Extending a Character Through the Internet and Social Media
By Sophie Masson | July 8, 2013 |
photo by jef safi \ ‘Parker Mojo Flying
Everyone knows the internet’s a great promotional/marketing tool for writers, but it can also be a wonderful way of extending the creative inner world of your books, and enriching the ‘lived-in’ texture of your stories and characters. Creating a blog, website, Facebook page, You Tube channel or Twitter account for your characters and writing as them can be not only a great adjunct to the ‘suspension of disbelief’ we all want to promote in our readers; it also means you can put up heaps of things you can’t include in the actual books for space/plot reasons, as well as add to the tension of certain moments in the stories by making visual what you are reading in the book itself. What’s more, it’s all free to use and create, with only time and your imagination being the limit. And with the advent of e-books of course, and the possibility of hyperlinking to sites you’ve created, you now have an added immediacy.
I began doing this several years ago, for a series of four YA romantic thrillers which I wrote under a pseudonym. With each of them, I wanted to create an Internet element which whilst not revealing major plot points, wouldn’t also be a side issue with no relevance except a bit of fun. I wanted instead that each element be a strong creative part of each book, which would fill in ‘backstory’ and create a very real-feeling ‘virtual profile’ for the character in question. In the first one, I created a blog for the main character, complete with her own profile and comments from her friends, as well as another blog which is revealed later in the book and which belongs to ‘the bad guy’ ; in the second one, I created for the band described in the book a You Tube channel and a Bebo band page (this was when Bebo was the preferred medium for bands—these days they’d have a Soundcloud or Bandcamp account! ) and then commissioned my musician son and his friends to write and perform music for the song the band composes, and this went on the You Tube channel, with a video clip I’d created. Two of the main characters in that one also had Bebo personal pages (once again, before Facebook really became universal!). In the third book, it was a website on dreams I created in the name of a peripheral but still crucial character; in the fourth, another You Tube channel, but this time featuring the main character’s video clips for her school projects.
How did it all work?
Really well, generally! It was great fun, extended my own understanding of the rich creative possibilities that the internet offers authors, and most important of all, was a big hit with readers—and with my publishers! The ones that worked the best were those two blogs for the first book—they got thousands of hits, especially the main character’s blog(interestingly, the bad guy’s creepy blog only got about a third of the hits—young readers clearly found him disturbing! The first blog also worked well in extending the life of minor characters such as friends left behind early in the story–the comments they make give you a feel for what they’re like, enriching the background of the book. So well did the blogs work in fact that some kids asked me if I’d been inspired to write the book after reading the blog on the Internet! The dreams website also worked well, but the You Tube/band page element did not work half as well as the others, however—possibly a reflection of the fact not so many young readers accessed You Tube in those days—or couldn’t at school, anyway(as many schools bar access to it.)
That experience, using the Internet creatively, taught me a great deal, and I’m continuing to experiment with all kinds of possibilities for future projects (in my own name!)
Some tips for creating these elements:
- Some types of sites work best—the most personal ones, blogs in particular, but also Facebook pages(an example being one I created for a character in a separate book, who is keen on Paris street art and has collected lots of real street artist Facebook friends!) I think blogs also work well for readers because they are a ‘reading experience’ themselves, unlike, say, the visual medium of You Tube.
- If you’re creating a character blog, make sure you block off all comments except for the ‘identities’ you’ve created yourself. It works really well to have a ‘virtual community’ of commenters on the character blog, but you really don’t want some troll or spammer to destroy your creation by posting malicious, obscene, spamming or even general comment. Of course, creating that ‘community’ involves signing up for lots of different Gmail or other accounts and remembering many passwords but that’s a small price to pay for the integrity of your site. (With passwords, what I did was not variations on a theme, which could be hacked, but something connected directly with each character—but not a line or character name from the book!)
- Best to keep the creative online element in a book to one type of thing–my experience with using more than one in a book has been that it places a rather heavy obligation on you as you juggle creating those, keeping up with their immediacy, and trying to write the book too! Don’t get so distracted by the faux social media experience that the writing of the actual story suffers!
- Use only your own photos, texts, music etc, or those for whom you have the permission of the creator/copyright holder.
- It’s best to create each element as you’re working on the book, not after you’ve finished writing it, as otherwise it will not work properly as a plot element. But don’t spend so much time on the creation of these elements that you neglect the actual writing of the book!
- If you do decide to go for a video element, such as a You Tube or Vimeo clip, unless you’re great at making films, it’s best to create a clip using still photos, then work on them with MovieMaker or other simple computer-movie technology to create a ‘moving image’ feel which looks infinitely better than an amateurish filming effort. Of course, if you’re skilled with video filming itself, so much the better!
- Purely visual ideas using still pictures on such platforms as Instagram and Pinterest could work well too: I can imagine the Pinterest board of an artist character, for instance, or a collector of strange things!
- Include at least the idea(and maybe a beta version) of your element in a book proposal package to publishers. But my advice is not to spend any actual money on it: as I said earlier, time and imagination are the real keys to success here.
If you’ve already experimented with using the internet creatively in your own work, I’d love to hear about it. Has it helped to enrich your writing, or only served to distract you?
Born in Indonesia of French parents, and brought up in France and Australia, Sophie Masson is the award-winning author of over 70 books for children, young adults and adults. Her latest books include Sydney under Attack (children’s historical novel, Scholastic Australia, 2022) A Hundred Words for Butterfly (adult novella, ES-Press, 2022) and Cock-a-doodle-doo (children’s picture book, (illustrated by Kathy Creamer, little Pink Dog Books, 2022). In 2019, Sophie received an AM (Member, General Division) award in the Order of Australia honours list.
It’s funny you should post this today. Just this morning I was thinking about a future blog post talking about this sort of thing. In all honesty, I have absolutely no desire to do this. I give you a lot of credit for creating so much more, but it’s just not my thing.
Sophie, I’m also curious–Did you see a positive impact on sales that could be attributed directly to your efforts? Obviously, there are benefits that go beyond sales alone, and it certainly seems like you found those, but it seems like a lot of effort for what may not be much economically.
I sound like a crass money-grabber, which I’m not, but it’s certainly part of the equation. Thanks!
hi Jeffo
Definitely it helped with sales, especially with the first three books(for some reason the fourth one, with the video clip book assignments, didn’t work quite as well). For the first one especially it was a very big factor, and that’s really why I said in my post that character blogs are the most successful, in my experience! And it is a lot of work–but it is also lots of fun!
Thanks, Sophie, I appreciate the answer.
Sophie, this sounds fascinating. My first question is how do you draw people to your character’s Facebook Page, and to highlight Jeffo’s comment, does it encourage sales?
I’ve done something similar, but with no results, yet. In one of my novels Ralph Waldo Emerson has a substantial presence and effect on the plot (historically speaking), so I opened a Page on Google+ titled “RalphWaldoEmerson of Concord.” I was hoping to draw in readers who have a special interest in RWE and thus be interested in my book. I post weekly tidbits and short portraits about his relationships in 19th-century Concord with his wife, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thoreau, etc. It’s more of a personal perspective about RWE and his life in Concord and really fun for me. But no followers yet. No comments yet. It’s difficult getting connections and followers on Google+ so the effort seems wasted at the moment. I fear if I did the same on a Facebook Page, I’d have the same results. What do you think? It is easier to make friends on Facebook in the way you suggest than on Google+? I would so appreciate your advice! Thanks.
Hi Paula
One of the reasons the sites I created worked in my books is that they were actually flagged in the book themselves, as part of the text–the URL clearly there–and in some cases a symbol added at various pints to indicate there was a post corresponding to that part of the story. The readers then seemed to get online and check it out. What you’ve done with your page is more of an information aid, which is great–but it doesn’t engage readers as much.
Also in my experience Google + is a complete fizzer when it comes to attracting attention/interaction. How about instead starting a Facebook page as Ralph Emerson himself? Or Nathaniel Hawthorne? totally anachronistic of course but I bet you would get people to friend/follow you(link it to a twitter account too and you’d geteven more followers). Plus it could be a lot of fun. You could transpose and adapt for Facebook what you’ve already written on Google +
Thanks, Sophie. You’ve confirmed that Google+ isn’t worth my time which is what I’ve been thinking. There are a few RWE pages on Facebook but with very little current activity. I’m going to transfer the contents over and give it a stab. Throw the dice as they say! Thanks so much.
Great post and thank you. I’ve only had my blog up since winter, but I’ve been stumbling along towards some of the ideas you suggest and am happy with them so far. Still, you have also ignited many more ideas in my brain…as if I need more of those! Thank you for the insights.
Fascinating and idea-spurring article. I’ve got a novel, Sleeping Dogs, coming out about unrecovered nuclear weapons and a disgraced Pentagon whistleblower who’s trying to call attention to the threat they pose (there are actually eleven in the continental U.S.). He’s got a website, sleepingdogs.us, that plays a role in the novel so I’m replicating it, designing a site as its portrayed in the book. Hopefully people will check it out and it will help authenticate the threat and interest people in the novel.
in a non-fiction book that’s being published in February, I bring to life the experience of writing a novel (Sleeping Dogs) under the tutelege of John Grisham. I use part of one of his critiques on my website and as I get closer to publication, I’m going to include selected readings from the book. Also trying to figure out what video I can do. As Sophie points out, it’s an opportunity for us writers to mine.
Creating that Sleeping Dogs website sounds great, Tony, and exactly like the sort of site that should work. Is that embedded in your book in the story itself, with links–just the URL in a print book, hyperlink in an ebook? I found that was the most useful device for attracting readers. All your other ideas sound excellent too. Good luck with it all!
Wow! When fictional characters start having their own web sites, it makes me feel like we’ve taken reality to a whole new level. Scary! How many of the monthly contributors to Writer Unboxed are fake? Perhaps I’m fake and just part of some gigantic virtual reality. Wouldn’t that be a laugh!
“So well did the blogs work in fact that some kids asked me if I’d been inspired to write the book after reading the blog on the Internet!”
That’s hilarious. And sweet.
You have such an inventive spirit, Sophie. I love that you don’t seem to have a “no” button, particularly since you accomplish all this on top of a commendable publishing schedule.
Hi Sophie, I like this idea, which I would put, like my scrapbooking for stories, under the jokey heading “Fruitful Procrastination”—of course, often you need to do this kind of compilation rather than write your way into a character or plot. It just works at a different level of your storymaking psyche.
I think questions about whether it increases sales are completely beside the point. What it does do, though—quite apart from the work that it does for the story, which is the only reason you need to justify it—is give you one more thing to point to when the time comes to publicising your book. It’s nice having some of my scrapbooks online so that I can send fans and writing students over to Flickr for a browse, and I imagine character Pinterest boards and the like would be terrific to have too; when readers say “Oh, I loved so-and-so,” you could link them to another place where they could explore (i.e. see you exploring) that character.
I commend you Sophie for your technological innovations an an author. Some most imaginative marketing ideas for novelists here. The fine line between fact, faction and fiction and even fraud and piracy interests me, especially if writing mysteries or thrillers. The amount of time involved also concerns me as a self employed writer. Seems as if it’s a bit like running an espionage network and having to remember multiple personalities, and keep them parallel but separate, and remember the passwords.
As a way of learning the online techniques, it seems very timely.
Currently we’re doing a doco on reactions to our controversial f2m:the boy within’ which is a coming of age YA novel about transitioning gender. In checking the resources generated online in reviews, radio podcasts, fanart etc, it’s intriguing to find how many blogger reviewer links and regional or community radio podcasts have lapsed in the three years since the initial print publication and concerns me that some literary comment has a short life online.
Despite this I commend your adventurous technological spirit.
Hi, All I can say is, “WOW!”
But a question occurs, “Where did you learn about time expansion?”
Peter@peterdsowatskey.com
I think it all comes down to having been brought up in a big family–when if you didn’t grab every bit of time you could, you would soon drown in the chaos! At least, that’s my theory! :)
WOW!! This one is bookmarked NOW! Love the ideas (I think I mentioned in an earlier comment that I am one of those weirdos who loves marketing.) LOVE IT! How fun. Already got the Youtube channel ready.
I just started a character blog last week and one of my readers sent me here. I’m a novel writing newbie and after more than a year of writing bits and pieces of a story as the male protagonist I thought that blogging as the female love interest would help me work through some of the major issues. Your post has given me a lot of helpful tips for advancing and improving my project (for example, my blog is private and I hadn’t considered making it public and disabling comments.) I’ll definitely refer to this in the future. Thanks for posting!
Wow – very eye opening and not necessarily for a good reason. My novel, THE RISING, will be released July 26 so I’m looking at ways to promote. I considered doing the Facebook page for my MC but then realized she’s just not that interesting! LOL. I’m only two chapters into my WIP so believe me, I’ll keep my current MC’s future Facebook page in mind and as she develops, I’ll make sure she has a life worth posting about :)