to use and one that allows you to tell everything quickly.

If this becomes too difficult, you can find websites dedicated to just writing the synopsis

-don't get someone else to write it for you, it will show in your book - and sometimes

further reading on this important subject can help. I encourage it, but first, like the novel,

you must be actively writing it, already working on the synopsis.

Have you caught on that I don't want you to stop writing? Good. A soldier doesn't stop

being a soldier when a battle ends so neither does the Writing Soldier.

A small bit of information that is usually not passed on to writers, or in many instances is

misrepresented, is that the commissioning editor isn't the one who says definitively that

he will buy your book. He would like to buy it; he is the one making the decision to add

your book to their list but he is not the buyer. All the big editing houses have what is

known as an acquisitions meeting, the weekly or monthly meeting where editors put their

choices for the list forward. How this is done is different for each company but they all

have a system in place for book purchasing. The editor who wants to add your book to

their list, puts forward the argument why he wants your book. It is considered, then

weighed up against many factors from author identity to how many words. It is at this

stage that many new novels and authors fail. It isn't your work, the story or your writing

skills. At this point, it is just a pure business and marketing decision. There is nothing

you can do about it and no amount of badgering the editor will change that decision.

The truth behind this industry is that it is a business, a business that must make money,

must show a profit at the end of each financial year. Know it, understand it and accept it.

You will live a less stressful writing life this way.

The Literary Agent

Unless you are sending your novel to a Small Press publisher you are going to need a

literary agent. Many, if not all publishers today require that manuscripts only come

through agents. You can of course try by yourself, but after a couple of years of

rejections, no responses and misguided leads, you will find yourself back at this point.

You need an agent.

How to get an agent

Getting an agent is as hard as getting a publisher and you submit sample chapters, a

synopsis. plus a covering letter to agencies in the same way you used to do this with

major publishers. If they like what you have, you get a contract. If they don't, you either

get a polite letter saying 'no thanks' or you don't get a reply at all. There is no point ringing

and harassing an agent over your submission to them. Many writers' lists talk at length

about query letters, time to wait and how to follow up. I apply this simple rule. If they

don't contact me in twelve weeks, move on. Don't query. If it takes longer than twelve

weeks, then it might take that long to answer your emails even if you do get signed by

them. The Association of Author Representatives (AAR) puts out a list of agents for you

to search and apply to. It is a hard road, take it and bring along a spare pair of shoes.

Once you have got the agent, it in no way guarantees you will immediately get published.

Publishing houses use agents as a filtering system for manuscripts. Without agents

publishers would get hundreds of novels sent to them each week (sometimes each day)

but, with agents, they tend to get a lesser amount and almost all have been targeted for

their publishing lists. This makes the job of being a publishing house editor less stressful

and keeps the already large slush pile of manuscripts to a manageable level. Though,

going by my own information, some return times, even through agents, have reached over

eight months with some publishers. So don't think getting published is going to happen

fast; it isn't.

Agents also handle the contract side of the business, they understand what can and what

can't take place. They will act on your behalf at all times simply because, the better the

contract they get for you, the better their percentage pay off will be.

No legitimate agent charges you any up front fees

Agent fees range from 10% -15% (the latter being the norm)

Legitimate agents do not charge reading or contract fees

Over the years, I have met writers who have negotiated their own contracts and, in all

circumstances, those contracts have been poor and resulted in a reduction in the author's

earning capacity in the long term. The agent can get better rights allocations and manage

rights sell offs better than the writer. Some publishers will only accept an all rights deal

but the agent in this circumstance will be able to ensure that you get the right percentage

payments on those rights. It can be a tricky and sometimes messy business after the initial

sale offer, having someone who knows how to do it for you is always a good option.

The Advance

Getting the highest possible advance payment isn't always the best business decision to

make. Up front, it looks great but it comes with a catch. You have to see enough books to

cover that big advance and if you are a new author, unknown to the reading public, this

might not be an easy thing to accomplish. When the book doesn't sell its initial print run,

or cover costs for the publisher, it is then you might find yourself cut from future book

sales. Just changing publishers isn't going to fix this situation either. As all publishers have

access to book sales lists, they will be able to see how well your last book sold.

So, if your agent takes a lower advance fee, don't go getting all upset over it. The smaller

amount of books to sell to earn back the advance, the more chance that a reprint will be

enacted and the bigger chance that the publisher will also take your next book. If and

when your books sells well, you will earn royalties from the sale, so what you feel you

might lose up front you will gain at the end of each sales quarter. I personally prefer this

approach; it is a safer deal for new writers. The established writers can negotiate on their

selling name. That is why you read about some big advances being paid.

If you are writing to get rich, pick another trade

This is why you need an agent. Let's see if you can do all this thinking while you are

trying to write your novel. Writing Soldiers, like any soldier, live within a chain of

command. They do not do everything themselves. How many front line soldiers also

understand communications, mapping, tactics and the finer intricacies of artillery?

Soldiers just do their part and others act as support for their actions. The agent is a

support mechanism for the Writing Soldier. It leaves all the important stuff up to you

-writing.

The Presses

The Big Press – Mainstream

This is where you want to sell your novel. The mainstream presses have clout with the

bookstores and book chains and are the best at getting your book reviewed in papers and

distributed across the country (sometimes the world). To play in the market, you need an

agent, no question about it.

Small Press

The size of the Small Press can vary from country to country. In the USA, this press can

rival some of the bigger presses in Europe and Asia (Australia as well). Over the years,

many small press novels have become best selling books so I wouldn't cut them off the

submissions list. They are just your first fall back position. Like the major publishers,

you will have to research their lists and consider their requirements. There is no point

sending your Thriller to a Science Fiction publisher or your male orientated Action

Adventure to a women's issues press.

Some of these presses still require the use of an agent and, unless you use an agent, your

submission might end up in the bin, unread without even a reply. I told you, this is a

tough business run by people who have already walked the rocky road to their positions.

No-one is going to cut you any slack because you are new.

The advances in small press vary and do not come close to those offered by larger

publishing houses. In some cases there is no advance at all, just the royalty contract and a

few copies for your browse shelf. Some small press publishers have been able to on-sell

book rights to larger publishing houses, thus gaining you wider distribution and notice.

Depending on the contract you have negotiated, this could pay you well or, as is often the

case, only earn you a small cut of the revenue. This isn't a lost cause though, as it can

often open the way for your next book to be picked up by the big presses. But it would

be a very bad move to treat the small press as simply a stepping stone to bigger things.

You could find yourself as a small press author, never picked up by the big houses, and

yet still able to have Best Selling novels. Respect all publishers that act to sell your

books on the wider market place.

Some small presses aren't publishers at all, but are Vanity Presses in the guise of a small

press house. If at any time you must contribute to the publication of your book, for any

reason, this will be considered a Vanity Production, a major step below the traditional

Self Publishing practice. Most Vanity Publishers promise great deals, distribution,

listings, editing, market appraisals and much, much more. You might even get a set of

steak knives but all this comes at a cost. You pay for it and, from my research on the

majority of these concerns, their promises are as misguided and lack lustre as is the

quality of their publications.

Do not pay a publishing house to publish your book - it will cost you many thousands of

dollars and leave you with a shed full of poor quality books you can't even give away.

If the publisher asks for money, walk away.

Self Publishing

There was a time when self-publishing meant a book had no editorial input, no market

assessment and mostly, no commercial appeal. This still occurs and more so these days

than in previous decades but there are also some very good authors who have published

books that would not make the cut in the commercial industry. Not because they aren't

any good but more because the publishing company's purse isn't as full as it once was.

The Australian author Matthew Reilly self-published his first book and a large

mainstream publisher liked the work so much that they offered him a contract. He is now a

Best Selling author of Thriller/Action novels.

If you have tired of the treadmill that is the publishing industry (a real go at this market

takes about five years of solid work) and you have the resources to self-publish (you do all

the work) then this could be worth a consideration. To ensure your book is ready for

publication, I would suggest you get a professional editor to bring it into a publishable

state and then have it proof read. It will cost a few dollars (as I said earlier, a good editor

will cost a bit) but nowhere near as much as a Vanity Press.

Find a local artist/designer and negotiate a visually exciting cover - the old black and

white covers just don't do it these days - so the book has shelf appeal. The cost of a good

cover is variable, but don't go overboard on this, budget for around $600 and you will end

up with something that will catch the readers eye. You are after the 'pick me up' factor

here. Take a look at the books you pick up and note what they have that encourages you

to do want to buy them.

With self-publishing, you have to work out how many books you will need to sell to earn

back your outlay. Budget in cover art, editing, proofing, book layout and design. All

these things will cost you money, how much will be up to you. You can save money on

cover design, if you know an artist and you could lay out the novel in MS Word and

save it as a pdf file for the printer. If you can use a simple graphics program you could

even do your own design work, this could save hundreds of dollars.

It is one thing to have the money to produce a nice looking book but if the end cover

price is too high then you won't be able to sell it. A good sell price in between $14.95 and

$19.95 so aim your budget to come in well under that so you get a little profit of each

book sale. The less books needed to get your money back the better.

Again I am going to suggest using POD technology for the self-published book, it is

relatively inexpensive compared to traditional publishing. Print costs might be higher but

book profit returns are better because you don't have to print in bulk.

Printing method

Printing methods have changes over the last few years and for the Self-Published book I

wholly encourage the use of digital technology. Vanity Press generally wants you to

commit to a print run of at least 1,000 copies at a cost in excess of $8 a copy. You don't

need this many books, why print more than you can physically sell? The use of Print on

Demand technology (much improved over the last eighteen months) means you can print

from 5 to 500 copies any time you want them. A standard novel is a bit more than the

1,000 unit print cost but the total outlay for books isn't as high. If at any time you need to

make changes to the book it only costs you the low set up price and another small print

run. I have a small publishing company and I only print 20 books at a time. No extra

storage costs and no great pile of books in my garage.

How to sell your books is the biggest question all self-publisher's ask. I don't have the

definitive answer for you. The best you can do is to have local book stores carry the

book, set up a website and maybe place an add (send a review copy as well) in your

local writer's journal and newspaper.

Organize a good book launch with family, friends and anyone else you think of who will

come and buy a book. If organized well you can sell up to sixty or so books and

easily earn back your print on demand investment plus a modest bonus. Don't even try to

get book distribution, it isn't viable for the distributor and you will have to run at a loss

in order to offer a competitive price. The person to person sale is your best option. It is

slow, but effective.

Self-Publishing isn 't for the weak at heart

Before leaping into any self-funded project, seek out advice, quotes and people who may

make the whole process easier for you. The best way is to call in on your local print

shops and present your project. As you progress from shop to shop, you can sound more

confident with each new approach. The more confident you sound with the creation of

the book, the printing processes involved and what you want, the less likely you will pay

too much for the service. I am a small press publisher, I know exactly how much it costs

to print a book and it is with this knowledge I manage to get reduced prices on all my

printing. There is no reason why you can't do the same. The Writing Soldier always

knows the battle situation before he goes into it.

Promotional Stuff

The publisher can only spend a small amount of money on promotion, it is you who

must do the leg work - you must sell the book - sell the author

There is one thing to be said about getting published, it gives you a great feeling in the pit

of your belly. But, is simply getting published enough? Not to the Writing Soldier it isn't;

it is just one small campaign in the great battle of the writer. Getting that novel

published is also no guarantee it will automatically sell out and become a Best Seller.

From the moment that publishing contract is signed, the Writing Soldier goes into full

action. You hit the promotion trail. The book needs to have an author people know and the

best way to get known is to get to know people, people who will buy your book.

To get the ball rolling in your favour, contact your local radio and TV stations, write a

press release for the up coming book and arrange for a review copy to be sent to them

well before the book launch date. This way you have primed your media outlets. Once

the book has been released, then contact those same media groups and arrange

interviews, talks and even just a simple visit to the station. Buy some copies from the

publisher for yourself and offer signed copies as prizes on those shows, a simple phone-in

would suffice and, in exchange, the station mentions your book and where to get it.

Arrange to visit as many book stores as you can; create a similar press release for them to

consider so, when the distributor drops by, they are already wanting to stock your

book - you are a local and 'the local writer does good' is always a good sales point.

Don't make the mistake and charge anyone for these visits or interviews. You might be

able to do this later in your career but not right now. Donate your time and talk. Let people

get to know you; by doing this, they are more likely to buy your book simply by seeing

your name on the spine. The majority of readers buy through word of mouth,

recommendations and by knowing the author - either by meeting you or via

hearing/seeing you through the media.

Ask the local schools if you can come by and give a little talk on writing the novel, or how

to write a story. Some schools will pay you, but if you donate the time they will invite

you back. Support community events, attend shows and meetings.

These might seem like writing time robbers, but the Writing Soldier is better prepared

once he knows the people around him and they know the author. Soldiers in Iraq are slowly

gaining the trust of some communities - not through military might but through

communication, listening and helping out where they can. Like them, you need to get

yourself trusted by the reading public. It will be time well spent and you will gain from

the experience in so many ways.

Like any business you will need to consider outlays for each project. The Mainstream

published book needs to see at least the advance money paid to you and it is in your best

interest to ensure this happens. The publishing industry doesn't have thousands and

thousands of dollars to spend on promotion these days so most of the hard work will be

up to you; especially in the early stages of your career.

To keep your physical costs down in writing the book, only print drafts before you

sit down and physically correct the work (this method is still preferred even by

the best of writers). This will save paper and expensive ink. If you do need an editor,

make sure the copy they are going to edit is your final draft; otherwise you may need to

go through the whole process again if you send your first draft. The expense can mount if

you are not mindful of expenses. If you are not a good proof reader I always advise you

get one, this alone makes the world of difference to the end product.

Save on postage by not sending your work to inappropriate publishers, research the

market - do they publish your kind of novel? How big is their list? How many titles do

they publish a year? By cutting down wasteful mail-outs you can save yourself many

hundreds of dollars.

The advance cheque you get for your book needs to be a bonus to your writing, not

something that just covers the bills you accumulated while writing it.

Conclusion

The Writing Soldier is more than just getting prepared, understanding the principles, and

having the correct writing weaponry. It is about actively using these skills all the time.

Soldiers don't just train and then sit on their backsides until trouble breaks out. No, they

continue to learn more skills, practice with the skills they already know and apply their

knowledge to getting better and stronger. As a Writing Soldier, you will be required to

write, not just think about it, but write every day. To write the Best Selling novel will

take all your effort, all your concentration and all of your passion. This isn't a self help

book for the coffee table; it isn't a self help book at all. The Writing Soldier is a manual

for success in the highly competitive world of fiction writing.

You are ready, armed and dangerous, so get in there and become the next Best Selling

author. That's an order!

© Robert N Stephenson 2015

### The Never

by

Robert N Stephenson

Lillium had been listening to the quite hubbub of the auditorium around the sphere; in stasis you heard nothing but the deep mumble of dreaming. She pressed her hands deep into the sphere, it was time to catch up on everything she had missed through the centuries. As her hands were enveloped, for you did not use more than your hands with the live data fluid, a signal pulsed into being a vibration across her fingers, it was unusual and unexpected. Lillium moved her hands through the powdery immersion fluid, letting the cell-trodes that coated her skin read her thoughts directly from her nervous system while she conjured forth an auditory representation. She had to hear it to be sure. The language was strange, but in her mind it was definitely in the human range, she would still need confirmation from the sphere. The immersion offered nothing, no translation so it wasn't part of the current human standards.

"How old is the signal?" she asked the powder-like fluid; it should at least be able to fathom that much from the background radiations. Her voice would have vibrated the still surface of the sphere, like a ripple it would penetrate the outer membrane and be stripped into raw data by the immersion. In her head the response would be slow and ponderous. Time appeared to run slowly in the sphere. If she had been suited up she could have been able to directly interact through armour filters, she would have been able to take multiple feeds until she received all possible answers. Her hands were bare, the touch of the immersion like air, dry air. She was careful with her interactions with the small moon-sized, living information hub. If she allowed more than her naked hands to connect with the sphere it would bring an end to real life, bring on the harsh reality of true death.

"The signal is between ninety and one hundred thousand standard Earth years old." The sound in her mind was thick like syrup, the immersion would simply be arranging brain chemistry to form the sounds needed to frame words in thoughts.

"Light years?" She tried to think of any civilization that far out.

"Light years, standard Earth light years."

Lillium closed her hand inside the fluid, its blue radiance a momentary cushion in her grip. The expression of frustration would have been swiftly noted, but the cell-trodes would not hasten their response; even Primaries would have to wait. She spent one hour in contact with the sphere every three to five hundred years, she had already wasted minutes on this message. After a millennia of interaction with the living entity of the immersion she should have grown used to the fluid's exceedingly slow and deliberate processes, but when something as strange as an old message arrived in Earth's complex system, she had hoped it would have bypassed a few of its precious protocols.

"What can you tell me about the signal, what kind of message is it?"

"It is human," the sphere finally admitted, offering nothing more.

Removing her hands slowly, allowing all the powder to separate itself from her skin and extract its deep penetrations and manipulation of her nootropics, she thought this could be the return of a deep space Primary, only they never announced themselves in such a manner and they all used standard or at the very least functioned in Aberration. Lillium stepped back from the sphere and had time to contemplate. Human? Which humans? she wondered. She left the immersion and moved into the glaring white lights of the Primary well, the bright stream of consciousness that made up the Conglomerate; a fully functional colour wheel with the dominant houses being the Primaries of Red, Yellow and Blue. The light was shaped into a wheel that housed all who interacted to form the extensive writhing existence of the galaxy governing Conglomerate. This news was small in the context of time but the message defied the sphere's realm of knowledge and when something did this she would have to wake a few Primaries; even the barest of protocols meant no avoiding interaction. While one hundred thousand standard lights was a long time away it may not truly reflect the distance of any one coming to Earth; the visitation could come in centuries or it could be minutes, it depended on how close behind the message a visitor would be travelling. Was someone coming to Earth? It would take several seconds for the data stream to flow through to the wheel and before anyone arrived she had time to clean herself of residuals. The immersion powder made her mind itch and her skin crawl with invasion and the sickly scents of ketones and other enzymatic particles always made her nauseous. She stepped into a sonicator and allowed the vibrations to settle the many thousands of connections the immersion would have opened in her skin; every pore was an access point. As she felt the remnants of odours fall away she thought of the Conglomerate as another type of immersion, but one less tactile. If it wasn't for the signal, the oddity of the message she could have completed her duty and returned to stasis never interacting with another living being other than the sphere. She would only need true contact every thousand years or so, but she was unusual in that regard. Unlike many of the Conglomerate she still needed the feeling of touch with another; even when such contact was across the boundaries of primary zones. It was too easy to get lost within the wheel and forget about life and living. The chronometer in her mind stated it had been three centuries since her last manipulation of the sphere and yet it was only a blink in her subjective time. She thought of contact this time out but knew not all times were aligned and convenient, maybe in the next five hundred standards a meeting could be arranged. Maybe.

Naked and refreshed she positioned herself inside the white light of the Conglomerate ring, the floor a glowing pad sending a curtain of golden light up twelve kilometres into overhead rock; the thick and undulous crust of the Earth's surface. The light pulsed slightly as it recognised her aura and switched to her primary colour. She left her eyes open as the cortex association was made; retinal displays danced over her sight for the barest of seconds until full identification establishment had been secured, then they faded away. The light wavered as it settled into her synaptic rhythm. She was able to view and communicate with those of the Conglomerate that deemed it necessary to wake. The immersion would have sent a signal of importance into every stasis cubicle, though Lillium didn't know how important it had deemed the information; the fact she had made a personal approach should put forth her own case for attention. In her peripheral vision flickered the primary colours of the houses, including a few fledglings allowed the external reaches of the colour wheel, cyan and magenta, while not primaries, did hold key positions.

"Lillium, it is so good to connect with you. How long has it been?"

The sound of Marroka's cyan persona was somehow expected, he was eager to impress the primaries as a newer member of the Conglomerate. He knew exactly how long it had been since they had last discussed his political aspirations, he seemed to always come forward when she was on duty; an expectant teenager ogling his first girlfriend. He would not be the first to receive her conclusions, though she did appreciate his spontaneity. Another light cell came to life and she could see him standing, dressed in the tight fitting lavender armour, ready to act. Others came, all complimentary colours flickering into view and all offering the same hollow welcome. The extra help would be appreciated if required but what she needed was a Primary. She waited long seconds until the house of blue flashed across everything before dominating all other colours; it pressed up hard against her solid yellow but with a force of will she didn't allow it to penetrate. Now wasn't the time. The primaries were equals in all things, no matter what some of them believed.

"Have you determined how human this communication is?" Navium said, appearing and walking out of his blue haze. He would be amused at her unyielding stance but concern about the message would take precedence. Navium did surprise her though; a blue wasn't usually the first to react to inter stellar happenings; their interests ranged deeper into space time, temporal shifting, causality and the notion of traversable worm holes. Had he known it had specifically been her to make the request? Or had he known this was her hour in the immersion? While she was pleased to see him she also knew this had to be something important and she was glad she had been the one with her hands in the powder-fluid when the message arrived.

"The signal has travelled over one hundred thousand lights, but luminosity suggests it could be older. The immersion calculates an age closer to one ten." She left the lighted pad and stood beside the equally naked man. "I have already instigated search and match systems but the sphere needs interactions; the language is too strange for it to interpret; it isn't in the data base of known and dead languages, as far as it and I can tell, but we have only started digging."

"It might take hours to unravel what we need to know, Lillium, this has come a long way and across the ages. I have considered perhaps a wormhole was used." He didn't look at her. "Have you confirmed this is human?" He turned his grey eyes on her, if there was anxiety in his manner it didn't show. "The Villi \- gre – mons have been known to mimic our transmissions and I have long suspected they have the technology I have been researching. Are you sure this isn't alien?"

"You would not be here if it were fake." Navium was live thinking, she knew, he was searching for a pathway forward. Questions without immediate answers were not supposed to be possible since the induction of the living immersion sphere; the live entity that had been created by early human hands, and recreated by itself to be better than any human mind could imagine. The sphere had never been incapable of answers. The sphere was supposed to know all human history for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Navium frowned, an odd gesture on the smooth and youthful face. With a wipe of his hands over his chest he encased himself in royal blue armour; a thick leather like substance that fit the contours of his body exactly.

Lillium sheathed herself in chrome yellow armour, they didn't know how dangerous this situation was and a primary could never be too careful; he was also preparing to step into the heart of the sphere. Behind them she heard the heavy clomp of thick heels. A Red by the name of Scarlen would be the wearer. Lillium knew the walk as if it were a repetitive bad dream. Scarlen would be more than a little peeved that Navium had answered first, reds acted first in everything associated with the sphere. She would show none of her disdain in this meeting and Lillium was sure there would already be a time stain in Navium's sensory pit waiting for his return.

"Is this necessary?" Scarlen said, already red suited with a helmet clipped to her side.

"You must have deemed it important enough to come." Lillium thought all the reds were tyrannical.

"Did the immersion give you any indication other than what it sent us?" Scarlen studied the sphere like it was an animal to be conquered.

"Most of what it has determined is incomprehensible but one thing did stand out. It could be the Never," Lillium offered. "I tried some probes while I waited for you to answer the call." Her sensor pit had calculated the possibility based on immersion probabilities. They had received things like this before but they always turned out to be bouncers, lost communications rebounding between stars like a wedgling's see-cube thrown into a rubber room. "Given the age and distance travelled we may not get a positive verification."

"What do we have?" Scarlen stepped into the group, waved her left hand and space opened up before them. Stars, millions of lights scattered against the densest black imaginable filled the space around them, even the floor became a starscape.

"Here." Lillium touched a bright spot in the field. It opened to reveal a series of monster red suns; it had age written all over it. "Given our packet boosts and the angle of distortion I am almost certain the signal came from here, across the galactic centre and in the outer part of the arm. The sphere reference is Cygnus Ceta T965."

"Is the sphere just making that up?" Scarlen questioned, one dark eyebrow lifting, a straight line on a too young and perfect face. She waved her hand through the starscape and new data streams came to life, bright multi-coloured lists of activity and inactivity flashed in and out of life like so many picto-squares.

"I cannot be sure of anything given the distortions from the core." Lillium pointed to large, black objects near two of the suns. "There is also dark matter influence to contend with."

"So you cannot rule out bouncing?" Scarlen also touched the field, another group of stars shifted into a tighter view, just a few degrees away from what Lillium had indicated. "I was delayed by my own calculations," she said, offering an excuse why she did not come through first. Also a tactical move considering Navium was yet to offer any insights. "It is very unusual to have any signal or message coming from an area of space we don't already know about, so I cannot believe any speculation you have, Lillium. The message could have easily come from this segment of space and we know which aliens manipulate our signals from there." She offered a smirk. "I think we need to work out why the sphere was listening to this specific frequency in the first place." The look on her face suggested she knew more than she was saying. "It is not one within existing records, and no one I would expect the immersion to scan."

Lillium manipulated the fields, overlaying them and calculating angles of influence. "I am assuming this is a speed of light transmission." She inserted a parabola. The plane rotated and plot points flashed in and out based on live feed data from Lillium's mind. "While I am a little dubious of red's assertions, I agree we should investigate why it was listening."

"Are you not interested in what the message might be?" Navium spoke, turning on Scarlen with more than a little frown of doubt.

"Until I know more I am not even going to consider this is even a valid signal." Scarlen stood a little straighter, her two metre stature towered over Lillium at one sixty five and was more than a little imposing against Navium's one fifty. The red armour fitted her slight form allowing full skin to tactile nano-fibre contact. Filter armour. "This could be no more than a glitch in the immersion's field of influence."

"There has never been an immersion malfunction. Why have doubts now?" Navium wasn't pleased. "I am curious, Scarlen. If you think this is nothing to be concerned about, why have you graced us with your presence at all?" He looked annoyed; Lillium remembered the animosity between the blues and reds.

"Because, Navium, the signal does not make any logical sense; the immersion has no referencing data on the language, if it is a language at all, and I am not convinced it is even a human voice we have heard." She folded her arms as if that was the final determination. "I suggest we spend a few precious hours on this and then let it be. I seek only to clarify my own thoughts."

"And, Lillium, what makes you think this could be the Never?" Navium made an exaggerated look at the flashing indicators on the field. "Why would immersion even suggest the possibility?"

"Immersion didn't on its own accord; I suggested the possibility and sent it looking for the history of the legend." She held up her hand to quell protests. "Before we decide whether or not this is the Never, I want full immersions from the three of us." She did not believe in glitches in immersion and despite the misgivings of someone she did not trust she felt they owed it to all the primaries to investigate the message. She glanced to Scarlen who had already put on her helmet. At least she agreed to this much.

With minor movements of their hands they were all encased in their coloured protection. From forehead to chin they were fully covered by a clear field known as the data-ice; their vision now restricted by what was displayed on the ice-like crystal that protected their eyes and face. The powder-liquid inside the sphere waited for them to step into its embrace. Once in, the primary colours would be muted by the iridescent blue of the cell-trodes. While the suits didn't allow normal cell-trode interaction it did create an information film around each suit which could be quickly translated by the need now principle. Their helmets would function as an interface between the raw data of the cell-trodes, the armour and the information requests of the primary's brains.

Navium made a slow, downwards chopping action with his right arm and the star field they had been studying faded to leave them and the sphere bathed in a white well of light. The auditorium was alive with activity now as many of the complimentary colours came forward to examine outlying data streams. The cavern housing them all hadn't as much been built to house the sphere but more the sphere occupied a place in space time within the large room and then projected how it wanted to be seen into the minds of all who entered the auditorium. No one really knew what the immersion sphere really looked like. Lillium had heard it was nothing more than a bubbling black pit of ooze that sunk deep into the core of the planet. She preferred to believe in what it made her see, a kind of water coloured representation of the Earth.

In unison they stepped into the swirling eddies of fine powder and their crystal face plates blacked out, readying for its own interface with the living intelligence. Ice shields weren't water ice, though water did constitute some of its makeup, they were a combination of hardened cell-trodes, synaptic resonance particles and a swathe of exotics created by energy production for human habitation. The blackness cleared and Lillium could see the hazy dark blue of Navium and the muted but still audacious red of Scarlen. While they wouldn't need to be in actual contact with each other physically the process of unified immersion worked better if you stood close to each other so the synaptic transfers between the suits didn't have too far to travel.

"First the language," Navium said, his voice both a sound and a vibration through the fluid-like powder, it rattled against Lillium's suit like a slow, thick wind. "Lillium, you delve into post metamorphic, I think I detected a few words that could have been in that tongue, very old, very sparse. I suggest looking for some Mars logs, go back until there is nothing to find and then work up from that."

"Why Mars?"

Navium looked to Scarlen. "Because I feel red involvement." He sneered at her. "Scarlen, I want you to venture through pre and post Aberration."

"This isn't Aberration, there's no cortex stimulation in the signal." Scarlen was blunt, too blunt.

"I don't want a match with Aberration," Navium said calmly. "I want you to run the signal though a pictology mesh, I want a picture of what could be meant here, and you have the experience for this." Navium played the flattery card too often for Lillium's liking, but she had to have some level of trust for the man.

"And what will you be doing?" Scarlen's face plate was already interacting with the powder, a steady river of colour, shapes and sound flowing in vortices about her face.

"Construction," he said blandly. "I will be searching out all construction records before the immersion entity was born; hopefully it has some of the old data in a secluded part of its memory."

"You will find nothing there." Scarlen said, "Everything we need to know is in here, stick with what we know."

"It has been a long time since anyone has trawled for anything connected to the legend of the Never, Scarlen; so long in fact I can't even locate any records of it ever occurring." He moved his hand through a swirl of black figures crowding about his faceplate. "If I didn't know any better I'd say the immersion has been deliberately losing information; if we know of the Never, why has the immersion suddenly stopped knowing?"

"I thought you didn't believe in speculations?"

Lillium ignored the exchange, Navium could take care of himself and she had little doubt in the enormity of the task he had set himself. The message was old and the language had not shown in the immersion's first and secondary scans. The immersion simply didn't know what to look for and when that happened it made Primaries nervous. She had started her own direct visual connection with what she could find of the morphs, the pseudo humans that once occupied the solar system's poorly terraformed Mars and parts of the Oort cloud. It took less than a few seconds to process all the relevant material available, and it didn't offer much. The morph language was only in fragments and reading and listening to it hurt, its penetration through the suit's filters bit into her nerves and put her teeth on edge. Morph was a guttural harshness that spoke of airless caverns and old space ships, as she listened to the scraps of recorded sound she couldn't help but feel a sense of abandonment; while she listened and played her fingers through pictorial streams, data piled up around her, piled up around all of them. The immersion would be finding every obscure reference related to their search criterias but it still took a human mind to put the pieces together using the type of lateral creativity the entity of the sphere had yet to fully grasp.

The three of them stood within the sphere with rivers of data interacting with them through the suits. Need to know data was fast piling up in caches beside each of them as growing black cubes, and Lillium knew soon they would have to stop the live interpretations and clear the back log. After nine minutes her face plate started to show data weariness and sections of it would black out for refreshing. At ten minutes Lillium signalled with her hand at the waist high caches. Navium didn't seem to notice but she saw Scarlen's crystal change from clear to red and the cache material started to flow into the new face plate, but so too did some of the cache beside Lillium; was Scarlen helping? Surely she had enough of her own material to concern herself with.

Barely a minute had passed when Lillium realized the sifting task was far more than her suit could translate and within only a few more minutes her face plate started to blink out altogether. Something was clarifying though, some morph had matched, a word or two; it was small but it was a start. One hundred and fifty thousand years of data, most of which wasn't actually in the store, was proving to be too much for the three primaries. It was time to get help; Lillium couldn't keep the inflow consistent anymore. Bits and bytes crammed into her head threatening to crash her own internal cell-trodes, the fluid machines were starting to overheat and she could feel pain forming in her frontal lobes. Then she saw it, a spark. It had been sitting in the cache as an insignificant possible partly connected with Mars. Lillium broke contact with the other two and stepped out of the sphere. The powder-fluid flowed away from her in slow motion as it re-joined the immersion, the connection faded and she dropped to her knees exhausted.

"It's Hedron." She looked to the sphere and spoke again, knowing her helmet would pass on what she had discovered. "The language is Hedron."

"Period?" Scarlen asked, also stepping from the immersion. Her face plate cleared and Lillium could see the immense strain of the connection in her face; she looked ten years older. "Does it mention the Never?"

"The period is pre morph I think, but there could be cross over." Lillium shifted to sitting on her behind, helmet off and armour retracted; sitting naked in the warm air helped settle her. "It's connected to Mars though, only a few words so far but enough to say the message does have some roots. I found no Never matches in morph but who knows? it could be enough to start a base line for the subtext."

"Mars has been uninhabited for almost a hundred thousand standards." Scarlen retracted her suit and likewise sat on the black floor beside Lillium.

"And you knew that, how?"

"Aberration; a picture of the red planet formed, a scattering of flashed images, nothing to hold onto with any great conviction but it connects with what you have discovered."

"So the message has come from Mars?" Lillium closed her eyes and gently rubbed at her face. It didn't make sense, why would it take so long?

"Not Mars." It was Navium, he stepped from the sphere and disengaged his armour, "but associated humanity involved with the failed terraforming. I also found many words matching the message and confer that it is Hedron or a variant of the language as used on Mars, though Hedron is more than likely pre-morph cross over. I am afraid there is a lot of information that has been translated into our standard language forcefully and it has now become meaningless." He looked to the sphere with the face of a disappointed man.

They had somewhere to start, Lillium thought, they had a language, and a smattering of assorted words that did and didn't make sense. Lillium understood what Navium had meant with the translations and she questioned the forceful insistence of the immersion to have everything suddenly in Earth standard. A complexity that would require more time interacting with the sphere. The message came from humans who wrote and spoke in Hedron. While this was key information the turquoise poly-trope's working deep info mining tasks of the sphere's billions of information wells couldn't fathom any true meaning. She thought of the Never, a legend in one time and a possible religion at another, or so said the scant information she had been able to tease out of the stream she had confronted. The difficulty now with the language was once something was known the standard was applied by the immersion, so what she had understood in her mind only minutes before was now a major variation of its true self in standard. The immersion wouldn't keep both versions, so why was the Earth standard being enforced? Was the message trying to self-erase? she thought, rubbing at her eyes. She needed contact; she looked up at Navium and managed a smile. Maybe later, she thought, maybe later. At the moment all they really had was speculation and the sphere didn't really deal in such things. The most troubling aspect was the sphere was supposed to have all the answers they would ever need. With the immersion changing the presentation of data the new problem was they no longer knew what questions to ask, or how to ask. Therefore the 'need to know' data streams and the suit filters were beginning to sound pointless.

Lillium composed herself and stood by the sphere, allowing proximity connections to play through a few possibilities she'd managed to think up. She could almost hear the pulse of the immersion in her own chest and in a way she breathed in and out to the fluctuations in the data flow. In minutes she had secondaries and lesser hues working in fields far removed from the sphere; they had a jumble of recording which the immersion had released and the collection of random words discovered by Navium. Lillium couldn't risk contact with the immersion; not until she knew what was happening.

"You find anything useful?" Scarlen asked, joining her at the edge of the sphere. Lillium wanted to put her hands in but she just didn't know how to frame her questions. All the primaries who were now awake suffered from the same thing, only the reds had been cross communicating with the sphere and they were reluctant to share what they had discovered. Another political move to enable them more control of the colour wheel.

"I've got Marroka and Terac working on deconstructing the message like a child's puzzle, the filaments of the signal teased out to fine strands so only their spectrums show."

"Will it work?"

"No, but it keeps them out of my hair."

"Navium has found little more about the Mars colonization, other than it took place over one hundred and fifty thousand standards ago. There is no explanation as to what happened to the colony so he's been thinking it could be them. I want you to convert what you have into standard, so we all have the same information..."

"There you go, and that is our problem." Lillium interrupted, her frustration upsetting her calm equilibrium.

"What are you talking about?"

"Standard. All the languages are being forced into Earth standard and I need the original texts for comparison, I need the non-standards here. Hedron is a language, a spoken tongue and yet every time I get close to full examples, the examples are forced into standard and I lose the thread."

"How so? I used standard protocols to determine the age of the message this morning, and I can confirm it is closer to one hundred and ten thousand standards old."

"But Scarlen, that is measurement, everything in that regard makes sense once you know what increments have been used."

Scarlen smiled. "And it is the same with the language." She paused. "If we can understand this message once it is in standard we will have the answer. If it cannot be translated then I am proven right in thinking this is not a message at all."

Lillium had travelled this road a few times in the last twenty three and a half minutes, ever since the message had been received; she knew what the answer was and her gut lurched at the knowledge. "Up until a few minutes ago we used to have some scant records of Hedron, something has changed how the immersion thinks and acts and those examples have been changed then deleted. And before you mention the sphere I have already run this through immersion, it simply says following directives of this nature has stabilized humanity for many thousands of years."

"And?" She raised her eyebrows, the face returned to its young appearance, the brow line thin. Lillium noted she smelled of apples.

"Why has immersion started this regime and why now?"

"Again I don't understand. Standard is what keeps our uniformity, Lillium, it has always been this way."

In frustration she folded her arms and thought about bringing forth her armour for extra warmth, she suddenly felt cold. "I still have some fragments that have somehow missed the standardization in the last ten minutes. Before the purge and well before the artificial intelligence uprising, everything had been in its original form; original languages and meanings." She looked deep into the blue of the sphere and tried to fathom the questions she needed to ask. If the Never came from before these events maybe she could find answers by going even deeper. "Does the idea of the Never have a non-standard version and how do I find it?" It was a rhetorical question.

"The Primaries are divided, Lillium, and I think your concerns will only cloud their action. They want to go back into stasis, we have been out too long as it is." Scarlen was unarmoured, naked like Lillium and her skin a light brown where Lillium was the clearest of whites. "How close are you to knowing what that message says?" Her tone was even and voice low so none of the secondary and complimentaries could hear.

Lillium had her doubts and concerns, she had been second guessing herself with the sphere's assistance for the last few minutes, but she did feel if she didn't draw too much attention to untranslated information she might get something. "I think I could have some answers in another hour, provided I can keep ahead of the standardization systems and secure code my discovered data from the general conversion." Lillium sighed and wondered how much she had already lost before she realised the problem! "Navium has been loading ancient Mars' material into a secure cache which is still in base Morph; provided I get a good cross section of that language I might be able to translate the message into full Morph and then into Hedron in two hours and eight minutes."

"I am sorry to hear you encountered the standardization protocol," Scarlen said with a slight frown. "Perhaps I can assist you." She took Lillium's right hand in her own and pushed both hands into the sphere.

"What are you doing?" Lillium didn't pull away; she was just surprised at the contact. Only one person was allowed to touch her.

Her bare hand tickled at first but soon developed a settling warmth she expected from the noonday sun in winter; there was an edge of coolness, though the sensation was distant to the point of distracting. Then a memory flashed in her mind, an effect of the cell-trodes' first contact, a blue sky, white clouds and the smell of jasmine. She wondered how long it had been since she'd been outside; centuries maybe. The flash faded, replaced by the walls of raw data living within the sphere; packets of memory stuff piggy-backing the atom-sized cell-trodes began to swarm about her hand, the communication had begun. The immersion wasn't wet like observers imagined; the experience was dry and almost frictionless it was an ultra-fine powder filling a tight, well controlled atmosphere. The feeling was a non-feeling, like inserting your hand into a tub filled with air, but she knew the trodes would smear her hand and wrist and send electrical signals directly into her nerves. The feeling of invasion minute. It was safe to do this with only a hand or two but full naked immersion wasn't possible, the body's defences would be overloaded to the point of neural toxicity and cell by cell breakdown. The sphere and immersion might have been a blessing to human knowledge and information interaction but it was not benevolent.

"Here," Scarlen said opening her palm to reveal a small, red spheroid. "Mars as it is now." She closed her fingers and flicked them open again, the red ball displayed patches of ruddy red and blue. "This is at the height of terraforming. When the language of morph developed. Where Hedron originally took root."

"You know? How long have you known this?" Lillium touched the planet; a sparkle of data ran up her arm, it had all been converted to standard and referentially meaningless. She looked to Scarlen who was smiling. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure something doesn't happen. The wrong person had been listening, Lillium. I am truly sorry it had to be you." She closed and opened her hand again. Her palm was filled with crystals. 'Can we come home?' appeared in bright red letters about her palm. "This means the same in our standard," she said with a little hesitation, "the message is for us, I mean, the reds, not you and Navium, not the other Primaries."

Lillium tried to pull her hand out of the immersion. She found she couldn't. With a little more effort she leant back but she was pulled in further. The sphere was dragging her in. Scarlen had released her hand after leaving a circlet of red bands pulsating around her wrist.

"Stop it." Lillium tugged and felt the pain of restriction. "Let me go."

The pull of the blue haze had her up to the elbow. She looked to Scarlen who removed her hand from the sphere and slowly backed away. The harder Lillium pulled the more she was being dragged into the immersion. Cell-trodes invaded her arm, flowed into her blood and started their attack on her mind; fighting for control.

"Help me."

"The message can only ever been known by the reds," Scarlen said, taking yet another step away. "You cannot be permitted to change things."

"What are you talking about?" Lillium was now up to her shoulder and the cold sensation usually assigned to her bare hand was now creeping across her chest. The sphere, a system that gave and took raw information, was doing what it was originally designed to do; absorb sentience and turn it into accessible data.

"You already know what the signal means; you already know it is from the Never." Scarlen turned to see if others were witnessing what was taking place. Lillium also saw they were alone in the chamber, or in the black ooze pit. "There is a reason you aren't meant to know about the Never and the reds understand this more than others."

"I don't know what..." The sphere convulsed, sucking Lillium all the way through its membrane and into the swirling eddies and streams of powdery information lines. Cell-trodes flooded her eyes; a soft film covered them and changed her vision. For a moment she couldn't see, couldn't feel, it was if she was trapped inside a dark box with her arms and legs restrained by bonds – soft bonds. The immersion, the powdery fluid they had come so reliant on for tens of thousands of years seeped through her skin, penetrated muscle and bone and took residence in organs, even converting the brain to a storage vat for bleed off information. Where Lillium's armour would have filtered the bombardment of the immersions synaptic impulses, she was now at the mercy, if sentient raw data knew of mercy, of the sphere.

Light slowly crept into her world, she wasn't sure if it was in her eyes or simply firing electrons in her brain; the over stimulation of cell-trodes. The light cleared to show the blue world she was now fully immersed in; hazy and flickering. She raised her hand to her face and saw it silver coated and shining like water, the trodes creating their own communicative skin over hers. She should have suited up before putting her hand into the sphere; hindsight never made mistakes. Trying to activate armour once in connection with the immersion wouldn't work; the electrical signal to the sub dermal nano-fabric could not compete with the cell-trodes once they'd been permitted to penetrate the skin and come alive in nerve endings.

"This may be the last message we send," came a male's voice vibrating through the fluid. The language was the same as the message she'd first heard but instead of incomprehensibility she now understood. She now understood Hedron. How? Remnants had remained in some of the archaic stores but not enough to form an understanding like this; they had found no key to unlock the secrets of terminology and phraseology.

"Who is this?" she asked but then knew she would get no answer. The message was old and if it took one hundred and fifty thousand light years to get to the Earth, it would take at least ten thousand to get back with signal boosting and packet waves.

"We have found a world, or The Never Sea has found a world for us, it is inhabited but the semi-humanoids on the planet are willing to allow us independence and a place to start our lives over."

"Who were they, what was the Never Sea?" She moved her head and the sound wavered as the vibrations wobbled about her. She could see images now, a face, a uniform, she thought. The signal had come through as more than just audio. Scarlen would have known this; she would have found it via Aberration. The image wasn't clear, it had been etched by time and distance, radiations criss-crossing the galaxy would have offered their own distortions but given the tightness of the original beam, the precise manner of the band, the message had made it across space and time.

"We have spent more than five centuries inside life vats on our journey out and the ship did a good job with only a few of the vats failing. The life-giving fluids were finally exhausted and the Never Sea brought us back to real time three years ago. We lost the captain and part of the executive but we have established a workable political system that the remaining nine and a half thousand of us can live with on the new world. We don't know how long or how far we have travelled away from Earth, ship computers are partially corrupted but it does appear for short times we surpassed relavalistic speeds, maybe even entered a natural worm-hole; impossible I know, but we crossed some kind of fissure through space-time, or at least that is what keeps appearing on the records. We crossed the galaxy's centre, something none of us realised was possible. We know we covered a great distance quickly and given time dilation we also know human history on Earth has exceeded any imaginings we are capable of. We know the edict we left on but we hope you will forgive us this one contact. Things would be different now for us and we want you to know that." The man's face looked dour, as if remembering something uncomfortable. Lillium tried to formulate a command that would stop the message being standardized and lost but nothing would come. Would she be the only one to hear this? "Given the distance we must have travelled, a reply will be pointless as we may not be in existence or even remember the Earth by then." The face looked tired, older than anyone she had ever seen before. The cell-trodes dug into her brain, endorphins reacted and she felt a brief spike of joy.

Lillium's understanding of life away from Earth was the ten systems they occupied and the primary concerns across those spheres. Emergence of the fifth age ensured continued consistency of the lines, but no one had a complete history of deep time. Pain erupted down her spine. It was the immersion; it would be trying to pull her apart, doing its best to incorporate all of her into its data stream. All connections with the immersion was a slow breakdown by the cell-trodes of human DNA and RNA, the datafication of all life and experience. While she knew she was dying she wasn't dead, yet, she still had the ability to move, even if a little. She was getting the message, seeing it as it had arrived less than two hours ago. Lillium had to create an opening to Navium, or to any one of the complimentaries working on decoding. Where was Marroka when she needed him? Even he would be welcomed, he could help her out of the sphere, rescue her from the immersion; that would guarantee him a position on her council.

The message continued. "The reason we were made to leave was understandable but our many religions have united and we can truly say we have found a sensible unification among us. The divisions that separated us from you may have been closed over time back on Earth, maybe not, but please know we have found peace on this new world, peace in the one God." She noted that his eyes looked down. He was reading the message. This was a carefully prepared broadcast, the message significant somehow. Navium might know; she had to contact Navium. "In time, some of us might eventually come home. Some want to go home, even after all we have endured..."

With effort Lillium traced Navium's name into the immersion, slow and deliberate movements of her fading hand and for fractions of seconds the letters hovered before being whisked away on a firm breeze. Please understand, she asked the immersion. Just because it would know her thoughts, detect her distress, didn't mean it would act in anything other than its own interests. Get Navium, she thought, creating a picture of him in armoured blue in her mind. If he was hearing, experiencing this then he would know what to do. He had been in space, had interests in some of the Jovian gas syphons, he would understand, he had to understand.

The sphere was ramming data into her brain and taking it out just as fast, she could smell, or her sensory glands were being stimulated by a burning odour. Lillium felt no heat but she somehow knew her brain was being fried like an insect on an electrified grid. The command of thoughts was becoming tenuous and she found it easier and easier to flow into the pictograms, colours and numbers as they soaked into her being. The message was becoming part of her, or was she becoming one with the message and one with the immersion? She had heard part of the message sent by the Never Sea, what happened to the rest of it she didn't know, and didn't seem to care about not knowing. She focused on the message, its meaning, what the man had said. Was this who the Never were?

It was not like closing her eyes to light when the darkness came, it held a deeper sensation, one where she could feel everything inside slowly stopping; she thought she could even sense the declining vibrations of her heart through the blue medium. Blackness came, real blackness, impenetrable and absolute. She sighed, the first actual action of her lungs since being pulled into the immersion, and a full ten seconds had passed since then. Navium, she thought one more time.

#

The water was cool and invigorating, the pseudo suns glowing from five points in the high ceiling warmed her exposed skin; Lillium felt alive and relaxed as she rinsed bubbles of soap from her shoulders.

"Navium," she said, as the man from blue stepped into her domain.

"I am here. Are you feeling better?" He wore royal blue armour, the cleared faceplate of his helmet reflecting status icons over his white face.

"Better?" She stood, water flowing from her skin and splashing about her thighs. "Was I unwell?" Lillium took the offered rich, yellow towel from a slight yellow assistant and stepped from the bath. "And why the armour? Are you preparing to enter immersion?"

He stood and watched on while she towelled off and then formulated a chrome yellow dress over her skin. The warmth felt luxurious, the texture of the fabric soft, yet sheer. Navium didn't move and in his armour he was hard to read, yet she felt she understood some of his thoughts. She closed her eyes, an extended blink and smelt the pungent stink of heated powder. But she had just bathed? She had washed the soap from her skin only moments ago. She opened her eyes to see Navium standing barely an arm's length away now, his face plate a translucent red, his eyes shadowy pools beneath.

"We have to talk."

"We are talking." Even as she spoke she found the words distant and disconnected.

"You called me to the sphere." He reached for her but changed his mind, quickly dropping his arm before she could touch him.

"I did?" Did she, she wondered. If she called him to the sphere why were they in the bathing chamber?

"We don't have much time, Lillium, you must grasp onto something the immersion needs more than anything else, something it doesn't yet fully conceptualise."

She watched the dance of lights across his faceplate, the slight ripple that ran over his armour. "What's wrong?" She looked to her clothing and quickly conjured her armour; it wouldn't form. "Navium, what is happening?" She tried again and again and again but the armour, anything protective, failed to coalesce about her. She turned to the assistant, but she was gone; the bath was gone, then she realised the whole room was gone.

"You are inside the sphere, Lillium; you are inside the immersion unprotected."

"Scarlen." The name jumped into her mind, a fleeting shadow across a dimming sun.

"The Never," he said carefully, his voice like a breeze rustling far off flags. "Grasp on to the Never. Think of Mars; access all the information stores on the red planet. Seek out the search pattern for The Never Sea, hurry Lillium, search The Never Sea."

Navium seemed to fade slightly as if a film were forming between them. Lillium wanted to reach to him but found she had no arms, she had no legs and she had no body. She could not check to see if she had a head, but she could see, or did she simply sense and be? The roar of something filled her ears, filled the world about her, she knew a more muted version of that sound; she remembered. Data, raw data. She thought of The Never Sea. Tried to visualise the words in standard but found they wouldn't come, the symbology was all distorted and slippery. Hedron, she remembered, the last thing she had been hearing was in Hedron. Following the patterning she recalled, she formed the words, formed them inside a sphere of blue and for a moment they flashed. Everything slowed, the roar of data fritted away to a hiss of sound. She saw the red ball Scarlen had shown her, it was dotted with Red and blue patches. She'd seen this before; if the immersion had seen and got it the first time through Scarlen it would lose cohesion in her. She reached for it, touched it with her mind, commanded The Never Sea to be revealed.

"Good." It was Navium, he had returned to his place before her. "The sphere must now delve deep within itself to find references; references that may only exist within the message itself."

"What is happening to me?" Lillium felt scared.

"You have become part of the intensive data stream of immersion."

"Scarlen," she said again, only this time she had a vision of her doing something, getting her stuck in the sphere. "She tricked me."

"We will deal with her later." His vision plate was clear and she could see his face; it was wet with perspiration. "The more questions you ask about The Never Sea the more the immersion will have to put you back together, for it is through you it will have to get the answer. You don't know the answer yet and that is what is going to save you, Lillium."

"I don't know what to ask." She felt as if she was crying but there were no tears, no sobs.

"Ask all the simple questions first. Envision who? What? Where? Why? How? When? The immersion will delve but find nothing solid or convincing, it will be forced to create something to seek the answers it needs and you, Lillium, you are still closer to subjective reality than it is."

She envisioned the questions, each word pushed into place letter by letter until she could hold it steady, each word becoming more solid in her mind as they were formed. Navium again faded out, but not completely, he was surrounded by a blue liquid, the power fluid of the immersion. She could see her arms, see her body, transparent but there where it hadn't been before. The immersion had no answers, the information flow that would have attacked her was now drawing back, reinstating her particles and withdrawing the cell-trodes that had stripped her down to information packets.

"Soon it will question you," Navium said. "It will ask you if you understood the message." He held up his hand, "Say no, think no, send your mind to a dark empty place when it asks."

The questions came and her first thought went to the message; in only the fraction of a second the immersion started into her again, the dismantling of all she was. The immersion threatening to drown out any opposition she might have been attempting. She thought of Scarlen and darkness came, she created it in her mind; it could have been hatred but an understanding of true hatred was hard to maintain, it was almost as alien to her as true love, but it was dark and safe, that sense of nothing closed in protectively around her like a blanket. Quickly she felt as though she was actually seeing with real eyes and experiencing the lighter-than-air touch of the immersion on her skin. Cell-trodes still formed a silver skin over her body and she could still detect fine filaments of connection from them, a peripheral touch.

Navium was before her, his face plate clear, icons and blocks of text reflecting off his face plate onto his face, into his eyes. He reached for her and she reached for him, at his touch all senses collapsed.

#

Scarlen sat imprisoned in her stasis cube, decked out in a ruby red off-the-shoulder dress with a helmet on a table beside her. She hadn't been called forward to answer the question of why she had tried to kill Lillium and destroy the message; she had simply had her time access blocked. Lillium had recovered a little from being turned into atoms and she still had the unnerving sensation of flying apart if she sneezed or coughed. She and Navium stood naked and staring into the immersion sphere, the blueness swirling through the information it gathered over its long life. Navium had been quiet, his primary blue counterparts and her yellow had called for an alteration in general hue for red, but the reds had been adamant that a change to the primary code would unbalance the wheel; simply isolating Scarlen for a thousand years should be punishment enough. Lillium accepted this as she knew it would be rare if they even met again in any time line. Secondaries and complimentaries walked in and out of the sphere, data journeys beginning and ending all the time. Lillium saw a cyan suited inside the sphere, faceplate filled with streams of primary colours; Marroka. When it had come time for him to prove himself he failed her. He might have been first to answer her initial call, but he was nowhere when she desired help the most. He was tasked in data trawling to restore languages to their original forms, or close enough representation of those forms. The job was estimated to take close to ten thousand years and whole research teams would have to work in real time collating hard information; materials that couldn't be stored in packets. She would check in every five hundred years, spend an hour evaluating how far the secondaries had managed to rebuild what had been lost, but she would spend no more time inside immersion.

"The message came from The Never Sea?" Lillium said, changing her focus to the small man beside her. "It's hard to believe humans managed such a feat like that. I don't think we would be able to do it now; travel in space like that."

"Things were different back then, Lillium. From the fabric of history, using what I know of temporal shifts I could create a very subjective picture, but it would never truly be complete. There were many things tearing at the human existence and an extreme measure was taken." Navium gently touched the membrane of the sphere, a small ripple radiated out from his palm. "The people of The Never Sea were of mixed religions, something we had long disposed of. They were expelled for holding onto beliefs that defied logic." He looked troubled. "Scarlen possessed a part of this illogical fracture."

"Scarlen wasn't religious."

"She wouldn't have thought so, because what she did made as much sense as anything that goes on here." He indicated the sphere. "She was part of a very old order, a sect I suppose, and it arose well after the Great Banishment, the time when the Never Sea was sent out. They were known as the Listeners, and they were in place to listen for any news from the Never Sea. Even the immersion hadn't accessed that kind of data for tens of thousands of years. None of it had been converted to standard and lost to interpretation. When we were in concert looking at the message, Scarlen delved into the archives and must have found something that indicated the message was somehow connected to the Listeners, she set in motion a scrubber which invaded the sphere. The immersion came alive to it all and became hungry."

"And she fed me to it?"

"I think she believed she was doing the right thing." He looked at his hand as if expecting it to have residue from the sphere. "But she was wrong, of course."

"The man in the message mentioned The Never Sea; I guessed it was a kind of generation ship." She moved closer to Navium, she could feel the warmth of his skin. Feeling safe, she sighed lightly. "The Never was The Never Sea."

"It would be fortuitous if that was the case,"Navium said, "but I am afraid the Never doesn't refer to the ship, but it does refer to the people who were on it. Lillium, they, the last of the religions, were herded to Mars and sent on their way in that star ship. It has been gone for over a hundred thousand years at least, unless the worm hole theory they suggested holds true." He looked at her with sadness in his eyes. "They were banished from Earth and sent with the strictest command of never to return." He looked at her sombrely. "Over time never to return became the never."

"And they are coming back?" Would they be welcomed? "Is that what the message meant? They are going to bring religion back to the Earth?" She rested her hand in Navium's.

"No, I don't think they are coming back."

"Then why the anxiety as if they were?" She touched Navium's face, he closed his eyes for a little time.

"They don't have to return." Navium opened his eyes and turned away from her and the sphere. "Through Scarlen and the reds, the seeds of religion have been re-sown." As he said this Lillium also turned and looked into the auditorium that surrounded them. A multitude of colour, primaries, secondaries and complimentaries went about their daily business and from time to time someone stopped and looked up, staring into the roof of the cavern. They were listening.

End

