aurorawatcherak "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
Every story starts with a stranger in town or a journey. “Pa, we’re takin’ the wagon to Virginian City,” every story ends with “Golly gee, Wally. I thought we were goners.” True or False?
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“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”
I love Tolstoy’s stories, but do I agree with his observation?
Yes
Tolstoy isn’t the only literary giant to make the observation that, it seemed to them, all stories fall into one of two categories: “stranger in a strange land” or “a stranger comes to town.”
We’re all familiar with Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” as represented in the journeys of Odysseus or Luke Skywalker. It’s so common that we hardly even notice it. A stranger passing through a land that is new to him encounters events that change him. In our traveling world today, we know this to be true because we’ve all experienced that transition wrought by new experiences, but the same held true from ancient times and the best storytellers borrow from real life to make compelling fiction. When I think about it, my series Daermad Cycle starts out as a stranger in a strange land tale. Although Padraig was raised in Celdrya, he’s been gone a long time and he sees the culture with new eyes. The journey is a common theme of many tales.
Likewise, the “stranger comes to town” trope has been around at least since Tolstoy, which for most of us is more than our lifetime. It’s the basis of every one of Clint Eastwood’s “Spaghetti” westerns. A stranger comes to town and something happens. It’s place based – a group of inhabitants who all know one another and an unknown character coming to town. That new element is the basis of conflict and the catalyst for change. Think “Our Town” or “The Man from Snowy River”.
Sometimes the “stranger” isn’t a person, but a force. In Transformation Project, the catalyst for change is societal chaos and the people of Emmaus are the group that is changed by it.
Sometimes the stranger is not a catalyst, but a a neutral observer viewing the activities of the static group, as in “The Scarlet Letter.” Or, in “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, Scout is not a catalyst for change, but an observer of change. There’s dozens of variations on this trope that could go anywhere. All of them will lead to character development, conflict, gain and/or loss, change and a conclusion. The outside element changing a static group is rich fodder for fiction writers.
But
I know for a fact that I’ve read and written stories about people who already know one another in a community they’re all familiar with, which suggests Tolstoy’s observation is at least partially wrong. The two tropes work because they are used all the time, but they’re not the only story patterns used.
“My prettiest contribution to my culture,” the writer Kurt Vonnegut mused in his 1981 autobiography Palm Sunday, “was a master’s thesis in anthropology which was rejected by the University of Chicago a long time ago.”
He moved on to become a great writer who mapped many popular storylines along a simple graph. He did a lecture that you can find on YouTube. I’m not going to explain it all, but he felt the most interesting story type he encountered was represented by the fairytale Cinderella. He thought of it as a staircase where Cinderella climbed into good fortune after her fairy godmother arrived. The high point was the ball and then she plummeted back into poverty and degradation, only to be rescued from darkness and brought to glory by her dashing prince.
It’s a “Rags to Riches” tale. It doesn’t involve a journey and nobody is exactly a stranger in town. Though they might not know each other before the ball, Cinderella lives within sight of the castle and the prince might have ridden by her home a few times.
I ran across a statistic claiming “Rags to Riches” stories represent about one-fifth of all written works. Think of the catalogues of Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton and Jane Austen for some examples. And, of course, there’s variations on that trope as well. Essentially, my series “What If Wasn’t” is a Riches to Rags story that holds out hopes for a return to riches — maybe. “The ‘Rags to Riches’ emotional arc is a story we all love to believe in. It embodies the American dream itself, a belief in hope and fairness, where regardless of beginning in bad times, effort can make things better and eventually result in good fortune. On the other hand, there is enjoyment to be had in seeing a life of ease destroyed and the character struggling to rebuild.
So, no!
I believe there are more than two types of stories. I think there are at least three (plus a converse), but probably more than that. Think how many stories involve “Overcoming the Monster” (Beowulf, for example) as a common plot type. Comedy often doesn’t follow the “stranger in a strange land” or the “stranger comes to town” tropes.
Specialization is Key
So why did Tolstoy make that observation? Maybe those are the books he encountered, although Tolstoy appears to have been a great reader who explored new ideas even into his elder years. It’s entirely possible that Tolstoy, literary giant that he was, could only think in those two types of plots. Think about what treasures he left us using those two plot arcs. Maybe there’s something to be said for specialization. Jack of All Trades is sometimes Master of None and clearly Tolstoy was a master. So was Vonnegut, though he wrote in different plot structures from Tolstoy. Specialization of plot allowed them to concentrate on other aspects like character development and setting details. Would they have been literary giants if they’d strayed from their plot tracks? Would that have taken them away from the aspects of writing that made them great? Maybe those other tracks are left for other writers, so they too can shine.
I personally look forward to fiction books that create all-new tropes because those are interesting to read because you can’t anticipate the next plot point. I wonder what my fellow blog-hoppers think of this subject.
December 23, 2019 How did publishing your first book change your process of writing? I started a list of everything that changed about my writing after publishing my first book, and realized this p…
Seriously, I think there’s a magical formula … or maybe a novel fairy … that chooses who will be blessed among all indie authors to be “discovered”. For the rest of us, there’s just a lot of hard work and vagaries that work for some and not for others, and works some times and then not at all the next time.
Meanwhile, the advice is contradictory. Go to five book marketing blogs and you will find five different answers to that question. Some will say, “working with book bloggers” is one of the most effective ways to get the word out about your books. Yes, book reviews and interviews are essential to promoting an indie book. Blog tours can really help to get attention from a wide audience.
Online exposure is the main benefit of using a blog tour to promote your book. It hits a different audience than, say, an NPR interview or local newspaper review. Sure, an unbiased review from a huge publication is fantastic publicity, but what the fans are saying can have a similar impact.”
Others will tell you to write guest blogs, a dedicated piece to be published on someone else’s site. It gets your name out there, drives traffic back to your website, and helps you build anticipation for your book. So “they” say.
Does it work? Sometimes. I’ve seen bumps in blog traffic when I write a guest post. Have I sold more books? Not really. Sometimes and not others. Why? I have no idea. And there in is the problem. I am not psychic and I just don’t know why a strategy works today and doesn’t work tomorrow. Maybe I need to invest in fairy dust.
How About Bonus Material?
Standard bookish merchandise ( otherwise known as ‘swag’), such as bookmarks, are often touted as excellent and relatively cheap promotional tool for indie authors. I know more than a few indie authors who have stuff to give away because they fell for this marketing ploy. It’s mining the miners. It’s a way to get indie authors to spend money they probably don’t have to try and sell books that probably won’t sell … that way. Always pause and ask yourself – am I being mined? Would I buy a book because the author gave me a free coffee cup? Yeah, maybe if the author was face-to-face with me to make me feel guilty, but through the Internet? If the answer is “No, I wouldn’t”, then the answer is “I’m being mined.” Formulate your own conclusions from there.
There are other “bonus materials” that might work better.
Related stories
I’ve written short stories for an annual anthology with an agorist/libertarian bent. Does it drive purchasers to my novels? Yeah, it appears to do so because I write books that appeal to agorist/libertarian/anarchists. I’ll usually see a bump in sales a week or so after they publish. I say “usually” because the bump was real weak once. Was that because I wrote a bad short? I don’t know. Where’s that fairy dust?
Although I haven’t done so yet, many authors offer a short or prequel for free as a reward for signing up for their newsletter, or as a bonus item for a book purchase. I’m developing a YA/NA book series that will have a prequel available for free on my website, if you sign up for my newsletter. We’ll see if it works.
Book club kits
That YA/NA series is a departure from my usual audience, so I plan to create a set of questions and discussion points that readers can use to talk about my books in a book club setting. I’ll make the list available on my blog. I’m told by friends this is an effective way to attract readers. Do I know it works? No, but it’s something that doesn’t cost me money that is worth a try.
Team Up With Other Creatives?
We creative types have to stick together, don’t we?! That’s what this blog hop is all about, right?
Doing the research for this post, I discovered a few creative collaborations I hadn’t thought of.
Bookstagrammers
I’m not on Instagram and I really don’t want to be, but I probably need to overcome my reluctance because many bookstagrammers are also reviewers, so sending out a free copy of my book(s) for some gorgeous promotional shots could kill two birds with one stone if they publish a review as well.
Podcasters
I had a great interview with a podcaster about two years ago, and there did seem to be a bump in my book sales for a while, but I’d rather write books than talk about them. Still, if you don’t flinch in horror at seeing yourself on the screen, do some research, reach out to podcasters and see what you can arrange.
Saturate Social Media?
That’s a lot of work. Before my books started paying for themselves, it was really my only choice because I couldn’t justify the financial outlay of most other options. I still post to my blog, Facebook (come join some of my liberty conversations), Twitter and MeWe, but I spend less time there than I used to and it’s likely I’ll spend less time there next year too. It’s hard to be heard on Social Media, so it’s a lot of effort for a little bit of return. It’s “free”, but man, what a time-suck!
I also think that it is counterproductive to keep waving a sign that says “Buy my books.” It’s annoying and I tune out that posts myself. Which is why I started the liberty conversations because libertarian/anarchist/voluntaryist topics (and the allergic reaction statists have to them) fascinate me and sometimes there will be a bump in sales or readership after a good one.
Become a ‘book fairy’
Okay, I’m not talking fairy dust here. Have you heard of Emma Watson’s ‘Book Fairies’ project? The Harry Potter actress began an international book-sharing movement, which involves leaving free books in public places for people to find and take home. The finder is encouraged to pay it forward by leaving the book for someone else to find once they’ve finished reading it. It’s not exactly a new idea. Something like this has existed in the Fairbanks community for as far back as I can remember. Go to any laundromat in this town and you’ll find a few dog-eared “left” books, some of them with handwritten notes inside say “Take This Book and Enjoy It.”. It’s a good idea that should go viral.
There are people participating in the Book Fairies project all around the world or with similar initiatives like Melbourne’s Books on the Rail. It’s a great way to do a good deed and promote more reading in the world – but have you ever thought of using it for promoting your own book?
I haven’t tried this yet, but there’s a fine madness in the thought of leaving copies of my books in public places for people to discover. Why haven’t I tried it yet? Why do I think it’s a little mad. It involves a cost outlay for me to essentially giving away several physical copies of one of my books for free. Would it work to drive traffic to my other books? I don’t know – which is why I’ve not tried it – yet.
Advertising
My father-in-law, an experienced businessman, will tell you “You’ve got to spend money to make money.” He’s right. Just make sure you spend money on things that make money. Advertising helps. I’ve tried Facebook ads and, yeah, I sold some books. I’ve tried the book advertising sites. Sometimes I’ve seen some sales conversions. I’ve tried Amazon ads recently. So far I’ve spent about as much money as I’ve made, but I’m not bidding very high and I just started, so I haven’t got enough data to be sure it’s working. Ask me in three months.
Write the Next Book
Honestly, I think the best marketing technique I possess is writing the next book. My readership goes up with each book I write in the Transformation Project series. I can now see that on KDPs KENP Reads. People appear to be binge reading the entire series. The best thing about that is it doesn’t require me to put on pants to set up a book signing at Barnes & Noble. I’m doing what I would be doing anyway and so, it is essentially free and not a time-suck. My self-imposed Transformation Project break since the publication of Gathering In is now officially over, so get ready for Winter’s Reckoning next year. And, possibly that YA/NA in Spring 2020 IF the betas think it’s ready to go to the editor.
So, I don’t know what the “best way” to market books is. Book marketing is a lot like playing Pin the Tale on the Donkey. There’s several ways and they work to varying degrees at times not necessarily of my choosing. Good luck and if you have any tips ….
Today is the launch of Gathering In (Book 5 of Transformation Project series).
I’ve put my characters through a lot (terrorist attacks,
radioactive rain, an air-handling system failure, a corn-field fire, confiscation
of crops by the USDA) and they’re going to lose big in this latest book. Such
is life for characters in an apocalyptic novel series.
Have you ever thought about how food gets to your local
grocery store? How would it get there if the major transportation hubs were
destroyed and rendered no-go zones?
Have you ever thought about where antibiotics come from and whether
those avenues would be available in an apocalyptic situation? What about heart
medications? Antidepressants? You name it. It’s unlikely it was made within a
few miles of your home. So what do you do if the apocalypse happens? What can
you do?
I live in Alaska, where everything comes through the Port of
Anchorage. In fact, Anchorage International Airport is the second-busiest cargo
airport in the United States. Last year Anchorage was hit by a 7.1 quake (which
is NOTHING compared to the Anchorage Quake of 1964 – 9.2 or the Denali Quake of
2002 – 7.9) and roadways collapsed all over town. The airport was closed for a
few hours. The railroad was offline for about 24 hours. The main road between
Anchorage and Fairbanks was fine, but there are three “structurally deficient”
bridges between here and there, so maybe it might not have been. So imagine
what happens here if the Port or the airport are rendered unusable? Starvation,
people without meds, no heating fuel which is a disaster if it’s winter.
I have to imagine that because I live at the end of a
tenuous supply chain in a place where certain kinds of natural disasters are
expected. We build for those disasters, but even then … roads collapsed all
over Anchorage.
You should imagine it for wherever you live because the time
for these thoughts is not after the damage has been done. It’s too late to do
anything about it then.
They’d been told to expect a friendly village, an increasingly elusive concept in the Mirage these days, so they’d all opted to carry for their own safety. A young boy of about ten met them at the town entrance and jabbered away in a patois mixture of the local dialect, the Miragan central tongue and English. Although it seemed impossible for foreigners to master Miragan, Shane’s grasp of Arabic and the months spent with Sera meant he understood enough of the boy’s chatter that they could at least communicate rudimentarily.
“What’s he saying?” Commander Roth asked Shane.
“The levees came through about a week ago, but they haven’t been back. They took his older brother despite being younger than draft age. They took his father last year. He’s hoping for some food aid as he’s feeding three younger siblings by himself.”
“Do you believe that?” Logan demanded.
“I do. Take a look. You see any adult males around here?”
“Not on the ground, but I’ll bet there’s plenty squirreled away in the attics.”
“Where’s the headman’s hut?” Roth asked.
The boy seemed eager to cooperate and they moved deeper into the village’s narrow lanes, leaving squads behind as they went, until only Mike, Killgore, Roth and Shane continued. One moment it seemed friendly, and the next an icy finger ran down Shane’s back. He turned his head toward the left to see the barely perceived danger. A woman in a dark cotton hijab materialized in a doorway. Shane opened his mouth to call a warning and several shots to his chest slammed him back into a stone wall.
Well, I can start by saying my least favorite method of writing is dictation. There is something about hearing my voice without a response by another human that just feels bogus. It might have something to do with my characters telling me their stories in their own voices. I “hear” Shane’s voice as deep and lush while his brother Cai is a bit higher. When I go to dictate it, it doesn’t sound like their voices and so I feel like I’m making stuff up.
When I first started writing, computers required an air craft hangar to house them, so of course, I wrote long hand because there really wasn’t another way to do it. My stepfather gave me my first typewriter when I was in high school. Still there are some forms of writing that I still prefer to do long-hand. I keep a journal that is spiral bound steno pads, for example. I write poetry very rarely and very badly and I do it long-hand almost every time. Some of my more poetic narratives have started out long-land. I also carry a notebook with me when I am out-of-doors, so that I can jot thoughts down when the mood strikes me. I enjoy writing long-hand. It feels more hands-on and creative.
I trained to be a professional writer – a journalist — and journalists have, for about a century, been taught copy-writing on typewriters. So early in my career I learned to compose writing raw using my 10 fingers. To me, that feels like I’m working and, as I am a professional author now, I use the method that makes me feel like a professional.
Practical Choice
Pragmatically, it’s a huge waste of time to write narrative long-hand and then transcribe it to the computer. When I was a reporter, I would take some minimal notes and then type the article raw on a typewriter. Personal computers were just coming into the newsroom when I bailed for a job that paid actual money. But the habit of mostly writing by typing had already taken hold of me. It’s efficient. It eliminates a step. It makes editing quicker and easier. It saves paper, which saves money. I can send it to other people without having to make a copy of it. It gets around my legible, but not very pretty handwriting. It is much faster since this former transcriptionist can type way faster than I can think, so typing on a computer doesn’t slow me down at all. For a whole lot of practical reasons, typing into the computer is my preferred method — unless I am writing something where the creative juices don’t want to flow that way, and then I do long-hand — rarely these days.
No book in literary history has been universally loved, which makes reading reviews scary and sometimes frustrating. I remember getting my first — and so far only — 1-star review. Ouch! It felt like I’d been spit on and the guy had totally gotten me wrong. I wanted to message him and correct his errors.
I’ve also had a good review where it was clear the person reviewing hadn’t read the book. Thanks for being nice, but — why? I wanted to message the reviewer and ask that question.
I didn’t. In either case. I still wanted to address the negative reviewer, but I know responding in social media would backfire on me, as would reaching out directly, and I’m not interested in getting into a battle with someone who is pissed because I gored his sacred cow. In the next book, in the author’s notes, I explained I think the military, absent its chain of command, would “go rogue” in an apocalyptic setting. I’ve got historical evidence on my side. It’s fiction. Maybe using a novel to point out the flaws of top-down command-and-control will prevent those flaws from becoming reality if the apocalypse ever does occur.
So, besides clarifying my position occasionally, how do I cope with reviews I don’t like?
Keep It in Perspective
Stephen King, Brandon Sanderson, Susan Collins, and Kate Elliott have more bad reviews than I do. How do I know that? I read their reviews. They’ve got thousands of them and hundreds of them are negative. That doesn’t seem to have stopped them from being best-selling authors.
People are still buying Stephen King’s books despite his bad reviews. People are still reading and buying my books — and reading the next book in the series — despite that bad review. The ultimate review, in my opinion, is coin in my bank account and that’s happening … despite that bad review, despite the pointless review that didn’t make an ounce of sense. If people are still reading my books regularly, then I’ll accept an occasional bad review as the price of doing business.
Balance is Good Thing
If a book has 1,000 5-star reviews without a single negative one, that makes me suspicious that the publisher has somehow rigged the system and flooded the book site with fakes. I think having diverse reviews and ratings shows an author has diverse readers, and yeah, not everyone is going to like my book, my characters, or my writing style.
Don’t Shame Reviewers Online
I see authors sharing their negative reviews. I see them shaming the readers and the person who left that review. What do they think that behavior will achieve?
It doesn’t encourage me to read their book. It puts me off. It makes them come across as childish and unprofessional.
You get what I am saying, right? I know nowadays the authors interact more with readers and fans, but does that mean we should shame them because they happen to have an opinion we don’t like? Even if it is about our book? Even if they are unknown to us? Even if they left us a 1-star review that made us curl in a corner and cry, should an author push back against that?
I have never seen anything good come from an author sharing negative reviews on social media, so I don’t recommend it and I don’t do it.
Learn From The Negatives
I still read my reviews because I use them as a learning tool. If the negative ones have a them — they’re all saying the same thing — then there’s something there I might need to address in my writing, editing, whatever. I’m not going to change my opinion about what the unsupervised military would do in an apocalyptic event, but if someone brings up spelling, grammar, characterizations that are unrealistic, factual errors — every criticism is a learning opportunity, so I’d be a fool not to read them.
What About the Good Ones?
The majorities of my reviews are positive and sometimes I want to reach out and say “Thank you”, but I’m not convinced authors should reply to positive reviews either. Think about that. Stalking your readers – a little creepy, right? I think it might have a chilling effect on reviews. I don’t like the feeling of anyone looking over my shoulder when I’m doing anything. It’s probably something wrong with my sense of self-worth or whatever, but seriously, it bugs me. So why would I do that to someone else?
Honest reviews are hard enough to come by without setting up any barriers to readers leaving a review.
But hey, an occasional THANK YOU is classy, just keep it non-specific to all reviewers rather than addressing them directly.
aurorawatcherak 