[Lhundulinwen]

I agree with Keeper on that one- to make good fiction of any kind, take one characteristic and emulate it. And showing one of societies many problems is a great way to incorpoate a theme. Is "Death Gate Cycle" a novel? It sounds interesting.

Oh, and one more thing. This is just my pet peeve, and one of those things I get really close to being a motivational speaker about, so just bear with me on this one-
Just because you aren't published or have published very little, you ARE a writer, not an aspiring writer as long as you have written something just because you wanted to lately. (not counting high school english assignments- or college!)