Changing Expectations

Top 3 Mistakes of Storytelling!

June 11, 2018– Are you making any of these mistakes while storytelling? If so, STOP! Your writing and sales depend on it.

1. You’re not telling the story that you want to tell. This means that you care too much about what’s trendy, what’s popular, and what other people are currently reading. This may sound harmless, but what happens is that if you’re writing for trends, you’ve probably already missed the boat and the concept has been done to death. Write what YOU want to read, and you’ll never go wrong!
2. A weak opening. The first couple of sentences of your novel are CRUCIAL. Why? Because people will stop reading if they get bored. Start where the action is!
3. Terrible narrative. Terrible narrative makes me mental. Seriously. If you’re not going to sit your reader beside the main character then what’s the point? Your readers need to care about the character, and one of the best ways to do this is to ensure that they FEEL and EXPERIENCE everything your protagonist does.  Your novel is an escape for your reader, you want to take them away to another place and you can’t do this if you have horrible narrative. Pick a point of view and stick to it.

These are just three tips in a myriad of thousands, but I think they’re very important! Here’s to your success!

xLLB

Blackout Poetry…You may not like this

June 8, 2018- Well, this is pretty cool. I’ve never done this, myself, but it does look like something that could help start the creative process. I think that I’ll give it a whirl and see what I come up with! Here’s how it works:

Now I know that a lot of my other writers out there are screaming, “STOP THE MADNESS,” at their laptops because they already know step 1…which is to RIP A PAGE OUT OF A BOOK. I know. It’s crazy and mean and even slightly sacrilegious. But, sometimes art hurts. In fact, the BEST art hurts.

Step 2 is to black out all of the words you don’t want to use and create a new poem.
This is really the only way to turn someone else’s words into your own, some of you may be down with that concept and some of you may not. Do whatever works for you.

Here is a sample of blackout poetry ripped and recreated from my most fave Shakespeare work of all time, Macbeth. I love the blood and gore and fortune telling and the moving forest and and and…

Love this poem,  “I care about you. Join me in hell.” Whoa, that’s pretty powerful. I wonder how many hidden messages were contained in this work? Feel free to make your own and let your imagination run wild! Happy Writing!

Habits…

April 9, 2018-All of these habits are true! Are you being effective?