Building mystery with a muted theme

Writers often wonder how they can build mystery into a character. I know I used to. I used to wonder how to portray lots of things. The best way to learn how to portray something is to think about what it is that you want to portray and then break it down into it's elements and then portray those elements.

So, if we want to portray a character as mysterious we need to think about what the key elements of mystery are. Well, one of them is the fact a mystery is a question that we just can't find an answer for. There are suggestions as to the answer and multiple people might have different interpretations as to the answer which, of course, just adds to the mystery even more.

Well, one of the best ways to pose a question that has no answer is to use a muted theme. For example, if a character does something odd once and once only it poses a question but will be forgotten soon after. However, if a character does something odd on an on going basis there must be a reason for this odd behavior. What could it be? We are intrigued and want to know why they are doing this. It must serve some purpose.

I believe I first learned about this technique in an academic study of The Bible entitled The Book of God. If I remember correctly, in this book the author investigates the odd habit Sampson has of cutting the ears off of prey he has killed. What significance does this have? Why does he do it? What does it mean? It must have some greater significance because it is in The Bible. Nope. The author concludes that it is simply the use of a muted theme to increase the mystery of the Sampson character. We will never know why he does it and that is the point...and the desired effect on the reader.

Niche marketing ideas for books

The more I begin to familiarize myself with Inie publishing the more I'm glad I decided to go this route. My Book The Vagabond King appealss to too much of a niche market so it would be virtually impossible for a traditional publisher to make money on. I wasted years looking for a publisher. However, on the internet everything is niche marketing. There are millions of niche markets out there each appealing to millions of people.

Now, The Vagabond King is kind of a tough book to categorize. It is a literary coming of age novel about a 16 year old boy named Chris who discovers the man he was raised to believe is his father is not after his mother dies and he is haunted by a dark and mysterious apparition that forces him to question his pampered existence and embark on a spiritual quest.

Seeking sanctuary in the house of a middle aged waitress with a degree in philosophy and a penchant for sex, he discovers that she lives with her father. Chris finds himself out of his element and, ultimately, transformed by a cigarette smoking, beer swilling immigrant who spends his final days limping around the house in his boxer shorts, listening to blues records and making Chris get him fresh cans of beer.

The Vagabond King weaves mythology, science and religion into a metaphysical mystery as Chris learns that, like the old man’s skipping blues records, the roles we are playing have been played many times before.

Now that that bit of shamlesss self promotion is over I'll let you in on the idea I had to get deeeper market penetration with your books. To market a book you've got to put it into a marketing box (Thriller, YA, Romance etc). Now, The Vagabond King is not actually a YA novel but that, perhaps, is the market it most closely targets. Had I gone the traditioal route it would be placed on the YA shelff in the book store. But, I have read that a book store is the worst place to sell a book, simply because of all the competition. Now, here is where my idea becomes a benefit. Within each book there are sub niches. For example, my book contains themes of blues music, African history, Hungarian history, spirituality, Ancient Mesopotamian history, Astronomy and others.

So now, when marketing, I can target much more than YA websites to gain some attention. I can also target websites that focus on the themes contained within The Vagabond King. Every book has sub niches contained within it. I'd love to see if it works for any of you out there.

Putting a marketing plan together

Hi kids,

I've been quite busy latley developing a book marketing strategy and I thought I'd share it with you. My journey started out last winter by reading The Well Fed Self Published Writer which is a very good and comprehensive read but is more geared to non fiction writers, but still worth reading. I also read a book called Plug Your Book which is, again, highly recommended. It has copious information on all sorts of nooks and crannies in the internet to plug your book. Then I had the pleasure of meeting Victorine Lieske and Marva Dasef who were kind enough and generous enough to offer very valuable suggestions. Ultimately though, I felt like I was eating an elephant. There was just too much information to digest. However, it seems that all sources say that a website (or at least a blog) is essential to a marketing platform. But websites are a bit like door mats, just because you throw one down doesn't mean you will have company for dinner.

Thankfully, the fates have smiled on me again and I discovered a website called Site Build It which I mentioned in my last post. The problem with domain hosting companies is that they will sell you a domain and may even show you how to build a website but they don't really do much more. Site Build It is a very user friendly service which walks you through the process of not only building a website but of generating traffic to go there. It is not a quick process but it is a proven process and I am currently in the process of determining what kind of site would be best suited to support the sale of my book. Once I have the site up and running, and my brother is done with the cover art I plan to take a page out of Victorine's playbook and publish on Kindle. When last we talked she had sold 50,000 copies. Way to go Victorine! I plan to sell it at the .99 price point which is the same price point that Victorine finally settled on after some trial and error. Then I plan to make myself a regular presence on the kindleboards which, you guessed it, is just what Victorine did.

I will keep you appraised of my progress and would love to hear any comments from anyone else who is going the road alone in Indie Publishing.

Ciao for now.

A work in progress is turning out to be an apt name

Hi kids,

Sorry for my lengthy stay away. I'm still trying to get my arms around this whole Independant Publishing thing. There is a lot to absorb and, ironically, I made contact with an old friend of mine whose mother in law is a literary agent in NYC. Well, even if she expresses interest in my manuscript I am starting to get really excited about the potential of self publishing. I am well past the traditional stigma of "Vanity Publishing". I have received enough positive comments at Critique Circle that I am confident in the quality of the The Vagabond King. It may not be every bodies cup of tea but then nothing is.

I wanted to share some really great sites that I found just yesterday. the first is http://www.shared-self-publishing.com/index.html The Shared Self Publishing Experience contains tales from people who have been down the road before. It is a great place to learn a lot as well as a good place to paste a link tou your book at the end of your article.

The other site is one I found through one of the articles on The Shared Self Publishing Experience. http://www.sitesell.com/ Site Build It contains a suite of products and services to help you launch a web based business (rather than just a web site). After having viewed the intro video I think I will probably buy the product. The thing I like about it is that it looks as if it will clear a lot of comnfusion out of the way for me about what I should and should not be doing. Once I get it and start building a business around my book I'll let you know how it works for me.

You either have a story dying to get out, either you should get another hobby. :)

This week's post is inspired by a comment Stephanie Jones made after my Yoda post last week. "You're right - try doesn't get you anywhere in writing - I'm pretty blunt about this - you either have a story dying to get out, either you should get another hobby. :)"

It seems to me that there are a lot of people out there who like the idea of being a writer and the romantic lifestyle that it seems to be part of: drinking and womanizing a la Hemingway, living in self imposed exile a la Joyce, drinking and womanizing a la Lord Byron, and, of course, the ultimate in romance drinking absinthe and committing suicide because the world doesn't understand you. I must admit, what could compare with that?

And so, after college, I set off to seek this life and found it on the seat of a forklift from 7pm to 7am driving around a printing plant. I soon learned that it is only romantic when it is happening to someone else. When the trials and tribulations are happening to you they lose a lot of their luster and you need to really determine if this is how you want to spend your life.

I remember talking to a lot of bohemian types about art and literature in college over glasses of beer or wine. They talked and talked and talked but no one really produced anything. And, then they went on to jobs in the corporate world. This is fine. Everybody must be who they truly are and the sooner they find that out the better because otherwise you are living an imagined life.

But, it seems to me that people who must write, who must truly write, know instinctively who they are and will overcome any and all obstacles to meet that need. Human beings are physicaal manifestations of universal forces. We are all, in effect, the eyes, ears and voices of the universe. If you've got a story in you dying to get out that is the universal urge attempting to manifest itself into existance. And this is sad because so many people give up on their dream or, even worse, don't even start. That is why being a writer is a calling, not unlike entering the priesthood. It requires dedication, perseverence, faith and any number of other things. So, when you become frustrated with the writer's life you have to understand that it is a nobel life. It is a daring and romantic life by virtue of it's very nature. You have picked up the gauntlet that was thrown at your feet by the universe daring you to be the vessel that brings forth what it desires to be in existance.

Do or do not, there is no try - Yoda was right.

Something I discovered after many years of "trying" to write my first novel was that when I really put my nose to the grind stone and gave it the old college try and any other rah, rah platitude you can apply writing was really difficult. However, when I got really frustrated with the whole process and gave up, all of a sudden things started coming to me: ideas, dialogue for characters, sentences, paragraphes, metaphors, it was a virtual treasure trove. If you don't believe me just remember back to school days when you really liked someone and "tried" to get theem to like you. Nothing happened. No one likes a needy salesman. However, once you stopped "trying" something strange happened. People actually started liking you, in droves even, you attracted to you what you had been "trying" to, but without effort. Anyway, I quickly accepted that this is how the universe works because I'd rather not work at something than work hard at something...especially if I am getting better results.

However, it took me a long time to figure out how this all worked in the scheme of the big picture. After years of reading philosophical and religious texts as well as studying psychology and understanding a little bit about how the human brain and mind works I've got a pretty good lock on it. I won't bore you with the big picture but I will tell you why "trying" works against you and why I stopped "trying" years ago.

The act of "trying" actually implies the possibility of failure. Now Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychologist said that things that are not resolved within the subconscious must become manifest in the world around us. So, if you think that there is the possibility of failing you will manifest difficulty and potentially failure in your external reality. But, and here's the secret, drum roll please, failure, just like the existance of cold, is an illusion! Just as cold is really the absence of heat and doesn't, in itself, exist, it is impossible to fail. People who say they have failed have simply stopped moving toward their goal, they have given up. Things that appear to be failures are really lessons to teach you how to adjust your approach so that you will eventually reach your goal.

So take it easy, stop trying and keep working toward your goal.

What is your writing process like?

I have said before in previous posts that I liken writing a novel to trying to turn a cross word puzzle into a book. I would be very interested to see what other writers processes are like. The fact that my actual writing process did not compare with the way I thought the writing process should be frustrated me as a young novelist. Perhaps you might feel the same way.

I had this conception that the writing process should follow some set order like ABC. I thought that this is how people like Hemingway, Joyce, Shakespeare etc must operate. However, I found that my process was something more like AZWCRT with large empty spaces in between each step in the processs on the page and in the calendar.

For instance, I finished my first novel about 5 years ago and began looking for a publisher while starting to write my second novel when, like Dante in the Divine Comedy, I had journeyed half of our life's way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray.

And so, I am getting back to the task of publishing and writing. The task of writing for me is about accumulating a whole bunch of notes, individual sentences, catch phrases and other mental detritus (you can tell I like this word because I’ve used it in another post) and figuring out how it all fits together.

For example I’ve got this saying that I think I’d like a character to use somewhere: “trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.” And, maybe the only silver he has to spend is in his beard….who knows.

And, of course, Swamp Lily is a great nickname for a prostitute named Addie Beckly. And, she might say something like “a sexually satisfied man is a lazy and useless man. But, if you whip him into a frenzy and keep him there he can serve your purposes”. A manipulative little minx to say the least. I like her.

I’d also like to portray a drunk throwing punches at the moon and it would be really fun for him to say something like “Kiss the north end of a southbound horse”.

And, because the world ends at the end of the book I must somehow tie in the beginning of the world.

“In the beginning was the word, he thought as he walked across the…and down the…and the world was with God, and the word was God.

Just as Adam gave names to the animals in the garden of Eden with words, words, words, so too the indians gave names to the places of this world. They named Mackinac Island, Turtle Island where Nanabozho created the world on a turtle’s back with a bit of mud from a muskrat’s paw. They named the great lake Michigan, the Great Ocean Water, and the land of Wisconsin was the place where The Waters Gathered, Illinois was the land of Great Men and Chicago itself was the place of Wild Onions because the aroma of the swamp was to strong.

And, with each name they bestowed they became masters of their world. For, the act of naming defines things and gives you power over them. It is magical. “Things don’t exist until you give them a name.” His old college professor used to say. “This is the power of language. This is the power of the gods themselves.”

The indians named their world and each of those names told part of a story that portrayed their relationship with the landscape. But, why couldn’t he?”

Yes, why couldn’t he and why can’t I?

Oh, and let’s not forget that there is a Native American legend that says, " If you have a secret wish, capture a butterfly and whisper your wish to it. Since butterflies cannot speak, your secret is ever safe in their keeping. Release the butterfly, and it will carry your wish to the Great Spirit, who alone knows the thoughts of butterflies. By setting the butterfly free, you are helping to restore the balance of nature, and your wish will surely be granted."

This is great stuff because it ties in with the butterfly effect which is a concept in chaos theory that says, in effect, the movement of a butterflies wings in Japan can eventually lead to a Tornado in Kansas.

And so, I have all these little things I must string together like the flapping wings of a butterfly before they become a book. I’ve literally got hundreds of pages of this stuff that I must turn into a book. This is nothing like I thought it would be when I started out. It is more of an Easter egg hunt.

Found another one…

The room was filled with north side nabobs and Dapper Dans from out of town, nobodies from nowhere who were rally suckers and marks to be fleeced and released by the faro Tigers and the Card Sharps.

Good stuff, but what do I do with it now?