Tag Archives: Dan Blank

Author Brand, Author Platform, Social Media presence, Using Twitter Hashtags

Social Media: Friend or Foe? 8 Lessons I’ve Learned About Using Social Media

32 Comments

Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler

 

“ By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen destination.”  Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

 

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Friend or Foe?
Photo Credit: Dreamstimefree

 

Since establishing an online presence has become an essential task for any writer who seeks publication, the topic of how to handle social media comes up a lot these days. In fact, I have received several requests to do a blog post about how to manage both social media and writing.

 

I do not profess to be a social media expert. There are plenty of people out there, many whom I have learned a great deal from—Dan Blank, Joanna Penn, Jeff Goins, Jane Friedman, Porter Anderson, Nick Thacker, Christina Katz,  Nina Amir, Alexis Grant, Michael Hyatt,Kristen Lamb—to name a few. I’m happy to pay forward what I have learned and offer some tips on what has helped me turn what can be perceived as a foe—time drain, distraction—into a friend—making meaningful connections.

 

The main question I receive is:

 

How can I make social media work for me?

 

Here are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way:

1.  I need social media to reach my audience (since I’m not a celebrity). This presumes I know who I am and can communicate this clearly via author profile/bio. (Branding)

2.  When I communicate on social media, I need to project my authentic self. My participation in social media is an extension of who I am and what my beliefs are.

3.  I need to follow proper etiquette

4.  The only way I’m going to know what works is to try different social media channels.

5.  I need a way of measuring what’s working, i.e. Google Analytics, Twitter stats, etc.

6.  I can’t do it all. After I’ve tried some out, I need to select a few to concentrate on.

7.  I need to rein in, set limits and manage the time I spend on social media.

8. I need to be social and remember that the main advantage of using social media is to make meaningful connections.

 

Here’s how I’ve put these lessons into action:

1.  I make sure my profile is up to date and consistent with my brand across all channels.

2.  I check myself at the door before I post anything anywhere.

3.  I try to keep a ratio of 1:5 in sharing my work: works of others.

4. I tried numerous channels and concentrate my efforts on my blog,Twitter (Hootesuite) and Triberr. I use Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+  and Goodreads but to a lesser degree.

5. I use WordPress stats, Google Analytics,Twitter stats . I recently signed up for Sumall.com (free) which offers daily and weekly summaries of interactions across my channels-Twitter, Facebook, blog and Google+.

6.   Same as #4 and check out this post by Dan Blank: “I Am Changing How I Use Social Media: More Social, Less Media.”

7. As per Porter Anderson’s suggestion, I signed up for Rescue Time, a tracking system for improving productivity by managing social media distraction. Pomodora is another popular tool to use.

8. I have made many meaningful connections over these past five years of being on social media. This has led to guest posting opportunities both on my blog and for other blogs. And the way I keep track of all my contacts and activities is a productivity system called Highrise.

 

A few extra pointers:

 

* Be consistent with blogging at least weekly.

* Comment on other blogs that align with your brand.

* Share the work of others freely. If you use Twitter, use #hashtags to extend the reach of the post or book review.

* Probably the nicest thing you can do for fellow authors is to post reviews of their books.

 

 

Turn social media into a friend who helps you make meaningful connections and extend your reach to your audience.

 

 

 

 

How about you? How do you manage to balance social media with writing? Is social media a friend or foe?

 

I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

 

 

***Newsflash***

I’m pleased to announce that after months of researching, listening, pondering and praying, I have finally made a decision about the best route to publication for my “baby”. I signed with a small publisher this week! Stay tuned for more details.

Also, thanks to all of you who participated in my Memoir Title survey. Your comments helped me to clarify the title that I feel best reflects the heart of my story. I ended up keeping the original title but I changed the subtitle. Introducing:

Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Memoir

Announcement of  winners of Doreen Cox’s memoir and novella:

Congratulations, Kathy and Debbie! Thank you for stopping by and commenting. Kathy, you won Doreen’s memoir,  Adventures in Mothersitting and Debbie, you won Doreen’s novella, A Sacred Journey.

 

On Thursday, 4/10/14, I am honored to participate in a Wow-WomenonWriting Book Tour for social media strategist and author Frances Caballo. Her new book, Avoid the Social Media Time Suck: A Blueprint for Writers to Create Online Buzz for Their Books and Still Have Time To Write should help answer a lot of questions that we have on managing social media.

 

Hope to see you there , too.

 

 

 

 

Finding Your Ideal Reader, memoir-writing

How a Chance Encounter Sealed My Reason for Writing Blush a “Real-Life Plain Life” Story by Shirley Showalter

37 Comments

Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Shirley Showalter/@shirleyhs

 

” We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow man.” Herman Melville

 

I am thrilled to feature Shirley Showalter in this guest post on her new memoir, Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Shirley and I met online several years ago and have been following each other ever since. Her blog is an excellent writing resource as a well as a source of ongoing inspiration and motivation for writers.

 

 

On June 4, 2013,  100 days before her book publication,she launched “The 100-day Challenge”, inviting her readers to participate in a “New Beginnings Challenge” where we shared a new beginning we had experienced each day. In doing so , she led us all gently , yet enthusiastically by the hand into her own personal journey to publication.

 

My reviews of Blush can be found on Amazon and Goodreads

 

 

 

Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World Book Cover

 Excerpt of Book Description from the back cover:

“Little Shirley Hershey grew up in  a plain Mennonite home, yet she was named for a movie star. With her nose pressed to the window of the glittering world, she felt intensely the gap that existed in the 1950s and 60s between Mennonites and the larger world. This is a story of how a rosy-cheeked, barefoot Mennonite farm girl prepared to enter the glittering world and learned to do it on her own terms.”

 

Welcome , Shirley!

 

Large size and smile (1)
Memoir Author Shirley Showalter

 

 

A Chance Encounter…

 

Do you believe in divine providence? Or in destiny?

 

Here’s an author/reader story that confirms my belief in both.

 

My husband picked a surprise destination for our 44th wedding anniversary: Tangier Island. To get there, we traveled by boat—the Chesapeake Breeze ferry. By chance we met another couple. Eventually the topic of my book entered the conversation.

 

Shirley’s husband Stuart waits to board the Chesapeake Breeze. He had the romantic idea of planning a surprise. “Pack your bags. We’re going to celebrate” was his only instruction.

 

I discovered that the woman in our shipmate couple loved to travel to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the setting for most Amish and Mennonite romances, and that she was one of the millions of readers of fiction depicting this subculture. Like many of those readers, she identified herself as an evangelical Christian.

 

I was very excited to meet her, because I wanted to know if the interest in Anabaptist (a term that includes both Amish and Mennonite) fiction translates into an interest in Anabaptist memoir. In my new friend’s case it did! She has ordered two copies of Blush, and I plan to autograph them before my publisher sends them to her. She should have them by the time you read this story.

 

Background: I had read my first Amish romance novel as I prepared to launch my childhood memoir Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World.

 

I chose Harvest of Hearts by Laura V. Hilton. The plot consists of a romance between a “drop-dead-gorgeous Amish man” Matthew Yoder and an Amish girl runaway Shanna Stoltzfus, who has to eventually choose where her true home is.

 

I chose this book because the Amish Fiction Group on Goodreads made it their selection. In my own youth I enjoyed Christian fiction, especially romance, so I understand the appeal of a love story that confirms one’s own belief system yet offers an intriguing window into a different culture – and enough conflict to make the pulse quicken.

 

In the year 2012 there were 85 Amish romances published, most of them to an excited, loyal readership. Valerie Weaver Zercher’s book Thrill of the Chaste explains the amazing growth of this publishing phenomenon. I carried Amish memoirist Saloma Miller Furlong’s review of this book on my blog, and a stimulating conversation ensued.

 

One of the many reasons I wrote Blush is that for a long time I felt a connection between the story of my childhood and the longing that brings tourists to Lancaster County (and to a half dozen other Mennonite and Amish communities, mostly in the East and Midwest). I described that longing as an element of finding my own voice as a writer in this post on Susan Weidener’s blog:

Writing to Find Authentic Voice

 

Now here’s the truly amazing part of this story. I was taking a course from marketing expert Dan Blank: Master Class :Roadmap to Readers at the time of this trip to Tangier Island. He had asked all of us writers to describe our ideal reader.

I had just constructed this picture of “Rachel,” my ideal reader.

 

IMG_5204 Rachel
“Rachel”, my ideal reader

 

 

Now, here in front of me was a “Rachel.” She was a woman I knew I would enjoy getting to know better. As she reads and responds to my memoir, this is what I hope to learn:

 

  • Where were you moved, inspired, challenged as you read?

 

  • Who else might enjoy this book?

 

  • Where do those people congregate?

 

  • Will you help me connect with them?

 

 

Was meeting “Rachel” on the boat to Tangier a chance encounter or was it God having fun, stirring up a few waves in the Chesapeake?

 

You decide.

 

I know what my answer is.

 

***

Author Bio: Shirley Hershey Showalter grew up on a Mennonite family farm near Lititz, Pennsylvania. The first person in her family to go to college, she eventually became the first woman president of Goshen College in Indiana. After six years as an executive at the Fetzer Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan, she became a full-time writer living in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

 

Shirley can be reached at:

Twitter @Shirleyhs.

Her Facebook fan page : https://www.facebook.com/ShirleyHersheyShowalter.

Her Google + profile is here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/117720879252864367816/about

Her website

Amazon ordering link

 

 ***

Thank you Shirley for transporting us into your publishing journey as well as into your “real -life plain life.” You have shown us how connecting with your purpose for writing helped you find your readers.

 

 

 

How about you? Who is your ideal reader? Have you ever had a chance encounter that changed your life as a writer? Do tell!

 

Shirley has graciously offered to give away a copy of Blush  to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.

 

We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

 

***

Stay Tuned: Every  Friday in October Memoir Author, Coach, Editor Denis Ledoux of  The Memoir Network will present  four posts on Memoir Writing Tips in preparation for “November is Life Writing Month”

10/4:   Action is Essential in Memoir Writing

10/11: Describing Characters in Memoir Can Be Easy

10/18: Establish Your Setting

10/25: Conveying Theme Effectively

 

Denis has generously offered to give away his Memoir Starter Package at the end of the series to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.

 

Next Week:

Monday, October 7:  I will be participating in The Memoir Network Blog Carnival with “What Memoir Writers Have in Common with Sculptors.”

 

Wednesday, October 9: Memoir Author Paige Strickland will discuss ” How I Found my Memoir While Searching For My Roots” in conjunction with the release of her memoir, Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity.

 

Friday, October 11: Memoir Writing Tips byDenis Ledoux as above.

 

Friendgrief, Publishing options

Divide and Conquer: Turning a Book into a Series by Victoria Noe

16 Comments

Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Victoria Noe/@Victoria_Noe

 

“In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.” Audre Lorde

 

It is my pleasure to welcome Viki Noe back for a guest post on why she decided to turn her nonfiction book about friend grief into a series. Viki and I met in Dan Blank’s  Build Your Author Platform Course in 2011 and have been mentoring each other ever since. Viki has recently released her third in a series of books on dealing with the loss of a friend.

Welcome back, Viki!

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Victoria Noe, Author

The Story Behind the  Story…

It’s been four years since I embarked on the latest reinvention of my work life. The learning curve – coinciding with explosive change in the publishing world – has been steep and constant. That’s the thing about being a writer  these days (self-published or not): you are constantly learning. It might be new technology, new marketing possibilities, new opportunities. But learn you must if you are to be successful in your craft or business.

 

One of the things I learned was to choose my mentors carefully. Kathy is one. Porter Anderson is another. And so is George Davis. Kathy keeps me grounded and focused on the craft of writing, as well as a constant, gentle reminder of the importance of supportive friends. Porter keeps me informed and occasionally entertained on the business side. And George…well, George is the person responsible for my book becoming a series.

 

I spent about 18 months shopping my book about people grieving the death of a friend. I went to pitch slams at conferences, researched agencies, sent queries and proposals. Those who were professional enough to respond (about half) gave a variation of the same response: great idea, but they didn’t know how to market it.

One day I opened the email with the latest rejection and said to myself, ‘well, I do.’ That’s when I took Porter’s advice to self-publish. Not long after, I was having lunch at Book Expo with friends, including George. I told him of my decision to self-publish, which he enthusiastically supported. Then he said,

“I’m telling you, this should be a series.”

 

If memory serves me, it wasn’t the first time he’d made that suggestion. I already knew breaking up the book into a series of small books would not pass an agent’s inspection. But now…now the decision to self-publish made the series possible and quite intriguing.

 

In the original book proposal, each chapter was a different situation – war, AIDS, 9/11, workplace – where people have to cope with the death of a friend. As George and I talked, he pointed out the obvious: each chapter could be a separate book. And though it has morphed somewhat, his original observation has proven true.

 

In March of this year, 3-1/2 years after starting my research and writing, I published the first in the Friend Grief series: Friend Grief and Anger: When Your Friend Dies and No One Gives A Damn. Its purpose is to introduce the concept of friend grief, why it’s often disrespected and the anger felt as a result. The following month, Friend Grief and AIDS: Thirty Years of Burying Our Friends came out. Those books, as well as the new one, Friend Grief and 9/11: The Forgotten Mourners, were rooted in personal experience. And although I expand well beyond my own situation, the intensity made them difficult at times to write.

 

What serializing has done was enable me to expand on topics that deserved far more space than one chapter. The 9/11 book is the longest so far at 14,000 words. I suspect the next one, Friend Grief and Community: Band of Friends, about the military and how grief/survivor guilt contribute to PTSD and suicide, may be longer. The final two books in the series will be about workplace grief (with a very broad definition of workplace) and people who made major life changes brought on by the death of a friend.

 

Serializing is not for everyone. It’s expensive. When I’m done I will have paid for 6 different covers, 6 rounds of editing, 6 sets of formatting into print and ebooks. When totaled up, it’s probably more than I would’ve paid for one “normal” book. But the marketing is what finally made up my mind. Instead of pitching a book that has one chapter on 9/11 or AIDS or veterans, I have a book about 9/11, a book about AIDS, a book about veterans. That opens up marketing venues that may have been reluctant or even resistant to a single book covering all these topics and more. It has also allowed me to build on my marketing, something I needed to do since I’m in this for the long haul.

 

Then what? What happens after the sixth book is out? Well, I’m already looking past next spring when that happens. First, I re-write book #1.

 

That’s the beauty of self-publishing: you have do-overs whenever you like. Second, I’ll re-purpose the series into one book. I’ll probably need another cover design, and will do some judicious editing, but putting them all in one seems like a nice closing of the circle. I’ll release it as an audio book, too.

 

Finally, I’m working on a memoir I’m helping a friend write, and next year I’ll turn my attention to a full-length book that’s just about men grieving their friends. I promised Porter I’d do that, and I think it’ll contain surprises for a lot of people. It’s certainly opened my eyes. All of that should keep me busy for the next two years or so.

 

The series? Well, there’s always a chance I could add a seventh book. A topic has been suggested to me by several people, but it depends on whether I think I can do it justice. I touch on it in the fourth book, but it’s a topic that frankly scares me (which may be an indication that I should definitely write about it).

 

The other advantage to a series is that you build your audience. Few things are as exciting as a reader asking you “what’s next?” And to have those people actually suggesting new titles for the series, well, that’s exciting! That means they’re not just invested in your series, they’re invested in you. Is there a higher compliment?

***

Thank you Viki for sharing your publishing journey with us. You show how creative ideas and supportive friends have helped you step out of your comfort zone to find new ways to get your work out there. And thanks to all your hard work over these past few years, when we google “friend grief”, we get a myriad of resources from you about dealing with the loss of a friend  rather than information about dealing with the loss of  pet which occurred before you came on the scene. Congratulations on your very worthy mission!

Friendgrief and Anger, first book
Friendgrief and Anger, first book

 

Friendgrief and AIDS, second book
Friendgrief and AIDS, second book

 

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Friend Grief and 9/11, Third book

 

 

 

Author Bio:

Victoria Noe has been a writer most of her life, but didn’t admit it until 2009. After earning a Masters from the University of Iowa in Speech & Dramatic Art, she moved to Chicago, where she worked professionally as a stage manager, director and administrator, as well as a founding board member of the League of Chicago Theatres. Her next career was as a professional fundraiser, raising money for arts, educational and AIDS service organizations. After a concussion ended a successful sales career, she switched gears to keep a promise to a friend to write a book. Her freelance articles have appeared in Chicago Tribune and Windy City Times. She also reviews books on BroadwayWorld.com. Victoria lives in Chicago with her family.

Viki can be reached on :

Twitter @Victoria_Noe

Facebook: Friendgrief Victoria Noe

Google+

Goodreads

Website: Friend Grief blog

How about you? Have you thought of serializing your book?

Viki has generously offered to give each of her books to three separate commenters whose names will be selected at random.

We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

Next Week:

Monday, 9/30: Memoir Author Shirley Showalter will discuss “How a Chance Encounter Sealed My Reason for Writing Blush,a Real Life Plain Story in conjunction with her book launch. She will give away a free copy of her memoir to a  commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.

Friday, 10/4:  In preparation for National  Life Writing Month in November, Memoir Author and Teacher Denis Ledoux of The Memoir Network will present a series of memoir writing tips-action, character, theme and setting -for  all the Fridays in October.

10/4: “Memoirs Need to be Action-Driven”

 

Author Platform

Finding the Target Audience for Your Memoir

8 Comments

Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler

 

Author’s Note: For the next two weeks I will be reblogging previous posts. This post was originally posted in January 2012. Feel free to leave comments but since I will be offline from 9/8-9/19 I will not be available to respond to comments until after 9/19.  I will be on a Magical Mystery Tour and promise to come back with more new stories!

I selected this topic as I recently completed Dan Blank‘s awesome Roadmap to Readers Course and the topic of identifying target audience was a main point of discussion.

***

“Have faith. There’s someone out there who has waited their whole life to read your story.“ Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo in his closing speech, The Drive to Write, at the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference in NYC, January, 2012.

 

The above words struck me so deeply as I sat in the closing session of the conference that tears welled up in my eyes. For that moment I was spellbound by the vision of someone, a reader holding my book in his or her hands. It made me question,

Who exactly am I writing for?

 

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Photo Credit: iStockphoto “People Search”

I needed to define my “target audience”, the people who will be interested in and moved by my message and story. Otherwise why would they go to the trouble of buying  my book or downloading it on their e-readers and why would they spend their time with or even care about my story? Why would they want to follow my blog or follow me on Twitter?

The answer to that question  only came when I could answer another question:

What is the purpose of sharing my life story?

Mandee Sears poses these questions in her blog post on Who is Your Audience/Memoir:: 

“Am I writing to leave a legacy for my family? Am I writing for mainstream publication? Am  I just journaling for the pleasure of getting my emotions down on paper for myself?”

These are important decisions that must be made before we as writers can decide how much time and energy we are willing to put into our efforts.

Underlying all of this is a commitment to put our best work out there.

Jane Friedman defines target audience as an essential component of an author platform,along with “visibility, authority  and proven reach” in this post on  A”Definition of Author Platform.

I have set a goal to publish my memoir.  For the  past four years  I have been learning my craft of memoir writing and building my platform.

I would like to share what I have learned about defining my target audience from taking Dan Blank‘s Build Your Author Platform Course and beyond.  Dan’s course laid the foundation for defining, focusing, targeting, creating, sharing and growing.

As I was thinking about redesigning and upgrading my website  I responded to a tweet calling for volunteers to have their website reviewed online by Caitlin Muir of Author Media. As a result of this critique  I arranged a consultation with Caitlin to discuss website strategies  This included identifying ways to improve my readership by building a community around a core idea which for me has been chronicling my memoir writer’s journey including memoir writing/publishing/social media tips and sharing hope one story at a time around my kitchen table.

Caitlin also has an excellent post on “How to Build Your Community on Your Blog” which sums up the process. She asked me these questions:

How can I differentiate myself from others who blog about memoir writing?

Who am I writing for, both on my blog and in my memoir?

Where do I find them?

Caitlin suggested that I write with personas in mind and directed me through a series of questions about my audience .  She asked me to describe three different “personas” in these terms:

*What is the name?

*What motivates that person?

*What are they trying to accomplish?

*What are their goals, their attitudes their behaviors in relation to what they want?

From there, we developed strategies for helping each one.

Here’s an example of one persona:  Molly Memoirist is a middle-aged woman who has always had a dream to write.  She is full of stories but doesn’t know where to begin. She has a loud inner critic that she doesn’t know how to silence. She just needs a friend to show her the ropes. She’s had a painful past that she doesn’t talk about. She’s plowing through the pain.”

Now that I can visualize Molly, I can write to her by sharing how-to steps, ways to get started, ways to deal with her inner critic or share my own story so that she may gain some hope for herself.

Based on this profile Caitlin also suggested doing a blog series on “Blogging for Retirees” and package it as an e-book.

The main idea is that if you specifically define your target audience , you can focus on meeting their needs.  I have learned that it doesn’t work to say that your blog or your book will appeal to everyone.

It won’t.

Knowing my readers by listening to what they are saying, what they value, what they are looking for  has helped me to find and build my audience.  I have found them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Group Discussion groups, Google+ , Pinterest and through tapping into my established memoir community- National Association of Memoir Writers (NAMW), Story Circle Network, Fireheart Writer’s Institute and Women Writers and Artist Matrix, Yahoo Lifewriter’s Forum as well as face-to-face meetings at writer’s conferences.

Once we meet , I can invite them around my kitchen a table  at Memoir Writer’s Journey for some  writerly conversations and sharing hope one story at a time so we can all continue to learn from one another.

Know that I appreciate all of you and I hope to keep connecting with new people.

Here are a few useful resources I found related to the discussion of target audience:

How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content,Social and Search– a fascinating radio interview by Copyblogger Media’s Copywriter, Robert Bruce with Lee Odden, Author and CEO of TopRank Online Marketing Team.

Writing for an Audience Can be Dangerous- an interesting perspective by Author and Editor, CS Lakin.

How Do I Get Attention in a Crowded Field?- an inspiring how-to blog post by Author and Book-Marketing Educator Jonathan Fields.

Identifying your Unique Message:The Core of Your Marketing Strategies– an enlightening  blog post by Author and Business Woman, Marsha Friedman on steps you need to take before developing your marketing plan

How about you?

 

Who are you writing for? Do you know your target audience? Do you know where to find them? Do you know what they are looking  for?

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please leave your comments below~

 

Next Week:  9/16 Reblog of “Kindergarten Wisdom” from June , 2011

9/19 Guest Post at Madeline Sharples’ blog, Choices: “Five Tips for Honoring the Story Within: A Memoir Writer’s Challenge.”

 

 

Memoir Writing Tips

Writing with the Reader in Mind: Memoir Writing Tips

26 Comments

Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler

 

“The challenge with memoir is to make it interesting to someone other than the writer.” David Colin Carr, editor

 

 

Photo Credit: "Reading is Magic" by Sodanie Chea from FlickrCreativeCommons
Photo Credit: “Reading is Magic” by Sodanie Chea from FlickrCreativeCommons

 

One of the biggest challenges in memoir writing is to turn the events in your life into a story someone else would want to read.  Writing with the reader in mind becomes an essential part of the process but I have found it does not occur in full force until the rewriting/polishing phase.

 

Keeping the reader in mind as I write my memoir is something I’m working on as I grind away after three years of writing vignettes and two rounds of professional editing by a developmental editor.

 

I am finally ready to focus on my reader.

 

 

Why now?

 

Because I  didn’t know the  true heart of our story until  I had poured out many drafts on the paper—often referred to as “sh*#! first draft or the vomit draft–just getting it on the page with no regard for editing or censoring.

 

That’s been my experience.

 

This point was brought home to me in a recent discussion on Belinda Nicoll’s blog, My Rites of Passage during her A-Z Blog Challenge. In Challenge #23: Writing Models, she  discusses paying attention to creative techniques  in the hopes of crafting a story that will be of interest to the readers. Belinda had posed the question,

 

“Do you keep your readers in mind as you write?”

 

In response to my comment that the longer I write and revise, the more I find myself writing with the readers in mind, Lifewriting Coach and Author Sharon Lippincott had replied:

 
“Kathy, your comment prefaces what I was about to write. Only you can say for sure, but I suspect your early focus was more on the personal cost of disclosure and less on how it would affect readers. Ideally, I think we all need to “write like nobody will ever see” in the beginning, then tailor down to our disclosure comfort level balanced with reader impact.”

 

Bingo!

 

Initially, I needed to pour the words on the page before I even knew what my story was. My focus was on digging and excavating.

 

Now that I have my story—the narrative arc— I can concentrate on writing with the reader in mind.

 

But I think there’s a fine line between giving the reader credit for figuring out the details and giving the right details to make it clear.

 

I have a responsibility as a writer to transport the reader into my world in a way that is grammatically correct, nicely paced, appealing to the senses and action-packed.

 

As a memoir writer, I need to offer lessons learned from life experiences so the reader will have something to take away from reading my memoir.

 

With that in mind, here are a few tips I’ve gleaned along the way to write words so the reader will be moved:

 

  • Have enough emotional distance from the life events to be able to be objective in conveying the story.

 

  • Be clear on your intention for  story and stay true to your theme throughout the story. Avoid distracting tangents. Yes, this means “killing your darlings.”

 

  • Offer reflections on the wisdom gained from life events rather than listing chronological events.

 

  • *If you are stuck on who your target audience is, try writing with one reader in mind and focus on what you want them to learn       from your story.

 

  • Read your manuscript aloud to yourself and to others to listen for inconsistencies in pacing, clarity, voice. I use a digital recorder and tape some chapters. It’s amazing what I have been able to hear when I listen to my own words.

 

  • Use a critique group and/or beta readers for objective feedback. In the end, it is your story but being open to how potential readers view your story is crucial to getting your best work out there.

 

  • Commit to excellence on all levels. Invest (as you are able) in professional services for all levels of editing, book cover design, promotion. If finances are an issue, explore creative options for funding, such as kickstarter campaigns, beta readers, sharing services with other writers.

 

 

“It matters to put your best foot forward.”  Jami Carpenter, The Red Pen Girl

 

 

Keeping the reader in mind as we build our characters and move our plot along through a series of event and actions that will keep our readers turning the pages seems like a reasonable expectation.

 

I’d like to leave you with a question Dan Blank posed in a recent post on Writers Unboxed: “Are You Giving Your Readers  Only the Minimum Amount of  Your Attention?”

 

Photo Credit:" Reading Books" from Google Free Images
Photo Credit:” Reading Books” from Google Free Images

 

 

How about you? How do you move the reader with your words? As a reader, what does it take to keep you turning the pages?

 

 

I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

 

 

On Thursday, May 30: Justine Schofield, Communication Coordinator of Pubslush  a global crowdfunding publishing platform will discuss: ” Crowdfunding Your Memoir: 6 Ways to Know If Crowdfunding Is For You.”  She will give away three (3) ebook versions of Pubslush’s debut title, a memoir, a beautiful mess by Ali Berlinksi.

 

 

 Memorial Day, 2013

We remember and pray for our living and deceased veterans and thank God for the freedoms of this country.

My WWII Hero Dad Saluting the American Flag, Memorial Day,2004
My WWII Hero Dad Saluting the American Flag, Memorial Day,2004