To Tell or To Show -- The Secret to Why Writers Lose Readers?

Recently got burned in a critique because I told rather than showed. Granted it was a first draft of a work in progress, but the comments started me thinking about the great show vs tell debate. Can a writer tell a story anymore? Or, are they forced to follow the movie paradigm to get published?

Since I needed to review Patricia Briggs' recent mass paperback Fair Game, I thought I'd look and see what she'd done. Why review a best seeling author? Well, if you believe the comments on Goodreads, her fans pant in anticipation for her new books. ... I assume you wouldn't mind some hints on being a big time author too.

Fair Game, the fifth in Brigg's Alpha and Omega series, gives a twist on the werewolf's obsession to protect his mate. The storyline features the Marrok's enforcer and son, Charles, taking a back seat while his mate, Anna, is sent to the east coast to help capture a serial killer. Her special calming skills as an Omega wolf are needed to keep the werewolves and other preternaturals from exposing their more violent habits when trying to work together. In spite of his problems with his own demons, Charles must give Anna enough space to work with the local werewolves, Feds and local cops to solve the crime without her becoming a victim of the murderer.

Setting up characters in an on-going series is a balance. The writer must introduce each continuing character without an info dump that'll turn a readers off. Many long term writers have been sinking into the morass of giving too much back story thereby decreasing the tension. Briggs doesn't. Let me give you some examples of how she introduces characters without an info dump.

On introducing Anna at the start of the book: "Go home," Bran Cornick growled at Anna.
      No one who saw him like this would ever forget what lurked behind the Marrok's mild-mannered facade. But only people who were stupid--or desperate--would risk raising his ire to reveal the monster behind the nice-guy mask. Anna was desperate.
     "When you tell me you will quit calling on my husband to kill people," Anna told him doggedly. She didn't yell, she didn't shout, but she wasn't going to give up easily."

Actually that introduced two characters in action [plus demonstrating a bunch of other techniques commented on in writing blogs]. 

On introducing Charles: "Anna knew exactly when Charles drove up, newly returned from Minnesota where he'd gone to take care of a problem the Minnesota pack leader would not. If she'd been deaf to the sound of the truck or the front door, she'd have known Charles was home by the magic that tied wold to mate. That was all the bond told her outright, though--his side of their bond was opaque as he could manage, and that told her a whole lot more about his state of mind than he probably intended.
     From the way he let nothing leak through to her she knew it had been another bad trip, one that had left too many people dead, probably people he hadn't wanted to kill."

On introducing secondary character, Leslie Fisher, who was featured in the prologue: "Special Agent Leslie Fisher stared out the window that looked out over downtown Boston. From her vantage point she had a lovely, very-early-morning view. Traffic was still light, and though it would get a lot heavier as people came to work, lack of parking kept the streets from being as crazy as Los Angeles, the last place she'd been assigned. In the FBI, she got to move every few years whether she wanted to or not, but she'd always thought of Boston as home."

That described two characters if you consider the setting as a character. It's the integration of Brigg's prose that captures and holds my interest. I think she tells in the story, but her mind doesn't intrude as she lets the characters react on the stage. I can only admire because I know how hard that is to do.

After thinking about this, I'm still not so sure showing's all that much better than telling. I considered much of the text quoted above as telling ... and I don't mind it. So, I'll say who cares. Info dumps are another complaint.

Overall Rating: Five Stars. The mystery-thriller aspects of the Mercy Thompson world now outweigh the romantic and fantasy.  More important, Briggs keeps the tension tight as she juggles the motivations of her various characters.

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About the long break between blogs: Have been stewing since I returned from visiting family in California. The trip was lovely ... with a day's long drive through empty hills covered in green pines and grey, leafless oaks. As my mind dislocated, I found myself musing about what I want to do as a writer. Still don't know, but I'm working on it.

Middle grade novel morphed into a trilogy. Progress? Have a third of the middle book drafted. Have almost a third of the new first book down and am reworking and reworking the new second chapter that introduces Mac as a teen ... older than I first envisioned her. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Also have some nice review comments up on my websites if you care to look. Even have a couple five stars ... and the three stars complain the Troublesome Neighbor novella is too short.

To Market to Market -- All to Sell a Fine Book

I commented on a recent blog about always running out of social media time to actively participate at Goodreads. 

Then, on LinkedIn I ran into a The Business of Books blog on How to Use Your Goodreads account to build your author platform.
 -- Nothing like rubbing my nose in my marketing failings. The blog had me thinking I should make a bigger effort to include the site in my routine. 
-- Which I find amusing since I've been cutting back on my Twitter time.
-- Does anyone have any great suggestions? I'll retweet them if you do and give me your Twitter link.

Of course, to get a review to sell your book you need to get someone to buy your book, hopefully in great numbers. Found this blog by Brian Feinblum at BookMarketingBuzzBlog on what triggers book sales. He makes some good points that almost reduced me to despair. I'm almost immune to sales pitches, ie: I don't have any easy triggers ... other than maybe a host of favorite authors.

Feinblum's blog also sneaks in one very crucial ingredient to the marketing blend -- the importance of a log line. If you can't state your book/story's purpose in one or two succinct, intriguing sentences, you're going to have problems with selling your book. This applies to both agents and readers. -- Now you see where the despair might come in ... if I really cared ... though selling a bunch of "books" would be nice on several levels.

Then, there's the bain of my existence ... marketing.  Ugh. Aaargh. Cuss words. Now that my temper tantrum's over, I found a very interesting link to a list of the "Ten Money Saving Resources for Every Author" posted by Self-publishing Resources, I think. I immediately jumped to the link on publicizing your website. Found my not collecting email addresses was a greater sin than I thought. -- Whatever, there's some good points here even if you don't use the services listed. Like a timeline of when you should use the various techniques.

The above commented upon, I need to make a pitch for LinkedIn. I find I'm spending a lot more time there ... reading primary postings. There's some wonderful information lurking in their forums if you don't get caught up in the chattiness of it all ... which I don't because I'm not necessarily wanting a gajillion likes-followers-connections-etc.

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Then, there's my writing ... where I all too often hang my head in shame as people talking about their 1000+ word goals. I feel good when I get 250 new words added in a day ... though I really try for 500 words a day. ... Sometimes, I even make it.

Did suffer one set back.

My Hag Stone Magic MG story was going well ... until my  critique group savaged me. [Not really, but we're a tough group with long red pencils. Definitely not for the faint hearted.] Anyway my story line was mostly telling and had all sorts of verb problems. Good points all ... but it was a rough draft in the attempt to get a novel off the ground.

Even I could see the back story was overwhelming the story flow without them telling me. Solution: Write a prequel type book. Am doing that now and the world building is much easier and not so overwhelming for the reader, I hope. Result: I have seven chapters written of the middle book in a trilogy.

Thinking Good Writing's a Blending of Craft Skills

Lot's of people who talk to me think revising is the number #1 writing tip. I don't think so. That's a little like having a donkey push the cart. Yeah, writers need to finish writing something first to revise, but that isn't all. Writing is a blend of craft skills that takes practice and more practice. Yeah, I think writers are jugglers ... that's why we drop so many balls when we first start creating.

Oh, I think revising is the linch-pin of getting your writing published. You gotta get the words in some semblance of order, but once you have the story line down, you need to create images in your reader's mind and a hundred other different things.

That's where revising comes in. Writer's Digest, that helpful trade journal, posted a guest blog by Brian Kelms on tightening the screws on your readers in the first 50 pages of your work. This is important, because agents seldom read more than 50 pages in their first reaction to your query. More important, the excerpts given online aren't that long either. You've got to hook your reader early ... and show your competence.

Another thing. You have to carve out the time out of your life to write and revise. I struggle with this as much as most other writers. Then, I came across a tweet on how you only need to blog once a week on Twitter. Music to mine ears. Mohana Rajakumor's blog on Pro-blogger is a must read if you want to make a big splash in the blogging sphere. For most of us, writing and worrying about writing one blog a week gives us more time to work on our current manuscript.

Me? I think I was looking at the once a week excuse, but I think blogging too much can rob your creative juices unless you are mainly reporting on happenings.

So, how are my writing craft skills going? I'm having a hard time hitting my target of adding to Hag Stone Magic [500 words] this morning. If you also have a similar problem of meeting your priorities, check out Kristen Lamb's blog on Setting Priorities. It's about how social media overwhelms you. 

Hey it's only the 31st of January and I think I have my first blog for February almost done. *smiles*.

Haitus

Yeah ... It's the middle of February ... Ash Wednesday to be exact, if you follow such stuff. Still, it's a good time to reflect on how insignificant we are in the scheme of things. 

Still, the above advice is still pertinent, and I'd like to add another tip of my own. If you read this blog even semi-regularly, you've read me complaining that I'm a slooooow writer. Was it the dreaded writer's block. No. My mind was building a growing chapter outline. [very loosely structured]. But after a running start of over 500 words a day ... word production slowed down more and more as new questions rose about Mac's world.

Why? I kept have to explain things plus adding the notations in the "bible". Yeah, the dreaded clumps of back story kept clogging up  the flow of the story line. The solution didn't pop into my mind until I explained why magic existed in my post-apocalyptic world to my critique group. I was trying to write book two first. So, Hag Stone Magic has been relegated to a file of it's own. I'm still world-building but it's from the boonies-point-of-view rather than an administrative center. -- Did I just steal that from Suzanne Collins?

My tip? If you're suffering from "writer's block", maybe you aren't starting your story in the right place.

Oh, Dean K. Miller, a fellow Northern Colorado Writer, did a blog featuring my author website. Why don't you click the link and see what he has to say.

Author Kay Theodoratus http://wp.me/p1pN8h-uW

And, it's Valentine's Day.
I should proof read this again, but you're getting this typos and all.
It's been festering in my computer too long.

Romancing the Supernatural ... or How to Lure a Non-Romance Reader to Your Romance

Okay. I don't have a romantic bone in my body. This doesn't mean my characters don't sometimes get the hots for each other ... or that I haven't written what I consider a tender love scene. I just don't get all gushy and panting about other peoples' doings.

So, imagine my surprise when I realized I've read several Harlequin romances in the last six weeks or so, all of them written by Heather Graham -- The Presence, Phantom Evil, The Uninvited, and The Unholy. 

Read them without looking at the publisher. Graham almost added insult to my ego by being published by Harlequin. You know ... the publisher who prints tons of books with the plot density of a Barbara Cartland romance that used book stores are reluctant to trade. 

[Yes, I know many romance readers still love Cartland's novels, and she was one of the most prolific writers in history ... etc. But remember. I'm not a romance reader ... and have less interest in adolescent sighings. When I was a teen, I thought the girls who went all gushy were silly.]

I love that Graham hit the stereotype out the field. Even Harlequin doesn't follow the formula of simply girl/boy meets boy/girl ... girl/boy loses boy/girl ... girl/boy gets boy/girl ... any more. [Yeah, I know it can be boy meets boy and girl meets girl, now days ... but romance is romance even with a daub of erotica.] 

At the same time, the meets-loses-secures formula follows the basic three-act screenplay, book, and movie story-telling paradigm. What makes your story different is how you embellish the structure. That what makes a story stick in people's minds. The characters, the scenery, the twists, the action, the tension, and a host of other details make or break a book.

I'll even to give you the secret as to why I read the 'romances' up front. Graham mixes her genres up by using a romance as the linchpin holding a paranormal thriller/mystery together. A whole lot of authors do this. Kay Hooper, with her Bishop novels, adds a dose of supernatural with such a liberal hand you can't miss it. Sharyn McCrumb's mysteries take a subtler approach by adding the supernatural with her Nora Bonesteel character as a go between. 

I'm sure you can come up with hundreds of examples with this prompt ... so I don't have to go plowing through the mess on my bookshelves to find examples.

So how does Graham do it besides writing a good mystery with enough twists to keep a reader reading?  Sometimes the supernatural is front and center as the evil impetus to murder. Other books, the supernatural elements are auxiliary help in solving the mystery. In all cases:

1. The Leading men ... is attractive, but more important, is knowledgeable with information that can help the MC master her new psychic/supernatural skills ... plus being good in bed.
2. The villains possess just enough supernatural mojo, however acquired, to keep the good guys hopping as they process the clues to solve the who-dun-it.  
3. Her Main Characters, female, usually have one psychic power which they acknowledge or makes them uneasy when it's pointed out to them. Coping with the "skill" [?] and learning how to use it is one of the subplots which adds depth to the characters.
4. The secondary characters stand out as individuals 

It's embarrassing. But yes I have to admit I'll probably be buying and reading more Heather Graham books. She gets the right mix of supernatural and mystery to tickle my fancy.

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Need a chuckle? Must share a link I discovered on Twitter on the Behler Blog: When Ms. Inner Editor Goes to Sleep, So Must You. Behler Publications seems to publish writer's books [I didn't spend much time there after I read the blog.] and they're writing about non-fiction. If you send them fiction, the beagle will eat it.

Maybe the beagle ate the submissions I have pending to agents and publishers. Not that it bothers me that much. I rather write. [Yes, the world of Hag Stone Magic is developing quite nicely. Now I have to exhibit the craft skills to make MacKenzie come alive in the mind of the reader ... though I'll probably wait until the revisions to worry about that. First the characters have to do something.]