First and Foremost: Why Are You Writing?

The topic of audience selection comes up frequently enough that most writers likely have an idea or concept about whom they believe might decide to read their book.  It's an important topic, as every writer wants to feel a connection with their readers and, hopefully, the readers feel the same way.  With that in mind, it's easy to lose sight of why you started to write in the first place.  When that happens, there's a disconnect that takes place and something gets lost between the pages.  It's not so much a question of improperly gauging your audience.  It's something deeper and far more personal.

What went through your mind the first time you put pen to paper, or set the cursor on your screen dancing as the words flowed into your fingertips?  Did you feel the kind of nervous excitement after finishing a carefully crafted plot arc that could only be likened to your very first date?  Have you ever shed tears while daydreaming or plotting the scene where one of the characters you created dies?  These questions are all about an emotional response triggered from the act of writing.  What we're talking about here, then, is really passion for the craft.  Whether your passion for writing burns like a smoldering flame or like a bonfire, it's personal and unique to every writer.  Yet, fire can be contained, directed and re-directed, just like any tool.  So, if we aren't careful, we end up molding our passion to suit the needs/wants of our readers, our publishers (for those going the small publisher or legacy route), our time commitments (read: constraints), etc. 

None of this is to say that the writer shouldn't be mindful of his or her audience.  Quite the opposite.  Like stage directors running a full company of actors, orchestra, and stage hands, writers absolutely must play to the readers/audience.  That comes down to understanding their needs versus wants: give them what they need, but tease them with what they want.  Through it all, however, you have to let them see your passion for writing.  That's why they came in the first place to see the theater that is your book.  Whether the story is a critically acclaimed success, hardly noticed among the crowd, or belittled by the curmudgeons: there are bound to be those who are intrigued by the passion and fire you've injected into your tale. 

That's what writing is for me.  It's about following the desire to create something from nothing and then turning that into a tale that I hope entertains, educates, and engages the reader.  It's impossible to write something that will please every single reader in the exact same way.  Attempting to do so waters down the experience of whatever it is I'm trying to create.  Strangely enough, I actually do believe that constructive negative feedback, serves several purposes.  One, it reinforces my point above that you can't write something that will please everyone.  Two, it likely may give me food for thought on things I hadn't considered or another viewpoint for analyzing whatever the topic may be (i.e. story arc, character development, etc.).  And three, it just stokes my fire to get me back to brainstorming, outlining, planning and writing. 

What is writing for you?  Just as important, what does it do for you?

Storytelling: It's All About Perspective

There are plenty of tough choices that go into transforming an idea into an actual book.  Among those decisions is figuring out how you want to tell your story.  This means picking between either first person or third person perspective as the method for telling your tale.  Really, it comes down to presentation style.  Do you want the reader to see the world you've created through the eyes of one or more key characters, or are you looking to give them more of a bird's eye view?

In "Of Murder and Monsters," I decided to go with a first person perspective style of narration.  About 99% of the book is told from the perspective of Sean Valdez, the book's protagonist.  This means that readers not only sees what Sean sees, they get a front row seat to how he thinks and interprets the world around him.  As his life takes on more and more confusing twists and turns, some of that confusion translates into what the reader experiences along with Sean.  Then again, Sean's not a perfect person and, like all of us, he sometimes can't see the forest from the trees.

First person perspective, then, is also an excellent tool for creating tension and controlling the pace and distribution of information.  This makes sense since the character is limited on how much information he or she is aware of as the story progresses.  Likewise, they either aren't aware or aren't fully aware of the intentions or motivations of the other characters with whom they interact.  As in real life, sometimes we just don't know who we can really trust or when we're being led astray.  What makes writing in the first person difficult over the length of a novel is that the writer has to stay "in character" for the duration.  Even when you're introducing the narrating character to other characters and setting the scene to do so, it's important to remember that the non-narrating character is being introduced to the reader through the filter that is your narrating character.  In other words, the reader is getting someone else's interpretation of the characteristic's of the non-narrating character.  Confusing, yes.  Resolvable, absolutely.

If your readers feel like they can trust that the narrator is being honest and straightforward, then they're likely to accept what's being relayed to them by the narrator. This becomes important later on if your narrator suffers some sort of break with reality or is recovering some sort of psychological shock or assault.  At some point, the reader, in those scenarios, has to be able to believe that the narrator has worked through the issue/hallucination and is now interpreting things logically/accurately again.  Under some scenarios, you might intentionally want to have your reader question/doubt the narrator's veracity.  As with all things, however, too much of a good thing can go awry.

Third person perspective can be a much more liberating format for both the reader and the writer.  Granted, you can still limit the amount of information that the reader receives; however, they are usually still getting much more information than they would from the first person narrative form.  I like to think of either use of third person narration as an almost over-the-shoulder, documentary style, camera that follows the character or characters throughout the story.  Therefore, I've decided that both the prequel and sequel to "Of Murder and Monsters," will be told using the third person perspective to further reveal the dark world into which Sean Valdez has been thrown into.  As this narrative provides the reader with more information, it's far more useful when there are many more moving parts and character story lines.  

Which narrative style do you prefer to read?  For writers, which type of storytelling perspective do you enjoy working with more?

Book Hack: Character Continuity Shortcut

There's a lot to learn as you progress in writing a series.  More often than not, the lessons don't become very clear until you're well into the second book.  In my case, as the characters from "Of Murder and Monsters" are continuing to grow and develop, I found myself jumping back and forth between the current manuscript and my Kindle copy of Book One.  This wasn't terribly annoying until the sixth or seventh time I had to jump back into Book One.  The reason for all of the jumping back and forth was to make sure that not only was I staying consistent with the descriptions, but that character growth picked up where I left off.  Without keeping a certain level of familiarity, you'll lose that sense of continuity that gives your reader a platform from which they will accept the characters' development.  

As I've continued to make progress on Book Two, I've started creating character sheets.  These actually aren't that dissimilar from the kinds of character sheets you might find on a table top role playing game.  Role playing game character sheets can serve as a great template. Some are incredibly detailed and cover everything from physical descriptions to physical and mental attributes.  Of course, you'll want to input words and descriptions, rather than numbers - unless that's what works best for you.  I also created a "notes" section where I keep a bullet point running list of the major events of Book One that contributed to the character's growth, challenges they faced, or how they died.  Likewise, these bullet points also note the page where this happened on my final draft (just in case I still need to go back).  Not only did this put the information right at my fingertips, it also has saved me quite a bit of time.  Now, I no longer have to remember specific pages or chapters where something pivotal in the character's life happened.

The other helpful thing about putting together the character sheets is it has allowed me to make a better side-by-side comparison of multiple characters.  Most stories involve character interaction (i.e. dialogue).  It's one thing to have an idea of the personalities at play, it's another thing to be able to sit down and analytically look at your characters' quirks and traits in black and white.  The helpful thing about this is it forces me to see where a character might go against the grain of their personality - maybe they're not very confrontational, or perhaps they're giving something up to reach a much larger goal later in the story.  My point is, I've found this to be good for brainstorming when it comes to having the characters work with, or against, each other.  

Writers: what kinds of devices do you use to help maintain character continuity in your series?  Readers: how important is character continuity to you?

So You Published Your Book, Now What? (Part 2)

Earlier this week, I took an overview look at one of the more difficult phases to the self-publishing process: marketing.  As I said before, writing is the easy part.  It doesn't matter how good your material is, no one will buy your book if they don't even know it exists.  That's the real challenge of eBooks.  To put it in perspective, your book is a single stand/blade of hay that's in the middle of a much larger bale, in a field lined up of hundreds of other bales of hay.  Therefore, the goal should be to get to the top of your bale and worry about conquering the whole field once you get there.  

Farm analogies aside, the idea here is to just get the word out.  There are a ton of blogs and articles on the subject and a good number of them deal with SEO.  This post focuses on simple, no-budget, marketing that will help new indie published writers accomplish two important things: (A) get the word out about their book(s); and (B) make good contacts with other indie writers and readers along the way.  In order to accomplish A, let's start with B.

Long before you hit the "publish" button on whatever platform you are going to use to launch your eBook, you want to start marketing.  Wait, you're thinking, I thought we were starting with B.  We are, stay with me.  Making contact with other indie writers and readers IS marketing.  It's no different than going to a networking lunch, or taking the concepts of networking and using them more subtly.  Subtle is the key, because effective networking should never feel like networking.  More importantly, that's not what you're trying to do anyways.  What you want is to develop a give and take relationship with this other person.  Maybe you're looking for a beta reader and the other writer is looking for someone who knows a graphics designer who'll negotiate on prices for book covers.  If you're able to help each other out, it's a win-win for you both.  More importantly, this person will remember you weeks later when you're promoting your book.  Here's where the networking pays off: now you've got someone willing to help you spread the word about your eBook.  

Social media is the new word of mouth.  That indie author you made a connection with might have several hundred followers on Twitter.  In my case, indie author Seeley James, was kind enough to offer to tweet and re-tweet news about my free, three day promotion of "Of Murder and Monsters."  Not only did this help get the word out, it also led to others picking up James' tweets and re-tweeting the information.  This, combined with my efforts to get the news out via several + Google communities and websites advertising eBook giveaways, led to an amazing first day day of the promotion.  The last two days of the free promotion posted respectable numbers, and has already helped generate more sales.  

You'll want to make effective use of social media in order to get the word out about your book.  This means either creating an author Facebook Page, blog, Twitter account, or your own website, or all four.  Regardless of which format you go with, you want to make sure you are involved. It doesn't cost a thing to use these resources, yet they can help you rally friends and family to help tell others about your book.  Again, it's about generating as much word of mouth discussion about your book, while at the same time reinforcing existing relationships and building new ones.  Join a discussion group/community and participate.  Help other authors in the group and you just may get some unexpected help that aids your marketing efforts.  Just remember to pay it forward.