Shortcuts to Fame: 5 Tips for Writers

By Mary Jaksch of Goodlife ZEN

Do you dream of being discovered? Imagine if someone spotted your novel, dragged you into the limelight – and  publishers came crawling. Or what if  your blog post went viral, admirers crashed Twitter, and readers scrambled to subscribe – wouldn’t that be great?

It happens. New writers are discovered every day. It may look accidental, but there are ways to become ‘accident-prone’. Here are five shortcuts to fame that work:

Tip #1: Throw yourself up the learning curve.

Every worthwhile endeavor has a steep learning curve. If you want to have success as a fiction writer, you need to learn how to create a compelling novel or short story. If you are a blogger, you need to learn how to write a blog post that can go viral. Make sure that you learn what has made others successful. Money spent on education and training is always a good investment. And if you can snag a mentor on your learning journey – you’re allready half-way to fame.

Tip #2: Hang out where you can be spotted.

One of the sure-fire ways to fame is to be endorsed by an expert in your field. You can see how that works when you read the blurb on the back of books. Be discovered and endorsed by a leading exponent, and you are on the fast track to fame.

But how to get discovered?

It’s simple. You need to figure out where the experts hang out and join them there. Let’s say for example that your dream as a blogger is to have a guest post on Zen Habits which was recently listed by Time Magazine as no. 1 of the 25 best blogs of 2010. Zen Habits now has about 200,000 subscribers, so a guest post there catapults you automatically into fame.

How do guest posters snag a primo gig like this one? Well, the last two posts on Zen Habits were from Jeffrey Tang of The Art of Great Things and Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom – both of whom are members of the A-List Blogger Club. That’s where their talent was spotted by Leo Babauta. They both hung out where they could be discovered.

Tip #3: Be insanely useful.

I was recently writing up my blogging experience as a case study. I noticed a weird pattern, over and over. I’ve always tried to help others, whether they were newbies or experts. Being helpful is the main reason behind my success. It’s the same with people I’ve pushed into the limelight: their relationship with me usually started with consistent offers of help. So, be insanely helpful to others in your field.

Tip #4: Grab opportunities as they flit past

The Internet is a place of fast change. Opportunities only come around once. If you’ve built a connection with an expert and they ask for help, say “yes” – even if you are over-committed and unpaid.

Here’s an example: a joint-venture project that emerged from the A-List Blogger Club is just about to launch.  The Daily Brainstorm – a blogazine to rock your mind – has turned into an amazing opportunity for three Club members destined for the A-List:  Barrie Davenport is the Editor in Chief, and Katie Tallo with Jean Sarauer are Managing Editors. They embraced this opportunity without hesitation. The combined count of monthly unique visitors of all the blogs contributing to The Daily Brainstorm is already in the millions – and that’s even before today’s formal launch. This thing’s running hot and is going to be BIG!

Tip #5 Use ‘vitamin’ C in high doses.

Vitamin C is something that aids vitality. But I don’t mean pills here. C stands for Connection. Because connection is what makes opportunities happen on the Internet.

How can you connect? Start with your end of the conversation. If the expert you want to connect with is on Twitter, send him or her regular Tweets with relevant comments. If it’s a blogger you want to connect with, comment on her or his blog. In time the expert will notice you, and a connection will form. Once you’ve forged a connection, make sure that you’re insanely helpful.

Meet good fortune half way – and don’t sit around, waiting for it to find you.

But what about those who are disadvantaged? What about those who are eager to become top blogger  – but they can’t afford the cost of training? I’m thinking in particular of writers in the Third World.

In my experience, blogging is the quickest way to create a career with fast fame and a solid income.

The A-list Blogger Club has grown to more than 500 members,  and as a celebration, Leo Babauta and I want to offer five scholarships, each worth $20 a month. We’re looking for talented writers who can’t afford the  A-List Blogger Club membership fee (although it’s less than the price of a cup of coffee per week). If you would like to put someone forward, or nominate yourself, please write a comment below and tell us why we should consider them or you.

If you have some more tips to add about shortcuts to fame, please share that in the comments as well, ok?

Mary Jaksch is the Editor in Chief of Write to Done. You can enjoy more of her stuff on Goodlife Zen. Remember to check out the A-List Blogger Club.

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction

3 Ways To Breathe Life Into Your Fiction

A guest post by Gareth Powell of GarethPowell.com

New writers are often given the following piece of advice: “Write what you know”. In other words, concentrate on the things you’ve observed and the things you understand about the world around you. If you’re a former journalist wanting to write a mystery, make your main character a journalist; if you’re a coal miner, write about the dangers and camaraderie of life down the pit.

Such first-hand experience can add verisimilitude to your fiction; but what happens if you’re trying to write genre fiction? What if you’re trying to write about a future society so far removed in time that they barely remember the present day? What if you’re trying to write about a supernatural horror preying on a group of cave divers, or a lone warrior on a quest across a mythic fantasy kingdom? In science fiction, fantasy and horror, characters are routinely put in situations in which it would be impossible for the writer to gain any direct experience. How then can you convincingly fill in these scenes using only your imagination?

1. Identify the parts of the scene you do know.

People for example. Your characters should be recognisably human, each with their own distinct personalities and foibles. No matter how fantastical the situation, you can base your characters on your own experiences of people and the way they interact with one another.

Sometimes when writing fiction, it’s hard to keep a consistent mental image of all the characters involved, and mistakes start to creep in. You get muddled and describe your hero as having blue eyes in chapter two and green ones in chapter six. To get around this problem, I suggest casting your story in the same way you’d cast a movie. Go through magazines and pick out photos of actors, celebrities, models, or “real” people to represent your characters, and stick them on the wall behind your computer monitor. Not only will this help you keep their physical descriptions consistent as you write, it’ll also help you visualise your scenes better, and you may even find the pictures suggest things you can work into the story to give your characters added depth, such as facial tics, a preference for a particular style of clothes, or an unusual mannerism, such as a raised eyebrow or twisted smile.

2. Draw on incidents from your own life and try to map them onto the situations in which your characters find themselves.

I’ve never been involved in a gun battle, for instance, but I have been paintballing. I know what it’s like to hunker down uncomfortably behind a tree stump with gravel digging into my knees, to run out of ammo at a crucial moment, and to take a high-velocity pellet to the stomach, head or leg.

It’s easier to write about characters in extreme situations if you’ve had a few adventures of your own. In my time, I’ve also flown a light aircraft; been punched in the face; crawled through potholes; kayaked down white water rapids; jumped off a bridge; taken fencing and shooting lessons; had my heart broken; swum in Loch Ness; and climbed a number of mountains. I know what it’s like to be tired and wet and cold; I know what it’s like to lose someone; and what it feels like to break a bone. Drawing on these experiences can add authenticity to the most fantastical situations, by providing the small details and observations that really bring a scene to life.

3. Know your setting.

In genre writing, it helps if you know your setting inside out. If it’s the flight deck of a space shuttle, research all you can; find images online; try to find a simulator, or at least set foot on the flight deck of an airliner. If it’s an invented city, then make sure you know everything there is to know about it. Visit London or Amsterdam or Barcelona and look at the old buildings. Use Google Maps to “walk” through the streets of cities in Japan, America and Europe. Get the flavour of as many cities as possible, and take the bits you like to furnish your creation. Draw maps. Immerse yourself to the point where you can see your city in your mind’s eye and hear, smell, and feel its hustle and bustle around you.

As my first novel, Silversands, was set a distant planet, I spent months assembling notes about the planet’s climate, orbit, geography and seasons. I researched anaerobic bacteria, magnetic weaponry and weird terrestrial sea life. I got to know the characters, their back stories and personalities. I even based the craggy landscape on my childhood memories of Pembrokeshire, with its plunging rocky cliffs and yellow-tipped gorse bushes. By the time I finished writing the novel, I had an entire box full of background notes, sketches and maps. Most of that information didn’t make it into the finished story, but it played a vital part in helping me convincingly visualise and communicate the setting.

Of course, I’m not downplaying the importance of imagination. A strong imagination is one of the genre writer’s most essential tools, and without it, you may as well be writing nonfiction. In order to write genre fiction, you need the audacity to make bold leaps into the unknown and turn the everyday world on its head. My argument is that if you want to lend authenticity to your flights of fancy, you need to do your research, observe the people around you, and have your own adventures.

Gareth L. Powell is the author of Silversands (Pendragon Press 2010) and The Last Reef (Elastic Press 2008). He can be found online at www.garethlpowell.com.

Categories: Craft, Fiction

Writing Workshop: What are YOU writing?

By Mary Jaksch

What are you working on right now?

A blog post? A novel? Your best article ever? A poem? A film script? An Ebook?

Maybe you’ve just finished something you’re really proud of? Or you just can’t tell whether it should get a Pulitzer or be thrown into the trash?

Or maybe you’re noticing some barriers that are getting in the way of your creativity?

Here’s your chance to share and discuss with each other what you are writing about. And how it’s going.

Whet our appetite with the opening paragraph of your future bestseller, give us a link to your best article, or tell us what you are writing at the moment.

Who knows, your piece might even attract the notice of a major publishing house!

Here are some guidelines:

A. Writers:

  • State what aspect you’re working on. For example, you might want to say, “Here’s a link to my article “The Role of Rabbits in Nuclear Science”. I’m currently working on eliminating superfluous words.”

B. Commenters:

  • When commenting, first list everything you really like about a piece.
  • Only then offer careful suggestions.
  • Treat each other with respect, friendliness, care, and honesty.
  • Remember that we are all still learning.

Now it’s over to you. Take a deep breath. Then jump into the comment section and bring out your treasures!

Mary Jaksch is the Editor in Chief of Write to Done and writes the blog Goodlife ZEN. Together with Leo Babauta, Mary runs a spectacular training environment for bloggers: the A-List Blogger Club.
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Hot tip: Check out the A-List Blogger Club. We are going to open a few places shortly.

The A-List Blogger Club has changed my life. A month ago I didn’t know a tweet from a widget. Now I’m running my own blog and the club is right there with me. Everyday I connect with someone new, and not just connect, but get to know them, laugh with them, befriend, share, support and exchange ideas. Mary and Leo have created a community that is a reflection of who they are — generous, genuine and successful!
~ Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction

The Power of the First Sentence

A Guest Post By Brenda Hineman

We have all done it, stared at that blank page with the desperate urge to write, only nothing comes out. We want to be in the zone. We want words flowing effortlessly from our fingertips. We want characters spouting witty banter that we, as writers, never even knew we had in us.

But, alas… nothing.

Just as the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, though, every story ever written began with just one sentence. Indeed, some of the most memorable passages in literary history are the opening sentences from classics such as Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, and Anna Karenina. Granted, these books had a lot of other sentences that supported the opener quite well, but without those opening sentences to hook readers, these books may not be held in the same esteem they are today.

What is it that makes a first sentence memorable? It is the hint of something more. It’s the suggestion that builds anticipation for not just the next sentence, but perhaps the next chapter as well.

As writers, one of the best ways for us to undermine the paralyzing power of the blank page is to focus on writing just one sentence. By telling ourselves, we will write one killer opening sentence, we set a manageable goal that, ideally, sets up the next sentence … maybe more. With a few sentences on the page, then, we have a story started.

Here are a few opening sentence examples and why they work.

It was the final flim-flam.

This sentence works because it makes a reader wonder: what was the final flim-flam? what kind of person uses the term flim flam, anyway? And, why was this the final one? Was the last flim-flam so outrageous that there was to be a complete cessation of all flim-flammery?

After regaining consciousness, my brother insisted he was a French ballet dancer and commenced pirouetting around the living room spouting, “Merci, Frommage!”

This sentence works because the reader knows right away that something has happened to cause a character to lose and regain consciousness already. It begs the question: did the brother know ballet and/or French before the blackout? And if so, why is his French so incoherent now? Since this behavior is abnormal by normal standards, is it abnormal by this family’s standards? How old is the brother? Is he 8 or 38? It makes a difference. Finally, will he ever get a, “You are welcome” from the cheese?

Ever since the brain surgery, I forget what I’ve said out loud and what I’ve said to myself.

This sentence works because it suggests the following questions: Brain surgery? What for? What predicament could this lack of internal monologue get this character into? Will it continue to get him/her into trouble? If so, how? Are there any other quarks from the brain surgery, mental or physical? Is this person, in other ways, better off from the surgery? If so, how?

The Secret of the First Sentence

We have looked at a few sentences now and approached them as a reader would. For this exercise to work, you have to do it that way. As writers, we too often think we have to be in control. After all, we are the ones who know where the story is going, right?

When we focus on the first sentence, the goal is to load it in such a way that we are asking the same questions that the reader will be asking. As such, we initiate a game of 20 questions with ourselves. We jot down different answers in our notebooks and decide which one gives us something solid to work with. Before you know it, you have a second sentence… and, ideally, a general sense of where the story might be heading.

The Sentence Journal

The final benefit of this type of exercise is that it doesn’t take very long. If you are anything like me, you have to try to find time to cram writing into your schedule. Sometimes, you may only get 15 minutes of your day for writing. This exercise is perfect for such occasions. In fact, I keep a journal of only first sentences.

This serves a two-fold purpose. First, it allows me to do something productive with limited time. Second, when I have more time to write, I can refer the sentence journal for prompts to kickstart my writing sessions.

Finally, remember that you don’t have to write The Great American Novel every time you sit down to mash the keys. More often than not, a good sentence is all you really need to get a story going. Go ahead, write one and share it in the comments section now.

Brenda Hineman is a freelance writer who favors topics such as movies, costuming, and naturally, writing.

Categories: Craft, Fiction

Get writing or Get Lost

A guest post by Daryl Sedore

Contracts are being written at this very minute while wine glasses are filled. People are being published as bottles empty. Booksellers are getting books and placing them on shelves. All this happens while other writers are getting lost. There’s much ado about writing out there. Let’s break it down into three categories of A.D.O.;

Advice

There’s an abundance of advice on how to write. Thousands of books cover the topic of writing from Stephen King’s “On Writing” to Donald Maass’ “Fire in Fiction”. There are websites, blogs and conferences where you can do seminars to learn the craft. There’s as much advice on how to write as there is air to breathe.

As a writer you need to get to a place where you combine it with practice. When the writing day is over, make sure you’ve scribed something because one of the best schools of writing is writing. It has been said you need to write over a million words before you consider being published. (Then you can crack open that Shiraz or pinot noir and celebrate).

Dawdle

Writer’s procrastinate. It’s as common as breast feeding, just not as good. You can’t dawdle around and expect to have the next best-seller. Read what advice you want; then write. Come up with reasons to do this or that; then write. People with excuses don’t have book deals and people with book deals don’t have excuses.

If you find you have trouble getting into it, set some time goals. Between 11:00am and 1:00pm, I’ll read, study, take notes and ruminate, but at 1:00pm, I start writing.

Odds

We’ve all heard the odds of getting published. They’re staggeringly against a novice writer. Literary agencies tell us that queries mount into the thousands per year. Hundreds upon hundreds of unsolicited queries hit an agency weekly. And that’s just one agency. There is a phalanx of agencies in New York alone. I’ve read agents who have said they took on two new clients this year. That’s two out of thousands of queries. Wow, you’d have a better chance of bumping into President Obama in self-help section in the Barnes and Noble booksellers on Fifth Avenue.

With that in mind, it doesn’t matter. That’s right, you read it correctly. It doesn’t matter. (Note to self: get wine ready) It doesn’t matter if you wrote something unique. It doesn’t matter if your voice is unheard of, your style a dream and your story telling ability a number one stunner.

So take some advice, don’t dawdle. Avoid thinking about how hard it is to break in to the industry. Just write a damn good story. Write. Make it original. If you knock people out of their chairs with your work, you have a better chance against those odds than if you just knock their socks off. Don’t dawdle, write. Avoid spending too much time with much A.D.O. about writing and get your story on paper.

After all, you’re a storyteller, right?
So write.

Daryl Sedore has written two novels and sold over 40 short stories. He also placed 6th in the 75th Annual Writer’s Digest Short Story competition with 4 other stories in the top 60. Daryl blogs about writing and other motivational subjects at darylsedore.com
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Secret tip: get yourself on the waiting list for the A-List Blogger Club, the amazing ongoing training environment for bloggers that Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch have created.

The A-List Blogger Club has changed my life. A month ago I didn’t know a tweet from a widget. Now I’m running my own blog and the club is right there with me. Everyday I connect with someone new, and not just connect, but get to know them, laugh with them, befriend, share, support and exchange ideas. Mary and Leo have created a community that is a reflection of who they are — generous, genuine and successful!
~ Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction

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