Who Am I Writing To?

A popular post from August 2009

by Annette Lyon

At a writing conference probably ten or more years ago, I heard Orson Scott Card say that if you write a love letter and it's received the way you intended it to be, then you have written well for your audience.

He was right. I'd never write a romantic letter to my husband the same way I'd write a letter to one of my children, and writing a letter to my parents would be different still. Even if I'm expressing love in every case, the tone and word choice would be different. The desired effect would be different.

You have the same job in your fiction. Who is your audience? Do you know? If you don't, then you're going to run into two big problems.

1) You won't create the best effect possible.

Knowing the age group and genre are both critical.

For the age group alone, the vocabulary, sentence structure, tone, voice, and complexity of storyline and even topics and the way you'll approach them will be largely determined by the age of your audience.

A story told one way will touch a thirty-year-old man differently than the same one told to a thirteen-year-old. Which one is better? Neither. But one will react in a stronger way--and that's the one that's geared toward the right audience.

If you're looking to write for a young audience, for example, read book geared toward young people. LOTS of them. Learn the difference between early chapter books, middle grade, and young adult. Learn how long those types of books are. Know where your book would be shelved in the book store AND why.

On the opposite end, if your book is clearly for adults, read a lot from the proper section of the bookstore where your book would fit. You'll learn the tones, voices, themes, and so on. Reading your own genre is some of the best education you can do to learn how to write in your own genre.

2) You can't sell it if you don't know what it is.

The hardest part about publishing isn't writing the book, although that can be brutal all by itself. The hardest part can be actually selling it.

First you have to get an agent to fall in love with you and your work and be convinced they can sell it. That means they know exactly how they'll pitch it to editors and publishers.

And that means they need to know from the very first time you contact them in a query where your book belongs in a bookstore. Is it in the middle grade section? In the adult horror section? Is it a women's literary piece? A young adult fantasy? A paranormal romance? They need to know right off the bat.

If they don't know, they can't take you on as a client, and then they can't sell it to an editor. And then the editor can't sell it to the committee.

Let's pretend for a moment that somehow you managed to write a book without knowing who your audience was and that you managed to get an agent and then a contract.

Guess what? The marketing department will have NO IDEA what to do with your book. How can they advertise it? To whom? How can they put out their salesmen to bookstores or make ads in catalogs and write copy to sell it? They don't know who to target their sales copy for.

For that matter, how will the graphic design department know how to design a cover to attract . . . what kind of reader? A twelve-year-old girl will be attracted to a very different cover than a forty-year-old woman.

Bottom line: Figure out who you're writing for. If you don't know the answer right this very second, that's okay. You might figure it out as you write, as the plot solidifies and your get your writing feet under yourself and the picture becomes clearer.

When things have come into focus, go back and do revisions, with a better view of what the real story is and who you're telling your story to.

Because in the end, if you just want your family to read it, that's great. They can be your sole audience.

But if you want to sell it and have a bigger audience, you'll need to know who they are before you ever submit.

Anachronisms & Other Ways to Make Readers Snicker

A popular post from November 2009

by Annette Lyon

Anachronisms are hysterical in fiction . . . and usually not in the way the author of a piece intended.

An anachronism is something stuck in a place where it doesn't fit in time. A really, really bad one would be giving a caveman a car. That's a bit too obvious, something no writer would ever accidentally do, but writers put in anachronisms all the time in more subtle ways.

While this is relevant to me as a historical writer, the overall concept is crucial for all writers to keep in mind, particularly in the revision stage, so read on.

For me, I constantly have to research bits and pieces to make sure that certain vocabulary, hair styles, household items, and so on were in use when I place them into a story.

Could Joe use a match to light a fire in this year? Can Sally eat a "cookie" in that year? Would David have access to envelopes in this location at this time? When did diamond rings become common symbols of engagements?

Those are the kinds of things writers pay attention to in their research. Where writers often lose focus is inadvertently throwing in common expressions that don't work for the time period of the book.

For example, a bad anachronism would be for a character from Shakespeare's time to say, "We're really off track."

The problem? "Off track" came from railroads. And yeah . . . railroads didn't exist in Shakespeare's time, so someone from that period wouldn't know what the phrase means.

So why is this important if you don't write historical fiction? Because this is one more way you can mess things up by imposing your mindset onto your characters.

The writer must always remember how the CHARACTER would really think and feel and relate to his or her world.

Luke Skywalker would never say he's "shell-shocked," even if what he's feeling would apply to our definition of that term. He'd use some other way to describe the feeling, because "shell-shocked" is World War II lingo.

When Lizzy from Pride and Prejudice discovers Darcy's involvement in saving her family's name, she'd never have said that he "stepped up to the plate." That's an American baseball term from the 20th century, for starters, one that didn't exist when the book was written. So granted, Jane Austen couldn't have used it, but someone trying to write a P&P sequel today could, and would really mess it up.

Another phrase I came across in a historical novel recently was, "We should give it a shot." I don't know for sure when that phrase came about, but the novel was set a long time ago, so the sentence jumped out as not belonging. It sounded way too modern for the context. I stopped believing the writer. These kinds of things just don't work.

Another warning: too much colloquial phrasing will date a contemporary book too; avoid anything too dated, even if it's dated as now.

In one book, the characters were from the early 1800s, and one referred to his mother as "pushing his buttons."

Um . . . which buttons would those be? The ones on his shirt? Because, yeah, well, hate to say this, but see, computers and other things with buttons that can be pushed . . . weren't invented when this guy supposedly lived.

What this writer needed was an idiom, term, or phrase from the early 1800s that would give the reader the same feel as "pushing my buttons" does today, but that came from the right period. They also needed something matching the character's personality. Instead, what we got was the writer's voice intruding on the story, the writer's point of view.

Sadly, it was hard to get immersed in the book when the author kept poking their nose into the story. I was painfully aware that they weren't fully into the characters' minds and hearts, let alone fully into the time period.

One of my favorite stories of this kind of revision (for the better!) is in Michele Paige Holmes's newest book, All the Stars in Heaven. She's used this example in a workshop herself when teaching how to get into characters' heads.

She originally wrote a scene where Jay, her hero, listens to the heroine, Sarah, sing a choir solo for the first time. He is blown away by her voice and says it's one of the most amazing things he's ever heard.

The rough draft had him compare her voice to an angel's. But then Michele realized that Jay wouldn't say that kind of thing. He's manly and tough. He wouldn't think in terms of angelic choirs. He loves and plays rock music.

Her final version says that Sarah's performance was the most amazing thing he'd ever heard with the possible exception of Hendrix playing "The Star Spangled Banner."

I love that change. It's true-blue Jay, precisely how he'd think. It's okay that Michele's rough draft had the angelic bit. We all have rough drafts that aren't perfect (that's why they're called rough). And frankly, the original wasn't bad. But the final version was perfect: just how Jay would think and express himself. Michele stepped aside as the author and let him speak.

Be sure that when you do those later passes over your manuscript for revision that you read each scene with an eye out for when you're really in your characters' heads. Is this really how they'd see each situation? Or is it your lens that we're looking through?

Ask yourself: Is there anything that I, as the writer, am putting in that doesn't belong?

Would your character really say it this way, think this particular thought?

Are you expressing your opinion or your characters'? Your world view or theirs?

Worse, did you inadvertently throw in an anachronism?

Another gem I caught recently: "No, way."

In context, it sounded just like a Valley Girl from 1988. The problem? The story was set during the time of pirates.

I closed the book, tempted to walk around the house, flipping my hair, snapping gum, and going, "Like, totally argh, Matey."

Your Author Bio--from laundry list to creating an author brand

A popular post from July 2010

by Heather Moore

Recently Annette Lyon and I attended the ULA Conference where we were guest speakers. I flipped through the syllabus and gasped when I saw my author bio. It told about me--but had nothing about my published books or anything that would qualify me to be a speaker. I thought--well, no one will come to my class.

I asked Annette why she thought they'd put that bio in there when I'd sent over my updated bio. She said, "They probably took it from your website."

She was right. As I looked at the bio, I realized that it was on my website. I guess I thought that someone visiting my website would see the books I've written, then for additional author information they'd read my bio.

When I returned home from the conference, I promptly changed the bio so that if someone needed to lift it from my website, it would go well with any conference syllabus.

Recently I read a post by bestselling thriller writer, Barry Eisler. He basically nails why your author bio should be something that attracts a reader to your book, not a dry laundry list of where you were born, where you live, and the number of children you have. Eisler calls is author branding--check out his great post HERE.

In revamping my author bio, I asked myself what information reflects my personality as well as what will motivate a new reader to buy my book?

Anyone want to share yours?

This is what I came up with:

Heather B. Moore is the award-winning author of several historical novels which are set in Ancient Arabia and Mesoamerica. She is not old and doesn’t remember the time period, so Google has become a great friend. Although she has spent several years living in the Middle East, she prefers to forget the smells. Heather writes under the pen name H.B. Moore so that men will buy her books. She is also the author of one non-fiction book, which took her much too long to research and write, so she is back to novel writing (when she isn’t clipping 2-for-1 coupons).

My Audience

A popular post from October 2009

By Julie Wright

Reviews are of the devil. No really. They are.

And I'm not just saying that bad reviews are of the devil. I think most reviews are. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE getting glowing reviews. Really. Love it! But I despise the evil reviews, the ones where someone who is NOT your target audience bemoans your story, characters, YOU. I've had reviews that have made me cry. I've also had reviews that made me feel like I was earth shatteringly amazing.

Both sides are a little jaded. And the emotional roller coaster that comes with reading your own reviews is not a safe place for most writers. The incredible highs and abysmal lows are things other, normal people get medicated for. Bi-polar anyone?

I think reviews are good (and necessary) for the reader, but not a benefit (for the most part) to the writer. Readers need reviews so they know what they want to read next. Writers don't need to know what is in their book. They wrote it. They already know.

Maybe you're different, but what happens to me when I read a bad review is akin to writer's block. I can't move. I can't think well enough to type. I feel this awful pit in my stomach that seems it might never go away. A bad review could set me off for a couple of hours, or a couple of days, depending on the review and the moody mood I'm in when I read it.

What happens when I read a good review is akin to writer's block. I can't move. I can't think well enough to type. I feel this insane euphoria as I bask in my own brilliance. A good review could set me off for a couple of hours, or a couple of days, depending on the review and the moody mood I'm in when I read it.

See what I mean? Of. The. Devil.

So what do I do to avoid this review roller coaster? Try not to read them—that is how I handle it. It might be a little head in the sand, but I feel emotionally unstable enough without other people projecting their admiration or scorn on me. I used to read them all the time, like a bizarre obsession. The great reviews sent me soaring. The bad reviews made me crawl under my covers with ice cream and a spoon. I can’t afford either extreme so I just don’t read them anymore.

I had a friend recently lamenting over three stars on their review. Three out of five stars isn’t bad though. It means the reader liked the book and might even recommend the book to others. It doesn’t mean they would pull the book out of their burning house if they only had time to save only one thing, but that they read the book and enjoyed it for what it was.

I’ve also come to conclude that I write to the people who love what I write. They are my audience. But not everyone will love what I write—and that is okay. I am not writing to everyone. I’m writing to my audience.