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Tag: Icarus

Can I finally call myself an Award Winning Author?

Posted on 6 March, 2018 By Paul
Can I finally call myself an Award Winning Author?
Announcement

A while back, I was nominated to enter a writing competition on Wattpad. I’m not big on entering competitions. Too many times I’ve entered and heard nothing back from then on. This time, as it had been recommended to me, I entered my novel Astronomicon: Icarus and assumed that I would most probably never hear … Read More “Can I finally call myself an Award Winning Author?” »

Can you plan too much? #scifi

Posted on 4 November, 2014 By Paul
Writing

As most of my works are science fiction, I tend to end up with many scenes set on space craft. Some of these are brief, but in my more recent books space craft have featured more heavily. Sometimes I’ve sketched out deck plans on paper, detailing just the locations which crop up. This was how … Read More “Can you plan too much? #scifi” »

Star Drive Technology

Posted on 30 October, 2014 By Paul
Writing

Broadly speaking, spacecraft fall into two technological categories. There are the sublightspeed variety that we are very familiar with, such as the Space Shuttle (okay so the bit we call the “Shuttle” is actually the “Orbiter”). Then there’s the supralightspeed variety which don’t yet exist, the USS Enterprise and Battlestar Galactic springing to mind as … Read More “Star Drive Technology” »

Silly Character Names?

Posted on 8 October, 201430 October, 2014 By Paul
Writing

Sometimes someone says something to you which makes you see things in a different way. Some recent comments from my readers have had that effect on me.

I’ve always played it safe with character names, trying not to stray into comedy, cause offence or sound reminiscent of anyone famous. I have tried to broaden the geographical spread of my character names, after it was pointed out to me that in my first book everyone seemed to have a common British name, and that has gone some way my character names more interesting. But not far enough.

In real life no-one wants an embarrassing name, a crazy name or a name which sounds like their job (nominative determinism if you prefer), but novels are not real life. In a novel, a character’s name is a flag. No matter how distinctive their appearance, how graphic their description, they will mostly be referred to by just their name. Other characters will refer to them by name. Readers who talk to other readers about your novel will often refer to characters by just their name.

Every character’s name is crucial. It’s the memory key that recalls every other part of their personality and appearance in the mind of your reader. If it’s not distinctive, evocative and memorable then you run the risk of readers becoming confused. If they lose track of which character is which then, no matter how exciting the story is, the whole thing will stop making sense. That’s when you lose the reader.

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Astronomicon Novels

Inception Point Front Cover Astronomicon: Distant Relatives Cover Astronomicon: Those Left Behind Cover Front cover artwork of Astronomicon: Deadline Astronomicon: Icarus Front Cover Behemoth Cover Art

Illustrations

icarus-v0-09a icarus-v0-09b icarus-v0-09c Icarus front side view Icarus front side view 2 Rear side view of the Icarus Top down view giving a better view of the interior

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