writing-award-blog

Is it worth being an author? Truly?

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:45:37 +0100

Here’s a dangerous game. A long time ago, I went to a literary festival and asked a newly successful novelist before an audience of her fans: “Was it truly, honestly worth it?” The room fell silent. Everyone stared at me, the heretic who had made a rude noise in church.

“What do you mean?” The author looked at her agent. He studied the ceiling. “If you mean in money terms,” she said hesitantly “of course, not.”

Gasps from the audience. “But in terms of my self-esteem, yes!”

The audience relaxed. “Not least, I have the pleasure of standing here before you wonderful people today” she glared at me “so somebody can ask me that damn fool question.” Laughter and applause.

It was a good question.

Later, I apologised to her. And she apologised to me. “It was actually a good question.” She smiled. “It took me 15 years to get my first novel published and even that was a fluke.”

“But you’ve just received a $150,000 advance,” I said. “Surely that makes it all worthwhile?”

She shook her head. “I had to write and throw away five novels in that time, more than one million words. On an hourly basis, I’d have been better off working at McDonalds.”

Then she sold me her novel.

No, I won’t tell you her name, though you’d know it. Her novel was turned into a film and she now tops the bestseller lists. She might answer my question differently today. But the truth remains: only a few authors make any significant money from their novels. The upside is, if you accept that truth from the start, it doesn’t matter.

Is it the truth?

Four out of five published novels by new authors lose money and most new authors never earn out their advance (J A Konrath, The Newbies’ Guide to Publishing, 2011). Fulltime novelists in the UK make 33% less than the average industrial wage (The Society of Authors). And most mid-list authors have to moonlight to pay the rent. (Check the tutors at writing foundations. Why else are they there?)

But there’s another ‘truth’. From the moment they see their first novel on a bookshop shelf, very few authors would choose another trade. Money or not.

In September 1999, I nearly missed my plane when I spotted my first published book on sale at Heathrow airport. I wanted to stop every passenger and cry: “That’s my book!”. My wife had to drag me away. I went on to publish eight more books across twelve years, both fiction and non-fiction. One of them, The Lazy Kitchen Gardener - a work of fiction despite its title - netted me around £90,000 ($150,000) in year one.

Has the money been important to me? Of course. Writing is my principal source of income in retirement. But I’d have done it, money or not. Why? For the sheer joy of ‘meeting’ those thousands of readers who have mailed me, signed up for my newsletters and, in recent years, subscribed to my on-line writing classes. I’m still corresponding with folk who bought my first book in 1999.

That explains the mystery of the Blog Dance.

I’d long wondered why authors, otherwise sane, would periodically embark on a gavotte of mutual admiration, making guest posts on each others’ sites or doing blog tours. "What inspired you to write [insert title]?"

They couldn’t be doing it merely to sell a handful of books at a few dollars each, could they? Or to chase that will o’ the wisp, an extra point on their Google page rank? The ratio of effort to monetary reward would make no sense.

Then I realized, the pay off is not principally financial. It lies in validation, recognition and self-esteem. Whether a bestseller or newbie, a published author creates a fan club and joins a community of peers. They’ve ‘arrived’. The respect is priceless. Money is a bonus.

A novelist creates a world for the reader. Then the reader creates a world for the novelist to live in.

So is it worth it, truly, honestly? Of course, it is! If only so you can attend a literary festival one day, stand on a podium and hear somebody ask you that damn fool question.

Why do you write? Is it for money or fun - or some other reason? And is the effort truly, honestly worth it? Add a comment and share your thoughts with us!

How To (Really) Sell Your Novel - The Shocking Truth

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:30:17 +0100

How do you sell a novel? That’s the number one problem for every self-publishing author and it probably accounts for all the other numbers too. Unless your novel sells, you may well be a writer but you’re not a novelist. Here are four ways that don’t work.

1. Banner ads don’t work.

Many sites will sell you a banner, in a choice of sizes, to promote your book and each at a fancy price. None will yield a profit. You might not even get a single click-through. Why? The average click-through rate for banner ads is just three tenths of one per cent or 0.3%. That’s the industry average according to imedia connections.com.

So only three in 1000 people who see your banner ad will click on it. And only about 4% of those people will buy your book. (That’s the average conversion-to-sale ratio at Amazon.) So you’ll make just one sale for every 10,000 people who see your banner. How much will you be charged for that banner? Anything between $100 and $1000.

Result: you’ll lose your shirt.

Rotating banner ads are even worse. They’re a duck shoot. Now you see them, now you don’t. Who clicks on them? Only kids who like duck shoots.

BTW: I respect these site owners. Every one I’ve talked with has been sincere and decent. They honesty didn’t know their banner ads don’t work.

2. Google Adwords don’t work. (Nor do Bing or Facebook ads.)

To specify any keyword that might attract a book buyer you’ll need to pay Google or Bing around $1 per click. True, you can run ads for just a few cents per click if you select obscure or ‘long tail’ keywords. They’re cheap because few people ever search for them. So you’re no better off.

Do the math. If your novel sells at $4.99, how many folk who click your Google or Bing ad at $1 per click will have to buy your book for you to break even? One in five or a 20% conversion to sale.

It never happens. Remember that Amazon, with all its sophisticated marketing, averages only 4% conversion to sale.

Result: you’ll lose your shirt again.

Facebook ads are only slightly better, in my experience. You’ll just lose your shirt more slowly.

Why is conversion to sale so poor with these ads? You have only three lines plus a tiny graphic to attract the reader’s eye. You may be the smartest headline writer in the world but folk won’t really know what they’re clicking on. They’ll click, see your offer, sniff and click away. That’s $1 of your money gone.

I’ve tested both banner and ppc ads exhaustively, at ruinous expense. They might work if you’re looking for customers with an annual value in four figures. But they’re a dead loss if you’re marketing a book priced between 99 cents and $9.99.

3. Blog tours (probably) don’t work.

For a fee, a publicist will set you up a blog tour. (You could do it yourself, of course, with some labour.) Every day for a month you’ll be interviewed at a different blog. “What gave you the inspiration to write [drop in the name of your novel]?”

Your ego will glow as comments gush in. But how many books will you sell? Maybe five, mostly bought by your fellow authors as a professional courtesy. They’ll buy/review your stuff if you buy/review theirs.

I’ll be candid. My knowledge of blog tours is wholly anecdotal. So I’ll pose the question: has any author made a significant (ie. three figure) profit from a blog tour, after expenses? It seems unlikely but I’ll keep an open mind. If it worked for you, please tell us how you did it!

4. Press releases, posters and press ads don’t work.

John Locke, the first man to sell one million self-published ebooks, says he spent $25,000 on paid-for publicity and sold not a single book. I can attest to that, in a small way. In 2003, my local newspaper gave one of my books an awesome half-page review. I couldn’t have written it better myself. It even contained full order details.

How many books did it sell? Two. Had I bought that space as an ad, it would have cost me around $1000. Just as well I didn’t buy it.

Press ads can work wonderfully if you sell non-fiction into a specific niche. I built a large self-publishing business that way, advertising in specialist magazines (see here). But I either got my ads free, in exchange for feature articles, or I bought them cheap at ‘last minute’ prices, around 10% of list rate.

Alas, press ads rarely work for fiction. Why? The big-circulation consumer magazines that reach your target readers are not likely to give you a cheap or barter deal. Why should they?

So what does work to sell fiction?

Here’s where I bow to the strategy of John Locke. It makes sense to me because I followed a similar pattern in three different self-publishing businesses and it worked. He swears by the ‘funnel’ approach.

First, he sold novel number one at a token 99 cents and built a Twitter list to promote it. (Google+ is probably a better option today and it’s more author-friendly than Twitter or Facebook.) He encouraged reviews, welcomed feedback via an email link in his book, and acknowledged every customer personally.

He put every customer on a database.

That was list #1. If anyone bought more than one book, they were transferred to list #2: ‘Friends’ or repeat buyers. These people got regular, highly personalised emails, gifts and privileged previews of his next novel. It was worth the effort because such people would buy everything he wrote. Once he hit a critical mass of several thousand customers he found he could relax a little and let his fans promote his books for him.

Second, he traded up his regular list to buy his next novels at a higher and more profitable price, say $4.99, but his Friends still got a discount.

His strategy was time-intensive but it worked.

Why was Locke so dramatically successful when many self-publishing authors will say they’re doing much the same? Answer: they’re not. Locke sells through Amazon and other on-line book stores, like everyone else, but he works hard to get every customer on his own mailing list.

If you put up your books at Amazon, Lulu, CreateSpace and the like, and do nothing else, you’ll fail. These stores will keep your customer names to themselves and you’ll never see the names. So you can’t build a direct personal relationship with your customers and encourage them to come back.

You must build your own list plus an after-market that you control.

Leastwise, that strategy worked for me across 25 years. I see no reason why it can’t work for fiction, and Locke shows that it can. Just don’t ever be tempted to buy a banner ad!

What’s worked for you when marketing your book? What hasn’t? Please tell us!

(I’m indebted to Michael Alvear for alerting me to the math of banner ads. I highly recommend his book Make A Killing on Kindle. John Locke’s How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months is also a ‘must read’ for self-publishing authors.)

How Author, 80, Won $130,000 For A Debut Novel

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:56:34 +0100

If your novel has been banging on agents’ doors for years and got nowhere take heart from Berwick Coates, an English author who this week nailed down a $130,000 deal and a two-book contract at age 80.

His historical thriller The Last Conquest was snapped up by one of the world’s largest publishers Simon & Schuster after Coates had failed to impress agents with several previous novels. “They were clearly not being read,” he said.

A retired history teacher, Coates succeeded only when he caught the eye of agent Jim Gill, who was recommended to him by a fellow author. Now Coates is finishing his second novel The Last Viking and can hope to see both in book stores at an age when most authors might have given up or resorted to vanity publishing.

There’s nothing new about novelists in their Silver Age gaining a major publishing deal. P D James recently published her 19th novel at age 93. But it’s almost unprecedented for a debut author. Only Mary Wesley, whose debut novel The Camomile Lawn was published in 1984, comes close to Coates in age but she was merely 72 at the time.

As authors, what can we learn from Coates’ success?

1. Coates persisted with what he loved best.

After repeated failures with historical fiction he was urged by his son to write a contemporary novel replete with “sex and violence”. It too flopped. So he returned to what he knew and loved. And won.

Moral: write what you’re best at and, if you’re good, your market will find you.

2. He was introduced to an agent by an established author.

That’s the ideal route. “Mary Brown, whom you represent, suggested I approach you.” Any personal introduction is better than a cold call. (No doubt Jim Gill will now be overwhelmed by debut novelists who start their cover letters with a reference to Berwick Coates.)

3. Any age is the right age to submit a novel.

Carolyn Gill had her first best-selling novel Don’t Knock The Corners Off published at age 14. Susan Hill was an established name before her 18th birthday. But old authors often have the advantage of being able to exhume a dozen previous failures from their sock drawer, resubmit them and see them lauded in reviews - once their debut work has achieved success.

Coates’ achievement also highlights the wisdom of pursuing the traditional agent-publisher route, unless you can devote 18 hours a day to selling your novel yourself. Success in self-publishing lies 10% in talent, 90% in marketing. Perhaps Coates realised that, at age 80, he no longer had the energy to promote a self-published ebook with the passion of a John Locke, Amanda Hocking or Hugh Howie.

Moral: Keep knocking on agents’ doors. Write several novels. Then you can choose which you submit via the traditional route and which you self-publish. Sell a million ebooks under your own imprint and publishers will come knocking on your door.

What experiences have you had, submitting your work to agents or publishers? Share them here!

How To Create A Brilliant Detective

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:03:14 +0100

Please welcome our guest this week, doctor and novelist Eva Bell. Eva has made a special study of that most alluring, yet most difficult, of genres - the detective story. Anyone can write a whoddunit but how do we make our sleuth compelling and credible? Eva shows us five ways to do it.

In this 21st century, when science and technology have made crime detection easy and precise, the old, spindly-legged spinster like Miss Marple is an oddity. So is Baronness Emmuska Orczy’s “Old Man in the Corner,” who solves crimes sitting in his tea shop. Even Sherlock Holmes the detective par excellence, who exposes the incompetence of the police by his inductive methods, is ancient history.

Today the general public is well informed about police work and methods of crime detection. The modern-day fictional sleuth must therefore be familiar with police procedures, advances in forensic science, different types of crime like cyber crime, crime syndicates, money laundering, sex trade, paid assassins and other sophisticated methods criminals use to eliminate their enemies.

Everybody loves a clever detective. But how do we create one plausibly in our own stories?

1. A sleuth blends into the scenery.

A good crime writer will make his sleuth blend into the scenery, without stirring up the slightest whiff of suspicion about his modus operandi. He could be a suave capable CEO in a corporate organization or a beautiful irresistible woman in a popular social circuit, or a mole in a terrorist sleeper cell, or an undercover spy in a detective agency.

The personality of the sleuth is so engaging that many times the reader is engrossed in his antics, while being completely unaware of the author. Everyone knows Sherlock Holmes but how many know much about Arthur Conan Doyle? It reflects on the skill of the author to remain unseen. When Conan Doyle got fed up with his detective and wanted to send him to his grave, the public outcry was such that the character had to be resurrected.

2. Your plot must be credible.

To create such a character there should be a credible plot. Ideas come from newspapers, TV, books and everyday events. True life stories form a good frame work. But the characters, plots and details must be original. Details of the case should be well researched. Information can be obtained by scanning police websites and tracking the progress of cases.

The writer has to be knowledgeable about law enforcement, criminal justice systems and police procedures. The super sleuth he creates must be credible, have his ears and eyes open and be a keen observer; he should be a nosey parker good at chatting up people, He must cultivate friendships in unlikely places just to get information. He follows leads without arousing suspicion. At the end of the day, he must be a crime solver. He uses his shrewd intelligence to put facts together and come to a conclusion.

The reader is taken through an exciting jig-saw puzzle with three or four suspects, who all seem to have perfect alibis. A few red herrings will play on the reader’s subconscious. However, an occasional clue is dropped so that the reader begins to suspect the identity of the criminal.

3. Any character can become a sleuth.

Sometimes a person may unwittingly become a detective. Someone may be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He inadvertently stumbles upon a crime and becomes entangled in the events. To extricate himself from blame he becomes an amateur detective and solves the mystery. If he can’t prove his innocence he might have to go underground until the culprit is caught. It would be to his advantage if he had some self defence skills.

Occasionally an adventurous young man may want to play detective for his own satisfaction. He thinks the police have glossed over or missed a clue and he could rectify the mistake.

4. A sleuth is not gender-specific.

Sleuths are not gender specific. They may be male or female, young or old, eccentric or dashing. Sometimes the guy may be just an ordinary fellow who wears the same coat every day, catches the same train home, sits in the same seat by the window and buries himself in crossword puzzles. But his ears are sensitive antennae and catch the sound of a voice even from the other end of the compartment. Somebody’s casual comment may be stored in his brain to be later connected to an unsolved crime.
The public, however, love a charming rogue. He may be single, handsome, eligible like Neal Caffrey of White Collar fame, who being an ex-felon, uses his skills to help the FBI solve cases.

5. Good research is vital for a convincing story.

The successful crime writer must be a good researcher He should know about poisons, weapons, gunshot wound, psychological profiling, details of how an autopsy is conducted and methods of gathering information. Creating a professional detective is an exciting piece of work. It is an intellectual exercise. The sleuth must always be smarter and cleverer than the criminal. The story itself should be an engaging mystery holding the reader spellbound till the end. The 21st century sleuth cannot only work on “deductive logic” but must call science to his aid. His one-track mind enables him to solve the crime and endear himself to the readers.

As a writer or reader, what sort of detective stories do you love or hate? Has an author ever lost your confidence because their character was not credible? Add a comment and share your views!

Eva Bell is a doctor by profession and also the author of three novels, three e-books, two non-fiction, and two children's books. Her latest novel Halo of Deceit can be previewed at Amazon here.

You can find Eva herself at:
www.evabell.net
http://muddyloafers.blogspot.com

Voice: That Elusive but Critical Ingredient of Compelling Fiction

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:23:37 +0100

This idea-packed master class in how to develop your own unique authorial 'voice' comes from Jodie Renner, editor and author. Jodie has written a classic guide to great story writing, Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power. Discover how to make your stories resonate with power, by following her tips below!

Voice – what is it exactly?

Literary agents and acquiring editors always say they’re looking for fiction with a compelling, unique, fresh, natural voice. Then when asked to define it, they hem and haw a bit, searching for the right words to try to capture what they mean by a voice that appeals to readers and makes them want to keep reading.

From what I’ve gathered from my varied reading and workshops, the ideal “voice” is that natural, open, appealing, charismatic tone and style that draws us in and makes us feel like we know the characters well – and want to get to know them better!

How Can We Develop An Appealing Voice?

These tips, a mix of advice from others and my own ideas, will be helpful to writers who are still in the process of finding their voice or fine-tuning it to make it more relaxed, powerful and appealing.

~ Don’t lecture your readers.

As Bruce DeSilva said in his workshop on this topic at Craftfest / Thrillerfest 2012 in New York, many aspiring authors need to first free themselves from the constraints of their more formal, correct writing background, especially if it includes graduate degrees and a lot of legal, academic or business writing. So shake yourself loose of all those constraints and find your more casual, accessible, appealing inner voice. How do you do that?

~ Write in a clear, direct way.

Forget all those long, convoluted sentences and pretentious words and learn to write in a clear, direct, accessible, casual style that evokes the senses and appeals to the emotions. Streamline your writing!

~ Write to one person.

To help develop an intimacy with your readership and a conversational tone, create or choose one single person you’re writing to, who is warm, friendly, open to your ideas, interested, and intelligent.

DeSilva suggests choosing a close friend or family member to write to, but personally, I advise against writing to someone in your inner circle, as you might end up skipping over a lot of details and points that need to be there for other readers who don’t share your background, cultural environment, and basic frames of reference.

So I suggest creating an ideal reader. Write a brief description of their age, gender, background, home and work situation, personality, and interests (which of course include reading your kind of writing!). Get to know them a bit by giving them some positive attributes that will help you feel comfortable and open with them. Then target your writing to this person. Relax and let the real you come through.

~ Read and imitate writers whose voice you really enjoy.

Don’t copy their words verbatim, of course, but immerse yourself in their story world, told in their unique voice. Read their books aloud to really internalize the rhythm of their language, the phrasing and expressions and word choices that appeal to you so much. Then of course adapt the cadence and rhythm and attitudes and vocabulary to your own situation.

~ Write a chapter in first person, then change it to third person.

One author whose voice I love is Janet Evanovich, whose spunky, quirky heroine, Stephanie Plum, narrates her story in first-person point of view. But it’s hard to write first-person well, and it can be limiting, as you’re confined to scenes where this character is present. Also, first-person isn’t always the best choice for, say, a thriller, as you want other viewpoints in there, too, notably that of the antagonist.

But try writing several pages or a chapter or two in first-person (“I”), to develop your main character’s unique voice, then just go back and rewrite them in third person (he/she), with as few other changes as possible.

~ Read your story out loud to test its authenticity and easy flow.

As DeSilva says, your writing should have the rhythm and comfortable familiarity of spoken language. If it doesn’t flow easily, go in and streamline the language to take out the convoluted sentences, clunky phrasing, and fancy-shmancy words. Or hire a trusted writer friend or reputable freelance editor to go through it for you to take out anything that sounds too formal, wordy, or erudite.

~ Write in deep point of view or close third.

This means the story is unfolding mainly through the thoughts and reactions and emotions and attitudes of your protagonist. Even descriptions of your setting should be filtered through your protagonist’s (or other viewpoint character’s) preferences, views, and mood. This ensures that your whole novel has a great, unique voice, not just the dialogue.

~ Give each character his or her own voice.

When you’re writing dialogue, each character should sound different, with their own unique speech patterns, word choices, and slang or pet expressions, based on their milieu, upbringing, education, and personality. Listen in on all kinds of conversations, both in real life and on TV and in movies.

Develop an ear for how different people speak. To improve the idiosyncratic speech of a character in your novel, try journaling in their voice, in first person. Just write freely, using lots of attitude! Eventually, you’ll get into their rhythm and find the words that seem to suit them best.

So break free from the constraints of your background, education, and any more formal work-related writing, and write the story only you can write, with your unique experiences and personality, in your own direct, open, interesting voice. Don’t hold back – relax and reveal yourself.

Readers – Can you tell us some novels where you’ve particularly enjoyed the voice?
Writers – Do you have any more tips for finding an authentic, appealing voice?

Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power – An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction
by Jodie Renner, is available in both e-book and paperback at:
U.S. – Amazon.com: e-book or paperback
U.K. – Amazon.co.uk: e-book and paperback
Canada – Amazon.ca: e-book and paperback
(Click on the links to go to the book.)
And you don’t need a Kindle to buy and read those books – you can download them to your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

How (Not) To Kill Your Story In Its Cradle

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:16:19 +0100

Ever driven a car round a bend and seen another one heading straight at you? At 60mph? It happened to me last week. I swerved into a ditch and it clipped my wing mirror as it bulleted past. Not a good way to start a day but a great place to begin a story…

Why do so many writers get their opening paragraphs wrong?

Here are five big mistakes new authors make - and how to avoid them - based on my experience of judging 3500+ entries to date in the Writers’ Village story contest.

Mistake #1: A start that has too many characters

Good opening passages typically involve just one or two main players. Don’t bring in a cast of thousands or tell the whole history of Renaissance Florence before the action begins.

The UK crime writer Ruth Rendell typically has more than 30 named characters in every novel. Too many? Yet her novels are successful. Why? She limits her characters to just three per scene and makes each character highly memorable the moment she introduces them.

Slip in your minor characters and details of back story naturally, a fragment here and there, as the story proceeds. Limit the cast list at the start!

Mistake #2: A long-winded opener

Keep your introduction short. The best opening lines are no longer than a tweet on Twitter, say, 140 characters at most. And they pose a question.

‘The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.’ L P Hartley, The Go-Between

That’s a great opener. How do they ‘do things differently’? The reader just has to read on. Here’s another strong hook with a ‘Twitter-like’ first line:

‘Two miracles occurred that October, the October of my fifteenth birthday. This story begins with those miracles, so I must record them in the order in which they took place; first the miracle of landscape, which was purely personal, secondly the encounter in the larch wood, involving Diana and myself.’ (R F Delderfield, Diana)

That first paragraph poses two questions. It also lays out the agenda for the novel and conveys, very subtly, some important information about the narrator.

A modern writer can’t risk what Agatha Christie did in her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It runs for 10,000 words before anything happens. Perhaps it’s no wonder it was turned down by the first ten publishers she approached, even in those days of languid first chapters.

Mistake #3: An opener that does not hint at the story’s genre

A good opening should also tell the reader quickly what kind of a story it’s going to be.

‘On November the 21st, the day of her forty-seventh birthday, and three weeks and two days before she was murdered, Rhoda Gradwyn went to Harley Street to keep a first appointment with her plastic surgeon, and there in a consulting room designed, so it appeared, to inspire confidence and allay apprehension, made the decision which would lead inexorably to her death.’ (P D James , The Private Patient)

Now we know this is a crime story, but it’s not a police procedural or pulp thriller. It’s written with an elegance that aspires to literature.

Alternatively, suppose P D James had started that tale with a little old lady peering through her lace curtain? She murmers: ‘Dear me, I really must have a very strong word with Mrs Smith.’

What genre is that story? It’s a ‘cozy’, a gentle crime story written for genteel people. The sex (if any) and the language will be very muted.

However, suppose that sweet old lady shouts: ‘I’m going to get you, you bastard!’ That’s not a cozy. Maybe it’s a hardboiled detective story.

The tone of your first paragraph should identify, quickly, the genre of your tale.

Mistake #4: Failure to introduce conflict at once

The most commercial way to open a story is to work conflict into the very first page. That is the only part of your manuscript an agent will read when deciding to toss your story into the ‘maybe’ pile or the slush heap.

Agents are unfair, of course. But then, agents still rule the game so we must play by their rules. Here’s how Sidney Sheldon gets conflict into paragraph one:

‘Dmitri asked, “Do you know we’re being followed, Mr Stanford?”

“Yes.” He had been aware of them for the past twenty-four hours.’

(Morning, Noon & Night)

From just these few words, the reader has grounds to suspect that the protagonist is a man of substance (Dmitri treats him deferently), that the story takes place in Eastern Europe (‘Dmitri’), and that some fearful conflict is about to happen.

Mistake #5: Absence of characterisation

The reader needs to meet and bond with your principal character(s) very quickly. Here’s a good example of a story that opens with just two people, characterises them well, adds conflict and takes no more than 38 words to pitch the reader into the action. It’s the start of The Case of the Vagabond Virgin, by Erle Stanley Gardner.

‘Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary, said, “John Addison is on the phone, Chief. He’s so excited he’s sputtering.”
‘“John Racer Addison?”
‘“Yes. The department store man. He sounds as though he’s about to explode into the telephone.”’

See how the author throws the reader straight into medias res (literally, ‘the middle of things’) and introduces tension? Della is also instantly characterised as a respectful employee of Perry Mason. She calls him ‘Chief. Could there be a touch of love interest there? Will it develop?

Also note Addison’s characterisation as a pompous, panicking man. What is he worried about? Already, the story has depth and is brimming with conflict.

That’s a very efficient first paragraph! Craft all your openers like that - with just one or two characters, an intriguing question, conflict and a hint of the story’s genre - and you’ll have a story that should be highly salable. Now all you have to do is write the rest

What are your thoughts about the right - and wrong - ways to open a story? Please leave a comment and share them with us.

Furtive Dreams & Secrets - Tips From A Mills & Boon Author

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:23:06 +0100

Please welcome our guest this week, Mills & Boon author Tiffany Reisz. Tiffany shows us a brilliantly simple way to bring our characters alive, in any genre. She uses it to wonderful effect in her own best-selling novels which, she says, 'inhabit a sexy shadowy world'. Now her secret is yours!

I had originally titled this blog post: "Creating 3D characters the Lazy Way." And I admit I owe Dr John for that. He said titles that include the phrase "the lazy way" get more readers. But the title is not misleading. I'm about to teach you two simple tricks for creating three-dimensional characters, and you don't even have to read any books, do any research, or leave your couch (or bed) to do it.

In short, these tricks are lazy.

First, what is a three-dimensional character?

Easy. It's a character who seems/feels real. You know a three-dimensional character when you read him or her. You care about the character, love the character (or love to hate the character), are fascinated by the character and, most importantly, you're still thinking about that character long after the book ends.

Why are there so many modern retellings and reboots and reimaginings of Sherlock Holmes? Because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made Watson and Holmes so lifelike that 221B Baker Street still receives mail and offers from women asking to be their new housekeeper.

How does Doyle accomplish this feat, this miracle of creating flesh from paper? How does any writer turn black marks on white paper into a living, breathing person? The answer is simple, and it come from Oscar Wilde.

Every saint has a past and every sinner a future.

There's your answer to three-dimensional characters in one pithy statement. If you want 3D characters they must have memories of their past and dreams of their future.

Every saint has a past.

Replace "saint" with "main character" and now we're cooking with gas.

As long as your character is school-aged or older, he or she has a past they remember. And just like you and me, they remember it often. Someone asked me today if I knew that mutual college friends now married were expecting twins? I didn't, but as soon as their names were mentioned, I recalled a dozen memories of those two from our school days before they were a couple.

Memories are like spice, they give flavor to your characters. Bitter memories help you create a bitter character. Joyful memories create a sweet character.

Ask yourself what flavor your main character is and you'll know what type of memories to use to season your book.

A memory can reveal an aspect of your character that would surprise the other characters if it were revealed. An older quiet librarian can see a handsome patron and be reminded of a holiday in Jamaica when she had a passionate affair with an islander twenty years her junior. Suddenly the reader knows this apparently stuffy librarian has a wild side.

Every sinner has a future.

Again, replace "sinner" with "main character" and you'll get my point.

Everyone dreams of the future. Perhaps it's a fairy tale fantasy of someone rich sweeping you off your feet and into the lap of luxury. A reasonable fantasy would show that this character is level-headed and practical. A fairy-tale fantasy would show us the character dreams big.

I'm moving to a new city in a few months. Not a day passes that I don't wonder what my new life in this new city will be like.

Your characters gain depth when you give them hopes and dreams. If the dreams are impossible, the character seems pitiable (Walter Mitty). If the dream is possible but will take a lot of work, you give your character a goal and motivation to better himself (Pip).

Your point-of-view characters need to seem so real that when they get into trouble, your reader is genuinely worried about them. That worry keeps the reader coming back to the story and finishing the book instead of getting bored by the flat portrayals of stiff cardboard cut-outs you find so often in genre fiction.

Here's a lazy way to give your characters dimension.

Go through your draft. In every long scene make sure your point-of-view character either remembers something from the past or dreams of something about the future.

Don't overdo it. Too many memories and fantasies can slow the action down. Sometimes you only need a single sentence here and there or a short flashback.

Use memories and fantasies judiciously and your flat characters will soon be leaping off the page, grabbing your reader, and dragging her into your story. And isn't that what every writer and every reader wants? And the best part is you don't even have to get off the couch to employ this technique. All the memories and fantasies your characters need are already in your head!

What's your experience of giving characters 'dimension'? Leave a comment and share them with us.

Tiffany Reisz’s books inhabit a sexy shadowy world where romance, erotica, and literature meet and do immoral and possibly illegal things to each other. She describes her genre as “literary friction,” a term she stole from her main character who gets in trouble almost as often as the author herself. Reisz’s debut novel, The Siren, was published by Mira in 2012. It is the first book in her The Original Sinners series. Reisz describes it as “not your momma’s Thorn Birds,” and she means it. Visit Tiffany on her blog www.tiffanyreisz.com/storytime or on Twitter @tiffanyreisz Reisz lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Bring Your Story Alive With Deep Point of View

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 19:49:25 +0100

Vivian Roycroft is a retired adventurer and target shooter who has published definitive manuals on small arms. In gentler mood, she writes top-selling historical romance. In her guest post this week she shows us three clever ways to bring a story alive using 'deep point of view':

It's surprisingly easy to make your story glow by deepening the point of view (PoV). Here are three ready-to-go ways.

1. Use the main character's name sparingly.

How often do you think about your own name, or use it? Most likely, not very often. And if you're taking the viewpoint deep, then your main character shouldn't use her name all that often, either.

Think about it this way. Every time you use a character's name, the reader pauses to bring that character into his mental focus. ("Remind me: who's Neal?") If your story-people have been sharply drawn and kept before the reader's thoughts, then the pause may last only a moment. And sometimes this pause is useful; if you're re-introducing a character who's been out of the picture for fifty pages or so, you want the reader to pause and reconnect.

But when it's the main character, the central heart of the story, who's under discussion, that reconnecting pause is just a drag on momentum. Simply put, it slows the reader. And usually, that's a bad thing.

To deepen the PoV, to enhance the illusion that the reader is living the main character's story, use her name as little as possible, preferably less than twice per page. Sometimes using her name is necessary, for example if another character is present and you need to avoid confusion.

Sometimes it's worthwhile, for example if you're breaking PoV and telling rather than showing some action, then it can be a good idea to emphasize who's in motion. But when you've got a paragraph that's solidly within the main character's PoV, then there's no reason to mention her name.

2. Avoid tagging emotions and sensations.

In this sentence,

"We are at war with France," Uncle David said, "a fact you seem able to forget."

the phrase Uncle David said is what's called a tag, and sometimes it's necessary to illustrate who's talking. But when you're writing in deep PoV, there's no need to tag emotions or sensations.

This includes phrases such as she thought, he heard, she felt, and he wished. Such a phrase would be redundant; the reader knows (or should know) which character is telling the story, and therefore who's doing the thinking, hearing, and feeling. Instead, show what the main character is sensing or thinking.

Here's another example from my new release, A Different Sort of Perfect:

Behind her, the assembly hall and shops tempted, a promising source of news and fun. Perhaps the latest fashion plates had arrived from Paris, and if so, Harmony and Diana would have something droll to say about them. But it was likely the viscount had discussed his intended marriage with his friend, Colonel Durbin, who would of course tell Mrs. Durbin, which meant Miss Dersingham and therefore everyone else in town knew about it, too. Better to avoid the popular places until she felt more capable of speaking rationally on the subject; Harmony and Diana would consider her scrape just as worthy of their wit. While there was a ridiculous side to the affair, she wasn't yet prepared to discuss it.

In a less-deep PoV, this could have been written:

Clara considered turning her steps to the assembly hall and shops behind her, where she knew she'd find promising sources of news and fun. Her friends Harmony and Diana enjoyed discussing the latest fashion plates from Paris. But she thought the viscount had likely discussed his intended marriage with his friend, Colonel Durbin, and he always told everything to Mrs. Durbin, who in turn passed on her gossip to Miss Dersingham and everyone else in town.

No need to go on. (It's too painful.) You see the difference, right?

3. Find and show your character's voice.

Every character thinks and speaks in a specific, unique way. (Or at least he should.) In real-life conversations, that's one of the ways in which we recognize our friends — not only by their voices and appearances, but by what they say and how they say it. Sometimes, when we're with our closest friends, we can finish their sentences for them; we know them that well.

For writing deep PoV, this character voice becomes vital. It's the author's job to ferret out each character's personality, motivations, and goals, and then to present those facets in a unique and appealing manner.

In the example above, Clara is a well-bred, somewhat frivolous Regency lady. Not only does she see the world through a prism of fashion and society, she also presents her thoughts through it. Even after spurning a viscount's suit, she'd not consider sitting quietly at home and knitting on a promising afternoon. She might have to avoid the public places, but there's still fun to be had.

Yes, this is part of characterization, but voice is less what the character is and more how she thinks and presents herself. It's characterization in motion — where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. And when handled well in a deep PoV story, character voice can blow the reader away.

The opposite is the unfortunate story we've all read — where you can't tell who's speaking or thinking unless the writer chooses to tell us.

Deep PoV has become the fashion in the romance and women's fiction genres, and it's making inroads into mysteries and speculative fiction. Like all trends, it's impossible to predict how long it will remain popular. But while it's trending, deep PoV is a valuable tool to keep your readers happy and coming back for more.

Vivian Roycroft is a pseudonym for historical fiction and adventure writer J. Gunnar Grey. And if she’s not careful, her pseudonymous pseudonym will have its own pseudonym soon, too. Along with an e-reader stuffed with Jane Austen and Patrick O’Brian, a yarn stash, and a turtle sundae at Culver’s.

You can find Vivian and her writing compadre, J.L. Salter, at their shared blog, www.TakeTwoOnRomance.Weebly.com or follow her on Twitter as @VivianRoycroft. And start looking for the second book in the series Love in Napoleon’s War in autumn of 2013. Find her work here.

Five Great Writing Rules You Should Always Question

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:24:25 +0100

Don't believe everything they tell you! In this exclusive guest post, multi-published novelist Shelley Noble sets out the Five Great Rules of Fiction - and tells you why they don't work. Do you agree with her or not?

1. 'You need an Opening Hook '

I can see you shaking your head, thinking 'Shelley doesn’t know what she’s talking about'. Everybody knows you have to hook them in the opening sentence. Right?

That’s one of those partial truths that drives me nuts. I say, don’t spend all your energy coming up with a wow first sentence if you can’t sustain it for the next 400 pages. Your opening hook should be only as good as the rest of your writing. There’s nothing worse than reading an opening sentence, thinking 'I’ve got to buy this book', and then have the rest of the book fall flat.

My advice: either strengthen your 100,000 words or tone down your opening sentence. There are plenty of ways to do that. That hook only has to titillate, intrigue us enough to keep reading. But if your first sentence knocks our socks off (forgive the cliché), then you’d better beef up the rest of your prose to keep pace.

2. 'Every novel should have a High Concept'

This is one of those Hollywood movie “concepts” that I wish we had never heard of. Every book doesn’t have a “high” concept i.e. something simple to say and easy to sell to a wide audience.

Yes, you do need a two sentence pitch, but please have it be about your story, not Godzilla meets the Real Housewives of New Jersey (unless she really does). If your story is about a woman (Godzilla) who terrorizes a posh women’s retreat (Housewives) because their husbands killed her children in an experiment gone wrong, then say so. Just because you can find two movies, (books, televisions shows) that people will recognize and your novel sort of vaguely resembles them, doesn’t mean that it’s 'high concept'.

You don’t have to write a novel that appeals to the masses, though I imagine that most publishers wish you would. Pitch-driven novels are fine, but many novels - I would say the majority of novels - are not.

That said, it’s important for your story to have a theme, even though it may not be apparent at the outset. That’s your story’s core.

3. 'Never use adverbs or adjectives'

Follow this rule and you'd write: 'He went to the store. He bought a carton of milk. He came home.' Enough said.

This rule is a knee jerk reaction to flowery or purple prose, and some genre writing that tends to try to say everything in one sentence.

'He dragged his broken, swollen left leg down the uneven, garbage-strewn, black-pebbled pavement until hot, out of breath and exhausted, he finally managed to arrive too late at the locked glass doors, covered with colorful advertisements, of the small, supposedly open-all-night convenience store.'

That sentence tells us more than we need to know. However, streamlined and broken into several sentences, it would tell us much more about the character - and his need for milk - than the first example.

Go with “Use adverbs and adjectives sparingly.” Use them separately or in pairs, and not strung together into one long description.

4. 'Never begin a sentence with an -ing word'

Yeah, I know. Beware the dreaded participle. But I say, sometimes it just sounds right.

A participle can also do wonders for the rhythm of a sentence or paragraph, for those of us who care about those kinds of things. But please, use them correctly. Participles imply concurrent action. For example, 'walking to the refrigerator, she mentally made a grocery list' is fine. (She’s making the list as she’s walking)

This doesn't work: 'Walking to the refrigerator, she opened the door and looked inside.' First she walks, then she opens. She can't do both concurrently. Try: 'She walked to the refrigerator and opened the door'.

5. 'Don't use Prologues'

Anyone who has been to a writer’s conference or workshop has heard an agent or editor say, “Prologues? I never read them.”

In spite of statements like those, there seems to be a resurgence of the prologue. Sometimes it's a necessity now that backstory and descriptions of characters and settings have been stripped from the opening of novels.

Prologues serve several useful purposes. They often let us into the mind of a character – say, a psychopath - so we know where we are when we start reading. They can enlighten us about the reasons the story opens the way it does. And they can show the setting or situation as it was before the story opened.

With our speedy lifestyle, entertainment and insta-lives, we’ve lost patience with long openings, backstories, scene-setting descriptions, etc. Likewise, we don’t want to wander through long pages of prologue. So my suggestion is if, you need a prologue, make it short.

One Extra Rule...

Now that I’ve come to the end of Five Questionable Rules, I realize there are a few more. So let me just give you one rule I always try to follow.

Never take anything (pertaining to writing at least) that begins with Never as the total truth. Always try to understand the purpose behind the rule and proceed with caution.

Do you have rules that you have trouble following?

Shelley Noble is a multi published fiction author whose books have been translated into seven languages. She writes women’s fiction as Shelley Noble and is also the author of several amateur sleuth mystery series, written as Shelley Freydont.

A former professional dancer and choreographer, she most recently worked on the films, Mona Lisa Smile and The Game Plan. She also consults on various dance and theatre projects, most recently the world premiere of a full length Tom Sawyer ballet commissioned by Kansas City Ballet. Shelley is a member of Sisters-in-Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Liberty States Fiction Writers.

Find her at:
shelleyfreydont.com
shelleynoble.com/blog
facebook.com/ShelleyFreydont
facebook.com/ShelleyNobleAuthor

A New Way To Wow An Agent

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:19:10 +0100

It’s a scandal! Going to the garden centre to buy peanuts for the bird table I was shocked to discover 97 brands of bird nuts. Vitaminized! Fortified! Guaranteed no-grow! All at miraculous prices.

Branded bird food costs more than a dinner at the Ritz.

Escaping with an ounce of Economy Peanuts I pondered the impact of branding on the modern novel. As one does.

Branding? Forget writing that debut mainstream novel, a delicate exploration of marital distress in a small Wisconsin town. Publishers will round-bin it with a laugh.

Instead, set that epic in Regency England. Or war-torn Afghanistan. Or an alternative Universe. (Confusing the reader with hints of Otherness is very fashionable nowadays.) Or start it with a bestial crime. Or an ominous visit by Men Wearing Black. Or turn your characters into thinly disguised household pets. (Tolkien did that quite cleverly in The Hobbit.)

In other words, brand it.

Now a publisher knows exactly where to place that novel in his list. So does Amazon. Historical Romance! War! Sci-fi! Crime! Horror! Children’s! Your book will sit at the front of the shop. Mainstream? If it gets published at all, it will rot down - along with Moby Dick - behind the water cooler.

Sad but true.

Another attraction for publishers of the branded novel is that it’s easy to assess at the submission stage. Could this bones-and-maggot romance snuggle up to Kathy Reichs? Will this secrets-at-the Vatican romp bring down Michael Cordy? Its saleability - or lack of it - is transparent.

But the Branding Test is primitive.

By its criteria, virtually all the distinguished novels published in the 20th century would be unpublishable today. Where would modern publishers place Catcher In The Rye, if it was presented to them by an unknown author? In the Sports section?

Clearly, branding can take us only so far... I therefore call for a new kind of Saleability Index - one that’s impeccable in rigour but gross in veniality. In other words, a test that every publisher will love.

By this Index, agents and publishers would simply rate every promising novel they receive under five standard criteria, awarding marks out of ten for each one:

The new $aleability Index

1. Conflict, physical or emotional, between characters - graded by intensity.
2. Pace. Number of scene hangers per page, frequency of frame shifts per chapter, etc.
3. Sensibility. Depth of exploration of the human heart. (Just count the number of synonyms for ‘anguish’ in the average paragraph.)
4. Contemporary appeal. How much does the tale resonate with today’s issues? (For example, if it rambles on about 16th century Jesuits does it have a sub-text of modern terrorism?)
5. Genre. Could a myopic librarian assign this novel accurately to the right shelf? (Ten marks.) Or is it a hybrid genre that challenges the reader's preconceptions? (No marks.)

Any ms that ranked better than 45 out of 50 would slide into the best-seller lists faster than you could say ‘Oprah’.

BTW: What did happen to Oprah? Her Sensibility Rating has dropped from 10/10 to zero.

I commend this system to every agent and commercial publisher. It could easily be embodied in a software program. Why waste good lunching time by reading any submission? Just boot up the program, scan the file and look at the numbers.

Authors will love this Index.

For the first time in unrecorded history, a rejection slip might actually help an author. We’d receive back, not a cryptic fob off (‘We didn’t love your work enough, sweetie’), but a detailed rating along with practical suggestions. For example:

‘Sensibility: 4/10. Poor. Could you drop a damp-eyed child into the first paragraph?’

Such an index would also aid the reader. An end to those mendacious jacket blurbs! Instead, the back of every novel would helpfully show its computer rating:

‘Pace: 10/10. Conflict: 10/10. Sensibility: 0/10.’ Etc.

Then fans of Tom Clancy would know it’s their kind of beast, red in tooth and Uzis, whereas afficionados of Anita Brookner would gratefully walk on.

What name shall we give to this fabled system? Indeed, what brand? How about The Yeoman Index (all rights reserved)?

What are your thoughts about the way agents and publishers select novels for publication? What's been your experience? Add a comment here!