Welcome to Hell: A Working Guide for the Beginning Writer

By Tom Piccirilli

"...if anybody tells you that all you need is a lucky break, then tell them to shove off. Luck is about the worst thing that can happen in this biz, and it's no substitute for knowledge, experience, and skill."     

     —Tom Piccirilli, from Welcome to Hell

 

 

"Welcome to Hell is an anecdotal look into Piccirilli's life and writing process that happens to serve as a wonderful tool for any fledgling writer.  Oddly, since he's so acclaimed, this may be the Piccirilli book that should break out into the mainstream.  In a mere forty to fifty pages (depending on whether you count the signature page and the helpful addresses), Piccirilli lays out, in an ultra-accessible almost stream-of-consciousness style, answers to all the silly questions that newbie writers like to ask." 

     —Spiderwords

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fairwood Press
• Release date: Jul 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386589433

Book preview

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION #1

INTRODUCTION #2

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR IDEAS?

TECHNIQUE, STYLE,AND WATCHING BOB’S FACE GET EATEN

SURE, I COULD BE A BEST SELLER BUT I JUST DON’T HAVE THE TIME

I’M A SCIENCE FICTION WRITER BUT I’VE NEVER HEARD OF HARLAN ELLISON,ROBERT SILVERBERG OR THIS DR. ASIMOV GUY

NETWORKING

WRITER’S BLOCK &OTHER HANG-UPS

THE BRIEFEST OF FINAL COMMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WELCOME

TO HELL

A Working Guide

for the Beginning Writer

TOM

PICCIRILLI

FAIRWOOD PRESS

Bonney Lake, WA

Praise for Tom Piccirilli’s Welcome to Hell:

"The energy and directness of Piccirilli’s fiction abounds in Welcome to Hell; where at least a hundred-and-one percent of a young writer’s questions and despairs are addressed. If you are just starting out as a writer, listen to this man. You can trust what he tells you."

—Jack Cady, author of The American Writer

"Piccirilli tells, in a concise and often amusing fashion, what he has learned in over a decade of writing fine short stories and novels in the fields of horror, mystery and fantasy. Welcome to Hell should be read by anyone serious about embarking on a career writing fiction."

—Richard Laymon, author of A Writer’s Tale

Tom Piccirilli doesn’t mess around with academic folderol that makes unusable pronouncements about writing fiction. He gets right to the marrow with the directness of a heart to heart conversation. No nonsense. Here’s what works. This is a must for the neophyte’s bookshelf.

—James Van Pelt, author of Pandora’s Gun

"Welcome to Hell is a quick look—like a kiss in the dark from someone you’ve admired for years—inside Tom Piccirilli’s head. These are the problems and questions beginning writers need to know and understand. The things Tom talks about in this book are like the flogging whips of penitents, and they can beat your career to death before it even gets started. Check the hash marks on Tom’s back. He’s lost some skin over these very things. All I can say is thank you, Tom, for the advice, but where the hell were you when I was getting started? You could have saved me some grief and skin."

—Trey Barker, author of The Unknowing

A wonderful tool for any fledgling writer. . . . Piccirilli lays out, in an ultra-accessible almost stream-of-consciousness style, answers to all the silly questions that newbie writers like to ask.

—Spiderwords

More praise for Tom Piccirilli

On The Last Kind Words:

A caustic thriller . . . the characters have strong voices and bristle with funny quirks.

—The New York Times Book Review

"There’s more life in Piccirilli’s The Last Kind Words (and more heartache, action, and deliverance) than any other novel I’ve read in the past couple of years."

—Booklist

Perfect crime fiction . . . a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story.

—Lee Child, NYT Bestselling author of the

Jack Reacher series

On A Choir of Ill Children:

Wonderfully wacked, disorienting, fully creepy book . . . The poetic nature of the prose and seriousness of intent carried the day in every scene.

—Dean Koontz, NYT Bestselling author of

The Bad Place & Odd Thomas

"Piccirilli’s mastery of the hard-boiled idiom is pitch perfect, particularly in the repartee between his characters, while the picture he paints of the criminal corruption conjoining the innocent and guilty in a small Long Island community is as persuasive as it is seamy. Readers who like a bleak streak in their crime fiction