Fear is, in all likelihood, the single most complex human emotion. Our fears can keep us up at night, but they can also be the only thing that keeps us alive. They can save us, strangle us, liberate us or even destroy us. Like fire, fear can be intoxicating and even addictive and for sound reasons.

We understand on some primal level we NEED fear—that fear DOES keep us alive and often safe. Fear keeps us within society’s guidelines, since most of us (wisely) are afraid of prison.

We check food expiration dates, pay our taxes, and avoid accepting loans from anyone with ‘THE’ as a middle name, (Vinnie the Fish, Marty the Clown, Jimmy the Snake etc.).

Fear is to thank for many of these sound decisions.

Alas, fear can also be the ‘tame’ tiger who’s our best cuddle buddy for ten years…until it tries to eat our face off. Ask Siegfried and Roy. Thus, fear’s dichotomous and volatile nature can’t help but draw us in like those proverbial (and suicidal) moths to the flame.

A couple years back, I wrote a post about how shame is the beating heart of great fiction. But if shame is the heart, what is the BLOOD? The life force of truly magnificent stories?

My POV? Fear.

Fear IS Fiction

Some folks reading this might have a knee-jerk response of, ‘Oh, I don’t like horror.’ Yet, I want to point out ALL genres hinge on fear. What is a good romance without the fear of never being loved, never finding love, or finding then losing love?

Fear is what adds the breathless expectation, the race to the end turning pages as quickly as we can because we are AFRAID the couple we’re rooting for won’t get their act together before it’s too late.

Whether an MC is overthrowing an evil wizard, stopping a drug cartel, or opening that cupcake shop despite all her family’s nasty barbs and undermining, FEAR is the lifeblood that gives the story LIFE. The larger the fear (and more universal) the more resonant the story.

A Fearful Genre

All fiction has its place. Some fiction is purely fun and escape, and the world needs more fun and feel-good. Certain books are simply a holodeck. These stories allow us a safe space to get away.

Many books offer mental respite from the mundanities of life, a haven where we can regroup after dealing with the overwhelming pressures of being an adult (kids, laundry, bills, car repairs).

These stories serve as a place of rest and we all could use more of that!

But that isn’t all fiction.

Many writers (myself included) desire to go far deeper with our fiction, explore wounds and human issues. We’re compelled to poke and prod at larger social dilemmas.

Stories offer a mechanism where we can ‘safely’ expose that which is diseased and ALSO show these cultural cancers can be eradicated.

Speculative fiction is an excellent outlet for easing our anxiety and that of the reader’s. It’s a genre that is HOT, HOT, HOT due to a plethora of factors including but not limited to: geopolitical threats, global media, living in a surveillance society, loss of privacy, government intrusion, and Facebook.

Then, there’s the constant exposure to every variety of threat (terrorism, politics, pestilence, artificial intelligence, robot girlfriends, Alexa, Siri, Amazon Prime, global warming, and…the Kardashians *shudders*).

I know writers are told not to write for the market, which is partial advice. We don’t ONLY write speculative stories because this genre is exploding in popularity.

If you hate these kinds of stories, by all means, avoid them PLEASE. But, writing is also a BUSINESS and to ignore a genre that is expanding faster than elastic waistbands at an All-You-Can-Eat Chinese buffet is plain dumb.

This genre is blowing up for sound reasons. Speculative fiction (horror is included in this) offers a myriad of ways to help us mere humans face all the stuff we fear the most. It helps us COPE.

Since fear practically saturates every area of our lives, readers are gravitating more and more to books that allow them to put a face to the fear and then kick its metaphorical @$$.

We can’t do much of anything about escalating tensions with the Middle East or the Fukishima reactors that continue to pollute the oceans.

And, since we DO NOT LIKE feeling powerless, these stories hand us back some form of agency and ease our terrors.

What is Speculative Fiction?

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term publishing uses to describe narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements. This includes but it not necessarily limited to fantasy, science fiction, horror, utopian, dystopian, alternate history, apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction.

Basically, all the weird stuff.

(And forgive me because today we are using seriously broad strokes.)

But what makes the difference between the laughable 1950s science fiction matinees and the long-forgotten pulp fiction versus the works of Philip K.Dick?

What makes The Road literature even though it’s a post-apocalyptic novella? Why is Heart-Shaped Box or Wool so deeply disturbing and simultaneously resonant?

Why do star-packed big-budget films like Jupiter Ascending fizzle? Yet Blade Runner is a science fiction staple worthy of being remade for the newest generations to enjoy?

Plot & FEAR

It’s easy to dismiss speculative fiction as escapist fluff and some of it is. But, when we look to the great speculative fiction, we see the authors are disguising explosive social commentary within narrative so it can be viewed and experienced behind the safety-glass/containment field of story.

By using story, we writers place the reader into this world then (hopefully) generate empathy that is impossible to create any other way. I’ve seen the movie I, Robot countless times and I bawl EVERY time during this scene.

This is me every….single…time…I watch that scene *BAWLS*

Stepford Wives 

Was a commentary on the women’s liberation movement. It explored the very real fear of the unknown at the time. Men had no idea how to cope with the new roles and never-before-held feminine powers that had been unleashed.

Before, men could just burn those mouthy wenches as witches. But give them equal rights? *sets down kindling* So much for that.

#Awkward

Animal Farm 

Was a treatise on socialism and the dangers of groupthink. The peril that comes with handing over too much power to those who claim to have noble and benevolent intentions without asking the hard questions.

Brave New World 

Was Huxley’s stab at a culture propelled by temporary highs, unlimited choices and instant gratification while rejecting that which endured—love, family, marriage—because that which lasted required time, sacrifice and work.

He showed us an eerily accurate picture of what society could become if we were not vigilant…and is now probably rolling in his grave.

*Makes note to write story about Huxley haunting Instagram*

Fahrenheit 451

Was an explication on revisionist history, a culture grounded in fleeting emotion and the superficial. How invaluable books are to the bedrock of a society and how important it is that we FEEL uncomfortable. That being UNCOMFORTABLE is vastly important.

It was a warning, I’m afraid, we’ve failed to heed.

We’re living in a society where we can block, delete and take down content because ‘we find it offensive.’ Speakers are being banned from universities. Or, when they show, they’re met with protests and pepper spray simply because they represent opposition.

In far too many instances (for my tastes at least), any disagreement equals hate speech. Universities label books with trigger warnings or pull them altogether so as not to ‘offend’ anyone.

That, my friends, is exactly what happened in the world of Fahrenheit 451. This goal to make everyone ‘comfortable’ directly led to the implosion of libraries and the university and educational system and the creation of the Firemen who burned all the books (because books made people ‘feel bad’).

I’d suggest reading Fahrenheit 451 with its four walls of television and nonstop entertainment. The seashells plugged into everyone’s ears to pump in more entertainment. I’d suggest it, but…*shivers*

…we might already be living it.

*sobs*

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 

Was Philip K. Dick’s commentary on artificial intelligence and just because we can play God, should we? What sort of moral implications are involved? These are issues we are now facing for real, that are no longer fiction and we are being tasked with the tough questions.

Is it wise to create and sell sex robots that come with a ‘frigid’ setting? What happens when we extend the logic of this? Blade Runner. We get Blade Runner. Also a bizarre escalation/reinvention of the previously mentioned Stepford Wives.

All these great science breakthroughs that float across our newsfeed are now fertile ground for new and possibly even better stories that prod the science with ethical dilemmas.

We (authors) show the world it’s upside down and maybe even ways to right it.

I believe that the great speculative fiction writers have always been the conscience of culture, the voice that whispers things like, ‘Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.’ Or, ‘This really is a big deal and can go ugly really easily.’

Horror does a lot of that as well. Good horror writers tap into the subconscious angst and give it a face. What happens when society is allowed to continue to devalue human life?

When mobs are handed permission to call the shots? Let’s chat about this after watching The Purge…which ignited enough public frenzy to warrant being made into a USA Network television series.

***Or just hop on Twitter to watch it in real life.

To Make it BIGGER, Make it Smaller

When we care about everything, we care about nothing. Additionally, the human mind can’t truly grasp the loss of a billion lives. It doesn’t resonate because it can’t compute.

Thus the great spec-fic plots make the big small. We tell a small story of one person or a group of people as it plays out on the far larger stage. World War Z anyone?

This is why so many Hollywood movies about asteroids hitting the planet fizzle while The Road simply guts us.

Not All Big Stories are Big

Sometimes speculative fiction isn’t addressing something big, rather it dives into the intimate and deeply personal. Heart-Shaped Box is about a vengeful ghost out to destroy an aging rock star and anyone he loves.

While the supernatural elements are terrifying, what is so beautiful and moving about this story is how the malevolent ghost forces the MCs to face and conquer inner demons they would have been happy to bury…if not running for their lives.

The human story is what elevates this from a forgettable scary book into a work that prods at the deep dark places of the characters (and by extension the reader).

Character & FEAR

Writing speculative fiction is really tough. It has a lot in common with literary fiction. In FACT, spec-fic in general (INCLUDING HORROR) makes up a very large percentage of what’s viewed as ‘great literature.’ Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, everything written by Edgar Alan Poe EVER and I could go on.

But won’t  .

Alas, because speculative fiction shares so much familial DNA with literary fiction, it can suffer from similar degenerative diseases. Speculative fiction can easily turn preachy or rely too much on low-hanging fruit that wrecks great stories.

Horror might swing the literal ax too much, the ‘fear factor’ relying too much on shocking an audience that hasn’t been shocked since middle school.

Dystopian, utopian, science fiction, can become an assembly line of derivative drones. In a similar vein, literary fiction can pummel us with pontification, and sedate us with sophistry. Ah, but so can speculative fiction.

*channels Edie Brickell*

Shove me in the shallow water before I get too deep…

World-building is backdrop and can never substitute for story. Yet, too many writers fixate on the element of storytelling at expense of the story. Spec-fic is tough. I swear it is the souffle of fiction. If we aren’t careful and look away one second?

Yeah.

Plot of course matters. We need a core story problem to drive the story. Ah, but characters are vastly important and I’d even posit they’re even more important…kind of like literary fiction. 

 #Hmmmm.

We must develop multi-dimensional characters with flaws and problems to set on this adventure because gizmos, gadgets, spaceships, magic, chainsaws, gore and ghosts, big words and deep thoughts alone are not enough.

Don’t make a bigger asteroid…create a better story.

Story is what is going to rattle the reader’s cage, not the two-ton spider or a warrior alien race like the Klingons but NOT because they’re Cling-Ons—a race of genetically engineered clones grown from needy exes imprisoned on a space colony after violating one too many intergalactic restraining orders…

I take that back.

I’d totally read that story.

Where was I? Yeah. So, more blood or teeth or guts won’t scare us, won’t rattle us, and sure as heck won’t change us.

In a world where we are overwhelmed with doom and gloom, where any debate on-line easily devolves into ranting, I think spec-fic is more important than ever in human history. Story is the place where the armor goes off and the heart is exposed and then able to be changed, fixed, remolded, and softened.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Do you love horror? Dystopian? Science fiction? What are your favorites? I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU! What makes spec-fic great? Or fall flat? What are your pet peeves?

If you really want to deep-dive how to write these incredible genres that are HOT, HOT, HOT, please check out the ON DEMAND CLASSES by #1 best-selling author Maria Grace that you can enjoy from the comfort of HOME.

More Than Crop Circles: Intro to Science (and Speculative) Fiction $45

Speculative Fiction World-Building $45

Populating Planet X: Character-Building for Science (and Speculative) Fiction $45

Twilight Zone Special: All THREE Classes $99 (that’s over TEN hours of training). Makes it $33 a class for those who can’t math .

I’ve also extended the holiday sales on all classes listed below to January 15th. Get them before they’re deleted.

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of JANUARY, 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 (5K words) of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or fewer). 

***I will announce December’s winner once I feel better. I’m recovering from bronchial pneumonia.

In the meantime, PLEASE treat yourself to a class! We have a TON of classes that we will be deleting or putting into cold storage come mid-January (I’m extending the sales to January 15th since I haven’t been around to tell you about them during the holidays).

These will no longer be available after January 15th, so STOCK UP while you can.

NEW Year, New YOU! ROAR into the TWENTIES!

ON DEMAND Sales!

HIGHLY RECOMMEND–> On Demand: How to Write Deep POV

By #1 Best Selling Author Maria Grace! Normally $55 now $30

ON DEMAND Dark Arts: New Year’s SPECIAL Building Your Villain

Usually $55 and until January 15th is only $30.

Three hours of psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, pathology and how that applies to writing.

It is like the Behavioral Analysis Unit for Authors. Tres FUN! Villains are some of the most enduring characters in literature. Why not add your own legends to the list?

I’m also offering:

The Art of Character NEW YEAR’S SPECIAL: Writing Characters for a SERIES ON DEMAND

Normally $65 and NOW only $40.

FOUR hours of training on characters on how to develop characters that that can go the distance.

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

Normally $65 and NOW only $40. Pairs PERFECTLY with The Art of Character for Series.

ON DEMAND! New Year’s Sale! Story Master: From Dream to DONE

Usually $55, now ONLY $30.

This class is to train you how to plot whether you’re a plotter, a pantser or a mix of both. It’s also a crash course in creating dimensional characters.

On Demand: Beyond Bulletproof Barbie

Usually $55 and now only $25.

This is a THREE-HOUR class on guns, knives, weapons, fighting, law enforcement (from local cops to international espionage) and more. Everything you need to build a bad@$$—male OR female—and get the details CORRECT.

Spilling the New Year’s Tea: On Demand Blogging for Authors

Usually $75 and now only $40.

Get prepped and ready for the new year, new you, new blog.

Bite-Sized Fiction: How to Plot the Novella

Use New20 for $20 off

Popular On Demand Classes

Need some help with platform and branding?

Branding: WHEN YOUR NAME ALONE Can Sell (ON DEMAND)

Use brand10 for $10 off.

For the complete list, go to the OnDemand Section.

***I will add more classes, especially from Maria Grace, in the coming days, as I recover.

 .

The post FEAR: Why Humans Crave Stories That Scare Them appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Fear is, in all likelihood, the single most complex human emotion. Our fears can keep us up at night, but they can also be the only thing that keeps us alive. They can save us, strangle us, liberate us or even destroy us. Like fire, fear can be mesmerizing and for sound reasons.

We understand on some primal level we NEED fear—that fear DOES keep us alive and often safe. Fear keeps us within society’s guidelines, since most of us (wisely) are afraid of prison. We check food expiration dates, pay our taxes, and avoid accepting loans from anyone with ‘THE’ as a middle name, (Vinnie the Fish, Marty the Clown, Jimmy The Snake etc.).

Fear is to thank for many of these sound decisions.

Alas, fear can also be the ‘tame’ tiger who’s our best cuddle buddy for ten years…until it tries to eat our face off. Ask Siegfried and Roy. Thus, fear’s dichotomous and volatile nature can’t help but draw us in like those proverbial (and suicidal) moths to the flame.

Last summer, I wrote a post about how shame is the beating heart of great fiction. But if shame is the heart, what is the BLOOD? The life force of truly magnificent stories?

My POV? Fear.

Fear IS Fiction

Some folks reading this might have a knee-jerk response of, ‘Oh, I don’t like horror.’ Yet, I want to point out ALL genres hinge on fear. What is a good romance without the fear of never being loved, never finding love, or finding then losing love?

Fear is what adds the breathless expectation, the race to the end turning pages as quickly as we can because we are AFRAID the couple we’re rooting for won’t get their act together before it’s too late.

Whether an MC is overthrowing an evil wizard, stopping a drug cartel, or opening that cupcake shop despite all her family’s nasty barbs and undermining, FEAR is the lifeblood that gives the story LIFE. The larger the fear (and more universal) the more resonant the story.

Fear AS Genre

All fiction has its place. Some fiction is purely fun and escape, and the world needs more fun and feel-good. Certain books are simply a holodeck. These stories allow us a safe space to get away.

Many books offer mental respite from the mundanities of life, a haven where we can regroup after dealing with the overwhelming pressures of being an adult (kids, laundry, bills, car repairs).

These stories serve as a place of rest and we all could use more of that!

But that isn’t all fiction.

Many writers (myself included) desire to go far deeper with our fiction, explore wounds and human issues. We’re compelled to poke and prod at larger social dilemmas. Stories offer a mechanism where we can ‘safely’ expose that which is diseased and ALSO show these cultural cancers can be irracidated.

Speculative fiction is an excellent outlet for easing our anxiety and that of the reader’s. It’s a genre that is HOT, HOT, HOT due to a plethora of factors including but not limited to: global media, living in a surveillance society, loss of privacy, government intrusion, and Facebook.

Then, there’s the constant exposure to every variety of threat (terrorism, politics, pestilence, artificial intelligence, robot girlfriends, Alexa, Siri, Amazon Prime, global warming, and…the Kardashians *shudders*).

I know writers are told not to write for the market, which is partial advice. We don’t ONLY write speculative stories because this genre is exploding in popularity.

If you hate these kinds of stories, by all means, avoid them PLEASE. But, writing is also a BUSINESS and to ignore a genre that is expanding faster than elastic waistbands at an All-You-Can-Eat Chinese buffet is plain dumb.

This genre is blowing up for sound reasons. Speculative fiction (horror is included in this) offers a myriad of ways to help us mere humans face all the stuff we fear the most. It helps us COPE.

Since fear practically saturates every area of our lives, readers are gravitating more and more to books that allow them to put a face to the fear and then kick its metaphorical @$$. We DO NOT LIKE feeling powerless and these stories hand us back some form of agency.

What is Speculative Fiction?

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term publishing uses to describe narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements. This includes but it not necessarily limited to fantasy, science fiction, horror, utopian, dystopian, alternate history, apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction.

Basically, all the weird stuff.

(And forgive me because today we are using seriously broad strokes.)

But what makes the difference between the laughable 1950s science fiction matinees and the long-forgotten pulp fiction versus the works of Philip K.Dick? What makes The Road literature even though it’s a post-apocalyptic novella? Why is Heart-Shaped Box or Wool so deeply disturbing and simultaneously resonant?

Why do star-packed big-budget films like Jupiter Ascending fizzle? Yet Blade Runner is a science fiction staple worthy of being remade for the newest generations to enjoy?

Plot & FEAR

It’s easy to dismiss speculative fiction as escapist fluff and some of it is. But, when we look to the great speculative fiction, we see the authors are disguising explosive social commentary within narrative so it can be viewed and experienced behind the safety-glass/containment field of story.

By using story, we writers place the reader into this world then (hopefully) generate empathy that is impossible to create any other way. I’ve seen the movie I, Robot countless times and I bawl EVERY time during this scene.

Yeah this is me…

Stepford Wives was a commentary on the women’s liberation movement. Animal Farm was a treatise on socialism and the dangers of groupthink. The peril that comes with handing over too much power to those who claim to have noble and benevolent intentions without asking the hard questions.

Brave New World was Huxley’s stab at a culture propelled by temporary highs, unlimited choices and instant gratification while rejecting that which endured (love, family, marriage), because that which lasted required time, sacrifice and work. He showed us an eerily accurate picture of what society could become if we were not vigilant…and is now probably rolling in his grave.

*Makes note to write story about Huxley haunting Instagram*

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was Philip K. Dick’s commentary on artificial intelligence and just because we can play God, should we? What sort of moral implications are involved? These are issues we are now facing for real, that are no longer fiction and we are being tasked with the tough questions.

Is it wise to create and sell sex robots that come with a ‘frigid’ setting? What happens when we extend the logic of this? Blade Runner. We get Blade Runner. Also a bizarre escalation/reinvention of the previously mentioned Stepford Wives.

All these great science breakthroughs that float across our newsfeed are now fertile ground for new and possibly even better stories that prod the science with ethical dilemmas.

We show the world it’s upside down and maybe even ways to right it.

I believe that the great speculative fiction writers have always been the conscience of culture, the voice that whispers things like, ‘Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.’ Or, ‘This really is a big deal and can go ugly really easily.’

Horror does a lot of that as well. Good horror writers tap into the subconscious angst and give it a face. What happens when society is allowed to continue to devalue human life? When mobs are handed permission to call the shots? Let’s chat about this after watching The Purge…which has ignited enough public frenzy to warrant being made into a USA Network television series (to be released Fall of 2018, btw).

To Make it BIGGER, Make it Smaller

When we care about everything, we care about nothing. Additionally, the human mind can’t truly grasp the loss of a billion lives. It doesn’t resonate because it can’t compute.

Thus the great spec-fic plots make the big small. We tell a small story of one person or a group of people as it plays out on the far larger stage. World War Z anyone?

This is why so many Hollywood movies about asteroids hitting the planet fizzle while The Road simply guts us.

Not All Big Stories are Big

Sometimes speculative fiction isn’t addressing something big, rather it dives into the intimate and deeply personal. Heart-Shaped Box is about a vengeful ghost out to destroy an aging rock star and anyone he loves.

While the supernatural elements are terrifying, what is so beautiful and moving about this story is how the malevolent ghost forces the MCs to face and conquer inner demons they would have been happy to bury…if not running for their lives.

The human story is what elevates this from a forgettable scary book into a work that prods at the deep dark places of the characters (and by extension the reader).

Character & FEAR

Writing speculative fiction is really tough. It has a lot in common with literary fiction. In FACT, spec-fic in general (INCLUDING HORROR) makes up a very large percentage of what’s viewed as ‘great literature.’ Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, everything written by Edgar Alan Poe EVER and I could go on.

But won’t .

Alas, because speculative fiction shares so much familial DNA with literary fiction, it can suffer from similar degenerative diseases. Speculative fiction can easily turn preachy or rely too much on low-hanging fruit that wrecks great stories.

Horror might swing the literal ax too much, the ‘fear factor’ relying too much on shocking an audience that hasn’t been shocked since middle school. Dystopian, utopian, science fiction, can become an assembly line of derivative drones. In a similar vein, literary fiction can pummel us with pontification, and sedate us with sophistry. Ah, but so can speculative fiction.

*channels Edie Brickell*

Shove me in the shallow water before I get too deep…

World-building is backdrop and can never substitute for story. Yet, too many writers fixate on the element of storytelling at expense of the story. Spec-fic is tough. I swear it is the souffle of fiction. If we aren’t careful and look away one second? Yeah.

Plot of course matters. We need a core story problem to drive the story. Ah, but characters are vastly important and I’d even posit they’re even more important…kind of like literary fiction #Hmmmm.

We must develop multi-dimensional characters with flaws and problems to set on this adventure because gizmos, gadgets, spaceships, magic, chainsaws, gore and ghosts, big words and deep thoughts alone are not enough.

We don’t need a bigger asteroid…we need a better story.

Story is what is going to rattle the reader’s cage, not the two-ton spider or a warrior alien race like the Klingons but NOT because they’re Cling-Ons—a race of genetically engineered clones grown from needy exes imprisoned on a space colony after violating one too many intergalactic restraining orders…

I take that back.

I’d totally read that story.

Where was I? Yeah. So, more blood or teeth or guts won’t scare us, won’t rattle us, and sure as heck won’t change us.

In a world where we are overwhelmed with doom and gloom, where any debate on-line easily devolves into ranting, I think spec-fic is more important than ever in human history. Story is the place where the armor goes off and the heart is exposed and then able to be changed, fixed, remolded, and softened.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Do you love horror? Dystopian? Science fiction? What are your favorites? I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU! What makes spec-fic great? Or fall flat? What are your pet peeves?

If you really want to deep-dive how to write these incredible genres that are HOT, HOT, HOT!

Jump IN!

Sign up for my class More Than Gore: How to Write Horror. This class teaches techniques that are applicable to most genres, since this is class is a deep dive into what scares people and how to get under their skin. The better we are at rattling the readers’ safety, the faster they turn pages relishing in the thrill but desperate for it to be over…like a great rollercoaster ride.

Also, Cait and I are doing an ENTIRE Saturday on Speculative Fiction. You can purchase individually or SAVE BIG and get the BUNDLE. ALL THREE classes with the XXX Files Bundle.

***Remember we always include FREE recordings of classes in the purchase price.

I love hearing from you!

What do you WIN? For the month of AUGUST, 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).

Upcoming Classes for August & September

Brand Boss: When Your Name Alone Can Sell

Instructor: Kristen Lamb
Price: General Admission $55.00 USD/ GOLD Level $175
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Thursday, Thursday September 13th, 2018. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

Building Planet X: Out-of-This-World-Building for Speculative Fiction

Instructor: Cait Reynolds
Price: $55.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Saturday, September 8th, 2018. 10:00 a.m.—12:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

Populating Planet X: Creating Realistic, Relatable Characters in Speculative Fiction

Instructors: Cait Reynolds & Kristen Lamb
Price: $55.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Saturday, September 8th, 2018. 1:00—3:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

Beyond Planet X: Mastering Speculative Fiction

Instructor: Kristen Lamb
Price: $55.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Saturday, September 8th, 2018. 4:00—6:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

The XXX Files: The Planet X Speculative Fiction 3-Class Bundle

Instructors: Cait Reynolds & Kristen Lamb
Price: $110.00 USD (It’s LITERALLY one class FREE!)
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Saturday, September 8th, 2018. 10:00 a.m.—6:00 p.m. EST.

REGISTER HERE

Purchase includes FREE recording of all three classes.

More Than Gore: How to Write Horror

Instructor: Kristen Lamb
Price: $40.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: THURSDAY, August 30th, 2018. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

Keywordpalooza: Tune in, mellow out, and learn to love keywords for Amazon

Instructor: Cait Reynolds
Price: $55.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Friday, September 7, 2018. 7:00—9:00 p.m. EST

REGISTER HERE

The post FEAR: Why Humans Crave Stories That Disturb Them appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

We’ve likely all heard the phrase, The truth shall set you free. Truth is critical in all areas of life, yet we’re often afraid—okay, terrified—of truth. It’s dismally human to eschew truth because truth often hurts.

A lot.

Truth and pain are inseparable, which is why great authors (or great people in general) are probably masochists.

What separates the amateur from the professional is the person’s willingness to face truth and embrace pain. If we think about it, authentic triumph always follows on the heels of pain.

Ask anyone who’s finished a marathon, completed an advanced degree, paid off a mountain of debt, or wriggled into max-control Spanx without losing consciousness….

Ask your mother about pain. Well, maybe not…

Ironically, the more pain involved, the greater the victory on the other side. Yet, how many of us long for victory…just without all that ‘pain’ stuff?

Truth increases self-awareness. It makes us face aspects of our character we’d rather hide in the bathtub with the piles of dirty laundry.

Don’t you judge me O_o ….

Today, I’m going to toss down some truth bombs. I’d love to say that I knew this stuff all along and am some mystic sage imbued with super powers.

But that would totally be a LIE (thus, likely unhelpful).

Truth About Time

One phrase I recommend banishing from your lexicon: If I could only find the time. Here’s the deal, we don’t find time, we make time. Time isn’t hiding in the couch cushions with the remote control.

Time isn’t wandering around crying until mall security hands it a balloon. It isn’t buried in the woods like some stash from a bank robbery. There is no map, GPS, or time-sniffing dogs to help locate time because time isn’t lost.

It’s right there asking us all, ‘Hey, buddy, what would you like us to do today?’

We choose. If we hope to find any success in life we must realize we are ultimately responsible. Everything else is an excuse. Why so many of us feel guilty that we haven’t done X, Y, and Z is we know we could have.

We simply chose NOT to.

*winces*

I know, but don’t worry. It’s cool…

We’re All Human Here (Mostly)

What fascinates me is how closely great stories mimic great lives. This is why humans have loved great stories from the invention of fire until today.

Here’s the thing, though. No one likes a ‘story’ about a character whisked along passively caught in the riptide of bad stuff happening. Great stories involve choices, forks in the road, decisions…tough decisions.

Decisions we KNOW we could never make…so we read about/admire OTHER people who do .

We admire people who’ve made the brutal choices, choices involving time, effort, focus. This is why athletes, activists, authors, innovators, scientists, entertainers, and people with immaculate closets fascinate us.

As writers, we of all people should appreciate the power of words. When we keep espousing time ‘can be found,’ it’s a self-delusion, a cushion from reality.

Truth is, life is suffering. There is no way to escape suffering, but we can choose our suffering. If we are going to suffer anyway, why not be in control?

Truth About Talent

I wrote a post a while back asking the question all writers ask (or should). Do some people simply lack the talent to become authors? I would say talent is highly overrated. This goes back to our overall theme of truth, time and suffering. When I began blogging over a decade ago, I was clueless. There were so many bloggers who were better than me, BIGGER than me.

OMG, if I could ONE DAY get five-hundred unique visits, I would, like totally DIE.

***Probably good I didn’t.

When I decided to blog for real, I was thrilled when I got my first comment—A FAN!

I was so excited, I even commented back to my new fan knowing one day we would be best friends and maybe…meet in person! Squeeeee!

Of everyone who said I was an idiot for becoming a writer this one lone angel saw what no one else did (other than me and my mom).

This commenter found me and believed…in…me.

*moment of reverent silence*

My commenter’s name was *deep breath*…Akismet.

Odd name. Is that Russian, Albanian, Indian?

I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THIS!

Of course, when Akismet was so rude as to not reply I shrugged it off. Imagine my mortification when I learned Akismet was WordPress’s spam filter, and I’d tried to befriend an automated message.

And also been hurt when I was ghosted by an automated message.

I CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP, PEOPLE!

Truth About Blogging

The truth is? I was a raging idiot (if you haven’t already figured that out). Like one of those people who is so stupid they can’t see HOW stupid they really ARE? Yep…me. With writing, blogging…life.

I was a raging idiot because I began as an unteachable know-it-all. It was only through a lot of failure and stupidity (like trash-talking my ‘fake friend’ Akismet) that I eventually saw myself for who/what I truly was.

And it stung…a lot.

When I finally faced my true character (or lack thereof), that’s when my life started making authentic progress. I began blogging for the wrong reasons (affirmation of how AMAZING I was), but found something vastly different.

See, I’d been told my entire life I had talent, that I was a fantastic writer, and maybe that was true.

Problem was, I had the skin of a grape and no self-discipline. When everything wasn’t immediately stars and fame and unicorn hugs…I quit. I was lazy, self-absorbed, insecure and wanted to be a writer for all the wrong reasons—a desire for affirmation, approval, fame, glory, and more approval.

Did I mention needing approval? That’s okay, right?

Once these truths slapped me in the face like a school of dead fish, I had some tough choices to make. Where would I dedicate my TIME? Would I give up or press on? If no one ever read my blog, would I be okay with that?

I could continue choosing the pain of never finishing anything I started, OR I could push through and see what might be on the other side of that pain.

Initially, I blogged for fame. Then, I changed my reason and blogged to improve my character. Blogging trained me to hold myself to self-imposed deadlines. No one was going to arrive and toss me in ‘blogger jail’ if I failed to post. This helped me overcome perfectionism and SHIP.

Since I had no fans, if I didn’t post, the only one I’d be letting down was myself.

The Truth About Myself

As mentioned (a lot), I was addicted to approval. Could I keep posting when there was no chorus to sing my praises? Then, once people actually did begin reading, could I stick to my guns and keep blogging despite a long line of people telling me I was a hack, poseur, amateur, idiot, etc.?

I was addicted to perfection, always revising, redoing, tweaking. Blogging taught me to let it GO. Perfect is the enemy of the finished. Thus, when feedback inevitably slammed into me like a boomerang I’d forgotten I’d thrown, I saw stars (not the nice ones).

Initially, my voice was too preachy, so I lightened up. Followers responded far more favorably to my humorous side. Once I gained more confidence, I eventually let the comedy FLY! It was fantastic and fun and…

#Oops

Ah, but then my jokes got SO good, readers didn’t realize I WAS joking…which I found out when I unintentionally started a panic.

When G+ launched, I wrote a hysterically funny parody MOCKING Facebook for copying Twitter. I say this humbly.

*gets cramp patting self on back*

Anyway, I blogged about Facebook’s new function Twit+ (a term I TOTALLY MADE UP )…and fielded emails for weeks from hysterical writers who couldn’t locate the Twit+ function on Facebook.

SHE TOOK IT TOO FAR!

Yes…yes I did. And I eased back on the throttle. But, blogging allowed me to hone my skills and my voice. By trial, error, and unwittingly starting a digital stampede—or ten—I learned more by DOING in a year than decades of ‘thinking about doing.’

Truth Revealed

When we choose our suffering and then dedicate TIME to that endeavor, eventually this reveals truth. The more ‘novels’ I wrote (and failed to finish), the more it became seriously clear I needed to do more studying.

With every blog, I gained progressively thicker skin and increased confidence. I learned that what had been true about me in 2004 was no longer true by 2010 and certainly isn’t true here in 2018.

Over a decade later, most of the bloggers I aspired to be ‘one day’…have quit. The critics who blasted me about the future of publishing, ‘experts’ who called me lots of names for suggesting writers needed a platform and brand? Most are no longer around.

The trolls who blasted me for calling out the exposure dollar SCAM, who rallied their platforms to flame me when I suggested writers needed to be PAID? They’re now…

…oddly quiet.

Why is La Cucaracha playing in my head? Go ahead, throw a shoe at me! I’ll be waiting for you in it in the morning *evil laugh* Oh, and I licked half your Cheetos while you were sleeping. Which half? I’ll never tell.

MUA HA HA HA HA *coughs*

Sally forth.

Truth About Motivation

Motivation is overrated and hangs out with ‘Talent’ in dark alleys. They sell dime bags of ‘Instant Happiness,’ ‘Noble Excuses’ along with sweet chasers of ‘Do It Later’ shots.

There’s a lot about being a writer (and blogger) that’s a TON of fun, but a lot of it seriously sucks. That’s life. Show me a job that is all awesome all the time and I will lovingly ask you to stop dropping acid.

Often our ‘lack of motivation’ is we’re afraid.

Maybe our fears are founded. I have no clue how to plot and am hoping no one notices.

Perhaps they’re a lie. Your book is awesome and will never be perfect so STOP MESSING WITH IT AND SHIP!

Sometimes, we just gotta do it afraid. Fear is a feeling and feelings LIE.

Our entire consumer culture rests on the fulcrum of ‘feelings.’ We’re trained to live by emotion. Why? Because emotion makes us stupid and stupid people buy more stuff they don’t need and probably can’t afford.

While the advertisers are employing feelings to pick our pockets, we can easily catch a nasty case Emo by Osmosis.

I just don’t feel like writing today.

Creatives get away with this ‘feeling’ excuse more easily than, say, brain surgeons, firefighters or Navy S.E.A.L.s…which is why it’s more likely to become a bad habit for us.

Feelings rarely have much to do with truth. They are also crazy fickle and, in an act of awe-inspiring irony, show up to work when they feel like it.

Motivation, enthusiasm, exultation are fabulous feelings. But the REASON they FEEL fabulous is because these feelings are RARE. They’re the creative endorphins only earned by working super hard.

Unless we artificially create these ‘feelings’ with Pixie Sticks, cocaine, or a steady diet of pricey self-help retreats telling us we’re special?

Tears, sweat and blood, baby  .

Motivation is the result of starting. Start when you don’t feel like it and eventually, feelings WILL catch up because feelings are attention whores who hate being left out.

Don’t argue. It’s science.

What Are Your Thoughts?

I love hearing from you!

Are you not finishing that novel because you’re afraid you’re really terrible? Or maybe actually awesome? Do you make excuses for why you can’t write or blog or train circus ferrets? Have you taken time to examine those excuses? What they might be telling you?

Have you ever set out to accomplish something and were shocked at the truths about yourself (or others) you failed to see? Do you find ‘good reasons’ why you can’t blog, write, finish that novel?

Hey, it is OKAY. We all struggle. We learn by DOING and DOING IT AFRAID.

In fact, to help you guys, I am running the ‘Write Stuff’ DO IT AFRAID Special, where I do a detailed line and content edit on your first 20 pages. ONLY TEN SLOTS AVAILABLE.

What do you do well? What’s falling flat? Are you nailing the hook? Are there ways I can help your story hook DEEPER?

Treat yourself! I don’t bite…..that hard *whistles innocently*. I can tell you from experience is it WAY better to have someone who cares about your work and is vested in you to critique your work and make it the best it can be.

As for comments…

What do you WIN? For the month of MAY, 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).

Also NOW OFFERING MORE CLASSES PLUS ON DEMAND…

Retelling Myths & Fairytales

Instructor: USA Today Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds
Price: $65 USD Standard (Cool Upgrades Available)
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: FRIDAY May 25th, 7:00 PM E.S.T. to 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. Get your spot today! HERE.

The Yarn Behind the Book: Backstory

Instructor: Cait Reynolds

Price: $55.00 USD

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

When: Friday, June 8th, 2018. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

Behind every good book is an entire story that happens before the reader ever opens to page one. This is the backstory, and done right, it is what sets the stage, provides clues and cues, and rescues you from writer’s block.

A good backstory will help with logic and consistency in the plot, developing complex motivations for characters, and sorting out exactly what needs to happen going forward as you either plot or pants your way to the end.

This class will cover the following topics – and much more:

• The elements of a backstory;
• How to take your current plot idea and work backwards into a backstory;
• Integrating character profiles and the backstory;
• How the backstory relates to the logline and synopsis;
• Using the backstory to dig yourself out of corners and shake off writer’s block;
• Why a backstory is crucial to writing a series.

SIGN UP HERE!

A recording of this class is also included with purchase.

About the Instructor:

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

On Demand Training!

Ready for Book Beast Mode? I Live to Serve…Up Some TRAINING!

For anyone who longs to accelerate their plot skills, I recommend:

ON DEMAND Plot Boss: Writing Novels Readers Want to BUY. 

Two hours of intensive plot training from MOI…delivered right to your computer to watch as much as you like .

The Art of Character is also now available for ON DEMAND.

And if you’re ready for BOOK BEAST MODE and like saving some cash, you can get BOTH Plot Boss and Art of Character in the…

Story Boss Bundle (ON DEMAND).

Almost FIVE HOURS with me, in your home…lecturing you. It’ll be FUN! 

I also hope you’ll pick up a copy of my debut novel The Devil’s Dance.

The post Truth: The Door Between Our Greatest Fears & Our Greatest Selves appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Denny Basenji is not amused.

However, we of the revolution are nothing if not stalwart, and to make up for missing yesterday, I promise a SATURDAY post! Maybe even a Sunday post. BOOYAH! Yeah, I know. I’m kind of tearing up from my own generosity, too. Frankly, I’m having so much fun, I may not give the blog back to Kristen after this week. Okay. I might let her post occasionally. We’ll see.

So, today’s topic should be fun, if perhaps a bit edgy. At the very least, I hope to skirt the bounds of propriety and induce mild squirming. I mean, any time you write about sex and writing sex scenes, squirming should be involved.

The Wide World of Sex

There are all kinds of sex scenes with all different levels of heat, from the kiss-fade-to-black and mild groping, all the way to full frontal erotica that tests the limits of our taboos. Aside from providing purposeful or inadvertent wanking material, sex scenes actually can serve a real purpose in the story.

A sex scene can complicate or resolve a relationship. Sex can be used as one of the bad, impulsive, very human decisions that a character makes. Done right, a sex scene is a brutally accurate barometer about the psychological, physical, and emotional state of a character. One character can use sex as misdirection and distraction for another character. Sex scenes can deepen our immersion in the world, identification with the characters, and indulgence in the fantasy and suspension of reality. Finally, sex can be used to explore some of the most profound ideas about human relationships, gender roles, and power.

This is assuming, of course, that it is a well-written sex scene.

A badly written sex scene reads like the bastard offspring of a technical manual and IKEA assembly directions. It’s mechanical, predictable, and worst of all, barely titillating. That is a cardinal crime.

A sex scene must always have some element of arousal to it, and the only exceptions would be describing rape or incest. Even if we are trying to write a scene that is meant to be troubling, part of what makes it disturbing is that something resonates with us. Something about it arouses us physically despite the rational part that knows it’s wrong or dangerous.

The trick is knowing how to define and create what is arousing to us, the characters, and the reader. Yet, doing so is an exercise in uncomfortable vulnerability. I mean, how embarrassing is it to admit we get hot and bothered writing a sex scene? *raises hand* Yes, that has happened to me. Do I like being open about it to you all? No. But, if I don’t have the courage to write sex scenes that turn me on and to share the power of doing so with writers I am coaching, then, I should stick with illustrating IKEA assembly directions.

Friends and Family, Asking ALL the Awkward Questions Since…Forever

So, how do we start?

First, we have to be honest with ourselves about what we find sexy, seductive, dangerous, desirable, and taboo. Also, we have to be honest about what doesn’t appeal to us. This is not to say that our characters have to mirror our tastes perfectly. But, in order to write convincingly for our characters, we have to accept our own likes and dislikes before we bequeath any or all of them on our creations.

The more explicit and daring the sex you write about, the more likely you are to get the question of, “Uh…is your sex life really like that?” Depending on the person and the mood, I have often answered, “No. It’s worse.” In general, however, a good way to shut people up with that invasive question is to pose this question in return: “I wrote about a serial killer. Does that mean I have to be a murderer?”

The only reason we should ever feel embarrassed about writing a sex scene is if it poorly crafted or doesn’t fit in the story. If we put our best work into it, and if it is an organic part of the plot, then we can be fiercely proud of what we have written. Sex is also less ‘noticeable’ as something shocking when it is done well and fits naturally within the story.

Speaking of shocking, whom exactly are we worried about shocking? Parents? Friends? Co-workers? Interestingly, this is one of the biggest hurdles I encounter with many young female writers. There is a crushing trepidation about shocking everyone they know with their writing, whether it’s on the side of dark/twisted/gory or sensual/sexual/explicit. As a result, darkness becomes taupe, and sensuality and sex end up as racy as the raunchiest episode of “Little House on the Prairie” – in other words, not.

I know this fear is a real thing. I was just like that all through my twenties. Then, something changed. Maybe it’s because I turned thirty. Maybe it’s because my ambition and desire to get better at writing reached a point where it was stronger than my shyness. Maybe I realized that despite the fact my father was a psychologist and my mother was a social worker, they wouldn’t judge me for venturing into more adult territory with my ideas. As it turned out, they were incredibly supportive. However, even if they hadn’t been, the most important realization I reached was that my audience was bigger than them. My audience was bigger than my co-workers, former classmates, gym buddies, and Facebook friends.

If it all worked out, then people I had never heard of and would never know would end up reading my book. They wouldn’t know anything about me other than my name and the short bio at the back of the book. I wouldn’t be Cait. I would be abstract. I would be perhaps the least important thing about the book. Whether it was a chaste kiss or a menage a trois BDSM scene, my readers would experience it through my characters. Not me.

And then, I was free.

Free not just to use the “naughty” words, but to tell the full, profound truth about the beauty and menace of sex in human relationships. I was ready to be an author, not just a writer.

Fantasy vs. Reality

I’m just going to put this right out there because I promised I was going to push buttons and stir the pot.

For the love of God, why are men in romance and erotica novels so damn chatty when they are having sex?

Now, hold on. I understand that dirty talk, sweet talk, and other dialogue can be an integral part of both the scene and the fantasy, but seriously, far too many of these guys end up sounding like women who subscribe to Gwyneth Paltrow’s newsletter and want to help the heroine self-actualize through a healthy, accepting sex life.

I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with the ideas, per se. However, if our goal is to write a strong, dominating alpha male, then we have to make him sound different from the women in the story. If the primary character we want the reader to identify with is the heroine, then yes, we want to explore her thoughts and feelings thoroughly. But, the hero needs to remain a bit of a mystery.

There is nothing as frustrating, maddening, and addictive as the dialogue or hint that leaves us (and the heroine) wanting just a bit more to confirm exactly how the hero feels or what he thinks. To echo Kristen Lamb, why make it easy for the characters? To have a hero who confesses his love – in excruciating, and dare I say it, pedantic detail – leaves nothing to be desired. It sets up no problems to solve and leaves no room for growth. This goes for both romantic scenes and sex scenes.

That’s not to say we don’t want total silence on the part of our hero. A certain amount of dialogue is usually necessary to move the scene forward. Also, part of the fun of writing romance and sex scenes are indulging a little bit in having our characters hear things that would be like pulling eye teeth to hear in real life.

But the key here is ‘a little bit.’ Sex and power always go together, and by having our dominant character lay all his (or her) cards out on the table, we bleed out any power, mystery, and allure. Even worse, our characters begin to sound the same.

I would imagine the same principles of power dynamics and differentiation in expression would apply in LGBTQ stories. However, my experience in working with editing LGBTQ sex scenes is limited, and I may not be aware of emotional touchstones and physical details that are crucial to any basic scene.

Just remember, sex talk and dirty talk are great, but no one wants an overly emotional Chatty Cathy standing over them with a whip.

I’m a Tease

There is so much more I want to talk about in terms of writing sex scenes and sensuality in general. However, this blog is already getting long and overdue. Therefore, like a fan dancer, I will simply flutter my feathers at you all and tell you that I am offering a class on W.A.N.A. for writing sex scenes.

In this class, I am going to get, shall we say…granular…in terms of words to use and avoid, details for turning two-dimensional sex into three-dimensional, experiential love-making, pacing (because it matters in both writing and sex), and even how to tackle (literally) complicated scenes with two or more people/equipment/etc.

More information on the class below!

How to Dominate Your Sex Scenes (No Safe Words Here)

Class Title: How to Dominate Your Sex Scenes (No Safe Words Here)
Instructor: Cait Reynolds
Price: $40 USD Standard
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: FRIDAY July 14th, 7:00 PM E.S.T. to 9:00 P.M. EST

Boy meets Girl. Boy and Girl have sex several times, though the scenes all kind of blur together at some point. Girl (or Boy) ends up in trouble at the hands of criminals/jealous ex/drug lord and needs Boy’s (or Girl’s) rescue.

Boy and Girl have celebratory sex and live happily ever after.

Sound all too familiar?

Maybe like the tens of thousands of schlocky “Schlongs of Shanghai” titles all competing for KENP (Kindle pages read) and the top 1,000 ranking on Amazon?

But, there’s no denying that erotica is one of the hottest genres around and has a very real place in literature. Yet, to write a work of erotica that provides both the escapist fantasy that readers want while creating a fast-paced story with memorable characters and riveting, unique sex scenes is probably harder than trying to find that billionaire cowboy with six-pack abs who’s into ménage-a-trois.

This class will not be for the faint of heart or those who blush easily!

We are going to tackle the nitty gritty of the erotica genre as a whole and sex scenes in particular…and use ALL the words in our discussions!

Topics covered include:

• When to introduce sex into the story and the sex v. plot ratio –
• Creating chemistry in one easy step
• Decisions, decisions: Purple prose v. crass cusswords –
• How to avoid the cookie-cutter Alpha male (and corresponding Mary Sue female) –
• Keeping the sex fresh, interesting, and unique in every single scene – how realistic to make sex in any given scene v. how much detail is TMI, even for your readers?
• What really makes a scene sexy?
• What makes a story sexy?
• BONUS: How to talk about erotica as literature and fun facts about the history of erotica!

****Just FYI, in an effort to combat spammers your comment won’t appear until I approve it, so don’t fret if it doesn’t appear right away.

Talk to me! And MAKE SURE to check out the classes below and sign up! Summer school! YAY!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of JUNE, 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!

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.

OMG, Like How to Write Fleek YA July 7th $40 with Cait Reynolds

How to Dominate Your Sex Scenes (No Safe Words Here) July 14th $40 w/ Cait Reynolds

Gaskets and Gaiters: How to Create a Compelling Steampunk World July 21st $35 w/ Cait Reynolds 

Lasers & Dragons & Swords, Oh MY! World Building for Fantasy & Science Fiction 

July 28th w/ Cait Reynolds $35/ GOLD $75/ PLATINUM $125

Classes with MOI!

Plotting for Dummies July 13th $35 ($250 for GOLD)

Blogging for Authors July 20th $50 ($150 for GOLD)

Branding for Authors  July 27th $35

OTHER Classes with Cait Reynolds

Shift Your Shifter Romance into High Gear July 15th $35 Basic/ $75 GOLD/ $125 PLATINUM

Classes with Lisa Hall-Wilson

Growing An Organic Platform On Facebook July 22nd $40

The post The Coup, Day 3 – Putting the Bite in Sex Scenes appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons, courtesy of Noemi Galera.

The single greatest challenge you will face in trying to accomplish anything great is FEAR. FEAR is nothing to be underestimated and we need to learn to manage it if we want to succeed. I remember being a kid and Dune was one of my favorite movies. At the age of ten I memorized Paul Atreides’ mantra:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

At the time I just thought it was a seriously cool movie line. It was only when I grew older that I began to truly understand how powerful these words were.

Fear IS the mind-killer. Remember last time we talked about how vital it is to make sure we have our heads in the right spot. Where the mind goes, the man follows and if we are scope-locked on all the stuff that overwhelms and terrifies us? We are doomed before we start. Our head is not in the game.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I find it so fascinating that Frank Herbert called it the “little-death” but isn’t it? Fear is not real. Fear is the work of imaginations and yet those small cracks are what can bring everything crashing down.

I will face my fear.

Words have tremendous power and we as writers are wise to appreciate this. We might be sinking into despair. We are anxious and can’t sleep. We can’t focus and so we say things like, “I am tired” or “I’m depressed” but by using these blanket statement copouts we are only feeding the very thing feeding on us. We need to face it. NAME IT.

It is okay to be afraid. It is okay to give that fear a name because until we know what it IS, we can’t fight back. What is the first thing any doctor does when we come into the ER? He finds the thing’s NAME. Sure our chest hurts and we are sweaty and dizzy and our blood pressure is wrong but that could be anything from cardiac arrest to a panic attack. NAMING what is going on is vital for any kind of treatment.

Do we really want a doctor cracking open our chest because we are having a panic attack? Conversely do we want the doctor to recommend yoga when we have a blocked artery?

I will permit my fear to pass over me and through me.

Feel the emotion. Don’t stuff it. No I don’t need a sandwich, a drink, a nap, a trip to the mall, or yet another pass through Facebook. I need to feel what is going on instead of self-medicating or avoiding it. It’s like a squall line. Just let it pass over and beyond.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Here is the deal, fear isn’t (often) real and even when it is? It isn’t permanent unless we permit it to stay. We will still be here.

So why do I talk about all of this? Because we have to face and conquer fear every single day and maybe you are experiencing symptoms of fear but you aren’t aware of it. Time to peer down that dark alley of the soul…

Image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commonse, via Pedro Rebeiro Simoes

You Don’t Finish

I can raise my hand and attest I am guilty. I have too many things that I start and I don’t finish. Is this because I am lazy? Hardly. Is it because I don’t love what I do? Not at all. If I get really, really honest and make a list of all the things I have left undone, I can often see fear staring back at me.

A quick story to illustrate…

I remember being SO confident when I scored my mega-agent out of New York. He thought I was brilliant and fresh and my book was sheer genius. I was on CLOUD NINE and bulletproof. I was so sure that I’d have a book deal instantly because Russ was that powerful of an agent.

I remember when I signed with him talking on the phone and he said, “Okay, here is how it is going to go down. Once I get your proposal I am going to make a few calls and then things are going to happen very fast. Are you ready for this?”

GOD YES! Put me IN Coach!

So a month passes, then two, then six and all this time my confidence is leaking out like air from an overfilled balloon *Kristen’s ego makes long farting sound*. After a year and a half?

Nothing.

I had avoided talking to my agent because I just couldn’t bear being a failure. Finally, I had to do something so I emailed and he gave me the news I knew was coming but had avoided. NY didn’t want a social media book. They believed my teachings were the tip of the spear and were afraid of it.

And I know all of this sounds seriously weird because every publisher at the time was requiring social media for all of its authors. I had many long and grueling conversations with authors who are household names who’d come to me vexed out of their minds because their publishers wanted to know why they didn’t have a million FB fans. They were desperate for help.

But these same publishers that were requiring social media, didn’t want the manual.

*head desk*

I was crushed. I didn’t want to be self-published. I wanted to be legit. I wanted to be a Random Penguin but it wasn’t in the cards. So, I gathered what was left of my ego and self-published Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital World because my ego was not as important as you guys’ futures.

But how long did I sit on that book?

Too long. Too long would be the answer.

I was terrified of failing. I was terrified of being grouped in as “one of those self-published hacks” even though I knew (in my mind) that self-publishing was just as viable as legacy and in many ways MORE viable. My head and my heart just could not get on the same page because I was afraid.

So fast-forward a couple more years and I have finished this AMAZING romantic suspense. I send it to an agent friend and she loved it…but didn’t rep the genre. She told me the book was awesome and to just query publishers direct and she would handle the contract. I got rejected. Then a publisher accepted (then they were no longer financially solvent so I didn’t feel good about signing). Then another rejected. So about this point I am batting 500. 50% love the book and 50% don’t want it.

I couldn’t leave the book unpublished any longer even though it was tempting. All the voices were there.

You teach writing, so if your book sucks you are FINISHEEEEEED.

Why can’t you get a real publisher?

Maybe you should stick with social media.

And what did I do? Again, I sat on a great book…because I was afraid. I was afraid of failure, of you guys tossing digital tomatoes at my work. Even though I know there is NO way to write a perfect book. I have read reviews for every book I adored and thought was perfect and someone else hated it. I knew this. I know this. But I was still scared sh….. witless.

But I have learned that when I feel fear that 1) it is often BS and nothing to really be afraid of and 2) it is generally a good sign I am going in the right direction. So I made some more connections and now my book is with a new and amazing publisher who I think is a great fit. Maybe the book flops. I dunno. I won’t know until I put it out there.

I was afraid of failure but also afraid of success.

What if it does well and it is the only book in me? And I can’t do it AGAIN?

Yeah well we will cross that bridge when we get there.

So if you have things you are NOT finishing, ask yourself WHY? What are you afraid of? Then do it anyway.

You Fixate on What You Can’t Control

I can always tell when I am operating in a place of fear when I pay attention to what is on my mind. What am I constantly complaining about?

***Which first of all, ditch complaining. Complaining alone is a BIG RED FLAG something is wrong.

Often we will fixate on the things we can’t control at the expense of things we can because it offers us a handy excuse if everything craps the bed. If I spent my time moaning about how unfair it was NY didn’t want my book instead of hustling and figuring out how to unleash my book onto the world?

I’d still be complaining. Then, when I never published the book and my career as an expert withered and dried up, I would have someone to blame other than myself. I sure wouldn’t have the single most popular book on branding for authors.

Same with the fiction. I had a choice. Whine about the rejections and shelve the book and hide as a blogger or suck it up and step it up.

Well, I would have been a huge deal if only someone else had done X.

NOT TODAY!

You Can’t Make a Decision

Here’s the deal. No decision is still a decision. But often when we are scared we hem and we haw and we fail to ever decide because deep down we know if we put it off long enough? Someone else WILL decide for us. Then, if it goes badly, we have an out.

Early in my writing journey I bounced from genre to genre to genre. Maybe I was a romance writer, no a thriller writer, no science fiction. Notice how this looks a lot like never finishing. Decide and commit. Do it afraid.

There are a lot more symptoms of fear but these are the three BIGGIES. Remember that nothing great is ever going to happen in your comfort zone. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it is doing X in spite of fear.

This business is really really hard and it requires us being so vulnerable and it is super easy to get kicked in the confidence. Rejection sucks. It hurts. But failure isn’t permanent. Neither is success. All of this will pass over us and through us and…

ONLY WE WILL REMAIN.

A huge way to combat fear is like I said, we gotta name it. Then we need to make a decision and if it still scares us? Get help. If you are afraid your book is crap? Hire a pro to look at it, be honest and tell you how to fix it. Heck, email me kristen at wana intl dot com. If branding scares you? Take a class. Got a bunch listed below and anyone who has taken my classes will tell you I move heaven and earth to help you. I can be that big badass sister you need to help you sleep at night.

Get a mentor to guide you.

I have a handful of things on the business side of publishing that are freaking me out right now. Why? Because I don’t yet UNDERSTAND them. Bookbub? How does it work? So what did I do? I called in favors from people on-line, people I have served and asked, “Hey I am freaked out. Can you help a Sistah OUT?”

WE ARE NOT ALONE.

What are your thoughts? I have been struggling with confidence lately. Off my game, out of my groove. I know it is because I am doing and trying new things in new areas where I am NOT the sole reigning diva and that scares me. But I am here. We are here. We have each other.

Do you succumb to your fear too easily? Maybe spend too much time with distractions? Or complain and whine about stuff you can’t change? Hey we ALL do it. No shame here, my kiddos. Write down what you fear. Here, in the comments and we can bond.

I fear that none of what I do matters. That I am really not making a difference and I really didn’t earn any of my success. It was all a fluke or an accident and one day people are going to wake up and see I have no idea what I am doing.

There, got you started .

I love hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of JANUARY, 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 MY 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!

Branding Master’s Class Series with Kristen Lamb THREE social media classes, ONE low price. Only $99. It is literally getting one class for FREE!!!! 

Craft Master’s Class Series with Kristen Lamb THREE craft classes, ONE low price. Only $89. One class is FREE!!!! Includes my new class The Art of Character.

Individual Classes with MOI!

Pitch Perfect—How to Write a Query Letter & Synopsis that SELLS January 28th

When your Name Alone Can SELL—Branding for Authors February 10th, 2017

Social Media for Authors February 11th, 2017

NEW CLASS!!!! The Art of Character January 27th, 2017

Blogging for Authors February 3rd

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

The post FEAR—Is the Mind-Killer in Control of Your Life? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Debbie Johannson WANA Commons

Fear is the most important tool in any writer’s toolbox. Fear is the beating heart of conflict, no matter the genre. Fear of death. Fear of losing love, not finding love, not recognizing love. Fear of change. Fear of remaining the same. In Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novella The Road, the story was less about a fear of death and more about the fear of survival at the expense of one’s humanity. In The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan explores the fear of continuing generational curses.

In Winter’s Bone, Woodrell examines fear of family, what it takes to possibly betray family and risk death by turning on kin. In Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf probes the fear of being meaningless. Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World explores the fear of government, the tendency of the masses to devolve to mediocrity, and the dangers of society that only exists to seek empty pleasures and instant gratification.

Suffice this to say that I believe all great works (even outside of Horror) tap into our deepest primal fears, probe them, open them, expose them and maybe even (if we are fortunate) give us a glimpse of a cure.

Kevin continues today with a final word about horror.

****

We’ve discussed many things in the past few days about why the horror genre is important, why writing it is important and hard, but I’d like to offer this final thought: if we expand our definitions of horror past chainsaw wielding maniacs and human centipedes, we find that horror, at the root of it all, is often about a quest into the unknown.

As I’ll detail in one of my workshops at WanaCon, almost all the horror plots involve some level of discovery, penetrating the unknown. So horror exists not only because of mankind’s universal fears and a desire and NEED to deal with those fears, horror exists because there exist those special folks – horror writers – who are consumed with the desire to KNOW things, to ask questions that others would never think of asking, or, as the case may be, never dare ask.

I’d like to leave you with this final thought from Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, about why some of us blessed (cursed?) folks are drawn to writing horror:

“As you get ready to leave, think about this…or brood upon it:

Unknown.

The Story of “Little Miss Nobody”

On July 6^th, 1944, the Ringling Brother and Barnum & Bailey Circus was giving a performance in Hartford, Connecticut, before 7,000 paid customers. A fire broke out; 168 persons died in the blaze and 487 were injured. One of the dead, a small girl thought to be six years old, was unidentified. Since no one came to claim her, and since her face was unmarred, a photograph was taken of her and distributed locally and then throughout the U. S. Days passed, weeks and months passed, but no relative, no playmate, no one in the nation came forward to identify her. She remains unknown to this day.

The job of the fantasy writer, or the horror writer, is to bust the walls of the tunnel vision we develop as  adults, bust it wide for a little while, to provide a single powerful spectacle for the third eye (our imagination). The job of the fantasy-horror writer is to make you, (the reader), for a little while, a child again.

And the horror writer himself/herself?

Someone else looks at that item about Little Miss Nobody – still unidentified – and says, “Jeez, you never can tell, can you?” and goes onto something else. But the fantasist begins to play with it as a child would, speculating about children from other dimensions, about doppelgangers, about God knows what else.

It’s a child’s toy, something bright and shiny and strange. Let us pull a lever and see what it does, let us push it across the floor and see if it goes rum-rum-rum or wacka-wacka-wacka. Let us turn it over and see if it will magically right itself again.

In short, let us have our Fortian rains of frogs and people who have mysteriously burned to death while sitting at home in their easy chairs; let us have our vampires and our werewolves. Let us have Little Miss Nobody, who perhaps slipped sideways through a crack in reality, only to be trampled to death in  a rush from a burning circus tent.

“It’s the best set of electric trains a boy ever had,” Orson Welles once said of making movies; the same can be said of making books and stories. Here is a chance to bust that tunnel vision wide open; bricks flying everywhere so that, for a moment at least, a dreamscape of wonders and horrors stands forth as clearly and with all the magical reality of the first Ferris wheel you ever saw as a kid, turning and turning against the sky.

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Greg Koenig

“Someone’s dead son is on the late movie. Somewhere a foul man – bogeyman! – is slouching through the snowy night with shining yellow eyes. Boys are thundering through autumn leaves on their way past the library at four in the morning, and somewhere else, in some other world, even as I write this, Frodo and  Sam are making their way toward Mordor, where the shadows lie. I am quite sure of it.” ~Stephen King, Danse Macabe

This is the best way to end my series, I think. I’ve tried to say some very noble things about the importance of the horror genre, and how it’s just as valid as any other genre, and why writing good horror is just as difficult as writing the next Great American Novel.

But all those comments come from my critical, analytical side (where I live every day as an English teacher), and all my own noble and worthy writing goals have become very rooted in my subconscious. What really pushed me toward the horror genre to begin with was the eternal, burning question: Why? and its inevitable follow up: What if…?

And for me?

The horror genre, the genre of the fantastic and strangely beautiful wonders and horrors, simply offered me the most room to play in. I could write a story about a father mourning the loss of his son, and, gripped by guilt, how he goes and sits next to a pond to watch the ducks, and maybe somebody rides by on a bicycle, and then through some heavy exposition – or through the symbolism of a burning sunset – our grieving father works through some resolution, gaining closure as he finally forgives himself.

But that’s just not me.

Cause I really like the idea of his dead son being on the late night movie, reaching through a very special and strange television screen….

Somewhere deep in my own little Twilight Zone.

******

THANK YOU, KEVIN! *does cabbage patch dance* Cabbage Patch Dolls. Talk about creepy (and yes I had them anyway).

What are your thoughts? Do you find yourself holding back in your own writing? Afraid to go to the dark places? What other works (horror or not) do you think did a really fabulous job of exploring our fears? Why did they rattle you? What made you uncomfortable? Did you find relief at the end?

I LOVE hearing from you, and I know Kevin will, too. Ask him your questions. Tell him your fears. Comments for guests get double weight in the contest. Btw, I will announce September’s winner next week. Too slammed with WANACon right now to do it properly. Ah, the contest…

Which is…

To prove it and show my love, for the month of September, 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).

Horror Author Kevin Lucia

Kevin Lucia has worked as an Editor for Shroud Magazine and a Submissions Reader for Cemetery Dance Magazine, and is now an Associate Fiction Editor for The Horror Channel. His podcast “Horror 101” is featured monthly on Tales to Terrify and his short fiction has appeared in several venues. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English at Seton Catholic Central High School and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles and his first short story collection, Things Slip Through is forthcoming November 2013 from Crystal Lake Publishing.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

WANACon is THIS WEEKEND!!! Day One and Day Two are for sale separately so you can choose if you only can fit part of the conference. Just a note: A LOT of major authors sacrificed time for no or little pay to pay it forward and offer an affordable and easily accessible conference for those who need one and WANA is extremely grateful to have them.

WANACon, the writing conference of the future is COMING! We start with PajamaCon the evening of October 3rd and then October 4th and 5th we have some of the biggest names in publishing coming RIGHT TO YOU–including the LEGEND Les Edgerton. 

AGAIN, THIS WEEKEND!!!! Get PajamaCon and BOTH DAYS OF THE CONFERENCE for $149 and all recordings for anything you miss or need to hear again. Sign up today, because seats are limited. REGISTER HERE.

The post Asking "What If?" & Exploring the Unknown–A Final Word on Writing Horror appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Image via Flikr Creative Commons, courtesy of Niki Sublime

First, a quick announcement. For those who’ve been waiting, my new social media book Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital World is now available in PRINT. Yay! *happy dance* Almost 300 pages and 1.1 pounds of AWESOME. All you need to build a solid author platform and have time to do the most important part of the job—WRITE MORE BOOKS.

All right. Since it’s coming up on October, it seemed fitting to delve into the genre of Horror, and not simply for those who write spooky tales, but for the rest of us as well.

Elisabeth Kubler Ros once stated:

There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They’re opposites. If we’re in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.

This means, the more we understand fear, the deeper our writing becomes, the more meaningful, visceral, and profound. In love stories, fear might be of being alone, of never finding “the one” or even losing “the one.” Conflict is always generated by fear. The protagonist wants something BUT THEN… The more intense the fear, the faster the reader turns the pages.

Thus, who better to teach about fear, its necessity, primal roots and tools for generating fear than the horror author? Kevin Lucia (who will be teaching MORE about this at WANACon this weekend) continues….

****

Here’s the thing: if you’re an ardent horror fan and budding horror writer, you’re part of a tradition. And as good fans, you’re aware of this tradition. You’ve been fed on it, raised in it, and the most natural thing for you to do initially is pay homage to that tradition in your work.

I’m not going to try and define horror here (because that could take forever, and I’d still never get close to a definition), but anyone who wants an insightful examination of the horror genre should check out Noel Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror, or, Paradoxes of the Heart.

It’s a work that really maps out some excellent ideas about what the horror genre is and why people pursue it and this bit here made me feel a lot better about my early “trope” stories:

The creators and consumers of horror fictions are aware that they are operating within a shared tradition (emphasis mine), and this is acknowledged openly, with great frequency and gusto…the horror fiction of the present, though not lacking in energy, also refers back to earlier times, to classic monsters and  myths, as if in a gesture of nostalgia.

Noel Carroll, pg. 211

Helllooooo, there, Kiddies…

So those zombie and vampire and werewolf and big bug monster stories you’ve been writing? (And the creepy evil clown ones, too?) They’re nothing to be ashamed of, really. If you’re a horror fan, you’ve been raised on a certain diet, and our earliest efforts are unconscious or maybe even conscious attempts to pay homage to the horror traditions we’ve come to adore.

ZOMBIES!

But there’s a difference between horror trope stories and horror stories. I’ve come to this belief through my reading as both a fan and as an editor at several different publications (Shroud Magazine, The Midnight Diner, Cemetery Dance Magazine). And, just like all of you, I’m still trying to write authentic, personal horror stories.

And that’s the first step in writing stories invoking the emotion of horror: searching deep inside yourself and writing stories that come from your GUT, not from your knowledge of the horror tradition. Like when Bradbury made a threshold discovery – ten years INTO his career, mind you – in mining his personal childhood experience while writing “The Lake.”

I can best sum this up in the words of Bram Stoker Award Winning writer and author Mort Castle:

“The best stuff, the stuff that lasts, comes from the late-night conversations we have with our very own selves.”

This hit me hard the first time he said it to me (in an email discussing my work) because it made me realize I was writing horror “trope” stories lacking any personal value. These stories weren’t born out of my own fears and anxieties, but born out of my (admittedly) healthy knowledge of horror’s traditions.

Again – I worked hard on those stories. I believe their craft is sound, to this day. But those stories were motivated and inspired by exterior motives – a vampire story, a ghost story, a haunted house story, etc. – not inspired by my heart or soul. So even though they were fine stories that some people liked, they weren’t living up to their fullest potential.

Also, horror trope stories often lack that sense of violation, transgression or inversion that really evokes the emotion of horror. A story evoking the emotion of horror must begin in some sort of “normal world” – or whatever passes for normal in your story – and there must be some sort of transgression in which the normal world of the protagonist is violated.

What they believe is normal and safe must be inverted and turned against them. Again – as a writer you can never account for all readers. How can you possibly know if the transgression or inversion in your story is really going to impact a reader? That’s nearly impossible to tell.

But when a story begins with an immortal vampire mulling over a warm goblet of blood his plans to overtake the city in a tide of bloodshed with his vampire minions…the emotion of horror is not invoked. This is a horror trope story. It can still be written just as well as any other story on a craft level and be just as enjoyable, but it has fallen short of invoking any emotion of “horror.”

Actually that vampire was mulling over Starbucks.

Lastly, very simply…horror at its best comments on the human condition. For horror to live up to its fullest potential, it must SAY something meaningful and of substance about the trials and pitfalls and struggles and fears and nightmares about what it MEANS to be human, living in this flawed, cracked, all-too human and imperfect world.

It’s an overused quote by now, but I’ll reference Stephen King’s comparison (or someone’s comparison, even SNOPES isn’t sure WHO said it first) of Harry Potter’s legacy and that of Twilight:

“Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity… Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”

For the record, I’m a lover of ALL types of horror stories. I enjoy the often pulpy, thrill-laced horror trope stories of Robert E. Howard and Brian Keene right along with the atmospheric, literary stories produced by the late Charles L. Grant, T. M. Wright, Ramsey Campbell and Norman Prentiss. I adore the literary, gothic sensibilities of Peter Straub, and Dean Koontz simple morality plays are a guilty pleasure.

Writers like Norman Partridge have produced both kinds of stories, and younger writers such as Rio Youers and Ron Malfi have taken the horror conventions and twisted them to their own ends. And, in the end, we need to write what’s inside us, what we WANT to write.

But it’s an important question for all horror writers – especially new and budding writers – to consider. What are you writing? Horror trope stories, or stories truly invoking the emotion of horror?

And if your aim is the latter…go deeper inside yourself. Find your fears. Take normal characters and invert their lives, transgress their natural order and say something about what it means to be a human in this mean, bad old world of ours and then maybe, maybe you’ll write some of the “best stuff…the stuff that lasts.”

I know I’m still trying.

****

Thanks, Kevin! Wanna know my idea of a horror story that reflects society?

Aaaahhhhhhhhh!

All kidding aside (okay I wasn’t kidding), what are your thoughts? Questions? I DO believe that fear is essential in ALL genres and ALL great stories. As an editor, one of the BIGGEST problems I see is the writer holding back emotionally. They fail to GO FOR THE GUTS.

Why?

Guts are sticky, messy, gross and leave us conflicted. THAT IS GOOD. Fiction is the opposite of reality. In reality we avoid fear, terror, conflict, but as writers—GOOD WRITERS—we should go right for the throat. RAISE THOSE STAKES! Scare the protagonist! Have them fear personal and LITERAL extinction of themselves, everyone they love and all they hold dear. MAKE THE READER WORRY.

It is our DUTY as authors to be sadists and saviors simultaneously.

How you like that for alliteration?

I LOVE hearing from you, and I know Kevin will, too. Ask him your questions. Tell him your fears. Comments for guests get double weight in the contest.

Which is…

To prove it and show my love, for the month of September, 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).

Horror Author Kevin Lucia

Kevin Lucia has worked as an Editor for Shroud Magazine and a Submissions Reader for Cemetery Dance Magazine, and is now an Associate Fiction Editor for The Horror Channel. His podcast “Horror 101” is featured monthly on Tales to Terrify and his short fiction has appeared in several venues. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English at Seton Catholic Central High School and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles and his first short story collection, Things Slip Through is forthcoming November 2013 from Crystal Lake Publishing.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

WANACon is THIS WEEKEND!!! Day One and Day Two are for sale separately so you can choose if you only can fit part of the conference. Just a note: A LOT of major authors sacrificed time for no or little pay to pay it forward and offer an affordable and easily accessible conference for those who need one and WANA is extremely grateful to have them.

WANACon, the writing conference of the future is COMING! We start with PajamaCon the evening of October 3rd and then October 4th and 5th we have some of the biggest names in publishing coming RIGHT TO YOU–including the LEGEND Les Edgerton. 

AGAIN, THIS WEEKEND!!!! Get PajamaCon and BOTH DAYS OF THE CONFERENCE for $149 and all recordings for anything you miss or need to hear again. Sign up today, because seats are limited. REGISTER HERE.

The post Why Writing Horror Is–SHOULD BE–Hard Part 2 appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Two weeks ago, I introduced you guys to the WANA Theory of Book Economics and explained why traditional marketing doesn’t sell books. Books are not like cups of coffee or breakfast cereal, and thus they require a different approach. Writers are unique as well. Since we are responsible for producing the product, we need a social media approach that leaves time to write great books. That was the first lesson to connecting to potential readers. We needed to know HOW to connect, WHAT kind of message to send and WHY.

We also needed to understand the critical element that could make a book a mega success. What was this key variable? We had to mobilize the fat part of the bell curve, that group of people who would not normally define themselves as readers. Harry Potter, The DaVinci Code, Tuesdays with Morrie, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and The Help all tapped into groups of people who normally didn’t read for pleasure. But, once some key non-readers read these books, word of mouth sparked like wildfire and made literary history.

Then, last week we discussed the typical non-reader. There is a misconception that non-readers don’t read. They DO read, they just happen to be highly selective. The benefit, however, is that once one of these guys becomes a fan? He is the most loyal, devoted fan any writer can have. Often this guy is the best salesman a writer can have, too. He is the flint that creates the spark that can start the fire.

Ah, but here comes the problem. Too many writers are getting on social media and hanging out with each other and marketing to each other. It is an over-saturated market full of people who can only buy so many books. Also, since all of us LOVE books, we might not be the best people for starting that wildfire of word of mouth that can push the non-reader population past the tipping point.

Many of you are chomping at the bit. Kristen, for the love of all that is holy, where can we find the magic well of readers?!!!

I would love to give a website. Go to www.loyalbookfans.com . Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Or a formula for success. A + B = Wild Success.

But, unfortunately there is no specific formula and no guarantee….BUT that doesn’t mean that we can’t change some behaviors that will improve our odds.

I did say it was simple to connect and mobilize the fat part of the bell curve, and it is. Simple, however, is not necessarily easy. There are actually a number of components we need to understand, but today we are only going to focus on one, because it is the most important. If we cannot do this, then nothing else matters.

We need to get sticky.

In The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, Gladwell defines The Stickiness Factor in the following way:

The Stickiness Factor says that there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable; there are relatively simple changes in the presentation and structuring of information that can make a difference in how much of an impact it makes.

The Stickiness Factor not only applies to our social media message, it applies to who we are as writer personalities. It also applies to our books. Nailing what I will call The Sticky Author Triumvirate is key to publishing success. We need to get sticky on all three to have the best odds of reaching the tipping point.

Let’s take a look at The Sticky Author Triumvirate:

Get Sticky with Social Media Messages–One of the reasons that traditional marketing doesn’t work when it comes to books is because the messages are not sticky. In fact, we are so blitzed with marketing messages in modern society that most static marketing messages become white noise and invisible. Thus, why blitzing about our book non-stop on ten different sites is almost a total waster of time is that the message is rarely seen. Auto-tweets are ignored and are what marketing experts call clutter.

Additionally, it is not enough to have a million people “see” a message/pitch. There has to be a compulsion to SEE then ACT. If a zillion people see my commercial for car insurance, but none of them ever change policies, then the campaign is a failure. It’s a big waste of effort, time and money.

What can make people care? Care about them first. Just talking to people can go a long way to making a sale. People buy from who they know and who they LIKE. Stand apart from all the takers and learn to give.

Beyond that?

Sit and write out a hundred activities, shows, channels you enjoy. Yes, most of us love writing, but we love other things too. We need to extend ourselves and simply start talking to people. We have to learn to be unselfish. Stop demanding that others connect with us via OUR interests–books, craft, writing–and take initiative. We need to find the common ground and extend ourselves and connect where the potential READER feels comfortable.

Surely you have friends, family or coworkers on Facebook who are not writers. Who are they talking to? Who are their friends? Start poaching (befriending) normal people and talk to them. If you meet a pet lover on Twitter who works as an engineer and he is nice? Look at who his friends are and extend yourself. Hey, I am a pal of Jim’s. Thought I would say hello. (DO NOT pitch to them, just talk and be cool).

Just once a day make it a point to add non-writers who are active on social media to your network. Pay attention to them and start a dialogue. Be genuine and positive, and that will be STICKY. People crave attention and positive energy.

Next week we will talk more about why this is critical and how to use this tactic to reach the tipping point. Not all conversations have equal weight. But in the meantime? Let’s get sticky!

We Need to Be Sticky Writer Personalities–The Stickiness Factor applies to who we are as writer personalities. Chit-chat on social media is actually very valuable. People who repost, compliment, question, serve and are positive are MEMORABLE. We stick. People like us. When they think “writer” we become the first person they think about.

This is one of the reasons that it is beneficial to get out of the comfort zone and talk in other circles. As long as we are all hanging out with other writers we blend into the din. But, if we start talking to other people who love sports, parenting, knitting, the military, politics, animals, horses, celebrities, then we are now injecting ourselves into groups that are not comprised of people just like us. We stand out so we are a bit more “sticky.”

Pick a favorite channel on cable TV, a favorite show, or a video game, and I guarantee there is a Twitter # for it. Start talking to people who love #Lost or #AI, #Glee, #ESPN, #Oprah, #Ellen, #Halo #GoW. Profile your potential reader. What does she do with her day? Maybe she is a #teacher or she plays #WOW. Get creative and get out of that comfort zone.

Sure you can still hang out with writers, but we are your peers, not substitute for a fan base. To be sticky, we need to stick out.

Go to the websites of your favorite channels and shows and find their Twitter # and then make a column for it. Chat with people. I have columns for #GoW (Gears of War) ,#MW (Modern Warfare), #military because I am also an avid gamer and I am military. LOTS of great people in these groups.

We can use blogging to super increase this Sticky Factor. How? First, stop blogging about the same topics as every other writer. Blogging about writing is great, but not necessarily memorable. There are better things to blog about that can make you stick like Super Glue. Author blogs, written properly, are a FANTASTIC way to increase our Sticky Factor exponentially.

If you want to learn to get sticky with your blog, I highly recommend taking my Blogging for Author Brand Workshop. It’s only $40 and TWO months long (one month lessons and one month launch) and it is from the comfort of your home. There are tools and tactics that I am only sharing in my workshops and that I am saving for my next book, so this is a cool opportunity to get lessons I won’t be teaching on the blog.

Finally, We Need to Write Sticky Books–At the end of the day, THIS is why I teach social media for writers. We need to have time to write great books. Great books are STICKY. Sure, if I have a popular blog and a good social media presence I will probably sell some books. But, the only way my book can break past that initial layer of contact is to write a sticky book. Turn politeness into PASSION.

It is not enough for someone to buy our book. They must also love it so much that they can’t wait to tell someone, recommend our book or even buy a gift copy for a pal. THIS is how word of mouth wildfires get started. We will talk more about this next week and I hope you pick up a copy of The Tipping Point. It’s a fun read and highly relevant to all authors serious about creating a long-term fan base.

What are some things that make authors on social media memorable to you? What makes you want to share a message? What turns you off? What are your thoughts? Opinions?  I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of August, 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. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of August I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

Mash-Up of Awesomeness

Fave Stuff

My NEW favorite blog, Penelope Trunk’s Blog Blog Under Your Real Name and Ignore the Harassment LOVE THIS POST. Read THIS blog. “Awesome-sauce” as the brilliant Chuck Wendig would say.

Kait Nolan’s Can Cinderella Save Herself?

This is another gem (well they are all gems but this one is particularly shiny) Terrell Mim’s Living in the Dash. I cannot tell you how important it is that every one of you read this blog.

Writing Stuff

Don’t Be a Cheerleader for Crappiness–25 Things You Should Know about Self-Publishing by Chuck Wendig

Why Your Blog’s “About” Page Matters by Joel Frielander

Are You Keeping Yourself on a Short Leash? Great post about getting outside of the comfort zone by Kerry Meacham

What Do I Look Like, a Protag? Great advice about how to describe our protag without being ham-fisted and obvious.

The Changing Landscape of Publishing for Writers by NYTBSA Bob Mayer

Playing to Your Strengths by Jenny Hansen

Behold the Power of a Nap by Jennifer Hale

The Great Back-Story Debate by the amazing writing teacher James Scott Bell

How I Do It: Ease Into Responsibility by Jody Hedlund

Three Keys to Marketing in the Current Fiction Environment by Michael Hyatt

Three Things that Come First before You Tackle Social Media by the brilliant WD contributing editor Jane Friedman over at the awesome writer resource Writer Unboxed

Is Your Writing Group Helping or Hurting Your Career? by Steenah Holmes

You are Not Tolstoy or Dickens by Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner

How to Get Your Blog Post on Google’s 1st Page by Keli Gwyn

The Anti-Procrastination Diet by Roni Loren

How Much Time Do We Really Need to Write? by Natalia Sylvester

Funny Stuff

The Must-Have Urban Redneck Belt by Natalie Hartford

Planking–Not Just for Pirates Anymore by Piper Bayard

Lili Tufel’s Top Ten Signs You’re Married to an Author

My Dirty Little Secret by Tameri Etherton

Fun and Nerdy Fact Blogs

Who Were the Celts? by Kate Wood

The post The Secret to Selling Books Part I–Let's Get Sticky appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Actual photo of Kristen Lamb on the inside.

When I first saw Google + pop up on the social media radar, I tried to ignore it. But, as an expert people tend to believe we know what we’re doing. I have tried to convince you guys that I make this up as I go, but alas I some of you sent me messages like this:

So, what do you think of Google +?

Um is… Crap. Is it too early to drink? a viable answer?

I was just kind of hoping they would stop inventing stuff for a week or two so I could get caught up. Can we ever keep up with it all? Social media is not immune to evolution. Some things work, others don’t. People behind the technology are always asking if there is a way to streamline. Can we make this better? More user-friendly? Can we make it easier for people to interact? To connect? To filter out all the white noise? I can’t blame them. It keeps the programmers off the streets, even if it gives us stress hives.

It seems that Google is taking on this challenge with launching Google +. So, as your Social Media Jedi Master, I am taking this bullet for the team. Thanks to one of my blog followers I scored an invitation to be part of the beta testing for the one social network to rule them all…Google +. So I will be pressing buttons and shouting expletives at my computer so you don’t have to.

It is too early to give a good opinion. I don’t quite understand how THIS will be different, wonderful and fantastical. Maybe it will be, but time will tell.

You guys might find this shocking, but I hate anything new. I am really an 58 year old Jewish woman from Long Island, New York at heart, and all this technology makes me seriously verklempt. The fact that I have written two best-selling technology books is proof God has a sense of humor.

I get set in my ways and, like a lot of people, I don’t care for change. And sometimes, especially when it comes to technology, I want to yell ENOUGH, ALREADY!  I feel like I am caught in a digital riptide and drowning in digital daiquiri mix. I have the schmeltz.

The Downside of New and Improved

It is wonderful that the social networking sites want to always be offering something new and shiny, but sometimes? I wish they would leave things alone. For instance, I LOVE Twitter and TweetDeck, yet it seems that every other day there is a new version that I need to install. Really? I just figured out the buttons on last week’s version, and now I need to install a NEWER version? A faster version? A version that allows me to tweet straight from my brain without having to type?

Facebook is no better. Oh we know you just finally figured out version 37, but version 38 WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!

I think that this was a big reason MySpace collapsed. Yes, I mention MySpace in WANA. Feel free to ignore all 5 of those pages.  Yet, MySpace is a lesson in how “new and improved” can go tragically wrong.

MySpace was a force to be reckoned with a few years ago, but MySpace wasn’t happy with prosperity. They had to new and improve and add more and more gizmos, ads, games, apps, gadgets and flashy thingies. Eventually, people had so much crap on their profile that the page loaded slower than Eeyore on Quaaludes. No one could open a profile without risking a computer crash….which defeated why MySpace was so popular. Originally, it was a simple way to connect, hang out and make friends. MySpace “new and improved” so much that you risked a seizure every time you tried to visit a profile.

MySpace also lost sight of what it did well and kept trying to copy Facebook. The irony of this approach was that people who liked MySpace generally didn’t like Facebook. So here MySpace was copying the very place many of us were trying to avoid. In the end, all this copying of Facebook was the source of the hemorrhage of people to Facebook. If MySpace was going to be Facebook, then um, why not just go hang out on Facebook?

A couple of months ago, Facebook decided to force everyone to change the layout of their profile.Oh, they made it seem like it was optional at first (kind of like the Nazi party). Every day when I logged in, Facebook would have a pop up message touting the “new look” and ask if I was ready to change. Every day I said no. I’d finally figured out where everything was.

Then, one day I logged in and … everything was moved. I know they are trying to be nice, but that’s kind of like surprising Helen Keller with an extreme home makeover while she’s away on vacation. The intention is noble, but the result is not pretty when Helen falls into a wine cellar she didn’t have when she left to visit relatives in Florida.

Not all of us work for Facebook. We have other things to do with our time than try to figure out yet another page layout. Leave it alone. Really.

Cell phones….yeah. Don’t get me started.

Are People Wanting to Move Again?

I know that Google + is promising new and wonderful things, but it kind of reminds me of when I was young and used to move every three months. Sure moving to a new place was fun and exciting when everything I owned could be packed in less than two hours…but now? When my crap would fill two moving vans? I am just not that motivated.

I think that maybe some of the younger generations that are new to social media will probably embrace Google + far quicker.  To put it bluntly, they have less crap to move.

Many people have been building Facebook pages for years. I have 4000 followers on Twitter. Do I really want to start anew? One of the reasons I kept hoping MySpace would pull its digital head out of its digital butt was because I had a lot of hours invested in that network. I didn’t want to start all….over….again.

I am hoping Google + has learned from these issues and can make transitioning easy.

Change Can Be Good

Okay so I have whined now for a few hundred words and you see what I mean about really being an 58 year old Jewish woman from Long Island, New York. I don’t like change. Again, this is why I am proof that God digs irony. Yet, in ways I think that this is an attribute that has made me better at teaching social media to writers.

Many social media people LOVE gadgets and gizmos and the newest way of doing anything shiny. They are lovely people, but a lot of them have the attention span of a ferret with a cocaine habit. Many of them just don’t get that we still have to write books, too.

Yes, we need change. Change can be great. I hated cell phones and e-mail when they first came out, and now I am tethered permanently to both. But, change for the sake of change is a waste of time and energy. I think it is wise for us to pan back and take a minute to think. See if we really need to change, why we need to change and when we need to change.

Google + is promising to make social media a better experience. I am thinking it might be a meta-program (I think that’s a word. If not, now it is). A meta-program to act as a hub to for all other social media sites. But, I had to give a DNA sample and 32 background references to create a profile so I haven’t started digging under the hood yet.

So, I am tying off to a safety line. I have my backpack full of Red Bull and Dr. Phil books. I’ll go whack it with a hammer and see if it screams then report back. Just because there is a hot new social networking fad is no reason to tear down the tents and set off for parts unknown. But, we also want to make sure we aren’t clinging to a sinking ship.

*cough* MySpace.

Google + might be the new evolution of social media. But it could be a giant brain cramp that we can avoid. I will keep you posted. So what do you guys think? Any of you using Google +? If you are, can you come find me? I’m the series of 0s and 1s wandering around crying. I have a balloon on my arm and am wearing an orange jumper. Are you guys tired of the “new and improved”? What’s your opinion? Are you excited? Do you need a Tums? Are you also an 58 year old Jewish woman from Long Island on the inside? Are you verklempt? We can compare bunions.

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of July, 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. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of June I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

Last Week’s Winner of 5 page critique is Thomas Ross. Please send 1250 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.

Mash-Up of Awesomeness

FUNNY Post by Lani Wendt Young Don’t You Dare Breathe on That Baby

The Rules of Social Media Optimization 

Self-Publish–Is It a Dirty Word?

Social Media–Protection from Facial Recognition Software

Failing Doesn’t Make You a Failure by Jen Rothman

60 Tips to Improve Your NF Writing (this is excellent for blogging, too)

Literary Agents: An Endangered Species? by the brilliant and talented Anne R. Allen

Can getting published make you happy? by Michelle Davidson Argyle

Will self-publishing hurt your chances of being traditionally published? by Agent Rachelle Gardner

What’s the difference between plot and story?

Why Understanding Conflict Will Make You a Better Writer by Bubblecow

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post Initial Thoughts on Google + appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Whoa. Sorry about that. Thanks for cleaning me up.

We are now over halfway through 2011, and the New Year’s Resolutions are long forgotten, dulled by the screams of children racing through your house on a sugar high. Perhaps this was the year you vowed to take that novel more seriously, and you set out with bold promises of daily word count.

The first week of January, you were off like a shot. The creativity was flowing, and you couldn’t remember a time you felt so alive. You might have even wondered why you put this off so long? Fingers flying across the keyboard, you laughed in the face of all your naysayers.

Now? Seven months in?

Calgon! Take me away!

Maybe you are heading into July, and, what was so exciting and fun in January, now feels more like slogging through a rice paddy wearing ankle weights and snow shoes. I feel your pain. So when you hit that mental wall, what can you do to push past and find that same kind of energy? Here are some tips to help.

1. Recognize that stalling is normal.

When we start off with a new sparkly idea, it is like a first date that goes really well. We spend every spare second dreaming of our next time together, and every moment apart is torture. But, like the dating world, the one month point with our new project marks a transition in our relationship. This is the point we often ask, Can I commit for the long haul? ‘Til “published” do we part? By 6, 7 months? There needs to be a committment.

Be encouraged. Just because we don’t get giddy every time we think of our work in progress in no way means that something is wrong. It just means we have an opportunity to dig in and go deeper. This is no longer a fling, a wild fleeting affair. It’s a commitment. That’s a good thing.

2. Revisit the plan.

There is a saying we used all the time when I was in sales. Fail to plan and plan to fail. Many writers (I’ve been guilty) just take off writing without any prior preparation. It is usually about the 30,000 word mark that this initial failure to plot starts becoming clear. We stare at our screen and realize our story is so complicated the reader is going to need a GPS and a team of sherpas to navigate our plot.

What went wrong?

Maybe we should have spent a tad more time plotting. We have a choice. Keep writing, or stop and make a plan. Often, if we will just go back to the original idea and construct even a basic outline, we can easily see where we got off track. Think of it like taking a wrong turn on a road trip. We can keep driving and hope to stumble across a familiar interstate, but the better idea might be to drag out that AAA map we ignored in the beginning because we wanted to be “spontaneous.”

Frequently, when we hit a mental wall in our writing, it is because our subconscious is shouting, “You took a wrong turn!” If we will listen and retrace our steps, we will be cooking down the Inspiration Interstate in no time.

3. Revisit our goals.

At the beginning of every new year, a condition called RDD sweeps the globe, and writers are particularly vulnerable. What is RDD? Reality Deficit Disorder. I don’t know if it’s the champagne or peer pressure that makes us believe we can lose thirty pounds, build our own California Closet out of spare Popsicle sticks,
and win the Pulitzer by summer.

Let’s be honest. New Year’s Day makes us crazy. Spring Break only reinforces the original crazy idea and summer is the first time we can really grab hold of some sanity.

In January, we seem to lose all grasp on reality and forget that we do have a life. We have spouses, children, pets, day jobs and needy houseplants that all need our attention, too. These things don’t just go away because we decided to write a book, which you have probably been reminded of in the past seven months.

Oh yeah, I guess I do need to sleep.

If you are burned out, then it might be a good time to revisit your original goals and grant some grace for temporary insanity. Clearly the original goal was a tad unrealistic if it’s now summer and you are only halfway finished and are now afraid of your computer. Obviously you needed longer than 8 weeks to write
your opus magnus.

Just because we move a personal deadline does not mean we have failed. Sometimes our creativity will lock up simply because it is caught like a deer in the headlights. Give your muse some breathing room, and she might just spark back to life.

Summertime is a great time to set new goals. If you are live in TX it is currently hotter than the hammered-down hinges of Hell and you are pretty much forced to stay indoors to keep from spontaneously combusting anyway. Make use of that indoor time.

4. Focus on love.

One great way to rest and recharge our creativity is to read. Remind yourself why you love to write. Get away from your own work and out of your own head for awhile. Go to the pool and read the kind of stuff that inspired you to want to write that novel in the first place. This is a good way to recoup, but still be “working.” Often, by “plugging in” to the creativity of others, we can recharge and be ready to write in no time.

5. Write No Matter What—Word Poop is Part of Life

One of my favorite quotes is by Stephen King. The amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work. 

If the goal is to do this writing thing for a job, we just have to get up and do it anyway. If you aren’t currently writing full-time, this is the time to train. It doesn’t get any easier; the demands just get steeper and the
deadlines actually mean something. There are consequences.

I have chapters due to my agent. He needs 15,000 words. In the past 6 weeks, my grandmother has been in the hospital three times and nearly died twice of a bacterial infection (she is fine now), I had surgery on my right hand, and I have an 18 month old who actively pursues Death every waking moment. All great excuses  to not write, and it’s likely no one would have held it against me. But I wrote anyway. I want to be a big author one day and life is not going to stop to give me time to write. I figured it was great training for the next legs of my career.

Almost every day I sat at the computer I wrote pure unadulterated CRAP. I made writing goals of 3000 words and I wrote 3000 words of garbage. Not only did I write garbage, but every word was like pulling literary teeth. Why? I was tired, sore, strung out, and sometimes full of pain medicine. But I knew a little
secret.

The best writing is often behind a wall of garbage. We have to prime the pump. And, yes a lot of gross words coated in leaves, mud and squirrel dropping might come glopping out, but there will come a point where beautiful pristine spring-fresh awesomeness will start to flow and you will need a mighty large bucket to catch it all. It took 5 weeks of writing redundant junk to get to this past week. My writing has been better this week than ever. My subconscious has come up with stuff I never could have thought of deliberately. But my subconscious needed me at the keyboard clearing out the word excrement. I had to clear out my mind and then clean up my Book Baby.

Too many writers go to their “Book Baby” see it’s covered in word poop and they just figure they will come back when the baby smells like roses and angel kisses. Nope. It will still be covered in word poop and if you leave it long enough, your “Baby” will be painting the walls of your hard drive—

Okay, I’ll stop.

Just go change its diaper and get to work. It’s a Book Baby and word poop happens. It goes with all babies.

In the end, know that writing a book is more like a marathon. We have to train, prepare, and then pace ourselves, or we will end up curled in the fetal position on the side of the road waiting on the rescue van. It’s normal to make mistakes and have setbacks and feel less than thrilled about our decision to become a writer. What is important is to remember that all of the doldrums and depression is temporary, but the thrill of publication is forever.

What are some ways you use to bust past the writing doldrums? What do you think causes your creativity to “lock up?” What tactics do you use to get unstuck? How do you handle Word Poop?

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for this last bit of month of June, 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. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of June I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

Important Announcements

Due to 4th of July Holiday, winners will be announced on Wednesday.

I am teaching a Blogging to Build Your Brand Workshop at Write It Forward. Sign up HERE. If you want to blog and you need my dedicated help to helping you find your own unique brand and develop a plan for blogging, then the $40 Blogging to Build a Brand will fit that need. In this class I will run you through exercises to help find and create a brand as unique as you and then tailor it to connect with your future fans.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post Struggling with Burnout? Word Poop Happens appeared first on Kristen Lamb.