@daeus-lamb
Active 3 weeks, 3 days agoForum Replies Created
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We understand that closing the forum will be a loss, but having considered our options, we don’t think there is a way to keep it running that would be less of a risk/sacrifice than closing it.
The forum will be removed from the site, though I believe we will still have the archive on the backend. However, I do not expect the forum will ever be relaunched. At least not in next several years.
@olivia I’ll remove you. I do think you have to subscribe from the emails manually, unless perhaps I completely deleted your account.
@olivia I’ll remove you. I do think you have to subscribe from the emails manually, unless perhaps I completely deleted your account.
I’m not an expert but I am good at some things things well and I sure know what not to do.
Here’s some of my top advice in no particular order or organization.
- I think it’s essential to market in a way you can enjoy. That’s the only way it will be sustainable. You may tell yourself “I will write one blog post a week!” or whatever it may be, but if you don’t actually like doing it, I’m telling you you’ll eventually burn out or just forget over and over. I think it’s important to look at the normal things people do like blogging and social media (or YouTube, podcasting, and so on) and find what you enjoy most and do that. But I also think you should think outside the box. Start with what you love to do most, whether or not it seems like a good way to build a platform, and then brainstorm to see if there’s anyway to build a platform incorporating that.
- Follow David Gaughran and The Novel Marketing Podcast. These are the best resources out there from what I’ve found. Dave Chesson is also good.
- I talk about this subject some in StoryEmber’s free mindset course, as well as our fairly inexpensive Breakthrough Strategies For Frustrated Writers course.
- If you plan on doing some form of content marketing (like blogging or social media,) I would generally say don’t post about gardening, or your pets, or theology or whatever other random subject. All these things will attract followers, but not necessarily followers who are interested in the types of books you write. There might be exceptions. For instance, if dogs are protagonists in your books, you could blog about your dog. If your stories all feature prominent themes of trusting God when things go bad, you could blog about that from a theological perspective. A good example is Shad from the YouTube channel Shadiversity. He put out cool videos about medieval buildings, weapons, and fantasy pop-culture topics for years and then sold a ton of books when he became published, because he’d attracted the type of people who love fantasy adventure books.
- Go all out on your lead magnet. First of all, make sure it’s your absolute best writing (assuming it’s a short story or such.) Don’t use something you wrote a year ago and have no other use for. Also, hire a professional editor for it and get a professional cover for it (doesn’t have to be top of the line, just professional.) Especially when you are starting out, your lead magnet is your brand. If the cover isn’t great, you may not get many subscribers. If the story isn’t great, the subscribers you fought hard to obtain may not care to fork over money for your book when it finally comes out, even if they’ve been opening emails from you and seem to be otherwise engaged.
@rebekah12 Thanks. 🙃 Is Ventar your favorite?
How to train your dragon 2 is actually pretty good. The thematic question is something like “How can a peacemaker stand against a powerful and ruthless enemy?” They do a great job playing this to the full. Also just a beautifully structured and moving film.
I also like The Stormlight Archives, especially Oathbringer, which examines the question of how a man who has done horrific things can overcome his past and do the right thing in the face of terrible odds.
Speaker for the Dead is another great one. It asks the question, “How should you deal with a culture you can’t understand at all but you find threatening?”
Cool discovery!
I just have to say, there’s actually a negative female character in unfinished tales. She’s the wife of one of the Numenorian princes and they grow apart (both of their faults) and she basically raises her child to hate the father. 😛
@gbfruitbat I wrote a 3rd person pov book with several POV characters. At first, readers struggled to relate to the main character. I tried switching his scenes to first person as one tactic to help readers relate to him better. I know one guy who didn’t like it, but almost everyone thought it improved the story.
Most writers who only have two POV characters would opt to keep them both in first or third. Dual first person pov stories are pretty popular.
That doesn’t mean you couldn’t try it through. The main question is why you want to do it.
If you decide to go forward with it, I would write a couple chapters from both povs, then get feedback on it before you write the whole book that way.
🤔 Boy, I can’t remember which story I was talking about. Probably one that will involve a lot of traveling through a demon-haunted wood that examines how pure good and pure evil are so other to the human experience that we could not survive an encounter with either.
I also have a vague idea for a story set in an old, crazy mansion involving a bunch of amnesiac guests and a jester type figure who mysteriously appears all sorts of places. Something very much like The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, only without the time loop and dealing with personal guilt rather than another’s crime.
Hey, I should mention, if anyone’s interested in writing Sci-fi, there’s this epic YouTube channel that can give you tons of inspiration. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g
His channel basically exists to examine how Sci-fi could actually work.
For Sci-Fi, check out the Ender Saga and Asimov’s original Foundation trilogy (the prequels are also good, though not as good as the trilogy. I don’t recommend the sequels.)
N.D.Wilson’s Ashtown Burials series is phenomenal. Christian author and super creative. Intense, original, and timeless.
The Six of Crows dulogy is a great fantasy heist story. Gorgeous prose and (mostly) epic characterization. Lots of content warnings though, lol. 😂
I’m currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel. Imagine if Jane Austen or Charles Dickens wrote a satirical book about two Englishmen reviving the practice of magic. It’s basically a satire on British satire and loads of fun. Not really epic, but very impressive with deep worldbuilding.
Er…
You could always try The Name of the Wind. I’ve heard the sequel is very graphic, but TNotW isn’t particularly bad, and I’m a huge fan of the writing. Absolute masterpiece. Makes me drool with envy.
The Lightbringer series is very epic, though personally I found the conclusion to the series unsatisfying. Great worldbuilding and crazy plot twists though.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a time loop murder mystery that is nothing but mindblowing. I should actually listen to it again…
As others have said, Brandon Sanderson is just…the best. I’m not sure why you didn’t like Mistborn. If you want to appreciate Mistborn more, read Mistborn: Secret History. If you want something slightly more epic and grand scale and a little less gloomy, read The Stormlight Archives. And if you want something more upbeat and easier to get into, try The Rythmatist. It’s more YA or middlegrade than his other books, but actually one of my all time favorites.
That’s all that comes to mind right now. I guess my book could also qualify. The Songkiller’s Symphony if you’re interested.
For Sci-Fi, check out the Ender Saga and Asimov’s original Foundation trilogy (the prequels are also good, though not as good as the trilogy. I don’t recommend the sequels.)
N.D.Wilson’s Ashtown Burials series is phenomenal. Christian author and super creative. Intense, original, and timeless.
The Six of Crows dulogy is a great fantasy heist story. Gorgeous prose and (mostly) epic characterization. Lots of content warnings though, lol. 😂
I’m currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel. Imagine if Jane Austen or Charles Dickens wrote a satirical book about two Englishmen reviving the practice of magic. It’s basically a satire on British satire and loads of fun. Not really epic, but very impressive with deep worldbuilding.
Er…
You could always try The Name of the Wind. I’ve heard the sequel is very graphic, but TNotW isn’t particularly bad, and I’m a huge fan of the writing. Absolute masterpiece. Makes me drool with envy.
The Lightbringer series is very epic, though personally I found the conclusion to the series unsatisfying. Great worldbuilding and crazy plot twists though.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a time loop murder mystery that is nothing but mindblowing. I should actually listen to it again…
As others have said, Brandon Sanderson is just…the best. I’m not sure why you didn’t like Mistborn. If you want to appreciate Mistborn more, read Mistborn: Secret History. If you want something slightly more epic and grand scale and a little less gloomy, read The Stormlight Archives. And if you want something more upbeat and easier to get into, try The Rythmatist. It’s more YA or middlegrade than his other books, but actually one of my all time favorites.
That’s all that comes to mind right now. I guess my book could also qualify. The Songkiller’s Symphony if you’re interested.
Your points raise good questions though, Taylor. That’s the way things are. But should it be?
For instance, I don’t believe in aliens, but does that mean I can’t include them in fiction? I tend to think I can. Fiction is, by definition, not real. I also tend to doubt that AI will ever be able to fully mimic human intelligence, but I would have no problem writing that story.
The hitch with aliens is I don’t want to promote an idea I disagree with. But because aliens are such a staple, I don’t think including them in your fiction has to be a statement. It depends on how you write it.
It would depend for me what you get out of adding aliens. As much as I adore Speaker for the Dead for a million other reasons, I don’t really care about it’s philosophy of how to treat alien species because I don’t believe humans will ever meet alien species. However, they built out the exploration of the theme of empathy quite nicely–something I can get behind.
Also, “what if” questions work both ways. Many popular sci-fi what if questions Christians (and many scientists in general) find highly improbable. But if you ignore all those, you’re still left with thousands of plausible or semi-plausible scenarios. You don’t need to believe that the internet of things will develop consciousness for the internet of things to turn the world into something almost unrecognizable.
(btw, totally planning to write a sci-fi short story set hundreds to thousands of years in the future.)
