WRITE NOW -- A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO BECOMING A WRITER


Foreword

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think that you were born that way.” This is a famous quote from the great American novelist and journalist Ernest Hemingway. We all won’t be as successful a writer as the Pulitzer Prize winner, and the man who penned classics like The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom The Bell Tolls, but we can all strive to make sure that we make the best of any talent that we possess.

I have no doubt that this book by Kieran Beville will be a great help to aspiring writers who want to get their work published.

A visit to any bookshop in any town in Ireland will testify that more and more people are writing books than ever before.

Coupled with international best sellers you have nestling in these stores, books by local authors from important local history publications to novels.

We are now all better educated than ever before. We read more and have travelled more and have the internet at our fingertips to make research so easy.

But, having said all that, writing a book is not easy. And writing a best seller is certainly not. Publishers get thousands of manuscripts sent to them each year and many are rejected and in some cases the editor does not end up with the work on his desk or get a chance to spot a prodigious talent.

Take the case of Donal Ryan, the now extremely successful and award-winning author who had his first two novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December rejected 47 times before someone eventually spotted his talent.

You need a good idea or plot structure, talent and much more as Kieran Beville outlines in this must-read book for anyone contemplating getting their work published.

Kieran has had almost 20 books published along with contributions to newspapers, journals and magazines all over the world.

Kieran is a former teacher of English literature who has a splendid command of the English language.

In this book he shares with the reader his talents and his knowledge in an effort to help aspiring writers reach their full potential. Every conceivable angle is covered from start to finish including writing novels – Romance, Historical Fiction, Detective Stories, Thrillers, Horrors, Westerns…Kieran deals comprehensively with the mechanics of writing – good dialogue, creating atmosphere, plot structure and much more. He also has chapters on the Short-Story and Poetry, which are insightful and helpful. But this book is not just a forensic analysis of style and structure as Kieran gets to the very soul of writing.

I will finish with another famous Hemingway quote, “For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.”

Eugene Phelan (Editor, Limerick Leader)

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