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  • Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Some of My Books

  • : The Fall of the Republic

    The Fall of the Republic
    In a parallel timeline, 1990s America discovers the chronoplanes: parallel worlds at different points in history.

  • : Rogue Emperor

    Rogue Emperor
    The hijacking of the Roman Empire, 100 AD, by 21st-century Christian fundamentalists, in the second of the Chronoplane Wars novels.

  • : The Empire of Time

    The Empire of Time
    My first novel, published in 1978, but the last in the Chronoplane Wars trilogy.

  • : Gryphon

    Gryphon
    "Write a space opera," my editor said. So I did, with some nanotech thrown in.

  • : Tsunami

    Tsunami
    A companion novel to Icequake, set mostly in California.

  • : Icequake

    Icequake
    A disaster thriller (Antarctic ice sheet surges into ocean), dated but still fun.

  • : Eyas

    Eyas
    Originally published in 1982, and still the novel I'm most proud of.

My Blogs

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Finding a Publisher

A reader posted a comment about finding a publisher for her novel in progress. I suggest going to my online course Write a Novel, specifically section 16: Researching Publishers and Agents.

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Comments

Hi, just curious; I haven't come across anything saying that once a novel is completed, it needs to be patent..is this safe to assume that a novel does not need to be patent? What happens if an agent / publishers steals the idea, is this possible this could happen? Thank you.

Hi, Darren--

Copyright laws vary a bit from country to country, but in general, you copyright your work by the very act of writing it. You can't copyright the idea, or the title, but the actual text you create is all yours.

I tell my fiction-writing students not to worry--their work isn't worth stealing. That's not because it's bad, but because the rewards of such theft are so small.

(In the movies, where the rewards are far greater, plagiarism can be a real problem--that's why producers and directors will never read a script that hasn't come through an agent.)

So get on with your novel, and don't worry too much about copyright.

Hi,
I'm a young writer of 15 in a couple of weeks i should be finished with a novel i have been writing. But i have no clue what to do next. Should i look for an agent first or a publisher? Are they the same thing? I found one group and they were talking about when you send in your manuscript and then had a whole bunch of names like PUFFIN, PHILOMEL, and GROSSET & DUNLAP/PSS! What are those?

Much Appreciation

Help! If I want to mention a title of a book or an old song, or include the lyrics of a song in a book I am writing, do I have to get permission? And if so, how do I go about in doing that? I have been given different answers.

Mary Ann, you can mention a title with no problem. Using the lyrics of a song (or lines of verse, or a passage from a book) will probably require obtaining written permission from whoever owns the rights to the work.

I haven't had to do much of that, so I can't give you much help. You might try googling the title of the song + "rights" and see what you get. Good luck!

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