3. Tone The tone of your work should be personal and friendly. Yes, informal style is recommended as opposed to formal and impersonal tone. Refer to yourself as “I”. Address your reader as “you”. Use “we” or “us” to refer to your reader and yourself.

So, use tone that you would use to speak to your friend. But do not be too informal or slangy. However, you should use appropriate tone for your characters -- formal, semi – formal, informal, colloquial and slang, depending on their educational background.

Also, avoid offensive languages such as racist overtones. Remember that you intend your work to be read by all nations, tribes, people, tongues and sexes. If then tone of your work is biased, you would lose readership.

4. Distance Suppose you walked to an uneducated criminal and told him that he was under cardiac arrest. What would he think? I guess he would think a crack team of police was after him. And run!

But if you told him he had heart disease, and you are a doctor; would he run? No. He would come closer to get cure. So it is with writing.

It is not language you use as a doctor in a seminar of College of Surgeons or as a scientist in a space ship full of astronomers, that you use when talking to common man. The tone of your language, therefore, dictates distance between you, and your reader.

If distance is far, your reader may feel you don’t consider him; and put your book away. But if distance is close, he will be happy to read on.

5.Figures of Speech Figures of speech or imagery should be used with care as they tend to be abstract. But when carefully used, they enhance beauty of your language.

You do not need to read a book of Figures of Speech to know them, because it is part of your daily expressions.

Let’s look at story of fight scene again to see if we can find some there: The police and a madman could not stop fight (irony), you were catapulted by a missile up bridge (humor), you followed a snake to river (hyperbole), and waited for Queen (climax).

If you, therefore, write way you speak, your peculiar language and style will be manifest.

Copyright © 2002, all rights reserved

About Author:

ARTHUR ZULU, The Most Controversial Writer in World, is author of best – selling book, HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER. Download your copy and FREE excerpt at : http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/10975 For FREE writing helps, mailto : controversialwriter@yahoo.com

I am among that number. I got a rejection slip from one of them, one year after submission! Can you imagine that? Twelve calendar months! And in end, you would have to pray to god of good luck, to get a publisher. And after another one year, another rejection slip. Another prayer. So you would have to spend a lifetime looking for a publisher, after months or years of hard work, writing your book.

The point is that they don’t have time to read your book. Or they can’t recognize a good book if they see one. Or, they can’t afford to risk their money publishing a new comer like you, without hope of getting huge profits. Or, all of above.

But consider: If you were a great writer, perhaps a Nobel Laureate who had written a magnum opus. Or, if you were some celebrated politician with a memoir about your dalliance with some red – lipped prostitutes.

Or, if as a scientist, you had written a book about how time travels backwards, titled THE THEORY OF BACKWARD MOVEMENT. And you even promise to take your readers in a space ship to witness some epochal events –- pick your choice -– fall of Carthage, (history), splitting of continents (geography), Noah’s flood (religion), and real thing -- Big Bang (Science). Do you know how publishers would react?

All of them, above ones I have mentioned, and others not named, would rush to dangle certified Bank checks with ten digit figures before your smiling face! But try sending your unsolicited manuscript, you unknown writer; and be damned!

Copyright © 2002, all rights reserved

About Author:

ARTHUR ZULU, The Most Controversial Writer in World, is author of best – selling book, HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER. Download your copy and FREE excerpt at : http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/10975. For FREE writing helps, mailto : controversialwriter@yahoo.com