- Stories are Hard (5/15/2013) - I didn’t read much fiction, as best I can recall, until the fifth grade. A caring librarian at the small, upstate New York parochial school I attended had noted that when selecting books I exclusively favored “boy books” of the kind featuring pictures of tanks, helicopters, fire trucks, and explosions. She went so far as [...]
- Outlining Your Story (5/13/2013) - “Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed. You can do the design work before or after you write your novel. I’ve done it both ways and I strongly believe that doing it first is quicker and leads to a better result. Design is hard work, so it’s important to find a guiding principle early [...]
- Tips for Presenting with PowerPoint (5/6/2013) - I spent my afternoon coaching members of my team on building and presenting PowerPoint presentations for the promotion review board. Each of these candidates possesses the ability to knock this out of the park, but due to inexperience in presenting, they needed some pointers. The transformation was seamless and effective, so I decided to share [...]
- Top 5 List – Overrated Bands (5/1/2013) - We’re not ALL about writing here at the4threalm.com. We also enjoy goofing off, while at the same time giving our readers a little better sense of who we are. With that in mind, we’re proud to present the first in what will hopefully be a long series of Top 5 posts, where we rank things [...]
- Crafting a Story – Part 2 (4/22/2013) - Developing your Plot “A plot is a causal sequence of events, the “why” for the things that happen in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character’s lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.” http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/read/plot1.html So how do we create a good plot? Well, if you spend some [...]
- Coming up with a story by Jennifer Priester (4/16/2013) - As part of our Adventures in Writing series, we’ll be showcasing other authors and any of the ‘adventures’ they’ve had in writing that they felt like sharing. Our first volunteer is Jennifer Priester, who has some thoughts on coming up with story ideas. Get used to seeing Jennifer’s name, because she’ll be a regular on [...]
- Conversations with Russell – Bikini Bars and Rush Limbaugh (4/3/2013) - My friend Russell and I have many interesting discussions, and I feel obliged to begin sharing them with the world. I hope you find them as entertaining as I do. Russell spent some years in the Philippines in his youth, and tonight he told me about some of the times he spent in things called [...]
- Crafting a Story – Part 1 (4/1/2013) - When I tell people that I’m a writer (or more specifically, a wannabe writer), I usually hear one of two things in reply: a) that’s really cool, or b) that’s really cool, oh, and I’ve always wanted to be a writer, too. I’m really surprised at how many people I meet who have stories they [...]
- Adventures in Writing (4/1/2013) - We’re indie authors here at the4threalm.com, and as such, we’ve already been through quite a few of the trials and tribulations indie authors must go through when publishing a book. Crafting a story, creating characters, outlining, writing, editing, publishing and marketing – they’re all important steps on the road to success (or so we hear) [...]
- New Online Story – The New Firefighters (3/25/2013) - Hey everybody, we have a new online story up on our Books page, a flash fiction piece from Bruce Meyer that ties into his ‘dark matter’ universe. This is one of many parts to this story, the rest of which can be found on his website Dominion and Dimensions – no relation to my own [...]
Look for us at the following conferences and events starting in early 2013!
Event - Dallas Comic-Con - May 17-19, 2013
- Stories are Hard (5/15/2013) - I didn’t read much fiction, as best I can recall, until the fifth grade. A caring librarian at the small, upstate New York parochial school I attended had noted that when selecting books I exclusively favored “boy books” of the kind featuring pictures of tanks, helicopters, fire trucks, and explosions. She went so far as [...]
- Outlining Your Story (5/13/2013) - “Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed. You can do the design work before or after you write your novel. I’ve done it both ways and I strongly believe that doing it first is quicker and leads to a better result. Design is hard work, so it’s important to find a guiding principle early [...]
- Crafting a Story – Part 2 (4/22/2013) - Developing your Plot “A plot is a causal sequence of events, the “why” for the things that happen in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character’s lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.” http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/read/plot1.html So how do we create a good plot? Well, if you spend some [...]
- Coming up with a story by Jennifer Priester (4/16/2013) - As part of our Adventures in Writing series, we’ll be showcasing other authors and any of the ‘adventures’ they’ve had in writing that they felt like sharing. Our first volunteer is Jennifer Priester, who has some thoughts on coming up with story ideas. Get used to seeing Jennifer’s name, because she’ll be a regular on [...]
- Crafting a Story – Part 1 (4/1/2013) - When I tell people that I’m a writer (or more specifically, a wannabe writer), I usually hear one of two things in reply: a) that’s really cool, or b) that’s really cool, oh, and I’ve always wanted to be a writer, too. I’m really surprised at how many people I meet who have stories they [...]
