There's only one absolutely unbreakable rule in the English language, according to author and writing expert Bill Brohaugh--"Never start a sentence with a comma."

 For a story to be a story, it has to have five basic narrative elements: character, conflict, setting, plot, and theme. (Some folk might argue about that last one.) But a story can be any length.

Here's the shortest one I've ever come across. It was written by Frederic Brown and published in the December 1948 issue of the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories.

The last man on earth sat alone in a room.

There was a knock on the door.

Looks to me like all the elements are there. What do you think? --GK

Get the Picture? Department

Here are my original ideas for The Sword and the Way cover (as if anyone asked for them).

Using N.C. Wyeth, one of my all-time favorite artists from the Golden Age of adventure-book illustration:

(Ginny, who has more brains than I do, pointed out that readers would think the dragonship was the hero's ship--an important distinction.)






Using my feeble Sea Door From the East sketch, finished off with color pencils no less:

(Ginny, who has more sense--not to mention taste--than I do, saved readers from that one! Although I can't seem to delete it from our Goodreads page.)






Here's another cover concept we toyed with briefly:

(After exercises in resizing image relationships for the cover, we ended up inflicting these and some others on readers as interior illustrations--cleverly attempting to cover my lack of talent by blaming claiming a young Jorgan Anderson sketched them.)






Now aren't you glad I didn't subject you to any of these...er...well, sorry about that!


But aren't you glad I broke down and actually paid to get the picture--by a professional? Kudos to EC Stever who put us onto Viking Longships In Unknown Waters © Sylphe_7, istock photo ID # 506912511.

Er...wait a minute...that's the original.

Oops! Too much verbiage! Way overboard! (See what I did there? Don't you love puns? Okay, I'll stop.)

Nope!

That's it!