How does your novel start?
I’ve learned from a website called litopia that readers, agents, and publishers base 90% of their decisions about a book on the first few pages and on the last page.So, how you start your novel is very important.Within a few pages, a reader has to care about the protagonist and have a sense of the whats, wheres, whens, and hows of the world in which she lives.This all has to be conveyed while immersing the reader in descriptions which awaken their sense of touch, smell, and sight. The reader needs to be physically drawn into the scene.The first time I started my novel, I wrote it in third person omniscient - kind of like the narrator in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but I later learned that it is more fashionable and easier to hook your audience if you write in first-person. So I switched.I’ve also been advised to avoid using a prologue because it tends to present an incomplete picture and a reader is more often hooked by jumping into the middle of the action and showing the story instead of telling it. A fight scene is a good way to dive right in.I have mixed feelings about this because I tend to get bored with writing that is all showing and no telling. It just strikes me as an inefficient way to convey information. It is like fleshy excess which slows things down for me when I want the bones of the story to come alive.At first, I followed this advice and started the story off with a fight, but the scene I wrote was rather contrived and it made the protagonist unsympathetic rather than making people want to identify with her.So, in my present version of the story, I ignored advice about avoiding a prologue and went ahead and wrote one to frame the story. I showed the protagonist in a sympathetic light and took my time to drop her into her first crisis. This may have been a mistake, but I’ll find out soon enough. The crisis builds up slowly as the protagonist leaves home and has to face the world by herself. As she wanders through a strange world, she sees danger lurking around every corner and while trying to improve her situation, she falls into a dangerous trap. When it seems that she is saved, she falls deeper and deeper into the trap. Her attempts to climb out of the trap compose most of the story.I wrote 60,000 words and put them up on Amazon last summer but now, I’ve extended the story to 120,000 words and changed the beginning from what I published last summer.There is definitely a learning curve associated with crafting stories.
How can I publish my book?
No one's going to take a book that's inherently flawed and no one's going to be interested in a query letter that doesn't interest them or has so many amateur writing mistakes that they have to reject it because it proves your writing isn't ready for prime time. You know something is wrong with your book or query letter. The solution isn't to try to skirt the submission process and find someone who'll take your book with all it's flaws. That's not how it works. What you have to do is keep working on your novel, or, even better, write something new and better than this one. Don't send it out UNTIL it's absolutely ready, else it's just going to be rejected. Fix your flaws. You're 15, so there's no rush to be published. Also, consider that you might still need time to hone your writing skill before anyone will consider your work. Many people submit their work while their writing is still amateurish. Novice writing isn't going to have anyone offering you a publishing contract. Some things to think about. I'm not saying this to be condescending or mean, but just because you've written a novel doesn't mean it's ready to be published. Many people still have a long way to go with honing their writing and those first novels they write are nothing more than practice novels that gets them one step closer to their goals. Good luck with your book.
What is a good name for a female white cocker spaniel puppy?
If she's white maybe Snowball, Diamond, Polar Bear, Bear, Sunshine, Sky, Star, Sugar (I like that one), Snow.... just to name a few..you don't have to use these, I just couldn't think of anymore.
Was the Mafia actually reluctant to enter the drug trade, as shown in The Godfather?
No. As a group the Mafia is in favor of anything that makes money. Luciano, Genovese, Lucchese and Bonanno were involved in the drug racket as far back as the 20s and 30s. Although strictly speaking they were not Mafioso, Siegel, Buchalter, and Rothstein were also involved in the drug trade. Bonanno, Lucchese, Genovese, and later Gambino were integral to drug networks that would later be known as the French Connection. The Montreal Family, which was theoretically subservient to the Bonannos, was deeply involved in trafficking and distribution.There have been individual bosses or captains who were not interested in getting involved in the drug business or sought to avoid doing business with known drug dealers. Usually these were people who had already made their wealth or were worried about the longer sentences associated with drug crimes.Lucchese Boss Anthony Corallo was taped talking in his Jaguar about the need to kill Mafia members who deal drugs, because they bring too much heat. But (1) nothing ever came of this (2) The previous Lucchese Boss Carmine Traumunti was at one point one of the biggest single heroin financiers in the Mafia and (3) Despite his rants Corallo, like every other Mafia boss, demanded tribute from soldiers and associates without asking too many questions about where the money came from. If you are a mafia soldier expected to kick up $XX,XXX every month it’s much safer to ensure your captain and boss get their money than to not give them their money because you refuse to get involved in drug dealing.In general, people who don’t turn up their nose at extorting money from working people or beating up streetwalkers or murdering people who have something they want won’t blink an eye at investing in heroin or other illicit drugs. Now does that mean they want to be associated with the lower level street dealers, take the risks of handling the product themselves, or allow it in their neighborhoods? Of course not.
Was the name "the Godfather" created by Mario Puzo or did any mafiosos have that title?
Stanley LevitzNo, Mario Puzo did not coin the term “godfather” with reference to the mafia. Mob soldier Joseph Valachi, in his testimony before the McClellan Hearings in 1963 used the term “The Godfather”. This video is from YouTube -Referring to his initiation into the mob, he described the rite of having his finger pricked. - “The Godfather, … makes a little blood come out …” In his book, The Valachi Papers, he says mob boss Salvatore Maranzano told him, “’Well Joe, that’s your gombah (Joseph Bonanno).’ - meaning he was kind of my godfather and was responsible for me.” Mario Puzo’s, The Godfather, was published in 1969.Puzo told Terry Gross of Fresh Air in 1996 that he made the term up and that it hadn’t previously existed.Gross: "Did you come up with the expression, "Godfather"?"Puzo: "Ya, and that was really an accident. 'cause, before I used that, no mafia man ever used The word godfather in that sense. Nobody used it. ... and I got it from ... in Italian family culture, the friends of your parents, when you're a little kid, ... you call them godfather and godmother the way in the American culture you call family friends aunt and uncle. ... So that was just the only way in which it was used, except in the religious sense. ... The word didn't exist."Maybe Puzo subconsciously remembered the term from Valachi or some other source.
Is there a book on a group of minorities rising to power?
I haven't read it, but I've heard good things about The Irish Americans: A History: Jay P. Dolan.For a more focused view on the Irish-American rise to power, you might want to look into a book about Tammany Hall, and/or a book about the Kennedy family.