Ask the Author: Dick B. Long
Answered Questions (6)
Dick B. Long
That would be Destined to Love. In high school, I played football with a boy whose mother had passed. After four years, when he was sixteen, his father married a woman from a neighboring town. She had a daughter who was eighteen. He loved her from day one. I could see it when they were together. Her mother caught them together late one night. Even though they said they were doing nothing wrong, she was sent to live with her aunt. She came back when he was eighteen. It was as if she had not been gone. I know for a fact he never dated while she was away. He had gotten a football scholarship to the University of Georgia, so she transferred from her college to the University. They shared an apartment the whole time they were at the University with their parents blessing. After graduating, they married and had two children—Destined to Love.
Dick B. Long
An idea for a story rattles around in my head until I have to take pen in hand and set it down on paper.
Dick B. Long
A story about a man in his fifties who is forced to retire from the CIA. He takes out a map, closes his eyes, turns around, and drops his finger on the map. He opens his eyes and looks at the map. “So, I’m retiring to Brunswick. Ga.” And away he goes.
Dick B. Long
I have read, ‘write what you know about’. That’s good advice, but what if you don’t know about what you want to write about? Well, go learn about it. If you are going to write a story set in Atlanta—read about Atlanta, go to Atlanta and look around. There’s nothing like writing about a place you’ve been, a street you’ve stood on. And now, with the miraculous reach of the internet, anyone can be anywhere, learn anything, find any path.
One thing I wish someone had told me when I was a young writer—first summarize your story, do a short outline or blurb. Next develop your characters’ world—define the people who live there, street names., and what’s it like. Finally, develop your main characters—physical characteristics, knowledge, relationships, every aspect of them down to their shoe size.
One thing I wish someone had told me when I was a young writer—first summarize your story, do a short outline or blurb. Next develop your characters’ world—define the people who live there, street names., and what’s it like. Finally, develop your main characters—physical characteristics, knowledge, relationships, every aspect of them down to their shoe size.
Dick B. Long
I can be anyone I wish and I can go anywhere I wish. One day, I can be a swashbuckler in the Caribbean in the seventeen hundred’s; the next, a Marine in the Pacific during WWII. Early, in high school, I realized that through writing I could always get the girl, have the fastest horse, catch the winning touchdown, make an A in Miss Livingston’s English class. Wait! Make that a B. Let’s be realistic—Miss Livingston would never give me an A.
Dick B. Long
Write through it. It’s not as hard as it sounds. If you have developed great characters, let them have their way. More times than not they will talk you through any writer’s block.
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