FINDING GOOD ICKY BUG UPDATE
WHEN ONE OF YOUR GENRES IS UNDER-REPRESENTED IN THE BOOKSTORE
INTRO
I originally posted this in 2016 and was inspired to do an update after a recent experience art the bookstore where I realized why I never buy much there. I have to dig up my icky bug on Amazon for the most part. It’s kind of telling that the stuff that makes it into the bookstore, which is extremely hard for indie authors, is not anything I’m interested in. See below.
ORIGINAL INTRO
Though the title talks icky bug (my word for horror for those of you new to my site), this applies to all of you that have a penchant for any genre or sub-genre out of the mainstream.
Bookstores, just by virtue of their business model, have to make money. They’re out to sell books and tend to put books out there that sell big. The problem is that they also pander to the big five publishers and their whims and many books represented sell less than a thousand copies total. Even if the odd genre or sub-genre might sell better than a pet interest that sits idle, if the big five don’t favor it, the bookstores won’t stock it. Period.
Speaking only from my own interests, I know that icky bug…okay, horror to most of you…is the bastard child of the publishing industry.
NICHE MARKET
Horror is a niche market. It doesn’t sell as big as say…fantasy, westerns, romance or whatever. However, there are fans. Lots of them.
What are the publisher’s answers to that?
I cringe when I repeat this but I’ve heard it over and over again. “If you aren’t Stephen King, forget about it.”
Well, screw you!
So much for a niche market.
BUILT IN BIAS
Face it folks, if you write horror, you automatically have a strike against you. You’re obviously not Stephen King, so what next?
Most publishers either won’t even talk to you, or if they do, they want writing so above the “best of the best,” you don’t have a chance in hell of getting published.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
Because of the built in bias of the industry, many frustrated horror authors have taken it upon themselves to self-publish. Sometimes with disastrous – sometimes outstanding results, but with little to no promotion or distribution. Those bad tomes have resulted in a lot of crap out there. On the other hand, there are plenty of cool and outstanding stories just waiting to be found.
That’s the key. Waiting to be found!
WHERE’S ALL THE GREAT ICKY BUG?
Folks, there’s plenty of icky bug I wouldn’t waste my money on. Sub genres like splatter gore and serial killer, torture porn and the like are not my thing. However, good old b-movie monster horror, what I fully embrace as icky bug, is what I’m talking about. It’s out there. It’s stuff you’ll never see in a bookstore. The big five turn their noses up at that stuff. It’s “not worthy,” apparently.
Sure, a lot of them are self-published. A lot of these books are great stories but in need of decent editors. A lot of them could use better artwork. Yet there are still plenty of independent publishers cranking this stuff out. They’re there, all you have to do is look for them.
I recently made a significant (well, to me anyway) order from Amazon. After all, that big “store” is, right now, the only place I’ll ever find these b-movie monster stories.
I hit the jackpot. I’ll never ever find books like this at Barnes & Noble or any other brick and mortar store. As much as I like to shop and support the local chain and independent bookstores, I want to support authors who write what I like also. Sure, I like other genres, but I need my icky bug fix.
I purchased a mix of self-published as well as very professional works. I’m having a great time.
OTHER FACTORS
It’s not just about creature feature icky bug either. There may be some icky bug in the bookstore (there is a horror section now) but as I found out the other day, after skipping Stephen King, there was little written in a style I’d read, let alone subject matter. I’ve made it quite clear in all these years of writing this blog that I cannot tolerate present-tense. Besides that, I’m no fan of first-person, though if I really like the author and subject, I can make an exception. A recent one was Manrattan, by Hunter Shea.
The other thing is even if I like the subject and open the book for a quick look, I often find page after page of droning on. No blank spaces on the page, full-page paragraphs. In other words, they’re really literary character studies. Nothing sucks the life out of a good icky bug more than droning on and on.
I browse the books and outside of Darcy Coates, of whom I’m a big fan, either I’ve already read the book or it’s some combination of literary, first-person, present-tense, or all of this. Scratch those off the list!
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Do you have a genre or sub-genre the big five ignore? Do you have books the stores just don’t or won’t carry? Of course, you can maybe special order them through the store, or just break down and make an order through Amazon. In my case, some of these books, especially the self-pubbed ones, weren’t always available as special order through Barnes & Noble. Now, I haven’t tried special ordering through the independent stores yet. That could be a next step one day.
Happy writing!
YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER REVISITED
This was one of my first articles, so I thought it worth a revisit, with major editing, given how much my writing has improved since 2011!
INTRO
Whenever you start something, there always has to be a first step, a starting point. You already have something to show, to have criticized, and “torn up” by fellow writers and strangers. Where do you start? How do you start?
The simple answer is, to just sit down, fire up the computer (or a pen/pencil and pad of paper) and get to it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? However, not everyone can burst forth with verbal diarrhea at the drop of a hat. For some, it takes a plan.
FIRST STEPS
First, there has to be the desire to write. Since you’re reading this, that’s a given. Second, if you are reading this, you at least have the ability to read so you also have some inkling of how to put sentences together. However, that doesn’t mean you can put them together coherently. Most people with a desire to write have had some kind of training or education that moves them (or pushes them) in this direction.
If you’re completely new to this, I strongly suggest you take a few basic writing courses either on-line, at a local community college, or through a senior center. Learn how to put basic sentences together in a coherent fashion. Just reading them doesn’t mean you can write them!
WHAT NOW?
Let’s assume you have the basics down and you’re ready to start. We’re back to square one again. How do you go about it? What do you want to write about? I can only speak for myself, but I’ve found the best thing to do is just start. That’s it.
Many people start out writing by keeping a personal journal. A recent example was Mary Wilson (RIP) from The Supremes. She was our guest speaker at the Henderson Writer’s Group a couple of times and she started writing a journal early in her life. Up to this point, she still wrote almost every day. The result was that she turned that writing into several books.
When I sit down to write a story, whether short or long, I know three things. I know where I want to start, where I want to end, and the title. Everything else in the middle is a total surprise (also called the “pantser” method).
That, my friends, is my method. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for me. Below are some other methods that may work for you but don’t for me. I’ll explain why.
PLANNING IT ALL OUT
Many people need to plan out their work ahead of time. Outlining is a good example. This method meticulously outlines the story, chapter by chapter. That way, there are no plot holes or gaps in the story line. It illustrates flow problems and all the bugaboos that can cause a story to run flat or hit a brick wall. That may be your path to success. For me, that’s the perfect way to kill my creativity, lose my mojo.
At one of our writer’s group meetings, we discussed this successful female writer. She would write a sentence and agonize over it, rewrite it and perfect it before she went on to the next one. Screech! Stop the presses! In text speech, I’d have to say OMG! That’s “Oh my God!” in case you’re unaware. Talk about sucking all the creativity right out of a story. I can’t imagine writing that way. I can’t remember that author’s name, but it worked for her.
We had a member of our group that started a wonderful story and I enjoyed reading and critiquing it. However, he became so hung up on the mechanics of writing, he not only stopped writing that story, he stopped writing altogether because he didn’t think he was good enough yet. I kept telling him to just let it flow and worry about the details later, but it took him a long time to come around. I’m happy to report that he finally started writing again. Please don’t let that happen to you! He’s a gifted writer and I see great things for him, just delayed for a while.
MY PROCESS
This is how I do it. I have an idea. I stew on it for a while. After a few days…weeks…months…it all comes together. That inspiration. The spark. The beginning and the ending and the title (sometimes in different order). When that happens, I may be in the middle of several other projects. I may have nothing going. I may stop what I’m doing if this inspiration is that intriguing. Whatever the case, I just go for it. I guess you could say I follow my muse, whatever that may be.
If I were to sit down and map it all out, the creative process would come to a screeching halt. It would not work for me.
However, I am not you! What do you need to do? Do you need to sit down and start writing your story? Or, do you need to map everything out? There are good reasons to outline a story. If your story involves a lot of research, it would be a good idea to gather that information first. As for me, I try to write what I know and if my writing leads me to something I don’t know, I’ll stop and do the research at that point. If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll change the story a bit. It still won’t affect the final outcome.
SUMMARY
You can’t know everything. No matter what you write or what method you use, there will come a time when you’ll have to research something. That brings up a great point and has been the subject of several of my articles.
Happy writing!
WRITING LULL
Last year, I did an article called “Nothing To Write About.” That’s always a possibility for some people, but what about when circumstances prevent you from writing?
JOB
There’s always the case of having to work, sometimes too much. If you do a lot of overtime hours, even if you have a certain window when you get home, you may not want or have the energy to write. This can last for extended periods of time.
HEALTH
In the hospital? Have something temporarily debilitating? Something permanent where you have to adapt to an extreme?
CIRCUMSTANCES
Moving, family obligations, disasters? All of these may delay writing for days if not weeks or even months.
HOW DO YOU HANDLE IT?
If you’ve got a big imagination, while you may not be able to physically write, you can always think of stuff for future reference. If you have a bad memory, small notes may be a way to fill in those gaps. Or, cement an idea into your mind so that you can recall it later. There are always ways to compensate for not writing. At least you can build up a storehouse of ideas for when you’re able again.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
While I could be hard-core and write no matter what, sometimes life will get in the way.
Some of you may be able to whip out a laptop and jot down ideas, sentences, paragraphs…anything to keep forward progress. In my case, I absolutely despise laptops and as much as I love to write, self-torture was never part of the deal. Instead, I catalog ideas, either with repetition in my head, or sticky notes.
At present, I have not written anything new on my latest for several months.
Why?
Circumstances, some beyond my control.
Instead, what I do is still get inspiration from everything around me. I’ve come up with some ideas for further progress and have been toying with them in my head. When I do get back around to my work in progress, I’ll already have those ideas ready to go.
I still have a yellow sticky on my computer desk for some ideas I’ve already incorporated into a past novel. I haven’t taken it down yet! So much for stickies.
SUMMARY
You’re still brimming with ideas, but as Meatloaf once sang, “All revved up and no place to go.” Circumstances prevent you from sitting down and putting it all on paper.
That’s okay, just improvise. You’ll figure a way to lock in those ideas.
Happy writing!
WORKING OR ATTENDING AN AUTHOR’S PANEL
As part of paying it forward, I recently sat on an author’s panel. Why do this?
If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve picked up some experience in the field of writing, publishing, marketing, editing? Something in there you are more than qualified to do.
If a new writer, attending one is a part of learning the craft.
WHAT IS AN AUTHOR PANEL?
An author panel is where a group of authors get together at the front of a room and either follow a set narrative for an audience, take questions, or both.
The idea is for a variety of authors to give their experiences on a certain subject matter.
SUBJECT
As a new or even a working author, author panels can bring insight and experience to whatever subject you might be interested in. You may have a certain expertise they’re looking for. Say, you’re writing in a genre but keep getting stuck on something. What may seem insurmountable odds may have a simple solution. You may also be able to provide it for someone else.
You never know.
As you’re developing your craft, not only should you participate in writer’s groups and conferences, but any other chance to hone your skills should not be avoided.
Most author panels are free, or at least are part of something you’re already paying for. Keep seeking these out at conferences, libraries, writing circles. There’s more than likely to be a panel somewhere that might do you some good.
If you’re asked to be on one, by all means, pay it forward.
ZOOM
With the advent of Zoom, geographic location is no longer an issue. You can be anywhere, from the most populous city to the most remote berg. You can still participate in author panels as long as you have a compatible electronic device. Take advantage of it. Search the net or go with word of mouth. Whatever it takes to find just what you’re looking for. Also, don’t overlook an opportunity when you’re asked to be on one.
SUMMARY
While you may sit through an entire panel session and see nothing new, all it takes is that one little nugget of info you didn’t know, or never considered before. If you’re new, the panel may seem overwhelming, but you might glean something that sticks with you for a lifetime. Don’t pass up the opportunity.
As a panelist, you may have that exact info a new author is looking for. Pay it forward!
Happy writing!
REVIEWS AGAIN 2023
I could’ve called this Reviews Revisited. After all, I’ve broached this subject multiple times here at Fred Central. However, Revisited doesn’t quite cover it. Again, is a better word because reviews are the lifeblood of an authors marketing world, and bears repeating. Since I already wrote about that in 2020, I thought it was time for another update, hence Reviews Again 2023.
In the past few years, Amazon has made it even harder for us authors to get reviews, meaningful ones or otherwise. Somehow the software geniuses at the site decided, in their infinite wisdom, to cut “irrelevant” reviews. While you may see an author has 20 reviews, only five of them actually show for reading.
What?
To top that off, you can rate a book with just the star rating and no narrative. While I welcome any kind of rating, it would be nice to know why they liked or hated the book.
No idea what that’s all about, but they seem to be either cutting down on space, or their new algorithms have been randomly cutting what their filters consider either offensive, irregular, or somehow incestuous material. I’m purely guessing here.
So, with some more editing, I want to once again emphasize how important reviews are to the author. Plus I’ll go over some do’s and don’ts along with a bit of preaching to the choir.
INTRO
When it comes to marketing your book, one of the most difficult things to obtain are independent reviews. When you’re a total unknown, one of those brass rings you have to grab for are independent reviews. I’m not talking about “paid” ha ha “independent” reviews. I’m talking about legitimate and honest independent reviews by people you don’t know who actually read the book and either like it, think it sucks, or somewhere in-between.
The whole point is to get independent feedback from the real world. You want that feedback, hopefully good, of course, to help sell your book. After all, “word of mouth” is one of the best ways to sell something.
PAID REVIEWS
To me, there’s something inherently dishonest about paid reviews. Okay, the “reviewers” can go ahead and say they’re a business and they have to eat. On the other hand, you’re paying them for a supposedly “unbiased” review of your book.
Ahem.
Have you ever actually looked at one of those paid reviews?
I have and it wasn’t pretty.
Does the phrase boiler plate ring a bell?
A couple of them, who I won’t name, were so boiler plate, they almost mimicked a certain blatant paid reviewer I used to rail about on Amazon, one I warned you about that was an obvious fake reviewer. This “lady” if she really existed, used to take the back cover blurb, use that as her review and give the book either four or five stars. That was her review. She had like 100K reviews on Amazon, and every one of them was exactly the same format. They were all on books I wasn’t particularly happy with, by the way.
Back to the paid review sites. You go to their submission pages and they’re full of warnings and “no guarantees.” This is all the usual bla bla bla stuff about how you could be throwing your money away, could lose your book in the slush pile and may never see your review. Or, if you did, it may be up to a year before it ever shows. Also, there would be no guarantee of a good review.
Ahem…once again, go right to the boiler plate. I looked and looked and of all the boiler plates, there might be a single sentence attached to the standard blurb to tell the truth about the book. Those single sentences didn’t vary much. So, if the book really sucked, I guess it never made publication and was culled. Those are the ones that got “lost” in the shuffle, or never made the “no guarantee” cut.
Only the good reviews or at least the better ones made the cut.
Now, you may ask, what was the boiler plate that the review was based on? I can’t give you the exact words without giving the web sites away, but they were all customized to each genre, let’s just say that. If it was fantasy, it was about the beasts and wizardry. If it was western, it was about the boots and cows and so forth. If it was romance, it was about the whatever romance is about. Every review on each genre page was the same except for one sentence that actually applied to the book!
So much for paid reviews.
NON-PAID REVIEWS – INDEPENDENT
These are the gold, especially to the new and struggling writers. Unfortunately, these non-paid review sites can be just as struggling and unknown as you are. Their viewership may be a few to non-existent.
However, you’re likely to get a more specific and honest review. The good with the bad?
Obtaining a meatier review on a web site that nobody sees doesn’t get much promotion potential does it?
Well…it depends.
Who says that review has to sit there in obscurity?
What about you?
There’s always your own publicity machine, however small and limited you might be, starting out the gate. If you’re any kind of marketer, whether you get out there in the trenches, or do everything from a computer, you should at least have a few sources. How about a web site, Facebook page, forums for your genre? All of these present an avenue to trumpet your new review.
How about Twitter as well?
All of these are potential sources to repeat that review, provide a link to it, spread the word. Not only are you helping yourself, but you’re drawing more traffic to that web site. Maybe, just maybe that’ll draw more of an audience to that site and multiply exposure to both of you. The reviewer’s site gets bigger, more prominent, your review becomes more important in the big picture.
Ever think of that?
How about adding that review to a list of reviews for a publicity sheet?
One day, you may want to accumulate all these independent reviews into a consolidated package, maybe to be used for a re-print of the book.
RETAILER REVIEWS
We mustn’t forget the retailer reviews like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Goodreads etc. Of course, you can’t copy them directly, but maybe quote lines. I did a bad review of a monster movie and the producers took one line from my review and used it out of context to tout their movie. I saw that and went what??? If they can get away with it, why not you?
Whether all of your reviews are good or bad, copping the best lines from your reviews may be a thing to do. It may be a bit shady, but you can also go the high road and just pick the best of the best of the best. Keep it true and use it to your best advantage.
GETTING BLOOD OUT OF A TURNIP
The hard fact is the 99% of your readers never do a review. That’s a huge hurdle to get over. No matter how much you beg and cajole your readers, most will never review your book. You may have decent sales, but that doesn’t mean it will reflect in reviews. Besides Amazon spending restrictions, there’s the fact that some people are just readers and not writers. Then there’s the effort to actually write the review.
It all sums up to authors getting desperate and some giving in to the temptation to pay for reviews. As stated above, not a good idea.
The only real solution is in the numbers, which is in itself a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing. Reviews help sell books, but if you don’t get reviews, you don’t sell books.
Also, someone may offer to review your book if you send them a free copy. Why not? Most of the time, you never see a review and it may seem like a waste of postage (or e-mail), but at least you tried. I just sent off an e-copy of one of my books and am patiently waiting with bated breath to see if it pays off.
All I can say is outside of paying for reviews, do whatever it takes to get them legitimately and unpaid, wherever possible. The more the better.
Happy writing!
AMAZON ADS PART 3
As many of you know, marketing sucks. Of all the things about writing that I love, marketing is the one that gets my stomach grinding. Having to go out and “beg” people to buy my book rubs me wrong, yet without marketing, nobody will know I even exist.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, we’re going to continue to explore Amazon Ads.
Besides having to deal with a sucky web site, there’s minimum daily budget, setting up a professional looking page, and it all gets down to keywords.
We’re going to concentrate on negative keywords today.
NEGATIVE KEYWORDS
When you get a lot of hits and no sale, one way to filter these money-buster keywords is with negative keywords.
The idea of negative keywords is to exclude certain keywords or parts of them that are just costing you money.
For instance a key phrase is “Romance With Mystery.”
You get a ton of hits with that phrase, but not a single sale. However, either Romance or Mystery generate sales.
In this case, you do a negative keyword for With.
To me, while it may seem like I’m wasting money on a lot of keywords, generally, the ones with the most hits have the most sales. To use a negative keyword, despite the money saving implications, kind of defeats the idea of getting as many people to click on your stuff as possible. You never know when it might generate a sale. To me, the more exposure, the better.
This may not be the best or most economic way to do things, but hey, I’m so far in the hole anyway!
SUMMARY
As of the day I write this, I’ve spent $2715.50 on ads (spread over almost a year) and sold 59 books. While that seems like a lot of money down the toilet, hey…that’s 59 more books than I’ve sold anywhere else except the random sale at a book signing.
Amazon Ads has the potential to be a great marketing tool for those of us that cannot get out all the time. It can work for anyone, especially if your product takes off. I’m still waiting on mine to take off, but 59 is still better than zero, at least until my breaking point.
Happy writing!
In the original articles, from 2013 and 2018, I addressed this issue but decided it was worth covering again today. I got the initial inspiration right in the middle of not only editing a manuscript for a friend, but creating maps for Meleena’s world in my fantasy series. Since this is the updated version of those articles, I have tweaked and rethought it.
Some may call this style, but that’s not really what I’m talking about when I say standards and continuity (consistency) in writing. I’ll give an example in the form of a non-existent paragraph from my one of my Meleena’s Adventures novels.
Meleena did not like taking orders from someone else, yet when Queelan told her to sit down, she did without hesitation. Something about his manner compelled her to comply where she wouldn’t do that for anyone else.
Hmmm… now that I look at it, I may actually use it somewhere. Sorry, I digress.
How many of you see the inconsistency? If not, I’ll give you a hint. I didn’t do things the same everywhere.
For those of you that still didn’t get it, it’s the use of contractions. In the first sentence, I used did not, whereas in the last sentence, I used wouldn’t. This is called a continuity (consistency) error. It’s a simple example of what can be a complex issue. One way is to always use contractions, regardless. Another way is to not use them in the narrative and only use them in dialogue (which I do). Then there’s the possibility of not using contractions in the dialogue when the speaker is a non-native English speaker like I do with one of my characters in the Gold series. The whole point is that however you do it, keep it the same throughout the story.
Contractions are an immediate example. The same could be said for standards of measure. Say, your characters are European where they’d use the metric system. Don’t have them using meters through most of the story then slip in a foot or an inch somewhere. That’ll likely jar the reader and throw them out of the story.
In a bigger-picture issue, and to have fun with a terrible cliché, if it’s a dark and stormy night, don’t have a scene with sunshine arcing through a window!
If you spell a word a certain way, especially if it can be spelled multiple ways, or if it’s a unique name, make sure you keep it spelled the same way throughout. Don’t count on the “saving it in your spell checker” trick to work every time. Don’t forget that you might be working on a different machine once in a while. Or, you may decide not to save it in the spell checker, which I often don’t do with a lot of special words like names. I’m used to seeing red-lined words, especially in my fantasy stories.
If you have catch phrases your characters say, or habits they have, make sure they say or do them the same each time. Or, if they vary them, make sure to explain the variance somehow so the reader knows why they’re doing it differently. If not, that’s an unexplained continuity issue and will jerk your audience right out of the story.
A WORK IN PROGRESS
I was once editing a manuscript for a friend. One of my editing standards is that there are no contractions in the narrative, but contractions in the dialogue. The MS, accordingly, was full of red ink. ANY author, when writing from the hip, is going to be inconsistent out the gate with contractions. I am! Even with my own standards and for the most part, automatically using them in dialogue, and not in narrative most of the time, I still slip and put contractions in the wrong place. Even editing, sometimes I don’t catch them, and it takes an editor or proofreader, a second set of eyes to see this.
Naming characters the same throughout the story is another minor issue, especially in the first few chapters. When I first started my Gold series or The Greenhouse, geez, a few of my characters changed names. I say no more. Continuity and consistency.
Dialogue tags. This one is a bit more tricky. If you make them too consistent, it looks like a pattern and can be monotonous. In the edit, and in my own work, I used a few “saids” but tend to use action tags most of the time. Same with this manuscript.
The biggies are story flaws. When a character does something at the beginning yet all of a sudden, halfway through the story, does something completely different, you have a story flaw. Continuity and consistency. A made up example is a character hates apples in the beginning. Then, halfway through, he or she loves apples. We have a problem, especially if there’s no explanation to go with it.
MY MAPPING ISSUE
At the time, I was dealing with a mapping issue for the second book in the Meleena’s Adventures series. My readers have been asking for a map to go with the book. I drew a crude chicken scratch for Treasure Of The Umbrunna but never went any further with it. It never made the book. I guess a good thing! However, now that the directions for everything were set in stone with that one, I was in the predicament of having to scramble to fix directions with Gods Of The Blue Mountains so that the map for it made sense. It’s something I only vaguely thought of when I wrote it.
I then had the edited copy of the manuscript and went through it, looking specifically for directions and places. With that info, I made the map and only altered directions and nothing else!
Eventually, I came up with a workable map that my publisher turned into a palatable presentation for my readers. I guess it was something I should’ve thought about more carefully before I started it all!
SUMMARY
I’ve barely dipped my toes into all the things to consider when you write your big lie for everyone to enjoy. There are many more examples. Can you name some?
Happy writing!
IMAGINATION
If you’re a fiction writer, then you know imagination is critical to creating a good story since you’re making something up.
How best to use this imagination?
FREE FORM
It can be difficult or impossible to write freeform, letting your imagination go wherever it wants. More than likely you’ll just end up with a big mess of words that only make sense to you.
Therefore…
Your imagination needs to be reined in.
Is that a restriction?
Only for the good of everyone else!
STRUCTURE
Your imagination can run wild to a point. However, this wild imagination needs to be reined into some form of a structure if it’s going to make sense.
Structure is a beginning, an end, and what happens in-between.
Moderate these ideas a bit so it all makes sense to the reader.
WHAT TO DO
Whether you become a pantser or an outliner, you need to control your imagination enough to put it all into some kind of pattern.
First, you get a wild idea and your imagination runs wild.
Second, think about this and ask yourself “Does it makes sense to anyone else?”
Uh oh…while developing your wild idea, it’s going to take some work to turn it into a viable story.
I highly recommend you figure out what the goal of your wild idea is. Once you’ve figured that out, then turn it into a sensible structure with a beginning, a middle and an end. For a pantser, the middle is the easiest part. For an outliner, well…you’re going to basically write the entire story in outline form before you ever get going. Either method works if you think it out ahead of time.
Once you have the basics, does it make sense? Maybe that great burst of imagination turns out to be a great idea and the parts fall into place. However, what if they don’t?
Does that mean your wild imaginative idea is no good?
Something to ponder before you go further and commit.
For example, you get a great idea for a murder mystery. You think of all the cool things you want to include in the story. However, when you get down to planning it all out¸ some parts of it don’t make sense. Are they fixable things, or do you have to scrap part or all of the idea?
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Lucky for me, I hardly ever have that problem.
When I think of a great idea and my imagination goes wild, I ponder this for a bit.
Does it make sense?
Can I turn it into something workable?
Only once did I have a wild idea and start writing before I figured out what I was doing.
Luckily, I only got about fifty pages in when I realized it just wasn’t working.
I learned a lot from that lesson.
Never start writing with a wild idea until you give it some kind of structure. Sit back, and see if it all makes sense.
It’ll save a lot of effort.
SUMMARY
Whichever way you do it, catalog your wild ideas. I do it by memory but for many of you, it’s best to write it down so you can go back to it if you want to reliably recall what it is. In my case, I tried writing ideas down for later reference, but when I came back to them, I forgot what I originally wanted. When I keep them catalogued in my brain, I recall them over and over again. I tweak them, play around with things. This cements that idea into my memory for later recall.
Everyone has their own process. Learn as you go, or use your hard-won experience to think your wildly imaginative idea through.
Use a little planning before you commit.
You’re welcome.
Happy writing!
RESEARCH TRIP
I was reluctant to call my recent trip to Spain a research trip because in all actuality, it wasn’t. It had the potential to be one, but due to unexpected circumstances, I never got to visit some of the places I used in Spanish Gold.
This trip was for our 50th anniversary and best laid plans…
Could I still get something out of it?
THE ORIGINAL INTENT
The original intent of our trip was to celebrate our 50th anniversary where we got married and lived for a decade. Within all that, I wanted to take advantage of the situation and revisit some of the places I used in my latest book, Spanish Gold. There was the trip to the castle ruins at Alcala de Henares, the church in Nuevo Baztan, the road between Eurovillas and Loeches, the leaning tower, Calle San Cosme y San Damien.
It would’ve been great to revisit these places since the last time I saw them was over 30 years ago.
Best laid plans.
ACTUALITY
When reality set in, it all depended on renting and driving a car all over central Spain. I managed to get the car for one day, but the driving experience was so awful, we turned it back in the next day. We barely made it to our old housing area in Eurovillas, through an unfamiliar route, and couldn’t find a single house (out of three) we lived in. In addition, all the street names had changed.
With the car turned it, we had to rely on cab rides to get anywhere. Therefore, we had to be choosy about where we traveled, if not walked to.
NEVER A BAD THING
While my original side quest never came to fruition, I didn’t close my eyes and forget where I was. I had a great time and with open eyes, observed people, places and things. All of this bundled into a great, but different, research trip than I originally intended.
Along with my imagination, what I observed is fruit for further adventures, whether my Gold series or Meleena’s world, or something else.
Always use what you have.
SUMMARY
While our recent trip to Spain didn’t go as planned, it was still a great time and as a writer, I didn’t come away empty handed.
You have to take advantage of every situation and make the best of it.
I did!
Happy writing!
MENTORING REVISITED
I always think back to that line from the Cheech and Chong movie, Up In Smoke: “Everybody ‘chares’ things,” Cheech says as they pass a joint around. Everyone doesn’t “share” everything, but as a trained teacher…well I prefer instructor because that’s really what it is…I always get a certain joy out of “paying it forward” (or sharing). That happens to be another movie line that’s been adapted into the current lexicon.
When this article first came out in 2016, I thought back on it and decided a good update would be nice.
IT’S HAPPENED TO ME
There’ve been countless times in my life that I’ve been mentored, way beyond the scope of this article. To keep it focused on writing, while I have to give credit to Rhondi Vilott Salsitz, the most prominent writing mentor for me has been Carol Davis Luce. I’ve been at this passion for almost twenty-eight years, and she’s been with me through all of it. Even though it’s a cliché, she’s been with me through thick and thin.
Everything she’s taught me has been reinforced by countless others over the decades. There have been other writers that have done their parts here and there, but before I take up this entire article listing names, I’ll just say that collectively, they’ve all helped me become a better writer. That’s including the good and bad advice.
FILTERS
Everyone has to develop filters. This isn’t something that comes automatically. Trust me on this. It isn’t always instinct, though sometimes it may seem that way.
Filters, and knowing what’s right and wrong for you takes time. Lots of people give a plethora of advice and the majority of it’s useful. However…how do you tell? Sometimes by consensus. A lot you find out by developing your own instincts after you’ve dived into a few manuscripts and forming your own style.
Your filters develop over time and experience. A good mentor can help steer you with that.
WHY BE A MENTOR?
Okay, some of us aren’t natural teachers. Then again, are you a parent?
There you go.
If you’re too young for that or never went that route in life, well…mentoring is a way to prepare for kids or even helping those nieces and nephews.
Paying it forward. If you’ve been at this awhile, you probably didn’t get here in a vacuum. Well…I’ve known a few people that did, and started asking questions after years of writing solo without any interaction from the outside. Then again, they were asking me, so guess what? I mentored them, in a way. Could they turn around and do the same? To them, they felt far from qualified (this is from conversations with them). Does that mean they can’t pay it forward with someone else? Some of them never will because they have no confidence in what they do. Their contribution would be to send that someone to another person who might be able to help. That would be this person’s way of helping…a very small way of paying forward. I hope most of you are not in that boat!
Once you’ve been at this a while, you develop certain skills and when and if you get something published, there can be a certain joy in passing on what you know to help others. Pay it forward.
COMPETITION IS SUCH AN UGLY WORD
There’s always that jock mentality that by helping others, you’re helping the competition.
Bull.
Writing and stories are art. There is no competition. There are thousands of books out there and each has a unique voice. Some say each book is competing for your attention. In that respect they’re right. However, look at it this way. Your book is also presenting them with another avenue of adventure, entertainment, another escape. It’s not so much competition as variety.
If you do your job well, have a great cover and let people know you exist, they’ll find and read it. If they like it, they’ll come back regardless if Joe Jock thinks he’s competing with you for a better book. They might read his also, but that doesn’t mean they won’t read yours. If the mood strikes, they’ll read both and move on. They’ll read whatever they want, not because one is better than the other. There’s no such thing. It’s all about mood and flavor and what each individual likes. You can’t really compete for that. You can’t compete for taste.
Taste is not sport.
MENTORING HELPS EVERYONE
Just think of this. By paying it forward and mentoring, if you have the skills, you’re helping to prevent the marketplace from being polluted with substandard material.
By paying it forward, you’re giving the world better variety of books.
By paying it forward, you’re contributing to the world of books and supporting a robust writing market.
By paying it forward, you’re seeing that “aha” moment when that other writer finally gets it.
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 