Writers in the Storm

Marilyn Brant

Thanks so much for inviting to me to Writers in the Storm today and for asking me to share a little bit about the group blog anthology I worked on this spring!

A few months ago, I organized a writing/promotional project for one of my blogs, the Girlfriends Book Club, which is an online group I’ve been a part of for over eight years. (And the wonderful Laura Drake is also a member!) I had the pleasure of working with sixteen GBC members on a multi-author collection that we called, One More Page: A Fiction Sampler with Bonus Writing Advice from 17 Successful Novelists. It was intended to showcase both the diversity of our individual writing, as well as the collective wisdom of our group blog.

What resulted was a FREE ebook anthology that I thought was pretty unique. Each chapter in the book featured a different author, and the chapters included a range of writing treats. In every chapter, there was a short author bio, website links, a couple of blog posts about writing that the author had previously posted on the GBC, and an excerpt with buy links from one of the author’s published novels. And, so, the project itself was a combination of writing wisdom for aspiring novelists *and* fiction samples for curious readers.

We released the anthology in mid-May and, to date, we’ve had a few thousand downloads across the various retailers. While I can’t speak to the experiences of all of the other participants, I found that reader interest in the novel that I excerpted in the collection (a chapter from my coming-of-age romantic mystery, The Road to You) has garnered some additional sales since the publication of the sampler.

Where we are in the Amazon/B&N/iBooks/Kobo rankings at any given time fluctuates, of course. When the book gets a promotional boost on a popular Facebook page, blog or author newsletter, the rankings always improve. But I think the added visibility has been of some help to everyone involved. As with most promo projects, the more effort somebody is willing to put into it, the more he/she tends to get out of it. I definitely think the author participants who took the time to really promote the project to their individual readership also saw added interest in their own work.

Again, speaking just from my own experience, I know that after I sent my newsletter out and posted about the free book on my social media sites, I received quite a positive response, and not just for The Road to You. I found that my readers were excited that I was introducing them to a bunch of talented, new (to them) authors—which could only be a good thing for my GBC friends!—but they showed their appreciation by sharing my posts, engaging in some fun Facebook conversations with me, and checking out novels of mine that they may not have read.

An opportunity that I saw some authors in the group taking advantage of—and I wished I’d been able to do it at the time, too—was the use of their specific story excerpt as a means of getting readers hooked on a series. When I was pulling this project together, I was still a few months away from releasing the earliest books in my Mirabelle Harbor series, which is a crossover contemporary romance/romantic women’s fiction project that spans at least seven stories. I would have loved to have used an excerpt from either Take a Chance on Me or The One That I Want (the first two Mirabelle Harbor books) to give readers a taste of this new fictional world that I’d been creating all year.

However, even though I didn’t get to do that myself, I did get some feedback from a few of the GBC members who promoted one of their romance or mystery series book in the sampler. They said they were pleased with the response to their excerpt and that they saw an increased interest (along with more sales!) in other books of theirs from the same series. So, for writers who might be hoping to try a group project similar to this one, if you’ve got a series you’d like to promote, there’s the potential for an added benefit.

Regardless, I found One More Page to be a fascinating collection to both work on and to share with others. For years, I’d felt as though the GBC had a treasure trove of blog posts that could be insightful and inspiring to our fellow writers. It was a delight to help readers/aspiring writers out there find some of those words of wisdom...and, as an author, I also loved getting to connect writers whose work I admire with a new and enthusiastic readership.

Wishing you all an enjoyable rest of the summer!
~Marilyn

 

Author Bio

Marilyn Brant is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of contemporary women’s fiction, romantic comedy, and mystery. Her debut novel won RWA’s Golden Heart® Award, and she was named the Author of the Year (2013) by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English. She loves all things Jane Austen, has a passion for Sherlock Holmes, is a travel addict and a music junkie, and lives on chocolate and gelato. Check out her website for new releases in her Mirabelle Harbor series and for upcoming special events and giveaways: www.marilynbrant.com

 

Scott Wilbanks

You know you must be desperate when you find yourself Googling random word combinations in the hope that a book title will magically make itself known to you.

To be honest, after a week  and an endless series of, “that’s good, but no thanks”, responses from my publishing house, I was grasping at straws.  As half of my novel is set in the year 1895, the only thing I knew for certain was that I wanted the title to evoke a turn-of-the-century vibe.  To that end, I included the term Victorian in each word combination.  And let me tell you what, there were a lot of those.  Eventually, I stumbled across an online dictionary for Victorian slang, and, with nothing better to do, decided to putter around inside.

That’s when I stumbled across the term lemoncholy, and knew that I’d landed on something special.  According to the dictionary, it was a synonym for melancholy.  Unfortunately, that didn’t gel with my novel’s themes, but a delicious possibility began to percolate around in my head.

What if I coopted the term, combining melancholy with the phrase if life gives you lemons . . . to then mean the habitual state in which one make the best of a bad situation?  That would describe my protagonist, Annabelle Aster, to the tee.

What didn’t register, at the time, was the irony.

Our minds are indescribably complex engines, and mine had chosen to have a last laugh.

You see, nearly nine years ago, I’d done just that—made the best of a bad situation—though I didn’t realize it at the time.  All I knew was that I’d written down a couple sentences in a bleak moment.

In polite company, she was known as Annabelle Aster.  Being a spirited woman, however, she wasn’t often found in such company, as she’d determined it to be, more often than not, insincere.  And also being a sincere woman in every particular, Annie chose her company for the quality of its character, not its rank.

We’d just wrapped up the closing arguments in a three-week-long trial, one that had begun three years earlier when a multi-billion dollar company decided not to pay the commission I’d earned on what was, at the time, the largest transaction in my industry’s history.  Basically, they’d toyed with me for several months, stating that they’d make it their goal to “destroy your company” if I decided to seek recourse through the legal system.  It didn’t matter to them that I’d worked on the transaction for over a year, and, as a result, would be bankrupt if not paid.

So I sued.  It was me and my best friend—a man with a lot of smarts, but no knowledge of my industry—against the resources of a multibillion dollar company and a client who’s wife’s interest income exceeded forty million dollars a year.

Will it surprise you that I was experiencing panic attacks throughout the trial, then, some of which were so bad the lead arbitrator asked if I needed medical assistance?

It must have been a real treat for the opposing parties, not that I cared.  The greatest weapon you possess in a legal battle is an opponent’s absolute readiness to underestimate you.

I’d barely closed the door to my hotel room after the trial’s conclusion, though, when I experienced the mother of them all.  I’m pretty certain that, to an outsider, this particular attack would look have looked a seizure.

Somehow, I’d managed to crawl into the shower—I honestly don’t remember doing it—and sat in the basin with water pouring over me and my clothes.  And while doing so, the strangest thing happened. Those sentences that I shared earlier popped into my head.

They were inspired by a series of letters I’d written to, and received from, a failed date many years before, letters in which I had Annabelle Aster write to her friend, one Elsbeth Grundy, asking for advice regarding her lovestruck friend—me.  I’d emailed the letter to my date, and, well, let’s just say that I got a second date.  And a third.  And, by the fourth, we were an “item.”

Back to the scene in the bathroom, though. Don’t ask me why, but I got out of the shower, changed into a robe, and wandered to a desk where I wrote the words down on a piece of loose leaf paper, before shoving it into my briefcase.

The next day, I found myself back home in San Francisco, too afraid to go to work.  Merely thinking about it put me on the verge of a melt down.  So I cleaned house instead, eventually stumbling across those few sentences.

Intrigued, I sat down, tapping a pen against my kitchen counter.  I wrote an additional sentence.  Then another.

Two months later, I’d written four-hundred-fifty pages of the worst first draft in history.  More importantly, in all that time, I didn’t once set foot in my office.

And the day after I wrote the words THE END, I began the bureaucratic process of shuttering my company.  I’d no heart for it.

But I’d caught the writing bug, having discovered that putting words to paper was the best therapy for what had subsequently been diagnosed as a chronic anxiety disorder.

Time passed—eight years, to be exact—and those sentences I wrote, and those that I added to them, and those that I reworked tirelessly, had turned into a book named The Lemoncholy Life Of Annie Aster, which has just launched.

I don’t think you can even imagine how satisfying that feels. But I’m, only now, seeing the irony of it all.  I’d created my own, personal state of lemoncholy.  I’d made the most of a bad situation.

And then some.

What happened with the trial, you ask?

I won.

And while the years between the trial and my books’ publication saw their fair share of tragedy—that date, turned boyfriend, turned best friend, had died—it also saw me moving to New Zealand after meeting the man I’d ultimately marry.

All we need to make it perfect is a cat.

So, Do you have any stories for us about where you got an idea for a book? 

Scott Wilbanks

Scott is an American expat living in New Zealand with his frustratingly perfect husband. A former national title holder in the sport of gymnastics whose left arm is an inch shorter than his right—the result of a career-ending accident—Scott ditched the corporate world to “see where this writing will take me.” He is the author of THE LEMONCHOLY LIFE OF ANNIE ASTER, a commercial fiction novel with a fantasy premise releasing August 1, 2015 through Sourcebooks that tells the story of two pen pals who are fighting against the clock to solve the mystery behind the hiccup in time connecting their homes before one of them is convicted of a murder that is yet to happen… and yet somehow already did.

For those of you who couldn't attend, every year I share the best, the "golden," writing tips and industry advice from the workshops I attend at the Romance Writers of America conference.

Joan Johnston:

• To ramp up tension, skip some of the Twelve Levels of Intimacy. (Not familiar with the twelve levels of intimacy? Read Jenny Hansen's post here.)
• Precise word choice enhances physical description and conveys "hidden" meanings, like "sharp"nose, hard jawline, ice blue eyes to show a hero may be dangerous or a naked overhead bulb in a bedroom setting.
• Show the physiological response of characters

Sherry Thomas:

• Subtext: When you notice something really interesting below the surface. 
• Subtext drives conflict and character arc.
• Good subtext is invisible.
• When you give crucial information about the character up front you give readers a Rosetta Stone to your characters.
• Use symbols throughout your book. Example: He fell in love with her when she was wearing a red scarf. He's apart from her, but when he sees a flash of red, he looks, hoping it's her.

"Mistakes we Made" Group Panel:

• The stronger your market brand, the more books you will sell.
• Make your bio personable.
• "Ad stacking" sells books. ("Ad stacking" is small ads "stacked" during the same week.)
• Publish and distribute directly where you can.
• Join Kindle Boards before you publish.

Julie Cupp and Christy Reese, on self-publishing:

• Right now, before you publish, establish an online presence and start building your e-mail list.
• Get a professional head shot. (On my To Do list!)
• Hire a professional editor who is comfortable with your genre.
• Hire a professional cover designer.
• Have a proofreader read the book at the end of the editing process.

Jennifer Crusie on Metaphor and Motif:

• Two of the most effective tools for subtext are metaphor and motif.
• Motif is any element (word, symbol, sound) that is repeated at least three important times in your book.
• Motif can be a line of dialogue that is repeated at least three times in your book, especially good if it changes meaning during the story.
• A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses a concrete image for an abstract idea.
• Never make their meanings explicit! 

Kristan Higgins on Secondary Plots:

• Secondary plots layer your book and make it interesting.
• They help with saggy middles. (You can read Fae's blog about fixing a saggy middle here.)
• Secondary characters get away with things your main characters can't do.
• They demonstrate attributes and flaws of your protagonist in a hands-on, palpable way.
• Make your secondary characters and plots just as multi-faceted as your main characters and plot.
• Don't shove in a character because he'll get his own book later.

Madeline Hunter on Taking Your Writing to the Next Level:

• Raise the stakes to improve your story.
• Cut 10-15% of your word count when you edit.
• Your dialogue should matter and create plot points.
• You must engage in the emotional content of the story.

Michael Hauge on Identity to Essence:

• Any good story is a before and after picture.
• Conflict must elicit emotion in the reader.
• More than half of the obstacles for your character need to come in the last half of your novel. They should come closer and closer together.
• To create empathy with your hero, make her the victim of some underserved misfortune.
• Good story-telling is about manipulation. There is a problem if the reader sees the "strings."
• Our identities are who we believe we are. If you strip away the identity, you have the essence, the potential of what the character can become if she has the courage.
• Your characters can not achieve the outer goal unless they move out of identity and into their essence.

Laura Drake on submitting your book: You know, Fae, you can't sell a book if you don't send it when someone asks for it.  Okay, Laura, I sent the first book off yesterday morning. Book Two will be sent by the end of the week. By the way, I love your cheerleader outfit!

Some of the workshops were two hours and contained much wonderful, useful information. If you want more information about any of the "lines" above, let me know in the comments and I'll add some brief clarifications.

Willing to add your Golden Lines from RWA 2015 or a conference you recently attended? Share the wealth in a comment. And don't forget, we all have our own golden lines of writing wisdom. We'd love to see yours.

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.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of calculus lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now shares her brain with characters who demand their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen.