Getting to Know Your Protagonist

 Even if you do not know what actions your protagonist will take in your story, or even what lies ahead in upcoming chapters, you need to know your protagonist like he or she (or it, depending on what you're writing) is your best friend and soul mate. This can be exceptionally tricky if you've never worked with this character before and are developing them from scratch. However, this gives you a blank canvas - a chance to get to know them from the ground up and turn them into a fully developed entity.

There is nothing worse to a reader than an undefined, bland, and under-developed character that they are made to follow throughout a story. You are giving them an intimate look into this character's life, and they need to be able to feel for your character and root for them. It's hard to root for someone that you can find no emotional connection with. That emotional connection is created by you, through your handling of the character's physical attributes, personality, and lifestyle choices.

A name is usually the first thing that comes when creating a new protagonist. With that name comes a gender. Name your character, and then introduce yourself to them. Make friends with them, as silly as that might sound. Yet, it shouldn't be silly, as they don't only live inside the pages you're typing. They live inside of you as well.

How old is your protagonist? Are they a child? A middle-aged man or woman? An elderly person with a great backstory? You need a general idea of this because your character, like real people, develops as they age. Once you've determined the name, sex, and age of your protagonist, it's time to develop who they are - who the world will see when they read your book.

Pretend like you're on a blind date with your protagonist, or better yet, pretend like you're a journalist. Your protagonist is the subject of an interview assignment that you've been given, and you've never met this person before and have little to go on for your list of questions. So, it's time to make that list of questions to ask them. Things you need to know to understand your protagonist include where they are from, what their early family-life was like, did they earn a higher education, how do they take their coffee, do they have any food allergies, and what colors best compliment their complexion, eyes and hair. Do they have a favorite movie, book, or song? What makes them happy? It could be anything from a nice rain on a spring afternoon to roller skating in the park.

Does your protagonist have a job? What do they do, and how did they get that job? Are they close to their colleagues? Do they have a family at home? Are they married? If so, how did they meet their spouse, and what was the attraction? Are they looking for love? What keeps them from finding it? Do they have a sense of humor, or are they edgy and serious? If today was their birthday, and you've known your protagonist only for a few days, what would you buy for them as a present, using your current real life budget?

As you write, your protagonist will continue to throw surprises at you, but as long as you have a good sense of who they are, you'll be able to roll with the punches. Things will happen. Maybe dark secrets from the past will turn up - out of the blue. Perhaps your protagonist will suffer a personality change, becoming angered or devastated over some happening or even something not happening. You must know your protagonist enough to be able to handle them properly when these things occur. Your character cannot behave in one fashion for the first half of the book, and then suddenly act like a completely different person through the rest. There must be a reason for such a change in personality, and it must be justified by things that have happened to them currently and in their past.

You also need to be able to trust them to confide in you. If they've had break-ups that were bad, you need to know early on so that you're not blindsided. If they have a dark past or a deep want or need that will be exposed later, you need to be able to justify that as well. Make a list of everything you can possibly come up with about your protagonist's past and current life situations. If they smoke, how often? If they've been dumped, why? If they've been fired, for what? Are they shy? Why are they shy? What happened to make them shy? Was it something from their childhood? Perhaps they were ignored when they were little. Maybe the other children in class teased them because they had big ears or walked awkwardly. When a reader is reading your book, they need to see your protagonist as a real person, even if you're writing fantasy or science fiction. If your protagonist is a robot, you need to know who made it, why, when, and out of what. The protagonist is one of two characters in your book that you cannot take shortcuts on or find an easy way around. The other such character is your antagonist, which we'll discuss another time.

Even if you don't use it in your book, now that you've interviewed your protagonist and made a list of their likes, dislikes, victories and failures, write their backstory as a story. Get it all out, right there in black and white. This will help you further develop the character so that, when you go to write your book, you have a full and complete understand of where they are coming from. You'll be able to tackle those issues of personality changes or varying emotional states because you've prepared. You've gotten to know your character's history, and so you can move forward while still being able to keep them true to themselves. Even in horror, when a protagonist is forced to kill the bad guy, there are reasons they are doing it, there are emotions they are feeling over it, and there are circumstances in their past that have given them the strength to survive. All of this makes that protagonist who they are in that moment, and it should be visible through your words - the actions and feelings you deliver in that scene and in the scenes leading up to it.

Remember, no one's life is perfect - in the real world or fiction. Everyone faces pain, anger, suffering, loss, and heartache at some point or another, and your characters should be just as flawed as real people. It's hard to root for perfection, as perfection is something that can never be achieved. As long as you know who your protagonist is, you can offer up a realistic character that can make the reader feel what they are feeling, like what they like, hate what they hate, and love like they love - right along with them. That is the key to a well-defined and well-rounded protagonist, and in order to achieve it, you must know your character.

In my early days of writing, I was guilty of offering one-dimensional characters - driven only forward with no realistic reasons and no true identity. This is something to avoid. Like my characters, yours will become more defined and more realistic the longer that you write. I'm an avid fan of Archie Comics, and even sweet Betty has a mean streak and vain Veronica has a soft side. Your protagonist must have both the yen and the yang - a bit of good and a bit of fire - to come across as real to your reader.

So, you've interviewed your protagonist, you've made your list of traits and events, and you've written their backstory. Where do you go from here? Have you created an emotional bond with them? Do you hear them in your mind, aching for their story to be told? If so, it's time to open up your new document and type the words 'Chapter One.' Good luck!

What Does Your Book Cover Say?

 Let's take a moment to talk about book covers. What does your book cover say to your potential readers? Remember the old adage: Don't judge a book by it's cover? Well... here's some news for you. Readers do.

Your book cover, aside from your title, is a potential reader's first glimpse into your creation. Generally, they see that cover before they ever read the blurb or an excerpt from your book. A properly designed and eye-popping cover can help with potential sales, while a poorly designed or overly-clutter cover can hurt sales.

Your cover doesn't require much text. If you're publishing in print, leave the blurb and the About the Author to the back cover. If you're doing an eBook, leave the blurb where the blurb goes and put the About the Author on the last page of your book. Those have no place on a cover.

A good cover should feature the following text: The title, the publisher (if not self-publishing), the author's name, and - if it is a part of a series - the series name and number. Out of all of these, the title and the author's name should be the most prominent text seen.

None of your text should fully cover the artwork or photography on the book cover. As far as the artwork goes, it should be fully relevant to the material included in your manuscript. There are several sites online that offer free stock photos that you may use on your covers, but remember - those stock photos are available freely to everyone. Try to keep it as original as you can. If you're handy with a camera, shooting your own cover photos can be fun, and it keeps the originality there. If you're a good artist, a nice piece of artwork that demonstrates what the book is about could be an excellent selling point. If you're handy at photo design programs, manipulating artwork or photos can aid you even more.

On that note, if you are not skilled in photo design work, it's best to leave it up to the professionals. There are many affordable book cover design experts out there that would be happy to create a winning cover for your book, but if you try to do it yourself with no skills, it will show and it will not be in your favor. For instance, cropping out different people from different images to use together on a book cover can easily go downhill. There are several things to keep in mind. Each person in those different photos likely had different lighting than the others. Some may be of different quality and might seem grainy or fuzzy when you bring them up to size. Not to mention, the more you add to your cover, the more cluttered that cover becomes.

If you're wanting to use a sexy male model on your front cover, consider visiting a model's website and purchasing an original photo. There are many models with stock photo websites who would be excited to sell you a photo - and usually at a reasonable cost. Often, you can even buy the full rights to that photo to ensure it doesn't pop up on the covers of other authors' works. When you do this, remember to keep the Model as Person in mind. Don't stretch their images and distort them. Humans and animals can be properly resized for a cover without turning them into eggheads.

A good design program that is free for those who cannot afford Photoshop is Gimp. Gimp has been around for years, and it has a learning curve that can easily be learned if you take your time and practice on a few things before actually working on your cover. I use both Photoshop and Gimp for different aspects, depending on what I need done on a cover or photo. Gimp, being free, doesn't offer some of the tools Photoshop has, but it does have other qualities that makes it worth it, and you can create a stunning cover with either one.

Keep in mind that you also don't want your cover to be boring. You want it to stand out from the masses. A naked male torso seems to be the going thing right now, but all that says is 'Hey, there's a hot guy in this book.' Surely, your book is more than just a hot guy. If you want to compete for sales, you must compete. You cannot offer the same mundane design themes that dozens of other titles in your genre are utilizing. Look at your chosen photo or artwork, and then study it. Find the photo within the photo. Maybe you have an image of a beautiful woodland landscape with a running stream and stunning flowers. You don't always need the full image. Find what stands out in your images and crop the rest out. Make the most of every inch of space you have on your cover, so that nothing is wasted. However, remember to not overwhelmingly clutter your cover. It should be seen and understood on first glance.

Also keep in mind your titles. A lot of 'smut' authors that I've seen on sites like Smashwords and Kindle have incredibly long titles. Firstly, titles that exceed more than around five to seven words are likely to cause a reader to stop reading it. Secondly, those long and senseless titles can fully destroy your cover design. The longer your title, the less room you have on your cover to make your artwork standout.

Be creative with fonts, but not too creative. Your text must be readable to the average eye, and they need to be able to read it without struggling to make out the letters. You also want to consider the colors of your design to make sure your lettering pops up from it. Lettering that blends too much with your background is lettering that disappears easily to potential readers.

If you are publishing through a small press and are allowed to design your covers through them, most small presses will provide you with a logo to include on your cover. Check with them on placement before deciding where you think it should go. In most cases, these publishers prefer their logos to be in the same spot on their titles' covers for consistency purposes. It's a rule you don't want to break without permission, else they might take away those cover design privileges from you. When laying out your text on the cover, place their info first on the spot that they prefer. Once that is done, you know what space you have left to play with.

Some authors make their names larger than the title of the book. Some make their names smaller. Some put their names at the top, while others add them to the bottom. I, personally, find that authors' names that are in larger font sizes than the titles of the books are showing off their names more than their creation. My opinion is that the title of your work should be dominant, and your name should be secondary. Everyone wants to see their name on their work and that's fine, but your name should never overshadow what you have created. Find a balance that looks right and feels right.

Like with the work inside of your book, your cover should also be shown to other people for tips and opinions before sharing it with the world. Sometimes, what we think works doesn't work to the person or people who didn't create it. Other people see the flaws in our creations that we, ourselves, do not see. Take their opinions in stride, as they are only wanting to help. Sometimes, a good cover has to be tweaked an awful lot before it is ready to be shown to your reading public. These tweaks are okay. It's like the old saying: Rome wasn't built in a day, and your cover shouldn't be either. Once you've created your cover and once you've shown it to a few people for their opinions, leave it alone for a couple of days and don't look at it. When you finally go back to it, you'll see it with fresh eyes and a fresh mind, and it might seem better - or worse - than you remember it.

Nothing worth doing is worth rushing through. Give your book cover the same love, care, and attention that you give your manuscript, utilize the advice of your colleagues, and don't be afraid to work it and then rework it. Once you've done those things, you'll be golden and you will have created a standout and marketable book cover for your manuscript.

Fad Writing - Profitable... for a Little While

Welcome to Creative Convulsions, where author Jae El Foster will help guide you through the trials and tribulations of the writing process.

For this first entry, I've decided to discuss one of the major fails that many inexperienced authors and those who are wishing to make a quick buck fall into - writing a fad story.

Fads are social elements that do not stand the test of time, even though they are popular with the general public... briefly. Through Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, and other online retailers, I've noticed a new fad - Corona Virus Fiction.

Apparently, the Corona Virus will be around for a bit, but two things happen when you write a novel based solely on something like this. Firstly, you limit your audience mostly to those who are curious and who have the virus on the brain. Secondly, that audience will go away. In five or ten years, if that long, your creation will be outdated and will no longer stand the test of time.

If you're looking to make a quick buck, sure... go for it. Other authors have. There are horror books based on Corona Virus. There are erotica and romance books based on Corona Virus. Titles like these are flooding the market, which means your title will fall into a mix of dozens, and likely soon hundreds, of similar titles.

This brings about an important question. How do you intend for your title to stand out? Sure, this can apply to basically any of the hundreds of romance and horror titles published weekly across the globe. Because of this, originality is the key. With so much competition out there, authors must find a way to be original, to stand out from the crowd, and to offer something long-lasting if they wish to survive in this current market.

Due to certain distribution entities like those mentioned toward the start of this article, we are now in a market that is filled with really great writing, and really horrible writing. Anyone who wants to be a 'published author' can now do so, without the need of any consistency readers, editors, cover design professionals, and people to properly format the book into a readable piece. The days of literary managers and agents seem long gone, which can be good or bad. However, it is the bad stuff being published - rushed books with poor plots and little to no editing - which can harm any other self-published author who has titles in the same genres. Many of these bad authors latch onto current fads and rush books out, flooding the market and burying decent books in their paths.

The way to overcome this is to steer away from fads. Sure, the Corona Virus is out there. That doesn't mean you have to base your new piece of erotic fiction on it. Be original and creative. That's what readers expect from authors. If you want to write about a dominating virus, create one that is original - one that the world never saw coming. You wouldn't write a modern day book about people wearing poodle skirts and attending sock hops, now would you? No, because those were fads, and they are no longer relevant and around in the general public's eye.

Again, originality and outstanding creativity are the keys for success in this business. Like politics, you should look at publishing as 'the game.' Either you're a home-run player in the game, or you're a bench-warmer. Those who hit home-runs have taken the time to practice their trade and hone their skills. Those that warm the benches are known for striking out.

An issue with Fad Writing is that, for the moment, authors can see great immediate sales. Those sales will steadily decrease as a fad wears itself out. A book that stands the test of time is something you can promote five or ten years from now, once a fad has come and gone, and it is still relevant and entertaining.

If you're in the business to make as much money as quickly as possible without the need to sustain the release for years to come, Fad Writing might be for you. Make the money and enjoy it, but don't spend it all. You'll need some of it saved up when sales of your Fad Book drop into obscurity.

Also, to new authors who are ignoring the needs for editors and professional cover designs, remember this. You may be able to fool a reader into buying a book based on an okay cover and a killer blurb, but if your story makes no sense, if it is riddled with errors, and if it is poorly under-developed, you will lose those readers. They will likely not return for your next title, for fear of more of the same. A strong editor is a must to stay in this game, and that editor should never be the author of the book. Editors see what the author doesn't. Beta Readers are also important, as they too catch things the author and editor has missed.

Don't fall into the growing sea of fads and one-shots. Take the time to develop original work, and take the time to make sure it has been properly edited and formatted before you release it to the world. Quick fad sales might sound good, and they might make you see dollar signs at first, but as time has shown over many decades, they will not last. Write lasting material that your readers will cherish for years to come, and those readers will remain faithful.