Writing to Market means writing types of books that are known to sell well. For an author that means finding a genre, and preferably a sub-genre to target. Researching and familiarising yourself with the conventions and tropes of the genre, you have to stick closely to them. You have to fit in before you can stand out. …
About this time last year, I received a fantasy fiction challenge during an online discussion about self publishing and the fantasy genre. As a notoriously difficult reader to please, one acquaintance got tired of me dismissing all the fantasy authors they recommended and suggested – nay, demanded – I attempt a fantasy novel myself. …
‘Starting the story in the middle’: that’s the Latin term in medias res. The Greek playwrights understood it well. Don’t start with a boatload of exposition, get into the action and explain things as you go. Horace named it but writers have been using it since writing began. …
In the current fantasy-fiction challenge, our protagonist is in revolt against the Evil Empire de Jour. Which raised the question, what goes onto our fictional empire-builders’ checklist? With inspiration from the Mythcreants blog, here’s a ten-step questionnaire for creating detailed and credible Imperial powers. …
According to Christine Frazier’s Better Novel Project you need twenty characters to start a book. Her post advocates this as an essential kick-starter for pop-fiction. It cites first chapters for Harry Potter and The Hunger Games (19 each) and Twilight (24). Even generalising for genre-fiction, twenty characters in Chapter One seems a bit much.
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Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats compiled a list on Twitter of twenty-two rules of storytelling. It’s not a new list (2012?) but it does contain some timeless wisdom. So here’s a shameless lift of that list: …
I’ve been challenged to write an epic fantasy genre story, so I’m reading a lot of current fantasy fiction. It varies from ‘meh’ to ‘aarrrgghh!’ not only for the quality of the writing, but the vast number of fantasy genre tropes we love and hate.
A trope is any type of figure of speech, theme, image, character, or plot element that is used many times. All genres have them, but the fantasy genre is piled higher than Khazad Dum (too geeky already?). …
Today’s readers spend so much time looking at screens, a dense wall of text with little or no white space sends them running. Online and digital devices mean short paragraphs are the new standard. So how long is a paragraph?
Amazon’s MOBI format for Kindle is strictly proscribed and validated whenever a file is uploaded to Amazon. Working with Kindle Create software should be the best route to a valid e-book file. But unless your book is the simplest, text-only layout, Kindle Create is a struggle.
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If this is the Self Publishing Journey Part II, then what happened to Part I?
Writing something is part one. Working out what to do with it is part two. …