Story Sensei

Content: The best blog tours have completely original content on each and every blog . You can have a blog tour where each person posts the same pre-written interview or just the blurb of the book and your bio, and those are still good blog tours because the large number of blogs that post about you and your book is still generating some internet buzz. However, you ideally want an interesting, interactive blog tour, one where people will visit every single blog on the tour. For that to happen, you must have original content at each “stop.” This requires pre-planning on your part. When you email your friends to ask them to be part of your blog tour, give them three options: to post a review, to post an interview with you (where they email you about 5 questions to answer), or to post a guest blog post written by you about whatever topic they prefer. If you do your blog tour in conjunction with another group like the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance , try to encourage people to email you ...

Setting up a blog tour, continued: Important etiquette: Generally, if someone agrees to be part of your blog tour, you are required to send them a free copy of your book to read. If they want to give a copy away on their blog, then you provide another copy for them to give away. Another method is to have them email you the mailing address of the winner, and you can send the winner their copy directly. Pictures: Make sure you send everyone .jpg files of your book cover and you so they can post it on their blog. Central website: Mary DeMuth recently had a blog tour where she had a central website page that included everything for the tour. This is an excellent tool and I intend to use this next time. Her centralized website included: --links to pictures that people could use --book blurb and links to buy her book --link to excerpt --the Blog Tour Schedule --canned interviews people could use --links to examples of reviews and interviews --detailed instructions and HTML code for those...

Because of the nature of the web, blog tours have become an effective marketing tool. However, like most marketing strategies, it’s hard to quantify how effective it is in terms of sales. Regardless, blog tours are low cost and get the word out (buzz) about you and your book, and that’s never a bad thing. Also, if you’ve got a website contest going on, a blog tour is a great way to get the word out about it, because you can mention the contest at each blog on the tour. Please use the following guidelines to help you schedule the time you’ll need for the blog tour. You’ll need time the month before the tour in setting it up (contacting people, writing guest blog posts or answering interview questions), and you’ll also need time during the tour to email reminders, to post the daily stops on the tour, to comment on each blog on the tour, and to correct any mis-posts. Setting up a blog tour: You can hire a publicity company to do this for you, or you can hire a virtual assistant privately...

by Sara Mills from Double Crit editing service Welcome back for the final installment of THE SELF-SABOTAGING WRITER. Today we’re going to use me and my writing as an example. A bad example. In the first full-length novel I ever wrote, I had a lead character named Maggie. She was strong, she was tough, she was smart, she was sweet and she was beautiful. My critique partners called her Spy-Barbie. SIGH. It took me a while to understand why this was a bad thing. Maggie was a perfect character. She was as plastic and fake as Malibu Barbie. She was the woman I want to be, with no faults, no vices and no warts. She was possibly, the most boring character I have ever written. She never struggled with the choice between good and bad, she never woke up cranky in the morning and she could eat more than a starving truck driver and never get fat. THAT IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE!! (Ahem, I may be over-reacting slightly to that last part. Moving on.) No one could relate to Maggie because she was ...

by Sara Mills from Double Crit editing service I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing that. Have you ever met someone who’s a chronic over-sharer? There are lots of people like that. People who feel the need to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about their life story. Writers can do that too. They can bog the reader down in a character’s backstory explaining everything, from why they hate cheese to telling about the day they got their first bee sting. And it’s boring. All of it. On the other hand, have you ever met one of those people who doesn’t burble out their life story in one sitting, but the few details that they do share are captivating. Like when they tell you about that time they were on a nuclear submarine in the Bering Sea… That makes me want to know more, how about you? As a writer, you need to do the same thing. It’s your job to make people long to hear the story you have to tell. You can’t do that when you toss in important facts about you...

by Sara Mills from Double Crit editing service Self-sabotage. I’m not talking about ‘accidentally’ deleting your My Documents folder in a fit of post-critique frustration or sending a nasty email to an editor, I’m talking about writers unintentionally sabotaging their own stories. I’ve found three main things that writers do that works against them in their story. The first one is letting the reader know what’s going to happen before it happens. Have you ever watched a movie with a friend and it’s getting a little tense, the music is building and you’ve got that pillow ready just in case you need to cover your eyes, and then the friends bursts out with “He does it. Strangles her, but she’s not really dead. She’s going to shoot him and everyone lives happily ever after.” SIGH. It’s like deflating a balloon. Pfftt, there goes the tension and it slides neatly into annoyance. I find that writers often do the same thing in their stories. They’ve got a nice mood going, some tension...

by Ronie Kendig from Double Crit editing service My husband won a gift certificate to one of Dallas’ finest restaurants. They had a waiting list out the wazoo. We won’t mention the Lamborghinis or Ferraris at the valet parking (bet those attendants enjoyed their jobs!). Everything delivered to our table had the best presentation and garnishing, along with respect. All together, these finer elements made up the most impressive meal I’d ever had in my life. We need to learn from the restaurant industry. We want our readers to go away satisfied, ready and willing to trust us as writers when our next book comes out. So, how do you garnish your story? How do you impress a satisfying story upon your reader? You start with your character, having interviewed them and defined their personality, you add quirks, obsessions, or paralyzing fears. These garnishings make your character tangible to your reader. That’s the sprig of parsley on your $100 steak, the shaving of chocolate on your tira misu....

by Ronie Kendig from Double Crit editing service Last time, we wrote about ice cream and characterization. Did I make you hungry for more (pun obviously intended)? Well, let’s feed that hunger with some healthy sustenance. Psychology—the protein of solid characterization. No, seriously. You heard me right. In order to write compelling characters, you need to have strength in the way you ‘draw’ them. You need to understand that character. I understand people. Maybe it’s a gift, maybe it’s my degree. I’m often able to see past the action to the source that triggered the reaction. And that is exactly what we need to do in our writing. Scramble up some eggs, er emotion, and craft your character in a compelling way. Add some sausage (yeah, the artery-clogging stuff)—quirks—for flavor. Recently, I encountered a scene where I floundered, wondering what my heroine would do in response to a situation. Not knowing her well enough impeded the “feel” of that scene and made me realize I’d lost to...

by Ronie Kendig from Double Crit editing service I love ice cream. Not just any ice cream. I’m addicted to Cold Stone—and not their plain Jane flavors. Mix it up. Make it unique. Founder’s Favorite blend with cheesecake ice cream instead of regular. And I’m just as picky when it comes to my characters. James Scott Bell in his book Plot & Structure says not to let your character “plop into your plot like plain vanilla.” If your reader does not care about your character, they won’t finish the story, which means that great scene you have planned for page fifty-seven will never get read. The most important part of any story is the character. So, how do you make a Founder’s Favorite or a Strawberry-Banana Rendezvous? How does one get past blasé and thrill until the reader needs an oxygen mask? The key, of course, is your character. Have you interviewed your main character? Had a chat with her over a latte? Inquired about his relationship with his father over a juicy burger? No? Why not?...

I’ve had a couple people ask me about scene goals. Basically, your point of view character should have something they need to accomplish when they walk into that scene. It could have something to do with the character’s External Goal, or it could not. For example, Grissom needs to find Sarah, who’s been kidnapped by the psycho miniature killer (bear with me, I just watched the season premier of CSI). This is his External Goal. But when he goes into the interrogation room to question the suspect, his scene goal is to get the psycho killer to tell him where Sarah is. (For you CSI fans, you know he doesn’t get his information and he fails his scene goal, but he hasn’t failed his Story Goal. Yet.) Here’s an example from Single Sashimi , the third book in my Sushi series (I just turned in the macro edits for this puppy, so it’s fresh in my mind): My heroine Venus is on her way to her cousin’s house to indulge in chocolate truffles. Her determination to have chocolate within the next hour is...

I just got this message from my friend Randy Ingermanson. If you're an auditory learner, this is a fabulous writing series and a great deal: Today, September 27, 2007, I am running a rare event: a 24-Hour Special on my two top-selling products, Fiction 101 and Fiction 201. These are my flagship products. I've taught these courses at writing conferences across the country. Last year, I created them as software products that run in any web browser. They let you SEE my notes and HEAR me lecture. Fiction 101 and Fiction 201 are available on CD or as large electronic downloads. The reason for this 24-Hour Special is to celebrate freedom. Recently, I've outsourced the CD distribution to Kunaki.com. That means FREEDOM for me from the drudgery of packing CDs in envelopes and mailing them off. It saves me MONEY, which I can pass on to my customers in lower prices. I have already cut the price of the CDs by about 20%. To celebrate that FREEDOM, I'm slashing the price of a CD by A...

Hey guys, I'll be traveling and at the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) conference for the next couple weeks. I'll try to blog writing tips I hear at the conference, but no guarantees. I should be back in business on Friday, September 28th for sure. Camy

When I start a novel, I give the author about three chapters for me to like the main character. I’m actually pretty generous—in a bookstore, your average book buyer reads the first page, maybe the second. Usually not more than that. Depending on how fast they read, the first page or two takes approximately twenty seconds. That’s it. You need to hook your reader into the story and give them a character they can like within those first few pages. In Writing for Emotional Impact , Karl Iglesias lists these three “categories of appeal”: * We care about victims—characters we feel sorry for * We care about characters with humanistic values * We like character with desirable qualities Victims—You don’t have to just think stalker victim here. Don’t we love the underdog? The downtrodden? The kid who gets beat up in the schoolyard? The man without enough money to pay for coffee? The woman beat up by her husband? The teenager who can’t read? Humanistic values—Show your character doing something n...

Okay, we talked about brand. Now buzz. Internet marketing is like regular marketing, there's really no way to know if it's doing a whole lot of good. But it's stupid not to do internet marketing because it's so easy and cheap. Website—This is a non-negotiable. All writers must have a website, whether you’re published or not. It’s your business card on the web. Keep it updated once a month. Blog—Only blog if you enjoy blogging. Too many people blog who don't really like it, and I think that a bad blog is worse than none at all. If you don't like blogging, don't let anybody make you feel guilty for not blogging. Only do what you like doing, because life's too short to waste on stuff you don't want to do. Email loops and forum boards—This is something unpublished writers need to start doing early. And I'm not talking just writers loops and boards, but non-writing loops and boards. And if the loop topic touches on your brand, all the better. ...

Marketing is two things for an author: brand and buzz. Brand: This is where you decide as an author what to write so that you stand out in the market. Jenny Crusie is the queen of real-life snark. Tom Clancy is spy action. John Grisham is legal thrillers. I am Asian Christian chick lit. Robin Caroll is Cajun/Southern romantic suspense. Cheryl Wyatt is military action romances. Deeanne Gist is slightly edgy historical romances. Brandilyn Collins is small town suspense. Colleen Coble is small town romantic suspense with animals. Donna Fleisher is angsty military women's fiction. This is the hardest part for writers to figure out. You may have to actually tweak your writing so that your books will stand out from all the other pitches editors hear. If you have a solid brand, editors are much happier to read your stuff because you're classified in a certain file in their heads. They can sell you easier to the VP of Sales and VP of Marketing because you're brand...

When you start a book or any new scene, you’re setting your reader down in a completely new place, often in a new time, sometimes with a new character. Make your point of view character, time, and place obvious in the first couple paragraphs. You don’t need long descriptions of the new room the heroine is in, or to tell the reader that we’re now in the hero’s head, or to let the reader know that six months have passed. These things can be conveyed with a well-chosen phrase that immediately triggers a certain picture in the reader’s head. For example, say the previous scene ended at night in the hero’s POV. ### A girl could choke on the cholesterol in the air. She stood in the doorway to the diner, cringing beneath the sticky cloud of bacon grease mingled with the perfume of over-cooked eggs and maple syrup. The reader immediately knows it’s (a) the heroine, (b) a greasy diner, and (c) the next morning. Go through your manuscript and look at scene openings. Can you add a well-chosen sen...

DON’T CREATE SCENE BREAKS JUST SO YOU CAN CHANGE POVS BACK AND FORTH. Yes, I’m yelling. I’ve seen this done often in both contest entries and even in published books—the writer will insert a scene break, continue the scene in the second character’s POV for a page or two, then insert another scene break and continue the scene back in the first character’s POV. Here’s an extreme example: Eat and leave. That’s all she had to do. If Grandma didn’t kill her first for being late. Lex Sakai raced through the open doorway to the Chinese restaurant and was immediately immersed in conversation, babies’ wails, clashing perfumes, and stale sesame oil. She tripped over the threshold and almost turned her ankle. Stupid pumps. Man, she hated wearing heels. Her cousin Chester sat behind a small table next to the open doorway. “Hey Chester.” ### “Oooh, you’re late.” As usual , but Chester wasn’t about to actually say that to his cousin. She might bop him in the nose. “Grandma isn’t going to be happy. ...

Angie Breidenbach over at F.A.I.T.H. blog posted a great article on dressing professionally at conferences. She's talking specifically about the ACFW conference coming up in September, but her advice is great for any writing conference with the exception of the more casual ones like Mount Hermon and Oregon Christian Writers Conference, which are on campgrounds in the woods. Many other conferences, like ACFW and RWA, are set in hotels, and Angie's article is exactly the advice you need for how to dress. ACFW Conference Wear

Switch character point of views at scene changes, not within a scene. While it’s not technically wrong to do one POV switch in a scene, it is very jarring to the modern-day reader. Readers ten years ago probably wouldn’t care as much, but the trend these days in publishing is one POV per scene. As a reader yourself, notice if there’s a POV change in the middle of a scene. Does it jar you, even just a little? You absolutely don’t want to pull the reader out of the story world even a little. Eat and leave. That’s all she had to do. If Grandma didn’t kill her first for being late. Lex Sakai raced through the open doorway to the Chinese restaurant and was immediately immersed in conversation, babies’ wails, clashing perfumes, and stale sesame oil. She tripped over the threshold and almost turned her ankle. Stupid pumps. Man, she hated wearing heels. Her cousin Chester sat behind a small table next to the open doorway. “Hey Chester.” “Oooh, you’re late.” As usual , but Chester wasn’t about...

I’m a big proponent of Dwight Swain’s Scene and Sequel concept because I’m a psychology major, and I’ve read a few books that explained why Scene and Sequel works so well psychologically in readers. It all makes sense to me that our brains are geared a certain way, and Scene and Sequel resonate with most people psychologically, which is why they’re so effective. However, when you transition to a Sequel, make sure you keep up some type of conflict or tension in the scene. This is something Swain doesn’t mention, but Donald Maass recommends constant tension and conflict in order to keep the reader reading, and that applies to the more reflective Sequels in your novel. The conflict or tension doesn’t have to be something major, but just something minor as a thread throughout the scene. It can even help form that rise at the end of the Sequel. For example, in chapter three of Sushi for One , Lex has a Scene where she finally is able to ask this guy out on a date. In the following Sequel i...