Unstressed Syllables

Why Your Book Cover Design is Important

By Rachel Giles on Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Imagine you’re meeting a friend for lunch. You’ve pulled into the parking lot and two restaurants stand in front of you: one is a well known, polished chain restaurant that has mediocre, but familiar, food. The one next to it is named Bob’s Extraordinary Kitchen. The exterior is far from extraordinary: the paint is faded, a shutter looks like it is about to fall off, and the K has a vulture nesting in the upper portion.

Which restaurant would you choose to eat at? The nice-looking chain or the unknown, disheveled restaurant?

Thankfully for Bob, your friend has already been to Bob’s Kitchen and raves about the food. If it had been up to you, however, the first impression might have been enough to steer you away.

This is just one hypothetical example of how important first impressions are in everyday life. What the exterior of the restaurant is to brand new customers, a book cover is to new readers.

Good book cover design is that first impression for your book and something you can’t afford to ignore. Why?

It Can Catch the Eye of a Potential Reader

The cover of your book (be it e-book or print) is often the first encounter your potential reader has with your work. If the cover doesn’t engage them right away, they may decide to pick up the book next to yours because it appealed more to them. According to a 2008 survey, 31% of all book purchases are impulse buys (source) That’s 31% of readers who were browsing, saw an interesting title and cover combination, read the summary, and decided to purchase the book. If you want to be competitive with the book next to yours, then you should strive to have an excellent book cover.

It Adds Aesthetic Value to Your Book

It’s a universally accepted truth that humans (whether they should or not) like pretty objects. This point applies a little more to a printed book than an e-book, but it still is holds some sway. For example, Barnes and Noble recently released new editions of Alice in Wonderland, Complete Sherlock Holmes, and many other classic books. I’d hazard a guess that a good number of the buyers already owned the book, or if they didn’t, had up until that point been perfectly content with borrowing it from their local library. The deciding factor in buying that book was the gorgeous cover and how nice it would look on a shelf. Now, if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t in the “special edition” stage of your book publishing. The same principle should still apply to you. Don’t you want a book that people enjoy looking at?

Which edition would you like on your bookshelf?

It Conveys Your Book’s Identity

When you think about your book’s cover, you should consider more than just how pretty it is. After all, a potential reader will see it and automatically think, “What kind of book is this? Would I like it?” Your book cover, at first glance, should present a snapshot of what’s underneath and correspond accordingly. For example, if you wrote a how-to book about running a marathon, you wouldn’t have your cover feature pictures of puppies and goldfish, would you? A well-chosen book cover will also build the emotion of the content within. There’s a reason why many fantasy book covers involve epic scenes of a hero performing a task from the book. That kind of cover promises an intensity and grand scale that many people enjoy in their reading. That’s why putting thought and effort into designing your cover is so important. You want to promise what you will deliver.

By now, the more cynical among you may be shrugging, thinking, “Sure. Having a nice cover is important. But my content will draw the crowds more than a book cover.” I don’t deny that. You won’t have success with your book with your cover alone. A cover, however, can be an asset to your words, so why not use it? Don’t let your book be one that readers have to tell their friends, “Don’t judge this book by its cover.”

Rachel Giles is a professional graphic designer who graciously donates her time to the Consortium. Every Tuesday she shares an article about quality cover design.

Filed in Cover Design | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, Barnes and Noble, Complete Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe, Judge a book by its cover, Rachel Giles | Comments Off

Working Titles and Story Questions

By Courtney Cantrell on Monday, February 18, 2013

Hile, lovely writers all!

I’m back this week with your first in-depth look at that elusive creature we call “Prewriting.” We’ve already discussed what prewriting is and why you should engage in it. Today we’re going to talk about your initial steps in wrangling it.

Working Title

The working title is optional. Sometimes you’ll have one. Sometimes you won’t. Chances are, you’ll change it several times and your final product will look very different from your first.

Me, I prefer having a working title because it lets me categorize this story that’s still an amorphous blob in my creative consciousness. When I tell someone that I’m working on a new story, they respond one of two questions: “What’s it about?” or “What’s it called?” A working title helps me answer these questions, both to the other person and to myself.

When I can’t come up with a good one, I stick in a placeholder and move on. (Finalizing the title falls within the realm of marketing, and that, my dears, is Josh’s baby.) Thus, I have on my authorial back burner Deren’s Story, Taeven’s Story, Rowan’s Story….

“What’s it about?” Well, it’s about this guy named Deren who steals a dragon egg and flees his homeland to hide among outlaws while trying to figure out who his real father is.

“What’s it called?” Right now, Deren’s Story.

You get the picture.

The Story Question

What’s It For?

When you’ve jotted down your working title (and by “jot,” I mean don’t spend a whole lotta time on it), you’re ready to figure out your story question.

You want a story that’s focused. Tight. You want a story that makes your readers look up from it at the end and say, “Holy smokes, that was good.”

Yes. You want your readers to say “holy smokes.” Trust me.

In order to craft a story that satisfying, you need to keep it on track from start to finish. Your tool for this, my dear inklings, is the story question.

The story question is the question your plot must answer before you can write “The End.”

As you write and revise, ask yourself:

Does this scene point toward answering the story question?
Does this character contribute to answering the story question?
Does this chapter move the protagonist toward the answer to the story question?

If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” then it’s time for some cutting and slashing.*

Yes or No?

Okay, so what does a story question look like?

The story question should:

describe what the protagonist wants

concern whether or not s/he gets what s/he wants

always have a “yes” or “no” answer.

Will Frodo find a way to destroy the One Ring (despite Sauron’s best efforts)?

Will Captain Ahab kill his old enemy (despite Moby Dick’s best efforts)?

Will Jack win Rose’s heart before they all die (despite her fiancé’s best efforts)?

Those are good story questions. They encapsulate the conflict, they anchor your characters and narrative, and they give the reader a reference point to return to over and over again throughout the story.

Now, you’ll notice that in each story question, I put the antagonist’s role in parentheses. That’s because naming the antagonist’s goal is not necessary for the story question. The antagonist’s goal should be in direct opposition to the protagonist’s. Sauron doesn’t want the Ring destroyed. Moby Dick wants to live. Rose’s fiancé wants to keep her for himself.

As soon as you state the protagonist’s goal, the antagonist’s goal is implied. The only thing left–and this is what your plot must answer by the end of the last page–is which one of them gets what they want.

Yes…But….

The story question should have a “yes” or “no” answer.

In Moby Dick, the answer is “no”: Captain Ahab does not kill the whale but brings about his own death instead. But the ending is still satisfying because the narrator survives to tell the tale, and the reader knows that Ahab’s death is poetic justice for his crazed thirst for vengeance.

But sometimes, even a “yes” doesn’t mean everything is hunky-dory. Frodo brings the One Ring to Mount Doom, and the Ring ends up destroyed. Frodo gets what he wants. Sauron doesn’t. The answer to the story question is “yes…but Frodo himself doesn’t destroy the Ring.” “Yes…but Frodo carries the physical and spiritual scars of his quest for the rest of his life.”

The answer to Jack’s story question in the film Titanic is also “yes…but”: He wins Rose’s love, and she leaves her fiancé. “Yes…but Jack dies in the end.”

The “yes…but” answer to the story question is satisfying, but that doesn’t mean everything turns out perfectly for the protagonist. In the “yes…but” answer, you have the opportunity to infuse the element of sacrifice into your story.

I’m Not Sure

So. You’ve crafted a story question, and you’re ready to answer it–to yourself, if not in the actual writing of the story.

If your answer to the story question is “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure,” then you’ve discovered something you need to work on. Here are a few possibilities:

You haven’t clarified what the protagonist wants.
You haven’t chosen the most interesting character as your protagonist.
Your antagonist’s goal is not directly opposed to the protagonist’s goal.

It’s also possible you haven’t formulated your story question well. Make sure to ask it in a way that requires a “yes” or “no” answer. “How does Frodo get the Ring to Mount Doom?” is not an effective story question. Neither is “What drives Ahab to pursue Moby Dick?”

Even “Will Jack gain acceptance from Rose’s family so that he can be with her?” doesn’t get you far enough. You have to go for the bare essentials — Jack + Rose’s love + (fiancé’s antipathy) — before you’ll have a story question that keeps your narrative focused from start to finish.

Your well-crafted story question clarifies your characters, your plot points, and your narrative. It anchors your story in your readers’ minds and makes a satisfying ending possible.

_______________

*By which I mean the cutting and slashing of characters or scenes or chapters. Although if your character needs to do some cutting and slashing of other characters in order to answer the story question, then go for it.

Courtney Cantrell is Head of the School of Writing for the Consortium and author of the epic fantasy Rethana’s Surrender. Every Monday she shares an article about storytelling technique.

Find out more about Courtney Cantrell at her author website.

Filed in Prewriting/Story-Telling | Tagged Captain Ahab, Courtney Cantrell, Frodo Baggins, Moby Dick, Sauron, Story Questions, Storytelling, Synopsis, The Lord of the Rings, Titanic, Working Title | Comments (1)

Promotional Materials

By Aaron Pogue on Saturday, February 16, 2013

I promised to talk about the new publishing marketplace here. I’ve said repeatedly that there has never been a better time to be a writer.

But even as self-publishing opened the door for a lot of writers to make comfortable livings instead of papering their walls with rejection letters, one common refrain among writers wandering into self-publishing is, “I don’t want to do all the publishing stuff. I want a publisher to do all that. All I want to do is write.”

I know a lot of people who answer that with a condescending sneer. They like to say, “Writing is a business, and you have to treat yourself like an entrepreneur.”

Doing the Bare Minimum

Maybe that’s true, but I think the people quickest to shout it just happen to be the people who are naturally gifted in those areas. Whether it’s business management or social media engagement or product marketing or graphic design…there’s always someone to tell you that this is a fundamental part of your job, and you should be more committed to it.

Personally, I disagree. It’s a fundamental part of your product and of your product’s success, but if you just want to be a writer, that’s a completely legitimate goal. It also means you’re going to have to get clever doing just enough of the work to find success without diving into new and unfamiliar waters in search of success.

For what it’s worth, none of this has much bearing on your choice to go indie or pursue traditional publishing. Even if you have a publisher doing the work for you (and landing a publisher is more work that’s not writing), the publisher will end up asking almost as much work from you as you’d have to spend doing things yourself. I can tell you this from experience.

If you’re ever going to publish your work, you’re going to have to contribute in some big ways. Let’s talk about some of the most basic.

Promotion

One of the main things writers want a publisher to do for them is marketing and promotion. From what I’ve seen, major publishing houses do provide this. They arrange for review copies, they might schedule some radio or podcast interviews if you’re important enough, and they’ll place your books in bookstores.

That last one is the one that really matter. Visibility in a bookstore is still the most valuable service (by far) that a traditional publisher can give you. Its value is declining with every bookstore that shuts down, and publishers’ power to secure that visibility fades with every rack of paperbacks that gets replaced with an e-book kiosk or a shelf full of boardgames, but books on shelves will get your name out there.

It’s not really enough, though, and the publishers know it. Search the web for “author platform” and you’ll find thousands of articles from writers, agents, and editors telling new writers that one of the most useful things to mention in a query is a strong author platform.

That means that you, as an author, need to bring your own audience to the table. That means self-promotion. It’s usually done via a blog or other social media. Sometimes via newsletters or mailing lists. Book signings can do the trick, too, but that sounds like an awful lot of work to pick up a handful of new readers.

Of course, the most effective platform of all is a track record of hundreds of thousands of sales.

But all of that is work you’re going to have to do. My advice to you is to start a blog right now, and focus on that first. Readers (who aren’t writers) really like to grab a peek behind the curtain at the writer’s life. If you’re quirky and inspired, that reaffirms the fantasy. If you’re boring and real, that lets them sympathize with you (and maybe dream a little bigger after your example).

If you don’t feel like connecting personally with your readers, you could always write to other writers. Writing can be a very lonely profession, and there’s so much mystery and opacity around the path to success that writers are always happy to compare notes and learn from each other. Share your experience–whether you’re just starting out or have already found some success–and other writers will care.

Product Description

All that talk of “platform” is about promotion in a general sense. It’s promoting you as the author brand. But, of course, to sell a book, you need to spend some time promoting the book.

The two most important tools for promoting the book are the cover art and the product description. I’ll talk about cover art in a moment, but first let’s consider the product description.

I’m using the name “product description,” by the way, because that’s what Amazon calls it. You might think of it as the synopsis or the back-cover copy (although the terms aren’t entirely synonymous). Basically, the product description is the sales pitch for your story.

If you’re self-publishing, you get to craft your own product description and copy it into the “description” box at whatever website you’re using to publish your book. If you’re traditionally published, you get to craft your own product description and copy it into an e-mail to your editor, who will hand it over to someone with marketing experience–someone who almost certainly hasn’t read the book–to clean it up and add some pizzazz.

It’s nice to have a professional watching over your shoulder, but the quality of his revision is going to depend heavily on what you give him in the first place. That means learning to write product reviews is an important skill, no matter which path you choose to publishing.

Cover Concepts

Covers are much the same way. Unless you’re a natural at the graphic arts, you’ll probably end up relying on someone else to craft the single most important sales feature of your book.

That’s stressful. The best thing you can do to limit the risk (and the stress that goes with it) is to practice developing “cover concepts.”

Learn how to choose scenes that would make good covers. Learn how to provide brief but effective descriptions of the visual elements that a cover artist could capture well. Learn how to find and caption reference images to share with your cover artist, whether it’s a landscape that would make a good backdrop, an actor that’s a perfect fit for your swashbuckling hero, or the exact style of sword he wears on his hip.

Coordinating with the Pros

Whether you’re working with a Manhattan publishing house or doing this stuff on your own, your best bet is to collaborate on a lot of these things with experienced professionals. I lean on Joshua Unruh (my Director of Marketing) to refine all my product descriptions and on Rachel Giles (my Cover Coordinator) to convert my scenes and reference images into beautiful, polished covers.

Having those resources is such a blessing. I’d encourage you to start looking now for some people you can depend on. But while you’re at it, start watching for blog posts from my resources, because Joshua and Rachel are both regulars here at Unstressed Syllables, and they’re going to spend most of their time teaching you how to get the most of those relationships.

Aaron Pogue is the head publisher at Consortium Books, author of the bestselling Dragonprince trilogy, and serves as the User Experience consultant at Draft2Digital.com. Every Saturday he shares an article about publishing and the new book marketplace.

Find out more about Aaron Pogue at his author website.

Filed in Publishing | Tagged Aaron Pogue, cover design, Indie publishing, marketing, product description, traditional publishing | Comments Off

Top Three Grammar Mistakes of Writers…and the Rest of the World

By Jessie Sanders on Friday, February 15, 2013

As an editor, a major part of my job is to correct a writer’s grammar. This includes spelling errors, incorrect homophones (or words that sound similar but aren’t if you think about it), punctuation, and word choice. Each month I’ll share with you some common mistakes I find in the works that I edit and how you can avoid making the same ones. My goal is to help you be a better writer not only in your professional work but also in everyday life.

Now, there’s a lot of stuff out there on the Internet regarding the decline of grammar over the decades. Here are the top three grammar mistakes that many “Grammar Nazis” bemoan:

Confusing the possessive with the contraction, such as in their/there/they’re and your/you’re.
Misspelling things that kind of sound the same but mean completely different things, like hanger/hangar, loose/lose, wether/weather.
Misusing words that are similar but have different forms and functions, such as effect/affect and then/than.

Due to this overabundance of material already out there, I don’t feel my need to add my own voice to the melee. If you are in a bind because you can’t decide whether or not to use you’re or your, Google it.

Some things that I’ve found many people don’t understand are how to use commas properly, which is understandable since there are so many ways to use them, and lots of exceptions. Another is when to spell out numbers and when to use digits. I’ll even be covering things such as proper use of capitalization, italics, and underlining. These types of errors may be less egregious to the general populace of the Interwebz, but they are no less important when writing and publishing a novel. Remember that every error you make diminishes your readers’ respect for you, even if only an infinitesimally small amount.

Some rules are different among different circles or in different parts of the world (like the difference between catsup and ketchup in the UK and US). In those instances, I will be relying on American spelling and the Chicago Manual of Style. The Chicago Manual of Style, informally called CMOS by those who are [too] well acquainted with it, is the stylebook used by most traditional publishing houses.

Here’s a bonus error that I won’t bother explaining to you:

“Jessie <3’s Sean!”

I love’s you too, Love’s.

Jessie Sanders is the managing editor at Consortium Books, editor of the bestselling Dragonprince trilogy, and author of the young adult fantasy novel, Into the Flames. Every Friday she shares an article about editing and how to improve one’s grammar.

Find out more about Jessie Sanders at her author website, and check out her novel, Into the Flames, in stores now!

Filed in Editorial, Top Grammatical Mistakes of Writers | Tagged Chicago Manual of Style, CMOS, grammar, its vs. it's, Jessie Sanders, Loose or lose, misspellings, your vs. you're | Comments Off

Catching the Flipside: The Importance of Back Cover Copy

By Joshua Unruh on Thursday, February 14, 2013

Rachel is dead on when she says creating a good cover is half the battle of hooking a new reader. The back cover copy is definitely the other half.

I use the phrases “promotional copy” and “back cover copy” pretty much interchangeably. I probably shouldn’t, if only because there are so many other areas of promotion I might write copy for other than product descriptions. But when we first started working on the book listings for Consortium Books, I started to think of the product description on Amazon as doing essentially the same job as the copy on the back cover of a dead tree book.

Think about it. The cover is the first thing that catches your eye on the shelf, but if it latches on hard enough to make you pick it up, you immediately flip it over. Same thing with the thumbnail covers on Amazon and the click-through, or at least it is for me. If I’m intrigued by the cover, then I want a little deeper information to make a purchasing decision. And that’s where the back cover (promotional) copy comes in.

And because the cover and promo copy are so intertwined, I’m going to refer heavily to Rachel’s post from Tuesday.

Color and Background

Just like the front cover, color and background are a huge part of the back cover copy. And I mean it just as literally as Rachel did…although I’m thinking of slightly different definitions of the words. The promo copy should give us some ideas about the themes and tones of the work (the color) as well as some basic information about the story’s setting (the background). Let’s take a look at Rachel’s example, George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Nature out of balance, winter for effectively ever, sinister forces, and a “harsh and unyielding” family named Stark. I also see words like brutal, epicurean, assassins, bastards, and grim. I can make a few likely stabs at the themes of this book, but the tone is right there on the label. This is going to be a story where hard people do hard things during hard times…plus magic. That’s pretty strong stuff.

Typography

I’m not going to talk about what type to use on your promo copy. I mean, I think that’s important, but I also think that’s usually a graphic designer issue. But the question of “what order do we put things in to create the best language?” can certainly be addressed in your promo copy.

For instance, the edition Rachel discusses is for after Game of Thrones had become a big success. Obviously, there were people just hearing the name who might need some ground rules set (hence the Color and Background), but it also needs to cater to people who have become George R.R. Martin fans. So, much like the front cover draws more attention to the author than the title, the promotional copy finishes up with a strong paragraph about Martin.

Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

Take a look at that, will you? Martin’s name is placed alongside magnificent, masterpiece, classic, stunning, and “one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.” It also manages to name drop the other books in the series. That is definitely the best language to butter up Martin fans.

Composition

As far as the promo copy, Composition speaks to what you put where and why. For instance, you’ve caught a potential reader’s eye with the cover, they flip the book, and -BAM- you hit them with that first paragraph with all the tone and themes. If the cover is the hook, then this is where you see if the bait tastes good to them.

And for the people who may have heard of this Martin fella, you’ve got the final paragraph that will hopefully sell the idea that he’s as good an author as everyone says. Or for the hardcore Martin fan, that same paragraph strokes the ego and makes them feel good about picking up another Martin book.

But here’s where the same Rule of Thirds that Rachel discusses bites the promotional copy in the behind. Here is the middle paragraph from the same copy I’ve been referencing.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Honestly, I find this to be kind of a mess. I don’t understand what they mean by “no human metal,” “wildlings,” or “dragon prince.” An awful lot of it reads like interesting bits that are also spoilers so all the interesting has been drained out of them. The title of the book gets dropped and I like that, but the whole thing would be stronger if that last sentence were attached to the first paragraph and the rest of this one were skipped.

Still, like Meatloaf said, two out of three ain’t bad. And the copywriter did a helluva job on two of the three paragraphs, even if you think the final one oversells things a bit. I’d overall call this good, but some judicious editing could have made it very good, possibly even great.

This post should have given you a taste of the importance of back cover copy along with some tips of how to make your own better. And it’s something you should practice at. Remember, it’s the other half of the battle.

Joshua Unruh is the Marketing Czar for the Consortium and author of the grim fantasy Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall. Every Thursday he shares an article about marketing, sales, and product promotion in the new book market.

Find out more about Joshua Unruh at his author website, and check out his newest book, Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall, in stores now!

Filed in Sales | Tagged Background and Tones, Composition, Game of Thrones, Joshua Unruh, JRR Martin, Typography | Comments Off

Why Rewriting Is Part of Writing

By Thomas Beard on Wednesday, February 13, 2013

If everything goes as planned, my first novel, a fantasy, will be published by the Consortium later this year. I’ve been working on it for nearly six years. I think it’s ready.

You should have seen the first draft I wrote back in 2007. It was, in a word, awful. The main character was pathetic, his love interest was impossibly perfect, one of the side characters ended up being the hero, the core theme wasn’t really introduced until just over halfway through, and I spent a lot of time explaining away plot holes that I wouldn’t have had in the first place had I engaged in any actual world building.

In fact, I really only had one thing going for me. I had learned the value of rewriting.

When I first started writing as a hobby, I was vaguely aware that I was supposed to rewrite my material and make it better. I knew what editors were for. But I grew so attached to every specific character, plot point, and turn of phrase that I couldn’t bring myself to part with them. I had written those early stories in such an emotional pique that it felt like betraying myself to change them.

Fast-forward to The Last Prince, the working title of the first draft of my novel. By then I had some practice at rewriting, and I knew that my book would need work, but I thought that most of my effort was behind me.

So I gave it to three people I trust to tell me the truth even if it hurts: my wife, my sister-in-law, and my father. The feedback was unanimous. I had a long way to go.

In my first set of rewrites, I actually did very little. I hoped that my issues were mostly on the surface. I was wrong. The story was such a mess, I had to put it away. And so it gathered dust for many, many months.

I was still busy in the meantime. I learned a lot about myself and about wordcraft as a profession. I studied the works of the masters of my genre. I worked as an editor and a writing coach. I gained the experience necessary to make a viable novel.

So I tried again. I completely cut out a plot thread and all of the characters attached to it, including half my main characters. Nearly all of the characters I had left had their names changed, as well as their personalities where it was necessary. Even the title changed. Then I found two other stories that I had either outlined or started writing, and I appropriated them. They added new characters and new conflicts, enough to make a trilogy and not just a standalone novel.

Then I sat back and admired my work. Mediocre at best. So I tried again. A point-of-view character became a background character, which cut a plot thread and allowed me to focus on the others. The antagonists’ goals became better defined. As their actions changed, so did the actions of my protagonists to respond to them. It was hard work, and it was aggravating at the time. But it was worth it, because it brought out a theme that I had been completely blind to. Bear in mind that it had now been years since I started writing my story, and only just now did I finally find its heart, the reason for it to exist.

So I tried again. I brought that theme to the forefront and let it shine. The characters are energized by it. It gives them direction. Only now do I finally feel that The Orphan Queen is finished.

I could have handled the experience of my first novel poorly. I could have peddled it out to local publishers or tried to publish it myself before it was ready. Then the story would never have been the joy that it is now. The characters would never have grown into who they are. Gaining distance and experience, I would look back on my first novel and see what a disaster it was because I had been impatient to become a published author.

I am eternally grateful that I opted to rewrite my book. Five drafts later, I find myself holding a manuscript that is vastly superior to what I hammered out when I was still, artistically speaking, a child. It’s not great, but it is good, and I can live with that. Especially since I can remember how bad it was the first time.

I’m not alone. Most first novels are bad, and most novels are bad the first time. There’s no shame in that. Writing a good story is hard, and it’s something you can’t do on your own. Successful authors talk about how important it is to have a trusted confidant read your work, someone who can criticize you and tell you frankly what you’re doing wrong. Because you are doing something wrong, no matter who you are, and if you don’t fix it now, it’ll get to print before it’s ready. Your story deserves better. So do your readers.

Your book isn’t ready yet. Honestly, mine isn’t either. There are always changes I could make, but if I keep clinging to it, it will never get published. It’s not perfect, but it’s finally good enough. So I’m letting it go. My writing will keep improving. I will keep improving. And I can go to bed at night knowing that I have something I can be proud of because I wasn’t too proud to rewrite.

This article required ten read-throughs.

Thomas Beard is a writer and editor with the Consortium. Every Wednesday he shares an article about revision, rewriting, and story structure.

Watch for his debut epic fantasy, The Orphan Queen.

Filed in Rewriting | Tagged Drafts, Fantasy, first draft, Thomas Beard, Worldbuilding | Comments (1)

The Cover Uncovered: A Game of Thrones Edition

By Rachel Giles on Tuesday, February 12, 2013

“The Cover Uncovered” will be a monthly post where I dissect the cover of a relatively recent book and take a look at what works, what doesn’t, and what you can learn from it.

Because I like to make life easier for me, I’m zipping right past all the small fish and going straight for the jugular of the current golden-boy of fantasy, the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. I had apparently read the mind of my editor, because her exact words in the email detailing my assignment were, “Seriously, gold with a lion? I never wanted to read Game of Thrones based on the cover.”

By now, if you haven’t seen this particular cover, you are maybe mildly curious. I present:

Thank goodness this was not the first edition, or who knows what tv show HBO would have created in its place.

Let’s first start out with a compliment: the rest of the books in the series follow the same template. At least you’ll know the books are all from the same series, even if you have no desire to pick the books up because they’re so ugly.

Color & Background:

The gradient that pervades all the books of this series’ edition is stark (no pun intended) and horrible. Gradients have their place, such as in webdesign, but the subtler the gradient, the more effective it can be at drawing attention to where you want the reader to look. Also, you see the lines of color as it shifts from gold to white to gold again? That’s called “banding,” and it’s considered unprofessional from a design perspective. For a better example of gradient use, scroll to the edition at the bottom of the page.

As for the actual color chosen, it works since the book features kings, and kings often like shiny things like gold. Not exactly subtle, but it works. What doesn’t work is the gold lettering on top of the shades of gold background. It impacts readability, which leads us to…

Typography

A title in one shade of gold is hard to read against a gold background. To his or her credit, the designer picked a legible typeface, that is, it’s easy to distinguish individual letters.

Notice how author’s name consumes a third of the cover. In contrast to this, the book title is small. That gets to happen when your name holds a great amount of branding potential. People start buying your books because you wrote them (which actually can explain some of what happened with this disaster of a book cover). Let us all cross our fingers and work hard so that we can take advantage of this at some point in our life. However, the fact the author’s name is so big actually works against it, as seen in the…

Composition and Graphical Elements

Composition is the way in which pieces are combined and arranged to visually tell a story. Proper composition considers factors such as alignment, grouping, placement, space, and visual flow. But that’s several blog posts for another time. The main thing to take from this cover is that the composition is stagnant. Yes, it follows the Rule of Thirds , but with everything centered and then split evenly between the three elements of AUTHOR NAME, LION SYMBOL, BOOK TITLE, it makes for a visually boring cover.

Now, look at the cover again. Close your eyes. Now open them and note the first thing your eye is drawn to. In fact, I suspect the purpose of the already mentioned loathsome gradient is to pull your eye to it. A simple black heraldic lion. The purpose, symbolizing the House of Lannister, is as plain as the lion which adorns it. I’m not exactly knocking the symbol. It very well might work marvelously on a different GoT cover. However, when placed upon the shiny, distracting background, it comes off as boring.

Hopefully this post gave you small bits of the different parts to a complete, good book cover design. It’s important not to neglect them, or your entire cover could suffer. Meanwhile, it appears that a designer took the problems I have with this cover and fixed them in a newer edition: giving us a marginally more interesting and eye-catching cover. Create a good cover, and that’s half the battle.

Rachel Giles is a professional graphic designer who graciously donates her time to the Consortium. Every Tuesday she shares an article about quality cover design.

Filed in Cover Design, Cover Review | Tagged A Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire, banding, George RR Martin, gradient, Rachel Giles, rule of thirds | Comments (1)

The Benefits of Prewriting

By Courtney Cantrell on Monday, February 11, 2013

In last week’s intro post, I posited that not prewriting your novel is like not taking a map on a quest (which happens to end with facing down a fire-breathing dragon). Today we’re going to take a look at that metaphorical map and figure out just what it really is.

Caveat

Caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware. I’m not selling you anything, but I still want you to buy. But before you purchase what I ain’t sellin’, you need to know what I believe to be the only “rule” for writing a novel:

Do what you must to finish the darn thing.

That’s it, y’all. That’s the only rule. Remember it and keep it sacred, and you, too, shall find rest in that incomparable land known as I Finally Finished My Book and It Is Good.

Okay, Then Why Prewriting?

WARNING: THE HOBBIT SPOILERS AHEAD.

Let’s get back to Bilbo and the thirteen dwarves for a moment. So they’re on this epic quest to slay the dragon and recover the treasure, right? And they know that in order to accomplish this, they have to find a way to sneak up on Smaug. They are, after all, a company rather miniscule in number when it comes to dragon-slaying. A frontal assault on the Lonely Mountain would result only in a grumpy dragon and a collection of charcoal: thirteen medium-sized and one small.

Instead, Bilbo & Co. rely on clues they find on their handy map, clues that show the way to a convenient little back door by which “burrahobbit”* Bilbo can enter the dragon’s lair and have a sneaky, revelatory palaver with Smaug. Even more conveniently, the back door provides a safe hidey hole for the company when Smaug gets a burr(ahobbit) up his butt and blasts that side of the mountain to smithereens.

The quest of completing your novel is like Bilbo & Co.’s quest to reach the mountain, confront and slay the dragon, and claim their treasure and their home.

Prewriting is the back door that lets you sneak into the last stages of novel-writing, past all of the junk in your subconscious that would stop you from completing your quest.

And by “junk in your subconscious,” I mean:

the can’ts (I can’t do this.)
the stucks (I just don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.)
the what-ifs (What if this book is utter crap?)
the why-mes (Nobody understands how hard this is.)
the no-times (I really don’t have time for this anyway.)
the should-nots (I’m being selfish for spending so much time on this book.)

If you’ve written a book or tried to write a book or thought about writing a book, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve heard those nassssty little voices before. They are great at destroying motivation, and they’re particularly good at killing your joy in noveling.

Like I said above, you can launch a frontal assault on your noveling dragon, armed only with your Shortsword of Just Finish the Darn Thing. But if you draw up your Map of Prewriting before you start your quest, you’re far more likely to arrive at the end of your novel, unseen and dragon-defeating. Your Map of Prewriting works the following magic:

When you think, “I can’t do this,” your Prewriting says, You’ve already done the hardest part. Everything you need for this story? It’s all lined up and ready. All you have to do is write it out.
When you think, “I’m stuck,” your Prewriting says, Look! Right here is what you said should happen next!
When you think, “What if this book is crap?” your Prewriting says, Every first draft is crap. That’s a given. But you’ve got the bones of this story aligned in a great structure already. Worry about putting flesh on it later.
When you think, “Nobody understands how hard this is,” your Prewriting says, You don’t need them to understand. All you need is to look at how much hard work you’ve already done, rejoice and revel in it, and use it as fuel for your fire.
When you think, “I don’t have time for this,” your Prewriting says, What a crock. Dude, you’ve already put a lot time into this. You owe it to yourself to finish this.
When you think, “I’m being selfish, I shouldn’t be doing this,” your Prewriting says, Have some respect for yourself, your craft, and your story. Think of the readers you’re depriving by not giving them what they want: a good story. That is selfish: putting together a prewriting package and then keeping it all to yourself, never sharing it with anybody. Now sit your butt in the chair and write the darn thing.

Why prewriting? The answer is mental, emotional, and practical. By prewriting, you’re doing your future authorial self a favor by providing weapons for battling the mental dragons. You’re giving yourself practical solutions to the inevitable writing problems you’ll be facing.

What’s Prewriting, Precious? Eh? What’s Prewriting?

Okay, now we’re getting down to the what of it all. When I say “prewriting,” I’m talking about the following writing exercises you do before you step out onto the path of novel-writing:

Working Title
- Name it and claim it.

Story Question
- Ultimately, will Protagonist overcome his obstacles and get what he wants or not?
Short Synopsis
- whos, whats, and wheres
- maybe a why or two
Mock ~~Turtle~~ Table of Contents
- Give each chapter a pretend title.
Character List
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Supporting Characters
Conflict Resolution Cycle
- Protagonist (in more detail)
- the Big Event
- the Conflict
- the Obstacles
- the Climax
- the Resolution
The Story
- evaluating what you’ve put together
Bonus Round: Scene List
- scenes and “sequels”

I know. It looks exhausting.

But who ever said preparing for an epic quest wasn’t gonna take a little sweat, a little blood, and possibly other bodily fluids that I’m not going to mention here?

Seriously, though: Yes, prewriting is hard work. But don’t let it intimidate you — it’s really not as exhausting as it might seem. And keep in mind (1) how much work, headache, and heartache you’re saving your frazzled, quest-weary future self and (2) how glad you’ll be when you get to go around the back of the mountain and slip in unseen, instead of getting sizzled, fried, and crunched before you lay eyes on even a single gleam of gold.

So, come back next week and we’ll get into a little map-making together, starting with that Working Title. Pesky things, those. Best to get that out of the way first.

____________________

* burrahobbit, noun: a burglar hobbit, as explained to trolls by a terrified and rather squeaky Bilbo

Courtney Cantrell is Head of the School of Writing for the Consortium and author of the epic fantasy Rethana’s Surrender. Every Monday she shares an article about storytelling technique.

Find out more about Courtney Cantrell at her author website.

Filed in Prewriting/Story-Telling | Tagged Bilbo Baggins, Courtney Cantrell, Fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Prewriting, Smaug, Storytelling, The Hobbit | Comments Off

Welcome to the New “Unstressed Syllables”

By Aaron Pogue on Saturday, February 9, 2013

It took a little longer than I’d expected, but I’m proud to share with you the all-new Unstressed Syllables.

This site used to be a place for me to keep friends and family updated on my writing and other projects. About a year ago I moved all that stuff over to AaronPogue.com.

I also tried to use the site to teach lessons about writing (whether technical or creative) and eventually about publishing, too. But over time my teaching style got a little stale and unfocused, and my schedule got a little busy, so the whole site gradually ground to a halt.

Something New

Instead of just making a New Year’s resolution to blog more, I went to some of my closest, smartest friends–all of whom also happen to contribute in their own ways to the publishing process at Consortium Books–and asked them to share their specialized knowledge with all the aspiring writers out there.

This week, you’ve gotten to meet the new staff of Unstressed Syllables. I owe them all a deep debt of gratitude for their contributions, and especially to Jessie Sanders who is also working as our Managing Editor. Without her help, none of this would have happened.

My vision for this site is to make it a one-stop resource for anyone who wants to participate in today’s publishing environment. We’ll discuss writing technique, editorial assistance, and the publishing technology that has made a massive new marketplace that makes it easier than ever for writers to earn a living.

Me

Nearly everyone reading this right now knows who I am, but I have high hopes that the new focus and all the new content will bring in some new readers, so I’m going to take a moment to introduce myself.

I’m a self-published author. I started back in 2010 with a sci-fi mystery called Gods Tomorrow, and then hit the big time in the summer of 2011 with a fantasy novel called Taming Fire. In the last two years, I’ve sold 170,000 copies across both series, most of them in the Dragonprince trilogy.

That’s enough to qualify me as a self-publishing success story. I’m not saying that to brag–I can only take a fraction of the credit for my success, as you’ll see over the coming weeks–but to tell you why this blog matters.

Before I was a self-publishing success story, I was a hopeful writer who’d given up on ever being published. In fact, I spent five years avoiding writing altogether (and, incidentally, caught in some pretty serious depression). I was working the dreadful day job and figured I’d be stuck in that for the rest of my life. Then Taming Fire took off, and six months later I walked away from my job with the FAA and dedicated myself full-time to Consortium Books.

Consortium Books is the (tiny) indie publishing company I set up to publish my books and the books of some friends in my writing group. We borrowed the resources of some incredibly talented photographers, painters, and graphic designers for our covers. We were lucky enough to have a couple professional editors in our group, and they helped give us some of the cleanest indie-published books on the market.

And…I did help, too. My most significant contributions from the publishing side came from two places that had nothing to do with my love of writing.

My Best Resources

For ten years I’d paid the bills by punching a clock as a technical writer. In the process, I learned a little bit about formatting, layout, readability, and style. I’d also picked up some pretty useful programming skills along the way and maintained a close relationship with the college buddy who got me into programming in the first place.

That college buddy built a custom software package for me to convert ordinary Google Docs into consistently and accurately formatted e-books. And my experience as a technical writer helped me design those e-books to be reader friendly and professional in a way most indies could only dream of.

After two years of tinkering, we’ve just released that software package as a public service at Draft2Digital.com. But I’ve spent the intervening time learning everything I can about the digital publishing market.

I’ve researched the techniques that work (and the ones that are really a waste of time). I’ve kept tabs on the success stories and made friends with other aspiring writers and learned a thousand little tips and tricks for navigating the process.

That’s what I’m going to be sharing with you. My job is to teach you about publishing in today’s market. It isn’t all easy or obvious, but it’s all accessible to anyone who wants to try. There has never been a better time to be a writer.

My first word of advice: Subscribe to this site. Come back regularly. Get to know the experts who will teach you everything from prewriting to promotion, from fixing your grammar problems to Photoshopping your cover art.

And pitch in! Leave a comment if you have a question (or even a correction). If you’re participating in the market, use the Contact Form to find out about guest posting opportunities. We’d love to build a community here.

In the meantime, we’re going to start sharing what we know. See you next week.

Find out more about Aaron Pogue at his author website.

Filed in Publishing | Tagged Aaron Pogue, Draft2Digital, Gods Tomorrow, Indie publishing, Taming Fire, Technical Writing | Comments Off

A Peek Behind the Curtain, or, A Word from the Editor

By Jessie Sanders on Friday, February 8, 2013

Good morning, readers and writers! I’m Jessie Sanders. You may have heard of me. No? Well, that’s probably becuase I’m the editor.

I’ve been editing my own work since I was a teenager. I come from a family of perfectionists and English majors, so I would often craft a few pages of a story only to go back a month or so later and rewrite the entire thing. I love making things as good as they can possibly be.

In college I learned about attention to detail and making lists. Most importantly, I learned that knowing the rules of grammar was a dying art, and I was one of the few (or it seemed few) survivors. I decided to become one of the few, the proud, the editors.

I worked for Tate Publishing for two years before becoming a full-time editor for the Consortium. In my time there I worked with hundreds of authors, each one on a different level of writing skill, each one with a different story to tell and a different way to tell it. The experience I got there was invaluable, and I appreciate every moment that I spent there.

Now I’m the managing editor for Consortium Books. I worked on every book that we’ve published, some in a story-restructuring mode, most in a line-by-line analysis, and all for hard-core grammatical errors. I love working in all of these capacities, because I’m working with others to make some really well-crafted novels.

Editors are the unsung heroes of book editing. In movies such as Stranger than Fiction and Alex and Emma, editors are mentioned as those ambiguous, mean people who withhold paychecks from the poor, underfed authors until they receive “The Manuscript.” They come across as the people who want to put deadlines on the creatives who just don’t know how to adhere to these kinds of boundaries. And as we all know, creativity must be allowed free reign to express itself!

It’s true that editors can enforce rules on authors and even be mean sometimes, but it’s not because we want to squash your creativity. It’s because we want to make you the best authors you can possibly be. And if we have to give a little constructive criticism and withhold the candy for a bit to get it accomplished, we do it. We’re like parents in that regard. Someday you will thank us. Until then, we sit in the background and remind ourselves that we’re doing what’s best for you.

With the rise of self-publishing, a number of authors are seeing a way to bypass the editor stage of publishing. Traditional publishers accept only near-perfect manuscripts to begin with, and then each manuscript goes through a rigorous round or two of editing before it goes to the printing presses. But through CreateSpace and other self-publishing arenas, an author can simply upload a Word document directly from his computer. An author may think, “I’ve read this mansucript through a hundred times, and my grammar is pretty good. I’ve had all of my family members read through it, and they love the story. Why should I pay an editor to do what I and they have already done?”

That’s a great question. I will tell you the answer next week.