Perspective is one of those techniques that, I feel, doesn’t get nearly enough credit. Sort of like in theater. All the focus is on the actors and the sets, but no one really gives a fig about the lighting or sound…until someone mucks it up. Right?

Whether we are watching a movie, a play, a concert or reading a book, it is super easy to take a lot of elements for granted.

Perspective is one of those tools that doesn’t get near the attention it should.

WHO is telling the story? HOW MANY PEOPLE are telling the story? This actually matters…a lot.

We’ve talked about POV (Point of View) a handful of times, but I don’t believe we’ve talked about it the way I’m going to address it today.

Here is an older post describing the main types of POV, Point of View—What IS It? How to Find the Perfect Voice for YOUR Story. Then there is Deep POV, which is a wonderful tool as well and quite popular these days.

Yet, once we get beyond choosing whether to write in first person, second, third, third-shifting, omniscient, what then?

WHO’S PERSPECTIVE IS IT?

Believe it or not, changing up who’s telling the story matters…a lot. In fact, it can breathe new life into old stories that have been done so many times no one really cares anymore….

That is, until WE (writers) flip the script.

POV is one of those elements we can alter that drills into the marrow of the story. It reaches beyond silly, superficial changes that claim to make the story “wholly unique” but really don’t, especially in an age of CGI.

Think of some fantastic stories that “flipped the script.” Wicked took The Wizard of Oz and told it from the perspective of the “Wicked” Witch of the West.

There is this thing we storytellers rely upon that readers (ideally) don’t even notice—the suspension of disbelief.

Bad or Merely Misunderstood?

Thus, in the original Wizard of Oz, when a house lands on the “Wicked” Witch of the East and the “Good Witch Glenda”—gaslighting psychopath she is—pats the bewildered Dorothy on the back for committing third degree murder (possibly argued down to involuntary manslaughter)…we accept this is okay.

And when Glenda then encourages Dorothy to steal the shoes off a woman who’s been dead all of a minute, again, we accept this is totes legit.

Thus, when the “Wicked” Witch of the West arrives and is arguably upset that not only has her sister been killed, but her killer didn’t even wait for the body to cool to room temperature before pillaging her corpse for fabulous shoes…she is OBVIOUSLY the bad guy, right?

Right.

Sometimes the most clever stories are those told from the “villain’s” POV.

Mind you, I am not saying to explain who they are and why they did bad things. Hannibal the Cannibal was far more fascinating before the author tried explain. We didn’t need Hannibal’s tragic childhood and why he turned into a serial killer….*yawns*.

Changing Perspective Can Be Good

Obviously, Wicked is a great example. I also really enjoyed Maleficent. Fairy tales seem to be a favorite for shifting perspectives because they’re stories most people are familiar with. That and we’ve long (passively) accepted who is good or bad, right or wrong.

Yet, whenever I’ve talked about villains, one core ingredient that elevates them above mustache-twirling caricatures is their MOTIVE. Great villains are great for the simple reason that we either want to know the WHY or we empathize with the WHY.

Caroline Kepnes’s You did a fabulous job using the rarely touched second person perspective. She took us inside a stalker’s head and, by employing second person, actually created quite the brain-bender. We find ourselves rooting for a seriously insane character!

When Changing Perspectives Goes Wrong

While it is a fantastic exercise to look at a story and see if we can get a fresh perspective, it can easily fall into gimmick.

The first example that comes to mind is the Pixar movie that really never needed to be made…Finding Dory.

I LOVE Finding Nemo and have used this “kid’s” movie to teach plotting countless times: What “Finding Nemo” Can Teach Us About Story Action

I’ve watched Finding Nemo more times than any “adult” probably should and never get tired of it. Yet, years ago, when I took Spawn to see Finding Dory, I fidgeted more than a toddler in a doctor’s waiting room.

I couldn’t pay attention. My mind wandered. Halfway through the movie, I decided to use a tool I employ when editing. Put it in my log-line formula to see what was missing.

Story Formula:

First of all, while Dory worked amazingly well as an antagonist, she utterly flopped as a protagonist. A fish that can only remember super short-term was the perfect foil to drive Marlin (the control-freak father fish) to arc and loosen the hell up.

Yet as a protagonist? She already HAS a family with Marlin, Nemo and the others in the fish school from the first movie. Out of literally NOWHERE…Dory “remembers” her parents and, for some inexplicable reason, wants to find them (when she can’t remember anything long-term?).

That part was ALREADY a stretch.

Then, when she finds “home” she discovers her parents are GONE. Okay. BUT, they have been taken to live in a super fancy state-of-the-art aquarium that eventually will be shipped to Chicago (I guess this is the ticking clock?).

What are the stakes? Instead of her parents being in the wild surrounded by predators her parents might die from fish old age?

And she JUST remembered she even HAD parents so exactly what emotional void would be there should she fail?

A flawed story doomed this movie from the beginning. It desperately tries to rely on Pixar’s unique brand of campy humor but even that wasn’t enough to save this idea that was already DOA.

A Christmas Story…(Perspective) DISASTER

Over the holidays, Hubby insisted we watch the new movie A Christmas Story Christmas. Another sequel that never needed to be made. WHY? Perspective!

The GENIUS behind the original movie, A Christmas Story, ironically is the same reason the second movie suuuucked.

The original is told from the perspective of Ralphie the CHILD, whereas the sequel is told from the perspective of Ralphie the ADULT.

In the original, all the magical thinking (his visions of defending his family against bandits with his Red Rider BB Gun), the unrealistic expectations (Orphan Annie decoder ring), and the social oopses (FUUUUUDGE!) are positively hysterical.

The charm of the original movie is that, regardless which generation one happened to be born in, we can ALL relate because we once were KIDS. We viewed the world as kids.

Kids deal with bullies, what it means to back off on or take up a dare, hyper-exaggerating the actual real-life outcome of any event (for good or bad).

From envisioning ourselves hitting the home run that wins the game and makes us suddenly popular to being certain a parent “will murder us” for a bad grade, everything is BIGGER when we are kids.

Why?

Because the world literally IS bigger. And we are small and still trying to navigate a rather alien place. That is what makes the original a classic.

But, to give the same attributes/perspective to a bumbling middle-aged man? For me, it made the MC seriously creepy and pushed boundaries of believablility.

Not only did the story fall utterly flat, but (for me) it bordered on rendering not just the MC, but all other characters, unlikable (Eg. Like how Ralphie and family enjoying a “perfect Commercialized Christmas, utterly dwarfs a very recent and significant death in the family).

Perspective MATTERS

Perspective is powerful, and it is good practice to learn to write believably from different POVs.

A billion years ago, when I ran a writing group in DFW, I’d give the other writers exercises to hone their skills (and for fun). At one point during my tenure, we had too many of the new writers who had characters who all sounded the same.

***Ideally, I should be able to read your dialogue (without tags) aloud and be able to tell which character is speaking.

Thus, I decided to give a fun homework assignment to SHOW what I meant by voice and perspective.

The exercise went as follows…

Story Prompt: Imagine a family. Mom, Dad, a grandparent (can be grandmother or grandfather), and one teenager going on vacation. The family has been saving for ages for this getaway. Thus, there is probably way more emotional investment than is “reasonable” as to the outcome of this trip. Their vehicle breaks down in the middle of nowhere.

WHAT HAPPENS? Tell the “story” from all four POVs.

There are no limits. It doesn’t have to be present-day. The characters don’t even need to be human or alive. Just make me believe the POV.

When I got the results, I had never witnessed so much creativity out of any group of people. There were stories of families that had a spaceship breaking down, time-travelers who had a covered wagon break down, regular American highly dysfunctional families, on and on. It was truly amazing!

Characters Change the Story

Be creative!

What if Dad is having an affair?

What if Mom is secretly addicted to pain pills and runs out?

What if the teen is recently in remission from Leukemia?

What if Grandma is a tireless flirt who’s antics got her turned into a vampire and the family can’t understand why Granny wants to travel only at night?

What if the teen is an asthmatic and forgot his inhaler?

What if Granddad was part of the mob and is recognized while on the road?

What if the teen has been recruited for a mandatory deep space mission by the New Earth government and will never see the family again?

What if the teen was adopted and the purpose for the trip was to meet the child’s birth mother? How would this impact the emotions of those in the vehicle?

What if there used to be TWO children and one had died in an accident a year previously?

Do you see how by changing WHO these people are, this cannot HELP but affect everything else?

What if the accident actually killed the entire family and they have yet to realize they’re dead? They just think the locals are rude and ignore them.

The possibilities are endless!

Perspective and Story

Sometimes, if we have a fabulous story idea but everything just seems to be falling flat, think about POV. Have we cast the right person to be the MC? When I wrote my first novel, The Devil’s Dance, I ran into this exact problem.

In the earliest versions, Romi (Riley) was a veteran from the war in Afghanistan suffering PTSD. The beta readers hated her. For whatever reason, Riley was simply not connectiong.

Okay. Fair enough.

But, since I knew the story idea was solid, I went back to the drawing board and changed the MC.

Instead of a gritty female action hero, I fell back on my blogging voice. I changed third person to first person and make Romi a fish-out-of-water who gets in a mess that is far over her head.

Just that ONE change created a totally different story and helped me create a neurotic, self-deprecating but funny MC readers loved.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Do you like stories that shift up the perspective? Maybe that tell the same story from a “villain’s” POV? Are there certain POVs you enjoy more than others?

Have you ever switched either POV (from say third to first) or switched the MC because the story wasn’t working? Conversely, do you have a story you’re struggling with and only now realize you might not have the right MC? Or it needs to be in a different POV?

Can you take the perspective exercise above and use it to refine your use of dialogue? Feel free to give it a try and post in the comments!

I’d love to read your work!

The post Perspective: POV Can Revive or Ruin a Story appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Redemption is a much more prolific theme than most might realize.

Whether it is a fun, romantic Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones Diary), a gritty Cormac McCarthy (The Road) or a therapy-inducing Ken Follett (Pillars of the Earth), they hold one common thread.

Redemption.

Will Bridget finally see the truth of herself—that she’s shallow—before she commits to loving the wrong man?

In a world gone mad, can the actions of a Man and a Boy redeem faith in humanity?

In a world of unspeakable violence and savagery, will justice ever be served? Is Tom Builder—a man who abandons his newborn by his wife’s grave—worthy of redemption?

Whether the story is a short cozy romance or an epically long historical, we still see this embedded desire that even bad people deserve another chance. I believe this is a good thing, and demonstrates that hope springs eternal with us humans.

Thus, today, we’ll explore the notion if all characters can be saved? Should they be? And how far can we push the line before readers no longer care? What does the undertone of redemption add to story and what do we risk losing without it?

***Feel free to skim for what applies to you. My blogs are long, but I guarantee you they are a LOT shorter than the thousands of pages of reading I use to boil down for this “bone broth.” Moving on….

Flawed Characters ALL Require Redemption

This weekend, Spawn and I (horror junkies that we are) watched Emesis Blue on YouTube. Overall, enjoyable. Some INCREDIBLE imagery. Very well executed. But, since once an editor always an editor, it is almost impossible for me not to find SOMETHING that could have been done a bit better.

So far I have only discovered about 5 perfect books in the thousands I have read that I wouldn’t change a word (FYI: None are mine). Same with movies.

The ONLY thing I could pick on was the film didn’t make it really clear WHO I needed to “root” for. Horror can, like literary, be a genre that is ALL BAD PEOPLE. You literally find yourself simply siding with the least bad, bad guy…which is fine.

But do you want your story to be “okay” or “fine” or “Good enough”? Or do you want it to go to that next level?

This is where character arc can be a game-changer. When I mention “redemption” it implies the character needs to learn, change, grow or evolve in some way.

When characters are “too perfect” or the converse “too horrible/stupid to live” the story can stall. This isn’t the 1950s. Shock value and BIG THINGS HAPPENING are okay, but they’re sorely lacking when it comes to hooking an audience for the long-haul.

We can have the most amazing writing, prose, setting, and even clever plot, but if readers don’t CARE about the characters, they grow easily bored. Bad things need to happen but….

BAD THINGS Alone are NOT Conflict

Conflict is simple. Two people with different levels of POWER wanting their own thing…collide.

That is it. Simple, but not easy.

In police procedurals, the BBT (Big Boss Troublemaker) is the CORE ANTAGONIST responsible for creating the story problem in need of solving by THE END. Often it is a killer, criminal, thug, or someone breaking the law in some way.

BUT….

Where the MC will often experience the MOST pushback will be from those closest. Every scene needs an antagonist. We need to make the audience worry. If everything is too happy-dappy and everything is sunshine and rainbows, that is not a novel. It is an overly long Hallmark card.

Back to the police procedural and uneven power.

Detective Hardnose WANTS to hunt down KILLER.

Police Chief Blowhard WANTS to win an election.

Detective Hardnose’s methods are unorthodox because that is only way to catch the killer BUT Chief Blowhard is getting bad press. HE wants the killer caught…but with kid gloves that don’t upset voters.

See the power imbalance? Detective Hardnose STILL needs to stop a killer. He STILL knows conventional policing won’t work, BUT he needs to use his skills and brain to figure out a workaround.

Whether it is conflict with a superior officer, Internal Affairs, the Feds, meddling politicians, or even the detective’s own FAMILY…note the power struggle. THIS is what turns pages.

CAN the detective catch the killer, please his boss, keep his badge and maintain his marriage and relationship with his kids?

We WORRY and WORRY IS FICTION GOLD. Regardless the genre, your reader needs to worry every single page all the way until THE END.

An EVEN BIGGER KAIJU!

There is a great little flick called Pacific Rim. And forgive me because it will seem like I am contradicting myself, but bear with me. Pacific Rim is a fantastic flick for young boys. I grew up on anime (Voltron, Transformers, Robotech, etc.) so it was a fabulous throwback to that.

This said….

The entire plot is basically some inter-dimensional rift has opened up along the—you guessed it—the Pacific Rim, where giant monsters wriggle through to unleash mass destruction on large cities (popular back when we still found CGI fascinating).

Mankind creates basically giant robot suits to battle Godzilla-esque creatures.

The ENTIRE plot is really just…a BIGGER KAIJU! Then a BIGGER KAIJU! And, in a totally unexpected plot twist…the BIGGEST KAIJU EVER! (Until the next movie).

That is it.

And if you’re writing campy stories/movies that appeal to predominantly young boys, teen boys and/or middle aged women with the sense of humor and tastes of a 9th grade boy…FABULOUS.

LOVE SHARKNADO! Almost as much at Lavalantula.

But these are B-movies people enjoy for the precise reason they are so wonderfully BAD. I bet you most folks couldn’t NAME a single character from any of these kinds of movies. We also really never worry in any of these “stories.”

When it comes to BOOKS? Here’s the problem.

Most People Don’t Like to Read

It is an old post but a lot of my content is evergreen. Check out Why Traditional Marketing Doesn’t Sell Books for a more in depth breakdown. Everything in that post from 2011 is true today. Actually much MORE SO since we have so many other mediums of entertainment all clamoring for our attention.

But, when surveyed, something like 94% of people admit that reading is something they want to do more of in theory, but never DO. If asked to list the top 10 or even 20 things they believe they’d like to do with their spare time…reading doesn’t make the list for MOST literate people.

That’s the “bad news.” The “great news” is people LOVE to read…they just don’t know it yet.

If you don’t believe me, how many people have you told you were a writer and the FIRST WORDS out of their mouth were, “Have you read 50 Shades of Grey?”

They might not read ANY OTHER BOOK, but “regular people” (code for “future readers”) are absolutely CULT-LIKE when they find a book (or series) they fall in love with. They’ll genuinely believe they still hate to read…but they love everything Harry Potter, Hunger Games, 50 Shades, etc.

They’ll practically have a SHRINE with all the hardbacks, the merch, the movies, etc.

What this means is we writers have to do better. We can’t hook like 1950s pulp novels that sold like hotcakes because what else would someone do on a long bus ride, in a waiting room, during bad weather, etc. What this ALSO means is that stuff that hooked 20 years ago, just will not work today. Apps and games and YouTube are low-hanging and shiner/easier fruit.

Readers are Narcissists

HUMANS are narcissists. Use that. Why do we (the nerdy readers who cannot FATHOM NOT loving books) get hooked on certain books or series? Usually, it is because we see something of ourselves. We cling onto particular characters because they reflect us in some way for good or bad. What we are, what we wish we weren’t, what we aspire to be.

This is why that redemption aspect is SUCH a game changer.

We cannot relate to super perfect people. In fact, there is a human psychological phenomenon referred to as Schadenfreude that explains exactly why we’re more prone to root against perfect people.

I get it sounds horrible, but back in the day of tabloids, what sold more copies? Super Hollywood Starlet with cellulite? Or Super Hollywood Starlet looking freakishly and inhumanely gorgeous?

Cellulite obviously.

It’s nice to nice to knock perfect people “down a peg,” WHY? Because it humanizes her. It wasn’t per se we wished anything horrible on her, only we couldn’t see her as one of “us” so long as she had unfathomable natural beauty, the perfect body, a gazillion dollars, and was even NICE!

***Feel free to insert whatever superstar/rockstar, etc.

We were fascinated not by “bad things happening to her” as much as realizing she was a person just like us.

So, if we KNOW humans are wired this way….

USE IT!

Make Characters NEED Redemption

Even if we go to the Hallmark movies, please appreciate that millions and millions of people love watching every year, especially at Christmas. We can easily see the human need for redemption. Hallmark (as formulaic as it is) still offers super perfect but FLAWED characters.

Obviously the plots are usually over the top because, while Hallmark might be formulaic, the formula WORKS.

Same with cocaine, FYI.

Even if the main love interest is the heir apparent to some tiny country no one’s heard of, something in him is missing/damaged/broken that only the love interest can fix. Is he too serious? Has he become unbalanced? All work and duty and no fun? Does he take his role for granted?

Same with the gal. Maybe she is a spunky assistant who’s pretty and clever and kind…but she is usually a hopeless klutz, is super insecure, is socially oblivious, is overshadowed by a sibling. Whatever. OR, she could be the one who is the “ice queen” who is all work and no fun.

Doesn’t matter.

It does mean your characters need to be their own worst enemies and the PLOT is all that can save them from themselves.

Redemption to Scale

The great part about thinking in terms of redemption (instead of “character arc”) is that it makes it a) practical and b) scalable.

Obviously if I am writing a cozy mystery, then an MC with a habit of cocaine and hookers is a poor choice. Instead? A hopeless busybody who’s meddling comes back to bite.

If, however, I am writing a gritty action thriller, then a well-meaning busybody is a poor choice. And cocaine and hookers for the win!

For those who want to do or even TRY NaNoWriMo (which I always recommend), this “redemption” idea will be important to keep you going for the long-haul.

I recommend starting with a NEW idea (especially if you struggle with finishing). Seems like bad advice, but bear with me. I’m going to offer you a new process to try.

Get your “idea” then whittle it into ONE SENTENCE.

What is your story ABOUT? I have a walk through here HOW to do this.

Pitch Your Story in ONE Sentence

Once you have that sentence, think about what would make your character emotionally intriguing? Sure, they’re a 100th degree blackbelt, know 15 languages, do parkour like Jackie Chan and all that is great…

But the more superlatives we add, oddly enough the less interesting the character becomes.

All those “bad@$$” qualities aren’t what make the character interesting. What makes them interesting is they have 100 superlative qualities but THIS FLAW lays them low.

Will They EVER Succeed?

Okay, so flaws. This is where we have to do some of the more delicate work in our craft. AGAIN, genre will inform this. Hallmark-style romance is NOT about hard-boiled terrible people doing terrible things to even more terrible people. Converse is true as well.

Y’all got that because you’re super smart.

With the lighter reads, we have to be careful we don’t make everyone too perfect. When it comes to other genres, this starts to scale.

On one end of the spectrum is Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Former M.P. who lives off the grid for whatever reason and always seems to find trouble. His flaws? People skills are often terrible, he pisses off authority figures, and his personal life is…yeah.

The other side of the spectrum are your anti-heroes. They’re SO BAD but you cannot help rooting for them. Think Lestat in Interview with a Vampire.

So get your idea into ONE sentence then CAST appropriately. What does THIS story problem (plot) have that will serve as the crucible to refine that flaw?

The HBO Series True Blood did this phenomenally! Eric Northman is the oldest of the vampires and he’s lived SO LONG life has no meaning…until he falls for Sookie. BUT, his Viking/Vampire ways, while his greatest asset, also create the most problems.

With Redemption, Balance is KEY

This is where a LOT of intentional reading is your friend. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. The wheel works. And odds are, if you read enough, you’ll have enough pieces to create something wholly unique. The same but also totally NEW! Reading will also train you in certain techniques.

Back to balance.

We cannot write a book everyone loves. EVERYONE is not my audience or yours. I absolutely loved The Girl on the Train. The MC is a really, really bad alcoholic, thus an unreliable narrator. I had no problem with her, but she wasn’t for everyone.

Conversely, I read a “suspense/thriller” that was traditionally published and had a gazillion 5 star reviews…and the character was too dumb to live. I finished it because I am stubborn and I think we can often learn more from bad books than good.

It was as if the author had never read the genre and all I wanted to do was scream and throw the book…which I would have done except I read on my phone and that’s too expensive to break.

Proving my point that everyone is different.

How to Redeem the Seemingly Irredeemable

So for those who read the lighter genres, make sure to give them some relatable flaws. For everyone else….

Anti-heroes are difficult. There is a fine line we have to tread. We will not be able to make everyone happy. My new anthology WTH Did I Just Read? has a sampling of my writing. I LOVE anti-heroes and unreliable narrators. Will some love EVERY character in every story?

Duh, obviously *hair flip*

Kidding. Even I know that I might totally turn readers off on ALL of them or some of them or one of them.

If, however, you want a gritty character, tips for “redemption”….

1. Make them the lesser of evils.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter might be terrifying, but not nearly as terrifying (or reprehensible) as the men he takes down (Eg. Mason Verger).

2. Give them a glimmer of a characteristic that is deeply likable.

Jessica Knoll’s The Luckiest Girl Alive features Ani, who is a scheming, shallow, conniving “Mean Girl.” At first glance, she is a horrible human being. She’s vain, gold-digging, and will do almost anything to get ahead professionally. Yet, in one of the opening scenes, Ani is interviewing for the very coveted position as her intern at a super prestigious fashion magazine.

How does she choose? She takes the applicants for coffee downstairs at the little newsstand where a disfigured immigrant named Loretta works. When the stand first hired Loretta, people complained because she was unsightly (burn scars), spoke broken English, and had a bit of body odor.

ANI, however, noticed all the coffee was fresh, including the creamers (even the soy milk). The store was always spotless and the magazines were artfully displayed.

Ani not only notices what others do not, she JUDGES others on how they TREAT Loretta. The minute they whisper anything cruel or degrading, Ani blackballs them.

She is deliciously awful.

3. Make them sympathetic.

Yes, in The Girl on a Train, Rachel is a spiraling alcoholic…BUT when you learn what she survived and WHY she is using booze to cope, it “can” soften you enough to give her the benefit of the doubt hoping she’ll get her act together with the addiction.

Structure can also be your friend.

IF you struggle to make them sympathetic, then have another character who sees the good in them. This worked with Sookie and Eric.

I just finished listening to an audiobook that is among those elusive “perfect books” I mentioned earlier. Old Country is a ghost story/psychological suspense/horror that left ME shaking. I vacillated between I dreaded to read more, but also could not read FAST ENOUGH.

One of the reasons I LOVE the horror genre is it is the toughest genre to write well. For the story to work, you really kind of need characters to do dumb, counterintuitive or even self-destructive things.

How did Old Country pull this off without characters falling into unlikable/too stupid to live? There are two MC POVs, one the husband and the other the wife (a.k.a. the “Buddy Love” structure).

The husband is belligerent, stubborn to the point of ridiculousness, self-destructive, impulsive, etc, etc. which the story demands for plausibility and also for one HELL of a knockout ending.

We “get” he’s a combat veteran in the opening scene, so we already forgive A LOT.

But not everything…

THIS is where the author did a brilliant job by adding in the WIFE’S POV. Wives have a way of seeing in ways we cannot, in ways their husbands cannot. True in life and in fiction.

The wife serves as a foil. She’s a sort of an advocate there to tell us (the reader) as well as other characters that “this reaction was over the top, even for him.” Or that “something had to be terribly wrong because, while he definitely had an anger problem, he’d NEVER ONCE raised his voice like that, so he HAD to be TERRIFIED.”

The only thing I would caution here is that this partner character needs to serve the story more than just being there to “explain away” bad behavior.

But the cool thing is…they can explain away bad behavior. They can smooth the rough edges that might, otherwise turn a reader totally off our story.

Think Frodo and Samwise or Dr. Watson and Sherlock.

The “Buddy Love” structure is fantastic if you need to balance out a particularly irascible character. They can also help the other character arc because that character is just too blind/damaged to do it on their own.

Redemption is wonderful in life and it is fiction GOLD.

***Why else would we have rooted for SPIKE all those years in Buffy?

Redemption makes characters fascinating. They’re such a danger to themselves and others we wonder if they’ll ever get their act together. We want them to because if THEY can do it, so can we.

I LOVE Hearing from You!

What are your thoughts on redemption? Do you see how common this theme really is? Does it add that little extra je ne sais quoi to a story for you, too? Who are some characters you never thought could be redeemed? Are there others you wish HAD been redeemed?

To prove it and show my love, for the month of OCTOBER, everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat.

***I actually have landed agents for people who’ve won this contest. Agents like me because I make their lives easier.

If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice.

What do you win?

The unvarnished truth from yours truly (and maybe even time with an agent).

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less). People with superlative writing, I (with your permission) have been known to pass you onto an agent.

Anyway, I look forward to reading your comments and your writing!

The post Redemption: Can All Characters Be “Saved”? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

There is one word known to strike fear into the hearts of most writers. Synopsis. Most of us would rather perform brain surgery from space using a lemon zester and a squirrel than be forced to boil down our entire novel into one page.

Yes one.

But alas we need to embrace the synopsis for numerous reasons. First and foremost, if we want to land an agent, it works in our favor to already have an AWESOME synopsis handy because the odds are, at some point, the agent will request one.

Sigh. I know. Sorry.

A Quick Aside

When it comes to synopses, I lean toward the, ‘Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission’ camp. Which is where already having a seriously spiffy synopsis helps.

Think of it this way. E-mail sucks. Getting lots of email and having to juggle it all sucks. Agents get a lot of email.

Since I am also a person who gets a ridiculous amount of email, I can tell you with conviction that I LOVE people who save me work. They do this by saving me steps.

Most queries these days are via email and since agents don’t like getting their computers crashed by a virus? This means the query will be pasted into the body of the email (no attachments).

Believe it or not, agents like writers. In fact they need writers. They don’t get paid without a writer and last I checked agents also really like being paid in money—not adorable pigmy goats and trust me you will only make THAT mistake once.

Where was I? Oh, the Synopsis

Agents need writers. Just as much as they are looking for reasons NOT to read our book, they are simultaneously looking for reasons TO read our book.

I know it’s a paradox much like time travel. Don’t think about it too long or your brain will cramp.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with ending your query with: I have taken the liberty of pasting the one-page synopsis of my novel below for your convenience.

Worst case scenario? They don’t scroll down and read the synopsis. OMG!

But best case is they DO scroll down, read the synopsis, and they like it! Better yet, you’re off to an awesome start because you just saved them a crap-ton of time and email Ping-Pong.

Why Do We Need a Synopsis?

If you don’t want to automatically include the synopsis that’s fine, but if you write a really good one (which IS possible if the story is strong)? Why wouldn’t you?

All right, so what if you aren’t brave enough to include a synopsis and are just praying that the subject never comes up and the agent just asks for a full.

Okay, great! Problem is, if you do get a book deal, often the editor will want you to write a synopsis of the book you are writing next (for approval of course).

Ugh, so if you go with a traditional/legacy publisher, really no dodging it.

Some of you might be saying, Oh, but Kristen! Traditional is sooo yesterday and I am self-publishing. I don’t need a synopsis.

First of all, any indie house worth their salt will ask for a synopsis, so sorry to burst your bubbles there.

Also…

Technically correct, but actually I do recommend a synopsis for all the reasons writers loathe writing them.

Why All the Angst?

So a big reason that writers hate writing a synopsis with the power of a thousand suns is that we believe every word we have written is precious and every character vital and necessary.

We lack perspective, especially if we haven’t had any time or distance away from the work. This is normal.

But a bigger reason that many writers hate writing the synopsis (particularly for first-time novels) is it makes it painfully obvious we have no story or a terribly flawed story.

The synopsis strips away our pretty prose and all our verbal glitter and it lays our story bare.

Today I want to talk about the BIG PICTURE stuff. What is it our synopsis is really out to reveal? If we don’t first grasp that, no amount of tips I give for writing a great synopsis will help.

Synopsis as Skeleton

We don’t need a lot of imagination (or a medical degree) to see how this skeleton above is going to flesh out, pardon the pun. One can see just at a quick glance that this human skeleton is going to have a lot of problems because of the various deformities.

The same holds true with a story skeleton. If the narrative orbital sockets are located in the posterior, we don’t care how pretty the eyes are if they are in the @$$.

There is no amount of witty dialogue or clever prose that is going to rescue a plot that is missing vital parts or has them in the wrong place.

Yes, we are sending a synopsis in hopes of selling a story, but how is the synopsis doing this? Plain and simple? The synopsis is letting the agent see if the skeleton is solid, symmetrical and is of a creature that is rare, cool and maybe never seen before in this rare, unique FORM.

Too many new writers want to create the ‘NEVER seen before story.’ But that is way TOO weird. Readers need a baseline. A same, but different. Think dinosaurs. MILLIONS of visitors flock to The Field Museum. We all know what a dinosaur is, but we all wanna see a T-REX.

Same…but different…and COOL.

Note that The Field Museum doesn’t get MILLIONS of visitors annually to see part of a T-Rex. A tail, a jaw, a spine. No.

Visitors want to see the entire skeleton. Even without flesh, tendon, muscle and bone, their imaginations go WILD even with essentially the synopsis of a dinosaur.

Synopsis and Fatal Flaws

Remember, an agent is namely looking at a synopsis because she knows it is the fastest way to reveal terminal (deal-breaker) errors.

For the self-published folks. Technically you don’t need to write a synopsis, but if you can’t for any of these reasons below, the novel might not yet be good to go and this could save a bunch of nasty reviews, or no reviews, or your novel never selling and remaining in literary limbo forever and ever amen.

It’s also a FABULOUS way to contain plot bunnies. When I have a fantastic idea for another book?

The best way to maintain focus (I have found) is to sketch out a quick synopsis and file it. Let the ‘boys in the basement’ work on it while you FINISH the current WIP.

The synopsis will be there when you’re ready to dedicate the time and full attention to it. After you’ve had time and space away from it, you’ll be able to see if it is still as AMAZING as it seemed when it popped in your gray matter and tried to distract you from editing and revisions.

Is the premise weak?

I get pages all the time from ‘finished novels’ but there actually is no story. Just because an author has 80,000-100,000 words does not mean he has a story. Nope, it means he has 80,000-100,000 words. It’s better than no words, but not a story.

Is it really a novel or just melodrama?

Do we have a solid plot or just ‘scene’ after ‘scene’ of bad situations? This is what I call ‘soap opera writing. There is no core story problem to be resolved by the end of the book.

We just get page after page of talking, eating, shopping, bad stuff happening, characters talking about other bad stuff that has already happened. Loads of plot puppets, flashbacks. Great for Days of Our Lives, bad for the page.

Does the ‘plot’ rely on trickery? Gimmick? 

Often writers are having a panic attack about writing the synopsis because the entire book rests on a ‘clever’ twist ending that often really isn’t a twist but rather a gimmick.

E.g. It was all really a bad dream.

NO.

Does it require deus ex machina to resolve?

I call this a Luck Dragon. So protagonist is enduring plight after plight and all seems lost when she finds—dun dun dun—a journal!

NO.

Does it really resolve?

New writers often don’t understand structure, which naturally means they don’t yet understand that series follow similar structure guidelines to a singular novel. And btw, it is OKAY to be new, so breathe!

Even series still follow three act structure. But say the story follows four or even five act structure. Doesn’t matter. The story is not over until the core story problem introduced in the beginning is resolved.

Series work the same way. If it is a connected series, then it works a bit like those Russian nesting dolls. Every book has a bigger and bigger problem to solve until finally the CORE problem is solved/antagonist is defeated.

In LOTR: Uruk-Hai defeated—> Saruman defeated—>Sauron defeated

Which means NO 1960s BATMAN ENDINGS.

Stay tuned for next week book!

Often I get, Oh well the reader will have to read the next book to know if she lives. Nope, not how that works unless we write for As the World Turns.

No matter the structure we use, our story must come equipped with a satisfying resolution or that skeleton is missing arms. In the case of a connected series, often a gatekeeper to the Big Boss is defeated but the journey continues toward that final showdown. No being clever by withholding a resolution.

There is only one The Lady or the Tiger? and the only reason that story is read at all is because it’s one of the only ways English teachers can get back at us for having to read our crappy essays.

Is the writer breaking genre constrictions in unforgivable ways?

For instance, romance comes with an HEA (happily ever after) or the more modern HFN (happily for now). No HEA or HFN? It ain’t romance.

And, if the author is selling it as romance in the query, but the story ends in a breakup? The agent knows this is a new writer who doesn’t understand her genre and the very strong and clear expectations.

Is the story just not all that remarkable?

Once the plot is laid bare, is it truly anything unique? A fresh twist on an old idea? Or is it really just more of the same?

My book is about a thirty-eight-year-old female executive who decides she wants to have a baby and the struggle of being an older mom.

Okay *falls asleep*.

My book is about a thirty-eight-year-old female executive who finds out she’s pregnant with her first child at the same time her teenage stepdaughter reveals she, too is expecting.

*perks up* Hmmm, interesting.

The Good News About the Synopsis

When we can write a concise and interesting synopsis, it shows our level of skill and the strength of our story. If we can write tight and clean here, it bodes well for the book. If your brain is in knots writing your synopsis, relax.

If the story is there the synopsis is too. It’s just a matter of unearthing it.

Though we will talk more on how to do this later, I do recommend starting with forming a log-line. If you can boil your entire book into one sentence? The synopsis can be built using that and it is far easier to build UP TO one page than whittle DOWN three hundred pages into one page.

Here is an earlier post about how to do the log-line. Additionally, if you need more help, I do a class on how to do your log-line and the added benefit is I do your log-line WITH you so you walk away from class with that in hand.

We’ll be scheduling that class next week when we put the classes together. Getting over bronchial pneumonia is a BEAST. I have missed teaching!

But, if you struggle with plot, I am offering my two FAVORITE CLASSES. I’m doing a For the LOVE of WRITING Special. The prices are NOT as low as the New Year’s Specials but still really, really low.

ON DEMAND: Bring on the Binge: How to Plot and Write a Series

Normally $75 and now only $50 and this is over four hours of instruction on everything you need to know about plot. So if you want to know about the synopsis? You will BLOW it out of the water after this.

Also…

ON DEMAND: The Art of Character for Series

Normally $75 and also only $50 and this class pairs excellent with the plotting class (like a fine chardonnay and a Chilean sea bass). Treat yourself! Tell your sweetheart that THIS gift won’t require extra gym time.

Also, though these classes are gems, unlike diamonds, these won’t last forever.

Once I put in the new classes and curriculum these classes will be deleted/go into cold storage. Would have happened sooner but bronchitis has had a different schedule in mind .

Roll with it, LOL. Anyway…

Happy Valentine’s Day & I LOVE hearing from you!

What are your thoughts? Have you been struggling with the synopsis and think it’s because there might be bigger issues going on? Are you a more seasoned writer and remember the nightmare of trying to fit a first-time ‘novel’ into a single page? Any thoughts? Questions? Suggestions?

The post The Synopsis: Why Love Hurts & Pain Can Be Good for Our Writing appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

For those who might not know, in the United States, Black History Month is celebrated for the entire month of February. The point of dedicating an entire month is so we can bring focus to the works, art, history, and voices of a specific community within our vast and diverse nation.

We can learn, grow, heal hurts, right wrongs, increase understanding and create and deepen friendships that will (ideally) endure far into the future.

Like most other authors, I’m a huge advocate of literacy. Books, stories open up new worlds, and place us in perspectives we have no other way to experience.

Reading is Crucial for Understanding

Stories allow us to be another gender, race, or even species (Um, Trekkies?).

It is a level of empathy we can experience no other way, which is why it’s so vital.

Which is why for the LIFE of me I cannot understand what the HELL Barnes & Noble was thinking with their Black History Month initiative…which apparently to only THEIR shock was canceled midday Wednesday after massive online backlash (which I hope to fuel).

*pours out gasoline* *strikes match*

I know I’m going off my usual script here, but it’s been a long time since something made me this angry.

When I first saw the Barnes & Noble ‘diversity initiative’ I thought the same exact thing as Frederick Joseph, the black author of the upcoming book The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person.

“Instead of platforming black writers during Black History Month, they’re basically doing blackface. They’re using our imagery, our likeness, to still sell white narratives.”

Frederick Joseph

AMEN! I could not agree more. Who was smoking what when they approved of something as insulting as to put white literary characters in blackface to honor Black History Month?

No, I am NOT making this up.

New covers on classics only illustrated with multiethnic characters. They PAID good money to be this insulting.

Penguin Random House, I literally frigging give up on you. We are DONE. Barnes & Noble I will never spend another cent in your stores EVER.

*throws furniture*

And Barnes & Noble is being run by a British C.E.O.? I thought y’all were supposed to be teaching us rube Yanks something about sensitivity.

Pound sand.

Black History Month: Literature Goes Blackface

Barnes & Noble has screwed up so catastrophically that I am embarrassed I ever envisioned my books gracing their shelves.

So the bright idea Barnes & Noble had to honor African Americans this month? Redo covers from classic books like—I kid you not—Moby Dick, The Wizard of Oz, Alice and Wonderland—but make the characters on the covers dark-skinned.

Oh-kay, so classic books written by white authors, for white audiences chronicling white problems are appropriate for Black History Month…if we just change the color of the characters on the covers? Just put them in blackface?

NO ONE THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE OFFENSIVE? Yes I am posting the pic again because *screams*…..

What About Actual African American Authors?

Last I checked, there are actual living breathing African American authors that Barnes & Noble could have used its remaining power and influence to highlight and promote.

In an age where discoverability is a nightmare for ALL authors who aren’t Stephen King (no hating on King, just we’re down to a handful of mega brands commanding most of the name-recognition), why not help authors of color?

Why NOT? There is a DEDICATED MONTH TO DO THIS!

Readers are wanting something new and fresh to read. We’re in a unique time in history where readers are WANTING to read authors of color. Race relations are a hot topic right now, and this was a huge window of opportunity.

And you missed it. You could have used this moment in time to take a primed audience and introduce them to authors of color, but instead, you squandered it on titles that anyone over the age of six knows exists and has seen a movie version.

Barnes and Noble, do you really think we’ve NOT yet heard of Alice and Wonderland? That we somehow missed The Wizard of Oz?

Who in your marketing department thought that we wanted to spend our very limited free time reading Moby-Frigging-Dick?

Oh, but the book is somehow better and less mind-numbingly boring because Morgan Freeman posed for the cover?

Bite me, Barnes & Noble. Just…bite me.

What I find fascinating is I’ve been on the hobby horse of exposure-dollar bullsprinkles, and how this industry will do everything it can to screw over authors and avoid paying them.

You Know What I Think?

Some beancounter crunched numbers and it was cheaper to redo some covers of white people books with dark-skinned characters than it was to risk that some authors of color might break out and sell big.

Don’t have to pay Lewis Carroll or Shakespeare royalties. I never thought I’d be mentioning Lewis Carroll in Black History Month. Wonders never cease.

I really have fallen down a rabbit hole.

Barnes & Noble has lamely offered what I will call The J.K. Rowling Defense, how Rowling claimed she never expressly described Hermione Granger as any race. Publishing and B&N then used that lamely to go back through the classics where race was never expressly described and **POOF** make the characters ethnic. And THERE is some diversity!

No one is going to imagine Alice in Alice in Wonderland as anything other than a wealthy white girl of a privileged time. The entire POINT of Black History Month is to highlight black people and their works, their art, their history, their voices and THEIR STORIES.

It is the entire frigging reason for the month. There is SO much to learn about. An incredible richness of language, custom, culture, history, myth that too many people–READERS–are missing out on. That you—YOU—Barnes & Noble, that YOU publishing industry could have done something REAL about.

Instead, you offer people of color this petty token? When y’all could have offered something real? As in tables or giant glorious displays of books by black authors in the flagship store in NYC on 5th Avenue? But you didn’t. You could have. But you didn’t.

SHAME ON YOU!

This is…

Is there a stronger word for atrocity? To do this is essentially saying that people of color are incapable of having their own art or their own stories…so let’s lend them some white stories and help them out.

God, I just can’t! I am so, so, so sorry that the publishing industry has done this to you. It’s appalling.

White People Get Offended Too

I get it. I know that I’m whiter than a paper plate of Minute Rice trapped in a blizzard. But I’m a human and also a female, which comes with a bag of worms there. I can also empathize and WANT to empathize.

It’s why I want to know about books from authors with perspectives I NEED to see from, and I don’t believe that perspective includes a half-mad sea captain hunting an albino whale.

God even the WHALE is white! Did they make the whale black, too?

*sobs into laptop*

Granted, I can never truly know what it’s like to be a person of color. The closest I can get is pretty much STORY.

Which is why saying the publishing industry and Barnes & Noble dropped the ball does not BEGIN to cover cataclysmic proportions of how they’ve insulted a) people of color b) authors of color c) authors d) readers e) anyone with a brain f) anyone with half a brain g) anyone with a moral compass…

AHHHHHHHHH!

*breathes into paper bag*

This is why I strive to read many different genres from a wide array of authors, time-periods, opinions, and backgrounds. I WANT to be uncomfortable, to be challenged. This is how we form bonds, common ground, understanding.

Black History Month and Focus Time

Time can get away from me, which is why it’s good for me to be deliberate about what I’m choosing to read.

One day tends to blend into the next and the next into the next until a year has passed. So Black History Month or Women’s History Month or Asian/Pacific History Month is helpful for me.

These months are earmarks. Reminders. Black History Month is where I discovered novels like Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Most of my favorite African American authors are non-fiction, so I rely a lot on Black History Month to discover the novels.

I’ve read fiction, non-fiction, memoirs and more, and I count on booksellers to help me.

Booksellers Should Be There to Help

I generally can count on Audible to offer up suggestions, books I might never have found on my own, stories that I may have never discovered. Librarians will do their magic and curate wonderful tables highlighting authors other than the megas we see donning every airport bookstore.

Historically, Barnes & Noble would do the same. But this? This is why the aliens don’t land.

Seriously Publisher’s Weekly, Random Penguin, Barnes & Noble? Y’all need to go sit in the corner and really think hard about what you’ve done. More importantly about what you’ve not done.

Shame on you.

For Authors of Color

My goal with this blog has been to help ALL authors. I’ve spent over ten years and millions of words going to the mattresses for creatives—traditionally published, self-published, indie published. I’ve stood behind all forms of publishing namely BECAUSE so many voices are being ignored by traditional publishing.

Or y’all get this…I don’t even know what to call this. I’d meant to blog on something else when I saw this headline and I was so angry I couldn’t see straight.

This is sickening. Just know it did NOT go unnoticed. We see you. We see the charade and we will not tolerate this behavior and will not let this pass. You deserve the best.

Go create because the world needs more stories. We need YOUR stories!

The post Barnes & Noble Puts Literary Classics in Blackface for Black History Month appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Successful people can seem like they have some kind of magic powers beyond our understanding. For us mere mortals, it often feels like money, fame, fortune and contentment just rain down on these folks from the heavens. GASP!

Truth is, successful people have three simple habits for excellence (habits WE can learn).

Granted, they actually have more than three habits, but today we’re focusing on the BIG ONES. It’s Saturday. Let’s have fun and give our brains a break.

These are habits we can use in every area of life. What are three simple habits our mentors or heroes have that we don’t? What do successful people DO differently? What is their “magic”? For any success? Business, life, marriage, parenting or even a life of joy and contentment, what are the basics?

Understand though, simple is not synonymous with easy. Simple is simple, but rarely easy.

I’ve worn a lot of hats over the years from retail to software to sales and now blogger, editor, entrepreneur. I’ve read countless books on success and then applied what I learned. I stepped out, fell on my face, tripped, failed, learned, whined, grew, read more books, tried again, won THEN CRASHED.

I put out the flames and started over and I work hard to use these tough lessons to get better day by day. I’m always searching for ways to grow, to fire out weaknesses and improve.

I’m currently part of an on-line entrepreneur mentorship program. At first, I was super excited. Now?

I see it quickly devolving into what makes so many writing groups, on-line support groups, businesses, families and marriages unravel and all for the same exact reason.

Selfishness.

On and on about their business, what they can sell, can they put up a price list? Ugh. Only talking to me so they can sell me something (manipulation). They don’t give a rip about me at all, only my debit card.

Reminds me of the old Toby Keith song…I WANNA TALK ABOUT ME!

The group’s mission statement involved entrepreneurs networking, learning, growing and locating mentors. Yet it’s becoming a “What Can I SELL YOU?” thread with a quickness. I’ve seen this happen with almost every single writing support group. These groups begin with service and end in spam.

Buy my book! Have you bought my book? Can you review my book?

Sigh.

Too many people want a shortcut, to take without serving, listening, hearing, and engaging and realizing someone else in the world exists other than THEM.

That’s sadly why the success they long for never arrives because manipulation is a lousy foundation for…pretty much everything. Ergo why Cait and I are going to continue our posts on grifts and how writers being manipulated and used.

For now, though I’m going to focus on YOU .

#1—Successful People Serve

I’d like to say I was born a completely selfless person devoid of any personal agendas, but yeah. I try to keep my lying to my fiction. I even wrote a post Pride, Perfectionism and Anger—Confessions of a Recovering Jerk because I want all of you to know you are not alone.

I might be an “expert” but I’ve worked very hard to make it clear that I struggle. Every day I work to check my agenda. Am I talking to someone, being kind, offering help to serve first? Or, do I want something later?

There’s a difference between motivation and manipulation. Motivation is for the benefice of others. Manipulation always looks like “helping others” but it’s all about ME, I, MINE. People are a means to an end.

Which consumers pick up on and then will avoid the manipulator like Ebola, btw…

Over time (and a lot of failures) I learned to value others not because I wanted something from them, but because valuing others is part of possessing good character.

All authentic success has a foundation of integrity and service above self. Great businesses focus on serving not selling.

My motive for blogging for FREE is to serve. If class sales follow? Great, I really dig electricity and eating. Whoo-hoo! But even then my business mission statement is: Superior and affordable training to shape emerging writers into successful, professional commercial authors.

See? Service .

#2—Successful People Remember

They remember a lot about other people. It’s because they make a point to do this. They recall faces, names, hobbies, victories, struggles, and the stories of others.

The best advice I can give might initially seem silly, but the best way to show people you value them is to ask for and then remember their name. All people, not just people who can do something for us.

I hear this all the time, I am SO bad at remembering names. This is an excuse, one I used for a long time, myself. Thus, I’m totally NOT judging.

Hard truth is we can remember names when we think the name/person is important.

If I was at a conference and there was a mega agent I wanted to get eyes on MY BOOK. Oh heck to the yeah I’d remember THAT NAME. Some millionaire wanting to give out seed money for struggling authors? Yup. Would remember that one, too.

Thus my excuse of “being bad at names” crumbles under the litmus of motive and agenda. The challenge then is to work on authentic connection with all who cross our path, not just people who can get us an angle.

Remembering names and people is a habit of excellence and builds integrity.

Okay, how?

The best way to remember names is to first get the name. I look at name tags in grocery stores (ask if no tag available), then call the person BY their name. I talk to the person slicing my deli meat, ask questions and then listen. Then answer the person BY NAME.

Using a name makes it more likely we will remember it.

Remembering names places me in a mindset of valuing others, slowing down and thinking of other people first with no agenda other than kindness. This habit will pay off major dividends not only in our spirit, but the hearts of others.

When it comes to business, our odds of success improve because people are tired of being sold to non-stop. They’re weary of folks who only talk to them or know they exist when they want something.

#3—Successful People LISTEN

Successful people listen first, act later. Effective entrepreneurs listen to what consumers are in need of, what problem needs solving, and then act. Their business, service, product is FOR others, not solely “to make money.” People don’t like feeling like walking piggy banks, FYI.

Great authors listen to the world around them and pay attention. These writers seek out stories audiences crave even when the readers might not yet know that was JUST the story they wanted.

Yes, the writers want to sell books #DUH. But SALES come organically as a result of connection gained from listening (and serving) first.

If we don’t listen with the goal to truly hear? We frustrate ourselves and others because we’re blathering opinions, suggestions, thoughts, services that might not even be salient let alone desired. In fact, might even peeve others off.

Yet, if we’d stop and listen, we’d be in a far better position to connect authentically and be successful (with books, sales, kids, marriage, life). We’d be working smarter, not harder because we’d know the actual need instead of guessing then blasting others with a scattergun.

In the end, simple changes in daily habits add up over time. It seems kindness, authenticity, excellence are great buzz words for sermons or self-help. Yet, these habits of excellence appeal to all humans (even ones buying stuff).

I know we all want the express elevator to the top, but it doesn’t exist. Anyone who says differently is selling us something completely useless (grift).

LET’S HAVE FUN! I WANNA TALK ABOUT YOU, JUST YOU! ALL YOU, YOU, YOU! I WANT TO KNOW YOU!

Tell me something about YOU!

Doesn’t even have to do with this post. Have fun! What are your hobbies? Loves? Passions? Fears? Struggles? Favorite movies? Foods? Favorite songs? Greatest accomplishment? What are you most proud of? What do you love about writing?

Funniest thing ever happened to you? Worst date EVER? Best date ever? Tell us about your pets, your kids, your garden or quilting project. Pictures and links welcome! Show off! I am giving you the stage *bows dramatically*

I want to know about your dreams, your hopes, about the bodies in your basement! …okay maybe not that. #Accomplice

I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU! And I am NOT above BRIBERY! I will pick someone for a FREE class recording from comments today AND enter you in usual contest.

What do you WIN? For the month of OCTOBER, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

For subscribers, click to my site to view gallery of upcoming classes (gallery doesn’t show up for you). But here are the two biggies coming up…

BRAND BOSS! When Your NAME ALONE Can SELL! November 9th, 7-9 EST and comes with FREE RECORDING. $45 for General Admission, GOLD Option Available!

PLOT BOSS! Writing Novels Readers WANT TO BUY! November 16th, 7-9 EST and comes with FREE RECORDING. $40 for General Admission, GOLD Option Available!

[abcf-grid-gallery-custom-links id=”22231″]

The post Successful People & Habits for Life Changing Results appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

The truth shall set you free. Pretty sure all of us have heard that phrase at one point or another, even though this seems to ignore the fundamental reality that it is human nature to avoid truth at all cost.

My last post, Welcome to the Matrix–You Work for Free & There IS NO Payday threw down some hard truth that many of us are participating in an illusion. It was a rather meaty, deep post so today we are going to laugh a bit because we need to.

It’s Friday the 13th.

So I’m gonna be KILLIN’ IT!

I am going to—in this post—demonstrate how Viagra is encouraging men to become pirates and Home Depot is in collusion with Cialis.

Completely true story I just made up.

Anyway…

In the last post I used the movie The Matrix as a metaphor for the reality of what is happening to creatives and we will chat on that more later.

The thing is, ALL of us are in some way powering The Matrix not even realizing it. Creatives are making the content to sell the goods & services which generate money. Money and The Matrix (media) are linked and one cannot survive without the other.

But, it is ALL powered on telling us we are not enough…without X.

Remember in the movie the computer started out trying to make the illusion world perfect for the human Duracells—like a perfect nirvana-wrapped-in-heaven–but the humans wouldn’t buy it?

They asked too many questions and wouldn’t comply with that illusion because it was “too good to be true.” The humans/batteries all had this face…

So the computer had to go make this illusion of life all hard and add in some suckage so humans would be good and obedient batteries.

Yes this has a point….

Welcome to Marketing 101

The whole media-consumer-machine is The Matrix. It only works if the batteries are unhappy and unsatisfied.

See almost all goods and services send out a lot of conflicting messages and most of the time we (humans) don’t even notice…because we are all confused.

Marketers understood this. It’s why they use this confusion and our dysfunctional desire for approval to sell us stuff.

I don’t know about y’all, but my family expertly threw out what I call “boomerang compliments.”

Kristen you are so incredibly smart…which is a blessing because you aren’t beautiful like your cousins.

Nana, WTH?

This meal you cooked was amazing!  Just maybe next time you could use more salt?

Mom, seriously?

Your house is beautifully decorated! The bright colors made it where I didn’t even notice all the cat fur.

Nana. Just…stop. Please.

Anyway, if you grew up like I did, knocked half unconscious with boomerang compliments, then you might have turned to books, shows, magazines or mentors/gurus to learn to think in “healthy” ways.

Perhaps you even went on-line in search of some kind of “non-toxic” affirmation that you were not a total disappointment.

And OMG! *angels sing* There it is!

The Media LOVES US for WHO WE ARE

We found it! The site for women and it says we are enough. No, more than enough. Perfect the way we are. Heck-to-the-yeah! We knew it the whole time *does cabbage patch*.

But then that website or magazine that just told us we were more than enough as we already are….

Wait…what?

It has a gazillion articles of how we can improve and be even BETTER. And these articles, they are sandwiched between ads promising products and services to help us no longer suck.

Wait. You said I was perfect, but I need fixing? So I AM damaged. Oh, okay I see. See, I thought I was supposed to love myself as I am, imperfections and all….

But, my bad. You’re right. Truth hurts. I do have chubby thighs, wrinkles and so much laundry I’m fairly sure I lost one of my kids. Haven’t heard from the smallest one today. I will buy and do all of this and THEN…then I can love me for ME. Good. We have a plan. 

So glad you are NOT like my critical family.

Cool. Good. I am so happy I found this site because before, I thought I was just supposed to be okay being me and I was wrong. But NOW I have help because your site has 10 Ways to Have an Immaculate House and Trim My Thighs at the same time using household cleaning tools to get fit with…

Swiffercize…

Directions:

Hold in your core as you stand in front of the refrigerator.

Now, bend and dust, and bend and thrust. Squat and swoosh, and firm your tush! Floor is clean and now you’re lean!

Dust those high places ladies and say goodbye to flabby arms!

Really this is genius. I can have a clean house like in Good Housekeeping a firm body like a movie star AND save money because I don’t have to pay a gym and all while improving my time-management skills.

#Genius

****Oh and there is that anti-depressant ad for when none of this crap actually works.

And after all of this, I finally realize Google is proof there is life after death and Nana is now in a better place. Nana has reached a higher level of being in The Matrix.

The mean old bat is now Google and she is STILL fixing me.

The Matrix is Powered by Imperfection

Self-acceptance is something many of us struggle with and the fight gets harder day by day as our culture bombards us with ideas and products and services founded on us being “less than” while promising some kind of “perfection.” 

They’re selling magic creams to us older gals telling us this Oil of Delay will make us look like a model half our age who’s been Photoshopped when she really didn’t need to be Photoshopped because she isn’t old in the first place!

She’s a kid and has like maybe a zit…not even a wrinkle or if she does, it’s a wrinkle that’s small and more like a…a pre-wrinkle.

We are so used to being lied to, we don’t even question it because most of it if we took a few minutes to apply some critical thinking, The Matrix would all unravel.

Never Question The Matrix

Critical thinking is like holy water on The Matrix. Commercials, ads, programs, and hype sizzles and screams and loses power if we just stop…and think.

I’ll prove it.

Men are told that if they buy a blue pill it will dramatically enhance their sexual vitality so they can go sailing…alone. WTH?

Sailing by themselves and that doesn’t even make any damn sense.

Guys, seriously. Someone call Viagra. Like if you’re buying a pill for physical intimacy with what we are assuming is another human (as in more than one person involved in this activity) then the whole going sailing alone just…

I don’t get it. I mean are you a pirate? Does Viagra make you a Viking, and the dude in the commercial is sailing off alone because the plan is to raid an island of unsuspecting sunbathers?

Y’all do know that is illegal. Viagara, I’m assuming you consulted your legal department on this.

Okay. I will stop. Just please to make me feel better, put another living person of consenting age on the boat in the commercial and I promise I will stop over thinking this…..

No.

Seriously. Just one more. I can’t leave this one be.

Cialis

If your drug works so great, why aren’t the TWO people in the same bathtub? I confess. I am no spring chicken, but I’m not so old I can’t recall the 1990s and…

*brain heating up*

How does this pill work? Like does it make the male libido so powerful that it…teleports? And us gals are supposed to be Schroedinger’s “Cat” in that the footsie-time is both there in OUR tub but not…at the same time?

Because now all I want to do is to e-mail Neil deGrasse Tyson on this, because your drug is proof there is a multiverse where older people are scoring by apparently folding space.

And is this why we only ever see these folks in your commercials from the back…because their eyes have turned blue like the Fremen?

#HeWhoControlsTheSpiceControlsTheSexyTime #TheSpiceMustFlow …into these bathtubs because water sure isn’t.

Okay Cialis, I mean no disrespect. I get y’all mean well.

I admit, many of us older couples are cranky and tired (mainly of finding Barbie shoes and Legos in the bed) and you’re just trying to help.

We appreciate the effort, but the message just gets us all confused because unlike young people, older people THINK. We in fact think too much…which is a big part of the lack-of-nookie problem.

This pill is so us older people can be super hot and frisky like when we were twenty. The PILL will make us fixate on love and kissing…instead of fixating on how to kill out the crabgrass in the lawn or that the tile in the bathroom needs to be repaired.

In two separate bathtubs…on a hill.

Which—just being honest here—your metaphor only confuses us and lead our minds everywhere BUT a bedroom. In fact, it makes anyone married or over the age of 35 to forget about nookie altogether.

Instead, a lot of the guys start contemplating how the hell someone got two tubs on a hill…with working plumbing.

So the men are all:

My wife isn’t gonna want tubs in the backyard now, right? I can’t lay pipe like that. Hell, I’m not twenty-two. I’ll throw out my back with all that bending and digging. And the yard has crabgrass. Crabgrass spreads, man. You gotta stop it when you see it.

Simultaneously many of us women are all pissed off because we see the look on our husband’s face when he watches that dumb@$$ Cialis commercial.

We KNOW that look.

We saw it right before we banned him from watching home improvement shows after he tore out our pantry shelves then never put them back.

We know our husband is trying to figure out how to install bathtubs in the yard because he thinks that is what we want. No, we want our pantry put back together because we misplaced all our spice.

That, and he still has to get rid of all the crabgrass…’cause it spreads. Neighbors don’t want that spreading to them, too.

So the women watch the Cialis commercial and are all:

Oh no he isn’t. If he thinks I’m gonna go outside and maybe up a hill to clean all that? Nossiree. What about the one we have that’s old and needs fixing? He isn’t trained to lay pipe like that. He doesn’t need to! He already bought the caulk, the jumbo size for more than one job! And the CAULK is still in the drawer. Unused. Untouched. Probably turned from white to blue now and won’t look right.

Wasted caulk. 

No. Not today. NOT today.

Home Depot has to be behind all this, because we are now thinking of needing more caulk.

Defeats the whole purpose. Cialis? Seriously fire that twenty-something marketing person and hire an over forty romance author.

***You could also hire the over 40 erotica authors…but only HBO could air the commercials.

Where was I? Sorry, I got hung up on that. But all this proves my point about The Matrix. We are all plugged in and buying an illusion without question. We are just accepting that we are not enough and the X, Y or Z would remedy that.

It won’t. Happiness is what these folks all sell, but happiness is highly overrated. Want to know why? Because happiness relies on happenstance. Our surroundings, what we have or don’t have dictate how we feel.

This is why they sell LIES. Lies sell STUFF. It just sells a lot of CAULK.

Truth can, however, bring contentment, and maybe even JOY if we let it. Love and friendship and family and kids in all its messy imperfection can actually be enough if we let it be. We can actually be at peace with wrinkles because a line-free face is just weird…and expensive.

Then you just get more wrinkles because you have to pay the medical spa bills.

Embrace the lines of laughter and pain. You earned them. When we learn to be at peace with the messy house because it means we have a home. When we learn to love our cellulite-laden legs because it means we have LEGS. When we embrace the Legos that just shredded our feet for the brief window of childhood that will soon be gone….then, THEN the Matrix loses its hold.

Happy Friday! Enjoy! You and hubby go play pirate and slave girl, and maybe even let him wear the eyepatch this time .

What are your thoughts? What are some of the ads that make you go W…T…H? Like why are there NO women over 50 in an ad for anything but adult diapers, arthritis meds? So no women over 50 wear lipgloss? Or buy cars?

And guys CAN actually dust. I have witnessed this. And it is SEXY. Men all mopping and asking for some-some…

Why can’t a hot older DUDE be in the Endust commercial? Men dusting is a turn on! Ask any woman.

In fact. Rescue the Viagra guy from his boat where he’s all alone (tempted to be a pirate which is illegal) and give him a dusting rag? Oh yeah sell some Cialis AND some Endust.

THAT is thinking people.

What about you? What are your thoughts?

I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU! And I am NOT above BRIBERY!

What do you WIN? For the month of OCTOBER, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

I hope you take the red pill, and I am here to guide you.

Social media is and should be super fun and that while you might need solid training, you DO NOT need a team of professionals paid a never ending stream of cash to “manage your brand”. You also DO NOT meed MEGAs to “launch you.”

I can train you what to do and how it all works. How you can create something where MEGAs come to YOU…

I have two upcoming classes Social Media FREEDOM–Harnessing Passion & Creativity to Cultivate Fans & Harnessing Our Writing POWER–The Blog

I highly recommend you sign up for one of our upcoming classes listed below, especially to properly prep for Nano.

Fail to plan, plan to fail .

****Note, those who subscribe by email, the visual gallery doesn’t show, so please click through and sign up! We look forward to seeing you and serving you in class! Helping you be the best you can so your work can stand apart .

[abcf-grid-gallery-custom-links id=”22231″]

The post Marketing 101: Promises, Profits & How Home Depot is IN BED WITH Cialis appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

And, by that, I mean that every variation of story has been told before. Every culture from every time period has its version of Cinderella, its Aladdin or Jack, its greedy kings and tricky old witches. No matter how many magical mice, talking mirrors, or transportation-challenged pumpkins dress up the tale, every story has at its heart the most basic, most fundamental truths about the human condition and human relationships.

Denny Basenji doing his imitation of a wise crone. His cryptic advice to the hero/heroine: “Only peanut butter can help you now.”

Myths and fairytales appeal to our innocence, our belief in justice, and our sense of history. The fact that most of them have happy endings doesn’t hurt, either. The past two years have seen a kind of renaissance in retellings and modern interpretations of these classic stories. A handful have been very well done. The rest have been inconsistent efforts that show very little thought and research has been put into understanding the nature of both mythology and fairytales and how to translate them into contemporary settings.

Celebrity Death Match: Myths vs. Fairytales

So, is there a difference between the two?

Absolutely, and it goes beyond their definitions. But, let’s start with definitions for the sake of clarity.

From merriam-webster.com:

Fairytale:

• a story (as for children) involving fantastic forces and beings (such as fairies, wizards, and goblins)
• a story in which improbable events lead to a happy ending

Myth

• a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon
• parable, allegory
• a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone

Here are some other differences between fairytales and myths:

• Myths are not obligated to have a happy ending;
• Fairytales do not have to have a moral or philosophical agenda;
• Myths are often closely tied to world creation stories, religion, and attempts to explain natural phenomenon prior to scientific understanding;
• It is understood that fairytales have never been believed to be real, whereas myths were frequently accepted as fact.

There are more differences and finer distinctions, but I’ll just add in one more. You can always tell it’s a real fairytale because people/animals/magical creatures are cheerful and sing when doing housework.

Research is a Myth…or is it a Fairytale?

Okay, so say we have this great idea retelling ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ We’ve seen the Disney movies, and we are happily humming ‘Be our Guest’ as we open the blank Word document. We know the story cold, and we may or may not have a picture of Luke Evans as Gaston tucked away on Pinterest.

We are ready to start writing. Except, we aren’t.

If all we are doing is using the movie as our guide, we have missed out on the fact that the historical fairytale has variations that include a father who was a merchant, a sudden loss of fortune, two wicked sisters, and a pretty sharp lesson about the costs of indecision and not keeping your word. If we haven’t done any research, we wouldn’t know that the the fairytale actually has origins (at least in Western culture) in the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche, or that another lesser-known fairytale – ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’ – spun out from that myth.

It may seem silly to do research on something that is fundamentally untrue and is by nature fluid and adaptable to time period and culture. Yet, without knowing about the people who wrote the stories, the system of beliefs that the myths came from, and the history of the time when a particular variation was recorded, we are losing out on a chance to delve into subtleties, textures, interpretations, and details that take a retelling from blasé to blazing.

One of the topics I cover in my Once Upon a Plot class is how to go about researching a myth or fairytale, what to pursue, what to set aside, and how to analyze the story in a more complex, contextual way.

World-Building for ‘Then’ and ‘Now’

When we do a retelling, one of the first things we have to decide is the setting. Will it be contemporary? Will it be historical? Will it be futuristic, steampunk, or some medieval-ish time?

This impacts what characters we decide to use, the deeper intricacies and devices of the plot, and the way we represent significant objects from the myth or fairytale (is that a pumpkin or a Porsche?). This is also, sadly, where most writers tend to take short-cuts. They use the generic ‘faux-medieval’ setting that is a haphazard mishmash of culture, technology, and clothing, or they set the tale in today’s world, not really thinking through the implications for characters, decisions, and objects.

A lot of writers use the ‘timeless’ setting in order to avoid doing historical research or any real world-building. Ideas for behavior, costumes, servants, food, castles come from whatever historical drama is on at the time (I’m looking at you, ‘Reign,’ ‘The Tudors,’ ‘The White Queen,’ and ‘The Borgias’). While those medieval-renaissance-ish shows do provide a lot of striking visuals and demonstrate how to make archaic-sounding dialogue accessible to modern listeners/readers, they are NOT to be used for world-building. Ever.

Even for fairytales and myths.

As writers, we are responsible for creating our own worlds, and it is our obligation to the reader to provide a setting that is detailed, well thought-out, and consistent.

Here are just a few of the questions writers should ask when picking a ‘timeless’ setting:

• What is the level of technology, industry, medicine, and transportation?
• What is the political structure of the ‘kingdom’?
• What kind of social mobility or stratification exists within the ‘kingdom’?
• What is the kingdom’s primary religion? Are there secondary religions? Competing or conflicting faiths? Holidays and celebrations?
• What is the geography, geology, and climate?
• What is the overall cultural feel (i.e. generic British, generic Scandinavian, generic Central European, generic Mediterranean?)

That’s just the tip of the iceberg for a timeless setting. If we choose a contemporary setting, that brings a whole other set of issues into consideration, including normalizing any magical abilities within a greater social context, secrets vs. open practices, modern equivalents of historical objects or accessories, and how to maintain a character’s original attitude, purpose, and decisions while grounding him or her realistically in the here-and-now.

Bibbity Bobbity BOOYAH

You guessed it. I’m teaching a class on this very topic. All the details below!

Once Upon a Plot: Retelling Myths & Fairytales

Instructor: Cait Reynolds

Price: $45 USD Standard

Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom

When: WEDNESDAY, August 9, 2017, 7:00 p.m. EST – 9:00 p.m. EST

Myths and fairytales are as fundamental to human existence as communication itself. We grow up hearing these stories, being formed by them, and often rebelling against them.

One of the hottest trends in publishing right now is bringing these stories back and giving them new life with creative interpretations and retellings. Done right, a retelling can capture the public imagination, give us new insights into our society and ourselves, and sweep us away to a time and place where everything, including justice and happy endings, is possible.

Done wrong? A retelling is nothing more than a yawn-worthy yarn full of two-dimensional characters floundering through an unremarkable story with a bland, generic setting.

This class will cover a wide range of topics, including:

• How to research a myth or fairytale, from origins to variations;
• How to analyze in order to develop a deeper, richer understanding of the stories;
• How to pick out the key elements, from characters and attitudes, to objects and settings;
• Creating contemporary settings for retellings that are accurate, believable, and flexible enough to accommodate ‘magic’;
• Creating ‘timeless’ settings that are unique, consistent, and immersive.

A recording of this class is also included with purchase.

GOLD PACKAGE

You get the class (recording included in price) with Cait plus one hour of personalized one-on-one consulting regarding YOUR story.

PLATINUM PACKAGE

You get the class (recording included in price) with Cait plus two hours of personalized one-on-one consulting regarding YOUR story and bonus worksheets. These worksheets will efficiently guide you through in-depth world-building and research, providing you with consistency for your writing and an excellent reference/style sheet for your editor and proofreader.

REGISTER NOW!

About the Instructor

Cait Reynolds is a USA Today Bestselling Author and lives in the Boston area with her husband and four-legged fur child. She discovered her passion for writing early and has bugged her family and friends with it ever since. When she isn’t cooking, running, rock climbing, or enjoying the rooftop deck that brings her closer to the stars, she writes. 

****And MAKE SURE to check out the classes below and sign up! Summer school! YAY! We’ve added in classes on erotica/high heat romance, fantasy, how to write strong female characters and MORE! So scroll down and sign up!

For the month of JULY, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

NEW CLASSES WITH USA Today Best Selling Author CAIT REYNOLDS!

Obviously, I have my areas of expertise, but I’ve wanted for a long time to fill in some gaps on classes I could offer.

Cait Reynolds was my answer.

She is an unbelievable editor, mentor and teacher and a serious expert in these areas. She consults numerous very successful USA Today and NYTBS authors and I highly, highly recommend her classes.

Gaskets and Gaiters: How to Create a Compelling Steampunk World August 11th $45 w/ Cait Reynolds 

Lasers & Dragons & Swords, Oh MY! World Building for Fantasy & Science Fiction July 28th w/ Cait Reynolds $35/ GOLD $75/ PLATINUM $125

Baby It’s Hot in Here—Writing Erotica & High Heat Sex Scenes August 4th $45 General/ $90 GOLD/$150 Platinum

Classes with MOI!

Branding for Authors  July 27th $35

Elements of Literary—How to Write Character-Driven Stories August 3rd $40

Beyond Planet X, Monsters & Chainsaws–Mastering Speculative Fiction August 10th $35

Classes with Award-Winning Author Lisa Hall-Wilson

Growing An Organic Platform On Facebook July 22nd $40

Method Acting for Writers—How to Write Deep POV August 1st $85 (two-week intensive class & lifetime access)

Beyond Lipstick & Swords—Writing Strong Female Characters September 9th $40

The post Once Upon a Plot: Retelling Myths and Fairytales appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

If you’ve been writing fiction any length of time, you’ve probably experienced getting stuck. There are authors who firmly believe there is no such thing as writer’s block, that it is lack of discipline and I agree that can often be the case.

Often…but not always.

I feel our subconscious is an excellent writing partner if we can learn to listen and stay in tune with it. Frequently, when something is very wrong, our subconscious will simply slam the breaks and not let us move forward because it is warning us there is something that needs to be fixed.

But, if we are unaware of the role the subconscious can play in story creation, we don’t recognize what is going on and do one of three things: 1) Shelve the project 2) Start a new project 3) Keep writing ourselves deeper into that hole by sheer force of will.

Thus, today I want to give you some tricks that might help you when you find yourself stuck.

Change POV

Different stories require different POVs. And I would love to give you some step-by-step explanation but I don’t have one. They just DO. Take a plot problem and seriously, POV changes the whole thing. Lord of the Rings written in first-person present-tense would be a very different ride.

Often we get a story idea and we just take off writing in the POV we find most comfortable…but it simply doesn’t work with the story. I had this happen with my debut novel The Devil’s Dance. I started writing in third limited and it was just….meh. I had never written fiction in first-person so to get unstuck? I changed POV and? It worked!

And the thing is, maybe you don’t stay in that POV. Sometimes just taking a scene and shifting POV is enough to nudge the subconscious over the hump.

Change Perspective

Also, if a scene is bugging you, literally change POV. Not the third person to first-person way I just mentioned. But switch heads. Tell what is happening from another character’s perspective. Again, probably not something you will keep because not every character is a POV character, but this can help get the mojo flowing again.

Recast

Sorry I am mentioning my debut novel a lot, but it was a hell of a learning curve. Again, this happened with The Devil’s Dance. I had my plot idea, which was pretty cool *gets cramp patting self on back*. I knew I wanted a small town in Texas and people dying and it had to do with the town’s newfound prosperity and Mexican drug cartels. My imaginary town, Bisby, was a wide space in the road that suddenly went BOOM. Instead of trailer parks, there were wine bars and million-dollar homes.

Why? How?

But originally I cast a resident of this small town and she was an Army veteran home from Afghanistan who was working at her uncle’s gun range. Nothing per se wrong with it, but she just kept falling flat. She was a former soldier and all badass and…boring as hell. So, I kept the plot idea and went the complete opposite direction.

Instead of some female action hero, I cast a protagonist who would be completely out of her depth. She was a disgraced software salesperson who’d done everything to escape Bisby and the trailer park where she grew up…who was then forced to go home to her crazy-as-a-bag-of-cats family and becomes the only one who can save the town she’d spent most of her life running from. I patterned her character off Elle Woods from Legally Blonde.

And it ROCKED! The story flowed because the idea just worked better with an unlikely hero.

Skip Scenes

Again, our subconscious is our friend so let it work its magic. Recently I got onto my coauthor Cait about locking in her teeth and not letting go. We are writing a Western Horror and she’d had this scene she had been futzing with for weeks trying to get it perfect.

So first of all, perfect is the enemy of the good. On a first draft there is NO sense in perfecting anything because there is almost some hidden law that states the scenes most likely to be cut or completely rewritten are all the ones we spent far too much time fiddling with.

Sometimes, it helps to just write (in caps) what happens then move on.

Cait was tasked with killing a goat and apparently that was way tougher than either of us imagined it would be when plotting this goat’s demise. In our defense it is no average goat. It is a goat risen from the dead with a taste for human instead of petticoats. Now Cait messed with it and messed with it and finally got it to work but in fairness, if it had been my scene?

I would have written as much as I could then put AND THEY KILL GOAT IN SUPER SPECTACULAR WAY and then moved on and let my subconscious chew on it.

As you are writing, trust me, your subconscious is working on how to kill that goat D-E-A-D and often will come up with something FAR cooler than if we gut through it.

So my writing advice?

Sometimes the best way to kill a goat is to jump the goat.

Write Your Ending

A lot of writers cringe when we instructors mention doing this. You may be yelling, But I am not a plotter! I don’t outline! I am a pantser! And I will say, that is still no excuse. All stories must have a core story problem in need of being resolved. We should be able to say what our book is about in ONE sentence. Especially the pantsers. If all you know is the core problem in need of being solved? That is enough. And if you don’t know this, then prepare to spend months or years fixing a mess (if it can even be fixed).

As complex a story as Lord of the Rings is, I can fit it into ONE sentence.

A naive and innocent race of homebodies must traverse a dangerous realm to toss an evil ring in a particular volcano before a power-hungry necromancer takes over and destroys all they love.

How does this story end?

With a VOLCANO.

Say Tolkein got stuck somewhere in Rivendell. He could have theoretically skipped ahead to Mt. Doom and wrote that and then what is left are two defined points and a missing middle. It is often FAR easier to connect two defined points than to start from point A and keep going into infinity with no idea where it will end.

And again, you don’t have to keep that particular ending. It can be rewritten, but again, it gives the subconscious something to work with.

Ask yourself, How do I know when my story is over? And that is your ending. If you want help smooshing your tome into a single-sentence, I have a class coming up on that and I will help you do it and show you how you can do it yourself in the future (Your Story in a Sentence—Crafting Your Log-line).

What are your thoughts? And make sure to check out the upcoming classes below! Especially the Book Bootcamp! The bootcamp has all the instruction you need to write your novel AND to learn to plot and write QUICKLY. They key to making money in this business (even in legacy) is lots of titles.

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

****The site is new, and I am sorry you have to enter your information all over again to comment, but I am still working out the kinks. Also your comment won’t appear until I approve it, so don’t fret if it doesn’t appear right away.

Talk to me!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of APRIL, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

SIGN UP NOW FOR UPCOMING CLASSES!!! 

Remember that ALL CLASSES come with a FREE RECORDING so you can listen over and over. So even if you can’t make it in person? No excuses! All you need is an internet connection!

Be a Better Hooker (How to Write a Compelling Newsletter)

April 29th $45

In this class, learn how to compose a newsletter that is entertaining and compelling—and all without stealing most of your writing time. Learn how to get your hooks in your readers and keep them until the end.

With a mailing list of over 15K subscribers, mystery/thriller author Jack Patterson will share some of his tips that will spice up your newsletter and get your subscribers opening it up every time you send one out.

BUNDLE DEALS!!! 

Book Bootcamp  $99 ($130 VALUE)

Book Bootcamp GOLD $269 ($430 VALUE) This includes the log-line class, antagonist class, the character class AND a three-hour time slot working personally with ME. We will either plot your idea or, if your novel isn’t working? Fix it! Appointments are scheduled by email. Consults done by phone or in virtual classroom.

Individual Classes with MOI!!! 

Pitch Perfect—How to Write a Query Letter and Synopsis that SELLS! $45 May 25th, 2017

Blogging for Authors $50 April 27th, 2017

Your Story in a Sentence—Crafting Your Log-line $35 May 4th, 2017

Bullies & Baddies—Understanding the Antagonist $50/$200 (Gold) May11th, 2017

The Art of Character $45 May 18th, 2017

NEW CLASSES/INSTRUCTORS!!! 

Growing an Organic Platform on Facebook $40 May 6th, 2017 Lisa Hall-Wilson is BACK! She is an expert on Facebook so check out her class!

Method Acting for Writers: How to Write in Deep POV $85 for this TWO WEEK intensive workshop with editor and writing instructor Lisa Hall Wilson.

Shift Your Shifter Romance into HIGH Gear $35 May 19th with powerhouse editor Cait Reynolds.

Researching for Historical Romance (How to NOT Lose 6 Hours of Your Life on Pinterest) $35 May 20th

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post Your Story Has HIT a WALL—What Now? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Any of you who regularly follow my blog know that I am totally out of my mind a bit eccentric. The seed for this brilliant idea was actually planted a couple years ago when I was speaking in Idaho. I have a doctor’s appointment this morning, so I’m taking this opportunity to rerun my all-time favorite post.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Idaho. After lunch, I had to dash to the Ladies’ Room. As I closed the door to the stall, I noticed all the advertising on the back of the bathroom door. This cluttered wall of ads made me think about all the authors spamming non-stop about their books on Facebook and Twitter.

Writers were becoming worse than an Amway rep crossed with a Jehovah’s Witness. I mean, could the author book promotion get any more invasive?

Wait…

Maybe it could *evil laugh*.

I’ve blogged so many times about the dangers of automation and how spamming people is counterproductive. I’ve talked until I am blue about how advertising our books has a terrible ROI (return on investment) and how most people don’t pay attention to it. Ah, but then it hit me. The main reason spam doesn’t work is because people ignore it and no longer “see” it, but what would they see?

Panty Prose—Not Advertising, PADvertising (TM)

We all know that roughly 85% of readers are women, and what do women need? Panty liners. YES, but what do they need more than springtime fresh girl parts? More FREE! books. Indie authors shouldn’t spam about their latest book release or free title on KDP select.

Why?

Because it’s rude? No! Because it is obnoxious? Not quite. Because it smacks of desperation? Not at all. The reason authors shouldn’t spam about their books is because spam is for amateurs.

The real writer of the Digital Age doesn’t settle on blasting out non-stop self-promotional tweets. That is SO 2011. The REAL writer of the Digital Age realizes a captive audience is a a buying audience.

Catch readers with their pants down with Panty Prose.

Panty Prose is perfect for the indie author. Most readers are female and even females need something to read in the bathroom. We at Panty Prose (a new imaginary division of W.A.N.A. International) have teamed up with Always against their will to offer your readers the best deals right in their pants.

Panty Prose not only offers you PADvertising to a guaranteed clientele, but we have all kinds of layouts to suit your PADvertising needs. Technology is your friend with Panty Prose. Put your book where it counts…

At Panty Prose, we even make it affordable for you to place your face in your reader’s pants…

As you can see, Panty Prose is inserting your ads into a virgin market begging to be tapped.

Why are all the romance authors hyperventilating?

Anyway, while others might see a protective strip that gets tossed in the bin, we see an unused space to PADvertise your latest novel AND save trees! Instead of throwing away that paper strip, we can print of lines from your book so fans can collect them ALL…

Make Your Readers Want MORE….

Make Your Readers Your Fan for ALWAYS….

Panty Prose is dedicated to keeping women fresh while selling your books. Attending a writing conference? Well, there is a bathroom and everyone knows that even agents can’t hold it forever. They will have to go potty sometime. Why not help them out? Keep them springtime fresh and give them your query. Elevator pitches are for losers, when you can use the Panty Pitch. The Panty Pitch comes in three fragrances, Sonnet’s Eve, New Office Supplies, and Cinnabon.

Panty Pitch:

Save agents time and keep them fresh!

Panty Prose for the Published Professional is a smart, savvy way to stand out from all the competition that still is relying on scheduled tweets and auto-DMs. Make an impression that will last for Always.

Okay, okay I’ll stop. You know you’ve reached a whole new level of weird when you spend an entire day Photoshopping your face onto panty liners. But you know I am on to something! W.A.N.A. is dedicated to giving you the evil genius you need for success. Aside from Panty Prose, what other “free spaces” could we exploit for book advertising? You know, to catch those who missed our 23 tweeted links, 6 auto DMs and five form letters.

So what do you think? Has the book spam gotten completely out of control? Are there other ways you can think of that are utterly invasive creative ways to market our books (Keep it PG, Please :D)?

What are your thoughts? And make sure to check out the upcoming classes below! Especially the Book Bootcamp!

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

****The site is new, and I am sorry you have to enter your information all over again to comment, but I am still working out the kinks. Also your comment won’t appear until I approve it, so don’t fret if it doesn’t appear right away.

Also know I love suggestions! After almost 1,100 blog posts? I dig inspiration. So what would you like me to blog about?

Talk to me!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of APRIL, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

SIGN UP NOW FOR UPCOMING CLASSES!!! 

Remember that ALL CLASSES come with a FREE RECORDING so you can listen over and over. So even if you can’t make it in person? No excuses! All you need is an internet connection!

Be a Better Hooker (How to Write a Compelling Newsletter)

April 29th $45

In this class, learn how to compose a newsletter that is entertaining and compelling—and all without stealing most of your writing time. Learn how to get your hooks in your readers and keep them until the end.

With a mailing list of over 15K subscribers, mystery/thriller author Jack Patterson will share some of his tips that will spice up your newsletter and get your subscribers opening it up every time you send one out.

BUNDLE DEALS!!! 

Book Bootcamp  $99 ($130 VALUE)

Book Bootcamp GOLD $269 ($430 VALUE) This includes the log-line class, antagonist class, the character class AND a three-hour time slot working personally with ME. We will either plot your idea or, if your novel isn’t working? Fix it! Appointments are scheduled by email. Consults done by phone or in virtual classroom.

Individual Classes with MOI!!! 

Pitch Perfect—How to Write a Query Letter and Synopsis that SELLS! $45 May 25th, 2017

Blogging for Authors $50 April 27th, 2017

Your Story in a Sentence—Crafting Your Log-line $35 May 4th, 2017

Bullies & Baddies—Understanding the Antagonist $50/$200 (Gold) May11th, 2017

The Art of Character $45 May 18th, 2017

NEW CLASSES/INSTRUCTORS!!! 

Growing an Organic Platform on Facebook $40 May 6th, 2017 Lisa Hall-Wilson is BACK! She is an expert on Facebook so check out her class!

Method Acting for Writers: How to Write in Deep POV $85 for this TWO WEEK intensive workshop with editor and writing instructor Lisa Hall Wilson.

Shift Your Shifter Romance into HIGH Gear $35 May 19th with powerhouse editor Cait Reynolds.

Researching for Historical Romance (How to NOT Lost 6 Hours of Your Life on Pinterest) $35 May 20th

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post Book Spam is for Losers—Don’t Advertise, PADvertise! appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons courtesy of Anja Pietsch.

I asked you guys to tell me in the comments what you would like me to blog about, so today we are going to talk about the author platform. When do we start? When do we need a newsletter? How do we find time?

I think we have reached a point in the new publishing paradigm that I no longer have to beg and plead and make jazz hands for writers to realize they need to build a social media platform if they ever hope to SELL their books.

I hear a lot of this:

Well, why be on social media? I don’t yet have a book for sale. 

Because it is easier to talk to people when you don’t feel like you have an ulterior motive.

I just signed a contract for my book. Should I build a platform now?

*weeps and breathes into paper bag*

Facebook doesn’t sell books.

Sure it does.

I know I need to put together a newsletter but since I don’t have a book out yet, I don’t know what to say. 

Whoa! Slow down there partner! Dig the enthusiasm, but slow down.

Yes, we need to have a social media platform and ideally a blog and newsletter, but this is not something we can rush. This job is a LOT like farming. We buy the land, clear it, prepare it, seed it, wait, tend weeds, wait some more, pray for fair weather, root out pests (trolls) and even then? Most of the time what grows in the first few years isn’t ready for market. It still needs time to mature enough to bear fruit.

So we rotate crops (topics). Clear again, fertilize, weed, and it is a lot of small very unsexy activities that are done a little every…single…day.

We can’t rush a platform any more than we can rush a peach orchard.

Too many writers want to rent the peach stand to sell peaches but they never bothered planting any trees. In a panic, they go BUY peaches (followers) and hope that will be just as profitable.

Or they rush out after they’ve written the book and scrape together a platform and hope then people will buy their books when they’ve spent almost no time cultivating a relationship. This is akin to trying to harvest peaches from trees we planted three months ago. Doesn’t make sense with an orchard and makes even less sense on-line.

Thus my answer to when is the best time to start a platform? Um, yesterday.

Seriously, the second you think you maybe kind of sort of want to sell your books? That is the day you begin building a platform and brand. You do not want to have a book for sale and try to pull a following/platform out of the ether.

Conversely, everything in its season and all in its due time. If you are new and building that platform while you are writing the book, NO you don’t need a newsletter. A newsletter will only work if you’ve already cultivated the following who’d care to get it or even open it.

You are not yet in the harvest season, so pick weeds, water, fertilize and like farmers?

WAIT.

The Early Years

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Rene Schweitzke

This is when we get our land and realize there are a ton of weeds, crappy soil and a zillion dead trees and trunks that need to be removed. There might even be some junk cars, scrap metal and old toilets that need to be hauled away. We need to form new habits. We need education, training and practice. We need to learn about branding and start building our platform.

When I left paper sales and decided to become a writer, I needed to learn the craft. I had bad habits. I put myself last on the list because writing wasn’t a “real job.” The early years is a lot of clearing away insecurity, fear, and even laziness. We learn to write even when we don’t “feel” like it and come to understand that simply showing up is a bigger deal than most people realize.

Sowing

This is when we start planting. We’ve cleared the fields and added missing nutrients to the soil. We took time to talk and listen to people on our social site of choice. To get to know them.

We put our butts in the seat and blogged even if the only comments we get are from the BuyPradaCheap sites:

“I so lick you’re blog. It changed my bruther’s life and bookmarking now.”

Blogging is my favorite form of social media. It is the most resilient (been here since the 90s), and it plays to a writer’s strengths. Writers WRITE. Blogs also train us to keep a professional pace. They trains us to show up and not be too dependent on others. Sure, it’s fun blogging now that I get a gazillion comments, but there were years I blogged to the ether. I didn’t do it for others. I did it for ME, to train me.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Jim Evans

When it comes to social media? Blogging is one of the best investments of time when it comes to ROI (return on investment). No search engine will direct people to your witty tweet or clever Facebook post. Search engines WILL, however, start sending readers to your blog (if done properly). Also blogs can be harvested for books that can be SOLD…for actual money.

No one taught HOW to blog back when I started so I had a metric crap ton of trial and error. Now? Folks like me have created classes. Have one coming up! (Blogging for Authors).

Blogs make excellent books. Far harder to compile a book of my Instagram pictures of food.

Sowing also involves research, plotting, writing, finishing then revising the actual novel(s).

The Silent Years

After we’ve planted a lot of good stuff, it’s easy to get discouraged. In fact, for a loooooong time, it will look like nothing is happening.

We need deep roots to make it in this business, because high-winds and storms don’t stop because we want to write books. Did you know that the root system of any tree needs to be as wide if not wider than the span of the branches? What is below (unseen) must match (or even outmatch) what is above, or the tree will fall over and die with the first bad storm.

The Silent Years can be brutal and this is why most writers don’t make it. They feel like failures because they aren’t instant runaway successes. It takes discipline and faith to trust the process, which is tough in a world addicted to instant gratification and an over-reliance on luck. Too many people want fruits with no roots.

Reaping

If we keep pressing and don’t dig up our seeds to check if they really are growing (which is highly tempting), eventually we can reap what we’ve sown. Ah, but here is the catch. Back to my peach example. After a long wait and tender, patient care, we get a tree. YAY! Eventually, we see little tiny fruits popping out. AWESOME.

Not so fast.

The smart grower plucks off all the tiny green peaches. OH NO! Why? So the tree will bear more fruit and better fruit. For us? This could mean writing two or three or ten bad books before we get a winner. It could mean multiple revisions. But, to gain more, we have to sacrifice.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Slgckgc

Harvest and Maintenance

In the beginning, we have a lot of back-breaking work (removing trash and dead stumps, tilling the soil, planting trees). But, if we are patient and consistent we can finally reach a maintenance phase. Once the grove of peach trees is producing, we keep fertilizing, tending, pruning and harvesting.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Kathleen Dagostino

An author platform is the same. In the beginning, we need to build traction. We are forced out of our comfort zones. It isn’t natural to strike up conversations on Facebook. It is uncomfortable to get out there when we prefer to lurk.

Blogs take longer to write because we’re learning and finding our voice. We may even be struggling with perfectionism. It takes time to realize that it is A BLOG. It really doesn’t need to be worthy of a Pultizer in Journalism.

SHIP!

There will come a time when the super hard work is done. Sure there will always be work, but not like in the beginning. After years of practice, I can knock out 1000 words in an hour. When I was new? It was not pretty. My blog was not fun when I was my only follower. I still remember being so excited to meet my first commenter Akismet.

Strange name. Is he foreign?

I KID YOU NOT, when this nice fellow Akismet welcomed me to WordPress, I actually commented back to try and start a conversation #YesIAmAMoron. (For those who don’t know, Akismet is the WordPress spam filter *face palm*)

But trust me, blogging with NO followers? Unfun. Blogging with 35K followers? LOADS of fun. But that didn’t happen overnight.

Same with platform and sales. J.K. Rowling finds it way easier to sell books in 2017 than she did in 1997. In 1997 she had not yet cultivated billions of fans. All she has now? Maintenance and enjoying harvest.

Slow and steady wins the race. Pace yourselves and realize there are no fruits without roots, no perks without the works. Trust the process, and in the meantime? I am here .

What are your thoughts?

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

****The site is new, and I am sorry you have to enter your information all over again to comment, but I am still working out the kinks. Also your comment won’t appear until I approve it, so don’t fret if it doesn’t appear right away.

Also know I love suggestions! After almost 1,100 blog posts? I dig inspiration. So what would you like me to blog about?

Talk to me!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of APRIL, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

SIGN UP NOW FOR UPCOMING CLASSES!!! 

Remember that ALL CLASSES come with a FREE RECORDING so you can listen over and over. So even if you can’t make it in person? No excuses! All you need is an internet connection!

Be a Better Hooker (How to Write a Compelling Newsletter)

April 29th $45

In this class, learn how to compose a newsletter that is entertaining and compelling—and all without stealing most of your writing time. Learn how to get your hooks in your readers and keep them until the end.

With a mailing list of over 15K subscribers, mystery/thriller author Jack Patterson will share some of his tips that will spice up your newsletter and get your subscribers opening it up every time you send one out.

BUNDLE DEALS!!! 

Book Bootcamp  $99 ($130 VALUE)

Book Bootcamp GOLD $269 ($430 VALUE) This includes the log-line class, antagonist class, the character class AND a three-hour time slot working personally with ME. We will either plot your idea or, if your novel isn’t working? Fix it! Appointments are scheduled by email. Consults done by phone or in virtual classroom.

Individual Classes with MOI!!! 

Pitch Perfect—How to Write a Query Letter and Synopsis that SELLS! $45 May 25th, 2017

Blogging for Authors $50 April 27th, 2017

Your Story in a Sentence—Crafting Your Log-line $35 May 4th, 2017

Bullies & Baddies—Understanding the Antagonist $50/$200 (Gold) May11th, 2017

The Art of Character $45 May 18th, 2017

NEW CLASSES/INSTRUCTORS!!! 

Growing an Organic Platform on Facebook $40 May 6th, 2017 Lisa Hall-Wilson is BACK! She is an expert on Facebook so check out her class!

Method Acting for Writers: How to Write in Deep POV $85 for this TWO WEEK intensive workshop with editor and writing instructor Lisa Hall Wilson.

Shift Your Shifter Romance into HIGH Gear $35 May 19th with powerhouse editor Cait Reynolds.

Researching for Historical Romance (How to NOT Lost 6 Hours of Your Life on Pinterest) $35 May 20th

For those who need help building a platform and keeping it SIMPLE, pick up a copy of my latest social media/branding book Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World on AMAZON, iBooks, or Nook. 

The post When is the Best Time to Start an Author Platform? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.