Note: This is part 5 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series (NEW: Buy the book HERE).
5. How Long Should a First Novel Be?
So what is it? 20,000, 40,000, 80,000 or 120,000? What is the correct length for a novel? This is a tough question and one that many new authors struggle with. In this article I will aim to give you some guidance on choosing the correct number of words you should be aiming for.
When you read novels do you look for books of a certain size? Is your favorite novel long, short, or somewhere in between? I ask this because, to a certain extent, the type of books you read influences the type of books you write. The second thing that will influence you will be genre. Are you writing Children’s, YA, Romance, Sci-Fi or a Thriller? Most genres have particular guidelines for novel lengths and you need to understand these before your book is finished. And I’ll state this again, you need to understand the length of books in a certain genre. If you write a novel that is totally different in length to a standard of the genre, then the chances of your novel being successful will all but disappear.
Pages in a book are made up of words and in the average paperback there are approximately 250 words to a page. Sometimes 300+ in a small-type book, but let’s go with 250. This means that for every 100 pages there are approximately 25,000 words. Children’s novels (Middle Grade and some YA) typically have between 25,000 and 40,000 words. An adult novel of this length would be considered short, but maybe on the edges of some pulp romance novels. Most novels set the minimum bar at about 60,000 words (about 240 pages), but Fantasy novels are well-known for 125,000+ word books.
But I don’t know how long my book will be, you say. While this is true to a certain extent, this in no excuse to not writing the book to be a certain length. It is up to you to ensure the plot has enough story points to enable you to write the required number of words. You’re really writing to a formula, something that has been laid down by many others before. Previously I wrote that each story point will probably be worth 400 to 500 words, so to write a 60,000 word novel you’re going to need somewhere near to 150 story points. And, as I’ve also written before, that’s a lot of story points. So, before you start writing your 125,000 word Fantasy novel in earnest, you’d better make sure you have those 250+ story points nearly complete!
Some authors will argue that a story should be as long as it needs to be, and who am I to disagree? However one thing that many of these authors are forgetting is that they are already published and established and they can decide to a certain extent just how long their books should be. As a debut author you do not get that luxury. Writing a book is all about good language and sticking to a formula. Why try and break the mould on your very first attempt?
As a first time or newly published author you don’t get a say in how long your book should be. What I mean by that is let’s suppose you’re writing Romance and your comparison books all run at 60,000 words. If your book is only 45,000 words long, that’s not going to be enough. Don’t even consider trying to get it published! Similarly, if you overrun and you suddenly have a 100,000 word book on your hands, edit out 40,000 words or so! The length of your novel is very important.
I currently write in two particular genres, comical Middle Grade adventures and YA Fantasy. Both of these genres require I write to certain word guidelines and in my case I try and produce books at approximately 35,000 and 125,000 words respectively.
Of course there are exceptions to all rules. JK Rowling doesn’t need to worry about the length of books she needs to write. Not now anyway. But if you look back to the first few books in her Harry Potter series you’ll see they were all at about the 75,000 to 80,000 word length. The last four books, however, were between 165,000 and 250,000 words! If and when you become famous, you get to decide how long your books are. Until that point, stick to the rules!
My Books
Buy one of my books... Available above at Amazon. Also available at SmashWords, Barnes & Noble and iTunes
Saturday, April 30, 2011
A Personal Thank You
The reviews of my books during the last couple of months have been nothing short of wonderful. And to those of you that have supported me, I send my grateful thanks.
Xannu – The Prophecy has been read by many people, eager to experience the journeys into a land of fantasy that have been described as ‘totally believable’ and ‘exciting and very well written.’ Following is the latest review I received on Amazon from a professional book reviewer:
This is a fairly complex story with a lot of characters and bridging two mostly separate realities. However it was told in very understandable way with no confusion at all. The characters are introduced at a good pace so you get to know all of them a little bit before moving on to the next. I really prefer that style as opposed to a story where all the characters are introduced in a lump and then you have to sort them out yourself. Paul Dorset also makes Terry and Joe very easy to relate to for young adults reading this book. I could easily remember myself at that age and understood them very well. The book also had a wonderful pace, it never got bogged down with extraneous details or dialogue. I was kept entertained and did not want anything to interrupt my reading.
This is a book that will make family reading time in my house for certain. Wonderful job Mr Dorset.
The 10 Hour Project Manager has also surpassed my expectations in sales and kind words. The book summarizes a lot of the tips and tricks that I have learned over the years, managing projects in many countries and different cultures. Following are a couple of the latest reviews I have received on Amazon:
So if you haven’t yet had a chance to check out my books, please click on one of the links below and help support my new endeavor. Writing is a tough profession to break into and I value each one of your purchases as I try and make my way onto the bestsellers list.
Xannu - The Prophecy
The 10 Hour Project Manager
PS. PLEASE tell all your friends and PLEASE forward this blog post!
Have a great weekend!
Xannu – The Prophecy has been read by many people, eager to experience the journeys into a land of fantasy that have been described as ‘totally believable’ and ‘exciting and very well written.’ Following is the latest review I received on Amazon from a professional book reviewer:
I did not want to stop reading., April 20, 2011
By
Scott (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Xannu - The Prophecy (The Southern Lands) (Kindle Edition)
Xannu follows the young boy Terry (aka Teern) through both his lives. In one he is a normal kid just trying to get through school and hanging out with his friend Joe. In the other he is a soldier blessed with immortality by the Almighty until he finds and announces the Xannu. As Terry he remembers all his adventures as Teern, but as Teern he has no memories of Terry. At first everything is just a fun adventure, but when the two lives start to collide it becomes way more serious for Terry. He starts to struggle through school and things take a nasty turn with his best friend Joe. This is a fairly complex story with a lot of characters and bridging two mostly separate realities. However it was told in very understandable way with no confusion at all. The characters are introduced at a good pace so you get to know all of them a little bit before moving on to the next. I really prefer that style as opposed to a story where all the characters are introduced in a lump and then you have to sort them out yourself. Paul Dorset also makes Terry and Joe very easy to relate to for young adults reading this book. I could easily remember myself at that age and understood them very well. The book also had a wonderful pace, it never got bogged down with extraneous details or dialogue. I was kept entertained and did not want anything to interrupt my reading.
This is a book that will make family reading time in my house for certain. Wonderful job Mr Dorset.
The 10 Hour Project Manager has also surpassed my expectations in sales and kind words. The book summarizes a lot of the tips and tricks that I have learned over the years, managing projects in many countries and different cultures. Following are a couple of the latest reviews I have received on Amazon:
The 10 Hour Project Manager, April 28, 2011
This review is from: The 10 Hour Project Manager (Paperback)
This book is filled with genuine, practical insights from an expert in the field of project management. The author describes a project management approach that you can apply to any type of project, whether you are a new or seasoned project manager. Read this book if you desire to be a project manager who adds value to your team and organization. One of the best practical book on Project Management., April 27, 2011
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The 10 Hour Project Manager (Kindle Edition)
If you are looking to do a great job as a PM and still have a life, get this book. It is written by a very practical project manager for individuals who would like to be more effective and practical in their role as PM. How do I know this? I worked with him for several years on long term international projects with large multinational team. This book accurately reflects what he preached and practiced on the projects and hence my recommendation. I did not decide to write this recommendation as a favor to the author but as a favor to individuals, who can use a really practical guide to managing project and have a life. This author with his approach made it possible for all the team members to have a real work-life balance even on the road. Under him, our team excelled in every area imaginable on a project. I am glad that he decided to put his thoughts into writing so others can benefit from his approach. This would also be a great book for someone starting out as a Project Manager, as well.So if you haven’t yet had a chance to check out my books, please click on one of the links below and help support my new endeavor. Writing is a tough profession to break into and I value each one of your purchases as I try and make my way onto the bestsellers list.
For fans of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Narnia Chronicles, the first installment in a thrilling epic fantasy series…
Would you wake up in a hot sweat if you lived your night’s dreams as a soldier battling un-earthly creatures, witnessing powerful magic and fighting to save your own life on a daily basis? English schoolboy Terry West does. Frequently.
After digging up some rune coins near a roman road, he has been living in another world inhabited by warlocks, seductresses, priests and prophecy. There Terry is a soldier, Teern Truthbringer, who has been tasked with finding the Xannu - 'he who will lead the people into deliverance.'
If only it wasn’t real; but it is. Very real. When it all began it was even enjoyable, but now Terry’s life is getting very complicated. Somehow he involved his best friend Joe and although it had seemed a good idea at the time, the consequences had been dire. Then there is Susan, the leggy sister of klutzy school-friend Brian. Why does she keep sending him messages?
Terry is struggling to balance the two lives he leads and every day he is losing his grip on reality just a little bit more. He’s been forced to kill enemies; his companion, the magical woman Maria, is scaring him half to death with her abilities; and his parents are on his back about his school work.
How will he balance the two lives he leads, solve two sets of problems, and understand the lessons he receives from both? Only time will tell. But time is something Terry doesn't have too much of, as everything is unfolding in ways he could never have imagined!
Book 1 of 'The Southern Lands' sagaAvailable at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords @ $0.99
“Listen to the teachings of a wise man. You may not understand all he says but you will surely have nourishment for the future. Be positive and plan for success. Failure to plan is to plan for failure. Worry not at what came before but only prepare yourselves for that which is ahead.” (Pika’Al 10:1-5, The Scriptures of Al’Zaneed)
The objective of this book is to enable the reader to successfully manage most every project you will ever be given in less than ten hours a week. That’s only two hours a day! Okay, when you've stopped laughing read on. This is actually the premise of the book. I have managed successful projects in many companies, in many countries, in many cultures and in many situations. Nearly without fail I have only paid very close attention to the management of that project for about ten hours a week, over the majority of the project lifecycle. In some cases, it was even less!Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords @ $5.99
What will I learn from it? This book is about the meta-rules associated with running a project. It’s about the management skills that will not only help you decide what you need to pay close attention to but also what you can safely de-prioritize. This will allow you to focus on the relevant and important items in a project. Every project is a little different, but the meta-rules are the same. By the end of this book you should have all the tools necessary to be able to successfully manage most projects in only ten hours a week (during the majority of the lifecycle). Just think what you will be able to do with all that spare time. Maybe you'll even be able to start that little money-earning side project you've always intended to get underway!
PS. PLEASE tell all your friends and PLEASE forward this blog post!
Have a great weekend!
Friday, April 29, 2011
4. Creating a Good Plot (Writing for Success)
Note: This is part 4 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series.
4. Creating a Good Plot
Creating a good plot for a novel is a lot more difficult than you might imagine. It’s one thing having a story in your head, but actually getting it down on paper and turning it into something that is 80,000 words or so is no small task. If you have tried to create a short story as was suggested in the previous article, you already have an understanding of story points. As I wrote before, a short story needs between ten and twenty story points, but a full-length novel is going to need a couple of hundred! Do you have enough ideas to make a story progress through two hundred bullet points?
So how do you get to this place? I like to start simple and expand on it. I start with the ten to twenty story points of the short story type and see what else I can intersperse. Maybe that will get me to forty or fifty, but I will still be a long way short. How do I dramatically increase this number so there are lots of exciting things for the reader to read about?
First it is important to understand that novels of 80,000 words don’t just come from people’s minds on their own. They need planning. Lots of planning. Most writers have an idea for two or three major plot twists and what the ending is going to be. But that’s about it. Hence the ten to twenty story points. The exercise here is to dramatically increase those story points. This is where you need to think of other things that can be happening in your story – the sub-plots. All good novels have sub-plots. Several of them. Maybe they involve the major characters or maybe they involve other minor characters, but there at least has to be some cross-over between main plot and sub-plots. If you watch any good movie on TV you will see this in action. Okay so the movie is boy meets girl; boy dates girl; girl leaves boy; boy has change of heart; boy and girl live happily ever after, but there are a lot of other things that happen along the way. If all movies were simply the plot outlined above, no one would watch the movie. Sure, we know that in the end the boy and the girl will live happily ever after (usually), but it’s the journey there that makes up the movie. Lots of sub-plots are thrown in and these sub-plots are full of conflict, emotion and everything that could possibly go wrong, going wrong. That’s what makes a movie special. It’s no different for novels. Conflict and disaster and emotion keep readers turning pages. The reader wants the happy ending but feels compelled to read through all the drama so that they can get there. Hopefully they stay invested with the main character during this journey as well.
The secret is to add enough story points on top of your twenty to fifty to reach at least a hundred, preferably a hundred and fifty. And I say this because by the time you’ve finished writing you’re going to need all two hundred of those story points, no matter what. At some time you’re going to have to create them. Sure, a lot of fresh ideas will come when you’re actually writing, but you shouldn’t rely on more than fifty percent of the novel coming as you write it. If you do, it may escape from you and turn out to be something very different and not at all what you planned; probably something that really makes no sense at all. You need to be in control of the plot, and not let the plot be in control of you (and this is about plot and not creativity).
Time spent working on creating enough story points before you start writing a single word will pay off with dividends as you write. Using this method you shouldn’t ever get writer’s block because you’ll always know what you’re writing about, and when you suddenly have a new inspiration about a character doing such and such later, you can add it to your already developing story point list. You’ll know where it fits. By the time you get to the end of your novel you should have your two hundred story points.
As a final point, before you start writing, take a look at your story points (plot) and analyze them for things like conflict, disasters, action, narrative, events, people, etc. and try and get a feel for the ebb and flow of the story. A good novel takes the reader through a whole range of emotions and on a roller-coaster type journey. Does your book do that, or is it just a natural progression from beginning to end? The book should start with a conflict or some action, then things can calm down a little if you like, then another major event needs to happen, etc., so that by the time you are about eighty percent through the book, everything looks like it is a complete disaster. Then maybe a couple more twists before you resolve everything on about the last page but one. Tie things up and then finish quickly before the reader has a chance to get bored. Wow, we have a plot!
4. Creating a Good Plot
Creating a good plot for a novel is a lot more difficult than you might imagine. It’s one thing having a story in your head, but actually getting it down on paper and turning it into something that is 80,000 words or so is no small task. If you have tried to create a short story as was suggested in the previous article, you already have an understanding of story points. As I wrote before, a short story needs between ten and twenty story points, but a full-length novel is going to need a couple of hundred! Do you have enough ideas to make a story progress through two hundred bullet points?
So how do you get to this place? I like to start simple and expand on it. I start with the ten to twenty story points of the short story type and see what else I can intersperse. Maybe that will get me to forty or fifty, but I will still be a long way short. How do I dramatically increase this number so there are lots of exciting things for the reader to read about?
First it is important to understand that novels of 80,000 words don’t just come from people’s minds on their own. They need planning. Lots of planning. Most writers have an idea for two or three major plot twists and what the ending is going to be. But that’s about it. Hence the ten to twenty story points. The exercise here is to dramatically increase those story points. This is where you need to think of other things that can be happening in your story – the sub-plots. All good novels have sub-plots. Several of them. Maybe they involve the major characters or maybe they involve other minor characters, but there at least has to be some cross-over between main plot and sub-plots. If you watch any good movie on TV you will see this in action. Okay so the movie is boy meets girl; boy dates girl; girl leaves boy; boy has change of heart; boy and girl live happily ever after, but there are a lot of other things that happen along the way. If all movies were simply the plot outlined above, no one would watch the movie. Sure, we know that in the end the boy and the girl will live happily ever after (usually), but it’s the journey there that makes up the movie. Lots of sub-plots are thrown in and these sub-plots are full of conflict, emotion and everything that could possibly go wrong, going wrong. That’s what makes a movie special. It’s no different for novels. Conflict and disaster and emotion keep readers turning pages. The reader wants the happy ending but feels compelled to read through all the drama so that they can get there. Hopefully they stay invested with the main character during this journey as well.
The secret is to add enough story points on top of your twenty to fifty to reach at least a hundred, preferably a hundred and fifty. And I say this because by the time you’ve finished writing you’re going to need all two hundred of those story points, no matter what. At some time you’re going to have to create them. Sure, a lot of fresh ideas will come when you’re actually writing, but you shouldn’t rely on more than fifty percent of the novel coming as you write it. If you do, it may escape from you and turn out to be something very different and not at all what you planned; probably something that really makes no sense at all. You need to be in control of the plot, and not let the plot be in control of you (and this is about plot and not creativity).
Time spent working on creating enough story points before you start writing a single word will pay off with dividends as you write. Using this method you shouldn’t ever get writer’s block because you’ll always know what you’re writing about, and when you suddenly have a new inspiration about a character doing such and such later, you can add it to your already developing story point list. You’ll know where it fits. By the time you get to the end of your novel you should have your two hundred story points.
As a final point, before you start writing, take a look at your story points (plot) and analyze them for things like conflict, disasters, action, narrative, events, people, etc. and try and get a feel for the ebb and flow of the story. A good novel takes the reader through a whole range of emotions and on a roller-coaster type journey. Does your book do that, or is it just a natural progression from beginning to end? The book should start with a conflict or some action, then things can calm down a little if you like, then another major event needs to happen, etc., so that by the time you are about eighty percent through the book, everything looks like it is a complete disaster. Then maybe a couple more twists before you resolve everything on about the last page but one. Tie things up and then finish quickly before the reader has a chance to get bored. Wow, we have a plot!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
IndieBookBlogger: 5 Star review for Xannu - The Prophecy
I have my very first book blogger review and I am very pleased! IndieBookBlogger reviewed my book this month and published their review today. This is what they said:
$0.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.
Xannu - The Prophecy
Genre: YA Adult Fantasy
Pages: 378
For fans of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Narnia Chronicles, the first installment in a thrilling epic fantasy series…
Would you wake up in a hot sweat if you lived your night’s dreams as a soldier battling un-earthly creatures, witnessing powerful magic and fighting to save your own life on a daily basis?
English schoolboy Terry West does. Frequently. After digging up some rune coins near a roman road, he has been living in another world inhabited by warlocks, seductresses, priests and prophecy. There Terry is a soldier, Teern Truthbringer, who has been tasked with finding the Xannu - 'he who will lead the people into deliverance.'
If only it wasn’t real; but it is. Very real. When it all began it was even enjoyable, but now Terry’s life is getting very complicated. Somehow he involved his best friend Joe and although it had seemed a good idea at the time, the consequences had been dire. Then there is Susan, the leggy sister of klutzy school-friend Brian. Why does she keep sending him messages?
Terry is struggling to balance the two lives he leads and every day he is losing his grip on reality just a little bit more. He’s been forced to kill enemies; his companion, the magical woman Maria, is scaring him half to death with her abilities; and his parents are on his back about his school work.
How will he balance the two lives he leads, solve two sets of problems, and understand the lessons he receives from both? Only time will tell. But time is something Terry doesn't have too much of, as everything is unfolding in ways he could never have imagined!
Book 1 of 'The Southern Lands' saga
“Listen to the teachings of a wise man. You may not understand all he says but you will surely have nourishment for the future. Be positive and plan for success. Failure to plan is to plan for failure. Worry not at what came before but only prepare yourselves for that which is ahead.” (Pika’Al 10:1-5, The Scriptures of Al’Zaneed)
So, why not take a chance on buying the book if you haven't already read it? If the professionals like it, then maybe you will too!"Xannu follows the young boy Terry (aka Teern) through both his lives. In one he is a normal kid just trying to get through school and hanging out with his friend Joe. In the other he is a soldier blessed with immortality by the Almighty until he finds and announces the Xannu. As Terry he remembers all his adventures as Teern, but as Teern he has no memories of Terry. At first everything is just a fun adventure, but when the two lives start to collide it becomes way more serious for Terry. He starts to struggle through school and things take a nasty turn with his best friend Joe.
"This is a fairly complex story with a lot of characters and bridging two mostly separate realities. However it was told in very understandable way with no confusion at all. The characters are introduced at a good pace so you get to know all of them a little bit before moving on to the next. I really prefer that style as opposed to a story where all the characters are introduced in a lump and then you have to sort them out yourself. Paul Dorset also makes Terry and Joe very easy to relate to for young adults reading this book. I could easily remember myself at that age and understood them very well. The book also had a wonderful pace, it never got bogged down with extraneous details or dialogue. I was kept entertained and did not want anything to interrupt my reading.
"This is a book that will make family reading time in my house for certain. Wonderful job Mr Dorset."
$0.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.
Xannu - The Prophecy
Genre: YA Adult Fantasy
Pages: 378
Would you wake up in a hot sweat if you lived your night’s dreams as a soldier battling un-earthly creatures, witnessing powerful magic and fighting to save your own life on a daily basis?
English schoolboy Terry West does. Frequently. After digging up some rune coins near a roman road, he has been living in another world inhabited by warlocks, seductresses, priests and prophecy. There Terry is a soldier, Teern Truthbringer, who has been tasked with finding the Xannu - 'he who will lead the people into deliverance.'
If only it wasn’t real; but it is. Very real. When it all began it was even enjoyable, but now Terry’s life is getting very complicated. Somehow he involved his best friend Joe and although it had seemed a good idea at the time, the consequences had been dire. Then there is Susan, the leggy sister of klutzy school-friend Brian. Why does she keep sending him messages?
Terry is struggling to balance the two lives he leads and every day he is losing his grip on reality just a little bit more. He’s been forced to kill enemies; his companion, the magical woman Maria, is scaring him half to death with her abilities; and his parents are on his back about his school work.
How will he balance the two lives he leads, solve two sets of problems, and understand the lessons he receives from both? Only time will tell. But time is something Terry doesn't have too much of, as everything is unfolding in ways he could never have imagined!
Book 1 of 'The Southern Lands' saga
“Listen to the teachings of a wise man. You may not understand all he says but you will surely have nourishment for the future. Be positive and plan for success. Failure to plan is to plan for failure. Worry not at what came before but only prepare yourselves for that which is ahead.” (Pika’Al 10:1-5, The Scriptures of Al’Zaneed)
3. Poems and Short Stories (Writing for Success)
Note: This is part 3 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series (NEW: Buy the book HERE).
3. Poems and Short Stories
There’s no better way to practice the art of writing than to write a few poems and short stories. Have you ever tried your hand at them? It’s surprising the number of writers that have never done this. Instead they jump straight in with their first novel.
Poems
Poems are a great way to get your creative juices flowing. Why? Because they force you to either rhyme or scan or express your feelings. And most poems are quite short, probably less than 200 words or so. Stuck for a subject? Then just pick a sentence from a book and write a poem about it. It doesn’t have to be very long. Or else choose something in your house, or your son or daughter, or your cat or dog. There are a hundred different subjects you can find. Let me try my hand at a limerick:
Short Stories
Onto short stories. The beauty of short stories is that you don’t have to sit at the keyboard for days on end to finish them. Ideally, short stories should be somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 words in length. Assuming you write at about 1,000 words an hour, you can see you’ve only got to write for three to ten hours. I write at about 1300 to 1600 words an hour usually, so I ought to be able to write a short story in two to seven and a half hours. That’s only a couple of days work! Think about it, you can have a complete story in two days!
How do you write a short story? First spend a day or so planning the story. Lay out a simple plot, introduce a couple of characters, add some conflict and there you go. Then jot down somewhere between ten and twenty story points. Next re-order them to make sure the pace of the story is correct and the conflicts are in all the right places. Finally, start writing. The objective is simple. For each story point you are going to write somewhere between 300 and 500 words. Don’t worry about getting it exactly right, just write. Don’t self-edit, don’t re-read what you’ve written. Just write each story point and move onto the next. At the end of your exercise you’ll have a short story that will be ready for editing at some point in the future. And I’ll say this again; just leave the story and let it mature on its own in the dark. Article fourteen in this series, Letting the book ‘cook’, discusses why you should do this. For now just be happy that you’ve written a short story.
Another reason for writing short stories is to discover those that could be turned into full-length novels at some point in the future. Sometimes an idea we have for a story doesn’t go anywhere. We write the ten to twenty story points and that’s it. There’s nothing more in it. But sometimes, we write the short story and suddenly realize there’s a whole world waiting to be discovered in this story. It has the makings of a full-length best seller. Welcome to the world of finding your niche!
At the beginning of this article I wrote that some people jump straight into writing their first novel instead of practicing with poems and short stories first. Hopefully you understand the point a little better now. The truth is that most writers have a hundred story ideas, and sometimes one or two they are convinced will turn into novels. But that’s it; they’re just ideas. Like anything in life, you need to prove the idea. You need a prototype. The short story is your prototype. Once you start writing your ten to twenty story points, you’ll soon discover how long the legs on your story are. As an example, when I write my YA fantasy novels I generally need between 200 and 250 story points to complete the novel, and each story point converts to about 550 words. This gives me a novel of about 125,000 words. It’s tough to come up with 200 story points out of the gate and it would be terrible to get half-way through a novel and discover you have nowhere to go.
So, your task is to write a short story over the next few days so that by the time we get to the article on self-editing you have something to work with. Enjoy!
3. Poems and Short Stories
There’s no better way to practice the art of writing than to write a few poems and short stories. Have you ever tried your hand at them? It’s surprising the number of writers that have never done this. Instead they jump straight in with their first novel.
Poems
Poems are a great way to get your creative juices flowing. Why? Because they force you to either rhyme or scan or express your feelings. And most poems are quite short, probably less than 200 words or so. Stuck for a subject? Then just pick a sentence from a book and write a poem about it. It doesn’t have to be very long. Or else choose something in your house, or your son or daughter, or your cat or dog. There are a hundred different subjects you can find. Let me try my hand at a limerick:
I once had a big tiger catThere we go, less than five minutes and that included being attacked by my cat, Pipsqueak. She’s a little one year-old tabby by the way. The point is it’s not that difficult to write poems and practice the art of writing. As we’ve said already, the more you write, the better you will get.
Who got incredibly fat.
I cut out her food
She got in a mood
And she swallowed my other pet, rat!
Short Stories
Onto short stories. The beauty of short stories is that you don’t have to sit at the keyboard for days on end to finish them. Ideally, short stories should be somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 words in length. Assuming you write at about 1,000 words an hour, you can see you’ve only got to write for three to ten hours. I write at about 1300 to 1600 words an hour usually, so I ought to be able to write a short story in two to seven and a half hours. That’s only a couple of days work! Think about it, you can have a complete story in two days!
How do you write a short story? First spend a day or so planning the story. Lay out a simple plot, introduce a couple of characters, add some conflict and there you go. Then jot down somewhere between ten and twenty story points. Next re-order them to make sure the pace of the story is correct and the conflicts are in all the right places. Finally, start writing. The objective is simple. For each story point you are going to write somewhere between 300 and 500 words. Don’t worry about getting it exactly right, just write. Don’t self-edit, don’t re-read what you’ve written. Just write each story point and move onto the next. At the end of your exercise you’ll have a short story that will be ready for editing at some point in the future. And I’ll say this again; just leave the story and let it mature on its own in the dark. Article fourteen in this series, Letting the book ‘cook’, discusses why you should do this. For now just be happy that you’ve written a short story.
Another reason for writing short stories is to discover those that could be turned into full-length novels at some point in the future. Sometimes an idea we have for a story doesn’t go anywhere. We write the ten to twenty story points and that’s it. There’s nothing more in it. But sometimes, we write the short story and suddenly realize there’s a whole world waiting to be discovered in this story. It has the makings of a full-length best seller. Welcome to the world of finding your niche!
At the beginning of this article I wrote that some people jump straight into writing their first novel instead of practicing with poems and short stories first. Hopefully you understand the point a little better now. The truth is that most writers have a hundred story ideas, and sometimes one or two they are convinced will turn into novels. But that’s it; they’re just ideas. Like anything in life, you need to prove the idea. You need a prototype. The short story is your prototype. Once you start writing your ten to twenty story points, you’ll soon discover how long the legs on your story are. As an example, when I write my YA fantasy novels I generally need between 200 and 250 story points to complete the novel, and each story point converts to about 550 words. This gives me a novel of about 125,000 words. It’s tough to come up with 200 story points out of the gate and it would be terrible to get half-way through a novel and discover you have nowhere to go.
So, your task is to write a short story over the next few days so that by the time we get to the article on self-editing you have something to work with. Enjoy!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The 10 Hour Project Manager - 3 Five Star Reviews from Amazon!
It's been a successful first month's launch for my latest book 'The 10 Hour Project Manager' and I thought I'd finish out the month by posting a few of the reviews I've received from Purchasers on Amazon:
Understanding Mr Dorset's Meta Rules for Project Management has been a tremendous help to apply and use while I work on managing this larger scale project. Being able to stop 'juggling' and start thinking like Bobby Fisher instead has changed the way I approach all my project now (and I'm buying extra copies of his book to share with folks).
Here's to stopping the juggling.
The book is currently $4.99 as an ebook on Amazon and Smashwords and $10.16 as a paperback on Lulu or $11.95 on Amazon.
Buy it now before it goes up in price at the weekend!
What will I learn from this book? This book is about the meta-rules associated with running a project. It’s about the management skills that will not only help you decide what you need to pay close attention to but also what you can safely de-prioritize. This will allow you to focus on the relevant and important items in a project. Every project is a little different, but the meta-rules are the same. By the end of this book you should have all the tools necessary to be able to successfully manage most projects in only ten hours a week (during the majority of the lifecycle). Just think what you will be able to do with all that spare time. Maybe you'll even be able to start that little money-earning side project you've always intended to get underway!
One of the best practical book on Project Management., April 27, 2011
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The 10 Hour Project Manager (Kindle Edition)
If you are looking to do a great job as a PM and still have a life, get this book. It is written by a very practical project manager for individuals who would like to be more effective and practical in their role as PM. How do I know this? I worked with him for several years on long term international projects with large multinational team. This book accurately reflects what he preached and practiced on the projects and hence my recommendation. I did not decide to write this recommendation as a favor to the author but as a favor to individuals, who can use a really practical guide to managing project and have a life. This author with his approach made it possible for all the team members to have a real work-life balance even on the road. Under him, our team excelled in every area imaginable on a project. I am glad that he decided to put his thoughts into writing so others can benefit from his approach. This would also be a great book for someone starting out as a Project Manager, as well. Best PM Book I own....., April 17, 2011
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The 10 Hour Project Manager (Kindle Edition)
While not in offical PM role, I often manage small scale projects for my immediate team at work (a team of about 50). This book came into my life just after I was strongly encouraged to take on a very large scale project (this time affecting my larger organization of 400). Understanding Mr Dorset's Meta Rules for Project Management has been a tremendous help to apply and use while I work on managing this larger scale project. Being able to stop 'juggling' and start thinking like Bobby Fisher instead has changed the way I approach all my project now (and I'm buying extra copies of his book to share with folks).
Here's to stopping the juggling.
The 10 Hour Project Manager, April 28, 2011
This review is from: The 10 Hour Project Manager (Paperback)
This book is filled with genuine, practical insights from an expert in the field of project management. The author describes a project management approach that you can apply to any type of project, whether you are a new or seasoned project manager. Read this book if you desire to be a project manager who adds value to your team and organization.The book is currently $4.99 as an ebook on Amazon and Smashwords and $10.16 as a paperback on Lulu or $11.95 on Amazon.
Buy it now before it goes up in price at the weekend!
What will I learn from this book? This book is about the meta-rules associated with running a project. It’s about the management skills that will not only help you decide what you need to pay close attention to but also what you can safely de-prioritize. This will allow you to focus on the relevant and important items in a project. Every project is a little different, but the meta-rules are the same. By the end of this book you should have all the tools necessary to be able to successfully manage most projects in only ten hours a week (during the majority of the lifecycle). Just think what you will be able to do with all that spare time. Maybe you'll even be able to start that little money-earning side project you've always intended to get underway!
Now only $0.99!! - Fergus Fedderfeeny's Food Factory
Yes, $0.99 for the first book in the Gwillville series! In the spirit of letting readers try the opening book of a series at a reduced rate, I am pleased to announce that going forward Fergus Fedderfeeny's Food Factory will cost only $0.99 as an eBook. Excellent value for money!
The second book in the series, Jai and Jasmine's Jeopardous Journey, will be available at the weekend at a price of $2.99. All subsequent books in the series will cost this price as well.
So, head out to Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Smashwords and pick up Farnsworth's masterpiece for only $0.99. Then you'll be ready for the second book when it hits the store. What have you got to lose?
Fergus Fedderfeeny's Food Factory
Age Group: Middle Grade (9-12)
Category: Comic Adventure
Pages: 186
Farnsworth is worried. He’s counted them over again and again, but bags of the Food Factory’s vegetables are definitely missing! What will his boss, the ever so exact Fergus Fedderfeeny, say when he finds out? And then there’s the matter of the new wonderful tasting pies that Farnsworth is making. Farnsworth doesn’t exactly know how the recipes got changed or if the missing vegetables played a part in it. Armed with his toolbox of hammers and staying well away from The Mangler, he’s determined to get to the bottom of it all.
But things get complicated when unknown to Farnsworth, Fergus’ evil brother, Hamish, wants to get in on the action and steal the recipe for the famous pies. What ensues is a comical adventure the likes of which Farnsworth has never had before. Can he save the day and also win the love of the beautiful policewoman Daisy Driftwood? Or will time and The Mangler catch up with him and lead to his ruin?
Fergus Fedderfeeny’s Food Factory is a comical adventure story set in the dummy town of Gwillville; a small coastal harbor town with a Fire Station, a Police Station, a school, restaurants and stores. There are houses too, where the dummies live and work and carry on their ageless day to day life. Yet not everything in Gwillville is exactly as it seems. Some of the laws of nature, which as humans we take for granted, work in slightly different ways.
Gwillville is populated with colorful characters that every reader will soon take to their hearts. With the bumbling hero Farnsworth, the precise and exact Fergus Fedderfeeny, the self-professed police action hero Sergeant Romeo, and the mafia dummy mastermind Sofia, there are a wealth of citizens to get to know. And you will as you follow the crazy everyday antics in Gwillville. After all, ventriloquist dummies get to have a life too!
The second book in the series, Jai and Jasmine's Jeopardous Journey, will be available at the weekend at a price of $2.99. All subsequent books in the series will cost this price as well.
So, head out to Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Smashwords and pick up Farnsworth's masterpiece for only $0.99. Then you'll be ready for the second book when it hits the store. What have you got to lose?
Fergus Fedderfeeny's Food Factory
Age Group: Middle Grade (9-12)
Category: Comic Adventure
Pages: 186
But things get complicated when unknown to Farnsworth, Fergus’ evil brother, Hamish, wants to get in on the action and steal the recipe for the famous pies. What ensues is a comical adventure the likes of which Farnsworth has never had before. Can he save the day and also win the love of the beautiful policewoman Daisy Driftwood? Or will time and The Mangler catch up with him and lead to his ruin?
Fergus Fedderfeeny’s Food Factory is a comical adventure story set in the dummy town of Gwillville; a small coastal harbor town with a Fire Station, a Police Station, a school, restaurants and stores. There are houses too, where the dummies live and work and carry on their ageless day to day life. Yet not everything in Gwillville is exactly as it seems. Some of the laws of nature, which as humans we take for granted, work in slightly different ways.
Gwillville is populated with colorful characters that every reader will soon take to their hearts. With the bumbling hero Farnsworth, the precise and exact Fergus Fedderfeeny, the self-professed police action hero Sergeant Romeo, and the mafia dummy mastermind Sofia, there are a wealth of citizens to get to know. And you will as you follow the crazy everyday antics in Gwillville. After all, ventriloquist dummies get to have a life too!
2. Become a Successful Writer in 2,000 Hours (Writing for Success)
Note: This is part 2 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series (NEW: Buy the book HERE).
2. Become a Successful Writer in 2,000 Hours
I've read before that it takes about 10,000 hours of doing something before you become an expert at it. I consider myself an expert in Project Management. I used to be an expert in computer programming. I'm getting towards being an expert in writing.
10,000 is a lot of hours. It's about 5 years of working an 8 hour, 5 day week with a few vacations thrown in. Or if you write at, let's say 1,000 words an hour, it's 10,000,000 words of writing. That's a lot! Personally I think a better target would be about 2,000,000 words because if you wrote that many you would also have spent several times that editing and re-editing your work. I guess I've written close to a million words over my writing lifetime, but I'm not absolutely certain (I can definitely account for about 800,000). Either way, it's a lot of words.
How many words have you written during your writing career? Maybe you're on your first book, maybe your second. And let's say you've also written a few poems and short stories and a couple of articles and letters. Maybe you've written a total of 150,000 words. Still a long way to go to become an expert! Yet many authors consider they know everything even when they're nowhere near being an expert. I know there are still many things I can learn.
What sort of advice do you take? What books do you read to become a better writer? Who do you turn to, to get feedback? If you're that 150,000 word writer you certainly need to be taking advice from somewhere. And practicing. Practice makes perfect, so they say. Certainly practicing will hone your skills and help you learn the secrets to better grammar and plot development. You need to put in as many hours as you can in order to get better.
When I look back at my early works I cringe occasionally at what I wrote. Not that it was bad per se, but I know I could write it in a better way now. It's also not to say I'm ashamed of my first books, of course not. Every writer needs a first book and every successful author has one. Stephen King for example wrote about 10 full-length novels before his first one was successful. Then later he went back and re-edited some of his earlier works. It's a normal process.
As way of an example, what do you do for a day job? How long have you been doing it? What were you like at the beginning? Writing is just like that. It's not enough to have a good story and to know a little about writing, you need to put in your time to become an expert.
Successful writers have been writing a very long time. They didn't just wake up one day and write a book, having never written anything before, and then become successful. They put years into their writing, writing short stories, poems, and unfinished novels. They probably started writing when they were a child. I know I did, and I have all these other things too!
Try writing a list of everything you've ever written and add up the words. See where you are. Then do everything you can to crawl up that word experience ladder. Write some stories, just for fun. Experiment with formats you've never tried before. Rewrite something you wrote a long time ago - from scratch. The important thing is that you're just looking to get more experience. Then give these short stories away to friends to read. Get their feedback. Or even better, try and get an established author to critique your work for you.
But most important, don't get despondent. The road to success is just one of putting in the time. You can and you will succeed if you do the things necessary and learn all the lessons. Reading all the essays in this book and then putting them into practice will keep you on track.
And one more thing. Believe in yourself. Writing can be a very lonely job sometimes and it's normal to have periods of self-doubt. Those periods usually come after you've written something and then go back and re-read it a little later. You say to yourself "is this really any good?" Let me tell you a little secret. If you're writing a long story or a novel that will take a long time to complete, don't re-read it as you go. Trust yourself. Sure, you may need to check something in it from time to time, just don't re-read it all. Then, believe it or not, when you come back to the finished product a month or so later, it will be so much better. Stories have a way of maturing on their own sometimes. They just need a little time in the dark untouched to do so! (We will be covering this topic in more detail in another essay).
2,000 hours. You know the target now, so get writing!
2. Become a Successful Writer in 2,000 Hours
I've read before that it takes about 10,000 hours of doing something before you become an expert at it. I consider myself an expert in Project Management. I used to be an expert in computer programming. I'm getting towards being an expert in writing.
10,000 is a lot of hours. It's about 5 years of working an 8 hour, 5 day week with a few vacations thrown in. Or if you write at, let's say 1,000 words an hour, it's 10,000,000 words of writing. That's a lot! Personally I think a better target would be about 2,000,000 words because if you wrote that many you would also have spent several times that editing and re-editing your work. I guess I've written close to a million words over my writing lifetime, but I'm not absolutely certain (I can definitely account for about 800,000). Either way, it's a lot of words.
How many words have you written during your writing career? Maybe you're on your first book, maybe your second. And let's say you've also written a few poems and short stories and a couple of articles and letters. Maybe you've written a total of 150,000 words. Still a long way to go to become an expert! Yet many authors consider they know everything even when they're nowhere near being an expert. I know there are still many things I can learn.
What sort of advice do you take? What books do you read to become a better writer? Who do you turn to, to get feedback? If you're that 150,000 word writer you certainly need to be taking advice from somewhere. And practicing. Practice makes perfect, so they say. Certainly practicing will hone your skills and help you learn the secrets to better grammar and plot development. You need to put in as many hours as you can in order to get better.
When I look back at my early works I cringe occasionally at what I wrote. Not that it was bad per se, but I know I could write it in a better way now. It's also not to say I'm ashamed of my first books, of course not. Every writer needs a first book and every successful author has one. Stephen King for example wrote about 10 full-length novels before his first one was successful. Then later he went back and re-edited some of his earlier works. It's a normal process.
As way of an example, what do you do for a day job? How long have you been doing it? What were you like at the beginning? Writing is just like that. It's not enough to have a good story and to know a little about writing, you need to put in your time to become an expert.
Successful writers have been writing a very long time. They didn't just wake up one day and write a book, having never written anything before, and then become successful. They put years into their writing, writing short stories, poems, and unfinished novels. They probably started writing when they were a child. I know I did, and I have all these other things too!
Try writing a list of everything you've ever written and add up the words. See where you are. Then do everything you can to crawl up that word experience ladder. Write some stories, just for fun. Experiment with formats you've never tried before. Rewrite something you wrote a long time ago - from scratch. The important thing is that you're just looking to get more experience. Then give these short stories away to friends to read. Get their feedback. Or even better, try and get an established author to critique your work for you.
But most important, don't get despondent. The road to success is just one of putting in the time. You can and you will succeed if you do the things necessary and learn all the lessons. Reading all the essays in this book and then putting them into practice will keep you on track.
And one more thing. Believe in yourself. Writing can be a very lonely job sometimes and it's normal to have periods of self-doubt. Those periods usually come after you've written something and then go back and re-read it a little later. You say to yourself "is this really any good?" Let me tell you a little secret. If you're writing a long story or a novel that will take a long time to complete, don't re-read it as you go. Trust yourself. Sure, you may need to check something in it from time to time, just don't re-read it all. Then, believe it or not, when you come back to the finished product a month or so later, it will be so much better. Stories have a way of maturing on their own sometimes. They just need a little time in the dark untouched to do so! (We will be covering this topic in more detail in another essay).
2,000 hours. You know the target now, so get writing!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Introducing my publicist: Gina Tuttle
Today I'd like to introduce my publicist, Gina Tuttle. In her own words:
"Gina Tuttle wakes at 3 a.m., scans email and newspapers on her Android over breakfast, and is on the radio by 5 a.m., ready to help wake up Seattle with news and traffic. At night, she turns her Kindle off and leaves her radio on as she falls asleep. Currently, she tends to dream about Xannu and about friendly ventriloquist dummies.
"After earning her Communications degree at WSU, Gina worked her way from copy writer to news reporter to morning anchor at radio stations in Portland. Since arriving in Seattle, she has added off-air work with a variety of radio and TV stations. She has helped match anchors and services to every kind of format. And in newsrooms, she has personally dealt with tens of thousands of press releases. Her own focus is on stories and issues that will connect with each specific audience.
"Gina’s personal interests include volunteer work with those in need. She has delivered food to shut-ins for the Wallingford Food Bank, dispensed coffee and mail to the homeless at the Downtown Emergency Services Center, and served on the board of Sojourner Place, a transitional home for women.
"Gina resides near Green Lake in Seattle with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a lab. She had begun to think the news provided so many comedies, dramas and lessons that fiction might be hard-pressed to compete. Paul Dorset’s writing has reminded her there are new adventures and new worlds to explore."
Gina can be reached via email at: ginatseattle (at) gmail.com and I look forward to telling you about some of the successes we achieve together.
"Gina Tuttle wakes at 3 a.m., scans email and newspapers on her Android over breakfast, and is on the radio by 5 a.m., ready to help wake up Seattle with news and traffic. At night, she turns her Kindle off and leaves her radio on as she falls asleep. Currently, she tends to dream about Xannu and about friendly ventriloquist dummies.
"After earning her Communications degree at WSU, Gina worked her way from copy writer to news reporter to morning anchor at radio stations in Portland. Since arriving in Seattle, she has added off-air work with a variety of radio and TV stations. She has helped match anchors and services to every kind of format. And in newsrooms, she has personally dealt with tens of thousands of press releases. Her own focus is on stories and issues that will connect with each specific audience."Gina’s personal interests include volunteer work with those in need. She has delivered food to shut-ins for the Wallingford Food Bank, dispensed coffee and mail to the homeless at the Downtown Emergency Services Center, and served on the board of Sojourner Place, a transitional home for women.
"Gina resides near Green Lake in Seattle with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a lab. She had begun to think the news provided so many comedies, dramas and lessons that fiction might be hard-pressed to compete. Paul Dorset’s writing has reminded her there are new adventures and new worlds to explore."
Gina can be reached via email at: ginatseattle (at) gmail.com and I look forward to telling you about some of the successes we achieve together.
1. Don't start the story at the beginning (Writing for Success)
Note: This is part 1 in a series of 25 articles from my upcoming 'Writing for Success' series (NEW: Buy the book HERE).
1. Don't start the story at the beginning
A controversial start to an article! It’s very tempting when you begin a story or a novel to start at the beginning. That is usually a mistake. Why? Quite simply because beginnings of stories usually aren’t that interesting. If you want to hook a reader from the very beginning, start with something exciting. Maybe an argument, a murder, a conflict, a car crash or a funeral. Anything but an introductory narrative. And that goes for prologues too. Prologues do not belong in first novels or first books of series.
Let’s give a small example. Following is the way NOT to start the story:
1. Don't start the story at the beginning
A controversial start to an article! It’s very tempting when you begin a story or a novel to start at the beginning. That is usually a mistake. Why? Quite simply because beginnings of stories usually aren’t that interesting. If you want to hook a reader from the very beginning, start with something exciting. Maybe an argument, a murder, a conflict, a car crash or a funeral. Anything but an introductory narrative. And that goes for prologues too. Prologues do not belong in first novels or first books of series.
Let’s give a small example. Following is the way NOT to start the story:
It was a windy day as Steven walked along the street towards his house. He was glad to be finished with work and was looking forward to spending some time with his wife this evening. They had been married nearly four years and the move to Wendington Heights had been the right decision. His parents had said he was too young to get married at twenty-three but his relationship had proved them wrong. Steven leaned into the wind and grabbed the edges of his coat as he walked. He smiled to himself. Why hadn’t he bought that car like his wife, Susan, had suggested? It certainly would have made the journey to work easier. Every day there was always some reason why the buses weren’t on time. Still, he had a good job and working at the Midland Bank meant he had good job prospects. Besides, it allowed Susan to stay at home and practice her artwork.
Finally Steven reached his gate and he pushed it open. He put his key in the lock of the door and went inside. “Susan, I’m home,” he called out. “Susan?” Steven put his briefcase down in the hallway, took off his coat and walked into the kitchen. “Susan?” There was no reply. Not to worry, she was probably at the store or something. Steven cracked open a beer and took it upstairs with him. “Damn it,” he said out loud as he tripped over a baseball bat on the landing. “What’s that doing here?” He pushed open his bedroom door and let his beer drop to the floor. “Susan?” he screamed. “Susan?” Steven ran over to the bloodied body that was lying on the bed.
What’s wrong with this? Well, first off I will say that for the sake of conciseness I have shortened my bad example. Books like this usually start off with at least a page of introduction. They’re concerned with telling you everything about the main character. How old he is, what he looks like, where he works, why he’s doing what he does, etc. You get the picture. But what is it all leading up to? As you can see by the very last sentence, it’s all leading up to a murder probably. So why not start with the murder? And when I say ‘start’ I mean in the very first sentence. The beginning of a story needs to grip the reader otherwise they may never get past the first page. Backstory can always be filled in later. So how about a small rewrite like this instead?
“Susan? No! Wake up. What happened?” Steven rolled the bloodied body of his wife over onto her back and looked into her lifeless face. “Susan!”
Steven fell to his knees and wept; his hands trying to feel if she had a pulse. Her body felt cold and inside he knew she was already dead. He allowed his head to drop onto her stomach and he let out a smothered scream. The baseball bat he had tripped over in the hallway should have sent warning signals rushing through him but he hadn’t expected anything unusual. Wendington Heights was supposed to be one of the safest areas of Pennsylvania.
The police. He had to call the police. Steven pushed himself to his feet and wiped his face. The blood. He was covered with Susan’s blood. Was that okay? Would the police think he did it? He had to call them. There were a thousand thoughts speeding through his head at the same time. Maybe he should wash it off. No, maybe that would look worse. What was he going to do? Maybe he shouldn’t have picked up the baseball bat and put it on the hallway table either. What had he been thinking?
The police. “I have to call the police,” he said, falling back against the bedroom wall and letting his hands steady himself. Bloodied handprints smeared the paintwork.
In this example there is already conflict. Susan is dead. Steven discovered the body. But he’s covered with blood too. What should he do? Perhaps he really did it. I for one want to continue reading so that I can find out what’s going to happen. Like I said, you can fill in the backstory later. It’s not important on the first page that Steven is twenty-seven, that he works in a bank, that he takes the bus to work, and that his wife practices her artwork. Are these things important? Maybe. But if they are then they can be introduced later. The most important thing to do on page one of a book is to hook the reader. Never start a story at the beginning. Find that place where there is something going on and start the story there.
Monday, April 25, 2011
It's going to be a busy week
Time for a quick update on how things are going...
This is going to be a busy week and there's lots of things happening. In no particular order they are:
This is going to be a busy week and there's lots of things happening. In no particular order they are:
- Release of the second book in the Gwillville series - Jai and Jasmine's Jeopardous Journey
- Major announcement regarding the first book in the Gwillville series - Fergus Fedderfeeny's Food Factory
- The first review of 'Xannu - The Prophecy' by a major book-blogger
- Price increase of 'The 10 Hour Project Manager.' - Get your book now!
- A Press Release about my new publicist
- More book submissions to book bloggers
- The start of a series of articles entitled 'Writing for Success.' - These will be published later as a complete ebook
- The link to the radio interview I did for VentriloquistCentral should be published this week
- Create another video blog
Then next week, it will be time to continue writing the third book in the Gwillville series - 'Daisy Driftwood's Dutiful Decision.' Phew!
Another major decision I've made is that I'm going to go back and re-edit the first two Xannu books in the series over the summer. I will also be changing my publisher and then bring the third book online using this publisher. My aim is to have all this in place by August. So if you like first editions (and who doesn't?), then now is your chance to buy my books while you can still get them in their original format. Will there be big changes to them? I doubt it, but books are never ever truly finished and so I am sure there will be a few things altered.
Anyway, time to get on with some more writing. I need to get a couple of my 'Writing for Success' essays written.
The Complete: How to build a brand on Twitter for FREE!
(Note: This is a consolidated post from 5 previous blog entries that were posted as a series. Minor alterations have been made to this consolidation.)
Twitter can be a little bit daunting when you first start using it. You just type some stuff and off it goes into the Internet for all to see. Wow, I just tweeted my lunch. Wow, I just tweeted my car accident. Wow, I just tweeted my break up with my boyfriend... You know how it goes.
But you get through the first couple of days and you've tweeted twenty things, all totally unrelated, and then you start staring at your screen. Nothing. Just a handful of followers and no one is replying back to you. Well what do you know? Like everything in life, it's all about branding. (If you're interested in building up a lot of Twitter followers read this post).
Why do I need a brand?
I'll state this once and simply: To maximize your following and legitimacy, you need a brand. If you have a large number of followers and a legitimate brand, people will take note of what you tweet and action on it (think: click your links!).
Finding your Twitter brand is a difficult but necessary thing to do to maximize your following. Me? I now write about books and blogging and publishing. That's my brand. When I first started on Twitter my brand was quotes and weird news stories, but that all changed a couple of months ago. The important thing though is to have a brand. That way people know what you're Tweeting about. So just choose a passion, something that you can happily tweet about forever, and then stick to it. Of course, you can send the occasional tweet about something completely different, but for most part stick to your brand.
This article will cover:
- Where do I get my material from?
- How often should I tweet?
- How can I automate my Tweets?
- What about a blog?
- How do I pull the whole thing together?
So, let's get started on step 1:
1. Where do I get my material from?
If you're like most people, there is only so much relevant content you can make up for yourself on a daily basis. This means you're going to need to get more material from somewhere else. But where? The Internet of course. But the question still is, how do you get it? I use Google alerts. Go to http://google.com/alerts and try setting some up. To start you can have the results emailed to you. (There are other ways to use Alerts and I shall be covering those in Step 3 - Automating). Use the Alert information that is emailed to you for writing Tweets. Another place is your favorite RSS feeds. You probably read this stuff already so use it and re-tweet it. Your brand is beginning to form.
Experiment. Find out what works for you. Spend a few days tweeting about a topic you like and then refine it slightly until you're happy.
Experiment. Find out what works for you. Spend a few days tweeting about a topic you like and then refine it slightly until you're happy.
2. How often should I tweet?
There are millions and millions of Twitter users on the Internet and your tweets represent the smallest of a fraction you could ever imagine. Unless you have millions of followers, the chances that a lot of people will see all your tweets and click on links are very small. But don't be despondent, this can work to your advantage as well.
I have over 50,000 followers on Twitter. Think about this. What do you think the chances of everyone reading and actioning any single tweet I make are? Actually, the number is very small. Twitter is a bit like a fire hose, you spray water everywhere; it's not a direct pressure jet of water that is directed specifically at something. And this is an important fact to remember. What does it mean? Well, actually it means that if I tweet one thing at 8am and then a very similar thing at 9am, there's a good chance that the tweet will be seen by different people. But, if I only have 10 followers, then they will all most likely see both of my tweets. So, follower numbers are important as a ratio to tweet frequency too.
As a general ratio, for every 10,000 followers you have you can tweet the same thing one time per day. So in my case, I can safely send the same tweet out 5 times a day without worry that people will notice I'm spamming them. But - and here's the important other factor - you have to intersperse your tweets with other tweets so that anyone looking through your timeline doesn't see the repeated pattern. A reasonable timeline that anyone looking back through will be about 20 tweets or so. Taking my example further, this means that if I am to repeat a tweet 5 times a day and I need to create 20 tweets between each repeat, then I should be tweeting about 100 times a day! Now that's a lot more than I currently tweet. In fact I guess I send out around 50-60 tweets a day. This means I shouldn't repeat the same tweet more than twice a day.
But the question still remains, how often should I tweet? The simple answer is that the more followers you have and the more you want to build a brand, the more you should tweet - up to a limit of about 6 tweets an hour (above that and it will be impossible to follow you). This means you need to build your Twitter following as an urgent task (read this post about how to build 16,000+ followers). Then you can increase your tweet frequency appropriately.
Tweeting 50 times a day (for me) is a lot of tweeting so I have automated much of the process.
3. How can I automate my Tweets?
There are two tools I want to introduce; Twitterfeed and Twaitter. They both are slightly different and they both serve different purposes.
Twitterfeed
In the first step I wrote about building alerts and having them delivered as emails. Well, now it's time to change those emails to RSS feeds so that you make better use of them. If you go to http://google.com/alerts and edit one of your alerts, you can select 'Feed' in the edit box. Save this and then you should see a little RSS button next to the alert. By right-clicking on the RSS feed you can copy its feed address. Do this! Next, go to Twitterfeed.com and set up an account there if you don't already have one. Create a new feed and then follow the prompts, pasting in the RSS feed address when appropriate (use the advanced settings to determine how often to update Twitter - every 30 mins or so). Then finish off the process and you are now automatically posting new alerts into your Twitter feed (you may need to wait up to an hour for the first feed to kick in). So, onto automating your own Tweets.
Twaitter
Twaitter is a free product that allows you to schedule your own tweets (up to 10 an hour) on a single or recurring basis.The process is very easy so I'm not going to go into details (just try it)...
With the combination on Google Alerts, Twitterfeed and Twaitter, you can have most of your tweeting automated and your branding well underway. The only question that remains is "what do I tweet about that will drive traffic to me?" This is the subject of the next step - 'What about a blog?'
4. What about a blog?
Previously I wrote about how to automate your tweets so that you don't have to sit in front of the computer all day long. We have also written about how to convert Google Alerts into Twitter feeds and so all that remains is for you to supply your own stream of relevant content. This is where blogs come in!
I started this blog at the end of February 2011 and it is now April 25th. Only two months have passed and my blog already has over 7,000 page hits and is growing by about 300 hits per day. I hope that within a few months I'll be getting 500+ hits a day. What does this mean to me? Quite simply, every page hit I get is a chance for me to sell something, educate someone, solicit someone, or just pass on a simple message. I also get the opportunity to earn a little money from Google ad sponsoring. The way I figure it, the more people that visit my blog, the better my branding will be and the better my messages will be getting out. Also, Google will rank my blog higher the more interaction I'll have with people, etc. The list is endless.
So, you need to write a blog. And then you need to post at least once a day. Anything. It doesn't really matter to a certain extent. If you build it, they will come. If you link to it, they will come. If you keep on writing, they will come! The point is that without a blog at the center of your branding you are nothing! Your voice is your brand.
Okay, you've built your blog, now what? Simple. Reread the previous step and link your blog to Twitterfeed. It's as simple as that. Every time your blog has something new it will get sent to Twitter (and you can send it to Facebook too). Cool. But wait, it's not over. Remember we also wrote about Twaitter? Well this is where you put all your best blog posts. When you've built up thirty or fifty blog posts, I'm sure you'll have a handful of favorites that you'd like others to read again. Post the links in Twaitter and schedule them (recurring). Your work is nearly done.
5. How do I pull the whole thing together?
If you've followed along and read all the steps so far, you should now be sending 30+ automated tweets every day to your Twitter feed. Now all you need to do is a little gardening!
With the increased flow of tweets you're going to get more replies from people. Be prepared to answer them! You're also going to have to carefully monitor the traffic that's flowing to your blog. This is the only way to understand which of your tweets are working and which are not. Hopefully you have analytics on your blog and you can see (preferably hourly) just how many hits you are getting. Look for peaks and troughs. What time of day do you not get any visitors? When do you get peak traffic? Rearrange tweets to try and smooth things out a little.
Then try new things. Maybe a few video blogs on YouTube, or a series of special blog posts that you can link to again and again (like this one!). Over time, you can reinforce your brand by helping others to discover you and getting them to retweet your posts.
Oh, and that reminds me of one more thing - Use exciting headlines for your tweets. There's a lot more chance of people clicking on them that way. Words like 'FREE', 'advice', 'help', 'dummies', etc. will all drive traffic to you. Put yourself in the head of the reader. Which headline would make them want to click your tweet? If I had called this series 'Building brands on Twitter' it wouldn't have had as much reader power as 'How to build a brand on Twitter for FREE!'
So, remember the steps:
- Decide what your brand is
- Find external sources that reinforce your brand
- Set up automated tweets based on your sources
- Keep a blog and feed the posts automatically to Twitter
- Select 'top' blog posts to auto-tweet
- Monitor and adapt as necessary
It's not an overnight process and there a lot more nuances I could write about. But if you follow everything I've written you'll be well on your way to building your own brand on Twitter for FREE! Good luck...
Sunday, April 24, 2011
I had a Hippopotamus (By Patrick Barrington)
It's Easter Sunday and I thought I'd post my favorite poem of all time... I hope you enjoyI had a Hippopotamus
====================
By Patrick Barrington
I had a Hippopotamus, I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread
I made him my companion on many cheery walks
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalk
His charming eccentricities were known on every side
The creatures' popularity was wonderfully wide
He frolocked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles
If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or the hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again
I had a Hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to have an end
Time takes alas! our joys from us and rids us of our blisses
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamisses
My house keeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye
She did not want a colony of hippotami
She borrowed a machine gun from from her soldier nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy
My house now lacks that glamour that the charming creature gave
The garage where I kept him is now as silent as the grave
No longer he displays among the motor tyres and spanners
His hippopomastery of hippopotamanners
No longer now he gambols in the orchards in the spring
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string
No longer in the morning does the neighbourhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-meditated voice
I had a hippopotamus but nothing upon earth
Is constant in its happines or lasting in its mirth
No joy that life can give me can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for that might-have-been-a-hippopota-mother
Paul Dorset Video Blog #2
Jai and Jasmine's Jeopardous Journey. That's the name of my upcoming book, the second in the Gwillville series. The book is due for release next weekend and so here's your first chance to get to hear a little of it. But first, the book blurb:
(If you are reading this on a mobile device - click THIS LINK)
Watch for more news on the book this week.
Jai hates the smell of rotting vegetables. He’s been thinking about them ever since he arrived in Gwillville. He hates being boxed up too. But his cousin Jasmine doesn’t remember anything about that. She’s more concerned with meeting new friends at school. And there’s an assortment of other dummies to meet there. Lily Longfreckle is only eight years old but Chuck Handle is sixteen and has been at school for three years already. Then there’s Trevor Tightrope who’s twenty-five. It’s all very strange indeed, and oddest of all is Wonky Williams. He’s eleven and is so accident-prone that Jai and Jasmine wonder how he ever makes it through a complete day.
But despite all the new experiences that Jai and Jasmine are having, the ship that brought them both to Gwillville is weighing heavily on Jai’s mind. So no matter what, he’s determined to discover more about the elusive ‘ship that sails north.’ Maybe it’s the secret to being reborn and maybe it’s a way to find Farnsworth’s missing father. Jai finally decides it’s necessary to take a jeopardous journey of discovery.
Jai and Jasmine’s Jeopardous Journey is a comical adventure story set in the dummy town of Gwillville; a small coastal harbor town with a Fire Station, a Police Station, a school, restaurants and stores. There are houses too, where the dummies live and work and carry on their ageless day to day life. Yet not everything in Gwillville is exactly as it seems. Some of the laws of nature, which as humans we take for granted, work in slightly different ways.
Gwillville is populated with colorful characters that every reader will soon take to their hearts. With the bumbling hero Farnsworth, the precise and exact Fergus Fedderfeeny, the self-believing action hero policeman Sergeant Romeo, and the mafia dummy mastermind Sofia, there are a wealth of citizens to get to know. And you will as you follow the crazy everyday antics in Gwillville. After all, ventriloquist dummies get to have a life too!And now for a sneak read of the first chapter...
(If you are reading this on a mobile device - click THIS LINK)
Watch for more news on the book this week.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
I Wish (a poem)
I Wish
======
I wish we had honey for breakfast
I wish we had burgers for tea
If only I chose all the food that we ate
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish I could dress up all pretty
I wish all the children could see
If only I had all the clothes in the world
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish we could go to the seaside
I wish we could swim in the sea
If only I had a beach to myself
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish I had my own small kitten
I wish it could sit on my knee
If only I had lots of pets in my room
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish I was big like my brother
I wish I was seven not three
If only I grew to the size that I want
What a wonderful day it would be
I wish I had castles to play in
I wish there were toys just for me
If only my dreams were real not pretend
What a wonderful day it would be.
======
I wish we had honey for breakfast
I wish we had burgers for tea
If only I chose all the food that we ate
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish I could dress up all pretty
I wish all the children could see
If only I had all the clothes in the world
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish we could go to the seaside
I wish we could swim in the sea
If only I had a beach to myself
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish I had my own small kitten
I wish it could sit on my knee
If only I had lots of pets in my room
What a wonderful day it would be.
I wish I was big like my brother
I wish I was seven not three
If only I grew to the size that I want
What a wonderful day it would be
I wish I had castles to play in
I wish there were toys just for me
If only my dreams were real not pretend
What a wonderful day it would be.
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