Time to Write

How to attract people to your writing (poetry example)

Poetry is one of the hardest sells, so it really helps to be innovative. A good example is “The Dogs of Brooklyn,” a collection of poems by Susie DeFord and matching photos by Dennis Riley (at left is “Indiana & Amelia” shot by him). The topics are the dogs she walks as part of her dog-walking business.

 On her blog (“dog poet laureate”) Susie writes, “The Dogs of Brooklyn” is the poetic equivalent to many other bestselling books like “Marley and Me”…”

 She and Riley also had a display of the photos and poems at a café and an opening party/reading where they raised $200 for a animal charity.

 Lots of creativity going on there! I’m going to see if I can interview Susie for my creativity podcast—you can access previous editions at www.jurgenwolff.com.

(for ideas on how to be more creative and productive, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin--just send an email request to [email protected])

How to use social media to tell stories? Here's one new way.

On the “the next web” blog, Martin Bryant describes a few ways social media are being used to tell stories. One is a novel being released one Twitter tweet at a time, another is having a fictional character tell his or her story using Facebook or MySpace. It’s the third I found more interesting as a format, a one-month project called “November in Manchester”:

“What if you gave your fictional characters a variety of accounts on different services? November in Manchester is one project trying just that. Billed as a ‘Social Media Love Story’, its eight characters have their own Twitter feeds and blogs. By following the characters involved you can see the story unfold in a much more ‘personal’ way that you would if you were just being told a story in a traditional way.

With so many accounts to keep up on you could easily fall behind so the project’s website gives you a daily overview of the plot and a news feed of all the characters’ accounts.

…The author, Tom Mason, wants the city of Manchester to be a key part of the plot. Photos and videos submitted by readers have become an important part of the story. The characters have even ‘attended’ real events in the city as suggested by readers.”

I have to be honest--the site didn't interest me any more than any other soap opera does (in other words, not much) but using this kind of format could be a fun way to collaborate—to have one author per character, perhaps starting with only a loose outline for the structure of the story, allowing room for spontaneity and response to events in the real world. 

(for tips on how to be more creative and productive, sign up now for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin by sending an email request to [email protected]. If you might be interested in a six-week online coaching program that will help you achieve your own creative projects, read about the Breakthrough Strategy program at www.jurgenwolff.com)

Going back to the basics to solve your story (and life) problems

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'm reading Randy Olson's book, "Don't be Such a Scientist," in which he gives his ideas for how scientists (and others) can appeal to a mass audience. He tells the story of getting stuck when trying to edit a film he'd made about the teaching of evolution vs. intelligent design--and his solution.

He had shot many hours of interviews and other material, but without knowing what shape it would ultimately take. He tried various edits and each time the invited audience of his friends and colleagues said, "Great material, now you just have to make a story out of it."

He kept editing and re-editing. He says, "And, slowly but surely, a very simple (and in retrospect obvious) story began to emerge.

"It was the story of a man who sets out on a journey to save a damsel in distress. He must protect her from the dragon that lives next door. But when he finally confronts the dragon, it turns out to be a teddy bear. He realizes the real threat is not the dragon but an evil empire, and in the third act he goes in search of it."

The film is called Flock of Dodos, and, he says, "I was 'the man,' the 'damsel' was my mother, her 'homeland' was Kansas, the 'dragon' was her neighbor, the lawyer for intelligent design, and the 'evil empire' was the Discovery Institute in Seattle."

That will all make more sense if you read his book and even more if you see the film (which I haven't), but the key point here is that he found his answer by using the metaphor of a simple fairy tale. Fairy tales have universal story patterns that are very powerful.

Reducing your story to such simple elements can be a life-saver, especially at the points at which you're so close to the story that it's hard to have any clarity. I've just done the same thing with a script that I've rewritten several times. And the simple version is not that different from Olson's.

In my case, a woman is about to make a decision that her intuition--but not her head-- knows to be wrong. Her intuition creates a dream character who tries to save her, but she mistakes it for an antagonist and fights it. When the character is willing to sacrifice himself for her, she realizes he's not the enemy and wakes up to the truth. That simple structure has made the final rewrite a lot easier.

By the way, you can use the same method to get clarity in your life, not just in your fiction. If there is a situation troubling you, tell it as a fairy tale with yourself as the main character. Create a positive outcome or ending to the story, then find out what in real life would correlate to the event or character that solves the problem in your story.

(for tips on how to be more creative and productive, sign up for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request now to [email protected])

The four organs of storytelling (thanks to Randy Olson)

I'm reading "Don't be Such a Scientist" by Randy Olson, subtitled, "Talking Substance in an Age of Style." The book is designed to help scientists get their message across using storytelling.

His point is that scientists tend to focus almost solely on logic--facts, figures, rational arguments. And while those are very important, they don't appeal to the mass audience. To reach them, you have to hit at least three out of four organs:

To reach the broadest audience, you need to move the process out of the HEAD and into the HEART with sincerity and emotion, into the GUT with humor and intuition, and, ideally, into the LOWER ORGANS with sex appeal.

He points out that the way to communicate most effectively is to use the lower three organs to arouse interest, and then the brain to deliver meaningful content.

Scientists often try to go right to the content, skipping the arousal.

Hollywood, on the other hand, is great at arousing, but often forgets to deliver any content. (My recent posts on the film "2012" gave that as an example of what he's talking about.)

I know these points are really basic, but I also know from experience that it's very easy to forget the basics, especially when we're deep into a project, so I appreciated Olson's reminder that all kinds of storytellers, not just scientists, are prone to leaving out one or more of the organs.

(For tips on how to be more creative and productive, sign up now for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

You think you get nervous about your writing? Read this!

Interesting interview with novelist and screenwriter Richard Price on Today’s Zaman site. If you haven’t read his novel, “Freedomland,” I recommend it highly although some of his others, like ”The Wanderers” and “Clockers,” are better known, and he also wrote the screenplays “The Color of Money,” “Ransom,” and “Mad Dog and Glory.”

 If you find yourself experiencing doubts during your writing process, it may console you to know that someone with Price’s level of success has the same issues:

 “For me it takes a few years to write a book. I feel so anxious about ‘was this a good idea?’ It just means that someone has to calm me down, like an editor; he should convince me that it’s worth working on so that I’ll go on. It’s like temperamental. It’s a sort of a joke. ... Familiarity is important because I realize that I go through this with every book. But the minute I finish that book, I forget and then I go through it again. Someone has to tell me, ‘This is the seventh time you’re going through this,’ and somebody has to be around me enough to know.”

(You need support for your writing--get it from my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. Details at www.yourwritingcoach.com; also see my new book, "Creativity Now!"

 

 

The original pitch for "Monsters Inc" revealed

I’m always interested in how projects change from the original idea to the final version. Here, courtesy of worstpreviews.com, is an excerpt from an article in which director Pete Doctor reveals the original story of what became “Monsters Inc.”:

 "My idea was that it was about a 30 year old man who is an accountant or something. He hates his job. And one day he gets a book with some drawings, that he did when he was a kid, from his mom. He doesn't think anything of it, he puts it on the shelf and that night, monsters show up. And nobody else can see them."
"He thinks he's starting to go crazy. They follow him to his job, and on his dates, and it turns out that these monsters are fears that he never dealt with as a kid. And each one of them represents a different kind of fear. As he conquers those fears, the guys who he slowly becomes friends with, they disappear as he conquers those fears. It's this bittersweet ending where they go away."

 Sounds like a good idea, but I can see that the final version has a lot more appeal to kids.

 If you want to work in Hollywood for TV or film, this kind of change between the original idea and the finished product is typical, and being flexible is mandatory. If you are not open to having your ideas changed, stick to books, you’ll be a lot happier! Not that book authors don’t have to deal with input, too, but the changes usually are far less radical.

(if you want to be more creative and productive, get my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request now to [email protected])

A tip if you're trying to find an agent

Here’s a little snippet from the free newsletter, Publishers Lunch, which usually comes out daily:

 Gwendolyn Heasley will join Artisans and Artisans as an agent, focusing on young adult. Her own debut YA novel, Confessions of a Teenage Recessionista, was sold to Harper Collins in a two-book deal in July.

 A good time to approach an agent is when he or she has just been hired or has moved agencies. If you’re looking for an agent, keep your eyes open for little announcements like this, research the person and the agency on the Internet, and send a query letter promptly.

 (You can sign up for the Publisher’s Lunch email at this page: www.publishersmarketplace.com.)

(Want loads more tips and strategies for having  successful writing career? Get my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

How not to be liked by everybody

I really like the post Jonathan Fields wrote on his “Awake at the wheel” blog, called “The Geek’s Guide to Being Interesting.” If you have trouble with small talk and navigating typical networking sessions, you’ll relate:

 “It sounded so easy. Just learn the standard openers, the 10 new-person questions, then listen to the answers and keep asking questions that demonstrate that you’ve listened and want to know more. I tried it. It took a bit of practice. But, it worked. If you pretend to be interested by mimicking the behavior of a genuinely interested person, people love you…

 Only one problem…a solid 80% of the time, I didn’t WANT to know more.

In fact, it was all I could do to keep my inner geek/hermit from raising its head three words into a conversation and screaming, “NEXT!”

 …it takes a boatload of energy to feign interest in the name of being found interesting by people who, when it comes down to it, you don’t want to share your damn cookies with anyway. It empties you out in the name of being liked by people who, even if you’re successful in your quest to be found interesting, will have fallen not for you, but for who you’ve conned them into thinking you are.

 Ya know what? Maybe, just maybe it’s time to (wo)man up and learn that it’s okay for only 5% of the people to find you interesting. Because life’s not about mass adoration, it’s about individual connection and we all have a relatively limited capacity for that.”

Kind of a relief to think of it that way, isn't it?

One way to overcome being pigeon-holed

I had a question from an author who has a bit of a track record in one genre but now wants to write a book in a totally different genre. She is finding that her publisher is resisting offering something different from what her readers will expect from her.

One option is using a pen name for the new genre. Of course it does mean that you have to build a whole new audience, but at least you won't lose fans of your original type of book.

The fact is that readers (just like publishers) generally do pigeon-hole authors and when they find one they like, they want to see more of the same. By creating a new identity you may be able to skirt this problem. Of course this can work for artists, photographers, and anybody else, too.

(Flexibility and creativity are the most valuable tools you have--and for some fresh ideas on how to be even more creative, get my newest book, "Creativity Now," published by Pearson.)

The truth about those big book deals (including Sarah Palin's)

Daily Finance has a long article written by Sarah Weinman about Sarah Palin’s big book deal. Along the way it drops some very interesting tidbits about that deal and others:

 “Until recently, publishers have long split writers' advances, paying half upon signing a contract with the writer, and the other half upon a book's publication. But with the complicated financials of conglomerates in the equation, many publishers now pay out advances in quarters: upon signing, upon delivery and acceptance of the manuscript, upon hardcover publication, and finally a year later, upon publication of the paperback.”

 Apparently the $1.25 million retainer Palin was paid by HarperCollins will constitute the first of four payments to be made to her (for signing and delivery) and the total payout to her will be somewhere between $2.5 and $5 million (better than a governor’s salary…).

 Palin used an uncredited ghost writer, believed to be Lynn Vincent, who will be paid something like $200,000 (all these figures are estimates, as the actual numbers have not been made public).

 The article says, “If Palin's advance is as high as $5 million, then HarperCollins willl need to sell more than 400,000 copies of Going Rogue to cover the advance and expenses for marketing and overhead.”

 These big book deals generate a lot of publicity but not always a win for the publisher. The article points out, “The publisher had a huge bust this year in Jonathan Littell's massively hyped thousand-page novel The Kindly Ones, for which it paid $1 million that it didn't come close to earning back. (Bookscan, which accounts for as much as 70 percent of all book sales, last summer reported a disappointing 17,000 copies sold.)”

 Palin’s appearance on Oprah may help boost sales of her book, but so far, dailyfinance says, the publisher is not out of the woods in terms of making a profit on it.

(Want a big book deal yourself? Get my book, "Your Writing Coach"--it will guide you from idea through to publication. Published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers now.)

How not to do a book signing

Recently I went to a festival that featured an authors’ village—a few tables at which local authors sat with piles of their books and with pens poised to autograph them for buyers. The tables were all joined together and the authors were busily talking to each other…but no buyers approached them.

 Why? Well, of course it’s possible that nobody was interested in their books, but I think the big mistake was having them all sit there in a tribe, looking like they were having a great time chatting with each other and not really wanting to be interrupted.

 Yes, it was more comfortable for the authors, but it would have been more productive if they’d been separated, each one alone and approachable.

 I’ve done a few signings and it’s true that it feels kind of lonesome so the impulse is to chat with a friend you bring along (or with other authors if any are around) but if potential buyers see you sitting there alone they’re more likely to come up and ask a question or make a comment—and to buy.

 By all means, set up an author’s village at your local event--that’s a great idea—but then be brave enough to be lonely!

(two books to get if you're interested in marketing your writing: "Your Writing Coach" published by Nicholas Brealey and "Marketing for Entrpreneurs" published by Pearson, both by Jurgen Wolff--that's me.)

A book marketing idea to inspire you

From the Shelf Awareness bulletin:

Cool idea of the day: for The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman, a novel about a baker's dozen of women who meet the first Monday in December, bring cookies and talk about their lives, Atria is designating the first weekend in December as Christmas Cookie Weekend. People are encouraged to host their own Christmas Cookie Clubs and donate cookies to local charities. For more information, see the Facebook page created by Pearlman.

At the moment I'm brainstorming ideas for how to get some more attention for my newest book, "Creativity Now!" The Cookie story led to the idea of possibly sponsoring a contest for the most creative new way for charities to raise money in these tough times. Maybe I can get the publisher to kick in ten books of the recipient's choice (or even some prize money...). 

If you're looking for ways to market a book or other product, what ideas does the item above (or my variation of it) provoke?

(If you need to market something, get my book, "Marketing for Entrepreneurs," published by Pearson, to go from idea through to a complete campaign.)

Here's how to use "special effects" in novels (2012 shows how)

One of my readers read my post yesterday about the movie 2012 and said she understood the use of the four elements but found the story itself very poorly told. I agree: the ludicrous speech by the young scientist toward the end (I won’t give it away), the fact that no matter how bad things are there’s always time for an exchange of clichéd dialogue, and the sheer number of times someone says, “I think you’d better come see this,” plus the fact that at least 20 or 30 minutes could and should have been cut all attest to this. She wondered why some movies get to be so bad yet succeed at the box office.

 Special effects.

 The movie 2012 is a thrill ride.

 For the vast majority of the mass audience just the basic structure is enough as long as the visuals are impressive. They’re coming out talking about how realistically Los Angeles crashed into the ocean, not about the nuances of how people respond to the apocalypse.

 Are readers more discerning? Not always much more. Let’s face it, Dan Brown doesn’t get a lot of points for literary style, nor does Mary Higgins Clark, for instance, but they excel at the art of the story twist and the cliff-hanger.

 Here’s the key point: story twists and cliff-hangers are the text version of the special effects in a film.

 Great writers use them, too. Look at the works of classic authors like Shakespeare, Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson—all of them use these methods to keep us enthralled.

 In blockbuster novels the twists and reveals tend to be big: there’s a major conspiracy, or a threat to the entire population, or the protagonist’s best friend is working for the other side and tries to kill him. 

 The twists and reveals can be much more subtle but still have impact. For instance, the cliffhanger may be whether or not the protagonist is pregnant. The best friend’s betrayal may be that she doesn’t tell the female protagonist that her husband is having an affair.

 If you’re working on a fiction project, it’s worth giving some thought to your special effects!

(For tips on how to be more creative and productive, sign up now for my free monthly Brainstorm e-bulletin. Just send an email request to [email protected])

What 2012 reveals about powerful storytelling

As I write this, the blockbuster film “2012” has just been released and all projections are that it will be a huge hit. Of course a lot of this is due to the special effects--the plot and dialogue are risible. But there’s no denying that in various ways the idea that 2012 may be the year of some kind of apocalypse has been gripping people. Why, and what can writers and other story-tellers can learn from it?

 First is specificity. There have been loads of stories about various potential disasters, but this one is attached to a particular date. If somebody says the world will end “soon” it’s easy to dismiss it. But when they say it will happen in December of 2012, we start to think about where we’ll be then, how old we’ll be, etc. and it stimulates our imagination.

 Second is a mystical element. The 2012 prediction supposedly is based on the Mayan calendar. Now, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t read anything that shows that the Mayans were especially prescient. Nonetheless, the mystical aspect is intriguing and appeals to our feeling that past cultures may have been more in touch with the mysterious ways the world works.

 Third is an appeal to our fears. If you look at the ratio of the movies made to scare people vs. the number made to inspire them, you can see that fear is a strong motivator. And the movie “2012” makes the fears more tangible by showing earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.—all things that we know are real and that we may already fear. At the end of the film they stick on a Band-Aid that suggests the human race is actually rather nice and will survive, but the other 7/8 is dedicated to showing mayhem.

Fourth is an everyman/woman viewpoint. This allows us to experience strange events through the eyes of a person to whom we can relate. In the case of the film, it’s John Cusack playing this character. As a bonus, the destruction of the world teaches him how to be a better husband and father.

 It’s no coincidence that you will find these elements in best-selling books written by Dan Brown, Stephen King, and many others.

 While these elements fit thrillers, action pictures and science fiction most easily, you’ll also find variations of them in other genres. For instance, a romance novel could feature an everywoman protagonist, her fear of not finding Mr Right (or of having hooked up with Mr Wrong), specific events that will test her, and sometimes a mystical element such as her horoscope, a session with a psychic, or a mysterious mentor.

Using these four elements doesn’t guarantee a great story—but it’s a good step in that direction.

(for help writing your own novel or screenplay or non-fiction project, see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. It will guide you through the whole process from idea through to publication.)

Surviving as a writer (Doug Rushkoff advises...)

Galleycat features an audio interview with author Douglas Rushkoff, who is branching out from magazine articles, books and comic books into a games-related graphic novel (“X”). His advice for writers now:

"My real strategy now is to survive by any means necessary. There's less money out there [for writers]. In the old days, between books, you'd call Playboy or GQ and pick up a $3-a-word article for something ... Now you're lucky to get a buck or buck-fifty from a major magazine. All you can really do is diversify and focus at the same time…”

 He means that you should focus on your expertise and branch into any medium into which you can take it. That could include gaming—which, Rushkoff points out—has all the money and is where some of the most innovations in narrative are taking place.

His site is rushkoff.com and his most recent book (other than the graphic novels) is Life Inc (How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back).

 (For help with creating your writing career, get my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, WHSmith and many other online and offline retailers.)