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.

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The Art of The Spinoff

Quan

There will come a time when, while writing a story, you will create a supporting character that will resonate either with you the writer or with your audience, more than you expected. Or maybe you will start a subplot arc or thread in your story that has potential but you just won’t have enough space in your story to explore it fully.

So what do you do with that breakout supporting character or that unresolved subplot? Spin it off into a new story, of course! Spinoffs are a great, organic way to expand the world of your stories, and are the most convenient way to create those shared universes I wrote about in a previous post. Having a different character interact with your setting, or expanding on a story element within that setting helps a lot with world-building and can make your universe more immersive and engaging.

The most organic way to create the shared universe

If you’re looking for that holy grail of franchising – the shared universe – then spinoffs are the most organic way to it. Everything you create in your spinoff is a direct offshoot of your original story, which adds more relevance to the original. You can, at any time, have characters and other elements from the original story make an appearance in your spinoffs, which creates that inter-connectivity of the two stories. Pratchett often had Commander Vimes from his Watch series of stories make cameo appearances in his other stories, just as a reminder that the new stories do indeed tie into the older ones.

How to tell if something or someone is spinoff worthy

Unanswered questions, dangling plotlines and unexplored character beats can be a great catalyst for developing a spinoff. If your story finishes and you as a writer, or your beta readers are asking about any plot development you may have inadvertently left dangling, that can be excellent fodder for your spinoff story. Also, take a look at your secondary characters. Examine how you’ve developed them and how they performed during your main story. Did any of them stand out in any way to make readers interested in following them around? You could also go the opposite route and look at some of your more obscure, underdeveloped characters and consider giving them their own story to flesh them out more.

Backdoor pilots and how to do one

A backdoor pilot is pretty exclusive to Television. It’s where they take an episode of an established show and devote the entire episode to new or minor characters in hopes that they will spark an interest in getting their own show. You can actually do something similar in your story by taking a chapter (or a few) and devoting it to the character you think is worthy of a spinoff. Make that person or plot the focus while still tying into the overall narrative, and you can build interest in that element to warrant its own story. I did something like that in a story I am currently seeking representation for. The epilogue of my story features some of my background characters, being put into situations that can be explored in future novels.

When a spinoff is not a good idea

The key to having a successful spinoff is first having that offshoot character or idea be interesting. And the first gauge of that is you. If you don’t find that element compelling, then why waste time trying to make it compelling for your readers? The big franchise IP is the holy grail of storytelling, but you don’t want to get caught up in trying to create extra properties for the sake of creating them. If the idea isn’t interesting to you, don’t feel obligated to develop it. Find another element that does interest you and work on that.

Let the world dictate the spinoff

For added insight, I spoke to my good friend Anne Zoelle about the process she went through in creating her spinoff books to the Masquerading the Marquess book she wrote as Anne Mallory. Here is what she told me:

“When I was writing my first book, the story plot demanded a character that both of the main characters knew—someone whose presence could bind them together as well as cause tension between them. The character who fit that slot turned out to be a very fun one to write—and from his first sentence of dialogue I knew he was getting his own book. So while I wouldn’t say that I planned a book for him right from the get go, as soon as he was on the page, I knew he was going to be a future hero. 🙂

“There was also another element that pushed toward a series as the writing continued on that first book. The backstory for the hero contained a trio of men who worked together as spies for the Crown—who were allies in society and out. That backstory ultimately bloomed into three connected books—one for each of the men.

“I think when it comes down to why writing or reading a series can be so fun, it’s that it’s interesting to have characters who aren’t islands—who have lives outside the main storyline. In order to keep stories tight, though, that might mean the extended cast has a central thread or goal that defines the series. That thread can simply be a club, brothers/sisters/family, a knitting circle, soldiers/team, etc.—but finding common elements that extend your characters into other, future character’s lives is a way to extend your story world outward while still keeping the main threads focused. It can deepen the characterization elements in the characters in your current story and give them lives outside the current story threads.”

To see how she applied that, check out her first three novels here.

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Interview With Tara Ingham

Quan

Tara is yet another talented author that responded to my call for authors to interview. Be sure to visit her website: taraingham.com

What inspires your writing?

I find inspiration in a lot of things. Sometimes it starts as a daydream, or an actual dream. Sometimes I just have a sentence in my head and the story grows from there. In the case of my Once I series, it started with my frustration that so often characters will be ‘shy’, but that personality trait will vanish within a matter of chapters. So, I wanted to write a character who was shy/socially awkward and remained that way.

In the greater scheme I’d say I’m inspired by everything and anything. Someone can say something and it’ll give me an idea for a scene, my pets will be playing and inspire a character, I’ll see a picture and it will inspire the setting. There is no single thing that creates inspiration, it is simply the world around me, and can come in any form, at any moment.

What is your process of developing characters?

I develop different characters in different ways, depending on who they are, their importance in the book etc. I’m not sure if you’d have heard of 2D and 3D characters before, but the basic idea is a 2D character is a background character, an extra. They might say a few lines, interact with your main characters from time to time, but all in all they’re unimportant, so their development is only done on a surface level – what do they look like? Do they have specific vocal trends? Where do they reside? You don’t know anything more about their background and family than what is visible immediately. For these, I usually create them as I need them, and keep a rough record of where they are in case I need them again, but little more.

A 3D character is a primary character. Not necessarily a main, but present, important to a degree. These are the characters that are developed, the ones with pasts and personalities, the ones who have nightmares because when they were ten years old they saw an old man hit by a car. These are the characters who are real. For my 3D characters I will mostly know the 2D details about them from the start and build out from there. For my main characters in particular, I will either figure out what they look like or what they do for work, and then go, ‘okay, so this is your basics, this is the story, this is what needs to happen in the story, so who are you? What made you this way? Why?’

I ask the questions to figure out the bones of their past, but they still surprise me sometimes, and usually grow to be more solid the longer they’re present in the story. That’s how you really learn the details of a person, by things they say, memories they bring up. Sometimes, even as the writer, you don’t know things about your characters until you write it, maybe two or three books into a series, but the moment you do, you know it’s right. You know that this thing you didn’t realize about them is indelibly a part of who they are.

Then of course, there’s the actual ‘character development’ that occurs in the course of the story. For that I usually do a bit of research. If a character goes through a trauma I’ll look at the different ways people react to certain traumas, what the recovery process is, stuff like that, but I also consider my individual characters and who they are as people, whether they’re easily affected by certain things, how easily influenced they are. I think a lot of successfully developing your characters in a reactive sense is understanding people and how different personalities tick. People watching can be great for figuring that out.

Did you Start with a story outline or did you make it up as you went along?

I am a notorious pantser! Every story I have ever written has had the barest of bare bones planning to begin with. Hell, the first trilogy I ever wrote (unpublished) started from a single sentence playing through my mind. So I usually start with nothing, or near to, and make it up on the fly, but if I’m writing a series I usually have a pretty good idea of the plot by book 2, and not just for the second book, but the entire series. That’s when I actually start outlining and figuring out key scenes.

That being said, I write in sequence, so, start to finish. That’s not how all writers work, so for me I can do that. I’m able to let the story develop as it wants to because I haven’t written the ending yet, so I have a lot more flexibility to change the plot and themes as I go than someone who outlines the entire story from the get-go.

How much research did you need for your story?

It’s hard to say, really. I don’t tend to do my research before I start, I do it on an as-need basis. But given my Once I books are set in a mostly urban, real-world setting, I didn’t have to do too much beyond the foundations. I created my revenants (the primary species in my novel) entirely based on the role I wanted them to play, so beyond researching to confirm the word ‘revenant’ actually fit what I was making, that was all the research I really did for that. Otherwise it was little things here and there: What kind of car do police drive in this city? What does the inside of a morgue look like? What’s the difference between a druid and a magician? Street map of XYZ town? Nothing too in depth. There is a degree of freedom in working within a world you know and understand.

All that being said, for my current work in progress, I am having to research everything! I’ve moved into a medieval setting for my new series, and as such there’s all sorts of ancient technologies I don’t understand, and all sorts of things I never considered, like the practicality of torches Vs candles. Stuff like that. 

What researching methods did you use?

I am a google nut. I google everything, cross check my sources with other sources and take as many notes and screen grabs as I can. When I can’t find what I need on the internet (yes, that does happen) I hit up the local library, or check the handful of guides and encyclopedias I have at home. And if all else fails, I either look for experts to ask, ask other writers, or I just make it up.

What were some of your methods for handling worldbuilding?

World building is HARD. No two ways about it. It is a difficult process, a raging headache and a pain in the butt. When I’m working in an urban setting it’s easier because I can refer to real world maps, or google real world examples of settings, real world cultures and languages. It certainly makes it less daunting. But when I’m working in a ‘fantasy’ setting, that’s when things get tricky. The first thing I usually do is sit down and draw a rough map, that way I can figure out where I am. I’ll usually just sketch a random shape, put in some boundaries, close my eyes and jab at a random spot, and that’s where my story starts. From there, I’ll give each realm etc. a name that I pull out of thin air that sort of sounds like it matches the rest. After that, it’s a case of figuring out the needs the story has for the setting. So I consider what the people are like, what their culture is like and create an urban structure that reflects that (barbarians in caves, monarchs in stone castles, warrior clans in small clay huts etc.). I take a bit of time to figure out which borders are friendly, which are hostile, how much of the world my characters know about and have interacted with.

These sort of things determine how much I develop realms/kingdoms etc. outside of my primary setting.

I also consider languages and whether they all speak a single language or if there are multiple spoken, whether I need to actually create these languages (which is another raging headache), or whether I can just glaze over them.

Another thing I try to figure out is how this world came to be, and what their beliefs and legends around this are. Oftentimes the history of the world determines the theology – religious beliefs – and so it’s pretty important to understand in terms of determining your characters’ morals etc.

Did you draw on personal experience?

I try not to rely too heavily on my personal experience, but for some things, yes, I did and do. For example, my main character in my Once I series has anxiety, is socially awkward, and that is something I know very well. That is my life experience. I am an awkward person, an introvert, generally uncomfortable, so it was easier to write those traits in her if I considered my experience with them. Outside of that, writing fantasy does make drawing on personal experience a bit tricky at times, especially when your characters interpersonal relationships and personal experiences are so vastly different from your own.

How did your publish?

In this instance I accepted a contribution based contract with a publishing house (not quite self-publishing, not quite traditional either).

Why did you do it that way?

I chose to go the route of a contribution based contract purely because I am way too busy to self publish. There’s a lot of running around involved in getting a book ready to publish.

I’m currently looking for an agent for my new series, so if that pans out my next series should be traditionally published.  

How long did it take to land representation?

That depends on if we’re talking from the early days of my first series or just for my Once I series. From my earliest attempts at being published, I’d say about 5-6 years, from the time I started looking at the Once I series being published, around 6 months to a year. I wasn’t in any particular rush, and being a contribution based situation it didn’t take as long as it could have.

I’ve only just started looking for reps for my new series this month, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes actively looking for a traditional publisher.

Who did your cover and marketing?

My cover was created by my publisher, so I’m not exactly sure of the name of the person who did it.

As for marketing, my publisher does some, they provide my marketing materials and share news about my book, but I also do a lot myself.

What are some of the methods you have used to generate interest in your book?

I have a couple of social media pages and I have my website, so in terms of passively generating interest, I’ve found those useful, especially since I offer free shorts not included in my books on my website. Outside of that, I had a book launch, contact a few local papers and let them know I was publishing, I’m in contact with my local libraries and they invite me to attend events from time to time.

The method I’ve found to be most useful, however, is actually attending conventions and writers events. These sort of things put you in contact with people who would never likely have a way to hear of you or your work, and gives them the opportunity to actually buy your books on the day. So a lot of my readers have come from events like that, and because they read and enjoy the books, they tell people about them, and so on so forth.

Did you use beta readers? How did you secure them?

I have a couple of friends who I have beta read for me. I know a lot of people don’t think having your friends beta read is a good idea, but in this instance my friends are avid readers and brutally honest in their feedback, so I can trust them pretty well.

What was the process you used to develop your magic system and how your characters use it?

I basically set out a set of rules for how magic is generated and the things it can do. I also set out a pretty strict set of rules for how it can’t be used.

It’s very easy to just shout ‘magic’ when you’re struggling to come up with a solution, which is why limitations are important. Also, it would be pretty ridiculous if your characters seemed to have limitless abilities and then turned around with ‘oh no, whatever will we do’ for something the examples of magic seem to have been created to solve, so yeah. I set up rules about what can and can’t be done, the reason certain people might have magic while others don’t, and how it affects the person and whether it can be detected.

How many revisions did it take to get a publishable book?

I usually do about 5-7 revisions and edits myself before sending it to my beta readers, then another 2 or 3 after I get it back from them. After that I’m usually comfortable submitting and the editors usually go through another 2 or 3 sets of revisions before we’re all happy to go ahead.

It can be hard to give the go ahead, though, because there’s always going be something missed, something you’re not entirely happy with, but it’s one of those things where you need to be willing to let go eventually.

What aspect of the book writing process did you find the most challenging?

It’s somewhere between the editing and accepting feedback. I don’t know, like, writing is hard, don’t get me wrong, but enjoyable. Editing, well it can be tedious, especially when you’ve read your book a dozen times and just want to look at something new, but then, I prefer that to seeing the harsher things some people have to say. There’s always the ones where you just roll your eyes because their ‘feedback’ demonstrates quite clearly that they haven’t actually read it, but the ones where they pick out certain things, especially when they’re things you’re already uneasy about, they’re hard. It takes the edge off a bit when they behave constructively, balance criticism with encouragement, but the ones who just spit acid and seem to give ‘feedback’ simply because they want to beat you down, that can be hard to swallow.

What are you writing now?

Well, the third novel in the Once I series is currently in production and coming out in 202, but my current WIP is a sword and sorcery style high fantasy. I’m not really willing to share too much at this point, but it’s going to be 5 books, bring across inspiration from one specific character in my Once I series (yes, all of my stories are linked in some way or another, even when they’re on different planets), and it is an entirely different tone to Once I.

What is your advice to other writers?

Keep on writing! It can be really bloody hard, the learning, the criticism, the whole bit, You’ll lose confidence in yourself, then gain in back, think your work is the best then the worst. Remember, none of that actually matters. If you write for the love of telling the story, that’s what matters.

Something I always tell people when they say they want to be a writer is simply this: It is the duty of the writer to take reality and translate it into a context that everyone can understand.

So keep on taking reality and translating it for the world to read.

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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.

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Creating a Sourcebook for Your World

Quan

Sometimes, when writing a story, your world gets so big that it gets hard to keep track of everything that is happening in it. You can introduce so many different elements, settings, threads and characters that telling a cohesive story that stays faithful to everything you’ve established becomes a challenge. This is especially true when you’re writing a story that needs multiple installments or sequels. I faced that problem with a story I am currently seeking representation for as of this post. I have already started writing a follow-up book, and in writing it I realized I had set up a lot of concepts in the first book that I need to flesh out before writing the second. When that happens, You might want to compile a reference source that explains everything about your world that you can come back to when you’re stuck. This is usually called a story bible, or a sourcebook.

RPG elements

The best known sourcebooks are from tabletop Role Playing Games. The Dungeon master needs source material to create the scenarios for the other players to operate in, so he uses books full of material that references locations, landmarks, magic systems, races and cultures, along with key characters and any other details about that scenario that the Dungeon master may need. Armed with this information, they can then create adventures for the other players to get involved in, and be prepared for any action or reaction the players may exhibit during the game. You can apply this same principle to your story. In essence, you are both the Dungeon master and the players, and you want to be armed with as much information as you can generate to craft the most cohesive story you can make.

Elements of sourcebooks

Many, many years ago Lloyd Brown wrote an excellent article on developing Sourcebooks for tabletop Role-Playing Games (You can read it here https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/free09jun05.html ). Let’s take the elements he introduced and expand them for a broader range of world-building.

The Tone

In creating your sourcebook, you want to establish what the overall mood or ambiance of your world is. Is your world dark and foreboding? Paranoid and suspicious? Bright and optimistic? Grand and regal? Satirical and Tongue-in-cheek? What is the overall tone that you want your readers to feel as they engage your settings? Take some time to describe how this world feels.

The Places

Landmarks and important locales are a defining element of Role Playing games as they present backdrops for the players to romp through. This is also true for general fiction. Take some time to describe and explain the most important places of your setting How they are built, what important events occur there, and what importance they have to the overall world. If you can even map out the locations, whether its a map of their interior or an exterior map of where they are in relation to the rest of the world, that will also be a great help.

The History

The original article says it best: “Give a background on the setting’s history, explaining how it got to where it is now. If it’s a fictional setting, you might start with a creation myth and work from there. If it’s an alternate history setting, where your history deviates from real-world history is a good starting point. For science fiction games, background elements usually include Earth’s exploration of space and first contact with aliens.”

To elaborate on that, any element or concept that has any importance in the story should have a history attached to it, explaining how it came to be in your setting and what led to its importance. And any detail of your story that deviates from real-word sensibilities will also need to have some backstory attached to it. And don’t forget to make sure all of your histories and backstories work well together, to help avoid conflicts.

The People

Explaining how the people live in your world is paramount to your story. You want to delve into the different races, classes and cultures and how they operate within your word, as well as how they interact with each other. Use every tool at your disposal, from describing art styles and rituals, to traditions, dress styles and cuisine. You can even mention their language tics and music. Anything that will help you as a writer and the reader get a clearer picture of how the people in your world live and breathe will help, and the more, the better.

You might also want to add some details about your most oft-used characters. It could be a great reference for both you and the reader as you continue depicting the situations those characters get themselves into and out of.

The Religions

Religion and faith play a heavy role in how the real world operates, so it must have a place in your world, too. Even the lack of a central religion in itself is a tenement of belief. Take time to explain the roles religion has with your people, places, culture and history. Who do your people believe in? How do they express those beliefs? What landmarks and rituals do they associate with those beliefs? How do these beliefs affect the way the world is run, and how different cultures deal with each other? These can have a profound effect on your story, so you might want to take some time to flesh these details out.

Mythology counts in this category, too. The fantastic creation myths and legends of pantheons and history explaining how cultures see the world is also fair game for delving into.

The Tech

This wasn’t covered in the original article, but it really should have been. If your world has any element that operates outside of the norms of the real world, you need to explain how those aspects work. It could be explaining how magic works in your high fantasy setting, or explaining what vampires and werewolves can and can’t do in your horror story, and definitely explaining how the outlandish, futuristic gadgets work in you sci-fi or espionage story. Having a concrete set of rules for how these important elements work grounds your story and makes it easier to stay consistent the more you write about it.

The Secrets

Your setting will have loads of secrets waiting for your characters to explore and discover. The more prominent ones that have a direct effect on your story will probably need to be fleshed out if they haven’t already been covered in the previous topics. Take the time to really delve into the who, what, where, why and how of these secrets, and possibly explain why they are secrets to begin with.

Referencing

While some of the more well-known story franchises have been known to publish their sourcebooks, it is really more for your own personal reference and understanding of the world you are creating. So be sure to keep your sourcebook handy while writing so that you can come back to it whenever you need to check the accuracy or consistency of something you are writing. And be sure to keep your sourcebook flexible. You will be introducing new ideas, concepts, places and people constantly to your world, so you need to be able to update your sourcebook as needed.

You will find having a convenient reference source for the world you are creating to be a valuable resource, and it may even prompt you to do more deep exploration of how your wold works, which will in turn add more material to your sourcebook that you can mine for stories. I am constantly adding new ideas and concepts for the high fantasy trilogy I am currently writing, and most of those new concepts, landmarks, people, histories and ideas are built upon stuff I had added to the sourcebook long ago. Take some time aside to develop this, and your stories will be better for it in the long run.

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Setting Up the Big Reveal

Quan

The Big Plot Twist is a staple of storytelling. Everyone uses it in any form of storytelling medium. It is a great way of progressing a story forward, and it keeps readers guessing as to what will happen next. Oftentimes, a major plot twist could make a reader totally rethink everything that has come before it and put the entire story into a new perspective. The most famous example I can think of is M. Knight Shaymalan and the twist endings that he is notorious for in movies such as The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. In those movies, he saves the major plot twist for the end of the film, but in reality you can place these big reveals anywhere in the story and get a similar impact.

Setting up the twist: unexpected reveals are rarely that

When plotting a big plot twist or reveal, you want to make sure it is not something sprung on the reader for nothing more than shock value. You want it to occur organically within the progression of the story, and it has to make sense within the context of the narrative. And there are ways to do that. The trick is to have plot twists the reader won’t see coming, but at the same time they could have seen coming if they had been paying better attention leading up to the plot twist.

Leaving clues vs. direct foreshadowing

This issue is a matter of how subtle you want to be in letting your reader know a change to the plot is coming. With more subtle hints, you can still have that moment of surprise for casual readers, but you also will have a reward for more astute readers or those who are reading your book for a second time.

Try not to be cheesy or hamfisted…or obvious!

Part of the fun in partaking in a story for the first time is trying to outguess the author, and trying to figure out where the story is going or what is going to happen next before it actually happens. Making the clues, omens and foreshadowing too obvious ruins all of that. So try to avoid instances that scream “BIG PLOT TWIST COMING” like characters directly referencing stuff that will come into play later on, or blatantly display character traits that will affect the story late on. You want to be careful not to spoonfeed your reader or insult their intelligence.

How subtle is subtle?

At the same time, you don’t want to try to be too clever and go over the heads of your readers. Obscure references that don’t really fit the context of your setting or characters can make your story come off as pretentious. And that’s providing that the reader understands your clues to begin with. Make sure your setup actually makes sense.

Leaving Clues

There are ways you can foreshadow your big plot reveal to avoid making the reader feel bamboozled.

Your clues can be behavioral (In The Hand You’re Dealt, Tika’s explosive temper is established early, and it greatly affects events that happen later on), environmental (in Leopard Man, Ashlynn and Barter visit a landmark early in the story that plays a crucial role in the story’s climax), vocal (in Godmode, bible-thumping Ithaca warns Elijah about the consequences of his behavior with a bible verse early that plays out later in the story), and/or antecdotal. You can even hint at upcoming events in the names of characters and landmarks (Elijah and the company he works for – B.A.A.L. – are in reference to an epic Bible showdown between the prophet Elijah and the worshipers of the pagan god Baal). The key is planting small details that subtly point towards events that will happen later.

Now, you also don’t want to get so into adding clues that you detract from the other, more important elements of the story. It’s a lot like setting up a mystery. Knowing the truth before hand, you need to leave some breadcrumbs so readers can have an idea of what you have in store for them.

Planting red herrings: Effective ways to honestly mislead

If you are familiar with storytelling cliches and tropes, you can use those to your advantage, and swerve the reader with misleading clues and false foreshadowing. You can use accepted norms in your chosen story genre to lead your readers into thinking the story will follow the usual formula for that type of story. Then your big reveal turns everything on its head, and catches the reader totally offguard.

Even with this, though, you need to be fair. While you’re planting the obvious clues to lead the reader down the wrong way of thinking about your story, you still need to plant some more subtle hints at the way your plot is really going. Or better yet, you could craft your clues and foreshadowing in a way that they can be interpreted either way.

Use your Beta Readers

This is an element where your beta readers and content editor can really be a big help. Be sure to specifically ask them if there were any plot twists or big reveals that caught them off guard or that they didn’t see coming. And also ask them if there were plot twists they saw coming a mile away. And ask them to explain how those revelations made them feel about the story as a whole. You can use their reactions to gauge how effective your big plot twist is, as well as how effectively you set it up.

If done effectively, your big plot reveal can be a great hook to keep your readers guessing, and more importantly, to keep your readers reading. Setting it up properly can encourage multiple readings of your story, which in turn can further endear your readers to you and your writing. So be sure to make the time to set everything up effectively.

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Interview with Erin Swan

Quan

I often put out calls for authors to promote themselves by letting me interview them for my blog. Erin Swan was one of the first to respond. Check her out.

What inspires your writing?

I get inspiration for my stories from many places, including books, movies, video games, and even my own life. But the inspiration to actually write? I think that comes from the need to see my stories told. I’m not satisfied to just let them turn over and over in my own mind. I need to put them down. I need to see it actually come together, and see the characters come to life.

What is your process of developing characters?

I frequently start off with only a very basic idea of who my characters are. I know their names, the thing that drives them the most, but aside from those basic details, I don’t really get to know my characters until I’m deep into writing. Most of my characters develop as the story moves along. Their internal struggles and personal journeys are just as vital to the story as the movement of the plot and any external struggles they may face.

Did you Start with a story outline or did you make it up as you went along?

I usually have a very basic idea of where I want my story to go, but I’m not much of a plotter. I like to let the story flow in whatever way feels best as I’m writing.

How much research did you need for your story?

I don’t feel that I needed an excessive amount of research for Bright Star. I wrote in a world of my own creation, so I didn’t need to get into extremely in-depth research sessions for historical accuracy or anything of that sort. Most of my researching was focused on battle strategy, medieval-type transportation, and Latin translations of words and phrases for names and such.

What researching methods did you use?

Google is my best friend, and my go-to for research.

What were some of your methods for handling worldbuilding?

I view my world as a character and, in the same way other characters do, I start with only a basic idea of what this world is like. As I write, it begins to flesh itself out. Characters travel to new regions, and those areas come to life. Discussions of history or politics crop up in the story, and those things begin to fill themselves in for me. Questions regarding magic are asked, and I begin to figure out the intricacies of the various magic systems. Over time, the world simply becomes a fleshed-out character as the other characters explore it.

Did you draw on personal experience?

Bright Star is a very personal story for me. When I wrote it, I was extremely reserved, uncertain of who I was and my place in the world, and constantly doubting my own worth. This is the same place that Andra is in for the beginning of the story. I wanted to write a story about a character who was going on this journey of self-discovery just as I was in my personal life. As I discovered my inner voice, Andra found hers. As I began to believe in my own strength and abilities, so did she. In many ways, Andra’s journey was mine. You know, just without the dragons.

How did you publish?

I published traditionally, with Tor Teen.

Why did you do it that way?

I didn’t feel confident in my ability to publish and market a book myself, and I am an extremely cautious person, especially when it comes to finances, so the idea of having to invest a decent amount upfront to self-publish made me a bit nervous. Traditional just always felt like the better path for me.

How long did it take to land representation?

I never actively sought representation. Bright Star was posted online for many years before being discovered by the team from Inkitt. They contacted me and asked to represent me and help me to get published. So, I suppose in some ways you could say it took years to get representation, while in terms of actively seeking representation, it took no time at all!

Who did your cover and marketing?

My cover (which I am completely in love with and obsessed with) was designed by Larry Rostant. He’s an incredible artist that was contracted for the work by my publisher, Tor Teen. They also did a great deal of marketing for me, and Inkitt pitched in a bit too. Of course, I still try to do as much marketing as I can personally.

What are some of the methods you have used to generate interest in your book?

Personally, my efforts are mostly limited to social media. I’ve also distributed bookmarks to bookstores and libraries in my area, and booked speaking engagements at schools to try to generate interest. 

Did you use beta readers? How did you secure them?

Bright Star was initially posted on FictionPress and then on Inkitt, so I suppose you could say that I had thousands of beta readers! I loved getting feedback from a large online audience, and grew a great deal from that. I’ve also utilized a few fellow writers as beta readers, but have never hired professional beta readers.

How did you keep your tone appropriate for YA audiences without making your story too “Adult” or mature for them?

I actually went through a great deal of editing that was focused on this. My editor felt that there were several themes and subplots that were too adult for a YA audience. I really had to take some time to put myself into the mindset of a high school-aged reader, and determine just how much grittiness was appropriate, and how dark was too dark. 

How many revisions did it take to get a publishable book?

I’m constantly editing as I write for minor errors. But in terms of large revisions, I believe I went through four rounds of editing and rewrites, most of which was focused on cutting down unnecessary content.

What aspect of the book writing process did you find the most challenging?

The actual writing process has always been fun for me. I don’t really struggle with any part of that, aside from actually making the time to sit down and do it. It’s editing that I struggle with. When it comes to Bright Star, having to cut so much content was definitely a struggle. The original version was about twice the length of the published version, and removing entire plots and scenes that I loved was really difficult.

What are you writing now?

I’ve just finished the first draft of a YA fantasy called Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I’m working on the first round of edits now, and I’m hoping it will be my next published book.

What is your advice to other writers?

Don’t stop writing. You don’t have to write every day, but don’t let it become something that you used to do. I stopped writing for years after graduating college. I just felt like it wasn’t important anymore. It took my husband pushing me after we first got married to rediscover my love for writing, and now I just look back at all that wasted time, thinking about everything I could have written and how much I could have grown in that time as a writer. I would hate for any other writer to have learn that lesson the hard way like I did–or worse, simply never get back to something that they loved so much. So, my advice is to remember why you started writing in the first place. It’s like a relationship: Sometimes you have to rediscover why you fell in love, but it can be done. Your relationship with your writing is not a love that you should ever give up on.

Check out Erin’s Books at this link.

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Creating Alternate Realities

Quan

Alternate realities and parallel earths has been a staple of storytelling since HG Wells’ The Time Machine. There is something intriguing about asking “What if” and exploring possibilities of what would the possibilities be if something that happened, instead happened differently. Exploring these possibilities can make for some very compelling stories if handled correctly.

One Event That Changes Everything

One of the fantasy stories I am seeking publication for deals with an “alternate present” which is a normal, modern world that had a singular event in the past change the course of history. Perhaps you can introduce a new circumstance into the world you’ve created, which alters the world and creates a new set of circumstances.

Start At the Ending.

Another approach is creating your alternate reality and highlighting the current differences from your original world, then going back and explaining how those changes came about. This is a good option when you already have ideas for how your alternate reality will be portrayed. Just go ahead and preset the ideas you have, then go back and explain how everything came to be later.

The Butterfly Effect

Sometimes creating an alternate reality is as simple as taking a decision one of your characters made and asking yourself what would ave happened had they made a different choice. This has been the basis for many alternate timeline stories from Marvel and DC.

An easy way to do this is to take a decision or action that was taken in the story and have your character do something else, maybe even the exact opposite of the action. That will create the catalyst for your world to change.

Ripple Effects

However you choose to approach your new alternate world, it would behoove you to do a deep dive into your new status quo and truly flesh o the details o how that world operates an how people operate within it. I advise creating a bible or appendix explaining as many details about your world as you can muster up. This will serve as the reference point for your world and establish the new rules and parameters of that reality that you will abide by as you craft your story. How is the flora and fauna changed in your new reality? How are economics and politics affected? How do people live and coexist?

Whether it be the goatee-clad evil alternate Star Trek characters, or the many alternate Earths in the Marvel and DC universes, exploring alternate realities is a great way to come up with and develop new story ideas.

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Starting Over

Quan

So you’ve just finished writing your epic manuscript. It is your masterpiece; the story you’ve been born to tell, that you have poured all of your heart and soul into for months, if not years, on end. You’ve carefully chosen every word and phrase, and did a ton of research to make sure the story was authentic. In your mind, it is perfect.

Then you hand the story you are so proud of over to your beta readers or your content editor to look over. And they shred it. They find massive, gaping plot holes, or serious believability issues, or huge flaws in your character development, or serious inconsistencies with your setting, or technical/historical inaccuracies. Or even worse, all of the above. Nothing short of a complete overhaul is what you need to make your beloved story publishable. And the story is too dear to you for you to discard, so that means you’ve basically going to have to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. So how do you go about handling that?

I’ve had a few instances like that, where I had to take my idea back to the drawing board after someone I was pitching my ideas to swiss cheesed a number of my concepts and characters. So here are some of the approaches I took.

Find Your Core

You really want to start by getting to the heart of your story. What is your story really about? What is the driving conflict and theme? Oftentimes, problems arise when your story drifts too far away from its central themes and conflicts. Examine your characters and the world they exist in. You should be able to summarize the essentials of your setting and each character in a sentence or two. Boil everything down to this core and start rebuilding from there.

Asking Why

When finding your core, the best way to develop things is to look at the tenements you are building your story around and asking why they have to be that way. Why is your heroine so cynical? Why does your villain want so badly to execute his nefarious plot? Why is that landmark in your setting so meaningful to the narrative? Come up with answers to those questions, and then ask them again of your new answers. Get to the bottom of why your most important elements are so important, and use that as the basis of your retelling of your story.

Delve Into Your Backstories

sometimes the best way to fix what is going to be in your story is to delve into the details that won’t be in your story. Your backstories give flesh to the skeletons you have of your setting, plot and characters, and give you reference points to use when developing your story. Take the elements you plan on introducing and the concepts that might need some explaining, and explain them: where they came from, how they got to be the way they are, and what effect they have on the rest of the world and characters. Be cognizant of inconsistencies and stuff that flat-out doesn’t make sense within the context of the story you want to tell.

It might even get to the point where you need to create an entire story bible or sourcebook to explain everything that is going on in your wold and with your characters. I plan to address the ins and outs o creating one in a future blog post.

Double-check Your Research

There may be instances where your critics poke holes into the accuracy of some of your story elements. When this happens, then its time to delve deeper into your research. New information is constantly being added for just about any topic, and perhaps some of the information you gathered at the time has been further developed, or even refuted. So it would be prudent to do a double-check to make sure that the information you gathered is still accurate and relevant. Make sure your facts are straight and that they apply properly to the story you are telling.

And this research includes the overall criticisms from your beta readers and content editors. Take a second look at what they had to say about your story elements and see if you can address those critisisms directly in your rewrite. In addition to the negative stuff also pay attention to the stuff they liked or that really caught their attention. These are elements you want to build on and prominently feature.

Try Something Different

Sometimes the best approach is to take your core ideas and simply build something new out of them. Both fantasy stories I am currently seeking representation for as of his post had instances were I had to do that. My urban fantasy thriller Needle of the Southside came about from a failed sci-fi/fantasy hybrid epic I was writing in the same vein as Final Fantasy 7’s narrative. While bouncing ideas off of my content editor, she found a ton of questionable plot and setting issues with the story as I was planning it (I actually had thumbnailed a 4-issue comic book about the story at the time). So I had to scrap the story and restart the narrative. In doing that, the core story elements, along with her insights, led me in an entirely new direction for the story.

Likewise with the fantasy epic I wrote called Return of the Tyrant. There were a ton of plot elements and adventures I had planned for the heroes of my story, but while talking about my ideas with my content editor (we bounce story ideas off of each other often), she found that many of my ideas would be problematic to execute in a first novel, if at all. So I heeded her advice and put those ideas on the shelf for further development, but that left a void in what I had planned for he first book. So I had to craft new adventures, which meant introducing new characters and settings, which took the story in an entirely new direction from what I had originally planned. The adventures I originally had in mind can still be used, but I will now have to adapt them to fit the new direction the story is going in for future follow-up books.

Starting over can be a frustrating, daunting task. But if you are up to the challenge, you can take the remnants of what didn’t work, and truly craft something memorable, which will be many, many times better and more engaging than what you had originally come up with. So don’t be afraid of the process.

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Diversity and Representation in Storytelling

Quan

As an African-American storyteller, it is important to me to properly and respectfully address the issue of diversity and rresentation in all of my stories. I personally don’t feel I’m seeing enough of certain grops of people represented in stories (my own group included), so I try to make sure to accurately and respectfully include characers representing those groups in many of my stories.

A white male has no problem with representation because he will always be represented. For those who aren’t white, and for those who aren’t male, that is not always the case. 

So for the rest of us, it does feel good to see a character we can dircetly relate to portrayed in a non-stereotypical manner. Until recently, that was a bit of a rarity. 

I’ve been playing Magic: The Gathering since its early “Chronicles” expansion, and I was giddy when they devoted a major set to a tropical, African-inspired environment with dark-skinned characters. As an African-American, it was something I rarely saw and was something I could identify with. We can find things we relate to in really any character regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. But there is a more personal connection when you feel underrepresented or misrepresented and you see a character that is a direct reflection of your identity shown in a positive (non-stereotypical) way.

Here are a few issues I’ve identified when dealing with this in storytelling, and a perspective on how to approach them.

Using Language Tastefully to Identify Ethnicity/Culture

The way a character talks can give away a lot about their culture and background. Everything from tone of voice to their pet phrases, accent, and even the way they speak profanities can help identify their culture. One of my tricks when I write ethnic characters is have them say certain words or phrases in their “other” language. This is mostly to remind my readers of their ethnicity. But just like with all of these tips, be cautious of overkill. Having language doing the heavy lifting can come off as patronizing to your readers.

Being Authentic Without Being Offensive

There is a fine line between adding elements of a particular culture to make them identifiable, and stereotyping. That is something you want to be very cognizant of. A small element here and there, maybe a cultural tic or a particular feature would be enough to give away what that character’s background is would be enough. Sometimes even just a name can be enough. If you give your character a surname like Martinez or Rodriguez, most readers will assume the character is Latin. Likewise, if your surname is something like Valenti or Castagnacci, then the reader will assume they have Italian roots. But doing too much insults the reader’s intelligence.

If you know certain physical features that can be identified with a certain background, you can utilize those, too. But you really should go to this well sparingly. Maybe one or two mentions about bodily features tops. Especially skin color. You should only need to mention once about a character’s complexion for the reader to be able to get the visual.

Going Against Stereotype

In the grand scheme of things, having your characters buck accepted stereotypes is a good thing for a number of reasons. It challenges the reader’s preconceptions and prejudices, and helps make your character unique and memorable. If you, knowing that Asian characters are typically presented as genial and ultra-smart, want to create an Asian character that is a bit clueless, it should be within your right to do so. But I advise developing your un-stereotypical character and fully understanding why they don’t act the way readers would expect them to act, so you can portray them more authentically.

Handling Ethnic Antagonists

probably the toughest aspect of developing ethnic characters is making one that is the bad guy. The temptation is to lean in to their ethnic identifiers, or to place them in roles that are typically identified with their ethnicity (i.e. the Latino druglord, or the sheisty Jewish lawyer). But you can avoid that by taking time to truly develop your characters and fleshing them out the same way you would flesh out any villain. Preferably in a way where their villainy or villainous attitude is not inherently tied to their ethnicity or culture.

Avoiding Tokenism or Diversity Just for its Own Sake.

Many underrepresented groups feel slighted despite seeing “one of their own” in a story, because it is obvious that that character was put there as a “tolken” character.

The key to avoiding this is to make the character’s culture and background an integral part of the narrative. Having your character and your world be well-developed is the key to that. If there are aspects of your world where your unique character can exist as a part of the culture, then you create more authenticity and your character is less likely to stand out like a sore thumb.

This will also solve the problem of including characters of other races and cultures just so you can say you did it. That can come off as very disingenuous and patronizing, so making the characters and their backgrounds an integral part of the story is vital.

There are a few ideas I thought up to help you address the issue as you create your stories. I am sure there are other, better ways out there to handle it. But being cognizant of how sensitive an issue it can be and how important it is for you to get it right is a definite step in the right direction. And it doesn’t hurt to get outside opinions, either. There are plenty of groups on places like Facebook (like this one) that pay close attention to how various ethnicities and cultures are portrayed in stories. It couldn’t hurt to get their input on your story, too.

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