Dwight V. Swain

Techniques of the Selling Writer provides solid instruction for people who want to write and sell fiction, not just to talk and study about it. It gives the background, insights, and specific procedures needed by all beginning writers. Here one can learn how to group words into copy that moves, movement into scenes, and scenes into stories; how to develop characters, how to revise and polish, and finally, how to sell the product. No one can teach talent, but the practical skills of the professional writer's craft can certainly be taught. The correct and imaginative use of these kills can shorten any beginner's apprenticeship by years. This is the book for writers who want to turn rejection slips into cashable checks.

Techniques of the Selling Writer

A jargon-free manual on the basics of developing interesting fictional characters Vibrant, believable characters help drive a fictional story. Along with a clever plot, well-drawn characters make us want to continue reading a novel or finish watching a movie. In Creating Characters, Dwight V. Swain shows how writers can invent interesting characters and improve them so that they move a story along. ?The core of character,” he says in chapter 1, ?lies in each individual story person's ability to care about something; to feel implicitly or explicitly, that something is important.” Building on that foundation?the capacity to care?Swain takes the would-be writer step-by-step through the fundamentals of finding and developing ?characters who turn you on.” This basic but thought-provoking how-to is a valuable tool for both the novice and the seasoned writer.

How to Build Story People

Creating Characters

Roger Arcot

Armchair Fiction presents extra-large editions of classic science fiction double novels with original illustrations. The first novel, ¿The Timeless Man¿ is a forgotten gem by the relatively unknown and highly underrated author, Roger Arcot. Trouble was brewing on the frontier of space. The colony was billions of miles away. So much depended on their regular check-ins, their reports, and their findings, that many alternative systems of communication had been set up. Yet now there was silence; now it seemed they were completely cut off¿with no way for Earth to know what was happening, or had already happened, except to send someone to find out. In such circumstances, Earth did not waste time; they dispatched a crew to accompany a member of the very exclusive, very small group that ruled Earth¿an E-man, a super-brain, a genius, a man outside all law because he was gifted with an intellect so powerful that he was theoretically ¿untouchable.¿ Even he was to find terror and wonder on Eden¿The second novel is ¿Enemy of the Qua¿ by one of our favorite old-time sci-fi authors, Dwight V. Swain. His blood ran hot with the desire for freedom. He wasn¿t Dane Stark, Poet, anymore; he hadn¿t been for years. Here, on Mars, in the hellhole of a stockade, he was only one of a vast category, a symbol: Dane Stark, Enemy of the Qua. When the Qua ships first appeared from outside the system, no one had known where they came from; and it took them only three battles to break the backbone of the whole Federation. The Qua ruled their conquered planets with an iron fist and anyone who resisted was cast into prison or eliminated. So there he was, in a Qua prison waiting for his chance to escape. However, when that chance finally came, he found that his life outside was more perilous than inside. Dane Stark had regained his freedom, but he was soon following a path filled with dangerous people and dark intrigue¿a path that promised disaster at trail¿s end¿

The Timeless Man and Enemy of the Qua

Ed Earl Repp

Armchair Fiction presents extra large science fiction double novels with original illustrations. "Dark Destiny" by Dwight V. Swain is the first novel. He was known throughout the system as Sha Haral, a fierce space warrior with a lust for power. He'd blasted his way back and forth across the spaceways many times. However, Haral's fortunes had taken a turn for the worse, and he soon became a downtrodden, bitter would-be conqueror haunting the dives on a backwater planet called Ulna. But his fate took an unexpected turn when a beautiful blonde-haired priestess, fleeing from a space pirate's hordes, fell into his lap. From this priestess Haral learned of an ancient woman-goddess who, according to legend, lay sleeping in a lost city surrounded by a legion of terrifying monsters. This ancient goddess, whose face was half-hidden by a jeweled veil, was known as a woman of ultimate beauty, possessing secrets of great power. And she still lay there, in her crumbling city, waiting for someone to awaken her... The second novel, "The Secret of Planetoid 88," is by Ed Earl Repp. Dane Cabot was just one of many slaves of the dictators--"The Hundred" as they were known--who ruled Earth with an iron hand. After a joy ride to a distant planetoid, Cabot returned to Earth to find himself falsely accused of murder. There was no trial--The Hundred didn't operate that way. He was soon sentenced to die. But when a mysterious stranger interceded, Cabot found himself a stowaway on a space cruiser headed for Io, moon of Jupiter. There Cabot found a tiny colony of rebels with a master plan for the eventual freedom of Earth's enslaved populace. But radiation from Jupiter's Great Red Spot was slowly destroying Io. So Cabot and his fellow rebels found themselves in a desperate race against time. Could they orchestrate their plans before the rising tide of planet-wide disintegration overtook them? Deep in the void of space was a secret, a secret that was the key to freedom--if they could find it in time...

Dwight V. Swain

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