This Static Spot is open for sponsor

Click Here to Sponsor MCT Eric Post in Full Page

Afrikaans Afrikaans Albanian Albanian Amharic Amharic Arabic Arabic Armenian Armenian Azerbaijani Azerbaijani Basque Basque Belarusian Belarusian Bengali Bengali Bosnian Bosnian Bulgarian Bulgarian Catalan Catalan Cebuano Cebuano Chichewa Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Corsican Croatian Croatian Czech Czech Danish Danish Dutch Dutch English English Esperanto Esperanto Estonian Estonian Filipino Filipino Finnish Finnish French French Frisian Frisian Galician Galician Georgian Georgian German German Greek Greek Gujarati Gujarati Haitian Creole Haitian Creole Hausa Hausa Hawaiian Hawaiian Hebrew Hebrew Hindi Hindi Hmong Hmong Hungarian Hungarian Icelandic Icelandic Igbo Igbo Indonesian Indonesian Irish Irish Italian Italian Japanese Japanese Javanese Javanese Kannada Kannada Kazakh Kazakh Khmer Khmer Korean Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz Kyrgyz Lao Lao Latin Latin Latvian Latvian Lithuanian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Luxembourgish Macedonian Macedonian Malagasy Malagasy Malay Malay Malayalam Malayalam Maltese Maltese Maori Maori Marathi Marathi Mongolian Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Nepali Norwegian Norwegian Pashto Pashto Persian Persian Polish Polish Portuguese Portuguese Punjabi Punjabi Romanian Romanian Russian Russian Samoan Samoan Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Serbian Serbian Sesotho Sesotho Shona Shona Sindhi Sindhi Sinhala Sinhala Slovak Slovak Slovenian Slovenian Somali Somali Spanish Spanish Sundanese Sundanese Swahili Swahili Swedish Swedish Tajik Tajik Tamil Tamil Telugu Telugu Thai Thai Turkish Turkish Ukrainian Ukrainian Urdu Urdu Uzbek Uzbek Vietnamese Vietnamese Welsh Welsh Xhosa Xhosa Yiddish Yiddish Yoruba Yoruba Zulu Zulu

 

 

Article Navigation

Back To Main Page

 

Click Here for more articles
Google
How To Select a Great Topic For Your Book or Ebook Part 4 of 5
by: Aaron Morganstern

For part four of this discussion, we'll be taking a look at some specific topics you may wish to explore...

Looking young

Perhaps sixteen year old girls don't want to look younger, but from that point on, and for most of the population in Western society, looking young is a common desire. Everybody wants to find the fountain of youth, whether it be in a pill bottle, a special diet, surgery, or an ebook.

An ebook about staying or appearing young in the face of growing old will have a solid future. Here are some title ideas, and I'm sure you can come up with a truckload more.

- "Drop ten years and ten pounds in ten days"

- "How to look 28 forever"

- "100 ways to look younger"

- "Grocery store products that will help you look younger"

- "Look 30 again without surgery"

- "How to live to be 100"

This topic is red hot. Botox, surgery, chemical peels, lasers, diets, acupuncture, electronic pulses, mega vitamins, prescription teas, thigh cream, and teeth whiteners are being purchased by baby boomers, the elderly, and even women as young as 20 ! No one wants to look a day older than they have to.

Health

Health is a concern to anyone who is growing old or ill or faced illness with a loved one or wants more energy or, basically, everybody. Health ebooks are a good investment for you to make. And doctors don't have to be the authors. Anyone with any credentials, or no crendetials at all, can write books on health. Just be sure you don't claim to be a doctor if you're not one.

Here are some health topics you can hit at this moment in time and be almost guaranteed immediate interest, readership, and sales!

Disease prevention and cure. As our baby boomer population ages, most will be afflicted with heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia, or some other malady. Give these people some hope. Create an ebook (see http://www.writingcash.com) on how to cope, how to find the best practitioners, how to avoid disease triggers, or cures American doctors are unaware of.

Natural remedies. People are curious about alternatives to standard medicine, and are anxious to try herbal, natural, or holistic treatments. Create a book on any disease that covers alternative cures. For example, "How to Treat Lymphoma, Naturally." Or, you could just address natural supplements in general, "The best natural remedies for common ailments," or "Holistic health."

Diet. What we eat is always a hot topic. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of diet fads currently out there. Pick any one of them for an ebook. Then there's obesity, general health, and also diet supplements like vitamins. Think "How to equip your kitchen for macrobiotic dieting." Or, "Eat to cure cancer."

Another great topic along the lines of health would be a book exposing the scam of whole life insurance (yes I said scam) which most insurance agents push on their clients since they make more commissions selling a whole life policy than a term life insurance policy (see http://www.no-medical-exam-insurance.com ). If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the deal: If you're currently paying for whole life, and you're still relatively young, get term life insurance instead and put the extra money into a real investment instead of giving it to your insurance agent.

Travel

Never has so much travel been available to so many. People today want to get in touch with the people they love. They want to experience different parts of the world. See exotic things. Be entertained. Also, because, especially in America, adults sometimes work well more than 40 hours a week, people need really good vacations. They're doing their research to make sure that they will really enjoy their precious few weeks off each year.

Here are some topics for you: how to trade frequent flyer miles, how to keep airport security off your back, how to travel on a dime and get change, and how to keep your children happy on long car trips.

Beyond the how-to's, there is plenty of room for books like, the best amusement parks for your money, top 100 campgrounds, things you must see and do in Utah before you die, and free things to do when visiting Washington, D.C.

Get the idea? The good thing about creating travel ebooks is that you may already know a lot about a place that other people may be interested in visiting. Makes it easy!

Money

Money makes the world go around (well that and the earth's axis and planetary forces), and so it would make sense that ebooks would abound on the topic of money. They do, but the market is nowhere near saturated. There's always room for more. From getting rich to just saving money day-to-day, people are always interested in how-to books related to money. Ideas below:

- "How to feed your family on less than $40 a week"

- "How to get free stuff"

- "How to pay almost no taxes"

- "How to buy a retirement home for no money down"

- "How to be richer than your parents"

- "How to buy cars and jewelry at auction" (see http://www.jewelryexposed.com )

- "How to start a financial management business"

Life enrichment

In these days, although fewer and fewer are attending churches, more and more are flocking to purchase self-help books. Self-help books are leaping off shelves at brick and mortar bookstores. People want to feel that if they read a self-help book, they have all the power to change their lives. Whether or not this is true is moot. Changing your life, soul searching, and helping thyself, are all great ebook topics.

As much as ever before, people want to know how to find peace with their pasts, how to be creative or spiritual in a consuming society, and how to find true love. There is no end to how-to books you could create in the category of self-help, or life enrichment. Here are a few more ideas here:

- How to marry for life

- How to unbreak your heart

- How to stay sane in a crazy world

- How to meditate

I hope you have gleaned a few ideas from this brainstorming session. We'll explore some more hot topics in the final installment of this article series.

About The Author

Aaron Morganstern is a freelance copywriter, and has ghost written ebooks for several well-known internet marketers. He resides in Utah with his wife, and enjoys skiing and other outdoor activities. For more information about ebooks and writing he recommends the website http://www.writingcash.com and he can often be found on writing forums giving helpful advice to aspiring young authors.

This article was posted on December 07, 2005

 


©2005 - All Rights Reserved

This Static Spot is open for sponsor

Creative Writing

Read Articles:


 About Writing

 Realize Your Book’s Potential: Join (or Form) a...

 Essay Reveals a Writer in You

 Ways To Increase Traffic by Writing Articles

 Why Do I Write – A Masochists Dream

 Field Notes on Country Linguistics

 The Right Words Can Make You Wealthy

 Four Useful Lies About Writing

 Secrets to Creating Great Headlines

 ***Writing Is Fun!***

 The Golden Hour

 How the Writer Survives

 Speak and Touch the Heart

 Benefits of Journal Writing

 The Indie Author Revolution

 The effective way to purchase your favorite pro...

 Five Ways A Writer Can Make More Money With A P...

 The Three "Questions" Of Science Fiction

 Steps to a Writing an Effective Press Releases

 5 Questions to ask before purchasing a book online

 Writing Nonfiction

 "I Am An AUTHOR" - Is This The Next Big Fad?

 It Was Good Enough For Shakespeare!

 Tips For Cover Letters To Get More Interviews

 How To Select a Great Topic For Your Book or Eb...

 The "Casablanca" Secret

 How To Select a Great Topic For Your Book or Eb...

 Discover What Good Writing Is All About

More Article Pages 1 - 2

 

 Creative Writing Tips - Have You Established Your Main Character At The Start?
 by: Nick Vernon

In the beginning of your story you have to grab your readers’ interest and sustain it till the end. Our hook is our character. Readers keep on reading to find out more about the character. To see what he’ll do in the story; how he’ll solve his problems. What his goals are and whether he’ll achieve them.

And because our character is the reason readers become hooked on our stories, establishing him at the start is a must in a short story. And it is essential to establish him at the start because we don’t have the capacity in our limited word length to introduce him at our leisure.

The bond between readers and character has to be developed almost immediately.

You might have a few characters though. How do you decide who your main character will be? A main character is one that drives the story.

Think of it this way… If we were to take him away, there will be no story because it’s his story we are telling. The story will unfold by what is happening or what has happened to him.

When you establish who your main character will be, the next thing to do is to find which of your characters is in the best position to tell the story. Will your main character tell his story or will you give that role to another character?

This is what we call Viewpoint and what we’ll see in more detail in proceeding chapters.

Your main character isn’t necessarily the one who is telling the story; he might not even appear in our story ‘physically’ but will be there through the thoughts of others. So the viewpoint character might be a secondary character.

Whoever is telling the story is the viewpoint character.

The viewpoint character gives the coloring of the story. Whatever this characters says, we will believe. It may or may not be true, according to the main character, but because he isn’t there ‘physically’ to voice his opinions, we will have to take the viewpoint character’s word for it.

In a novel you can play around with viewpoint. You can have several viewpoint characters. In a short story it works best with one.

So your main character, whether he’ll be telling his own story or someone else will be doing it for him, has to be established at the start of your story.

Having said that, let’s see the reasons why the main character may not be telling his own story...

  • Perhaps our main character is one that readers won’t sympathize or empathize with.
  • Or the main character will not view highly with our readers
  • Or the viewpoint character knows all the facts and can tell the story better
  • Etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me give you an example of a secondary character telling the story of a main character…

Let’s say your secondary character is a psychiatrist and the main character is the patient. Depending on what’s going to go on in the story, we’ll have to choose who’s in a better position to tell it. In this case, I will choose the psychiatrist.

I’ve done this because the patient is confused, being the one with the problems. The psychiatrist knows all the facts and his opinions will make things clearer to readers.

So, as the secondary character (the psychiatrist) unravels the story, we’ll become involved in the main character because it’s the main character’s story that is been told.

This may get a little confusing to the beginner writer. As they write they will have to keep in mind that the secondary character, although he’s telling the story, is NOT our main character.

The secondary character is there to do perform a task. He’s only the voice. It’s the main character we’ll become involved with.

A secondary character doesn’t play such an important role as a main character does. Therefore, information about secondary characters should be kept to a minimum. It’s not his story – it’s the main character’s story and the spotlight must, most times, be kept on the main character.

Take the above example for instance. It’s no relevance to the story how the psychiatrist started his career or where he received his diploma – what’s important, is what he has to say about the main character, his patient.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introduce your main character straight away, as close to the beginning of the story that’s possible. Enable your readers to form a bond and that will keep them hooked.

Is your main character established at the start of your story?


©2005 - All Rights Reserved

JV Blogs Visit free hit counter