The Ultimate Hero

There are many books that describe how to write about your protagonist. They describe the importance of writing their thoughts, transcribing their viewpoints and illuminating their feelings. But, I want to encourage that you give your attention to a different kind of hero or heroine.

You!

Delve into yourself. Are you facing a very real danger? Many of us battle challenges, daily, that may not threaten life and limb but do place us in uniquely stressful situations. Do you have a flaw or inner weakness that needs healing? Of course, you do. We all do. Acknowledging such a weakness makes us responsible for healing it and that’s a life changer. 

The more you understand and cope with yourself as a hero or heroine, the more authentic your writing about heroic characters will become. Not that you should think of yourself as some mythic god or protector. But, the personal intimate sides of “you” will rise toward the light. You will learn how to appreciate both your strengths and flaws. And, most important, you will see yourself as a real hero in important ways.

You are a writer. Embracing that craft, knowing that writing is more than a mere task, opens our minds to great ideas and accomplishments. Take a few moments to recognize the heroic qualities within and your heroic characters will gain depth and power on the page.

Marketing Before You Write - Part 2 - by David Farland

Still, every producer and director also wants to be the one who "breaks out big" for no apparent reason with a hit that is a critical and artistic success. The problem is, so few of those work. Recent trends--the last 5-8 years is what Hollywood looks at. But I've got a secret: they should be looking at historical mega-cycles, too. The last 80 years are really quite important as predictors of success, and those tend to get lost if you look only at recent trends.
Marketer: Some of the changes that will sweep movie making, like major motion pictures for women, are linked to macro sociological trends. As women control the money now and continue to begin to exert more power in every way in the marketplace, I think you are right that it is only obvious that women will begin to exert such control that major motion pictures will at some point in the future, be made predominantly for females. In fact, given the male-dominated studios you describe, it cries for a female-dominated studio to spring up and take them all by surprise. From that perspective it is obvious that this is beginning, and Twilight is the harbinger.
Dave: Yes, the female audience has long been under-appreciated. We saw precursors of Twilight with movies like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and we can even go back farther to hits like Thelma and Louise.
But if you really want to make a big splash, you have to be the first one into a pool that is big and wide and deep. When Scholastic asked me to recommend which book to push huge for the year of 1999, I told them to go with HARRY POTTER. Their marketing department thought that the book was “too long” for the middle-grade audience, and didn’t want to push it.
I argued that it was also written at a grade level that was too-high (over sixth-grade reading level, for kids who were supposed to be in the third and fourth grade). But it was fantasy, and so it catered to a child’s sense of wonder. It was about the terrors of school and growing up, and so every child would relate to it. It was written at a level so that parents and teachers—the gatekeepers for children’s books—would love it. Indeed, it was written as a family novel. So I advised them to push that book. Who writes books for whole families to enjoy together? That’s so out of date. So I saw HARRY POTTER as a “big splash” kind of book.
When Stephenie Meyer came to me in 2001 and asked “How can I become the bestselling young adult writer of all time?” I had a conundrum. Historical analysis shows that the bestselling books—like HARRY POTTER—all had male protagonists, and most were set in another world. I told Stephenie that she should write contemporary YA fantasy romance for girls. It bucked most of the trends of the past, but it did so in a way that recognized that there was this HUGE AUDIENCE that neither the book publishing world nor Hollywood even knew existed.
I also told her to make it a fantasy in a contemporary setting. In short, set it in our world, but create an “other-worldly” feel. I believe that there are a lot of readers out there who want a sense of wonder, but they’re not fully capable of enjoying novels set in other worlds. So I figured that would enlarge her audience.
Last of all, I warned her that it might be hard to sell. In 2001, young adult publishers didn’t have any YA fantasy lines. But I told her that as Harry Potter grew in size, the publishers would realize that they needed such lines.
The big question in my mind was, “Will publishers be able to embrace the idea of a book that is a romance that caters to minors?” If I tried to write such a book as a male author, I doubt that it would have seen the light of day.
So Stephenie wrote the novel, sold it big, and it became a monster hit.
In the same way, the Hunger Games movie is going to make this series huge. It combines all of the right elements in just such a way that it plays upon the burgeoning market for adventure/romances with female protagonists.
Marketer: It only seems logical that other macro-sociological changes will be predictive of future trends in blockbuster movies. For example perhaps it is formulaic that any successful blockbusters in the future will contain at least a token, non-stereotyped, male Asian, and will need to reflect every race and demographic you want the movie to appeal to worldwide, beings it will be some number of years between the inception of planning a book to the point where a movie based upon the book is released in theaters. So perhaps you can be timely in producing a blockbuster movie by examining worldwide social trends of today.
Dave: We're seeing this already--bring in the Asians and the Indians, along with the Europeans, and a movie will go big. A recent Kung Fu movie—I forget the name—has been a hit around the world because of the components of its cast.
I recognized this as a probable trend more than fifteen years ago, when I wrote the Runelords. It has Caucasians, but it also has Indians, Orientals, and a mélange of other races among the main characters. Hollywood is just beginning to wake up and recognize the potential return on multi-cultural entertainment--especially if it had a strong love story along with adventure. Avatar struck a lot of the chords right in its treatment of the “aliens,” drawing upon a lot of Asian and African influences, but still lacks something. I would have liked to have seen a more multi-cultural cast among the protagonists.
Marketer: One other minor thing is that you mentioned that big-budget movies get larger advertising budgets and therefore they are more likely to be successful. In actuality, if a movie isn't good, the more you advertise, a chain-reaction sets in that assures the bigger a failure it will become and the more it will destroy the reputation of everyone involved. So a big advertising budget will only help you if your product is good too. This is a marketing truism that as far as I know is universal. It's not exactly material to what you are saying, but it might be worth a mention that along with a big advertising budget they must have a good product or the result is career suicide.
Dave: Of course films get screened for test audiences to make sure that the film isn't a flop. Star Wars failed its screen test, so they had to go remake the ending. What's really important is to understand your demographics and then push the film or story to appeal to the audience. In short, you need to understand your audience and then create a beautiful film, one that is engrossing, emotionally nourishing, and entertaining. It’s only after you’ve done that that you should be able to go out and sell your book or movie. But by knowing this stuff, you can greatly increase the size of your potential audience, and push your sales out of the realm of the ordinary and into the realm of the fantastic.

Marketing Before You Write - Part 1 - by David Farland

I hate to talk about “how to market” your tales. It de-emphasizes the fact that you have to write a great book or movie in the first place, before you can market it. But marketing your work is a necessity.

My main concern is this: back when I ran the writing track for DragonCon, each year I would put together dozens of writing classes, and about the same 40 people would attend all of them. Then I’d put up a class on, “How to Sell Your Novel to Publishers,” and literally the biggest auditorium that we had—with over 2000 seats—couldn’t hold the spectators. (In other words, folks want fame without doing the work).

Very often, I will look at a book that is written well, and I almost want to weep. I’ll see authors trying to tell tired old tales that I’ve seen a thousand times before, and trying to no avail to set themselves apart or make their work come alive…on my last Daily Kick…I got a letter back from a professional marketer asking for a bit of clarification. (Part 1 of this email conversation follows): 

Marketer: First off, what you are saying makes a hell of a lot of sense, so much so that there must be a much more scientific, formulaic approach that has been done by each and every serious movie producer or studio and other entities involved, something they can put in the hands of their green-lighting specialists or producers… 

Dave: Each of the major studios, as I understand it, has some kind of green-lighting marketing division. Their techniques and research are kept under wraps. There are also some good green-lighting companies that cater to independent investors and filmmakers. I worked for a time with Entertainment Business Group (EBG), one such company, and learned a great deal. But there are others. Past employees are forbidden to reveal certain details, of course, and I only share information that the company owner would give out in seminars. I didn’t keep copies of the company’s research databases.

I can say that there are different approaches to green-lighting. For example, White Light Entertainment looks at a “formulaic” approach. They believe that each audience has an ideal movie that they’re paying to see, and one can study the elements of plot, cast, setting, and so on, in order to determine what the ideal combination might be. I’m mainly discussing the approach that EBG was using, along with some of my own observations, and those of book professionals that I’ve known.

Marketer: But my main concern is that having studied stock analysis somewhat, it occurs to me that looking for similarities in the top movies of all time is probably not just similar to but rather exactly like stock analysis methods. All but one or two analysis models are built by predicting what will work in the future based upon probabilities reflecting what has happened in the past, although it can be argued that what will happen in the future is not tied to the past...

You might also ask yourself, did that movie work because it capitalized timely and well on one trend, or did it actually compound several trends well? So in studying the biggest money makers, maybe you need to look not just at the all-time results, but also at the trends of the moment…

David: You've got it all right, so far. Movie makers look for trends to some degree, and they’ve always got one eye on “what’s popular.” Books that go big get made into movies because there’s a guaranteed audience. The Scooby Doo movies were a big hit because they resonated with adults who watched the television shows years ago, and now wanted their kids to enjoy them.

In the same way, the Hunger Games movie is setting records for pre-sales. The book wasn’t as huge a hit as Harry Potter, but it is riding a powerful trend. It plays upon the resonance of television shows like Survivor, American Idol, and other reality shows, but it also capitalizes on the resonance of movies like Gladiator. So one might predict that “reality-based” books should do well with YA reads now.

(End of Part 1)

Fruitflesh from the Heart

Gayle Brandeis, published author and winner of the Bellwether Prize, suggests an interesting writing exercise in her book, Fruitflesh. She encourages writers to explore emotions and sensations by writing about fruit. Every topic can be covered in such intimate exercises; clothes, crowds, eyesight, listening, dancing, singing, or the slow, natural growth of a seed, from sapling to bud to fruit.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anaïs Nin

Every writer reaches a time when they must leap away from comfortable well-known space. This fearless upward leap may polish the creative gift and bring us closer to the raw talent that inhabits our hearts.

Try writing about fruit, expressing from the heart, and see what appears on the page…

There are times when I want to be stained,

marked all over with berry wine, baptized,

mouth, fingers, chin and neck, between my toes…

heady with ripe flower

bouquets dizzy with bees, their bodies

painted, perfumed by purple sun syrup,

their breath elderberry delicious.

Pattiann Rogers

The deep intimacy of such exercises will strengthen your writing. Only then can you share the depths of the soul with both courage and truth.

EBook Publishing Today by Jerry Simmons

Imagine for a moment you bought a new car for your family and wanted to take it out for a spin. As you head down the street of your neighborhood you notice the roads to the main city streets are blocked and you have no way of getting to the grocery or pharmacy, your access is blocked. Then you discover that your particular model of car has been restricted to the local streets of your neighborhood and nothing further. This is the same problem authors have when they publish and lack access to the market. You are destined to driving the back streets. 

Certainly you can walk to the grocery or drug store, which will take longer and you may encounter bad weather. Walking long distances can also create other problems but eventually you may get to where you want to go. Certainly the lack of transportation is a problem if you hope of moving beyond your local neighborhood and venturing out to another city or state. The time and effort required to get to your final destination may be beyond your capability. You have a perfectly good car in the garage but have limited access to the services you need for your family.

Distribution or access to the market for published content is key to having any opportunity at selling significant quantities of your work. Publishers that utilize the print-on-demand model may provide you with a car, but it will be restricted to back roads. The major booksellers will never allow your POD book in their stores. This is limited access to the market and a major problem that most self-published authors face in today’s marketplace. The same scenario holds true for eBooks. A simple PDF file is great for downloading to another computer but in the real market for eBooks, again, you are limiting yourself to the back roads. 

If your published work is not allowed direct access to booksellers via direct sales to book buyers working for those booksellers, your chances of becoming a successful author is handicapped. Distribution comes in two forms: access and availability. Here is a description of each. 

(1)Access to the market is described as a sales group or distribution company selling your title to book buyers of established and recognized booksellers for the purpose of ordering quantities for their stores or catalogs. These titles are often stocked for quick and easy fulfillment and placement onto store shelves and online catalogs.  

(2)Availability means your book title is being entered into a database with the millions of other book titles making it available for sale should a consumer walk into a bookseller and special order. This is the type of distribution used by the print-on-demand companies which in essence is not distribution or access to the market. 

The same process is at work for digital content in the form of eBooks and Audiobooks via MP3 files. The biggest difference is that print book distributors are heavily influenced, subsidized and dependent on the major print book publishers. In the digital field that is not the case, at least not yet, digital distributors have no dependence on the biggest publishers. This makes distribution of digital content much more accessible for the independent author. 

Regardless of whether you decide to publish in print or eBook format, without access to booksellers you cannot sell significant quantities of your work. Whether the seller is a brick and mortar store or an online retailer, library or school, if you do not have the ability to expand your readership through access to those that actively market and sell product then your audience may forever remain small. 

My recommendation for authors is they consider all formats for their published work: trade print, eBook and Audiobook. At this time the market for the eBook has tremendous opportunities for the independent author over either of the remaining two formats. 

The market for publishing is changing rapidly and in order for authors to maximize their opportunities and in turn their potential, they must stay informed. The difficulty with the print market has been obvious for many years yet we all tend to think of print when discussing publishing. The business of printing books and shipping to booksellers is anachronistic and outdated way of thinking. As the market for print continues to decline the barriers to entry continue to grow. Not the case with eBooks. 

The digital marketplace is new, vibrant and growing rapidly. With over 760,000 new print titles being published each year compared to 50,000 eBook titles the competition is less and access to the market is open and available. The window of opportunity for any new market is small and the time for eBook publishing is today.

Make a Living as a Writer

Making a living as a writer is more accessible now than ever. By dint of education and effort, you, too, can become a copywriter, a journalist, or an author. Here are a few tips to make the journey toward writing as a profession more swift and fulfilling.

1. Educate yourself in niche markets where good writing is in demand. Healthcare, sports, financial, computer tech and politics come to mind. But, there are many other topics for which you can become an expert that will make you money. Just be sure that they are not inundated with competitors that underbid your paycheck.
2. Get to know your editors. Some editors want to assign a topic and walk away. The better you perform on your own the more willing they are to hire you, again. But, certain editors adore writing by committee. Avoid them like the plague. You will be forced to revise until your fingers bleed and your keyboard breaks…not a wealth building strategy for any writer.
3. Build an authorial fingerprint. Set up a simple but compelling website and/or get articles in local publications. The more samples you have to show prospects the greater your chances of getting hired. Nothing convinces a possible client of your talent than seeing past work in print.
4. Use humility as your starting point. It’s much easier to work into high paying jobs if you already have a reputation as an easy-to-work-with writer that is both bright and open to suggestions. Accepting a lower paying gig often leads to higher paying jobs through editorial referrals. As your reputation grows, so will your earnings.
5. Remember that you are selling an article, not your knowledge. Although editors often buy “all rights,” they can’t buy information gleaned from days of research. Research once then concept a dozen times. This will bring you a plethora of work assignments engendered from one research investment.

There are many other writing tips that can help you excel on the Internet. Get aggressive. Read up on what works and what doesn’t. Your writing opportunities will increase and your professional credits will thrive, right along with your bank account!

Analyse Your Audience by David Farland, Part II

Characters
Well, given this list of most popular books of all time, take a look at the characters. What is the age and sex of each protagonist? Ninety percent of these novels seem to be aimed primarily at men. Why is that? Don’t women read? Of course not. (I’ll have a long section on why this historical bias exists later.)
Does the book have more than one major protagonist (usually defined by viewpoint character)?
Does the age of the protagonist change throughout the book? For example, in Harry Potter we first meet young Harry shortly after birth, but most of the book takes place later in life.
Beyond age and sex, you might study the characters closely. What is their social status? What about their physical appearances? What kinds of personality traits do they have in common?
Conflicts
After you study the characters, move on to conflicts. I like to take each major character in turn and study each of his or her conflicts. I label them as primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on.
So the next question is a bit tougher. How important to the reader will that conflict be? For example, when A Tale of Two Cities was written, the entire world was still reeling from the after-effects of the French Revolution. British nobility – indeed leaders around the entire world – were afraid of losing their heads, so they began to vie to for the title of "most virtuous leader alive today." Nobles began giving money to charity and making sure the press was present to see them do it, and so on. The reform movement swept across the oceans to America, where in the 1830s - 1850s tens of thousands of Christian Communes rose up. (I'll bet that you thought communes were a modern thing, something that happened just during the 1970s, but they go back thousands of years, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them rise up again in the coming year or two.) So the global reform movement swept throughout Europe and Russia, and thus we can see that for a reader in the mid-1800s, this kind of novel struck the reader deeply. In short, it carried information vital to the reader's survival.
We can see that trend throughout the list. Is Lord of the Rings really just escapism? I don't think so. As a teenager I clearly believed that the ring of power was a metaphor for the nuclear bomb. Tolkien denies it, but the bulk of the novel was written in the post-war era after WWII. If nothing else, I found myself identifying strongly with the inconsequential hobbits who were trying to rid the world of an item that could destroy the planet.
How important is it to you to know how the mob works today? When The Godfather came out, most people were totally ignorant at how powerful organized crime was. Today we're better educated, but I think that most people would be shocked at just how corrupt politics has become.
So study the conflicts.
One screenwriting doctor claims that in every great story, there is a question about the character's identity at its heart. Who am I? Who do others think that I am? This might seem like a tertiary conflict in many of these stories, but I think you'll find that it is a common thread.
In short, pay attention to even the smallest conflicts in the tale.
Very often, a powerful novel doesn't just challenge the protagonist's identity, it challenges the reader's identity, too.
Emotional Beats
In order to sell to any audience, you need to understand what drives that audience. A child may be looking for stories of wonder, tales that have comforting endings. A teen will be more likely to be looking for romance. An older male might be interested in figuring out how to best take care of his family, and so tales that have a strong tie to obtaining wealth become attractive, while older women in particular are interested in stories about belonging.
I worked with a green-lighting company in Hollywood that used to study how the emotional beats generated in an advertising campaign would translate into filled seats at the box office. Depending upon the age and sex of the viewer, we could tell what they wanted to see.
So we broke those emotional beats down into certain categories: mystery, drama, romance, adventure, wonder, horror, humor, and lust.
Using this system, we could look at a commercial and say: okay, your primary audience is teen girls. We know that 92% of that audience will be driven to the theater to view a movie that has romance in it, while 89% are looking for comedy. If the movie hits those emotions, then it will have a large potential audience. On the other hand, what if it hits the wrong emotional markers for the audience? Teenage girls don't generally look for drama; they get enough of it in their lives. Nor do they respond well to pornography. So what if you give them a movie that deals with things that the audience doesn't like? Well, you will probably drive viewers away. Instead of appealing to 90% of your audience, if you make a pornographic movie for girls you'll be advertising to less than five percent of them. So your sales will drop dramatically.
Themes
Emotional markers are big in Hollywood, but the list of markers isn't as helpful as it could be. There are commonalities in stories that go beyond the emotional tags, and I'm going to label them as "themes."
I've noticed that tales about character growth tend to be more satisfying than those that are not. So I add that into my mix of things to look for.
Similarly, many readers respond well to novels about friendship – gaining and keeping friends. If you look at the "top television shows of all time" you'll see that many of them – shows like "Cheers," "M.A.S.H.," "Seinfeld," "I Love Lucy," "Happy Days," and so on all revolved around a small cluster of friends and cohorts.
As I mentioned above, as a man I've noticed that tales about "making it rich" are attractive to me. Interestingly, before I got married I was far more interested in romance – how to find and wed the right girl. Now my fantasies tend to revolve around "How am I going to support my family – not just for the rest of my life, but even after I die?"
So look at the bestselling novels of all time. How many of them deal with themes appropriate to their audience?
Miscellaneous
Look at the books above and ask yourself what length has to do with becoming a bestseller. I suspect that when Lord of the Rings came out, it was perhaps the longest fantasy novel ever published. But most of the books on the list above are big, honking novels of a quarter of a million words or more. Most of them are among the longest books of their kind.
Why is that? Orson Scott Card has pointed out that when you write a novel of transport – one that takes the reader into another time, place, or culture – it naturally takes longer to tell the story.
But I think that there is more to it. I think that a longer novel invites greater depth. It allows the author to put more characters into deeper conflict, bringing in wider themes, weaving a tapestry that becomes more engrossing to the readers than a shorter work can produce.
Beyond novel length, look at things like: length of chapter and length of scene.
You could easily go into the mechanics of a bestseller. How much dialogue does the author use compared to, say, narration?
Is the book written in first person, second, third? How deeply does the author penetrate into the character's viewpoint?
You might even get down to smaller elements. In bestselling novels, there is a tendency for authors to dwell upon things such as: what it's like to eat at a restaurant that only the very wealthy can afford. You might study things such as: how does the author handle a dining scene?
Summary
I'd like you to become a student of what sells, and I think that the only way to do it is to do as I have suggested here: create a list of the bestsellers in your genre and medium then begin to study the commonalities.
As you do this, you'll gain a tremendous advantage over not just the new authors that you meet but even some authors who are widely published. I know dozens of authors who've never given an hour's thought to audience analysis – even authors who have written 30 novels or more.
Some authors have an inner sense of style that allows them to naturally drift toward writing for a wide audience. But most of us have to work a little harder to get a grip on such things.

Live your Writing Dreams

I grew up in a family of practical pragmatic people. If they couldn’t see it, smell it, feel it, taste it or hear it, it didn’t exist. Imagination was useful only as a hobby. Whatever you received came only by working hard with your two hands. No Fairy Godmothers welcome!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this philosophy. It works for many people and is a good way to live, especially when taking care of a family and dealing with practical things, like bills. But, it doesn’t grant much room for the development of poets or writers or dreamers.

And, they need to live, too.

I learned through hard experience that those with creative minds die when exposed only to harsh pragmatic reality. If a rose were planted in a desert next to a cactus, the cactus would thrive because its needs were being met, while the rose would die because its needs were not being met.

My point? Feed your inner artist by living your writing dreams.

This doesn’t mean you should throw away your car keys, pull on a backpack and head away from civilization, with only a journal and a pen. It means you should think about your writing goals and imagine yourself living them, now. What would it be like to sit at an author’s signing table and sign hard copies of your latest published novel? How would it feel to be called up to receive a writing award in front of your peers? Could ideas and words flow through you and onto the page, with ease and grace?

Opening your mind to these ideas is a great way to open your heart to living a more creative life. Put aside your pragmatic doubts. Live your writing dreams mentally and, eventually, you will live them in the clear light of day. 

Analyze your Audience, Part I - by David Farland

From David Farland’s wonderful Daily Kick in the Pants Newsletter
Analyzing Your Novel's Audience:
 
I’m going to encourage you to learn to do your own audience analysis. Why? Because if you do, you might well begin to see things that others have missed.
Here is a list of the 20 bestselling novels of all time. The information comes from Wikipedia, is dated just a bit, and the list is obviously wrong. It shows Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows high on the list but doesn't show the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone anywhere at all. Since the first books in a series will always outpace the last books in sales (because there is always some falloff), it is obvious that we've got a problem.
Furthermore, sales of the Harry Potter books hit over 400 million for the series as a whole a couple of years ago in July. With seven books in the series, that means we have average sales of near 60 million copies, not the 44 million that was listed as the top sales figure here. In short, all seven books in the series should be on this list, not just the last book, and the numbers should range higher. But I’m not going to correct this list, because the truth is that I want to talk about more than just Harry Potter. Oh, and Twilight should be on here, too.
Title Author
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
And Then There Were None Agatha Christie
The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien
She H. Rider Haggard
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
The Alchemist Paulo Coelho
The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
Harry Potter / Deathly Hallows J.K. Rowling
Jonathon Livingston Seagull Richard Bach
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann
Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez
The Godfather Mario Puzo
Jaws Peter Benchley
Shōgun James Clavell
The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett
Perfume Patrick Süskind
The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans
Now, given this list, I look for patterns in order to determine the elements that make a bestseller.
Settings
Let's start with the settings. How many of the books distance the reader from current time and space?
You'll notice that the first book on our list takes place six decades before the readers of the 1860s were around. Most of the readers wouldn't have been alive. It would be like me writing about JFK. Also, the book is set in two countries – England and France. In other words, no matter where you were living, the book offered some escape from the contemporary setting.
As you scroll through the list, you'll notice that about 35% of the novels are set in complete fantasy worlds. Most of the rest had historical ties. In each case where the novel doesn't distance the reader from the modern world, most of the novels take you someplace that you would like to go – a seaside resort, an island retreat, and so on.
So offering your reader escape seems to be something that most bestsellers have in common both in books and in movies. In Writing the Blockbuster Novel, Zuckerman says you should look to set your tale in places where the reader might want to go – exotic destinations like New York, Bombay, and London abound.
But what if you don't want to set your book in one of those places? That's all right, too. You can still entice your reader into your setting. For example, if I were setting a novel in Rigby, Idaho I might consider talking about the things that make Rigby one of the great destinations in the world – clear sunny skies, neighbors with high values, wild elk bedding down on the banks of the Snake River, and so on.
This is a key even in my genre of fantasy. Tolkien sold a lot of books, but one of the real reasons why is that Middle Earth is a great place to be. The Shire with its gentle Hobbits, its bounteous gardens and its innocence is a great place to go if you want to get away from real-world stress.
Beyond just the initial setting though, there are other questions to study. For example, does the setting move about? Or does the novel span dozens or even thousands of years? It's an easy thing for an author to talk about how glacial ice sculpted a present-day valley, or to throw in a story told by a grandmother to help set a scene. All of these techniques can expand the world that you're creating.

(Look for Part II Monday)

Love of the Craft

With Valentines Day less than 24-hours away, love of the craft seems an obvious topic. Why do we love writing? Is it the mystique, the clarification, appreciation of the act of penning our inner most thoughts?

Too often we allow the pragmatic side of writing to infuse our minds, forgetting that writing is a delight because it opens us up to childlike truth and wonder. One of the great gifts of learning how to read and write is the act of writing, itself.

On Valentines Day, a day for celebrating love in all its glory, love the craft of writing. Count the many gifts it brings into your life, with deep gratitude. And, let the love of writing inspire an affectionate note, a thoughtful card, an appreciative or supportive word. Never forget to write what you love and love what you write!

"If You Want to Write" by Brenda Euland

Brenda Euland, personal friend of Irving Stone, was a creative writing teacher for over 70 years. She loved the art and craft of writing. But, especially, she loved to guide writers into avenues of honesty, where real feelings rose above superficial phraseology.

“I have read all of Chekhov, now. He is so great, and his letters and his life and what people remember of him are even greater. Yet, it is consoling that if he did not know all about cruelty, gluttony, cowardice, and coldness in himself, he could not have written about them. Great men feel and know everything that mean men feel, even more clearly, but they seem to have made some kind of an ascension, and these evil feelings, though they still understand them sympathetically, no longer exert any power over them.

“Gradually, by writing, you will learn more and more to be free, to say all you think; and at the same time you will learn never to lie to yourself, never to pretend and attitudinize. But only by writing and by long, patient, serious work will you find your true self.

“And, why find it? Because it is, I think, the immortal soul and the life of the Spirit…”

I agree with Brenda Euland. The greatest power on earth is the Spirit. Connecting with yours influences and empowers, especially when you open your heart to embrace it. The light it sheds upon our inner creative worlds is as brilliant as the sunlight that rises and sets on our planet. We have power to know ourselves, truly, completely. Such honesty honors the soul as much as creativity drives it.

Write truly. Write powerfully. Write from the core of your heart with a goal to say what you know needs to be said. Only then will your efforts make life more pure, more strong. Only then shall your talent, regardless of what critics may say, make this world a better place.

What Makes a Million Dollar Best Seller by David Farland

From David's Daily Kick:

Many times when a writer starts to write his or her first book or screenplay, it is because the seed of an idea takes root in his or her head and the author feels that it must come out. This is the author’s primary motivation to write. That's not a bad way to write, but unfortunately in many cases the new author will pen something that feels terribly important and profound to him or her, while the rest of the world might not respond at all. That's because so many new authors write as a type of therapy.

The new author, after two or three sales, will often find him or herself sliding back down on the sales charts, and only then will begin to wonder what it is that the rest of the world would like to see in a story. The answer to that question of course changes from reader to reader. But if you're looking to sell big, you need to do some research into what audiences like.

This is something that writers need to do for almost every story. My research process requires me to look not just at book sales, but also at popular movies and television shows—to try to get a snapshot of our culture as a whole. The reason for this is quite simple. If I write a book, there are a limited number of readers for it. For example, it has been estimated that in my own field, fantasy, there are only about two or three million regular readers out there. I can catch some of those people as they wander past my books, but if I want to go really big—say Harry Potter big—I need to do better than that. I need to create a sensation. I need to get enough publicity on morning television and radio shows so that it drives readers into the bookstore—the way that Rowling, Paolini, Meyer, and Suzanne Collins have recently have done.

In order to appeal to that wider audience, I look at several mediums and try to take some clues from them.

For example, let's take film. In order for a movie to gross $100 million at the box office, it has to draw a viewership of about 16 million people—which is much larger than the number of hardcover sales made by almost any novel. So, what can I learn from movie tastes? A few years ago I read a book on screenwriting. In it, the instructor listed the top 50 bestselling movies of all time and asked that readers look for similarities. When I reached the end of the list, the author announced that there were NO similarities. But I had found three things that they all had in common. The list changes each year, but my points will still hold true. In fact, I’ve even found a few more similarities.

Here is the current list (as of 2/2012):

1 Avatar Fox $2,782.3 $760.5 27.3% $2,021.8 72.7% 2009^

2 Titanic Par. $1,843.2 $600.8 32.6% $1,242.4 67.4% 1997^

3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 WB $1,328.1 $381.0 28.7% $947.1 71.3% 2011

4 Transformers: Dark of the Moon P/DW $1,123.7 $352.4 31.4% $771.4 68.6% 2011

5 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King NL $1,119.9 $377.8 33.7% $742.1 66.3% 2003^

6 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest BV $1,066.2 $423.3 39.7% $642.9 60.3% 2006

7 Toy Story 3 BV $1,063.2 $415.0 39.0% $648.2 61.0% 2010

8 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides BV $1,043.9 $241.1 23.1% $802.8 76.9% 2011

9 Alice in Wonderland (2010) BV $1,024.3 $334.2 32.6% $690.1 67.4% 2010

10 The Dark Knight WB $1,001.9 $533.3 53.2% $468.6 46.8% 2008

Last update: Feb 2012 (For the purposes of this blog, the list has been edited to only the top ten. See David Farland’s website and sign-up for the Daily Kick for more information).

So what do these films have in common? Here are a few things:

Movies set in another time and or another place: 98%.

This tells us that movies that take us away from the real world and transport us into an alternate reality are far more popular than those set within a contemporary setting.

Movies with wide audience potential (Male&Female): 100%.

Most of these movies have strong protagonists of both sexes and of various ages. Thus they draw in a much wider audience than, say, a teen chick flick. However, the main story focus is almost always on a relatively young male—anywhere from a child to a man in his early twenties. I hate that statistic, but I can’t ignore it.

Movies with high emotional Richter-scale values: 100%.

The movies here tend to tug on the heart-strings. Very often they achieve this by placing an entire "world" in jeopardy. But sometimes, as in Home Alone or Forrest Gump, the movie focuses on one very likable protagonist—then puts him or her through hell.

Movies with heroic main plot: 98%.

Almost every movie on the list focuses on someone who is trying to save others.

Fantasy or SF: 94%.

Since I write fantasy I'd like to point out that fantasy movies have been topping the bestseller lists for decades. It's time that the studios take notice!

Alternate World: 80%.

Most of these movies that have done well have been set in an alternate world, not in our world.

So, as a writer, what can you learn from these points? Well, if you're trying to write a bestseller, this information might be something of a treasure map, pointing you in some likely directions. A real analysis of bestsellers will need to take us much deeper—into not just noticing what works, but understanding why it works, and how the studios “make it work.”

Go to Dave Wolverton's homepage and sign-up for his Daily Kick, written under his pseudonym David Farland.