C. Aubrey Hall's Blog, page 34

Getting the Job Done

I’ll begin by apologizing for my recent erratic schedule of posts. I have no excuse, but I do have a reason.

Book edits.

This particular project is taking longer than I anticipated. Probably because mentally I’ve moved ahead to my next book. I’m building a new story world and sorting through potential plot events. Characters are standing by, auditioning for parts and wondering if they’re going to be hired. It’s all very exciting.

The edit, however, pulls me back to a fictional world I no longer inhabit regularly. It’s like being on a tour (See 10 countries in 8 days!) and waking up on the bus to learn you’ve slept through Antwerp. It’s hard to go back when, emotionally, I’ve moved on.

If you think of a story as fabric, then the plotlines and characters are the warp and the weft. Revising any section requires cutting a hole in that mesh and then trying to reweave it so that the mended patch isn’t detectable.

It takes a lot of thought. A lot of mental reconstruction. Much pondering of questions such as, What did I intend her motivation to be in this scene? Why is she doing this? What if I have her do that instead? What will the consequences be if I move the sword from X to Y, and have I traced down all those later references in the story to keep the consistency intact? What color are the troll’s eyes? Was that only mentioned in Book #2?

When you’re wrapping up the conclusion to a trilogy, these questions become ever more convoluted. So you debate with yourself. You emotionally sift through the options, trying to keep them narrow because time is short and you need to finish. You resist the temptation to invent a new character and completely rewrite chapters 9 through 12, and you constantly doubt and question yourself on every decision you make.

I have writer friends who love the revision process. They scramble hastily through their rough drafts, eager to start rewrites and editing.

Conversely, I live for the rough draft, the raw, quick creation of story unfolding from my fingertips. Can I capture it all as I envision it? Can I type fast enough to keep up with the dialogue flowing through my mind? This character wants to throw a plot twist into the story. Do I allow it? Maybe I’d better. Will it all come out the way I want?

It’s like a hunt for big game. You plan carefully ahead of time while being aware that your quarry is wild and likely to react unexpectedly. At the end of the safari, I feel as though I’ve captured the story. Or at least enough of it.

Triumph.

To me, edits are the least-exciting aspect of the writing process. However, I recognize that you really are in the occupation where you belong if you can love (or at least embrace) the drudgery that goes with it.

That’s paraphrasing an old adage. I know also that what’s drudgery for one author is the sublime element for another. Being a professional means doing what’s best for the story, even after the thrill of creation is long faded.

Meanwhile, I’d better get back to work ….

Plotting Responsibilities

Just when you thought all you had to do with plot was open with a hook, figure out the character motivation, throw some logic into the mix, remember that actions have consequences, and send your protagonist hurtling toward a dynamic, exciting climax …

there’s more!

What’s required of any plot in commercial fiction (if you want to be successful and/or garner readers on a consistent basis):

*An opening with trouble for the protagonist

*Trouble that escalates in the first three chapters

*An exciting event in the middle of the book that’s either a shocking plot twist or a major confrontation between the hero and villain

*A doozy of a climax

This small list ensures that you offer at least four high points in a long story. Each one should meet and exceed reader expectation.

One more thing … keep in mind that each turning point needs to be topped by the next one, and the next, all the way to the finale.

If you lead with your most exciting event, your plot will lose steam quickly.

Plotting

Perhaps the most sure-fire way in which to hold readers enthralled is through your plot. Are you delivering a terrific story? Are the unfolding events compelling, shocking, unpredictable, humorous, delightful, tragic, or … (name your own adjective)?

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for my campus students comes when they try to derive a plot from their story premise. They have an exciting idea in their mind. It’s captured their imagination. They’re anxious to start writing it.

Trouble is, a deep gulch separates them from this glimmering concept and actual story events. They may contrive a number of activities for their characters to do, but that’s not a cohesive plot either.

So what exactly IS a plot and how do we come up with one?

First step:  Think about the characters you have in mind. Figure out what each one wants. That desire should be something specific. It will be used as a goal.

If you don’t know what a character wants, you aren’t ready to plot.

Don’t worry if you haven’t chosen your protagonist yet from these preliminary characters. Identify each goal from each story person. That should help you choose which one will lead and which one will oppose.

Second step:  Determine the motivation behind each goal.

If you don’t know why a character wants something, you aren’t ready to plot.

It’s equally important for you to understand the motives of your protagonist as well as your antagonist. It’s also important for you to know the motives of secondary characters.

Motivation is frequently forgotten or overlooked, yet it’s the key to plausible character actions.

When you know why a character is willing to fight for the water rights to his ranch, then you’ll probably have a clear idea of what that character will do to save it.

Third step:  With the goals and motivations of your characters in mind, draft a list of actions the protagonist will take to accomplish her goal. Then draft a list of actions the antagonist will take.

Are those actions leading to direct confrontations between the two individuals?

If not, try again. Look at their goals to see if they’re in opposition.

For example, Polly Protagonist wants to be promoted to  sales manager.

Annie Antagonist is a co-worker who wants the same position.

Only one of them can have the job.

Polly wants it because she’s got her sights on a corporate career. She sees the management position as the first step toward realizing her dream of becoming president of the company someday. She’s worked hard and believes the promotion will validate her choices as well as reward her for all she’s done so far.

Annie wants the job because she’s a single mom and chronically short of money. The management position means a bigger salary. That means she can afford a better daycare for her youngest child and braces for the eldest. It means she can move out of their crummy one-bedroom apartment into a nicer place, and they won’t go short on groceries at the end of each month.

See the difference? One woman is following a dream. The other is clawing for survival.

We can already envision conflict, can’t we? Polly’s plans for her presentation are going to be sabotaged by the more desperate Annie. How far will Annie go? What steps will she take to eliminate her competition?

If I were actually writing this story, I’d need to strengthen Polly’s motivations after the first skirmish because Annie’s going to try harder than Polly would initially expect. Round one would go to Annie. What will Polly do in Round two? Surrender or fight back?

Fourth step:  With a list of plot events, you can then set them in order. What scene will happen first? As a result of that, what will take place next? And next?

With an efficient groundwork laid in place, ordering the plot events becomes a matter of cause and effect, action and consequence.

Your plot will be plausible and cohesive.

Fascinate Me: The Intriguing Character

When I began my writing training, my characters weren’t much more than a name, hair color, and a series of tasks I wanted them to attempt. Sometimes I jotted down a list of dialogue points I wanted them to make in scenes. Without my list, I often got sidetracked and my scenes didn’t always come out the way I wanted.

Since then, I’ve learned there’s a lot more to characterization than that. What makes us love a certain character and remain indifferent to another? What makes one character live beyond the story he appears in, while others fade from memory the moment we shut the book? Why are some characters intriguing and others dull?

An intriguing character doesn’t have to be the good guy.

Count ‘em on your fingers … Hannibal Lecter, the Joker, Long John Silver, Captain Hook, Captain Bly, Bill Sikes, Sauron, Mrs. Danvers, Count Dracula, and Cruella de Vil … to name only a few memorable villains. (Yes, I left out Moriarty and Voldemort on purpose.) No doubt you can come up with many, many more, and there are lists of fictional villains on the Internet to jog your memory.

Let’s take Treasure Island’s Long John Silver as an example. He’s a ruthless, black-hearted pirate who signs on as ship’s cook. During the voyage, he deliberately befriends the young boy Jim, taking advantage of Jim’s naivete and trusting nature. He serves as a confidant and mentor to Jim, only to betray the boy later. Worst of all, when his true self is revealed, he expects Jim to stick with him and also turn on the others. Jim, of course, won’t do that. Silver reproaches the boy, saying plaintively, “I thought you and me was friends.”

Our fascination with Silver is less about his piracy and more about the psychological damage he’s wreaking.

Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a nasty piece of work. She hates the new Mrs. de Winter from the start and does her best to sabotage the young bride’s self-confidence, marriage, and chances of social success. Mrs. Danvers is the housekeeper, supposed to serve and assist. Instead, she despises Mrs. de Winter and preys on every weakness, even compelling the girl to almost commit suicide. Finally, when she can’t break the girl, Mrs. Danvers burns down the house.

If we look only at Mrs. Danvers’s cruel actions, we have a one-dimensional villain. It’s not until we examine her motivation that we can see her complexity. She loved the first Mrs. de Winter, a beautiful, vivid woman named Rebecca. She was Rebecca’s nurse and remained a servant to her–becoming housekeeper–even after Rebecca married. Mrs. Danvers can’t and won’t accept Rebecca’s death. Mrs. Danvers lays out Rebecca’s clothes each day, has preserved her room exactly as it was, has forced the household to continue doing everything the way Rebecca preferred. Mrs. Danvers has been warped by her grief. If she accepts the second Mrs. de Winter (who’s never named in the book), then she’ll have to accept Rebecca’s death. Mrs. Danvers is far too cruel and sick to evoke our compassion, but she’s anything but ordinary.

Not all intriguing characters are villains.

Consider Zorro, Superman, Batman, James Bond, Tarzan, Rhett Butler, and Sherlock Holmes–to name only a few.

What makes these fictional individuals so compelling?

I found the answer in Robert McKee’s book, Story, where he discusses a writing technique dealing with “true character.” McKee says that audiences are fascinated by characters whose true nature is in contrast to their outward appearance or behavior. At any moment, the mask may drop and we glimpse the real individual inside.

Zorro is literally masked. By day, he hides behind the mild persona of Don Diego. Batman is a wealthy businessman who dons the cowl to fight crime. Superman and Tarzan are also double-identity heroes. James Bond doesn’t wear a mask or costume, but we have a heroic super-spy capable of killing, jumping from airplanes, and blowing up facilities who conceals his violent abilities inside a tuxedo and suave demeanor. Each time we watch Bond sauntering through a glitzy casino with a beautiful woman on his arm, we’re anticipating the moment when the action hero will be revealed. Rhett Butler is not a crime fighter, but we never know when he will drop his mocking cynicism for kindness and generosity. Sherlock Holmes’s brilliant mind and deductive abilities are jeopardized by his cocaine addiction. We fear he will break apart, never to be mended by Dr. Watson.

In designing your characters, strive for a contrast between the surface and the truth. Look at the why behind their actions and make those motivations work. If you can create a complex character, chances are you’ll have a compelling character.

Whoa Now! Varying the Pace

My writing teacher, Jack Bickham, used to say, “Get on with the story.” He was talking about the tendency of the unsure writer to stall or slow down the story’s progression. Again and again, he stressed the necessity of keeping the pace fast. I’ve found his advice to be sound. Keep the pages turning. Keep readers from finding a stopping place. Keep things happening.

However, it’s just as possible to stumble with a story that’s too fast as with a story that’s too slow.

Any plot can become monotonous or dull if the pacing never varies. There are many terms for this: the story’s rhythm, the rise and fall of drama, the peaks and valleys of plot, etc.

Try this:

Bob darted around the corner with his Uzi held at waist level. He saw the target ahead–a shadow waiting for him in the alley. A flower of flame burst to life in the darkness. A split-second later, Bob heard the rat-tat staccato of gunfire. The bullets chipped pellets of brick, stinging when they struck him. He ducked, rolled, came up, returned fire. His opponent twisted, flung back by a hit, and fell. Bob raced forward. That was one down, but he knew seven more assailants waited between him and his goal.

This moves quickly, but if I gave Bob a moment to catch his breath and weigh a couple of options before he takes on Enemy #2, it would be more effective. Hit the reader with too much action, happening too quickly, with no chance to process, and within a few pages the reader’s circuits will be shorting out from overload. Burn out your reader, and the book is put down.

Let’s try again:

Bob eased his way across the corner, holding his Uzi at waist level. He concentrated on moving silently, taking his time, placing the soles of his shoes precisely in contact with the alley’s pavement. He was wearing a dark pair of New Balance cross-trainers, secure and reliable. Still, he couldn’t afford to let them squeak or scuff the cement. He knew that alert ears were ahead of him, ears listening for any sound that might signal an attack. Ahead, a shadow moved, and a burst of flame from a muzzle was all the warning he received before the echoing crash of gunfire bounced off the walls around him. Bob ducked, breathing hard and fast. His hands were suddenly sweaty on his weapon. He was shaking with adrenaline, unable to force his fingers to do what they’d been trained to do. Shoot back, he snarled at himself. Just shoot back! But everything had slowed down. He could taste sweat and blood in his mouth. His ears thundered from the staccato hailstorm of bullets. He wanted to throw himself flat on his belly and scream, but instead he brought up his weapon, and squeezed the trigger. The Uzi bucked in his hands, sending death in reply. Bob saw his opponent twist and fall with a choked cry. Then all was quiet, except for the ringing in his ears. His nostrils were full of cordite stench. He let his knees wobble beneath him as he sank down, breathing hard. He hadn’t killed anyone since that mission three years ago, the one he’d blanked from his mind as much as possible. Now, the smells and sounds came flooding back, the stuff of nightmares.

He forced himself to stay focused, and not dwell on the past. That was one, he thought. Only seven to go. This way in had been compromised now. They would be expecting him. Maybe he should retreat, but if he failed his mission how could he face the …

Gak! Enough of that! Here, I’ve deliberately written this action sequence to be slow. There’s too much concentration on descriptive details at points where Bob needs to be less self-absorbed and more focused on staying alive.

Pace, like so many aspects of writing technique, is a question of balance.

Keep Pages Turning

You keep readers engaged by utilizing hooks, plot twists, conflict, rising stakes, motivation, sympathetic characters, and unpredictability.

There’s an old Ronald Reagan movie called KING’S ROW. In the film, Ronnie suffers an accident and is badly injured. The town doctor amputates his legs–not because Ronnie needs an amputation, but because the doctor doesn’t want Ronnie and his daughter to become a couple. No actual gore is shown, but during the doctor’s grim assessment of this injured young man and his quiet orders to the other men to clear the room so he can take out his bone saw, the pace is slow but INTENSE. If you were reading this in prose, you would be turning pages.

Lesson to learn: Don’t rely on narrative summary alone to turn pages. Readers care more about what’s happening than how fast the events are unfolding.

No Stopping Places

Typically, readers want to put the book down at the end of chapters. Many like to read before they go to sleep at night and don’t intend to get through more than a few pages at a time.

A writer’s intention should be to prevent readers from laying down the book.

To achieve this, you need hooks at the end of every chapter. These can be cliffhangers, questions, plot twists, etc.

You should put hooks at the beginnings of chapters, too. Maybe you shift viewpoint or use catchy dialogue. These tactics can keep the reader intrigued and engaged.

Watch out for boring sections of your story. Have you allowed the conflict to become circular? (Straighten out the scene and make it work. Throw in a twist or an unexpected tactic from the antagonist.)

Are you stalling because you don’t know what you want to write next? (Figure it out and then cut out the padding.)

Are you relying too much on description and imagery to make pretty settings? (Readers like a sense of place, but too much description slows the pace.)

Keep Things Happening

Are the characters standing around talking instead of doing?

Has the conflict gone flat?

Can you add more conflict?

Is character dialogue chatty small talk or is it advancing the plot?

When was the last time you utilized a plot twist?

The point is that you shouldn’t stick to one speed from start to finish. You shouldn’t rely on one or two techniques all the time. When you become predictable, your story becomes boring–whether it’s overloaded with events of equal weight happening so fast that no one can make sense of them or whether it’s burdened with dragging, slow introspection from your navel-gazer of a protagonist.

The Return of Sean!

In the 1990s, I wrote 12 science fiction novels under the pseudonym Sean Dalton. They were 70,000-word action adventure yarns and fell into two series: OPERATION SPACE HAWKS and TIME TRAP. Space opera and time travel–two loves of mine.

The first time travel adventure, TIME TRAP, has just become available online in Kindle version.

Here’s the new cover, created by the talented artist Keith Birdsong.

Venturing into electronic publishing is indeed a “brave new world.” Given that the publishing industry has experienced relatively few radical changes in its 150+ years of history, the e-book has turned the business upside down in an astonishingly short amount of time. I’m delighted to try out this new way to make old books available again.

TIME TRAP is the first of six time-travel adventures featuring a historian named Noel Kedran. It’s set in medieval Greece, a small community called Mistra that existed at the outskirts of ancient Sparta. I wanted to write about this obscure setting because I’ve climbed the mountain where the fortress ruins still stand. I’ve gazed up at the formidable, snow-capped peak of Mt. Taygetus. I’ve seen the dusty plain of Sparta. That brief visit resonates with me still. Mistra is a very special place.

Acid and time have eaten away this photo’s clarity, but here’s a view of the Frankish fortress that I used in TIME TRAP.

Here’s the road leading up to the gates of the palace. At the very top of the mountain in the background stands what’s left of the fortress. Looks like a good place for an ambush, don’t you think?

Some of the crumbling walls of Mistra. Isn’t the stonework cool?

Fishy, Fishy–More Hooks

The first hook you write in your plot may be its most important one–not so much in terms of story advancement but in catching a reader.

After that, how many hooks do you need and how often should you place them?

For grins, I’ll divide hooks into divisions and title them as

                        Minnows

                                       Marlin

                                                Sharks

                                                        Whales

Let’s deal with them in reverse order, or from least used to most used.

Major hooks (whales) should be set at key turning points in the plot’s progression. They’re huge plot twists. They should really surprise readers, maybe even galvanize them out of their chairs, saying “Whoa!”

You need a whale of a hook (groans, please) in the center of your book. For example, [**spoiler alert **] in the middle of the Dick Francis novel, HOT MONEY, the house is blown up.

A book will probably have two such enormous hooks, possibly three, depending on its genre and the intensity of the stakes. The advantage of these hooks should be evident. The disadvantage of using them is that each successive whale should be larger. You must keep topping yourself through the course of the story. Agatha Christie’s mystery, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, ends with a massive plot twist so effective that I’m not going to reveal it to you here.

Use the whale too soon, and your story dries up to a disappointing finale. Use a whale too often, and you’ll either become absurd and/or campy.

So, use a killer whale in the middle of the story and a humpback in the story climax.

Moving on … the hooks I consider to be sharks can be plot twists or turning points. They should be startling and intense. I often think of them as “stingers.” In thrillers, a shark is the first revelation of the villain to readers. Each time viewpoint shifts back to the villain, another shark is placed.

Sharks may also appear at the end of chapters, because you never want a chapter to close without grabbing the reader in some way.

Sidney Sheldon’s book, IF TOMORROW COMES, opens with a shark-level hook: “She undressed slowly, dreamily, and when she was naked she put on a red negligee so the blood wouldn’t show.”

The marlins are strong and agile. Like their real counterparts–the actual sporting fish–marlin-type hooks exist to keep the reader entertained and the pace moving along.

Marlin hooks fall at the end of scenes. All scenes should end with hooks. Some will be quite small. Some will be intense. But ordinary scenes advance the story via strong setbacks (your marlins). I also recommend that, whenever possible, you open your story with a marlin as well.

Think of it leaping from the water, flashing bright in the sun, catching the reader’s eye and heart.

Okay, now for the minnows. I know they skew my metaphor because they aren’t salt water fish like the others. But minnows are small, insignificant creatures. We don’t even eat them. We only use them for bait.

Bait … a key word. Don’t you set a hook with bait?

Yep. Minnows are small questions raised in readers’ minds. We use one, or three, or five at a time. We fill a page with them, or a chapter. Minnows seem insignicant when they appear, but they’re niggling at the back of the reader’s thoughts. Slip in enough minnows, and you create a worry for the reader, a concern about a character’s safety or situation. You use minnows to build anticipation for a coming event. You let minnows entice readers into turning another page, and another, and another unti–pow!–was that a shark that just hit?

The Happy Angler

I’m pretty sure we all realize that it’s not enough to catch a reader in the opening line. You can hook a fish with an attractive lure, but that fish can slip its hook and get away if you don’t pay attention. Same thing with readers.

Over this past weekend, between bouts of Olympic action, I watched one of my favorite classic screwball comedies: LIBELED LADY, 1936. It has a super cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow. I won’t go into the plot, but my favorite part of the movie is where Powell’s character is trying to impress Loy and her father and gain their trust. He goes fishing with them, pretending to be an expert fly fisherman, even though he really knows nothing about the sport. Separating himself from the others, Powell positions himself upstream where he can’t be observed. He makes a couple of casts, and surreptitiously looks at his handbook on fishing that he’s hidden in his creel. When a trout snaps his lure, he’s suddenly floundering around in the water with no idea of how to play the fish or reel it in.

[Powell was an actor able to handle dramatic as well as comedic roles. In this film, he displays an ability for physical comedy that's equal to Cary Grant's. But I digress.] 

The method is to give the fish enough line to swim and thrash about until it’s tired. Then you reel it in until it resumes its struggle. That’s when you give it line again. Reel in a fish that’s not exhausted and can still fight you hard, and you run the risk of breaking your line. Give too much line to a strong fish, and it will perhaps yank both rod and reel from your hands. Then you’ve lost your equipment and your catch–which is what happens to the character Johnson in the Howard Hawks’s 1944 film TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, staring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (with William Faulkner as one of the screenwriters). Johnson is marlin fishing. He’s brash, stupid, arrogant, doesn’t know what he’s doing, and refuses to be instructed.

Now–to get out of the water and back onto the page–you hook your reader in the opening sentence or paragraph of your story. But then what do you do?

Are you going to lose your reader midway through Chapter 1? Will you lose your reader in the first four chapters? Last night, I starting reading a Robert Crais mystery. I made it to about Chapter 5, but this morning I picked up Raymond Chandler instead and am having a much better time.

Our mission–should we choose to accept it–is to entice, trick, beguile, and intrigue readers into staying with us from start to finish. It’s our job to make readers willing to keep turning pages.

How do we do that?

*Great Plot

*Intriguing & Sympathetic Characters

*Quick but Varied Pace

*More Hooks

I’ll discuss each of these in turn in the series to come.

Hook!

You’ve got about 25 words to hook a reader on page 1 of your story.

Not 25 paragraphs or 25 pages. Words, folks. It equals out to an average-length sentence.

Ergo, the first sentence of your story should grab a reader’s attention strongly enough that the reader finishes reading all of page 1 and turns to page 2.

What kind of hook you use is up to you and your story instincts. Some hooks are crude and some are sublime.

You want to be startling, intriguing, dramatic, vivid, and bold.

You don’t want to open with a long-winded passage of description. Please resist the urge to begin with pages of story background or an explanation of how your planet Mithar developed its unique mythology.

“But readers need to know all that in order to understand the action that’s to come!” wailed a student of mine when I told him to cut the first 50 pages of his fantasy manuscript.

Not a chance, kid.

Readers want to know a few simple things when they start a story:

1) Whose viewpoint are they in.

2) Where is the story located.

3) What’s happening now.

Why do we need viewpoint so fast? It helps orient readers to your imaginary world. It gives readers someone to connect with, maybe even like enough to keep reading. Think of viewpoint as a conduit into your story.

As for where it’s taking place, that simply means day or night, raining or dry, city street or the hay loft. Establishing the setting doesn’t mean including a green Michelin Travel Guide.

Get into the story action fast. If you’re stalling, you either haven’t any confidence in your plot, you don’t know your protagonist, or you’re scared. Probably you’re scared because you don’t know your lead character and you haven’t worked out your plot to any useful degree. Iron out those problems and then begin the story in action.

Whatever action your protagonist is engaged in, make it current to the story situation. Not past history, not background. Keep readers guessing a little. Keep them intrigued. Keep enticing them with hints of explanation to come … later.

If you’re fly-fishing in Montana, you don’t stand in the stream and explain to the trout that you’re going to fillet him and fry him up in cornmeal for that night’s supper before you cast your lure.

Chances are all that talking will scare the fish away.

Here are two samples of opening lines from published novels. Consider whether the hook answers the three questions I mentioned above and whether you would at least read the next paragraph.

I know which one I like best. How about you?

1) As Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, stared at the young woman who had just barged her way into his London residence, it occurred to him that he might have tried to abduct the wrong heiress last week at Stony Cross Park. (from Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas)

2) “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast. (from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White)

See Jumbo Dance

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Cecil B. DeMille’s THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. One summer, my cousins and I got to see a performance of the Ringling Brothers Circus in El Paso, Texas. Three rings going at the same time. Trapeze! Horses! Tigers riding elephants! On all sides, in every direction, there was something bright, wonderful, and spangled to catch your eye.

Same thing goes on in the world of fiction.

Writers often like to think of themselves as reclusive hermits hidden away, creating characters and special worlds all by themselves.

In fact, writers are performers. They should remember that the stories they produce for publication are being paid for by a public that wants to be entertained.

Are you a literary writer? Is your favorite novel SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS? Do you scoff at genre fiction and hold up your nose at the commercial market? Do you spend hours polishing every word, every nuance of meaning in your prose? Is your ambition to write a critically acclaimed masterpiece that even Oprah will love?

You’re still a performer, baby. Just like Kiri Te Kanawa’s soaring arias sung before a black-tie crowd. They’ve paid big money to hear the soprano sing, and they don’t want an evening of sour, off-key notes.

But maybe you’re a commercial writer instead. You write paranormal romance or maybe you love steampunk or you craft mysteries. You know that plot and characters count as much as style, and you aren’t afraid to admit that you write for money.

Dressed up or down, we put on a show. And our reader is the person strolling along the carnival midway with exactly $7.99 left in her pocket after paying admission to the fair. She can buy fried chocolate-dipped bacon and a drink or she can spin around the Ferris wheel or she can go see the bearded baby and the two-headed horse.

“Hurry! Hurry! See the colossal wonder of all time! “

I’ve stretched the metaphor far enough. Here’s the point: how are you going to get a reader’s attention? How do you attract an individual into plucking your book off the shelf (or clicking a Buy Now button) when there are hundreds–maybe thousands–of competitors around you?

Yes, I see a hand waving frantically for my attention.

“I know! I know!” says Hermione Student. ”You attract reader attention with the book cover!”

Sure. The one aspect of your book that’s the least in your control unless you self-publish. And even then …

Let’s consider covers briefly:

In legacy publishing, the cover is designed to catch the reader’s eye. That works slightly. Everything depends on whether a bookstore clerk has faced out your pretty book so a reader will see more than the spine. 

A small percentage of the reading population will buy a book primarily because of its striking cover.

I knew someone who used to buy Signet Regency romances because she wanted to “collect all the covers.” Once Signet changed artists, this individual stopped buying the books. (Hardly the type of “reader” I want. How about you?)

An extremely effective book cover in recent years has to be THE LUXE by Anna Godbersen. This teen novel featured a girl in a splendid ball gown guaranteed to make most female hearts beat faster. Even women who didn’t buy the book recognized the cover and usually asked, “Is the story any good?”

Ah, that’s the crux of the matter. We not only want to catch the reader’s attention, but we want the reader to read what we’ve written.

The old publishing adage runs like this: the cover gets a reader to pick up the book. The back blurb gets the reader to open the book. The first page gets the reader to buy the book.

Fine. But what if you’re self-publishing instead? Determined to follow the e-reader route, you refuse to be a slave for some gigantic publishing house. You intend to blaze your own trail, establish your own destiny.

How will you attract reader attention electronically? There are ways and means by which to publicize yourself, of course. Let’s consider once again the cover. Will you choose some generic freebie that has all the appeal of a posterboard with crooked hand lettering? Or will you hire an artist? The latter course costs money, and writers usually are reluctant to shell out.

If you can work Photoshop and/or draw digitally, you can design your own cover. There’s a whole science behind the artistry–what the images convey and what attracts readers and what repels them. Go ahead and jump for it if you’re so inclined.

Electronically, you have a postage-stamp size to work with. Is it striking enough to get a potential reader to click Buy?

Once again, all it’s probably going to do for you is get a potential reader to look.

To get readers to buy, you have to close the sale.

You do that by how you open the story, by whether you hook the reader or the reader zones out.

Offer something on page 1 that’s going to convince the reader to pay for your immortal prose.

Gimmicks and publicity aside, it’s still about your performance. I’ll address that in my next post.