A Round Character
The one thing that draws readers into a story is a character they can relate to. A character that makes them care. A character that the readers want to succeed. An irresistible character.
But how can I create such a character? What makes readers relate to a character?
Here are three things that a character must have so readers can truly connect to him, her or it:
1) A Challenge Continue reading
Write what you love.
When Rita Mae Brown was snowed in one winter, with no electricity, and nothing that she really wanted to read in her home, this happened:
Still, I wanted something to read to escape my troubles […] Travel was impossible for a week during the worst storm. I couldn’t cruise into town and pick up a new novel. So I wrote one.”
Author’s Note to Riding Shotgun, Rita Mae Brown
This passage inspired me to start writing my own novels when I couldn’t find a tale I wanted to read, and had read those I owned for several times. I hope it inspires you, as well.
Now, in this world of self-publishing and most of all, self-marketing, we are told to find our target audience and write for them. Possibly write for the market, as it is.
And since some really weird stuff is out there (do I need to mention Dinosaur Porn?), it is possible to write stories that will sell because the genre is a voracious one. And yes, Erotica sells.
The question is, should you do it? Continue reading
Editing
The other day, I talked about the three levels of editing, which was about the bare minimum needed to make a story clean.
And then there are some who never stop editing.
“Just one more pass, then it’ll be perfect.”
I know how that goes. You pull up a story, read through it again and of course there is a phrase to be improved. And before you know it – an editing pass happens.
The problem here is perfectionism.
You see, a story doesn’t have to be “perfect”.
It just has to be good enough that readers enjoy it. Continue reading
A Hero on Plot
The other day I read a book that I had waited to read. It was part of a series, and it was long in coming. I set aside an evening, got some beer and chips, and settled in for a nice bout of reading.
And then the story left me disappointed and unhappy. What had gone wrong?
Today, the answer came to me:
The story lacked a real plot.
Oh, there were lots of things happening, and a war brewing. A vision that saw all of them perish, and no solution in sight. Death and destruction everywhere. Desperate action and some soul-searching. Madness and wild rescues. Characters getting hurt and being afraid.
So why do I say that there was no plot? The story was moving along, wasn’t it?
Yes. It moved along like a history book. Continue reading
Editing
Everyone knows we should have an editor before publishing our stories. Publishers give manuscripts to editors, and self-publishers search out and pay editors.
And that makes sense. It’s always good to have more than just the writer’s eyes on the tale.
However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t thoroughly edit your short story, novella or novel before handing it to a bunch of beta readers or a pro editor.
Personally, I use three levels of editing with my stories. I firmly believe it is the job of the author to make the story as good as possible on their own and not to rely on outside help too much.
So here’s what I do:
Level 1: Spellcheck / copy editing Continue reading
I love …
This is a true story.
Ten days ago, I decided to radically shift my mindset about my books. (I’m writing fiction under a pen name.)
You see, I self-published my first book early in 2013. By now, I have three books out, and one on preorder that’ll be fully published soon. They are beautiful books, thanks to the people who create the graphics for it, and I also think they tell good stories. (Entirely my bias.)
But sales were frustrating.
It’s a marketing problem, my coach would say. It’s also a visibility problem – it’s not easy to have a book show up among the hundreds of thousands of genre books on Amazon.
So I resigned myself to minimal sales, checking the sales reports once in a while, and trying not to wince. Sound familiar? Continue reading
Unhappy Character
You started out loving this story, the characters, and the world but then it went all downhill. The characters are only bickering and navel-gazing, they refuse to meet your eye, and quite frankly, you don’t even want to visit that sorry bunch anymore.
The joy went out. The excitement died. The story is floundering. You can hardly bear to open the file.
That’s story fatigue.
And it happens to authors. It happens to me, and I’m fairly sure it happens to you.
The good news is that it’s fixable.
The bad news is that it’s work. Continue reading
Healing
After I had been writing for a few years, and started training to become a counselor, I noticed something strange: In most of my stories, the mothers were dead or had disappeared. My heroes were orphans, as a rule.
Granted, in one case that was part of the story challenge, but it happened to often to be coincidence.
For some reason, I was reluctant to write mothers.
And then, as part of counselor training, I was required to look at my own family and realized that my relationship with my mother wasn’t as simple and straightforward as I thought. In fact, it was rather troubled.
Troubled enough to keep mothers out of my stories. Continue reading
Shouting it out from the rooftops.
Marketing is icky.
I know many writers feel like that.
I mean, we’re writers because we don’t mind at all being alone, we enjoy immersing ourselves in our stories and hanging out with our characters. Most of us are not really outgoing and rushing to parties all the time.
And now we’re supposed to be all over social media, corner our friends, badger our relatives and tell people to buy our books? Repeatedly?
Not quite.
The truth is that yes, every writer who wants to sell books needs to market. Even those with a contract from a traditional publisher, simply because those publishers are slashing their marketing budgets.
And of course, indie authors depend on their own marketing for their visibility.
So what exactly does “marketing” mean? Continue reading
List of Resolutions
January is two weeks old today. So are your resolutions.
You did make resolutions, didn’t you?
Yeah, well, that might not actually be a good idea. I know, it’s quite a tradition, and everyone does them, right? So how could resolutions be dangerous?
Here is why:
1) Resolutions feel good the day you make them. They might even make you feel powerful and determined. Which is good.
But sadly, that feeling gets turned upside down very quickly: As soon as you realize you’re not able to stick with them. Then they make you feel bad and incompetent. Continue reading
