Sarah Allen's Blog, page 22

B is for Benedict (Yes. Cumberbatch.)

I know, I know, I talked about Colin Firth yesterday and I'm dedicating a whole post to the one and only Benedict Cumberbatch today, but now I just have to find a way to work in Meryl Streep and my fangirling will be over. (Ha. Ha ha.)

But don't worry, this is going to be more than just a gushy post. I could go on and on (and on) about Benedict's cheekbones alone, but our friend Benny is much more than just a pretty face. He has a freakish amount of talent and has made some smart decisions in his career that I think we writers can learn from.

So here we go.

Five Things Writers Can Learn from Benedict Cumberbatch

1. Do good work by playing to your strengths. Benedicts sharp features and low, rumbly voice are not just ridiculously swoonworthy, they have enabled him to fit well into roles like Sherlock Holmes and Smaug the dragon. If you watch Benedict, he has two sides that can almost be split into dark versus vulnerable, (Occasionally even goofy. Photobombing U2 at the Oscars, anyone?) He's tapped into that unique combination, sometimes emphasizing the dark (Kahn) and sometimes more vulnerable (Hawking). He knows what he can do, and does it brilliantly.

2. Be pleasant to work with. Every interview I've seen when people talk about working with Benedict Cumberbatch, the person always mentions how nice he is, and how easy he is to work with. It's pretty much as simple as that. If you're nice to work with, people will want to work with you. And that way, you can...

3. Work with fantastic people. Martin Freeman's face in that graveyard scene in the season 2 finale of Sherlock...I can't even. Martin Freeman absolutely keeps up with Benedict in that series, and I personally even see the power balance shifting in Martin's direction in season 3. And the creator/writer of the series, Steven Moffat, is also a genius, and has given Martin and Benedict absolutely genius writing to work with. To make that show as successful as its been, Benedict needed to not only be brilliant, which he was, but also work with brilliant people, which he did. There's success enough for all of us, and helping each other is the best way we have of getting there.

4. Vary your work. This is one of the more specifically strategic things I've noticed Benedict doing lately, and I don't know if it's a conscious decision or if he's just naturally making smart choices. The two movies he did in the past year were The Hobbit and 12 Years a Slave, and I don't think you get more varied than that. By taking on such a wide variety of roles he has been able to be in commercial blockbuster movies like Star Trek as well as play with the Oscars crowd. I think that's a lesson we can all learn from.

5. Be sharable and niche. I know that sounds like two things, but let me explain what I mean. The internet subculture absolutely adores Benedict Cumberbatch. If I'm not mistaken he was the most shared person on Tumblr last year. This happened because Benedict Cumberbatch was both niche, and sharable. He was niche because of his roles in Sherlock and Star Trek, franchises the people of the interwebz have adored for a long time. They fit the internet's niche. (The interesting thing is that he was so strongly niche he's now starting to explode into a mega star in blockbuster and Oscar nominated movies.) He is also immensely, ridiculously sharable. Do I need to explain why?

And we don't need knife-sharp cheekbones and luminescent eyes to be niche and sharable, either. All we need to do is tell our own, unique types of stories, stick true to them, and then find visual and sharable ways to reach out to the internet community in our marketing. That's something we can all do, regardless of facial features.

There you have it. Five things we writers can learn from Benedict Cumberbatch. Anything else I should add to this list?

Sarah Allen

P.S. Welcome to all the new A to Z visitors! I invite you to subscribe to this here bloggy blog or connect on Facebook or Twitter or any of the other places via the big red buttons on the left side and make sure to leave me links to your profiles so we can stay cyber friends even when April is over, and forever! (And have Benedict's chrystaline eyes staring in to your soul for ever and ever and ever...)

A is for Adaptation

And here we go, everybody! The beginning of April, which means the A to Z challenge has officially begun!

As I said before, around here we're going to be talking about writing and creativity and marketing as an author and all that good stuff.

When I was coming up with topics for the month, my roommate (who knows me way too well) suggested I start with A is for Acolin Firth. And then B is for Bcolin Firth. (It's super super funny late at night when you make the sounds like Ahhcolin Firth. Trust me.) Anyway, I thought about it, and who doesn't want more Colin Firth, but alas, we're going to try and be serious. Very serious. Serious as a coffin nail. And everyone knows, coffin nails are theriuth bithneth.

Um, but here's a picture of Colin Firth anyway.


So. Adaptation. No, not the movie with Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage (I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the two of them exist on the same planet, let alone in one movie.)

Think of how many movies are adaptations of books. Lately it seems like every movie is an adaptation. But direct adaptation can be a very, very useful tool for novelists too, not just screenwriters.

I recently read a great book called A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan which is a futuristic, sci-fi adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. And think of all the great books by writers like Gregory Maguire and Robin McKinley that are adaptations of classic fairy tales. And we don't have to stop at fairy tales. Basically everything Shakespeare wrote was an adaptation of something else, and look how incredibly that turned out.

I think we writers worry so much about being original, when really that may be one of the worst things we can do. The best of all the people ever of all C. S. Lewis said, "in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." This applies when we're telling our own stories or if we're adapting other stories and making them our own.

I've always thought it would be fascinating to take secondary characters from fairy tales and find different ways of adapting their stories. I mean, Gepetto is pretty fascinating if you ask me, and I want to know more about him. And Captain Hook, although there are lots of great writers who have given us more of his story.

What stories and characters do you think it would be fun to adapt?

Sarah Allen

P.S. Welcome to all the new A to Z visitors! I invite you to subscribe to this here bloggy blog or connect on Facebook or Twitter or any of the other places via the big red buttons on the left side and make sure to leave me links to your profiles so we can stay cyber friends even when April is over, and forever! (And ever and ever and ever. I'm not the person staring in at your window. But I like your shirt. Just kidding, I'm not a creeper. Usually. Please be my friend.)

Getting Ready for A-Z!!

Y'all ready for this??

April is probably my favorite month of the year in the blogosphere. Arlee Bird's A-Z April Challenge has become a yearly tradition for so many people, including me.

As in years past, the A-Z challenge at this here bloggy blog will be writing focused. I've thought about doing a more specific theme, like movies, or marketing, or Benedict Cumberbatch. But I figure that I'll keep with tradition and keep things generally writing related. And weird. Cuz that's how we do around here.

Anyway, anybody else participating in the A-Z challenge this year? This will be I think my fourth year, and every year I'm totally stoked for the new connections and blog friends this blog-hop makes possible.

See you on April 1st, friends!

Write on!

Sarah Allen

The Writers Market Game Plan

So I picked up a copy of Writers Market a couple weeks ago, and I've been having way too much fun going through it. There are so many possible venues for publication it can be intimidating. Like, super intimidating. Not only are there the traditional literary magazines for all our short stories, but there's also a magazine for Christian truckers if I decided I wanted to write something for that venue.

So as I've been going through I've thought of a strategy I want to try and use with this book. See, while I have my own big projects that I'm working on (i.e. novel, screenplay, or short stories) I also think it would be a great idea to start pitching articles to magazines and trying to work on getting some publication credits that way. I think it would be great to have articles in all sorts of different magazines.

So what I'm thinking of doing is this: I am going to make a list of 10 or 15 magazines to start. I'll go through Writers Market and find 10 magazines I think would be fun to write for. Then I'll start going down that list, doing some research, reading some past articles and seeing if I would be a good fit. With smart phones, I can do that research anywhere I have a spare minute. Once I've decided on a magazine I'll work on crafting an article and a pitch and send that off. Then I'll just keep going down the list and see what happens!

Basically I want to use Writers Market as idea inspiration. I feel like tailoring a pitch or story to specific magazines is a good way to come up with ideas in the first place. Researching a magazine and reading past articles can easily be the catalyst for your own great article and story ideas.

Anyway, that's my little idea for the day. Do you guys use Writers Market in any way?

Sarah Allen

The President and the Helper Boy

The four of us gather in the "secret" attic room behind the wall of my bedroom in our old California house. I am ten or eleven, my sister Becca is nine, sister Rachel is seven, and poor little brother Jordan is five or six. We are in this room because when you have a secret attic chamber behind your bedroom wall in an old California house, why would you have club meetings anywhere else?
This is the opening meeting, as most of them are. (I had lots of ideas and no follow-through). This club was of course, my idea. Also I am the oldest, so I am the President. I am always the President.
Rachel is vice-president. It bothers me just a teensy bit that she's the vice-president because she's not the next in line age-wise, but Becca likes taking notes, so she's the secretary. I always make her the secretary. 
"And you're the Helper Boy," I say to Jordan.
"But I'm always the Helper Boy."
"We need a Helper Boy," I say. I made the title up just for him, because he wanted to be included and my knowledge of actual professional titles had been exhausted. "Go get chairs."
That is the Helper Boys main duty. Going downstairs and hauling four of the plastic white picnic chairs up to our meeting room. Apparently it's a good idea to give that task to the five year old.
My sisters and I wait patiently while the Helper Boy lugs the chairs from the front porch through the kitchen up the stairs and into our secret attic room. When all the chairs have been brought up we sit in a circle and Becca takes out our club notebook. There are a few torn out pages in the front of the notebook from previous false starts, but today I'm confident--as I always am--that this idea will stick. My clubs are always a strange mix of things. Like selling lemonade and our old beanie babies on the street and making a website about endangered species. We spend most the time talking about club names.
"I'm hungry," says Rachel.
I look at the Helper Boy. "Go get us some snacks," I say.
For his sake, it's a good thing my clubs never lasted more than a day.

Smart You vs. Dumb You

We as modern writers have a lot of wide-ranging things on our list of responsibilities. We pitch to editors, interact on social media, blog, query agents, submit to literary magazines, do different types of marketing and publicity. And of course, we write.

Some of these activities take a lot of brain power. Particularly the actual writing. But we all have days when we feel like we're in a mental fog, and are just too exhausted or stressed or sick to do anything that requires a lot of mental effort. However, if we sort and prioritize our time effectively, we can be productive both on the days when we feel smart as well as the days when we're feeling...not so smart.

Take advantage of Smart Days (or even just average days) to get a lot of writing done. That is the most important thing, obviously. You also want to be on the top of your game when you're writing an agent query or magazine article pitch.

Keep in mind, too, that you can set things up to make things easier for yourself when you're having a Dumb Day. If you keep a list of blog topics then if you're having a day when you're brain just isn't working right you have a list to fall back on.

And if you have a pitch or query already written, then the heavy lifting is done and you can send out pitches and queries even when you're feeling squeezed. Other things you can do on not-so-smart days include scheduling things up for social media (looking up funny cat pictures might be just the right activity for Dumb Days anyway). You can read and comment on blogs and let other peoples smarts lift you up a bit.

Hopefully these ideas can help you keep some momentum even on doldrums days. Any other ideas for things you can make progress on when the mental juices aren't flowing?

Write on!

Sarah Allen

(image source)

Can Books Compete With Television?

A few days ago well-known indie-author and blogger Hugh Howey wrote a post about how and if authors can compete with TV in this modern screen-obsessed age. I thought I'd add a few thoughts to the subject and see if we can brainstorm some ways to pull people's attention away from their screens long enough to read our books. Hugh Howey argues that it's a bad move to rely on the few people who will read no matter what rather than trying to expand our readership, and I'm inclined to agree. We all want to reach as many people as we can, right? And a lot of those people are watching TV.

So before we get into specific ideas I want to say one thing first of all. The most important thing. If we're going to make our books worth other peoples seriously important TV time (because it is important, I understand that) then our books have to be...well, THE SHIZ. They've gotta be absolutely the best we can make them. Our stories have to draw the reader in.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get into some specifics. Once our stories are worth turning off the TV for, how do we convince readers and TV watchers of that?

Perhaps using film elements in our marketing, i.e. making a book trailer. There are some really creative and memorable ones out there, all sorts of different styles. It could be worth checking them out and finding someone to make one for your book, or figuring out how to make your own.

People who say they hate to read, in most cases, just haven't found the type of books they like to read. This means that in order to find a larger readership for ourselves as authors, we need to spread our passion as readers. As a kid I had a chore chart and in the summer months part of that chore chart was to read for half an hour every day and I fully intend to implement the same thing when I'm raising kids. We could read whatever we wanted, we just had to read. Basically we need to influence an early start of reading wherever we can. When you're picking out birthday presents, pick books.

We also need to embrace technological innovation. And I'm not talking about print vs ebooks, because we are so past that, right? Right. What I'm talking about are all the ideas that float around about stuff like a Netflix for books, or Hugh Howey's own Pie program that aims to do things like phase out boring text books and hugely expand the types of books kids read in school, basically trying to change the gut reaction many kids have of books as "boring things." Basically what I mean is that we should keep our eyes and ears open for other peoples awesome ideas about integrating books further and further into modern tech. Because even though I don't believe books are ever going away, I also believe things will continue to change, and that if used wisely that change will be exactly the thing that saves the books.

What do you think? What are some additional ways books can keep up with television? Because in reality, that's our main competition. Not other authors. There are more than enough readers to go around, if we can convince them we're worth the time away from the screen.

Sarah Allen

5 Life Hacks for Writers

Today I thought I'd just brainstorm some simple and practical things writers can do to make their lives a little easier.

1. Keep a copy of your WIP in Google Drive. There are lots of ways to back up your work (which is vital) but keeping a copy on Google Drive is one of my favorite ways to do that. In large part because in this digital age, keeping a copy on Google Drive means that you can work on your project anywhere with an internet connection--even on your phone.

2. Keep a water bottle handy. When I spend a while sitting and writing, I always get pretty munchy. Obviously snacks are fine, but water bottle is a good way to keep from just mindlessly eating all day. I know its helped me.

3. Buy lots of fruit. Related to number 2, keeping fruit handy is a wise idea for a few reasons. When you do need a snack, it's a healthy choice. But not just that. When you're in the zone and don't want to break away for too long to make food, you can just grab an apple or banana or orange to keep you going until you're done writing.

4. Buy a memory foam mattress topper. I just did this on Saturday and it has already been a life changer. We can't use our rare and precious writing time to its full potential if we are tired and bleary. So get whatever you need to help you sleep well. Like a memory foam mattress topper.

5. Steal other peoples ideas. I don't just mean for writing. When you're trying to keep up on Twitter and Facebook but can't think of what to post, you can just repost or retweet somebody else. That's quick and easy, and also forges relationships with the people you're responding to. You can use this with blogging too. Don't steal other peoples blog posts, but if you are short on time for coming up with something to blog about, go to your blog roll and find an engaging post and write a reaction to it.

Well there's a few simple ideas. Any other life hacks I should add to the list?

Sarah Allen

Some Favorite Moments from the Oscars

The Academy Awards are a major tradition for my family. Fan-girling is like my biggest talent, and the Oscars provide plenty of opportunities for me to get my squee on. When Meryl Streep and Benedict Cumberbatch are in the same room together it's just...GAAAH.

We had some really great moments from last nights Oscars. Everything from giddy (Meryl shimmying with Pharrel Williams) to really awkward (Adele Dazeem? Seriously Travolta?)

But all in all it was a fantastic night. I adore Ellen Degeneres and she does a fantastic job as host. She is so conscious of her modern at-home audience that she really knows how to hit our happy places and sort of involve us the best she can.

Brad Pitt serving Meryl Streep pizza on a paper plate? YES PLEASE.


Benedict Cumberbatch photobombing U2? YES YES PLEASE.

And of course, the greatest fan-moment of the night and already widely acknowledged as the greatest selfie ever taken:

Overall I was pretty happy with how the awards went, even though I will never, EVER think Meryl shouldn't win. But I mean, Cate Blanchett. And I think Best Speech Award goes to Matthew Mcconaughey. I felt like he was very sincere, and very thoughtful and had some beautiful things to say. And this maybe isn't the same for everyone, but I personally really love when people thank God in their speeches. Ironically, it brings them down to earth for me and makes them relateable. I appreciate that Matthew described his successes as the result of Gods hand and nothing else.

Such a fun night. Now I gotta go work on my screenplay...

Sarah Allen

Writing Lessons from SyFy's Face Off

One of my favorite reality shows--perhaps my very favorite--is Face Off on the SyFy channel. I wish it was more well-known because it is dang cool. In this show they make characters and creatures based on some quite awesome challenges, and it is incredible to see what they come up with. Not only do I find the show creatively inspiring, I definitely think there are some great lessons to be learned from it. Here are a few.
1. Concept First: One of the first things I noticed about the judging process and results is that the judges almost always favor concept over execution. In other words, if two people are on the chopping block and one of them had a cool concept but kinda botched the execution and the other person did an okay job with the making of their makeup but the concept was a fail, they always keep the one with the cool concept. I think this is because you can work with one, but not so much the other. If your story is good, you can work and get help making the writing smooth and pretty. But if you're story is blech, no amount of beautiful writing writing can save it. (Unless your name is Francis Scott Fitzgerald.) 
2. Community Rocks: My roommate often comments on how refreshing it is to watch a reality TV show in which all the contestants are friends and support and help each other. When one person is not going to be able to finish their mold before the day is out a couple other people come and help them. I've seen them take reference photos of each others tongues and ribs. In what other reality show do the people actually help each other? And I think there's a lot to be learned from that. Each book and story is so different that we really aren't in competition with each other, and how many of us read only one type of novel or buy only one book a year anyway? There's room for all of us on plenty of peoples shelves, and we'll all get there faster and happier when we help each other.
3. Critique Helps: Something you notice in most reality shows is that its listening to the mentors and judges feedback is 99% of the time the right decision. In Face Off they have a mentor walk through and give helpful advice and feedback on everybody's works in progress, and almost always the people who don't listen to the advice end up suffering for it. Those who listen still stay true to their vision, but external feedback from wise eyes actually helps them realize that vision more successfully. I like to think of Neil Gaiman's wise words about reader feedback: "Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."
Anybody else watch Face Off? 
Write on!
Sarah Allen