Killer book blurbs

My observation so far about blurbs is that they are really hard to write well in only one draft.   

Even worse, they are really hard to write cold after finishing a book. (Heck, I haven't even finished a novel yet, and I know it's hard!)

Because how to do you choose what to emphasize when you have a pirate kidnapping, and romance between the gargoyle and the gamine heroine, and intrigue over the miniaturized secret nuclear submarine plans hidden in the plug of the crock-pot lost at the church social?  (No, those aren't in my novel, but they should be in somebody's!) So many conflicts, what do you choose?  What’s most important?

I think the best way to approach blurb-writing is to begin drafting them at the beginning of the novel-writing process, then revisit and redraft as each third of the book is completed.  (Need a way to procrastinate while still being productive on your story?  Just go hone your blurb.  You’re welcome.)

Plot bunnies appear, and by heaven, sometimes we must chase them!  And sometimes… the plot bunny develops into such a six-foot pooka of awesomeness that you must bow to it and change your book accordingly. 

In those cases, it helps to revisit and change the blurb immediately before too many more distractions are added. I'm halfway through my current work in progress and I've already drafted my blurb eleven times.

I ran across somewhere that Pixar has some kind of formula for writing awesome movie premises, which can be used for writing story blurbs.  I may not remember it perfectly, but it goes something like this:

Character is in [starting situation].  Then [change] happens and now character has lost [something valuable]. But [external threat] looms, forcing character to [do something very uncomfortable and nasty] in order to reach [her goal].  [Allies] help or [advantages] develop, but they also cause [more trouble].  Finally character is forced to make a choice. Will character choose [Option A] and have [awful consequence A], or choose [Option B] and have [awful consequence B]? 

 Alternatively, for romances, if you have two POVs between your heroine and hero, you can have two paragraphs to examine their internal and external conflicts. Something like this:

Heroine is in [starting internal and external situation]. Then [change] happens and now [hero] stands in the way of heroine achieving her [goal].  But he’s attractive in a [list of devastating ways, skills, power to help her].  Can she overcome internal and external obstacles or will she get horrible consequences and lose love forever?

Hero is in [starting internal and external situation]. Then [change] happens and now [heroine] stands in the way of the heroe’s [goals].  But he’s captivated by her [devastating attractions].  Can he overcome his [internal obstacles] or will he lose her forever? 

 

(Extra points if the hero and heroine are each other’s external obstacles and overcoming those obstacles will cause them to lose in love.)

Yes, the above is formulaic, but it at least gives you a good place to start.

It helps to read other blurbs in the same genre to get a sense of the marketing hooks that are used and other creative blurb structures.  And reading blurbs in other genres can broaden your horizons further.

Another thing that helps is reading other author's blurbs, critiquing them, and trying to make them better.  Nothing's more fun than playing with a bad blurb. Or even a good blurb.

A good way to analyze a blurb is to highlight all the marketing hooks in it.  What kinds of verbs do they use? What language excites you and why?  Do you get a sense of who the character is and what kinds of conflicts and dilemmas they will face?  Is it all in language that screams "exciting"?

Ways to name your characters

When you want to write a story or a book, one of the first things you’ll want to do is name your character.  There are easy and hard ways to do this.  The hard way is to sit and think of names.  The easy way is to generate lists of names you like ahead of time and pick one that you think will work.

As I’ve read different stories, I’ve noticed that authors sometimes have a pattern in the names they choose for characters.   Often, they will choose names that have different first initials so that readers will be able to tell at a glance who the character is.  A_____ is the hero, and D______ is the love interest, and  Q_______ is the villain.   You know you are a fantasy author if you lean toward names that start with or contain X, Q, Z, V, K…  (wink)

Some authors like to create names that have lots of strange consonants but which are nearly unpronounceable when reading them out loud.  Like a hero named Soiuwrdoimcsxz.  As a reader, I personally don’t like this because it makes it hard for me to read the book out loud to my family and hard to discuss the book with family or friends.  I’m sure the poor souls who have to read out loud to create audio books hate it.  (Just a thought--if you as an author must have tongue-twisting character names and a particular way you want them to be pronounced, why not make it a little easier for your readers and include a pronunciation guide at the back of your book?)

It’s much better to make or use names that sing and zing.  Good names feel good to say, so much so that when your reader is done reading your book they will want to give the name to one of their children someday.  Or their next pet.  (Doesn't mean they should, but they will want to.  ;-) )

Some fantasy novels make all of their names unusual.  The function of this is to cue the readers that the culture is very different because naming conventions are different from our culture. I have noticed a cost to this--the names often seem blah or they seem to sound a lot alike.  (Terrick, Jarran,etc.) It could be argued that it could establish the naming conventions of the culture in the book, but I think a little more care with naming could help names feel interesting.

Another method of naming I’ve noticed is common names uniquely spelled.  These names look usual to readers eyes while evoking a different place, yet it also helps those who read the story out loud and gives a subconscious feeling of familiarity.  (Alison >> Alesyn)  Or, you can take a name you like and then mutate it beyond recognition.

When main character names are more recognizable or familiar than secondary characters or redshirts, readers instantly feel closer to them.  It’s a little trick for making a character sympathetic and cuing the reader to pay more attention to them.

Another method of naming is to smash together common names to make something that sounds different, but whose pieces are recognizable.  (Brandon + Christopher = Brandopher or Chrisdon.) 

You can name your character something exotic. For instance, a Japanese name is going to stick out in a list of Anglo-Saxon names.   This conveys that your main character is very different from his or her culture, like in fish-out-of-water stories or stories about misfits.   You can even put in your story that your character always has people joking about their name or asking about where they got their name.  If your character has an unusual name, call attention to it.

You can name characters after their attributes.  This works best for giving criminal types their names because it aids their anonymity.  Maybe you’ll call the guy with the short fuse “Stomps” after the way he stomps around.  Maybe the guy who inspects all the stolen merchandise with a magnifying glass for serial numbers will be called “GlassEye.”   Keep in mind, though, that trait names are very memorable, so if you use trait names for your criminal element then you’ll have to have very strong names for your main characters to make them easier to recall.  (If all your main characters are criminal, however, then you don’t have that problem..)

Attribute names aren't just for your criminals.  Remington Steele has the “steele” to make it strong and the “Remington” to give it sophistication.  

You’ll want to develop an ear for names.  This means noticing when you find a name that appeals to you.  Think about what part of it is appealing and why.  Is it the sound?  Whatever you may think of Kim Kardashian or her family, you have to admit that her name is lovely to say.  It has those enviable qualities of sing and zing.  (It has alliteration with the double Ks, the “dash” in the middle makes it both strong and hip, and the “ian” at the end gives it a very classical sound, like Marian, Dorian, Julian, etc.)   Can you make other names that sound similar?  

Would a location name work?  Indiana Jones and John Denver are memorable because a common name is combined with an intriguing place name.   In Indiana Jones, the “Indiana” is a nickname that suggests some kind of skill, though we don’t quite know what.  In the name “John Denver,” the “Denver” evokes a sense of location and that of a common man who has risen to the top.  If you met guys named John Chicago, John Phoenix, or John Seattle, what would you expect them to be like?

Finally, as I mentioned earlier in this post, I think it is best to collect lists of names you like, whether by chance or by consulting the many name generators on the internet. (One of my favorites is Seventh Sanctum, which I have linked to in my sidebar.) When you need a name for a character, you can then choose something from a list and get back to your writing more quickly, rather than losing your flow. 

How to fix head-hopping in your fiction manuscript

What is head-hopping?

Head-hopping is when your narration in a particular scene bounces between several character’s points of view without a scene break of some kind.  It’s like the narrator is hopping from head to head to head.  Hence, the name “head-hopping.”

Maria was thinking Bob looked hot today with his bowtie.  She loved it when guys wore bowties.  Bob, however, was hating life and Maria too, for that matter.  Joe just wanted to go swimming.

That’s head-hopping.  You get Maria’s thoughts, then Bob’s, then Joe’s, when you need to stick with just one point of view.

Head-hopping is easy to do when you’re learning to write fiction.  I’m finding that I did it a fair amount in the early parts of my first novel before I learned that wasn’t good.

Head-hopping is generally frowned upon these days and seen as a lack of control of one’s craft. 

  

Now, how do you fix it if you discover you’ve got a head-hopping problem?

There are two ways to do this, I’ve found out.

If you have an extended scene, there may be parts where you’ll want to change points of view because one character’s POV is more interesting/painful/dramatic and you want readers to get the story from that angle.  Try to keep the lens of narration coming from the person who has the most to lose or who is in the most pain.  As the focus of interest changes, do a scene break and take a new character POV.

What if you find your head-hopping scene is short?  How do you fix it? 

It may help to highlight in different colors the different POVs.  Color all Maria’s internal dialogue and opinions with red.  Color Bob’s POV in blue.  Color Joe’s in green.  Then print out the scene so you can see it all in front of you.  The color makes the unique POV of Maria, Bob, and Joe stick out so you can see how much of it is there.  It makes it easy to decide how important to the scene that character’s internal dialogue is. The character with the most important internal dialogue is probably the POV you should retain for that scene.  Everything else you can edit out or find a way for your favorite parts to be conveyed in other ways.  (Or if you have to, you can do the scene over again from the other characters’ perspectives.)

Everything a corny western movie needs

This is a list a friend and I wrote back in high school about common tropes from western movies.

The best “corny” westerns are in black and white, or in cheesy color.

TIME

• Westerns never take place during national holidays.  (This explains why you never see a gunfight erupt over the last cup of eggnog.)
• Westerns only happen during the summer.

LIGHTING/WEATHER

• It is always either sunny or dark.  No rain allowed.
• Though there are no streetlights, everyone can still see perfectly well in the dark.
• When anyone does anything in the dark, they never bump into things.

PLACE

• All town names in western movies have “Bluff”, “Flat”, or “Gulch” in them.
• Western towns have one wide street called “Main”.
• The town’s buildings are always made of wood, and are situated on a dusty, treeless stretch of plain.
• There’s always a saloon, a bank, a hotel, and a gold mine in these towns.
• There’s never a church unless the town has a significant Mexican population.
• At times of peace and quiet, there’s always far fewer people walking the street than there should be.
• Even though ranches and the town are far apart, it never takes more than 5 seconds for anyone to get anywhere. 

THE HERO

• The hero always has a cool name, ruggedly handsome, never has a mustache, and is mild-mannered, peace-loving, and kind to children and animals.
• The hero never swears.His gunbelt must have studs on it, and his badge is always shiny and everyone can see it.
• The hero is always a good card player, and ALWAYS has the fastest draw.  He can also take out 50 bad guys with a six-shooter, a knife, and a paper plate.  (Did we mention that he only needs to load his gun once during the entire conflict?)
• The hero has to have fistfights in which he rolls around in the dust, but when he gets back up, his clothes still look fresh and pristine.
• No matter what happens - fisticuffs, gunfights, daring rescues, etc. - the hero NEVER loses his hat.
• The hero is an excellent rider and he never falls off his horse accidentally.
• But even if he did, pain does not affect the hero’s performance.
• The hero can always convince stubborn people to help.  Why? Because the hero knows what’s going on, and he’s never misinformed.  He only has to think for 5 seconds to come up with a plan.  On occasion, the hero may be forced to come up with an alternate plan.  This will require a little more thought.  7 seconds, to be exact.
• If the hero pretends to be a bad guy, he is always found out at the most inconvenient time.
• The hero will always return to protect the town and defend his honor, even when running away is the best option.
• At some point, the hero will lose the pretty girl, but he will eventually get her back.
• All attempts on the hero’s life fail.  The bullets always fly around the hero.
• The hero doesn’t get in trouble for shooting people.
• The hero never, and I mean NEVER, loses. 

THE SIDEKICK(S)

• The sidekick does the menial work.
• The hero’s sidekick is in charge of comic relief.  (Perhaps comic relief is considered “menial”.)
• The sidekick must be saved by the hero.  He’s not allowed to save himself.  This is why any daring attempts at escape made by the sidekick will always fail. 
• Good guys never accidently shoot each other.
• If any good guys get put in jail, they won’t stay there for long.
• The good guys always ride off into the sunset at the end.

THE VILLAIN

• The villain is old or ugly, and sometimes both.  He must have a mustache, usually a small, black one that is waxed and curls up at the ends.
• The villain is always greedy and very mean.  We can tell because he always bangs the saloon’s swingy doors open when he’s on the warpath.
• The villain has deadly accuracy with a pistol, unless he happens to be shooting at the hero.
• The villian may be an “upstanding” citizen of the community who is secretly in charge of all the bad guys.
• The villain tries to turn the townspeople against the hero.
• When (as must always happen) the villain has the drop on the hero, he will reveal his entire evil scheme, after which the hero escapes and thwarts it.
• The villain always makes a run for it.  Usually with the loot.
• The villain must say “You’ll never take me alive!” at least once.
• Villains must always take hostage(s) when attempting a getaway.  (The pretty girl is considered the hostage of choice.)

MINIONS

• There must be evil henchmen, and they must must look evil.  (No pretty boys allowed, evidently.)
• The bad guys double-cross everyone and everything that can be double-crossed.
• The bad guys always lose.

THE PRETTY GIRL

• There’s always a pretty girl in the movie.
• The pretty girl always tries and fails to dissuade the hero from fighting.  (Women know best, but nobody listens.)
• The pretty girl never stays where it’s safe.
• Women may get picked on, kidnapped, taken hostage, but never shot.
• There must be a daring, attempt made to rescue the pretty girl.
• The pretty girl will ALWAYS be rescued, no matter how difficult rescuing her may appear to be.  (From this it may be possible to infer that rescuing the pretty girl is the easiest thing the hero will ever do in the entire movie, because he is bound to succeed.  )

THE SHERIFF

• The town’s sheriff can never handle any trouble; he always calls in the marshall (unless the sheriff and the hero are one and the same).
• The sheriff is always fair and just unless he happens to be the secret villain.
• Deputies have to be younger than the marshall or the sheriff. 

MOBS & EXTRAS

• The mob of townspeople always try a hangin’, but it never works.
• There is always one voice of reason in an angry mob to oppose the villain when everyone seems to have turned against the hero.  
• If you look carefully, you’ll usually find cattle rustlers, bank robbers, and a passel of hired guns in every western movie.
  There’s always a posse in there somewhere, attempting to “cut ‘em off at the pass”.  (And somehow there’s always a pass at which to cut people off.)
• Children can only be in westerns if they are related to the main characters.
• Western bankers (who are characteristically short, plump, balding men with glasses wearing that green eyeshade thing) are always getting robbed.

INDIANS

• In westerns, all Indians, wear buckskins, ride spotted horses, have braided hair, wear a headband with an annoying eagle feather sticking straight up from it, speak broken English, and shoot bows and arrows with deadly accuracy, yet never manage to kill main characters.
• When hundreds of hostile Indians attack a tiny ring of wagons, somehow the paleface always win.
• Friendly Indians always manage to get into trouble.

ACTION

• There has to be spectacular stunts in which no one ever gets hurt.  These stunts include falls, swinging on chandeliers, jumping on to and off of horses and runaway stagecoaches, etc.  (You’d think the fact that no one ever gets hurt would make it safe for children, but apparently it’s not safe enough.)
• No one ever goes to the bathroom or takes a shower.  (This could be another important reason why children are never in westerns, as the action would have to stop every 5 minutes for a bathroom break.)

GUNFIGHTS 

• Everyone, including the womenfolk, carries a gun.  (Thus, it is impossible to get through a western movie without at least ONE gunfight breaking out.) Naturally, the only way for main characters to work out their personal differences is by seeing who can beat the other to the draw and gun the other down.
• When main characters decide to schedule a gunfight, the time of choice is high noon. 
• In mass gunfights, there must always be at least one guy on the roof with a winchester rifle.
• During a gunfight, everyone would rather break a window with their pistolbutt and shoot through that, than simply shoot through an open doorway.
• There’s always more shooting than is necessary, just to keep things exciting.
• Six-shooters are only allowed to have deadly accuracy when wielded by the hero and the villain.  The rest of the time, they couldn’t hit the side of a barn at 5 yards.
• Only extras get fatally wounded, unless it’s the father of the pretty girl. 
• The guy on the roof with the winchester rifle always gets killed first. 
• The wounded never scream, cry, or say “Ow!”.  They only press their hand to the wounded area.
• No blood is ever shown
• If extras on horseback are shot, they fall to the ground and die, unless they are bearing vital information to the hero.
• Any good guys left for dead will live, or survive only long enough to fulfill their purpose of existence in the plot.

DEATH

• There’s never a death that isn’t dramatic.
• It takes 2 seconds for an extra to die, but the death of a main character requires 5 minutes of drama.
• Dead bodies never stiffen up.  They always stay conveniently limp so that people can carry them.
• Anyone can carry a dead body with ease.  The preferred method is over the shoulder.
• Anytime a main character dies, their heads fall back or roll limply to one side.

HORSES

• You can’t have a western movie without horses.  (None of this horseless carraige nonsense!)
• Horses are always saddled, ready, and waiting.
• The horses always run at warp 9.  (A-ha!  Now we know why it never takes anyone very long to get anywhere!) And no matter what, the hero’s horse is the fastest.
• Horses never get shot.  (The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would have a fit if they were.)
• The only time horses get spooked is so that the hero and the pretty girl can meet.
• Main characters never have brown-colored horses.

SALOONS

• Saloons have tiny swingy doors and a big mirror behind the bar. 
• The only appropriate background music for a saloon is a Scott Joplin rag on a tinny piano.
• Fistfights are best started in saloons.  If fact, anyone worth fighting with is always at the saloon.  (Very convenient...)
• The bartender is a permanent fixture behind the bar.  (He has no life, so he never leaves.)
• The western drink of choice is whiskey, and the bartender knows everyone and their “usual”.  (Not that hard, since everyone drinks whiskey.)
• The hero never has to order a drink.  It’s always THERE.
• No one ever drinks sitting down.  They must do it while leaning on the bar.
• No matter how long main characters have been drinking they never seem to get drunk.
• It is rare to see anyone pay for their drink.
• Poker games only take place in the saloon. 
• A poker game is always won by an obnoxiously high hand.
• When playing poker, someone always cheats and starts a fight.
• No one’s hands hurt after engaging in a round of fisticuffs.
• In mass brawl in a saloon, the following must always happen:
•     a) All the liquor bottles get broken, yet shot glasses remain intact.
•     b) People only get knocked out when hit from behind with a chair.
•     c) Someone must ALWAYS swing from the chandelier.
•     d) The large mirror behind the bar must get smashed

STAGECOACHES

• Stagecoach security measures are notoriously lax. 
• It is impossible for a stagecoach to drive through a western movie without getting held up and robbed by bandits.

FEUDS

• The children of feuding families WILL fall in love.
• Any family feuds continue until near the end of the movie, when they unite with the hero to get the bad guys.

WESTERN MOVIE PLOT

• Everything and everybody is always saved in the nick of time.
• The audience always anticipates what is going to happen, but the movie characters never do.
• The townspeople never figure it out until the very end, and then it’s 15 minutes after the audience figured it out.
• If the hero wears a mask, no one ever figures it out until the very end, and only if he voluntarily removes it.  (You never hear “Hey, you’re ____!”)
• When the hero takes off his mask, everyone is more surprised than they should be, and they say “I should have known!”
• There’s always some dippy joke at the end.

Blogging headline formulas—DO NOT ABUSE

Many people who want to increase traffic on their blog seem to have taken advantage of their search engines and have run across blogger-targeted articles, such as the fabulous “10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work” [http://www.copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work/]. There’s oodles of advice out there about how to grab eyeballs, and it is clear that people are using these techniques. One formula type in particular is the one in this paragraph. It’s built like this: “[number] Things You Should Know about [topic]”.

Just remember, any time you use these formulas, make sure that you have great content to match them, otherwise you will let down your reader. It isn’t necessarily a conscious letdown, but it registers anyway, even if it is deep in the subconscious. Eventually, lots of those subconscious letdowns can add up and suddenly register in the conscious.

In the case of the formula “_____ Things You Should Know about _______”, if each thing in your list isn’t really great information, you actually risk two things:

1. You risk diluting your credibility as a provider of good content
2. You risk poisoning that particular formula
   

If everyone starts writing cruddy suggestions with this formula, then eventually readers will learn not to believe the headline formula. Suddenly the great formula no longer works.

How do you make sure that you don’t let down your readers? Don’t just give them lists; give them insight. Anyone can use Google and build a list off of someone else’s list, but you demonstrate real value by providing insight and penetration for each list item.

Don’t think that people won’t notice crud-writing attached to exciting headline formulas. I’m starting to notice it, and I really loathe having my time wasted by an exciting headline perched over drivel.

I could end this blog post right here, but I’m going to tell you a story that relates to this issue of misusing a formula. I think I will title my story, “How the TV news lost its hold on me.”

When I was a teen, I found TV news fascinating. I could watch it hour after hour. But gradually, after watching it often enough, I started to notice a pattern emerging. At the end of a news segment, the announcer would say something like:

Coming up next—Are chinchillas the next fashion in fur? Then, find out how one university has achieved an astonishing increase in graduation rates. And, are you paying more for your groceries than the people across town? All that and more, coming up after the break…

This kind of narration was accompanied by video footage that made it seem like a very exciting story. As a viewer, it piqued my curiosity enough that I was willing to sit through the commercials. But the more I watched, the more I started to notice the news story I anticipated so highly was never quite as interesting as it had been hyped. Nor was it as in depth as I expected. I don’t remember how many rounds of teaser-commercials-news I went through before I began to become cynical about the TV news form, but my cynicism developed when I was just a teenager. Once made cynical, I began to avoid TV news.

Why do I tell you this story about TV news when this blog post is about blogging headline formulas? Simply to make this point-- we don’t want to repeat those mistakes in the new, pristine medium of blogging. SUBSTANCE, people, we need SUBSTANCE!!