Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Plan, Write, And Publish Serial Fiction In Four Weeks

Why write serial fiction?

Everyone’s busy today. A serial is by its nature, faster to write, and publish, than a novel.

It’s a quicker read too, and many readers appreciate this. While a reader may hesitate before committing hours to a novel, he can read an episode of your serial in minutes.

If you’re a new author, a serial serves to introduce you to readers. A reader may not be willing to commit to a novel by a new author, but be willing to read an episode of a serial.

Discover how to write serial fiction (a serial isn’t a longish novel)

Authors publish serials with varying degrees of success. A less experienced author simply chops up a novel into parts, then publishes the parts. This exercise is rarely successful.

Savvy authors know that while their serial has an overarching plot, each episode also needs to be a satisfying read on its own, even if it does conclude with a cliffhanger.

via www.angelabooth.com

Outlining Fiction? Try This

1. Make something happen right away

Let’s look at some opening scenes to avoid. (In later drafts. Anything goes in your first draft.)

• The “waking up in the morning” opening. If you publish a novel with this opening scene you won’t make sales — unless your main character wakes up with a space alien bending over her, or beside a corpse.
• The “poor me, I’m having SUCH a bad day…” scene. Romance novelists love this one. Sadly, we don’t care if your main female character spills hot coffee over her new silk blouse, then rear-ends a car, and then gets fired… You can make it work: maybe your character is pretending. She’s running a con of some kind, and you let the reader in on it.
• The “bang, bang, you’re dead…” scene is (usually) a mistake too. In this opening scene, people die — this opening is beloved by new thriller authors. You can make this work, but only if you know precisely why you’re doing it, and how you’ll get readers to care.

via www.angelabooth.com

5 More Things No One Tells You About Writing A Novel

1. Your words are better than you think they are

Generally speaking, your feelings while you’re writing aren’t a guide to the quality. You’re not a good judge of your words, and they’re often better than you think.

Similarly…

2. Trust yourself while you’re writing

When you sit down to write, you trust that the words will be there. Writing is a creative process: it’s imaginative.

Unfortunately, you can’t harness your imagination — all you can do is trust it. Go where your imagination takes you.

via peneloperedmont.com

Productivity ThievHow Pressure Breaks Good Habits & How to Prevent It

How do you make your productive habits more durable?

Building belief in yourself and your new routines will help strengthen your willpower so that when high-pressure situations arrive (and they will), it’ll be easier for you to stick with your good habits. Here are some ways to do this:

1. Talk to yourself
   
   This is not as strange as it might sound. You probably do it already—the “you idiot” under your breath when you spill a drink, the “I suck at life” when you’re rushing late to a meeting. Why not flip the script and say something different?
   
   According to University of Pennsylvania psychologist David Sarwer, addressing yourself with neutral language can improve self image. Using your name—rather than “I”—has been shown to help people see themselves more positively. And by getting away from negative self-talk, you can help reduce some of the pressure you put on yourself.
   
   So instead of saying, “I feel worthless because I’m too lazy to go to the gym” you might say, “[your name] is skipping the gym because she’s focusing on work today. The sky won’t fall if she goes tomorrow.” This might help you maintain belief in yourself when times get tough—and it’s no weirder than calling yourself a moron for dropping a cup of coffee.

via evernote.com

Book Marketing On Instagram: 4 Tips To Boost Your Sales

Book marketing on social media: does it work?

I asked the group. The consensus was that any form of marketing works, as long as you do it consistently.

Authors agreed that:

• There’s no magic bullet in book marketing. You need a mix of marketing venues;
• Every form of marketing you try requires you to stick with it. (To repeat, consistency.) For example, you won’t gain a thousand reader fans in a week or a month on any social media network without divine intervention or similar;
• All of the Instagram-using authors in the group agreed that a mix of paid and free marketing worked best for them.

Now let’s look at our tips.

via peneloperedmont.com

Writing Nonfiction Books? 5 Strategies If You Have No Sales

Once you’ve revised your book’s meta data, you should see an uptick in sales within three or four days. No results? Tweak the meta data again.

2. Update your book: create a new edition

If your book’s been available for a few months or longer, consider creating a new edition. If you have material you’d like to add, go ahead and add it. Happy with the cover image? Change it if you aren’t.

Made substantial additions or changes? Put “2nd edition” on the title page of your book, with the year: “2nd edition, 2019.” Update your meta data as well.

Additionally, remember that updating your nonfiction book is news. Create an online news release, and promote your new edition on social media.

Consider creating a new edition once a year, or once every couple of years, to keep your information current.

via peneloperedmont.com

3 Strategies To Achieve Your Goals In 2020

One writer made this excellent point: you can’t create goals with deadlines until you know where, when and what you’ll write.

Make these decisions first:

• Where will you write? If you don’t have a home office, consider creating a “writing box”. Any storage box will do. Keep notebooks, pens and reference books in your box, so that you can write while sitting on the living room sofa, or even in your car.
• When will you write? First thing in the morning, before work? Late at night? In your lunch hour? Schedule your writing time. We’ve looked at writing apps which will help you to write anywhere.
• What will you write? Make a list of what you’d like to write and publish this year.

Now let’s look at some strategies to help you to achieve your goals.

via peneloperedmont.com

Great Apps: How Journalists are Using Otter

“It’s the best. Before Otter, I would simply record calls, and then listen to interviews and transcribe them myself. The transcription apps I did try were too pricy and/or clunky. What sets Otter apart is the quick and easy transcription and integrations with other recording apps, and, frankly, its free version, which is what I use.”

He acknowledged that, while not yet perfect, it is incredibly useful.

“Do I verify the transcription accuracy by listening to calls? Of course. I want to be thorough. But if I were on a deadline and needed to quickly produce some quotes from the Otter environment, I would trust it. Reporters want to get information and commentary fast from old interviews, and Otter’s search function is on point. The way it detects keywords and displays them as tags in each recording is super helpful.”

via medium.com

Apps To Help You To Write Anywhere

A few years ago, I covered four “write anywhere” apps I still use today: Scrivener, Ulysses, Quip, and (of course) Evernote.

Writing apps: my essentials today

Scrivener, Ulysses and Evernote are no-brainers for me. At work, we set up a new Evernote notebook for each client. I’ve been using my personal Evernote since 2009, so a lot of my life is in there.

Here’s a short list of my other indispensable apps.

1. iOS Google Docs/ iOS MS Office: your office in your pocket

The two 800-pound Gorillas of office suite software, Google Docs and MS Office, are available as apps for your phone and tablet.

via peneloperedmont.com

Fiction: 2 Tips For Using Flashbacks

1. Keep all flashbacks super-short: integrate them into your story

You can do a lot with a single sentence: “she remembered that they’d rarely quarreled, but now they raged at each other.”

Alternatively, you can integrate a flashback into a scene, so your story keeps its forward momentum.

The first line of a scene: “He’s left me.”

Naturally, the other person in the scene wants to know what happened. When did he leave? Why? Readers will have the same questions; this helps you to integrate a flashback.

via peneloperedmont.com

Fiction: Characters First, Or Plot First?

Writing fiction: characters or plot?

Mystery editor Barbara Norville suggested:

“Whether you kick off with a character you like or with a plot idea that strikes a chord depends on the kind of person you are: people-oriented or idea oriented.”

I tend to go back and forth. If I’m writing a novel which is part of a series, I know that I’ll be writing about characters A, B, C, and D. I know I’ll need a plot for each novel which grows from that character’s problem and situation.

It’s best to be flexible: follow your intuition. You’ll change your mind many times while you’re planning, writing, and revising, and that’s OK.

via www.angelabooth.com

2 Simple Ways To Make Writing Your Book Easier

Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, your writing process will go more smoothly if you write your blurb (book description) first.

Although you’ll rework your book’s blurb many times before your book is done, your blurb provides you with a destination before you start writing… And yes, even pantsers need a destination.

Write a book fast: start with your blurb

Begin writing your blurb with one-sentence summary: the reason readers will read your book. What does it offer? How will they benefit?

via www.angelabooth.com

Bullet Journal Your Novel: 3 Time-Saving Tips

Keep a one-sentence summary of each scene in a BuJo “Scenes List” Collection while you’re writing. Then, on even the foggiest day, reading your Scenes List catches you up on the action of your novel.

Other useful Collections:

• Scenes in which a specific character appears;
• Twist/ turning point scenes;
• Essential scenes.

via peneloperedmont.com

5-Minute Writing Tips For Authors

When you write in those minutes you steal from your life, you can’t be precious about your words; you’re grateful to write anything in your limited time. You don’t have time to brood about your writing either, and that’s always a good thing.

Let’s look at some five-minute writing tips.

1. Be like Twyla Tharp: grab a box for your project

All creativity is messy. You need a discrete area to store your stuff. Grab a box.

From The Creative Habit — Twyla Tharp:

Tharp says that before you can think outside a box, you have to have a box. To organize her projects, she uses literal, inexpensive file boxes from Office Depot to store all manner of physical materials she accumulates in the process of researching for and creating a new dance.

via www.angelabooth.com

Bullet Journal’s Journey Through Kickstarter, Publishing, and Production

Give first, ask second: the role of educational content 

Felix: Your approach was that anyone can do this for free on any piece of paper, any notebook—you don't have to buy a product. You emphasized this, right? Why do you feel that people still were willing to buy a product even though you actually told them how they can do this without paying anything for it?

Ryder: The Bullet Journal method is comprised of two parts. There's the system and the practice. The practice is a lot more philosophical approach to figuring out why you're doing what you're doing. When I released the Bullet Journal, I focused on the system. It was part of a larger methodology. So over time, as people have found it helpful, I have released more content and created more products around the full methodology, but I think that was really important to me to give people something that would immediately add value to their lives in a meaningful way and continue to support that. So when you create content that does connect with an audience, there will be questions, there will be a lot of questions and you can create a lot of content based on refining both the original content but also addressing all these questions that people have.

via www.shopify.com

Interesting if you're a bullet journal fan, as I am.