Writers in the Storm

Laura Drake

Everyone has seen Mr. Mom, right? My favorite line from the whole movie is when Michael Keaton is dropping his kids off at school, pulling into the circular drive against traffic, and like four moms tell him, "You're doing it wrong."

Look, I'm not saying I'm the Mother of Social Media (although I'm probably old enough to be), but I've seen and heard things there that make me mad. Not because Newbies don't know better, but because there's so much wrong information floating around out there. These poor beleaguered writers are running from one platform to another, freaking about their numbers, tearing their hair, and screaming, "BUY MY BOOK!" Then ramping up, when people don't.

I was a career business-person. Business doesn't mess around. They want results. So here's some common-sense advice:

It's NOT about the numbers.

I see people on Twitter (possibly other places too) either lamenting their dismal number of followers, or crowing that they've reached some round number they're excited about. Hellloooooo — there is no gold star, free Cracker Jack prize or even green stamps (told you I was old) given for an ideal number of followers. It's about ENGAGEMENT.

Unless you're someone super famous that people listen to, and look up to (sometimes for dubious reasons — this is SM, after all), all those people aren't going to engage with you. And numbers don't sell books — engagement does. More on this in a minute.

It's not about, BUY MY BOOK!

I don't do a lot on Twitter, but I really enjoy the #WritingCommunity — or I used to. It's a huge group of writers, talking about the process, or word count, or posting inspirational memes, etc. It was my warm fuzzy place — a place I could interact with other writers.

But in the past two months or so, it's become a billboard for selling books, writer services, and the like. UGH. That was my one place to get away from all that! I posted, asking what the deal was all of a sudden. Many agreed with me, some didn't mind it. What hurt was the one who said,

"Know what you mean, but publishers look for evidence of a strong social media presence when you pitch and they may want to take on an ebook."

That is so sad. Guys, you're doing it wrong. What agents and publishers want to see is that you have people on social media that you're "friends" with — and I don't mean you "friended" them on FB. They're people who like you, and what you post. Guess what? If they like your posts, they're probably going to like your voice, and it follows they might take a chance they'll like your book and buy it.

What do you write about? Here's an example. I write romance and women's fiction, but it is, and will always be, set in the West, usually small towns, and it may have a cowboy or two. Who do I engage with? Rodeo women, cowboys wives, farmers ... you know, country people!

Get creative. Who is huge in your genre? Who in that genre is similar to your writing? Go look at their followers. Follow them. Engage with them. After all, they're a consumer of what you write, right? That's doing it right.

Engage, Engage, Engage!

Hey, I'm not all that. I spend time thinking about how to do this better, and just a couple weeks ago, I realized I was doing it wrong too.

Seriously. I may require an intervention.

I spend a lot of time on FB. I don't use my author page much, because I believe people want a real human to interact with. I have built a following of around 4k. That's not a huge number. BUT I work hard to engage with them.

Every morning, I post: coffee memes for the Morning Brigade, a beauty pic for the day, a mom meme, an awwwww for the day (think adorable puppies and kittens, and yes, Jenny, bunnies), and something from the weird file (you'd have to see it to believe it). Oh, and SNARK! I've had over 800,000 likes, probably get 50 or more comments a day, and God knows how many shares.

That's good, right? By the way, you do follow me, right? You can, HERE.

It is, except I wasn't taking advantage of one of my strongest avenues to sell my books! Yes, when I had a release, or a cover reveal, or a great review, I posted about it. But I never gave away my books in my general feed — only the groups I'm involved with.

HUGE duh.

So I did a giveaway for three books — ONLY for those who had NOT read a book of mine. All they needed to do to enter was to comment which book they'd like. Do you know I got 200 comments on that post? That's 200 people who love my posts daily — like my voice, my twisted sense of humor. They'd like my books! Three didn't seem enough to give — so I got in touch with my publisher, who kicked in 20 more.

It's done — they're all out and, I hope, being read. I truly expect to turn most of those into fans. And guess what? My Amazon ranking went up for a week after the winners were drawn — I assume non-winners went and bought a book.

There's always more to learn — go out there and do it right, people. Sell a shit-ton of books!

---

Remember when we used to buy a whole album of music from an artist? If you don't remember, just roll with me anyway. (And stop making me feel so old!)

Quite a few of my albums—both vinyl and CD—are collections of most popular or beloved songs; that is, the artist's Greatest Hits. Well, today is a greatest hits day here on Writers in the Storm!

Because below are the top 11 posts of all time written by our hosts. You'll surely see one here you'll want to click on — either because you hadn't seen that post before or you want the refresher. Enjoy!

Organize Your Novel with Excel

Do you long to "see your novel by the numbers?" If so, Laura Drake's method of organizing will change your life.

10 Bits of Stellar Writing Advice from J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien never expected his books to do more than line the trash heap. Here's great tips from a man who wrote for the joy of it, and never gave up. Courtesy of Jenny Hansen.

4 Secrets of a Writing Contest Judge

Fae Rowen shares secrets of a writing contest judge.

When You Think Your Writing Sucks

Julie Glover shares quotations from writing giants to keep you going when fear and self-doubt inevitably set in.

Getting to the Bottom of Your Characters

Laura Drake shares her notes from a workshop conducted by story structure coach Michael Hague.

Escalate Story Tension with Dirty Fighting

Deepen your internal and external conflict with Dirty Fighting. What is it, and why do you want your characters to do it? From Jenny Hansen.

8 Easy Ways for Your Characters to Show Love

Fae Rowen shares eight simple ways that characters—and real people!— can show their love.

Cadence - Writer's Glue

Laura Drake shows the importance of cadence and demonstrates with examples how to use it to power up your writing.

10 Success Tips from J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling's Top 10 Tips for Success (for writers and non-writers). Compiled by Jenny Hansen.

4 Easy Edits That Make Your Story Flow Better

Julie Glover shares 4 easy edits you can make that invite the reader deeper into the story and give a stronger impact.

Why You Should Write Flash Fiction

Laura Drake provides a "how to" on writing flash fiction, with examples.

Do you have a favorite post on Writers in the Storm? What's your vote for a "greatest hit"?

Fae Rowen

I promise this is the last in what was never intended to become a series. But it seems every time I think of "F" words, more come to mind...

My blog with the first six words can be found here. Like the first six words, these F-words are perfectly "clean" for mixed company and young ears, so no worries, no matter where you're reading this.

Let's start with a group of three words that might make life difficult for your characters: festering, forbidden, and frantic.

Is there something in a character's backstory that is like a festering wound? We all know that to avoid staying two-dimensional, our characters need a backstory. Backstory is true in the eye of the beholder, so it will have a lot more impact on your character than those who experienced the same event in your story.

You probably don't need to think deep to find something in your own past that you remember differently from a sibling or a parent. For you, it bordered on traumatic. For someone else, they barely noted it. They certainly remember it differently than you do.

If something was forbidden, that, too, can add to backstory. If it is currently forbidden, well, you've just upped the conflict in your story. Remember that the sooner you resolve the forbidden element, the sooner you've resolved the tension in that thread. To maintain reader interest, you can resolve the forbidden element then up the stakes by adding a new layer of tension.

How do you do this? Well, let's say your romantic couple each have reasons for their affections to be forbidden. She believes he loves her sister. He believes he's the bastard son of her father. When she discovers that he doesn't love her sister—that was just her sister's girlhood fantasy and revealed when her sister happily gets engaged to someone else—your female lead character believes the way is clear for her to love—and have that love reciprocated by—the male character. Oops, he still believes she's his half sister, and no matter how attracted to her he is, he's going to fight the attraction, even to the point of hurting her. For her own good.

These first two F-words can lead to making characters frantic, but so can a lot of other things, like ticking clocks, plot twists, other characters. You know...all the things that make writing your own stories so much fun. A frantic character can make mistakes take work for you, as the author, for the rest of your book. Or you can semi-resolve them and leave your characters with a worse dilemma.

Which brings us to the next group of F-words: facade, flexible, and family.

Maybe you thought of family as in F-word when you read my first blog on F-words. There is no doubt that, for many people, family is an F-bomb. There is a reason so many people dislike (even hate) the holidays. How many of your friends currently aren't speaking to one or more of their relatives?

Feel free to take out your aggressions, your feelings of being slighted or devalued, the times you were powerless to state your truth, around your family. Those experiences will make your story, and your characters, more authentic. On the other hand, you may be one of the lucky ones who had great parents and supportive siblings. That would color a character's backstory as well.

Perhaps you, or your character, or the "good child" in your family because you've developed an impenetrable facade over the years. What an effective way for one character to keep out another character. And what a wonderful way to build a relationship—it could be very rocky at first—as one dedicated person chips away at the facade of the other because they know there is something of great value below that facade.

Family and facade can lead to learning how to be flexible to survive. Of course, you can be flexible without calling on a character's facade or family. Flexibility can also be seen as a weakness particularly in male characters.

The final group of F-words can be a writer's treasure chest of ideas when wanting to throw out one positive nugget of a character. Friends, fascination, fulfillment, and the future can shade your characters with attitudes that bring readers back to your books for those satisfying endings.

How many times have you heard those sayings like friends being the family we choose for ourselves? The people we choose to surround ourselves with show a great deal about us—our strengths, or weaknesses, our likes and our dislikes.

What fascinates your characters? Do they thirst for knowledge? Do they work to perfect a craft, a hobby, a trade, a physical ability? How do they pursue their fascination? Do they bring others, like friends and loved ones, into their fascination?

How do your characters see their futures? This probability will change during the course of your story as your characters move through their character arcs. Good for you! This gives more depth to move your characters from cardboard to real. You can also use what a character wants for their future for motivation and conflict and plot-driven nuances of your story. Similarly, a character can react to a possible future in a strong negative way which helps them grow and "improve."

Finally, that leaves F-word number ten: fulfillment. By the end of your book, your characters need to have their hearts and lives filled with happiness, and probably love, even if you aren't writing a romance. I write science fiction, on the speculative fiction side of the genre, and my characters better feel that they've made their world a better place to live and learned to love themselves. If they've learned to open their hearts to another, so much the better.

Do you have another F-word to add to our collection? How has it improved your writing?

About Fae

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak. Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes that she can live anywhere but the present. As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules. 

P.R.I.S.M., Fae's debut book, a young adult science fiction romance story of survival, betrayal, resolve, deceit, and love is now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Fae's second book, P.R.I.S.M: Rebellion, will be available for pre-order in October 2019.