Genghis Khan's Rules for (Warriors) Writers
By David Wilkin
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About this ebook
Genghis Khan came from the Steppes of Mongolia, a family torn apart by neighboring tribes, to unite those tribes, or defeat them, and then conquer the greater part of the known world. His heirs would continue his conquest right to the edge of western society. The world feared the Mongols, and Genghis. Now, you can benefit, as a writer from the lessons he has to impart on how, with the changing world of publishing, you can perfect your work and write not only good material for this new age of book publishing. But can write great work for this new age.
10 simple lessons, and you will be on your way to conquering the bookshelves of the 21st century. This short book will have you learning all you really need to know to elevate your writing to the next level. These simple lessons will start you on the road to better writing as a member of the Horde in no time.
David Wilkin
A graduate in history, Mr. Wilkin has been writing in various genres for twenty five years. His enjoyment of English Regency-era dancing, which he taught for over ten years, led him to a wider study of the time period. Combining his training with his enjoyment of the period has led Mr. Wilkin to write several Regency era historicals.
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Genghis Khan's Rules for (Warriors) Writers - David Wilkin
Genghis Khan came from the Steppes of Mongolia, a family torn apart by neighboring tribes, to unite those tribes, or defeat them, and then conquer the greater part of the known world. His heirs would continue his conquest right to the edge of western society. The world feared the Mongols, and Genghis. Now, you can benefit, as a writer from the lessons he has to impart on how, with the changing world of publishing, you can perfect your work and write not only good material for this new age of book publishing. But can write great work for this new age.
10 simple lessons, and you will be on your way to conquering the bookshelves of the 21st century. This short book will have you learning all you really need to know to elevate your writing to the next level. These simple lessons will start you on the road to better writing as a member of the Horde in no time.
GENGHIS KHAN’S RULES FOR (WARRIORS) WRITERS
David W. Wilkin
If All the World Were Paper Books
an imprint of
Regency Assembly Press
www.regencyassemblypress.com
REGENCY ASSEMBLY PRESS
Hemet, CA, USA
First Printing, September 2011
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © David W. Wilkin, 2011
ePublished in the United States of America
Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any from, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ePUBLISHED and SMASHWORDS EDITION, LICENSE NOTES
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have to thank my writing group (the Brea Borders Writers Group) for their encouragement in publishing and then refining this book. Deedira Bockhold, Elizabeth Durand, Melinda Sherbring, Anne Okamoto and Jennifer Martindale. Additionally UCLA Continuing Education, the Cal State Fullerton Writers program and other venues have served to refine this product. Further, the Hemet Writing Group, Michelle Bassett, Taryn Benson, Eilene Patrick, Scott Adams and Tyrone Guess. Without the association of so many other writers, this type of work would never have been written.
Table of Contents
Foreword
You are a Great leader, Be Voracious
Tell Me A Damn Good Story, otherwise…
Themes and Dreams
Plot, but for you it can be your grave
Character:People are Stereotypes
Verbosity the death of 1000 Words
Whip them into Shape
Crescendos, Making your Story’s Melody Sing
Edit, edit, edit, then do it again?
Act like a Writer
About the Author
Foreword
Genghis Khan’s Rules for (Warriors) Writers
A look at ten techniques to make you prepared
for being published
in an age where the world of Publishing
is beset by the Horde of Writers
who have learned these rules
The world of publishing your writing is changing. Automobiles killed the Buggy Whip industry. Computers have made Typesetters obsolete. Now eReading is changing all you know about publishing. A perfect time for Genghis and his teachings to come back.
Genghis, my interpretation of Genghis, and your journey as a writer are to be taken with your grains of salt. It is my interpretation, and your road may be different than mine is. When I state something authoritatively and you are completely convinced that I am wrong, you have that right.
Hold firm to your beliefs as I do to mine. But I think you will find that those beliefs that I do expound upon, might have some resonance with you. Even if you hate what I and Genghis have said, take a moment later, tomorrow, next week and reflect on the message underlying the words.
Though this book is written with an eye to get you started on your journey and get rid of the clutter that so many other books on writing might have you do, it is written with an eye to all writing. However it is written by a novelist under the watchful eye of Genghis. Many of the rules are expressed as a novelist would look at something, but the rule and the interpretation can be applied to all types of writing.
I also should point out that while you may already have a system that works for you, and even have adopted all our ideas here, you may, or may not, find new insights to help your writing. If you are a novice, the Genghis Khan way is one interpretation (the correct one of course Genghis would say) of how you can write. If you think that the chapter on Theme is just wrong, you need not change your style and adopt it. You are the writer and inspiration and art begins with you. If you are halfway in the midst of reading this book and are compelled with an urge to write, then you must start telling your tale.
On the other hand, very few of us, very few, can vomit out a great story the first go round. We do not have the best word flow from mind to fingers and onto paper. A rewrite and edit gives us the chance to hone art with craft and make the material better. Even find that apostrophe s that we placed the apostrophe on the wrong side while typing at sixty words a minute. Genghis’ rules should serve as your guidelines. In writing if you can spin it, and it contradicts a rule written in this book it proves what is really so; that there are no rules written in stone.
You must also consider, as I am sure many will, that what makes one a good writer and one a successful writer can be different things. Also the definition that you or I give success will have different meanings. In our current day and age, when electronic books are overtaking physical books, and the Internet is changing the way we purchase books, so too is our definition of success asking to be reevaluated. There are thousands of books on the traditional writing method. Designed for you to produce a novel that will spend time being readied to be sent to an agent, who will then, should you be fortunate to have one, make changes so that the work becomes more marketable.
From that refinement, the agent will shop it around and should you be so lucky, sell it to a publisher. Again with more refinement as the publisher will want to have you change it. Yet both of those roles are disintegrating before our eyes. And if you do not believe that, then take a harder look around at the news about publishing. Even Writer’s Digest has advice for self-publishing electronically these days. And why not? Amazon, the worlds largest seller of books, wants us to do that.
Amazon wants writers to produce books to fill their catalog. They need not be good. They just need to sell.
This work, these ideas, we hope will take you to that place where you novel sells. Some are the great ideas that you have seen elsewhere. Some are those ideas stood on their head and reinterpreted in a different way than you might see traditionally. Some are reinforcement because you as craftsman and artists do have to pay attention to some preexisting rules that really do work.
The astute warrior will notice that the storyteller who narrates this has a sense of humor, and while often he derides the rules with irreverence, especially those postulated by other writers of guides on how to write well, he also has respect for many of their achievements. He cautions though, that often they do not have such caveats in place which allow you to throw out the rules they prescribe with the bathwater should a particular rule of theirs not work for you.
He also may give of his sense of humor. Should you find it overpowering, let Genghis know. He has a rather permanent remedy for that.
Ultimately this work is a path that you can take, different than the traditional path that exists, for that road, the sands of time seem to be covering. New highways and byways are opening up to all writers. Here you shall see how you can prepare yourself and your material to get your work to the shelf.
The 10 Rules:
1) Read like a writer
2) Have a good story
3) Your work will be Thematic
4) Plot: The seven deadly ones
5) Characters will carry your tale, near and far
6) Words are your warriors
7) Stories are structured
8) All tales building to a Crescendo
9) Genghis edits history, shouldn’t you as well
10) Act like a writer
Chapter 1--You are a Great leader, Be Voracious
"Ah, my fine little Mongolian, you wish to follow in my footsteps and conquer all. Make the Steppes your own personal playground. To be the master of all that you survey.
It is not so easily done, you suspect.
You are right.
Do you think that I left the cradle and the loving arms of my mother and conquered more of the world than your puny Alexander ever did? Do you think I did this without a great deal of