AlanJordan.com

Writing help and guidance is often requested, particularly when it comes to making decisions regarding questions like, “Should I write a single book or a series?”  I’m decided to go out on a limb here and share my reasons for writing a series of books instead of a stand-alone book.

• A structure that makes it easier to write – When I writing a book, book, I want to put everything in that one book.  This is true for me whether I am writing a picture book like, The Monster on Top of the Bed, a novel or a non-fiction book.  I want to convey a wide variety of values to the reader, to share my expertise and to teach by allowing the reader to discover those things that I want to share.  Many bestselling novels convey factual information, but too much means that the novel or book suffers. By planning a trilogy, I can spread out the facts that I want to convey, and keep each book engaging.
• Wider sales appeal – editors may be more likely to buy a series because if even the first book is not a best seller, it can create demand for other books in the series.  Take, for example, Dan Brown’s book Angels and Demons. It was not a best seller at first, but it evolved into a best seller after the success of The Da Vinci Code.
• Broader recognition – An example of this would be the success of Hominids, Humans and Hybrids.  Not only do the books in this sci-fi fiction series have recognition in their own rights.  They also have recognition in as the books in the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.
• Increased Financial Rewards – When a publisher has agreed to a three-book contract, I can’t help but make more money.  I’m likely to get a larger advance, and because the publisher in investing in three books, there’s a good chance that the publisher will put more effort into marketing the books, increasing the likelihood that they well sell well.

It’s possible to have one premise for a book and another premise for the series, of which the book is a part.

Each book can have only one premise (what every page, every paragraph, needs to foster), but you can have a number of books in a series that all contribute to an overall premise.

The premise for The End of All Times, the  first of three novels in my science fiction fantasy Harmony series is “Evil cannot be destroyed but can be contained.” The collective premise of the series of three books is, “For humanity to succeed as a species we must learn to live in harmony with the universe.”

I worked with five people in a writing workshop at Grassroots Bookstore, and each of them are invited to post the poems that they wrote in a reply to this workshop.

It’s okay to put in a first draft, and then later to add additional versions.  Part of what we learned is that perfection is not immediate.

If you’re reading this, you may want to know that we used props.  Stuffed animals, and one stuffed puppy that was battery driven and laughed whenever someone walked past it’s motion-sensitive eyes.  Here’s the poem that I wrote about that animal which I named Puppy Puppy.

Puppy Puppy Puts a Smile on My Face

Nothing makes me smile
Like a good laugh

Puppy, puppy laughs and rolls
Whenever I walk by

Puppy Puppy with his
Golden-and-white hair
and human laugh

Loud friendly and rapid
It never fails
To light the twinkle in my eye.

I think I’ll buy rechargeable batteries
So I always feel good
About letting him surprise me
When I walk by.

If you are like me, one of the hardest things you can do is to create a compelling blurb for your book, or marketing copy for a manuscript that you’re writing and proposing.

It’s true that I know the value of my book, but it is also true that I know much more, so much more that it can be hard for me to distill a simple explanation.  I can try for hours, even days to write a blurb, and it’s likely to be bland, or worse yet confusing.   The problem is that if the blurb is bad, many people will never look at the book. I’ve developed a solution.  It works for me; perhaps it will work well for you too. Here are the steps.

1. Determine your book’s dominant gendre. This is not always simple for me, particularly if I am in the planning stages.  It’s possible that my manuscript may morph. I started out writing The Occluded Emerald as a middle-grade fiction book, but it is evolving into a book that is structured along the lines of The Da Vinci Code.
2. Determine the premise of the book. The premise (what every page, every paragraph, needs to foster) for The Occluded Emerald is “Love and Evil are real and cannot be destroyed, but evil has within it the seeds of it’s own containment within it–love has no such boundaries.”
3. Find a best seller that is in the gendre you have selected that is consistent with the premise of your book.
4. Locate a blurb of the book that resonates for you. An easy way to do this is to go to a library web site, look up the book, and then read the blurb that they display to patrons.  As an example, here’s a blurb for The Da Vinci Code that was written by Publisher’s Weekly, and which is displayed by the Washoe County Library system on-line catalog listing when you click on “Details.”
   

   Brown’s latest thriller (after Angels and Demons) is an exhaustively researched page-turner about secret religious societies, ancient coverups and savage vengeance. The action kicks off in modern-day Paris with the murder of the Louvre’s chief curator, whose body is found laid out in symbolic repose at the foot of the Mona Lisa. Seizing control of the case are Sophie Neveu, a lovely French police cryptologist, and Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon, reprising his role from Brown’s last book. The two find several puzzling codes at the murder scene, all of which form a treasure map to the fabled Holy Grail. As their search moves from France to England, Neveu and Langdon are confounded by two mysterious groups-the legendary Priory of Sion, a nearly 1,000-year-old secret society whose members have included Botticelli and Isaac Newton, and the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Both have their own reasons for wanting to ensure that the Grail isn’t found. Brown sometimes ladles out too much religious history at the expense of pacing, and Langdon is a hero in desperate need of more chutzpah. Still, Brown has assembled a whopper of a plot that will please both conspiracy buffs and thriller addicts.

5. Adapt that blurb to your book. Here’s my adaptation:
   

   About The End of All Times
   

   The action kicks off in modern-day Nevada as a black unicorn and his sister, who is in human form, are about to escape their captivity. Jonathan Alexander, age-11 (and 23, 35, 48 and 90 in several other universes) must solve many secret codes and puzzles in order to unlock and use the ancient secrets. His task:  Prevent the evil duo from aggregating, controlling and deploying evil to destroy yet another of the 13-known universes.

   As Jonathan, his friends and several white unicorns are yanked from universe-to-universe they use all of their senses to explore art and music in a desperate struggle to unlock and use the ancient secrets that emanate from quasars, sacred sound, water crystals, flowers.  In the process we glean insight into the nature of the soul.

   Jordan has assembled a whopper of a plot that will please  “end times” enthusiasts, conspiracy buffs and thriller fans while The End of All Times explores the consciousness, soul and spirit of humanity.

The reason this system works for me is simple:  I am not emotionally involved in adapting a blurb written about someone else’s book.  I am emotionally involved with my own book.

Tips for writing novels - Use a Stepsheet - An extended outline

When I wrote a 1,000 word article, I don’t need an outline. I can keep everything straight in my head. In fact, in many cases, I create an outline and then flesh it out. I can’t possibly keep all of the twists and turns of a novel in my head. I get lost. When I don’t have an extended outline, I can lose my way, or worse yet, spend many hours writing material that I throw away.

You can easily create a stepsheet in any word processing program that provides outlining capabilities, and you can also create a stepsheet using special programs that you can buy on the Internet.  You’ll know what’s right for the way that you write.  Here’s why I sometimes use Microsoft PowerPoint to create a stepsheet:

• It’s easy for me to drop in one item on one screen.
• I can set Microsoft Powerpoint to display a slide show that displays every slide automatically, or any number of slides–like the slides that comprise chapters 1, 2 and 3 only.
• I can make a voice recording for each slide, and have the PowerPoint show read me the stepsheet.  In this way I can hear as well as see the spreadsheet.
• I sometimes export the spreadsheet to a Microsoft Word document, and use it to write my novel.
• I can color some of the text to indicate where I want to have dramatic

It’s easy to create a stepsheet in Microsoft PowerPoint.  All  you need to do is open a new PowerPoint presentation and start typing.  However, these tips make it easier for me to use the stepsheet that I create. Perhaps, they will also help  you.

• I place the main thought in the title bar

• I expand my thoughts in the box that appears under the title box
• I might indicate I want to write in a narrative voice in blue.
• I might indicate areas that I think are very important on in green.  (Green is the color of leaves in spring.)
• I might indicate areas that I’m not sure about in brown. (Brown is the color of a leaf that is dying.)
• Sometimes, I use colored backgrounds in slides.  Colored backgrounds make it easy to show different chapters, and I can use a colored background to indicate when I’m thinking about getting rid of a point.
• When I use colors as backgrounds, green means I really like the idea, yellow indicates caution and red means probably delete

Ironically, some of the ideas I like best get thrown away first.  That’s because they don’t advance the premise of the story.  The premise is the driving purpose of a story—the test that each and every page, paragraph, phrase, every sentence, must advance.

Example:  For the Occluded Emerald, the premise is “Evil and Love can never be destroyed, but evil contains within it the seeds of it’s captivity.  Love, does not.”

Sometimes, I use a design template.  I feel more relaxed when I’m not just using a plain white card.

Sometimes I use PowerPoint’s outline view.  Sometimes I save the file as an Outline.  I can use Word to edit and add to the outline, or overwrite parts of it.

One of the advantages of using a PowerPoint Stepsheet is that the space allowed for writing comments automatically limits the amount that I type.

Another advantage is that it makes me feel like outlining, and not writing dialogue.

I sometimes like watching a slideshow. It lets me see how my novel will progress, and if I want I can record my voice and listen what I’m intending to write.

Another advantage is that I can easily rearrange the order in either PowerPoint’s Outline View, the  Slide Sorter or on a slide-by-slide basis.

Also, sometimes I include pictures that help me to visualize my writing. “As he slid down the water chute, Barry closed his eyes and starting laughing. The water swirled around his body tickling him like a million feathers . . . ” came from writing while looking the photograph.

Alan H. Jordan is the author of many books, articles and audio books.

Check out his forthcoming novel, The Occluded Emerald at http://www.Harmony123.com

Read one of his children’s books, The Monster on Top of the Bed at http://www.Monbed.com

Listen to his audio books at LoDingo.com. Affiliate link.  (I make money when you click on an affiliate link, but I never recommend an affiliate unless I feel that it has true value.)

Download a .pdf file that was prepared from a stepsheet created in Powerpoint.UsingMicrosoftPowePointToPrepareAStepsheet

Writing fiction is quite different from writing non-fiction.  When I write non-fiction I immediately know where I want to begin, where I want to end and my premise.

Life is not always that easy when I write fiction.  Sometimes, I need inspiration. One thing that always works for me is to find a poem, hymn or work of fine art and ask myself “what does it say to me?”  Here’s a poem World Wanderer that I wrote to use in my novel, The Occluded Emerald. I’m may also use it in a book of poetry, Reaching Out.

I find it is important to constantly ask myself if my writing is honest.  Here are some of the tests that I employ:

• Does the writing ring true to me?
• Am I making myself vulnerable, exposing my true feelings?
• Am I obscuring?  For me when I obscure, it usually means that I’m not convinced that I truly want to share.
• Am I still excited about the manuscript, or am I just plodding along.
• Is the manuscript still aligned with what I want to accomplish?  (What I want to accomplish may have gradually changed, or I may have had a sudden “ah-ha moment.”

Sometimes, my writing fails my honesty test and I must make a decision:  Make changes that bring it back to an honest manuscript, kill off the project, or settle.  Usually, I make changes.  While writing The Occluded Emerald, part of the Jeweled Planets series I found that the project failed the honesty test because it was not aligned with what I want to accomplish.  The concept of an emerald ring that had an occlusion that turned out to be unicorns was a good working thought.  It helped me to start a novel, but as I entered into writing the novel I discovered that it was an interesting part of the story, but it was a device, not a central theme. The central theme I want to explore in the series is the secrets of living in harmony with the universe.  The first area that I want to explore is the concept of an interdependent web of all existence.

Sometimes, my writing fails my honesty test and I must make a decision:  Make changes that bring it back to an honest manuscript, kill off the project, or settle.  Usually, I make changes.  While writing a novel in a science-fiction fantasy series, I found that my work was no longer aligned with what I wanted  to accomplish.  I realized that I the central theme that I wanted to explore in the series had evolved into the secrets of living in harmony with the universe.

I experimented with changing the name of the series as well as changing the name of the first book of the series. To do this, I created new graphics.  The graphic for the new series name pinpoints exactly what I want to say.  ( I realize that this is a working graphic, and I expect that it wilbe replaced by an illustration prepared by a professional illustrator.)

To help me whether I wanted to the title of the first book, I created a graphic for the book title.  My reaction was mixed.  At first the new name felt terribly congruent.  After a little while, I felt like retaining the original title.

I haven’ t made a final decision yet, but regardless of my decision I will adopt the attitude of Thomas Edison, who experimented with creating a light bulb thousands of times before he achieved a successful design.  When asked about his failure his response was that he had learned from each iteration how now to create a light bulb.  Edison founded General Electric, one of the world’s premiere companies. I have chosen to make myself vulnerable by sharing my writing experiences on line.  My basic philosophy is that one needs a series of interim successes, and it is a success to redefine a goal.  The additional clarity provides me with energy.

I know that I will not make a difference in the world by being political, or by being a business magnate. However, through my writing, I change the world, one reader at a time.

The first book in a science-fiction fantasy series that I’m writing right now, entertains by exploring good versus evil, and evil’s relationship to sound.

This series of articles can help you to write a book because I am revealing my writing process, which includes

• Developing a concept
• Writing
• Reviewing the writing – asking myself if it is honest – asking myself if it is well written – asking myself if I am happy with the direction that the book is taking.
• Making changes, as appropriate and
• Reviewing and refining until a manuscript is polished and complete.

In this series, of articles I’ll be quoting from one or more of my books, and then offering writing tips. When you see words in Italics, they are taken from a manuscript. Comments follow the quoted text.

Tip 1: Specifics are important:

“I am weak,” the black stallion said to The Empress. “This energy field drains me. The best that I can do is produce illusions. I cannot…”

“Illusions will be enough, brother,” replied The Empress. Quite.” She paused, then continued, “Best to make them powerful, ones that will not be questioned.”

The first paragraph above is weak because it does not describe the energy field. It is also weak because it tells instead of showing. However, it’s a good start for a project. It’s easy to come back later on and add specifics. Placing too many specifics in the very first draft can be counterproductive for me because it causes me to lose the continuity of the story.

Tip 2: Encourage readers to wonder

The Empress touched her jeweled necklace. A platinum chain holding thirteen gemstones: emerald, ruby, opal, moonstone, cat’s eye, sapphire, diamond, amethyst, ametrine, morganite, obsidian, peridot and petrified wood. As she stroked the slightly jagged pink morganite stone in the necklace, the black unicorn reflected upon his sister’s advice and became aware of an actuary, driving his classic 1961 white Chevrolet Impala, up Long Valley to meet I-80 at Lockwood, NV. He watched through the actuary’s eyes as Vermazen and Duke roared passed him. Duke’s humongous cherry-apple red custom 1995 Harley Davidson and the woman’s gleaming school-bus yellow Hog, both sported front shocks and so much chrome that the actuary squinted to cut the glare. “Evil,” the actuary said under his breath. The black unicorn focused his intent and Vermazen signaled to her brother, Duke–take the side road. Duke followed her, driving along the side of a hill on a little-used road. She pulled over. Duke stopped too, and they both got off their bikes.

Readers wonder about:

• What touching the necklace will accomplish
• Why there are 13 gemstones
• If petrified wood is a gemstone (it is)
• If a black unicorn is evil
• Why the actuary said “evil”
• The intent of the black unicorn
• Why Vermazen pulled off the road
• How a unicorn and a person can be brother and sister
• What will happen next.

Tip 3: Avoid telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

There was no way Vermazen was going in that cave. Here at least they had a chance. Okay it was a one-in-a-thousand chance, but once they went inside. They heard the rattle and saw the coiled snake at the same time. Instinctively, the tattooed biker momentarily forgotten, Vermazen and Duke backed up. The entrance rock slid closed and in the distance they both sensed pure unadulterated evil.

In the above paragraph it turns out that there is no snake and the entrance rock never slid closed. These are both illusions. It is my intent to lead the casual reader astray and to reward the perceptive reader for picking up clues that most readers will miss.

Tip 4: Use a placemarker symbol to indicate when you want to flesh out details.

In this sentence I use the “@@” symbol to indicate that I want to add concrete details to the manuscript. I can rapidly search for this symbol, and it shows up clearly in printed versions.

“This energy field drains me. @@ The best that I can do is produce illusions.”

Tip 5: Develop interesting characters, preferably with a twist

In this series, we meet Jonathan at age 11, but we also get to know Jonathan as a teenager, young adult and mature man. Jonathan is able to transverse several universes.

Read a .pdf version of The Occluded Emerald (Requires Adobe Reader)

Your comments about this book will be most appreciated.  Please use the “Leave a Reply” form below to comment.

• The Occluded Emerald - A black unicorn and an Evil Empress, the two most evil creatures in the eleven remaining known universes, are about to escape their captivity.
• Only 11-year old Jonathan can prevent their escape and prevent destruction on a multi-universal scale.
• Listen to chapters and chime in on live discussions. 
• Place an advance order.
• Read the manuscript on FastPencil.com, and comment upon it, possibly influencing the book and/or series. (Registration required.)
  

Click the image to preview The Occluded Emerald using an Adobe .pdf  file.  (Requires Adobe Reader.) This book will let you listen to and read chapters.

Your comments about this book will be most appreciated.  Please use the “Leave a Reply” form below to comment.

On August 20, 2008, I conducted a 30-minute phone interview with Steve Wilson, one of the founders of FastPencil, an end-to-end publishing company that can enable writers to cost effectively self publish a book.  Since that time I have been experimenting with FastPencil as a social media site, and as a vehicle for self publishing.

What I’ve done to date:

• Started two novels
• Taken some of my poetry, placed it on the site and reached out to FastPencil members for comments.
• Initiated two collaborations based on writing poetry to other member’s artwork
• Made “friends” with 18 people, 3 of which I met in other places like LinkedIn.com and Talkshoe.com
• Read some of the work of myFastPencil friends, and commented on it
• Reached out to some of my FastPencil friends to look at my work, and received comments
• Invited some people to edit my work, and looked at the results
• Reached out to a FastPencil illustrator
• Started to upload a new version of one of my children’s books, The Monster on Top of the Bed into their color-book tool.
• Created preview copies of the novels
• Communicated by e-mail and phone with several FastPencil friends.

Here’s what I’ve learned to date:

• The people who have published through FastPencil like the service that they have received and speak highly of the support they have received.
• FastPencil produces a quality physical product. Of course, it is vitally important for the author to assure that the content of the book is up to snuff.  I’ve looked at several of the books.  One of the children’s books that is one the site is magnificently illustrated, but the meter of the poetry in the book is off.  Consequently, it probably would never have been published through a standard publisher.  I see this as a concern.  Just because a tool is available does not mean that it should be used prematurely.  FastPencil is not a vanity press.  It does not charge you extraordinary amounts of money to produce a shabby product, but if enough people put out a shabby product, then the books published through FastPencil’s ISBN number may encounter the same type of resistance within the reviewing community that is generated by vanity presses–reviewers will not bother reading the books because their quality is too poor.  If you decide to publish through FastPencil, I urge you to get professional editing and make your book shine before releasing it.  Alternatively, you might want to get your own ISBN number, and use it.  (Listen to my interview with Steve Wilson.)
• It’s possible to use the site extensively and not pay a cent for the services until you are ready to publish.  The tools on the site are extensive.  This is impressive.
• Unlike Bulletin Boards that are oriented towards writers (for example those on the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and on the Artists’ Lounge on BlackPlanet.com, I am unlikely to be able to post and get immediate feedback.  Getting feedback on this site requires true social networking.  I must remember that “social” means establishing some sort of relationship and “networking” means making an effort to help others, and then asking for that person to help me.  For this reason, I find it makes sense to get my work relatively mature before sharing it with others on this platform.
• I have found that friendships can be established relatively easily, but that it is important to sustain them, and that takes work.  There are only so many places where I can invest my time.
• The color-book tool is quite powerful, but not intuitive, and it is not yet ready for collaboration.
• You need to invite people to be a friend, and then you need to give them access to your project before it is visible to them.  I see this as both an advantage (people can’t go poking around on your project without your permission) and a disadvantage (there’s no way to get feedback from a wide variety of people quickly–like there is with a bulletin board post.)
• The site contains a version-comparison tool, which is useful if you want to see the changes.  It’s also possible revert to an earlier version, if desired.

• When people, whom you have pre-authorized, edit your work, it’s possible to view their changes using the version-comparison tool, but you must accept all or none of the changes.  There are many times when I want to accept some changes and reject others.  I get around this by copying-and-pasting the new text to a Microsoft Word file and then accepting or rejecting the entire set of changes.  I can then use the Microsoft Word compare tool, which allows me to accept or reject individual edits.  Perhaps, somewhere in the future, FastPencil will add the individual edit feature.  It will make the software much more desirable.

  

  An excerpt from a FastPencil's edit screen for one of my poems. Green = additions; Red = Deletions.

• Some of the people on FastPencil are highly professional.  Others are rank novices.
• I have had better results getting comments on my poetry than on my novel. That’s not really surprising as it’s much more work to read a novel than a book.
• When I invite people from outside to become editors on FastPencil they tend to look at my work, but not to spend much time.  I believe that if I were paying them to comment, I would have different results.
• The system allows me to create a draft copy in a pdf file, and that works well.
• People who have published with FastPencil seem to be happy with the distribution system that they have established.

The bottom line is that I think that this is a tool that is well worth using.  Keep in mind that it is still evolving. Some patience may be necessary.  Don’t expect magical results.  Do spend time building relationships.  It’s a great tool for producing a prototype book.  I plan to order some prototypes and get them as good as possible before publishing.

I plan to use FastPencil as a tool with teachers and librarians to get people involved in The Occluded Emerald and other books in my science-fiction series.  I can visualize teachers and librarians telling students about my work, but to really be useful, I think it will be important to use other vehicles in conjunction with it.  For example, I have set up the JeweledPlanet  Talkshoe show where people can listen to excerpts from my books.  I plan to make this available by using badges on this blog and other websites where people can order (or pre-order) my books.  I am also using this site to get feedback from readers.

I will need to remember not to publish prematurely because my name is on that book cover, and I want every book that I publish to be as good as possible.

All-in-all I give FastPencil.com a B+, and I’m looking forward to enhancements that will let me change my rating to an A+.  Should you join, send me a friend request.