DISTINCTIVE DIALOGUE

Our subject for May in the PYA Writers' Support Group concerned creating distinctive dialogue - identifying characters by the way the speak.

Every individual has their own unique speech pattern. Hence, distinctive speech is
a valuable way of showing characterisation, making characters memorable, and reducing the need for speech tags.
 

For example, Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby peppers his speech with the colloquialism, 'old sport'. Star Wars' Yoda's unusual word ordering sets him apart.
Tolkien's Gollum uses his own word and names The Ring as his 'Precious'.
 

At the extreme is the comedian's catchphrase - deliberately designed as a memorable shortcut to the character.
 

Famous examples include Michelle in 'Allo Allo', with 'Listen very carefully, I shall say ziz only once.' Note the 'zis' to indicate she's French.
 

Dr Who's Daleks express their single minded obsession of Exterminate! While Blackadder's Baldrick introduces his stupidity with 'I have a cunning plan.'
 

But a novel is not a sit-com, and there is a danger of falling into stereotyping and cliche.
 

So, how to create dialogue that genuinely is unique?

Know your character

Speech is born of the whole of a character's life. Age, gender, class, nationality, education, regional accent, era and fashions, upbringing, friends, where they live, what job they do. All these things affect how that person speaks. Knowing these things about your character informs their speech.
 

Try to listen to lots of different people talk: in the street, on TV, internet clips. What does that person's speech tell you about them? What, exactly, conveys those messages?

Vocabulary

Word choice is vital. Every word your character uses must be of THEIR world, and THEIR experience – not the author's. For instance. do they call a toilet a toilet? Or is the lavatory, privy, commode, loo, bog, john, powder room?
 

What idioms does their social group use? Will they 'break a leg', or perform 'the  Scottish play'? Or will they dismiss something's value as 'a dime a dozen', before they 'hit the sack'?
 

Do they use slang or swear words?
 

Do they use jargon? Will they use 'blue sky thinking' to determine that the best course of action is to 'get the low hanging fruit'.

Do their activities involve specialist knowledge? To an outsider, a car is a car. To a
mechanic, it might be a saloon, a hatchback, an SUV, petrol, diesel, electric, turbo, catalytic, a Renault, Toyota, etc. etc. 

Grammar, rhythm and syntax (word order)

Few people truly speak 'standard' English. But writing fictional speech as real people speak doesn't work – it reads like gibberish. The trick is to introduce a few indicators of non-standard speech.

This is especially useful when it comes to foreign/regional accents and/or dialect. To try to faithfully reproduce an accent in phonetic language is difficult, hard to read, and quite likely will not be understood by any reader who is not familiar with that accent. The trick is to introduce just one or two things that indicate the accent to the reader, without altering the whole text. As in the example of Michelle above, the spelling of only one word is amended to indicate the French accent.
Depending on the accent, you might use the odd apostrophe for a missing part of speech, or change word order, or miss a word out. Someone might switch prepositions, misuse a pronoun, or leave out parts of speech such as 'and';. Remember, use sparingly - just as an indication.
 

Here is an example.
Personality is expressed strongly in speech. A hesitant, shy person will use modifiers to hedge what they say. Words like 'might, could, perhaps'. A dogmatic, confident person will claim that listeners 'must' or 'will' do something. Blunt, to the point people use short words and sentences. Pompous people use long words
and long sentences.
 

Audience.

Consider not only your readership, but who your character is addressing in the dialogue you are writing. People speak differently to different people, especially if power dynamics are in play. Is your characters speaking to, say a child, their boss, a friend, officialdom?

Perception

People's language is coloured by their interpretation of their surroundings. Does the girl walking through linear park at dusk perceive it as threatening, or as peaceful?

Exercise

Pick two characters from your current work in progress, and have them discuss the actions of a third.
 

Or, progress this scenario:
Fred and George are up before the judge.
Fred says, ;I were walking down t'road,;
George says, 'We woz ;ere all the time, yer 'onour.'
What happens next?
 

Here's a link to a blog about regional accents to help too.

 

PYA Writers' Support Group 3rd April - Author Biographies - Crib Sheet

The Author Bio is the bit on the back of a book, on your agent’s website, on your social media, that introduces you as an author

Author bios are conventionally written in third person, and are very short – not more than 100 words.

Many author bios are very bland: I read one that said that the authors lives in Norfolk, with cats.  It did nothing to make me want to read her books.

And that is a marketing failure.  An Author Bio is an opportunity to make people think, wow, I’m interested in this person, I want to read what they have to say.

Two examples:

Trust No One by Louisa Clifford: No author bio at all!  Missed opportunity
The Whale Road by Robert Law: Says he was journalist and traveller until ‘common sense and the concerns of his wife prevailed’. ‘To satisfy his craving for action he took up re-enactment, joining ‘The Vikings’.  The story is historical fiction, therefore, this shows the man has lived it – making the book more enticing.

I think author bios are difficult on two fronts: one is the same as the ‘elevator pitch’: what to leave out from this this large, complex subject.

The other is that, at heart, many writers are shy, and don’t want to reveal themselves.

So think about your author bio as writing another character.  Whether for a pen name, or your own name, it’s a constructed character.  It’s not the inner you: it’s your public persona.  What do you want to show?

What to include?   

1 Name and Geographical location. 

These are standards, that must be included.
Geographical location gives readers their first piece of information about you.  So choose carefully how you describe it.  Does your location in the idyllic Yorkshire Dales provide the setting for your cosy crime/romances?  Does your location in Leeds give you inside knowledge of the post-industrial decline that fuels your crime thriller?

2 Authority

If you’re writing non-fiction, the next stage is to declare your authority to write this book?  Is it a diet book, the result of your PhD studies in nutritional and weight loss?

3 But fiction writers have authority, too.

Travel, work experience, life experience, a city or landscape, its wildlife or history?  What was your inspiration for the book?  This is your chance to share that inspiration, and inspire your readers.

4 What life experience is relevant to your knowledge of your book?  

It might be based on your memories of growing up, or triggered by family history research.  You might have overcome a personal crisis or challenge.  Think of something that relates you, your book, and potential readers.

5 And finally, is there anything else that validates your work?

Won any prizes?  A quote from a positive review?  A celebrity endorsement?  Previously published works?

Round off by mentioning your website and social media.

Children's Author Group 14th March 2024 - A Discussion on School Presentations about your books

Children's Author Group 14th March 2024 - A Discussion on School Presentations about your books

Thank you to everyone who attended the Children's Author group of March 2024. We had a lively discussion on School Visits. There were so many excellent comments and ideas that I've collated notes below. If I've missed anything out, then please let me know.

A huge thank you to Paul for once again providing the links.

Our next meeting is on April the 18th at 2.30 pm. We are going to continue today's theme of School Visits as well as talk through the idea of a PYA database for contacts.

As an aside - we discussed the author visit of the previous month too and regular attendee Julie Venner found the article  Beware the Thorn of the Zéphirine Drouhin) about the use of gardens in crime fiction which might be of interest after our discussion of garden metaphors, etc.

Main points from the Children’s Author group meeting. 14/03/24

Social Media – Instagram.

Instagram algorithms are positively affected by the number of engagements you make. Hearts/likes don’t count – making a comment on someone’s post does. Engaging with posts should be daily.

ANOTHER TIP Facebook and Instagram bots do not like copied and pasted remarks in posts. If you do have to copy something and re send– add something, or change a few words.

When posting on Instagram use hashtags’ (trending ones if possible). Things like:  

#Childrensbooks
#ChildrensFiction etc.

QR codes.

Those quirky boxes you can scan that will take the person directly to your website/page. They can be added to pretty much anything. Bookmarks, flyers web pages. Linda has offered to make personal ones if you email her. They can link to Amazon or your websites… let me know.

Mastodon UK

A social media site that is not owned by anyone - it is what is called a Federated Network. It takes a little time to get your head around. I suggest you google and go from there – or ask the oracle that is Paul!

Paul is on Mastodon @wisegreyowl@mastodonaoo.uk

SCHOOL VISITS

Payment for school visits.

A variety of options were discussed.

It was agreed that it will depend on the circumstances and what you are offering to the school.

Schools often have a limited budget so one solution is to ask the school to purchase 5 -10 books for their library.

Ask the school to promote your visit. Send the school a flyer/s and ask them to add the visit to the school website and newsletter. This would give parents the opportunity to pre-order a book.

Working your visit to tie in with the school curriculum – this would help the school to tick those boxes.

Practical ideas – use activities where possible. Could be puppets, a writing exercise – funny poems. Depending of course on the age you’re talking to.

Potential issues with visits

Teachers or classroom assistants should be present throughout the session.

Using technology for the session – Most schools use TEAM not Zoom. Check out any tech details well before your visit.

Who to contact to arrange a visit.

The school office might be able to help by providing an appropriate contact within the school. A librarian, (if they have one) literacy co-ordinator – head teacher.

When emailing, make it clear you are a member of Promoting Yorkshire Authors and provide the website address. www.p.y.a.org. Being a member of PYA is going to add weight to your request. 400 members and counting!

Discussed – the potential for school visits where a few authors would attend the event together. This might be attractive to schools/libraries etc. and would provide support for each other.

DATA BASE

Begin to set up a Yorkshire wide data base for PYA, listing contacts for schools – libraries and Indie Bookshops. Individuals to begin sourcing contacts local to them. Telephone the schools libraries etc. and ask for an appropriate person to email. Once you have a few, send the contact details to linda.jones2703@gmail.com and I’ll begin to collate them. Jane has an old list which she will be updating over the coming few months

 Linda Jones - Deputy Chair, PYA and Chair Children's Author Group

 

February's Children's Author Group featured our guest, Crime Writer David Gatward who gave us the benefit of his experience.

Thank you author David Gatward who gave an inspiring talk to the PYA Children's Author Group in February by Zoom. Thanks also to John Clewarth for inviting David.

David self publishes his work and makes monthly sales that would be envied by many in the group. The lessons for me from the talk were:

1. Write, write, write. 4 books a year isn't an unachievable target. Make time, don't procastinate.

2. Choose a genre that has lots of readers - crime, fantasy, sci-fi.

3. Write a series and keep it going.

4. Build a following of avid readers and give them what they want. Someone who reads book 1 in the series is likely to read all of the books.

5. Focus, focus, focus. You need to want to be successful & take steps to make the dream come true. The harder you try, the luckier you become.

6. Focus on eBooks. David's sales are 80% eBooks, all on Amazon.

It was clear that David is a driven man and I think everyone was wowed by what he's achieved. It has certainly put a rocket up me!

David sent us some notes after the session and they're reproduced below.

Notes for indie authors

If you want to be really strategic about writing before you write your book: Write to market – Easier to market a book if it is targeted at a specific market rather than a mish/mash of genres. Obviously this is personal choice but if you want the biggest chance of earning, then doing research into the genre/subgenre you want to write in will pay off. What are common tropes? What are the best-selling books in the genre/subgenre do? Etc. This doesn’t mean you have to target the biggest audience. Targeting a niche audience can be very successful as long as you write what they want to read. (e.g. romance is a huge, highly competitive market so drilling down a bit into subgenres and writing something that those audiences love could be the best way to go).

Have your book edited and proofed

This goes without saying, doesn’t need any further explanation. Employ professionals and you’ll get a professional job. Don’t just ask your mate to do it …

Blurb

Make sure your blurb is catchy and appropriate – this will probably require some research because people who can write novels, can’t necessarily write short, snappy copy (especially not about their own books, which they may know too well). Look at top 100 in your genre and read their blurb, ask for feedback on relevant author Facebook groups – a neutral observer will be able to tell you if your blurb is enticing and makes them want to find out more about your book (and if not, why not). It’s something that writers often overlook or misjudge (e.g. it’s not about giving a synopsis of what your book’s about, it’s about creating suspense, intrigue, curiosity that makes potential readers want to find out more). Bryan Cohen (who runs the Author Ad School for indie authors) has written a book on writing blurbs. How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis: A Step-by-Step System for Enticing New Readers, Selling More Fiction, and Making Your Books Sound Good. I haven’t read this though but he and his team know a lot about writing blurbs.

Covers

Make sure you have a professional looking cover: Don’t do your own cover unless you are REALLY good at Photoshop/graphic design. You can usually spot a homemade cover from a mile off and they don’t look good. Back in the early days of self publishing, readers may have been drawn by homespun covers as it indicated something different from trad published books. That doesn’t work nowadays. You only have a couple of seconds to attract a reader’s attention. They are scrolling through Amazon and you only have a very short space of time to grab their attention. And you have to do this with a professional-looking cover that fits in with your genre. You don’t have to spend hundreds of £s to do this. There are websites out there that do very cost-effective covers e.g. getcovers.com, you can get an ebook cover for as little as $10, ebook and print cover for as little as $20 (there are varying price packages with different service levels). Or 100covers.com, their packages start from $100. If you have more money to spend, then you can look at more specialist design agencies e.g. www.derangeddoctordesign.com There are lots of agencies and freelance designers out there, so makes sense to do your research, ask for recommendations in online forums etc. You can also look inside the front covers of best-selling books in your genre and see if the author has credited the designer/artist and contact them. But make sure you do this good time and don’t leave to the last minute as most agencies and designers will have lead times.

BUT you do have to do research on your covers – your cover has to fit seamlessly into your genre. It has to look like all the others in the top 100. This is because readers judge books by their covers. They want to know that your book tells the kind of story they want to read. So if it looks like the stuff they like, they are more likely to click on it. This means you have to look at the following factors that are most common in the top 100 books in your genre:

What images are used, how big are they (what 5-age of the cover do they take up)

What are the dominant colours used in the images

Type, colour and size of font (for the title and the author name)

Where is the title positioned?

Where is the author name positioned?

When looking at the top 100 in your genre on Amazon, drill down into your specific subgenre. You can use the menu in Amazon or just Google the relevant e.g. ‘best seller paranormal werewolves shifter romance amazon uk’. When looking at top 100 make sure you discount any non-relevant books e.g. Amazon crime fiction in the US used to contain loads of dark mafia romance books (lots of broody, bare-chested males draped in scantily clad women), which isn’t what you want on a crime fiction book. Being as accurate as possible helps – e.g. drill down to police procedurals, tradition detective stories, scandi noir, cosy culinary etc. whatever genre fits your book best.

The more information you can provide a book cover designer with, the easier the design process will be (with fewer revisions necessary).

Join good online forums – there are lots of Facebook groups for authors. Lots of them are free. They are great places to post cover and blurb drafts and ask for feedback. Be open to constructive criticism – try not to be offended if your blurb or cover is critiqued.

Advertising:

Amazon and Facebook ads are the most common platforms for advertising. Both can be very effective if done right. I would recommend doing some research here as they can be a bit overwhelming and confusing. There are various courses and books out there that teach indie authors how to navigate Amazon and Facebook ads. Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing courses are probably among the best known? They’re fairly all encompassing and cover most aspects of writing and self publishing. It is costly, though. I haven’t done much of his stuff so can’t say much either way, but could be interesting for people to look at.

Amazon ads

The Author Ad School’s Selling for Authors course is another well-known course. It is also a paid-for course that covers most aspects of marketing and advertising a book via amazon (does not cover Facebook ads). They run a free 5-day Author Ad Challenge on Facebook several times a year. It’s a good free introduction to Amazon ads and guides you to creating your first amazon ads. Also something that they might want to check out. The next one will be in January (search for The 5-Day Author Ad Profit Challenge on Facebook and join the group). The instructor, Bryan Cohen has also written a book: Self-Publishing with Amazon Ads: The Author's Guide to Lower Costs, Higher Royalties, and Greater Peace of Mind. I haven’t read this though.

Facebook ads

For those on a limited budget, a good, no-nonsense book on how to set up and run your first Facebook Ads is: Help! My Facebook Ads Suck: Second Edition by Mall and Jil Cooper. £7.99 Kindle and £8.99 paperback. It’s an easy-to-follow, step-by-step book, and I found it very useful. I’d suggest getting the paperback as it’s easier to flick backwards and forwards through while setting up ads. Mal and Jil also run a facebook page called The Writing Wives Ads & Marketing Group (search in FB) and have a regular live chat called Lunch with Mal where Mal talks about Facebook ads and trends in FB advertising. They also run a free 5-Day Facebook Ads Challenge Group periodically in the year, but I’m not sure when the next is (search 5-Day Facebook Ads Challenge Group in Facebook)

One thing to note is that whereas it can be a challenge to get amazon to spend your budget on ads but Facebook will burn through your money in no time at all. So be careful there. Always set yourself a budget you can afford and keep an eye on ad performance and how much you’re spending. Some people find that one platform works better for them than another. E.g. Facebook didn’t seem to be having a big impact on sales, so I stopped the ads there.

It definitely helps to take a strategic approach here – testing different types of ads for x amount of time, stopping ones that don’t work and spending more on ads that do work… it pays to be strategic and analytical here (something that I am not!)

General rule of thumb = only run ads to your first in series (if you write a series). You can run time-limited campaigns to new releases, but you want to funnel

Newsletters:

It’s generally regarded as good practice to send out regular newsletters to your readers. This is because it gives you a direct means of communicating with your ‘superfans’. Even if you have an active author Facebook page where you engage with fans, if your account get blocked by Facebook, or if anything should happen to Facebook, then you lose access to these people. A mailing list is yours and yours alone.

There are lots of different email providers out there, but as far as I know, Mailerlite is the best one (it’s not perfect, but better than a lot of others). There is a free version (without customer support) that you can use until you reach a certain number of subscribers. Once you exceed 1000 subscribers, you have to switch to a paid-for account.

To get people to sign up for your newsletter, you will need a cookie, e.g. a free short story related to your book (or the world in which your books are set). There are lots of different things you can offer here. A useful resource for creating newsletters is the book Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert by Tammi L. Labrecque. It’s another no-nonsense, easy-to-follow guide on all things newslettery. She has also done a follow-up called: Newsletter Ninja 2: If You Give a Reader a Cookie: Supercharge Your Author Mailing List With the Perfect Reader Magnet, which I found useful. She also runs a Facebook page called Newsletter Ninja: Author Think Tank, where you can post questions.

General comments:

You can spend A LOT of money on really in-depth courses that will teach you every aspect of self publishing from planning a book for a specific genre to marketing it to readers. But if you’re on a budget, there are also plenty of free resources out there. Lots and lots of podcasts, for example Dave Chesson at kidlepreneur.com., The Self Publishing Show Podcast with Mark Dawson, Sell More Books Show with Bryan Cohen and H. Claire Taylor. Free courses and resources (5-day challenges on Facebook). I would suggest that people looks at the low-cost of free stuff before spending £100s or even £1000s on courses. There is so much you can learn from other authors and industry experts for free.

Useful resources for indie authors

This is by no means a definitive list. These resources may not even be the best options out there for your genre but they are all resources I have either used myself or heard good things about from other authors and industry experts.

Blurbs

Book: How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis: A Step-by-Step System for Enticing New Readers, Selling More Fiction, and Making Your Books Sound Good by Bryan Cohen

Cover design

Low cost options:

www.getcovers.com

www.100covers.com

Advertising

Amazon ads and self publishing in general

Free:

The 5-Day Author Ad Profit Challenge on Facebook run by Bryan Cohen (the next course starts in January)

Paid-for: https://selling-for-authors.teachable.com/p/amazon-ads-made-easy (Bryan Cohen)

Facebook ads

Book: Help! My Facebook Ads Suck: Second Edition by Mall and Jil Cooper.

Facebook groups:

The Writing Wives Ads & Marketing Group

5-Day Facebook Ads Challenge Group

Amazon and Facebook ads (and all aspects of self publishing)

Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Formula

https://selfpublishingformula.com/

Newsletters:

Free email service provider:

www.mailerlite.com

Book: Newsletter Ninja: How to Become an Author Mailing List Expert by Tammi L. Labrecque

Book: Newsletter Ninja 2: If You Give a Reader a Cookie: Supercharge Your Author Mailing List With the Perfect Reader Magnet

Facebook group: Newsletter Ninja: Author Think Tank

Self publishing in general:

Dave Chesson – not read much of his stuff but he’s highly respected in the indie author community and offers a lot of free resources (and a podcast) on his website. Worth checking out.

https://kindlepreneur.com/

Podcasts:

The Book Marketing Show with Dave Chesson

The Self Publishing Show Podcast with Mark Dawson

SELL MORE BOOKS SHOW with Bryan Cohen and H. Claire Taylor

 

February 2024 Writers' Support Group Topic - Your Character in their World

We were  delighted to have Helen back in charge of the Writers' Support Group for the latter part of the month and pleased that she's on the mend again.

This month's topic was the link between a character and their world - how both influence each other and are inextricably tied together: each shapes the other,  Each having attributes that are probably different to your reader's world.  

But what's important to the story is what is important to the CHARACTER.

To illustrate the point, imagine 3 characters enter a city park on an April lunchtime.   How do they EXPERIENCE the park?

The teenager glances over her shoulder before diving into the shrubbery.  Phew, no-one in sight.  She slows her pace, burrows inside a big old evergreen.  She squats on layers of old, dry leaves.  She feels safe, hidden here.  But she can't stay here forever.  How can she escape the bullies when she has to come out?

The middle aged woman, scurrying to grab something for lunch, shields her eyes, head down.  It's been a long, gruelling morning, grafting at spreadsheets for the afternoon meeting.  Now, she's fearful the bright light will trigger a migraine.  She catches the flicker of aura, and groans.

The grandmother sits on a park bench, relaxing as the sun’s warmth eases her aching bones.  She feasts her eyes on the brilliantly coloured flowers:  winter is over.  She smiles as her friend hands her an ice-cream and joins her on the bench.  "Now, then," she sighs.  "This is nice."

It's the same park, the same day.  To one, it's a route to escape, to another, a problem, to another, a happy interlude.  Each person's experience is different, unique to their own story perceptions.

Our Exercise

Write a micro-scene showing your character, in a setting in their world.  The action can be trivial, it can be major, but let it show us something about that person, and the world in which they live.  There may or may not be, other people in the scene.

Use one of your own characters, or, if you want a bit of fun, take a famous character – real or fictional, alive or dead – and write a mini scene that shows us who they are, WITHOUT naming them.

Listeners can report what they noticed about the character,  with ‘bonus points’ if they can name the famous person.

Here's something that was written for the exercise.

The Train

René was escorted to a branch-line station where a train was waiting. Accompanying him was Rudolf, a fair haired officer who spoke little and showed his discomfort at escorting a Frenchman to meet the important man. Rudolf was formal and polite but his manner was cold and René was pleased when the train pulled out of the station, the noise making conversation impossible. They travelled slowly for a few miles, the rolling stock groaning as it climbed the steep incline. René could hear the locomotive, the rhythmic sound of the pistons and the expulsion of steam at each cycle. The train accelerated as the slope lessened until the driver applied screeching brakes before manoeuvring into sidings parallel with another train. This new train was different – camouflaged but through the windows René could see that the internal accommodation was more an office, the furnishings sumptuous, drapes a luxurious satin. Rudolf stood to address René, telling him it was time for him to leave. A makeshift bridge was lowered between the two trains and Rudolf beckoned for René to cross towards the other train, leaving Rudolf behind. René entered through a door, Rudolf disappearing after the gangplank was withdrawn. A polite young man dressed as an adjutant welcomed him on board and saluted. René returned the salute half heartedly. ‘Please, come with me.’

René’s face was stony as he followed the adjutant. He was shown into a carriage furnished with a table, chairs positioned around it. The aide brought coffee and asked René if he would like milk and sugar. René responded that he would have his coffee black and the adjutant placed it on the table before walking towards the door. Before he left he turned, clicked his heels and saluted. René did not return the gesture, remaining standing, leaving the coffee untouched. Nervous, he knew that the stakes were as high as they could be. It was ten minutes before a second adjutant entered from the opposite end of the carriage. This man was older with a scar across one side of his face, clearly the result of a knife wound. His aura was of a man of experience and René was to learn that Ludovic was a trusted aide, one of a band of the unsung who advised the leader. ‘Come with me, please,’ said Ludovic, ‘You will be seen now.’

René was escorted through a sparsely furnished carriage into a small office occupied by two women – secretaries, he thought. They glanced at René as he passed through but said nothing. These women had seen much and nothing surprised them. Without ceremony, René found himself in the presence of someone portrayed for most of his life as a perpetrator of evil and reviled throughout Europe. The man had his back to René as he entered the room but turned as the adjutant introduced René. The leader thanked him; René was alone with the tyrant who now faced him, hands clasped behind his back. René’s first impression was of how tired and old the leader seemed – the conflict was taking its toll and René remembered that the man had been plagued by poor health. A flag hung from the wall behind the leader, a symbol of menace to the Frenchman. Doubt swept fleetingly though René’s mind – but this was neither the time nor place for incertitude.

 

 

How to Write a Best Seller

 

Courtesy of The Economist
Copyright (c) 2023 The Economist

DANIELLE STEEL books deal with “Family. Courage. Loyalty”, as the cover of one explains. They are also about “Wealth. Fear. Revenge. Love”, as the cover of another has it. Ms Steel herself has said she writes “about stuff that happens to all of us”. Though arguably she focuses a little more on the sort of stuff that involves Wealth. Palazzos. Emotions in Capital Letters. A little less on the sort of stuff that involves Tax Returns. Cutting One’s Toenails. Buying Groceries.

But that hardly matters. For her books are also about selling staggering numbers of copies. Ms Steel has written over 200 books—the latest, “Happiness”, came out in August, and her next, “Second Act”, will be released in October. She is one of the world’s bestselling living authors (according to some claims, the best) and has sold over a billion copies. Her novels are a literary sediment, settling on the shelves of holiday cottages everywhere. She has created not merely books but a brand: everyone, whether or not they have read them (and most will claim “not”), knows what “a Danielle Steel” is. And so naturally the literary world ignores her.

Publishing is an odd business. It is worth around $37bn in Britain and America alone, but you would never know this from the literature that it produces, which focuses on books in the brainy vein rather than anything so vulgar as volumes that actually sell. One authoritative history of English literature contains 60-odd mentions of “Shakespeare”; ten on “the sublime”; eight on “blank verse”—but a blank silence for concepts such as “business” and “turnover”.

In another literary history, popular novels—those “jam tarts for the mind” as William Thackeray, the British novelist, called them—are mentioned, but with a wince, under the heading: “Problems of popular culture”. When Gore Vidal wrote an article on bestsellers it opened with the observation that “shit has its own integrity”—and became more dismissive from there.

The book business, however, depends on those despised bestsellers. September is when publishers release the titles that they hope will be their money-spinners. Yet most books will be loss-making. To produce, print and publicise a book costs about £12,000-15,000 ($15,000-19,000), says Mark Richards of Swift Press, an independent publisher. He reckons that it takes around 5,000 copies to break even. Most books never come close: only 0.4% of titles in Britain last year sold more than that, according to Nielsen BookData. Ms Steel’s books, by contrast, have sold 268,000 in Britain this year. Jam tarts they may be, but that is why people gobble them up.

And yet publishers seem to have an almost total inability to predict which books will sell. As Markus Dohle, then the boss of Penguin Random House, a large publisher, said last year, “Success is random. Bestsellers are random. So that’s why we are the Random House.” Editors less sagely select winners than buy literary lottery tickets and hope for the best. Taking credit for a bestseller is, as Jonathan Karp, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster, has said, “like taking credit for the weather”.

The word “best-seller” first appeared in the 1890s, with the first authoritative lists following soon after. Patterns emerged quickly. The writing can be good (H.G. Wells, an English writer, shot to the top of early rankings); but it need not be (just read “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown). Sex sells well, but celebrity sells best. Prince Harry’s “Spare”, published in January, broke records for the fastest-selling non-fiction book.

In 2018 a group of researchers from Northeastern University analysed almost eight years’ worth of New York Times bestsellers and observed a few general patterns. Some elements of bestsellers are similar, says Burcu Yucesoy, the lead author. Aspiring writers should bear in mind that fiction sells better than non-; thrillers and romance sell best of all; name recognition matters (so write lots); and if you must write non-fiction, which does not sell, make it biography, which does.

Writers are often unable to explain their own success in helpful ways. In 1956 Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, wrote an essay on how to write a successful book, in which he argued that: “There is only one recipe for a bestseller, and it is a very simple one.” All bestsellers “have one quality: you simply have to turn the page”. This is true—but entirely dodges the question. Jo Nesbo, a Norwegian thriller writer, thinks good prose is like good food: “You can’t tell what the ingredients are necessarily…but you know it when you see it and you read it.” Lionel Shriver, an American author, believes that “if there were such a thing as just following the rules…then everyone would write a bestseller. No one sits down and is determined to craft a story that only five people will read.”

But make your way through New York Times bestsellers, and trends become clearer. Of the top ten bestsellers in one recent week, three were romances; one was a thriller; four were by a single author, Colleen Hoover, a romantic novelist whose first book, “Slammed”, was self-published, proving the unpredictability point. Only one of the ten, “The Covenant of Water”, is a literary sort of book. It has glum characters, too many similes and a tendency to use words such as “gloaming”.

Here comes the sun

The settings of bestsellers are often exotic: Fleming observed that “the sun is always shining in my books.” Ms Steel’s books have titles such as “Five Days in Paris” and “Sunset in St. Tropez”, rather than “A Fortnight in Glasgow”. Their female characters tend to be called names like “Lily” and say things like “I only want you”; their male ones say things like “We’ve got rifles and grenades. They’ve got .50-cals.” Accountants are not overrepresented in their pages. There are certain stylistic traits too: sentences tend to be short. Really short. And repetitive. Really repetitive. Think Hemingway. On holiday.

Almost all bestsellers make the most of any research they have done. A recent Danielle Steel opens with the heroine looking out over Rome, at “Saint Peter’s Basilica and Vatican City, the dome of the San Carlo al Corso Basilica, and to the north, the Villa Medici and the Borghese Gardens”. This is one way to run up a word count. “The Da Vinci Code”, similarly, offers such detailed tours through Paris that the overall effect is less like reading a book than switching on a verbose satnav.

But perhaps the most striking quality about bestselling authors is how prolific they are: James Patterson, an American thriller writer, has churned out more than 340 books (some in collaboration with other writers). Such speed, as Truman Capote once put it, is less writing than typing. “Don’t get it right, get it writ” is a common theme among bestselling authors. Ms Steel says that she writes until her nails bleed. Fleming recommended writing 2,000 words a day and not sullying this with “too much introspection and self-criticism”.

The sentences in bestsellers might have benefited from a little more introspection—or at the very least a second read. In one, a character finds her lover in bed with someone else and observes that “the only thing that struck me was that his face was as expressionless as his buttocks, which stared at me from the bed.” Reread that sentence several times, and you may still feel it has not given up all its secrets.

However, if you really want to write a bestseller, then ignore Ms Steel and other novelists. Because the book that sold the most copies in America in the past ten years was by none of them. It was “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by Dr Seuss. Number three was that other literary classic, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. Children’s books not only sell well, but they also keep selling, year after year, building fans across generations.

And, incidentally, they obey the bestseller formula perfectly: sentences of Hemingwayesque brevity; pleasant settings and, of course, excellent weather. Or, as Eric Carle described it: “One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and—pop!” Out of the book came a world-beating, bestselling marvel.

 The Summer Flash Fiction Story

Each year the Writers' Support Group takes a diversion. In August we discuss the art behind writing a flash fiction story which members of the group then use to create a story to read out at one of the meetings in September.

If you missed the meeting in August here are some tips for creating your short piece for September's meeting, with thanks to Helen Johnson who hosts the Writers' Support Group.

There's no theme for September's flash fiction story; choose one from your current work-in-progress or try something new - something you haven't tried before to broaden your writing skills.

The flash fiction should be less than 1,000 words (the typical maximum length for flash - short stories are between 1,000 and 5,000 words and micro-fiction is less than 150 words, though these are guidelines as there's no standard).

The challenge for flash fiction is to focus on having a small number of strong characters in a recognisable setting and create action. It's also key that the story has a recognisable beginning and end, with the important action in between. There must be change instigated between the beginning and end and it is probably best to focus on one event or conflict. This can be a tiny moment under the microscope - Jane Austin does this by describing a female character waiting at a door where the consequences of entry are significant to the story.

The main character should be changed by the challenge she or he faces and that challenge is the main thrust of the story - be it a conflict, the actions of an antagonist or internal strife. It should be something that's difficult for the protagonist to overcome and involve a small number of characters.

There should be a strong sense of place, somewhere a reader can relate to and the character should inform the setting. Make the plot a sequence of cause and effect events with a strong emotional punch or moral as a climax.

Choose the main theme carefully and use metaphor to reinforce a universally felt emotion, one that would engender empathy in the reader. Keep the narrative going with a strong action driven plot and try to include a twist - something unexpected in the outcome.

Flash fiction is hard to do well and every word must count (rather like poetry). Edit strongly and remove superfluous adverbs and adjectives by using the best single word - e.g. dashed instead of walked swiftly (good practice anyway).

We hope to see you at September's Writers' Support Group meeting, flash fiction story to hand. Keep writing.