Archive
Short Post: Nominated for Crime Writing Award
My first novel, The Istanbul Puzzle, has just been shortlisted for the Irish crime novel of the year award 2012.
Everyone can vote for this award here. The ceremony is on the 22nd November in Dublin. It will be televised in Ireland on the 24th November.
I am humbled by being shortlisted with such inspiring writers. Thank you all for your support. From being an aspiring writer in search of a contract to being published to being nominated has taken twenty months.
Thank you for sticking with this series, and for buying the books. I hope you will enjoy the rest of this series as it unfolds.
Laurence
Get Your Writing Noticed: Emotion – what keeps us involved!
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Making an emotional connection with readers is critically important. If you don’t, they can easily stop reading. We are all familiar with emotions. They are what makes us have a great day or a bad one. But how does a writer use them to connect with readers?
One of the most basic emotions is desire. If your characters are motivated, if they have desire, if only for a glass of water, then readers will feel connected. And the more they want something, the more interesting your story becomes, as the reader is left wondering what the character will do to achieve their goal.
Desire is the basic emotion which keeps us involved in a story. If your main character wants something, you are obliged to put obstacles in their way too. Obstacles create conflict. Conflict will inspire an emotional response in your reader and keep them turning the pages.
Some other ways to build an emotion connection with the reader are:
* Creating embarrassment for a character. By making the reader feel that embarrassment you will build a connection with them.
* Having a character abused in some way. Natural sympathy will be evoked if you do something terrible to a character we have come to know.
* Placing opposing characters in the same situation. There’s a natural tension when opposing characters meet. Your readers will feel it if the opposing characters views have been shown to them.
* Fear creates tension in the reader too. If we know the murderer is coming up the stairs, and the woman is having a shower, we fear the outcome.
* Anticipation. If you foreshadow, occasionally, without explaining exactly what is going to happen, readers will anticipate something happening.
* Surprise readers. Readers will enjoy your writing if something surprising happens. They won’t have any idea what is going to happen next.
* Excitement is a powerful writing tool. You can move the plot fast, anticipate, and spell out what might happen, and then keep the reader waiting. All the above methods combined will produce excitement in your reader.
One of the hardest parts for a writer is in creating authentic emotional scenes.
The ability to understand how it feels to be in an emotional situation and to express that feeling in a genuine and new way, without resorting to cliche or to simply naming how characters feels, is vital to creating truly engaging writing.
People look for writing that truly explains how it feels to be in each situation. And they can tell if you haven’t represented the reality in a way that’s believable.
I wish you well with this, one of the hardest challenges of becoming a good writer in the 21st or any century.
This post is the sixth on a voyage exploring the world of getting your writing noticed.
The next post, the last post, covers the impact of social media on writing and how writers might use social media to enhance their work.
Here is a link to my previous post in this series on pace, keeping things moving.
Please leave feedback, make suggestions and engage. This series of posts needs you to get involved to make them fly.
And please sign-up using the secure sign-up button above right to receive notifications in your inbox when post’s are released.
If you would like to discuss this post or for me to review your writing and give brief feedback without charge (page 1 of your MS only please) contact me via the comments below or by email: lpobryan@gmail.com
Here are some links to useful information for writers:
socialmediaisdynamite.com for my blog on using social media to get noticed.
The reality of being published – 2 months after my first book came out all over the UK I wrote this post
The Accessible Author – how the author’s role is changing
Frantic Editing – a post on the editing process my first novel went through in the summer of 2011
Finally, a big thank you to all my readers, everyone who comments and everyone who visits. I hope you find this information useful on your journey to getting your writing noticed.
Please reblog, link to, Tweet, post or mention this post. There are links to do that above and mainly below.
- Image from The Jerusalem Puzzle cover art. TJP is arriving 3rd January 2013.
Get Your Writing Noticed: How to grab your reader’s attention!
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A key aspect of writing for the 21st century, applicable to non fiction and fiction, is grabbing the reader’s attention.
The number of distractions people have these days was covered in my last post. Here are some techniques for grabbing the reader up front:
1. Establish credibility. If you’re being published by a major publishing house this will help, but even if you’re not you can put your key credential up front. If you spent 20 years as a gardener and you’re writing a book on gardening I will want to know that. ‘Gardening from 20 years experience” is a good title in my opinion. So don’t be shy. Tell us why we should read your book. And tell us quickly.
2. For non fiction, make it practical. I am writing a guide to social media and making it practical is a key consideration. Two of the top five Sunday Times non fiction books this week are practical in some way.
3. Other favorite themes for non fiction, which grab readers are war, for the armchair fighters among us, violent crimes, to make us glad we’re safe, and cooking/homecraft. These areas make up most the remainder of the top non fiction slots.
4. Start in the middle of the action. This standard piece of advice for fiction writers, to cut out the long preamble, to go straight into the action, is also what non fiction readers want these days. In non fiction we want a quick way to move to the key areas of our interest. So let us get to the heart of it, fast.
5. Make a bold statement. In commercial fiction there is often a big scene right at the beginning. This could be a murder, a kidnapping, an interview or a disagreement. The purpose of the scene is to hook the reader in. Similarly, in non fiction you can make a bold statement. If you have something new to say offer it up early, then let us read the rest of your book to find out what’s next.
Digital, whether through blogs, Twitter, Facebook or video/audio are all vitally important to success these days. Whatever you are writing, consider how you can build an online presence which will use the skills you have. The demand for online interaction is high and likely to get even higher. Publishing and being successful with just a printed book is becoming less and less likely.
Other aspects of grabbing your reader’s attention include titles and keywords. Here is a post I wrote, on my social media blog, explaining key words in simple terms.
Beyond key words is the whole area of titles. This is an art, which includes many elements difficult to distill. Taste, fashion and culture are all part of the choosing of titles. My suggestion is for you to consider the most popular current titles in your genre, then to create something totally unique for yourself, which acknowledges what works, yet does not copy it. Not an easy task for fiction.
For non fiction there are staple titles for guides which include fragments such as “How to” – “The Secret of” – “A Way to” – “Get rid of” and words such as quick, solve, easy and free. Again, I recommend looking at the best-selling titles in your area and also to consider what grabs you when you read those titles.
Having participant voices, explaining that you will be reflecting the views of people involved directly in what you are writing about, is my final piece of advice for writing to grab your reader’s attention. It may not be necessary to live in a slum for years to write about poverty, but it is a real way to get attention. Many people want to know what it’s like for people whose voices we don’t normally hear. That in itself is a good thing. Exposing what really goes on in the world is one of the reasons people write.
Telling stories, whether true or imagined, allows us an entrance to worlds we would never otherwise experience.
I wish you all the best in creating yours, and attracting your reader’s attention. And I hope, in the end, we can all do some good with what we create.
Here is a link to the next post on theme, the most important part of writing IMO. And for a previous first post in this series, go here for the post on modern distractions, on writing with accuracy, being fantastic, sensuous and gripping.
This post is the second on a voyage exploring the world of getting your writing noticed.
Please leave feedback, make suggestions and engage. This series of posts needs you to get involved to make them fly.
And please sign-up using the secure sign-up button above right to receive notifications in your inbox when post’s are released.
If you would like to discuss this post or for me to review your writing and give brief feedback without charge (page 1 of your MS only please) contact me via the comments below or by email: lpobryan@googlemail.com
The next post, on Theme, a critical issue, is already up and available here.
Here are some links to useful information for writers:
socialmediaisdynamite.blogspot.com for my blog on using social media to get noticed.
The reality of being published – 2 months after my first book came out all over the UK I wrote this post
The Accessible Author – how the author’s role is changing
Frantic Editing – a post on the editing process my first novel went through in the summer of 2011
Finally, a big thank you to all my readers, everyone who comments and everyone who visits. I hope you find this information useful on your journey to getting your writing noticed.
Please reblog, link to, Tweet, post or mention this post. There are links to do that above and mainly below.
from The Jerusalem Puzzle cover arriving 3rd January 2013.
The Jerusalem Puzzle is Finished!
I delivered The Jerusalem Puzzle to Harper Collins in London last Monday, by email. I had finished it the previous Thursday. I spent most of last weekend doing one final edit.
That was a hundred page a day edit. The kind of edit that drains something from you as you go on and on and on for endless hours each day.
But I did it. And I’m glad I did it. There were logical errors, which you see better when reading through a novel fast.
I fixed an issue in the middle about the dig in the old city of Jerusalem, which they visit in the novel, and I changed a big part of the ending too.
I spent about a year on The Jerusalem Puzzle from concept to fourth draft. I expect Harper Collins will come back in July with a series of suggestions as to how to tighten it up. These I will address during July and August. There may be more editorial suggestions in September too and then some copy editing changes in October, perhaps twice, and that will be it, I hope.
I am pleased with how The Jerusalem Puzzle turned out.
It may even be better than The Istanbul Puzzle! The Jerusalem Puzzle will be released January 17, 2013. It should be available in other languages after that. The Istanbul Puzzle is being translated into 9 languages.
I hope you enjoy The Jerusalem Puzzle when it comes out. I enjoyed creating it. If you would like to pre-order it from Amazon click here.
And I greatly appreciate every comment and kind word and recommendation you give for it.
I will be submitting an outline for The New York Puzzle to Harper Collins in the next 10 days. Once that is agreed I will start writing The New York Puzzle.
Below is a photo of the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, which I took earlier this year. This is the main entrance to the city from the west. It features in a few scenes in The Jerusalem Puzzle.
Old Jerusalem, an ancient city in a modern age
Written February 2012
I am spending time in the old city of Jerusalem. If I stay here any longer I’ll probably have to apply for a resident’s permit. And as I am staying in East Jerusalem that may be tricky.
My reason for being here, aside from the welcome sun, is to research the next stage of Sean and Isabel’s adventures. If you read The Istanbul Puzzle you’ll probably know that there are a few questions at the end still hanging.
The Jerusalem Puzzle will move the story forward and answer some key questions.
As part of my research in old Jerusalem, where the book is mainly set, I have spent a lot of time in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the legendary site of Jesus’ crucifiction, his tomb and the burial place of Adam’s skull, according to some 2nd century sources. Whatever your beliefs, this place is an extraordinary building, a mix of mainly Crusader and 19th century, Armenian, Catholic and Orthodoxy all rolled into one. This was the place a lot of people died for before the crusades, during the crusades, and ever afterwards. Richard the Lion Heart and Saladin fought over this place and almost every other Empire since has had plans to capture it.
Here is what the entrance to the legendary tomb of Jesus looks like now (click each image to see it in all its glory):
Queuing to get into the tomb of Jesus, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
This church is the most important place of pilgrimage in the Christian world. Bar none.
What I found though, at the end of my last visit, was a less than spiritual place. I had queued to get in to the small chapel where Jesus’ tomb is supposed to be with cries of “hurry, hurry, we are closing,” echoing in my ears. I’d visited where Mary, Mother of Jesus fell into an eternal sleep (legend says), on Mount Zion the day before and I was lucky that I went down into that underground tomb with the sound of a Polish group singing hymns echoing in my ears. That place was spiritual.
Near the Damascus Gate, the Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem
Much of the rest of the old city is a heady mix of the Arab souk, with plastic toys and wooden crosses for tourists, and a wedge of Abercrombie and coffee shop Westerness pushing up close to the city from the Jewish and modern western side.
To me Jerusalem is where three great faiths, Christianity, the Jewish faith and Islam all overlap with their bits fraying.
The Islamic faith is well represented here in the famous Golden Dome and mosques and the regular call to prayer filling the air.
The Western Wall, Jerusalem.
The Jewish faith is evident in the devotion at the Western Wall, the Orthodox faithful almost everywhere, and through the joy of young men being escorted with drums and horns through the crowds.
The Christian faith is evident in the extraordinary churches and the pilgrims from all parts of the Christian world walking the Via Dolorosa carrying crosses and following the legendary route of Jesus to his death.
This city is an ancient fraying tapestry of faith and colour, tradition and prayer, belief and culture, the old and the modern mixed and interwoven.
I know there are many things in serious dispute here, but I hope to God compassion comes into play for a unique people and a unique place when this city’s future is decided.
The Jerusalem Puzzle, my next novel, will take readers to the heart of Jerusalem. It will expose some of the very real puzzles that are at the core of this truly amazing city. I hope you’ll like it as much as you liked The Istanbul Puzzle.
The Istanbul Puzzle Book Launch Live on your Screen!
