I.H. Laking's Blog, page 7

Novel Writing 3: The Long and Winding Road.

How the road turns unexpectedly.

Ten weeks ago, I hit the halfway point on my first novel, and was assessing where to go next with my story. I had expected to be able to press on quite quickly from that point, but life had other plans! Since I was taking a long-overdue holiday, I soon found myself with little time set aside to write, and a number of other priorities taking precedence.

So up  until last week, barely a word was written for my novel. There were a number of other writing feats that took place:

I wrote a new story for the #TwitterFicton Festival.
I developed my characters and plotlines further for my novel.
I wrote story outlines for two new Inspector Ambrose mysteries (some readers will rejoice at this, I know).

As I am now travelling around Australia for my ‘real job’ I am finding plenty of time to write in airports, on planes, and in the back of cars (unlike George R. R. Martin). This has led me to get some momentum behind my novel again, and I should pass 45,000 words soon enough. A few unexpected turns have come up in the novel – necessitated by the way the story has developed. I also started to go down a very different tangent before I decided it just didn’t feel right, and reverted to my original plan.

More updates will be forthcoming soon – all going according to plan, I’ll have my first draft finished by the end of the month, and then I’ll be taking a break to let the manuscript incubate a little whilst Inspector Ambrose gets another run.

Exciting times ahead!

Friday Focus: Five Tips for Writing Twitter Fiction.

This Friday Focus will look at Twitter, that lovely short medium which requires succinct styling to get a point across smoothly.

Last week I took part in the #TwitterFiction Festival, which was a blast. During three one-hour tweeting sessions, I sent out a total of 600 tweets telling the story of one of my characters from the Empire. I already wrote a preliminary list of things I learned during the process of writing my story last week, and today I’m going to get more in-depth and highly practical to help you learn the ins and out of writing fiction on Twitter.

This isn’t designed to be a comprehensive how-to, it’s more of a list of things I think are really handy to think about when writing fiction for Twitter. So… here we go!

Things you should do when writing fiction for Twitter:

 1. Use a Hashtag to link your tweets: Hashtags allow people to follow a theme across time easily, so settle on a Hashtag. Like #ItsTheBestMysteryEver or #WhoReallyDidIt. But bare in mind: the longer your Hashtag, the less space you’ll have for content. Use those characters wisely!

2. Match your writing to the medium: Tweets are limited to 160 characters. If you add an image and a hashtag to your tweets, the space left for writing drops to 120 characters. Think carefully about your prose, and find ways to shorten sentences without being abrupt – I found this to be the greatest challenge as I edited down my tweets; I found myself reusing phrases and lacking in flair, which was frustrating to say the least.

3. Limit the number of accounts and characters you use: I chose to write my fiction through several characters who conversed together in a series of flashbacks – this proved to be quite time consuming. I’d recommend having a maximum of a couple of characters, and even better, just tweeting as one character. This is what I had to do for each new character I used for dialogue:

– Create an account for each character, including having a new email for each one & a unique Twitter Handle.

– Verify each account.

– Create a character profile & avatar for each account.

This was quite time consuming. So keep it simple.

4. Consider Twitter’s limits on account activity: Twitter limits the number of tweets you can send in a day, including an hourly breakdown. This can be problematic if you’re planning to tweet a whole story in an hour. You can only tweet 100 times an hour before you get locked out for a while. You might think that’s a big limit, but I easily sent 240 tweets in an hour across multiple accounts – it stacks up fast. More details on limits can be found here.

5. Super practical stuff for live tweeting: These are key practical things that will make your life easier when you tweet your story.

– Use a laptop. I was on holiday without access to a laptop, and had to live tweet off an iPad with a USB keyboard. It was far from ideal. Go easy on yourself, use a laptop.

– Copy & paste as you go. If you’ve pre-written your tweets, have them ready to copy and paste between a document and Twitter. Drafts go out of order, so don’t try and save them all then press “send”. Keep a master copy of your story by your side in case you get lost at all.

– Proofread your tweets. I know, I know… but I have to say it. I almost sent a tweet killing off the wrong character. No jokes.

– Be prepared to make changes on the fly. As I neared the end of my story, I realised I needed to flesh out some motivations to provide a decent resolution for my readers. This meant writing some tweets on the spot, but it was totally worth it.

There we go! I hope that’s a helpful list. If you’re thinking about writing fiction for Twitter, I’d encourage you to give it a go – it’ll stretch your limits for sure.

And that can only be a good thing.

The Last Lesson: Introducing the Cast.

In two days my #TwitterFiction goes live, and this is a short introduction to the cast!

  

The Narrator (@The__Narrator): The guy pulling everything together. The Narrator will be filling in the gaps and telling the story of The Last Lesson from Qan’s perspective.

  

Qan (@_Qan_): The main character of The Last Lesson. A young man from Khalím in the Eastern Empire, Qan arrives on the island of Qesh seeking to learn The Way, and what to do with the great power he’s recently discovered.

  

The Mentor (@_The_Mentor): The head of training on Qesh, The Mentor is responsible for the training of young, talented, individuals from the Eastern Empire in the forbidden art of The Way. He is wise, respected, and insightful.

  

Rajj (@_Rajj__): The Head Tutor on Qesh. He enacts much of the training and discipline that young arrivals take on. He has been on the island for many years, and keeps to himself outside of classes.

  

Ashi (@_Ashi__): Qan’s best friend on Qesh. He seeks to make his family proud as he learns The Way. His ambition is to return to his village and finally end an ancient family feud.

  

Rath (@_Rath__): The first person from his family to learn The Way. He may seem lazy at first, but holds a deep desire to prove his worth.

   

 Madi & Nadi (@Shah_Madi_ & @Shah_Nadi_): Twin sisters who are always quick to lighten the mood. They have been sent to Qesh to carry the family legacy of The Way. Under their fun exterior lies a ruthless and determined streak.

I’m really proud of the characters I’ve developed, and am looking forward to seeing them come to life on Twitter soon! Sign up to my list to read the story live on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 6PM AEST!

Some Lessons from Writing for the #TwitterFiction Festival.

569 tweets.

That’s how many tweets I’ll be popping out from eight Twitter accounts on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week for the #TwitterFiction Festival.

From 6 – 7 PM AEST each day, I’ll be telling the story of Qan and The Mentor. I’ve been writing the story whilst on holiday without my trusty laptop, and it’s certainly been a challenging experience. Since some of you may consider writing fiction on Twitter in the future, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learnt from this experience.

1. Keep it simple. I’m using several accounts to tweet this story, since it includes flashbacks. This has produced a number of challenges for me, including making sure I have a profile picture for each character, as well as background information and motivations. Keep it simple – one or two accounts max!

2. Hashtags eat up your (text) characters. I’m using #TheLastLesson for my story – combined with #TwitterFiction I’m using up 29 of my precious 160 characters to get my hashtags on. Think about the length of your tags – make sure they’re unique and not too long. On reflection, I’d shorten mine a touch.

3. Get ready to be concise. I should have written my original tweets with a measure of how long they were. I had to edit around 1/4 of my tweets as I did my final edit because they were too long. The key is to be concise: I found the biggest challenge to be avoiding repitition in my tweets as I had only a 130 characters to work with.

Those are my original thoughts – I’m sure I’ll have more once my story goes live. Watch it unfold on my Twitter List or on my Twitter account in two days’ time!

#TwitterFiction Festival: When I’ll be in Action.

Great news!

The official schedule for the 2015 #TwitterFiction Festival has been released! You can check it out here.

As previously mentioned, I’ll be telling a story in three parts. I’ve been lucky enough to score primetime hours in Australia, from 6-7pm AEST. Of course, if you’re in the States, you’ll be able to catch me from 4-5am… so here’s to the night owls!

So just to recap:

The Last Lesson

Part I:   6-7pm AEST 12/5/15

Part II:  6-7pm AEST 13/5/15

Part III: 6-7pm AEST 14/5/15

Remember, the eastiest way to read the story is to sign up to The Last Lesson Twitter List. Now it’s back to writing for me. The story is coming together, but there’s plenty still to do before the 12th arrives!

#TwitterFiction Festival: The Last Lesson.

An exciting announcement to start the new week: I’m going to be a part of the 2015 #TwitterFiction Festival!

I’m super pumped about the opportunity to combine two of my favourite things: tweeting and writing! There are so many great writers involved with the festival and I’m totally stoked to be part of it.

So what’s my contribution going to look like? Well, I’m going to be continuing the story of Qan, the young man I wrote about in the short story Qan’s Adventure. Over three one-hour installments on May 12th, 13th, & 14th, I’ll use several character accounts to tell the story of Qan’s last meeting with the Great Mentor. It’s a dark story which will examine how far someone will go to help their friends – because heros often hide dark secrets.

Sounds interesting! So how do I join in the fun?

I’m glad you asked!

Sign up to The Last Lesson Twitter List.

You can easily follow The Last Lesson on Twitter by clicking here: It’s a Twitter list that will contain all the main characters of the story (As I write this, it’s still under construction, but sign up now so you’re ready to go!) As the first part of the tale unfolds, you can read it on The Last Lesson list, tweet by tweet.

Click here for the Twitter List.

Use the Hashtag #TheLastLesson.

All my tweets about The Last Lesson will use this hashtag – you can also use it to discuss the story and follow the action as it unfolds. Also, check out the #TwitterFiction hashtag while you’re at it!

Follow me for more updates.

My Twitter Handle is @IHLaking. I’ll be running a countdown to the beginning of The Last Lesson, as well as tweeting like I normally do. Come say hi! I love to chat.

That’s it, folks! I’m heading off to write some more of the hundreds of tweets I’m going to need for this fictional experiment. Looking forward to seeing you on Twitter soon!

This Weekend Only: Get The Murder at Mansfield Manor for Free!

Happy Friday everyone!

I haven’t been putting a lot of blog entries in these past weeks due to other commitments, but today I have some exciting news: This weekend, you can download a copy of The Murder at Mansfield Manor FREE!

Yup, that’s it, free. I’m always keen to get my work out to as many new readers as possible, and this weekend will give people the chance to meet Inspector Ambrose in (what I believe is) his most challenging mystery yet. 

Help me get the word out! Here’s to a weekend where a bunch of people meet my favourite fictional character. (Hey, I’m biased, but at least I’m willing to admit it!)

You can grab your copy of The Murder at Mansfield Manor here.

P.S. Yes, the rumours are true, the next Inspector Ambrose mystery is officially in the works as well.

Friday Focus: Amazon Keyword Changes

So a couple of weeks ago I made some changes to my keywords on Amazon based on some research I did into Amazon search optimisation. This post is an analysis of the results. Please note that this isn’t entirely scientific, but I believe it’s fairly accurate.

For the purposes of this piece, I’ll focus on Amazon.co.uk. I hadn’t had a lot of success there before my search changes. So, let’s go!

What I changed: Originally, I only used single words as my keyword terms on Amazon. This was simply based on picking words from Amazon’s KDP keyword suggestions. Then I listened to a podcast where another author described his success based on using keyword phrases. So, I changed from single words to phrases.

How I changed things: Here were some of my original phrases: Preteen, steampunk, mystery, young adult. I searched inside Amazon to see what autofill terms came up. So under “Steampunk” I noticed that “Steampunk fantasy” came up. With young adult, I found that “Free young adult books” came up. So… my new list went from:

Preteen/Steampunk/Mystery/Young adult

to

preteen novel/steampunk fantasy/free mystery/free young adult books

And these are the results:

Excuse the resolution – I’m typing on a random tiny laptop in Berlin. So I made the changes on March 18. Prior to this, I was getting one or two free units of Mrs Milliard’s Mech downloaded a day. After the changes, I’ve seen an average of 40 units a day moving. My ebook has been ranked around the 500 mark, even hitting 230 at one stage in free ebooks, where previously it was at 5,000. That’s a massive uptake. I also saw the search rankings increase for “Steampunk detective” and other terms. Getting to 1 or 2 is crucial for people to investigate further, along with reviews and a good description.

So there you go. A couple of caveats: I launched my latest novella in the middle of this test, which may have skewed the data somewhat, but it’s now been 3 weeks, so I’m happy with how things are tracking. My verdict? I think everyone should research search terms and try this approach. It’s made a big difference to my results so far.

The Murder at Mansfield Manor is LIVE!

Yay!

It’s with a great sense of relief that I’m proud to announce the release of The Murder at Mansfield Manor!

I’m really happy with how The Murder at Mansfield Manor turned out. This story is the first novella I’ve written that’s targeted at a Young Adult audience, and it’s also the longest and most complex mystery I’ve thrown Inspector Ambrose into.  Because of my desire to get the most out of the story, I took a lot longer to release it than The Vanishing Villa and Mrs Milliard’s Mech. This approach allowed me to come back to my writing after a couple of months off and reassess how happy I was with flow, content, and tone.

If you haven’t already grabbed a copy of Mansfield Manor, please check it out! As for me, it’s back to writing my novel – but another Inspector Ambrose story is already brewing in the background…

Oh, one more thing: Thank you to everyone for your support. March was easily my most successful month on Amazon. I couldn’t have done it without the support of so many people.

So thank you.

Mansfield Manor: The Release Date Cometh.

48 hours.

That’s all the time left until The Murder at Mansfield Manor is released! It’s also (ironically?) the amount of time Inspector Ambrose has to solve the most complex mystery I’ve written.

I’m actually surprisingly nervous leading up to this release. With all my other Inspector Ambrose stories, I’ve found their release to be low-key. For some reason, I’ve found myself excited for this release. It’s the first time I’ve done a pre-order for one of my stories, and people have actually pre-ordered it. That’s a little scary because I’ve promised to deliver something good on April 1, and I find the fact that someone would shell out in advance to get my eBook delivered on day one both humbling and exciting.

This week has marked a couple of other special moments: First, I passed 5,000 downloads of my eBooks. That’s a crazy thought which I’ll put up a dedicated post about later. Second, Mrs Milliard’s Mech & The Vanishing Villa took off on Amazon UK better than they ever have before (at the time of this post, Mrs Milliard’s Mech was one of the top 500 free eBooks), which marks the first success I’ve had outside of Amazon US.

So I’m sitting here now, two days out from Mansfield Manor going live, feeling like things are in a good place. Thank you for all your support everyone, it means so much. I hope you enjoy the latest mystery as much as I enjoyed pulling it together.

You can check out more about the creation of The Murder at Mansfield Manor here. You can also pre-order a copy here – I’ve priced it at 99 cents to encourage people to grab a copy early!