Still Crazy After All These Years

There are two debates that run almost constantly in my head. Debate #1 is...

If it's a surprise from a character that makes a book click, why do I plan any of it?

Seriously...At some point in every book I say, oh for heaven's sake! That's why the heroine believes that. Or I never knew the hero felt that way. Or what a scamp he is! Or, wow, that surprise just took the whole book to another level.

So if it's the "surprise," the unknown element of the story, belief of a character or behavior of a character that makes a story...why do any planning? Why not just write?

Why not?

Because you have to have structure. Just as you have to have a diving board to get to that point where you're in the air (able to contort your body) for your dive, you have to have  springboard for characters to begin moving, talking, displaying their true selves.

It's also kind of convenient to have the fence of plot. "Nobody moves beyond this point!" keeps your characters from taking the story in a direction you don't want them to go.

Also, you probably have some marketing constraints. Even if you're writing a single title, if you're writing a single-title small-town story, your characters can't decide to move to the city.

So planning gives your characters a story, a playground, some avenues...and a fence. From those spring (hopefully) a really great story.

That's why I plan. (No matter how many times my internal plotter grumps about why she plots at all when my characters just mess everything up. LOL)

What's the second question I debate all the time?

Why do I bother with promotion?

LOL! Seriously! I do tons and tons and tons of stuff to "get myself or my name out there" yet there is no change in my sales ##s from book to book.

Like a good story, I firmly believe good promotion is self-perpetuating. I believe that after reading my book, a reader should tell her friends about it. :) Or she should go to my Facebook page and write something nice. Or write a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

So if the best book promotion is dependent upon the actions of a reader (which of course is dependent upon me having written a GREAT BOOK)...why do I have to do any promotion. (And btw, I'm not asking out of laziness or overwork...though the overwork thing has really been a battle lately, I'm asking out of genuine curiosity...You know how I love to analyze.)

And my conclusion to the whole promotion debate?

Just as the way characters need the fence of a planned-out plot, readers need a place to find you. Facebook, twitter, a webpage, a blog have to be created as places where a reader can go to find out a little bit about you, so that if or when she wants to tell her friends about you and your books, write a review or even comment somewhere that she loved your last book, she has somewhere to go. And you've been there enough that she's comfortable with you and comfortable writing something.

It's a strange correlation, isn't it? Stories and characters need a platform the same way you, as an author, do. Or maybe my brain is a bit off, oxygen deprived from deadline blues? But a lot of life is like that. A circle. You can't get a book without characters and characters can really screw things up without the fence of plot. And you can't have a strong readership without readers (LOL!) but they can't tell the world about your book without a platform.

So...even though it frequently feels worthless...create a plot before you start writing your book. (Even if it is just a one-line idea.) And have a Facebook page, a Facebook launch party, a twitter account, a website, a Goodreads presence so readers have somewhere to go to tell the world they loved your book. :)

Happy Monday...Happy Reading

susan meier