Learn to write science fiction and fantasy from a master

You've always dreamed of writing science fiction and fantasy tales that pull readers into extraordinary new worlds and fantastic conflicts. Best-selling author Orson Scott Card shows you how it's done, distilling years of writing experience and publishing success into concise, no-nonsense advice. You'll learn how to:

• utilize story elements that define the science fiction and fantasy genres
• build, populate, and dramatize a credible, inviting world your readers will want to explore
• develop the "rules" of time, space and magic that affect your world and its inhabitants
• construct a compelling story by developing ideas, characters, and events that keep readers turning pages
• find the markets for speculative fiction, reach them, and get published
• submit queries, write cover letters, find an agent, and live the life of a writer

The boundaries of your imagination are infinite. Explore them with Orson Scott Card and create fiction that casts a spell over agents, publishers, and readers from every world.

Continuing on the path of The Gift of Fear (Gavin deBecker) Spotting Danger Before It Spots You is geared towards the average citizen who at any moment could find themselves faced with a violent encounter but may lack the training needed to detect the situation early or react to it appropriately.

• Written in a manner that can be easily understood by the average citizen who may lack any formal training in the areas of situational awareness and personal safety.
• Not everyone carries a gun or studies martial arts, that’s why this book focuses on the skillsets necessary to detect and avoid violent encounters.
• Breaks the information into three easy-to-follow phases. Phase one increases the listeners understanding of predatory mindset and violence. Phase two walks the listener through the development of proper situational awareness. Phase three provides the listener with the methods for implementing what they’ve learned, and instructions for how to increase their level of personal security.
• Criminals pick their victims (soft targets) in under a minute and base it largely on the victim’s body language. Learn to change body language and be seen as a hard target.
• The author is someone who has traveled the world as a government agent (a federal air marshal) and made a career of situational awareness.
• Foreword written by best-selling author and violence expert Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.

Crime Facts

• 1.2 million violent crimes were committed in the US in 2018. (Source: FBI’s Uniform Crime Report)
• 1 in every 253 US citizens were a victim of a violent crime in 2017. (Source: FBI’s Crime Data Explorer)
• 50% of violent crimes happen outside the victim’s home. (Source: FBI’s Crime Data Explorer)
• Male offenders make up 80% of violent crimes in 2017. (Source: FBI’s Crime Data Explorer)
• Women are victimized 48% of the time in 2017. (Source: FBI’s Crime Data Explorer)

Lloyd Kaufman, the writer/producer/director of such cult-classic films as The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke 'Em High, and Tromeo and Juliet, offers a guide to movie-making unlike any other available anywhere. In 25 years, Kaufman, along with partner Michael Herz, has built Troma Studios up from a company struggling to find its voice in a field crowded with competitors to its current--and legendary--status as a lone survivor, a bastion of true cinematic independence, and the world's greatest collection of camp on film.

As entertaining and funny as it is informative and insightful, Make Your Own Damn Movie! places Kaufman's radically low-budget, independent-studio style of film-making directly in the reader's hands. Thus we learn how to: develop and write a knock-out screenplay; raise funding; find locations and cast actors; hire a crew; obtain equipment, permits, and music rights (all for little or no money); make incredible special effects for $0.79 each; charm, schmooze, and network while on the film-festival circuit; and, finally, make a bad actor act so bad it's actually good.

From script-writing and directing to financing and marketing, this book is brimming with utterly off-the-wall, decidedly maverick, yet consistently proven advice on how to fully develop one's idea for an independent film.