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Mystery surrounds writing—all of the arts, really. It seems to be weird dichotomy when people learn or find out that you’re a writer, especially the author of a book, let alone a series of books. They are almost in awe, super excited for you, and can’t believe that someone could actually do such a thing. But then, they are critical. How do you make any money? Do you live on rice and beans? What’s your real job? I tend to focus on the awe and excitement.

Mystery surrounds writing—all of the arts, really. It seems to be weird dichotomy when people learn or find out that you’re a writer, especially the author of a book, let alone a series of books. They are almost in awe, super excited for you, and can’t believe that someone could actually do such a thing. But then, they are critical. How do you make any money? Do you live on rice and beans? What’s your real job? I tend to focus on the awe and excitement.

Setting Goals by Christopher Patterson

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We all feel like we are floundering at some point in our lives, and in many aspects of our lives. I think as writers, we experience this even more. We have those all too common questions: What am I doing? Am I wasting my time? Where am I going? What should I write? Have people wasted their time on me? And the list goes on and on.

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As a teacher and coach, I am constantly talking to both athletes and students about goal setting. It is an essential practice for anyone wishing to achieve anything. Rarely do we see people who achieve some sort of success without establishing well thought out goals. And yet, I never talk about it to myself in regards to my writing. I set goals as a teacher. I set goals as a coach. I even set personal goals in regards to my faith and my fitness. But up until recently, I haven’t set any goals for my writing. I mean, I have had goals in mind, end dates, release dates, finish dates, etc. But I have never actually put something down on paper. What the heck? Why?

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I think we as writers think, firstly, that goal setting stifles our creativity. I couldn’t begin to tell you, as I did some research for that blog post, how many writers out there refused to plan out their stories. And for that very reason…it stifles their creativity. Don’t put constraints on yourself. Be a free spirit. Be a thinker. I think it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

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Secondly, most of us writers aren’t full time writers. That may be the goal (see, there it is) but that’s not the current reality. The time we give to writing is extra, carved out of a rather busy day that is consumed by full time jobs, kids, spouses, and other commitments. I think there is a fear that we won’t live up to our expectations, i.e. we will fail the goals that we have set.

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One of my coaches, and now very good friend, said something to me once that was very profound, and yet, very simple. He was talking to us about goals and he told us that he couldn’t guarantee success. As an athlete, that’s not necessarily what you want to hear. You want to hear that, if you put in the time and effort, you will achieve success. But he was brutally honest with us. However, he added that if we do everything we need to do, everything required of us, we at least have a shot. A glimmer of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel. If we don’t do all those things—the prepping, the hard work, the running, the lifting, etc.—the one thing he could guarantee us was failure. Before we finished that talk, he made sure to add that the one thing most people fail at—they do all the physical and even mental prep—is writing down our goals. Wow! By not establishing and writing down my goals, I am hurting my potential for performance. And as a coach, I can tell you, its true. This is the one critical piece of the puzzle that many athletes over look and forget. Why are writers any different? We’re not.

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I talk to my students and athletes about SMART goals. You may have heard of them before. I think they are a great way to establish goals, so lets talk about SMART goals in regards to writing and art.

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These are individual aspects of a goal that, when put together, make a goal more achievable. Let’s talk about each individual part.

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³§â€ÖÀ±è±ð³¦¾±´Ú¾±³¦â€”Your goals need to be specific. State specifically what your goal is, when you will achieve it, how you will achieve it, etc. Its not good enough to say, “I want to write a book someday.â€� It’s not even good enough to say, “I would like to be done with my book by the end of the year.â€� First thing you need to do is use definitive language in writing your goals.

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“I am a published author on January 1st, 2020.� Speak about it as if it has already happened.

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“I am the author of XYZ: Book two of the XYZ Chronicles on {insert date}.�

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When we aren’t definitive in our language and if we don’t establish specifics, it gives us an out when we don’t meet that goal. We can throw our hands up and say it wasn’t in the cards. Rather, when we establish the exact goal we want to achieve, with an exact date, with an exact process, with whom we will achieve this goals, and any other specific you can think of, if we don’t meet that goal, we can go back to the drawing board and really figure out why we didn’t achieve our goal.

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²Ñâ€Äâ±ð²¹²õ³Ü°ù²¹²ú±ô±ð—Your goals need to be measurable. How exactly will I know that I have reached my goal? This is certainly related to Specific, in that I need to have an exact date with an exact publication, but how will you feel, who will you be with, what will you do. Are their checkpoints that will help you measure your road to achieving your goal. You will reach 10% of your book by this date, or chapter 10 by this date. You will find an editor by this date, or you will raise enough money for a cover by this time. Understanding what each step will look like, feel like, etc. makes the process so much easier to believe in and understand.

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´¡â€”A³Ù³Ù²¹¾±²Ô²¹²ú±ô±ð—Your goal needs to be attainable. They need to be realistic. If you have never written even a short story, and your goal is to finish a polished novel by the end of next month, that’s not realistic or attainable. If you have one published book that has done okay in terms of sales, and your goal is to go full time by the end of this month, that’s not realistic. Do you have the money, the time, the skills to achieve this goal. And if you don’t, how do you plan on making them and developing them.

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I often refer to this step as the mini-goal step. This is the step in the goal setting process where a person needs to establish mini-goals that will help them achieve the greater goal. How many words a day do you plan on writing? How much money will you set aside a month to pay for editing and cover art? How many emails and newsletters will you send out for marketing? How many contacts will you make?

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This step in our goal setting process might be the most important, simply because it hold your feet to the fire. You have to do a daily, weekly, monthly check to make sure you are track. You have to truly be real with yourself in regards to your goals. I am definitely not a dream killer. There are enough of those out there and if you are an aspiring writer, I am sure you have come across more than one person who has literally laughed at your dream of being an author, writer, producer, or poet. So, I am not saying you can’t chase your dreams. What I am saying is you must be realistic about your dreams. If you don’t have a lot of experience in writing, but you want to be an author, you may need to take some classes, invest time in your craft, and reach out to people. If you are terrible at marketing, you need to spend time honing that craft. If you don’t have any money, maybe you need to get another job to pay for all the things that make a good book good. Let me give you an example of what the attainable portion of goal setting might look like.

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·ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I will write 1000 words a day.

·ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Publishing will cost me $1000, so I will set aside $100 a month for publishing costs.

·ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I will spend 30 minutes a day searching for a reputable editor.

·ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I will spend 30 minutes a day looking for a cover artist.

·ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I will spend 30 minutes a day reading a book from the genre I write.

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These are just examples of those mini-goals you might write to achieve the overall, big picture goal. And make sure they’re realistic. If you have four kids, work 50 hours a week, and do family night every Wednesday and church every Friday, maybe 1000 words a day is too much. Dial it back to 500. If you barely make ends meet, maybe $100 a month is too much to set aside. Do $25. And then if you find that you have become better at managing your time and money, adjust from there.

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¸é‸é±ð±ô±ð±¹²¹²Ô³Ù—This aspect of goal setting is always an interesting one because it forces people into a gut check moment. Is your goal relevant for you? Wait…what? Let me give you an example. I have had wrestlers who have told me, told their teammates, and written down that their goal was to be a state champion, but then when we actually sit down and talk, I find out that that isn’t their goal at all. Their goal is to get into shape for football, lose some weight, get stronger, etc. You see, their goal wasn’t relevant to their real, well, goals.

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When it comes to writing, why are you writing? It’s perfectly okay to write a story that only you ever intend on reading, or you only ever intend for parents and family and friends to read. Don’t worry about the expectations of other people, worry about what you want to do with your writing. Don’t let people pressure you into spending time and money on editing and publishing if that is truly not what you want to do.

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If you don’t know how to write, you can learn. If you don’t have money, you can raise it or work extra. If you don’t have resources, you can find them. If you don’t have contacts, you can build them. But if you don’t have the desire…well, you will never produce your best product if you don’t have the desire. Go after your goals. Not your parents� goals for you. Not your teachers� goals for you, or your friends�. Go after your goals and be okay with what they are.

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T—Time Bound—This may be the most infuriating and frustrating of all the aspects of goal setting. Create deadlines. Its that simple. And if you don’t meet those deadlines, readjust and revisit why. But one of the worst things we do when we set goals is we set these arbitrary, wishy washy deadlines that aren’t specific. Set a deadline, stick to it, and if you don’t meet your deadline, figure out why, and set a new one.

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Before I move on, let me say that it isn’t okay to miss deadlines. I mean, it is, but it isn’t. Don’t be okay with missing deadlines. Again, too many people will set a deadline, not hit it, and then just shrug their shoulders and give an “oh well.� Make sure you really know why you didn’t meet your deadline. It may be a really good reason (notice I didn’t say excuse) and that’s okay. So move on. It may be a terrible excuse (my wrestling coach told me once that excuses are like buttholes, we all have them and they all stink) and you can then figure out why you’re not devoting time to something that matters to you.

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Aspiring authors out there, set goals. Take some time and make sure you hit each point in the SMART goal method. And then, once they’re written, do one more step. Take your goals, print them out, and tape them to your bathroom mirror. When that is done, read them aloud every morning when you wake up, so its they’re on your mind all day, and every night before you go to bed, so they embed themselves in your subconscious. Will it guarantee success? My wrestler coach would say no, and I would agree, but it does get you one step closer.

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Have a great day and HAPPY READING!!!

Make a Great First Impression

Christopher Patterson

The first thing a reader sees is your book cover. Think about it. Think about the last book you read, think about the last movie you saw, even think about the last magazine you picked up. Be honest. It was the cover, or the poster, that attracted you. It wasn’t necessarily an action packed, fancy, super artistic cover. It could have been very simple. It could have related to the genre well. It may have just struck a chord with you. Whatever the reason, that cover or poster attracted you to spend money on something. Now, there is a very real possibility that whatever it was you spent money on—a book or movie—wasn’t that good. Maybe the cover mislead you into believing it was going to be action packed and it wasn’t, or filled with great dialogue and romance and fell short. That happens. But the fact remains, you paid money for that thing. And, unless it was just so awful you couldn’t stand it and asked for a refund, you didn’t get your money back.

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, or possibly even the , the most important aspect, feature, or part of a book is its cover. Again, think back to a book that had an awful title, or even a title that wasn’t really catchy, but had a fantastically engaging cover. If you are like me, a self-published author, you need to invest in a great cover. You need to be willing to find someone who has experience in designing books covers, can show you some of the other stuff they’ve done, and pay them for their very valued services. Don’t do what I did…at least at first…do your own cover.

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I had this great idea, this vision in my head of what my cover should look like. And, at the same time, I didn’t have a whole lot of money. I was struggling, I knew that one of my friends dabbled in photography, and I figured we could create something amazing…and then best part—it’s FREE!

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Big mistake. I say that, but it really was a great learning lesson. The cover looked amateur. And isn’t that the criticism that so many of us receive as self published authors. It’s amateur. It doesn’t look professional.

This is the uphill battle of all artist who have tried, or are trying, to go the DYI route. If you’re a musician, the music is great, the songs are meaningful, the musicians are talented, but it needs a professional studio’s touch. If you’re an actor or filmmaker, your work would be great if you only had access to MGM’s film studio, or Denzel Washington and Gwyneth Paltrow. Even visual art faces this struggle, in that there are major limitations to marketing and showing one’s work without being attached to a recognized school or studio.

And as the artist, we want our work to do the talking. If we are truly an amazing musician, artist, writer, signer, actor, etc. shouldn’t our skills alone be enough? I wish the answer was yes. I wish we could just somehow get our masterpiece in front of people and let them experience our imagination. Why should we have to pay for advertising and marketing and Facebook ads and space on the local radio station?

The real issue here is that for every musician or writer who is amazing at their craft but wasn’t fortunate enough to have parents who owned their own publishing company or a friend who’s cousin is the acquisitions editor for , there are a score or more of people out there who need to recognize that perhaps, they should focus on a different dream. And so when someone hears the term SELF anything, they have a perceived notion of what they’re getting.

Now, I am not a dream killer. I think someone who isn’t a spectacular writer can become a good writer with help, work, education, editing, etc. I think I fall into that category. But the problem is, so many self-published authors are so stuck on doing everything themselves, they have a hard time recognizing that they need help, and therefore never improve at their craft. This in turn hurts our industry, at least the DYI side, because now people pick up a subpar book and think that’s what they’re going to get every time they pick up a self published book.

I digress. How does this translate into book covers. Like I said before, it is the cover that first attracts attention. It is the cover that alerts a potential reader to the idea of the book. What is the genre? What is the mood? And what lies in between the covers means little if we give a poor first impression. Think of an interview. If you showed up to an interview in basketball shorts, no shoes, messy hair, and a wrinkly shirt, it doesn’t matter how hard of a worker you are or what level of education you have, you won’t get that job. The assumption will be that you are lazy. You may be anything but…but that is the impression you’ve given. Same with books. Amateur covers, at least in the mind of a reader (however unfair it is) equals amateur writing.

But you’re an artist you say. Anything you do looks anything but amateur. Sweet. Congratulations. You probably have more artistic talent in your pinky than I have in my whole body. You still shouldn’t design your own cover. Why, you say? It’s the same reason you shouldn’t edit your own book. Objectivity. You have an idea in your mind. You see it, no matter how bad your cover is, because it’s yours and you can see beyond the picture. Others can’t. They only see what they see. And if your job isn’t designing cover artwork, then you don’t know what you’re doing, no matter how good of an artist you are.

The whole job of a cover artist is beyond the art itself. Their job is to know what people are looking for, in advertisements, books, music labels, whatever it is they’re doing. The book cover artist isn’t just a really good artist, a good drawer or painter. No. This is a person who understands the industry. It is very similar to a book editor. Again, someone who is an amazing writer or poet or essayist isn’t necessarily a great book editor. I would say look for someone who has some experience, but just like us, as self-published authors, they may be trying to get their break. So take a look at their interests, their education, etc. I think it’s okay to have someone design your cover if they have a little professional experience, but what is their background, do they know what they’re doing?

And how much should you be willing to pay? Well, depends on your budget, of course. You can find people who are willing to do your cover for relatively cheap, because they’re trying to build a portfolio. You can go on and find someone who will do it for $5. But, my general rule of thumb is, god quality and good work is going to cost. Think of you as a writer. If someone wanted you to write something � an article, poem, essay, resume � for them, would you do it for free? I hope not. This is your craft. If you’re good at your craft, it costs. Don’t shy away from pricy work. The law of averages tells us it will be good work. But, generally, expect to pay about $200-300 for a good cover. At this stage in your career (which is the same stage I am in) I would not pay more than $1000 for your cover artwork.

Also, don’t be afraid to look outside the country (if you live in the USA). The woman who does my cover artwork lives in Spain. There is almost no lag time in communication and she is awesome.

I added her website to this blog posting so if you want to see if she can help you, that would be great.

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I hope this helps.

HAPPY READING!!!

Make sure you visit Christopher Patterson’s website atÌýand also make sure you sign up for his monthly newsletter where you can keep up to date with what’s going on in his world, his articles and blogs, get access to freebies, and experience promotional material. You can sign up for Christopher Patterson’s email newsletterÌýï»�

Planning isn’t just for City Councils by Christopher Patterson

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It stifles my creativity.

I’m not in high school anymore.

I know what I want to write.

I’ve heard all these excuses when it comes to outlining a book. I’ve heard them all because I’ve used them all. We don’t need to outline. Things like are for amateurs and people who really shouldn’t be writing in the first place. Outlining and drafting are just unnecessary work, taking away time better used to execute my craft. Here’s my favorite excuse:

I’ll just let the words take me where they will.

And…that’s why I have done several rewrites on my books. Because I wanted to buck the system, be my own, independent person, blaze my own path, and do things my own way.

I think there is credibility to some of the responses authors have to the suggestion that they need to outline, plan and draft. We don’t want to be so regimented that it takes away from our creativity, and the outlining we do for writing fiction is definitely different than the outlining we learned in high school. You should know what you want to write. That’s the first step…coming up with a story. Finally, there are times when we have to let the words take us. There are times when we are writing and the Muses take over. We create something—a sub-arc, a back story, a new conflict, a scene—that we never intended and its beautiful, magical, wonderful, and more.

But let’s compare outlining to some other professions, some other areas of life. I do this because I think we think as writers, we are so different. In certain ways we are, but if you want to be a successful writer, ought we not look at our writing like a profession, a job, a career?

Would you be okay with a surgeon who just opens you up without a plan? They know what the issue is. They have a general idea how to fix it. But they didn’t plan. It would stifle their creativity as a surgeon. They take their idea, open you up, and away they go. No one would be okay with that. Perhaps the very best surgeons in the world could do that, if they absolutely had to, but even they don’t. Even they plan.

Would you be okay with your financial advisor meeting with you—perhaps a meeting for which you are paying—without a plan? They know the market. They have a general idea of how the economy is doing right now. They have a general idea in regards to your finances and goals.Ìý But they simple execute trades, transfer money, and place you in retirement vehicles as the winds blow, as they just “feelâ€� something. No one would hire a financial advisor like that. In fact, the whole financial industry has rules in place so a financial planner can’t do that. Of course, your Edward Jones or Charles Schwab agent might get a feeling from time to time, just as you might get a creative intuition that allows you to break from your plan, but the majority of the time, they stick to the plan.

I love to workout, lift weights, wrestle, and grapple. What happens to those people who just walk into the gym everyday not having a clue about what they are going to do that day? They make fun of the gym-goer walking around with a pen and a pad of paper, recording their sets and reps and weight, but that’s the person seeing results. That’s the person who took time, at home, planning out the week, planning their next mesocycle or macrocycle in the gym, establishing goals, and keeping track of their progress. If you were paying a personal trainer $50 or more per session, would you be okay with them just deciding what you were going to do that day when you walked through the door? No one would be okay with that, so why would we as writers? Why should our readers be okay with that?

While I was doing a little research to write this blog, I came across an editing group based out of New York who would strongly disagree with me. Now, they have big name editors working for their firm. They are based in one of the literary hubs of the country. They have credibility. But one of their first statements was, “Planning your novel ahead of time increases the likelihood it will be dead on arrival.�

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Does that statement confuse you as much as it confuses me? We can over plan. I have stopped going to writing groups because they are filled with authors who have been planning their book for ten years. They blocked out a whole Saturday to outline paragraph 3 of chapter 4. They spent an hour contemplating the title of chapter 10. So, yes, we can over do it. You don’t want the planning process to get in the way of writing. But, please, explain to me how planning something out, laying out a general framework of what we will be creating, if you will, writing the blue print of the story, increases the likelihood that it won’t work.

Planning makes writing feel like work. Uh huh. Is that a bad thing? Listen, if you are writing simply because you want to get ideas on paper and could care less if someone else ever picked up your ideas and read them, cool. If you are writing something only for your family and friends and know that they are the only ones that will ever buy your book, great. But the majority of you, if you write, want people to read your story. You want to make some money with your craft. You want to be a best seller. How is, then, writing not work?

Now, that statement wants me to go on and on about how modern Americans are becoming lazier and few work with disdain and that is root of many of the problems we have in our country—and if you’re in a different country, I’m sure you could relate as well—but I won’t. I will simply say the only way, in my opinion, to make something of your writing, to get published and get read and sell copies, is to treat it like work. We have to write when we don’t feel like it. We have to continue our education to get better at our craft. We have to push through moments of writer’s block and boredom and stress. If you want writing to help pay the bills, or pay the bills plus some, then it has to be treated like a job, and planning your story is a part of that.

Planning stifles creativity. I had an epiphany in one of my first years as a teacher. Another teacher was mentoring me and when he found out I wasn’t using the textbook that most of the other teachers were using, he obviously asked why. I said, “I don’t like the textbook. It stifles my creativity,� to which he said, “it’s not about you. It’s about the students. You can be creative and still use the textbook.�

First of all, even though I have said this myself, I don’t know how planning out your story stifles any creativity. But, secondly, it’s not all about me. Am I the only person planning on reading my story? If so, I can do whatever I want. In reality, I don’t even need to write a story. I could be totally content with my own imagination. What is my audience going to find enjoyable? How do I attract a larger audience? I mentioned this in another blog, but more than once, I have had an editor tell me I needed to cut whole chapters, several chapters, get rid of a character, etc. If it were all about me, I wouldn’t have done it. But it’s not all about me. I want people to read my story. I want people to enjoy my story. Planning doesn’t stifle your creativity. Planning perpetuates your creativity.

Not to beat a dead horse, but we can over plan. However, appropriate planning can and does (I am speaking from personal experience here) prevent rewrites. Another critic of planning stated: “Rewriting is a part of the writing process.�

True. I agree. But how many times do you want to engage in rewriting? Are we truly writing if the majority of our time is devoted to rewriting our story.Ìý Rewriting can be mind numbing and demotivating. We thought we were done. Nope. There is no better way to take the wind out of a writer’s sails then to tell them they aren’t done—in fact, they are nowhere close to being done—when they thought they were. Speaking from my own experience, let’s go ahead and publish, get some decent sales, have some decent reviews, and then tell a writer, “Nope, we need to redo some things.â€� That was life changing and one of those moments when I questioned whether or not I wanted to write. Do I think that could have been avoided if I had engaged in proper planning? Yes.

How do we plan, then?

There are a number of great ways to engage in the planning process. I used the book by for a while and it worked very well. You can purchase the book. It’s relatively inexpensive. And if you buy the actual book (I bought the e-book) it comes with a workbook that you can copy and fill in. It's simple. It’s laid out for you.

Many authors use resources through . This organization has hundreds of resources to help an author “writeâ€� a novel in a month. Are you truly writing a novel in a month? No. But the idea is get the whole process down, get the plan and the framework down, in a month and watch your story explode into something great. Ìý

My current editor has me write a simple paragraph explaining what each chapter is about. ÌýAt the same time, he has me use the story arc model, in which certain things—Action, a Turning Point, a Climax—need to happen at certain points in the book. I know. Some of you are already saying to yourselves, “Don’t tell me when something is supposed to happen in my own story.â€� We need to get over ourselves. It works. I also use a simple character sketch. What this character sketch allows me to do is write a quick backstory without having to include it in my story. Most readers don’t care about the backstory of minor characters, but I do. The most helpful part of this character sketch? The first question is simple. If I could choose any actor to play this character, who would it be? You would be amazed at how beneficial that is. All of sudden, my characters truly come to life.

I like this method because as I write each chapter, I can reference my quick paragraph. If I start to get off track, I keep myself in check. If I want to change something that I had originally written in that paragraph, I have to justify it to myself. It’s accountability.

Before I bid you adieu, think on this�, the author of the , spent 20 years writing 11 of what was going to be 12 books. Robert Jordan, regardless of whether or not you enjoy his work, is arguably a literary genius, but he had notes, outlines, and plans. His wife was able to turn all this over to who, in turn, seamlessly finished Jordan’s massive series. If you read these books, you would never know it wasn’t Jordan who wrote them (there ended up being three more instead of one).

The bottom line is, there are a thousand ways to plan out your story. But plan you must. Are there a few literary geniuses that could write a book with planning? Yes. I am not one of them. Eat a very big piece of humble pie, Google “How to plan your story,� take a day and do the dirty work, and save yourself time, energy, and heartache in the future.

HAPPY READING!!!

Avoid the Info Dump by Christopher Patterson

For those of you out there that are Science Fiction and Fantasy fans like me, especially if you have grown up loving a genre that has shaped imaginations around the world and created trends followed by billions of people, then there are a couple things that you know very well, things that you have accepted about the genre.

We know that sometimes we will pick up a fantasy or sci-fi book that just isn’t all that great, but the action is so cool, and the story would make a killer D&D adventure, so we read it anyway. We expect some crazy names—of people, places, new creatures and races we are being introduced to. Only in sci-fi and fantasy will you see a glossary attached to a story. We expect the unreal, magic, heroes, villains who are clearly evil, etc. And we expect info dump.

I love Lord of the Rings. I also love the Wheel of Time series (although, I will admit that I have yet to read the last several books). The Song of Ice and Fire is another favorite of mine. They are great pieces of literature that transcend the boundaries of genre fiction, have influenced many of authors in a very impactful way, and have brought entertainment to millions of people. One of the things that I notice about all three of these series, and a number more within my beloved genre, is they are descriptive. I know what everyone looks like. If the protagonist walks into a room, I know what that room looks like. I know how the food tastes. I know the backgrounds of every character—major and minor. They are ripe with explanation and information. And I like that. The problem�

â€� the majority of readers do not like it. You see, the majority of readers don’t need to know the whole back story of Thrak, the hard headed and grumpy dwarf—why he’s so grumpy and how he got that little scar on his cheek and the tragedy that he experienced as a young child. If you love playing Dungeons and Dragons, or any other role-playing game for that matter, you are probably thinking, “Why the hell not? Why wouldn’t I want to know this guy’s backstory?â€� I’m with you. But it doesn’t move the story. Ìý

Now, don’t think that I am criticizing these three authors. They have or are clearly doing something right, and I enjoy all three of them. But Tolkien, Jordan, and Martin I am not…and neither are you. Maybe we allow them to get away with being overly descriptive because of the epic-ness of their tales…or because of how foundational they are…or because they just do it better than anyone else. But we, the author trying to become like these three, cannot get away with.

Let me back up. Maybe we can get away with packing our pages with tons of description and backstory and whatever else, but it will limit our audience. You see, I never realized how much my stories get bogged down by description and back-story, until a professional pointed it out. The reader doesn’t need to know the whole motivation behind a minor character’s action. They don’t really need to know any of it. They just need to know that they acting and how it affects the protagonist. You, as the writer, are really the only person that needs to know why they act they way they do. You need to know their motivation.

As a side not, I don’t think I ever realized how much I would write—and save—that would never end up in any of my books. Maybe that’s why Tolkien wrote the Simarillion. He just couldn’t handle having all this stuff saved away somewhere.

Someone reading fiction, especially fantasy and science fiction, wants movement. They want action. They want adventure. I am not saying they don’t want introspection and suspense and themes that cause us to think, but they certainly don’t want those things if they cause the story to stall. I have been living by a simple method recently, sometimes doing it very well and sometimes not—by the way, this method is forcing me to outline and plan my writing ahead, which I am not very good at—called the Hague method.

Anyways, what are some great ways to reveal information about characters or situations without overloading the reader with description, stalling the story, and info dumping?

1.ÌýÌýÌýÌý Dialogue. Get really good at writing dialogue. Conversations between characters can be a great way to introduce background information about a character or a situation. In fact, this kind of dialogue can be easily interwoven into action and conflict, therefore enhancing the story and allowing it to move forward instead of stalling it out with large sections of prose. Mundane description and backstory is boring.Ìý We’ve already established that it halts the movement of the story, but why? Well, it takes the reader away from the story. If we are doing our job as writers, the reader feels like they are a part of our story. A stop, a break into detailed description or gigantic backstory slams on the brakes. And it’s a sudden brake. Its not a gradual slowing that the reader knows is coming. It’s a hard, jarring stop. What better way to give the reader an insight into characters by revealing conversation?

So then the problem is the dialogue. This is one of my strengths, so I’ve been told. There are probably a lot of areas I need to improve in with my writing, but I do agree that my ability to write dialogue is pretty good. What I find with so many fantasy and science fiction writers is our dialogue seems off. So how should we write our dialogue? Think about how you would speak. Certainly, they may be certain phrases and words you wouldn’t use in this world that you have created, but just write as you would naturally speak.

And what better way to introduce why Thrak is so grumpy or how he got that scar by one character asking him? We can reveal so much through conversation. In fact, do we not in real life? Rather than writing paragraph after paragraph of prose giving a well-crafted backstory, introduce it in the dialogue.

2.ÌýÌýÌýÌý Write a series of short stories about your minor characters. If you really want your audience to know why a character acts the way they act, or how they got to where they are, then try your writer’s hand at some short stories. Firstly, readers know what they are getting into. Secondly, you get a chance to explore a minor character’s actions and personality in much greater detail than a simple info dump, and at the same time add things like dialogue and action related to this story. Obviously, use the same story arc that you would use for your novel. And if your readers are faithful, and if they really enjoy your writing, they will read your short stories.

And as an added bonus, these short stories, as long as you write them as if they are stand-alone stories, can be a great marketing tool. Offer them for free on Amazon, or just email them to your mailing list. Use them as a carrot to hook readers. If they like your “free� short story, they will also enjoy your eBook for $4.99.

3.ÌýÌýÌýÌý Don’t get too attached to what you have written. I know that is easier said than done, but necessary. The very first person I ever had edit A Chance Beginning—several years ago when a small press had offered me a contract—told me I had to cut the first three chapters. I was crushed, devastated, horrified.Ìý But I did it. I cut them out. And…it was better. I have learned that readers are interested in my story, not how fancy or intricate or intellectual I can get with my language. If something I write doesn’t move the story forward, it won’t work, no matter how much I like what I wrote. I mean, in reality you should like what you wrote. You wrote it. That’s why we have editors that we curse in the beginning and praise at the end. The story won’t change, but the words on the page will. It’s inevitable. And if you’re not willing to accept that change, then you have to be willing to accept the fact that a larger audience will never experience your story.

These are just several of many suggestions that I have for avoiding info dumping. All you have to do is a quick “info dump writing� search on the Internet and you will find tons of resources.

Avoid the many costly issues that I have had to endure. I am thankful for them and super thankful for the help from the folks at Wheatmark and the help I have gotten from my awesome editor Graham. My first manuscript was ripe with info dumping.Ìý And then it got better and better and better. There are probably a lot of things we need to avoid as a writer, but a big one is info dumping.

I hope this helps you in your writing efforts and I look forward to you all reading A Chance Beginning, Dark Winds, and the soon to be released Braking the Flame. HAPPY READING!!!

The Need for Editing by Christopher Patterson

As a writer, one of the advantages of getting picked up by any publishing house, whether major or small publisher, is the benefits artwork, interior design, direction, and, yes, editing. These were the carrots at the end of the stick that all writers chased even just ten years ago. As a writer, you couldn’t make it without these services and, lets be honest, they were just so expensive and unreliable if you didn’t have a publishing house taking care of them for you. I mean, how are you supposed to pay for any of this stuff if you’re not making money from your craft.

AMERICAN INGENUITY

Then comes along and and a number of other companies that are now offering writers the opportunity to self-publish, retain all authority over their own work, and minimal out of pocket expenses when it comes to these crucial components of publishing a book. Suddenly, authors aren’t chasing the big dogs anymore and even previously published authors are going the self-published route. Its amazing. What an opportunity. It’s the free market at work. Its American ingenuity. And then here comes the flood of stories that are maybe promising, but…well, could have used just a little work. Here are the books that are really good, but they are so hard to read because of the internal formatting. The books that are awesome, but no one ever picks it because the cover is terrible, some homemade picture or drawing that looks like it was done by a six year old. And then there are the downright, awful, terrible stories that really have no business being published.

I mention all of these because I know that I have fallen into each one of these categories. After chasing after big publishers and agents for several years, I finally received what every author dreams of—a contract with a publishing company. It was a small press, which was fine. This was my chance to make it big, get my feet wet, get a start and then move on to bigger and better things. However, I didn’t realize that I still had a lot of work to do. In fact, the easy part was creating my story. So, after rounds and rounds of editing, people leaving the company, and getting mixed reviews from past and present authors with this particular press, I decided to do something incredibly crazy and leave, back out of my contract, and self-publish (much to the encouragement of one of my previous editors).

I love American and am deeply proud of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship, but they do have their dark sides. In the world of writing and publishing, one of the things that has happened is a complete shift towards DYI—do it yourself. I think the greatest mistake many DYI authors make is the avoidance of editing services. And I get it. I was one of those guys. And why do we, as authors, ignore the obvious need for professional editing?

°Â±ð±ô±ôâ€�

I’m a great writer and it’s expensive. Why would I pay for something I can do myself?

I know a guy (or gal in my case) who’s getting their Masters in Creative Writing. I’ll just use them.

I’ve got a couple friends that will do it.

I’ll pay to do it. It’s a little cheaper.

People know I’m a self-published author. They’ll forgive me.

So I am sure there are more excuses—and that’s what they are—that a self-published author can give, but let me give a resounding response to all of these, which, by the way, are all excuses that I have given. My response is ...

NO!

Not just no, but HELL NO!

I’m a teacher. I hope to one day be able to make a living through my craft as a writer, but as a teacher, I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I have come across disgruntled parents. They weren’t necessarily upset with me, but just upset.

“I’m an engineer. I don’t understand why Johnny doesn’t get math. I help him every night.”

“I’m a nurse and, yet, Suzy won’t listen to me when I try to help her with biology.”

“I work in communications but I can’t help my daughter with her English homework.”

“I used to be a professional bodybuilder, but my son won’t listen to me when I try to help him out in the weight room.”

All of these people are experts in their respective fields. Just as you are an expert in writing whatever genre it is you write. Just as you are an expert in whatever other field in which you might work. But teaching that subject to another human being is a whole other ball game. It’s different. You see, you get whatever it is you do. You understand it. In fact, you probably don’t go through the steps and processes that you once went through in order to do what you do. You are so automatic at your area of expertise that there are times where you have to take a step back and actual refresh yourself on the steps that you once took, reevaluate, and even relearn. I know I have to do both of those as a writer and teacher. Someone who is learning math doesn’t “get� math and a teacher is a person who not only “gets� it, but has been equipped with the tools to teach it to someone else. They may not be engineers, but they can prepare someone else to be an engineer.

Writing is very much the same. I write. I get writing. In many cases, I just write. I don’t do as much planning as I once did, not that planning isn’t important. I just know what I am going to do, how to do it, etc. However, I don’t necessarily understand industry dynamics. I don’t necessarily understand the changing trends in the science fiction and fantasy world. I’ve never studied marketing side of fantasy fiction. In fact, even though I had to self-edit in college, I’ve never really studied editing.

So, you see, you need an editor, and not a buddy who reads a lot of what genre you write, and not some starving college student, but a professional editor. This is their job. This is how they make money. This is what they do and, by doing it well, get more clients.

You will never have an objective eye for your own work. There will always be something in your story that needs to go, or needs to change, and you won’t have the will power to do it without someone, metaphorically of course, standing over you and making you do it. I finally hired a professional editor. The comments I was receiving on in regards to editing, the slow pace of , and the lack of buy through to my second book, , was finally enough to give me cause to call up a local publishing company in Tucson, meet with them, and then have them recommend an editor that could work with me and, after looking at what I had, want to work with me. One of the first things Graham did was tell me I had to cut the first three chapters. Then, at what I thought was an integral part of the story, he told me to remove that as well. My heart was broken. I felt crushed. I wanted to cry (maybe I did but I’ll never admit it) and it was the best thing to ever happen to my story. Suddenly, I started realizing things about my story, and about the industry and genre that I write for, that I never had before. You see, Graham is an expert in the fantasy and science fiction genre. He has experience editing in this genre. He studies the industry and studies trends. He studies story arcs and the different ideas on creating a plot and characters. Yes, these are all things that I have done as well, but not as in depth. This is what he does.

So, is it expensive?

YES!

Is it worth it?

ABSOLUTELY 100% YES!

In my opinion, what are the steps to getting an editor?

1.ÌýÌýÌýÌý Get an idea of how much it is going to cost and start saving.

I knew it was going to cost me about $2000. I started saving. Graham was okay with doing a section at a time�2 -3 chapters—and so that helped with the cost as well. I didn’t have to come up with everything up front. I would discourage people from taking out loans to do this. I’m not big on debt in the first place and what if it takes a long time for everything to work out? What then? Just save. Forgo cable and eating out and whatever else so you can pay for editor. And understand it wont happen tomorrow. We want instant gratification so badly. It may take a year or more and that’s okay.

2. Ìý Ìý ÌýFind an editor who is recommended by another author, publisher, agent, etc.

Just because some says they are editors, doesn’t mean they are. I think recommendations from the industry go a long way. Heck, when we start selling our books, our biggest marketing campaign will be word of mouth, right. So, contact some people. You would be surprised at how willing the big names in your genre would be to giving you five or ten minutes to just give you a coupe bits of advice, including a couple names of editors. They were like us once. They want to help.

3. Ìý Ìý ÌýFind an editor who knows your genre.

You actually do have a friend who is a legitimate, professional editor. Heres the catch: You write mystery and suspense and they edit romance novels. I’m sorry. It’s not going to work. I know they are your friend and I know they might get their feelings hurt and you might save some money, but they don’t know your industry. They don’t know your genre. They know their genre. It would like someone saying to me, “Hey, I know you’re a teacher. I would like to hire you to tutor my kid.�

“Okay, what do they need help with?�

“A±ô²µ±ð²ú°ù²¹.â€�

“But I’m a history teacher.�

“That’s okay. You’re a teacher.�

So, find an editor who specifically works with your genre.

4.ÌýÌýÌýÌý Find an editor with a good resume.

Probably secondary to recommendations, make sure your editor has a good track record, a good resume. I understand, just like us as fledgling authors, some editors need a way to get their feet wet, but do you want to chance the success of your book to that? Most editors will work for a publisher, newspaper, magazine, online blog, etc. at some point. That is how they get their feet wet. They don’t get their feet wet by doing freelance work for self-published authors. Find someone who has experience. And be wary of discounts. Be willing to pay top dollar for good work.

5.ÌýÌýÌýÌý Until you have found someone able to edit your work, don’t worry about cover artwork, marketing, or anything else. Take care of the content first.

Yes the cover needs to catch the eye, and marketing can turn a great book into a best seller, but if what s in between the covers isn’t quality, for 99% of authors, you won’t go anywhere.

I had mentioned earlier that I had dealt with many of the issues a self-published author deals with. When I first published through , my story was good but the writing was a disaster. The cover was terrible. My friend took some really cool shots of a sword of a flame, but when we put it to the cover, it just looked awful. The internal layout was all jacked up. Spacing was off. Page breaks were off. It was a mess. So I did what any self-published author should do, I revised. And it got better. I paid someone to do my cover and now its pretty good. I adjusted the layout—put a little money into having it done. Much better. I cleaned up the writing. Better. But the problem was I never had someone professionally look at it, and I should have done that first. I pretty much did everything backwards.

So, take it from me, if you want success as a writer, the first thing you need to do is save up and hire a good editor.

I know its been a while. Stay tuned for my next bit of advice—hiring an agency to help you self-publish. What? I know. Sounds weird. But again, if I could do this whole process all over again, that’s what I would’ve done in the first place, and what I am doing now.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks article and writing tips. Until next time, HAPPY READING!!!

Make sure you visit Christopher Patterson’s website at and also make sure you sign up for his monthly newsletter where you can keep up to date with what’s going on in his world, his articles and blogs, get access to freebies, and experience promotional material. You can sign up for Christopher Patterson’s email newsletter