Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

Every writer strives to create characters who leap off the page as unique, compelling, fully-formed people. We spend hours, days, and sometimes years to make them believable.

Recently, I attended a day job webinar that gave me new tools and perspectives for fiction. (I love it when that happens.)

The course detailed the eight characteristics every person needs to successfully navigate this “adulting” thing and realize their full potential. Here are my thoughts about tweaking these traits to help our own heroes and heroines as they journey through our stories.

Meet the “8 Cs”

We want our characters to be whole by the end of the story, or at least whole enough to fight another day. The list below, shared by a long-time social worker, contains the qualities people need to be fully actualized [aka happy], and some exercises that will help them “get there.”

The conundrum of happy characters often lies inside the artist. Most creative spirits are forged from adversity. As Richard M. Nixon said, “The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.”

We want to put our characters through these hot fires of hell. We need to hold them to the flames to keep readers reading. But most writers also want their characters to find happiness by the time they write The End. It's especially difficult to keep our eye on the happy prize when the world around us is chaotic.

How do you mess with a character’s happily-ever-after under these circumstances?

Meet the 8 Cs:

1. Curiosity
2. Clarity
3. Confidence
4. Creativity
5. Calm
6. Courage
7. Compassion
8. Connectedness

How can we use these character traits?

Below are quotes, questions and affirmations for each quality that may spark ideas for your own characters. The smart writer will pick a few traits and ensure that their character is terrible at them.

Note: Angela Ackerman a post for us about a character’s unmet need, which is a great counterpart to this post. A character’s "lacking" qualities or their unmet need is the stuff of a great hero’s journey.

1. Curiosity

“Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.” – Bryant McGill

An enquiring mind is a wonderful thing. People with highly developed curiosity are often healthier and happier. People with a well-developed sense of curiosity are often more mindful of their world, and more accepting of themselves.

Some questions:

• How do I feel about this, and why?
• What if I were more present right now?
• What do I need the most right now?
• What inner strengths have I discovered in this
  situation?

2. Clarity

“Out of crisis, comes clarity.” – Randolph O’Toole

The actual definition of clarity is “the quality of transparency or purity.” It means to have clearness, wisdom, an understanding of your world or situation.

In fiction, if you have a mentor in your book, they likely have clarity. How would this look on the page? What might this mentor say to your main character?

• Breathe.
• Find your refuge.
• Respond, don’t react.
• Dig deep.

3. Confidence

“It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures.” – Oprah Winfrey

Character affirmations to help underscore your character's confidence:

• Celebrate victories.
• Do your best. It will be good enough.
• Be congruent.
• I am me, and I am okay.

4. Creativity

“The creative adult is the child who survived.” – Ursula Le Guin

Mantras or sayings for a character brimming with creativity:

• Has anything/anyone inspired you lately?
• Everything in my life inspires me to create.
• Express your thoughts and feelings your way.
• I gift the world through my creative expression.

5. Calm

“Feelings are just visitors, let them come and go.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Everyone has a friend or family member who goes from zero to everything when it comes to their emotions. Calm is the opposite of that. Calm takes a moment to assess. Calm looks inward before it looks outward.

Does your character have calm? How do they use to progress your plot? Perhaps they lack calm. How does that hurt them?

If they have this superpower, here are their mantras.

• Differentiate between fear, anger, and
  helplessness. Then lean in.
• Don’t get hijacked by your feelings.
• “Rest and digest”. Try not to just react.

6. Courage

“Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and than you think.” – Christopher Robin

Courage is what every great hero is made of. It's about willingness, effort and potential failure. It is about finding a way where there is no way.

How would a courageous character look?

• They’d engage in authentic communication with others.
• According to Brené Brown, they would allow themselves to be vulnerable.
• They'd possess a willingness to be uncomfortable.
• Also, an optimism that failure is not the end.

William Faulkner said, “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”

7. Compassion

“If I am not first for myself, then who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” – Rabbi Hillel

Love and compassion for others starts with love and compassion for one’s self. It is the hardest thing to remember for many of us and the easiest thing to forget in times of stress.

Characters who have compassion as their superpower should know the following:

• Self-compassion is fundamental.
• Find acceptance, not judgment.
• Bring compassion to your pain.

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” – Jack Kornfield

8. Connectedness

“Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self.” – Harriet Lerner

Do you have a character with a strong community or one who keeps to themselves? Do they want to be connected, but don't know what that looks like? Perhaps they build a community for others but don’t feel they deserve one of their own.

How does your character connect? What is their love language? Is it their time…gifts…actions?

Here are some philosophies the connected character might live by:

• Nurture your inner strengths. Then share them.
• Expand your generosity. Then share it.
• Open your heart and your mind, as well as your arms.

Now it's your turn...

What is your main character's superpower trait? What are they terrible at? What other traits would you add to the list? Share your thoughts down in the comments!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny provides corporate communications and LinkedIn advice for professional services firms. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 18 years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Facebook at JennyHansenAuthor or at Writers In The Storm.

by James Preston

Writers deal in words, but often those words need to paint a picture in the mind of our reader; they need to see what’s happening. Let’s talk about why that’s important and then about a different way for you to accomplish that visualization in your novel, through Storyboarding.

I remember driving to Mammoth Mountain for a ski trip with my friend Steve, who had brought a book on tape (ok, actually a CD). It was a Tom Clancy novel, one that I’d read before so I knew what was happening and it should have been just fine.

Instead. I nearly drove off the road. Highway 395 vanished and I could see the interior of that atomic submarine, the periscope, the dials and switches and the result was I learned that I can’t drive and listen to a story.

In my newest story I almost got to the end, writing a big action scene on the roof of a building, and the nasty thing got out of hand. Where were my characters standing? What could each one see? This is a first-person story, so what could my hero see and how did that change when he moved?

It seems like there are two issues here. Seeing in your mind what’s happening, and translating that vision into words. Issue Number Two — translating your vision into words — is the subject of other excellent essays here on Writers in the Storm. Issue Number One is what we want to talk about today.

If anybody had asked if I knew what was going on up on that roof, I would have said, “Why, sure. I’ve had it in mind for weeks.” Then I had to really figure it out and I  discovered I wasn’t as clear as I needed to be. One answer is storyboarding. 

What is storyboarding?

The term comes from Hollywood. Storyboards are sketches that allow directors to see the scene and to communicate what they want to the cinematographer. I would suggest that some form of it, simplified of course, can be of value to novelists. 

Some of us can draw, some can’t, and then there’s me. With a lot of practice I have hopes of working my way up to “pitiful.” Technology to the rescue! There are at least five drawing apps for the iPad that are free. I checked out one called Autodesk while I was working on this essay, and it’s excellent, with way more features than I’ll ever use.

Side note: if you decide to try it, do go through the tutorial! There are things to learn.

Technology to the rescue part 2: the camera on your cell phone. Remember film? I do. In my first photo class on Day 1 the instructor said to think before you shot “because film and developing were expensive.”

Those days are gone! Want to write about a crowd scene at a farmers’ market with booths selling everything from avocados to zucchini? Find one, snap as many pictures as you want. The new rule is: when in doubt take the shot.

Back at your desk delete the ones that you don’t want and use the others to visualize your scene. Trapped inside because of the lockdown? Not close to the kind of scene you have in mind? Just Google it. More scenery than you can ever use. Of course, you’ll have to imagine the young woman showing her seven-foot, tattooed, alien warrior boyfriend around, but, hey, that’s your job.

Steps to Storyboarding

1.  Create blank boxes. Think of a comic strip before any of the frames are filled in. For free ways to get started check out sampletemplates.com.

2.  Beneath each box add a brief description of what’s happening, specifically what you want the reader to see. If you are working in first-person your job is a bit easier because the reader is behind the hero’s eyes.

3.  Sketch. Who’s standing where? What’s in — and not in — their field of vision?

That’s it. Three steps. Keep it simple so it doesn’t eat your time like the dreaded social media.

Maps and Building Plans

Closely related to storyboarding is drawing a building plan. I created several for my most recent story because a lot of it is set in a hospital that’s attached to a much older structure and it was easy to lose track of where various rooms were and how everything connected. I did top-down and side views, sketching on graph paper, and, while none of the results are worth framing, they helped me.

F. Paul Wilson has a series of supernatural thrillers called the Repairman Jack novels. I’ll never forget reading one that’s set in part on Maui. Now that island is one of my favorite places; there’s nothing not to like about it. Over the years we’ve been there many times, so I know what it’s like, right? Wrong! Wilson saw the landscape better than I did, and his descriptions made me see it the way he did. His description of the red dirt of Maui made me see it forming hills and cultivated fields.

As writers, we need to see, then we need to put what we see into words. Storyboarding can help. Pencil and paper or tablet application, the act of drawing what your characters see will help you see it. Trust me on this: it doesn’t have to be art you want to hang on your wall; mine is suitable for lining a cat box but it’s the act of creating it that’s important.

How many scenes out of the eighty or hundred that make up a novel should you storyboard? IMHO as few as possible. Yeah, I know, here I am writing about how cool storyboarding is and now I’m saying do it as little as possible. The problem is the obvious one: while you’re creating that sketch you’re not typing dialogue. I suggest using it to get a scene straight in your head, like I did with my characters on the roof. What I learned when I did that exercise was that things were getting crowded and my hero would not be able to see everything.

Exceptions

You knew this would come up, didn’t you? I don’t know if these exceptions prove the rule or not, but it’s important to understand that they’re out there. Some stories do not lend themselves to sketches of who’s standing where. Two that come to mind are epistolary novels and dialog-driven stories.

Epistolary novels bring a special set of problems. Look at Stoker’s Dracula. Sure, you can have descriptions but not only are they through the eyes of the protagonist— they’re also how Jonathan Harker would write them down In his diary or in a letter to Mina. Does storyboarding apply? Maybe, but remember the scene description is at arm’s length.

Dialogue-driven stories.  The best example I can think of is the Fletch books by Gregory Macdonald. Skip 90% of what anything looks like just and get on with the story. Man, I wish I could do that because it cranks up the pacing to escape velocity. No storyboards necessary.

And in the End

In a very funny western called Cat Ballou the Lee Marvin character shows up drunk and his friend says, “Your eyes! They’re all bloodshot!” Marvin responds, “You should see ‘em from this side.” That’s the point of this essay — you need to see through your character’s eyes and then get it down on paper.

We deal in words. We’re the gunslingers of the keyboard. And when you finally get it, when you lock in and that scene reveals itself to you and you can’t get the words out fast enough, well, there’s nothing else like it. Nothing on earth.

Now it’s your turn. Take a scene from your current WIP and sketch it out. Paper & pencil, software, it doesn’t matter. Just give it a shot and see what you think. Did it help?

About James

James Preston writes the multiple-award-winning Surf City Mysteries. His most recent work, however, is not part of that series. It’s a novella called Buzzkill, a historical thriller that Kirkus Review said is “enriched by characters who sparkle and refuse to be forgotten.” His work is collected by the UC Berkeley University library as part of their special collection, “California Detective Fiction.” Remains To Be Seen, James' newest Surf City Mystery, will be launched in the fall.

For more about the stories, check out his web page, www.jamesrpreston.com. He can be reached at james@jamesrpreston.com.

by Penny Sansevieri

There isn’t a secret formula for executing the perfect book launch. There are numerous factors in play that are constantly changing, from news and popular culture, to the publishing industry, to what just plain work in marketing and promotion. But the real “secret success strategy” to book sales is very straightforward: give readers what they want! The challenges arise because reader expectations are a moving target.

As authors, it’s important to be flexible and adaptive to these changes and have a clear idea of how they play into our own marketing plan.

But while change is inevitable, there are still some key strategies I’ve tested and one, in particular, I want to share today. Though it won’t guarantee success, it has worked well for me and the authors I collaborate with, and I hope it can help you too.

The Latest Trick for How to Launch a Book

I say “trick” but this is really not a new concept. I’ve been testing it, however, and it’s worked so it’s new for me to promote so wholeheartedly.

I want to focus on the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) marketing principle that every single author needs to get intimately familiar with.

Increasing engagement, increasing your followers, increasing your newsletter sign-ups, increasing sales, increasing reviews – these all require that you give your audience something worth their time, effort, and loyalty.

That’s just the reality, and when you think of yourself as a consumer and not as the author on the receiving end, I’m sure you’ll realize the truth of this.

Understanding Who Your Buyers Are

Figuring out how to launch a book the right way, specifically, if you want to push for pre-orders and that lucrative bestseller ranking, means you need to figure out a WIIFM offer that will really resonate with your target buyer market.

This is a great brainstorm, in general, for your ongoing marketing and not just for how to launch a book with more success. I’ve written about bonus content and special promotions before, and this plays heavily off that concept.

If you write non-fiction, your offer should be a bonus that supports the topic of your book or the problem you’re trying to solve for your audience. Yes, you could do something only semi-related but you’ll miss out on the psychology behind helping them make the easy choice to buy.

If you write fiction, this gets a little trickier sometimes. If you already have a strong follower and fan base of people you know will buy your next release and you just want to push them to do it in a shorter time period to improve your seller ranking, you have a lot more options for the kind of bonus content you can offer.

If you are a new fiction author and don’t have a lot of return buyers, you have to be careful to not offer something too brand-centric. Meaning, if people don’t know they love you yet, offering them something super specific to your story or characters may not be a big enough draw.

How to Launch a Book with this Strategy

Now, how to launch a book with a killer WIIFM concept!

It’s not as top secret as you’d think. Essentially, what you need to do is set up a very strong, short-term promotional plan to get the word out about your pre-order period and the bonus content buyers can get for purchasing your book before the release.

Yes, some of you are thinking, “That’s the big secret? Easier said than done.”

But it’s really not that complex:

1. Figure out a solid WIIFM offer. In fact, think of 2-3 and get some feedback from friends or colleagues that understand what you do and who you write for.
2. Figure out the logistics of confirming purchases and delivering the bonus.
3. Plan out how you’ll get the word out – create a mini marketing plan and schedule.
4. Shake off any fears you have of bothering people!

We all get busy but most of us mean well. I tell authors this all the time, especially when it comes to figuring out how to launch a book or build up reviews, you have to remind people multiple times – and most of us actually appreciate it when there’s a limited time to act.

Bonus Tip:

Be genuine and grateful. Make it as personal as you can. Don’t sell people, make them an offer they can’t refuse, let them know you’re doing it because you appreciate their support. And plan to send thank yous or a follow up of some sort to ensure you don’t let these newly interested and invested readers fall to the wayside.

By understanding your buyer market, you’ll gain a clear insight into how you can connect with them and what will motivate them to buy your book. Using the WIIFM strategy effectively communicates this understanding and leads to a fan base that will stick with you. Start brainstorming what you can offer today!

Do you have questions for Penny? Or fabulous marketing tips that have worked for you recently? Share them down in the comments!

About Penny

Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. (AME) and Adjunct Professor at NYU, is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns.

To learn more about Penny and AME, visit www.amarketingexpert.com.

Top Photo by memyselfaneye--331664 at Pixabay.