Laura Teagan's Blog, page 31

Defining Your Genre

When it comes to your book, there’s one big thing that will define where it ends up, as far as marketing: your genre. Well, okay, there’s two things. Your genre and your age market. I know there are some genres that seem to cover both of these, but today, I’m going to break down why each is important to the market and why you ought to define both (even if you do it just for yourself).

Genre

Your genre is your niche, the type of book you write. For instance, I write mystery books, so my genre is mystery. Genres are used to bring books together that are similar. It helps people find books they like. I’m not a big sci-fi person (just not my thing), so by bundling books together under “Sci-Fi” (I know that’s not the real term), this allows me, the reader, to not waste my time looking for books I’m not ever going to read.

It also lets the Sci-fi reader easily find them in a book store, allowing the person to quickly pick their books and get to reading. And as authors, isn’t that what we want? People to enjoy our books?

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Target Audience

I use target audience as something different than genre. Target Audience, at least for me, is more of the age demographic. I know there are some age demographics that are treated more like genre (specifically Young Adult and New Adult), but these aren’t really genres! A Young Adult romance book is completely different from a Young Adult Fantasy book. They aren’t going to catch the same readers (for the most part – some people like all of them).

When it comes to Target Audience, you need to be smart about marketing. You don’t want to market a teenage romance book to an eighty year-old man. You want to target it to the age group you’re writing for. If you’re worried about people outside of your audience not being able to find your book if you don’t market, here’s my advice: write the best book you can. People in your audience will pass it on if they believe the book deserves it.

Tell me, what genre are you writing? Who’s your target audience? 

The post Defining Your Genre appeared first on Ginger & Books.

3 Unrelated Things to Think About When Plotting

Starting a new novel can be exciting and scary at the same time. If you’re like me, you often start a story with one main, abstract idea that’ll be the main plot, but even before you begin, you have a lot of work to go through before you really write.

Filling out a plot is all about deciding what your book is about, before you even start. While you may not make all the major plot decisions at first, here’s three things to think about for your next novel.

1. Are you aiming for some romance?

This one seems silly, but think about the kind of romance you’d want if you had it. Some books feature loose romances, where some feature the once in a lifetime love. As a bitter, single lady who gets 100% of her romance through fictional media (mostly books), I always appreciate a little romance in my books.

2. Are you looking to have a larger social message in your story?

Do you want there to be an underlying social commentary in your book? Are you looking to push a message, even if it’s not about a social issue? Or do you prefer just to write a story to entertain? There’s definitely merits to both options, but it’s definitely something to think about before hand. If you choose to include a social message, you don’t have to have all the answers before you start writing, though.

3. What genre are you planning to write?

I’ll actually have a post about defining genre and age category and my thoughts on the difference next Tuesday, but you need to think about it first.

Can you tell by all these tips that I am definitely a planner? I can’t just jump into a story at all. I put a lot of thought into my story before I begin.

Tell me, what are some things you think about before beginning your story?

The post 3 Unrelated Things to Think About When Plotting appeared first on Ginger + Books.

Books in March

Shoutout to Kory Woodard because I’m adapting this idea from her because I love it so much. 

I really try to make an effort to keep reading during school. I’ve learned that I get most of my reading done during lunch, so I try to make sure I give myself a half-hour break to make lunch (usually chicken nuggets) and sit and read while I eat. My nook is great because if I get anything on it, I can quickly wipe it down.

This month, my goal was to read four books, and I read three. I wanted to give a quick review of the three books I read.

1. Killer in High Heels

This is the second in a series and this one was a book I finished at the beginning of the month. It’s definitely an interesting premise and I loved the development between Maddie and the main love interest, Jack. The Mob story line was definitely interesting too.

2. The Means

I read this one for my book project and I have to say, I found the story interesting, but the writing was subpar. In writing, we have thins thing called showing vs. telling, and you want to stick with showing as much as possible. In this book, if you didn’t have dialogue, it was telling and it just didn’t work.

3. UNDERCOVER IN HIGH HEELS

This is the third in a series and while I loved this the first time I read it in high school, this time it took me a lot longer to read it because it just wasn’t as engaging. I felt like I was reading it more on a critical level and it just wasn’t as great. It’s a chick-lit, cozy mystery, so if that’s your thing, definitely check out these books at least to decide for yourself!

What did you read in March?

This post also appeared on Ginger + Co. 

How to Tell When It’s Time to Ditch Your Draft

[image error]When I announced that I was postponing The Assassin, I had every intention of taking a long time off from the story. Well, that lasted a week and a half and last Thursday, I found myself playing with the idea of some major changes. Ideas I really liked.

So, two hours later, after some busting out the notecards and the highlighter to take some scene notes (post on that coming soon), I decided to make these major changes, bringing in the third “reincarnation” of The Assassin. Which led me to wonder, how do you know when it’s time to ditch your draft?

1. You Find Yourself Purposely Ignoring It

Now, I’m not talking about writer’s block, that’s totally different. I’m talking about genuinely ignoring it when you know you need to work on it and know how. Dragging your feet, doing things like cleaning or taking out the trash instead of sitting down and writing.

2. Rewrites Don’t Seem to Take You Anywhere

If you’ve rewritten your story time and time again, keeping most of the main parts the same, but it doesn’t seem to ever get any better, it may be time to ditch the draft.

3. You Decide to Change a Major Part of Your Story

Whether it’s a subplot, a location, a character’s back story, big things that play out through the whole story deserve to get a full make over. This third option is what happened to me as I launched myself into the third incarnation of The Assassin. Cassie is older, lives in Texas, and has a new last name, plus many other changes.

I also want to say, just because you ditch a draft doesn’t mean you have to ditch the story. Sometimes, you need to ditch everything but the framework and start over on the details.

The Unanticipated Break

[image error]When I first started Ginger + Books as a sub-site of Ginger + Co., I had planned to have lots of great posts and writing tips. That obviously did not happen.

Then The Assassin went on postponement and I decided whether I was going to pull the plug on Ginger + Books or not. I decided its staying. I wrote tips about writing before I planned to self-publish a book, why not after I decide to wait?

So this is starting over. Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can expect awesome posts here from Ginger + Books. If you aren’t already, follow the main site (Ginger + Co.) where there’s tips about blogging, college, and organizing everyday.

Seven posts in five days, obviously I am crazy, and I know it. So, Thursday I will be back with some awesome tips and until then, rock your Tuesday!

Setting Myself Free

I feel like I’ve written this post ten times over the past few years, yet, none of them felt quite as big as this time around. The Assassin isn’t coming out in May. I don’t know when it will come out, because, quite frankly, I’m taking a break from it.

This story and these characters have been in my life constantly for almost eight years. That’s a long time for a twenty-one year-old. I love them all, but I feel the craving to take the time and start something new. I know once this book comes out, I’ll be running around to get sequels out.

School has been kicking my ass this semester and I just know I won’t be proud of this book if I rush through this editing process all in the sake of a time frame. So, for now, I’m going to walk away. Take time away from the characters and see what happens, just because I can. Don’t worry, The Assassin will be out at some point, but I don’t know when that point will be. The fact that I have no idea, it’s kind of liberating.

Since it won’t be out any time soon, I wanted people to be able to read at least a little bit. Over the next week or so, I’ll be adding a few chapters from the beginning to two websites: Wattpad and WriteOn.

50 Shades of an Author’s Perspective

Let me just say that I’ve read all three books, but I haven’t seen the movie. Not sure if I’m going to, to be honest. 50 Shades of Grey is an interesting series to me. Not in the content of the series, but how I can learn from it as an author.

It’s not a stretch to say that the writing mechanics in the series are not the best. Some of the plot lines (especially in the last two books) are rushed and seem out of the blue. The Hyde plot line is by far my least favorite and left me with many questions, but that’s not important.

The one thing that I’ve taken away from this series is the character development, especially of Christian Grey. I know, someone is going to come in and say how he’s abusive, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about tonight. Christian Grey is an interesting character to me in his background. What happened to him as a child is pretty awful – I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, and living like that as a child is going to leave some incredibly deep scars.

Maybe it’s not so much Grey  himself as the way he acts that intrigues me (and that isn’t always a good thing). Creating a believable character can make or break your story. A believable character can help cement a not-so-believable plot line. Grey isn’t a believable character. His aftermath of a shitty childhood is, but the way he reacts? Not so much. The first time I read the series, I constantly wanted to give him a bottle of Midol to help with the mood swings.

So, what can an author learn from Christian Grey? Lots of things. One – how to write a bad lover. Or how to not write a good one. Learn what people consider abusive and try to stay away from that. Of course, there are things you can take from him that are good – he does donate to charities and I don’t think anyone is going to argue that’s bad.

Control is a good thing to have a grasp on, but too much control is bad – that’s his problem. If you want to write a romantic lead who insists on the girl being protected and she argues that he can’t stop her, he has to have a moment when he stops and realizes that girl will not be stopped. Be realistic.

As a believer that people (almost) always have good qualities, I don’t think Christian Grey is an exception – there are parts that are good of him and parts that could have the possibility to be good. But, the point is, Christian Grey is a hot mess.

If you’re an author and you read the books, take notes, for a character stand-point, Christian Grey has plenty to teach us all.

Writing Prompt 2

Listen to a conversation as you walk by. Then let your imagination go wild with what could happen in that conversation.

Creating My Own Market

The New Adult genre is still rather new, I’d say five years at the most. There’s still a lot of shifting and trying to find out how things work in this genre. Many people would say its a romance-heavy genre, which I can see the argument.

Well, what happens when you write a book that falls into a genre but not a market? One of the reasons I feel comfortable with self-publishing is my advertising/public relations background. This is my major and with both of these, I’ve also taken marketing classes, so I know how to phrase words to get the best results. I’ve been talking about this book for a long time now, so people know it’s coming. Word of mouth is a great market.

But, how do you capture the attention of someone that isn’t your friend? Well, it’ll be tricky. I’m in a unique place – you don’t see many plots like mine, and when you do, they sure aren’t targeted a college students. Some may cal this a curse, but I consider it a blessing. Not only do I get to market to college students, but mystery lovers as well. As long as I market to them correctly, I get both audiences. Win win, yes?

So much of marketing these days is to social media and I’m excited for the next few months to share how I’m building a platform and expanding my potential reach for when the book releases!

Writing Prompt #1

I’m so excited to start Writing Prompts with you! The best way to start writing is to just start writing, so today we’ll start with something easy. Today, I want you to describe the area around you. Are you outside? Listening to someone arguing? Watching the rain? In a few hundred words, describe what you’re seeing it!

Yes, this is easy, but you have to start off small to get great things!