by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
My favorite way to write is in fifteen minute sessions. That’s short enough for me to stay laser-focused on my story, but long enough to make some real progress.
It helps that I can usually write several pages in this amount of time. This post is for anyone who would like to get more writing accomplished in short sessions.Continue reading
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 48,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.
Have you visited the WKB lately? Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox! Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.
Mystery writer Margot Kinberg is planning a special salute to women writers for International Women’s Day on March 8, 2019. For more information on how to participate, check out this post on writer Sue Coletta’s site.
Thanks to Madeleine D’Este for our interview at Write Through the Roof, where we discussed outlining, influences for my mystery writing, and tips for developing a writing habit: On iTunes: https://buff.ly/2ILPeNb On Stitcher: https://buff.ly/2Ap1VVp
And thanks to Kelly Santana-Banks for hosting me at her blog last week. I share my top-8 tools for writers.
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’ve written several books that were pretty short. I realized they were short (around 50-53,000 words) and took a closer look at the stories. I didn’t see a good way of adding anything to the books that would make them any better. They were just really lean books that still allowed for character development and a solid mystery. I left them as-is and published them.
I even wrote short for Penguin once or twice. They didn’t say a word about it, simply reduced the price of the paperbacks a dollar and let them stand as they were.
But occasionally I’ll write short and go, “Okay. This is too short.” And I’ll find ways of adding elements to the story that will genuinely make the story richer and have more depth. My most recent release is an example. It worked so well that I thought I’d share the couple of approaches I took to make it work.
Flesh out summarizing narrative. This was something that my editors at Penguin would frequently (rightly) bring up with me and really should be done regardless of whether you’ve written short or not. I’d have a sort of placeholder bit of narrative that basically just summarized what the character did for the rest of the day as some transition. But going back through in another draft, there’s always an opportunity there to add something meaningful. I realized that readers would likely be interested in what my sleuth’s life with her brand-new husband was like. How had life changed? What was difficult? What was better? It gave me the chance to sketch some of this in and develop my character a bit more, as well. This approach even provided some light conflict for the story.
Get into the character’s head. (More about this approach in my post, “Empathizing With Your Character”. Take a look at supporting characters: is there an opportunity for development there that can add something to the story or shed light on the protagonist? Is there a good subplot that could add conflict to the story and dimension to the main character?
Further reading:
5 Fun and Easy Ways to Lengthen Word Count by K.M. Weiland
What to Do When Your Novel’s Too Short by Janice Hardy
Do you ever write short? Do you find ways to lengthen the books or just release them as shorter books?
When You've Written Too Short: Click To TweetPhoto on VisualHunt
By Steven W. Giovinco, @recovreputation
8 Online Reputation Management Tips for Authors, Books, Novels, Fine Art Photography Publications, With Sample Task List
Authors–not just plumbers on Yelp or lawyers on Avvo.com–need a positive online reputation. It helps show the writer as an expert, connect them to readers, drives traffic to their book site and makes it more likely that “content”–bits of the book–will be shared on social media. This all leads to more sales.
Since advertising and traditional promotion don’t work as they did, a writer should strive to be a trustworthy “knowledge leader,” or key source in their niche, whether it be non-fiction, fiction, biographies, poetry, business books, essays, etc. Reputation management helps by building excellent sources when searching online.
Come up with clear online reputation goals. This sounds simple enough, but breezing through this initial step can lead to problems later if unclear. “Sell more books,” might seem to be obvious answer. But how?
Drill down further. Building an excellent online reputation could, for example:
Show the writer as an expert in their specialized field.
Generate interest from new prospective publishers.
Schedule additional talks at book stores in specific and as-yet unscheduled cities.
Create direct connections to readers through social media.
Generate interviews from bloggers and traditional media.
Lead to translations of the book into other languages.
Conduct podcast or radio interviews.
Connect with screenwriters, film producers or television executives.
It could be one or all of the above.Continue reading
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 48,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.
Have you visited the WKB lately? Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox! Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.
I’m scheduling this post and this week’s posts as a hurricane is heading our way in the Charlotte, NC area. In case I lose power, be aware there may be a delay in responding to comments. Thanks, as always, for commenting and for reading the blog!
