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Articles about craft.

The Fulfilling Facet: Emotional Influence

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This post, from Anthony James Barnett, originally appeared on his Tell Me A Story blog on 11/17/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission.

Emotional influence is sometimes the most ignored facet in novels. Emotion is important, not only when linked to what characters feel about themselves and others, but in the reaction they stir in readers.

But what is emotion? How do you create such an elusive element? Naming an emotion doesn’t produce it. We can declare our protagonists irritated, anxious, broken-hearted or suchlike, but it doesn’t generate the emotion in the reader. How then do we use this intangible feature in writing?

Emotion is the outcome of all the other elements.

  1. Consequence. There must be consequence. The degree of emotive reaction is a reflection of the character’s problem. Will there be incentive if the central character makes it, will there be tragedy if he doesn’t.
  2. Theme. The outcome of the story must be important in some way. The story must mean something. If the predicament doesn’t matter one way or another, readers won’t be bothered about the outcome.
  3. Struggle. There must not only be consequence, there must be serious tussle both inner and outer, otherwise no emotion will come from it. No matter how severe the crisis, if it is easily sorted, no one will care; no one will feel anything.
  4. Passion. Passion grows from the story’s significance. If the task is meaningless, there will be no feeling, no identity.
  5. Atmosphere. A story should have mood, ambience, atmosphere, call it what you will. Mood comes from all the restrained emotions that arise from the material elements of your story. It’s not enough to set a house in front of your characters; we need to know how they feel about it. Is it scary, full of love, what does it mean to them; how does it move them?
  6. Senses. Characters shouldn’t walk in a vacant space. Tell readers what is around them. Emotions can be constructed from sensory reaction even when there isn’t a problem. It won’t be a strong emotion, but it can exist as an entirety by itself.
  7. Moderation. Never give emotions too full rein when you’re displaying how a character feels, use moderation, it’s a good maxim. Play down the most moving events. Encounter in itself carries drama, and key sentiments become implicit without description.
  8. Limited detail. Be cautious of littering scenes with too much detail. It takes only a few well-chosen words to describe a setting. Humans don’t have time to respond to every element around them, and characters should not respond to everything either. Opt for the most valuable details; the reader will fill in the rest.

So maybe the lesson to be learned is to write with every single sense, including the sixth, but write with restraint. Remember, more than enough is too much. Use your descriptive powers with self-control. Make every word count.

Pondering: snippety-snip

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This post, from Lynne Connolly, originally appeared on The Good, The Bad and the Unread on 11/9/09, and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

Several bloggers have answered comments on the AAR forums about blogging recently. In doing so, some have noticed a recent snippiness and touchiness in the reading community, from readers and from writers. I was hanging around at Wendy’s blog recently, something I do a lot, and she’s noticed something similar, too. Mrs. Giggles has spotted it. 

 

I think I have an inkling as to what might be going on, or at least some of it.LynneCs icon

Actions and consequences…

I heard a program on the radio this morning, “Whistleblowers” about Paul Moore and how he warned the bank HBOS about its risky strategies and its target-based culture, and how it and banks like it pushed consumers into taking too many risks. It was all about selling, recessionhe said and they didn’t look at the long term consequences, and the unbalanced risk it introduced.

Sound familiar? It should.

It’s happening in the book business, and it’s not all down to the recession. Before 2009, signs of strain were already showing. Historically, books have always followed the newspaper model of distribution – copies were distributed to suppliers, bookstores for the main part, and those that didn’t sell were returned. That meant that you could drop into your local bookstore and be confident of finding the book you wanted. It also meant a bucketload of returns. Then Anderson News, one of the biggest distributors went under.

Two things were happening. The supermarkets were buying books in bulk, undercutting traditional retailers and doing their own distribution. And the newspaper industry was failing. It would have made sense to try to do away with the “sale or return” system, but it was too convenient to the companies involved – the accounting and financing of the publishers would have had to be restructured, and that can’t be done quickly, and it was a good thing for the supermarkets, who wouldn’t have surplus stock to sell or dispose of.

Philippe Petit

Sell or die…

At the publishing houses, there were a number of fine editors who had a lot of control over the books the house took and what was done with them. It gave each house a distinct identity, and its authors were given relative artistic freedom. Now, no decision is made independent of the marketing and finance departments. The question was no longer asked, “Is this book good for us?” but “Can we sell enough copies?”

A carefully balanced portfolio of bestsellers, middle ground authors and risky chances that could take off in a big way or could bomb spectacularly, was abandoned for the best seller model. Big authors, controversial themes, with big money put behind them. Middle ground authors, career authors with reputations but no huge sales were dropped. I’ve met a few, and while being resilient and determined to weather the storm, there’s a core of unhappiness and cynicism that just wasn’t there before. Existing authors are sometimes desperately chasing targets, because if their current book doesn’t sell up to target, they’re dropped. No second chances.

wolvesThe publishing business has gone from brutal to savage, from relatively civilised to a jungle culture. If you don’t sell, you’re gone. No benefit of the doubt, no “see what your next title does,” no “this will be a slow burner.” Without that attitude, we wouldn’t have had The Lord of the Rings, or The Chronicles of Narnia, or even Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, all series that became massive sellers, but had relatively slow starts.

Wait, we don’t get them, do we? Not any more. A series has to start with a huge bang and go on to sell and sell, otherwise it’s gone. A writer with a three-book contract will see her books cut off after the second, even the first, leaving the readers hungry for the last ones, and increasingly determined not to buy a series until it’s all out. So sales at first are low, and more get cut. A self fulfilling prophecy.

Big publishers are struggling to stay afloat. If it weren’t for cash reserves and the massive profits they stand to make by selling e-books and not passing on savings to authors or readers, they’d probably go under. Midlist authors are going to the e-publishers, giving up or trying for the big one. Or writing for Harlequin, which is taking serious note of the market and going from strength to strength.

Ahead of the curve…

Harlequin always had the drop on other publishers with its direct mail order service, which didn’t depend on distributors or returns. It had a regular audience and after slipping behind in the late 1990’s, turned its lines around and rejuvenated or dropped them. And Harlequin has an established, successful e-bookstore.

You’d expect me to say e-publishing is where the future is because I write for e-publishers. Well that’s not why I do it. I’ve had chances to write for others, but the offer or the money wasn’t quite right. I promised myself I’d do this to make myself happy, not to go for the big bucks or the huge sales. As it happens, I think I’ve fallen into the right part of the industry. Right for me, right for the future.

No, I don’t think we’ll see the end of the paper book. It’s a transition. But the sale-or-return culture, plus increasing costs in distribution and production, plus increasing pressure from ecologists has all pushed producers of print to think again. It’s been coming for a long time, from the day when Rupert Murdoch pushed the print unions to breaking point and then smashed them, from the day when Anderson’s closed its doors, to when Wal-Mart became indispensable to many people and one-stop shopping became important.

Make a fast splash…

So, back to the point of the article. Writers and readers getting snippy. Of course there’s no one reason. Writers are being pressured to write the big one, the big series, the High Concept book, something that is different but stays the same. Nobody’s telling them to, it’s just sp_freddiethe way “the market” is going. Fewer authors, higher sales per unit. Splashy, lots of action, lots of sex.

For some writers, that’s exactly what they want to do. Others don’t, their metier runs to a different kind of book and they’re getting short shrift now. The chase for the next big thing has resulted in markets rising and falling ever faster. Right now it’s urban fantasy, next it’s steampunk, but if you aren’t already in there and working hard, either close to publication or accepted, then forget it, because for the writer, that’s over. The publishers have all the authors they want in that genre and you’re going to have to look for something else, something with a platform, a high concept, a distinct genre.

This is making writers edgy. They’re putting out books faster, and each book is getting a little less theirs, a little more of a product. Less love is going into creating it. Editors are all about buying the next book and spotting the next trend, not nurturing the writers they’ve already bought. It’s not their fault, it’s just the way the market is going.

Readers can only buy what is in the bookstores. If you love paranormal but you hate the market leaders, you’ll look for something else, pick up the next book with a great cover and blurb. Maybe you’ll find something. But rarely a book with great depth, something that speaks to your soul. It’s always been like that, there have always been splashy, dramatic books, and good luck to them. We all need one of those to read from time to time. But readers want more, they want different, and it’s getting harder to find. It’s not the reader’s concern to analyse and decide what they want. Why should they? But if they don’t find what they want, they’ll move on to videos, video games, other genres.

So writers, edgy with the increased pressures and with writing more books are snipping at readers, and readers, dissatisfied but not quite knowing why, are snipping back.

Unique-largeThere are always exceptions, always a great book, always an author who ploughs her own furrow, but it’s the general trends, not individual greatness or otherwise that is driving the market. Always the Pareto rule, the 80:20 ratio that goes into the marketing and finance departments. There’s a reason for the saying “the exception proves the rule.”

Plus it’s the change of the season, and that always brings a bit of disturbance. So maybe it’s just the weather.

Why Johnny Won’t Read and What To Do About It

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More & more children do not like to read, especially boys. Why is that and what can we do about it? To answer these questions, I will address the following:

  • Developing a love of story
  • Lack of reading skills
  • Short attention spans
  • Competition for children’s time and attention
  • Lack of good, appropriate content

Each of these points presents problems as I see them and possible solutions. In addition to my book & writing background, I am a certified teacher and taught in a juvenile detention center as its school master for two years in 2000-2002. I’m also a professional storyteller (since 1997) who toured my state’s schools as a performer on the Kansas Arts Commission’s Touring Roster.

Developing a love of story

When I was a little boy in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, My grandmother and my mother read to me or told me stories often. Each day I would anxiously await the Story Hour program on Purdue University’s radio station, when a story lady or man would read from an exciting children’s book—each day carrying the story along serial fashion until the book was finally finished and then a new one would begin. My favorite teachers were ones who would read aloud to our classes whenever they had the chance. All this developed my love of story and contributed to my love of reading. At one point, my mother and step-father (who were not readers of habit) actually took me to our family doctor with their concern that I was reading too much (is there such a thing?). Reading was my escape, my transport to other worlds and lands. Famous British children’s fantasy writer, Brian Jacques, understood that compulsion, when as a ragamuffin boy, he used to sneak into the library, grab a book, and hide back in the stacks to read until he was caught and they threw him out for being a dirty street kid. (He personally shared that story with me one night at an Author’s Dinner at the BEA).

Are we inculcating a love of story in our children today? Did we we read to them until they learned to read at school and then assumed they would read now that they knew how? Did we stop reading to them? Did books cease to come alive for them in the hands of a skilled adult reader? I read aloud to my incarcerated juveniles 30-60 minutes a day and they loved it. In my own family, even when my kids were in their teens, we would take turns reading thrilling children’s books aloud as a frequent family activity.

Finally, are we good role models to our children? Do we allow them to catch us reading? How can we teach them a love of reading, if we don’t display that behavior ourselves? All this illustrates what I mean when I talk about developing a love of story and a love of reading them.

Lack of reading skills

I could always tell when a student had been taught to read by the “whole word” reading approach. As they stumbled along, guessing at words until the passages became utter nonsense, I cringed at their frustration. Teaching reading by whole word recognition is like teaching the very visual Chinese written language. Instead of teaching students how to sound out words for themselves, using phonics, the students are required to memorize the shapes of words and encouraged to guess what words might be. It just doesn’t work well and makes reading a hideous, frustrating chore. How can children love to do something that they don’t have the skills to do?

Short attention spans

It is a great temptation to use the electronic babysitter (the TV) to occupy our children while we focus on getting the housework done. The next time you watch TV, note how often the camera shots change, about every 3-5 seconds. This constant stimulation of the brain at the unconscious level programs it to expect to be stimulated often. When that doesn’t happen, boredom immediately sets in. Is it any wonder we have so many children with ADD problems. The TV has trained them to expect constant stimulation on a very shallow level. Responsible parents should limit TV watching to few favorite shows per week instead of a constant bombardment of the senses. Books don’t hold up well in the competition for the senses because they require thought, visualization, and imagination. TV, movies, and video games offer immediate and constant gratification which doesn’t require any of these brain skills. In my early years, TVs weren’t available yet, so I sat and told myself stories I made up by the hour for my own entertainment. From this came my imagination and creativity in my adult years. Turn off the boob tube!

Competition for children’s time and attention

When I grew up, there were very few organized activities. Playdate? What the heck is that? Our biggest complaint as kids was there was nothing to do. Today, there are way too many things for our children to do: gymnastics, dance, music, horseback riding, sports, you name it. Moms and dads are worn to a frazzle just trying to keep track of all the schedules and transport there to. When is there quiet time just to read? When a child is constantly stimulated with physical activities, how can a non-physical activity such as reading compete in that environment?

Lack of good, appropriate content

My last point is directed more toward young boys than girls. There is not enough good content to read. That is slowly starting to turn around, although way too many children’s book authors tend to only write fantasies for boys and a wider range of literature for girls. Writers and publishers, you must consider your target audience/market! What do boys like to do? That’s what needs to be written about. Like their fathers, many boys tend to prefer nonfiction. They like true life tales, sports stories, history, as well as fantasies. There are a few authors championing this cause; however, they are too few. Make a difference! provide interesting, fun content boys can identify with.

Conclusion

If you go back over the above material, the common theme is adult responsibilities. The child can’t and won’t make these fixes. YOU have to. Hopefully, this has given you some ideas as to how a love of reading can be inculcated. From my experience with wayward juveniles, it’s never too late, but the earlier you start, the better your chances will be. Our civilization is threatened. Remember what the old cartoon character, Pogo, once said: “We have seen the enemy, and he is we.”

This is a cross-posting from Bob Spear’s Book Trends blog.

#fridayflash: The Love of a Cat

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There was once a cat who loved a woman.

Actually there are often cats who love women, but it’s usually just a passing fancy quickly outgrown with kittenhood. This was a special case.

First, there was the matter of his name. She didn’t give him one right away, as so many humans do, based only on the color of his fur, or his propensity toward (or away from) play. Gathering him into her lap like a sleek, black puddle, she said, “You already have a name. All cats do. I just have to guess it.”

For days after bringing him into her small, tidy apartment, she’d periodically toss out a candidate and watch for his reaction. He wasn’t sure if he already had a name or not but he reveled in the power of choosing, and in her attention. “Winston?” she asked, and he went on purring, looking impassively up at her. A few hours later, “Henry?” as he chased paper balls around the room; he didn’t react. The next day she tried again, lifting his chin up so she could look directly into the giant, golden marbles of his eyes. “Horus?” “Apollo?” “Anansi?” “Caspar?” “Merlin?” Stately, regal names all, but none resonated with the cat.

In the morning she announced, “I have it! I know your name.” He hopped up onto a barstool expectantly. “Rama.” The cat felt a strange, ticklish sensation in his chest. He raised himself on his hind legs, lifted a forepaw and gently placed it on her cheek. “I knew it!” She exclaimed, scooping him up in her arms. “Rama was a prince of India, and you are a prince of cats!”

He knew he wasn’t really a prince of cats; cat government is parliamentary and there hasn’t been a feline ruling class since the days of ancient Egypt. But he did know he loved her then. He reached out to bat at a strand that had escaped from the long, gray braid draped over her shoulder, and she indulged him, bouncing the strand in front of him as if it were a bit of string, smiling, her eyes sparkling. He didn’t notice the many lines in her soft, translucent skin, or the brown spots on her hands and face. He saw only beauty, joy and love in her.

Eventually Rama learned her name, when another woman came to visit. The other woman called her “Sarah”, and Sarah called the other woman “Hope”. By listening carefully when they talked, Rama learned Hope was Sarah’s younger sister. Hope came to visit Sarah every week on Friday afternoons, and she liked Rama just as much as her sister did. For Rama’s part, he liked Hope well enough, but it was a feeble sentiment compared to his love for Sarah. As Rama grew he came to understand things about Sarah, and her routines. Except for her weekly trip to the corner market and her increasingly frequent doctor visits, Sarah and Rama were together all the time. She was a quiet, stay at home sort of person, and that suited Rama very well.

He learned to read as most housecats do, by waiting until Sarah had a book, magazine or newspaper open and unceremoniously plopping himself into her lap to look on. Humans think cats do this as a gambit for attention, and that’s just how cats like it since humans can be such a nervous, unpredictable lot when it comes to things they can’t explain. Sarah would continue reading, absently stroking his back and scratching his ears, periodically turning to him to discuss whatever it was they were reading.

“Can you believe that Angelina Jolie is pregnant again?!” Rama didn’t understand what was so shocking about this, since Cinnamon, the female cat down the street, had had two litters a year for the past three years running, and wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. But he humored Sarah and kept his opinions to himself.

One afternoon, Rama woke to a piercing, mechanical wail. It seemed to be coming from the necklace Sarah always wore. The pendant had a little red dot in the center, and now it was flashing. Sarah lay there, her eyes open, but still. He rubbed his head as hard as he could against her face to rouse her, but she didn’t react. She didn’t reach out to run a finger along his jaw, or rub under his chin like she usually did, but he didn’t give up. Soon a pair of large men dragging a bed on wheels burst through the front door. One of them grabbed Rama and tossed him aside like a sack of flour, and when Rama tried to get back to Sarah the other man shut him up in the bathroom. Rama screamed himself hoarse, until finally the door opened. He raced out to Sarah, but she was gone.

He dashed around the apartment, crying out for her, inconsolable. He was standing on the bed he’d shared with Sarah, keening in a scratchy whisper that was all that was left of his voice when Hope found him. “Rama?” she asked, tentatively.

He fell silent and his head whipped around. It was definitely Hope, but something was different about her. Her eyes were red, and her face was puffy and pale. She threw herself on the bed and did something Rama had never seen Sarah do, didn’t even know humans could do: she wailed the death wail, and then he knew Sarah was never coming back. Hope reached for him and hugged him close. He didn’t want to be hugged by anyone but Sarah, but as much as it shamed him, he abandoned himself to the comforting feeling.

And so he went to live with Hope, who was married, and had children and grandchildren who often came to visit. They would all fawn over Rama, petting him and scratching his head for as long as he would allow, but he seemed indifferent to their attention. Hope’s husband would often complain about Rama’s standoffish nature, but Hope knew Rama’s nature all too well. His heart was broken by Sarah, and he would never love another.

Writing Wednesdays #15: Elements of Success

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This post, from Steven Pressfield, originally appeared on his War & Reality in Afghanistan | "It’s the Tribes, Stupid!" site on 9/11/09.

I was making a long drive this week, across the desert from L.A. to Phoenix, and I got to thinking about the elements that comprise success-particularly for people like us, e.g. writers, artists and entrepreneurs, who work from the heart and on their own, without any imposed external structure. What are the skill-sets we need? Over a lifetime, what challenges do we need to master?

In today’s post, I’m attaching a podcast of an interview I did with Jen Grisanti, who helms a Los Angeles-based consulting firm dedicated to helping talented writers break into the industry, shape their material, hone their pitches, and focus their careers. Her one-on-one consults with authors offer the insight of a personal studio executive. Considering Jen’s last job was as VP of Current Programs at CBS/Paramount, writers do, indeed, benefit from having their own “executive” – one who has worked with over 190 writers working in television, features and novels, and who is also the Writing Instructor for NBC’s, Writers on the Verge, and a blogger for The Huffington Post.

In addition to consulting, Jen holds monthly networking events and does a twice-monthly podcast, featuring interviews with movie-industry professionals and writers and artists of all kinds. This podcast would fall under #2 of my desert-drive list of the elements of success: Technique. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

  Elements of Success – An Interview with Jen Grisanti

[ Click on above link to open the audio file in your computer’s default audio player, or right-click this Download link and "save as" to download.]

 

1) Talent.

There’s a reason why you and I are not Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. On the other hand, it’s no coincidence that so often the greatest athletes, artists and entrepreneurs also embody the most ferocious work ethic. Talent may set the final limit to how good we can be, but it also can be stretched way beyond what most of us believe.

2) Technique.

This is an easy one because it can be taught. We can learn it-in school, from books and mentors, in seminars and workshops and coaching sessions. We can teach ourselves in the university of hard knocks. Jen Grisanti’s interview is in this category. So are the Iowa Writers Workshop, Robert McKee’s Story Structure classes (and his book, Story) and Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages.

Read the rest of the post, which includes elements #3-6, on War & Reality in Afghanistan | "It’s the Tribes, Stupid!".

 

But let’s go back to Number One in the elements of success. What skills do you and I need as solo gunslingers in order to call ourselves “successful” over a full career?

Using Twitter’s Lists Feature for Writing

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This post, from Meryl K. Evans, originally appeared on her Meryl.net site on 11/2/09 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

If you haven’t heard by now, Twitter now has Lists that lets you put Twitter users into groups. It doesn’t matter if you’re following someone or not, you can add anyone into a list or two or three. Here’s an introduction and a how to use Twitter Lists at Web Worker Daily.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: there’s also an embedded how-to screencast in this post, after the jump]

Round Twitter ButtonTwitter users have their own rules for who they follow and not follow. Some follow those who fall into a specific field, career and whatnot. Guy LeCharles Gonzalez follows those with some connection to publishing. It’s not elitist if someone doesn’t follow you back. They use Twitter in a different way than you and I do. Nothing against you. Really. I promise.

I follow thousands of people. It’s crazy, I know. But my work varies. Know that I do not follow every high quality tweeter who follows me. Some folks just talk about things I’m not interested in. Most of the people I follow fall into one of the following areas:

  • Work as writers, editors, publishers and related.
  • Tweet about casual games. After all, I run The Game Zen and write for Gamezebo.
  • Experts in social media and PR. This area changes daily and I want to keep up.
  • Experts in marketing especially business-to-business (B2B). For my work with InternetVIZ.
  • Make me laugh. I find lots of gems in Tweets to fill me with energy and smiles.
  • Those from the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Gotta stay on top of what’s happening in my neighborhood.
  • People who write about things related to disabilities and accessibility. Might find something worth sharing in my CI blog.
  • Gadgets, technology and web design. I cover this area often and have met a lot of folks in this field.
  • People who discuss general business. This one is broad, but they just don’t fall into any of the above categories.

I know it’s crazy that I have a bit of a list and a huge Twitter stream. Social networking is high on my list of things to do for my business. Writers could manage the people they follow and their lists in the following ways:

  • Create a writers list. This will be your water cooler, support system and colleagues in the same boat.
  • Create separate lists for editors, publishers, agents and gigs. I lump all of these into one because I have broader interest. Or you can make one list. It depends on your needs. If writers and these folks are the type of people you follow and nothing else — then use lists to narrow them down further.
  • Create a favorite people and clients list. Yes, you can make it private if you prefer not to share. This way you don’t miss a single tweet. This would most likely be a short list.
  • Follow other people’s lists. Why start from scratch? We’re not the only ones creating lists, so we can follow other people’s lists. I follow Simon Mackie’s list of Web Worker Daily writers.
  • Create an experts on X topic list. What’s your beat? Football? Finance? Fashion? Make a list for your frequently covered topics for instant access when you’re working on an article. No more trying to remember the people you read for the topic.
  • Create a list for learning. Plenty of Twitter IDs focus on tweeting writing, grammar and other tips.
  • Create a list for current events, conferences and projects. Hey, there’s lots happening on Twitter right now due to NaNoWriMo.

To see my lists, go to @merylkevans and look in the right sidebar. Click the list to see who appears in it. You can also “Follow the list,” which adds my list to yours so you won’t have to manage it. Just remember, you can’t edit other people’s lists.

Here’s a closed-captioned screencast on how to create lists.

Some developers behind applications that make it easier to manage your Twitter business are already working on adding the list feature. I look forward to seeing what they do.

I love these lists especially since I’m a freak when it comes to organization. Of course, you can find me @merylkevans; hope I make the good list!

You might like to read more Twitter articles.

How do you use the list feature?

Writing Formulas As Guides

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This article, from Gloria T. Delmar, originally appeared on the Philadelphia Writers Conference site in 1998.

The idea of "writing to formula" turns off many writers. But the fact is, that most writing does indeed fall into certain broad "concepts" or "plans." It’s not counter- productive to understand these accepted schemes for making a piece of writing make sense for the intended reader (and first, the intended editor). Don’t let yourself get locked into seeing formulas or concepts as negative; the reason they’ve been defined is because they work–and that’s positive synthesis.

Mathematical Patterns Applied to Fiction

1+1=2
 This equation represents the "satisfying" or "happy-ending."
At least three-fourths of all modern, commercial short stories and a large percentage of longer stories, are written on this pattern.
1-1=0
 This equation represents the "unresolved" or "fitting punishment ending."
A much smaller percentage of "literary" stories follow this pattern.
"1" represents basic emotions:
 love, hate, fear, anger, courage, security, greed, piety, pride, honor, generosity, miserliness, honesty, good, evil, friendship, ambition, desire, patriotism, etc.
or conditioned emotions:
parental love, sacred love, profane love, etc. (ETC. for all basic emotions.)

To make a strong story, you need a strong conflict between two emotions. You can match two simple emotions, two conditioned emotions, or a simple emotion and a conditioned one. Though the + or – signs in the mathematical pattern might be read as "versus" the "plus" and "minus" concepts reflect the nature of the problems and conflict, and forecast the outcome.

Short Story:
Single viewpoint character: entire story takes place in a short period of time;
Single plot: focuses on a single theme.
Novel:
May be single or multiple viewpoint (but one viewpoint per scene); story may take place in a short period of time or range over years; may have main lot plus several sub- plots; may focus on a single theme overall, or include more than one.

Aristotle’s Rules of Tragedy

amagmorsis:
revelation of true identity of person previously unknown.
catharsis:
arousal of pity and fear to enlarge spectator’s outlook.
hamartia:
called "tragic flow" inherent defect in the hero.
periteteia:
shift of the tragic hero’s fortune from good to bad.
verisimilitude:
"resemblance of reality" in drama or non-drama.

Read the rest of the article, which includes The Who What When Where Why and How formula, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, The Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Deadly Sins of Writers, on the Philadelphia Writers Conference site.

Grisham Spills The Beans…

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I just got up after watching a short segment of the Today Show.  Usually there’s not much of interest for me anymore on NBC mornings, but this morning, Matt Lauer, interviewing John Grisham about his newest book, a collection of short stories, turned from the standard book tour interview to a hard question.  It dealt with a recent Court case involving writers who are fed up with the retail sales tactics of  a few giants and box stores.  In John Girsham’s case, his hard cover new book, with a list price of $24.00 is being sold at Walmart and Amazon, among others, for …$9.95.

Matt Lauer wanted to know what Grisham thought of the case, which uses the language "predatory sales tactics".  Grisham admitted that it wouldn’t affect him much in the short term, but when he considered the long-term effects, the interview got interesting.  Mr. Grisham, openly pronounced that for new or future writers, this practice will make it very hard to impossible for them to be published.  There is nothing made when a book that costs the publisher a certain amount to produce is sold for way less than what its cost.  To paraphrase, he indiacted that in his opinion, this kind of tactic will shake the industry to it’s knees, eventually. Even when the sales quantities are considerable, the margin has disappeared.  The margin is what fuels publishing’s ability to test new authors work.  It gives them the room to provide publishing homes for new voices, and without it, there will be little attention given to emerging writers. 

It turns out, according to Mr. Grisham’s comments, that the business of selling books has a great deal more impact on whether your book will be published than many of us believed. 

Massive discount tactics have already destroyed the once-great American Department Store Retail culture.  There are no more merchants out there at all, just perpetual motion operations that desperately must keep the goods moving or perish — similar to the old notion of how sharks swim forward all the time to stay alive.  It’s about time that a respected author turn some of his attention to some of the ills that are in the process of destroying publishing as we know it.  He also spoke of the pending collapse of many publishers and established book sellers who wil be unable to compete with the box stores and online merchants.  This is already happening in spades.

He closed, by saying, that his book, "is worth $24." 

Readers should be willing to pay someone for their creative work, and if it means paying the author directly, that day may well come.  That bodes well for Indie Authors who can produce a high-quality product at a reasonable price…and can hang in a bit longer, until the dust settles.

 

What The Hell Does "Well Written" Mean?

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This post originally appeared on the Mysterious Matters blog on 10/9/09; the author wishes to remain anonymous.

So, everyone says that for a book to get agented and published, it has to be "well written."  I’m not sure that is 100% true – we can all think of people who have made the best-seller lists whose books are competently, or borderline-competently written, but not WELL written.

However, I think it’s fairly safe to say that if you are an unknown (i.e., non-celebrity, non-politician, non-sportstype, non-CEO), your manuscript has to be well written.  This is one of those terms, I realize, that is bandied about without ever being quite defined.  I suppose we could say it’s like pornography – we know it when we see it – but I thought I’d try to come up with a more specific definition.

So, in my opinion, well written means the following:

1.  Properly spelled, grammatically correct, with punctuation in the right place.  This is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for good writing.  I think a lot of us can put up with an occasional typo in a manuscript.  Everyone’s human, and God knows that after looking at the same manuscript every day for a year, a writer can be forgiven for a misspelling or a missing comma.  I do think most of us see beyond that.  But multiple errors in the first few pages signal a generally low level of competence and cause us to tune out.  (Case in point, so that I can get down off my high horse – in Meredith Phillips’ guest blog from last week, I had several typos in my introduction and conclusion that Meredith herself pointed out to me!  Slightly embarrassing, to say the least.)

2. Good variety in sentence and paragraph structure.  I sometimes see manuscripts that are 300 pages of simple declarative sentences.  That might be OK for children’s or YA adult books (though I doubt it), but it won’t fly in an adult novel.  Please give me some dependent clauses, some participial phrases, some gerunds or infinitive phrases.  Ask a rhetorical question or two.  Vary sentence style and paragraph length (especially paragraph length!  300 pages of 3-sentence paragraphs makes your book look like it suffers from ADD.  300 pages of multi-page paragraphs makes it look as though you’ve channeled James Joyce, most likely not on his best day.)

3. Simple, effective description.  I always feel that the best writers evoke a scene, a character, or a characteristic in a minimum of space.  I like a sentence or two of description–and then get on with it.  For more complicated locations or items that are intrinsic to plot, longer description is fine.  I like to see similes, etc., in descriptions–something other than telling me how big the thing is, and what color.  I also feel that, from a reader’s viewpoint, a simple sketch lets readers fill in the details and makes the book more absorbing.

Read the rest of the post, which includes points 4-8, on Mysterious Matters.

Designing Books

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The title refers to two types of book designing:

  • Book Interiors
  • Book Covers

Book Interiors

The design and layout of a book is both art and practicality. It’s important that art is pleasing, but it should not get in the way of a designer’s mission. I’m sure most of us have seen books where the design became so complex or even jarring that it became distracting. Better that the art be plain but subtly supportive. If the book is a military thriller about snipers, it would be appropriate to use a small rifle scope’s crosshairs as a text break or as a small decorative by the page number. A fantasy based in Olde England might be well served with a celtic decorative capital letter for a drop cap. This is what I mean when I say supportive of the book’s theme.

The selection of fonts must balance and make sense, with none over-riding the others for attention. Most importantly is their practical importance of enhancing readability while subtlety supporting the book’s theme. Font selection also has direct impact on page count, and therefore, production affordability. When I work with a client, I see the decisions about all these elements and more parts of an iterative process. Design suggestions go back and forth with the client involved at every step for his education and acknowledgement that she is the boss who has to live with the resulting product. A designer should never attempt to force a design without giving good reasons.

Book Cover Design

First, let me acknowledge to the world I am no artist or illustrator. Instead, I am a book retailer , an author, a publisher, and a book reviewer. Last year, I was one of three judges of fiction book cover judges for the Ben Franklin Awards. In other years, I have also judged the writing in general fiction and mystery/thriller categories. What has been gratifying is that in every case and every category, the three judges all picked at least 2 of the top 3 choices in the blind with no knowledge of or communication among one another. What that says is, the cream will rise to the top. That is certainly the case for book cover designs.

Here is where I have to put on my retailer hat. The next time you’re in a bookstore, watch the shoppers. See what catches their eyes. Observe what draws them to pick out a book from the shelf (even those with only their spines showing). How far away were they? What didn’t they pick up? This is all about marketability. In an earlier blog I talked about getting seen above the grass. That is what takes place literally.

Color and graphics and treatment of fonts matter. This is definitely the realm of the artist; however, that person must be both excellent at her craft and understand how to portray the book’s theme visually. Recently, vampires are all the rage. That’s a very dark theme! Unfortunately, the covers end up being very dark, if not black, as well. The next time you’re in that bookstore, notice how much alike they all look. Is that being seen above the grass? Nope! What if on that black background there was a profusion of yellows and oranges (flames of hell perhaps)? What if the evil vampire has a purple cloak with gold ornaments and the threatened heroine is dressed in virginal white? Wouldn’t that be more eye catching and distinctive. Could someone see that from 10 feet away and find it more enticing to one’s curiosity apart from the other vampire books surrounding it?

Bright, varied colors work well, and so do light backgrounds with simple designs. Whatever the genre, your design needs to be somewhat different from other books that may physically surround it on the shelf.

Again, I am not a cover designer. I job that task out to illustrators to whom I have given the above lesson. That has worked well for us. I stand in awe of visually oriented talented people. I’m a writer and a musician, but I’m also a communicator. All these elements have to play together for successful book presentation, marketing, readability, and putting the readers in the right frame of mind. Help them escape into the magic of the book!

This is a cross-posting from Bob Spear’s Book Trends blog.

Learning to Wait…

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This is a general, rambling comment covering some of the more touchy-feely components of setting up a marketing plan.  I prefer a more organic approach rather than the nice, crisp document with all the numbers in a row.  They have their place, but if you have an interest in developing your ability to perceive your market better, read on…

“Millions Sold!” Remember the little tag line that used to be seen between the Golden Arches under every McDonalds Hamburger Sign? Just knowing that …millions…of people had purchased and eaten these “bombes du gut” really made your mouth just water, didn’t it? It also made established two implications. First, that the burger was good. Second, that if you didn’t scarf one up, you were cutting yourself off from…millions of people. Millions.

I receive the Daily Email from Publisher’s Weekly. As an Indie Author, I find it about 50-50 with subjects of direct interest and entertainment. Today, (I’m getting a head-start by actually beginning on Friday for tomorrow’s article.) the banner ad running across the top of the email was for “NY Times Bestselling Series” Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead! Then, just below – and I realize the PW is a TRADE publication for those that sell books – ran the slogan, “Over 2 Million Books Sold!” 

Not to disregard the money to be made in the Vampire Genre, by booksellers hungry for every sale, but it really did remind me of McDonalds’ advertising. Brings P.T.Barnum to mind. I won’t be scarfing up any Vampire bestsellers right now, and I don’t care if I’m ostracized from millions of sold readers. I don’t write Vampire. After Stoker – good, tasty stuff – I won’t be reading Vampire either, no offense intended to Anne Rice, who launched this amazing fountain of gold, then exited holding a huge bag of cash.

 

So, if you write and enjoy Vampire Genre, my column may not give you any new marketing ideas.  You’ve been lucky enough to hit upon a trend.  Being light on your feet and enjoy lucky timing is a rare and can be a profitable blend of skills, but it might not be something you can learn.  It may not be sanguine enough, or sexy enough, or….you get the idea. Still, the idea of Millions Sold…Millions! Just the thought makes my mouth water for the griddle-fried goodness!

 

Most of us who write fiction in niche genres, creating prose with a unique voice know or rather, should know we won’t be selling millions. It’s not a bad thing, after all – it’s just such a distant prospect that we tend to dismiss the possibility. Along with appearing on Oprah every other month.  We have more realistic ideas — the ones we can actually help create, if we can be patient.

 

The Zen of Waiting…

 

It can be tough, waiting for recognition and the resulting book sales, but while we do wait, we should not be waiting idly. Waiting is an activity, after all. I remember when I was in College, investigating whole new worlds of thinking I found Zen Buddhism particularly interesting. One of the major pathways that Zen can use to lead you to enlightenment is to learn how to wait. It was also covered in great detail in Herman Hesse’s book Siddhartha, which in the day, was to my generation what Vampire Academy and it’s like, must be to the current crop.

 

There is an important lesson to training yourself to be occupied with the activity of waiting. Waiting allows you to quiet all the background noise and actually observe what is happening around you. If done with deliberate non-focus – deliberate non-attachment, it can lead to all kinds of new awareness. It works in meditation. It works in business. It works in the creative process.

 

While waiting, we can learn techniques which will sharpen our ability to sense opportunity. Now, I’ve let a lot of opportunities slip away, over the years – I’m not a master in any way. Yet. As an Indie Author, not everything remotely literary/publishing-oriented will relate to my personal path towards my goals. Some things will. Those are the ones I don’t want to miss. I know I’ll miss plenty – I just want to pare down the numbers to improve my chances.

 

Mientras Descansas Hace Adobes

 

This is an old, New Mexican “dicho” or saying, handed down through the years. It was meant to be a final comment made by a husband, to his wife as he left the family home for a day of work. It’s supposed to be a kind of joke. Sometimes, we’ve seen it inscribed on a tile or embroidered on a sampler, then hundg up near the door. Translated, it means “While you’re resting, make adobes!” Adobes being the 40 pound mud and straw bricks that are left to bake in the sun. Not exactly the kind of job done while “resting”, but the saying applies equally well to Indie Authors. While you’re resting….

 

One of the first things you need is a set of goals. Not one. Several. These should be visualized as a series of steps that lead to different places you want to reach. For example, good (insert number here) bookstore sales may be a goal that takes several different paths to reach. Another, better (insert cogent qualifier here) recognition, also may be achieved through different steps and tools. Let’s assume here, that you don’t have several hundred dollars burning a hole in your pocket to spend on a retained publicist. I can’t afford that expense, so it’s been up to me to find ways of getting the word out while I’m waiting. That, and making sure that what the word conveys, is what the reader wants to hear.

 

The first step…

 

Making sure you understand what your readers want to read is step one. In the same way we tried to visualize and quantify our readers and booksellers (if we seek to sell to book stores) when designing our book cover, we need to hold those ideas close when we wait to see what is working out there. Think: My Book’s Niche. How are our readers and potential customers (booksellers, who are also readers) different from those who won’t even consider reading our books. Try to answer those questions by observing – at a relaxed pace – what the media is dishing, what the niche-forums are spouting, what “people” (insert appropriate adjective that relates to your readers here) are talking about. What are their concerns? Why are they reading at all, assuming they are.

 

I have a group of bookmarks in a special folder on my browser named “Book Marketing” in it I put links to forums, book seller sites, publishers sites, other writers sites and anything else whose subject works towards the subjects or settings in my book that may attract potential readers. I visit these every couple of days – sometimes I post a comment, sometimes not, but I try to get a general idea of what’s cooking.

 

I pay special attention to anything which uses keywords also found in my books. If a forum offers a keyword search, I’ll use that, along with my trusty list of ten keywords that pertain to my work and I’ll limit the time frame to the last two or so days. If I find a lot of activity, I might go back into the threads, but I try not to get too ensnared. I actually do try to remain somewhat disconnected, so my own inner demons don’t trip me. Forums that specifically deal with subjects that create dissenting opinion may be entertaining, but the egos fly fast and furious, and the useable lessons may not be as easy to parse through. But, if you have a competitive nature, and like to see the fur fly, this may produce useable results for you, depending on what you write, and who your reader is.

 

I also like to visit libraries, and ask librarians what’s being checked out in similar genres of fiction. Have they noticed any sudden shifts? Do these shifts always follow the marketing pushes from publishers? Try to notice readers, while you’re in a library or bookstore. Are they quietly reading, or are they casting around for contact or experience? Do they look at posters or other marketing materials, or do they seem to be on a mission, heading directly to what they want, and then, leave just as fast, book in hand?

 

Bookstores also now provide coffee bars and cafe environments which can be very useful in catching interesting comments – even if just to see what’s being read. If you’re not shy, you might even engage readers – and find out many things you can use to train your ability to understand YOUR reader better. Most people, unless engaged in conversation, will react positively if you ask their opinion about something. That’s what Marketing Research Firms count on, and so should you. It makes the “subject” feel important. You may get more information than you need, but it may be useful later on – you never know.

 

Ask ’em Questions…

 

It’s a good idea to keep any interview conversations spontaneous and light-weight and on-target, so that it will be a simple matter to decide when your part of it is over, and you can move on – unless the entanglement is appealing to you. I am a better observer usually than I am an “interviewer”, but you may be better at conversation. Use what you are good at, and improve those areas that need improving, by doing. You should learn to observe and retain information until you are able to spot your reader by sight alone — probably not possible, but you get the idea.

 

Everyone has lots of characteristics that betray their inner selves – for example, if you write about driving on the Nascar circuit, your reader may indeed by wearing a specific team hat, or T-Shirt. I’m not sure specifically what your reader would do to betray their interest if you write Vampire Novels, but there would be signs. These signs are often referred to in Poker-playing circles as “tells”. Few players can eliminate all of them, thereby being “unreadable”. Outside of Poker, most folks like their “tells” displayed proudly. Good for them – good for you.

 

As you learn to wait effectively, you’ll begin to amass a great deal of data and understanding. The better you know your prospective reader – customer – the easier it will be to make the sale. As a producer of goods (Indie Author)you have the additional opportunity of massaging your product to appeal directly to any or all of the “tells” your customers display. Specific, salient selling points that will satisfy their needs in a good read. Now, unless you’re producing hamburgers, of course, you’ll still want to retain your own voice, and your own story ideas, but inserting an occasional piece of juicy fruit or candy into a cake never made the cake less tasty.

 

The Recipe…

 

Begin to think of the “ingredients” that your readers will be hoping to discover in your writing. List them. Train yourself to learn to see them in other contexts, in other writer’s work, in discussions. If you can do this, then you can gently guide your story’s appeal without making it seem false, or over-reaching. The chances are, you already have quite a few of them in your work, as it’s come from your imagination – full of the things that appeal to, or are frightening to, or are of interest to….you.

 

Enjoy the scenery.

 

You’ll learn to wait in different places. You’ll learn to wait while engaged in all kinds of other work. Multi-tasking is possible, if you don’t try to do too much at once –even for men. Now, in case you think I’m suggesting you become a spy – that’s not what we’re doing here. You’re an interacting human being, not a recording device. Besides, words are your favorite medium. Your interactions, past and present with other humans gives an honest voice to your writing. If you were doing market research for a particular tool, for example, you’d clearly want to know what users liked and disliked about the tools they use as well as the tool you have designed or are trying to sell. Sometimes you ask, other times, you listen. It’s a simple matter of quantifying the results to help refine the tool to be positioned properly for the market.

 

Writing is an interactive, yet singular activity. So is reading. Writers read. Readers ….well, some readers, write. You have a lot in common with your readers, mostly those things are the key to making your writing rewarding, both to you and to your readers. Rewarding writing is appealing to booksellers, even eBook sellers. If all the ingredients are in the mix, and the product satisfies the market, then all you need to do next, is let ’em know. No small task, but made easier by you’re having learned that waiting isn’t down-time. The ongoing task of selling your book, unless you have a publisher willing to do it for you (pretty small chances out there for that kind of commitment these days) will become easier the more you practice it. Like Zen. Learning to sit and …be.

 

Now go out and grab a nice, juicy cheeseburger. You’ve earned it! Oh, and make some adobes.

Next Week: We learn to narrow down the number of targets while waiting for success to improve our aim and our scoring.

 

 

#fridayflash: Pets

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“Honey, if you don’t feed it, it’ll die like the last one.”

“But Mom,” Garrett whined, as only an eight year old can, “every time I go near the cage it goes crazy and tries to escape. Or kill me.”

She finished rinsing the dishes, dried her hands and turned to face him. “You have to approach it slowly and speak to it in a soft, reassuring voice. If you’re nice to it, it’ll learn to trust you.”

Garrett sighed and looked doubtful. “It’s just mean, Mom.”

“No, it’s just frightened. Try to look at it from the other side. How would you feel if you saw your mom and dad die, then someone grabbed you, took you away from your home and put you in a cage in a strange place?”

“I didn’t mean to kill the mom and dad, it was an accident.”

“I know, and that’s why you’re trying to take care of…what name did you give it?”

“Freckles.”

“That’s why you’re trying to take care of Freckles, to do the right thing.”

Garrett laid his head on the table and began tracing invisible patterns on the wood with an index finger. “Freckles hates me. He hates me the same as all the other ones did.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” She took a seat next to Garrett and lifted his chin in her hand. “Nobody could hate you.”

He smiled, only a little.

She let go of his chin and straightened in her chair. “Now, how’s Freckles’ leg doing?”

“I dunno, I can’t get close enough to see.”

She stood and clasped Garrett’s hand, pulling him up. “Come on, let’s go check it out together.”

They left the warm kitchen and crossed the large, chilly expanse of overgrown field behind the house. When they reached the faded barn, she pulled a key from her pocket and fitted it to the lock. As the door swung open, Freckles let out a caterwaul.

“Freckles?” she asked, gently. Kindly.

Inside the cage, Freckles looked a mess. He was very dirty, and it was obvious his crushed leg was beyond repair. She stooped to kneel next to the cage and carefully reached in to stroke Freckles’ head. Freckles snatched her hand and bit her, hard enough to draw blood.

She withdrew with a yelp. “Freckles! Bad!" she yelled. "Bad boy!”

“See?” Garrett asked. “He’s mean, like I told you.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, shaking her head with regret and applying pressure to her bleeding hand. “And I don’t think that leg will ever heal.”

“Do we have to—”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “I think so, honey. I’m sorry, but it’s the humane thing to do.”

Garrett hung his head and began to cry softly as she crossed the barn, lifted the rifle from the wall and loaded it. Seemingly aware of what was going on, Freckles let out a low, keening wail.

She returned with the gun and pointed it at Freckles’ head. Garrett turned to leave as Freckles’ cries intensified, but she reached out a hand to stop him. “Garrett, if you’re going to keep catching things and bringing them home, you need to understand what it means to take care of them. Even if killing them is the best way to take care of them.”

Garrett turned back and stood next to her, facing the cage. She leveled the sight at Freckles’ temple and pulled the trigger.

In the millisecond between the trigger pull and the bullet’s entry into his small skull, Freckles yelled, “NOOOOO!!!!!” Then he slumped over onto the hay, lifeless, his mouth and eyes still wide with terror.

Garrett burst into tears and she clutched him close, rubbing his shoulder. “Aw, Garrett. I’m sorry.”

She knelt down, cleared the stray hairs away from his eyes and wiped his face with her sleeve. “This one just wasn’t meant to be.”

The next morning, Garrett’s dad came to his bedside at dawn to wake him. “Buddy?” he asked, gently shaking the boy awake.

Garrett roused enough to prop himself up on an elbow, rubbing his eyes. “What?”

“I’ve got a surprise for you, buddy. To help you forget about Freckles.”

Garrett swung his feet out to the floor and into his boots, suddenly awake and alert with excitement. As Garrett stood and shrugged into his coat, his dad continued.

“This one’s name is Julie, and she’s very nice.”
 

Theme, Literature and Money

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Today we conclude Mark Barrett’s series on theme, which originally appeared on his Ditchwalk site and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. You can read the first entry in the series, ‘Axing Theme’, here, and second installment, Thinking Theme For Fun and Profit, here, and the third entry, Theme As Technique, here. 

Nathan Bransford put up a post today titled Themes Schmemes. Here’s the gist of it:

I think the drive to write Literature/art sometimes leads some very talented writers, especially young ones, to write books that as an agent I can’t sell because there’s too much attention paid to the themes and the subtext and the meaning and other English-class-type concerns, rather than the narrative and the plot and the craft and other sausagemaking-type concerns.

In talking about theme over the course of this past week, I tried to stay focused on the difference between theme as a useful literary technique and theme as a toxic analytical tool. I tried to stay away from the relative merit of theme as a technique or personal literary objective because I consider that an artistic choice. Saying that theme is bad when used by a particular author to create a given story would be like saying that reference photographs are bad for any artist’s painting. It’s not for me to decide.

Bransford’s post, however, changes the axis of analysis. Instead of the utility or merit of theme, he is focused — rightly, for an agent — on sales. And from that point of view I have no doubt that he’s right: theme and other literary tools are often completely unnecessary when crafting marketable fiction. The problem, of course, is that this is a slippery slope, and once you shove off you can’t stop the slide without exposing yourself to your own market-driven arguments.

I’m confident Bransford believes there’s a minimal level of storytelling skill necessary to write a bestseller. Still, if you found a trendy, charismatic writer who could riff on pornographic sex, gruesome, sadistic violence and pop-culture references, and you hyped the resulting title with a cutting-edge social-media marketing tour, you might end up with a bestseller on your hands. At which point that writer’s agent would point out that Bransford’s concerns about plotting and character and story are totally overrated, and the only thing that matters is whether you really can increase sales by taking a bus load of orphans hostage and refusing to free them until every American buys five copies of Risotto: A Love Story.

Which is why I tend not to make market-driven arguments about craft-driven processes. If what sells is what matters, then nothing else matters.

Mark Barrett has been a professional freelance writer and storyteller for over twenty years, and also works in the interactive entertainment industry.

Al Katkowsky: The Book As App

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Earlier this week I went to see a talk given by author Al Katkowsky at the Apple Store in Santa Monica. If you’re wondering why an author would be speaking at the Apple Store, it’s because Al has published his book, Question of the Day, in both print and iPhone application (a.k.a. “app”) editions, and the app edition has been hugely popular. It seems that in addition to self-publishing in print, ebook and podcast/audiobook formats, indie authors now have yet another publication opportunity at their disposal.

Question of the Day began life as a simple, workplace pastime. Al would pose a question to co-workers, providing fodder for discussion. Eventually someone suggested Al turn his questions into a book, and he did, classifying them on a scale of “Light” to “Heavy” based on how serious or easygoing each question is. Once the manuscript was finished, he spent about a year querying on it. He received a lot of encouragement but no offers, and started thinking about alternative routes to reaching a readership.

Al was a fan of Urban Outfitters, which stocks books in addition to clothing, home furnishings, electronics and miscellany. He approached an UO buyer, who was very enthusiastic about Question of the Day and expressed interest in carrying it. Al knew that the timeframe from contract to release for a traditionally-published book is a year or longer, and he worried that UO’s interest might wane if he couldn’t get the book to them right away. So he self-published 1,000 copies through Cafepress (correction – Al only ordered a few samples through Cafepress) and returned to the UO buyer, who sent the idea of carrying QotD in UO stores up the chain of command. Unfortunately, the answer was ultimately “no”.

Disappointed but far from defeated, Al arranged for distribution through Baker & Taylor, and booked a launch event in a Borders store. Following the launch, Al partnered with a speed dating event, in which the content of his book was used for easy icebreakers between the speed daters. Next, he gave a talk to an 8th grade Social Studies class whose teacher had been using the book for class writing prompts.

Al was a bit at loose ends and unsure what more he could do to build a bigger audience for the book. Then a friend suggested he consider releasing the book as an iPhone app, since the iPhone was hot and only getting hotter, and app sales were growing exponentially.

After making some inquiries among Apple- and tech-savvy friends, Al commissioned a developer to turn QotD into an app. Where you’d page through the book, in the app you can look up questions based on how “light” or “heavy” they are, and also get a little help from ‘prompters’: brief suggestions to get your mind working. When Al added videos of sample responses to the app in May of this year, interest in the app increased dramatically. Since then, the app has had 500,000 hits and 80,000 downloads, and has been in the top 25 of all book apps ever since. Al has continued to promote the book and app via speaking engagements in Apple stores, at conferences, and elsewhere.  

Al suggests that authors who intend to release their books as apps think outside the box of a typical ebook, which is just static text on a screen. Adding multimedia capabilities, such as sound and video, will make a book app much more appealing. Any interactive functionality you can add that makes sense in the context of your book is worth considering. For example, the next edition of QotD will add the capability to answer and share questions, and the edition following that one will add social networking functionality, enabling users to “see” when someone else is using the app and, if the other party is interested, discuss the questions and their answers with one another. However, Al warns against relying too heavily on hyperlinks as a means of introducing interactivity to your app, since once you’ve escorted a reader out of your app via an internet link there’s no guarantee he’ll come back.

Al thinks a combination text/audiobook with bookmarking capabilities would be a popular type of book app. Users could read the text onscreen, then turn on a voice to pick up reading where they left off when they need to get in the car, or any other time reading the text onscreen isn’t practical.

Since apps can be updated at any time, and iPhone users love getting updates that add new value or functionality to apps they’ve already purchased or downloaded, Al strongly encourages authors to release a large chunk of their books for free, one chapter at a time. “Hook ‘em in,” he says, “then charge them to finish reading the book.” In an app you can display a message to the user asking him to please pay a fee to continue reading, and the user can do so immediately right on his iPhone or iPod Touch. Alternatively, you can release an updated version of the app that includes the final chapters and can only be downloaded for a fee. If your content is good and you’ve provided enough of it, conversion rates from the free app to the paid app should be high.

Hiring a developer to create your app can be costly, and will definitely require some research and an interview process. There are some new companies popping up to offer simple, affordable app creation services as an alternative; I’m starting to investigate these and plan to report my findings in the future. But you may be wondering why it’s worthwhile to release your book as an app in the first place, given that considerable time, effort and money can be required.

The first reason is that you’ve created a podcast version of your book, and would like to sell it as an audiobook through iTunes. Currently, the iTunes store has an exclusive deal with Audible whereby only audiobooks released by Audible can be sold in the “Audiobooks” department of the iTunes store. Any other audiobook must be released as a podcast, and audiobooks are lost among all the other podcasts offered on iTunes. However, there’s no exclusive deal governing the “Books” department of the app store. Your audiobook app can coexist and be listed right alongside NYT bestsellers.

The second reason is to enlarge your book’s exposure. The books of authors who publish through Smashwords are already available to iPhone/iPod Touch users who use the Stanza reader app, the books of authors who publish through Shortcovers can be read by users who have the Shortcovers app, and the books of authors who publish in Kindle editions can be read by users who have the Kindle reader app. However, those authors’ books aren’t listed right on the iTunes site, or in the app store. Users have to find the books by browsing the virtual shelves inside each respective reader app, and each virtual store has thousands of titles to choose from. Your book won’t be discovered by any users who don’t have the appropriate reader app installed. If you publish your book as an app, however, users don’t need to have any special reader app to find or read your book, your app isn’t hidden inside another app. You still have the same promotion and marketing challenge as any other author, but you’ve removed a barrier to discovery.

The third reason is to make your book into something more than static content. If your book could benefit from embedded video or audio clips, embedded game experiences, or social networking connectivity (like Al’s book), publishing in ebook or audiobook format alone will not realize your book’s full potential. Imagine a novel about a fortuneteller that’s presented with various interactive divination games (e.g., tarot card readings, crystal ball, the I Ching, etc.) embedded in the app. Consider a fantasy adventure novel with an interactive map of the story world included. Imagine a cookbook with step-by-step instructional videos embedded, or a foreign language phrasebook with audio clips that demonstrate proper pronunciation. In books with invented languages or obscure technical terminology, the author can put a pop-up glossary at the user’s fingertips. In a young adult novel where the hero must solve a series of puzzles or riddles to prevail, the author can present the same puzzles and riddles for the user to try his hand right alongside the hero. The possibilities are endless.

One more reason to consider releasing your book as an app is the fact that any author or publisher of content sold by Apple can book speaking engagements in Apple stores all over the world. According to Al, most Apple stores are built with a presentation area somewhere in the store, and store managers have been put on notice that they should be offering speaker events to store clientele at every opportunity. You will be welcome to demonstrate and talk about your app because your talk will essentially serve as an advertisement to buy more stuff from Apple. While Apple will not allow you to put out a press release to publicize your Apple store speaking engagements—they are all about image and brand control—, you can publicize them on your website, via Facebook, Twitter, and any other means you’d ordinarily use to publicize a speaking engagement.

There is one caveat of which authors should be aware before releasing their books as apps: trade publishers don’t tend to view apps as books, even if the app began life as a manuscript. Once it’s an interactive app, it’s possible publishers no longer recognize it as something they can release in print, ebook or audiobook formats. If you have a manuscript or self-published book, ebook or podcast audiobook which you hope to sell to a mainstream publisher, it’s probably unwise to release it as an interactive app in the current publishing climate, but hopefully, that will change in due time. Al has found that despite the great success of his QotD app, he’s not seeing a lot of interest from publishers or literary agents because it no longer looks like a book to them, and they don’t quite know what to do with it. Al is confident that in time, publishers will come to see apps as a publishing opportunity.

For now, if you’re an entrepreneurial-minded indie author who intends to stay indie, apps can be yet another valuable avenue for building readership and selling books.

Learn more about QotD at http://www.questionofthedaybook.com. 
 

Theme As Technique

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Today we continue Mark Barrett’s series on theme, which originally appeared on his Ditchwalk site and is reprinted here in its entirety with his permission. You can read the first entry in the series, ‘Axing Theme’, here, and the second installment, Thinking Theme For Fun and Profit, here. 

On Monday I introduced you to Thomas McCormack and his devastating critique of the way theme is taught. On Tuesday I talked about how emphasizing theme and ‘important’ literary works actually discourages some (if not many) students from reading and learning. A helpful reader provided more ammunition in the comments.

The consistent theme in these arguments is that theme should not be deployed as an analytical tool. Readers, students and teachers have more insightful measures by which to judge literature and writing — a sampling of which awaits you in the conclusion of Mr. McCormack’s document. Too, at the highest levels of academia criticism is always in flux, meaning determinations of theme are not simply potentially speculative but inherently transitory.

In short, using theme to reveal meaning in a story is like using divining rods to discover water underground. Many people swear by it, but it has no basis in fact. Theme as a creative technique, however, can be a powerful means of organizing and expressing ideas. By understanding theme in this context we not only learn how to use it appropriately, but also gain insight into why theme is poorly taught, and how theme can be so easily turned to nefarious purposes. (A subject I’ll tackle tomorrow.)  

Now, suppose you and I are going to build a house, a car, or almost anything you can think of. In our collaboration we will have functional requirements to discover (it must not blow up, it must turn on when you press a button), we will have usability requirements (it must not be confusing, it should provide positive feedback when operated), and we will have aesthetic requirements (it should be cool, sexy, retro, whatever.) Unfortunately, completing these design tasks only reveals two new obstacles. First, there are a lot of requirements to organize. Second, there is no inherent consistency to the requirements.

For example, if we’re making an outdoor grill we could satisfy our aesthetic requirements by putting different stickers or paints on the same functional model. Or we could make different functional models with varying capacity and burners, yet present all models with a common paint scheme. Or we could emphasize usability and give everyone a Model-T grill: basic and black. We might even decide which choices to make based on a set of priorities, but that would only kick the can down the road. How do we know what our priorities should be?

The answer, as you might imagine, is to employ theme as an editorial tool to help determine which requirements to keep or emphasize, and which to omit or diminish in importance. But even here we need to be careful, because all themes are not equal. Proportionality in theme is also critical to our ability to integrate theme in any instance.

For example, it would be tricky to make an outdoor grill based on a theme such as ‘war is hell.’ I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but the end result would probably be so obvious as to make it no longer a war-is-hell grill but a statement in which the theme detached from the object. Yes, the grill might function as a grill, and particularly so as a conversation piece (hold that thought for tomorrow), but the theme would exist apart from the grill’s functionality. Meaning we could just junk the grill and go with the message, or vice versa.

(Note that this is exactly what happens when a student proposes a theme that seems preachy relative to the story being analyzed. The student goes too far in trying to find deeper meaning and ends up under hot lights, accused of moralizing. When an author writes a preachy story the same dynamic is at work. In such instances theme — meaning a message the writer is trying to communicate — separates from the story. The end result is that story dies at the hand of theme. And yes, you should consider that a cautionary tale.)

Scaling our thematic grill goals back, then, we could probably embrace themes like ‘the future,’ ‘masculinity,’ or even ‘heat’ in a way that allowed us to harmonize the elements of our grill without beating cooks over the head with a message. (It’s not that we’re trying to hide our theme per se, just that we don’t want it to separate from the object.)

In picking the theme for our grill we could simply make one up, but we are not obligated to conjure out of thin air. For more focused inspiration we could look to the intent of our object (cooking), or to knowledge about people who might want to experience or use that object. Because we are making a grill, and because we intend to sell it, we might distill marketing data about grill sales into a generic customer profile: male, mid-forties, overweight, meat-eating, stubble-faced, beer-can-crushing, etc. This profile, in turn, might suggest a variety of possible themes that could be used to harmonize our grill requirements.

If we chose ‘masculinity,’ for example, that one word and its attendant (real or imagined) traits would become both a filter and editorial point of focus. Each part on the grill could be shaped and machined to look burly. We could also comb through our usability and functionality requirements and make thematic choices there: eliminate a few conveniences to make the grill seem more rugged (and save on manufacturing costs); engineer the grill’s functionality to require more muscle (firm detents on the burner knobs, a heavy lid).

Ideally, at the end of the design and manufacturing process, our theme would be indistinguishable from the final product even though it informed every aspect of that product. We would not want someone looking at our grill to see our theme standing apart because that would mean we failed to integrate and harmonize our requirements. (In that case, again, we could have saved ourselves the trouble and simply put up a sign.)

Yet this is exactly what students are asked to do with stories. It should also be clear from this example that the easier it is for a student to identify a theme, the more likely it is that integration of theme into story was bungled. Ideally, integration of theme in a fictional work should be indistinguishable from the work itself, yet students are routinely told that they should be able to make such distinctions.

(It is possible for thematic obviousness to be a marketing goal in itself. A line of light-weight Cute Tools in various shades of pink would be a fairly obvious appeal to cultural norms of femininity. It is also possible for thematic obviousness to be an artistic goal, as demonstrated in the works of Andy Warhol. It is not, however, possible for thematic obviousness to be a storytelling goal because storytelling requires suspension of disbelief, where thematic obviousness destroys suspension of disbelief. Again: bad storytelling makes theme apparent while good storytelling makes it organic to the whole — yet students are routinely told that being able to identify a theme is central to being able to appreciate the best literature.)

Earlier I suggested one of the things we might do, short of harmonizing our imaginary products thematically, would be to paint them all the same. Readers steeped in marketing may have noticed that this projected our grill-making operation into the realm of branding. Not surprisingly, it’s possible to inject theme into branding, just as we used it to help organize the product requirements for our grill.

In fact, it could be argued that branding in its purest form equals theme at its most abstract. If our product line is widely varied — say, appealing to beer-can-crushing goons as well as more genteel shoppers — specific themes may actually thwart our objective (sales). Acting as both a filter and editorial tool, theme in the guise of branding can be used to unify elements of our business and products such as color, type style and logo design, which will in turn inform all resulting advertising in all media.

In instances where a product line is more focused, theme as branding can be extended to the look and feel of objects, and I think Apple is a good example of this. I can’t tell you what the theme of Apple’s products is — it may or may not have been articulated in-house — but when I see an Apple product I see it as thematically connected to other Apple products, which reinforces Apple’s branding. Even Apple’s preference for look and feel over usability is thematic: control systems that are unintuitive for novices ultimately provide a deeper sense of community and mastery as users becomes more familiar with them.

In these examples we can also see that theme as a technique owes nothing to sophisticated language, deeper meaning or valuation. Theme is quite happy to operate apart from concerns about worth, merit, the human condition or anything else we might want to saddle it with. This doesn’t mean we can’t employ theme in these ways, just that these are not inherent aspects of theme as a technique.

Which brings us back to storytelling and literature. As I said in my first post on theme, I gave up chasing art for something more useful to me as a writer: craft. By extension, viewing stories as machines that are made up of parts and subsystems which function to create specific intended effects means there’s little difference between our grill-making venture and any story I chose to write.

In the same way that theme can be used to edit and filter the requirements and components of our grill, we can employ theme in storytelling. But note: this does not alter theme in the least. Theme is not suddenly more important or powerful in fiction than it is when used in grill-making or branding. Theme is theme. It is a tool of creation and it is used in the same way in all instances: to filter and edit and harmonize.

For example, let’s say our grill business falters. You go back to what you were doing, I slink off to a shabby one-room hovel situated beside a polluted waterway. Night after cockroach-infested night goes by until the last lightbulb fails. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep for fear of being eaten. I am in agony.

Fortune smiles on me, however, when a typewriter and 500 sheets of 20-pound paper fall out of a passing truck. Seized by a desire I cannot name I set to work, determined to tell my story. Maybe it’s fiction, maybe it’s non-fiction, maybe it’s the stuff that guy and Oprah had to apologize for. It doesn’t matter. All I know is it’s ultimately going to be about one thing: pain.

That’s how complicated (not) theme is as a storytelling technique. Every word, every scene, every aspect of what happened in my document can be filtered and edited by one over-arching thematic point of reference — yet this says nothing about the subject matter or the facts or the events I might choose to portray.

(The previously-mentioned requirement of thematic proportionality doesn’t just apply to grills. If you are determined to write a story based around the theme that war is hell, you pretty much know going in that you’re going to have to show a lot of war and a lot of hell. War-is-hell short stories, to say nothing of war-is-hell flash fiction, usually end up about as convincing as a war-is-hell grill. Then again, if you’re going to include a lot of war and a lot of hell, to what extent does adopting war-is-hell as a theme impact the final product? The answer is that it doesn’t because you’re simply replicating the subject matter. Writing a war-is-hell story with a war-is-hell theme is as helpful as designing a grill with a grill theme. The first conclusion you should draw here is that theme should vary in some way from the object it relates to. The second conclusion you should draw is that asking a student to elicit the theme of a war-is-hell story is pointless.)

To continue the example, imagine that what I write gets published, pipelined into schools, force-fed to students, then analyzed by students and teachers alike. What are the odds that any of those down-steam analysts are going to figure out my theme, particularly if it varies from the subject matter? And to what extent is what I wrote even reducible to the original theme? Is my story, loaded with characters and events, really only pain? If so, why did I put all that other stuff in there? Why didn’t I just write PAIN on a single piece of paper? Or make PAIN posters and put them up all over town? More importantly, why didn’t I skip writing the story altogether and deal with my pain?

The question is: If pain is my theme, is pain the meaning of my story?

The answer is: No.

Pain as theme is simply one tool I use to shape the end product, just as character selection, setting, dialogue and every other aspect of storytelling should conspire to create a whole. The blindingly obvious proof of this is that I can neglect theme entirely as an author and still complete my project. I don’t even need pain as a theme in order to write about pain.

If you haven’t read Thomas McCormack’s essay, I urge you to do so. You’ll see clearly how theme as an analytical tool foisted on students is entirely misplaced, while theme as an editorial tool used by authors makes sense.

In the same way that a compass can tell you where you’re going, but not where I have been, theme seems only genuinely useful to the person employing it.

Mark Barrett has been a professional freelance writer and storyteller for over twenty years, and also works in the interactive entertainment industry.