WHAT MAKES A GOOD BOOK?

 

Or what makes a book good?

What is the criteria you use to gauge whether a book is worth the read?

Does a book have to be good to make a difference in someone’s life? Why or why not?

Victor Standish:

"For me, if it grabs my interest, makes me think, or helps me learn something then it is a good book."


Samuel McCord:

"A good book is a treasure trove of humanity so that no matter where you open a page and start reading, there is something new to be discovered."


Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace:

" I can more easily say why I don’t like certain books and to be honest, it is often the result of the author.

Of the most recent books that come to mind: one author I simply don’t like due to her style of writing and how her characters are always women who can’t take care of themselves."

So?  What do you think makes for a good book?

Action.  No action.  Romance.  No romance.  A bit of both?



I believe there are some universal facets that make a book good and a good book (the two are sometimes not the same.)


1.) AN INTERESTING VOICE

If you don't connect to the voice, then no matter how spell-binding the plot, you will drift away from the book ...

that is if you even buy the book at all.

Why?

Because the Voice, like the wind in a ship's sails, is what carries you through the book's journey. 

Like an aroma, it permeates each page, each word of the book.

The voice is what will make a page detailing even a train ride something memorable or witty or both.


2.) MEMORABLE CHARACTERS

The sparkling character of Tony Stark made IRON MAN.  Hannibal Lector dominates each page he is on.

The characters in the world of Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz kept me turning the pages to meet more of his one-of-a-kind neighbors.

Memorable characters bring the story to life.  They make you itch to get back to their banter when the world draws you away from their adventures.

In a way, they become friends you can come back to.  They let us see and feel the world in a new way, expanding our minds, enriching our lives.


3.) A VIVID SETTING

It doesn't have to be a fantasy setting.  No matter the genre, however, the world around the characters must feel "real." 

Great settings "ground" the story.  They highlight in the larger world, the tragic or comic elements in the smaller world of the lead characters.

Settings in good books become actual characters in the story either nourishing or preying, sometimes doing both.

After Katrina, New Orleans' streets killed the children/teens who roamed them.  Their souls went before their lives.

Take 1895 Cairo:

 the common man fared even worse.  Their servitude was to multiple masters: taxes, poverty, landed aristrocrats, British prejudice.  They were always in the crossfire of conflicting demands.

A well done setting breathes life into the story you are reading.


4.) A GRIPPING STORY

In essence, the plot has the reader asking, "What happens next?"

What is riveting to you may not be riveting to me. 

But the bottom line to the gripping plot must be PERSONAL and PRIMAL to the reader.

The neighbor of a police detective has her baby kidnapped.  The child is being returned to her one finger, one toe at a time.  No ransom demand.

Did the cleaning lady see something she shouldn't have?  Did she throw away the wrong thing?  Or is it about the detective's past, something to punish him?

Whatever the plot, the reader is invested in it and is staying up longer than she should to see what happens next.

What do you think is essential in a good book?

D.G. Hudson wrote a review recently that my latest book was good -- which made my day.

Underneath the tension of the adventure runs the never-ending, time-spanning romance of McCord and Meilori. 

I recommend this novel for those who like steampunk, adventure, history and the magical world which the author has created. 

This is a book which will transport you to those realms where anything is possible.

Why not go to my book's Amazon page 
and try the LOOK INSIDE feature
and see if it interests you?

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EUFRKK

HOW TO MAKE AN IMPACT WITH YOUR BOOK

We all want to write a best-seller.  Not for fame nor for fortune.  

Just to be able to support ourselves living out our dream.

But how to do that?

I could date Margo Robbie, of course, but I think her new husband might object.  

And he is really big!

No.  

We will have to do it the old-fashioned way: by using the tools at hand the best way we know how.

HOW TO ULYSSES YOUR WAY 

TO NOVEL SUCCESS

1.) SUCKER PUNCH YOUR READER WITH THE FIRST SENTENCE

The thinking behind the studio's thinking on making movie trailers of late is 

TO MAKE IT SO COMPELLING THAT PEOPLE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO BUY A TICKET 

no matter what the critics say.


The first sentence to my story in TALES TO BE TOLD AT MIDNIGHT is

"The rape had been the best thing to have happened to her."

How could you not want to read on?  

And remember the FIRST LOOK option on Amazon will hook your reader 

if you just set the bait correctly.

2.) LEARN FROM THE MOST POPULAR GIRL IN HIGH SCHOOL

BE FAST.  

Not free.  People value what they pay for.

But put out ... as quickly as you can with quality one after another.  

 You want to have other books to offer should lightning strike and you gain a fan.

Which leads me into the next point:

3.) BRAND YOURSELF WITH A SERIES

It won't hurt much, 

but it will give a new fan certainty 

of enjoying more adventures with the characters she or he has grown to love.

Readers who like one novel will confidently buy the next.

And the series name will draw the eye of past readers browsing thumbnails of your book covers.

Which leads me to my next point:

4.) LET YOUR TITLE BE LIKE THE SKIRTS OF THAT POPULAR GIRL

BE SHORT

Choose a brief emotive title. Pack it with meaning, menace and drama.

 Why short? 

Your cover will shrink to a fingernail on Kindle and other mobile devices. 

So make it legible!

James Patterson uses such titles: 

ZOO, THE FIRE, WITCH & WIZARD, THE QUICKIE

Which, of course, leads me to the next point as well

 4.) ATTENTION SPANS HAVE CHANGED

TV sound bites, Twitter feeds, Buzz feeds, Facebook posts ...

All of them have conditioned those who still read to bore easily.

A bored reader is more dangerous to us than any lion, for you will lose them as customers.

Keep your sentences as short as models' skirts.

James Patterson is the expert here. 

His sentences average just six words. 

His paragraphs are typically no longer than five lines and often just one line.

Tell your story your way, but if it is to make an impact there is a model to follow.

 5.) WE ARE A LONELY SOCIETY 

Give your MC a foil character with whom to talk ... even if it is only the moon.

Even Tom Hanks had Wilson, the basketball, 

with whom to share his innermost thoughts and fears on that island.

Conversations with the buddy character can introduce conflict to keep a scene alive, 

give the main character a plausible sounding board for their woes and triumphs, 

and also prompt the protagonist to reveal  information.

 Foil characters also furnish sub-plots. 

Get them into troubles of their own. Make them victims.
  
Use a foil as a series character in your every novel as I do with Mark Twain 

in my NOT-SO-INNOCENTS series and in my Egyptian Victorian fantasies.

6.) A PLOT WORTHY OF A MOVIE

Dueling vampire empires, alien evil clashing with ancient darkness, 

Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Nikola Tesla -- 

all worrying less about saving the world than 

saving their friend who is married to a demon-empress,

poised to set all the world ablaze with her dark ambition.

Outlandish but so was SHE and LORD OF THE RINGS.

You must strive to craft a riveting plot worthy of your reader.

7.) WATER COOLER DIALOGUE

My blood center still has a water cooler and coffee maker where workers chat a bit during the day.

Work to have your dialogue be quoted at the water cooler of today's culture:

Twitter, Facebook, Buzz Feeds, personal blogs.

There is a reason NIKE sells ball caps and T-shirts with their logo.

Be as smart as NIKE, have your fans advertise for you.

I HOPE THIS HELPS 

IN SOME SMALL WAY, 

ROLAND

 

WHO READS YOUR BOOKS?

 https://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.com/2017/01/roland-yeomans-not-so-innocents-abroad.html

D.G. Hudson wrote an amazing post and Amazon review for my first NOT SO INNOCENTS book:

No, I will not give the link to it since I have pretty much given up on people reading my books.

But it surprised me that anyone had read my book, much less liked it well enough to post a review.

Do you wonder who reads your books?

Walk down any mall and you will find three or four kids, 

hooded, gathered around a table, leaning over like monks or druids, 

their eyes fastened to the smartphones held in front of them. 

But how many, if any, books have they read in the past 6 months? 

It is sad that those teens are avoiding eye contact, 

avoiding real conversations in favor of cyber-talk.

They are avoiding reading even more.

Yet, stories are the touchstones of who we are as a People, as an individual.  

Written stories are the secrets of the soul made manifest in prose.

We don't get that from the torture porn of GOT or THE WALKING DEAD.

Novels slip us inside the minds of the characters in them as TV or movies do not.  

They let us see through another perception other than our own.

Could a country that had widely read “Huckleberry Finn”  

have taken Donald J. Trump seriously for a second? 

Twain’s readers will remember “the king” and “the duke.” 

They know what a bullying con artist sounds like.

 Who do you think reads your books?

What do you think they took away from them? 

 

What sparked you into writing your last book?

 

What were you trying to say in it?

  

HOW TO BEAT THE JANUARY BLUES

Sunday I worked 13 hours straight, 

my power & internet went down, 

and one of my front teeth broke off at the gumline --

And the dentist tells me he has to work out a payment schedule with my work insurance 

before he repairs it.

Aaaargh!

Empty bank accounts, tight waistlines, vomiting bugs, failed detoxes: 

(Guys, it's not a hangover.  It's called alcohol poisoning.)

The post-holiday comedown is a well-dreaded condition. 

January, even at its best, has few redeeming features.

 {At least we in S.W. Louisiana have the Mardi Gras to look forward to.}

 

Ah, last week:

 

This time last week, it was a bright, crisp New Year’s Day. 

Feeling optimistic about the months ahead, two-thirds of us made at least one resolution: 

to eat less, to drink less, to get fit. 

Yet, according to a survey by researchers at the University of Bristol, 88 per cent of us will soon break them. 

Half of us already have.  

Ouch!

 

 REASON ONE:

Let's face it: 

most of us had a hard time of it last year.  

We managed to pull it together somehow, put on the brave Christmas face --

Now, we are smack at the beginning once more, looking at running the gauntlet all over again.

 

REASON TWO:

New Year's Eve can be a time of reflection, looking back over the last year ... 

or our whole lives -- and seeing all the plans and dreams cast aside on the shoulder of our life paths.

 

So what can we do to get through the yblues?

1.) Most important: make plans for the coming months.

    Organize something you can look forward to. 

    Be creative: watch a movie; listen to music; go for a run. 

    The sun might not be shining – and the lack of sunlight is one factor that’s making us feel sad –

     but get outside and swing yourself about a bit. 

     It’ll make you feel so much better.

 

2.) Positive Perspective is key.

     Dress brightly – even for work. 

     Everything’s so gloomy and dull outside that it’ll make people happy to see someone wearing bright colors. 

     Find yourself frowning?  Force a smile.  Studies show that putting on a grin will unconsciously make you feel more up.

3.) Use the prevailing winds.

     Last year was tough for you, right?  But you made it through!

 

     

It's seems impossible that sailors can move forward with the wind blowing against them, doesn't it?

     How do they do that?

     On a sailboat, wind blowing against the boat at an angle inflates the sail, 

     and it forms a similar foil shape to an airplane's wing, 

creating a difference in pressure that pushes the sail perpendicular to the wind direction.

 

4.) Your mind is your sail.

     It determines the course you sail through life.  

     You must learn how to mentally "tack," 

a term sailors use to describe how they shift the sail 

so the wind blows into a different side of the sail.

      There are people in this world that would give their left hand to be right where you are -- 

     with the blessings you are too familiar with to be thankful for.

     Your struggles have made you smarter, stronger, and more aware of what you can do.

 

5.) Take a moment to realize that you are still here.

     And that is an extraordinary achievement given the pain that you’ve been through.

 

6.) Focus on what you're facing and what you're running from.

      What is just one simple step you can take 

      to maybe move towards the problem rather than away from it? 

     When you step towards problems they shrink, 

     and they become more manageable.

 

7.) Be kind to yourself.

     If you had a best friend in a similar situation, what would your advice be?

     I bet it would be: 

     "Ease up yourself, friend.  You've done a great job with a lousy situation."

I hope this has helped in some small way, your friend - Roland

DUH!_THAT QUIET VOICE THAT ASKS YOU, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

Humans aren't the only ones who suffer from sagging middles.

Novels do, too.

It's accompanied by that leaden feeling that weighs you down with the mocking question:

"What were you thinking of when you thought you could write a book?"

When you hear that voice, I want you to answer, "DUH!"


D ..... DISASTERS
U ..... UNDERLYING

H ..... HEROES





DISASTERS:
I.) Disaster


When your novel's middle sags, you certainly know that word. It's what you feel you are writing!

II.) Escalating Disasters ...
A.) are what make up the backbone of the best novels.

B.) without them, you're just writing a news snippet for CNN.

C.) Each disaster must lead logically from the last one to make a coherent whole.

D.) But to interest an agent, then the publisher, and finally the reader ...

you must have a destination in mind for your hero from the very beginning.

III.) If your novel's middle is sagging then ...

A.) Like with humans, the discipline of exercise is missing.

B.) The disciplined exercise of steadily working towards a pre-conceived ending, step by logical step.

C.) Without that compass to guide you, your novel will meander all over the place, subject to the whims of your imagination.


UNDERLYING:
I.) The trouble with a novel that its very structure invites sagging in the middle.

II.) Your novel's middle will more than likely take up fully half of your pages.

A.) After that many pages, things start to look alike.

B.) The fix : underlying that middle with a tremendous disaster, rocking your hero and his world to its foundations.

C.) Shaking things up like that will awaken your readers from the sameness doze they may have fallen into :

Think Obi wan Kenobi sacrificing himself so that Luke may escape. To all appearances, Darth Vader looks unbeatable.

D.) This enormous disaster shores up your novel's middle, firming it up and preventing sagging.



HEROES:
I.) A memorable character that leaps off the page and into your reader's imagination is the keystone to the success of your novel.

A.) Think Hannibal Lector.

What? Hannibal a hero? Of sorts.


He chose his victims quite carefully. Don't agree?


Think Dexter.


Same principle. We pull for Dexter, for he has chosen an acceptable outlet for his murderous impulses.

B.) UNDERLYING comes into play again with your hero :

Your hero was not born yesterday.


He/she has a past. It will determine his or her actions. You had better know your hero's backstory.

C.) In fact, your hero's backstory may very well provide the world-shaking disasters that braces your novel's middle.

D.) You see how DISASTER - UNDERLYING - HEROES all interweave with one another?


It is a support device that wraps around your novel's middle, keeping it firm.

E.) A fully developed hero with a past, flaws, hopes, failures will make him seem real,


sucking your reader into identifying with him, rooting for him, and thrilling with him when he succeeds.

F.) Without a backstory, your reader will not understand your hero --


and more than likely, neither will you. And that slippery slope ends with a sagging middle and confused muddle of an ending.

G.) Backstory is an iceberg;

1.) The part that is important to you as a writer is the 9/10 of it that the reader cannot see.

2.) The part you must tell your reader is the tiny 1/10 above the water line.

3.) Sensory and data overload is one of the hallmarks of a sagging middle.

H.) What determines the backstory you reveal to your reader?
1.) Core truths.

2.) They determine your hero's motivations, acting as a rudder in the flow of events in your novel.

3.) They often conflict.

You know why Miss America wants "World Peace?"


She wants to impress those fuddy-duddy judges and win the war of the beauty pageant!


Stated values often clash with the real ones, motivating your hero.

II.) A relatable hero like the underdog Chris Evans portrayed at the beginning of THE FIRST AVENGER,


has the audience feel for the man behind the mask when he is transformed.


*) I hope you've found something of value in this little post. Happy New Year, Roland!
***

LET ORSON SCOTT CARD TEACH YOU HOW ...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812509234/

... NOT to begin your novel.

Sigh.

I listened to the first 15 minutes of this book on one of my blood runs this wet weekend. 

The unidentified narrator spent the whole time telling, re-telling, and rationalizing

why he could not tell the story.

By the end of that agonizing time, I heartily agreed that neither he nor Mr. Card could tell the story.

I switched off the audiobook and reflected

on why such a talented writer as Orson Scott Card could go so far off the mark.

As a fledging writer, I suddenly thought of one possible explanation

since I have fallen victim to the problem myself.

HE COULD NOT GET BACK INTO THE FLOW OF THE STORY

HAVING LEFT IT FOR SO LONG

So he pumped out word after word in a desperate attempt to tap into the fires of his tale once more.

I think we all have been there. 

But once we grasp the lightning once more, we edit those stumbling chapters out of the novel.

In fact, I have adapted that flailing into a way to add depth to my long-lived hero, Samuel McCord.

I write the first beginning chapters of my newer novels as earlier episodes of his long life,

taking enemies and friends made in those exploits

and weaving them into the tapestry of the latter chapters taking place years later.

You get a sense of time passing, of lessons learned, of mistakes haunting the better man he became.

Which leads to another chaffing thing to JOURNEYMAN ...

Alvin and his love, Peggy, are too old to continuously make the same mistakes made in their teens. 

They seem forced to act in ways, contrary to people in their late twenties,

just to advance the story where Mr. Card wishes it to go.

This series is supposed to be the Saga of Alvin Maker ...

and yet halfway through the novel,

(I was driving 15 hours straight Sunday so I kept on listening)

Alvin is in perhaps 10% of this novel so far.

I am in no way close to Mr. Card's caliber of writing ...

not even in the same galaxy even ...

So I am not holding my own novels in comparison to his.

Yet, reading ALVIN JOURNEYMAN is like going to the Louvre

and see da Vinci had given the Mona Lisa a pig's snout.

The first three novels are excellent though so read them ...

and you may well find yourself of a different opinion than mine about this novel.

Here's hoping Orson Scott Card does not know my address!



DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE SUNSET_IWSG post

The movies have taught many in the entertainment field (like we writers)

that either you soar and reach the rarefied air of Super-Stardom or you are a failure.

Was Emily Dickinson a failure just because she was never recognized in her lifetime?


She tenderly crafted the words singing to her soul 

and wrote what she felt was beautiful and true even if no one else felt the same.


Do you think she felt herself a failure?  I hope not.


What will we do to our souls 

if we follow the Yellow Brick Road left by the footprints of some best-selling author?


Sean Rowe's song, TO LEAVE SOMETHING BEHIND, 

heard at the end of the excellent movie, THE ACCOUNTANT, speaks to me on this.

Did it speak to you?

You may never reach Mt. Everest's top, 

but if you reach the peak of your own abilities and help others along the way ...

your pockets may be empty, but your soul will be full.

Perhaps the sun has set on your dream of best-sellerdom, 

but sunsets have their own beauty and their own quiet peace.


 And sunsets are but the promise of new dawns.  I wish you new fulfilling dawns, my friends.

Talking about helping fellow authors ...

 http://www.jhmoncrieff.com/stuff-loved-2016/

J.H. Moncrieff has done a truly gracious and kind shout-out for me on her blog today.

Thank her by visiting and following all right?

Thanks, J.H.! 

On January 20th look for KEDI:

This Turkish documentary, the debut feature for director Ceyda Torun, 

turns the cameras on a group of stray cats 

as they amble around 
their customary haunts in Istanbul. 

While the film indeed exposes the day-to-day goings-on of felines,

 each with a distinct character, 
what ultimately ends up on screen 
appears to be 

a rich portrait of a very ancient city 

full of equally interesting and distinct individuals.

 I'm looking forward to exploring Istanbul in a different way — with some stray cats as my guides.