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In the first session, Dusty presented an overview of what to expect when you take the first
step into publishing your work.
Next, he got down to the nitty-gritty of writing, sharing a few tricks he learned on plotting,
showing instead of telling, and how to give your characters the charisma needed to entice your readers to care what happens
in the next chapter.
We broke for lunch, then gathered again for more information on the art of gaining your
readers' trust and how to hold the readers' interest.
For the last session, he critiqued some things that a few brave souls brought to the workshop,
and talked about critique in general. If you are in a writers' group, this is an area that takes fine tuning - each
members' needs are different, and the group should be aware of what each member hopes to gain from open critique.
If you weren't there, you missed out, pardner!
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Western writer Dusty Richards says he was born in a tumbleweed and wore western boots in his crib.
This Springdale, Arkansas cowboy has sold over sixty novels under his own name and pseudonyms, and gleans many of his stories
from his experiences as an auctioneer, radio announcer, chicken doctor, and TV Anchor.
Last year Dusty's rodeo book, The Natural, was
selected as the fiction novel of the year by the Oklahoma Writers' Federation. This June at the Arkansas Writers' Conference
he will be inducted into the Arkanass Writers' Hall of Fame. In March, The Ft. Smith Trail,
his second book in the Ralph Compton Trail Drive series, will be available, and his novel from Pocket books, Deuces
Wild, will be on the shelves in May.
According to Dusty, writing fiction is no different in the western genre than any other; he teaches the 'how-to'
of fiction writing. Any book is about a person and all the parts of their psyche, their drive and needs, and responses
to outside forces and how they reach their goals.
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