It�s no secret that the key to compelling historical novels and screenplays is character. While world events can be fascinating in themselves, they alone don't make the best stories. Look at any great historical fiction and you'll find deep character development, suspense, and personal conflict.

Whether it's Shakespeare's history plays, I, Claudius, Gone with the Wind, or Clan of the Cave Bear, story is critical. World events form the backdrop and often precipitate the crises that drive an individual's story forward, so it's important to understand and portray them dramatically. But it's the way individuals react to those events, struggle with internal conflicts, grow, and relate to other characters that makes the difference.

Personalizing your story will heighten the stakes for your reader or viewer. By focusing on a handful of major characters, your readers and viewers will be able to see themselves in the story and feel invested in it.

Here are some other suggestions for writing sparkling historical fiction:

• Infuse your story with the details of daily life, but utilize them judiciously. As novelist Elizabeth Crook advises, "the major trick of writing good historical fiction is not in compiling research or knowing the details, but in knowing the details to leave out."
• Make sure your readers and viewers have enough information. Author Paula L. Fleming reminds us that �The less familiar your readers are with your setting, the more 'explaining' you'll have to work into your story.�
• Understand your world�its customs, limits, and controversies�so you can create plausible problems for your characters to confront as well as realistic behaviors and attitudes.
• The question of how faithfully to keep to "facts" remains an open one. Of course, all the writing of history depends on who�s telling it. Nevertheless, some authors believe that you must be as accurate as you can, given that limitation. Others claim that you can take some license for the sake of the story.

When I was doing research for screenwriters some years ago, I was forever frustrated because I�d go to a lot of effort to dig up facts that my clients would ignore. One example that sticks in my mind is a question about tranquilizer guns used on animals. Okay, not a history question, but it still illustrates the point. I discovered that the darts take five minutes to work. The story required that the drug take effect instantly, so my client ignored my findings and made his animal keel over immediately.

I came up against this issue myself when writing the script for my Christmas podcast, �Merry Christmas with Charles Dickens.� Is it okay to put words in historical characters� mouths? Shakespeare did it, and did it beautifully. If a writer doesn�t invent dialog, it becomes impossible to portray historical characters, especially in private moments, unless their exact words are available. Think of all the books and movies that couldn�t be written if we adhered strictly to fact. In the end, I used many of Dickens� exact words, but in some cases, I had to make them up, either because I couldn�t find what I wanted or his words were so unintelligible to modern audiences that it didn�t make sense to quote him.

What do you think? Write and let me know.

Last month we explored how to write your release using advice from Paul J. Krupin, Trashproof News Releases: The Surefire Way to Get Publicity by Paul J. Krupin .

This time we address when to send your release.

The best days of the week are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Avoid media outlets' busiest day, Monday, as well as Fridays and weekends, when staffs thin out. The absolute best time to send your release is late Monday for Tuesday delivery.

For radio, weekends may be good because interviewees are in short supply then.

As far as lead time goes, magazines suffer the longest. Allow three to four months. Five to six is better. (I know this is true from my experience as a columnist. There�s usually a four- to five-month gap between the time I write an article and the time I see it in print. Sometimes I get bumped, and I have to wait even longer. That makes for less than timely news.)

For daily and weekly newspapers, allow at least three weeks. If you send a release only a week ahead, you may or may not even make it into the publication's calendar, which is more fluid than other features.

For radio, allow one to two weeks; for TV, two to three--even longer in both cases if you�re planning a major media event. Be ready to hit the ground running because producers don�t give much notice. Sometimes they want you the same day they call!

Next time we�ll talk about where to send your release.

Guess who received the highest nonfiction book advance in history. Bill Clinton for his autobiography, My Life? Retired General Electric CEO Jack Welch? Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan?

Nope. It�s the world�s most entrepreneurial woman, Oprah Winfrey. (Did you think I was going to say Martha Stewart?) The big O signed a mega-deal with Simon & Schuster for a book about weight control. The amount of the advance, while not disclosed, is said to be the biggest ever for a nonfiction work.

The former president reportedly received more than $10 million for his prose. Former Federal Reserve chairman Greenspan garnered $8.5 million. Biz celeb Welch raked in $7 million.

Winfrey�s new book will be co-written with her personal trainer, Bob Greene. Mr. Greene is already a published author. Wonder what his share works out to.

I suppose I don't need to point out that none of these titans of the book world is actually a writer.

Here's a quick project you can do on your lunch hour.

Write a logline (one-sentence teaser) for your script or book. AgentQuery.com features some great hints and examples. This exercise will provide good practice for our next contest, coming up soon: we�ll be asking for a logline to go with your submission.

By Writing Show Guest Host Mick Halpin

Most writing newsletters are packed with lists of surefire tips that promise to make you the next award-winning, bestselling sensation. We�re different. Here are the five worst bits of writing advice, ever:

1. Believe in your talent, no matter what. Women throwing balled-up sheets of paper at me is not the literary equivalent of showering a rock star with underwear. I have gradually learned that I�m not Ernest Hemingway. That�s helped me become a better writer.
2. Write every story as if it is your last. By squeezing all my wonderful new ideas, colorful characters, desperate situations, brilliant lines, and unexpected twists into a story, I have produced many an incomprehensible mess. Live life to the fullest, but write with discipline.
3. Put your heart into every word. Follow this advice and each rejection slip becomes a break-up with the love of your life. Experience has taught me not to pin every last hope on the story I�ve just finished. The magic�s not in what�s already been sent out. It�s in what will happen today.
4. Put truth in it. Careful observation reveals that many real people are boring and say �um� a hell of a lot. Reality does not always come to a point, or form a good, illustrative, emotive moment when it does. So, chop experience into eyeball-friendly format. Edit transcripts into sharp dialogue.

5. Keep your writing on the market until it is sold. Writers who pester editors with every last bit of juvenilia should be badly beaten with cans of spam.

For the sake of balance, here are the five best bits.

1. Believe in your talent, no matter what. Never let setbacks convince you that you have nothing to say. Decide what you�re trying to say, then find a way to say it better. Never give up.
2. Write every story as if it is your last. Do you really want your life to end without writing the X, Y, or Z that you�ve always intended? Get it out there. Take chances.
3. Put your heart into every word. If you don�t care for your characters, who will?
4. Put truth in it. Tell little lies to reveal a greater truth.
5. Keep your writing on the market until it is sold. Don�t hide your writing notebooks under the bed like they�re old socks. Let others decide if your work stinks.

All of the above can, of course, be boiled down to one easy-to-remember aphorism:

Make up your own rules.

And make them work.

Unruly reviewer Mick Halpin�s home on the Internet is CriticalMick.com.

Our next contest is on the way! Stay tuned for details.

Upcoming shows:

February 19, 2007. "The Care and Feeding of Writing Groups," with Sean Dent.

Planned but not yet produced:

• "Surviving James Dean," with Bill Bast
• "Writing Short Stories," with Nancy O. Greene
• "My iUniverse Experience," with Lyda Phillips
• "BookFinder.com," with Anirvan Chatterjee
• "Post-NaNoWriMo 2006," with the Starting Write Now guys from Writers' Roundtable #2.

We'll also be hearing from screenwriting coach and creativity expert, Linda Seger, and we'll be checking in with our reality show subjects, Jean Tennant and Mark Leslie.

Have a question or topic you'd like covered on the show or in the newsletter? Want to write for us or be a guest host? See mistakes in my writing? Let me know.

--Paula B.

Last month we challenged you to identify the bestselling author of all time. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the crown belongs to mystery writer Agatha Christie, with about 2 billion books sold.

This month's question:

Which language features the greatest number of words?

Answer next month.