What is the secret to great writing?(Darrell Case) For many years and even today I get emails from those who try to interest me in the latest way to publish your book. The latest technique on grammar. Organize my thoughts or office. If I publish my book with them or have the right agent. If I format my pages in just such a way, people will flock to my writing and I will be a success. I will make a lot of money and my life will be better. While all of this may be true. Is this what I want to be remembered for? That I put my comma in the right places? Or is it something more?
When I read the short stories of Ernest Hemingway, I am with Nick Adams as he shoots his line over a stream. I could almost taste the trout as he eats it. As writers, we have a responsibility to the reader to put them in the middle of the action. To help them feel what the protagonist feels. When a young man kneels before a woman to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him, I want my reader to be so close they can hand the young man the engagement ring.
If my protagonist gets shot, I want my reader to feel the pain. However, I also want them to feel the story from the villain’s point of view. To experience the emotions of the scene. If a child is dying, I want the reader to be standing in the room’s corner weeping right along with the parents. If my protagonist feels fear. Emotional or physical pain, it is my responsibility as an artist to feel the same emotions and to pass them on to my reader.
I want my reader to feel the emotions of all my main characters. However, I don’t want them just to experience what the protagonist is feeling, but also the villain. If the reader feels anger, frustration, desperation on the part of the villain, then I have performed my task well. In Sluagh, I took my readers back to the time of Max’s childhood to understand why he killed children. Pacifically little boys. As one reader put it: ‘Sluagh: Demon of the Night by Darrell Case is a book that grabs you on page one and does not let go until you reach the last page.’
Please don’t misunderstand me. Grammar is very important. Putting a comma or a period in the right place is very vital. However, there is software for this. Yet only you as the author can grip your reader by the hand and scream at them to duck their head when the shots go off.
So, if there is a secret, it is no secret at all. Put your reader in the middle of the action and yell, “Hang on.”

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