Adam Croft's Blog, page 13

There are times, I think most authors would admit, when writing hurts. Every word is a struggle, we put off sitting down to write and just generally avoid everything to do with it. Sometimes it’s because our minds are focused on other things, and sometimes it’s an inexplicable apathy that can be hard to get away from.

Still, even though writing isn’t all lovely and fun, I do think there are benefits to be had from writing no matter what. Even if your mind is all over the place and you’re finding it hard to focus, it is still worth making the effort to write, if only for a short time.

Why? One of the main reasons is that, sadly, we don’t always have the perfect conditions for writing. In fact, if we waited for the perfect conditions – plenty of time, ideal environment, plenty of ideas – hardly any writing would ever get done, by anyone, at all. A lot of it is about sitting down no matter what and pushing the words onto the page, no matter how much of a headache it can be from time to time. We just have to do it.

As well as the practical reasons of getting stuff done, writing when you’re really not in the mood can also be good for reasons of an experimental nature. As writers, we’re always after authenticity and different, interesting ways of looking at things. Channelling your emotions into your work can be a good way of achieving this, as well as giving you an outlet for whatever is going on at the time. For instance, if you’re put off writing because you’re stressed and frustrated at work, finding half an hour to sit down and write with the influence of those feelings could lead to some very interesting, worthwhile work.

Simply put, you never know what might come about when you sit down to write. Maybe what you produce won’t be that great, but most first drafts aren’t great, no matter how we’re feeling when we write them. Better that they get written in the first place even if it’s something of a struggle.

Besides, you might find yourself looking at things in a way you hadn’t considered before; you might end up with the best piece of writing you’ve ever done. Write through the pain – it could be worth it.

What do you think?

When writing a crime fiction series, there will inevitably come a time when you feel like you know the regular characters better than you know yourself, and you have an established method for going about writing your books.

There is a fine line between a series doing what it does best and a series that has become too formulaic, so what can we do to make sure our crime series’ stay fresh and interesting? Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Keep writing about different topics. The good thing about crime fiction is that there is always a different story to tell. Just because you usually write about detectives solving murder cases doesn’t mean that’s what they always have to do. Putting them onto a different type of case in a different kind of setting to the one they usually find themselves in can add new life to them and your series.
Introduce new characters. There’s nothing wrong with introducing new characters to your established cast from time to time – in fact, it’s probably necessary.
Do something to the protagonist that makes them act in a different way. Whether it’s something in their professional life or in their personal life, something that makes your protagonist behave or respond differently to how they have before is always an interesting exercise, and can have a knock-on effect on other characters too.
Find a new perspective. If you’ve always written from the point of view of one character, why not see what happens when you write from someone else’s perspective? Or if you’ve always written from the point of view of the people solving the crimes, try writing from the other side of things – the people committing the crimes or those who are otherwise affected by the investigations.
Make sure things evolve. Don’t let your crime series get stuck in a formulaic rut where everything is always the same, characters never age and relationships never change. Let them change with the times. You can still do this even if you’re writing a series that you want readers to be able to pick up at any point, regardless of whether they’ve read the previous novels.
Write something else for a while. Sometimes the best way to re-inject life into a crime fiction series is to write something completely different for a bit – a standalone crime novel or a completely different genre. Whatever it is, it will make you think in a different way and give you the chance to explore different ideas, something that will help you when you go back to write the next instalment of your series.

 

No matter how much time and effort you put into promoting your novels, a lot of it still comes down to word of mouth – people recommending your book to other people. After all, you can do all the Facebook posts or Twitter giveaways you like, but if no one is passing the message on, the impact will always be small.

What can you do to improve your chances of benefitting from word of mouth advertising?

Go for the long game

Whether you are an independent publisher or are traditionally published, being a novelist is usually a long game. Success doesn’t usually come right away, unless you are particularly lucky. So once you’ve finished one book, get started on the next one. Build up your back catalogue – and your brand. The more good quality books you’ve got out there, the more likely it is someone will notice them and recommend you to a friend.

Take a professional approach to marketing

If you want people to pass on the word about your writing, you need to be targeting the right people. Think about who you are marketing to, and how you are doing it. What kind of people are they? Where are they most likely to hear about your book? What marketing activities can you undertake that would be most likely to reach them?

Make your book as available as possible

This is an important one – if your book is hard to get hold of, it is much less likely to benefit from word of mouth advertising. Make sure people can find it without any problem: get it onto as many platforms as you can. Also ensure that it is affordable – this doesn’t necessarily mean making it free (although giveaway promotions can work well to generate interest), but pricing it competitively so people won’t be put off from buying it if someone recommends it to them.

Encourage reviews

As well as traditional word of mouth advertising, we also need to take into account the online environment. Reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads are useful for promoting your work, so try to get as many as you can. For instance, you could giveaway copies of your book in exchange for an honest review. Even if you don’t get a full set of five-star reviews, it still shows that people have been reading your book, which can give potential readers the nudge needed to buy it for themselves.

What do you think? What do you do to encourage word of mouth advertising of your books?

Despite the increasing popularity of many self-published authors, there is still something of a criticism levelled against many: namely, that books that are independently published aren’t always that good. This critique of lack of quality in self-published work is one we need to take seriously, especially for those of us who are keen to demonstrate that, actually, self-published work is often of a very high standard indeed.

This leads us to the question of what we can do to improve our work and make sure it’s of the highest possible standard before we hit the publish button. Here are 7 quality control checks for independent publishers.

Careful, in-depth editing is a must. I’m sure this sounds obvious to most people, but diligent editing plays a large part in the quality of all books, self-published or not. Taking the time to get the story just right and every sentence perfected will pay dividends later.
Several stages of proofreading. You’ll never catch every single mistake first time around, so several stages of proofreading will help to catch all of those little errors that can be so distracting to readers if the make it into the published version of a novel.
Get someone else to read it before publication. Even if you aren’t going down the route of hiring a professional editor to go over your work, it’s worth getting someone with a critical eye to read it before you publish.
Be careful with the formatting. Formatting an e-book is different to formatting a book for print – don’t just rely on your existing computer file and a bit of guesswork; researching formatting and taking the time to get it right is certainly worth it.
Test how the book looks before publishing. If you’re going for the print option, get a sample of the book before you make it available to buy. If you’re going down the e-book route, make sure you test how the work will look on different e-readers and screens.
See several different cover designs. Don’t just go with the first one you’re offered by your professional designer or tech-minded friend you’ve bribed into helping – a poor cover can put readers off, no matter how good the content inside might be.
Take your time. No matter how eager you are to get on with the business of independent publishing, don’t rush the writing process. Taking your time to get your book as good as you can get it and understand publishing procedures will have a hugely beneficial impact on the quality of your book when you do eventually come to publish it.

Creating characters is often one of the most fun parts of novel writing – but it can also be one of the most challenging.

We need to get the balance right with our characters. They need to be believable without being boring, and shouldn’t be too perfect. They should have flaws, like all people do, but how flawed is too flawed? At what point do they become unable to function in your story, any story?

Their flaws shouldn’t just be there for the sake of having flaws, either. How big and obvious they are is something else we need to consider; do they exist on the scale of a small personality quirk, or something major that impacts on everything they do?

We also want our readers to root for our characters – particularly our protagonists. We want readers to like and care for them, and to want to follow them through the story as the narrative progresses. At the same time, the reader shouldn’t necessarily always agree with the character. They shouldn’t always be on the same page and the character perhaps shouldn’t always be completely sympathetic. We need to get the right balance between having a character a reader can care for and one that isn’t always on the ‘right’ side of the argument.

It’s a tricky issue to get right, but it should be tricky. At their best, characters should be complex and slightly contradictory – just as people are. They are the driving force of novels, pushing on the plot and providing the drama and intrigue. Instead of looking to create the ‘perfect’ character, we should instead focus on what makes them them.

What do you think?

There might not be any set in stone right or wrong in writing, but that doesn’t stop us from coming up with our own personal rules for it. I think one of the reasons for this is that no matter how chaotic we and/or our writing styles might be, we still need at least a modicum of organisation to actually get things done.

Hence rules start to form, either by design or accident, but either way shaping how we write. The important thing is that they are rules that help rather than hinder us; getting distracted by other people’s writing rules or feeling as though we should follow the rules of already-successful writers isn’t always the best course of action. This is an area we by and large have to figure out for ourselves.

Except for very occasionally. I would argue that there are a few rules of writing that (nearly) always apply. Editing, for one. We need to edit. Writing is not just about putting some words on a page and that’s that. It’s about refining and honing those words on the page until they are the best they can be. So that’s universal rule one: don’t neglect the editing.

What else? Exclamation marks in novels (and most other things) should generally be kept to a minimum. Reading your work out loud is a good way of seeing how it flows and is especially good for dialogue.

Then, of course, there is what is perhaps the most important writing rule of all. It is absolutely essential. No matter what other rules you go by or how you go about your writing, this is one thing all writers must adhere to or else face potential ruin. Back up your work, or else run the risk of seeing it all mysteriously vanish the next time the computer has one of its special moments or you drop your vital notebook in the bath. A systematic and orderly approach to backing up your writing has to be one of the few essential rules that exist.

What do you think? Are any writing rules essential, or is it entirely down to the writer in question?

A little like snowflakes, no two writers are ever quite the same. We all have our own ways of going about it, but there are still a few universal truths that apply. Here are 10 things to remember about writing, and please feel free to share your own in the comments.

1)      Editing is a large part of writing. In fact, editing might be most of writing. The first draft of something is only the beginning.

2)      It doesn’t always come easily. No matter how long you have been writing, no matter how successful you are as a writer, there will be days when everything you write stinks. But that’s OK, because there are also good days. And there are biscuits.

3)      Writing is something to be enjoyed. When you’re stuck in the middle of your third draft and have lost sight of your initial utopian thinking with regards to your novel, it might not be the best time you have ever had. However, the good times will come again. There is nothing quite like a writing session that is going well.

4)      Not everyone will like what you write. You can’t write a novel that is completely to everyone’s tastes. The best you can do is write a novel that you love and hope that some other people will quite like it too.

5)      You shouldn’t limit or constrain yourself in what you write. It can be easy to accidentally shoehorn yourself into a particular genre or style of writing, but never forget that there is a whole world of different stuff out there. There’s nothing that says you can’t try different things.

6)      The first draft will never be perfect.

7)      You should do it because you love it. Writing can be a slog, and it’s something that requires commitment and passion. We do it because it’s a vocation.

8)      There are always new ways to use language. We might make a complete mess when we try something new, but equally, we might make something wonderful

9)      There is no right or wrong. There is only what feels right or wrong for you.

10)   It is a continual learning process, and there is always something new to explore.

When we talk about the benefits of independent publishing, we often focus on the control it gives to authors, and the way it helps to get many more books out there for people to read. But what about the impact it has on writing? Could independent publishing also help to improve our writing? I think it could. Here are some of the reasons why.

It encourages diversity. When we’re not constrained by what we think publishers want from books, we can be more creative, which allows us to find our own niches.
More people are having a go at writing. Before independent publishing started to take off, it’s not too hard to see how some people might have been put off from having a go at getting their work published. Now, many of the barriers to getting work out there have been removed, which is great for encouraging people to have a go – making writing much richer as a result.
There’s a lot of competition out there. With so many books being self-published as well as traditionally published, there is a need to ensure that anything we put out there is as good as it can possibly be. The competition should encourage us all to become better writers.
We can draw on professional talent. Even though independent publishing requires us to do a lot of the work ourselves, that doesn’t stop writers from drawing on other resources to help improve our work. Professional editors and proof-readers can help us to think about our work differently, making our novels better in the process.
We’re entirely responsible for our own success. With independent publishing, you have no one to answer to but yourself. Your writing is what you make of it, and there is often no better incentive to improve than the fact that your success as a writer is entirely down to you.

What do you think? Has independent publishing helped to make you a better writer?

If you have ever self-published anything, you will undoubtedly be aware of the costs involved. There are costs that are mandatory and some that aren’t, and it’s worth being aware of them if you are thinking of going down the independent publishing route.

For example, as self-published books become more professional, one of the costs that many authors would say is mandatory is that of cover design. Most writers aren’t brilliant cover designers, and so buying in the services of someone who is brilliant at it is often inevitable.

Editing is another cost that, for many, is mandatory. Of course, you could decide to do it yourself, but there is a lot to be said for getting someone else to go over your work before it’s published. Whether it’s the cost of buying drinks for your writing group or friends in exchange for making suggestions on your work or the cost of a professional editor, this is one area where it’s worth the investment.

Depending on how you publish your work, there will also be certain unavoidable costs related to publishing it, such as print on demand services if you decide to go down the print route. Not all aspects of independent publishing have to cost money, though: you could pay for marketing, but equally you could make use of free options and do it yourself, for instance.

However, whatever you decide to pay for, there is one cost that you can’t get away from: time. Self-publishing takes time, and while it might not be a cost in the normal sense, it’s something that will need to be built into your publishing plan. First of all, it takes time to write a book – usually months, and sometimes years.

It takes time to edit, and to do your research about the industry, and to get the finished book just right before you publish it. It takes time to market the book, to do the administration related to publishing it and then to do it all again so you can get your next book out there. It’s an investment, and one to be taken as seriously as hiring the right editor or cover designer.

This is something we shouldn’t forget: self-publishing is wonderful, can be great fun and the rewards can be excellent, but it is also an investment. It’s something we need to commit to and be serious about to make it all worth it. What do you think?

When we are planning our novels, we naturally give more time to creating our protagonist(s) than we do to any other characters. This makes sense, but we also shouldn’t forget that our supporting cast are important too.

Some characters might appear in your novel only briefly, but if they are important enough to be included in it at all, they should be important enough to give some proper thought to. They are unlikely to need as much depth or time spent on them as your main characters, but a poorly-written supporting character can still have a significantly detrimental effect on your book.

It can be tempting to see some supporting characters purely in terms of how they help the plot. This is definitely something to think about, but if you are just using them as a plot device, it will probably be obvious that that’s what they are. Of course, they might well be there with the aim of making something happen to progress the plot, but they still need to feel natural and believable rather than forced.

How much depth your supporting characters require will depend on the role that they play in the story; the ones who have a larger role to play will obviously require more time spent on them making them believable, well-rounded characters. For the smaller parts, you might only need a couple of characteristics or aspects of them to make them work for your story.

It’s also worth remembering your supporting characters – they might not have much to do now, but they could become important in the future. Sometimes they can change the entire book you were planning to write as they become more interesting than what you were originally planning to do. Also, particularly if you are writing a series of novels, a character with a minor supporting role in one book could be good material for a major role in a future book.

What are your tips for creating quality supporting characters?