Writers in the Storm

Since the beginning here at Writers in the Storm, we've been all about spreading the love. And every so often, we throw the doors open for some shameless self-promotion opportunities for our readers. Our only requirement for those glorious days (formerly called "Pimp & Promote") is that they double the love and promote someone else's work alongside their own.

Today's event (May the 4th Be With You!) will give us all the opportunity to share great resources and celebrate our own successes. Plus, it's almost summer, one of our favorite seasons for reading. So get ready to double the love!

How DO you "Double the Love?"

Here in the States, school is still going strong, athletic games abound, and it is prom season. In that same spirit, let's dance around and cheer for ourselves and other writers! Down in the comments section, we ask that you:

• Heap love on somebody else’s work—a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person. Please limit your comments to one work.
  AND
• Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about—a hobby, a blog, a book, or a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us about it in the comments! (Please restrain your enthusiasm to just one of your WIPs.)

The rest of us will shake our writerly booties, and “ooooh and ahh” (with a side of rah-rah). Full disclosure: our to-be-read piles and our resource lists double in size on days like these, which is always a cause for both celebration and nail-biting.

We'll lead off the love fest with some of the WITS Team!

Lisa Norman

New Love:

If you've struggled at all with making your writing come to life, my favorite teacher is still Margie Lawson. When I'm working with a writer who needs to up their game, I send them to this series of lecture packets:

• Empowering Characters’ Emotions
• Deep Editing, Rhetorical Devices, and More
• Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues

For those who want to listen instead of read, she's got bite-size webinars and online classes as well.

Self Love:

All of my energy has been going into building No Stress Writing Academy! We have a bunch of classes with more coming all the time. I offer a Marketing 101 class at no cost for those who want to explore the platform and see what we're up to.

Jenny Hansen

New Love:

Have you experienced any of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's "Thesaurus" books? If not, you're missing out!

They have a new one that released a few weeks ago: The Fear Thesaurus. Fear is so vital to character development. Here's how the duo describes their "why" for writing the book:

“No matter what genre you write or who your audience is, one thing is certain: Everyone experiences fear. This makes it a great tool for reader engagement, especially when we choose one that’s woven deep into the fabric of humanity.”

My copy just arrived and I'm excited to dig in!

Self Love:

Calling all business owners (which includes savvy authorpreneurs)! I'm teaching my favorite class on Wednesday, May 6th at Noon Eastern (US time):

Storyselling Deep Dive into the 5 Key Stories

In these 90 minutes, we explore the 5 story types every business needs to attract clients, build trust, and stand out. The point of this class is to make your value as a business unmistakable. By the end of our time together, you'll understand the five Key Stories, how to use them, and be well on your way to crafting your own. The Storyselling Deep Dive helps you master business storytelling, shorten the sales cycle, and attract the people who get you.

This 90-minute workshop is currently on sale for $30. Click here to enroll.

Jenn Windrow

New Love:

As a person who is pretty happy living in my own little bubble, I don't engage with others besides the people and creatures that live in my house that often. But there is one class I took on story structure, that not only shaped the stories that I write, but also have helped me in my editing career. Story Structure Safari by Lisa Miller.

Her easy approach to how a story should flow, what belongs where, and digging deep into character motivations has not only made me a better writer, but also an editor who not only knows how to find problems in a manuscript, and offer suggestions on how to fix them. I use what I learned from her every day.

Her amazing classes can be found at the No Stress Writing Academy

Self Love:

I've got so many cooks in the kitchen write now between my own writing, editing for clients, and illustration, that my days are filled with creative endeavors, just the way I like it. But I think the thing I am most excited about right now, is the reader themed sticker/bookmark/mug series I am creating. Each one is hand illustrated and designed by me, and they just make me happy when I look at them. Plus, I get to draw, which is something I had to put aside for years.

For me they are an extra revenue stream at author events, but they also attract readers to my table, allowing me to open up a conversation about my books.

Sarah (Sally) Hamer

New Love:

Why do we write? Because we can't NOT write. Well, at least that's the way it works for me. Anything to do with writing makes me happy, especially taking classes about writing, whether it's craft or philosophy.

So, even though she's on this blog, promoting her academy, I'm going to talk about it again.

Lisa Norman is not only an amazing person, she's also an amazing teacher. I've been taking her classes for over a decade and find them brimming with usable information and full of fun. She knows her stuff, knows how to teach it, and supports us as we work our way through it. I HIGHLY recommend the No Stress Writing Academy and anything that Lisa and her other instructors teach.

Self Love:

Which leads me to my self-love. I'm fortunate enough to teach for the No Stress Writing Academy. I taught for Margie Lawson's Academy for about fifteen years, loving every minute. You'll see some of my original classes and some new ones on No Stress, and more will be going up this year. Come have fun!

Okay, now it's your turn! Double up heaping amounts of love in our comments section, please. We want to learn about some new resources, and buy some great new books!

Important Note: Be sure to enter your links with "website name" (dot) com formatting. (We have a setting on for the comments to strip links!)

Featured Photo created in Canva.

by Joseph Lallo

The career of an author, if all goes well, will span decades. And much as we might like to tell ourselves that we’ll be following a strict release plan, carefully considered and plotted out just as precisely as our stories, life doesn’t always follow the outline.

Chances are good that any author who’s been at it long enough will have at least one project that’s been simmering for years, either in an unfinished state or begging for a follow-up.

It’s hard enough to write a story while its elements are fresh in one’s mind, but how do you get back on track when the last time you thought about that setting was months or years ago? Who can you talk to in order to get yourself up to speed? What should you prioritize in your re-briefing?

As someone who has had to do it more times than I care to admit, I’ve developed a bit of an aptitude for it, so let’s get down to business.

Out of my head and into yours

One of the big secrets of writing is that a story serves an entirely different purpose for a writer and a reader. In short, I write a story to get it out of my head, and you read a story to get it into yours.

Thus, once that transaction is complete, it stands to reason that the person with the firmer grasp on the events and details of the story is the reader, not the writer.

So, if you want to find an expert on your stories, look to your fans. They, almost by definition, have read your story more recently than you did.

The pros of this method should be obvious.

Pros:

It greatly narrows down the facts and elements you’ll need to brush up on by highlighting the things that stand out to a reader.

It also gets the decision making out of your head, which can be downright necessary if you built a story on hidden knowledge that you have (because you’re the author) and the readers don’t.

I’d wager that a large proportion of plot holes exist because you forgot to tell the reader something, and this will catch that.

Cons:

It’s not a flawless system.

Quite often, particularly if you only discuss it with one or two fans, you’ll get a biased account of your own story. We all have favorite characters, and if you take the recollections of your fans as gospel, you might end up with a heap of notes that suggest the previous book was all about their favorite parts of the tale, rather than something more balanced.

Also, though their enthusiasm is likely to have recorded some of the most emotionally resonant scenes in an almost word-for-word state, you can’t be certain their memory is flawless.

Basically, use their answers to your questions as a guideline and cheat sheet, but always double check the specifics before writing on from them.

There’s always recruitment

The Plan B version of this method, for those without an existing fanbase or those working on something that doesn’t have any releases yet, is to tap, recruit, or hire someone to read your story and summarize it for you. This can be a friend, a fan of one of your other works, or a writing partner.

You may be tempted to use AI for this purpose, but I’d advise against it.

AI has all of the same flaws a person might have, with the added bonus of not having a way to follow up with it to track down the source of these errors.

The only thing worse than getting facts about your own story wrong is knowing that those bad facts came from a computer that doesn’t even have the ability to feel shame for leading you astray.

For the Rest of us

Not everyone is lucky enough to both have enthusiastic fans and have access to them.

More to the point, sometimes the story you’re picking up isn’t a sequel to something the fans have read, but the second half of a story that they’ve never even gotten a glimpse at.

And budgets often don’t have room to hire someone to do the job.

Thus, as fine a resource as a fandom can be, you’ll still end up spending most of your time doing your own research.

To make sure your time is well spent, it’s best to have a system.

The goal is to get all of the information you need, and to do it quickly and efficiently. The faster you get the information of the old, the faster you can start writing the new.

Study Up

For better or worse, if the information you need about your story isn’t in your head, or in your reader’s head, there’s only one other place it can be found, and that’s in the books themselves.

You’re going to have to re-read your stories.

Now, for some, this is no big deal. But it is an astonishingly common trait among authors to feel anything from discomfort to utter repulsion when faced with their own writing. For many years, reading or even hearing my own words made me cringe. I’ve largely gotten over it, but it was a process.

Better Heard than Seen

If you can read your own stories without trouble, you can skip ahead. For the rest of you, here’s what worked for me with regard to clearing the obstacle of my own psychological response to my past prose.

Listen rather than read.

If you have an audio book, great, listen to that. But that’s a luxury. More to the point, if you have my particular flavor of brain malfunction, hearing someone else read your writing is even more torturous than reading it yourself.

The loophole through my own hangups turned out to be robots.

If a text to speech system is spitting my words at me, I can tolerate it so much better than if I’m reading it or someone else is reading it to me. Plenty of ebook readers have a “read aloud” option.

Note: If you’re looking for a recommendation, Google Play Books is the one I use. It’s relatively simple to upload your own writing as an epub, and then it’ll happily read the words back to you.

It’s not a sophisticated performance, but it’s serviceable, and it frees up both of your hands for the next step.

Take Notes

Once you’ve selected your favored means of ingestion, you’re going to have to make sure that you keep track of the key data you’ll need. If you have an outline for the next book, or the rest of this one, a quick read through of that should give you a checklist of things to brush up on or dig out of the archives.

A few key points that are always helpful.

Who’s telling the story here?

You’re going to want to soak up the voice of the book.

• How was the narration?
• What was the point of view?

It’s an aspect of your writing that’s immediately obvious upon going through even the first few pages, but I’ve known more than one person (myself included) who has come embarrassingly close to continuing a series that was primarily in 3^rd person limited with a first person sequel.

Who are these people?

Beyond the framing and structure of the story, you’ll want to take some notes of the characters. Even if you had the foresight to do a character profile for each of your key players before you started writing, a good story will see its characters growing and changing along the way.

Watch some long running shows that have different writers for different episodes, and now and then you’ll see the telltale signs of someone working from a character sheet that was just a smidge out of date.

Don’t fall into that trap. Be aware of where your characters in their personal journeys.

Remind yourself of any verbal or physical distinctiveness that’ll need to be carried forward or reestablished, and update (or create) any biographical notes to include the relevant events that have taken place in recent history.

Somewhere between Point B and Point C

Though it’s a touch obvious, it should not be left unsaid: you’re going to want to figure out where you are coming from and where you are going to in the larger arc of the story or the series.

Again, this is simpler if you’re working from a previously created outline. Then it’s simply a matter of mapping the previous plot beat to its position in the notes. If you’re pantsing your way forward, it will be less a matter of figuring out which step you’ve reached and more a matter of determining which steps should follow.

In this case, you’re not just reading the previous entry looking for a milestone, you’re plotting a trajectory.

• Does the story have momentum?
• How do you maintain it?
• Does the story have direction?
• Where does it lead?

If your story has neither direction nor momentum…

You probably have bigger problems, but at least you can assess the firm ground you’re standing on before taking your wild leap forward to get things rolling again.

There are those loose ends...

This is a point that warrants focus, because it’s the point that I personally have tripped over far too many times.

What are the dangling threads that need to be tied up?

Even if you have excellent notes about your previous books (or your previously written portion of this book) to fall back on, it’s startlingly easy to forget you’d put Checkov’s Gun up on the mantle and then completely forgot to fire it.

As you go, ask yourself:

• What mysteries are unsolved?
• What character arcs are unresolved?
• Is there a villain who vanished without a trace?
• Is there a sudden appearance that has not yet been explained?

Particularly if you’re looking to finish up not just a sequel, but a series, you need to be sure that anything that’s left unresolved is an intentional omission, because leaving the audience hanging by accident is a bad, bad feeling for both you and your readers.

This is all doubly important if you didn’t have an outline.

Some past version of you was brimming with ideas and had started laying the groundwork for them. But “present you” probably lacks that context, so be very mindful of every little clue you come across.

You’ll either be recreating the state of mind you were in when you started, or you’ll be using those elements as fodder for fresh new ideas.

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

If you’ve been following along thus far, you should have a fairly comprehensive list of key character traits, key plot beats, and general trajectory for the story.

What you should do now, before you write another syllable, is save that set of notes where you can find it.

Just because you’re pulling a pot from the back burner and cranking up the flame doesn’t mean it’s not destined for another hiatus before it finally finishes stewing. The better you document your information and intentions now, the faster this whole process will be later.

Now go get ‘em, tiger!

Coming back to an old series or dusting off an old project can be a daunting task that threatens to prevent the story from ever reaching completion. But as long as you come at it with a plan like the one I’ve described, it doesn’t need to be insurmountable.

Like most things in the world of publishing, it can be done slowly, piece by piece, and you can usually find someone who is willing to lend a hand. And when all is said and done, you get to clear off a spot on your backlog, and your fans get that sweet, sweet closure.

Isn’t that worth the effort?

Have you run into any of these issues when you revive old projects? What have been your biggest stumbling blocks?

About Joseph

Joseph R. Lallo hails from Bayonne, NJ--the fabled birthplace of George R. R. Martin. He has written dozens of novels and novellas, including the international bestseller The Book of Deacon and the critically acclaimed Free-Wrench series. In addition to writing, he has helped run the Six Figure Authors podcast with Lindsay Buroker and Andrea Pearson. Find Joseph and his books on his website at bookofdeacon.com.

Top photo purchased from Depositphotos.

by Laurie Schnebly Campbell

Say you’ve just written the best book ever. You love it, your readers love it, your publisher loves it, and all is well in Authorland.

Should you turn that book into a series?

Or say you’ve just written a book that feels pretty good. You’re pleased with it, your readers like it, and your publisher wants you to write something similar.

Should you consider doing a series?

At first glance, that might seem like a terrible idea. If writing the first book wasn’t an absolute piece of cake, why on earth would you want to write two more? Or (gasp) five more? Or (clutch your chest and stagger) an open-ended series that lasts for 10, 25, or even 50 books?

Well, there are people who do it and love it. Which is lucky for readers who love series ... and there are a LOT of ‘em!

THE BEST OF SERIES

After all, we each have our favorite series. More likely, we each have our favorite six or eight series—some of which may be relatively obscure and others which are followed by millions of readers. While the less celebrated series can still be great, those ranked as favorites tend to become bestsellers simply from word-of-mouth.

Because, really, who HASN’T heard of the Wimpy Kid? Inspector Gamache? Katniss Everdeen? Eve Dallas and Roarke? Whether or not you’ve read their series, you very likely know something about ‘em ... whether it’s just “yeah, I’ve seen those books” or “the next title is due out in __ weeks.” 

What makes these series so popular?

There aren’t QUITE as many opinions as there are readers, but most fans agree on at least some of what they especially like. The characters. The plots. The setting. The suspense. The humor. The drama. The voice.

Yet those are the same things readers love about stand-alone books, as well. So why do the series books tend to rank higher on the bestseller lists? 

It’s because there’s strength in numbers. If a reader can choose one fabulous stand-alone title or one fabulous series of books, they’re more likely to choose what offers them more hours of enjoyment. Same as choosing an exquisite piece of sushi or an exquisite five-course dinner: when the quality is good either way, people tend to go for quantity.

But does that mean you should write a series?

Well, there are some advantages. And some disadvantages. Which of them speaks more loudly to you?

WHY TO WRITE A SERIES 

If you have a story that’s just too big to contain in a single book, a series gives you the freedom to provide all the fascinating details and plot twists and character development that you’d have to leave out if the story needed to be confined into a shorter space.

We already know, readers love series. They’ll happily grab Book Three or Book Twelve as soon as it comes out, whereas—before buying a stand-alone—they might need a bit more persuasion that this IS a book they’ll enjoy. Once they’ve committed to a series, they’re likely to stay on board.

Setting and character development are easier when your series features the same characters in the same place. Sure, it’s the same amount of work up front, establishing who & when & where these people are, but once you’ve figured that out you don’t need to repeat the same amount of work for subsequent titles.

WHY TO AVOID A SERIES 

It may take more time than you have (or want) to invest. If your schedule doesn’t allow much writing, you might rather use what few hours you DO have to create a book that can stand alone and be enjoyed as is—without needing additional books to support the overall story arc.

If you love the adventure of creating new people and new worlds and new situations with every book, you might feel too constrained by a series. Why commit to something that’ll leave you bored and frustrated while readers are demanding more of the same?

Readers have higher expectations of a series. If the shop sign has changed color or the character’s motivation seems to have shifted between Book Two and Book Three, they’ll complain about it. They want things to stay the same, but they don’t want TOO much repetition ... which is a tricky balance.

So, weighing the pros and cons, suppose you’re thinking about a series. That leads us right into:

WHAT TO CONSIDER

Before embarking on a series, there are several issues to address besides the fundamental one of “do I really want to do this?” Those include:

• Type—What kind of series will this be? Is it suited for the genre you enjoy writing?

• Arc—Along with the individual story arc for each book, what will your series arc be?

• Character/s—If there’s a main character, will this person be static or dynamic? How about the secondaries?

• Exposition—How will you keep long-term readers engaged without confusing the newcomers?

• Time—How much time can you commit?

• Style—Will this be first- or third-person? What will the books have in common? What will make each story different?

• Evolution—How long should this series last? How can you keep it fresh for you AND your readers?

Those are just a few of the things to consider, and they lead into our:

PRIZE-DRAWING QUESTION

What can make you decide you Do or you Don’t want to write (or read) a series?

Someone who answers will win free registration to Writing A Series, my May 4-15 email class on that very thing. On Thursday evening I’ll have random-org draw a name and post it at the end of the comments, so check back soon because class will start on Monday!

******

About Laurie

After winning Romantic Times’ “Best Special Edition of the Year” over Nora Roberts, Laurie Schnebly Campbell discovered she loved teaching every bit as much as writing ... if not more. Since then, she’s taught in-person and online workshops including the upcoming Writing A Series, and keeps a special section of her bookshelves for people who’ve developed that particular novel in her classes. With 60+ titles there so far, she’s always hoping for more.

Top Image by Bronisław Dróżka from Pixabay