How do you do it?
guest post
by
Greg Kiser
Getting Started
Think of a high
concept. For me, that’s the ability to
tap into the internet with your mind. So you can surf the internet the way you
peruse your own memory today.
Try to remember
the lyrics to a song. Might take a few
seconds, then you remember. You find
that information in your brain, obviously.
Sort of a local hard drive, to use computer terms.
Now imagine you’re
transparently tapped into the Global internet 24x7. Try to remember the lyrics
to a song. They’re there instantly. Feels like you found them in your brain, just
like before. But you didn’t. You found
the words on a server in Germany. Doesn’t
matter, all transparent to you.
Characters make a great story.
For me, anyway,
it’s all about the characters. I’ll give
a book 50 to 100 pages. By then if I
haven’t connected with at least some of the characters then I generally won’t
finish the book. Unless, maybe, the plot
is just a killer, like The Da Vinci Code, or something like that. Preferably, I’m looking for the protagonist
to blow me away because most of the time you are reading from his/her point of
view.
But occasionally
it’s enough if the antagonist is blowing me away, such as the Hannibal series
by Thomas Harris.
Now, you put
together a novel that has two or three characters that I can identify with? Or more?
That’s a novel I’m not going to put down.
