Hunting Down the Value of Social Media
Are Facebook, Twitter and IM having any effect on the quality or volume of my work? These questions, coupled with a very long list of goals I wanted to accomplish, plagued me like a broken plot.
Are Facebook, Twitter and IM having any effect on the quality or volume of my work? These questions, coupled with a very long list of goals I wanted to accomplish, plagued me like a broken plot.
What you need to do is keep throwing troubles, conflicts, surprises, and obstacles at the reader. You also need to let the hero have some successes. This allows the reader to have cause to fear AND hope, and to not know for sure how it’s all going to turn out.
You become a writer by writing. You learn by damaging your ego, and giving more of yourself than you take. By a thousand revelations, by millions of words you improve.
If the main character is sympathetic and interesting, the reader will root for her and want to see what happens. If some of the particularities of the character and problem are surprising to the readers, it will generate more interest than if it’s something they’ve seen many times before.
You are cordially invited to join the Milford SF Writer’s Conference, held at the Trigonos Centre in Snowdonia, Wales.
Have you thought about starting with a bang right away? Or does your story want another hook before you roll the main one out on the stage?
Somewhere during the summer, when I got the latest “I can’t sell this” from an agent, I realized, “You can’t, but I can.” I have not looked back since.
Building stories is like building houses. Yes, you need a foundation, walls, and a roof, but holy cow–look at all the variations that are possible AND successful given those basic requirements!
Along every step of the way, readers need to be surprised, not about everything, but about enough of the particularities of the problem, character, actions, reactions, and resolution that it prevents the reader from knowing what WILL happen.
The board of directors of SFWA voted to add the magazine Bull Spec to the list of SFWA qualifying markets.