Communicating Indirectly With Readers

Business of Writing, Promo Tips

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigsw_BacklitKeyboard_FFP10036

At the very start of this blog back in 2008, I tried to figure out who I was writing for.  I’d read a lot of advice at the time that blogging was a good way to connect to readers.

Instead, I decided to stay in my comfort zone and make my blog writer-focused.

I took a class on building a social media platform.  It recommended interfacing with readers instead of writers.

Instead, I decided to stay in my comfort zone and focus on connecting with writers on social media.

Despite my complete disregard of all the excellent advice that I’d gone searching for, this reader avoidance on my part worked really well. I built a large platform online.  Readers could easily find me because of good SEO. They’d message me on Facebook or email me if they wanted to connect and  communicated directly with me. I care a lot about my readers and I answer their messages promptly.  But I was very shy about seeking them out.

It’s been a couple of years now that I finally started thinking about ways to connect with my readers.

I originally went about it the wrong way.   I asked “where are my readers?” and then set out to join them.Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

Twitterific

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engineBlog (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 30,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

How Not to Collaborate on a Story:  http://ow.ly/SaMmm @davey_beauchamp

How to Be a Better Writer: Turn Struggle Into Success:  http://ow.ly/SaIAI @hughosmith

Great Character: Karl Childers (Sling Blade”):  http://ow.ly/SaKPa @gointothestory”

Introducing Characters in a Scene:  http://ow.ly/SaMBg @Janice_Hardy

How to Create a Remarkable Villain (Beyond the Clichés: ) http://ow.ly/Se7N6 by  David Villalva @betternovelproj       Continue reading

Writing the Cozy Mystery—the Victim

Mystery Writing Tips

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigDSC06922

This is the third in my cozy mystery writing series.  Today I’m taking a closer look at our victim. Parts one and two can be found here and here.

Handling our victim’s demise: As I mentioned in an earlier post, you can handle this a couple of different ways.  You can show the reader the likely suspects and why the victim might have been killed during interactions between future suspects and future victim at the start of the book (victim is still alive as the story opens).  Or you can open the story with the victim’s body and have the sleuth figure out who the suspects are and the motive (slightly trickier, I think).

Another tricky victim area: likeability.  If the victim is too unlikeable, readers may not care if his murder is solved or not.  Although it does make it easy in terms of motive. If you’ve got a very unlikeable victim, might be a good idea for the sleuth to remind others that justice is still important (as Hercule Poirot did in Agatha Christie’s mysteries). Or we could consider having someone close to the sleuth or the sleuth herself under suspicion to give the reader extra incentive to find out whodunit.Continue reading

Fast Writers and Slow Writers

Motivation and the Writing Life

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

The prevailing advice for better sales seems to be to write fastefile9271237667217r.  I think this may be true.  I did find that my self-published sales really picked up after book three so why not get to book three faster, right?

But this is frustrating advice for writers.  Some writers have  demanding schedules in which it’s tough to schedule in writing time.  Some are just thoughtful writers who take either a lot of time to warm up or who are deliberate about their word choice or story direction.

I read a post by Ken Rahmoeller last week on his blog: “Being a Slow Writer in This Day and Age.” Ken expressed his worry about being a slow writer when the trend is to fly through writing and production.

As many before me have pointed out, this business is a marathon, not a sprint.
Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

Twitterific

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engineBlog (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 30,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Auto mechanics in crime fiction: http://ow.ly/S4ROM @mkinberg

Pottermore: a look at the site’s changes and new focus: http://ow.ly/S71lP @Porter_Anderson

How to Raise the Creative Bar:  http://ow.ly/RNYi7 @ArtistThink

5 Things Every Protagonist Needs:  http://ow.ly/RNXUm  @larin20         Continue reading

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