Alan Peterson runs the Meet the Thriller Author podcast. He recently met with me to get my advice for new writers. The interview is now up on his site. After that, you’ll want to listen to some of the others. He’s talked to some great authors.
Inequity and deservingness are two of the main factors that keep readers reading. If we want to write killer stories, we need to know how they affect readers. A few years ago I wrote an essay on this and thought it probably too technical for most folks’ taste. But I passed it on to a recent attendee of the killer workshop and he found it helpful. In fact, when he watched Pride & Prejudice shortly after reading the essay, he saw how these factors dramatically affected his rooting interest. So I’m thinking others will find it useful as well.
In order to understand it you must first read George Saunders’ short story “The Bohemians.” You’ll find it here in The New Yorker, January 19, 2004. It would probably be rated PG for some profanity.
Now if the story doesn’t pull you in, stop reading. Because the essay probably won’t make any sense to you. You’ll only be able to understand it if the story works for you. But if it does, then ask yourself what the main character’s problem was and what drew your interest? Then read my essay, “How Inequity Evokes Reader Interest.”
Please note “The Bohemians” does present a character with a problem, and the story cycle applies, but not in the straight-forward manner it does with most stories. BTW, if you’ve ever read Patrick Rothfuss’s excellent Name of the Wind, you’ll see inequity is what shapes the story there as well. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you give it a go.
I’ll be interested to see your responses to Saunders’ story, my essay, and/or Rothfuss’s novel.
Folks, please resist the SERVANT marshmellow.
Me and my big mouth. I unwisely let it slip in a comment thread that I had Servant up on Amazon (it’s up early because I need at least 24 hours to make sure my purchase gets the ratings going and to make sure everything looks right). And some of you have gone out to purchase it, for which I love you, BUT I should have made clear that we’re still in the proof check phase. That means we’re carefully going over the beta version of the trade paper book and catching the errors you only see when it’s in book form (next time I’ll do the trade paper first and then the ebook). You might not notice the things we’re catching and will be happy with the proof version. But I hate thinking you’re getting anything but the best.
If you’ve already purchased and don’t care, fine. If you do, Amazon has a liberal return policy. For the rest of you: DON’T EAT THE MARSHMELLOW. Give us just a few days. Make sure you’ve signed up for the new book release notification on the left. I’ll let you know when everything is ready to go AND on sale 🙂
Happy holidays!
Today was awesome for writing. First, I got five hours in, and I was in flow the whole time. When you’re in flow, you’re in the scene, seeing it, smelling it, experiencing it. It’s awesome.
Second, during my review of the first draft, I came to the final battle scene and realized I’d made it much too convoluted. Way too convoluted. When I wrote it, I thought it was great, but coming to it fresh, it was just too much. So I drew a big red line through all those pages and made a note to rewrite it. Today I got to rewrite that section plus a bunch before and after it.
I have to say I love sheriff Hood, the female character who is teamed up with Frank. The woman is spectacular. And I love this fight scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read a thriller fight scene like this one. Sorry, won’t tell you what it is (no spoilers), but I can tell you I can’t wait to get this out to readers. I’m as pleased with this as I was the snow mobile sequence in Bad Penny.
Have a great weekend.
Do you know what’s awesome about Your First 1,000 Copies by Tim Grahl?
He bases his advice on tests. Tests he’s performed with other authors and tests he’s performed with his own book.
For example, what’s more effective: advertising and posting our on places like Facebook and Twitter or a mailing list? Do authors really need to have a social presence? Or is that a bunch of bunk?
Tim has tested this question and shares what he’s found.
What about marketing? What’s the best approach to take to win new customers?
I think you’ll find his answer surprising. As a side note, I have to say I find his definition of marketing more insightful and practical than any I’ve come across. And I got a business degree!
How do you set up mailing lists and which ones should you use?
Tim tells you.
What should you blog about?
Tim shares his front-line insights.
What’s the quickest way to find new customers?
Tim discusses that as well. And it’s all put together in his framework or system he calls “Permission, Content, Outreach, Sell.”
If you’re an indie author, I think you’ll want to hear what Tim has to say. There are three books on indie publishing that I’ve found super useful. Your First 1,000 Copies by Tim Grahl is one of them.
If you write poopy-slow like me, you will finish 500-700 words of your draft in an hour. Let’s see what that means for various novel sizes.
And those requirements don’t count time you might need to spend re-imagining a piece or researching some gap in your knowledge or figuring out some knotty bit you couldn’t see was problematic when you first set out. A novel can be a big project and stretch over a few weeks, especially when you don’t have eight hours a day to write.
In this lesson, you will learn that you need to treat the draft like what it is–a project–and use basic project management techniques to help you get the work done.
The recording of the session with Larry Correia at LTUE is up on YouTube. I really enjoyed this session, and it’s always fun to work with Larry. A few additonal points.
First, you might think, well, heck, they didn’t finish a story idea. No, we didn’t. The purpose wasn’t to wow the audience. It was to show them the process of generating ideas. But . . . that doesn’t mean we weren’t close.
The big thing we’re missing from the story at the end is the situation, the problem. So if you want to extend this, ask yourself a question to help you identify that story core. For example, you might say, let’s narrow this down by genre. What genres could we use? Romance, political thriller, crime, horror, humor, scifi, western, paranormal, etc. If we select paranormal thriller, we limit our options (a good thing), and can start to generate ideas around a question like, what’s going on, what’s the problem? Potential answers:
Do you see? If we had more time, we’d have delved more into the situation with creative Q&A. Sooner or later as we generated ideas around character, setting, and problem a story idea would have come to life.
And (thank you, Mike Barker) here’s a transcript.
