and tomorrow's bestsellers
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Discovering today's talent and tomorrow's bestsellers |
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The Plot Thickens This page is about plotting, but before you can plot successfully, you should know a thing or two about your target market. A lot of writers believe that marketing begins after the book has been accepted by a publisher and is headed to the bookshelves. It actually begins when the writer first conceives the idea for the book. The first thing you want to do is determine your target market. Are you writing for children? If so, what age group? Or it is for young adults? The adult market? Who is the typical person you see reading your book? The Christian market? New age groups? People who love a good mystery? Women? Men? Once you have determined the market you'd like to capture, then determine the genre. Many times, these go hand in hand. Other times, they can be more subtle. Thrillers, for example, come in many different forms - technothrillers (p.m.terrell, Maureen Robb), medical thrillers (Patricia Cornwell), legal thrillers (John Grisham), the cozy (Pamela June Kimmell), etc. If YOU don't know what genre and subgenre your book will be, how will you expect a prospective publisher, agent, or reader to know? The Hook The hook is a thirty-second blurb that tells the world they have to read your book. It's the description that you place into a query letter, that could be placed on the jacket cover, or your opening statement in a television or radio interview. Consider the evening news: have you ever noticed before each commercial break, the anchor tells you what will be covered when you return? That is the hook. You hang around through the commercials, waiting to hear the stories they dangled in front of you. Establish a hook that will make the listening public, the publishers, and the agents stop and take notice of your work. Conflict! Conflict drives a book. Nothing should be easy for your main character, the protagonist. Happiness, contentment, and perfect lives might make the world a better place, but they're boring. Regardless of your genre, you need suspense to keep the reader interested. They have to care what happens next. End each chapter with a sentence or paragraph that will make the reader want to continue to the next chapter. Time Frame The shorter the time frame, the faster the pace and the more tension it produces. Tension is a by-product of conflict and propels your story forward. The movie Three Days of the Condor was based on a book entitled Six Days of the Condor by James Grady; the time was shortened for the movie to increase tension and suspense. Thoughts vs. Action Thoughts slow down a story. Talking heads can only keep the reader's attention for a short time. Action propels the story forward - changing locations, vivid scenery, characters doing something. Every scene in the book should do double duty. And every page in your book should propel the reader toward the climactic scene.
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