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THREE OF BYRON CRAFT’S WRITING TIPS:

3/8/2018

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​       The Story.  A valuable lesson I learned years ago came from an essay by Robert Louis Stevenson. To paraphrase the great master, he once offered the advice that the three most important things when writing a book were, "the story, the story, and the story." As simple as this insight might seem it is an element that has sometimes gone astray among many of the indie authors of our time.
     "Pedestrian" is the style that we are often presented with that drags us along with the protagonist from one sequence of events to another. We are led to believe that the new wave of storytelling is the result of a tabletop game instead of a good yarn or narrative. The “pedestrian” method fundamentally fails because it does not advance with the most interesting material. Usually, with human stories, the more emotive the saga, the more people can relate and the better it will perform. The reader ultimately needs to take a journey and identify with your characters. Sometimes forward, sometimes backward, but rarely in a straight line.


     Grab your reader with the first sentence.   “This morning I put ground glass in my wife's eyes.” From Dennis Etchinson's 1979 story "The Dead Line." Gruesome? Yes, but it sure got your attention. Many years ago, while struggling with the creation of my first novel “The Cry of Cthulhu” I was fortunate to receive the same sage advice from Jim Steranko, the graphic artist, comic book writer, comic book artist, publisher and film production illustrator. Consequently, the opening in that novel became, “I am almost out of Valium, only one more pill left." It is like the opening scene of a great movie. You never forget it.

     Do you really need an introduction? Most books have an introduction. My novel, "The CRY of CTHULHU" has one. Introductions can be boring. Intros, many times, are what we skip over so we can jump right into the story. As tempting as it may be, don't go out of your way to tell us how you came to write your story. Nobody cares. So as not to be a hypocrite, I endeavored to make my introduction titled, "Warning," to be an integral part of my novel's story. It also grabs the reader’s attention like the warning label on a newly purchased product.  To drive this point home even further you can read the opening of, "The Cry of Cthulhu" . . . Here, in my blog titled 'Introduction to "The CRY of CTHULHU"
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    Byron Craft

       When my avocation became my vocation I was set free.  

       Writing, at first, was a hobby that I loved dearly.  It turned into a serious endeavor several years ago when I started writing screenplays.  Unfortunately selling one out of every ten was not very lucrative.  Success comes in many forms and my poor returns from screenplays matured my writing style, ultimately affording me the ability to author hundreds of magazine articles that generated a decent paycheck.  

       Fast forward to today and my initial release of my novel “The Alchemist’s Notebook,” has been re-titled and published as "The CRY of CTHULHU."

       It is a whirlwind story in the style of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos that takes the reader from Vietnam to Innsmouth then Arkham and eventually to Europe wherein chaos and screaming terror awaits all living creatures on our planet.  

       I pledge to keep the reader on pins and needles hoping that sanity and normalcy will return.

    “The CRY of CTHULHU” and all future novels, along with my blogs, will deal exclusively with that genre.


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