Book editor David Moldawer has some great advice for authors: Think about the reader experience.
“Reader experience design (or ReadX) is about building a book beginning with the experience you want the reader to have and working backward from there,” he writes in a piece penned for BoingBoing. In the piece, Moldawer explains that by thinking about the reader (instead of say, trying to impress peers), you will write a better book. Here is an excerpt from the essay:
You must constantly remind yourself that your reader is both smarter and less knowledgeable than you assume. (The smarter bit is important. You don’t talk down to your reader. You just explain your topic like you would to an intelligent friend in a totally different line of work.)
How rarely we control the world, or anything in it. How mostly futile it is to say,
I want this thus, and I want it now. How often we learn (it doesn't matter our age, it doesn't matter our past) that the only things we can control are those that we raise up with our own hands and sometimes (not always) our hearts.
So that yesterday I cleared the weeds from the lawn's front edge and changed that patch of earth. So that afterwards I came in the house and sat on the couch, my pinched-nerve leg wrapped in heat and a pink book of blank pages on my lap. I wrote the first 350 words of a new book that will soon take me to Florence. I tunneled toward my consuming love affair with words.
Why do you keep writing? I'm asked.
Because writing, I say, is my
terra firma.
Today, I have a guest post from author, freelance writer, and writing coach Suzanne Lieurance.3 Reasons Why Most People Who Say They Want to Write a Book Will Never Write OneBy Suzanne LieuranceAlmost everyone has dreams of writing a book some day. Yet, for most people this will never become more than a dream. And thousands of others who do manage to START writing their book will give up midway through and never finish writing it. As a published author and a writing coach, I've discovered there are basically 3 reasons most writers give up on their dream of one day writing a book:
1. Wanna be authors think their book has to be one of the best books ever written.This is a lot of pressure for any writer, much less a first time author. No one could measure up to this, so it's safer and easier to give up before ever starting. But the truth is, published authors simply try to write the very best book they can write. They don't worry about it being one of the best books ever written.
2
. Wanna be authors figure they really don't have anything new and different to say that hasn't already been written about before in other books.That old saying, "there is nothing new under the sun" is true. So published authors don't worry that someone else may have written a book about the same topic they wish to write about. Instead, they try to give their book a unique "spin" on the topic. That means they write about it in a somewhat unique way.
3. Wanna be authors think writing should be easy. If it isn't, that means they weren't meant to be a writer. When they start writing, and the writing becomes difficult, they figure they must not be cut out to be an author.
Writing is a craft and it is often just plain hard work even for the best of writers. In fact, good writing is usually good rewriting, so most of the well-known authors work hard at their writing. They write, then rewrite and rewrite until they get the work just right. If they stopped when the writing got difficult, they'd never publish anything either. As you can probably tell by now, each of these 3 reasons for giving up on writing a book is merely an excuse for not following through on a dream.
If you dream of writing a book someday, don't expect to write one of the best books ever written. Don't worry that you have nothing new to say. Just try to say it in a new way. And, most importantly, don't expect the writing to be so easy that there's nothing to it. Just keep plugging along and eventually you'll have a finished manuscript you can be proud of.
For instruction, tips, and advice to help you start and finish writing your book, join the The Working Writer's Club (
http://workingwritersclub.com).
Suzanne Lieurance is a fulltime freelance writer, the author of 22 (at last count) published books, and the Working Writer's Coach.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Suzanne_Lieurance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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I’ve taken a look at my statistics and here’s the top posts on Fiction Notes for 2009, in order of popularity. Five of these are the first page of a series of posts on a certain topic. The other five are individual posts.
- Novel Writing. 30 Days to a Stronger Novel. 30 one-minute creative writing tips to improve your novel. After the First Draft is the Ebook version of this post. If you’ve just finished NaNoWriMo, this is for you!
- Book Trailers. 43 Book Trailer Sites to Inspire, Instruct and Share. More information about book trailers for novels, for high school students, for kids and trailers in general than you really want to know.
- Characterization. 15 Days to Stronger Characters Character description, character development, stronger characterization, names and more.
- Revising a Novel. Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise This novel writing and revising workbook is based on my Novel Revision Retreats and includes many ways to rethink, rework and rewrite your novel.
- Writing Picture Books. 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book. Improve your children’s picture book in just 30 days. Creative writing tips, plot, characters, pacing and more. How to Write A Children’s Picture Book is the Ebook version of this series.
- Characterization. Villains Don’t Always Wear Black. This 3-part series talks about characterization of villains: how to describe the characters, names, and more.
- The Writing Life. One of the first posts I wrote on this blog continues to be popular: Hope Helps You Through The Writing Process. This five part series on the psychology of the creative writing process, especially revising, is one of my favorites I’ve written.
- Creative Writing. 4 Times to Stop Revising. Do you do endless revisions on your novel or picture book? How do you know when you’re done?
- Writing tips & techniques. Flashbacks Can Deepen Stories. This in-depth discussion of flashbacks discusses when, where and why to include a flashback.
- Character Description. How to Create Whacky, Interesting, Character Descriptions that Stick With a Reader. Now this one was just plain fun.
Related posts:
- Problems in 2009?
- 2009 Arkansas SCBWI
- Suc
Find a Working Method that Works for You
My current WIP novel is at a curious stage. I’ve finished two drafts and now have feedback from two readers. I collated all the critiques onto one printout and have made even more notes on these pages.
So, the creative writing problem has been how to proceed from here.
Retype. At first, I started retyping everything. While I’ve suggested this as one way of doing a drastic revision, I’m not ready for this yet. It did force me to reconsider every word, but it was too much at this stage.
New File. Next, I tried starting a new file for the revised version and just adding one chapter at a time. But I found myself afraid to revise in this file. I didn’t want to make mistakes in this new file, and the writing suffered from my aversion to trying new things.
Temporary File and New File. Finally, I started copying the next chapter into a temporary file and making revisions there. Only when I’m happy with the chapter will I copy it into the new revised file.
It may seem cumbersome to you, but I had to find a working method that would foster the creativity and freedom needed in this novel revision, while still keeping me moving steadily forward. The temporary file and new file combination just works.
Related posts:
- Revision Attitude
- Revising in the Home Stretch
- 4 Files to Prevent Mistakes
you just amaze me - your mind is never still for a moment. a new book, already percolating in there :) i love it.
Yes.
Mine too. Your poor leg! I hope it's better soon.
love these thoughts :) And as a side note that's one of my favorites at the PMA!