Five Ways To Lose Your Readers

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Want to lose your reading audience? Of course not. Yet, readers make mistakes and do just that. I’ve listed five of many blunders that are guaranteed to cause you either to lose your readers or put them to sleep.

1. Interfere with the story.

I don’t believe anything is worse than an author who interrupts the story. Some feel a desire to stress how intelligent they are by adding additional, unnecessary content to the story. All that does is scream ‘Author! Author!’ It’s nothing more than the writer showing off.  And it’s patronizing. Think of it as telling a joke and stopping before the punch line to explain more because you assume your listeners aren’t intelligent enough to get it. 

2. Create unbelievable characters.

Make your characters look, speak and behave like the characters of another, or many other novels. You know, cardboard or cookie-cutter style.  That will either put the reader to sleep or cause him to toss the book across the room. It sounds like writing 101, however, I’m sure you tell me of many books you’ve tossed for that exact reason. It’s almost as though the author is trying to recreate a popular character with whom readers are already acquainted.

3. Forget about pace.

Who needs to bother with pacing a novel anyway? Let it go where it goes.  You know, stream-of-consciousness. They’ll follow along, right?

Wrong!  Pace is vital to a novel.  Compare pacing to horseracing. According to William Noble in Conflict, Action And Suspense, “The key to good pacing is to recognize that there are moments of acceleration and deceleration in every horse race…in every story.”

4. Leave out conflict and suspense.

Leave out opposing characters, arguments between them, and the sense that something is about to happen, and you’ve lost what could’ve been faithful readers. If you don’t develop a sense of impending doom or have the forces of nature interfere with the story, you have no conflict or suspense.  Your characters must ask questions, search for answers, and stumble upon obstacles (or bodies). And consider having your chapters end with cliff-hangers. That makes it almost impossible for the reader to put the book down.

5. Finally, don’t give your characters any goals to achieve or secrets to keep.

Throughout the story your main character should desire something. There should be something vital at stake, or an important decision to make. Develop a sense that she could lose what’s most important to her if she makes the wrong choice. Maybe give her a shady past, or a skeleton or two in the closet. If so, she would have secrets and that would heighten your story.

What other ways can you think of to lose readers? What blunders have you made?  I’d love to read your responses.

Also, Carol Riggs has an exciting new young adult novel titled: Junction 2020 available http://carolriggs.blogspot.com/: Check it out!

In Response to Rachelle Gardner’s Hair Ripping Blog

This blog is a response to literary agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog and comments on self-publishing. I posted it last November and received such a great response I felt the need to re-post it. (http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com)

If I were Rachelle, I’d be ripping my hair out at the roots. Why can’t we all just agree to disagree?

Can a self-published author find an agent and publisher? Yes and no. The question is: Is the writing good enough? The answer: That depends upon the author. For example: I have three POD suspense novels available through my website: http://www.mj-macie-mysterybooks.com. I have painstakingly edited each novel and put my heart into every sentence. Some self-published authors have not. Some authors slap words on a page, or worse yet stream-of-conscientiousness on a page, and call that a book.

Recently, an author published by Simon & Schuster sent an email asking why I had chosen to go with POD. She stated that my work had been edited, I have a natural talent and that I had captured her interest from the beginning of the book. My answer: I listened to God and my husband. “Get the work out there and they will respond,” my husband said. So, I did and my novels are selling.

One of the responses I received to this blog stated a reluctance to purchase a self-published book because, “They are so horribly edited.” This reader paid twenty dollars for a book and found spelling errors. Yes, we all know Word corrects those for us; however, this author didn’t bother to use the spell-check. Yes, I agree not editing the work does give self-publishers a bad rap.

Another reader responded that books are expensive enough as it is and would rather pay money for one published by a reputable company than take a chance with a self-published author who may not have edited his/her book.

One reader made a contrary response. This one stated that with traditional publishing the author in many cases has to do all their own promotional work. In addition, the author has to sell a lot of novels to earn a return, so unless the publisher was going to pay a large advance, there was no advantage to publishing the traditional route.

Finally, one reader stated that, “Self-publishing doesn't equate second class books. It could. But it doesn't have to!”

What do I think? Can a self-published author find an agent and publisher? Absolutely! Will it happen? Well, that depends upon the author.

What do you think? Do you believe a self-published author can find an agent and publisher? Do you prefer going the traditional route or do you prefer self-publishing? Have you had any luck going the traditional way? I’d love to hear your responses.
http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/

My Faux Pas

Is it improper to invite someone to check out your blog? To leave your link in a response on theirs?

It seems I’ve committed this major faux pas and was confused as to why. I thought one of the reasons for links was to make things easier for the internet user. In fact, one of the reasons for the internet is to make life easier for the user. I found both links and the internet have made my life a great deal less stressful. I’ve also made a few friends by leaving a link to my blog. New friends in which I have something in common.

I asked myself, what’s the harm? If they leave a link to their blog and I want to check it out, I’ll click, if I’m not interested, I won’t. No big deal, right? Turns out I’m wrong.

So why all the fuss about leaving a link to your blog in a response? I have graciously been informed that many writers don’t appreciate us leaving our link in a response to their blogs. To all those writers I’ve linked, I am truly sorry. I meant no harm. I now understand some writers look at a link attached to a response as advertising our sites on their blogs. I now understand how that would appear as intrusive and offensive.

What do you think? Are you also guilty of advertising on another's blog?

Guest Blog From Carol Riggs on Dialogue

As a believer in ‘Show Don’t Tell,’ Carol’s July 14, 2010 blog http://carolriggs.blogspot.com/ doesn’t simply point out the errors in dialogue use, but ‘shows’ how to correct them by example .

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WEDNESDAY MAKEOVER: DIALOGUE
There are two extremes with writing dialogue. One is narrating and describing lengthy feelings and thoughts in the middle of a conversation to the extent that it breaks up the flow of the dialogue and makes the conversation hard to follow. Don't be afraid to carve some of that out and leave a streamlined back-and-forth without the "he said" and "she said" tags. The other extreme in writing dialogue is to have a conversation totally without tags or hints about what the main character is thinking or feeling--or rambling on so long the reader is in danger of losing track of who is talking. The best course of action is usually something in between.

DIALOGUE SAMPLE:
       Amy stormed into her room, where her little sister Mitzi sat giving Veterinarian Barbie a severe haircut with Mom's material scissors.
       "Where's my necklace?"
       "What necklace?"
       "You know the one. The one I got for Christmas, the one with the stars on it."
       "Dunno. Haven't seen it."
       "I bet you have."
       "Nope."
       "Liar. I saw you flicking at it yesterday when it was hanging on my lamp."
       "Then why are you asking me if I've seen it?"
       "Stop being a brat! I need to wear that necklace for tonight's party. The last time I saw it you were fiddling with it, so you had to have done something with it."
       "I didn't move it. You probably moved it yourself and forgot. Or Mom knocked it off when she was vacuuming."
       "Mom didn't vacuum yesterday. She did it Friday."
       "She always vacuums on Saturday."
       "Not this week. She did it a day early because she had to pick up Ryan from basketball."
       "I don't know, you creep! Leave me alone."

COMMENTS:
While there is a good back-and-forth going on here, it's pretty stark. We don't want to add so many descriptions and tags that it starts to bog down the conversation flow, but the natural rhythm of the dialogue and the clarity of the passage could be improved if we added a few tags and actions. In the case above, for starters, the first dialogue line needs a tag in order for the reader to be 100% certain that it's Amy saying the first line (especially since that first line is on a new line/paragraph).

REWRITE:
       Amy stormed into her room, where her little sister Mitzi sat giving Veterinarian Barbie a severe haircut with Mom's material scissors.
       "Where's my necklace?" Amy said.
       Mitzi didn't look up. "What necklace?"
       "You know the one," Amy growled. "The one I got for Christmas, the one with the stars on it."
       "Dunno. Haven't seen it."
       "I bet you have."
       "Nope." Mitzi kept snipping.
       "Liar. I saw you flicking at it yesterday when it was hanging on my lamp."
       "Then why are you asking me if I've seen it?"
       "Stop being a brat! I need to wear that necklace for tonight's party. The last time I saw it you were fiddling with it, so you had to have done something with it."
       "I didn't move it," Mitzi said. "You probably moved it yourself and forgot. Or Mom knocked it off when she was vacuuming."
       "Mom didn't vacuum yesterday. She did it Friday."
       "She always vacuums on Saturday."
       "Not this week," Amy said, her fists on her hips. "She did it a day early because she had to pick up Ryan from basketball."
       "I don't know, you creep!" Mitzi cried. "Leave me alone."

The tags included here not only add a little tone and color, but they make it more clear who is talking. They also give clues as to how the characters are feeling (Mitzi not looking up, continuing to snip, Amy's fists on her hips indicating anger or impatience, etc.). http://carolriggs.blogspot.com/