Category: Marketing

How Storytelling Applies to Other Types of Writing

Quan

If you have been reading my blog regularly, you know that my main focus has been on improving as a storyteller. But also if you’ve read my author interviews, you would see that many of the authors I have interviewed wrote nonfiction books. There is much more to writing than just writing fiction. There are nonfiction writers, marketing writers, journalists, technical writers, essayists, and a plethora of other forms of writing that people engage in.

But I maintain that storytelling can be, and often is, a crucial aspect in all forms of writing, above and beyond just fiction.

Storytelling makes any writing more engaging

Anyone that has read a textbook for class or research knows that a lot of writing can be dry and uninteresting. It is a reason why a lot of people dread reading. A good story takes the reader on a journey where they follow how everything progresses over time. The way you write your piece can take your readers on that journey. The reader in now invested in the narrative you are presenting, and wondering how, or even if, the subject you are presenting can solve the problem you have created. Now your reader wants to know more about the subject you are writing about. They want to know the details because each detail you present could be part of the solution to the problem, or even present more problems that need to be resolved. It’s human nature: if you witness something begin that catches your attention, you will naturally want to see it through to its completion. You can use that to your advantage.

Benefits of adding a storytelling element to your writing

Making your writing piece into a story helps make your point more digestible. Your writing is no longer just a stream of facts statistics and ideas. There is a definitive, driving point to what you have written, and all of your supporting information now has a clear direction it is pointing in. If you are marketing, or writing to sell something, telling a story help the reader envision themselves in the situation where your product or service would be beneficial. That way they can better visualize the benefit your service or product will bring to them.

Creating a narrative.

The classic 3-act structure can be used in any setting. Simply, put, act one presents a problem, act two is the process of trying to solve the problem, and act there is the resolution of the problem. So now the question becomes how to compile your writings to fit this structure. Here is a simple, three-step way to do hat.

1. Find The Problem

Whatever you are writing about, whether it be advice you are giving, a product or service you are trying to promote, a theory you are trying to explain, or an explanation of how something works, it is in response to something that created a need for what you are writing about. Start by pinpointing where exactly that need was generated. This is the beginning of your story.

2. Find The Solution

Whatever conclusion you were going o write about, whether it actually solves your problem or not, is your solution in this context. It is the end of your story and the resolution for what you are setting up.

3. Find The Process

Now you have to figure out how to get from the genesis of your problem to its resolution. This is where all of your data, or historical references, or your selling points come into play. You actually have some creative liberty here with how you present the details, you can show how each of your points responds to different aspects of the problem. You could show how your solution initially responds to the problem, how the problem reacts (or present counter-arguments to your solutions), and how the solution responds to those responses, or a number of other ways of presenting the information. The most important thing is to show a progression where the problem you have pinpointed is resolved over time. This is the journey that you are taking you reader on.

If you can mold your non-creative writing project into a story narrative, you will make your writing more engaging and appealing to the reader, and they will be much more comfortable with reading what you wrote completely from beginning to end. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

The Hidden Costs of Self-Publishing Your Book

Quan

I pay my bills as a freelance graphic & web designer, and many of my clients are authors looking to self-publish and promote their work. There is a lot of merit in that, especially if you are having a hard time finding an agent or publisher that will take an interest in your book. It is simpler and more cost-effective to self-publish than it ever has been before, and you have the advantage of not having to share any of your profits with a publisher or agent.
There is also a lot of work that goes into self-publishing. You’re responsible for literally everything, starting with the actual editing of your story. You’re going to have to get beta readers or hire a content editor to help you finetune your story into something publishable, and you will need a line editor to make sure your spelling and grammar are correct. And the work ramps up after you get your book to where you think you can publish it.

This was advice I gave to a client that was looking to make an illustrated Children’s book. so I’ve also added some of my rates (in case some of you might be interested in hiring me like she did…)
Okay. So you want to factor in how much it will cost to publish your book. Kindle direct can do it for free but they take their printing cost out of your sales. If you’re working on a children’s book, you need to factor in how many illustrations you need and whether they need to be in color or not. My base for an illustration is $100 per (My rates are pretty low compared to most of the industry).
Also you want to factor in actually formatting your book for publication, which I personally charge $200 for (with an additional $100 for creating your book cover).
And finally there is marketing and promotion, which scales depending on how much of it you want to do. You’re looking at creating websites, marketing collateral (flyers, posters, postcards, bookmarks, etc), merchandise (cafepress is a good free way to handle that), signage (for book signings and tradeshows), and digital marketing via email, social media and web advertising. You might want to look up the costs of those venues. Start with Google ads, Twitter ads, Facebook ads, Amazon ads, and mailchimp. or you could hire somebody to do all of that for you, which means you’ll have to get some rate quotes from marketing specialists.
You’re going to want to do some research into the type of markets that will actually buy your book, and depending on which resources you use, that might have a cost, too. And if you really want to do it big, You might need to look into how much it will cost to hire a publicist to officially spread the word about your book.
After you have a gist of how much that costs, then you have to look at how much capital you actually have to work with. How much can you actually, realistically allocate for all of this stuff? and will it be enough?

The good news is that once you have your budget, you can use crowd funding to raise the money you need to do what you want to do. I’d look up similar campaigns on kickstarter and indiegogo to see how others did it. If you have enough supporters (I didn’t for my crowdfunding campaign and it failed miserably), you can easily get the funds you need to make it happen. One of the many keys to having a successful crowdfunding campaign is having enticing enough rewards for your investors, and depending on what perks you offer, those can incur a cost, too.

Even with those costs, if you can generate enough support for your story, your book can still be profitable, especially if you can get a lot of good word of mouth about how good your book is. Check out the work of Renee Scattergood here. She is a successful self-publisher and an expert on book marketing.

Making Your Story Adaptable for Stage and Screen

Quan

I had picked up a cheap DVD at the dollar store a while back. It was “Blast” starring Eddie Griffin and Vivica Fox. It was a decent flick, nothing spectacular, but it wasn’t horrible, either. What surprised me was that the movie was based on a book.

Being a book writer, it always raises an eyebrow when a novel gets optioned for a movie or TV show. And it’s not just the holy grail franchises like “Twilight”, “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, “Da Vinci Code”, “Bourne”, or “Harry Potter”. Even lesser-known properties like “Virgin Suicides”, and the short-lived (but AWESOME) TV show “FlashForward” are based on books. Heck, even nonfiction how-to books like “Think Like A Man” got movie treatments.

So I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering how to get a piece of that action.

There’s a lot about getting your story optioned that is out of your control. You have to find a connected literary agent that can get your story in front of movie execs or people with enough power to make stuff like that happen. You have to have a studio actually interested in your story. And then there’s negotiating a fair deal, and hoping the guys adapting your story for screen don’t butcher your creation to the point where it’s not recognizable (Think the movie version of “I Robot” vs. the book). And that’s if the story actually makes it to film – many optioned properties get lost in the development process and never actually get made into movies or TV shows.

But one thing you CAN control about the process is making your story easily translatable for television and movies. This way you story becomes more attractive to would-be producers and film execs, because they can see an easy path to getting the story in the format that will make them the most money.

Break down your book into its core elements.

Remember, movies are visual mediums, and you don’t have more than a few hours (which translate into about 150 specially formatted pages) to tell a complete story. So your story needs to get to the point and stay there. First and foremost, you need to know the core elements of your story: The central characters, the central conflict, and the setting. Most films and television episodes are plot-driven, which means you want to make sure the plot that moves your story forward is strong and engaging. With characters, you want your main characters to have strong, definable characteristics that the actors portraying the role can build around. This doesn’t mean you eschew nuance and subtlety completely, but you want to make sure that your character’s defining traits are front and center and inform most of their behavior. The setting should be well defined, enough so that your readers (and a potential producer) can visualize where everything is happening.

Your book synopsis as a movie outline

After you find these core elements, then you want to build the skeleton of you story, or find the skeleton in your existing story. Most publishers and agents require a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of your story for submission anyway, so now is a good time to put one together. Write a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of your story, and then go back and filter out the details that are least vital to the plot. Look your outline over and then determine if the plot is strong enough to carry onscreen (or stage, if you want your story to be adapted into a play). These scenes are the ones that need the most of your attention when you write your final story. They need to stand out, engage and keep the narrative moving forward.

The plot points also need to drive home the central conflict of your story. Who is you protagonist, what are they up against, and what is at stake. These elements need to be front and center throughout your story. Ultimately, you want to be able to explain the biggest elements of your story in one sentence.

With those elements established, then you can go back in and build everything else on top of that, while still keeping everything pointing towards your core elements. Just about every story I write is intended to be adaptable. Godmode was built as a sci-fi horror story, but there is heavy action and character development moments to establish Elijah and his supporting characters, along with ever-raising stakes that escalate from simple survival, to protecting people near him, to rescuing his wife and child from a nemesis that was a former friend.

Action and Dialogue matters

Since movies are a visual medium that moves in realtime, you do not really have the luxury of delving deep into aspects that cannot be visually represented on the screen/stage. So inner thoughts, explanations of how stuff works, lengthy descriptions of history and settings, while still useful and essential to your story, all take a backseat to strong dialogue and action (and by action I don’t just mean shooting, fighting and blowing stuff up. By action I mean stuff happening and moving the plot forward). So you want to make sure your characters are talking or communicating to each other in some way, shape or form, and that they are interacting with their environment.

As long as you have a strong core to your story, and your story is moving and engaging, then moviemakers should be able to see how they can bring your story to the screen. Now it’s just a matter of finding a moviemaker willing to give your story a chance. Go for it.

Finding You Audience

Quan

I once was talking with a friend of mine who is writing a series of YA fantasy novels. But it had become clearly evident that the books she was writing had subject matter that was much too mature for a YA audience.

Sometimes finding your audience is as simple as doing a bit of market research. Looking up your chose genre and the demographics it serves is a well-traveled way to finding out who you should be writing for. You can also go the reverse route. Pick a demographic you are interested in and look up what those people are into, then see if you can craft a story that caters to their interests.

Asking around helps, too. If you have an idea of what genre your story fits under, try joining some social media groups dedicated to that genre. Pay attention to what they are posting about, and ask plenty of questions. You can get a ey good sense of what is popular with that group. I am a member of a few groups dedicated to science fiction and fantasy from the African-American perspective. So I have a finger on the pulse of what that audience is reading. It’s also a good networking tool for when I need beta readers (but that’s a topic for a whole noter post).

Another way to find an audience is to follow an example. Researching other top-selling books that are in the same vein as your story and finding out information about who is reading those books can give you a good ballpark idea of who would be drawn to your story. For instance, There was a good ten-year period where YA books were ntrenched in the Hunger Games formulas. Everything from the Percy Jackson series to the Divergent series to the Maze Runner Series followed the ragtag team of teenagers with special abiliies saving a dystopian world from adult oppressors. But the formula worked and many of those series were successful.

Once your research is done, you need to do this exercise. Take some time and describe, in your own words, what the target audience is for your story. Write it down so you’ll have a reference to go back to. Write the age range, gender ratio, racial and cultural background, average income, usual places of residence, social-political leanings, and any other hard data you can find on your target. Write down any interests, hobbies, attitudes and opinions these people might have. You can even list some of the books, movies, games and TV shows they might be consuming.

Now, with that data written down, ask yourself how exactly does your story appeal to this group of people? And how can you further develop your story so that these people will find it even more appealing?

That is the more business-like way of approaching this topic. There is a more organic way to do it, also. Just write the damned story you want to write, and then try to see what kind of audience would buy it. It’s a tougher, less organized way of doing things, but it allows you the freedom to tell the exact story you want to tell without having to make compromises or concessions for the people you think might want to buy the book.

This method will require a lot more legwork, however. You will have to find similar stories and look into who is buying them. Maybe dissecting elements of your story and looking up who finds those elements interesting may help. Utilizing beta readers and asking them which elements of your story stand out or that appeal to them may work.

Whichever way you choose to do your research, It would be beneficial for you to make the effort to find out who exactly you want reading your stories. That way you can better focus your writing, and you’ll have a better target for the next step of the process once you’ve gotten published, which is marketing your story. Give it a try.

Pros and Cons of Shared Universes

Quan

The Marvel Cinematic Universe was, and still is, a huge phenomenon in the world of entertainment. Never before had there been such a collection of disparate, interconnected standalone movies that all shared the same universe, which culminated in films that brought all of the franchises together. The formula was so successful that other studios sought to create their own shared universes, with not nearly as much success. But this innovation in film is just an iteration of something that had been done many times before in comic books and literature.

I define a shared universe as a collection of standalone story franchises that all interact and inhabit the same storyspace. This is different from an epic series with multiple books like Dune, or a franchise that creates multiple spinoffs like Star Trek. In a shared universe, each property can and often does work independently of any other entry into the franchise and is not dependent on familiarity with any other franchise for its own relevance. It’s like Nancy Drew having frequent team-up stories with the Hardy Boys: these are two well-established franchises that sometimes interact.

This was something that hadn’t been tried before at a major level in film, but shared universes are commonplace in literature and comic books. The most notable examples I can think of are the Marvel and DC comic book universes, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, The Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts franchises, and the collection of worlds and characters that define the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering. This is a model that can be very lucrative at many levels if handled correctly. But can be disastrous if mishandled. So the question becomes whether this is a model you as a writer would want to pursue for your stories, as well as how to pull it off successfully.

WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT:

Cross promotion and marketing

Sometimes the best way to promote franshises is via other franchises. This is why successful TV shows often have “backdoor pilots,” which are episodes of the show specifically designed to spotlight a new cast of characters in hopes of sparking interest in a spinoff show. The familiarity of a property your audience is familiar with could be a great launching pad for a new property.

Franchising and branding possibilities

In many cases, the whole is very equal to the sum of its parts. Having a solid lineup of independent franchises compose your shared universe creates a feeling of community that your audience can relate to.

When one thinks of the Discworld, they probably think of their favorite book subseries like Commander Vimes & the Watch, but other series will also come to mind like the 3 Witches, Moist Von Lipwig, Rincewind & The Wizards, Susan Sto Helit, and Tiffany Aching. That familiarity only strengthens the brand of the Universe as a whole.

Building fanbases for characters and plot arcs

The added exposure of having franchises interconnected with other franchises allows for more of your audience to develop a connection with them. You can really build the fanbase of a franchise by tying it into a larger world. Likewise with plot arcs that resonate. Many of Magic: The Gatherinsg’s Planeswalker characters gained popularity and notoriety from interacting with their resident superteam The Gatewatch, as well as though the epic War of the Spark storyline.

Building a following

A shared Universe is a great way to build a following for multiple franchises at once. Your audience will take an interest in seeing what new characters and elements will be included in your universe, as well as how the established elements wold react to them.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T DO IT

Connections can become overly convoluted and confusing

The more elements you add to a universe, the more potential there is for things to get confusing. It can become a puzzle figuring out how everything and everyone fits together and relates. In he 80s and 90s, DC Comics had to have two massive comic book events to clean up their convoluted issues: the first one dealing with their plethora of different versions of the same heroes and worlds (Crisis on Infinite Earths), and then one to fix their inconsistent historical timeline (Zero Hour). You have to keep careful track of each element you introduce into your universe, and that in itself comes with issues, as I will elaborate on in a couple of paragraphs.

Forcing your audience to follow everything

A big problem with shared universes is that a newbie may see all of the interconnected franchises and feel intimidated. If there is no real jumping on point, they will feel that they have missed too much to get on board, or that following all of the disparate stories just to see how they connect or so that they won’t be left in the dark when a story comes down the line that references the past is too intimidating. This was a problem that some people had with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Those films were rewards for longtime fans, but newcomers had a hard time figuring out what was going on and why.

Keeping track of all the details

Your bookkeeping gets way more extensive with a shared universe, because there are so many more story details to keep track of. Everything has to be consistent across franchises, especially in areas where they overlap. And fans of your shared universe will quickly cry foul if they find something that doesn’t line up correctly. It can be quite tedious to double check everything to make sure there are no discrepancies, especially if your universe consists of a lot of interacting franchises.

The story never ends

Another issue that might become a problem is the pressure to continue adding to your universe and keep it growing. It becomes increasingly harder to add a standalone story, because your readers will always ask what ramifications that story will have on the universe overall, and if any future changes in the universe will have an effect on what happened in that story. This is an area where the dreaded story retcon can come into play, where you literally change the events of your past stories ipso facto to better fit your current narrative. As a general rule, you want to avoid retcons unless there is truly no other way to make what you have now work within the current narrative.

Here are some offhand examples of well-done shared universes.

Marvel and DC comic universes

Marvel Cinematic Universe

DC TV Universe (BKA The Arrowverse)

Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

Magic: The Gathering Multiverse

The Glass Movie trilogy

The Law & Order series of TV shows

The Chicago shows series of TV shows

Th CSI series of TV shows.

In a future post I will offer some quick tips on creating your own shared universe, and ways to avoid certain pitfalls. I will also talk about how I approached creating a shared universe for two of my webcomics, The Seizure and Weekend Heroes.

Vanity Press, Thy Name Is Mudd

Quan

My first novel, The Leopard Man, was published through a nefarious book publisher called PublishAmerica. Some of you may know of them and their reputation. I did not renew my contract with them and have since self-published The Leopard Man, even offering it for free on my website. This is an account of my experiences good and bad putting a book out through PublishAmerica.

1. I had just spent 9 months working on my new manuscript. It was an involved process, and I was very proud of the story. But I was intimidated by the process of seeking an agent and publisher. I had failed previously with two other manuscripts, and I wanted desperately for this one to succeed. I was also unemployed, and I was spurred on by the rags-to-riches stories of Tyler Perry and Michael Moore. They succeeded by working hard and believing in their dreams, and I wanted to do the same. I was jobhunting when I came across an ad for PublishAmerica on Careerbuilder.com. I was a little wary, wondering why a book publisher would be on a job hunting website, so I looked them up. I thought I was researching them. I visited their website, where they implicitly said they weren’t a vanity press. So I took their word for it and sent my query and then my manuscript to them. They accepted it without any problems. I was elated to have my book coming out, and told all my family and friends as much.

I missed a few clues that something was wrong. First of all, I had to edit my own book. In addition to that, I only got a $1 advance, they offered a bare minimum (not even that) of promotional support, I had to approach bookstores myself to get the book stocked. Also, The family & friend list idea seemed unprofessional, and I didn’t see any books by this publisher in bookstores near me.

I had made plans to go on a deep, involved marketing campaign. I had read Terry McMillain’s article on self-promotion, and took it all to heart. I was determined to make this book a bestseller, if I had to do everything myself (which I eventually had to do anyway). I had gotten quotes from various publicists. I had contacted numerous Writers conferences about setting up booths or doing appearances to promote my book. I had found an alumni from my college who would help me set up shop in Chicago. I had talked to an uncle who had a Movie producer friend about maybe getting the producer to buy the movie rights. I designed my own book cover, and programmed the promotional website myself. I told everyone at my high school reunion about my book and signed everyone up to my mailing list. I contacted both my Creative writing professors (Jonis Agee, who wrote Strange Angels) and a novelist who was an old classmate of mine (Anne Mallory, who wrote Masquerading the Marquess) about reading my manuscript and endorsing it. I was going to approach my church about endorsing the book, and had planned on taking out ads in local newspapers and magazines. I had gotten price quotes from merchandisers for book-related items like t-shirts and mugs I could give away or sell. I talked with a local bookstore about having a book signing the month my book was released. I had even talked to some music producers I knew about putting together a movie-styled score for my novel. I was thinking up sequels to the book, also.

Then a strange thing happened. I was applying for the Poets & Writers author database and was rejected. They said my credentials weren’t good enough. I wondered why, so I looked up the rules. It said “we don’t accept book published through Vanity Presses…like Publish America.” My heart hit the floor. “vanity press” is one of the most reviled phrases in the writing community. And I felt that I had basically been lied to.

That’s when I did some REAL research on Publish America. I googled them and found a plethora of information, mostly from authors complaining about them or warning others not to do business with them. There were complaints logged in the BBB about them. There was an extensive pro vs. con site about them, with the vast majority of comments being on the con side. Book Reviewers, magazines and industry resources didn’t consider their books as legitimate. Book stores would not carry anything published by them. Legitimate agents and publishers held any works done through them against you when considering future books for publication. Basically, publishers like PA don’t make their money off of actually selling books, they make their money off of the author buying the books from them. And my book was under contract with them for seven years. I saw my hopes and dreams of being a full-time author slipping out of my hands.

I was despondent for about two weeks. I was embarrassed that I had asked my Teacher and Friend, both established authors, to endorse what they could have easily seen as hack work. I was ashamed to be telling people of a book they couldn’t go to their nearest Borders (back when brick and mortar bookstores were a thing) and buy, especially since a great deal of my friends and family didn’t have access to Amazon.com, where my book was being sold at. I canceled the majority of my promotional plans. No more writers conferences. No more movie deal. No hiring of any publicist. No merchandising or ads in any publications. No book signings. I even canceled the soundtrack project. I stopped updating the website. My story covered some powerful topics – one of which I got the permission of a lady who had been through a very traumatic experience to use in my story, and I felt that I had let her down in not getting the issue addressed. I was on the verge of abandoning the book – and my writing – altogether. I had even gotten to the point of questioning how good the book really was, and whether I had what it took to be a successful writer.

Then a few things happened. First, I had gotten a response from the classmate, saying she loved my story and would gladly endorse it. I had told her what happened, and she gave me some words of encouragement, saying that this misstep didn’t have to be the end of my writing career. Some of the friends and family on my mailing list said they sympathized with what happened to me and would support me and tell people about my book. And then the book actually arrived. Vanity Press or no Vanity Press, NOTHING can compare to the feeling of seeing your first book in print. It’s an amazing thing. On top of that, I gave one of my two complimentary copies to Ashlynn, my wife’s teenaged niece, who allowed me to base the heroine of my novel on her mannerisms, opinions and personality. Seeing her face light up as I gave her the other copy of the book reassured me that I did the right thing in getting the book out. It inspired me to redouble my efforts to promote the book, if only to see how I could make the most of my situation.

I decided not to go all-out to promote the book like I had originally planned. I didn’t have the time or funds to sink into a huge promotional campaign (especially if I was doing it all myself), and this was before internet and social media book marketing became a viable thing to do. but I did manage to make some things happen. I approached a few libraries in my hometown and told them about my book. They ordered a few copies and even asked me to autograph one! I got a kick out of seeing my book on their shelves next to Grisham, Clancy, McMillan and Tyreese. I continued to update the website, adding Anne’s endorsement and even moving the site to my personal website when the domain expired. I contacted my college’s alumni magazine and they reported the debut of my novel and how to get ahold of it. I joined up with Amazon’s marketing partnership to help direct visitors to my site to Amazon to buy the book. A middle school English teacher who heard of my plight invited me to speak about it and creative writing in general to classes of young writers at a few schools in Ann Arbor. I still went to one of the conferences – the Sweet Auburn festival in Atlanta – and passed out postcards and flyers promoting my book. And, of course, I wrote this article.

A supporter of PA once said that they were satisfied with PA. The company treated them nicely, and they were happy to have their book published. And that really is fine and dandy…if all you want to do is get a book published. For those hoping to make a career out of writing, however, Publish America’s sordid reputation is a serious detriment. I learned that from experience. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken a more serious look at them, and checked around before sending or signing anything. It wasn’t all bad, though. For one, I did sell a few books: the libraries bought a couple, and a couple of family members bought books. I didn’t get much in Royalties, but with all of the money I spent writing and promoting the book, it counts as a huge benefit for me come tax-time. Since I lost more than I made, I can write all of that off and get some of that money back. I still get a kick out of seeing my book in the library, and my wife’s niece was so happy to be the star of her own novel that she took her copy of the book with her everywhere she went, up until she started attending college.

And I haven’t stopped writing. I’ve since gotten two other novels published with legit publishers or e-publishers, and I made sure I did my homework on them before I signed anything with them. Red Rose Publications, King Jewel and Necro Publications have been very good to me and my novels. My contract with PA finally expired, and I now offer that book as-is as a free PDF download on my website, www.quanwilliams.com. And now I am seeking an agent for two fantasy manuscripts I have completed as of tis posting, and I am , I promisecrrently writing follow-ups to both of them, But when I do finally garner the interest of another publisher, I promise to look before I leap into a situation with a suspect publisher. I don’t want to publish in vain again.

The book in question, The Leopard Man, is available as a free download here.

Asimov, Zelda and Grandfathering Continuity

Quan

One of the many past times I like to indulge in is playing classic video games. I am particularly fond of the Legend of Zelda series of open world adventure games. I enjoy that series and games like it for many reasons, chief of which is that the exploring scratches a problem-solving itch: it’s reassuring to know that problems and obstacles in life have solutions, just so long as you know where to look to find them.

But that’s not why I brought up Zelda.

The thing that ties Zelda into this blog is the lore, mythology and backstory running through the games. Over the course of 19 disparate games, which really had (for the most part) nothing in common aside from a guy named Link rescuing a girl named Zelda from a monster named Ganon (or Ganondorf, in some games), an epic, generation-spanning mythology was created with tons of fascinating twists and turns. What makes this even more fascinating is that most of these games were created in a vacuum, with seemingly little regard for the storyline of the games that came before it. Despite that, the masterminds at Nintendo were able to link (pardon the pun) every official Zelda game into a cohesive storyline that makes all of the games feel like one epic narrative.

So what does this have to with you as a writer?

If you ever find yourself with two stories that are only tangentally related, or aren’t really related at all, and you’re wondering if you can somehow tie them together, then Zelda proves that it is indeed possible. Sci-Fi legend Isaac Asimov did something similar when he found a way to link his three biggest book series (Robots, Galactic Empire and Foundation) together via his latter Foundation novels. So let’s break down how these two franchises did it.

1. Find common threads that connect your stories. If you look hard enough, you may find themes or tropes that your disparate stories have in common. With Zelda it’s simple: Link, Zelda and Ganon. Almost every Zelda story flows from this trio of characters. And the games that don’t feature all three have good reasons not to. Nintendo’s solution was to create a curse of reincarnation, where Ganon was fated to always reincarnate every generation or so, and there would always be a Zelda and a Link fated to oppose him. For Asimov, the natural evolution of his universe and the progression of mankind were what tied his worlds together. You could envision a scenario where a civilization that used sentient robots could find a way to expand into a galactic empire, and the Foundation concept could be seen as a natural evolution of the empirical concept. He even insinuated as much in the first two Foundation novels.

2. Pay attention to detail so you can explain inconsistencies and incompatibilities. Inconsistencies and incompatibilities are things that routinely plague dense continuities, timelines and universes. If something gets big enough or lasts long enough, you are bound to find stuff that doesn’t quite mesh together. This is a routine problem that plagues massive comic book-styled universes like with Marvel, DC and Magic: The Gathering. Asimov had this problem long after he passed, and his estate commissioned three of his friends and peers to write new books in the Foundation saga. Their goal was to fill in gaps, explain inconsistencies and modernize the mythology to gel with current technological trends (i.e. there was no such thing as the internet when the Foundation books were written, so now how does the internet fit in the psychohistory of the future? Their solution was a galaxy-wide web that crumbled into disrepair towards the beginning of the Foundation series) For Zelda, it was a matter of taking ideas and concepts that were hinted at in Link To The Past and Ocarina of Time (the two most foundational Zelda stories) and placing them in future games while expanding on their history and roles. The roles of the three goddesses (which started off as unspectacular gems Link quested for in Link To The Past) and the importance of the Master Sword (Which was really just one of a few sword upgrades in Link To The Past) was greatly expanded upon in future games.

3. Make a story that ties everything together. This is a simple and obvious way to link your stories. If you can craft a story explaining how everything links together, then you can help your readers connect the dots and see how everything ties together into one larger narrative. Origin stories can do a great amount of heavy lifting by showing how everything got its start. The Zelda franchise did this masterfully with Skyward Sword, which illustrated how all of the mythos that form the basis of Zelda originated, as well as creating the reincarnation vehicle that would carry the narrative from game to game and through various settings and scenarios. Asimov did the same thing with Prelude to Foundation, which firmly and definitively established that Foundation was set in the universe of the Galactic Empire books, while also including a key character from the Robot books to establish that those stories were also part of the narrative.

4. Decide what and what not to reference. Sometimes you’re going to run into elements that just won’t fit no matter how hard you try to explain them away. It’s at this point where you need to be judicious about what you reference and what you just retcon away or leave to the reader’s imagination. It’s okay to let some things be mysterious and let the reader ty to connect the dots in his or her own headcanon. The analyses, theories, conversations and debates among Zelda faithful about where things fit in the three distinct timelines that comprise the majority of Zelda games provide fuel for the fandom between games, and only serves to strengthen the franchise. Breath of the Wild claiming to have happened so far along in Zelda history that all previous games had faded into (pardon the pun) legend only added more fuel to the debates, with questions like “why did the merfolk-like Zora race evolve into the avian Rito race when the world was submerged in Wind Waker, only to show up alongside the Rito in Breath of the Wild?” Likewise, Asimov’s Robots/Empire/Foundation saga left a lot of unanswered questions that his successors tried to address in their Foundation books (with varying degrees of success).

5. Create a timeline. This was done masterfully with both Zelda and Foundation. And is often used when sorting out major events in large sagas. When you create a timeline of the events in all of your stories, you can easily show how events in one story lead to or influence events in other stories, and readers can see the progression of things and gleam the bigger overall picture. Zelda’s taking the three possible outcomes of Ocarina of Time and splitting them into three different timelines to fit games into was brilliant.

When done well, linking your disparate stories can breath new life into your older stories. Readers new to your mythology will have reasons to go check out your older material to see for themselves how it all connects. And the meta-narrative is great for building the brand of your saga. You might even be able to take themes and ideas established within your newly created continuity and mine them for new stories. The two novels I am seeking representation for as of this writing are separate and happen in seemingly unrelated universes, but I have snuck in Easter eggs and hints in both stories (and plan to in future stories as well) that more than hint that the two worlds are somehow connected.

You do run a risk of confusing your readers if you only haphazardly try to connect everything. So if you are going to go this route, make sure you do it with the utmost care.

This time I’m giving a double recommendation. This official Zelda compendium outlines the narrative that connects every official Zelda game from the very first Legend of Zelda all the way through a Link Between Worlds. And Asimov’s Prelude To Foundation provides the framework of that informs everything you read about in all of his Robot, Galactic Empire and Foundation novels. I strongly recommend both books as examples of what I’m writing about.

Zelda: Hyrule Historia on Amazon

Prelude to Foundation on Kindle

Spaceballs and the Power of Branding

Quan

I just picked up a few DVDs of classic movies I grew up on. I’ve been making an effort to grab these films, mostly for my own personal enjoyment, but also to share with my nieces and nephews. I’ve learned that a) many of these films are definitely not as tame and family-friendly as I remembered them to be – even with a PG rating, and b) lessons I learned from these movies shaped a lot of my life views and lifestyle. That’s a pretty powerful thing when you think about it.

For instance, I let some of the teenage boys at my old dayjob check out the classic space spoof SPACEBALLS, by Mel Brooks. The movie is still as fun and funny to watch today as it was when it was made back in 1987.  But one of the running jokes stuck with me in ways that only now do I understand its effect. Spaceballs had a subtle subtheme criticizing the voracious consumerism of moviegoers and sci-fi fans. Everything from the strategic name brand and product placement (we call it “Mr. Coffee,” sir) to the advent technology (We’re looking at NOW, now, sir) to even scenes of Rick Moranis’s Lord Dark Helmet playing with his official SPACEBALLS action figures spoke to fans of franchises like STAR WARS and STAR TREK and their incessant need to own a piece of the franchises they adore. One of the children at my job was an unrepentant Trekkie and Harry Potter fanatic, who jumped at every opportunity to add memorabilia and merchandise to his already massive collection or books, games, toys, movies, and random knick-knacks that tie into these franchises.

The point was driven home quite blatantly when Mel Brooks’s Yogurt character went on a diatribe explaining the power of merchandising, hocking everything from SPACEBALLS plates to SPACEBALLS talking dolls and everything in between. He even mentioned the possibility of a sequel (fittingly called SPACEBALLS: The Search For More Money). Once he opens your eyes to that aspect of the film, then you can’t not see all of the SPACEBALLS merchandise they have strewn about the movie. There’s even an official SPACEBALLS placemat in a random space diner towards the end of the film!  

So what affect did this have on me personally?

Isn’t it obvious?

While many high-falluting, artsy-fartsy creative folk talk badly of this as a form of “selling out,” I am firmly entrenched in the opposite camp. Once you attach a price tag to your object of creative expression, you step out of the realm of being a creator and you become a business person / entrepreneur.

And what is the ultimate goal of being in business?

Three words: Get. That. Money.

Some people may look at Bill Watterson’s refusal to license Calvin & Hobbes as a noble attempt to maintain the integrity of his creation. I look at is as a HUGE missed opportunity. The C&H product would have been enhanced, not diluted, by proper merchandising. Think about it: Peanuts and Garfield are still beloved franchises despite having their own TV shows, movies, and endorsement deals. The Heathcliff and Dennis The Menace cartoons and movies added dimensions to the central characters that were only hinted at in the comic strips. The Boondocks TV show still offers the same biting criticism of Black America and America in general, but is now exposed to a MUCH wider audience that doesn’t necessarily read newspapers. Meanwhile, the only people who give a hot darn about how “brilliant” Pogo and Doonesbury was are comic strip snobs. Watterson would have only added to the legacy of his characters by giving people more access to them than just the comic strips.

And to my earlier point, if he valued his artistic integrity so much, then why sell the strip at all? Give it away for free if making money isn’t that important. By distributing your strip through the newspaper syndicates you were already subjecting yourself and your product to dilution and censorship by the editors and bigwigs in the syndicates. Just ask Aaron McGruder or Berke Breathed how much creative and editorial freedom you REALLY have when dealing with those guys. Since you’re basically whoring out your product anyway, why not get the most for it, from as many consumers as possible, in as many markets as possible?

This is the life lesson I picked up from SPACEBALLS, and I follow it religiously now. There is no way I’m going to bother making a creation that lacks cross marketing potential. All of my novels have been written with a potential movie, video game or TV show in mind, and they can all easily be franchised into book series if they had been successful enough to warrant that. And you especially saw it on my GODMODE website: In addition to the book, I’m showing you the book’s soundtrack, and as much merchandise from book-related images as CafePress will allow. The hidden gem of this is that the cross-promotion, merchandising and licensing goes both ways. If people find a GODMODE T-shirt interesting enough to buy, that person becomes a walking advertisement for the source material, especially since I make sure this site’s URL is on every piece of merchandise. 

I make no apologies for wanting to get the most out of my creations, and for exploring every opportunity and option to do so. If I can increase awareness of my product and profit from it in a new way, I’m open to exploring it. This is the process of branding, and all successful companies (and individuals, for that matter) do this.

So if you like my products, buy them! And check out all of the related merchandise to see if it also appeals to you.

And since I’m talking so effusively about SPACEBALLS, then why dontcha check the movie out again to see what I’m talking about?

The Failure of Crossgen Comics

Quan

Crossgen Comics founder Mark Alessi’s death went by relatively unnoticed, as opposed to his comic book contemporary Stan Lee. Which is sad considering Alessi was also a trailblazer in the industry. I remember when I stumbled across Marvel’s redux of the CrossGen Line of comics while in a comic shop a few years back. For those who don’t know or don’t remember, Crossgen was a revolutionary line of comics started by Alessi, who took a more corporate and businesslike approach to making comics. His line of comics focused on more nontraditional fare like Sci-fi and high fantasy, employed established writers like Ron Marz (Green Lantern) and Mark Waid (The Flash), and broke out new superstar artists. Alessi employed a different approach to how a comics company operated, bringing in its artists and writers as employees with salaries and corporate benefits instead of the work-for-hire, contract model used by Marvel and DC. The guaranteed pay was a huge selling point for top notch writing talent. Its first four books were very well-received and set the stage for an expansion of the comic line.

So if CrossGen was so successful then, you might wonder what the heck they were doing as an imprint of Marvel?

I believe the mistakes Crossgen made are the mistakes that a lot of upstart companies made. The biggest one is overexpansion. Crossgen’s first four titles (Sigil, Mystic, Meridian and Scion, respectively) were successful, so they added a few more books to their lineup (Crossgen Chronicles, Sojurn, the First and Negation) and they in turn begat more books (Ruse, Route 666, Way of the Rat and The Path), which was followed up by EVEN MORE titles (I’m going to stop naming them now), all within the span of three years. Simply put, there wasn’t enough shelf space at comic shops, and certainly not enough comic readers to support all of those books. Crossgen couldn’t keep it up, and they eventually went bankrupt. One of their comics got movie optioned by Disney, and eventually the rest of their assets were scooped up by Disney, who passed them off to Marvel, who published a couple of paltry book before letting the imprint die on the vine.

For the record, I DID NOT LIKE Marvel’s treatment of the Crossgen properties. I had a chance to read a few of the originals, and I found the storytelling to be excellent, and I don’t like that Marvel did nothing to preserve, rehash or continue the original storylines and characters (with the exception of Ruse, which is still true to the original). It flies in the face of everything the original Crossgen had set up. But that’s neither here nor there.

So how did having so many titles work against Crossgen? Simple: they spread themselves too thin too fast. I believe they assumed their growth in readership could sustain more titles.

Furthermore, they expanded into a lot of uncharted genres at once. This was also a mistake. They were making books about everything from spies to pirates. Nowadays, horror books are all the rage, but Route 666 was among the first mainstream books to explore it. The book was before its time, and people weren’t ready for it. Now, if a regular business took a gamble like that, most folk would think it too big a risk, but since it’s “only” comics, it would turn out okay. It didn’t. Trying to please everyone at once usually winds up with you pleasing nobody.

The final straw was announcing a creator-owned imprint, which they had neither the means nor truly the intent to support. That idea was stillborn, and a harbinger of the fall of the company to come.

My theory is that in it’s intent to be on the same level as the Marvels and DCs, and even Image and Dark Horse, they expanded too far too fast, and put out more product than their customers could support, without taking the proper moves to bring in new customers (yet another business mistake). They put out these new books with a minimum of marketing and promotion and expected the books to either sell themselves or for their loyal Crossgen readers to shell out more money to try the new stuff. A big company like McDonald’s might be able to get away with that: a small company like Fatburger can’t. Crossgen should have paced themselves better and taken the time to heavily market each book using media outside of the usual comics venues (ie comic shop ads, comic cons and the old Wizard magazine). The internet was pretty strong by then, also. They should have utilized that resource better, also.

Personally, I feel that if they had simply stuck to their original four books, (maybe with two or three hit books like Sojurn, Negation and Ruse – basically keeping their book lineup small) and devoted more time and resources to heavily promoting those books, then Crossgen would still be an independent company, maybe with success comparable to the big four, which would put them in a much better position to expand and maybe land a few movie deals (one of their books, Abadazad, was in this process when Crossgen went under. Too little, too late, I guess). With the popularity of horror books and comic based movies at an all-time high, now would be the perfect time to strike with those.

So for all you aspiring entrepreneurs, let this be a lesson to you. Try not to overextend your reach too fast. Once you’ve found a niche you’re successful with, focus on building up what works, and expand within reason, making sure that each step you take is on solid ground before taking the next one. Research the market you’re in and make sure that it can support your new expansion idea. If it can’t, then there is nothing wrong with taking an idea before its time and letting it marinate until you and the market are ready for it. There’s nothing wrong with taking risks, but make sure you understand what you’re risking. And if there’s anyway you can minimize the risk, do so.

If you want to relive the glory days of Crossgen, they still have books available. Here’s one of their better titles.

The Secret of a Good Title

Quan

For me, one of the more challenging aspects of writing has surprisingly been coming up with good titles for my stories. It’s not as easy as it would seem. You have to remember that whatever title you give to your work will be the label that work is known under for its entire shelf life, and will be one of the first things people think of when they think of your book title.

With that in mind, you want to have the right title, and it is something you need to put some thought into.

So what are the elements that make a story title the right one?

1. Resonance. First and foremost, the title has to “sound” right. Titles within themselves have cadences and rhythms to them, and it shows when you speak them out loud. That’s why many iconic titles have three syllables or less. A shorter title just flows better.

2. Relevance. The right title will have a direct relation to the story it describes. Ideally you will be able to get a good idea of what the story is about just in the title. This isn’t a hard and fast rule (none of these are. You can find more than enough exceptions), but as a rule of thumb if someone reads your story, they should be able to get a good idea of where you got the title from. It doesn’t have to be a literal representation of the story, but it can be an allusion to a major plot point, character, setting, or some other aspect of the story that is worthy of making a title. Sometimes you can take an actual word, title, name or passage in the story and use that as the title. Sometimes the subject matter of the book, if unique enough, will suffice. For instance, “The Leopard Man” was my title for that book from the start because there was a literal man that changed into a leopard mentioned within the story. But the idea of a “Leopard Man” was unique and guaranteed to stand out. The title of “Godmode” came about because the book was originally going to be a literal written video game, and Godmode is a popular term in gaming.

3. Catchiness. This is hard to quantify, but it is nonetheless very important to the marketing of your story. How sticky is the title? Does it have some aspect that makes it stay in the reader’s mind? There are lots of ways to give a title that extra “it.” Some titles are clever plays on words. One of my favorite books is Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal.” The title has a double meaning which ties directly into the story, but the fact it is also a quirky cliché makes an interesting juxtaposition against the established world the story is set in. A title like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” has a grand, adventurous tone to it that feels like a dangerous quest which sounds like a fun story to get into. In this instance, word choice becomes very important, as different words have different psychological and emotional attachments to them that help craft the reader’s attitude towards what to expect from your story.

There is always a possibility that the right title comes right to mind immediately, or may even be the starting basis of your story. A potential reader turned off by your title might not give your book a chance. No pressure, right?

So if you’re having a hard time coming up with a title, first ask yourself a few things:

1. What is my story about? This is where coming up with your vaunted 30-second pitch will come in handy. If you can describe the essence of your story in a couple of sentences, you can possibly find a word or phrase to encapsulate that summary.

2. Who are my central characters? Lots of stories are simply named after one or two of the principal characters. Are your characters strong and engaging enough to where you can name the entire story after them? Or does a character have a unique enough name to where that can stand out?

3. What are some key details and moments of my story? You can name your book after an aspect of  the book that is crucial to understanding what is going on. “A Song of Fire and Ice” works because of the two big details of the Game of Thrones world: the fact that “winter is coming” and the looming presence of fire-breathing dragons. On top of that, the “Fire and Ice” cliché is known and relevant and evocative, which makes it catchy.

4. What are some of the more memorable quotes of my story? Do your characters or your narrator say something profound or memorable in the story? Many of James Bond’s best titles come from something that one of the characters said during the story.

5. Is there something outside of my story that can refer to something in my story? This is a clever way of entitling a story that might require a little more work. Basically, you are taking a word or phrase that really has nothing directly to do with your story, and finding something in your story that it can reference.  It could be a song title or lyric, or a quirky, unique word, or a catchphrase, or something that has more meaning to the pop zeitgeist than to your story, but can be used to refer to some aspect of your story. Once again, Godmode was a simple video game term to refer to the player having the ability to play the game without any of the normal challenges of the game. When in Godmode, you are invincible, or you have unlimited ammunition, or you can jump higher, or some other hack that makes the game a lot easier for you to play. Conversely, in my book, my protag gets to experience his own twisted “Godmode” whenever he is consumed by rage. He becomes stronger, faster and much more dangerous…but this only happens in short, infrequent bursts. For most of the book, he is running for his life, running out of ammo, overmatched and out of his depth…which makes calling the book “Godmode” rather ironic.

Aside from Godmode and the Leopard Man, titles were something I struggled with for some of my books. Double Entry was a story I wrote because I wanted to write a semi-romantic drama set in a corporate entrepreneurial environment (something I hadn’t seen a lot of before, especially with African-American characters), but it was hard coming up with a title that referenced that. I chose Double Entry because it is a literal Accounting term and the protag is a CPA. In hindsight, I should have realized that the phrase can have entirely different connotations, especially when applied to a romance novel. I’ve had my share of disappointed readers due to that.

That was an issue I tried to avoid with The Hand You’re Dealt. The book was originally going to be called “Spades” because a lot of the story involves people playing the card game of Spades. It was a simple and catchy title that would have been perfect…had there not been so many negative racial undertones attached to the word “spade.” And the fact I was using it for a book written about primarily African American characters. So I had to come up with something else, and I had a really hard time doing it. I tried “Queen of Hearts, King of Spades” to tie in to my two protags’ relationship, but Spades continued to be a toxic word. So I just used Queen of Hearts, but that implied the book was entirely about the female protag, when she was the focus for only half the story. I found my solution in my thirty second pitch for the book that I wanted to use in my query letters: “it was a book about finding love, keeping love during tough times, and playing the hand one is dealt.” The book’s theme is perseverance and adapting to whatever life throws at you, which plays perfectly with a card playing cliché that ties in to the many card games that are played throughout the story.

Currently I am working hard on deciding titles for two manuscripts that I just finished, with the added challenge of them both being the first books in planned series. So I have to come up with a title for the series as well as for the individual book. This presents an added challenge of coming up with a catchy series title that can encapsulate everything that happens over the course of the saga. I also like titles of individual books being consistent throughout the series, which makes them more memorable, like Sue Grafton’s letter-themed Kelsey Milbourne book titles, or The Early Alex Cross Novels from James Patterson that referenced nursery rhymes. So I wanted book titles that were like that. So far, I’ve settled on entitling my urban fantasy thriller “Needle of the Southside,” with the follow-up book being “Jewels of the Eastside.” The overall theme of the title is the name of the big macguffin that the book centers around, with the dangerous area that the macguffin is hidden in. The title of the planned series as of this post is either “American Artifacts” or “The Reliquary.” I haven’t decided yet.

For the other book, my working title of the series is “Aftermath Saga,” because the saga is literally a sequel to an untold story. But to me it’s not quite catchy enough. It doesn’t have that “it” factor to me like a “Lord of the Rings” or “Books of Swords” or “Song of Fire and Ice.” Problem is, I can’t think of anything better. The titles for the three books came easier, though. I wanted each title to get shorter, while describing a key element or moment that drives the story. The first book is called “Return of the Tyrant.” The second book, which I am developing now, will be called “The Queen’s Betrayal,” while the finale will simply be called “Extinction.” Hopefully a better series title will come to mind before I’m done writing all three books.

So my advice to you is to be very cognizant of your story’s title and put a good amount of thought into what it will be. It might be the difference between your story being forgettable and being a classic.