Monthly Archives: February 2016

The Most Important Moment in Your Story

Posted on by

I make a lot of bold declarative statements about writing. In my writing books, on my website, and in front of wide-eyed audiences at workshops and conferences who in some cases are thinking, “who the hell does this guy think he is?”

All of us who write about writing do it to some degree. Sometimes it’s intentionally delivered inside out (because writers don’t like other writers telling them what-is-what, unless they are famous novelists who aren’t in the business of teaching craft, in which case they eat it up), such as saying there are no rules and then proceeding to describe things you can and cannot do (the latter disguised as “should not do, but hey, there are no rules, so ago ahead and shoot yourself in the foot if you want to”), or saying that story isn’t driven by structure and then proceeding to describe the very same structural paradigm the rest of us – those who understand story IS structure – are saying.

No wonder this craft is so hard to learn.

I try to avoid the inside out approach. I prefer to go straight at it, thus causing all manner of outrage and confusion, often by writers who are still laboring under the false creed that you can write fiction any ol’ way you want… because there are no rules.

Yes, you can write “any ol’ way you want.”  Sit naked in a tree and scribble on a used shingle, whatever gets you there. Process isn’t the point, even though an informed process is always better than spit-balling blindly (it is the nature and clarity of “informed” that is what we are seeking here).

What is the point is the form and function of a properly told story… and THAT is something you absolutely can’t render “any ol’ way you want.”  In other words, if you want to sell your story to others, you can’t reinvent the form of the novel in today’s market. And if you’re not completely clear on what that “form” is, then too often your efforts might indeed seem to be an intention to reinvent it entirely.

Reader’s, especially in genre fiction, don’t want a reinvented wheel. Our readers have expectations where form and format is concerned, and inside those lines we have infinite freedom to do our thing.

It is the understanding of those lines where our fortune is made or compromised.

My favorite principle, perhaps the most liberating and useful truism of all relative to story structure, is that of the “most important moment in a story.” That’s my opinion of course, and I hold that opinion because absolutely everything else – concept, premise, dramatic arc, pacing, character arc, conflict and tension, even the ending – depends on getting this one right.

Do I have your attention?  I hope so.  Because this can change your entire writing career, right here.  

Some writers spend decades never quite getting this. And because there are myriad ways to present it, clarity can be elusive. Yet every writer posting here, and every writer who has their name on a successful novel, understands this principle – the principle of the Most Important Moment in a story –  to a practicable degree, even if they call “it” (the Most Important Moment in a story) by another name.

This us as true for organic and vocal pantsers as it is avid story planners and outliners. Because this principle cares absolutely nothing about your process.

All processes, no matter how different, end up seeking the very same outcome relative to all those issues of craft I just listed above. And thus, the Most Important Moment in a story applies to and serves stories born of any and every conceivable writing process out there.

The tee up for this… too long, I’ll grant you. So here it is.

“The Most Important Moment” in a story is known by different names, depending on who is talking about it. That said, it doesn’t change a thing about what is true and liberating about it, or how it is best implemented within a story.

“The Most Important Moment” in a story is the inevitable story twist or turn or milestone (pick your terminology) when everything changes, and does so in a way that launches the core dramatic thread of the story. This usually occurs after a strategic stretch of set-up pages (which, to complicate the issue, may actually include lesser twists that, when viewed in retrospect, are actually contributing more to the setup in which they appear than to the moment – the Most Important Moment – in which the hero’s story journey truly launches) that includes the introduction of the story world and our first glimpses of the hero, as well as the stakes and the contextual presence of impending antagonism.

All of that setup is called, in story structure parlance, Act One… or if you view the entire story arc as a four part proposition (as I do, also quite defensible), Part One (of four). These are exactly the same structural models, by the way, with identical milestones and optimal targets for them.

The Most Important Moment in a story occurs at the transition point between Act 1 and Act 2 (in three-act structure), or between Part 1 and Part 2 (in four-part structure).

Now that we know where it goes, allow me to describe what it is, and what it does.

It is the moment when your hero’s near-term story journey actually begins (launches) in earnest. When the hero’s problem or journey or quest or goal for the story (which often puts the hero’s other plans on hold or in jeopardy) is fully put into play in a way that said hero must do something about it… even if that simply means running for their lives, or just as often seeking information that keeps them safe and/or moves them forward.

The hero responds to the sky falling, for better or worse. Or in most subtle cases, when the first rumble of something isn’t what it seems confronts the hero’s awareness… or if not then, then at least the reader’s suspicions.

This moment – I call it The First Plot Point – is self-defining in terms of where it occurs within the sequence of the story. Not because it is a “rule” or even a principle, per se, but rather, as the collective sum of evolved story sensibility among writers who know how a story best works, as evidenced by the fact that virtually every successful novel and film places this “Most Important” Moment within a very thin window of variance, almost every time.

Because a setup can only last so long.

Or, if you don’t honor the setup completely, you leave the reader without a situation to empathize with or stakes to understand. It takes time to get those reader emotions into play, just as it takes time to foreshadow and install the mechanics of plot into the narrative before hitting the “on” switch.

(As a side note, every movie preview, without exception, shows you the First Plot Point of that story after a quick glance at the setup itself… go online and watch a bunch of them and you’ll notice this clear, now that you know what it is.)

Someone once said – and if you know who, let us know, because I’m not sure who said it first – that “it isn’t a story until something goes wrong.”

Wrapping your head around this is a career-changing truism – because there is so much that it demands of your understanding of your story, both before and after you tell us (within your narrative) what is it that will go wrong, or has gone wrong.  Believing this, and implementing it properly and powerfully, is the key to writing a great thriller, or more broadly, writing a novel at all.

Here’s the math of bestsellers: The degree to which the sum of your hero’s compelling nature (for better or worse) and the fear or anticipation or vicarious titillation that strikes you reader when they learn what might go wrong, is the degree to which your story has the potential to work.

The setup act/part (roughly the first quarter of the story or slightly less) is often character-centric. But when the First Plot Point turn hits the page (when something goes wrong, or shows itself and about to wrong), suddenly the character has something to do. Or, the reader has something to fear for them.  A problem or a need or a quest is thus launched at this point.

In other words, this is where the plot fully kicks in, after all that initial setup characterization (truly the best and often only place you should play with backstory), world building and foreshadowing has made it meaningful, both for your reader and for your hero.

Here’s why the principle of the Most Important Moment in a story works:

Fiction is driven by conflict.

Character is revealed by how your hero responds to and overcomes conflict (rather than, as too many new writers believe, by a backstory or quirks or simply a fully documented inventory of who they are in their life).

Conflict, then, becomes the fuel of the story, the centerpiece of dramatic arc itself.

And conflict, while hinted at or even partially ignited, is usually fully and best inserted into the story at The First Plot Point… which is The Most Important Moment in a story.

Why?  Because if you screw this up – if you delay too long, or rush it, or the worst-case sin of omitting it altogether in favor of further characterization and world building – the story simply won’t work as well as it will when you get this right.

That’s just a fact. Read a novel or watch a movie and see where it happens (see the previous side-not about movie previews).  Of course, you need to have an eye for recognizing this critical moment in a story – not always easy is a story riddled with twists and meaningful shifts – which is where nay-sayers find encouragement and thin basis to trash this principle altogether.

The First Plot Point isn’t a fixed insertion point. It is presented as a target general range of optimal insertion. In the hands of experienced, successful writers it almost always ends up in that range (sometimes after revision moves it there)… because this is how it works best: after a setup that lasts from about 20 to 25 percent of the story’s length.

That’s not formula, that’s story physics. It’s the natural law, the gravity, of genre fiction. Mess with gravity at your peril… because doing so (in storytelling, and in life) can get you injured or killed.

Again, the First Plot Point is where the core dramatic story – the collision of present or impending conflict and your hero’s intentions and needs – comes front and center into the narrative, thrusting your hero down a new and unexpected path than whatever occupies their intentions prior to that moment.

Want an example or two?

In Titanic, it’s when the ship hits an iceberg. Nobody ever misses that, though many don’t understand that they are witnessing the Most Important Moment in the story (duh, we don’t have a story without it, which not ironically is the case in almost every story).  Everything prior to that moment was pure setup for that moment. Everything after that moment occurs in the presence of – in context to – fresh or more fully drawn dramatic tension, creating a path in context to a need or goal that wasn’t present before that moment hit.

In The Help, Skeeter (one of three narrators and two equal protagonists) realizes she needs the assistance of the town’s largely oppressed black maids to write the book she hopes will change her life (that being Skeeter’s stakes; her intentions didn’t begin as the need to right wrongs)… and they refuse her, thus putting her on a new and unexpected path to win their trust. Everything prior to that moment was there to show the reader/viewer the stakes of the story on all fronts while introducing us – while earning our empathy – to the main players and their pre-First Plot Point lives.

In both examples, the First Plot Point changes everything.  In both examples – indeed, in pretty much any successful story you can find these days – the First Plot Point occurs between the 20th and 25th percentile of the story.

It’s not formula (the only people who say this are voice in writing forums who don’t know better; experienced writers know it is anything but formula, it is natural literary law, one of the most important facets of the storytelling craft).

It is story sensibility, based on what history has proved to be the way readers engage with and react to a well-rendered story. The trick then – and this has always been true – to succeeding in the writing journey is to evolve one’s story sense to a point where this awareness, and many others, become second nature, unquestioned regardless of one’s process.

And so, we get to choose.

Now so much how we write our stories as a process, but how we choose to render those stories  once we are done wrestling them to the page.

Because when informed pantsers pants (this being an informal verb in this context), this awareness is what they are pantsing in context to; and when informed planners plan, this is what they plan in context to.  

Uninformed writers in either case are left to rely on their current state of story sensibility, and if that exists without an awareness of this principle, the odds of getting it right are… well, this explains why 990 out of every 1000 novels submitted by “first-time” novelists to traditional publishers are rejected.

Think about what you didn’t know when you started. Chances are this principle was on that list. If that’s you… now you know. Or at least you have a new awareness… you’ll know soon enough.

This is 101 stuff for experienced writers, though the terminology used here may be unfamiliar (hey, in Finland the word for gravity is painovoima, but it’ll still get you killed if you jump of a building not knowing better). But for newer writers, this is a key truth they seek to cull from books and workshops and blogs and coaching and their own reading, because this is absolutely essential to making their writing work.

Or not… they just believe that loud guy in the writing forum who says all you need to know about structure if beginning-middle-and-end. We get to choose.

Once you know what goes wrong in your story, and how this sucks your hero into the narrative in a way that puts her or him on a collision course with consequences (stakes), you will have isolated your core story, also known as the dramatic arc.

And once you know that, your next step is to put it into play within your story: at the First Plot Point, after a solid amount of setup that makes the reader care about the hero for whom this new quest is about to begin.

(If you’re interested in an upcoming workshop that dives deep into this realm of craft, click HERE.)

 

 

Ten Penalties All Writers Must Avoid

Posted on by

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Screen Shot 2016-02-04 at 10.56.26 AM

Forgive my second sports-related post in a row, but come on! It’s Super Bowl Sunday! Across America––and indeed the world––fans will gather around big screens in homes and bars to watch the most exciting spectacle of the viewing year: funny commercials!

Oh yes, and a football game.

This one has drama. On the one side we have the Denver Broncos and their quarterback Peyton Manning. Manning is without question one of the greatest QBs of all time, a lock first-ballot Hall of Famer. But injuries and Father Time have taken their toll. Thus, this will likely be Manning’s final game and his last chance to win one more Super Bowl ring.

On the other side is the new kid, the immensely talented Cam Newton. This guy is huge––6’5”, 260, with a cannon of an arm and legs that can go. He led his Carolina Panthers to an amazing 17-1 season. And now he makes his Super Bowl debut.

I will be with friends noshing sausages, pulled pork, chili, and items from the other essential food groups–the salted nut group, the nacho group, and of course the chocolate-covered anything group.

I hope the game is a good one. I’d love to see it go down to the final minutes. I’ll also be very happy if a kicker does not miss a last-second field goal and thus suffer from nightmares the rest of his life.

And let us hope the game is not marred by a lot of penalties! Hate to see those yellow flags all over the field.

It occurred to me there are some penalty flags that are thrown on writers. So in the interest of helping you write your best, here are some violations you must avoid lest you lose yardage (which, for writers, is measured in pages) and, much more important, readers.

  1. False start

Are you warming up your engines at the beginning of your novel? Do you spend too much time with exposition and backstory? Do you go several pages without a disturbance? Are you giving us “Happy People in Happy Land”? That’s a false start. Penalty: five pages.

  1. Illegal use of the adverbs

Are you using too many adverbs to prop up weak verbs? Worse, are you using adverbs to prop up dialogue? Are you writing things like:

“Get out of here, you louse!” Sheila yelled angrily.

Or

“I’m gonna cut your heart out and feed it to the family dog,” he said threateningly.

If you do, you’ll be penalized, and it’s a big one: fifteen pages.

  1. Passage interference

Also known as the illegal flashback. This is where you stop a narrative in its tracks to give us a long look backward at some scene from the past. Unless there is a dang good reason for this, you will get a yellow flag and docked ten pages.

  1. Encroachment

Also known as author intrusion, this is when you try to sneak in some exposition that does not sound natural to the voice of the character (this penalty is explained more fully in the book VOICE: The Secret Power of Great Writing).

The skilled referee usually finds this in dialogue. The author wants to slip information to the reader through the characters’ words, but they are words the character would never use. Such as:

“Listen, Martha, you’re my lovely wife of twenty-eight years, and I wouldn’t be the head of surgery at Johns Hopkins without you. Especially after suffering that head injury in college when I foolishly went out for the rugby team. But dammit, you can’t dwell on your past as a stripper in a Nevada roadhouse when you were known as Cling Peaches. Please try to relax, like your sister Mary, who is two years younger than you, so we can go enjoy dinner in our hometown of Denver, Colorado.”

Encroachment is an automatic five pages, and loss of down.

  1. Delay of plot

Have you pushed your protagonist through the Doorway of No Return by the 20% mark of your novel? No? Then here’s a hard truth: it’s starting to drag. It doesn’t matter how quirky your characters. They have overstayed their welcome if they are not, by this time, into the struggle of Act II. Penalty: ten pages.

  1. Ineligible character downfield

Do you introduce a major character after the midpoint? Near the end, do you have a minor character show up out of nowhere to solve a plot problem? If you do, you need to go back to the first half and plant these characters. Five pages.

  1. Roughing the villain

League rules are protecting the antagonist more than ever. What do I mean by that? Simply this: if you have an antagonist who is evil, you must give him his due. You can’t just make him pure evil or insane. Boring! Every villain feels justified, and you the author must “make his case” in the book. Far from excusing his evil, this deepens the emotional currents in the reader and, ironically, makes the evil all the more scary. Fifteen page penalty for this one, plus the league may order you go to some rehab, like right here.

  1. Intentional sounding

Have you fallen in love with your sentences? There’s a reason the axiom “kill your darlings” exists. I should explain that this doesn’t mean cut every sentence you like. You’re allowed to delight in your own good writing. But you have to make sure it works for your story, and is true to character and context. Ten pages if, in the judgment of the officials, your pretty prose is more showing off than storytelling.

  1. Illegal motion

Does your story feel unfocused during that long struggle through Act II? Are there scenes that meander? Have you lost narrative vitality? While this penalty is only five pages, enough of these violations will keep you backed up on your own goal line. One place to look for help is the “mirror moment.” This tells you what your novel is really all about so you can write scenes with organic unity and powerful forward drive.

  1. Unauthorlike conduct

Do you head out to social media without a plan and a brand? Do you fly off the handle when you tweet? Do you slip into unethical sockpuppetry in order to slam your perceived competition? This penalty is severe: you might get thrown out of the game. Worse, the league office may suspend you indefinitely.

A good football team knows how to move the ball. A great football team knows how to correct weaknesses. A championship football team does all that, and avoids the penalties that kill scoring drives.

May you write like a champion.

And enjoy the game! I know I will, even though I am completely impartial.

***(COUGH)GoPeyton(COUGH)***

Has your writing been penalty free lately?

Reader Friday: Best-Ever Film Made from a Book?

Posted on by

BY Kathryn Lilley, TKZ FOUNDER

So many films have been inspired by novels–most of them, unfortunately, were Not So Good. Can you name ONE film that was as good as the novel it was based upon (or even better?)

Following are listed some of my personal favorite novel-to-film creations.

JURASSIC PARK

https://youtu.be/pUc-cBjh11Y

 

THE GODFATHER

https://youtu.be/idP5-vtkhBE?list=PLPZ7ctz_fKQI1buLLNJz_P_1cW4o69wdl

BLADE RUNNER

THE THING

THE GREAT GATSBY

THE HUNGER GAMES

https://youtu.be/e3PJ3Du_zDc

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

https://youtu.be/PwB35WkFfKA

GONE WITH THE WIND

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

50 SHADES OF GRAY

https://youtu.be/2ddv2PWJo2Y

JAWS

drunkirishdogshutterstock_178849166

In honor of our leprechaun fans.

My Top 12 Most Common Writing Obstacles a Writer Faces

Posted on by

Jordan Dane 
@JordanDane 

squirrel

Every author has their own personal list of obstacles they have faced or are still confronting. Obstacles do not go away, no matter on what success level you are. These are mine, but I would like your input. Share your thoughts on my list or add to my list with experiences of your own.

1.) Perfectionism – Every one wants their work to be perfect. Perfection simply does not exist. Give yourself permission to write poorly. That’s the only way you will see improvement. Don’t judge your success by others or be envious of another writer’s success.That’s a waste of energy and can add stress. Find the internal motivation to improve and strive to be the best writer YOU can be.

2.) Lack of Productivity – Life gets in the way. Spouses, work commitments, children’s needs, etc. If writing is important, an aspiring author will squeeze out time for it. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar (RIP) motivated me when he said he wrote his non-fiction book doing it a page a day. If you keep to a schedule like that, you will make progress and theoretically get to the end. Make it happen.

3.) Lack of Confidence – It’s hard to be driven with passion to write and yet not know if you can actually do it. It can feel impossible to write something and expose yourself to criticism by showing your work to someone else or to a fellow writers’ group, but the more you do it, and the more you study your craft, you will see improvement. Any confidence you have must come from within. Nurture it. It’s there. Make it grow.

4.) Listening to Naysayers – Everyone has advice on a topic they have no experience with. It’s rare that people who say “I’ve always wanted to write a novel” have actually even started one, much less finished one. Yet that doesn’t stop them from shelling our advice. Some advice I got was: write what you know, write a shorter story because it’s easier, write for a house that lists what they’re looking for in great detail (ie category romance) so you don’t have to think too hard. Surround yourself with positive people and those who support your writing endeavors.

5.) Putting Too Much Into Writing Contest Feedback – Generally I found contests to be a good experience. They got me noticed and looked good on my writer resume, but you have to take them with a grain of salt.

As I studied the craft of writing, I entered various national writing competitions to see how my work stacked up. These were mainly through the Romance Writers of America (RWA) and their many opportunities to compete. There was a rush when I received word that my entries were named a finalist. Even my first entry had some success and the first time I entered the Golden Heart contest for aspiring authors in the RWA, I was a finalist. These things can go to your head and you have to stay focused on your objectives. Good feedback and negative feedback can have an effect on you, just as good or negative reviews can. Keep things in perspective.

In contests you get lots of judges’ comments and editor/agent comments when you final, but you have to take whatever works for you and disregard the rest. You must develop a sense of your voice as a writer and not chase every suggestion, otherwise you will lose your instincts by constantly needing reassurance you’re on the right track.

6.) Taking Advice from Other Authors – We offer our views on TKZ, basically our opinions and what has worked for us about craft, for example. Some authors overly stress the importance of their opinion, especially at the local writer chapter level. I’ve attended local writer groups where someone who has never published, or even submitted a proposal, is giving out strict advice and members listen as if it’s gospel. Every author’s journey to publication is different. Success may not be totally involve skill, it might also be about LUCK. Be wary of people who give hard and fast advice, without being open-minded to alternatives.

7.) The “Rules of Writing” – This tags onto #6. Usually the authors who are biggest on hard and fast advice, they typically use words like “always” and “never” and speak in absolutes. The creative process is fluid and ever changing. Be daring and take risks with your writing. That’s how an author will stand out in the slush pile. You could have the idea for the next big thing. Go for it and believe and nurture your instincts.

8.) Agents & Editors – Rejection can sting

Editors – I’ve been blessed to have worked with some wonderful editors, those in the big publishing houses and those who work with indy authors to self-publish. But keep in mind, they are people who have no better crystal ball than you do about where this crazy publishing industry is going. They rely on authors to bring them ideas. If an editor sends you a rejection, it’s for the book you submitted and not a rejection of YOU as a person. Don’t take their rejection feedback personally, but keep an open mind about their criticism. When an industry professional gives you free advice, if you’re lucky enough to get a “good rejection letter” with feedback, respect their experience and consider it. In the end it is your decision to heed the advice or not.

Agents – Literary reps dole out similar advice, but they generally are looking for authors they feel will have a career and not just one project sold. They might be more critical for this reason. I submitted to my first agent 3-4 times and got rejected each time. When she finally saw something in my writing, it was because another of her clients recommended me. Don’t get discouraged. Again, rejection isn’t personal. It’s business.

9.) Chasing Writing Trends Can Be Distracting – In the course of my career, I’ve seen many authors who never finish a book because they are constantly entering contests for the first 25 pages or they are chasing trends to see what someone might like. Some of these authors had 40-50 started manuscripts. Crazy. FINISH THE BOOK. Believe in your project and see it through to the end. You’ll be like that dog in the animated movie, UP, that gets distracted with “Squirrel!” If you are an avid reader and a buyer of books, YOU are the market. Write what you want to read and believe in it. You could be the next big trend. As I said before, no one has a crystal ball on where this industry is headed. Push the envelope.

10.) Writing Different Genres Can Spread an Author Too Thin – I’ve tried writing different genres and I love doing this. The first step is to read a lot of books in the genre you want to tackle, but people will tell you, “Don’t write that. Why don’t you stick with romance, it’s what I read.” Whatever. I write cross genre stories or I attempt completely new genres to keep myself challenged. I don’t regret any of my decisions and thoroughly enjoy the challenge. One thing I will say, that I’ve learned from hard experiences, is that if you branch out from adult books into YA (Young Adult) books, you may struggle with branding and promo in a new arena with different readers. Joe Moore had an excellent post on Thurs for “What’s Your Brand?”

11.) Self-Publishing – Should I or Shouldn’t I? – This can be an obstacle for authors on whether they want to step out with either their back list books or their first novel. It takes work to self-publish – from developing the story, formatting the book for digital and print, developing a cover, writing your own book jacket synopsis, generating a marketing strategy and implementing it, etc. But I will say that the industry today is wide open with possibility because of self-publishing. I straddle the line between submitting to traditional houses and self-publishing so I do both, but the fact that we have options is a good thing.

12.) The Time Sucks of Promotion & Social Media – I love writing, but the business end of our industry is not my favorite thing. I struggle with doing it and am happiest when I’m writing, period. Promo and social media is a necessary evil and something every author must do, even if said author is pubbed by a big house. But I find it an ongoing obstacle. Plus all the online time, working on social media is a distraction from writing – a time suck. TKZ’s Clare Langley-Hawthorne had an excellent post on this topic called “Have You got Focus?”  Everything in moderation, people.

For Discussion:
This is my list of the top obstacles I have experienced. What about you? Care to comment on my list or add your own challenges? Fire away!

HotTarget (3)

My upcoming release is launching this month on Feb 18 – Hot Target – the first of three novellas in the new Omega Team series with Amazon Kindle Worlds and priced at a bargain of $1.99 ebook.

When Rafael reaches out to his sister for a job, Athena Matero—a founding member of the private security agency, the Omega Team—can’t help but be protective of her younger half brother. After a tragic hostage rescue and its aftermath, Rafael Matero turned into a solitary loner, only surfacing to fulfill his duties as team leader for an elite SWAT sniper unit with the Chicago Police. Athena decides to fast track his application by vetting him on the job—a mission to Havana Cuba to investigate a cold case murder.

But when the old murder is linked to the shadowy death of a powerful drug cartel leader, Rafael is burdened by a terrible secret from his past—and an unrelenting death wish—that puts him at dangerous odds with Athena and her team. He believes he’s beyond saving, but that doesn’t stop Jacquie Lyles from trying.

Jacquie sees something in Athena’s mysterious brother that touches her heart. Chivalrous and brave, Rafael is as rare as a unicorn in her life as techno computer geek and white hat hacker for the Omega Team. After she joins the team on its mission to Cuba, she uncovers Rafael’s shocking burden and it breaks her heart.

Rafael stands in the crosshairs of a vicious drug cartel—powerless to stop his fate—and his secret could put Athena and her team in the middle of a drug war.

What’s your brand?

Posted on by

By Joe Moore
@JoeMoore_writer

Why is a reader motivated to purchase one book over another? Is it the author? How about the cover art? The cover blurbs from other writers? The title? The synopsis on the back or inside liner?

All of the above are important, no doubt. But I believe one of the biggest factors in motivating the purchase of a book is “brand”, or lack of it in the case of not making the purchase.

Why brand? Readers want consistency. Think of food. Everyone knows exactly what a Burger King Whopper tastes like. The Burger King brand is known worldwide because they produce something that people like and they keep making it. I can walk into a Burger King anywhere on the planet and I know what to expect. The same goes for McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, KFC, Taco Bell, and hundreds of other well-established brands. If I crave a Big Mac, there’s only one place to get it. If you’re looking to put your brand over some products and items to help market your company a little better, look into this company that design branded merchandise.

I think that the same holds true for books. I can pick up the latest James Paterson, Nora Roberts or Clive Cussler novel and I know what to expect. They have established a consistency in their product that has become their brand. As a matter of fact, their names ARE their brands. All you have to do is mention Patterson, Roberts or Cussler, and anyone who has experienced those brands knows what you’re talking about. Just like the Whopper. You don’t have to explain it to someone who’s already had one.

What is brand? For starters, I think of it as a consistent level of expectancy. By that I mean that the customer/reader expects something to happen each time they make a purchase based upon the brand, and it does—every time. If there ever comes a time when it doesn’t, the customer/reader will abandon the product for a replacement—maybe not the first time, but eventually they will move on.

Now I know what you’re thinking. What if I’m a debut author? I have no brand. Or I only have a couple of books out. Not enough time to establish a brand yet. Ask yourself this: how strong was James Patterson’s brand when he published Along Came A Spider in 1993? Probably not as strong as it is today. He started with a good story, quality writing and a compelling package, and built it into the James Patterson brand combining it with other vital branding items. Branding goes way beyond story content, style, voice, and other writing elements. It involves your book covers, your website, your blog, your marketing collateral, how you dress in public at signings and conferences, how your email signature is worded—in other words, your brand is your message working in tandem with your personal “packaging”. The good news is that today we have even more avenues for building our brand than Mr. Patterson did years ago.

So, how do you create a brand from your message and personal packaging?

Your message is primarily the words that are contained in your books and the words used to describe your books. The packaging is the “framing” of those words. If the message and the packaging are not synchronized, you will create confusion in the marketplace. You control your message by the content of your stories. And it’s important that you work closely with the publicist and marketing department at your publisher to make sure your message matches the message they produce for promoting your books. If it doesn’t, keep working with them until everyone feels that it does.

What about the packaging decisions you can do yourself?

Start with your website. It’s one of the most important parts of your personal packaging. You’re in control of all aspects of its content and construction. Make sure it looks like your books. I know that sounds pretty basic, but you’d be surprised that the only similarity between some author’s websites and their books is that they show a picture of the book cover. For best packaging results, the entire site should have the same visual feel as your cover(s). If you can’t create or capture that yourself, find a professional to do it. Remember, it’s the TOTAL packaging that helps establish your brand.

Now think about the rest of your collateral material such as business cards, post cards, posters, bookmarks, newsletters, e-mail blasts, bulletins, etc. Do they project your brand? Are they an extension of your book covers and website? Again, if you can’t achieve a totally consistent personal package, find a professional designer that understands branding and packaging. The investment of using a design agency will pay for itself in the long run.

Make sure you know and understand what you want your brand to be. Understand who you are in relation to your brand. What kind of image do you want to portray? I’m not suggesting you come up with some fake persona and act like someone you’re not. But guess what? Being an author is acting. It’s acting out your brand. It’s your personal packaging.

In building your brand, you must consider all of these items working together. The consumer will come to expect it and it’s to your advantage to deliver.

As a writer, do you feel like you have a brand? If you do, is it the one you want? Are you aware of it? Can you think of some other examples of writers who have a consistent, strong brand?

Have you got Focus?

Posted on by

Hot on the heels of James Scott Bell’s great post yesterday on the top ten events of the highly successful writer, I want to add to this by highlighting the downside of the digital age – its impact on both writers’ and readers’ ability to stay focused.

For writers, digital distractions are everywhere. At the moment my personal bugbear is my inability to wean myself off mindlessly checking the internet whenever I lose steam in my writing – the result? At least ten minutes of Daily Mail, Facebook and Gmail distraction resulting in – you guessed it, a complete loss of focus. Over the last week I’ve been paying greater attention to my writing habits (or lack thereof) and have realized that checking the internet has become a sort of ‘default’ setting whenever I’m stuck on a sentence or unsure of a passage of dialogue. I worry that my brain has lost the ability to focus for more than an hour at a time without craving some sort of distraction when the going gets tough. The answer to my problem is clearly weaning myself off the distraction itself but I’m surprised at how difficult this has become. I know I’m going to have to retrain my brain somehow as well as impose much stricter limits on succumbing to these distractions. My fear is that my ability to focus for long periods of time is already slipping away from me (can you hear the screams?…)

As readers, digital distractions allow ourselves to fulfill our craving for something new and more interesting whenever our focus wavers. Recently, I’ve found it is much harder to keep my focus on a book when my interest starts to wane. Whereas in the past I would plough on for a bit, hoping that a book would regain my interest, I now find myself turning to digital distractions much quicker than I ever would have put a book down before. It would be amazing to be able to create a safe room, look into options such as Soundproofexpert, and have that room as a digital hideaway, away from what ever distractions you may find on a day to day basis, or unfortunately even an hour to hour basis now.

I’m sure lack of focus has always been an issue for writers and readers, but I do feel that the increasing levels of digital ‘noise’ that surrounds us is making it much harder (at least for me) to keep the level of sharp focus I need on my writing. It certainly makes me less efficient and productive – although, thankfully, I still manage to pull off bursts of fear-induced focus which means I am completing my writing projects on time. I just feel that I need to develop techniques to sharpen my focus, increase my attention span, and spurn the digital ‘siren’ call that is all too easy to heed.

So what about you – do you find the digital world is making you lose focus? Have you developed strategies to overcome this while writing (or reading). Although disconnection is always an option for periods of time, it’s hard for this to be a permanent ‘default’ setting when so much of our world revolves around digital communications. So…any and all ideas on the best way to retrain my brain to maintain focus will be gratefully accepted…