Ceara Comeau's Blog: Lessons From A Struggling Writer - Posts Tagged "books"

So, I have a confession to make. I’m a gamer. Not an avid gamer, mind you. But I do enjoy playing puzzle related games whenever I’m stuck on a section in my writing. And I’ve noticed a lot of comparisons between book marketing and gaming.

I have this one mystery/paranormal game that is so much fun to play, but like life, it won’t hold your hand. You have to figure out what you’re supposed to do in each section by yourself. Sometimes I mess up and have to start at the beginning of my last autosave. Other times, I realize I forgot that I didn’t look for my last clue. But at the end of each puzzle scene, I get a hint as to where I’m supposed to go next.

That’s how I see book marketing. You start out with the “tutorial” trying to get a feel for your new surroundings. You research everything you can about the market you’re trying to reach. Then when you feel confident, you go on to your first “puzzle”; advertising through various forms of social media. And by taking that next step, solving something so simple, you get a clue as to how you can move on to another bigger puzzle. That may come in the form of blogs, author websites, bookstores, libraries, schools, you name it. Each puzzle; each step takes you to something bigger and by the time you are half-way through the “Game of Marketing” you can look back and see where you’ve come and the picture of your future becomes just a little clearer.

“A writer is only good as his or her own experience.” Have you ever heard this or a variation of this saying? Well, I have and for the longest time, I was on the fence about whether it was true or not. I always believed (and still do) that a story comes from within. It can emerge from an idea or really anything. But lately, I’ve been noticing a pattern in my past writings and present. In some way, my personal experiences find their way into my stories.

This isn’t always a bad thing as I have found that making a story personal to the writer tends to tug at the heartstrings of the reader. It allows people to see the real artist.

Now, what does this revelation have to do with anything you ask? For about a month now, I’ve been attempting to get back to an old story I wrote about a couple years back. But when I came back to it, there was so much that needed to be fixed. It was certainly salvageable, but something was missing with it and I didn’t know what until just within this past week. I had been focusing so much on one of the characters and I just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t “talking to me”, that was when I realized that she and I were facing similar obstacles in our lives. This was the origin of my insufferable writer’s block. How could I write about how that character deals with those obstacles if I didn’t know myself?

Well, I’ve been working along with this character to fight through these challenges. The more I look at it, the more I can see how educational writing is. Not from the standpoint of a class you would take in school, but a class you might take every day of your life.

A couple of years ago, I created a YouTube channel to review other indie author books. Sadly, life happened and I began to neglect my channel. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I got some serious encouragement/reality check from an unlikely source.

I was working at my 9-5 job and was organizing things in the backroom when my co-worker/manager above me came in. We started to chat a bit about nothing super important and somehow, we got onto the topic of internet videos. (I’m pretty sure the conversation involved Tick Tock as that’s one of his favorite things). Something inside me compelled me to talk to him about my dormant YouTube channel and his eyes pretty much lit up. It was honestly pretty funny. He took a break from work and looked at all my past videos. He then came back to me and said, “You’ve got to keep doing this!”. Even though he isn’t much into books, he thought the book review video concept was pretty amazing. And although his encouragement was super heartwarming and helpful, it’s what he said next that gave me an epiphany.

“You’re fighting against thousands of other writers. It’s a tough thing to do [write]. You can also go somewhere with these videos. I haven’t read your books, but from what I’ve been told [by another coworker], they’re pretty good. I can’t say you’ll become the next best-selling author, but I believe in you.” I can’t remember all that was said, but that is what hit me the most.

Then I started reflecting back on the videos and what he said. He’s right, all writers have it tough and we all need that one person that believes in us whether we become best-selling authors or not. That’s why I’ve decided to resurrect my channel.

I am always hearing (and guilty of saying), “Please review my book!”. Why do I feel guilty for saying it? Because before now, I wasn’t dedicated to helping my fellow author out by reviewing their work loyally. See, as indie authors, we hope people will review our stuff but how often do we actually think of reviewing “Sally” on Facebook who just asked for the same thing of her latest novel?

It was once suggested of me that I review popular books to get my channel huge. And, there’s a very good reason that I don’t. A LOT of people review books like, “Harry Potter”, “Maze Runner”, “Lord of the Rings”, to name a few. Those authors don’t even NEED reviews at this point let alone care to have them. Indie authors who have self-published through Amazon or through independent publishers DO! Most of those people are like me and are still working full-time jobs just trying to make ends meet, while at the same time trying to keep their author dream alive. Does this mean I won’t read popular books? Heck no, in fact, most of my bookshelves are caving in with the number of “popular” books I have.

I want to challenge you this year; this decade even. If you’re an indie author, practice what you preach. Get to know the author behind the book. Look up their website, PURCHASE, the author’s book, and ask them where’s the best way to post your review. Show your fellow indie author you believe in them! If we don’t speak up for our writing minority, who will?

At some point, all of us have seen memes on Facebook that show magic coming from an open book. But, it’s a little bit misleading if you ask me. Books are certainly magic, that’s definitely true, but it’s honestly just the result. The true magic comes from the writer—whose raw imagination developed the literary worlds we fall in love with.

Unlike the magic from Harry Potter, writing magic doesn’t always come with just a flick of one’s wand. Writing comes with a lot of patience, practice, and listening to one’s inner voice. (Sorry, I couldn’t come up with another “p” word.)

So, how do you know if the magic of writing is REALLY working? When the story starts writing itself.

Let me give you an example from my latest writing project. For the last several months I’ve been working on the third book of my trilogy. Now, to be honest, I dreaded this book because of its level of difficulty. Half of this book is written from the perspective of the villain of the trilogy, which also happens to be the creation of the main villains of my entire universe. Now, this group of creatures is not something I’ve ever written about before. They are sociopathic biomechanical creatures. Or, as I like to put it…compare it to Dr. Who’s Cybermen, but with free will. Sounds scary, I know. But thinking from the perspective of a machine was super difficult for me. I remember trying to watch/read different movies and books that contained characters who were sociopathic and no matter how much I tried to research, I still couldn’t grasp the concept.

So, what do I do? Just start writing and hope for the best. The start of the book was insanely slow and brutal. In my mind, I knew what this main character was supposed to act like, but I just couldn’t automatically figure him out. But, I kept writing though. It wasn’t until chapter four that the book changed on me a bit. I had this particular chapter figured out, or so I thought. I was super excited about it too, but the more I looked at my original outline, the more I noticed that it wasn’t working.

I fought so hard against changing my original plan, but the magic of storytelling was much stronger than my stubbornness. That’s what I had to learn this month, once I caved in to what the character wanted me to write, it went smoother. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before in some of the blog posts, but I feel that it’s often overlooked when writers talk about their writing process. For the majority of us, we don’t just pop out 50,000 words in a day. If we do, then generally it’s because we’ve thought about it for a VERY long time. As a writer, I think it’s important to remember, and I often forget, that it’s not my stories that I’m writing…it’s the characters. And if the story isn’t going the way it’s supposed to, well they’ll let you know 😉

This month has provided so many lessons for me that I had no idea which to choose. And since this blog is about an author’s adventure through life, let’s talk about books—more importantly books vs. screen adaptions.

If you were to have asked me two years ago, what I thought about turning my books into a film. I’d probably ask you, “Maybe…what’s the catch?”

As a kid, the answer probably would have been more, “Yes, sign me up! When’s the red-carpet premiere?”

A lot has changed between these two answers, and most of that has to do with my perspective. I love to watch books come to life on the screen. But, every single time it ALWAYS comes with a catch, and that catch is generally the screenplay writers left an important detail out.

And, I know I’m not alone in this aggravation. As a reader, I want to see everything on the screen. But as a screenplay writer myself, I know that can’t always happen whether it be due to budgeting or even locations. So, I make do with what I have.

Some might say, “Then, don’t turn it into a film at all! Keep it on the pages!”

Sure, we could do that, but that leaves out a group of people who prefer visual storytelling vs. written storytelling.

As an author, I want to get my stories into the hands of every person in the world, but, to do that, I have to find creative ways to intrigue a larger audience. Maybe we shouldn’t look at books vs. screen adaptions in a “who’s better” sort of way. Why can’t they both be considered good?

For example, I’ve seen a lot of people who have read the Harry Potter books and have seen the movies who have struck up debates on the internet about what the author meant by one thing or another. There have even been times when the screenplay writers wrote Easter eggs into the script that tie back to the books!

In reality, a good book-to-screen adaption should work together, one directs people toward the screen and the other directs people toward the book.

Sadly, many screenplay writers just see what will sell nowadays so the adaptions don’t do a book justice. But, if more authors who had the opportunity to get their work onto the screen had an involvement in the script, I bet things would dramatically change!