Writers in the Storm

by Kris Maze

The work of an author is rewarding, but time consuming; how do we accomplish the tasks while maintaining a sane life?

We revise our writing, review other writers’ work, build an author presence, and all while continuing to write new material. How can we do all this and keep it meaningful? When talking with others here at Writers in the Storm, I discovered that the struggle is universal. You can find comfort in knowing this is a problem for most of us!

It makes sense that writers would rather work on their manuscripts and not focus on the digital world. Social media can be a crippling distraction if not handled well, but it also is paramount to creating a vibrant fan base for your work. Building a presence online means taking the additional time we might not have to create content and to interact with our audience.

This can be overwhelming. But it makes a difference if you show up where your readers 'hang out' and build these relationships. The best strategy I can recommend is to get the most out of the writer tasks you are already doing.

Tips to create authentic content for social media platforms using your current work as a writer.

Author platforms are important, and social media is a proven way to connect with readers, but how do we find the time to write unique and engaging content?

The first step is to take inventory of the tasks you currently do.

As a part of this process I categorized my work into 4 areas that can also be a springboard for Social Media Content:

1. Planning, Dreaming
2. Research, Read in your genre
3. Writing, Revising
4. Writing Community - synergy of helping (giving back) and receiving (beta reading, critiquing, cross promoting)

Since writers do these things anyway, these are easy areas to pull from to create content that resonates with readers and keeps them invested in your work. All four of these areas can inspire your social media content.

1. Planning and Dreaming Stage

The Planning and Dreaming Stage is about sharing an intent with your Author Audience. What ways to already connect with your readers? How can you capitalize on what you already do? Consider these actions you can take on most Social Media Platforms:

Make a poll on what your next project should be. Do they want to hear about your character's backstory or an unlikely romance between your jilted protagonist and his ex? Find out what your fans want and share the results with them.

Ask about audience preferences: where should the story be set? Albuquerque or the Alamo? Maybe they won’t care, but you will be surprised at the opinions your readers have. Writing to your audience with an informed perspective gives you an opportunity to write what they most want to read.

Share a favorite quote that inspired your book. Or share from your own work and see the response. Ask for favorite quotes or resources from your readers.

Play a trivia game from research for your project. Find out what your audience already knows, or what is new to them. Use that research for more than one purpose!

Interacting with your audience keeps them engaged and interesting in what you do a s a writer. This can translate into more readers and more book sales.

2. Research and Reading

Research and Reading is the necessary body-building equivalent to beefing up our work in progress. Finding the right information and studying can bring new life and authenticity to a writer's work. Why not give your audience snipets of your research along the way to build interest?

Write a review. Are you reading a book on cooking because your MC is a start-up chef? Have your read many books on a historical figure? Share what you liked about it. Consider writing a review of it and adding the links to it on your social media.

Curate a list books you used for research on a particular topic. If a reader likes the resource you are using, chances are they are people with similar interests and will also want to read your book by association.

Share an opinion. Is there an issue you feel strongly about? Perhaps share a little with your audience and poll their thoughts. See how it resonates and write to the conflict. The caveat here is to be sensitive to highly politicized issues, since these can also alienate readers and damage your author platform.

Tell your most random discovery. Have you ever started searching the Internet for research only to find that you wasted an afternoon searching the top 20 cat memes of the 2000’s? (Guilty!) Give yourself credit for falling down the digital rabbit hole: sometime must have peaked your interest and perhaps it is interesting to your readers as well. Share the fun bits with your readers. Let them know what your find interesting and your readers will become curious about your work.

3. Writing and Revising

Writing and Revising is the time to buckle down and give your book baby some undivided attention. This may be where you shut down the Social media factory for a while and put your head down over your manuscript.

Put up your virtual “Do Not Disturb’ sign. Although it is important to keep your focus, it's a good idea to let your readers know what you're planning . Set up regular posts for fun using a scheduling feature of your Social Media. Try something funny or informative topics to remind your audience about you as an author. Give them a time frame and use your return as a time to build a fun interactive response. Consider using options for scheduling in advance such as Hootsuite or Buffer, or perhaps hire out the work with a service.

Don't Disappear. The idea is to free you up for a designated time, but don’t disappear entirely. It may be your personal preference to have a low profile, but you should be easy to find regardless. Stay on the readers' radar - your hard work will pay off and afford you time to take a break. Readers will understand, they just don’t want to be ghosted and completely ignored. See this article by Angela Ackerman, of Writers Helping Writers for more guidance on how to make Authentic connections through social media using her FAR Method of Marketing for more ideas.

4. Writing community and Giving Back

Share the good news. Giving Back to your writing community brings your good juju to your work, but it also can provide you more posts on Social Media. Sharing your gifts of time and insight are essential to quality writing that readers love to read. Do you have a writer friend who could use cross-promotion or has a new give-away on their website? Share press releases and forward social media from your author friends, as they most likely will do the same.

Get Involved in Community Service. Giving back can mean actual volunteer time too. For example, try helping at a Habitat for Humanity or a pet shelter, especially if those locations or occupations are a part of your novel. Get into the difficulties and joys of working as a carpenter or a vet tech and find better ways to make your stories realistic. Find other places to help out, too. Make someone’s day and make yourself feel better by showing you care with your time, energy and resources.

Giving your time and energy can benefit your writing in many ways. Inspiration from your work and the people you interact with can make it to your own pages. Getting a clear picture of what someone’s work and life is truly like helps us to write with integrity.

Put on your writer hat and pull up your sleeves to learn a new task. It will vitalize your manuscripts and even bring smiles to your face.

All these wactivities can be adapted to social media. Pictures, quotes, promoting a cause, can all come from these activities. Share what you are doing and let your audience know. They love a sneak peek behind the scenes. And who knows? It might inspire and inform your work in progress as well.

What ways do you use your writing process to interact with your audience? Do you use social media for more than the promotion of books? Share down in the down in the comments some of the ways you've found to connect, and feel free to toot your own horn!

About Kris

Kris Maze writes empowering, twisty stories and also teaches Spanish. After years of reading classic literature, mysteries, and legal thrillers, she sought to publish her own books. Her first Science Fiction novella, IMPACT, (Aurelia Leo, 2020) is now available!

Kris Maze is fascinated with strong characters like her protagonist Nala, a teen journalist who reluctantly works with a crazed scientist Edison to survive an incoming asteroid implosion. For more information on her book, look here.

Check out her newly revised website and say hi!  While you are there sign up for her newsletter to get updates on blog tours and media takeovers during the next couple months. For Subscribers during September there will be a free Writer Wellness Tips and Tools download, so now is  a fantastic time to visit her website.

For more information on her Dystopian Sci-fi Romance check here.

This Spring I received an email that changed the direction of my career. My friend August McLaughlin sent a note out to her mailing list about Danny Iny's free Online Course Bootcamp, which put words and action to a dream of mine.

I taught corporate computer classes for more than a decade but I stopped when my daughter was born ten years ago. She was my miracle baby and I didn't want to miss a moment of her infancy. Plus, I was tired of traveling all the time.

But I've missed teaching adults (so much!) during all these subsequent years as a business copywriter. And with this pandemic in full swing, and people beating down my door to optimize their LinkedIn profiles, it just seemed like the perfect time to explore teaching my LinkedIn mojo online.

All these months later, I'm still catching my breath.

Danny Iny is an incredible teacher and his classes have opened my world to scores of other people who are also chasing dreams. His community is built around integrity, work-life balance, and the importance of teaching your gift. I warn you...he packs a lot into each of these three trainings. But they are awesome. And FREE.

(When I find a free quality resource for my WITS peeps, I share! And I'm sharing it on an "off day" because it's a bit out of the norm in terms of what we usually post here.)

What does the Bootcamp cover?

First of all, this resource is time-sensitive. All three video recordings are here for you to watch between now and midnight tomorrow. (Feel free to skip around if one day focuses more on what you'd like to learn.) Each "day" of Bootcamp is about 1.5 hours worth of learning.

Bootcamp official synopsis:

Day 1 - The business opportunity in online courses

• Who can succeed at online courses (and how to know if this is right for your business)
• The truth and lies of the "passive income" dream - and how to get the freedom you want without sacrificing income
• Why pricing your course too low won't bring you the students you want, and pricing it too high won't generate more revenue
• How your course will fit into your business model to support everything else you do
• How to create online courses that fit seamlessly into a B2B environment (they aren't only for consumers!)
• What the future of online course business looks like, and how to thrive in a post-COVID-19 landscape

Day 2 - Creating courses people want to pay for

• How to find the right topic for your course (hint: it isn't always what you think it will be)
• Ways to identify the right scope for the very first version of your course, keeping it swift and simple to build
• An answer to the question every course creator faces: How long should your first course be?
• The different modes of delivery that work best for online learning in different contexts
• Exactly how to explain the value of your course so that people "get it" and want to know more
• How to create a high-quality course that delivers a genuine transformation for your students

Day 3 - Attracting and enrolling great students

• How to find plenty of paying students, even if you don't have an email list or a big audience online
• Four different strategies for enrolling your first 50 students (plus advice on which strategy to use when)
• How to have an ethical, non-slimy sales conversation with a future student - no pressure and no hard sell
• How to create a marketing machine that automates the selling process, so you can watch the enrollments come in without lifting a finger
• How to use your first online course to jump-start a high-value coaching business, serving people who want extra guidance
• A zero-effort technique for exposing your course to hundreds of new people each month

Watch all three videos here - they're only available until midnight Pacific time tomorrow night, August 31.

If you have even a small amount of time to spare between now and tomorrow night, I highly recommend these. If you don't have time or aren't interested, that's okay too. But there was no way I wasn't sharing the free replay with all my peeps here at WITS! This information is fabulous.

Happy learning!
Jenny

By Ellen Buikema

A character bible is a document filled with all you need to know about your characters’ motivations, personalities, physical characteristics, and background story, including family.  Not everything in the character bible will find its way into your manuscript, but the information will be easily available for your reference when needed.

Several chapters into writing The Hobo Code, I found myself in “Look, there’s a squirrel” mode. This is never pretty. When I was able to regain focus, I realized I’d written the wrong physical description for one of my main characters. In order to fix this, I reviewed several chapters to find the information I needed to continue the story. At this point, I had not begun a character bible. That incident pushed me to get on that!

How To Make a Character Bible

There is no wrong way to make a character bible.

It can be composed using a notebook, yellow sticky notes on butcher paper, or as a three-ring binder full of loose-leaf paper separated by tabbed dividers in multiple colors. Whatever works best for the writer. This YouTube video shows how to put together a story bible in a binder and includes free templates.

Not everyone likes to use paper methods. Some prefer to use software. Thankfully there are many to choose from for organizing and storing character information.

• One Stop for Writers has a great Character building tool.
• This YouTube video gives a good overview.
• Other possibilities are Scrivener, Plot Factory, OneNote, EverNote, and Microsoft Excel.
• Some writers like to use a combination of software, using Scrivener for writing and OneNote or EverNote for the character bible.

However you put it together, the benefit is to have quick access to the details for all your characters, no matter how minor. In The Hobo Code, hobo Spooky Steve is in far fewer scenes than Jack Schmidt, the main protagonist, but I still need to know enough about Spooky to have a well-rounded, relatable character.

Tips for getting the most from your character bible:

Knowing the characters' quirks, fears, likes and dislikes will help deepen dialogue and conflict.

• List all of your characters:  More time will be spent on the main characters, but details for the minor ones will help you remember little things like exactly what kind of tattoo he has and where it’s located.
• Background information:  Details infuse your characters with life. Focus on the characters’ personalities. Do they play well with others? How do they act under pressure? What are their emotional triggers?
• Physical Details: Keep a list of each character’s physical traits. This will help as you sprinkle these details throughout the story. No data dumps! You don’t want to change eye color mid-story unless we’re using contact lenses or magical glamor.

Weird fun fact: People with multiple personality disorder may have differing visual acuities. One may need glasses, another not. People with light-colored eyes sometimes appear to have eye color changes depending upon mood and what they are wearing. This can be used in emotion-filled scenes.

• Mannerisms:  Specific habits and mannerisms make characters realistic and relatable. Walk in your characters’ shoes for a day. Do they have speech patterns or use special phrases? How do they act at the dining room table during a meal? Do they eat standing up? Belch with great gusto to approve of a good meal? Dab with a napkin? Use this role-playing activity for everyday activities of all kinds.
• Interpersonal Communication:  List the characters’ friends, family members, colleagues, and enemies. Do your characters like to gossip? Are they friendly in person but spiteful in reality? Trusting? Naive?
• Stress Response:  You will be hurling conflicts at your characters to create tension and interest. How do your characters respond to stress? Include responses to normal situations and put the characters in positions where their normal response won’t work.
• Backstory:  No one lives in a vacuum, neither do fictional characters. Incidences in their past will determine how and why characters do what they do, and say what they say.  Maybe  characters freak out or crumbles at the sound of enraged voices due to childhood trauma. Perhaps they have specific olfactic memories and the smell of gasoline reminds them of long car rides for summer family vacations. A character’s backstory defines their present behavior and guides their future.

What about a screenwriting bible?

This bible (often called the show bible or series bible) is a reference document used by screenwriters containing all the information on characters including backstories, settings, and various minutiae, such as a character’s food allergies, for the big and small screen.

Movie and television series use bibles. These bibles are continuously updated with anything that airs. This document helps keep the writing consistent within the series.

When a new writer joins a show she is given a copy of the series bible to best understand all aspects of the program.

To pitch a TV series you must have your series bible ready to go along with the plot. Producers want to know where the story is going and if it’s binge-worthy.

The tone of the series should be reflected in the bible.

Here is a portion of the bible for the BBC’s comedy series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, based on the work of Douglas Adams.

“Hi, hello. Welcome. Bonvendu. I believe that’s how they say ‘enter peacefully’ in French,” the introduction starts. “Don’t check that. Don’t fact check that. You’re distracted, stop it, concentrate. My name is Dirk Gently. And you are reading the Series Bible for my television show, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. This show, of course, is the long-awaited follow-up series to HBO’s critically acclaimed No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which — Oh, it isn’t? I’ve been informed that it isn’t. I should have googled this. I thought we were doing an Avengers thing.”

Quirky series, quirky bible.

Do you use a character bible? Which works better for you, writing software or a paper method for notes? We'd love to hear, down in the comments, how you chose this method!

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About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Work In Progress, The Hobo Code, is YA historical fiction.

Find her at http://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Top Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay