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Finding Authenticity
February 28, 2019
It’s not unusual to hear of actors who gain weight to play a larger character. Or for them to intensely research a role. Or that they won’t break character, even when not filming. More than just playing that part, they want to be that character. In that case, they’re not acting. They live the role. This is called ‘method acting’. Method actors believe this methodology makes their portrayal authentic.
Some writers do the same. If they write about a particular place, they go to that place. If they write about a topic, they throw themselves into research. Or they try to experience things firsthand. Author Tara Moss had herself choked out to unconsciousness to experience what it felt like. She’s also had herself set on fire (wearing a flame-resistant suit), shot firearms, spent time in morgues and courtrooms, and more.
We use our writing to reinterpret and make sense of our experiences, as well as the world around us. Even if the setting is fantastical, characters may go through similar things to ourselves. Like the method actor, it makes sense that, as writers, we try to broaden our range of experiences.
We don’t all have the luxury of best-selling authors, though. While we could all just go sit in a courtroom for a day, we don’t all have avenues to have ourselves set on fire in a safe, controlled environment. Best-selling author Sidney Sheldon used to fly to and eat in restaurants so he could write about them genuinely. It’s not something we can all afford.
But we can push ourselves out of our comfort zones by living life, which is the best way to develop our qualifications to write. And, as we live, we should observe. While we may be absorbing information through osmosis, we might not necessarily be examining what’s going on. We should break it down, examine it further, break it down more, examine it more, etc., to gain a deeper understanding of life, and the world around us.
We can also empathise. Most writers are already deeply empathetic – this is how we’re able to put ourselves in the heads of so many different characters and represent them genuinely. But a worthwhile exercise is watching/reading the news and, without judgement, putting ourselves in the heads of others. How would we feel in the same situation? Here, we need go beyond our instincts and programmed responses. It’s not about what we would do in the same situation; it’s about imagining and feeling how the other person feels.
And, finally, we can employ simple tricks to help put us in the right frame of mind when we write. Writing something sad? Listen to sad music. Watch a sad movie. Have a glass of wine and grow melancholy. Need our writing to pump with energy? Put on some upbeat music. Dance. Writing something angry? Dredge up memories of arguments. Hit a punching bag. Shout. There are lots of little tricks we can use to shift our focus into the mindset – and thus mood – of what we’re writing.
As writers, we can improve the technical side of our craft. But, remember, there’s also an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual side to improve also.
Some Publishers
February 14, 2019
Today’s technology is making book production simple and inexpensive. Anybody can publish a book. But does that qualify them to do so?
Some of these people begin publishing companies, joining the ranks of self-publishers and partnership publishers out there who claim they’re about helping authors get their books out into the world. But are they? Do they have an author’s best interests at heart?
Here are some facts …
There is no guaranteed BIG return
At Busybird, we never try to secure an author by selling them the lie that they’ll have a bestseller.
It is a lie.
You can manipulate certain databases into classifying your book is a bestseller, but that doesn’t mean it is. It may just mean your book has sold the most in a pair of categories no other book occupies. It’s a label that can be won by selling as little as one book – a gimmick
But if getting an actual bestseller – a book that’s sold thousands of copies – was so manageable, big multinational publishers with vast resources would nail bestseller after bestseller after bestseller. But they don’t. Nobody does.
Publishing is capricious. You can do everything right, but it doesn’t mean it will translate into riches.
Now bestsellers do happen, but we try to ground authors to be realistic with their expectations.
Anybody who tells you differently is trying to sell you something.
Lots of Authors Become Publishers
There is a difference between being an author and being a publisher. Yes, they work in the same field – they work with writing.
But an author produces the writing.
The publisher produces the book.
There is a whole side of production that authors never encounter – cover design; layout of internals; registration of an ISBN; finding a printer and determining the best paper stock; lodging the book with the national library for archiving, etc. It’s too big a list to cover in a single paragraph.
This is not to say every author who runs a publisher has no idea what they’re doing. Some do. Just don’t assume they must know just because they write.
Some Publishers are Glorified Salespeople
I saw a certain publisher endorsed on Facebook. I know this publisher. They’re an idiot. They’re a fantastic salesperson. They could sell anything. But I know they know nothing about writing; know nothing about English, grammar, punctuation, and spelling; know nothing about structure; have no idea about copyright and permissions … well, look, outside of selling they don’t know anything.
Now that might be fine if they’ve delegated and retained professionals who know their stuff, but often they’re outsourcing to uninvested freelancers, and wouldn’t know how to address queries that do come up.
There are lots of these people out there. Retain them, and there’s a good chance they aren’t going to give your book the care it deserves.
Some of These Publishers Have No Standards
All they’re interested in is the dollar. It doesn’t matter what the book is, it’s about getting the author to sign and pay. Well, that helps one person in that deal.
Writing a book isn’t about regurgitating what’s already out there. It’s about reaching into yourself, and producing a message – be it a novel, a memoir, a book of nonfiction, poetry, or whatever the case is – that only YOU can produce.
You’re unique. But some publishers don’t care. Hand in gibberish, and they’ll tell you that it’s brilliant, that it’s the sort of book the market needs, and that to get it out there you just need to hand over your money now.
Some Publishers Claim Rights and Royalties
If you’re self-publishing, whoever you’ve retained should have no claim on your rights, and definitely none on your royalties.
If you’ve partnership published – this is where the publisher claims they share the costs (in all likelihood, they don’t put in a cent and they’re just telling you this to win you over) – they still don’t deserve any share of your rights or royalties.
Once you’re paying to be published, you should retain your rights and royalties.
Publishing is daunting for inexperienced authors. Unfortunately, there are predators who prey on an author’s naivety and will try and capitalize on whatever money you make.
Conclusion
This isn’t intended to say that every publisher out there sucks in one way and/or another, and that we’re the best in the world. But we’ve now published over three hundred books. We’ve had authors come to us with horror stories. We’ve dealt with some of these places firsthand. We’ve learned a thing or two.
Be wary of the landscape. There are good people out there. You’re eager to get your book out. But do your diligence and avoid the heartbreak.
The Writing Need
January 31, 2019It’s tame to call wanting to write a ‘passion’. It’s a need. When left unattended, writers say that they feel uneasy, or agitated. From my own experience, when I haven’t written for a while I begin suffering hypnagogic hallucinations. When it isn’t expressed, the 
writer’s voice – that voice inside our heads that needs to be heard – clamours for attention like an unruly child.
Non-writers might scoff. Other writers will nod their heads.
The reality is we all have needs in life – those things we do for ourselves that help us cope, or make us feel good, or just give us a time-out. Think of the things you do. It might be watching a favourite program, pursuing a hobby, talking to a friend or family member, exercise, or meditation – well, it could be anything.
We all have that something.
Why non-writers scoff at a writer’s need is because it’s not just hobby, but it’s not enough to be a job, and while we tread that line we constantly hit obstacles: trying to get our words right, trying to get read, trying to get accepted, trying to sell, trying, trying, trying. The reality is that only a few writers get published. Of those who are published, only a minority live off their writing.
That’s a common misconception: writers are rich. We think this way because when we think of authors, we think of bestselling authors. Nobody thinks about Joe Blow or Jane Smith, but they do think of Stephen King, Jodi Picoult, JK Rowling, Lee Child, Di Morrissey, etc., because they occupy public awareness. They are household names.
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This creates a weird juxtaposition: non-writers see the effort writers put in and don’t understand why they do it when they’re battling up a hill of frustration and trudging after the unrealistic dream of becoming the next Stephen King – a dream that is as likely as winning lotto. So why do it? Why write? Why waste the time? There’s rarely going to be any great material reward.
Because it’s not about that – not for anybody but the most inexperienced (and naïve) who believe they’re have a guaranteed bestseller. (That’s not to say it won’t happen – just that the chances are slim). For most writers, writing is about just that: the writing. The need becomes as synonymous to everyday life as eating, showering, and sleeping. It has to be done because that’s part of who the writer is. If we condemn the writer for writing, we might as well condemn the non-writer for their interests.
Lots of relationships struggle with this disparity. The writer wants to write. The non-writing partner just can’t understand why. They can feel threatened by the writer’s need. I find that curious. The non-writer isn’t threatened by other hobbies; they aren’t threatened by other possible vocations. So why would a writer writing threaten them?
It’s because that need is something the writer cannot share with them. You can share a future with a partner. You can share a dream to build a certain type of life. You can share interests. You can share enjoyment of the same books. You can even share the writer’s writing.
But you can never share that need.
It becomes the illicit love, engaging the writer in a form of adultery – the writer thinks about it constantly, and sneaks away from their partner to be with the need so they can do their thing. I think this is why it can grow threatening, and why non-writers can become dismissive of writing as a pursuit, or possessive of the time the writer would spend writing. They’re trying to reclaim their partner as exclusively theirs.
In lots of our workshops we often encounter people who are coming belatedly to writing because life’s gotten in the way. But they’ve always wanted to write. That need has remained alive over the years (if not decades). This shows that writing wasn’t some passing interest or piffling hobby. It would be curious to examine if not writing has created any dissatisfaction in the writer that’s affected their relationship(s).
To the non-writers, this blog has to be kept in perspective. Nobody is expecting the non-writer to work two jobs, take care of the household, and undertake most of the responsibilities so the writer can sit in their den all day and work on their writing.
It’s just about trying to understand why the writer’s writes.
And supporting them, because the need to write is who they are.
Thinking Cinematically
November 29, 2018[responsivevoice voice=”UK English Female” buttontext=”Listen to this”]
Even if we’re aspiring novelists, movies and television serials can teach us a lot about structure, pacing, and character development. That’s because these facets are constants in storytelling, whatever the form that storytelling takes, e.g. writing movies, writing television, writing stageplays, writing novels, or writing short stories.
But how about visuals? Do the lessons of film-making apply to writing a novel, for example?
We appreciate a good looking movie with gorgeous vistas and beautiful establishing shots. Great filmmakers use angles to communicate the characters’ bearings, relationship dynamics, and emotional states. A lot can be said just in the way a shot is framed.
Often, movies willl open with an establishing shot of where the story is going to take place. Then it might close in on a particular adobe – a house, or a place of work or education. Then it moves into a particular room, where we’ll usually meet our protagonist, or set up the context for the story. We start wide and close into a specific.
This might also happen if the character is examining something. For example, a character wouldn’t know that the journal sitting on the desk is bound in leather, that the spine creaks, and that the pages are yellowed and many of them are dog-eared. The character would have to walk over and interact with the journal. They wouldn’t know about the creaking spine or the yellowed pages immediately. Their first impression would be of the cover. They’d probably even run their fingers over it to feel its texture. When they opened the journal, they’d hear the spine. Then they’d see the pages. Again, there’s that logic at place, that sense of closing in tighter and a sequential unfolding of events.
The exception might be when the focus is on a character who is moving from location to location and the story wants to generate a surprise. In this case, we might see the opposite happen: we’re tight on the character, and then widen the angle so we then know where they are. Often, in film or television, the character might relay an emotional state, e.g. shock. Then we widen for context – we’re prejudiced with expectation, and then the context to correlate to that expectation.
Again, it’s logical. It’s no different to you walking into a new location and taking things in. Think about if you stayed at a hotel. When you walked into your room, you wouldn’t know about the bathroom or the balcony. You’d only be privy to what you can see in that moment, and then get an overview as you explore. You wouldn’t know about what’s in the mini-bar until you opened the fridge. You wouldn’t know what the bed is like to sleep in until that night. You wouldn’t know about the view from the balcony until you stepped out onto the balcony.
This might all seem rudimentary, but lots of people don’t think about how a story unfolds around a character in terms of logical and causal structure. They often write instinctively, but those instincts haven’t been honed by (writing) experience, knowledge, and deliberation. There’s no shape to the spill. This makes it hard for the reader to follow when the viewpoint is jumping to accommodate the writer’s thoughts as they scatter haphazardly across the page.
This is where thinking cinematically helps. Don’t worry about the differences in form, i.e. a film can’t communicate senses such as touch or smell the way the book can, nor can it explore an inner monologue unless there’s a narrative voiceover. But think about the way the visuals incorporate the viewer into the story logically and progressively.
Writing any story is no different. Details should be logical. They should progress and build on a foundation. The reader is taken on a journey which they empathise with, and fit into, because it’s a course they understand unconsciously. There’s no need to question it. That’s one of the most important things in storytelling: the reader can question the characters’ choices and why they’ve made the decisions they have (a good story will often stimulate discussion), but they shouldn’t question why the narrative is skipping around. That loses them as readers.
When you’re writing, visualise the way your story progresses. Think cinematically the way you would shoot it if it was a film.
It will help immensely with narrative structure, and all the details that revolve around the unfolding story and the universe in which it takes place.
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Write
November 15, 2018
I take immense pride in writing as a craft, so it annoys me when people trivialise it, consider it a shtick, or don’t take it as seriously as they should.
Let me break down some of the things I’ve heard, the outlook some employ, and how they should actually be looking at it …
I am going to write a bestseller.
You may think you have THE IDEA, and that it’s going to be a bestseller. Guess what? About twenty-five million other writers think the same. You’re not unique in this. But you might think, But nobody’s had THIS idea. No, they have. But not this one. Uh uh. They have. And the reason I can tell you this is because I’ve heard this so many times.
Now I hope you do write a bestseller and you enjoy sustained success, but if your only motivation to write is you think you’ve discovered some untapped get-rich-quick scheme, you’re deluded. You may. You may. I’ll grant it does happen. But it’s rare. Most writers actually either work full-time jobs or part-time jobs to pay the bills, with writing complementing their income.
Write for the passion of it, not the money.
Write because you have a story you want to share with the world.
Write because you’re the only one who can tell that story.
I am writing a book to showcase my expertise!
Great. Fantastic. Showcase yourself and your expertise. You should. A book is a fantastic way to get your message out there. It can travel and represent you in a way it might be impossible for you to physically represent yourself, i.e. a book can go all over the world, whereas you might not be able to.
But a book is not a business card. A business card is one-dimensional. It contains details. A book is three-dimensional. It contains pages. The pages contain YOU. They sell your message. They offer your methodology. They break it down in a simple guide for the reader to follow. If the reader – as a consumer seeking expertise – can’t come to you, then your book can go to them. Your book is your ambassador.
You can use your book to market yourself – that’s fine. But don’t think jamming anything into the book itself will suffice because you’re still thinking of it acting as a one-dimensional product.
Write only what you can write.
Write your message, rather than dilute an amalgamation of messages others are peddling.
Shout your voice out into the world and let it carry your message to readers everywhere.
I want to write an autobiography – I’ve had an interesting life.
Brilliant. Everybody has a story. They mightn’t think it, but every life contains a message that can move, inspire, and change the lives of readers.
But work out what that message is – believe it or not, the good books in this genre have a message. It might seem that they’re just a chronological retelling of the author’s life, but there’ll be a point to it. Scott Stossel’s My Age of Anxiety is an excellent account of his ongoing battle with anxiety. Andre Agassi’s Open is a revealing story of how hollow he found what must’ve seemed a glamorous life to others, and how he grew up to take ownership of his future. A.B. Facey’s A Fortunate Life might encompass the author’s life and detail it chronologically, but it’s about how he overcomes continuing hardship in a new frontier and is grateful for the opportunities.
Messages – everywhere.
But a book shouldn’t be didactic. It shouldn’t be preachy. It should simply (and subtly) be part of the journey.
If you’re writing in this field, give some thought to what your story is.
I’m really interested in writing a history book about [INSERT SUBJECT].
Historians are my favourite author (or authors). Geoffrey Sandy has written three detailed volumes on St Margaret’s Church in Eltham and is still going. The Greensborough Historical Society compiled two volumes of stories about Greensborough throughout its history. The North Balwyn Tennis Club put together a book about the history of their tennis club commemorating fifty years (1962–2012). This list goes on.
And the reason these people are my favourite authors?
They’re NOT going into their projects with the motivation of writing a bestseller, earning riches, or winning acclaim. They are just passionate people interested in sharing a story about something important to them. That is their primary motivation: that passion to record something for posterity and share it with the world around them. What truer reason could there be for writing?
Historically, we’ve always recorded stories, preserving what was for future generations. Usually, it begins on a basic level, e.g. by word of mouth, a parent passing on a story to a child. In school, classes might be about state, national, or global history. In some cases, we might grow more interested in a subject matter and pursue it further, which is why it is important that we record these stories.
Stories matter.
A Well-Beaten Message
Take pride in your work, whatever your writing.
Don’t ever believe that your content will compensate for poor spelling, punctuation, or grammar; terrible presentation; or a shoddy product.
As people, we’re critical. When we pursue some form of recreation or education, we want to switch off and be immersed. But the moment we stumble upon an error or something implausible, we become wary. When it happens again that immersion is ruptured, and then we’re on shit patrol. Then we’re hyper-critical. Then we’re looking at finding more problems.
Take pride in making your book the best it can be.
Keep your reader immersed at all times.
When they put your book down, you want them to feel they’ve not only gotten value for money, but that it’s a book they lament leaving – and it’s one they’ll read again and again and again.
Writing is about making that connection.
Don’t let your reader down.
More importantly, don’t let yourself down.