Archive for the Category »novel «

08
Dec
Book Trailer for Outer Diverse by Nina Munteanu
Nina Munteanu

Check out the book trailer for Nina Munteanu’s newest space adventure thriller, “Outer Diverse“. To the brooding longing notes of Rachmaninov, it previews a haunting paranormal tale of mystery and discovery …

Rhea Hawke discovers there is far more to the massacre of a spiritual sect, mysteriously linked to Dust, the contraband drug “of the gods” and a devastating prophesy of a catastrophic End of Age, triggered by the joining of twin souls. She unravels secrets of fractal geometry, deja vu, dreams and clairvoyance, multiple universes and space-time … and ultimately the greatest secret: herself …

“… a master of metaphor, Munteanu turns an adventure story into a wonderland of alien rabbit holes … a fascinating and enthralling read.”–Craig H. Bowlsby, author of Commander’s Log

You can pick up Outer Diverse at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, Borders and other quality bookstores near you. For those of you in Toronto, Bakka Phoenix Books is carrying Outer Diverse as well as Nina’s “Darwin’s Paradox” duology (set in Toronto) and her guidebook “The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!”

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Category: Gnosticism, Nina Munteanu, SF, SF writer, Suntelia Aion, Uncategorized, adventure, adventure story, aliens, autopoiesis, books, chaos theory, end of the world, fractal geometry, futurism, habitable planets, hero, hero's journey, literature, metaphysics, movies, novel, planets, prix aurora award, quantum physics, sci-fi, science, science fiction, science fiction and fantasy, scifi, sf author, sf girl, space, space exploration, space travel, spaceships, stable chaos, strange attractors, synchrony  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
06
Jul
Second Master Class NOW OPEN
Nina Munteanu
nina prospect01 close warm edited 1 300x266 Second Master Class NOW OPEN

Nina Munteanu, Prospect Point

As a result of continued pressure by new students, Nina has opened a second Master Writing Class.

It runs every Wednesday at 5 pm EST. Join this Exclusive Club of writing enthusiasts for $49/month.

Sign up for Nina’s ongoing Master Writing Class on the Master Class Page.

For $49/month, this is what you get:

  • four weekly one-hour interactive teleseminars accompanied by live webinar (computer streaming: NEW!) Nina lectures on popular writing and publishing topics, based on your submitted works, common issues, and questions from previous sessions. Topics covered and discussed are directly applicable to your personal writing challenges and interests.
  • teleseminar sessions include a twenty minute telephone lecture, followed by interactive computer streaming discussion of specific topics and works directly applicable to your ongoing work. Nina “shows” and “tells”.
  • facilitated discussions on the 10 most common issues faced by novice and professional writers: getting started; dealing with time management & writer’s block; getting those ideas down and making a story out of them; focusing and maintaining the staying power to finish; incorporating all the elements of good storytelling like plot, character, theme and setting into a seamless, page-turning story; making your writing compelling, clear and exciting; doing research and editing; marketing, synopses & outlines, query letters; handling rejection and fear of rejection; and overcoming fear (of failure, of success, of everything).

Eligibility Criteria & Requirements:

The Master Class is tailored for writers serious about getting published and with works in progress (e.g., first draft finished, mostly completed, firm premise and storyboard with portion written). If you do not fit these criteria, you may find that one of Nina’s other online courses or her manuscript evaluation and personal coaching is more suited to your needs.

To be eligible for the Master Class, you must submit an example of your work and agree that you are willing to persist with efforts toward publication, including the willingness to be critiqued, pursue ongoing revisions, and discussions.

The course requires that you have a computer with internet, a secure phone line, have submitted some of your work, have subscribed below, and have acquired the codes to access both conference call and live computer streaming. 

Unless you have been specifically INVITED, contact Nina BEFORE you subscribe:

BEFORE you sign up, contact Nina for eligability and availability at nina.sfgirl@gmail.com [subject: Master Class]. In order to address each of you personally, Nina limits her class sizes. Our first class is still running at maximum. This is why Nina has opened up a new class.

The Master Class that is currently open, runs every Wednesday at 5 pm EST. There are limited spaces for Master Classes so availability will be on a first come basis. Once you successfully register and subscribe for a place in this exclusive club, you will get an email with information on how to get in on the next call. See you there!

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Category: Nina Munteanu, SF writer, SF writers, Writing Workshops, art, books, fiction, novel, novelist, publishing, sf author, sf girl, short story, story, write on, writers, writing, writing tips  Tags: , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
26
Apr
The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! Reviewed
Nina Munteanu

FictionWriterCoverWeb2 190x300 The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! ReviewedThe writing webzine “The Scriptorium” gave Nina’s writing guidebook The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! a stellar review. Here it is: 

Almost every aspiring (and successful!) writer has a few volumes of writing advice that he or she feels are indispensable–books we return to, re-read, and use as guideposts on our writing journey. Munteanu’s wonderful book might find that kind of home on your own bookshelf.

Beginning writers especially will find The Fiction Writer a resource for every step on the road to writing–from defining genre to writing a great beginning; from outlining and plotting to preparing the perfect submission package. It really is an A-to-Z of fiction writing, starting with the chapter “Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds” and hitting every letter of the alphabet right through to “The Zen of Passionate Writing.” Munteanu includes examples and lessons from her own writing career, which serve to emphasize the practical value of her advice.

Although the book covers a lot of ground, there’s no “scattershot” feel to the advice. It’s practical and grounded, and liberally seasoned with constructive exercises and helpful lists and tables, such as “The Hero’s Journey Map” (complete with an explanation of three-act structure), “Ten Ways To Revise Your Story,” common sentence structure and grammar errors.

Despite the fact that readers may know Nina Munteanu as a speculative fiction writer (Darwin’s Paradox, Angel of Chaos), the vast majority of the advice and information in The Fiction Writer applies equally to writers in any fiction genres. Good writing is good writing, and Munteanu has worked hard to provide a guidebook that shows exactly how to achieve that result. Highly recommended!

reviewed by Sherry

Sherry Ramsey is the editor & publisher of The Scriptorium Webzine for Writers, a great resource for writers. Ramsey has also published a writing guide, The New Writer’s Guide to Just About Everything.

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Category: Nancy Kress, News about Nina, Nina Munteanu, Ray Bradbury, SF writers, The Fiction Writer, The Writers Toolkit, Uncategorized, Writing Workshops, allegory, archetypes, books, expression, hero, hero's journey, novel, prix aurora award, publishing, robert j. sawyer, sf author, short story, write on, writer's block, writers, writing, writing tips  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
18
Mar
“Angel of Chaos” Finalist for Book of the Year Award
Nina Munteanu

AngelofChaos Cover front web 201x300 Angel of Chaos Finalist for Book of the Year AwardNina’s latest book Angel of Chaos (Dragon Moon Press) was selected as a finalist for the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award for 2010 in the Science Fiction category.

In 2095 Darwin’s Evolution Kills…

…In this dystopian future, Julie Crane seeks the cure to Earth’s deadliest disease. But is she its cause?…

“Angel of Chaos is … a gripping blend of big scientific ideas, cutthroat politics and complex yet sympathetic characters that will engage readers from its thrilling opening to its surprising and satisfying conclusion” —Hayden Trenholm, Aurora-winning author of The Steele Chronicles 

Angel of Chaos is the first of a duology on humanity’s co-evolution with intelligent technology and intelligent nature. The second book is Darwin’s Paradox and both are available on Amazon, Chapters, and Barnes & Noble.

Finalists in the SF category include:

Finalists were selected from 1400 entries in 56 categories. Finalists were determined by a jury of judges consisting of editors and reviewers of ForeWord Reviews, booksellers, librarians, and other industry professionals.

First, second, and third place winners will be awarded in each category. A $1,500 cash prize will also be awarded to Best Fiction and Best Nonfiction as determined by the editors of ForeWord Reviews. Finalists were announced in their weekly email newsletter, ForeWord This Week, in March 2010.

Winners in each category and overall fiction and nonfiction prize winners will be announced at Book Expo America and on the Foreword website.

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12
Jul
The Novelist–He said, She said: Using Dialogue
Nina Munteanu

author The Novelist He said, She said: Using Dialogue

One of the most important devices to spice up narrative and increase pace is the use of dialogue. There’s a reason for this: we read dialogue more quickly; it’s written in more fluid, conversational English; it tends to create more white space on a page with less dense text, more pleasing to the reader’s eye. Dialogue is action. It gets readers involved.

Good dialogue neither exactly mimics actual speech (e.g., it’s not usually mundane, repetitive or broken with words like “uh”) nor on the other extreme does it proselytize or educate the reader through long discourse (unless the character is that kind of person). Good dialogue in a story should be somewhere in the middle. While it should read as fluid conversation, dialogue remains a device to propel the plot or enlighten us to the character of the speaker). No conversation follows a perfect linear progression. People interrupt one another, talk over one another, often don’t answer questions posed to them or avoid them by not answering them directly. These can all be used by the writer to establish character, tension, and relationship.

Below, I provide a few tips when using dialogue in your story.

  • Show, don’t tell: a common error of beginning writers is to use dialogue to explain something that both participants should already know but the reader doesn’t. It is both awkward and unrealistic and immediately exposes you as a novice. For instance, avoid the use of “As you know…” It’s better to keep the reader in the dark for a while than to use dialogue to explain something. Which brings us to the next point.

  • Have your characters talk to each other, not to the reader: for instance, “Hello, John, you loser drunk and wayward son of the most feared gangster in town!” could be improved to, “You stink like a distillery, John! Wait ‘til papa’s thugs find you!”

  • Avoid adverbs: e.g., he said dramatically, she said pleadingly; instead look for better ways to express the way they said it with actual dialogue. That’s not to say you can’t use adverbs (I believe J.K. Rowling is notorious for this), just use them sparingly and judiciously.

  • Avoid tag lines that repeat what the dialogue already tells the reader: e.g., “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Do you have a dog?” she asked.

  • He said, she said: reduce tag lines where possible and keep them simple by using “said”; another sign of a novice is the overuse of words other than said (e.g., snarled, hissed, purred, etc.). While these can add spice, keep them for special places as they are noticed by the reader and will distract otherwise.

  • Pay consistent attention to a character’s “voice”: each character has a way of speaking that identifies them as a certain type of person. This can be used to identify class, education, culture, ethnicity, proclivities, etc. For instance one character might use Oxford English and another might swear every third word.

  • Use speech signatures: pick out particular word phrases for characters that can be their own and can be identified with them. If they have additional metaphoric meaning to the story, even better. For instance, I know a person who always adds “Don’t you think?” to almost everything they say. This says something about how that person… well, thinks… I knew another person who always added “Do you see?” at the end of their phrase. Again rather revealing.

  • Intersperse dialogue with good descriptive narrative: don’t forget to keep the reader plugged into the setting. Many beginning writers forget to “ground” the reader with sufficient cues as to where the characters are and what they’re doing while they are having this great conversation. This phenomenon is so common, it even has a name. It’s called “talking heads.”

  • Contradict dialogue with narrative: when dialogue contradicts body language or other narrative cues about the speaker, this adds an element of compelling tension and heightens reader excitement while telling them something important. Here are a few examples:

    “How’d it go?”
    “Great,” he lied.

    “I feel so much better now,” she said, jaw clenched.
    “It’s okay; I believe you.” His heart slammed.

    Well, you get the picture, anyway. Hope this helps. Keep writing!

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Category: Nina Munteanu, books, dialogue, literature, novel, novelist, published author, writing, writing tips  6 Comments
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