Hooking Your Readers

The Read:  Well, growl-ly Luna and Caitlin Kittredge finally hooked me for the final third of Pure Blood.   But, the need to see how Kittredge tied all the loose ends together kept me going -- not any particular involvement with the characters.  They remained too simply drawn to tie up my interest against all the other distractions in my life.

Kittredge had all the major secondary characters sunk up to their necks in danger, including Luna.  She did end up with the love interest she preferred,  discovered the supposed "partner" was planted to build a case for firing her, and managed to destroy the nasty magical talisman that was causing all the trouble in an interesting fashion.  More important, as a foreshadowing for the sequels, Kittredge suggests that Luna isn't the magical null Luna and her family of witches thinks she is.  --  However, I won't go looking for the next book in the series.  [The plot's more complicated so this paragraph isn't quite the spoiler you might think.]

The True Blood DVDs still absorb my after-the-news reading time -- until midnight.  I can get two episodes in if I don't do anything else.  Am thinking of getting one of the later books in the series and comparing the two.  While the acting in the TV series is good over all, I think some of the actors for the secondary characters -- like Jason and Tara -- often go over the top and make caricatures of their characters.

Web Notes:  The momentus things one learns on Twitter:  Colleen Lindsay (agent at Fine Print) was out of coffee beans.  Yasmine Galenorn ( the creator of the D'Artigo sisters though I prefer Emerald O'Brien) needs coffee to write sex scenes. 

Galenorn also recommends that you never play on the web drunk.  What you say might come back and bite you.

Maybe, this is an example of why I spend so much time on the web?  No, I seldom visit Twitter.  As for Facebook, I mostly check for family and personal friends.

So much for building a platform ... though I still think you need an audience in mind before you can do it.

Progress:   None.  Struggling.  Can't even get a query draft for Emma done.

Trivia:  The Dark Wyrm [book review site, http://darkwyrmreads.blogspot.com ]  sabotaged my to-read pile.  She held a contest with Strange Brew, a collection of short stories by the likes of Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, and would you believe, Caitlin Kittredge.  Something strange happened; I won.  Do you think I can't keep my hands off it? 

Since I can't write short  fiction, I won't be commenting on any of the stories.  Though liked the twist on who was messing with Harry Dresden's favorite beer.
 

Keeping a Reader Hooked

The Read:   Once a writer gets a reader to buy the book, they have to keep them hooked long enough to keep reading.  Right?  Well, Caitlin Kittredge has pulled me pass the middle of PURE BLOOD.  Hey, I'm squirming here, but still reading.  [Duty is a harsh mistress.]

The writing isn't that bad.  The structure is twisting tighter with a bomb blast starting the change in the dynamics of the MC's partnership with the Barbie detective.   I'm at the last third of the book, and Kittredge is finally concentrating on the war between the two witch clans.  Must admit I'm hooked enough to want to see how she semi-resolves the issues with MC's personal and professional life.   But ...

The DVD set of True Blood arrived.  [Have you notice fantasy has gotten decidedly bloody in the last couple years?  Oh, for simple marauding orcs!]  The HBO series is based on Charlaine Harris'  Dead Until Dark.  Like the casting of the Bill Compton character, but I don't think Sookie Stackhouse  is portrayed with enough dippiness.  Grew up with kids like her [without the ability to hear thoughts], once removed (by parents moving to California), and don't think Paquin quite catches it.  Still, I look forward to the news ending so I can fire up the next episode.

The reading of Pure Blood is going to take a long time.  Too much competition for my free time.

Web Notes:  Got my horizons broadened by a blog again yesterday.  Nugget of wisdom:  You shouldn't limit your visits to classrooms to promote your book -- if you're lucky enough to be published.  Jewel Allen did a guest blog on Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents with a wonderful suggestion to find out what kind of stories children like.  Visit their classrooms with a partially written story ... and have the kids put the ending on it.  Visit http://tinyurl.com/yge42uk  to read all her excellent suggestions.
 
Blogging:  I'm thinking more and more that the web/social media are a huge time vampire.  Maybe that's why so many people are writing about the undead, you think?  They're trying to use the research they did when trying to discover ways to escape from vampires?  --  I now follow so many blogs, you have to hook me into clicking as I rush through my allotted web time.

Progress: I'm staggering on with Maren's metamorphosis.

Trivia:  On a more positive note.  Had tempura for lunch.  Love unhealthy vegies.

Hooking a Reader's Interest

The Read:  My opinion: the second book's the key to hooking the reader's interest in a series -- the charm that launches a series ... or a reader turn-off.  

Started Caitlin Kittredge's Pure Blood. second in the Nocturne City series (trilogy?).  The opening starts off much the same as the first -- with a dead body.  Problem?  Well, in the first book, the body immediately hooked you into the possibilities of something nefariously supernatural happening.  The second book?  The body looks like a routine overdose while the MC and reader stand around getting cold feet -- even though the medical examiner does mention the eyes aren't consistent with the OD assumption -- The book then drifts away to departmental politics before the hook is set. 

A slo-o-o-w start with one-note characters.  Got a tenth of the way into the book before I reached the first spark of interest -- the MC gets saddled with an unwanted partner who just happened to be from a prominent good witch family, but without a hint of magic and looks like a Barbie-clone.  I was ready to throw the book on the trade pile, but by page 40 the storyline snagged me enough to continue reading.  Why?  I thought it'd furnish a good exercise for the blog. -- Duty above all.  [Please don't gag.]

The simplicity of the characterization bothers me -- [actually, my thoughts are more profane].  Don't want or need huge amounts of back story at the beginning of the second book, but your secondary characters need to come across as humans, not cardboard space holders.  [That's the tertiary characters' role.]  

Examples:  Partner - the poor little rich girl.  The New Love Interest - a self-centered adolescent that feels like he's being set up to be dumped.  The New Boss --  an intolerant autocrat.  Main Character -- caught up in her anger to the point of unreason and self-destruction.  (Might work for literary, but commercial?)

So, why do I continue reading? The MC and partner got stuck in a S&M bondage situation while investigating the death of a blood witch about a 1/3 of the way into the book.  (Blood witches in this world are bad guys.)  Finally, I got hooked even though I was yawning enough to go to bed. 

Web Notes:  I sometimes wonder if my blog is wasted effort -- even though I'm comfortable talking to myself.  Then, something strange happens.  I checked the statistics for my blog and clicked the who's reading my blog button ... and there was somebody reading at the same time as me.  Well, I thought it was interesting even if you don't.

When I first started writing a blog, I really didn't think about readers.  I worried about thinking up enough words to say.  --  I should have had more confidence in my "big mouth".

All the above raises the question:  So, you got your blog.  What are you going to do with it?

Justine Musk recently wrote a blog on how to organize your social media platform in three parts.  http://tribalwriter.com/2010/04/06/author-platform-framework/    I assume the end result would help increase readership for a published writer.

That means my blog is probably useless.  *shrug*  Not really, I've learned a lot from it.  As for following Musk's suggestions, I need to sell something so I know what audience/readership I'm talking to.  --  Another bit of information to tuck between my ears.

Progress:  Maren is metamorphosing.  Maybe I should give up and write something else.  [I have several possible ideas sitting in my idea file.]  Have consigned the opening chapter to the odd bit file.  *sniff*  All that lovely back story gone ... and maybe one character.  Now I've got to figure what the characters are going to do since my tentative outline is in the trash.

Trivia:   Snow dusted us last night.  No shoveling for the old man since the sidewalks are clear, but we're still on Apricot Watch.  Usually, we get a massive freeze as soon as the apricot blooms, and we get nothing by leaves from the tree.  This year, we just might get a few apricots --  not that I really like them that much.  I prefer peaches -- which tree is showing no signs of blossoming yet.  (Yeah.)