What do your characters know about each other?

There is much written, including blog posts on this site, about really getting to know your characters. However, what do your characters know and think about each other?

It is a really useful exercise to write descriptions about your characters from the viewpoint of each of your other major characters. You could free write a description or use question and answer.

Ask your hero a number of questions about your villain and then repeat this exercise for other characters. You could ask:

• Describe them physically
• What do you know about their background?
• What do you like about them?
• What do you dislike about them?
• What do you think they would order for lunch?
• If you were to get stuck in a lift together what would you talk about?
• What do you think their goals are?

You can add questions as you plan and write your book and need to understand more about your characters and how they view each other.

You could do the same exercise for significant people that do not appear in your book, for instance question the mother of your hero. Whilst the mother may not be a character in your book, and may not even be referred to, she might be able to provide an intriguing insight into your character’s motivations.

Have fun with this – the results will help you develop characters with real depth and also work out the intricacies of the relationships between characters.

Happy writing.

Your self-publishing options

Extract from Publish it! How to self-publish your book for free using Kindle Direct Publishing, CreateSpace and Smashwords

You first need to decide which self-publishing options best suit you and your book. Start by asking yourself the following questions and come up with a publishing plan that meets your needs.

Do you want to see your book available as an ebook, printed book or both?
The quickest way to publish your book and start selling is to publish an ebook. Many writers publish an ebook first and then publish a printed version at a later date. Of course if you work as a trainer or public speaker you may well want printed copies of your book to sell at events.

Do you have a budget for publishing or have you decided to undertake all of the tasks yourself?
You may decide to undertake all publishing tasks yourself which will enable you to publish your book and make it available to readers in both printed and ebook formats for no cost. You may decide to buy in services, these can include proofreading and editing, cover design, and storage if you decide to commission a print run. Make a list of services you would prefer to buy in and then prioritise them.

How much time do you want to allocate to publishing, sales and distribution?
The actual publishing process can be fairly quick, it can take less than an hour, however managing sales and distribution can take up significant time. Decide whether you want more time writing and less time on administration tasks or prefer to undertake much of the work yourself. If you choose to take on sales and distribution you will need to ensure you have storage space for printed books, have time to keep up to date with orders and are able to create a website from which readers can order your books, download your ebooks and make payments.

Where do you want your book to appear for sale? Amazon? Your local book store?
If you want to sell through Amazon, iBookstore, Barnes and Noble and others you will find this easier if you publish using both Amazon and Smashwords.

What quality of printed book do you want?
Some self-publishing services offer limited or no choice in how your printed book will be produced. CreateSpace, for example, enables you to produce paperback books only, whereas Lulu offers a range of binding options. Decide what you want and then compare your options.

How much do you want to charge for your book?
This might have an impact on your publishing choices – ebooks are straightforward as there are no printing costs to consider – just decide on the price and look at the services and retailers that support your choice. On Amazon there is a minimum selling price of £0.75/$0.99 however you can make your book available from your own website or Smashwords for free. Print on Demand (POD) books will have a higher per copy production cost than printing multiple copies, if you want to keep the price low you may need to consider paying upfront for a print run.

How much time do you want to allocate to promoting your book?
You may enjoy the promotion and marketing side of self-publication or you may prefer to allocate your time to writing. Some self-publishing services provide you with inclusive promotions. Whilst you can choose to publish to all of the available platforms there may be some restrictions, e.g. if you choose to enroll into KDP Select (Kindle) you cannot offer your ebook for sale elsewhere.

Publishing an ebook
In recent years there has been an ebook revolution; readers are consuming ebooks at a phenomenal rate and there is no sign of this trend slowing. Readers can settle down with their ereader, browse books online, make a purchase and start reading within minutes. We live in an instant society; when a buyer makes a purchase they want their item now.

Publishing an ebook is probably the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get your book in front of your potential readers. There are many other advantages to publishing an ebook; royalties are higher than for printed books (mainly due to cheaper production and delivery costs), readers have instant access to their purchases and publishing is quick and easy.

Ebooks can be read on a computer, laptop, tablet, ereader and mobile phone. Just think of the potential readers you have available to you. With ereaders now available with internet access and a wide range of apps, essentially putting them into the tablet category, they are only going to become more popular.

Ebooks tend to be reasonably priced, even cheap; the result is that readers will give little thought to making that £2.99 purchase perhaps in the same way they give little thought when deciding to buy a cup of coffee. For the writer this means more books sold.

With a number of publishers offering publishing, promotion and distribution services for free, two popular ones are Amazon's KDP and Smashwords, you can literally publish and sell today.

Publishing with Amazon’s KDP provides you with up to 70% royalties and some free promotional activity including emails to readers recommending books based on their previous purchases and a “customers also bought” feature.

Publishing with Smashwords provides you with up to 85% royalties and also provides the opportunity to make your book available on Apple iBookstore, Barnes and Noble and other online retailers.

If you wish to sell your book as an ebook through your own distribution channels you can format your book as a pdf file (see chapter 4) and sell through your own website or through an online retailer of digital products.

Publishing an ebook has much to offer both the new and experienced writer. Now is the time to benefit from this digital revolution.

Publishing a printed book
For a writer there is nothing quite like holding a physical copy of your book in your hands. Even better is seeing copies of your book on the shelves of bookstores. There are many advantages to publishing a printed book; you can use features that may not display correctly on ereaders, e.g. tables. You control much of the formatting including text type and size. You can sell your book in locations not suited to the sale of ebooks such as your training events or high street stores; and, as with ebooks, you can publish for free.

The cost of producing a printed book is higher than an ebook so you will need to consider your pricing strategy. It is perfectly OK to charge different prices for printed and ebook versions of the same book. In fact there is an advantage to this – readers see the ebook at a significantly lower price and perceive that they are getting excellent value for money.

There are several ways to approach publishing a printed book.

Print on Demand (POD)
This is a quick, easy and often free way to publish a book; as you do not need to invest in a print run you can also test the market. There are many advantages to POD including no storage considerations, no upfront payments for print runs and the ability to change the content of your book without waiting for previous stock to be sold. The main disadvantage is that printing costs can be higher than other methods meaning you may need to charge a higher price for your book or be prepared to take a lower profit margin.

CreateSpace (Amazon) provides writers with a free service which includes promotion and distribution. They will keep an amount of money from the sale of each copy sold; you can set the book price accordingly and so determine your profit.

Lulu is another popular POD service that is easy to use; they will also sell your book from their website. Lulu has the additional advantage of offering you a range of binding and paper options.

Both Amazon and Lulu have additional distribution channels you can buy into.

Print run
Commissioning a long print run (1000+ copies) can significantly reduce the cost of each book. You can either use a self-publishing company or organize the printing yourself through a local or specialist printer.

Which self-publishing service?
Amazon's KDP – a free to use service that enables you to publish your ebook and make it available across all of Amazon’s territories; they manage sales and distribution and offer different royalty options based on your pricing. KDP also have a range of promotional tools that support increasing your sales including a “customers also bought” section. If you enroll into KDP Select you can promote your book as free for five days in every ninety and you will earn income each time your book is borrowed by Amazon Prime members.

Smashwords – a free to use service offering a range of distribution channels including iBookstore and Barnes and Noble. They will manage sales and distribution and offer royalty options based on distribution channels.

Lulu – a popular free to use POD service that offers you, the writer, a range of binding options. Lulu is a popular POD service that enables you to create a printed book that meets your requirements. Lulu provides a range of options including paper grade, paperback or hardback, colour or black and white. You can choose to pay for the global reach option which will make your book available to bookstores.

Amazon's CreateSpace – another free to use POD service that prints your book as a paperback and makes it available on Amazon. They also offer expanded distribution channels for which there is a cost.

Self-publishing companies - a number of companies offer self-publishing packages. It is important to consider all aspects of printing and selling a printed book in order to decide on the best package for you.

There are some excellent self-publishing companies out there as well as some who charge a lot of money for a poor service (vanity publishers). Good companies will work with you to provide professional advice and services resulting in a package that is tailored to meet your needs.

Typical packages include editing, cover design, ISBN, ebook conversion, promotion to booksellers, managing storage and distribution, and printing an agreed number of your book.

It is worthwhile spending some time getting recommendations, visiting the company premises and inspecting samples of printed books before deciding on which self-publishing company to use. Always check the contract before signing.

Managing the publication process yourself - you can of course manage the whole process yourself and buy in the services you need from separate sources. You might even decide to set up your own publishing company. If you choose this route consider the time you will need to invest managing the publishing process, and sales and distribution. Of course this could be the start of a whole new business, one you enjoy as much as writing.

The choice is yours. Decide on the best approach for you and then start preparing your book for publication.

Writing prompts

I have just published a book of writing prompts to help you develop the habit of writing everyday. Available in paperback format making it easy to keep by your bed or carry with you. No need for a separate notebook as you can write directly into this book.

Write every day and you will achieve your writing goals. This book will help you develop a daily writing habit. It contains 30 writing prompts (it takes 30 days to form a new habit) and space for you to free write in order to warm up your writing muscles, ignite your creativity and ensure you ward off any signs of writers block.

Once you have warmed up those writing muscles and unleashed your creativity you can easily tackle those bigger writing goals.

Use the writing prompts again and again. You may even decide to develop some of your scribblings into a complete piece.

Click here to see this book on Amazon, use the Look Inside feature to explore this book. 




Happy writing.

Step Five - Writing the First Draft

You have your characters, you have your locations and you have your plot. You are now ready to write your first draft. What’s important is that you just write, do not spend time thinking about the perfect word, spelling, whether or not you have too much description or if your dialogue sounds natural, all of these will be perfected when you edit.

At this stage it is better to type your first draft directly onto a computer or to dictate it using a voice recorder or speech to text software; this helps you stay in the flow as you can get the words down fairly quickly and not worry about how neat your writing is. Turn off the autocorrect feature as, when typing at speed, you may make typos that are corrected incorrectly!

Realistically you will be able to type at 30 words a minute minimum as long as you just tell the story. Aim to write in 20 minute spurts completing approximately 500 words each session. Do just two sessions a day and you will complete 1000 words each and every day. Add in additional sessions and you can increase your daily word count considerably.

Depending on how you write your first draft you will either have too many words that you will reduce or your writing will be more in note form which will need expanding. Either way is fine, what you want to end up with is a completed first draft that you can then edit and polish.

Once you have completed your first draft congratulate yourself and put your work away for a week or two – keep writing during this time, perhaps enter a writing competition. After two weeks start editing and rewriting, take your time working on one scene at a time until you have a novel that is as good as you can get it. Once you have completed your novel why not self-publish your work and make it available to readers.

Happy writing.

Step Four - Plot

You now know what your book is about, where it is based and you have extensive knowledge of your characters. Now is the time to plot out your novel.

Take a scene by scene approach to plotting as you can work out your timeline and inclusion of significant details before you start – this can save hours of rewriting. If you want to group more than one scene into a chapter you can do this after writing the first draft – again much easier as you may want to add scenes or reorder them.

If you like using a computer you can plan your scenes using a word-processor or, if you prefer, use a set of index cards.

At this stage you don’t need to worry about where you should start your novel; you don’t even need to create your scenes in order – you could start at the end and work backwards or create your major scenes and then fill in the gaps.

If using index cards using a separate card for each scene; if using a word-processor leave a space between each scene. Do not number them at this stage as you may decide to add, remove or move scenes.

For each scene use the following headings and then complete the details:

Scene title:

• Purpose:
• Characters:
• Location:
• Description:
• Hook:
• Notes:

Your details might look something like this:

• Scene title: Susan meets a prospective new client.
• Purpose: To create tension between Susan and James (her fiancée) which could jeopardise their wedding
• Characters: Susan, Peter (new client), James
• Location: Cafe
• Description: Susan meets Peter to discuss what her company can offer; if he agrees to work with her this could bring her company back from the brink of collapse. Susan has never met Peter before however the conversation and comments seem to suggest he knows a bit about her. Peter agrees to come to her office to further discuss her proposals. As he get up to leave he leans towards her – at that moment James walks past the café window, he knows Peter very well and suspects Susan of having an affair.
• Hook: How does James know Peter? Why does James despise Peter? How will James behave when he next sees Susan?
• Notes: Include a scene prior to this one where James catches a fleeting glance of Peter.
• Complete the details for all of your scenes, use the notes section to ensure you have included all of the information your readers need to keep them hooked and not feel cheated because you neglected to share with them some important detail. Use your hook to ensure you keep the readers engaged and that all questions are answered before the end of the book.

Look at the order of your scenes, do you need to move things around. If you do ensure you keep related information in the correct order – this might mean scene rewrites. In the above example you need to ensure that James spots Peter before the café scene.

Check that all scenes are necessary – if they serve no purpose delete them.

Check for missing information – either add this into an existing scene or add a new scene.

Decide where your novel starts and ends – this may mean deleting scenes.

Do a last check for flow, timelines and continuity – you don’t want an eleven month pregnancy – and you’re ready to start writing.

Next week you will be writing the first draft.

Happy writing.

Step Three - Location

Locations often become additional characters in your novel – they can become incredibly important to the reader, often generating emotions and feelings that might usually be reserved for your main characters. Imagine a building facing demolition or a forest about to be felled, your reader may well invest a huge amount of their emotions into willing them to survive. You need to know your locations intimately, you can share this with your readers.

Make a note of all the locations in your novel; break your locations down from big to small -  country, city, street, outdoor space, room and chair in the room. You may have only one location in your novel – perhaps a hospital ward or mountain. Again you can break this down from the vastness of the mountain to the confines of a crevice.

Write out location profiles including:

• Physical description
• History – when created, did it have an important role in significant events
• Importance to main, or other, character
• Distinguishing features
• Consider how your location is effected by the weather
• Has the location undergone any changes – even minor ones
• The purpose of the location
• Reasons for and barrier to the success of the location.

Once you have detailed location profiles you will be able to write about these with feeling and give each one a purpose.

Next week we will consider plot.

Happy writing.

Step Two - Characters

If you are writing a novel then it really is worth spending time getting to know your characters before you start writing; if you don’t you may find yourself making your characters do something that they really wouldn’t do – and your readers will notice. If this happens you will have to do a major rewrite. Now this isn’t to say that your characters shouldn’t do things that surprise or is out of character, however when they do surprise it will remain believable because the reader will understand why even if they didn’t see it coming (which is usually a good thing).

Start by creating character profiles for all of your characters, for minor characters these can be brief however for your major characters you need to know everything about them even if you don’t use all of the information in your novel. This knowledge will help you understand how they speak and how they are likely to react to any situation you write them into.

At this stage you do not need to name them – you can refer to them as main male character, the CEO etc.

Start by writing a brief description of them – their looks, age, race, dress, job etc. This will give you the details such as hair colour, height and a brief overview of them that enables you, and your readers, to create a mental image. This will also help you visualise your character as you ask them questions.

Next interrogate them, ask a series of questions that will tell you everything you need to know – imagine you are interviewing them with a view to writing their life story or making a film. You could use a voice recorder and type up your answers later.

Your questions might include:

• What were your parents like?
• What is most important in your life right now?
• What are your dreams and goals?
• What makes you sad?
• What has been the highlight of your life so far?
• What about the biggest tragedy?
• And finally – what is your name?

Once you have this information you can establish their agenda and motivation within your novel.

Build up a set of character profiles and interviews and you can ensure that the plot you develop enables your characters to behave in a way that is consistent with their characteristics, background and experiences. If you do find that you plot a scene where you need a character to act out of character, ask yourself “what would make this character behave in this way?” Once you have the answer you can go back through your plot and write this into your story at an earlier stage (it may need weaving in rather than a one off back-story experience).

Start creating your character profiles today.

Happy writing.