Can You Survive Book Two?

Or should I say, can I survive book two of the Can You Survive series?

I'm hard at work on a second "Choose Your Own Ending" book for adults and this time it's a much crazier scenario than The Zombie Apocalypse. I don't want to say too much about it yet, but let's just say that your escape options are limited this time around and there will be more chances for interaction with a bunch of secondary characters.

Writing one of these type of books has been very challenging in a creative sense and in an organizational way as well. I might try to document my strategy and write some posts about it if anyone's interested.

Until then, look for more updates coming soon! There may be a synopsis reveal in the near future...


Photo Credit:
Ben Earwicker
Garrison Photography, Boise, ID
www.garrisonphoto.org

Self-Publishing Tricks

Okay, the title of this blog is a little misleading if you are one of those people who are looking for me to tell you some super-secret tricks that you can use to instantly boost your books (or novellas, or what have you) to the top of the Amazon Kindle charts. I will tell you one trick that I've learned, but it's only one, and you really don't have much control over the outcome.

The trick is this: To have a book or story or product that people are looking for in the right place at the right time.

It's not marketing that has worked for me. I'll explain my reasons for this "failure" in a moment. But first let me tell you the experiment that I have been doing for the past two months.

I am a noob to self publishing. I've been a writer since I could hold a pen, and even begged for a typewriter one year (which I still have tucked away for inspiration). I published my first book, Macyntire & Hough, last September to a modest amount of fanfare for me. Mostly people I knew read the book, and I admit that it wasn't a genre that I typically write, though I have read a bunch of paranormal romances and thought they would be fun to write. The big problem is basically that I am a man with a  book geared towards women. Despite my bio, my Twitter and Facebook, and everything else that I did by-the-book, Macyntire & Hough is lucky if it sells one copy a month - and that is mainly because I dropped the price from $2.99 to $0.99 this past month. There is a sequel that I am nearly finished, but that is not the experiment that I am talking about.

I decided to take a dare, related to something that I was meaning to try for fun anyway, and that was to write a genre that I could never publish under my own name and see what happens. I won't reveal the pen name or story that I wrote just because, but I will say that it was something funny to write and definitely stretched my imagination a bit. This book was short because it was just a test, and I finished the entire eBook in a week, including the hastiest cover I've ever created. For this book, I created a female pen name and decided that whatever happened would happen, and then I could move on with my life once my curiosity was squashed.

Well, I have to say that I am surprised by the results. The numbers I have to share are hardly groundbreaking, but for a young man struggling to find the time to write - let alone market - his work, seeing this experiment yield such great results really lit a fire within my creative mind. I only told one person about the book, and they acted as my proofreader. I gave them a copy for free because it was a fun keepsake for a few hours of laughter. However, even without advertising or a great cover, this book in this particular genre sold copies. Compared to the one copy of my novel that I sold in January, I sold nine copies of my tiny pen name work. I quickly penned a second book under the pen name, and surprise - that one started selling too.

The failure of my marketing for my novel was that it was a hard concept to sell (surprising when it comes to paranormal romances!) and my gender is not exactly inviting for the women who read that genre. I would be more successful writing horror or a more manly genre, which I intend to do for my own author name. But, it didn't matter what I threw out there as marketing for my novel because it wasn't something that people were actively searching for, and whatever it sells from here on out, I'm fine with that.

I am still conducting more tests with this experiment - specifically, I am attempting to write some longer works compared to my first attempts, but my point is this: The only trick to selling eBooks is to have a product that someone is looking for, for the right price, and at the right place at the right time. Who would have thought that people in other countries would see these tiny books and give them a shot? I'm hoping that they will try my newest attempts when they are finished (which will be soon, if I can keep up my energy and find the quiet time to write). There really are no guarantees that your work will sell, but every person who sets eyes on my work and deems it worthy to throw down a dollar to own gives me a new drive to stretch my idea of what writing truly is.

Harnessing Nostalgia

This is more of a personal post than anything specifically about publishing or writing, but I have been going through phases lately where I will see something from my past, usually related to media and books and toys that I had, still have, or always wanted, and will pursue these items online as a sort of obsession. I've only purchased maybe one or two of these items, such as Lego characters and old books, but the whole idea of chasing nostalgia is something that I can't get out of my head. We experience this sort of look-back often, most commonly in the form of our music. All it takes is one song to play unexpectedly on the radio and we are transported mentally back however many years to a place and time that connects with that song on an emotional level. For me, that time period is generally the '90s, and I loved every single one of them!

As I continue to run into all the many different forms of nostalgia in my daily and weekly life, I am attempting to connect these feelings of joy and respect to my latest writing work. (See? I knew I couldn't get away with writing a blog post without tying it to my latest project!)

For anyone interested, I was dared to write a "Choose Your Own Adventure" style book where the reader is the main character and they must choose their path based on different decisions they are presented with on certain pages. This sort of book is still on my shelf in my library, and I remember fondly the Goosebumps versions were so popular that one of them is cracked entirely in half and some pages had to be taped back inside! The nostalgia here is obvious - I used to love these books. Sadly, there aren't really any modern equivalents of these books that I can see. So, it makes sense that I could create my own - not using their copy-written name, but inventing my own. So, that's what I've been working on.

Essentially, I was prompted to make a story for a more adult audience and went with a story relating to zombies. I'll talk about that more as the book nears completion. What was really interesting to me was the amount of imagination that writing one of these books takes. You don't just simply sit down and start writing whatever you want. You can do that, but it will be very hard to complete! In order to write one of these books, you need to keep track of all the different story threads that the readers can go down, and you need to have a cliffhanger at the end of each page that leads into another cliffhanger. This is very demanding creatively, and my imagination has had plenty of exercise these past two weeks as I toil away on this book!

I guess what I'm getting at is this: If I hadn't been chasing my nostalgia, this book might never have started its journey into reality. If you are obsessing over something that you love, try to bring it into your work. The love that you have for the story or genre, whatever, will fuel a passion inside your own creativity and provide it with fuel to hopefully create something that someone else will love. Great art inspires new art, after all.

More on the zombie book to come!

Go, Speed Racer!

Lately I have been pondering a sense of urgency that I have been experiencing in the front and back of my mind. I have a full time job, a secondary job, family obligations, and still I feel like I am not moving fast enough when it comes to my writing. Mostly this happens because I am eager to have my digital shelf stocked with tales I have written and deemed publishable, but right now I am stuck mentally because the act of writing a book is not easy, and it definitely is not fast when it's not a full time job.

So, what am I doing?

Mostly my solution for now is to put aside a few of the massive novel ideas and practice some shorter pieces, or alternative pieces. One of these is a hopefully fun book that will appeal to readers looking for a change and a bit of nostalgia. Basically, I am trying to jump start my creativity when I don't have a ton of time for it, and so far it seems to be working. It definitely has kept my brain thinking when I'm not in front of the keyboard, so that's something, right?

Right!

Positivity Is A Choice

Now that the rush of the holidays is over (and far behind me) and I have successfully began the new year - the gloriously freezing 2014! - I have come to a realization. There is an awful lot of negativity floating around in various areas, especially when it comes to writing and independently publishing. Reading too much about how impossible the odds are that anyone will want to read your work is always a disheartening activity, and I found myself getting down as I watched numbers and felt crushed under the weight of producing another manuscript. (Keep in mind that most of us are doing this on our free time, and the constant advice to produce! produce! produce! is not always realistic or helpful.) What am I to do when all the signs say that writing and publishing is a meaningless task?

I say remain positive. If you believe in yourself and your writing, the readers will follow. Mine have been a slow trickle, but I only have one full-length novel out, and I am generally getting more eyes on my how-to book than my fiction. Perhaps as I strive to change up genres a bit I will attract more eyes on other things. Positivity is not something that just comes naturally. It is something that we must work at and practice, even when the odds seem to be against us. Besides, even if it doesn't seem to help right away, it is something that we can control, and it will hopefully give us the courage to continue sitting at that chair and pounding away at our keyboards! Who's with me?

(Cue crickets)

Fight The Fear

I've recently come down with a case of ending-terror, or what is basically the fear of writing the finale to my work in progress. I don't know where it comes from, but I do know when it starts - always when I slow down long enough to actually think of what I am writing. This happened after NaNoWriMo when I had just a handful of chapters left to write for my rough draft, and then took a small break where my brain had a chance to tell me lies about how much pressure there is.

In reality, there is no pressure, other than the pressure that I'm placing upon myself. I've received both good and bad feedback on my first published novel, and now I need to do the same process again. There is a deadline. I'd like to be done by the end of January. But, this fear in my head needs to go. Do you struggle with this fear of completing your art?

For now, I'm just going to plow ahead and hype myself up until I reach the end. I know how it's going to end. I know how things play out. I just need to put them onto the page. Ready? Here we go!

World Building

As I start to explore a few different ideas I have, I come now to the part of the creative writing process where research is essential and world building becomes the foundation of everything else I will write moving forward. A lot of people I've read say that it is easy to get tired of the world you start creating when it comes to fantasy, but I look at it more as a challenge and a framework that the rest of my narrative will hang from so that it doesn't just come crashing down when I reach something that I don't know how to explain.

My process of world building so far has been to look at how things work in our own world and then tweak them to fit my own. I've started a map of the two continents I am creating with names of towns and bodies of water, and then filling in information about all the cultures and peoples that will live in these areas.

I am also making profiles for all of my main players, which I haven't done so far in my writing journey, but decided that this time I would give it a try. So, I'm creating a binder of sorts and filling in all the information I might need for these characters - including pictures of people who are inspiration, etc. It's pretty fun!

So, if I am not updating on here, you know where I am - either work, or working on something that will hopefully end up being an epic novel before the summer. There's another few things in the works, and I will have to start organizing my time more wisely now that I've had a break from the writing marathon. Lots of creative muscles are being stretched in the evenings!

How We Write

At the beginning of last week through the beginning of this week, I ran into a dilemma. More specifically, I created one with my own clumsiness. Yes, I broke my iPad Mini.

Believe me, it was the end of the world. I am a perfectionist, and the sight of a cracked screen, no matter how usable it is, brings chills to my spine. I needed this to be fixed! Needless to say, I couldn't do it myself, and ended up damaging my device beyond repair.

I was shocked to find that I wasn't mainly upset because my gaming and entertainment device was now rendered useless - I was upset because my main ability to type on the go had been taken away.

Most of my novel Macyntire & Hough was typed on my iPad Mini using one of the many typing programs. At first I was skeptical about being able to use the screen's keyboard, but after a few days of using it, I became very fast and loved being able to see the word count and only the blank page as I worked. Moving on from my last novel, I began the next and started setting goals for myself (which I've already failed on some of them, but still trying to get back up there!). I wanted to type 1,600 words per day. So far I've had three days with that amount, two days of typing notes and outlining, and one day off to recharge my brain from a busy day at work looking at a screen.

I did end up getting a new iPad, and it now has a fancy case to protect it and makes it easier to hold, but I have to think that if this accident didn't happen, I might not have really considered the way that I've been writing. How easy is it to just pull out the iPad when I'm waiting in line somewhere and type out a few paragraphs? Or when I'm waiting to close down the movie theater in the evening, waiting for folks to finish their movies? It's so convenient, and has been a good use of otherwise wasted time. I used to do this with an old-fashioned notebook, but now I am enjoying being able to skip the retype business and just export my text and format it from there.

How do you type? Has your process changed with the advent of new digital technology? What do you think about the changing times for writers?

Why Print?

Since launching my eBook Macyntire & Hough, I have received a lot of push-back about it being just a Kindle book. The plan has always been to have a print version via CreateSpace, but I just haven't formatted the text for that platform yet. Needless to say, I am making it a priority now that there has been a good deal of interest in my circle of friends and acquaintances. Whether or not the book actually sells to more than just my family remains to be seen. Yet, having a print edition of my book will be a great personal accomplishment, and definitely make it easier to provide books as gifts once Christmas comes around!

Here are my thoughts on formatting for print at the point where I am right now - preparing to export a PDF to submit to CreateSpace. (If you haven't checked out their options for print-on-demand, I highly suggest you do so! It's very exciting stuff, and perfect for a newcomer to book formatting such as myself)

I do have a background in print layout. I worked for two years at the University of Southern Maine as a graphic designer for the music and theatre departments. Essentially, the students and staff would give me the text for their recital and play programs and it was my job to be sure that it was all formatted correctly, spelled correctly, and printed nicely with the pages ready to fold and staple if needed. That meant a lot of calculating and a lot of mock-ups. If you don't know what a mock-up is, basically it is a test print that is used in the roughest sense to figure out which pages need to be where before printing.

These skills are essential if you are planning your book for print. There need to be blank pages in certain areas so that your first chapter doesn't start on the back of a page, and so on. The amount of time it takes will be worth it in the end. You also need to be sure that your margins are set up correctly. I've noticed on professional paperbacks before that some of the margins are too close to the edge of the page and that means that if your book is well-read, the pages can get worn down and the text will become destroyed. I did not like this and had to replace a few books in the past because of this issue. Make sure you give the text space! It's the most important part of your book.

Personally, I really love physical books - even though I'm a huge supporter of Kindle and other eReaders. Having the ability to get a book that was written by an independent author via Kindle is so exciting, but I still have to have my physical copy of everything JK Rowling and Stephen King write! Hopefully someday someone will say the same about my own work. Even if it is just my mother! (She's waiting somewhat patiently for the print edition of Macyntire & Hough...another reason to get going!)

Line Edits

I've been going through my manuscript, making line edits, and am surprised at how much tighter my prose has become since the first draft. It really shouldn't be surprising, but I am amazed that the words I'm reading actually came from my brain.

Line editing is essential to any polished manuscript. Despite what your subconscious is telling you, the words on the page are not perfect - or necessarily readable - the way they spewed out of your pen in the throes of passionate creative writing. Take a look at Stephen King's On Writing and you'll find that he has an entire section that shows his first draft complete with his line edits and reasons for why he made the changes he did.

I'll admit that when I first read that section about two years ago, I was sure that my work would never look that beaten up.

Surprise, surprise - my work was even more beaten up!

The goal of line editing is to say something in a simpler, more direct way that gets the point across without rambling or using huge words that don't need to be there. If I can combine two sentences into one shorter sentence without losing the message I need to get to the reader, I will.

Don't be afraid of this process. Treat your first draft like the rough shape of a clay sculpture. You get it roughly to where it needs to be, then you start trimming and shaping until that clay is a beautiful sculpture exactly the way you envisioned it. This process takes time. I already went through my manuscript once and line-edited the crap out of it. Now I'm going through it a second time on my Kindle, reading it paragraph by paragraph to catch any lingering issues. If you want more on that process, see my previous post here.

If you've made it this far, you owe it to your book and your future readers to pay close attention to each sentence and paragraph. As we all know, those sentences together make up the large tapestry of our story, and there's no room for a bad thread in such a large quilt!

Working With Beta Readers

I have to start out this post with my main thought, which is, beta readers are fantastic. I don't know where I would be if it weren't for the handful of readers that I've shown my work to and discussed feedback. However, I feel like my first foray into the land of beta readers is different from most people's perceptions of what it must be like all the time. So, I thought I'd share my journey for anyone who is currently looking to use beta readers so that they know what to expect aside from the stories from established authors with a devoted team of readers.

I don't have a devoted team of readers yet. My start into the world of beta readers began first with my mother (I know, not an unbiased opinion, but she is a great beta for the beta). I gave her the first half of the manuscript and she read it...really...slowly. It also isn't her cup of tea for genre. However, she made it through the entire first half, so I completed the second draft and set out to find people I know who would read it.

I started with people I work with. They aren't writers, for the most part, but they are readers. I found two co-workers who read extensive amounts of romance and paranormal to check out my manuscript. I also looked for people I went to school with - mostly in different states now, so they haven't seen me physically in about two years. Once they agreed, I sent out the PDF via email, and waited to hear back.

To be fair, I gave my readers about a month to get through the entire 230 pages - that page count being 250 words per paperback page. Yes, I did the math, and the page count on the PDF did not match the page count I gave them, which was deceiving. Still, my first beta reader, one of my college friends, read the manuscript in a weekend and was instantly texting me thoughts and errors where I'd messed up the typing.

When it came to my co-worker, the voracious reader, she got through the first half of the book and gave me some feedback that was very useful and discussed the ending with me since she hadn't made it that far. She is killer at remembering tiny details and showed me a few plot threads that I hadn't explored. I used those threads to add a twist to the finale that I really like and think adds a bit of depth to the epic battle between good and evil.

But, beyond those two people, nobody else has reliably read any of my book. They were too busy, or life took a turn, and they didn't manage to get past the first chapter.

What do you do when this happens? For me, I needed to be gracious because these readers, even though they all knew me, were reading my book for free. The only payment they receive is a free copy of my eBook and a mention in my special thanks section. This is my first book as well, so I've never done this before. I don't have anyone outside of my acquaintances who knows who I am or has looked at my work aside from some Harry Potter fan fiction.

So, as you go into your first beta reading experience, be prepared for people to not read your work. They may be busy, or the book might not be their preferred genre, but for whatever feedback you do get from some of them, guard it like a treasure. I wrote down everything that my friend Sam told me because it was so incredibly valuable to me. I want to be prepared as much as possible before I hit "publish". The good thing about writing is that there is always another book to work at, so even if this one doesn't hit the mark for some readers, I can try again with the next.

Bad-Ass Heroines

As I look back at my favorite movie of the summer, Man of Steel, I am meditating on the parts of the movie that were my favorite. Whenever I worked at the cinema (my bosses will love this if they actually read my blog) I would sneak away at the same time every shift to catch the scene where Lois, played by the scene-stealing Amu Adams, is assisted by the memory of Jor-El, played by none other than Russel Crowe. Why was this scene one of my favorites? Let me explain.

In this scene, Lois is trapped on the fortress ship. It's only after she's tried banging on the door for help that she turns and noticed a tiny hole in the framework that is the same shape as an object Clark handed her just before they were captured. She discovers that it's a key. After pressing the key into the lock, Jor-El appears and helps her to escape back to Metropolis.

The characters are showcasing their resourcefulness and ability to learn and develop mentally, just like us. Lois is ready to learn on the fly, and she extends her disbelief at speaking to a digital hologram of Jor-El, so we as the audience also suspend our own disbelief. (For those of you who couldn't, aka, the girl at the concession stand that one time who told me the movie was horrible and that Smallville was also an unwatchable show - shame on you! Just kidding. But, perhaps movies and books about space beings aren't your cup of tea.)

This act of using her wit instantly bonds me mentally with Lois. A character like that is not unlike another famous literary heroine, Hermione Granger. She also connected with readers because she constantly used her wit to get herself and her friends out of danger, and if she didn't know what to do, she learned what to do. Isn't this what we do in real life? True, we aren't fighting an evil dark Lord, but we are learning how to survive our everyday lives and using what we've learned to help each other.

My main character, Shelley, is also one of those types who learns on the fly as she encounters ghosts and demons. I hope that she's resourceful. It's these kind of heroines who pull the plot along when the hero is stuck in his stubborn ways (ahem...Harry). If you're stuck with your characters, try having them learn something new - encounter a new idea or item that they've never seen before. You might be surprised what happens!

That Lovin' Feelin'

I'm in a very sappy mood today, so I decided to write about a movie couple that is near and dear to my heart.

If you knew me back in the early 2000's you would no doubt have suffered many discussions (actually, me just talking at you) about Sam Raimi's masterful film series Spider-Man, featuring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. Those two actors are the key to the entire franchise's success, regardless of what everyone else has to say. I will explain my reasoning for this opinion.

Let me start by saying that I was appalled by the reboot, Amazing Spider-Man, and even walked out of the theater halfway through the film. The characters didn't connect with me on any level, and they felt like cardboard cutouts of the once three-dimensional people I had come to know and love over the course of eight years with Raimi's trilogy. As much as I like Emma Stone as an actress, her portrayal of Gwen Stacy never resonated with me the way Kirsten Dunst's emotional portrayal of Mary-Jane did. As Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker said, "This story is about a girl. That girl." And Miss Dunst nailed it on the head every time.

If you have (or haven't - go out and rent this movie immediately!) seen Spider-Man, watch the scene where Peter returns from testing out his new spider abilities. He's neglected his uncle's plea for help in painting the kitchen and walks in to find that his aunt and uncle are out, finished with the painting. Now Peter comes down from his emotional high with a fresh wave of guilt at forgetting to help his family. He goes outside to take out the trash and runs into who else but the gorgeous Mary-Jane Watson. The girl next door.

Watch through this scene. Do you feel the chemistry and tension between these two characters? The secret that the audience knows is that Peter and MJ need each other, but they just don't know it yet. It works, and it works so well that by the time we get to the finale where MJ is hanging hundreds of feet above death, waiting to be rescued, we are on the edge of our seat, biting our nails to see if she is rescued by Peter (as Spider-Man) or not. It also tugs at our heart strings when we are told by Peter that he can't be with MJ because...he just wants to be friends. Of course, that's just a cover-up for his alter-ego, but MJ doesn't know that. It's the right amount of drama to leave us hanging until the sequel hits (which took so long to arrive, but was so worth it, and is my favorite super hero movie of all time).

Why do these characters work together?

Well, they both have their inner demons, their shortcomings, and their dreams. They have lives outside of high-school and ambitions. They also see each other for who they want to be. Peter encourages MJ to go for her dreams of being an actress, even as her father and boyfriend at the time tell her that she has no chance. MJ encourages Peter to go for a job at being a photographer. In short, these characters are there for each other in a way that everyone else is not. They complete each other. They are good for each other. And we want them together! That desire to see these characters as a couple is what keeps us watching.

I could write an entire post about the new Amazing Spider-Man and how it botched this entire framework, Not to mention that Andrew Garfield's version of Peter Parker flat-out tells Gwen Stacy that he's Spider-Man halfway through the film - all the emotional tension was zapped from the plot before the story even began. Don't do this in your own work, please! Keep the romantic tension. Keep the characters mysterious to a point. We all keep our own secrets as human beings. Nobody will ever know us completely. But, in the case of Peter and MJ, there's a chance that someone can see us for who we want to be and encourage us to go for it. That's what kindles the love between them.

My First Novel - Sneak Peek!

I have read on many blogs that it isn't that important to promote your first eBook, but I can't help myself. I've been working on this project since last October, and as I get closer to my October 1st publication date, I have barely said anything about the book.

Until now!

I thought it would be cool to post the title of my novel and also reveal the synopsis that I plan to use on the "back cover". The book is still with my beta readers, but if anyone has a comment, feel free to let me know what you think!

Without further ado...

Macyntire & Hough

Do life and love continue after death?

Tadin Hough is a ghost who desires a quiet afterlife.

That plan is out the window when he opens an art gallery with Shelley Macyntire, a mortal. Things become more complicated when romance sparks between them.

But, just when things look promising, a demonic soul collector sets his sights on Tadin. His peaceful days with Shelley are numbered.

Can he protect Shelley and everything he loves from being dragged into the bowels of Hell?

Some additional info on the book before I finish - it's the first of a series, though I don't know how many books I plan to do. That all depends on if I can come up with enough stories for the characters. The book is set in my native state of Maine (love it here - especially in the fall, which is when this book takes place) and I'd describe it as a paranormal romance, or at the least, a romantic thriller.

I'll premiere the cover of the book on this blog before publication. Not sure when exactly, so it will be a surprise!

The book is going to be my first time trying KDP Select, so I will make sure to post when the freebie days are for Macyntire & Hough. It might be a little bit, but I'm anxious to see what I can learn from my first publication. Now, back to editing the manuscript!

Outlining With Notecards

I just finished outlining another book, and have found a few things that have worked for me.

The entire process of meditation and then the actual process of writing the plot points down with a pen and paper took about two weeks. I needed that time to mull over some ideas that I wanted to fit in, organize each of the story threads (central characters, antagonists, secondary characters) and the end up with a complete story. Beginning, middle, and end.

I know that in Scrivener you have the option of outlining your book like a cork board, and I started doing that. The only issue with me is that I am rarely in front of my actual laptop. If I am, it's because I'm at home and I've made the time. The days of my Macbook Pro being conveniently portable are about two years in the past. Now? I simply carry around my iPad and a notebook (that never fails!) and do all my writing and creative thinking with those. Anyway, I ended up resorting to actual physical notecards this time as I did on my first book.

The easiest part of this process was that I could add notecards and swap them around if they didn't make sense. I love starting at the beginning and working my way to the end. There is an undeniable flow that comes from visualizing the story this way. That may be different for you, but for me, I need to see the cause and effect in chronological order. I did know the ending before I started though, so I wasn't blindly wandering in the dark!

Once this outline was finished, I consulted with one of my beta readers to see what she thought about some of my plot ideas. I ended up getting some other story threads that I hope to explore later on.

Certainly, I suggest using the three act structure like the screenwriters use. It helped me get this story down quickly compared to the months of my first outline, and I am now ready to start writing each chapter. What is the life-upside-down event at the beginning? What is the turning point? The reversal? The black moment of no return?

If you're at this stage in your novel-writing, I highly suggest a stack of notecards. You never know what you might add, subtract, or swap around as your story takes root!

The Power Of Observation

Here are the statistics:

By the time we die we will have spent six months waiting in lines.

What a horrible waste! Think of how much you could get done in six months. I could read a handful of books. I could write a novel and outline a second one, and perhaps even craft a few short stories. Six months?! I want that time to be useful!

The good news is that it can be useful.

My challenge to you is to stop the next time you're waiting in a line and observe both the person in front of you and the person behind you. What impression do they make on you? What do they look like? What are their mannerisms? Perhaps they are a car-full of little league soccer players and the neighborhood mother, carpooling them to practice. What is her life like? It's up to you as the writer to make it up! Be inspired.

Jot down these things after you're done waiting in line, or on your smart phone - wherever you keep your notes, and save these sketches for characters down the line. This is a great way to observe people and get realistic characters out of your time waiting for lunch at the fast food restaurant, or even at the supermarket.

What Ryan Murphy Has Taught Me

It's all about tone.

It's all about the characters.

It's all about their inner demons.

If your work doesn't have these things, it doesn't matter how intricate the plot is - it will fall flat.

Take a look at how many television series get canceled after only four or five episodes. Why don't they click with the audience?

I use the example of Tera Nova, a series that I waited an entire year and a half for. It was supposed to be Jurassic Park meets Dinotopia meets Stargate, and it didn't turn out that way at all. After the first episode the entire series fell flat because the characters weren't strong or consistent enough to keep the viewers interested in their struggles on Tera Nova. Secondly, the tone was all over the place. Was this supposed to be a family drama? A science fiction action/adventure? A romance? The writers didn't seem to know, and the audience definitely didn't know. I lost interest fast. Add to that the one-dimensional character yanked directly from Spielberg's War of the Worlds (no surprise, since he executive-produced this series) and you have a yawn-fest.

With Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story, you know what you're getting from the very first scene. It's horror. A haunted house. Ominous music. The characters are all struggling with their inner demons - and they are believable. We want to know more about them, and we do! Who didn't want to spend more time with Constance Langdon, the extraordinary Jessica Lange? Who wasn't intrigued by Violet and her romance with the troubled ghost, Tate? I couldn't get enough.

Tone is the veil that lays over everything in the story, tying it together into a cohesive whole. If you can get the tone and your characters right - and consistent, everything else will fall into place.

The Name Game

Coming up with names for characters and places can be hard work! It's also one of the most rewarding things I've found about writing fiction. Essentially, you are taking a character from your imagination who is probably a part of you subconsciously, or based on some characteristics of someone you know, etc., and you are giving her life on the page. You add a first and last name and poof! A living person!

I love generating names. Whenever I'm stuck, I will look up some names and write them down as a long list in my notebook. This is great practice to stretch the creative part of your brain. Look through a book of names - I have one that's been kicking around my house from before I was born - and take a peek at what each name means and where it originates from. These pieces of information can be very valuable as you decide what names to give your characters.

JK Rowling is notorious for giving her characters names with subtle meanings. Those little meanings can give insight into your character's personality and why they act they way they do.

I can't begin to discuss the number of people I've met who act a certain way because of their names. It's a little bit like stereotyping. Not 100% accurate, or true, but very common in my experience. Ever known someone named Josh who liked to goof off? That makes sense because "josh" means to joke and tease. See where I'm going with this? When I worked on Ice Cold Gold as an Assistant Editor (Animal Planet), I was tasked with rounding up any moments where certain characters would say something hilarious, or make bizarre facial expressions. More often than not, I would be pulling crazy things that Josh Feldman would say because he was one of the funniest guys on the Greenland team!

If you're stuck creatively, and you want to jump-start your imagination, make a list of names. You can get them from a book of names, Google Maps, even Wikipedia. Try making up a character to go with a name. Who are they? What do they say to you based on just the name alone? You might be surprised with what you find!

The Editing Process!

I thought I would write a post about my editing process, since I've been learning as I go along and perhaps someone else will benefit from what I've found works - and what doesn't.

I have done all my formatting and finishing in Scrivener. Earlier in the writing process, I used Microsoft Word exclusively, but I have moved on from that after a long relationship. I found that software to be too clunky when it came to compiling a Kindle book. Scrivener also gave me a ton of tools that I use on paper and was able to utilize once my writing was formatted digitally.

Once I was finished my first draft I printed out the most basic, single-spaced version of the chapters I could get. This decision was mostly for monetary reasons since printing 200+ pages was more of an investment than I could handle at the time and keeping everything single-spaced cut the number of pages in half. In the end I had 132 single-spaced pages printed, and that's my entire first draft. For an idea on the word count, it was roughly 55,000 words long.

I am very old-fashioned when it comes to my writing and editing process. Usually I write a lot of the manuscript by hand and then type it out afterwards. I also work out of order and jump around from scene to scene as I feel compelled, so it was a big accomplishment to have a manuscript that was in one piece! For my editing, I used the printed document to scratch out sentences or paragraphs that didn't make sense or needed to be re-worded, and I wrote the adjustments in pen in the margins or in between the lines (I can write very tiny when I want to!).

I found that if I started from the first page and tried to make my way to the last one, my mind got very tired very quickly. I'm not sure if it was because I already knew the story and had read it twice, or if it was just my brain looking at the number of pages left to go through - but, I realized that this wouldn't work for me in the long run. So, I ended up jumping around from page to page - much the same as I did when I wrote the scenes. I got rid of the shortest pages first so that I looked like I was going faster than normal, and then tackled the larger pages with lots of description last. I made sure that every page was scribbled on before I moved on to the Scrivener document for finalizing the changes.

Here's the fun part in Scrivener. There are nifty drop-down tabs in the inspector of your document that you have total control over. I added a bunch of different descriptions like "First Draft," "Second Draft," "Final Draft." As I update the text, deleting the bad sentences and typing the revisions, I update the drop-down tab. This is a great way to keep track of what I have revised and what is still left to do.

I also go back on my printed document and add a check mark to the top right corner of the page after I add the changes to the Scrivener document. This way I can keep track physically of what I have left to add to the Scrivener document as far as revisions.

The entire editing process took me about three months - from handwriting the changes, to adding those changes to Scrivener. That doesn't include the time it took for my beta readers to look at the .mobi file I gave them and give me feedback. I consider that third draft the "final" draft after feedback from readers before publication.

It's a long process, but it's essential to having a polished piece to give to your beta readers. I want my writing to be as close to published as possible before it goes in front of other people's eyes. I am a very self-conscious writer when it comes to my fiction!

Hopefully this was useful as you plan your own editing process for your masterpiece in progress!

Learning From Episodic Television

I believe that if we find a television program that hooks us immensely, it is worth it to study that program and see what makes it so gripping to us as an audience.

What can it teach us about writing, you ask? Plenty!

For starters, an episode of television has a finite amount of time to tell a story. Usually this amounts to about forty-five minutes during which it must give us a beginning, middle, and end. That means the hook needs to grab us in the first thirty seconds or we will tune out. As an example, I have been re-watching the first season of American Horror Story and am amazed that once I get a minute into the show, I'm hooked until the credits roll.

What else can we learn from a show like Horror Story? Well, we can learn about structuring overall story arcs. If you're like me and you want to write a trilogy of novels, you need to have a beginning, middle, and end for each book, but you also need to have a beginning, middle and end for your entire trilogy. That makes those books feel like a complete story. What good would a season of television be if we only felt the need to watch a single episode and skip to the end? All those episodes need to fit into the overall story that the writers are telling, and the same can be applied for your series of novels.

Last, but not least, episodic television teaches us that we don't have to tell everything all at once. Watch Downton Abbey. Our first impressions of Lady Mary are that she's a cold, selfish woman. After three episodes we learn that there's so much depth to her as a person that we can't help but sympathize with her as she struggles with her place in the world. We need to harness this ability to reveal only what is absolutely necessary in small chunks in our own novels. We don't need to tell the audience our protagonists whole life story in the first chapter. We have an enormous number of chapters to utilize as we slowly pull back the layers of our characters to reveal their heart and soul within.

So, the next time that someone gives you guff for watching an episode of television, tell them that you're studying!