WHAT MAKES A STORY UNIVERSAL?

The more wide the appeal of your book, the more copies it will sell ...

which will enable you to write more, and isn't that what we all want?

I am speaking this April on how to write fantasy well. Here is some of what I will say.

People still read Dumas, Dickens, Twain, and Jane Austen.  Why?

Their characters speak to universal needs and dreams:  to belong, to be felt of worth, to find that ship that is better than any made of steel or wood ... friendship.

The universal stories which resonate within the human core contain archetypes, which are symbols or energetic imprints that exist in our psyches.

 Jung theorized that humans have a "collective unconscious", and in this collective unconscious are "deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity.

 We even find them in our dreams ... or our movies:

Why should we strive to make our novels universal?

1.) Obtain the largest possible audience.

2.) Why shoot for second best?  Shoot for the moon.

3.) It is a harsh publishing climate ... we must work to stand out from the crowd.

WHAT DO YOU THINK MAKES A NOVEL UNIVERSAL?

DO YOU THINK WE AUTHORS SHOULD STRIVE TO MAKE OUR NOVELS CLASSICS?

It's what you DON'T SAY that counts!

Get in front of an audience and say you are about to talk on Body Language …

Immediately, everyone does the same thing:

they change their posture!

They hold their head higher, pull their shoulders back and tighten their abdominal muscles.

In doing so, people are transformed, instantly looking more powerful, confident, and energized.

And they remain that way . . . for about 60 seconds.

BUT BODY LANGUAGE CHANGES ACROSS THE WORLD

THERE IS EVEN BODY LANGUAGE FOR SMOKERS!

Our needs, feelings, thoughts, emotions, and intentions are processed elegantly

by what is known as the "limbic system" of the brain.

It doesn't have to think,

it just reacts to the world in real time and our bodies show how we feel.

Body language is thought to account for between 50 to 70 percent of all communication.

Understanding body language is important,

but it is also essential to pay attention to other cues such as context.

The eyes are frequently referred to as the "windows to the soul"

since they are capable of revealing a great deal about what a person if feeling or thinking.

Even dogs have body language cues!

DO YOU INCORPORATE BODY LANGUAGE INTO YOUR WRITING?

HOW MEN VIEW WOMEN

Peggy Carter:

"You think you know me.  You never saw me.

Dooley, you've only seen me as a kitten left on your doorstep.

 Jack, you've only seen me as a secretary, and Sousa, you've put me on a pedestal."  

Not unlike Amber Heard's similar thoughts on how men view women.

 

There are, of course, differences in how men and women view life ... 

TAKE FLYING


TAKE CONVERSATION ...

 

He believes communication should have a clear purpose.

She uses communication to discover how she is feeling and what it is that she wants to say.

MOST men and women desire to satisfy their partners,

but they may miss the mark

because it is truly difficult to understand and accept our partner's different way of communication. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

ASHES OF WEDNESDAY

 

Ash Wednesday ...

the 40 days of fasting that last 46 days.

What?

The six Sundays in the period after Mardi Gras and before Easter are not counted since they are not fast days.

You learn something new every day, right?

The period of fasting is to parallel the 40 days of fasting Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by Satan.

But what about those ashes?

Ash Wednesday by Carl Spitweg 

in Public Domain

Ash Wednesday gets its name from

the practice of blessing ashes made from Palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday.

Many adopt the practice of abstaining from something important to the individual during Lent.

I would nominate the ceaseless looking at the screen of your cell phone ...

to only use your phone to make essential calls.

People might actually start seeing the world around them again and,

you know,

communicate to the person not six inches from them.

.

REALITY IS AWKWARD.

SCREENS ARE A WALL

BETWEEN YOU

AND THAT AWKWARD REALITY.

But the authentic life is composed of off-screen moments.

When most people spend more time looking at tiny screens

than at the people and their surroundings,

they have become blind to the world.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Next Monday:

V R Barkowski
https://vrbarkowski.wordpress.com/

has me on her blog!

HAUNTED MARDI GRAS

 

The setting sun cast cold ghosts of gold across the bruised dark of the French Quarter alley.  Were any ghosts awakening to haunt tonight’s Mardi Gras festivities?  

I scowled at myself.  

Alleys and houses were not haunted.

We are haunted, and regardless of the landscape on which we stand, our ghosts stay with us until we ourselves are ghosts.

 

I looked at the cracked store-backs and really didn't know who I was for about ten strange seconds. I wasn't scared.  

I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.  

I was behind the haunted Mardi Gras Den, which had once been a corrupt police station with innocents murdered in the cells.

Then, I remembered who I was: Captain Samuel McCord, cursed guardian of New Orleans.

“At night, the dead come back to drink from the living,” I murmured.

 

And at my words, a ghostly parade of garishly painted wooden floats appeared before me, drawn by black skeletal horses.  Spectral riders wore iridescent blue masks over their gaunt faces.  

They looked down upon me … for permission to go down St. Charles Avenue. 

I nodded slowly.

“Drink from no innocent, and you may pass.”

They showered me with sparkling gold doubloons that passed right through my body, for the coins were bound to this cursed float for eternity. 

Ghosts were simply unfinished business.

Sadly, these insubstantial riders would not find those who had murdered them.  Some killers left the city right after the murders.

But all murderers were claimed immediately upon their deaths … some debts did not remain uncollected long after the final breath.

Murder was such a debt.

As the floats passed through me in icy tingles, I noted grimly that there were more of them than last year, packed with many more spectral riders.

I thought of my own ghosts:

The people you loved and lost become ghosts inside of you, and by cherishing them you kept them alive.

I turned and walked into the haunted night.

 

INDIE PUBLISHING_WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW BUT DON'T

MYTH #1: 

INDIE BOOKSELLERS are endangering traditional publishing.

Ah, not so much.  Writers on the other hand are in a fix.

Even best selling authors like Rupert Thompson,

whose The Insult David Bowie chose as one of his 100 must-read books of all times,

is facing grim financial times.

Mid-list writers can no longer find publishers to support them.

authors struggle to make a living, and

more than 60% of 18-to-30-year-olds would rather watch a DVD than get their nose in a book.

MYTH #2

THE DEATH OF THE BRICK & MORTAR BOOKSTORE is hurting traditional publishers.

Ah, not really.

The challenge isn't digital:

it is how do you tell people about the next great book.

They have to get to know their readers:

"Where do they hang out, what do they like, how do we talk to them?"

Enter Twitter and Goodreads and Facebook.

 All those urban myth stories about Amazon wanting to swat publishers from existence

somehow ignore the fact that

Amazon is only marginally profitable, while the publishers are making a fortune.

Publishers are making more money than they ever have done before.

MYTH #3

TRADITIONAL PUBLISHERS need bookstores.  

True,

publishers were finding it increasingly hard to sell in print and to sell right across their front lists.—

But it soon turned out that they didn’t have to, either, or not the way they used to. 

The huge margins they made on ebooks more than made up for the loss of print revenues. 

The equally huge margins they made on their backlist ebook titles made up for the struggles of the frontliners.

MYTH #4

GOOD eBOOK SALES lead to good print sales.

No.  

Why pay $25 for a hardback that you read for $9.99?

Is signing up with an eBook only contract with a traditional publisher wise?  

Depends.

The going rate is 25% royalty as opposed to 70% going straight to KDP.  

True, traditional gets you a higher profile.  

But with a little extra hustle on your part, you will end up with more in the long run.

MYTH #5

SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHORS are “dominating traditionally published authors,” 

Sometimes myths are true.

Especially are they dominating in sci-fi/fantasy, mystery/thriller, and romance genres but — 

and here is the surprise —

they are also taking “significant market share" in all genres.

MYTH #6

99 cents is the Hot Price.

$2.99 and $3.99 are currently the pricing sweet spots for most e-book bestsellers. 

In general, authors who price their books modestly earn more than those whose average price is higher.

By the way, Series Books outsell Stand Alone books.

WHAT DO YOU THINK

SOME INDIE PUBLISHING URBAN MYTHS ARE?

 

5 KEYS TO INDIE GROWTH

 

1.) HAVE FUN!

Above all else, have fun with marketing your eBook.  

Trust me.  

If you hate your marketing method, so will everyone else reading it!

Exciting fun is contagious.  If you make a party of your marketing, your readers will sense it.



2.) CLIMB OUT OF THE PAST

 

Puttering on Facebook and Twitter is old hat ...

like trying to grind out your book on an old typewriter.

Be creative.

This April, I am speaking at a local Sci Fi Convention on how to write science fiction, fantasy, and go about getting published.

Make a book trailer

and host a contest to see if viewers can see the hidden key to a riddle contained within it.

Brainstorm a new road to get attention.



3.) MAKE YOUR BOOK STEAK AND NOT COTTON CANDY

 

Your book should add value to the reader's life and thoughts besides providing entertainment --

beyond what is already in print.

Does your book fill a need?  

Does it tell a story in a unique way?  

Does it spin a tale from a different angle from what is out there?

Does your book pose questions that will add depth to the reader's thinking?  

Make her laugh?  

Explore a human truth?

If not, you're just adding to the cyber-noise on the internet.



4.) LEARN THE ZEN OF YOUR WRITING

Each of us writes to a specific audience unconsciously.

We can try to adapt, but our worldview slips in when we are not looking.

In a market that is being flooded by millions of books,

we have to try to determine to whom we naturally write.

I'm not talking genre.  

I'm talking discovering your natural niche of writing.  

Once you discover it, you can fine-tune your prose to make it shine.



5.) MAKE YOUR BLOG YOUR NETFLIX

You know why Netflix series garner such loyalty?

Yes, they are quality ...

but you can gobble them up episode after episode

until you feel as if you know the characters intimately.

A good blog is consistent.  

Like a Netflix episode,

it is about one thought or one problem that is handled in a short, concise, entertaining manner.

Do that and you will draw in an audience,

come to be seen as a friend, build trust,

form literary friendships --

all the while selling books.

How cool is that?