Writing

Four Fiction Felonies that Make Your Plot Unbelievable

May 20, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • 11 Comments

Coincidence in FictionBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

How many times has something completely random happened to you? A death for which you can see no purpose? A problem that you couldn’t see a way out of that seemed to solve itself? In real life, things happen for no apparent reason.

In fiction, everything needs to happen for a reason. (Tweet this.)

The more trouble and danger you can put your character into, the better. But only if you can believably get him out of it by the end. When you don’t, readers are going to feel cheated, and we’re not going to buy your second book.

So to help you catch the biggest offenders that make your plot feel unbelievable (and not in a good way), here are the four biggest fiction felonies when it comes to plausibility.

Coincidence and Luck

Your character just happens to stumble upon the evidence that solves the stalled case. Money arrives from out of the blue the day before the bank plans to foreclose on your character’s house. Maybe it does sometimes happen in real life. But fiction isn’t real life, and this is one of the major differences between the two.

Rather than letting a coincidence ruin your book, lay a foundation early on for what’s going to happen. This is one thing I like about soft detective shows like Monk and The Closer. In the space of an hour, the writers for these shows manage to give Adrian and Brenda a plausible means for solving their difficult case, often through something in the secondary plotline that the writers have been developing from the start of the show. No accidents. No coincidences. No dumb luck.

Coincidence is boring. Worse, it doesn’t inspire your readers to deal with the problems in their own lives. Why should they bother if the message you’re sending them is that sheer luck will make it all work out in the end?

Miracles

If you’re writing Christian fiction or fantasy, you might be thinking this point doesn’t apply to you. It does.

In your fictional world, regardless of what you believe about the real world, miracles should not take place.

A miracle by definition is something for which there is no possible natural explanation. The only way it could have happened is through supernatural intervention.

Birth isn’t a miracle. A woman’s body was designed to stretch enough to push a baby-sized object out of it. Money arriving just when you needed it isn’t a miracle (though it can be a coincidence if not handled properly). Someone might have found out about your need.

The sun stopping in the sky for hours is a miracle. Can you think of anything in the universe that could cause the earth to stop moving so that the sun stands still while life continues as normal on the surface of the planet? I once read a historical novel where the main characters suddenly became invisible as the enemy army charged at them. That’s a miracle. And it annoyed me. It was cheating.

If you’re writing fantasy, you can have exceptional, magical things happen, but you need to do so within the rules you’ve established for your world. The rules for your world should be revealed to the reader early in the book, and then you cannot violate those rules. For you, violation of the rules you’ve set for your own world (or introducing a new rule late to get you out of the hole you’ve written yourself into) is the fantasy writer’s version of a miracle. This is also cheating.

Miracles in fiction are lazy. Put the same amount of work into getting your character out of a tight spot as you did getting him in.

The Cavalry

Bringing in the cavalry to rescue your character isn’t always a bad thing. Your plot might hinge around Fred staying alive long enough for Arnold to find and rescue him. But that’s a very different story from one where Fred got into trouble and you don’t know how to get him out, so you decide to just have Arnold arrive in the nick of time. If that’s what’s happening in your story, figure out how to use the strengths you gave Fred to solve his own problem.

By now you may have figured out the common pattern: Lay the foundation for your ending in the beginning. (Tweet this.)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Characters

Anna is a devoted servant who idolizes her master and would do anything for him. You’ve established that as her personality because of some of the unsavory things you need her to do for her master. Unfortunately, for your plot to work, you also need her to willfully kill her master by the end.

If you simply have Anna do what you need her to do, you’re violating her character. You need to build in solid, believable reasons for Anna to do anything that would normally be out of character for her–from something big like killing a loved one, to something small like talking back to a superior when she’s normally polite.

Real people always have reasons (subconscious or conscious ones) for what they do. Your characters need to as well.

Have you come across any of the above fiction felonies in your reading lately? How did you get around a tight spot in your writing without resorting to one of the above?

Special Note: Due to computer issues, I’m moving into my summer schedule earlier than planned. I’ll be posting once a week until September. That means that except for special announcements, I’ll be sending out two fantasy-themed posts a month and two writing posts a month for the summer.

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Image Credit: Sam LeVan (Stock XChange)

 

How to Write a Killer Pitch

May 8, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , • 2 Comments

Writing a book is easy…at least when compared to what we need to do after we finish. We had 50,000 to 100,000 words to write our novel, and now we have to condense that down into a couple of paragraphs for an agent pitch, query letter, Amazon description, or back cover copy.

It feels unfair. Mean really. After all, if we’d wanted to write something short, we would have written a short story.

But it’s not as scary as you might think if you break it down into a formula. If formula sounds too scientific, then think of it as baking cookies and this is your secret recipe to cookies a pitch that will make anyone’s mouth water.

Click here to read the rest of this post.

(This is a guest post I did for Kristen Lamb’s blog on Friday, but I loved it so much that I didn’t want to risk you missing it.)

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How to Format Internal Dialogue

May 1, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , • 30 Comments

How to Format Inner DialogueBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Welcome to the next installment in my series on inner dialogue. If you missed the earlier post on Inner Dialogue in Your Fiction: What It Is and How to Tell Good from Bad, make sure you take the time to read it as well. (And my apologies for such a long gap between them. I’ve been sick, and the blog here suffered right along with me.)

As you might have noticed from the comments last time, when it comes to internal dialogue, the most common question is “how do I format it?” It’s easier than you think.

The answer depends on what point of view you’re writing in.

In Omniscient POV Use Italics and a Tag

Because omniscient POV maintains some distance from each character and the author’s voice is dominant, it’s the time when you need to make sure you’ve clearly attributed the thoughts. If you don’t, you risk the reader not knowing whose thoughts they’re listening to. (Please remember that in these examples I’m not trying to illustrate how the POVs are different. I’m only trying to show you how to format your internal dialogue.)

Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Liar, she thought. Where’s the $1000 you still owe me? “I’m maxed out this month.”

As you might have guessed, this clarity and ability to put thoughts in present tense while writing in past tense is one of the often overlooked advantages of writing in omniscient POV.

In Regular Third Person POV Use Only Italics…Or Don’t Use Anything

You have options if you’re writing third person point of view but aren’t bringing it to the intimate level of deep POV.

Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Liar. Where’s the $1000 you still owe me? “I’m maxed out this month.”

Because we’re in third person point of view, we’ll already know that any thoughts are Melody’s so we don’t need the “she thought” of omniscient POV. The italics clue the reader in that we’re now hearing Melody’s exact thoughts.

The italics also allow you to use present tense thoughts in an otherwise past tense story if you want, without jarring the reader. If you choose to give the thoughts in present tense, just remember to be consistent throughout and, whenever possible, set them off in their own paragraph in the same way that you would dialogue.

You could also write this as…

Ronald took Melody’s hand and flashed her a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Melody yanked her hand away. Liar. Where was the $1000 he still owed her? “I’m maxed out this month.”

You don’t have to add the action beat in front of the internal dialogue to make it work without italics, but I wanted to show you that it sometimes helps to ground the reader. Also, if you don’t use italics, you should keep it in past tense (assuming the rest of the story is in past tense).

For First Person or Deep POV (Third Person) Don’t Use Italics or Tags

You don’t need italics or any other signal. You’re deep inside your character’s head, and your reader will understand that what they’re reading is what the character is thinking.

The trick with this is that, to maintain consistency and keep from jarring the reader, you must maintain a consistent tense. You can’t be switching to present tense in your internal dialogue if you’re otherwise writing in past tense.

Ronald took my hand and flashed me a smile fit for a dentist’s ad. “I’ll pay you back.”
Liar. Where was the $1000 he still owed me? “I’m maxed out this month.”

No matter what point of view you’re writing in, never, ever use quotation marks for internal dialogue. Quotation marks signal spoken dialogue.

What do I do if I’m writing a paranormal, fantasy, or science fiction story and people can speak telepathically?

This is actually the trickiest of all because now you’re juggling externally spoken dialogue, internal dialogue where the character is thinking to herself, and head speak where two characters are speaking privately in their minds.

Here’s what I recommend to keep it all straight.

  • Use quotation marks for normal dialogue spoken out loud.  
  • For inner dialogue where the character is thinking to herself, don’t use italics or tags. Keep the tense consistent, and format it the way I showed you above for deep POV (third person).
  • For head speak, use italics. The first time this happens, you’ll need to use a tag or signal to the reader somehow that they’re talking in their heads. Once you establish that italics mean “we’re talking telepathically,” the reader will assume that’s the case every time they see italics. This is why you can’t then also use italics for inner dialogue where the character is thinking to herself.

So for the sake of demonstration, let’s assume Ronald and Melody from our example are telepaths now, and they’ve met up with a third character named Edgar who owns a classic space cruiser that Ronald desperately wants to buy.

“Sorry, bro.” Edgar rolled his three eyes. “I need cash now, not someday after you’ve been flying her for months.”
Ronald took my hand. Loan me the money? he asked telepathically. I’ll pay you back.
Liar. Where was the $1000 he still owed me? I’m maxed out this month. You’ll have to ask your sister.

Not the best written example, but it gives you an idea of how it would look.

Do you have any more questions about internal dialogue? Do you prefer to see it with or without italics?

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Inner Dialogue in Your Fiction: What It Is and How to Tell Good from Bad

April 3, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , • 17 Comments

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Inner Dialogue in Fiction

Image by Rafael Marchesini

I’ve received a lot of questions via email lately on inner dialogue (also known as internal monologue), which usually means it’s time for me to write a post on something :)

So welcome to the first in a three-part series on how to handle the voices inside your characters’ heads.

First we need to make sure we’re clear on what we mean by “inner dialogue” and how to tell good inner dialogue from bad.

What Is Inner Dialogue?

The simplest definition is that inner dialogue is what your character is thinking.

However, because the definition is so simple, a lot of writers get confused about the difference between the character thinking naturally to themselves and a character narrating for the benefit of the reader. Inner dialogue is not narration.

The movie While You Were Sleeping uses both, so it’s a great way to point out how they’re different. (If you don’t own the movie, search for it on You Tube and watch until the Christmas tree goes through the window.)

The movie starts with a voice over as we see a little girl and her father on a bridge with the sun setting in the background.

Okay, there are two things I remember about my childhood. I just don’t remember it being this orange…First, I remember being with my dad. He’d get this far away look in his eyes and say, “Life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned.” I just wish at the time I’d realized he meant my life. 

Lucy, the main character, is talking directly to us. It’s narration. This is what we want to avoid. (Yes, there are exceptions, but that’s another post about good narrative vs. bad narrative.) We don’t want it to feel like the main character is talking at us. It tends to come across like a lecture, and lectures are boring. And, more importantly for the issue at hand, it’s not inner dialogue.

Instead, inner dialogue should feel like we’re eavesdropping on our character’s thoughts to herself.

A little later in the movie we see Lucy trying to haul a Christmas tree through her window into her upper-floor apartment. She rants to herself…

Forty-five dollars for a Christmas tree and they don’t deliver? You order $10 worth of chow mein from Mr. Wong’s, they bring it to your door. Oh, I should have got the blue spruce – they’re lighter.

In a novel, this would have been given to the reader as Lucy’s thoughts. That is internal monologue, and it’s amazing when done well.

The Two Unbreakable Rules of Inner Dialogue

Rule #1 – Only use inner dialogue for the point of view character (unless you’re writing in omniscient POV). If you introduce inner dialogue for a non-POV character, it’s head hopping, one of the worst point of view sins.

Rule #2 – Only share thoughts that advance the plot. We don’t need to hear every passing thought that flits through your character’s head. We do need to hear the important ones. (I’ll explain what those are in the next post.)

But If It Follows These Rules, Does That Mean It’s Good?

If your inner dialogue follows these two rules, it still needs to pass the three question test in order to be deemed good. If it fails, you need to either rewrite it or delete it.

Would my character think this?

Do you normally mull over the color of your carpet? I don’t. I also don’t think about the color of my best friend’s hair (because I’ve seen it so many times). I don’t think about the sound my truck makes or even what route to take to get home.

If your character doesn’t care about it, they won’t think about it. If your character wouldn’t think about it, it’s a point of view error. You can’t try to sneak in information through inner dialogue, no matter how important you think it is.

Is this the way they’d think it?

If your inner dialogue passes the first test, you still need to ask if they’d think about it in the way you’ve written it.

Let’s say I would be thinking about my truck because it starts to make a strange noise while I’m driving home. I’m likely to worry about whether I’m going to get stranded on the side of the road in the dark. Or about where we’ll get the money for repairs if something is wrong.

If my dad is driving my truck and hears a strange noise, he’s going to describe it in words I’d never think of (a rattle, a grind, a whine, a screech), and he’s going to think about what the causes could be. He knows the parts of an engine or the breaking system.

But it goes further than this. What tone would they use in this situation? And remember all those questions we asked when talking about making dialogue unique to your characters? They apply to inner dialogue as well.

Would they be thinking this now?

Context is everything. On a normal day, I might hear that noise and think about it. If there’s a man with a gun in the seat next to me, I’m not going to think about that noise unless there’s a way I think I can leverage it to get away.

If you have questions about internal dialogue, now is the time to ask them. I can always extend the series. Do you struggle with inner dialogue?

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Three Tips for Making the Most of Your Time With a Freelance Editor

March 27, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • 2 Comments

Today I’m over at the lovely Karen McFarland’s blog. I know that hiring a freelance editor can be expensive, so I’m talking about how to make the most of your time working with a freelance editor, especially if you’re on a limited budget. I hope you’ll join me there.

Purple by Marcy KennedyAnd don’t forget that I’m offering a copy of my suspense short story “Purple” as a thank you gift to anyone who signs up for my newsletter. My newsletter will only go out when I have news about new releases (in other words, novels, non-fiction books, and short stories), upcoming courses I’m teaching for writers, exclusive discounts for newsletter subscribers, and freebies. I expect it’ll only go out about once a month. You are not signed up for the newsletter just because you’re subscribed to this blog. To receive the newsletter, be sure to sign up below.

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Three Things Writers Need to Understand About Designing Ebooks

March 20, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , , , • 15 Comments

I like to think my blog is a safe place where we can meet as writers regardless of the publishing path we choose. For that reason, I try to bring you posts that will apply equally well to traditional, hybrid, and indie authors. While those of you heading down a traditional path might not think you need to know about designing ebooks, I disagree. Your name is on the product, and people will give you poor reviews if your traditionally published book is badly formatted. You might be able to avoid that fate if you can talk intelligently to your editor and agent about ebook formatting. And for indies, well, the importance is obvious.

I’m not an ebook designer, so I wanted to bring you a post by someone who was. I first learned about Paul Salvette at Lindsay Buroker’s excellent website and spent more hours that I want to admit to reading the resources he provides at BB eBooks. He knows his stuff. He’s going to talk to you about three important things to understand about designing ebooks, so that we can raise the standard–reflowability of content, HTML and CSS, and what tools to use to make our own ebooks.

So without further ado, take it away Paul…

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Designing EBooks Needs to Get Better

By Paul Salvette

Recently, I shelled out a whopping $12.99 for Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In at Amazon so I could learn more about the career options for my little girl. She’s only 20 months old, but you can never start thinking about this sort of thing too early. When I cracked open the eBook on my Kindle for iPad this is what I saw:

Improperly Formatted Ebook Title PageFor some reason the publisher decided to use an image as a page for the title rather than proper text. Not only does this look tacky and hideous, but it does not scale well on smaller devices like smartphones. Also, on the right side you will notice there is a gigantic wad of whitespace in between each paragraph of front matter. For $12.99, you’d think the publisher would have spent a bit more time making everything look nice, especially the first two pages the reader sees after the purchase.

The Problem with eBooks

Most big publishers with a few notable exceptions still think of eBooks as lame replicas of print books. They spend very little time learning the varying technical requirements of each platform and just try to slap something on the market with very little quality control. A “Save As” button click from an InDesign or Word file intended for the print version always makes for a terrible eBook—but they try to get away with it. Time and time again, eBooks from major publishers have been pulled by major vendors like Amazon due to excessive reader complaints about the formatting.

Additionally, major publishers are much more concerned with Digital Rights Management (DRM) to lock down your eBook and other inconveniences rather than actually creating a nice-looking interior. Luckily, authors and small presses are much more attuned to the wishes of their readers, so they can adapt to the technology challenges that accompany the eBook format.

Reflowability of Content

To understand the difference between an eBook and a print book, we need to understand that eBooks are intended for all sorts of devices—from big PC monitors to tiny smartphones. Therefore, trying to typeset all the text into a fixed page size (like publishers have been doing for centuries) is a fool’s errand on eBooks. Have you ever tried to read a PDF with a tiny font on a smartphone? Not a pleasant reading experience.

Since eBooks need to be read on all sized devices and users need to have the ability to adjust the font, font-size, and orientation, it is important that eBooks are reflowable. This means that the content should properly break into as many lines as needed for any-sized viewport. Try adjusting the width of your browser on Marcy’s excellent blog to see what I’m talking about. So, an eBook that is 400 “pages” on an iPhone might be only 200 pages on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

Because word processing and desktop publishing software was designed for fixed-layout type documents that would be printed on a specified page size, it was necessary for eBooks to take a different approach. Luckily, there was a bunch of nerds already working on this technology since the internet was young and this was called…

What’s Inside an eBook?

HTML or HyperText Markup Language is what comprises the content of all your eBooks believe it or not. Don’t be scared if you haven’t heard the term, because you probably look at it every single day. HTML is also the standard that makes up the content on all websites. Without geeking out too much on the details, it is basically a series of rules to indicate how content should be “marked up.” When these rules are followed, web browsers (like Google Chrome) and eReading systems (like iBooks) know how to understand or “parse” the content to ensure that it renders as a good reading experience for the user.

For example, a paragraph of content in HTML gets special tags at the beginning and end of it, while a heading gets a different set of tags wrapped around it. You can also use HTML to display more complex content like tables, lists, and embedded images. What is also nice about HTML is it allows you to provide clickable links to other parts of the eBook or website. This is particularly useful for eBooks when constructing a functional Table of Contents or making your eBook more interactive. Below is an example of the classic poem Ozymandias marked up in HTML:

HTML Mark-Up for Ebook

It will end up looking like this in the Kindle Fire:

How HTML Looks on an EReader

CSS or Cascading Style Sheets compliments HTML and is a series of rules that provide presentational styling to your content. This is an important part of web design and an even more important part of eBooks. A typical novel will have around 1–2,000 lines of HTML code, and if you wanted to change something like the size of the indent on your paragraphs, it would be a heinous task to have to go through and change each line. Rather, you can use your style sheet to make one change that will apply to all the HTML. Below is an example of some CSS code telling any paragraphs with a class of “poemtop” to have a small indent and some whitespace above it, but none on the left, right, and bottom:

CSS for EBookseBooks also contain additional files that dictate the linear order of the eBook, the metadata, and all the images, fonts, and multimedia contained in the eBook. This is all part of what is called the EPUB specification—an open-source eBook format that is used by all the major eBook platforms except Amazon. The MOBI/KF8 format is what is sold at Amazon, but it is very similar to EPUB with the exception that Amazon has proprietary control over the format rather than it being open source. If you have your eBook designed in the EPUB and MOBI/KF8 formats, you will be able to professionally publish at all eBook markets including Smashwords, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and, of course, the biggest of them all: Amazon.

So How Do I Make my eBook?

Since eBooks are composed of HTML rather than a fixed-layout type program like Word, it is necessary to first get your eBook’s content into proper code. Calibre is an excellent eBook management system for readers, but it is not intended for publishers. Using Calibre for professional publishing purposes is discouraged, and Amazon will actually reject eBooks made in Calibre. Some indies try uploading a Word .docx to Amazon or the dreaded Smashwords Meatgrinder to automatically create an eBook—big mistake and readers will notice the ugly interior. Much like Word’s spell checker is a bad substitute for editing, automated HTML conversion is a bad substitute for eBook design.

If you do not wish to learn the technical mumbo jumbo behind eBooks, Sigil or Jutoh may be the best option to create your eBook. However, it is a good idea to at least have some knowledge of HTML, CSS, and the EPUB format as technology progresses and readers begin demanding more features in your eBooks.

If you would like to get your hands dirty and learn about creating the source files for your eBook, you’ll be glad to know that the software to do this is free. Notepad++ is an excellent text editor that can be used to create your HTML (Text Wrangler is a free option for Mac users). As HTML and CSS have been around for ages, there are excellent learning resources for these topics available for free at places like the Mozilla Foundation to help get you started.

I don’t want to turn this into a buy my book-type guest post, but I’ve got a book that can teach you from start to finish the ins and outs of eBooks called The eBook Design and Development Guide (available at Amazon), and we also have some eBook production tutorials on our website. Another alternative is contracting out the eBook conversion to a shop. 52 Novels and Rob Siders are excellent, and our own shop, BB eBooks, can get you a novel turned into an eBook for all major platforms for as low as $60. Whatever you do, don’t settle for a poorly designed eBook!

Have you run into ebooks that are poorly formatted? Does a poorly formatted ebook influence your decision about whether or not to buy a book?

Paul Salvette of BB EbooksAbout Paul:

Paul Salvette is the Managing Director of BB eBooks, a small business dedicated to eBook design and development in Bangkok, Thailand, founded in June 2012. His technical knowledge of eBooks somewhat surpasses his mediocre writing capabilities, so he decided to dabble in that aspect of the publishing process. He is the proud owner of a pair of sunglasses.

 

Important Note From Marcy: My 90-minute webinar on how to create loglines, taglines, and pitches that get results is this Saturday, March 23, so time is running out to register. Cost is $35. Click here to sign up.

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How to Use Your Logline, Tagline, and Pitch to Create a Stronger Story

March 13, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , • 0 Comment

Most of us think of a logline, tagline, and pitch as marketing tools we write after we’ve written our story so that we can use them to land an agent or as our book’s cover copy.

We’re doing it backwards.

I’m at Writers in the Storm today with a post I’m very excited about and a special offer. Please come join me there for my post on How to Use Your Logline, Tagline, and Pitch to Create a Stronger Story.

Purple by Marcy KennedyDon’t forget I also launched my newsletter this week. My newsletter will only go out when I have news about new releases (in other words, novels, non-fiction books, and short stories), upcoming courses I’m teaching for writers, exclusive discounts for newsletter subscribers, and freebies. I expect it’ll only go out about once a month. You are not signed up for the newsletter just because you’re subscribed to this blog. All subscribers to my newsletter receive my short suspense story “Purple” as a thank you gift.

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Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make on Facebook and How to Avoid Them

March 6, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , • 56 Comments

Lisa Hall-WilsonI have a very special guest to introduce to you today. My long-time friend, critique partner, and co-writer on my Amazon novel is here to talk to you about Facebook.

Lisa Hall-Wilson is passionate about making the world a better place one get-off-your-butt-and-do-something article at a time. She’s a call-it-as-she-sees-it truth teller and freelance writer, history nut, and dog-owning cat lover. She writes dark fantasy, makes Facebook a happy place for writers, and blogs Through The Fire because no experience is wasted when you share it to help others. She tweets, but Facebook is where she hangs out (www.facebook.com/lisawilsonwriter).

Take it away, Lisa…

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I can’t believe I’ve never guest-posted here before. *waves* If you hang out with Marcy at all, you know she loves Twitter. Twitter is her happy place. If I need to get a message to Marcy fast, I send her a Tweet. Facebook is my happy place.

How are your Facebook manners?

There are a number of unwritten rules about using Facebook to build author platform that writers indiscriminately break and abuse all the time. And they’re not trying to be rude, they just don’t know–they’ve been listening to traditional marketers, but I want to suggest a different way. A lot of the methods authors use to sell their books on Facebook feel like spam, are annoying, and aren’t effective. Here are my top 5 Facebook etiquette rules writers break (and yes, these have all been done to me):

#5 – Sending out mass private messages to all of your friends to announce your new book. After all 300 of your friends have congratulated you on your book release, your ego is puffed up and I’m ready to hurt somebody because my message box has exploded. If people have notifications from Facebook sent to their email, you’ve also inundated their email as well. And the only thing they can do is leave the conversation, and that action is made visible to everyone. Seriously, this is what a status update is for.

But not all my friends will see that status update. No, but here’s the reality. Not all of your friends WANT to read your book. Hard to believe, I know. Spamming them won’t help your cause.

#4 – Posting the same link to your Amazon page over and over. The squeaky wheel does not get the grease–they get ignored. Create a custom tab, write blog posts that offer value, and mention your book at the bottom of post. Facebook is not a great place to sell books. For writers, Facebook offers the most value in driving traffic to a blog or website, in building brand awareness, and creating community/tribe.

#3 – Requesting to be added as a friend indiscriminately. Privacy is super important to Facebook users, and getting friend requests from people they’ve barely connected with online is akin to what happened to poor Bilbo in The Hobbit when he opened the door and dwarves kept falling uninvited into his quiet, ordered, everything-makes-sense life.

If you send a friend request to someone who doesn’t have any, or many, mutual friends, Facebook will ask if they know you. They’ll honestly say they don’t know you, and you’ll be reported for spam, because to everyone on Facebook who isn’t a writer, friends are people they’ve met face to face. And I get how extroverts see this as just being friendly, but consider Facebook your shy, has-five-locks-on-the-front-door neighbor. Build a relationship first in groups, on blogs, and on public status updates. Don’t be that first date who suddenly grows an extra pair of hands on the dance floor.

And you know what? No one wants to feel like they’ve been friended just so you can sell them something. They’re looking for genuine, authentic interactions.

#2 – Creating a fake event about your book, and then force-inviting all your friends. It doesn’t really matter how subtle or crafty you think you’re being. It’s transparent what’s actually going on, and it’s spam. Force-inviting all your friends to someone else’s fake book event is also spam (and yes, this has also happened to me).

But wait, it gets worse. Events with no end date are my personal pet peeve because the spam just keeps coming…forever. Keeping those who have declined visible isn’t cool. You can’t even sneak out the back door to avoid hurting feelings. Traditional marketing says this is how you promote an event. Facebook users call this intrusive, annoying, and report you for spam. I get force-invited to fake events weekly. WEEKLY!

#1 – Posting too often. Blitz posting on Facebook is like having dinner with friends and there’s that one guy who keeps interrupting everybody and monopolizing the conversation. Yeah, annoying, right? How long before you just ignore them? Or worse, you avoid gatherings where that guy will be. Don’t be that guy. Sharing photos seems to be the worst offender, but it happens with status updates too.

Sharing too frequently monopolizes newsfeeds and hurts your Edgerank. When you post a dozen photos in a short period of time and you get 3 likes on each photo, it is less effective than if you posted the best one and got two dozen likes and comments. You’re undercutting your Edgerank.

Posting too often is a one-way highway to Facebook hinterland. Once you’ve been hidden, how do you reach that person and let them know you’ve reformed your ways? You can’t.

What other annoying marketing ploys do writers use on Facebook?

I’m doing a Facebook blitz this week to help promote my six-week class, Using Facebook to Build Author Platform. Yesterday I was on Jenny Hansen’s More Cowbell blog posting about how to drive more traffic to your blog with Facebook, and tomorrow I’m over at Jami Gold’s blog talking about whether you should have a page or use your profile to build platform.

As thanks for hanging out, I’m giving away a free written critique of a Facebook author/writer page to one commenter on each blog. Leave a comment on each blog to triple your chances of winning! Winners will be selected on Friday.

Marcy here again: I’d love to have you sign up to receive my posts by email. All you need to do is enter your email address below and hit the “Follow” button. You can also join me on my Facebook page.

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Four Tips to Keep Readers Turning Pages

February 27, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , , , • 8 Comments

Author Linda HallWhat makes for a page-turner? If you ask award-winning novelist Linda Hall, it’s suspense. I invited her to guest post today to give you some tips on how to create suspense in your novel, regardless of the genre.

Since her first book, The Joshia Files, was published by Thomas Nelson in 1992, Linda Hall has written 18 other suspense and mystery novels. Alongside writing novels, she’s been the keynote speaker at conferences such as Write! Canada, part of the faculty of the University of New Brunswick’s Maritime Writers Workshop, and is a regular contributor to Deeds of Darkness, Deeds of Light, a blog that examines the murder mystery/thriller/crime fiction genre from the viewpoint of readers, writers, editors, agents, and librarians.

Take it away Linda . . .

Update: My apologies to subscribers who saw just a massive line of code in the emailed post. I made a mistake in how I placed the image into this post. It’s been fixed now.

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I’m pleased to be invited to guest blog today. Summer is coming, and summer means lots of summer reads for me. I’m currently in the middle of a Dean Koontz thriller, The Good Guy. This book is basically a “chase” book.

I admit it. I’m staying up too late reading it, and, being a writer, I’m constantly asking, “How does he do that? How is he making it so that I can’t put this one down?” The writer in me is doing a bit of analyzing.

Before we go any further I want to define a few terms.  To me, suspense is a technique, not a genre. Suspense needs to be a part of every bit of writing that we ever do from nonfiction to fiction to poetry to comedy. Simply put, suspense is that all important key ingredient that keeps the reader turning pages, no matter what she’s reading. News articles need suspense. This blog needs suspense.

It’s possible to write a thriller that has little or no suspense. I’m sure you’ve read some of these. The plot premise on the back of the book is enticing.

“With an idea like that, I can’t wait to get into it,” you say to yourself.

But then something about the book falls flat. Your interest wanes, and you keep putting the book down. Sure, it was a thriller, but the suspense was missing.

So, back to Koontz who is, in my opinion, a master of the suspenseful thriller. How does he do it?

1.   Right in the middle of the action, he switches points of view.

We are following along with The Good Guy and The Innocent Female as they ditch cars and buy food and attempt to figure out why The Assassin wants them both dead. They are behind the door and hear the bad guy right behind them, and then we switch into the bad guy’s point of view.

He doesn’t see them, doesn’t hear them. Whew! We can wipe our brow once more. But then he figures it out! And now he has them in his sights! There is no getting away this time! And then, Koontz switches into the point of view of the police officer who’s sitting at his desk at home, and it’s night and it’s dark and he’s and trying to sort it all out.

2.   He creates a multiplicity of problems, and the obvious solutions don’t work.

The Good Guy started off with one problem. Someone mistook him for a hit man and gave him a bunch of money. Then the real hit man comes into the bar. The obvious solution would be to dial 911–that’s what you or I would do, right? And The Good Guy is about to call the police, when he sees the guy drive away in a police car. The police are in on this? He closes his cell phone.

So, if you have your heroine wandering down into a dark basement in a storm because she hears noises, she better have a good reason for doing so.  Facing the same situation, you or I would run lickety-split to the neighbors and call the police. You have to make sure the obvious won’t work. If her child was in the basement, or her dog, that would be a compelling reason for her to throw caution into the gutter and go down there.

3.   He adds specks of doubt into his characters.

In this Koontz book, suddenly I am wondering about the Innocent Woman. What is her story? Why isn’t she forthcoming about her personal life? Why is her point of view conspicuously absent from the points of view that the story follows? Maybe she’s not the innocent bystander that I thought she was?

Try doing that. Or, if you’re writing from the first person, a way you could do this is would be to have your heroine  read an email or a letter, but keep the contents from the reader. Keeping small things from your readers will enhances the suspense even in your romance.

4.   And finally, he isn’t ever afraid to paint his characters into a corner.

Don’t fear this. Just do it. Something always turns up. The more corners you can paint your characters into, the better your reader will like it!

Who are some of your favorite authors and why? I bet it has something to do with the technique of suspense.

Want to connect with Linda in other places? Visit her website or her Facebook page.

I’d love to have you sign up to receive my posts by email. All you need to do is enter your email address below and hit the “Follow” button. You can also join me on my Facebook page.

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March Classes for Writers

A Crash Course to Using Google+ to Build Your Author Platform – This webinar is good for people who aren’t sure if Google+ is for them, as well as for people who have an account and want to learn to use it better. Saturday, March 16, 3 pm – 4 pm, EST. Cost $30. Click here to register.

Show Me Your Fastball: Crafting Your Logline and Pitch – This webinar is also ideal for people at any stage of writing their novel. Being able to sum up what your book is about will give you a guidepost for writing the next 50,000-100,000 words. Saturday, March 23rd, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm EST. Cost $35. Click here to register.

A Growing Tweeter’s Guide to Twitter – Four weeks, 12-14 written lessons, four live webinars. Class begins March 2nd.
Silver Level cost $75. Click here to register.
Bronze Level cost $50. Click here to register.

Four Situations When We Should Tell Rather than Show

February 18, 2013 by • Marcy's Blog, Writing • Tags: , , , • 18 Comments

When to Tell Rather than ShowBy Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

Blasphemy! After my previous post where I gave four techniques to help you show rather than tell, how dare I suggest we should sometimes tell rather than show?! Won’t that lead to weak, flat writing.

I’m not recanting on what I wrote last week. When you come across one of the four ways that suggest you’re telling rather than showing, you should rewrite.

But times do exist when it’s better to tell than to show. In 2011, I had the privilege of being mentored by Randy Ingermanson (of Snowflake Method and Advanced Writing E-Zine fame) at a conference. One of the things I remember best is what he said about showing and telling—it’s all about balance.

In these four situations, telling is actually better than showing.

1) You’re Dealing with an Insignificant Fact

When he needs to decide whether to show or tell, award-winning science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer asks, “Will it be on the test?” In other words, when you take the time to show something, readers assume it’s important to the story. If you spend two paragraphs showing the snow and ice, later in the story you’d better have someone’s car slide off the road or someone near death from hypothermia. Otherwise, just tell the reader “It was snowing, and ice covered the roads.” 

2) During Transitions

Sometimes you just need to get a character from point A to point B without bringing the story to a grinding halt by describing it.

The next morning, Marilyn drove to Bob’s house.

We don’t need to see Marilyn drive to Bob’s house. We just need to know she did. We don’t need you to describe the sunrise or the morning traffic jam in detail to try to get around telling us she went in the morning.

Half an hour later, they arrived at the mountain summit.

If nothing eventful happened on the climb, if it wasn’t essential to the story for us to see them climbing, we don’t need the blow by blow.

Sometimes, narrative is the most efficient, best way to get the job done.

3) When Showing Would Bog Down Your Story or Confuse Your Reader

Sometimes the reader absolutely needs to know a fact that all the characters already know, and creating a scene to show that fact is going to slow down the story and feel forced.

For example, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, the first in the series about the colonization of Mars, depends on complex technological and biochemical ideas. Robinson can’t stop and create a scene every time he needs to give the reader a piece of information. The story would be unreasonably long and slow. He also can’t leave it out or the story wouldn’t make sense to readers.

Here’s an example with the telling element in red. Frank is pushing his arm into a special plastic.

[Frank] stopped breathing. He felt the pressure of his molars squeezing together. He poked the tent wall so hard that he pushed out the outermost membrane, which meant that some of his anger would be captured and stored as electricity in the town’s grid. Polyvinylidene diflouride was a special polymer in that respect—carbon atoms were linked to hyrdrogen and flourine atoms in such a way that the resulting substance was even more piezoelectric than quartz. Change one element of the three, however, and everything shifted; substitute chlorine for flourine, for instance, and you had saran wrap.

When you’re telling in a situation like this, make sure you do it in small bites and that you make it interesting.

(4) In Your Opening Sentence

This might sound crazy at first, but look at a lot of the strong first lines from bestselling and award-winning novels. You’ll see what could be considered telling. (Personally I prefer to call it compelling narrative.)

Rivka Meyers knew something was wrong when she bumped into a wall that wasn’t there. – from Transgression by Randy Ingermanson

When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. – from Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

He had the look of a man who was afraid that tonight would be his last on earth. – from The Forgotten by David Baldacci

Carla knew her parents were about to have a row. – from Winter of the World by Ken Follett

Telling isn’t always bad.

The trick with writing is that we have to learn the rules before we can break them, and when we break them, we have to be sure we’re breaking them because it makes the story better rather than because we want to be rebels, because we’re lazy, or because we think the rules don’t apply to us. The rules do apply to us, lazy writing is crappy writing, and there’s no value in being a rebel just for the sake of it.

What do you think? Am I right about the need to sometimes tell rather than show? Do you have a favorite author who manages to perfectly find the balance?

Image Credit: Via sxc.hu

I’d love to have you sign up to receive my posts by email. All you need to do is enter your email address below and hit the “Follow” button. You can also join me on my Facebook page.

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March Classes for Writers

A Crash Course to Using Google+ to Build Your Author Platform – This webinar is good for people who aren’t sure if Google+ is for them, as well as for people who have an account and want to learn to use it better. Saturday, March 16, 3 pm – 4 pm, EST. Cost $30. Click here to register.

Show Me Your Fastball: Crafting Your Logline and Pitch – This webinar is also ideal for people at any stage of writing their novel. Being able to sum up what your book is about will give you a guidepost for writing the next 50,000-100,000 words. Saturday, March 23rd, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm EST. Cost $35. Click here to register.

A Growing Tweeter’s Guide to Twitter – Four weeks, 12-14 written lessons, four live webinars. Class begins March 2nd.
Silver Level cost $75. Click here to register.
Bronze Level cost $50. Click here to register.

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