Writing the Male Point of View, with Chris Redding

Today's guest is romantic suspense author Chris Redding. In any of the romance subgenres, male-female relationships are important. But creating realistic male characters is important for all forms of writing. (I've heard editors and agents say that children's or teen books written by women often have unrealistic boy characters.) Here's Chris to explore communication differences between men and women:

This is an excerpt from my lecture on Communication in my workshop: Show Up Naked: Writing the Male Point of View. 

Men are lecturers. They are used to giving out information and expecting people (especially women) to listen to what they have to say. Ever been with a guy who just went on and on? He has no idea that you lost interest about five minutes ago.

        He’s lecturing. He assumes that because you are quiet that you are interested.

        Imagine your hero begin to do this and your strong heroine getting up in his face about it. Conflict!

        Often, even if the woman adds something to the conversation, the man does not pick up on those facts. He will keep going on his own track of the conversation. These situations can start out on an even keel, but then the man takes over. This (and I hate to keep harping on this) is because it puts them at a higher status. They are the information giver. They have something that the other person supposedly wants. Women, in seeking rapport, tend to downplay their expertise. Men are quite willing to take center stage.

        But a strong heroine, especially one in a dangerous situation is less likely to worry about rapport. She’s worried about getting out of the situation. She isn’t going to fall back on creating connections. She wants to create an escape.

        I teach CPR and I find this with a lot of the male instructors. They automatically take over or become lead instructor. And I’m a pretty strong personality so they don’t really get away with it.

        Deborah Tannen in You Just Don’t Understand talks about how different conversations are with men and women in terms of what she does for living. Specifically she talks about social functions.

        My experience is that if I mention the kind of work I do to women, they usually ask me about it. When I tell them abut conversational style or gender differences, they offer their own experiences to support the patterns I describe.

        But when I announce my line of work to men, many give me a lecture on language – for example, about how people, especially teenagers, misuse language nowadays. Others challenge me, for example questioning me about my research methods. Many others change the subject to something they know more about.

        Psychologist H. M. Leet-Pellegrini wanted to discover which was more important to determining who would act in a “dominant” manner, those of a certain gender or those who have expertise in a subject. She set up pairs to discuss TV violence’s affect on children. The pairs were either two men, two women or one of each. In some cases, one of the partners was an expert on the subject. The experts definitely talked more, but the male experts talked more than the female experts.

        Non-expert women gave more support to their partners regardless of whether that partner was an expert or not. Men who were not experts on the subject were less likely to give support to the women who were the expert. In fact even if a woman was an expert she tended to give supportive statements to the non-expert man.

        When an expert man talked to a non-expert woman, he tended to control the conversation, though if he was talking to another man, expert or not, he was less likely to control the ending of the conversation.

        In other words, when a man has expertise he isn’t challenged about it by a woman, but will be by a man.

        It all goes back to jockeying for status. To do that the man must challenge the authority.

Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog and three rabbits. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in Journalism.  When not writing she works for her local hospital in the Emergency Services Department. She has been writing for thirteen years and has five books published.

What if your past comes back to haunt you?

Chelsea James, captain of the Biggin Hill First Aid Squad, has had ten years to mend a broken heart and forget about the man who’d left her hurt and bewildered. Ten years to get her life on track. But fate has other plans.

Fire Inspector Jake Campbell, back in town after a decade, investigates a string of arsons, only to discover they are connected to the same arsons he’d been accused of long ago. Now his past has come back to haunt him, and Chelsea is part of that past.

Together, Chelsea and Jake must join forces to defeat their mutual enemy. Only then can they hope to rekindle the flames of passion. But before they can do that, Chelsea must learn to trust again. Their lives could depend on it.

www.chrisreddingauthor.com

www.facebook.com/chrisreddingauthor

www.twitter.com/chrisredding

Publicity: A Reader's View

I’ve been using my Wednesday posts to talk about marketing tactics, which are especially valuable for authors who are trying to self publish, but are useful for everyone trying to sell books. Today I want to talk about book descriptions – the text that is used on book jackets, websites, and sales sites like Amazon or B&N.

A small press recently had a giveaway of mystery novels, so I was browsing through their books. But I struggled to decide which ones I was most likely to enjoy. The factor missing? The tone of the book. Was it humorous? Cute/sweet? Gritty and gruesome? Sometimes I could guess from the description – serial killers are more likely to be gritty, while a crafty female heroine suggests something lighter. But sometimes I couldn’t tell at all. And if I wasn’t sure, I was less likely to pick up the book – even though they were free.

If you are writing a book description, whether for a query letter or for promotion, think about identifying the tone of your story. If it’s not clear from the description, say straight-out that this is, for example, "a witty, sophisticated romance" or "a gritty, thought-provoking thriller. I like to see this at the beginning, before the plot description, as often knowing the tone colors how I interpret the rest of the description. (On a side note, be careful about praising yourself. It’s one thing to say the book is “humorous” – that tells me it’s meant to be funny. But if you say it’s “hilarious,” it sounds like you are bragging and I’m going to be suspicious of your judgment.)

Here’s another thing I, as a reader, would like. When deciding which book to read next on my Kindle, I have only the title and author name to guide me, or maybe a cover if they included it inside the book. (The Kindle Fire shows the covers in your library list, but the plain Kindle does not. You only see the cover if it’s included with the text of the book, and then only when you click to “open” the book.)

I have started using categories to organize the titles, but I’d still like to know something about the book when deciding what to read next. I have a printed list of notes I keep with my Kindle, but it would be nice if every book included the book’s description on the opening page of the electronic version – essentially the back blurb, but at the very front. Then I could quickly check the description to figure out what I feel like reading next.

There’s a danger in assuming that all other readers are like us. Some people love e-readers, some hate them. Some people read reviews carefully, others don’t even glance at them. Some people think cheap books must be bad, while others won’t pay more than $3 for an e-book. It’s important to take differences like these into account. That said, it’s also helpful to consider your own experiences as a reader, and what you’d like to see, when deciding how to write, publish, and promote your books.

Tips for Writing for Content Websites, with Christine Rice

Today's guest is Christine Rice, the author of Freelance Writing Guide: What to Expect in Your First Year as a Freelance Writer. Here's Christine:

Content websites are a platform for freelance writers to publish articles that inform readers and poems that entertain readers, while earning income for upfront payments, page views, or ad clicks and building a portfolio of published clips.

If you haven’t tried this type of writing before, the following tips will help guide you to: select a content website, format your writing for online publication, and be successful as a freelance writer.

Do your research

Don’t jump into joining a website before you’ve researched all of the websites. You will probably need to do several Web searches. This article, which has a list of ten websites that pay upfront for your articles and five content revenue sharing websites, will get you started. Check out each website that you come across in your searches thoroughly by reading the pages that have information about the company, articles from the writers of the website, and details about the website’s memberships.

Pick one or two websites to join

Don’t join every website you look into, because it will be overwhelming if you have too many websites to write for. It’s best to concentrate your efforts on one or two websites at a time. If they don’t end up working well for you, you can try other ones.

Browse the website thoroughly

Once you are a member of a content website, you should take a couple of days to browse the website as a member to get familiar with the layout and its features. You should read the FAQs, visit the forum and introduce yourself, and learn the website’s setup so that you no longer feel disorientated.

Choose the highest paying opportunities that are most fitting for you

From browsing the website you should have learned where you can select the writing assignments. For some of the websites, you may have discovered that there is more than one way you can earn money from your writing on a single website. Choose the opportunities and assignments that are most fitting for you as a writer and that have the highest pay, because the articles will be the easiest and most rewarding to write.

Format your articles like print magazine articles

If you haven’t noticed, print magazine articles have lots of small “block” paragraphs (no indentation and a space between each paragraph), bullet points and lists, and subtitles that stand out. The reason for all of this is to make the articles easy and enjoyable to read. That is how you should format your articles for content websites. Make sure to also check the website’s writing guidelines, because each website has slightly different guidelines.

Write as many quality articles as often as possible

Writing quality articles should be your first goal. Your second goal should be to create as many articles as possible. A lot of quality articles will turn out to be an impressive portfolio and will earn you the most money on the content websites.

Share your articles on your social networking websites

After you publish an article, you should share it everywhere. Post the direct link to the article on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, writing communities, and your website. Share the link only, because, since the article is published, you will not be able to publish the article itself elsewhere, depending on the terms and conditions of the website. Then, write more articles as you watch the page views of your articles increasing and the money adding up.

Now that you’ve received some inside tips on writing for content websites, go online and find some to write for. Or, if you’re already a member of one, start writing. Good luck!

Christine Rice is the author of Freelance Writing Guide: What to Expect in Your First Year as a Freelance Writer. If you enjoyed this article, check out her book, which has additional information about writing for content websites, many more freelance writing tips, and other topics that are important for new freelance writers to know. Her book can be found at Amazon, Lulu, Smashwords, and other online retailers. You can learn more about Christine on her blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Christine is on a blog tour this month. To see the other sites she'll be visiting, click on the image below.

The Unity of Character and Plot, by Andrea J. Wenger

For my Friday craft posts, I've been talking about developing your novel. Let's explore building a strong middle in your novel by considering your characters. To start, I'm reposting this guest post by Andrea J. Wenger, who contributed an essay to my writing book, Advanced Plotting.

The Unity of Character and Plot

Several years ago, at the North Carolina Writers Network conference, I attended a session where the instructor claimed that character is plot. While I understand her point, I think she went too far. Many things happen in our lives that we can’t control. In fiction, the response to external events demonstrates character and propels plot. But generally, by the end of the story, the protagonist becomes proactive instead of responsive, and the protagonist’s positive action creates the climax.

Character and plot must work in harmony. For the story to be believable, the actions the character takes must be consistent with the character you’ve created. For instance, imagine if two of Shakespeare’s great tragic figures, Hamlet and Othello, were the protagonist in each other’s stories. How would those plays go?

Act I, Scene 1: The ghost of the old king tells Othello to avenge the old king’s death by killing Claudius.

Act I, Scene 2: Othello kills Claudius.

The End

No story, right? And if Iago hinted to Hamlet that Desdemona were cheating on him, Hamlet would answer, “You cannot play upon me.”

For the two plays to work, Othello’s hero must be action-oriented, while Hamlet’s hero must be introspective.

Keep in mind, though, that when under extreme stress, people (and characters) behave in ways they never would otherwise. In Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass advises novelists to imagine something their character would never think, say, or do—then create a situation where the character thinks, says, or does exactly that. If it’s critical to your story that your character behave in uncharacteristic ways, put that character in an environment of increasing stress, until the point that the character’s “shadow” takes over.

Isabel Myers, co-author of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, defined the shadow function as the least developed part of our personality. Even in the best of times, we may have difficulty using this function in a rational and mature manner. When someone is under stress, and the shadow takes charge, the results can be disastrous.

In your own stories, do character and plot work in harmony? If a character behaves in an uncharacteristic way, be sure to show that the character is under enough stress to make the action believable.

Andrea J. Wenger is professional writer specializing in technical, freelance, and creative writing. Her short fiction has appeared in The Rambler. She is currently working on a women’s fiction novel. She blogs and speaks on the subject of writing and personality. She is a regular contributor to Carolina Communiqué, a publication of the Carolina Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. www.WriteWithPersonality.com.

Get more essay like this one in Advanced Plotting, along with a detailed explanation of the Plot Outline Exercise, a powerful tool to identify and fix plot weaknesses in your manuscripts. Buy Advanced Plottingfor $9.99 in paperback or as a $4.99 e-book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or in various e-book formats from Smashwords.

Using Giveaways for Promotions 3

Two weeks ago, I talked about my experiences with doing a free book giveaway through Amazon’s KDP Select program. Last Wednesday, I quoted M. Louisa Locke, author of the Victorian San Francisco mysteries Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, on her views. Other authors have had mixed success with free book giveaways. Here are some of the things that have come up:

One author said when she includes a sample chapter of the next title in the series at the back of a book, sales of that title double or triple in the weeks after the first book is available for free. (On a personal note, I hate thinking I have 10% of the book left and then having the story suddenly end, because the last part of the book is a sample chapter or other promotional material. It might help to have a notice at the front of the book letting the reader know what’s at the back.)

One author said that the book she has put up for free most often is by far her best seller, but the giveaways haven’t made much difference to her other books. However, people may take a few months to get around to reading a free book, so there’s still the possibility of a trickle-down effect.

Several authors have said that they got great results the first couple of times they did free giveaways, with thousands of free downloads and strong sales afterwards. However, the more often they made a book free, the poorer the results. This may indicate that everyone who was interested had already found and downloaded the book. Authors wanting to make the same book free on a regular schedule will need to find new ways to advertise the sale. It’s probably also a good idea to spread out the giveaways instead of having them too close together. (Though from my experience and other anecdotal evidence, having at least two and ideally three days free in a row gives you the best impact in your rankings.)

I'd also like to announce the release of my latest romantic suspense novel, published under the name Kris Bock!

A summer afternoon

A stranger’s body

A life changed forever

And above, a hunter watches....

What We Found:

When Audra stumbles on a murdered woman in the woods, more than one person isn't happy about her bringing the crime to light. She’ll have to stand up for herself in order to stand up for the murder victim. It’s a risk, and so is reaching out to the mysterious young man who works with deadly birds of prey. But with danger all around, some risks are worth taking.

M. Louisa Locke: Using Giveaways for Promotions

Last Wednesday I talked about my experiences with the KDP Select program for doing book giveaways. Other authors have had better or worse experiences. M. Louisa Locke, author of the Victorian San Francisco mysteries Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits, mentioned on a listserv that she was making both the first and second book in her series free at the same time. I asked:

I’m curious why you chose to make the first two books free back-to-back. My tendency would be to make just one free and hope people would then go on to buy the next book in the series. I know some people with lots of books out like to always have one book free as a promotional tool. But I’m curious what people think about how this could best be used, especially for books in a series.

She answered and graciously agreed that I could quote her:

“The question was why do both books back to back free, and my reason was simple, both books had slipped to the bottom (and frequently off) of the historical mystery bestseller list during the 2 months I had gone off KDP Select to try selling on the Nook and Kobo, etc.

“The sooner they went out free, the sooner that both would show back up higher on the list—which is where I get sales. You are right that eventually a proportion would buy the sequel, but not in enough numbers in a given day to affect the best seller rank.

“I also find it easier to promote the 2 books together, so that the buzz I generate for one translates to the other.

“I have also promoted them separately in the past, and will probably do this from now on, once they both go up somewhat in the rankings.” 

Later, she added, “The tactic definitely worked. As of this morning, the first day both books are back at paid, Maids of Misfortune was already at #13 on the historical mystery bestseller list, and #9 on the historical popularity list (it had been 127 on the popularity list before the promotion.) 

“It always takes at least a day for a book to find its new ranking in the bestseller list, so Uneasy Spirits, which just ended its free promotion at midnight last night, is still high in paid list, but dropping fast. But it is already showing up at #11 in the historical mystery popularity list (it had been at 113) so I know it will do well on the bestseller list by the end of the day.

As usual, Maids as the first in the series did better in downloads. Over the 2 days in all the Kindle stores I had 21,767 free downloads—and I haven’t done that well since last February. I had 11,572 free downloads of Uneasy Spirits over the 2 days. Even more heartening, I sold 80 copies of Maids of Misfortune yesterday—the first day it was back for sale while Uneasy was still for free. In the weeks before the promo I was lucky to sell a tenth of that.

“Would I have done as well if I had separated the promotions? I don’t know. Maybe. But it did take time to do the pre-promo and promotional work and, as I said, it was easier to do the work for both at the same time.

“If you primarily sell ebooks online the major way that people discover your books is either 1) through social media and 2) by browsing online. Not being the queen of twitter, my major sales come the second way. I write historical mysteries, readers looking for a new historical mystery go and browse in that category, if my book isn’t in the top 100 the chances of them finding it are very low.

“But if I can keep my books in the top 100 of historical mysteries, I sell. KDP Select when it came available this winter meant that when my book sales would start to falter and my books slide down the top 100, I could do a free promotion, and since these free books count as sales (they now only count as a percentage of sales, which is why many of us aren’t seeing quite the same effect from a free promotion) they would bump up the books in rank. Then they are more visible. I have been fortunate that if people see my book, a lot of them buy it.”

Mary Louisa wrote a blog post with more detail about why she’s happy to give away books for free, and why she doesn’t worry about piracy or Amazon accepting returns. She says, “I look at the issues from the perspective of the reader. If I want to sell books, I should be trying to make the reader happy, not the publisher, not the distributor, and not the blogging pundit.”

As she points out and I’ve often thought, that’s why Amazon has been so successful. They focus on trying to please the customer, while many traditional book publishers have focused on trying to force the customers to do what the publisher wants. (For example by not releasing e-books at the same time as print books.)

M. Louisa adds, “Do I mind that more people have gotten my books for free than have bought them? No because my income doubled this year from last after the introduction of KDP Select, and I know from emails and reviews that lots of those people who got the books for free are my future readers of my future books and that they are providing very good word of mouth.”

She also wrote blog posts about her “rather disappointing experiment trying to sell my books on Nook and Kobo.”

http://bit.ly/O3Nmww
http://bit.ly/OpT5Kj

Next week I’ll be back with a few more thoughts on giveaways from other authors.

View Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mysteryor Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mysteryon Amazon.

Using Giveaways for Promotions

Helping an audience find your books is one of the big challenges for all writers, but particularly debut or self-publishing writers. You can find a lot of mixed opinions about giving away free books as a promotion. I thought I’d share some experiences for my Wednesday series of posts looking at the business side of publishing.

There are several ways you can give away free e-books – providing coupons on Smashwords, offering gift books that you send directly to the reader or buy and send through Amazon, or resetting your book’s price as free as one seller (usually Smashwords) so that Amazon will match the price. But one of the most effective methods seems to be joining Amazon’s KDP Select program.

The disadvantage is that you have to pull your book off of all other sellers. This means your friends and family members with a Nook won’t be able to get the book, and some review sites won’t review books that aren’t available in all electronic formats. However, most independent authors find that the majority of their sales come from Amazon, so the trade-off may be worth it. Also, you can sign up for the Select program for 90 days at a time, so you can alternate between having your book available everywhere and using the Amazon program.

The big advantage to KDP Select is that you can make your book free for up to five days in the 90 day period. Through proper promotion, this can lead to thousands of downloads, which can improve your book’s rankings, bringing it to the attention of potential buyers. But does it work?

I decided to try this for myself. Shortly after I signed on to the program with Whispers In the Dark, I started hearing authors claim that the free book giveaways were not as effective as they had been previously. Amazon had change their algorithms, so free downloads are now only equal to a small percent of a paid sale, and so they no longer provided as much of a boost in rankings.

My first book, Rattled, had been out over a year, and my second book, Whispers In the Dark, was published in December. Sales to date of these “adult” books published under the name Kris Bock (as opposed to my children’s books published under the name Chris Eboch) have been miniscule, three or four a month. I’ve done very little publicity, because I was focused on getting three books out so I could promote them all. I’m running behind schedule on publishing my third, but I wanted to use my free days before the first 90 days expired.

At the advice of other authors on a mystery writers listserv, I submitted the information to Ereader News Today, Indie Book List, and The Frugal eReader. Some other sites either had a fee or didn’t seem to be active anymore. I also posted the info on Facebook, sent Twitter announcements, posted to a couple of GoodReads groups, and sent a notice to four listserves I’m on. I arranged for Whispers in the Dark to be free for three days, July 21 to23.

Saturday, 7/21, it showed up on Indie Book List, The Frugal eReader, and Free Books Hub (I did not submit it there, so they must have picked it up from somewhere else). Here are a couple of rankings from that day:

11:45 AM MST: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,789 Free in Kindle Store 

• #39 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Suspense

• #76 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure

7:00 PM Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194 Free in Kindle Store 

#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure

On Sunday showed up on EReaderNewsToday.com. That day’s rankings:

2:30 pm: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96 Free in Kindle Store 

#5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure

#7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Suspense

8:45 pm Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32 Free in Kindle Store 

#2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure

#5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Suspense

On Monday, I didn’t find any place new it posted, but it reached its highest rankings:

8:20 am Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14 Free in Kindle Store 

#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure

#3 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Romantic Suspense

11 am, 1:40 pm, and 3:15: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13 Free in Kindle Store 

#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Action & Adventure (but it had dropped out of the Romantic Suspense rankings)

By Tuesday, 8 am, it had dropped out of the category rankings, but kept improving slightly in paid rankings: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,461 Paid in Kindle Store 

Sunday, 7/29: Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,716 Paid in Kindle Store. (For comparison, my traditionally published books are often between 100,000 and half a million. The smaller the number, the better.)

In the top 20 romantic suspense free books, most had an average of four stars, with a few slightly over three stars. The number of reviews ranged from zero to several hundred, and didn’t seem to affect ranking. Based on my own habits, I would have expected the number of reviews to matter more, so I would have waited until I had around 10 reviews to promote the book. It doesn’t seem that other people shop the same way, at least for free books. However, having more and better reviews could mean more sales after the book is no longer free.

In all, I had 15,149 free downloads (obviously those aren’t all people I know personally!). Now on to the important stuff – how did this translate into paid sales?

Unit sales covering period 07/01/2012 to 07/31/2012 (most of these from the two days after it was free):

Whispers in the Dark: 71 sold, 9 refunded, 62 net sold, 16 borrowed. (Joining KDP Select puts your book in the “library” of books that Amazon Prime members can borrow. Authors get about two dollars per borrow.)

And the sales spilled over to Rattled: 23 sold, 1 refunded, 22 net sold, 0 borrowed. 

Sales kept up for another week or so. From 8/1 to 8/11, I sold 28 copies of Whispers in the Dark and 11 copies of Rattled. In total, I made almost $400 from Kindle in 3 weeks. (This did not translate into any additional sales of the print books, although I did sell about 50 copies of my children’s mystery The Eyes of Pharaoh in July and early August.)

Sales then dropped off, but remained better than previously. From 8/12 to 8/25, I sold six copies of Whispers in the Dark and 9 copies of Rattled (could it be that some people who got Whispers for free read it and liked it enough to go back for Rattled?!)

A few other notes – I raised the price on Whispers in the Dark to $4.99 before I made it free, figuring that people tend to think they’re getting a better deal if they get a $5 item for free than if they get a $3 item for free. I don’t know if that affected the number of sales I’ve gotten since then, but I got more per book sold. Rattled is still at $2.99.

I know some of my friends and children’s book writing colleagues picked up the book because it was free. While we might prefer that people we know pay for our books to support us, realistically, that doesn’t always happen. I certainly can’t afford to buy every book from every writer I know! At least some of these friends have gotten a look at my books for adults, and one of them already read and reviewed it.

I did this in a rush, because my 90 days were about to expire. I debated signing up Whispers in the Dark again versus starting my next book in KDP Select. I decided to do Whispers again, even though the bump might not be as good the second time around, so I can use the giveaway to help drive traffic to the next book.

I’ll probably make the new book, What We Found, available on Amazon and B&N for a month or so and try to get a few early reviews, then enter it in the program as well. I don’t think I’ll publish it on Smashwords, at least at first, because it’s harder to pull down from there to make it exclusive on Kindle. With direct publishing on B&N, I can remove the book within a day. Because Smashwords distributes to other companies (Kobo, Sony) it can take months to make changes. I’ve hardly made any money from Smashwords anyway.

Next Wednesday, I’ll take another look at the KDP Select program by sharing the experiences of some other authors.

Buy the Rattled e-book on Kindle for $2.99

See Whispers in the Dark on Amazon. (Prime members can borrow it for free.)

See Kris Bock’s books on Amazon.

Open Strong: First Chapter Exercises

I’ve been talking about the promise a first chapter makes and how to open strong. Now try these exercises to explore how the first chapter makes promises.

Pick up one of your favorite novels. Reread the first chapter. What promises does it make? From your knowledge of the book, does it fulfill those promises? Repeat this exercise with other books. Try it with short stories and articles, judging the promises made in the first few lines.

When you start reading a new novel, pause at the end of the first chapter. Could you identify the genre, main character, point of view, and setting? Is the main character facing a challenge? Make a note of these promises. At the end of the book, decide whether each promise was fulfilled. Try reading short stories and articles this way as well.

Think about your work in progress. What do you want to promise? Check your first chapter for each of the following:

• Does it clearly identify the genre?
• Does it identify the setting, including time period, country, and urban/rural/suburban lifestyle? Does it suggest whether this is a school story, a family story, an epic interstellar journey, or whatever?
• Does it introduce the main character and possibly one or more other important characters?
• Does it clearly establish the point of view and the tone of the book (funny, lyrical, intellectual, or whatever)?
• Is a problem introduced quickly? If it is not the primary plot problem, does the opening challenge at least relate to or lead to the main problem?

Few authors wind up using their original openings. Some authors write a novel, then throw away the first chapter and write a new first chapter — the one that belongs there. It seems like it’s almost impossible to write a strong opening until you’ve finished the rest of the book. The final version of the opening may actually be the last thing we write!

Openings are a struggle for many of us, but don’t worry about the beginning during the first draft. Chances are it will change completely anyway, so wait until you have a solid plot before you start fine-tuning your opening. You need to know the rest of your story in order to figure out what your opening should be.

Don’t stress about the opening during your early drafts, but do make sure you fix it later. Keep in mind that fixing the beginning may involve throwing it out altogether and replacing it with something else or simply starting later in the story. In the end, you’ll have the beginning you need.

In Advanced Plotting, you’ll get two dozen essays like this one on the craft of writing. Advanced Plotting is designed for intermediate and advanced writers: you’ve finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work.

Advanced Plotting can help. 

Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback, $4.99 ebook, on Amazon,  B&N or Smashwords.

Strong Starts: The Hollywood Touch

I've been talking about getting your books off to a strong start. Now let’s go to Hollywood for some advice. I had the chance to interview some scriptwriters for a Writer’s Digest article some years ago. I’m adapting and expanding on that article. 

Authors dream of having their books made into movies. But even if your story never hits the big screen, you can make your work better by thinking like a scriptwriter. Apply screenwriting tricks to writing your novel and breathe new life into your work.

Let’s begin at the beginning and look at one important part of a manuscript, the opening. You know how important this is—editors and agents often say they can judge a manuscript on the first few pages. But don’t let the pressure get to you. You can put together an opening that grabs your readers and doesn’t let go.

OPEN BIG

I missed the connection between screenplays and novels for a long time. But when a middle grade novel just wasn’t connecting with readers, I consulted with my brother, Doug Eboch, who wrote the original screenplay for the film Sweet Home Alabama. After reading my manuscript, he told me, “You need a big opening scene. Think of visuals, color and movement—maybe a big party.”

He has a good point: Begin your novel with action, not background, to grab the reader’s attention. “Start with something big and memorable,” says David Steinberg, who wrote the screenplay for Slackers and co-wrote American Pie 2. “And big isn’t as important as memorable. It doesn’t have to be a big explosion, but start off with something exciting, different, weird—something that makes the reader want to keep going.”

Don Hewitt, who co-wrote the English-language screenplay for the Japanese animated film Spirited Away, agrees. But, he warns, don’t just make up any big scene for the sake of drama. “Start with an event that affects the character,” he says. Ideally, this event is a moment of change, where the character starts on a new path.

Establishing the protagonist’s role in the story is one of the most important functions of an opening, whether in films or novels. Let the reader know the character’s goals. “What does he want? What does he really need?” asks Steinberg. “What’s his external goal? And what’s his internal goal—what’s this person’s flaw, and how is he going to be a better person by the end?”

In addition, Doug says, “An opening scene should establish the genre. For comedy, I try to make a really funny opening.” In one of his screenplays, Quiver, a woman finds Cupid’s bow and arrow. “I open with Cupid to establish that it’s a comedy with a supernatural element.”

If the opening is exciting, funny, sad or scary, the audience expects the entire movie—or book—to be the same. If the opening is boring, the reader assumes the rest is, too. I took my brother’s advice. Now my first chapter has exotic scenery, magic, humor and a huge food fight. And I found a way to work important setup information into all that action.

For more on first chapter challenges and getting off to a fast start, click on the link to “beginnings” in the column to the right. If you’d like more insight into how a Hollywood scriptwriter works, check out my brother’s blog, Let’s Schmooze.

Adaptation

Here are a few more screenwriters’ tips you can put to work in your novel.

Planning: Paul Guay spent three months plotting his screen adaptation of the Piers Anthony novel On a Pale Horse before beginning to write. “I plan the entire thing out scene by scene before I write one word of dialogue or description. I know exactly what my beginning is and what my ending is.”

Character Development: Don Hewitt says, “It’s easy to have things happen to the character. He’s passive. But it’s always best that the action happens because of a choice.” Hewitt tries to base characters on real people. For him, it’s easier to know how they would really react and talk in any given situation.

Setup: David Steinberg notes that a lot of comedy comes from deception, such as a person pretending to be something he isn’t. The longer he has to keep the secret, the more tension he creates. “If you’ve set up the tension, it should be easy to write,” he says. “If you can’t come up with anything, it’s because you haven’t set up the opposing forces.”

Advanced Plotting has tons of advice on building strong plots, including a detailed essay from Doug Eboch on the script writing "turning points" and how to use them. Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback, $4.99 ebook, on Amazon,  B&N or Smashwords.

Start with a Bang: Strong First Chapters

Last week I talked about the promise a first chapter makes to the reader, and what you should include. This essay from Advanced Plotting continues with advice on getting off to a fast start so you create a strong first chapter.

The Fast Start

An opening introduces many elements of the story. Yet you can’t take too long to set the scene, or your readers may lose interest. You want to start in a moment of action, where something is changing, and cut the background. But don’t rush things — take a little time to set up the situation, so it makes sense and we care about the characters and what’s happening to them.

Fast, but not too fast. How do you find the balance?

You can test your opening by seeing how much you can cut. What if you delete the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page? Does the story still make sense? Does it get off to a faster start? For a novel, what if you cut the whole first chapter, or several chapters? If you can’t cut, can you condense?

On the other hand, if your beginning feels confusing or rushed, you might want to try starting earlier in the story. Try setting up a small problem that grabs the reader’s attention, luring them in until you can get to the main problem. In my novel The Well of Sacrifice, the Maya are dealing with famine, disease, and marauders in the early chapters, even before the king dies and an evil high priest tries to take over. That gives readers time to understand these characters and their unusual world.

My Egyptian mystery, The Eyes of Pharaoh, opens with the main character running — an active scene, even though she’s merely running for pleasure. In the rest of that first chapter, Seshta, a young temple dancer, is focused on a dance contest she wants to win. This introduces a challenge and a goal, and the contest is a major subplot throughout the book, though not the primary plot line. By the end of the first chapter, Seshta’s friend Reya, a young soldier, warns her that Egypt may be in danger. She doesn’t believe him, but the reader has seen the seeds of the main plot, which will develop when Reya disappears and Seshta searches for him, uncovering a plot against the Pharaoh.

The inciting incident — the problem that gets the story going — should happen as soon as possible, but not until the moment is ripe. The reader must have enough understanding of the character and situation to make the incident meaningful. Too soon, and the reader is confused. Too late, and the reader gets bored first.

  

Options for Fast Starts:

· Start in the action, at a moment of change. Then work in the back story.

· Start with two people on the page.

· Start in the middle of a fight or other conflict.

· Start with a cliffhanger — something powerful about to happen.

· Start with a small problem that leads to the big problem, or is an example of the main problem.

Keeping Your Tone

With all the pressure to write a great opening, people often struggle to find an opening scene that is dramatic, powerful, and eye-catching! Something that will make the reader want to keep reading!!!

We may see our opening as something almost separate from the full manuscript — something we can submit to a first pages critique or send to an editor or agent who only wants to see a few pages as a sample. But treating the opening paragraphs as an ad may not be best for the rest of the manuscript. A clever, funny hook is great — but only if the rest of the book is also clever and funny.

Many readers will browse a book’s opening pages in a library or bookstore to decide if they want to take the book home. If you offer the reader a fast-paced, action-packed opening, when your book is really a subtle emotional drama with lyrical descriptive writing, you’re going to disappoint the readers who enjoyed the opening. Even worse, readers who would have enjoyed the whole book might never get past the opening page.

The same holds true for stories on a smaller scale. Even if your story only lasts a few pages, your readers are making judgments during your opening lines. Don’t confuse them by starting one way and then turning the story into something else.

Next week: Opening Exercises

In Advanced Plotting, you’ll get two dozen essays like this one on the craft of writing. Advanced Plotting is designed for intermediate and advanced writers: you’ve finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work. 

Advanced Plotting can help. Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback, $4.99 ebook, on Amazon,  B&N or Smashwords.