Imagery conveys more than describing a setting. Done right, it can enhance the emotion and pull the reader into your writing in a unique way to them. It’s not merely about “show don’t tell.” Imagery is a skill that embellishes your author voice. Below are my thoughts on imagery and what’s worked for me.
1.) No Description Dumps – Layer your imagery into the scene in delicious morsels. Entice with flashes for the senses. Don’t stop your story to overwhelm the reader with detailed description dumps that will slow the pace and stall the action.
Example: Excerpts below are from The Last Victim (Jordan Dane) – Spears of light filtered through green leaves and daylight dappled the ground in colors that reminded me of light shining through the stained glass of a church.
2.) Have the imagery enhance the intended emotion of the scene. Description shouldn’t sound like it came from a dictionary or research book.
Stilted Description (Example Only): Over the years, the floor of a forest became thick layers of pine needles that forced me to watch where I stepped.
Improved Version: The forest floor had a thick layer of decaying pine needles and fallen leaves that gave a pungent rich smell to the soil. The path buckled under my weight as if I were treading on a mattress.
3.) Choose action words or descriptive Words that convey/enhance the senses – Action Words like slash, shiver, jab, or pound, denote the action they describe. Words like skitter, slither, squeeze, or ripple “sound” like the action they describe. So by toiling over each word in a scene (in your draft revisions), you can layer in greater imagery for the reader to “hear” or “feel.”
Example: With half-lidded eyes I relaxed into the moment and dropped my gaze to Justine’s boots as she walked ahead. I listened to the hypnotic sounds of the forest and let the subtle noises close in. A light breeze jostled the treetops and birds flitted in the branches over my head. My boots made soft thuds on the decomposing sod under my feet. Nature had a palpable and soothing rhythm.
4.) Use vivid imagery from your own past experience or pick something relatable and universal to others. For example, we’ve all been scared. Share your own worst fear, but in the context of your scene.
5.) Now, break down that emotion into how the body reacts inch by savory inch. Don’t rush it. Put the reader front and center through their senses. Trigger their own experiences. That’s why it’s important not to overdo the description. Simply hint at imagery that will trigger your reader’s minds. Be selective and pare down the images to the most vital and effective pieces.
1.) In your comments, please share an example of imagery in your current WIP.
2.) And please share what works for you when it comes to writing imagery.
Pinterest might be the third most popular social network after Facebook and Twitter. It’s an online pin board where you post photos along with a description. The photos link back to the source. Go here to set up a free account: https://www.pinterest.com/
To find people you know, go to your friends’ sites and search through their followers. Follow any familiar names. Or on the left, click on Find Friends or Invite Friends to Pinterest. If you don’t see these features, click on the gear shift arrow in the upper right corner and then on Find Friends.
Go here to Follow me: http://pinterest.com/njcohen/
To gain followers, follow other people’s boards and repin their photos. If you click on the little heart by the photo, it means you Like their photo. Clicking on a photo brings up a comment box.
Create your boards. Suggestions for topics can include My Books, Books by Friends, Coming Next (your WIP), Favorite Places, The Writing Life, Book Tours, Books I’ve Read, Food, Hobbies, Travels, Crafts. Browse by Category to get ideas. On the right of the search bar, click on the arrow beside the three lines. A category list will pop up. Or see what your favorite authors feature and copy their topics.
I like to do storyboards for my books. Check out my boards, and you’ll see what I mean. This is a fun activity. It gives me and my fans a visual reference for my books. I’ll use some of the same photos I buy from royalty free sites for my video trailers and mix them with photos I’ve taken personally or that others have pinned.
To get to your Boards, click on your name in the upper right corner. Find the Board you want to change and click Edit. Here you can add a description to the board.
To access the photos, double click on a board. You can add a pin to this board or edit the photos that are there. When you add a pin, you can also post it to Facebook or Twitter. Click on the pencil on the upper right corner of a pin to edit. If you upload your own photo, go in and edit it to add a description and website link. When you want to post your own book cover, do it from an online bookstore so the source leads back there.
Get the PinIt badge to put on your toolbar. Use it to pin photos from around the Web. On the right of the search bar in Pinterest, click on the arrow beside the three lines. Choose About, and then Browser Button. Also make sure the photos on your sites are pinnable by having the Pinterest share option appear on each post or website page. Get Share buttons at http://www.sharethis.com or http://www.addthis.com
Caution: Do not pin copyrighted material. Make sure the source is listed. Upload your own photos or Repin someone else’s, or buy royalty free images. If in doubt, refrain from pinning.
Manage your pins if you wish on Tailwind: http://www.tailwindapp.com/pinreach
Pinterest can be fun once you start playing with images. It can also be so much fun looking at the pictures on display that you lose all sense of time. So be sure to do your workload for the day first, and plug in Pinterest along with your other social networking. I hope to see you there!
It’s with mixed feelings that I bid a fond farewell to The Kill Zone. I started guest blogging here in November 2012, then officially joined the team in early October 2013. It’s been a lot of fun and a real honor to be part of this talented team for the past few years, and I hope I’ve made some meaningful contributions, including setting up the TKZ library. (Click on the TKZ Library link above to check out many TKZ posts, categorized by topic.)
I’m also pleased to have brought in as guest bloggers several friends who are also bestselling authors, including Robert Dugoni, Steven James, Allison Brennan, LJ Sellers, and Allan Leverone, as well as award-winning blogger and humorous fiction writer, Anne R. Allen.
Scroll down to see links to my most popular TKZ posts.
I’ll continue to follow this excellent, award-winning blog, and have been told I’m welcome as a guest blogger any time, so you may see future posts by me here occasionally.
Below you’ll find links to many of my posts from this blog, listed from oldest to most recent. And at the bottom you’ll find links to my books, my websites, and my own little blog, where I will continue to post occasionally.
LINKS TO MANY OF JODIE RENNER’S CRAFT-OF-WRITING POSTS HERE ON TKZ:
When your characters are running for their lives, it’s time to write tight and leave out a lot of description, especially little insignificant details about their surroundings. Characters on the run don’t have time to admire the scenery or décor, start musing about a moment in the past, or have great long thoughts or discussions. Their adrenaline is pumping and all they’re thinking of is survival – theirs and/or someone else’s. …
~ Impart Info with Attitude – Strategies for Turning Impersonal Info Dumps into Compelling Copy
As a freelance fiction editor, I find that military personnel, professionals, academics, police officers, and others who are used to imparting factual information in objective, detached, bias-free ways often need a lot of coaching in loosening up their language and adding attitude and emotions to create a captivating story world. Really need those facts in there? Rewrite with attitude! …
~ Checklist for Adding Suspense & Intrigue to Your Story
Here’s a handy checklist for ratcheting up the tension and suspense of your novel or short story. Use as many of these elements and devices as possible to increase the “wow” factor of your fiction. …
~ Phrasing for Immediacy and Power
Have you ever been engrossed in a novel, reading along, when you hit a blip that made you go “huh?” or “why?” for a nanosecond? Then you had to reread the sentence to figure out what’s going on? Often, it’s because actions are written in a jumbled-up or reversed order, rather than the order they occurred. Do this too often, and your readers will start getting annoyed. …
~ Immerse Your Readers with Sensory Details
… In order for your story and characters to come to life on the page, your readers need to be able see what the main character is seeing, hear what he’s hearing, and smell, taste and feel along with him. …
~ Don’t Stop the Story to Introduce Each Character
Imagine you’ve just met someone for the first time, and after saying hello, they corral you and go into a long monologue about their childhood, upbringing, education, careers, relationships, plans, etc. You keep nodding as you glance around furtively, trying to figure out how to extricate yourself from this self-centered boor. You don’t even know this person, so why would you care about all these details at this point? …
~ 10 Ways to Add Depth to Your Scenes
… Besides advancing the storyline, scenes should: reveal and deepen characters and their relationships; show setting details; provide any necessary background info (in a natural way, organic to the story); add tension and conflict; hint at dangers and intrigue to come; and generally enhance the overall tone and mood of your story. …
~ Using Thought-Reactions to Add Attitude & Immediacy
… Showing your character’s immediate thought-reactions is a great way to let the readers in on what your character is really thinking about what’s going on, how they’re reacting inside, often in contrast to how they’re acting outwardly. …
~ Fire up Your Fiction with Foreshadowing
… Foreshadowing is about sprinkling in subtle little hints and clues as you go along about possible revelations, complications, and trouble to come. It incites curiosity, anticipation, and worry in the readers, which is exactly what you want. …
~ Nail it with Just the Right Word
To set the mood of a scene in your story, bring the characters to life, and engage readers in their world and their plight, it’s critical to choose just the right nuance of meaning to fit the character, action, and situation. …
~ Looking for an editor? Check them out very carefully!
An incident happened to me recently that got me thinking about all the pitfalls that aspiring authors face today when seeking professional assistance to get their books polished and ready to self-publish or send to agents. …
~ Tips for Loosening up Your Writing
As a freelance editor, I’ve received fiction manuscripts from lots of professionals, and for many of these clients, whose report-writing skills are well-researched, accurate and precise, my editing often focuses on helping them relax their overly correct writing style.
~ How to save a bundle on editing costs – without sacrificing quality
… below you’ll find lots of advice for significantly reducing your editing costs, with additional links at the end to concrete tips for approaching the revision process and for reducing your word count without losing any of the good stuff. …
~ Pick up the Pace for a Real Page-Turner
… Today’s readers have shorter attention spans and so many more books to choose from. Most of them/us don’t have the time or patience for the lengthy descriptive passages, long, convoluted “literary” sentences, detailed technical explanations, author asides, soap-boxing, or the leisurely pacing of fiction of 100 years ago. …
~ 15 Questions for Your Beta Readers – And to Focus Your Own Revisions
…To avoid generic (and generally useless) responses like “I liked it,” “It was good,” or “It was okay,” it’s best to guide your volunteer readers with specific questions. …
The basics of writing dialogue in fiction: paragraphing, punctuation, capitalization, etc.
~ 12 Essential Steps from Story Idea to Publish-Ready Novel
… If you want your novel, novella, or short story to intrigue readers and garner great reviews, use these 12 steps to guide you along at each phase of the process: …
~ 12 Tips for Writing Blog Posts That Get Noticed
Blogging is a great way to build a community feeling, connect with readers and writers, and get your books noticed. …But if you’re just getting started in the world of blogging and want to build a following, it’s all about offering the readers value in an open, accessible style and format.
~ Creating a Scene Outline for Your Novel
… The outline below will help you organize your scenes and decide if any of them need to be moved, revised, amped up, or cut. …
~ 25 Tips for Writing a Winning Short Story
Writing short stories is a great way to test the waters of fiction without making a huge commitment, or to experiment with different genres, characters, settings, and voices. And due to the rise in e-books and e-magazines, length is no longer an issue for publication, so there’s a growing market for short fiction. …
Three articles on point of view in fiction, with an emphasis on close third-person viewpoint (deep POV). Includes examples.
~ POV 101: Get into Your Protagonist’s Head and Stay There (for most of the novel)
~ POV 102 – How to Avoid Head-Hopping
~ POV 103 – Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View
~ Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript (Formatting 101)
How to format your manuscript before sending it to an editor or publishing.
~ Just the Right Word is Only a Click Away
How are your word usage and spelling skills? Try this quiz to find out. …
~ Tricks and Tips for Catching All Those Little Typos in Your Own Work
Tips for fooling your brain into thinking your story is something new, something you need to read critically and revise ruthlessly before it reaches the demanding eyes of a literary agent, acquiring editor, contest judge, or picky reviewer.
… Wordiness muddles your message, slows down the momentum, and drags an anchor through the forward movement of your story. It also reduces tension, anticipation, and intrigue, all essential for keeping readers glued to your book. …
~ How to Reach More Readers with Your Writing –
15 tips for clear, concise, powerful writing.
~ Make Sure Your Characters Act in Character –
Do your characters’ decisions and actions seem realistic and authentic? …
~ Create a Fascinating, Believable Antagonist –
For a riveting story, be sure to challenge your hero – or heroine – to the max. …
~ How are short stories evaluated for publication or awards?
What are some of the common criteria used by publications and contests when evaluating short story submissions?
~ Critical Scenes Need Nail-Biting Details
… for significant scenes where your character is trying to escape confinement or otherwise fight for his life, be sure you don’t skip over the details. If it’s a life-or-death moment, show every tiny movement, thought, and action. …
I look forward to connecting with you all again here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter — and maybe at some writers’ conferences! Keep on writing!
Jodie Renner, a former English teacher and school librarian with a master’s degree, is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook.
I’m going to try to wrap up my thoughts on the mischievous missive delivered by Mr. Porter Anderson at Writer Unboxed. The first part of my response is here. The second part is here.
There are three issues outstanding:
Issue 3 – Is the Party Over?
Issue 4 – What Counts as Writing Success?
Issue 5 – Can Fiction Writing Be Taught?
Last week I upheld the view that this is the best time on Earth to be a writer. Lest you think I only mean because writers can now self-publish and make real dough, here’s some news that rippled outward from the traditional side of things: Sci-Fi writer John Scalzi inked a $3.4 million deal with Tor Books. That’s for thirteen books over a ten-year period. I’d say that counts as good times. Mr. Scalzi explains his thought process here.
Ah, but is the party over? Or about to be? Has there been a “tonal shift” in what Porter calls the “palaver” from the indie writer sector of the publishing world?
I do sense a shift, but not a negative one. It is, rather, the natural maturation of a revolution. During the Early Konrathian period of indie publishing, the talk was all about waking people up and stirring them to action (“Give me liberty, or give me death!”). There was an exuberance. There were fight songs around the campfire. Free beer.
It was Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry time. Yes, there was plenty of vitriol, too, which is always part of an uprising. What the American colonists said about the tea tax was not intended for polite society. Nor were the words of indies when reacting to representatives of the Authors Guild.
Now, it seems, the tone has changed from revolution to constitution. From muskets to quills. Giddiness has been replaced by plans and purpose and increasing success.
But just what is success? This is Issue #4.
One type is, certainly, traditional, bestselling, A-list status. Another type is having the freedom to publish what you want, when you want, and making steadily growing income. When you read surveys of traditional authors and how frustrated they can be with their publishers, this type of success might even be all the more attractive.
For some writers the “validation” of traditional success is the most important thing. Others find more satisfaction going directly to readers…and to the bank.
We are all free to define success for ourselves, and should. What does it mean specifically to you? Talk about it in the comments.
Finally, Issue #5. The title of Porter’s post was The Dreaded Training Debate: What If It Can’t Be Taught?
The question implies that a negative answer might be possible. Or, worse, that there is a possibility the whole enterprise of teaching fiction is little more than a racket. That’s what brought me and a couple of my teaching colleagues—Donald Maass and David Corbett—into the comments with some admonishments.
Porter, I’m happy to say, qualified this impression, kindly mentioning my name and my two fellows (and others) as exceptions. But he added this in a comment:
It’s been interesting to see some of these folks I’ve mentioned struggle with this piece. On the surface, of course, that looks natural in that no one wants to be painted with too broad a brush. But you note that I mentioned none of them, nor would I — they’re not the kind of problematic how-to players I’m talking about. And yet, to some degree, they seem unsettled by even the discussion of the problem.
This makes me think (I’m speculating here, they have not told me this) that the problem of “the toadstools” — who are NOT these writer/teachers — is much on their minds.
I can’t answer for my colleagues, but I’m happy to clear up any confusion on my part. No, “the toadstools” were not on my mind at all. What set me off was even entertaining the notion that writing can’t be taught. In point of fact, virtually all writers have been taught how to write in some form or fashion. It’s just that not many talk about it. As good old Ernest Hemingway once said, “It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
Writing is taught in many ways.
It is taught by editors who know what they’re doing.
It is taught by teachers who know what they’re doing.
It is taught by books by people who know what they’re doing and how to teach others to do the same.
It is taught by critique partners and beta readers.
It can be self-taught by reading novels and analyzing what other authors do. That’s fine. What I do when I teach, however, is save writers years of trial and error by showing them right away what successful authors do, and how they can do it themselves.
The proof of all this, I add as a former trial lawyer, is in the testimony of credible witnesses. The successful writers who themselves give credit to writing instruction.
Let me offer just one example. This from critically acclaimed author Sarah Pekkanen, who gave an interview to NPR about getting published:
I needed advice before I tried to write a novel. The usual axiom — write what you know — wasn’t helpful. I spend my days driving my older children to school and changing my younger one’s diaper — not exactly best-seller material.
So I turned to experts. Three books gave me invaluable writing advice. One, by a best-selling writer [Stephen King]; one, by a top New York agent [Donald Maass]; and one, by a guy who struggled for years to learn how to write a book and wanted to make it easier for the rest of us [some joker named Bell].
The full interview is here. That was six years ago. It’s nice to see how Sarah’s career has prospered since. I’d say she’s offered credible testimony that writing fiction can indeed be taught.
Whew! That’s three full posts all sparked by the incendiary flying fingers of one Porter Anderson, provocateur and good sport. If you bump into him at a conference, don’t dislodge his keyboard…buy him a Campari instead.
Now I’m done. Next week we return to our regularly scheduled program!
Today we are critiquing the first page of a story called TIMBER RIDGE. After reading the page and my notes, please add your thoughts in the Comments.
Timber Ridge
Digging a grave is thirsty work under the high summer sun, even when it’s your own.
“How about a break, we can both grab a drink? Five minutes, eh? I’m dying out here. Haha.”
Silence. It was my funeral, but he was being the glum one.
We picked this spot because the shade from the evergreens covered most of the rutted road shoulder, but over the course of the morning every worry from the past two days — every dead end, every lie, every person I couldn’t save — had hardened into a single, pure lust for water. The fact that I wasn’t likely to be thirsty for very long, or ever again, wasn’t any consolation. I couldn’t keep myself from wanting it.
Rice dropped his cigarette onto the dry pine needles that covered the road and smothered it with his boot heel, a good citizen. “There’s Coke back at the truck. In the cooler, on ice. A couple of beer bottles too.” Too much kindness hung off his high voice like an ill-fitting mask. “You know what you gotta do to get to it.”
Rice was not a bad guy, in fact I still thought of him as a friend. But he was a conscientious worker in a bad line of work. If this was the business for the day, he wouldn’t know how to neglect it. He’d feel bad about it later.
A Stellar’s jay sidled nervously across a low tree branch and screamed at us. We both looked vaguely past it, to the east.
The road was poorly maintained ahead, pitted and overgrown with thorny brush. Nature held court on both sides. Brambles were the only buffer before trees started jabbing into each other in a decades-long fight for position. The losers lay on the forest floor, damp and soft and rotten, where mushrooms and small bugs could use them. I looked down into the dirt and saw myself, blue-white and cold in the black topsoil, growing quickly soft next to them.
“Alright then.” I stepped out of hole and looked at him for a while. “Let’s go see about those beers. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
I wouldn’t though, not for anything. I had one beer, maybe ten minutes, to make sure that Rice would be the one feeding the bugs and melting into the roots of the pine trees on Timber Ridge.
My comments:
There’s some good tension in the setup of this opening scene. I like the self-deprecating humor of the narrator’s thoughts as he’s forced to dig his own grave. I also like some of the imagery: the Stellar’s jay sidling nervously and screaming at the men, as if he knows what’s happening below; the fallen trees portrayed as losers in a battle, which foreshadows the coming battle between Rice and the narrator. I admire the way the writer uses these images to add layers of depth to the action in this scene.
On the other hand, the imagery didn’t work for me in the following sentence, “Too much kindness hung off his high voice like an ill-fitting mask.” I had to pause to make sense of everything that was going on in this sentence: the high voice with “too much” kindness, an ill-fitting, hanging mask.
Avoid confusing the reader
On my first read-through, when Rice said (in reference to the drinks in the truck), “You know what you gotta do to get to it,” I thought he meant getting physically to the vehicle. This confused me until I reread the page and realized that Rice was demanding information from his would-be victim.
My initial confusion made me question whether the narrator was actually in danger. This section should be revised for clarity.
Break up long sentences to enhance pacing and tension
While there’s nice tension in the scene, I think it could be strengthened by tweaking some of the longer sentences.
For example, instead of
“Rice dropped his cigarette onto the dry pine needles that covered the road and smothered it with his boot heel, a good citizen.”
Break it up as follows
“Rice dropped his cigarette onto the dry pine needles that covered the road and smothered it with his boot heel. A good citizen.”
Nits
This is a minor point, but the first sentence, “Digging a grave is thirsty work under the high summer sun, even when it’s your own” might be stronger written as “especially when it’s your own.”
Overall
Good tension, fresh imagery, an appealing narrator–overall, I found this first page to be a promising start. Thank you to the brave writer who submitted this page to us for review today!
TKZ’ers, do you have additional comments or notes for our writer today?
With the rapid growth of indie publishing, the responsibility of marketing and promotion falls even more on the shoulders of the author. One of the most important questions the indie author can ask is “Do I have a solid platform?” Writing a quality, professional manuscript properly edited and designed is a good start. But you also need to prepare a ready-made audience consisting of a fan base or at least a group of potential fans. And for new writers, this must be done BEFORE you publish your book. Even veteran, multi-book authors must have a solid, established platform. It should be part of your overall publishing business plan.
What is a platform?
In a single word, your platform is your “brand”. Having a solid platform in the indie world is the foundation of selling more books.
How do you establish or build your platform? The quickest way is to start with the Internet. Here are a couple of methods to begin nailing your platform together.
Website. There was a time when a website was only for the rich and famous. Those days are long gone. A writer without a website is about as logical as a carpenter without a tool kit. The indie author’s website is the “first impression” a potential reader gets of your brand. It’s truly a no-brainer. Your website is your billboard, your advertisement, your calling card. And the potential for delivering a creative message is only limited to your imagination. Essential elements on your website must include: a method for contacting you; a method for purchasing your book(s); a method for the press to gain information (digital press kit); an incentive to linger or return such as a contest or free sample chapters; a method for you to track your website. Other considerations include continuity in your website colors and design that are in sync with your book covers or other branding elements, and a reasonable amount of interactivity such as a method of leaving comments or subscribing to newsletters and publication news, or RSS and other informational digital feeds.
Blogging. A blog is an online method of expressing your thoughts with a means for visitors to leave a comment or opinion. As a writer, your blog will probably be about your writing, your books, or some other connection to your craft and career. Some authors like to venture away from their books and discuss other topics such as politics, religion, economics, etc. A word of warning: You’ve worked hard to establish and build your “brand”. Don’t blow it by pissing off your readers. At some point they just might reject your next thriller or mystery because they don’t agree with your position on unrelated issues. A blog can easily turn into a slippery slope.
Newsletter. As previously mentioned, your website needs a method for your visitors and fans to subscribe to a newsletter or news bulletin. If they’re a fan, they want to know about you and your books. When is your next book coming out? When are you going to do a signing in their area? Will you be at a particular writer’s conference? They want the latest news. And the best and most economical way to get them what they want is an electronic newsletter. There are numerous email-generating newsletter sources that you can use to put together a value-filled publication. A few suggestions are Constant Contact, MailChimp, and Vertical Response.
Write some stuff. Any writing credit is a good writing credit, and it helps build your platform. No matter what you write, whether it’s for the local paper or a national magazine, you’re byline should contain a mention that you are a novelist. So if the reader likes your article or how-to piece, and they see you also write thrillers or mysteries, that’s a potential plank in your platform.
Book forums. There are a ton of forums out there dealing with readers and writers. A good resource to begin finding them is groups.yahoo.com/. Others include WritersNet, Backspace, and Absolute Write. Make yourself known on these and similar forums and you’ll be adding to your brand and platform.
Social Networks. Sites like LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Twitter.com, Goodreads, and countless others are perfect for building your brand. The only potential risk is the time you might spend on these sites instead of writing your book. But they are a terrific source of finding your dedicated or new fans. A word of caution: see the note on blogging above.
Additional platform-building tools include professional publicity photos of yourself and a strong press-ready biography. Also, memberships in writer organizations such as the International Thriller Writers or Mystery Writers of America help build your brand and platform among your colleagues and fans. The networking and connections made within these organizations and their subsequent writer conferences are invaluable.
Now it’s your turn, Zoners. What additional planks have you nailed into your writer’s platform?
———————————
Like your thrillers in French? No problem. THE BLADE and THE SHIELD have just been released in French.
Have you ever wondered whether “going viral” with a video or Tweet would boost your book sales? Think again. The impact of sudden fame on a writing career can be fleeting as well as fickle.
Author Jami Attenberg recently wrote about her experience with instant Internet fame. Attenberg, who has written around a half-dozen novels including a NYT-bestseller, became an overnight sensation when she set up a successful sting to recover a stolen bicycle. So how did all that media attention affect her book sales? Nada much, according to the writer. Attenberg’s “fame” faded quickly, and she eventually returned to the daily, unglamorous grind of writing.
It’s a different story with Zoella Sugg, a YouTube “vlogger” who built a large following with her online tutorials telling young women how to apply makeup, do their hair, and deal with personal issues. According to an article in The Guardian, sales of Sugg’s first book, Girl Online, made her the fastest-selling debut author on record. Her forward progress hit some bumpy air when it became known that Girl Online had been created in collaboration with a ghost writer. Happily for Sugg, her online fans didn’t seem to care about the news of a ghost writer, any more than they cared about her Tweet asking her fans to “Bare with me” as she took a hiatus from the Internet to uncloud her head.
There’s a scary side of Internet fame as well. You’re probably familiar with the story of how one ill-considered Tweet upended the life and career of a corporate communications executive. That story shows that when we take a false step on the Internet, we can quickly find ourselves swimming in uncharted waters. Such areas of risk on the Internet map should be marked with the cartographer’s ancient warning: “Here Be Dragons.”
Here’s my take on the benefits of Internet celebrity. If you become known for posting make-up tutorials, grumpy cat videos, or quitting a job in a dramatic fashion, you might be able to cash in on that celebrity with fans of make-up, grumpy cats, or dramatic exits. But if you’re an author who writes fiction for a living, don’t expect a passing burst of Internet attention to push your books. For that you need to focus on your writing, instead.
Following on from two great posts by my fellow Killzone blog mates: Joe Hartlaub (Saturday’s post – here) and James Bell (Sunday’s post – here) , it struck me that both raise an issue about a fundamental obstacle to many (if not most) writers – finishing the actual book. Joe regrets not doing anything with a great idea he had, while Jim discusses whether it’s the best or worst of times to be a writer – both raising the obvious point that the only way you can be in the game is to sit down and actually finish your project. I can’t count the number of people who have expressed how much they want to be a writer but cannot seem to actually finish writing a book – they have parts and bits in a drawer but nothing complete – either for further editing, submission or publication. I sympathize because this was me for many, many years.
I always wanted to be a writer, or at least I expressed that desire, but, apart from half written pieces, drafts and jottings, I somehow never managed to actually finish a project. This all changed when, though some weird serendipity/alignment of the stars, I quit my job in anticipation of starting a Ph.D and then discovered my brain was finally free to do what I had always wanted to do – write a novel. I was extremely lucky to have found an agent interested in my work at my first writer’s conference and this undoubtedly spurred me on to finish the project she and I discussed. (Who knows, if I hadn’t had this impetus, maybe Ursula’s first mystery would still be half-finished and languishing in a drawer…)
So what are the many impediments to actually sitting down and completing a manuscript? There’s the time factor obviously – but this is an excuse which wears thin as even established novelists have to carve out time from their lives (a task which is never easy) and most have balanced other careers, families and other commitments in order to complete the task ahead. For me, I think the impediment was always internal, rather than external. I lacked the confidence to complete a novel, and I spent more time self-censoring myself in some elusive quest to be ‘literary’ enough (a standard I set that could never be attained). Even today I still question my ability to complete the task, but I am fortunate enough to have the motivation and the support of family, fellow writers, editors and my agent to continue to write. Now I suspect it’s a mixture of stubbornness, accountability and ambition that keeps me writing – but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier to complete the task!
So what about you, fellow TKZers, what are your obstacles (both internal and external) to completing your writing projects? How do you face the challenge of finishing the work rather than letting it languish either in your mind or at the back of a drawer?
