Fridays Links

Last year, at least for a while, I used Fridays to post interesting links I'd come across during the week. Occasionally they dealt with writing, but usually they had more to do with science and entertainment--anything I thought you guys might enjoy.. After a couple of months, I decided I spent too much time searching for suitable links, so I stopped.  

Today, I've revived the tradition of Friday Links.  Let's see if it works out any better this time.

Here are this week's links -- all of them dedicated to writing.  Enjoy.

Making The Leap

Seven Question to Ask Before Self-Publishing

TheBookDesigner: Why Your Blog’s About Page Is Completely Wrong

Magical Words: On the relationship between plot and character

Pub Life: Authors' Advice on Self-Publishing

Plot or Character? -- Or Is It Voice?

It’s the age old question. Which is more important? Character or plot? As far as I can tell, it depends on who you talk to.

For me, it’s all about the plot. Hands down. I’m not belittling the importance of having a great character, but in my opinion, it’s nearly impossible to have a great character without a great plot, or at least a good one. It’s the character’s struggle against the plot that makes us care about him in the first place. No matter how sympathetic you’ve made your character, no matter how many habits and peculiarities you lovingly lavished on your MC—unless those traits somehow interact with the plot in an interesting way, no one will care about them. You may think having your MC be afraid of snakes is funny, but if the plot doesn’t give him a compelling reason to fight his way through snakes, no one will even remember that phobia.

Think about Harry Potter. A kid who lost his parents when he was a baby. Someone we can sympathize with, no doubt. But other than that, he’s pretty much a generic nice guy, with about as flat a character arc as it’s possible to have in a fantasy adventure. (I’m just talking the first book here – not the series.) Yet we all love Harry. Why? Because of all the things that happened to him as a consequence of the plot.

But that’s not the real point of this post. Today I’m wondering where “voice” fits in alongside plot and character on the importance scale. Ever since I received my Kindle, I've been blasting my way through lots of books—mostly fantasy. And to be honest, many of the stories have the same basic plot. Oh, certain details may be different, but the plot is roughly the same. The middle school kid, teenager, vampire, mage, demon hunter, angel, etc, has to save the world by facing and defeating the bad guy. The names change, along with the rules of the world, but they’re all pretty similar. Nothing wrong with that, of course. The classic hero’s journey has been around a long time. It’s the world-building and other little details that make the stories different.

Still, as I peruse book descriptions on Amazon or back cover blurbs at the local bookstore, they all sound about the same. And the only way I can decide which to buy is by reading the first chapter and getting a feel for the author’s voice. Because the exact same story can be told by two different authors, and I can end up loving one of them and being bored to tears by the other. Does the author spend too much or too little time on descriptions and internal thoughts? Do the words flow like a hot knife through butter? Does the author have a sense of humor? These are the things that make or break a book for me these days.

There are plenty of books out there with good plots and good characters, but with all the competition these days, it may just be “voice” that wins out in the end.

So how do you go about making your voice unique?

The Insecure Writer and Marketing

Today is August's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.


Why am I an Insecure Writer this month?

Marketing.

Since I’m still working on my first book, I have yet to enter the world of marketing. But I’ve read (and bookmarked) so many articles on the subject, I’m becoming a little intimidated by the whole process. So intimidated, in fact, I almost want to leave my book unfinished, just so I don’t have to face the marketing bit.

 Some authors claim Twitter and Facebook are great ways to market your books. Others say it hasn’t helped them at all. Goodreads is supposedly a good place to begin, but who knows if that will change in a week or two. Giving books away for free on Amazon to jump start purchases doesn’t sound like it works all that well anymore, at least according to some recent articles. What does seem to work (at least so far) is offering your first book for free so that happy readers can buy more of your other books.

And that tactic is what leaves me with an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Because the advice I’ve come across most often is that there's no point in marketing your books until you’ve got several of them available for purchase. You’ll get the most bang for your buck if the reader who enjoys one of your books can buy more of your books immediately. Otherwise, they may forget about you by the time your next book comes out.

And for a slow writer like me, that’s a daunting hurdle. I mean, how many years will it be before I get to that point? It already feels as though it’s taking a lifetime to finish my first book. How many times will I have to be reincarnated before I have three books available for purchase? Books may not even exist by that point in time!

Okay, maybe I'm overreacting a little.

So I ask you, fellow insecure writers, how do you plan on marketing your books?

The Value in Being a Critiquer

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve run into a bit of a stone wall with regards to my new MG fantasy. So this week I dedicated myself to going back and working on my fan fiction story. Since it’s in the revision stage, I get to utilize a different part of my brain, which lets the creative side get some much needed rest.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that the quality of my chapters varies significantly. The first several chapters flow nicely (finally!), but later chapters aren’t as smooth as I remember them being. I suppose this should make me sad (and it does), but not as much as I would have expected. Though I’m disappointed these chapters need more work, I’m pleased my inner editor’s eye is getting better at spotting problems. Paragraphs that seemed fine six months ago now seem weak and flabby.

So why is my inner editor improving? I suspect it’s because of all the critiquing I’ve been doing lately. Searching for bloated paragraphs and inconsistent logic in someone else’s work makes it easier to spot the same problems in your own work. After I've dinged an author for using an awkward sentence structure several times in a chapter, I can't help but spot the same problem in my chapters.  So my advice is to never stop critiquing. And remember, no matter how great your inner editor becomes, you still need to let someone else critique your own work. You’re too close to your own story to see all the problems. Besides, by letting someone else critique your story, you’re helping their inner editor grow too. It’s a win-win situation.

Hmmmm… Will my inner editor ever stop getting better or am I doomed to forever return to my previous chapters and discover they need more work?  Scary thought.

Why Can't I Just Move On?

I’d planned on posting on another subject today, but the hell with it—I’m going to whine about my own writing woes. It’ll make me feel better. :)

As you may know, I’ve been concentrating on my own original story (not the fan fiction) for the last several months—a story I started writing for last year’s NaNoWriMo. I felt pretty good about it at the time and I managed to write over 25k words before deciding the plot needed some revamping. Unfortunately, although I’ve dedicated myself to this story for the last several months, the writing has gone absolutely nowhere.

What’s the problem? I’m stuck on the first chapter, and have been for the last two months. I’ve approached it from several different angles, but as of today I still haven’t come up with a beginning I’m comfortable with. And it’s driving me bonkers.

I’m sure many of you would argue there’s no point in spending all this time on the first chapter, since I’ll probably end up rewriting it after I finish the first draft anyway. And I would agree with you, except that I’m finding it impossible to move on without some sort of closure. I can’t explain why my mind works this way, but I have to know how the first chapter ends before I can concentrate on the second chapter. Believe me, I’ve tried. Argggh!

So everyday I try something new, waiting for that beginning I know is buried in there somewhere. I realize I’m going to solve this eventually. It’s just frustrating to watch the weeks go by with nothing to show for my time.

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This month hasn’t been all bad news, however. My family and I just returned from a five day vacation in southern Ohio. It was a great time, and we took lots of pictures, although I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t write a single word during that time. I was just too busy. Or tired.

I also won a contest hosted by Jami Gold. If you aren’t reading her blog, you should. Her site is loaded with all sorts of great advice about writing.

The Insecure Writer and a Lack of Ideas

Today is July's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.


Why am I an Insecure Writer this month?

Because of worries that good ideas aren’t coming as quickly as they once did.

Almost four years ago, back when I first began writing the fan fiction story that ultimately hooked me on writing, I had no lack of ideas. It seemed as if every time I daydreamed about my story—whether while driving to and from work, or during showers, or when falling asleep at night—another idea would pop into my head. So many ideas, in fact, that I have now have enough to write a trilogy. And it was this ability to generate ideas that convinced me I just might have what it takes to be an author.

But now that I’m working on my own story, with my own worlds, the ideas aren’t coming quite as quickly. It was easy for me to take the fully fleshed-out world described in the Harry Potter books and come up with new and entertaining twists. But now that I'm in the process of building the basic framework for my world, it’s a lot more work dreaming up all those fun ideas.

But I suppose that’s the way it is for all writers. Which is probably why so many writers write sequels. Once you have the basic framework down, it’s a lot easier to come up with new twists.

Question: Do you find writing a sequel to be easier or harder than the first book in a series?
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BTW, I apologize for my lack of replies to your comments the last few posts.  Things have been pretty busy around here.  I promise to respond to all comments from now on.

What Don't You Want In Your Story?

I’ve been working on my MG fantasy this last month, and I’d like to say that everything is moving along swiftly—but then I’d be lying.. I’ve rewritten the first chapter several times already, and it's looking as though it's about to get another full rewrite. Unfortunately, my critique group is a rather impatient bunch and has been clamoring for something to tear apart, so I’ve jumped ahead to work on the third chapter. That’s not considered cheating, is it?

Although I’m still undecided about what will happen in the first chapter, I do have a short list of things that I want, and do not want, to occur in my story.

Stuff I Want List:

1. Magic. Not only am I fascinated by magic, but my quirky imagination and sense of humor tend to require some rewriting of the laws of physics for everything to work right (see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), and magic lets me get away with this. I doubt I’ll ever write a story that doesn’t have some kind of magical influence running through it.

2. Castles. Love ‘em. (What’s that? The blog title and masthead didn’t give it away?) Hogwarts was my favorite part of the Harry Potter stories, so I knew I’d have to put one in my story. A really big one, with lots of tunnels and secrets.

Stuff I Don’t Want List:

3. Obligatory Sibling Conflict. I’ve posted about this before. Too many of the MG books I’ve read lately begin with an argument between siblings for no apparent reason other than to give the reader an opening filled with (artificial) conflict. I’ve seen this so often I usually stop reading by the end of the first chapter.

4. Orphan syndrome. Is it possible to write a MG paranormal fantasy without the MC having lost one or both of his parents, usually requiring him to live with a clueless relative or at a boarding school? Apparently not, based on the books I’ve read. I’ve heard this trend is due to writers attempting to create sympathy for their characters, but I suspect it has more to do with writers not knowing what to do with real, live parents. Seriously. Most of these stories involve kids getting into trouble in ways that any self-respecting parent would have crushed immediately. In my story, I wanted the challenge of keeping my MC’s adventures hidden from his parents (at least for a while) to be part of the fun.



What sort of likes/dislikes do you have on your list?