I've been spending time trying to figure out WHAT I'm writing about -- early in August, I posted this:
While searching for advice on the subject, I stumbled across an interview with my very old friend (met him before I met my wife), that shed quite a bit of light on my current question: "What AM I writing about -- and what SHOULD I be writing about?" Angelique Fawns published it on March 12, 2024. Fawns is one of the staff writers at THE HORROR TREE online magazine.
What's best is that the light it shed wasn't in the spectrum I was expecting. I was actually hoping for something in the "brilliant yellow", sunshiny, and happy part of the spectrum...
What I GOT, was something in the UV or IR part -- maybe even the gamma radiation or microwave, far-ends part of the spectrum. You know, the parts that are DAMAGING...causing burns, and genetic mutations.
I don't mean that in a negative way, either. Sure, the middle part of the electromagnetic spectrum is "useful". Our own eyes aren't adapted to be able to sense ANYTHING outside of the very narrow band called Visible Light. Other animals can see in other odds-and-ends part of the spectrum. Bees see into the ultraviolet. "Infrared sensing snakes use pit organs extensively to detect and target warm-blooded prey such as rodents and birds."
Bruce's insights in were...tough for me to read. He's the editor/owner of Rampant Loon Press and published my YA/MG novel, EMERALD OF EARTH: HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES in March this year.
But to get down to the nitty-gritty, I picked up a few unexpected insights to myself:
1) "I compose and perform a story and capture the performance in the medium of words on paper...my musical background strongly affects how I put issues together. When I assemble a table of contents, it isn’t just a list of stories. It’s more like a set list or a concert program [with] a sense of pacing, tone, and dramatic structure in the order..."
I compose my stories like LESSONS -- I was, after all, a classroom teach for 41 years! Maybe that is a piece of why my sales have pretty much been steady at about 10% of what I write.
2) "...the head of...a major record company...After listening to my demo reel...told me that the objective isn’t to be really different. It’s to be just a little different, so that your work stands out, but at the same time to sound enough like someone else who is already a major hit-maker that the first time listeners hear it, it sounds like something they’ve already heard six times, and they love it and can’t wait to hear it again [and] to hear that little bit of difference you bring to the formula."
It's funny -- because I CAN do that and never have. I suppose a fear of being accused of "copying". I CAN write the spirit of the stories I love.
And the rest? There's more advice here:
1) Write to market…pick a category you like to read and think will be fun to work in, and figure out what you can do with it that is slightly different from what everyone else and their cat is already doing.2) Learn the Lester Dent formula: crank out hundreds of novels using a universal plot formula. was designed for 6,000-word short stories, but works just as well for short novels, with some adjustments.
3) Pick a pseudonym. Your name is a brand…you want to have an entire stable full of names, so that you can switch back and forth between identities...You are in the entertainment business now…[and] pseudonym is a character…a role you perform for public consumption…
4) Before you start writing, figure out how your story ends.
5) Write short novels. The day of the BFFB (Big Fat Fantasy Brick) is over. The optimum length in today’s market is 40K to 50K words.
6) Forget traditional publishing. Start with self-publishing directly to Kindle.
7) Consider whether serialization is right for you…on Kindle Vella or Royal Road first…It’s a great way to build your fan base.
8) Start an email list…Your pseudonym can get a website. Build a mailing list. Start a blog. Interact with your fans, and make them feel that they are sharing in your success.
9) Keep writing those books…Write a never-ending series…[and]…don’t stop writing it until people stop buying it…[and] if you’ve gone three books without having a bestseller, kick that pseudonym to the curb, revise your formula, and start over as someone else.
Success in this business requires talent, ambition, good craft skills and work habits, and a certain measure of luck…there is no luck…I have seen that a modest amount of talent and good craft skills and work habits beats enormous amounts of talent and lousy work habits seven days a week and twice on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment