Attrib: Alexandr Ivanov, Pixabay
If you had to give up writing for a solid year, through what other medium would you release your creativity?
Why did you choose that creative outlet?
Are you active in it now?
Tag Archives: #amwriting
Reader Friday: Describe Your Writing with Kangaroos
Describe your writing and/or your reading life using a Kangaroo word.
Technically, a kangaroo word carries its own synonym within it (called a joey word), but I don’t know how else to describe this game. Bonus points if you do!
Fill in the blanks:
My writing puts the ____ in _______. My reading life puts the _____ in ___________.
To get the ball rolling, I’ll start.
My writing puts the sass in assassin, the laughter in slaughter. My reading life puts the fun in funeral.
Your turn!
Reader Friday: Did Your #Reading Habits Change?
The pandemic changed the reading and/or writing habits for many.
Some readers stopped reading anything too real or violent and turned to lighter storylines, or at least stories with a HEA or uplifting ending.
Some writers couldn’t inflict as much pain, emotional and/or physical. Other readers and writers didn’t change a thing.
Did anything change in your reading and/or writing habits? Please explain.
Reader Friday: Work in Progress
Tell us about your WIP in three or four sentences (no time like the present to nail your elevator pitch). Please include genre.
How’s the writing going?
Are the words flowing from your fingerprints?
Or are you bleeding for every word?
For non-writers or if you’re in between projects: Tell us about the last book you read (in three or four sentences).
Titles and Comp Titles — How To Find the Best Ones For Your Book
I asked my dear friend Ruth Harris to dazzle us with her experience of choosing titles and comps, and she delivered. Big time.
Ruth is a New York Times, award-winning bestselling author whose novels have sold millions of copies in hardcover and paperback editions. Translated into 19 languages and sold in hardcover and paperback editions in more than 30 countries, her books were Literary Guild, Book-of-the-Month Club and book club selections around the world. Ruth is also a former Editor, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher at Big Six and independent NY publishers who knows the publishing business from both sides of the desk.
And so, she’s an author who knows what works and what doesn’t. Enjoy!
A Prince by any other name would still be a Prince. (I hope.)
Meghan by any other name would still be a princess.
Ditto Diana.
Lord or Lady. Peasant or serf.
Professor or student.
Beginner or expert.
Titles orient us to where we are and what we should expect next.
Doesn’t just apply to people, either. Also applies to books, because time-pressed readers/editors/agents take only a few seconds to make their buy decision, and authors have the same few seconds to make their sale.
If you’re aiming for a traditional publishing deal including relevant comp titles in your query letter is a must, because comp titles define the expectations and positioning of your book. Well-chosen comp titles provide a target in a crowded marketplace, and will affect your cover, blurb and sales pitch.
Agents and publishers ask for comp titles because they need a quick shorthand way to establish the basis for sales expectations and marketing. The agent/editor/potential reader needs a reference point, and, if your book will appeal to readers who enjoy legal thrillers, steamy romance or epic fantasy, you’re providing a valuable selling tool by providing appropriate comp titles that give a solid clue about which market you’re aiming at.
Meaning before details.
According to John Medina of the University of Washington, the human brain requires meaning before details. When listeners doesn’t understand the basic concept right at the beginning, they have a hard time processing the rest of the information.
Bottom line for writers: The title and the cover—image plus title—have to work as a unit to explain the hook or basic concept first. Wrong image and/or misfit title confuse the would-be buyer and you lose the sale. On-target image plus genre-relevant title and the reader/agent/editor will look closer.
Your cover indicates visually by color, design and image what the reader can expect inside—a puzzling mystery, a swoony romance, futuristic scifi, or scary horror—but the first words the prospective reader/agent/editor sees are the ones in the title.
Your title tells readers what to expect.
You’re unpublished but your title is awfully close to Nora Roberts’ newest or…ahem…a clone of James Patterson’s most recent? Come on. Get real. Please. For your own sake.
Your book is about a modest governess in 19th Century London who falls in love with the maddeningly handsome Prince who lives in the castle next door, but your title promises hotter-than-hot, through-the-roof sales like, oh, maybe, 50 Shades Of Grey? Really? 51 Shades of Grey is the best you can come up with? Seriously?
If you’re in a quandary about choosing a title for your book here are Anne’s 10 Tips for Choosing the Right Title for Your Book.
You can also research successful titles in your genre for inspiration. Whether your genre is romance or suspense, you will find that certain words recur. Just be aware that most publishing contracts give the publisher the right to change the title. Sometimes the author is pleased.
Other times? Not so much. (Don’t ask me how I know, but horror stories abound.)
If the title you’ve chosen for your book is your idea of the one and only, check your contract to make sure you have the last word on title. The reality, though, is that few author have this right and, if you’re just starting out, you won’t. Sorry about that, but it’s the reality.
If you’re self-pubbing, you control the decision about titles. And, if you think of a better title in the future, you can easily change a title later.
All about comp titles.
The writer’s version of GPS, your comps tell readers/agents/editors where they are and what they can expect if they go further. That’s why a poorly chosen title or the wrong comp titles are an invitation to nowheresville for you and your book.
A sweet romance compared to a horror epic called Tarantula Invasion? I don’t think so.
Scifi comped to something titled A Duke For The Duchess? Nope.
Serial killer police procedural titled Miss Emily’s Quaint Cupcake Cafe? You’re joking, right?
Comp titles are books that are similar to yours. Comps help agents/editors/readers figure out who your book will appeal to and how big the potential audience might be. Comps give the Art Department or your cover artist a starting point and help them understand what is required.
Comps are indispensable to the sales department at a publisher and serve the same purpose in your blurb. Sales reps have only a few second to interest a buyer or bookstore owner. Being able to tell them that New Book X is like Old Book Y is useful shorthand telling the prospective buyers something about the likely audience and sales potential.
- “If you like X, you’ll love Y”
- “If you like action-adventure with strong female leads, you’ll like Y”
- “If you like Regency romance, you’ll like Y”
- “Readers who like Dean Koontz will love Y”
Another approach is X is like Y—with a twist.
- “Cozy mystery with dragons”
- “Historical mystery with space ships”
- “Romantic suspense in a gay retirement home”
A third example is X meets Y—with a twist.
- “Jack Reacher meets Jane Austen”
- “Fan fiction meets literary memoir”
- “Leo Tolstoi meets K-pop.”
Do’s and don’ts of choosing comp titles.
- Do stay within your own genre (or genres if you write mash ups).
- Do keep it realistic. Choose comps with the same likely sales pattern: out of the gate with a burst or a long, slow and steady sales arc, front list star vs backlist stalwart.
- Do keep it recent: choose titles published within the last two or three years so that they are still fresh in the minds of reader/agents/editors/sales staff/store buyers. Pointless to choose a comp from a decade ago that no one remembers.
- Don’t abandon common sense and compare your book to a #1 NYT bestseller or the latest gee-whiz phenom.
- Don’t mix formats. If your book will be offered in a digital edition, don’t compare it to a hardcover title and vice versa.
- Don’t jump genres. Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. That is, compare scifi to scifi, thriller to thriller, epic fantasy to epic fantasy, literary fiction to literary fiction.
- Don’t ignore demographics. If your book will appeal to women, be sure to choose comps that will appeal to that same reader. Don’t choose a comp that will appeal to young adult readers or males looking for hairy-chested adventure in the remote jungles of Borneo.
Where to find good comp titles.
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and the gang.
Because readers of romance tend to buy more romance and readers of action-adventure tend to buy more action-adventure, type the title of a book similar to yours into the search window of any book seller to find recommendations under headers like:
- “Customers who bought this also bought”
- “What customers bought after viewing this”
- “Trending now”
- “Pageturners”
- “Monthly picks”
- “Frequently bought together”
- “Favorite authors”
Goodreads
Tell Goodreads what genre you’re interested in and they will provide a list of titles.
Or you can enter comp titles you’re already considering to ask for more suggestions.
You can also describe the kind of book you’re looking for—“thriller set in Iceland,” “mystery in Uruguay,” “cozy mystery in Nantucket,” or “scifi in a crippled space capsule”—for suggestions.
Goodreads Choice Awards lists their annual picks by category if you’re looking for even more inspiration.
Bestseller lists.
The middle or lower down titles in the NYTimes and the USA Today lists are good starting points, but don’t overlook your town or city. Your local bookstore will know what books are selling well in your area.
If your book is of regional interest—New England, Florida, the Far West—local bestseller info will be valuable and all you have to do is ask.
Librarians can help you ID relevant books that float just below the top bestsellers. We not talking mega authors and books, but titles just below the top ten or twenty that have reliable sales records and are known by buyers/agents/editors/retailers.
BookBub.
Sign up—it’s free—and ask for recs in genres similar to yours or by authors who appeal to the same readers you are looking for.
BookBub also has extensive genre lists that can be helpful as well as real-time updates from authors who write books similar to yours.
More help.
You’ll find more ideas for finding comp titles in this marketing-oriented post by Penny Sansevieri about Finding and Using Competing Book Titles in Your Book Marketing
Dave Chesson’s Publisher’s Rocket uses up-to-date market research data to quickly identify relevant comp titles, categories and keywords.
NerdyBookGirl offers a helpful FREE Book Category Hunter.
★★★★★“WOW! WHAT A STORY!”★★★★★
“A master storyteller coaxed me through a maze of fascinating, brilliant, tragic, and heartwarming twists and turns, and left me feeling uplifted and satisfied. ZURI slides to the top of my favorite books of 2020!”
—Sue Coletta, award-winning, bestselling author
99c Sale. Ends soon.
Writing Wisdom from Gary Provost
Jim’s Reader Friday question got me thinking. What is the special sauce that ignites a writer’s brain? Would a new writer know when to run with an idea and when to let it go? Maybe. Maybe not.
With that in mind, I’ll share the following tips from critically acclaimed author and beloved writing instructor, Gary Provost. Incidentally, these tips can be used for fiction and nonfiction, if your nonfiction falls into the “story” category (i.e. true crime, historical, narrative nonfiction, etc).
Gary Provost created a simple paragraph to encapsulate the dramatic arc in a story.
Once upon a time… something happened to someone, and he decided that he would pursue a goal. So he devised a plan of action, and even though there were forces trying to stop him, he moved forward because there was a lot at stake. And just as things seemed as bad as they could get, he learned an important lesson, and when offered the prize he had sought so strenuously he had to decide whether or not to take it, and in making that decision he satisfied a need that had been created by something in his past.
This works because of its classic dramatic structure, which is the most satisfying type of story for the reader. It’s brilliant, if you take the time to dissect it. For now, I’d like to concentrate on a quick and dirty shortcut to test a story idea.
Gary Provost thought of stories in terms of a series of “buts.”
Joyce is a poor secretary, but she meets a millionaire and marries him.
She’s married to a millionaire, but the marriage goes sour.
She wants to end the marriage, but she (allegedly) thinks she’ll be left penniless.
She perhaps has a motive for murdering her husband, but so do other people.
After the murder, police suspect her, but she passes two polygraph exams at two different times and places. One, a highly regarded expert.
She passes the polygraphs, but the court rules they will not be allowed. But a federal court rules in a different case that the polygraphs can be allowed.
She goes back to court to get the polygraph tests allowed, but Judge Smith still will not allow them.
Someone claims to have heard shots at 3:30 A.M., but the medical examiner says that Stanley died around 5:30 A.M., consistent with Joyce’s story. She seems to be telling the truth, but it was five minutes from the time of the Colorado phone call to the call to 911.
Joyce allegedly says to Officer Catherine Parker, “I shouldn’t have done it,”but Parker never reports this.
Three days after the murder a cop tells the medical examiner that he saw signs of lividity, indicating that the body had been dead for a few hours.
But Wetli, the medical examiner, reviews his material, still comes to the same conclusion. Stays with that conclusion for three years.
No charges against Joyce, but the Miami Herald starts an anti-Joyce campaign, demanding that she be brought to justice.
Newscaster Gerri Helfman is about to get married, but her father is murdered.
No charges are brought against Joyce, but Stanley’s family pressures the state’s attorney’s office to come up with something.
And on and on it goes.
The above series of “buts” Provost used in a book proposal for a true crime book entitled Rich Blood. The proposal started a bidding war between publishers.
In the end, he decided to write Deadly Secrets instead. Turned out to be the right move because Deadly Secrets became the mega-hit Perfect Husband: True Story of the Trusting Bride Who Discovered Her Husband was a Coldblooded Killer.
Use a series of “buts” to test your story idea. Obviously, a “but” won’t fit every sentence. When it doesn’t, try “and then.” But a “but” should follow “and then” soon. Why? Because “buts” are complications. Complications = conflict. And conflict drives the story.
Example:
Husband kills wife, and then stuffs her body into a 3ml bag, and then drives to a secluded area to bury her, but his foldable spade isn’t in the backseat. Did the neighbor borrow it again?
When you write don’t keep all the “buts” and “and thens.” Think in those terms, but you don’t want all of them in the final draft. Over time your story sensibilities will automatically search for (nonfiction) and/or apply (fiction) this rhythm.
The point is, whether we write fiction or nonfiction, we need to find the story beneath the headline or first spark of an idea. Without a narrative driven by conflict, the story will fall flat.
Five pieces of wisdom from Gary Provost’s 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing.
- A writer’s most important vocabulary is the one he or she already has.
Learning new words is much less important than learning to use the words you already know. Think about your ideal reader. If he or she wouldn’t understand your word choice, you might as well be writing in a foreign language. Over time finding the right word becomes easier, almost a subconscious act. Until then, be intentional with every word.
- A lead should have energy, excitement, an implicit promise that something is going to happen or that some interesting information will be revealed.
Whether a lead is the first sentence, the first paragraph, or even the first several paragraphs of your story, it should pique a reader’s interest by raising story questions and give readers someone (or something) to care about before delving into the backstory.
Act first, explain later.
—James Scott Bell
A strong lead delivers on the promise it makes.
- When writing a beginning, remove every sentence until you come to one you cannot do without.
Meaning, make your point by answering “who, what, when, where” in the first paragraph. Make the reader wait for “why.” Unless, of course, the why is the character’s goal.
A topic sentence contains the thought that is developed throughout the rest of the paragraph. The topic sentence is commonly the first sentence in a paragraph. For each paragraph ask, “What do I want to say here? What point do I want to make? What question do I want to present?” Answer with a single general sentence.
When you edit, ask how each sentence works for the paragraph. Ask why it’s there. Does it have a purpose? Great! Then keep it. If you can’t pinpoint why you included that sentence, hit DELETE.
- Style is form, not content.
In writing, the word style means how an idea is expressed, not the idea itself.
A reader usually picks up a story because of content but too often puts it down because of style.
- To write is to create music.
The words you write make sounds, and when those sounds are in harmony, the writing will work.
Gary Provost was highly regarded as an author, sought-after speaker, consultant, and celebrity biographer.
“The writers’ writer” authored thousands of articles, columns, and dozens of books covering most every genre. His highly acclaimed Writers Retreat Workshop, and video and audio courses remain available through writersretreatworkshop.com.
What’s your favorite piece of advice here? Care to add a tip?
Rinse and Repeat
Remember JSB’s post about public speaking? Well, before an exciting opportunity two weeks ago, I reread his tips a gazillion times. What he failed to mention was a bizarre side effect of stress—dry mouth. I noticed it when I did my first Zoom book signing. Which is odd, right? I’ve never had a problem with in-person book signings, but on Zoom? I dried up like the Sahara. Halfway through the event it went away, so I didn’t give it another thought. I Zoomed a few more times without incident.
And then, an Emmy award-winning true crime series asked me to appear on their show. (Can’t tell you which one yet, sorry!) I was fine on the drive over. Nervous as all heck, but other than a thundering heartbeat, I could hide my anxiety. After all, that’s what a professional does. They don’t let nerves get the better of them. Plus, I knew this case inside out. How hard could it be? So what if a camera crew would be focused on me.
My confidence waned on the walk inside, but I was still holding my own. Head held high, shoulders back.
Then I sat in the interview chair.
With that one simple act, all the saliva in my mouth turned to dust. And I mean all of it. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, my lips puckered, and words refused to roll off my tongue with ease. Me on the day of my debut TV appearance…
They offered me bottled water—gallons of it through two and half hours of taping. After the second or third bottle, I think they might’ve figured out I wasn’t an old pro at this TV stuff. 😉 Thankfully, I’d spoken to the producer on the phone several times prior, so he had faith in me. “Get her more water please!” And I drank, and drank, and drank.
Mr. Producer told me several times I did an excellent job. I’ll be the judge of that, thank you…in six months when the episode airs. We did have a lot of laughs. But when you’re discussing a shooting and can’t spit out the word “caliber” because your tongue feels like it’s three sizes too big for your mouth…
Well, let’s just say it isn’t a good look. The more I stressed, the drier my mouth became. Throughout the interview I fluctuated between Lord, give me strength and Someone—anyone—please shoot me! But most of all, I needed more water STAT.
On the plus side, the nice part of working on a true crime show is it’s not taped in front a live audience. All I had to do was string together one good sentence at a time and the editor would grab what s/he needs.
Mission accomplished. That’s a rap!
Shamefaced, I crawled into the passenger seat of our truck—and all at once my mouth regained its moisture. Ain’t that a b*tch? I can hardly wait to see what happens next time. Maybe I’ll grow some weird lump on my forehead. Or better yet, my saliva glands will over-stimulate, and I’ll show up looking like this…
I think it’s fair to say no one will ever ask me to do a TedTalk. Probably best.
To understand my body’s reaction to stress, I researched the subject the next morning to find out why this occurred and what to do about it in the future. Turns out, dry mouth isn’t an uncommon reaction.
Researchers have studied this phenomenon.
The term stress refers to a series of events that lead to a reaction in the brain (perceived stress), activating the physiological fight-or-flight response in the body. Anxiety is also a generalized unpleasant and vague sensation of fear and concern with an unknown origin.
Makes sense.
Psychological conditions might affect both salivary flow rate and xerostomia. Furthermore, it was observed that salivary cortisol levels increased during stress, followed by changes in the composition of saliva.
In simpler terms, stress plays a significant role in reducing the salivary flow rate.
So, what’s my advice in case you experience something similar? Hope you’ve got a nice strong bladder. You’ll need it to hold all the water. No, seriously, pack lozenges. If all else fails, smile! Works every time.
I’m a big believer in laughter. If we can’t poke fun at ourselves, we’ll dwell on the negative. I appeared on an Emmy award-winning true crime show (!), and have spoken to the producer several times since. For me, it’s a dream come true. 🙂
Let’s discuss embarrassing moments! Your turn. Extra points if it relates to writing, reading, acting, etc.
Reader Friday: What’s Your Mantra?
If you could choose one line from a song and adopt it as your mantra, what would it be? Please include title and artist.Reader Friday: Rewrites
Rewriting, love it or hate it?
I love it. Maybe too much. During edits, I often rewrite paragraphs, sometimes entire pages. Drives my editors insane. Drives me insane, too, but I can’t stop. It’s part of my process now. 🙂
Rewriting is where magic happens. The story reaches new heights.
What’s your favorite part of the editing process?
Do you mercilessly kill your darlings?
Do you keep a file for clipped passages?
What’d you name said file?
Ever use those dead darlings?
Reader Friday: Which Hero are You?
A killer abducted you, bound your wrists and ankles, and dumped you in his lair. You only have a few hours to escape before he returns.
Don’t panic! I’ve given you a superpower — the ability to change into a fictional hero.
The transformation is now complete.
Who are you? Why did you choose this hero?