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The Secret Ingredient of Successful Openings

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler from Pexels

Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas (@manzanitafire), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach. On April 14 she’s teaching the online class Maybe It’s Not Your Plot.

There’s something it took me years as an editor to figure out: many of the most common problems novelists face with their stories appear to be issues with plot but in fact are issues with character.

Openings that don’t quite work are a good example.

The conventional wisdom on the opening of a novel tells us that it must have:

A clear point of viewA compelling voiceCompelling charactersSpecific detailsTension of some type

That’s all excellent advice. The only problem is, when writers think of “tension of some type,” they tend to think of external trouble—say, a car crash, or the protagonist being fired from her job.

This type of conflict might compel the reader’s attention for a few pages, but what really sucks us in—and what really makes agents and acquisitions editors sit up and take notice—is internal trouble, because it’s trouble of this type that signals the beginning of a character arc.

Some story gurus refer to this sort of trouble as the protagonist’s wound, or shadow. More commonly, it’s known as the protagonist’s internal issue: Some problem on the inside that, by the end of the story, they’re going to overcome—or, perhaps, tragically fail to.

As readers, we’re generally not aware that we’re even on the lookout for this element of a story. But if we’re three chapters in and the protagonist just appears to be a 100% happy, well-adjusted person—or even just a perfect person facing imperfect circumstances—where’s the story in that? (The exception to this rule is mysteries and thrillers—genres in which character arc isn’t a requirement.) 

And here’s where it gets tricky, in terms of craft. Because at the beginning of the story, the protagonist herself can’t see what her internal problem is—she doesn’t even know she has one. (That’s what the story is going to force her to see.)

So how do you make sure the reader gets it, in those all-important opening pages, even if your protagonist doesn’t?

Here are three effective strategies.

1. Nagging doubts or misgivings

Say you open with a new venture—a business deal of some type, or even a marriage. In this sort of scenario, nothing so clearly signals the presence of internal trouble as mixed feelings.

Maybe the protagonist has chosen the wrong business partner, or life partner. Or maybe they’re entering into this partnership with the right person but for the wrong reasons.

Either way, misgivings on the part of the protagonist—even if they immediately tamp down, rationalize, and dismiss them—send a clear signal to the reader that something isn’t quite right with this character. Because if they have misgivings about this venture, why are they going through with it anyway?

2. Self-generated trouble

Earlier, I mentioned two examples of external trouble: a car crash, or being fired from a job. Neither of those scenarios necessarily signal the presence of an internal issue for the protagonist—but they could.

The car crash that resulted from a drunk driver T-boning your protagonist? That’s external.

The car crash that resulted from them fuming over being passed over for a promotion? That’s self-generated.

Being fired from a job because their boss is a generally horrible person? That’s external.

Being fired from a job because the protagonist herself was always late? That’s self-generated.

Self-generated trouble indicates some way that the protagonist is getting in their own way. It tells us that there’s some issue on the inside this character isn’t dealing with, and now it’s come to the point where that issue is starting to have a negative impact on their life.

3. The voice of dissent

Maybe your protagonist doesn’t have mixed feelings about what’s happening at the beginning. Maybe they’re headed into that business deal with stars in their eyes, and every expectation of success; maybe they’re walking up to the altar in full confidence that they’ve made the right choice.

Even so, if there’s someone else who expresses doubts about that new venture, your reader will wonder if those doubts might be valid—if there might be something the protagonist isn’t seeing, because of some internal block or blind spot.

And this is true of virtually any ground situation where the protagonist thinks everything in their life is perfectly fine: if someone else shows up to tell them that it isn’t, that they need to get their act together and change, the reader will have a clear sense that the story to come will in fact chronicle that change.

Now I’d love to hear from you.

What is your protagonist’s internal issue in your story? And what is it, in the first few chapters of your novel, that indicates the “trouble on the inside” to your reader?

Drop a reply in the comments.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on April 14 for the online class Maybe It’s Not Your Plot.

Weaving Flashbacks Seamlessly into Story

“Blue Imp 1960s playground slide” by John Maddin is marked with CC BY-ND 2.0.

Today’s post is by editor Tiffany Yates Martin (@FoxPrintEd). Join her on May 4 for the online class Master the Flashback.

Imagine this: After an old, familiar argument with your spouse that, as always, goes nowhere except to hurt feelings and hard silence, you’re walking in the park to cool off when a young family comes by, parents, two kids, and a dog.

The kids go tearing off with screams of glee toward a nearby playground while the dog barks joyfully and the parents settle onto a park bench, the husband’s arm around his wife as he leans in and whispers something in her ear that makes her smile.

The sight makes your heart ache, remembering when that was you and your spouse, young parents struggling financially. Every summer you felt guilty there were no big vacations to Disney World or Six Flags, but you just didn’t have the money.

All you could do was take the kids down to the public playground, but you both tried hard to make it fun: packing picnics with special treats like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into animal shapes, big bags of popcorn you’d made at home, the occasional forbidden can of soda the kids treated like the Holy Grail of refreshments.

Your spouse never worried about getting dirty or looking ridiculous. She’d climb right up on the monkey bars with the kids, crawl through plastic tunnels not meant for grown adults, beckon you over with a big smile to join them and slide down the cheap metal slide—scorching the backs of your legs—in a four-person caravan with the kids sandwiched between you.

You remember one such time in particular, tumbling to the turf at the bottom of the slide in a big family pile, laughing so hard you got a stitch in your side, which made the kids laugh even harder. Sprawled half across you, your spouse leaned over and placed a soft, warm kiss on your mouth, and you felt as if nothing mattered—not the unpaid water bill, the leaky car radiator, your crappy entry-level job you hated thinking about going back to on Monday—except these three people you held in your arms.

You notice that your eyes are wet and this little family in the park has grown blurry, and you abruptly turn around and head for home, determined to apologize to your spouse.

You just had a flashback.

Authors often think of flashbacks as separate, self-contained scenes that serve to fill in essential backstory for characters—and sometimes this can be their format and function.

But this separatist approach is often at the root of why flashbacks can be so tricky for authors to incorporate without pulling the reader out of the smooth flow of the story or stalling momentum, and why they may wrestle with smoothly moving in and out of a flashback.

What is a flashback?

Flashbacks are simply another form of backstory—events from your characters’ lives that happened before the events of the current story—that help flesh out your characters and their histories, dynamics, and arcs.

Flashback often works with the two other main types of backstory—context and memory—to create seamless, intrinsic flow, as in the above example. They don’t need to be treated as a standalone entity (which may be awkwardly inserted into the main story), but rather can be an intrinsic part of it.

The main components of a well-integrated flashback

Let’s look closer at the hypothetical flashback situation above to identify the main components of weaving in flashback smoothly and organically.

The character’s current situation: Before you introduce the flashback, we see your character experiencing something directly relevant to the main story—in this case, the protagonist has just had a fight with his spouse that’s one they’ve had many times, and which always ends in an impasse. Context tells us he’s upset—he’s walking in the park to cool down.A “real-time” impetus: Something in the present-day main story happens to or around the character that sparks an association or personal experience: Here it’s his seeing the happy young family that reminds him of his own.General memory: The protagonist thinks of his family when they were younger: their situation (young, financially strapped, worried about giving their kids a vacation), and similar activities to the one he’s currently seeing in the present-moment encounter with this young family.Detailed memory: The general memory leads into more specific ones that paint a clearer picture: the snacks they’d pack, the specific jungle gym equipment they’d use, the heat of the metal slide.Specific anchor memory—the flashback: The general memory and concrete details coalesce into one distinct occasion the protagonist revisits: a particular time his family all heaped up on top of each other at the bottom of the slide, his wife kissed him, and his heart was full.Transition: The protagonist returns to the present moment in some clear way that signals the shift to the reader, in this case his wet eyes that blur the sight of the family in the park that sparked his memory.Connection: Something about the flashback serves to spark a reaction or action in the protagonist in the present-day story. In this case, context suggests it reminds him of his love for his family and makes him want to set things right with his spouse.

Notice some of the key characteristics of weaving in flashback in this way:

There’s no clunky, overt “announcement” or setup of the flashback in our hypothetical example, like, “He remembered as if it were yesterday coming to the park with his own family…” or the dreaded “The scene played in his mind like a movie.” Instead the character simply falls naturally into it based on his current situation and the real-time impetus that sparks one association and memory at a time, until a particular one is tapped into.The same goes for coming out of the flashback—the character is drawn out naturally (he realizes his eyes are wet because the scene he was watching blurs), rather than the reader being led out of the flashback with some overt narrative device like, “His awareness returned to the family in the park…”Flashbacks don’t have to be set apart, or even fully developed scenes: they can be snippets of experience, momentary journeys back to a past moment that integrate into the present one, as above.You don’t need to adhere to strict chronology as you would in a full scene—memory happens in fragments and flashes like this, not in chronological order. A general image or idea engenders a few salient details, which may lead the character to a specific instance.For the love of all things narratively holy, flashbacks aren’t set in italics or a different font. Well-used flashbacks don’t need visual tricks to “cue” readers to their identity; in fact, doing so is part of what pulls readers out of the story. Leading into and out of a flashback organically brings the reader naturally along on the journey with your character; context and verb tense will usually do the rest.Full-scene flashbacks

Fully developed flashback scenes set apart in separate sections can follow these same guidelines.

Let’s say you start with the same present-moment scene of our protagonist seething from the fight with his spouse, the family playing in the park nearby as simply part of the background as he thinks about how frustrated and angry he is that his spouse never seems to understand him or to give an inch in this old familiar clash.

Suddenly one of the kids shrieks out, “Mommy, Daddy, watch me!” And our protag glances up to see the child perched on the top of the slide, waiting until his parents are looking before pushing off.

You could dive right into a full flashback scene here—often a space break helps cue readers—and then begin a new scene from the past as if it’s unspooling before our eyes:

“Daddy, Daddy, look!”

He’d been lost in worry about his annual review on Monday—if he didn’t get that raise then how was he going to repair the car?—but his son’s shrill cry yanked his focus up, his heart pounding. The last thing he needed was a trip to the hospital—they couldn’t even pay the copay this month.

Instead he saw both kids at the top of the slide, Alex bracketing them with her long legs, her mouth spread wide in the kind of smile that had been scarce for too long, with all their money worries.

She winked at him and inclined her head. “Come on, Daddy. Let’s make a family train,” she called out…

You can write a full scene this way, then return readers to the “real-time” scene post-fight in the park, either with transition cues or by inserting another space break and rejoining the present-day scene.

But notice how this follows similar guidelines to the above: the real-time impetus—in this case the child calling for his parents’ attention—leads straight to the flashback, but one anchored by a particular, not-necessarily-chronological moment: the remembered cry of his own child in a similar situation that draws him in medias res into a scene from the past.

After the flashback you might subtly cue readers to the transition by simply establishing the setting as you would at the beginning of any other scene: “The little boy pushed off down the slide, squealing happily as his parents looked on,” or “The hard ground cutting off circulation in his feet told him he’d been standing here too long.”

Context tells readers we’re back in the “real-time” scene without needing to overtly announce it, and you can then show the connection the protagonist makes in this current moment: “His eyes were wet—Alex had always made him a better father, a better husband…a better man. He turned around and headed back home. They’d solve this the way they’d always done things best: together.”

Flashback is a powerful tool for weaving in important backstory with immediacy and impact—but as with any power tool, using it well requires knowledge and care. Incorporate the “safety guards” above and you’ll enhance readers’ experience of your story and characters smoothly and seamlessly.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on May 4 for the online class Master the Flashback.

Children’s Dialogue: They Don’t Talk Like Adults

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Today’s post is by developmental book editor Jessi Rita Hoffman (@JRHwords).

Are you struggling with the task of writing children’s dialogue? Some of the worst dialogue ever written, in both film and fiction, has been dialogue for kids. We all know children are not just miniature grownups—they don’t think like adults or talk like adults. Yet writers seem to forget that when they go to write a story and place words in the mouths of child characters that real kids never would say.

Here is one example, from a novel I’m editing for a first-time author. For the most part, this client’s dialogue writing is spot-on—it sounds like real people talking—but when he has Matthew, the two-year-old, speak, we find the kid spouting sentences like this one: “So we’re moving today?” A two-year-old, mind you!

Not only do tots of this age not possess enough life experience to understand the meaning of “moving today,” but their level of speech development is not advanced and refined enough to construct such a sentence. A more realistic way of showing a two-year-old’s confusion on moving day would be to have him crying over something small that normally would not upset him, or showing aggression toward the baby, whom on most days he loves. If words are even needed here, “Me not go” or “Matthew stay home” would be far more realistic than the adult words the author has stuck in this little boy’s mouth.

Very young children have a limited vocabulary. They speak in simple sentences or small sentence fragments. They are developmentally incapable of grasping abstract concepts, speaking in abstractions, or constructing fancy sentences, according to psychologists. They typically don’t know the “correct,” abstract word for a concept (such as “moving”) and instead use a substitute, concrete word that they do understand (such as “go”). And don’t forget that when authors write dialogue for characters of any age, accuracy doesn’t mean writing grammatically—it means writing the words the way the character would actually say them, whether that’s grammatical or not.

Let’s look at another example of unrealistic children’s dialogue from a different beginning author, who writes this about a six-year-old:

“Daddy, can you make me some lunch?” Anna called from the hammock. She lazily threw her arm over her face in hopes of shielding out some of the heat.

These words sound far too adult for a six-year-old. Moreover, a child of that age doesn’t have the conceptual capacity to intellectually plan out that putting her arm over her face might make her feel cooler. She would put her arm in front of her face instinctively, not consciously. (In hopes of shielding out some of the heat implies conscious intent).

Here is how I would rewrite that paragraph:

“Daddy, I’m hungry.” The sun shone down, and it felt hot. She covered her face with her arms.

Let’s look at one last example from the same manuscript. This time the six-year-old is telling a friend about her mother abandoning the family. She states:

“I heard Daddy talking, and he said it was just a matter of time before this happened. He said Mama couldn’t get away fast enough. She was just looking for the right time.”

But a six-year-old would never say that. Look at the complex sentence construction of the first sentence. And observe the conceptual complexities of “just a matter of time” and “looking for the right time.” An eleven-year-old might say this, not a very little girl.

To understand what kids are capable of thinking and saying at different ages, familiarize yourself with the four stages of cognitive development described by renowned child psychologist Jean Piaget. And if you’re writing a story with a child character, take time to really listen to how kids of that age talk. Make listening part of your research, and be as diligent about that as you are about researching any factual material you will include in your story.

Writing children’s dialogue does not have to be the downfall of your novel. The lines you pen will reflect reality if you let real children be your guide.

Which Social Media Platform Is the Best?

Today’s post is by book coach, author and editor Caroline Topperman (@StyleOnTheSide).

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest … Where do you start? How do you find the time? What do you post? Do you have to be on all of them?

Before you scroll through or dismiss this entirely, I’m going to ask you to take a moment to breathe.

Most of the advice that we see online is geared toward people who are trying to build a business and already use social media regularly. But what if you don’t spend time on social media? Maybe you have an account but it’s dormant, and all you want to do is sell some books and meet some other writers. Let’s start the very beginning.

We writers come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us are working on building a portfolio and pitching articles. Others are building a following that could become a readership for a book we will be publishing. And still others want to approach influencer status and may be willing to spend more time on social media than the average writer.

Before diving in, consider your goals

Do you want to sell more books?
Hint: Take your pick, any social media platform will do.

Do you want to grow your email list?
Hint: Take your pick, any social media platform will do.

Are you promoting your blog or articles you’ve written?
Hint: Facebook and Pinterest might be your best bet.

Do you write poetry (micro work) that you want to publish directly to a platform?
Hint: Twitter and Instagram might be your best bet.

Are you trying to connect with people and share more personal information?
Hint: Instagram and Facebook might be your best bet.

Let’s break down the platforms.

Instagram

Best if you want a little bit of everything; writing, photography and/or video

Full disclosure, this one is my favourite because in addition to writing, I also love photography. I like taking pictures and matching them to my text. Even though I know that a lot of people won’t take the time to read what I write, there are enough that do. To date I’ve made a substantial number of contacts this way. As Instagram competes with other sites, more features are being added. You can create short videos (aka Reels) and longer live videos. As a bonus, since it is under the same umbrella as Facebook, you can choose to automatically crosspost on Facebook. This is where a lot of people start to have heart palpitations since it sounds complicated, but it really is as easy as sliding a toggle.

Twitter

Best if you want to focus on one liners and short text

If you have time, prefer to stick to text, and if you can think fast (the average lifespan of a tweet is 18 minutes), then Twitter might be the platform for you. This is where agents and editors like to hang out, so there’s a good chance that you’ll hear about the latest trends or what they are specifically looking for. I have also found that quite a few magazine editors post their wishlists on there, and some will even answer your questions. If you are trying to get a reporter’s attention, this is a great platform for that. This comes in handy if you are trying to be featured in an article.

TikTok

Best if you want to create short videos that are easily set to music

Ah, the new kid on the block (which at this point isn’t that new, but still seems to make people nervous) that has already taken the world by storm. I believe that it’s here to stay but I would approach it differently than Instagram or Twitter. I would absolutely use it to build a following to promote my books, but because of its fast-paced nature, I wouldn’t use it solely to build a community. While it is possible to send someone a message, the platform isn’t built to promote that.

The key to TikTok: bite-sized videos that you can swipe through quickly. If pressed, I would say it’s a bit like a dating site. You can meet someone but you’ll move elsewhere to get to know them.

While you do not need to be on camera to create TikTok videos, it’s actually a great place to get comfortable in front of the camera. They have also made it very easy to share your videos to other platforms, once you are comfortable of course.

Facebook

Best if you want to write a lot and have longer conversations with your community

The old workhorse of social media. If you aren’t already on it, then I wouldn’t recommend trying to build a following from scratch. Facebook is just too slow for that. If you already have an account, then this is the place to find existing writing groups that can offer things like marketing advice. If you self-publish and you are building a street team, this is the place to curate that team on a private page. It’s conducive to long-form text, and more drawn out, in-depth conversations.

Pinterest

Best for people to find you

Fun fact: Pinterest is actually considered a search engine and doesn’t have the same social aspect as the others. It is, therefore, easy to use, and worth having because the time you will put into it is minimal and doesn’t involve much strategy. It’s worth setting up an account and cross posting from sites like Instagram. If you are building a business, you could post tips for your target audience, as your potential customers might be looking for information on Pinterest.

The beauty of all these platforms

You can use them symbiotically. The most obvious is Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. So, when you post something to Instagram you can immediately post it to Facebook. I’m currently less active on Twitter, but I use IFTTT to post my Instagram posts to Twitter. It took about five minutes to set up and I don’t have to worry about them.

Here is the big secret

The best platform for you is the one you are going to use. Yes, at the end of the day, it’s that simple, because you are still making a connection with the outside world.

Instead of asking, “What’s the best platform”, you should be asking, “Which platform is right for me?” It comes down to your personality, what you like to do, and most importantly, what you want to achieve.

Whichever you choose, don’t be afraid. It’s very difficult to have the wrong approach. You can always change your mind and press delete. I have been on social media for over ten years and in all that time I’ve had one or two unpleasant moments that weren’t about me. My advice? Set up the platform that speaks to you, take another deep breath, and go for it!

How to Make Money Through Social Media Without Being an Influencer

Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels

Today’s post is by Ashleigh Renard (@ashleigh_renard), author of the memoir Swing. Join her on March 17 for the online class Instagram Smarts for Writers.

Landing a book deal and getting published isn’t a guaranteed paycheck. And frankly, there isn’t a ton of money in book sales. Often, the bulk of a writer’s income will come from speaking and teaching.

Fortunately, you don’t need a publisher, literary agent or a book contract to make an impact and earn money from your writing. If you have a social media presence and a following online, you already have an audience that wants more of what you have to give.

While most writers know it’s possible to make money on social media, it seems like something an influencer would do–not a “real” writer. I’m here to change your mind about that.

Can a writer really make money off social media?

The answer is yes—and it’s probably easier than you think.

You don’t need to be a tech guru, have a fancy payment system, or use a pricey platform to host your content, courses, or teaching materials.

You don’t even need to have a website.

All you really need is an Instagram account, a PayPal link, and something to offer your audience. (Spoiler: if you are a writer, you already have something to offer.)

Here are six simple ways to start making money with social media.

1. Crosspost your videos

To compete with TikTok, Facebook is encouraging creators to post videos through the Facebook Reels Bonus Play program. (Instagram is offering Reels bonuses, too, but Facebook is pushing out video content in a bigger way to make up for being very late to the video party.)

Facebook pays about $1.80 per one thousand views, which may not seem like much, but if you’ve spent any time creating videos for Instagram it’s worth crossposting them in bulk just to see what happens. My first month netted $16,000 and a client with a smaller but fabulous video library made $4,000.

Right now, it’s invite-only, but the bulk upload trick seems to trigger the invite with a high level of consistency. It’s as if the platform says, “Whoa, someone who’s never posted videos here just uploaded twenty. They must be regular creators on TikTok. If we throw money at them, maybe we’ll become their favorite platform!”

Don’t tell Facebook, but you don’t need to create anything on TikTok. I recommend using Instagram to make video content, because you can easily create a great video with their superior editing tools, save it, and crosspost it to your personal Facebook profile and Author Page (and even TikTok, if you wish).

Side note about Instagram: There are a ton of social media platforms out there, but Instagram is my one-stop shop for a multitude of reasons, starting with its great editing tools. By creating all of your content on Instagram, you’re creating a catalog of your work that you can refer back to and repurpose down the road. Plus, it’s easier than ever to share your content directly from Instagram to other platforms, which takes the stress out of keeping your social media up-to-date, aligned, and impactful.

2. Recommend a product or service that you love

Is Scrivener your go-to writing app? Does Substack take the hassle out of your email marketing?

Reach out to the companies behind your favorite things, or shout out a teacher or another writer who inspires you, and let them know why you love them. Then ask if they have an affiliate program you can sign up for.

You might be surprised at how many people say yes.

Alternatively: An easy way to start making some extra cash today is to set up your Amazon and Bookshop affiliate accounts. Once you’ve activated your accounts, use those links anytime you recommend a book online, or even when you buy books yourself, and enjoy a little kickback from your reading list.

3. Provide a done-for-you service

What comes easily to you? What do you love doing that other people prefer to avoid?

Could you help other writers by editing their pitches and recommending ideal publications for their work? I’d love to pay someone to make my essay pitch super sharp and tell me the five best places to submit.

Are you a Canva whiz, killer with Quickbooks, or highly effective with Evernote? There are a lot of people who would happily pay you just to set up templates for them.

Think about how you can leverage your skills to help your people, and then spread the word. Pick one thing and run with it.

4. Offer coaching or teach a course

Maybe you’re an efficiency pro who could offer one-on-one coaching sessions around time management, or a virtual how-to webinar to maximize productivity for writers working from home. Or you’re an author with a number of interviews and publications under your belt who could teach best interviewing practices for new writers.

Think about what you do really well and how you might be able to solve a problem for your people by sharing your practices and know-how.

5. Create a membership or subscription community

I subscribed to Jane’s publishing industry newsletter, The Hot Sheet, because I want to stay up-to-date on industry news—and I will happily pay so that I don’t have to worry that I’m missing something crucial if I am not constantly keeping on top of it myself.

What research are you already doing that might benefit your audience? What tools, support, or resources can you offer your community?

6. Sell a product

Your product could be as simple as creating a printable PDF that applies to your area of expertise and will solve a problem for your audience. If you work with other writers, you might offer “10 Tips to Stop Procrastinating and Start Writing,” or “5 Simple Exercises to Break Through Writer’s Block,” or “How to Set Up Your Author Website in One Hour or Less.”

Your PDF doesn’t have to be all-encompassing. It just needs to be effective. (And if you charge $4.99 per download, you could wind up making more money from your PDF than you would from book royalties.)

Make it easy for your audience, and yourself

After you get clear on what you can offer, writing and using a clear Call to Action (CTA) is essential to monetizing your social media. The easier you make it for your audience to find your offers and opt-in, the easier it is for you to get paid.

Whether you’re sharing a phenomenal freebie, promoting your book, or sharing your latest offering, “Get XYZ at link in bio” is the most actively, and successfully, used CTA on Instagram. Use it whenever you post related to your teaching or product. Your audience needs more reminders than you would think in order to see and engage with your offers.

You have to start somewhere

A lot of times, we hesitate over our offers, telling ourselves an idea isn’t “good enough” or that we “just aren’t ready yet.” The problem is that then we don’t start at all.

Instead of stalling, give yourself permission to start small. Set aside some time to batch load your IG Reels onto your Facebook.

Send a few emails to your favorite authors or the creators of your favorite products and find out if they have an affiliate program.

Consider the questions your audience asks most often and brainstorm ways to turn the answers into a printable PDF or an ebook.

Yes, you’re a writer—and a damn good one at that. Still, the wisdom and knowledge you have to share extend far beyond what can be offered to you in any book deal, grant, or residency. You have something to offer the world today and every day, and it’s perfectly okay for your bank account to reflect that.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on March 17 for the online class Instagram Smarts for Writers.

A Thousand New Email Sign Ups in a Week? It’s Possible.

Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels

Today’s post is by Ashleigh Renard (@ashleigh_renard), author of the memoir Swing. Join her on March 17 for the online class Instagram Smarts for Writers.

Speak to any group of writers about platform-building and within five minutes you’ll hear someone mention that they “should” be building their email list or how nice it would be to have a paid newsletter.

We’ve all received the memo that our email lists are one of the only pieces of owned media we have, rather than the audience we borrow from Twitter or Facebook. Emails are not at the mercy of the algorithm and do not take hours to master, like Reels. Then why are so many writers thinking about building their email list, but not really doing it?

List building and newsletter strategy are two different things.

Many writers stall out while developing a complex newsletter strategy, or can’t conceive of what they would share in a regular email, so they don’t build their list at all.

But you don’t need to start strategizing newsletter content or setting a delivery schedule. All that can wait. Instead, you can (and should) start today by building your list.

I have grown my audience over the last few years, but mostly ignored my email list. That is, until the Instagram and Facebook blackout last October. I had interviews to promote and a book to sell, but I was left without any connection to my audience. For each of us, having a way to contact our audience directly is essential. I never wanted to worry about being cut off again, no matter what changes Meta (Facebook) introduces down the road.

That day I created my first freebie: a one-page document (PDF) in Canva. Since then I’ve gained 22,000 new signups and launched two paid newsletters. I’ve helped clients’ lists grow exponentially as well.

What can you offer that people need?

Your audience journey goes something like this: someone reads an incredible essay you wrote, watches one of the videos that you shared, hears you on a podcast, or catches your Instagram Live.

They’ve made first contact.

After that initial impression that your writing or speaking made on them, they’re going to want more.

What did the reader love about the piece or the interview or the video?If your writing impacted them, what do they want from you?And how can you give that to them?

As writers, we often feel that we could offer meaningful support, encouragement, inspiration, or education by sharing our personal perspective and experiences. We create connections by making people feel seen, and offering insight, camaraderie, and value to our audience. That value is the key to turning views and likes into email subscribers.

So give it away. Focus on the problem you can help people solve and then share your solution as a free (and simple) download that people can receive when joining your mailing list.

Your freebie is the answer to this essential question: what value are you putting into the world?

The right freebie should fit in naturally with what you are already writing and speaking about and what you know your audience wants. Your freebie can even act as a reverse mission statement. Looking at it should give people a one-page snapshot of who you are and the writing you do.

To visualize it, think of your freebie this way: if you were profiled in the New York Times, what photo would they choose for the main feature image? What would they highlight in the caption? If you were featured in Women’s Health or Cosmopolitan or Rolling Stone, what headline would make the cover of the magazine?

“Five easy ways to solve your big problem …” is a popular marketing approach that draws interest, creates curiosity, and tells the reader in two lines what problem that article is going to solve for them. Your freebie should do the same thing for your potential audience by homing in on the value that you provide.

Signing up for your email list will be an impulsive decision, just like grabbing that magazine at the checkout counter. Lead with a great title and don’t worry about oversimplifying. The one page freebie does not have to encompass all you know and have to offer. Consider it the gateway doc, the first invitation into your world.

Once you’ve developed your freebie and a simple call to action, set up your delivery system so that when folks sign up, your freebie is automatically sent straight to their inbox. Contact created. Value delivered. (Flodesk is my favorite email service for easily segmenting new audience members and putting together quick workflows.)

How to publicize your freebie and ensure signups

Start by linking to your freebie in your bio across social media platforms. If your freebie does not make sense in your bio, ask yourself if the rest of your bio makes sense. Where do you need to create clarity? Do you need to shift or pivot the way you’re positioning yourself as a writer?

Like a steel thread through your work, your freebie will help you make decisions on how you show up and what content you share. When you are about to post on Facebook or Instagram, ask yourself, does my call to action fit in with this post?

If it makes sense, fantastic, hit “publish.” If the post isn’t aligned with your CTA, ask yourself if the content you’re looking at is what you want to be known for in your writing.

You don’t have to link your freebie in every post, but asking yourself if each post fits your call to action before you share anything is a fabulous exercise for keeping yourself intentional.

That doesn’t mean that you’re only allowed to talk about one thing, but it will ensure that you are showing up consistently and being mindful of how you frame yourself and the work you put out into the world.

Offering a freebie will not only help attract people to you and your work, it will also guide your content creation and your newsletter strategy. Nothing inspired me to write a regular newsletter quite like 1,000 new people each week signing up to say they’d like to read my newsletter.

It’s not a question of the chicken or the egg. To make any progress one needs to come first, and let it be list building.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on March 17 for the online class Instagram Smarts for Writers.

The Value of Percolation

Today’s post is by author Jyotsna Sreenivasan (@Jyotsna_Sree).

I love learning how the brain works during the writing process. I’ve mostly been interested in how to “turn on” the brain’s right, creative hemisphere through exercises like free writing. A book I recently read gave me insight into a different aspect of the writing process: the value of not writing—of setting aside an unfinished draft.

How We Learn by Benedict Carey (Random House, 2014) explains scientific research on how the brain learns. While much of the book concerns rote memorization, I was drawn to chapter 7, which details how the brain approaches long-term projects (such as writing a novel).

Most writers have heard this advice: set aside your draft to revise later. And most of us have experienced new insights when coming back to a manuscript. Why is it helpful to set aside a draft? Why do we sometimes get insights about our writing when we are not working on it? Carey calls this process “percolation.”

The first element of percolation: interruption

When a project is interrupted at an important or difficult moment, that keeps the project at the top of our brain’s to-do list. Most of us have limited time to write, and some of us believe we should not start a story or novel unless we’ll have time to finish. But interruption is actually good for a long project and means that you can start a book whenever you want.

When my children were small, I used to wake up at 5am and spend one hour working on my fiction before I went to work. That’s all the time I had: one hour per day. I had no idea if my writing would come together in anything publishable, but I treasured that quiet hour when no one was demanding my attention, and I could focus on something I craved. Because I interrupted my writing every morning, I was still thinking about it (consciously and I’m sure subconsciously as well) during the day, and when I sat down the next morning, I often had some new ideas. Although it took years, I was able to write my novel And Laughter Fell from the Sky in one hour per day (as well as some occasional longer stretches when my husband would take the kids away for a weekend).

As my children grew older, and once I started working as a teacher, I had longer stretches of time to write during school breaks. When in the midst of a project, I would often lose track of time. I’d work throughout the day, and as much as I enjoyed the process, I wondered: was I really being productive, or was I spinning my wheels re-reading, tinkering, or heading down the wrong path?

A few years ago, I found out about a practice called the “Pomodoro Technique,” which involves setting a timer for 25 minutes and working steadily during that time. Each “pomodoro” session is separated by a short break of up to 5 minutes. I set a timer on my phone and purposely put the phone in a different room, so I am forced to stand up from my computer and walk at least a short distance to turn off the pomodoro. If I’m in the flow of writing, sometimes I head right back to my computer after setting another pomodoro. At other times, I take a few minutes to wash some dishes or fold a few clothes. Even a short interruption can help, due to something Carey refers to as “selective forgetting.” A short break helps us forget about any blind paths or misleading avenues we were heading down. Even a tiny interruption helps my brain re-set. Sometimes, as I’m washing the dishes, I’ll get an idea about a line of dialogue to try, or an insight into a character.

The second element of percolation: the tuned, scavenging mind

When you have a project in mind, you are subconsciously attuned to any clues or information in your environment that might be relevant. “Having a goal foremost in mind…tunes our perceptions to fulfilling it,” says Carey.

It is important, therefore, when setting aside unfinished work, to keep your mind open to solutions. In the past, when I did not have a solution to a problem in my writing, I felt uncomfortable. I would try to argue the problem out of existence, try to convince myself that everything was fine. The problem was still there, though. Inevitably, critiques would point out the flaw I was trying to ignore. But because my mind had been closed—because I had been telling myself there was no problem—I had not come up with any solutions yet. Finally, I realized it was better to accept that nagging, uncomfortable feeling that said “something’s wrong here,” even when I didn’t know how to solve the problem. Being open to solutions often allowed solutions to suggest themselves later on.

Recently, I was pulling together a short story from segments of an unpublished novel that I’d worked on years ago and then abandoned. This short story has three sections, and I didn’t like the way the first section ended. The last line seemed too final for the first section of a story. I had the urge to argue away the problem, but fortunately I allowed myself to feel uncomfortable with having a problem and not knowing how to fix it. Some days later, I hit upon a possible solution: make the last sentence of the section into a line of dialogue, and have the other character react to it. I tried it, and liked the way it worked.

The third element of percolation: conscious reflection

Once we come up with a possible solution, we must try it and reflect on whether it works.  Maybe that idea that seemed so brilliant in the shower is a dud when applied to the page. Or maybe it’s just right.

The process of percolation, over years, helped me write the novella that ends my new collection These Americans. The novella originally started out life as a novel that I was actively working on several years ago. It involved an elderly woman immigrant doctor from India and her semi-estranged daughter. It also involved an Indian-American woman whom the doctor hired to help her ghostwrite her life story, as well as the ghostwriter’s overbearing husband and three children. The novel was not bad (it ended up being a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether prize), but despite numerous attempts at revision, neither I nor my agent was satisfied with it. I set it aside.

Years later, while grappling with some unexpected life experiences, I mined them for fictional possibilities. Maybe I could use these experiences in that novel about the immigrant woman doctor. And, inspired by my fascination with novellas, I decided to tighten the whole thing into a novella. I collapsed the daughter and the ghostwriter into one character. And I added a story line inspired by my own recent experiences. The result was a novella I renamed “Hawk,” and many readers have told me it is their favorite part of my book. I believe one reason the novella works is because I was forced to allow time for percolation.

Understanding the process and value of percolation can help you get started on a project that may still be vague in your mind. For example, one day recently I made some notes about my mother and her messages to me (when I was a child) about my appearance, as well as what she had told me about how my grandmother had tried to control my mother’s looks when she was growing up. I had no idea what I’d do with these notes. I thought maybe I’d write an essay. Then, two weeks later, I woke up with the urge to write a story about a mother’s gift of a mysterious, deceptive mirror to her daughter. When I originally made the notes, I had no idea they would end up as a magical realism flash fiction piece.

Inspired by my new insights into the process of percolation, I even used it to write this essay. When I finished reading Benedict Carey’s book, I was excited by what I’d learned about percolation. But busy with work and other writing projects, I knew I didn’t have time to craft a full essay. Instead, I took 20 minutes to jot some jumbled notes. I set aside those notes on the top of a low bookshelf, where I saw them every day. I knew I would come back to them when I had time. And several weeks later, that time materialized when the school where I teach was closed for two days because of snow. Since I already had those notes, I could jump right in and draft this essay without wasting time wondering what to work on.

Percolation allows the brain’s subconscious to work while we’re busy with something else. Now that I know the value of percolation, I understand that any writing is useful, even if unfinished or abandoned. The time we spend writing is never a waste. Our brain is still working on those ideas, and we never know when that story, essay, poem, or novel will spring to life again.

When You Change Alongside Your Book: Q&A with Mansi Shah

The Taste of Ginger author Mansi Shah discusses the challenges she faced in her quest for publication, the evolution of her focus in the process of writing about the immigrant experience, the lasting impact of books and movies, selling books to Hollywood, and more.

Mansi Shah (@mansiwrites) is a writer who lives in Los Angeles. She was born in Toronto, Canada, was raised in the midwestern United States, and studied at universities in America, Australia, and England. When she’s not writing, she’s traveling and exploring different cultures near and far, experimenting on a new culinary creation, or working on her tennis game. For more information, visit her website or follow her on Instagram at @mansishahwrites.

KRISTEN TSETSI: What books did you most like to read as a child, and what attracted you to them?

MANSI SHAH: I was a voracious reader as a kid, and so I read anything I could get my hands on from our local library! The ones I most remember reading were Judy Blume books, the Nancy Drew mysteries, Sweet Valley Twins, and Sweet Valley High. I also recall reading books about WWII, like Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, and I am still drawn like a magnet to books about the Holocaust, but there were not too many middle-grade books that dealt with that subject. Even from my earliest memories, the books that stuck with me most were those that explored injustice, perseverance, and humanity.

I think what attracted me to books in general was that I could transport myself to other places and times through those pages. My childhood had financial ups and downs, and we moved several times, but I could escape into stories and take a mental break from whatever was going on at the time.

You wrote your first book at nine years old, turning in a chapter a week to your teacher (after getting permission) rather than the assigned short story once a week. Do you remember what you wrote your book about, or what you think you probably would have written about?

I do! Maybe better than I should! It was called Valley of the Dolls and was a mystery about two kids who got lost while hiking and stumbled upon an eerie abandoned small town. In one of the houses, they found dollhouses that represented a miniature version of the town. In one of them, they saw the dolls positioned to show a murder, and the two kids then went about trying to find out what happened in the town and why it was now abandoned.

My Grade 4 teacher, Mrs. Strube, had my handwritten book bound together at the end of the school year, and I wish I still had it with me so I could remind myself how the mystery was solved, because I’ve forgotten the ending! One day, I’m going to have to go digging through the boxes my parents have stored in their garage to see if I can find that original book.

You knew you wanted to “write a real book, some day,” but you went on with life and school, studying psychology in college and then veering into law. Did you do much creative writing between your fourth-grade book and The Taste of Ginger? If not, did you have other outlets throughout your years of professional work and studying to satisfy creative urges?

I dabbled in creative writing through my schooling years, doing some poetry and short stories, but not really doing much else. During my early lawyer years, I had started a couple novels but never got more than a few chapters into them before life and work took over.

In hindsight, I think the projects I’d started were never completed because I was writing what I thought I should write (legal mystery/thrillers) rather than what I was passionately interested in writing, which was The Taste of Ginger. I did, however, always maintain a creative outlet to balance my left and right brain, and I think the need for that balance comes from my mom. I grew up watching her engage in many creative endeavors, from cooking to ceramics to floral arranging to other artwork, so part of me was always inclined toward that.

My university years were spent diving into cooking and baking, and learning how to express myself through food (something I’m still obsessed with today!), because when I moved out of my parents’ home, I knew the only way I’d get to eat the Gujarati food I grew up with was to learn to make it myself. I also tried different painting classes, until I found the one that resonated most with me. Surprisingly, it was Chinese brush painting! For many years I painted in that medium and would probably still be doing it today if my teacher hadn’t retired many years ago!

I also found small projects along the way like scrapbooking, interior design for my home, photography, cross-stitch, and various other arts and crafts to keep myself engaged in artistic expression.

You said in a Good Life Project interview that years into your legal career you began to feel like writing was a better vehicle for impacting change and reaching people, that you could say more things “with fewer rules.” The driving force behind The Taste of Ginger, you said, was your mission to offer something to young people from immigrant families looking for books that represented them and their experience.

How easy or how difficult was it for you to balance the tasks of illustrating the challenge of half-belonging in two very different worlds and ensuring that the story, the characters, didn’t get lost in or diluted by the message?

This is such an interesting question! I think it was relatively easy for me to write immigrant characters who went through life while questioning their identity and belonging because that is my lived reality. My experiences and choices were not the same as my protagonist Preeti’s, but I believe the underlying question of belonging resonates for most people, regardless of background.

For me, the highest priority was to craft a relatable and engaging story that kept readers turning the pages. Part of that meant that the story and characters are intertwined with the underlying themes of acceptance, identity, and trying to find out what home really means to them, and I do think it means something different for each character in the book. My goal in writing The Taste of Ginger was to keep the story and characters at the forefront while giving insight into the introspective journey that so many immigrants experience, whether they go through Preeti’s specific challenges or not.

I have kept so much of my assimilation and acculturation journey to myself, and many people in my life would not have appreciated the many layers of thoughts I had as an outsider in even the simplest of situations, and I wanted to illuminate that process. The narrative around how my main character Preeti responds when someone cuts in front of her in line at the grocery store is a good example, because that seemingly innocuous transaction is more fraught and thought-provoking for her based on her past encounters than it might be for someone else who never experienced what she did as a teenager. My hope is that these small vignettes throughout the book help the reader understand her decisions and conflicts on a deeper level.

In your early days of writing The Taste of Ginger, you said in the Good Life Project interview, you thought you would need a primarily white audience for your book to sell, so you initially did a lot of “whitewashing” in the early draft, avoiding or watering down Indian elements that might trigger white readers. After you realized the story needed to contain those elements to honestly reflect the cultural experience you’re familiar with (and to resonate with the audience that drove you to write the story, in the first place), you brought them back in.

What kinds of things were you hesitant to include, at first, and what did it feel like as you were writing to discard that caution and just write the story you wanted to write?

Having been told early in my writing journey that I had to write for a white audience to earn a living as a writer made me hyper-conscious of that fact in my early drafts. I still wanted to raise the difficult issues that immigrants face but was cognizant that I shouldn’t go “too far” into any areas that might offend a white reader. For example, I didn’t address the notion of “color-blindness” that was a common and well-intentioned view that I had often heard while growing up. I also didn’t delve as deeply into what it feels like to be a non-white immigrant in a predominantly white law firm, and I wasn’t as direct about referring to America’s racial hierarchy as a caste system. I felt like I hinted at those issues but didn’t give them the justice on the page that they deserved.

And even beyond the ideas and how they were expressed, I kept my white audience in mind and italicized and provided embedded definitions for any Gujarati words, which was the norm at the time for non-English words. It seemed like it was an uphill battle to get a book centering on an Indian immigrant experience published in the first place, and I couldn’t also ask industry decision-makers to google the words.

But with each revision, I became bolder in what I wrote because simultaneously the world was changing, and I felt like society was evolving in a way that I could be more direct with each draft. And I was changing alongside it. I started writing The Taste of Ginger at the age of 29 and was 40 when I got my book deal. Highly formative years for anyone! During those years, I became less afraid of what would happen if I wrote something that challenged the way people think about immigration and assimilation.

Even with the personal confidence I’d been building, it wasn’t until the global racial reckoning in 2020 that I felt the freedom to fully write what felt authentic and true to my main character’s experience. Over the years, I began to feel an obligation to provide authentic representation to Indian immigrants, and to show our thoughts and experiences in an honest way that is relatable to us. White readers have countless books they can turn to and catch glimpses of themselves, so it didn’t make sense for me to focus on that audience when representation for readers from my own culture was so lacking. I kept asking myself who I would have grown into if I’d had more Gujarati representation in the stories I had read—seen familiar names, foods from my dining table, cultural customs that normalized those I never saw outside of our family home—and I wanted to provide that to the generation behind me. And given society’s awakening to the experiences of people of color in Western societies, I knew that people of all backgrounds were on a quest for understanding and appreciating the differences between us in a way that I had yet to see in my lifetime.

With that goal in mind, I delved deeper into the thoughts of my Gujarati-American protagonist and really painted a view of the conflicts she faced within her family, among her friends and colleagues, and in her romantic relationships. I removed the italics from the Gujarati words and the explanations that had never felt right to me. The Taste of Ginger is a first-person narrative of a Gujarati-American woman, and she knows what those words mean, so she would not pause to explain them. It is clear from context whether she is referring to an item of clothing or food or term of endearment, and I realized that is enough. The words are not foreign to her, so in the same way that an author writing from the perspective of a white American protagonist would not be expected to explain pizza, skirts, or sweetie, I gave my main character that same deference. (And all the words in my book can be googled for anyone who wants further understanding of any of them; I confirmed that myself before publication!)

Making these changes felt like I was finally writing the story I set out to write when I was 29, and it was liberating! I had crafted a story that I was truly proud of and that was authentic to everything I sought to achieve as a writer, even though I was terrified about how it would be received. I did not even let my family read it until just before its release date! Yet, even with my liberation high, I turned in my final draft to my editor and waited with bated breath worried that she would come back and tell me I’d gone too far, that some of the ideas in the book would be too alienating, that we needed to explain the “foreign” words. Fortunately, she loved everything about the changes, and I knew I had the right editor and ally in my corner!

The Taste of Ginger took ten years to sell. Part of the difficulty you faced when trying to get an agent was that some agents you queried would say they’d “just signed an Indian author” or would have recently had “a book like this” on their list. Considering how many books by white Americans are published that are similar to each other in their broader subject matter (soldier stories, murder stories, love stories, detective stories, coming-of-age stories, etc.), how did you receive that feedback, internally, and how did you stay motivated to keep looking for an agent?

That type of rejection was one of the hardest parts of the journey for me, because it was completely out of my control. I wasn’t being told that there was a problem with my writing, or voice, or story. If I had been told any of those things, I could have worked harder, spent more time revising, or come up with another story. But that there wasn’t room on the shelves for what I had written was both demoralizing and motivating.

I had all the thoughts you mentioned, including that no one would ever say that to a white author because there’s room for multiple stories from that point of view. I’d not yet read a single book that reflected my Gujarati immigrant experience, and very few existed featuring characters from other parts of India, but the message from the publishing industry seemed to be that the 1.4 billion people of Indian descent with their varying cuisines, languages, dress, and customs were interchangeable, and the handful of books that existed were enough to satisfy that readership.

My most memorable rejection was in 2011, when an agency meant to send an internal email but instead replied to me (that dreaded act that we all fear), so I saw their true unfiltered thoughts: “Solid voice. Great title. Though I’m worried because you said the India wave has passed…”

I spent a long time thinking about my culture as a passing “wave.” What kept me motivated from that response and others like it was that none questioned my writing abilities. I knew my culture’s stories were worth telling, so it was the fuel to keep going until I found the right agent and editor who wanted to join me in my efforts to disrupt the publishing industry!

Your editor passed on the novel, at first, but said she’d consider it again after a revision. Your agent advised against doing the revise-and-resubmit. Why?

At the time when my current editor initially passed on the book, I was deep into writing my second book. And I had been revising The Taste of Ginger for nearly a decade at that point, so I felt like it was time to move on from it. My agent suggested that I should only revise and resubmit if I felt I wanted to do that for myself, but that in her experience, when publishers weren’t willing to go through the revision process with the author—especially in my case in which the revisions were not that substantial—then it was unlikely that they would pick it up later.

Basically, she nicely told me, it was a longshot. Based on the feedback I’d been getting on The Taste of Ginger, I was more confident in my ability to sell my second novel, so I thought I would be best served focusing my energy there.

After about a year and a half, the same editor contacted you to ask if the manuscript was still available, and you had some mixed feelings about her interest. Can you talk about that a little bit and about how you’re feeling now?

The timing of my offer was strange, because we had stopped shopping The Taste of Ginger over a year earlier. We were amid the 2020 global pandemic, and a racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd and too many others and rampant acts of Asian hate. Voices that had often been disregarded were calling out for change more than I could remember at any other point in my life, and people seemed to be listening.

The Taste of Ginger, a story about an authentic Indian immigrant experience and the search for identity and belonging when someone straddles two cultures without ever fully being accepted in either, is the type of story that it seemed like people were ready to hear. When my agent called me and told me I had an offer, I was stunned. When she told me who it was from, I was even more shocked, because I had not made any of the revisions that had been discussed 18 months ago—had not even moved a comma—but now that same manuscript was worth making an offer without those revisions.

I wrestled with what had happened in the world to lead to this point, and it was a complicated mix of emotions. I could not divorce the publishing industry welcoming content like my novel from the many lives that had been tragically cut short to lead to this pivotal moment in my life. My lifelong dream came true against the backdrop of all this pain, so that duality resulted in a lot of introspection. I questioned if I was getting an offer because it was the current “wave” to sign authors of color—I didn’t want to be seen as a token or quota metric. I wondered whether I’d have to change elements that a white audience might find uncomfortable or controversial. While my manuscript hadn’t changed, it felt like everything around it had.

I talked to my agent for two hours and asked her whether she thought it was the right career move for me to sell both books without having even tried to shop my second novel, yet. Both her gut and mine said that it was. It was a foot in the door, and then I’d let my writing and characters do the talking.

It was a gamble, but I’m thrilled with how things turned out! I love my editor, and she has steadfastly championed the authenticity of my stories, always encouraging me to delve deeper into the minds and hearts of my Indian characters. When I was worried that she wouldn’t like new elements because they handled controversial topics too directly, she would respond that those additions were among her favorites. I’ve gotten so much more than simply having a foot in the door, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to bring these stories to readers.

As an entertainment attorney, you could have written a screenplay instead of a novel and had little trouble getting someone in the film industry to consider it for production (or at least read it). But telling the story was, you said, a creative journey that had to be authentically you, and books have always been authentically you—you read them in the library as a child, had them available when your family didn’t have access to movie tickets, and could “retreat into these characters, these pages.” Part of your goal was giving that same access to young people who can use it now.

You also noted in the Good Life Project interview that you think Hollywood “has shaped public perception around the world in so many ways. No matter where you go, American television and film is present.” Now that you’ve accomplished the novel (and have another on the way), would you consider writing for screen in order to expand your reach and influence?

It is so quintessentially me to make life more difficult than it needs to be! Yes, I am fortunate that I do have access to key executives and talent representatives in Hollywood and could get people to at least consider my work and give it a fair look, with no guarantees beyond that, of course!

I know Hollywood much better than I know publishing, so I could certainly envision expanding my writing for screen. The main goal I hope to accomplish with my writing is to amplify representation and tell authentic stories. In a perfect world, I’d love to do both books and screen and would be immensely grateful if life presents those opportunities to me.

In a November 1945 issue of The Atlantic, Raymond Chandler wrote of working as a writer in the film industry, “On the billboards, in the newspaper advertisements, [the writer’s] name will be smaller than that of the most insignificant bit-player who achieves what is known as billing.” This when it’s the writers who generate the stories, provide the words the actors speak, create from scratch the characters actors portray.

But the inequity isn’t just about visual recognition. Carrie Pilby author Caren Lissner writes in her 2017 Atlantic account of the adaptation of her novel into a movie for Netflix that authors who sell the screen rights to their novels “often get a sum equal to about 2.5 percent of the [production] budget,” and according to the video and television production company Beverly Boy Productions, there’s often a cap, so even if the budget increases, the writer won’t benefit from that higher budget. Writes #teambeverlyboy on their blog post, “That means, even if the [original $10 million] film budget increases, to say $100M? You’re still only going to get $225,000 for the rights, which is still a rather substantial amount of money.”

It’s hard not to be disappointed by the fact that many writers do still say, “Oh, yes, thank you,” to being one of the lower paid people on the team because not only are they being graced with the attention of a production company, which means exposure, but film rights probably do earn a writer more money than they would normally otherwise make. That doesn’t mean the payment, when compared with the rest of the budget allowances and/or the adaptation’s potential earnings, is anywhere near what should be considered adequate compensation for the writer’s inarguably critical contribution.

This all reads as naïve, surely—it’s just how things are in Hollywood—but based on what you’ve seen in your time working in Hollywood, is there potential for authors selling film rights to their work to unify, even in an unofficial way, and demand no-less-than compensation in their contract? For example, “Will not accept a budget cap,” or, “Budget cap, fine, but I also want 2.5 percent of the film’s/series’ earnings for the life of that film/series”? If writers were less willing to accept being treated as content creators for producers rather than as important contributors and artists in their own right, could there be a shift in the perception of their value to the industry?

This is such an important question! Like with publishing or any other established industry, shifting “business as usual” in Hollywood will be a heavy lift, but the optimist/activist in me thinks that we still need to try. As an initial matter, the odds of a book that is optioned actually being produced and distributed is exceedingly rare, so those initial option payments reflect that and are typically very modest. When the options are exercised and the project is being produced, that’s when the author gets the largest payment they are likely to get—typically a percentage of the production budget. Those amounts seem high to authors who are used to getting a very small royalty on each unit sold of their book, but it is often the case that the author gets less compensation relative to the other talent working on the adaptation.

Having had first-hand experience in both industries now, I can see the competing interests at play. Screen adaptations are expensive—generally much more than publishing a book—and decisions are driven by costs and budgets. There is a certain amount that the talent working on the adaptation will be paid from the budget, and that pot of money gets divvied between them, including the option/rights fees to the author. Given that system, it would involve talent and the studios working together to rethink how they allocate production budgets, because if the author is getting paid more, then it likely means someone else is getting paid less than what they have been accustomed to receiving. If it’s not other talent reallocating some of their compensation, then it would be sacrificing something else in the budget, like a special effect or location or wardrobe, and that is also difficult once someone has a creative vision. At the end of the day, it’s all tied to the numbers, and I think it’s going to take a lot of work to change how production budgets are allocated.

This is not to say authors shouldn’t fight for a new normal and seek to change how they are compensated for their source material, but the reality is that those fights gain more traction when done by the most prominent authors who can afford to withhold their rights and not see an adaptation made unless the standard changes. Very few writers are financially able to decline that hefty—even if comparatively less—rights payment that comes with an option being exercised. But if the prominent authors were to seek change, it is more likely that such changes would eventually trickle down and become the standard for everyone. For the time being, however, I think the best thing authors can do is attach themselves to the adaptations because there is more compensation for those who are actively working on the screen versions.

With so many streaming services forming their own production companies, there are increasingly more avenues for writers to have their work adapted. Is there something you think every writer entering into film rights negotiations for the first time should know, watch for, or ask for before signing a contract?

We are living in an era where content is everywhere and available on demand, and that has been great for expanding representation in so many areas. The best advice I have regarding a screen rights deal is to make sure to have the right talent rep in place.

All the studios have preferred agencies and/or talent firms with whom they deal, and those top representatives often have pre-negotiated deals with studios such that even if you are just starting out as an author and selling screen rights for the first time, you could benefit from the talent rep’s already established relationship with the studios. In Hollywood, my view is that those relationships matter just as much as the written source material when it comes to getting the right deal.

As versed as you are in the film entertainment industry, the publishing industry was new to you when you sold your novel to Amazon imprint Lake Union Publishing. In the decade you spent waiting to be published, you must have imagined what it would be like. How did reality match up?

Hearing the news from my agent that we had an offer on The Taste of Ginger and my second book was completely shocking! At that point we had shelved it, so I had no reason to think The Taste of Ginger would live anywhere outside of my laptop!

Having my childhood dream come true can only be described as surreal. The early reviews for the book have gone well beyond anything I ever expected. I’ve received heartfelt messages from immigrants who have felt seen and understood for the first time in a book, and from readers of all backgrounds saying that it gave them a better understanding of the immigrant experience and they will move through their lives with more empathy and compassion as a result. There is no higher praise I could ask for!

I have challenged myself to be open to the debut author process and not put demanding expectations on myself (no easy feat for this overachiever!), knowing that once the book was published, there was very little I could do to make it a success and its performance would rest on the opinions of my readers. Before the novel was published, I would have said getting 1,000 reviews was more than I could have expected, but the book blazed through that goal in a matter of weeks!

As time passes, I admittedly am moving my goalposts from what they had been pre-publication (Joanne Molinaro, The Korean Vegan, has a great post about moving goalposts that has stuck with me). It’s part of my personality to achieve one thing and then look to the next, but with this journey, I’m pausing to cherish the successes as they occur, before, of course, resetting that goalpost!

I’d say the biggest adjustment for me when it came to my publishing deal was that I wasn’t negotiating it myself. I’ve built an entire legal career in which I negotiate on behalf of others, and it was a bizarre situation to hand over the reins to someone else for the deal that I had dreamt of for so long! That said, as the adage goes, “A lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client,” so I knew I needed to get out of my own way! I am still learning the publishing business and am beyond grateful to have my knowledgeable, experienced agent advocating on my behalf, while accommodating my higher-than-average need to know every detail of the negotiating process.

Author Paulette Kennedy asked what advice you would give up-and-coming writers. You said, in part, “There is so much happening all at once and so much of it is good, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed with everything there is to do. … Give yourself some grace if you can’t fit in everything that you wanted to do on the marketing and promotion side.”

What was the “everything there is to do” in your case, and how did you manage the overwhelming moments?

Getting the initial deal is just the first step, and I knew that if I wanted to keep getting deals the book needs to meet the expectations of readers and my publisher. By publishing with Lake Union, it is a unique model compared to traditional Big Five publishers, so my experience was different from that of the few other authors I knew. In my case, with the exception of a pre-release blog/social media tour in December, Lake Union focused on marketing rather than publicity. This meant their efforts were spent on things like getting my book selected for the First Reads Program (which is huge exposure for a debut author!), targeted ads via search engines, and using Amazon’s algorithm to make people aware of my book in the first place, given that discoverability is one of the biggest hurdles to a book being successful.

On the other side, Lake Union doesn’t assign every author a publicist (and I was not chosen to have one), so all the post-release PR opportunities were the result of my own hustle and the help of my friends. For example, I am fortunate to be friends with Jennifer Pastiloff, bestselling author of On Being Human, who has an extensive network and loyal following. She organized Good Life Project for me (and I still can’t believe it, because I’ve been a fan of Jonathan Fields for years before I had a book deal!) and put me in touch with Shelves Bookstore, a wonderful indie bookstore owned by Abby Glen, for my virtual book launch. Having been through her own book launch with a Big Five publisher, Jen was able to give me great advice and guidance on top of the great connections she helped me make. I honestly cannot imagine how I would have survived without her, because she became my de facto publicist!

My other podcast interviews, including Best of Women’s Fiction and The Jabot, were from me reaching out to those places on my own. I was given print and digital ARCs, but I was responsible for finding book bloggers willing to read and review and sending the materials out myself—there were many trips to the post office, but I am now friendly with the staff at my local branch!

My biggest hurdle and the area in which I had to give myself the most grace was social media. I’m not a natural at it and self-promotion is hard for me, so I knew I needed to focus on promoting other authors in addition to myself. I don’t think people realize how much time and effort goes into these posts or reels that we then spend a few seconds viewing.

Given that I still work full-time as an entertainment lawyer, balancing social media on top of my day-job and the actual writing was too much. I had talked to a friend in PR, who had told me I should have one post per day and 3–5 stories each day, and within days, I knew I couldn’t maintain that schedule. So, now, I do my best with the time I have, and I try not to get down on myself if I can’t stay consistent. And the reality is that I don’t have enough reach on social media to move the needle on sales in the way that Lake Union does, so that takes much of the pressure off, and I can use social media for the purpose I enjoy most—engaging with readers and authors!

Going from being a lawyer to being an author promoting her work online must be interesting. Are there platforms you’re more/less comfortable with than others?

Social media is the hardest part of the author job for me! I created social media accounts after I got a book deal because I knew it was necessary, but before that, I was the person who had gone years without engaging with it. My lawyer job is all about confidentiality and privacy, and I am an introvert who has always preferred quality one-on-one time with people than interacting on a mass scale, so I was not primed for this.

While I’m not the most regular content creator, and I’m not the person who is likely to have anything go viral, I’ve found it’s been a wonderful way to connect with readers and authors. Some of the heartfelt messages I’ve gotten from readers have been so moving and have helped motivate me to explore new themes and ideas for future works. And there are so many wonderful bookstagram and booktok accounts that are helping with discoverability of books like mine, and I’m grateful to them both as a reader and a writer. I have more books in my TBR list than I can likely consume in my lifetime, but it’s good to know that I’m spoiled for choice! And I’m grateful for the connections I’ve made with other writers through social media. I’ve genuinely made true friendships and found a community that is so generous and supportive, and I hope we will actually meet in person one day!

Amazon / Bookshop

When it comes to platforms, I was given the advice early on to pick one and focus on that, so my platform of choice is Instagram, and you can find me @mansishahwrites. I tend to carry over my content to Facebook and Twitter as well, because they’ve made that easy for even a neophyte social media user like me to do! I’ve used Facebook, so I have a general understanding of how that works, but Twitter still mystifies me if I’m ever on the platform, and I probably need to watch a tutorial to learn some basics.

I knew I wanted my socials to authentically represent me, so they focus on the things I love most: highlighting books by underrepresented authors, exploring countries for my next novel, cooking the Indian food I grew up with, and finding the right European wine to pair with my culinary adventures…the same themes that are often present in my books!

What Your Writing Is Training You For

Photo by Atul Vinayak on Unsplash

Today’s post is by author, editor and coach Jessica Conoley (@jaconoley).

I had a coaching call this week with a client who was living the creative dream. A highly anticipated book launch with great reviews, support from the publisher, deals in the background that she couldn’t talk about yet. It was the moment many writers dream of.

And she was miserable.

To make it worse she knew she should be happy, but the non-creative part of her livelihood was sucking every ounce of life out of her—depriving her of the energetic emotion to feel anything at all, let alone celebrate this milestone. She needed to make some hard decisions about her life. And those life-altering decisions felt even harder to make because she didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Because we had worked together from her first manuscript through agent signing, and all the good beyond, and because she knew I had left behind a corporate life and am still standing she asked me for advice. Our conversation went something like this:

Jessica: As a writer you know that moment in a story. The moment where you’re writing in the dark. Where you’ve made it this far, but don’t see where the story is going, or what happens next. You’re worried you won’t figure it out, but you’re already twenty-thousand words in and you have to figure it out, but it feels impossible, like you’re a complete garbage human, and why even keep going…

But…you’ve been at this point before, and you know you figured it out last time, so you’re probably going to figure it out this time. And regardless of the horrifying feelings of suck and imposter syndrome, you have faith you’re going to get through it, and a book is going to come out of it. Have you ever felt like that when you write?

Writer: Yes. That’s pretty much it exactly.

Jessica: Living your life as a working creative is living in that moment of you don’t know what happens next. Again, and again, and again.

Your writing has been training you for this moment. Your writing has been training you, so you can start living your real life.

Living your life as a creative means having faith that you are going to figure it out and make it work when you’re sitting in the dark and can’t see what’s coming next.

You’re rarely going to know what’s coming next. At first that’s scary, just like when you’re writing. But also, just like in writing, there’s a point when scary turns into excitement, because what happens next might be cooler than anything you ever could have imagined.

Writer: What you’re saying makes sense, but if I knew when or how this next part played out, I feel like I could take that next big step.

Jessica: Right, but that’s the thing. Creative living isn’t the corporate world where there’s this gigantic machine that can honestly control the how and when things happen. This is a whole different world. And to survive and learn to be happy in this creative world, you focus on the WHAT you’re doing and WHY you’re doing it, and you leave the how and when up to something bigger than you.

I know that’s hard to swallow, because it’s a huge act of faith in yourself and your creativity. This is why we turn to the people we trust who have been there before. The people you know won’t lie to you.

I’ll tell you what my mentor, Deborah Shouse, told me when I was standing in your exact spot. “It always works out.” I couldn’t believe it. “Always?” I asked. “Always,” she said. When I made the leap, and my rational mind would tell me all the reasons I would fail, I would remind myself that Deborah wouldn’t lie to me. So, I was going to let her confidence propel me, until I’d established my own.

And she was right. It always works out.

I then went on to tell my client half-a-dozen examples of how it had always worked out. I also told her that rarely did things work out when or how I thought they were supposed to, and sometimes what felt like complete failure in the moment, ended up teaching me something really important or lead to a long-term success I couldn’t foresee.

At the end of our call, I was confident my client would get where she needed to be, and that her work was going to impact countless readers. But like the rest of us, I knew she would confront mindset issues as she detoxed from the conditioning of non-creative life and embraced the challenges of a creative career.

After we hung up, I sent her an image that included the guiding principles I established for myself, and by extension The Creative’s Apprentice.

Concern myself with WHAT & WHY. How & When are not my focus.Follow the energy of freedom, ease, and expansion.Live what I believe. i.e., create, balance, intuition.Celebrate the positive and release the negative.Plan only three steps ahead.Willing intent fuels me.Choose faith over fear.Let go of misbeliefs.I don’t fail; I learn.Simplicity.

It was time for her to establish her own rules for how to Live Life as A Creative—something she could reference in those moments where she was sitting in the dark, unsure of what happens next.

Have you thought about what principles guide you through your creative career? If not, think of a moment you’ve been stuck, or felt like your work was irrevocably broken. What helped you through that moment? Make a list of qualities, lessons, or feelings that helped move you forward. Build off of that, and over time refine it. Post it in a visible spot, and next time you are faced with a hard decision, be it in your writing or your life, use it as a reminder that you have been in the dark before, and you always find your way out.

13 Ways to Freaking Freak Out Your Horror Readers

Photo by Pedro Figueras from Pexels

Today’s post is by author and self-publishing mentor Shayla Raquel (@shaylaleeraquel).

People love to be scared. So if you’re writing in the horror genre, your ultimate yet obvious goal is to scare the pants off your readers. You want them to bite their nails down to nubs. Seeing an Amazon review that says “Kept me up all night! So creepy!” would make your horror-writing heart so happy.

But what are some methods for achieving that kind of feedback? How do you frighten a reader so badly that they text their mom at midnight saying, “OMG this book freaked me out so bad! You have to read it”?

Here are 13 ways to do precisely that.

1. Place something scary in a beautiful setting.

We’re used to scary things happening in dark alleyways or creepy abandoned warehouses or Michael Myers-esque mental hospitals, but what if things could be even scarier when you put them in breathtaking places?

For example, if I wrote a scene in Japan with the cherry blossoms, you’d imagine the most gorgeous pink hues. It would feel like a wonderland. A place you’d want to get married or have the world’s best photoshoot.

Now take that setting—a place where romance buds—and slit a character’s throat. That is horrifying, but it works. When you use a lovely background for an odious purpose, it stings more. It’s unnatural, it’s unexpected. As a reader, I expect an evil clown to round the corner of a dark alley. I do not expect to see blood spurting from a neck amid cherry blossoms.

2. Push the limits of your antagonist’s sanity.

In Misery, Annie Wilkes has a scrapbook with newspaper clippings from her past life as the Dragon Lady. That’s already nerve-racking, but it’s more messed up when we see that she drew in the scrapbook. What’s more horrifying to you—that Annie has a scrapbook of her murders, or that she glams it up with little handwritten sayings, like a sorority girl with Polaroids might?

Let’s say you’re writing a Mommie Dearest type of villain. Do you have a “No more wire hangers!” moment? Is there a scene wherein your villain pushes the limits of her sanity and does something so obscene that it becomes a pinnacle moment for your character(s)?

Speaking of sanity…

3. Study the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

I might get hater comments for this, but here we go: I don’t know how you can appropriately write about terrifying villains without having some basic understanding of psychology and nature versus nurture. Your antagonist is not just a serial killer or a cannibal or a human trafficker for no reason whatsoever. There was something (or somethings) that led your antagonist toward monsterdom.

Even if it’s a case of nature (the villain was born this way), that’s still a reason, an answer. Invest in the DSM-5 and study up on psychotic disorders.

For example, there is nothing inherently “wrong” with being a psychopath; many psychopaths lead perfectly fine lives with jobs and families. The twist is when, perhaps, a psychopath is raised by an extremely abusive parent, thus potentially setting the foundation for a violent antagonist in your crime thriller.

4. Show your villain right at the beginning or right at the end.

Do you know when the great white shark fully appears in the movie Jaws?

One hour, 21 minutes in. You get glimpses, but the entire shark? Nope, not until the 1-hour, 21-minute mark (in a 2-hour film). It’s this tension that makes the movie superior. The viewers know there is a man-eating shark, but the anticipation in seeing it in all its grudge-holding glory? That keeps people on the edge of their seats, even decades later.

On the other hand, kicking off a story immediately with an in-your-face villain is a tried-and-true method. In Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh, you know by the third line in the prologue that Joshua Kane is a cold-blooded killer.

With this method, you eliminate the mystery of the villain (i.e., “Who could it be?”) and replace it with dread (i.e., “I know who the monster is, so whatever he’s about to do is going to be heart-stopping!”).

5. Cross the line. Big time.

This could also be titled “cut the vein,” which I’ve talked about often. In 2019, author Sanderia Faye taught a class for Dallas-Fort Worth Writers Conference and explained that writers cannot skirt around the edge; they must cut the vein. They must bleed onto the page. Think of Sophie’s Choice or Beloved.

In horror, you’ll most likely have some blood and guts and definitely death. It’s expected. But sometimes cutting the vein means not going for death. Could a scene become more gruesome if torture was involved? Could a story become more memorable not because of an ounce of blood, but because of the deep psychological trauma your antagonist inflicted on your protagonist?

In Cujo, Stephen King achieves this by killing Tad, a 4-year-old boy, not from the bite of the rabid dog, but from dehydration and heatstroke.

Can you think of a time in your writing when you cut the vein? Have you ever pushed the boundaries in your story? You should.

6. Research what others won’t dare to.

When I wrote Savage Indulgence, a short story about a cannibal named Joyce, I knew for a fact I’d be falling into an abyss that was not for everyone. Horror forces a writer to learn about topics that many humans probably shouldn’t know a thing about. If I was going to write about eating human flesh, I was going to have to read about that exact thing to get it right. Once I read what I read, I could never undo it. So there is a major caveat to this method.

That said, if you’re willing to, um, go where no man has gone before, you can terrify your reader on a totally different level. For example, I read literature published by actual cannibals so that my scenes were on point every time. It was really hard for me to digest (okay, awful pun, so sorry). It took a toll on me, to be honest. But the cold hard truth? It made my horror story better because I researched so deeply.

7. Reveal that any human being can become a monster.

Breaking Bad, though not horror, did an exceptional job at this task. Can you take a beloved character or an average joe or a do-gooder and turn them into a savage? Can you make the lovable unlovable?

Horror so often shows us things about humanity we don’t want to see. We want to believe that everyone is capable of good, but maybe, just maybe, some people start out good and evolve into something sinister.

Try taking a character who is loved by all—she volunteers at her local nonprofit, bakes goodies for her neighbors, dotes on her husband—and turn her into a walking nightmare.

8. Push beyond “There is no way this could possibly get any worse.”

In Misery (yes, again, I know), Paul Sheldon being held against his will is bad. Paul’s longtime stalker being his nurse? Oh, that’s bad too. But you know when things go beyond that? When Annie hobbles him. As a horror writer, you have to be willing to go beyond bad. You have to go to a dark, messed-up place. A place that’s just plain wrong.

Make your reader think, “There is no possible way this could get any worse.” Right when you have them in that moment, wreck them with something disgusting or god-awful or traumatizing. You want Hannibal Lecter moments? Then rub salt in a wound.

9. Interrupt a happy or nostalgic moment with horror.

In Wanderers by Chuck Wendig, Charlie tells a cute story about his kids eating spaghetti. In this scene, it’s pure nostalgia and you find yourself smiling as you reminisce with him. But his sweet story is interrupted by a gruesome, shocking moment. Like, stop-reading-and-back-up shocking. (I shan’t spoil it.)

I read this scene three times. To me, this is true horror. This is true tension. To be able to take a nostalgic moment for Charlie as he retells it, then interrupt it with something so jaw-dropping—that’s a skill set I hope to have as a writer.

So if you know you’re going to write a shocking scene, set it up nicely with a sweet moment.

10. Learn from real-life monsters.

True crime is a big part of my life, so I binge plenty of it. I use it as a method for learning. If I’m going to write about monsters, I need to study real-life killers from our past and present. Men are often the monsters in the real world and in fiction, so I like to make my villains female. In my research, I’ve found that women such as Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Michelle Carter and Aileen Wuornos are fantastic case studies. When I learn about them, I can implement my findings into my own characters.

Think about your antagonist. Is there anyone from real life who resembles him or her? If so, watch documentaries on that real-life monster; listen to podcasts, read books, study conspiracy theories. Whatever you can get your hands on. The more you learn about the real things that go bump in the night, the more your readers will crave your stories. (And sleep medication.)

11. Play with the “wrongness” of something.

In Night Shift by Stephen King, “The Mangler” (short story) has a non-human villain: a laundry folder at a laundromat. You wouldn’t think it’d be scary, but it freaked me out. It was just…wrong. It shouldn’t be a thing, but it was and it worked.

What is unnatural in your story that you could work with? In the short story “Hive,” featured in Kitchen Sink by Spencer Hamilton, we meet a young boy who turns his entire house into an infestation of ants and spiders and creepy-crawlies. Two agents make their way inside the house, and there is no possible way you can read this story without feeling like bugs are on your skin. That’s “wrongness” in all the right ways.

12. Polarize your readers.

This method deserves a pros and cons list before you do it, but if implemented correctly, you’ll leave readers thinking about your story for years to come.

In The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, the reader is left to decide who was right: Eric or Andrew. Even Paul himself has disclosed that he doesn’t know the answer. Sometimes, we don’t get all the answers. That leaves us polarized. Some readers don’t like endings like this, but I find them to be more accurate than most. Because that’s what life does in its most horrifying moments: it leaves us with more questions than answers.

If you want to leave your readers scared and talking, polarize them.

13. Embellish your own deepest fear.

I’m petrified of spiders, porcelain dolls, childbirth, and clusters of holes (trypophobia). If I were to write about these topics—things I’m genuinely afraid of—that fear would resonate with my readers, even if they aren’t necessarily afraid of those things. My fear would become their fear.

Make a list of the things that strike fear in you, then use that list as a writing prompt. Take what you’re afraid of and embellish it. If you’re afraid of confined spaces, then put your character in a claustrophobic setting on steroids. Being stuck in an elevator that won’t move isn’t enough; add a dead body to up the stakes. If you’re afraid of heights, then placing your protagonist on a roller coaster may be interesting, but it’s not enough. Having the roller coaster stop still isn’t enough. Instead, have the roller coaster stop while the protagonist is upside down. Try to think of what would make you lose your mind.

That’s it, horror writers. I hope these methods help you scare the crap out of your readers!