Upgrade time for Sean Yeager Adventures

Hi book-loving folk,

One of the advantages of being an independent author is that I have the opportunity to upgrade my earlier books. And guess what? This is exactly what I am doing at the moment. And by upgrade, I mean enhance, correct, polish and add additional material. You see a lot has happened in the six years since I wrote DNA Thief. Gee, time really does fly…

In fact, if there are any readers out there who have already picked up a copy of Sean Yeager and the DNA Thief or Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted, I would be very interested in your thoughts about improvements. Yes, I care and want to improve them.

While writing and editing Sean Yeager Claws of Time, which is currently ageing and maturing in the ether, I learned a lot more about the characters, world and events surrounding Sean and Emily. And a plethora of tips about improving the words on the page. So much so, that I felt compelled to upgrade the two earlier works and add in some elements that were overlooked or undercooked.

The good news is that, once completed, both books will be real shiny – that’s a reference to a much-loved sci-fi series by the way.

I also read an interesting comment on Goodreads – and I don’t receive many so it is treasured – musing that the mysteries in DNA Thief would probably never be explained later in the series. Hmm, I thought. I wonder where that idea came from? Perhaps other series that leave things hanging? Anyhow – a big part of the Sean Yeager saga is that the books do indeed build on each other and explain a whole raft of things. I have in fact mapped out the next two stories with the intention of explaining far more than is touched upon in DNA Thief and Hunters Hunted. The back story would be a book in itself. Maybe one day… When I go all Tolkien and invent an Aenaid language (and one for all the ancient tribes of Vaestrarel etc.) But I digress.

Which brings me back to Sean Yeager Claws of Time. It is written, it is edited and it is ready to roll. However, it occurred to me that it needs a fresh sprinkling of wonderfulness before I unleash it on the unsuspecting reader. And it is pretty mind-blowing, so watch out! To do it justice I need to come back to it again with fresh eyes. Now, if I was JK Rowling the pressures might be unbearable to release it this year, I imagine (while daydreaming). However, back in the real world, I have the security of obscurity which affords me the luxury of improving it. And since there is not a single publishing person on the planet who ‘gets’ Sean Yeager as a book series – apart from me. Let’s try again – And since there is not a second or third publishing person on the planet who ‘gets’ Sean Yeager – I don’t have anyone chasing my tail for deadline dates. Yay! So the bottom line is – it will most likely be polished up and super-shiny by next Easter. By which time, I hope to be started on book 4, which is really exciting me, so I can lay some more Easter eggs back into Claws of Time. Yep, I do that kinda thing.

If you made it this far, thanks! You have been listening to a stream of consciousness from an undiscovered and, dare I say it, ground-breaking author. Well, I do gardening every so often <smiles with tongue in cheek>.

Happy reading

DM Jarrett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One simple way to plot out your story

Hi there, a quick tip about how to plot your story in a very easy way. And bear in mind you can always refine and elaborate it later when better ideas arrive. It is a starting point or a fresh way of thinking.

Firstly, imagine a steep hill.

At the top of that hill is your protagonist’s goal. They do have a goal right? You need a clear goal. What does your protagonist need? What will they die for / strive to achieve? What do they want more than anything?

To achieve that goal your protagonist must climb up the hill and overcome every challenge you can throw at them. The harsher the challenges, the more engaging the feat. There need to be setbacks. There need to be barriers. There need to be twists.  BUT and THEREFORE are your friends. X wants something BUT and THEREFORE X does this…

Now, find a big piece of paper (A3 or bigger). In pencil, draw a steep sigmoid curve from bottom (left)  to top (right)  – this is your Plot Hill.

In pencil, at the bottom of your hill write the protagonist’s starting place and their status. These needs to be pathetic or loathsome and far from their goal.

Starting at the bottom, add each step in your protagonist’s journey up the hill, one on top of the other. Add the challenges and the setbacks. Add whatever places, people, events you like. Include your twists in position.

When you have a continuous journey from ‘nowhere’ to your protagonist achieving their goal, you have the bare bones of your story. And now you can refine it, add to it, or start over again, Because it is visual and a mind-dump, it should freshen up your thinking. It should also be fun,

For other character’s sub-plots, draw a fresh hill with a fresh goal and add the relevant steps. The two Plot Hills can be later intertwined into a larger hill. And then you can write it up as a sequence from your beginning to your middle to your end. Bear in mind, that you might want to start telling your story in the middle.

If you have ideas with sufficient drama, you will already have low points, barriers, confrontations, set-backs, twists and such like. If not, back away, find a fresh piece of paper and try again a few days later. And note – you need a clear goal that is difficult to attain and lots of intervening sub-challenges and events. The rest is your protagonist’s journey up your Plot Hill.

Here’s a quick example (read from the bottom up):

Hilltop Goal : Recover the Black Pearl

Sails the Black Pearl away, leaves the captain

Defeats the Pearl’s captain & steals his booty

Boards the Black Pearl at night with his allies

Lures the Pearl’s captain to a deserted cave

Tricks the Pearl’s captain with promises of gold

Reaches Tortuga and finds the Pearl’s crew ashore

Pleads with Calypso to raise the wind

Becomes becalmed at sea, with no wind

Follows his magical compass

Sets course to find a hidden island in the fog

Escapes from the British

Steals a British Naval ship by tricking some soldiers

Recruits a miscreant crew from a rowdy public house

Finds Gibbs and sobers him up

Escapes from jail

Convinces someone to help him

Pirate, in jail, waiting to be hanged

         START HERE – and read back up the hill

Try it and see how you get on. It should be quick and painless, provided you have enough ideas. If not, come back later when your subconscious has got to work. And don’t worry about the order of the events – you can refine those later.  What is more important is getting down the main elements of the story you have in mind and refining it. You did write in pencil?

Happy plotting.

D M Jarrett

Author of Sean Yeager Adventures
Awesome books for bright, young minds

 

 

 

Where next after Fantastic Beasts?

As an author, I am also a fan of J. K. Rowling’s work. I love the films, the theme parks and most of the books (less so the fatter ones if I’m honest). I was inspired by the parallel shift of Fantastic Beasts and the repositioning of the magical world in the USA. It rang true, complete with the bureaucracy that modern-day America exhibits on entry. Right down to the typefaces and official blurb of the supporting material (briefcase shaped). Based on recent experience, I half expected Newt Scamander to be asked if he was a) harbouring magical creatures; b) a terrorist; or c) carrying foreign fruits or vegetables in his luggage. Just as (unbelievably) you are asked to confess all when entering the USA. Err, real criminals tend to lie…

In addition, what a great achievement to co-write a stage play and progress to screenplay writing. And why not? The formats may vary, the content may require different disciplines, but surely the creativity is the common thread? I was impressed. By both the challenge and the outcome. Entertained too. For once, a film surpassed my expectations and (bar the overlong attack sequence) the originality, warmth and plotting of the movie was touching.  A movie with soul amongst the magical goings on.

And there it is, for me at least. The magic ingredients – warmth and humanity. I see the Harry Potter series, including Fantastic Beasts, as less about the outsider coming good, and more about the friendships and bonds between people. This aspect is the one which has inspired me the most in my creative thought processes. People standing together against evil and bureaucracy. People striving for better.

This inspiration I have carried over into my own writing. And a long road it is. I started writing Sean Yeager Adventures with a wisp of an idea. The wisp grew into characters, motives and a secret world set amongst our own. A world where things go wrong and people make mistakes, but also strive to help each other. A world with evil, goodness, and also ambiguity. A world with a rich background and complexity stretching through time and space. And yet nothing like Harry Potter. For that is the real challenge – to create something original and unseen, unread. It’s not easy. I take my hat off to J.K. (not that she needs it, and not that I wear one) the confidence to press on and create can be a lonely place. It can also be amazing, as Fantastic Beasts shows.

When I write I am happy. When I read back and review I am often annoyed with myself for not writing better. After several rounds of revisions and improvement, I become a whole lot happier. For one simple reason – when the work stands up and speaks to you, you know it has something. You know your characters have life and something to say and strive for. And that others will ‘get it’, eventually. It’s a weird thing creating – all that effort and you are second guessing what ‘good’ looks like. Inevitably, you write what works for you. And inspiration from other genres helps a lot.

Sean Yeager and Emily Campbell will reappear book 3, eventually.  When they have rebuilt Kimbleton Hall and re-programmed the cat probably. The editing is taking a while, because I don’t write in the conventional way and I don’t write conventional stories. Where’s the fun in that?  The flip-side of course is that if you are reading this and look-up Sean Yeager Adventures, you are in a select few.  And I thank you for it.

You see, I write films in book form. I write science magic adventures with strong relationships and humour. All my characters have a reason for being and things they strive for. I also write about gizmos, parallel worlds, mind control, sentient computers, alien lifeforms. But not in a way I’ve seen before. I aim for the soul. In Sean’s England the factions are hidden, secretive, small in number and yet deadly. Sean and Emily have to discover the truth for themselves, there are no prophesies or fast-tracks to the stars. They have to rely on their own wits and clues. It’s a tough write. And I love it.

I still remember a time before Harry Potter. When the idea of a book about a wizard was viewed as nothing much, nothing new. It really had been done before (Books of Magic, A Wizard of Earthsea). And now look at the audience and the achievements. And the undoubted hard work that’s gone into it all. It is the classic – it’s not what it is, but how well it has been done.  And I have little doubt the next big thing will be fresh and different, just as J.K. was when people saw the merit in the work before them.

That’s creativity I guess, the balance between who ‘gets it’ and the energy of the creator to keep going until enough people do. So bring on the warm cuddly creatures, the strong friendships and rivalries and the impressive plotlines. I love it when things get good.

As J.K. once said ‘rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life’.  Everyone needs a foundation and belief in what you are striving for is a good starting point. The unread author really is at rock bottom in the literary world, and yet the work itself could be incredible/

Thanks for reading my ramble. All interest in Sean Yeager Adventures is appreciated. Remember, you were here first. As Cassius Olandis (Sean Yeager character) would say: ‘open your mind and everything will become clear to you.’

Sean Yeager Adventures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-Editing – character & dialogue

Hi,

Further to my blog post about how to manage editing and the stages, here are some specific things to review and correct. I have gleaned these through research, reading, and writing experience. Hope they help.

Character

Ensure your characters are active – they must : speak, act, think, decide, react
Not be passive or described through narrative alone. And limit that narrative.

Describe characters briefly through impressions / metaphors and pick out a few personal details relevant to the story.
Don’t ramble on for pages in narrative form about your character’s many attributes.

Each character should have their own voice, agenda and attitudes which come through in how they – speak, act, think, decide and react.
Avoid having each character appear identical in voice, actions, thoughts, agenda etc.

Major characters must have objectives, agendas, something they strive for and these must be made clear to the reader.
Correct and rewrite major characters who appear unfocused, bland, random in action.

Major characters need to develop as your story unfolds. This needs to be seen by the reader in how they change in: speaking, acting, thinking, deciding, reacting. Show the struggle, down points, their resolve, how they change, their actions to overcome, their elation / dejection at the outcomes.
Steer away from major characters who do not change during your story, especially your hero / protagonist and antagonist.

Dialogue

Keep it snappy, focused and get to the point. Less is more.
Avoid rambling dialogue with unnecessary words or topics.

Use dialogue to show key conflicts between characters & how they work things out (or not).
Don’t miss the opportunities to show how characters differ and want different things.

Written dialogue is not the same as real world dialogue, stay lean and pristine most of the time.
Only deviate when an effect is needed to show a reaction or character trait.

Minimize the use of speech attributions and stick to ‘said’ as much as possible. Often it is clear who is speaking without the label. Said becomes invisible to the reader, variations such as (replied, stammered, shouted, cried, retorted etc.) do not.
Steer clear of passages with lots of: he said, she said, he said, she said. It becomes wearing.

Ensure each character speaks in a way consistent with who they are, what they know and how they have behaved so far in your story.
Avoid making random speeches or having characters sound the same.

Use dialogue as a natural interaction between characters to further your plot.
Don’t have a character expose the entire back story or unexpected plot points through dialogue alone – exposition needs to be limited. Such as if characters are reflecting on a clue or next action or piece of information they have discovered.

Remember to leave gaps for the reader to figure things out for themselves. No one tells people everything they are thinking or feeling.
Avoid explaining every detail to tie up all the loose ends. Over reflection or over explanation can soon become dull and can spoil the plot.

 

Note – these are guidelines to improve the quality of what is left on the page. The ‘because’ is always – to polish and improve the quality of the book. There will be exceptions here and there to the above. However, from experience I find these guidelines to be pretty much on the money.

On a personal level, I seek to continually ‘sharpen the saw’ by reading, researching and writing / editing. These blog entries are from the coal face so to speak.

Hope this helps.

Happy writing.

D.M. Jarrett

www.SeanYeager.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-editing your novel

Hi there,

Happy 2017! I’ve been busy lately with family matters and editing my third book – Sean Yeager Claws of Time. Here are some thoughts collated from the arduous task of self-editing and the further research I did before kicking off the same:

What is self-editing?

It seems self-explanatory, but let’s define our scope. You’ve written your first draft from start to finish and now you want to edit to the stage where it is good enough to present to either a) a professional editor b) your agent / prospective agent c) your self publishing platform d) your beta readers.

In the main, I suggest it is a combination of a) to d) depending on whether there is a commercial partner expecting to have approval, and have their editor work with you prior to acceptance of a manuscript for publication.

The nature of the editing will vary from simple typos, to wholesale changes to scenes and structure. In my experience, it is wise to expect a lot of rewriting and improvement until you reach the happy place of being satisfied with the words on the page, and of course the flow. Or until your publisher says ‘yes’ we’re going to publish your work.

Stages of self-editing

Leave it in a drawer edit

Yes, leave your draft to one side and read other people’s work for a while. This will help to create a sense of separation from your work and a mental benchmark of what ‘good’ looks like. Once your mind has absorbed enough outside works and experiences, you’ll be ready to properly read your own work with fresh eyes. This is vital.

Coarse edit

This is the pass where you iron most things out. Typically I expect to remove, reduce, re-phrase, augment or re-write pretty much every page. Only the really good writing remains untouched. If it reads as ‘clunky’ it needs changing / improving / removing / scorching off the face of the planet. Delete as applicable.

I check for typos, perspective inconsistencies, speech attribution, adjectives, use of language, word flow issues, punctuation, scene progression, dialogue quality, plot points, character reactions, and so on. This is a heavy edit.

Tips – set your objectives clearly and write out your own editing checklist and refer to it regularly. Use a tool to check for overused words such as: that, then, with, like, towards, felt, looked etc. Consider each character’s path through your book – write it out as a brief flowchart and check that it makes sense. If it doesn’t, the chances are you have missed out necessary actions / speech / narrative, or even entire scenes.

My aims in this pass are to ensure that every section is effective and well written. I also re-consider the key plot points to check they make sense. I amend them or remove them if they don’t.

By the end of this stage, you will have a draft manuscript where you are not ashamed of the quality of the writing, and which you have begun to understand as a reader.

Structural edit

Once I have a sense of what I have actually written – as distinct from what I imagined I had written – I take a step back and review the story I am telling. I refer to my notes about each subplot and each character’s progression through the story.

The key question I ask about each sub-plot is – what does this add to the overall story? i.e. Do I need to keep this? Or do I need to move things around? Or should I delete a minor sub-plot lock, stock and barrel?

Tips: Structure – your main character (protagonist) should appear on page 1 or at least early in chapter one. Prologues usually suck and should be burned.

The key question I ask about each scene is – what is the scene’s purpose (action, fear, joy, discovery etc.) and does it work? i.e. is it effective enough or in need of a re-write?

Tips: Scene review – imagine the scene happening in real life and check how plausible it would be for actors to portray it. If it sucks, you need to augment and improve it. If it’s unclear, you may be overwriting and using too much purple prose. Short paragraphs work, pages of narrative by and large do not.

Self honesty is really important, and usually less is more. Also, it is worth recalling the established rules of writing and plotting (web research / books on the same) and breaking less than 30% of them at a time. Unless of course you never want anyone to read or recommend your work.

Removing unnecessary scenes or sub-plots can be really hard, and I don’t do so lightly. However, if you have a sneaking suspicion that the scene about the tree guardian who appears halfway through your story and does nothing except say two lines, is a bit flabby, the chances are it needs to be cut. Unless of course your story is about tree guardians, in which case they should have made an appearance on page one and regularly from that point on.

By the end of this stage, you have a manuscript draft where you are happy with your story, the major plot points and the length of the book. If not, go back and do it again…

Read aloud edit

I print and I read out loud, with a pencil at hand. I never cease to be amazed at how many outright mistakes sneak through until this stage.

The psychology is this – reading is the first pass through your brain, speaking is the second pass, and hearing what you have said is the third pass. The combination means you are much more likely to notice mistakes in your work.

Also, the flow or otherwise of what is written on the page comes across most clearly when you read your work aloud. If it flows, you can imagine what your readers will experience. And where the flow is poor, you will hasten to smooth things out out of sheer embarrassment or even boredom (as a reader). Yes, the section your always hated which dragged on still sucks – so now it’s time to edit it properly…  or cut it.

Tips: Dialogue check – do people really speak like that?  And would your character say those things in that manner? A key way to show a character is through their interactions, therefore what they say and how they say it matters. Provided of course – they had a plausible reason to say what they say. i.e. Action to reaction. What they know and what they don’t know.

By the end of this stage, you have a draft manuscript you are pretty much happy with, bar the detailed proofing. If not go back and do it again… Or if you absolutely hate the book, perhaps you need to park it for a while?

Writer’s proofing

Once happy with all the key ingredients I run the document through a couple of software tools and consider all the corrections I’m offered. Even the stupid ones which seem to make no sense at all. It’s boring and unfortunately completely necessary. The number of times I have found misused words spelt perfectly, or doubled up words in plain sight, is surprising and a relief – provided you correct them early enough. One tool alone is not enough to spot them all – for reasons I’ve never fully understood. (Software rules and such like).

Tips: check out tools in trial form first and see if you like them. Word alone is not enough.

By the end of this stage, you have a manuscript you are willing to share with others.

Professional editor edit

In an ideal world, all books would be further edited by a professional who gets the aims of the writer and is sympathetic to the effect they are trying to achieve. This may take the form of technical editing, structural editing and further proof editing.

It’s a partnership thing. If you find a great pro-editor, cherish them and send them greetings cards. If not, find someone else if you are able to. (Me, I’m looking.)

By the end of this stage, the book is quite different to the first draft – usually for the better, though I dare say – not always.

Final, final edit

More of the same until a) it’s done or b) someone say’s it’s getting published next week. Quite often a beta reader will raise an important omission or mistake. Sometimes this reaches the writer in time… I jest, the more complex your story the more edits will be needed all the way through to published editions, and corrections to published editions.

When is it good enough?

Never. Provided a writer keeps improving as a writer, they will always want to go back and revise a lesser work until they are sick of the sight of it. Incidentally, by the fifth round of editing I am usually sick of the sight of my own work. When this happens I call a break and go and write or do something else for a while.

Golden tip?

Fresh eyes are essential, as is a sense of detachment.Take a break and read other people’s work – ideally writers who are better than you are. Edit often and in hour chunks.

If you can forget you wrote the first draft manuscript and polish what you see in front of you, you can self-edit. Once you can no longer do this – take a break and/or get help.

 

Hope my insights help. Best of luck with your writing projects. Next time, I plan to write about plotting your book, click your bookmark or subscribe and please feel free to comment.

In due course, I will publish Sean Yeager Claws of Time. Having hurried on previous books, this time I’m following all my own advice and plenty of other people’s. Please check out my website and consider the younglings in your life who are missing out by not reading Sean Yeager Adventures. They are just a few clicks away on Amazon and elsewhere, somewhere between Harry Potter, Star Wars and James Bond.

Enjoy.

D.M. Jarrett

www.SeanYeager.com

 

What makes great creative writing?

I’ve been wondering about this for some time now and while there is a no definitive answer here are some thoughts I’ve collected along the way:

Engagement

I find myself preferring a writer who engages me on an emotional and intellectual level. If they don’t, and especially if the writing seems flat, I’m unlikely to continue reading their work. I read because I want to feel something and learn something. To step out from my regular places and thought patterns. As the saying goes – make them laugh, make them cry, take them somewhere.

Flow

Complex writing can be great writing – see the recognised classics – but it needs to flow or I lose patience. There are authors who mystify me with their swirling prose and back to front timelines. If I know where I am in the story that’s fine, but if I’m lost I lose interest. I also look for flow of the words and structures. The best writers make it seem smooth and effortless, though clearly it is a result of graft, revision and polish.

Personality

For me, great writers put their brand of persona into the fabric of their writing. It may be in how they speak to their reader within the book, the kind of humour they employ or the  viewpoint and attitude or philosophy of their writing. In some cases, this personality transcends the story and almost becomes an in-joke of itself. I find this refreshing and enjoyable because it develops another layer to the writing. In a way it builds a feeling of connection of the reader with the author as they tell a new story.

Page turner

I like a good plot as much as the next person, perhaps more so. If the plot fails to move along or surprise, I’m likely to fall asleep. The writing may be great, all the other ingredients may be brilliantly executed, but if the plot sucks – I’m out of there. What makes for a page turner may be at odds with ‘great’ writing, I am though convinced that brevity and economy of words is part of the sweet-spot for a great book.

Mechanics

I’ve scanned several books side by side, hopping from one to the next, simply to understand the mechanics of established writers better. In most cases, they use similar structures, variety, visual and sensory descriptions and impeccable punctuation. Those books that fail in these respects tend to stand out like a sore thumb. That said, if the mechanics are readable and the other ingredients are strong, I’ll read on. I remain mystified at the omission of double speech marks from books, but I guess I’m in the minority on that one.

What makes a book ‘great’?

All the above and then some. The perfect wave, the enduring story.

Ultimately I believe it is a personal preference, accepting that classics are decided over many years. For example, will Harry Potter be considered ‘great’ writing?  I suggest we’ll see in thirty years. Memorable and highly successful, no doubt. Great?  Time will tell. War Horse on the other hand is more likely to be lauded as ‘great’ and with some justification.

 

That’s all for now folks

D.M. Jarrett

 

9 writing tips I learned while writing

I write books for middle grade and young adult readers. And every so often I pause to sharpen the saw and learn more about the craft. Recently I took a break while writing my third book and focused on the editing process. This led to some broader learnings from the web, an editing book and my own realisations.

Tip 1

Avoid speech attribution by being clever with context and implied speakers.

In plain English – keep to ‘X said’, ‘X asked’ and above all avoid the need for explaining who is speaking with paragraph character beats or actions, either before or after the first speech in a section.

Tip 2

Keep to a strict viewpoint per section or better still chapter.

Why? Because only experts can make head-hopping work. Also, it is a far better read if your reader can get to know a character’s viewpoint for a while. Plus, it gives the writer time to develop intimacy with a character.

Tip 3

Use character’s inner dialogue sparingly to show their feelings, thoughts and concerns, but only based on what they can actually see from their perspective.

This helps to engage the reader in who the character is and what they are striving for. Too much inner dialogue though can distract from the plot. Too little and the reader can not get to know the character.

Tip 4

Lose the italics and exclamation marks.

Because – if the dialogue is strong enough it can stand on its own merits without signposts. And vice versa.

Tip 5

Read a lot and make notes as you read.

This won’t help you become the authors you read, but it will help your subconscious absorb the tone, words, structures and flows. Your notes are crucial to retain what you notice. I recommend noting that which you would never imagine writing. And then using similar structures made your own. Never attempt to be someone else, but do try to develop your own voice / style / approach.

Tip 6

Variety matters.

Professionals vary word choice, sentence structures and use of verbs. Because if we repeat the same words or phrases over and again it becomes annoying.

Tip 7

Question arcs for the major characters.

Finding different ways to repeat the core themes of the story as questions posed by the protagonist, helps to drive both the hero’s chains of action and the reader’s perspective of what the story is really about. The context of the question will vary by story type – who did it?  how? where are they? how to survive? where is the prize? how to win? does she love him? etc.

Tip 8

The antagonist has to have a convincing motive to allow the protagonist to be convincing.

In other words, flesh out what the antagonist wants and why to properly define the converse for the protagonist. Too often action movies fail in this respect and suffer as a consequence. Why does your anti-hero do what they do? What do they really want? If you as the writer do not clearly define this, it is unlikely that your work will convey a convincing sense of what the hero / protagonist is struggling against.

For example –

Our hero wants to save the world and get the girl/boy – fine.

But why does the anti-hero want to threaten the world in the first place? What do they gain?  Their own certain demise?  Some weird rebirth from the ashes and a power kick?

What does Jason Bourne actually want?  To kill everyone in the CIA / FBI who made him a super-spy?  Or to figure out who he really is and live a happy life somewhere?  Otherwise he’s pretty much on a survivalist kick and a hiding to endless retreads.

Tip 9

Remove -ly words of all kinds – slowly, quickly, badly – gone… make them active in the verbs – He crawled along. In a split second she drew her gun. He was a terrible shot and he knew it. (Yes I cheated).

And cut out the droning on that gets in the way of the plot. Less is more. More or less. If you need filler (excessive – narrative, back story, inner voice, description or repetition) perhaps your plot or subplots are too thin. You do have a plot outline don’t you?  Read up on the 5 act plot or hero’s path if you don’t.

That’s all for now folks

Happy writing and reading

D.M. Jarrett

Author of Sean Yeager Adventures

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiring young readers with STEM

I hear a lot of talk about encouraging youngsters into technical subjects and careers. My take on this is that hearts and minds are won early, through inspiration and positive experiences. It could be a great teacher, project or visit. Most likely it is a personal experience that is rewarding and fun. All the better if there are opportunities to follow up and develop those interests hands-on. But what really sparks the enthusiasm and motivation inside a young person’s mind?

I believe it is imagination and the space to create and build on ideas.

When I began writing I had a series of choices to make. I could chase the market and write what was most likely to be published next. Or I could play safe and fit in with the typical bookshelf of the day.

I decided to do neither.

I asked my son and his friends what they really wanted to read about in their leisure time. They talked about adventures, gizmos and technology. I set about weaving real-world science and history references around their interests, while keeping things fast paced and witty. And so Sean Yeager Adventures was born.

Here’s an example — How does a light sabre work?

Possibly you are now thinking about energy, particles, plasma, heat, contact, radiation. Perhaps batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, nuclear reactions, matter, laws of thermodynamics, the properties of light etc.

There’s no right answer. My digression was to get you thinking about science and design. Who knows, perhaps one day there will be a real light sabre? I’ve asked this question at home and our conclusions were hilarious.

I’ve heard it said that Star Trek communicators inspired mobile phones. Either way, I suspect we are far more visual than we realise. If we see it, imagine it and think about it, do we then set ourselves the tasks of concepting, designing, researching and building?

Of course the world is full of ideas. Skill, knowledge and application are huge factors, and that is where the education system comes in. Perhaps if we start encouraging imagination and enthusiasm as well, future generations will be better motivated to follow through on their ideas in technical areas?

I’ll leave that debate to academics and educators.

My aims as an author are to inspire, entertain and encourage young readers to investigate science and history for themselves. To date I’ve woven in references to Egyptology, cloning, artificial intelligence, robotics, mind training and numerous technical gizmos.

I have to say that researching the facts has been fascinating, and writing the books has been a blast!

Thanks for reading.

D.M. Jarrett

Author of Sean Yeager Adventures

www.SeanYeager.com

Pros and Cons of Self Publishing

This article is based on my experience writing and self-publishing two titles to date. My research cuts across many sources: published books, online learning, social media groups, verbal sharing of experiences and lessons learned at the coal face. It is my intention to ‘tell it  how it is’ and of course this is my perception to date.

Pros:
1)      You have complete control

You can choose what you write, how you package, how you market. Everything. And you can retain all your rights, provided you are wise to not signing them away to a vanity publisher or service company along the way. You don’t need to, so don’t. Read every letter of every agreement and if it looks ‘bad’ for your interests find a better route to market. Self publishing means that you own all of your book rights, that’s the deal. If you decide to sell some of them, make sure you take legal advice and receive payment.

2)      You can sell your own product in the market

No one can stop you selling your works directly to the public. For example, if your ‘Memoirs of a Frog Prince’ is complete, you can publish pretty much everywhere via Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords etc. without anyone else approving your work. You can also publish for relatively little outlay in e-book and print. (But that does not mean you will necessarily sell many copies, most titles sell less than 100 ever).

3)      You can sell product to readers (almost) directly

It is possible to sell product from your own website, but you will probably reach a far greater audience via Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords etc. These platforms will take a cut, but that cut is far less than a traditional publisher would take if you were signed-up. (However, your book would be likely to reach far more sales outlets and territories in print with a good deal at a good traditional publisher).

4)      It is possible to succeed

If your work is good enough and you work hard enough to find your audience, you could succeed all by yourself. However, not all books will be good enough and not all reader audiences can be found online. The proportion of ‘winners’ in this game is relatively small. You will need luck, a strong sequence of products and a lot of hard work to succeed commercially.

Before you write I suggest studying BookBub’s advertising rate chart for several days. See it here: http://www.bookbub.com/advertise/pricing.php

I wish I had seen it a lot earlier. Basically, this is as close as you’ll get to understanding the real potential market for your books, pro-rata. Of course the total world market is bigger than this, but the proportions are valid and representative for the UK and US markets. For example, you may wish to compete in a more widely read e-book genre than ‘Teen and Young Adult’ if you are just starting out. (I wish I had).

5)      You can achieve commercial success without the gatekeepers

The definition of ‘success’ is probably a case by case matter by writer and genre. Certainly, there are (some) professional self-published writers who make a decent living from writing books. They tend to be writers of multiple books for adult genres. They tend to be very hard working and strong minded, as well as good, solid writers.

For many writers, self-published (or indeed traditionally published) books are likely to be an additional source of income rather than a primary source, at least for the early part of their careers. And this is not unusual historically. Many famous writers held substantial jobs while writing their major works. J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis being two notable examples.

Cons:

1)      It is all down to you

The flip-side of control is that you have to do it all yourself. Or you need to find people you can pay who can assist you. Editors, cover artists, e-book designers and print book designers being essential services you will need. Most of your competitors will be using professional help as well, so be aware. You are all competing for repeat readers!

You also need to learn as much about online book marketing and promotion as you do about how to write a quality book. Omit this step at your peril. If you hope to sell in volume, you need to know how to oil the gears of your own selling machine. And that learning continues for years…

2)      Big companies will block you

It is a fact of the world we live in that big businesses will block out smaller businesses until the start-ups somehow ‘breakthrough’. At which point, they will consider buying them out, if they can. Sorry to kill off the romance, but you are basically selling a product which the world does not  want to know about until it sells a lot of units. Yes, it is a catch-22. So to slay some more dreams in the bud while I’m on a roll:

• Chain stores will resist all attempts by you to stock your books in preference for their deals with established publishers and authors. (Independents are still an option.)
• Libraries will resist attempts by you to stock more than a handful of ‘local books’ in their county.
• Online libraries will refer you to their partner – probably Overdrive – who will refuse to deal with you directly and will refer you to an ‘aggregator’ such as Smashwords.
• Bookbub will refuse to take your advertising unless you meet their criteria or are very fortunate. (They won’t elaborate on why) This is because they have plenty of other paying customers for their advertising space and can afford to pick and choose their customers (lucky them).
• Agents will send you standard rejection letters (or emails) unless you are incredibly diligent and lucky. Because they have plenty of other books to sell. By the way ‘Not suitable for our list’ means ‘we don’t think we can (or want to) sell your book’ . It’s a sugar coated ‘no way’. (And many of them also rejected J.K. Rowling – so what do they know?)
• Publishing companies will likewise reject your work, unless you are incredibly diligent and lucky. Because they also have plenty of other books to sell. And they listen mostly to Agents.
• Publications will blank your attempts to request reviews in print or online. Because they have plenty of other published books to review and are (probably) paid in kind for such reviews. (It’s easily done in this world).
• If you have personal contacts in any of the above use them!!!!!!!  (And then share them with me please)
  

3)      You will have to give away and heavily discount your product

Because everyone else does. Therefore you will end up giving away hundreds or thousands of units in the hope of picking up ‘visibility’ on Amazon and climbing sales charts. The precise details of ‘why’ vary with the manner in which Amazon compile their sales charts. However, the premise is simple – your work is unknown and will remain so until it appears on some ‘best selling’ lists. If it is seen and reviewed well, people will buy it. To achieve that push you will need to give away some copies and discount some copies. (Ouch!)

You will also have to provide an incentive for people to subscribe to your newsletters. A discounted or free book being an appropriate ‘gift’.  Likewise to gain those illusive online reviews, readers and bloggers will expect free books in exchange for their time and (hopefully) their kind words.

4)      It is also possible to fail commercially

You may succeed in writing a great book, your best ever book etc. However, commercial failure is entirely possible. Even if you learn and work hard at marketing and promotion, it is not a certainty that enough people will buy your books to make you more than 100 sales. Life is not fair, there are no guarantees and it does hurt. Sorry, but that is the truth.

It is also possible that you may not be cut out to be a writer in a commercial sense. That is not to say that you have ‘failed’ as such. No. Simply, that you will need to have other income available to live on while you write for your own pleasure or for other goals. At some point, a competition win or a big name review could change your fortunes as an author, but until that time….

Consider this: A writer produces a quality book that is well presented and does not fit easily into an established genre. They try all the regular routes to self-publish and promote. However, what they may not realise (ever) is that their work might be an acquired taste or a niche work. That is not to say that their writing lacks merit. It simply means that – like the vast majority of books – it will sell in trickles rather than floods, because that book’s market is relatively difficult to find or is quite small.

Or this: A writer markets their work to the hilt and writes for a genre that sells well. They produce a few books, promote them well etc. What they may not realise (ever) is that their work basically ‘sucks’. It falls short of the standards their potential readers require to pass on a recommendation. This may be incredibly tough to accept, but it happens. And no one will tell you for fear of causing offence. (You may not believe them anyway). On the plus side you can always improve! And in time, you will recognise on reading back your own work how good it really is. Meantime, keep up the day job!

Luck, hard work and persistence remain key factors for any ‘overnight success’ and writing is no different. (I’m very much at this stage right now).

As an informed guess, you will need at least three titles to make a serious impact and probably four. The first will likely fail, but you will learn from it. The next two will be better quality and you will be better placed to promote them. By the third you have enough product to ‘sacrifice’ to giveaways and heavy discounts. And you will gain in cross-sales with your other titles. Plus, you will have built a name within your reader population. Blog followers, subscriber lists, twitter followers etc. all add up and provide better chances for you to directly promote your books to interested readers.

5)      You will still need to negotiate with ‘gatekeepers’

It would be great to think that ‘gatekeepers’ with approved ‘lists’ will go away when you self-publish. (Agents, Publishers and PR people run a ‘list’ of work they represent or are trying to sell for). Unfortunately the ‘gatekeepers’ won’t go away, instead they morph and change.

To succeed as a self-published author you will still need endorsements and acceptance for your work from a number of people. Not all of who will be as open minded to the merit of your work as you are. These include:

• Book bloggers – generally they want genre and quality consistent with their values and interests. (Vampire bloggers are not ‘into’ sci-fi for example)
• Book advertisers – ditto with their audience goals and their income models.
• Amazon – can (in theory) reject/take down works which have reader complaints against them. It may be rare, but it can happen.
• Customer book reviewers – need an angle to want to like your work. It is not a level playing field (sorry) An ‘okay read’ will not usually result in a review. A high profile book will attract far more sales and therefore far more reviews. Not all of them good I hasten to add.
• Your first readers – will obviously judge your work against their own likes and dislikes
• Your social media contacts – will generally want to associate more with ‘rising stars’ than ‘unknowns’
• Your potential ‘fans’ – by definition will like the work that ticks their boxes. If they are ‘your’  fans you will want to look after them. Nurture them. Hug them even.

In conclusion, while there is no one recipe for success in an ever-changing world of book publishing (thank goodness), there are some truisms:

• The winners take almost all of the cake – see the published book sales figures for any given year
• The harder you work, the luckier you will become
• Success breeds success – fiction books (like pop music) is a very polarised market with a very ‘long tail’ of low volume selling titles.
• Successful titles come from the most popular genres – which is de facto a statistical certainty and relates also to demographics.

Good luck and happy writing

David Jarrett

www.SeanYeager.com

Sean Yeager and the DNA Thief available now at Amazon, Kobo

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted. Available now at Amazon, Kobo etc

Website page read stats – what can you trust?

Hello and welcome,

When not writing the highly entertaining Sean Yeager adventures series, I do what I can to spread the word. A phenomenon I’ve come across recently is a massive disparity between website page read stats from different sources. And by massive I mean 1000% inaccuracies.

So what do we mean by a page read?  Simply – how many times did someone open (and hopefully read) a page of your content? (Or more precisely – the number of discrete page impression per browser session / IP combinations by a human being in a given time frame).

(Definitions – IP meaning IP address which can identify a single machine or at least a service provider’s bundle of active connections to the internet. Session being a period of active use of a given website before a log-off / period of inactivity. )

Now that may seem like a very straightforward concept. And it is. However, consider this:

1. A website site counter showing 2000 reads with peaks of 100+ per day for a rolling month
2. Google Analytics stats reporting 50 reads with peaks of 4 per day for a rolling month

And that’s for the same website and for the same month.

And on Scribd for related content:

1. Scribd document counter showing 3000+ reads for a given period
2. Scribd user map counter showing 12 users who have ever read the content for the same content and period

So what’s going on here and how can we interpret these conflicting web stats?

Firstly, they are all strictly incorrect as a measure of real people, because that is impossible to measure unless everyone logs in and/or saves cookies for the whole month, while using the same device / log-in. The reason being that no website can recognise and verify the person browsing the content unless they choose to positively identify themselves. (Consider a shared public or home computer or multiple log-in Ids per person or multiple devices per person).

Also, if people have Javascript or some session hiding software active that can also distort the stats. Sure, you see a trend. However it does not answer the question – ‘how many people read my content?’ It leads to an approximation, which is as good as you can reasonably expect.

In addition, we have to eliminate web crawling software, malware and robots that trawl for content from our numbers. This should be easy given that their sessions on any given page will be very short and their IPs repeat. However, many counters do not look at such information. Which means that …..

We can only gauge ‘real people’ responses based on comments, subscriptions, purchases and log-ins. Otherwise we are left with vague ‘ball parks’ and trend indicators and that is all.

From my experience Google Analytics under-counts and unfiltered website counters over-count. (I base my Google assertion on tests that bypass Google search results and use JScript =Off with cache clearing each time).

Incidentally, there are no apparent patterns that I’ve noticed to correlate between the two sets of figures either. One might expect a busy day to show up as spikes using either measuring method, but in my experience they don’t. I’ve had a spike on Google and nothing unusual on the website stats and vice-versa. I often have spikes on the website counter and next to nothing reported on Google. Which is frustrating and perplexing.

Bottom line – if you really need to know your traffic stats, you need to find a website SEO tool that is impartial and well integrated with your site / blog. Unfortunately, you can not rely on free tools and counters if you need accuracy. And you’ll need a webserver log analytics analyser to see what is really happening – but that is for the big commercial sites only. For the rest of us we simply need to make do with the free or cheap alternatives.

Hope you found that useful. That’s all for now.

Happy reading

D.M. Jarrett

Author of Sean Yeager books

DNA Thief and Hunters Hunted

Sean Yeager Hunters Hunted