What A Character! How to Succeed as a Writer of Stories

Storytelling, , ,

What A Character! Publishing success for the Storyteller – especially the Commercial Fiction or Memoir Storyteller – is all about the characters you create. Which includes the character that is You in your memoir. Storytelling success is all about how much you can make your readers care – deep in their beating hearts – about these characters you create.

Are You Working on a Novel Now? If so – do you have a single main character? A specific character who is your hero? Most successful stories have one main character hero who gives your story focus. Agent-Editor-Reader interest is best captured by a single strong hero. By hero I mean a character who is gender variable – male or female or nonbinary or whatever.

Are You Working on a Memoir Now? There are many reasons to tell your real-life story. First among those reasons is to introduce us to your Hero. You are the Hero of your memoir. You are the center of your story which definitely deserves to be told well.

Have You Named your Hero? Name your main character up front – at the beginning of your story’s creation. Naming gives your character substance and makes her more real for you. If you have not yet named your character – do so as immediately as you can. A strong hero requires a name. The strong hero of your memoir is a character named “I.”

Why is a Strong Hero So Important? Because of what happens when we read about a strong hero’s joys. Because of what happens when we see her hopes and dreams and determination in action. Because of what happens when we witness her admirable qualities in practice.

We Understand that She will have Something Important to Lose in this Story. We do not want her to lose this important thing. Why? Because her strong portrayal leads us to identify with her. We are tied to her – as one human to another. In her strength we see the strength we strive to possess in ourselves.

Identifying with Your Strong Hero Makes Us Care about Her. Specifically – we care about what happens to her. Why? Because she is who we hope to be. She is who we are on our very best days. Her fate could be our fate if we lived her story. And – What a Story! that is.

Why is this Caring So Important? Because when we care about your character and what she wants – we have become emotionally involved in your story. We have an emotional stake in what happens in your story. Especially in what happens to your main character – your hero. In your memoir we must care about your hero named “I.”

Our Caring – Our Emotional Involvement – has Hooked Us into Your Story. Making your reader care is the most powerful story hook you could ever create. And the more we care – the more solidly your story hook is set in us.

Your Job as Storyteller is to Create a Character We Care About. A character we care about not just a little but a lot. A character we care about Intensely. That is the first and most important step you must take if your goal is to write the most Intense and Dramatic and Powerful story you have in you. And what better goal could a storyteller possibly have?

My Job is to Guide you toward that Electrifying Story. Which is why I will follow this post with many more about this very topic. Why? Because I believe there is nothing more crucial to your writing success than having readers say about your hero – and each of her companions – What a Character!

Alice Orr Says – You Possess Storytelling Magic. Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know about discovering the strongest story characters you have in you? Ask your question in the Comments section at the end of this post.

Alice Orr has published 14 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her novel – A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – is available HERE.

Amazon.com/authors/aliceorr

Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows: “Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows has moved up to one of my favorite books.”

All of Alice’s Books are HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

Write Whenever Wherever

Writing Advice, ,

 

Write Whenever Wherever. A day in the life of a writer can be a frenzied time. There are these things called deadlines. Do you know why they are called deadlines? Because guess what an author will be if she misses one.

 

How Can We Possibly Get Everything Done? Marketing. Social media. Keeping up with email. And, oh yes, I almost forgot. Writing. As publishing writers we are concerned about productivity on the page. How many words must you write today to be on track toward your  deadline? Whether that deadline is set by an agent or an editor or yourself.

 

This is Not a New Problem for Me. When I first became a book editor – back in a previous incarnation – I was still under contract with my own publisher and had a tight deadline to fulfill. The publisher I worked for and the publisher I wrote for were pulling me hard in two different directions. I was in the middle about to lose my mind.

 

Then Something Wonderful Happened. I was speaking on a conference panel with Nora Roberts. Always an amazing experience. She was the queen of productivity then just like she is the queen of productivity now. So I had a wild thought. Maybe she could help me with my own productivity dilemma.

 

I Found Nora in the Hotel Lobby and Explained My Predicament. She settled into a comfortable sofa and invited me to do the same. This was our first meeting. She did not know me but she listened patiently all the same. Then she gave me the simple yet profound advice that carried me through the deadline I was facing then and many more since.

 

“You have to Learn to Write Wherever You Are,” she said. I had always confined my writing to orderly places and set blocks of time. Nora freed me from that. I also always carried 5×8 inch index cards with me everywhere. From that moment in the hotel lobby on I used them for writing – any time any place I had minutes to spare I would Write Whenever Wherever.

 

Modes of Transportation became Favorite Writing Spaces. Subway cars. Taxis. Airplanes. I hunched over my index cards and wrote furiously. Between subway stops. On my way to meetings. In airport lounges. Nobody ever interrupted me. Probably because I looked a bit intense and maybe a bit insane too. I didn’t care. I needed to make my deadlines. And I did.

 

How to Put Your Writer Psyche on Your Side - www.aliceorrbooks.com

I Never Forgot Nora Roberts’ Wise Advice. I write a lot online now. Magazine articles and columns. These blog posts. They all have deadlines and my days are still packed with other obligations as well. Fortunately I have this author paragon’s voice to remind me. “You have to write wherever you are.” I pass my version of that voice on to you. At deadline time or any time. Write Whenever Wherever.

 

Alice Orr Says – You Possess Storytelling Magic. Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

 

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask your question in the Comments section at the end of this post.

 

Alice Orr has published 14 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her novel – A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – is available HERE.

Amazon.com/authors/aliceorr

 

Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows: “Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows has moved up to one of my favorite books.”

 

All of Alice’s Books are HERE.

 

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

 

 

Writers’ Independence Day

Writing Career Tip, ,

Writers’ Independence Day. It happened at a conference. I was there to present a workshop called The Art of Agent Stalking. Nothing Independent Publishing about it. Traditional Pub all the way. I had been watching the Indie movement but as a curious onlooker. Nothing more.

Before I Reached the Conference Hotel my Attitude Began to Change. The airport shuttle van was packed with authors talking about Indie Publishing. Some wanted to know more. Some were thinking of making the leap. Some had leapt and shared their experiences.

Those Stories Captured my Attention. I was most impressed by the enthusiasm. I had been an editor/agent/published author/workshop presenter for many years. I had never heard published authors – beyond the first euphoric blush of their careers – so positively excited about publishing. By the time we reached the conference hotel I understood why.

These Authors had Retrieved their Writer Selfhood. They were no longer controlled and manipulated by others. They owned their work. They owned their decision-making. They owned their careers. And they not only felt empowered – they were overjoyed.

At that Conference I also Learned about the Downside of Indie Life. I learned that along with total control of your publishing life comes total responsibility for it. The buck stops with the Indie author and often the other kind of buck – the green one – doesn’t stop with her anywhere often enough. This was the truth of choosing a Writers’ Independence Day.

That Point about Money Must be Emphasized. 2011 to 2015 or so was the golden age of Indie Pub. Big careers and fortunes were made. The results of undertaking an Indie career since then have mostly been less than fabulous. An Indie Pubbed author must work very hard and be very savvy if she hopes to make a living at it. Here is some of what she/you must do.

Produce a First Class Story. Create a showstopper. Make it the very best storytelling you have in you. Then run it past fresh eyes – fresh and talented eyes. Which means you need a strong editor who will see the flaws you have inevitably missed. Which brings me to…

Put Together a First Class Team. Hire that first-class editor I mentioned. Do not try to mastermind your words alone. Then a good cover and book designer. Next an expert at publishing platform placement. These folks usually perform uploading etc. to the platform(s) as well. Do these operations yourself ONLY if you have topnotch skills. IMO it takes a Team.

Construct a First Class Post-Pub Plan. Start gathering your mailing list the day you are born. Adopt an online presence by puberty. These are only slight exaggerations. The internet is the highway via which you reach and grow your readership. School yourself in everything social media. Find an Indie marketing success story and follow her example. Mine is Kayelle Allen.

Back to Me and the Conference Hotel. By the time I took the van back to the airport I had made a decision. I longed to be fully in charge of my own work life. I had that experience as a literary agent. I wanted it as an author also. One Indie memoir (below) and five Indie novels later I occasionally question my publishing choice. Usually when the money issue arises.

I Don’t Make as Many Green Bucks as in my Traditional Pub Years. I probably never will. Still I am content with what I do and how free I am to go about doing it. I might change my mind. I am free to do so. But – for me for now – I celebrate my Writers’ Independence Day.

Alice Orr Says – You Possess Storytelling Magic. Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

 Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask your question in the Comments section at the end of this post.

 Alice Orr has published 14 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her Indie Pubbed  novel – A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – is available HERE.

Amazon.com/authors/aliceorr

 Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows: “Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows has moved up to one of my favorite books.”

 All of Alice’s Books are HERE.

 http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/