Posts by Sonja Yoerg
No matter who publishes your book, your obligation to promote it is inescapable. Every author would rather be writing than promoting so it’s important to make your time flogging your book count. Also, if you’re like me, you try hard not to lose money writing, and that means outsourcing as little as possible. Because social media platforms are the predominant cost-free methods available to us, creating eye-catching graphics is a skill we’d all be wise to optimize.
Luckily, I truly enjoy making graphics, and when I have time or am procrastinating writing, I volunteer my services to friends. Over the years, I have learned a thing or two about promoting books using images, and I’m here to share them with you.
Keep it simple. Eye-catching graphics are not complicated; they are clean. How do you make a clean graphic? Someone who has studied graphic design could explicate the principles, but since that’s not me, I can only tell you what I try to do: create a mood and showcase the cover. If you’re lucky, your cover and title already convey genre and mood. The job of the graphic is to amplify that or to suggest what reading the book would be like. It’s spin, it’s fantasy, it’s advertising. For two friends, I used Canva (https://www.canva.com/) to create two distinct moods. For Jessica Strawser’s upcoming release I echoed the water motif on the cover; it didn’t need more.
For Amy Sue Nathan’s book, I picked up the beach motif and used a less stuffy font appropriate to the tone of the story.
Limit the text. The primary purpose of a graphic is to get attention. The secondary purpose is to convey information. If you try to convey too much, however, you’ll muddy the waters and fall short of both goals. People are scrolling, they are distracted, they are eating lunch and will swipe past a wordy graphic. If you are promoting a giveaway, say “giveaway” and not “enter the first giveaway for my new release.” A brief quote, even a single word (“Extraordinary!”), gets the message across better than two-sentences. If you want to include a link to your website or the book’s page, make it small and stick it in a corner. Links are already in your post, right?
Make your cover the star. Whatever background you choose, ensure it does not compete with your cover.
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Ever have a week with two Fridays? Sounds like fun but if it happens in your novel, your readers won’t be amused. As writers we can be forgiven for being so consumed by our writing that we lose track of what day it is. Unfortunately, if we lose track of time in the story, we might struggle to sort it out after the fact. And if the errors make it past a copy editor—and believe me, they do—you could confuse or annoy your readers.
I’m here to give you some tips for minimizing lapses in time continuity.
Use Real Dates. Sure, you can make up your very own calendar year, but consider the advantages of using a real one.
Pin Your Characters to the Calendar
Keep Track of Time as You Write
My upcoming release, Stories We Never Told, takes place over several months. Here’s one page of the calendar.
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Last week, I turned in my new book to my editor, and immediately answered the siren song of the next one—the so-called affair book, unsullied by the drudgery and frustration of actual writing. Sadly, the affair book is now my WIP, so it won’t be long before it sports the same morning breath and protruding nose hairs every manuscript eventually does. At the moment, however, I am smitten.
One of my favorite early tasks is defining major characters. Because this story features a family with nine children, I am in heaven. How do I go about creating this cast? They are a family—they belong to each other, for better or for worse—so they must hang together in some way. As individuals, however, they must be distinctive.
For this job, I turn to the Myers-Briggs personality types. You’re probably at least broadly familiar with the system, which assesses pairs of traits along four dimensions (Extravert/Introvert, ObServing/INtuiting, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Prospecting) to create sixteen types. Myers-Briggs is based on solid research, has withstood the test of time, and is used widely for quick behavioral assessment, such as in HR departments. I’m an ESFJ, called the Consul, or the Caregiver. The mother in my WIP is the same. Coincidence? I think not.
Here are some ideas on how to use personality typing in your writing.
Establish character early. Creating true-to-life characters is no mean feat; ask Dr. Frankenstein. But we have to start somewhere, and for me that place is a Myers-Briggs site, 16personalities.com. Reading the descriptions of each type forces me to ask the right questions about my nascent characters. Of course, human behavior is shaped not only by personality, but also by experience, aka backstory. Science tells us, however, that personality is a strong driver of behavior, so deciding which of the sixteen types define each major character will go a long way toward getting your story off to a coherent start.
Balance your cast. The sixteen personality types are grouped into four categories: Analysts, Sentinels, Adventurers, and Diplomats. Each category contains two extravert types and two introvert types. One way to ensure your characters are distinctive is to choose types from different categories. In the US, for example, extraverts outnumber introverts two to one. You don’t need to match the actual population distribution, but do take advantage of the wide variety of behavioral types available to you. It will help make your characters memorable.
Draw relationship vectors.
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At bare minimum, all you need to write is either paper and ink, or a computer. Somehow that does not stop writers from coveting additional physical tools of the trade. Indeed, I’ve yet to meet a writer who doesn’t drool over office supplies. Can’t write without gel pens or stickies or a classic Moleskin? I thought so. Well, I’m here to lobby for my favorite writing accessory: the whiteboard.
Here are some ways I put my whiteboard to work:
Brainstorming. A blank sheet of paper or a blinking cursor on a white screen can be daunting, because it screams, Write something! But a whiteboard is not for writing per se, so its open expanse is more inviting than intimidating. Its simplest use is for spit-balling. Looking for a great title for your book? List the themes on the whiteboard and let your imagination run amok. Working on characters and relationships? Seeing the cast as an array, rather than a list, may help you make connections between them you hadn’t considered, or allow you to eliminate minor characters you really don’t need. I also use the whiteboard for creating character names and profiles. I can see how they look together, how they partition the space within the story to become memorable.
Here I am backpacking in Portugal, taking a moment to jot down some random thoughts.
Sketching the Plot. Like most writers, I’ve employed all sorts of strategies to develop plot, including winging it. (Reformed pantser here!) I’ve dabbled in Save The Cat, Story Genius, and the like, but they only get me so far. As a visual person, I need to see the dimensions of the plot, to examine the scaffolding and judge whether it will bear weight over 350 pages.
Here’s an example from my WIP. Time runs horizontally, just like in math class. On the vertical I’ve listed the ways I’m making trouble for my main character. Using this format, I can see how the plot threads relate to each other and which characters are involved, so I can balance the events, keeping the rhythm strong and the narrative tight. I’d have trouble fitting this on a sheet of paper.
Pro-tip: Give your characters names starting with different first letters for extreme shorthanding. Readers will also appreciate the differentiation.
Developing Key Scenes. My favorite scenes to write have tons of characters in them. I love the way all the personalities and conflicts come alive when everyone is thrown together. Busy scenes cry out for scripting.
The opening scene of my WIP involves all four main characters. I barely know these people and I’ve invited them to eat together. Here I use my trusty whiteboard to map out the characters and their relationships, and to explore themes that might or might not be woven into the story.
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Please welcome new contributor Sonja Yoerg to Writer Unboxed today! We’re thrilled to have her join the team, and sure you’ll love her post on circling back to a shelved manuscript. Welcome, Sonja!
A couple months ago, I opened a file I hadn’t touched in almost five years—the first novel I wrote. It was like opening a crypt. I had written and sold four novels in the interim, learning a thing or two along the way, and was finally ready to return to the story that made me a writer.
Or was I? Sure, I was excited to jump in but also uncertain whether I would be able to achieve now what I had failed to before. As every writer knows, there is nothing like a new project to remind you how little you know about writing. Except this wasn’t a new project at all. It had not changed. I had.
From what I’ve heard, most writers have shelved one or more manuscripts; it’s smart to know the right time to tackle a particular story. And when you do decide to open that moldy file, I have a few strategies for you to consider.
Don’t read it. Not yet. It’s tempting, I know. But you want a fresh take, so don’t jump in the deep end just yet. You’ll either love it and lose your objectivity or hate it and lose your motivation for the revision. Think of it as meeting an old friend—don’t arrange to spend the summer with her. Start with coffee.
Write a synopsis—a long one. I despise synopses as much as the next sane person but there is no better way of getting to the heart of the story. Walking yourself through it in a structured, concise way will expose strengths and weaknesses. I spent two months writing a sixteen-page synopsis of my new/old WIP, moaning the entire time, then asked for feedback from two trusted writers. I’m leaning hard on this synopsis as I revise.
Consider a different structure. I’m a different writer than five years ago with more tricks up my sleeve, ways to solve problems and enrich the narrative. And I had a big problem with my main character: Rudi was a German soldier in Hitler’s army and therefore had a massive image problem. I’d written the story chronologically (1930s to 1970s) but decided instead to start in the middle, after Rudi had immigrated to America, and to use the earlier material as a second storyline. I’m confident I can braid timelines now, and you might find that new skills in your writing repertoire allow you to apply structures, techniques, and POVs you hadn’t previously considered. To me, this is best part of resurrecting an old project: the chance to make it better than you ever knew you could.
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Please welcome back guest Sonja Yoerg to Writer Unboxed today!
Sonja grew up in Stowe, Vermont, where she financed her college education by waitressing at the Trapp Family Lodge. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley and published a nonfiction book about animal intelligence, Clever as a Fox (Bloomsbury USA, 2001). Penguin/Berkley publishes Sonja’s novels: HOUSE BROKEN (Jan 2015), MIDDLE OF SOMEWHERE (Sep 2015) and ALL THE BEST PEOPLE (May 2017). She lives with her husband in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
We’re so glad to have her with us today to talk with us about how best to go about gathering blurbs for a novel.
Learn more about Sonja on her website, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Rattling the Cup for Blurbs
Ask any author, even a very successful one, how they feel about hunting for endorsements for their books and “ugh,” will be a common response. Why? Well, asking for a favor can be awkward and this favor is rather large and rather important. A great blurb is like a gold star for your book.
Wait, you say. Don’t publishers get those blurbs for you? Occasionally, yes, but the bulk of the chore belongs to the author. Each new book you write will need endorsements from fresh authors so it’s a chore you can look forward to again and again.
I’m here to help. I don’t have a secret formula for getting an author to say yes, but I do have a few tips to make the process less frightening and, possibly, more successful.
Use email. Don’t pitch your book via direct messaging, or god forbid, in a tweet or any public space. Find the author’s email address or that of their publicist. Accept no substitute.
Explain your rationale. You’ve chosen this particular author for a reason, right? Perhaps because you admire their work? Tell them so. No need to gush, just let them know there is a rational basis for your request.
Show the author some love. It doesn’t hurt to follow them on social media and show some interest in their career. Dare I say that if you are asking them to read your book, you should’ve read one of theirs? I’ve been approached for an endorsement by writers who didn’t appear to know my work at all and hadn’t even shelved one of my books on Goodreads. Authors know how the blurb dance goes—they’ve been there–and most want to help, but throw them a bone.
Make it easy for the author to say yes.
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