What Kind of Writer Are You?

I know that for some people, this seems a silly question. Yet, it’s not as easy as people think. It was this question and the answers that resulted in an epiphany for me. Do you know what you write? More importantly, when asked by other writers what you write, can you answer them honestly?

Me, I used to think I was just a romance writer. Then I discovered after some soul searching that I wasn’t. I was something different. The type of writer you are will actually influence your voice and style. Trying to fit into a genre you might not fit in can cause you grief as you struggle with why you seem to have trouble with flow or that editors reject it. Even those who have the best-laid writing goals with leeway can go awry when that happens. Or in my case, they crash upon you until you’re considering giving up writing. The proverbial light bulb went off when I read a recent article on the various categories for the romance genre decided by the Romance Writers of America (RWA www.rwanational.org). Reading the attributes of that category caused me to ask myself, “What kind of writer am I?”

How do you describe the genre you write? Can you tell me what major characteristics your writing voice has? If you’re looking at the fiction writing market, can you give me an example of other authors in your field? Do you know where your voice is strongest when you write a story? What recurring elements seem to come up in your writing?

These were a few of the questions I asked myself when I felt like I had come to a standstill. You’d think I’d have been riding high as I had sold my first book, had a nice contract with the publisher for a couple more. Yet, for all that success, I felt like I was adrift in my writing. For the first time in my life, I had no idea if I could write anything of value or if I could even produce a second book in the series for my contract. It was a surprise to me that the only thing I was enjoying writing were some semi-technical, nonfiction articles. When I mentioned a bit of my frustration to some fellow writers, they wondered if I was burned out with having written so much over a short time period. All I knew was that I felt lost within the genre where I had started my writing career. There had to be an answer to my problem somewhere.

How we perceive ourselves reflects in how we present ourselves to others. When you tell people that you write romance, what qualifiers do you add? When asked what kind of romance you write, how do you describe it? If you write chick lit, what kind do you write? What about suspense? Are there any special elements that regularly appear in your work that establish why you’re in that specific genre or sub-genre? What perception do others get from reading your work?

When I took the time to ask myself those questions, ask friends, and be honest in reading my work, I finally realized that my designation was wrong. Earlier I referred that the shift in my thinking occurred due to an article about the RWA’s new category in promoting women’s romantic fiction. What it did was open my eyes to a simple truth I had overlooked in having my “master plan,” If you hear the name, Nora Roberts, the recognition is that of mainstream romance. The name, Stephen King, brings forth the horror genre. Yet in both of these cases, they have written outside of those genres, sometimes under a pseudonym. Based upon their voice and success, we know their primary niche. We know that they also pen in other genres like science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction, which means that they expanded their niche to include other aspects. So the question is: What is your niche and how much does it encompass?

Niche finding is comparable to discovering your writing voice. Our voice shifts as we grow in our writing. We should expect that as time goes on that we might also expand in other writing directions. In taking an honest look at our prose, we may find that the genre we want to write in might not be the best place to start. This doesn’t mean that we can’t succeed in that area, just that our voice and style have taken us somewhere else for the time being. It might mean that the genre we need to be writing for is one we might be the one we’re avoiding for various reasons.

To see someone take off in another direction during their writing career should make us all question whether or not we’re ready to branch out or change directions. Evaluating our goals and our accomplishments can help in the task. Ask yourself, “Do I find myself bored or worried I’m not going farther in what I’m currently doing?” Some others are, “If I could write anything I wanted, what all would I write?” “Am I writing what I love and could write it for the rest of my life happily?”

In my case, I found myself facing the questions and not enjoying the truth. Why did I feel that way? The answer was comprised of various aspects, but the main one was in how I felt boxed in with what I compose. I felt that my writing wasn’t as good as I thought it should be. Low self-esteem and a fear of being seen as bragging played a big factor. Two friends of mine whom I’d not told of my dilemma until recently helped me to overcome some of those aspects. One had read my book and pronounced he really enjoyed it though it was normally not his cup of tea. The other has always believed in my writing and forced me to think on what was my niche. Truth be told, I was typing away at a nonfiction article when his words sank into my brain and I wondered, “Why am I just a romance writer?”

Lightning crashed outside and the epiphany music crescendoed. My world shifted as the realization occurred that I was only a romance writer because it’s how I saw myself. That was part of that grand goal of mine; I’d first start off in romance, then branch into other genres. What I hadn’t accepted was that the plan had been changed a while back by editor requests for two fantasy novels I had been working on in my spare time. It was a matter of serendipity on how the editor requested them both, but it was enough to cause a cascading reaction which resulted in me clinging to that path out of fear. During the enlightenment, I realized the editor obviously thought enough of my writing in a genre I felt I wasn’t quite ready to enter. Who am I to doubt an editor’s sincere interest? A friend recently asked me what made me think I was a romance writer. There was no good response I could give him. Once again, the truth was forced out into the open. I’m a writer who has romantic elements in her fiction stories. Once I accepted that lovely niche, I realized that it was the perfect fit for who I am.

So how do you discover what’s your niche? It requires that you be honest with yourself. No matter if the answer is something that you feel incapable of doing, it’s important to acknowledge it. Sometimes in taking that initial step, you see the evidence that you were ready but were in denial. Let’s see how to find your niche. You need to answer the following questions honestly. If you find that you’re not sure, ask others who’ve read your material for some assistance.

1. What genre(s) do you mostly read?
2. In that genre, what subgenre do you lean most towards? (Do you read romantic suspense, paranormal romance, erotic romance, high fantasy, urban fantasy, etc.)
3. When you write, what elements occur most often in your writing? (Ex.- paranormal features, hint of mystery, fantasy elements, romance, etc.)
4. Do you find yourself doodling with various ideas that don’t always fit into the same area you want to write?
5. Have you ever felt you were missing something in the stories you’ve created?
6. Have people commented that you should submit to other publishers or write in other genres?

Don’t try to rationalize your answers. It’s extremely important for your success as a writer to be honest with yourself if you’re planning to succeed. The only way to know where you belong is answering truthfully. After you’re finished, read the questions and your answers out loud. Actually hear your words. You might find that there are many things that you seem to enjoy or might be good at. Do you need to branch out because you’ve limited yourself? Or do you have things you could branch out into, but there seems to be too many of them? Consider that some aspects might be related to a specific genre or area. Taking the time to get to the heart of the matter, discerning what you truly want and what you’re good at, you’ll begin to see your current path.
Let’s take a look at my answers and see how I came up with my niche.

1. Romance, paranormal fiction, nonfiction history books, mysteries, erotic romance, crime thrillers, true crime, fantasy, science fiction.
2. Romance- paranormal and erotic. Nonfiction- crime and history. Mystery- forensic science and cozies. Fantasy- sword and sorcery and urban. Science fiction- futuristics, alternate realities.
3. Paranormal, historical references, and forensics, romance elements.
4. Yes. I find myself always going to various ideas outside of the area I target at times.
5. Constantly.
6. Yes, they have.

Looking at my list, I asked myself, “What themes repeated?” Consistently there was mention of history, paranormal, fantasy, crime and romance. Those are the basic interests I enjoy constantly. I asked myself what themes come up most often in my writing. The answer was love and knowledge. Checking my stories, I looked at how many of them incorporated those elements either separately or in combination. As I did that, I noticed a pattern among my themes and those aspects. Patterns help show your natural tendencies. Did I have a lot of writing that didn’t fall into these categories? If so, was it work I was happy with or was I forcing myself to fit into a preconceived perception? Making those connections, I began to see where I needed to focus as well as where I had to accept the truth. My answers gave me the tools to discern my tendencies as well as my interests. No longer was I limiting myself, but instead, I was free to go in directions I had feared to try before. There was a moment when I recognized that I had grown as a writer and I was capable of finishing those fantasy novels I’d been terrified about.

So, what kind of writer are you? What makes your heart sing when the words flow from your fingertips? Have you grown in your writing and in your tastes in what you compose? Most of us do as we learn more about writing. By being truthful in assessing our writing and our preferences, we can begin to see where our niche lies. Remember just as a snail outgrows its home and needs a new one, we too can find ourselves needing to move on in our writing.

Blurb-- It's What Happening!

Blurbs--they can get people reading or they can make people pass on by. Yes, many will tell you that cover alone is the be all end all of your book hooking readers, but many of us are drawn more to titles and blurbs over covers. And even if you have the most kick-ass cover--without a blurb that snares the
attention--you can still lose readers. So, how do you write a blurb that hooks your attention without giving too much away?

First off, there are many kinds of blurbs, not just the one you often read on a back cover. I classify them as High Concept, Back Cover, and the Query/Highlight blurbs. Each of these have a place within publishing both for non-published and published authors. Once you know the basic requirements to write each kind, you'll find that it becomes second nature to you to have each type ready. Let's look at the High Concept blurb first since it's the shortest, and in some ways, the easiest to write.

What does High Concept mean? Simply put, high concept blurbs use already well-known items--books, movies, phrases-- together in combination to showcase the essence of your story. An example is how Gene Roddenberry billed Star Trek to the Desilu executives. He called it "Horatio Hornblower among the stars." This concept caught the executives attention and asked him to explain more about it. Another example is my story called Argent Valkyrie. I call it "Manchurian Candidate meets Star Wars with a twist." If you're familiar with what the stories are about--you then can see the essence of the story being spoken about.

So, how do you write a high concept blurb? Sit down with your story--finished or not, and ask yourself a few questions like: What does this story say in general terms? What movie/book/tv show does this story remind you of. (It can be more than one or two.) Is part of the story the reverse of a story that is out somewhere? By asking yourself these questions, you can now put together a one sentence high concept blurb. Play with it, refine it, watch a few movies or shows to capture the feel of your story better. By having this high concept blurb--we're ready for the next stage: Back Cover Blurb.

I enjoy writing the Back Cover blurb as it's often one of the first things I write while writing the story. It's part of my plotting process and it often is the motivation to keep things on track. In fact, the back cover blurb will lead us to the final blurb-- the query/highlight one as it's a refined version with small changes. So, let's take that high concept blurb as our guide and begin the back cover blurb.

We know the essence of the story, so the next step is what is the crisis/decision moment that forces the protagonist to act? This should be the first sentence of your blurb. In this blurb, I often have one to two paragraphs, each composed of 4-7 sentences. This limits what is included and forces you to think in what I call movie trailer mode.

Movie trailers are one of the best ways to learn how to write back cover blurbs. Listen to them on the radio and watch them on tv. Take notes on what is used as the opening, the middle, the ending hook. These are what comprise the back cover for a story. Though there are many things that make up a book or movie, these three components are always present.

Take your opening sentence. Does it make you go, "Hmm, I wonder what this is about? How did this happen?" If you aren't finding yourself wondering more about the character-- you need a different first sentence. Once you open up with the appropriate attention grabber that sets up the book, usually introducing the main character or at least one of the main characters, you move to the next part. Normally my first two sentences are what constitutes not just the crisis moment, but the main characters first reaction. This allows the readers to identify with the character--even though they don't know much else. Then we go to what I call the interference--why can't the character do what is necessary to fix the situation? What is stopping him/her from moving forward? Normally, I pick one certain thing faced that is a failure or I generalize a couple of incidents that show just what the character/s face and why they're not getting anywhere fast.

Then I bring in the emotions. Why? Because we are emotional creatures and we want to feel the humanity of the protagonists. We want to see them struggle, fall in love, realize that they need something more than what they are at that moment to accomplish their goals. When writing a romance, this is where I mention about the attraction factor, the intimacy, or even being overwhelmed thus causing the next set of circumstances that happen. Once I've done this part--which is often a few sentences, I get to the setup of the black moment/final crisis. When I prepare this part, I often take a few minutes with the story if it's done and reread the first few pages before that moment and through that moment. If the story isn't written, I play my movie trailer in my head, taking down the aspects that make it so intense you need to know what happens after.

Then I fiddle with it a bit, making sure that I don't give away the ending but leave the reader wondering-- "What happens?" Depending on the genre, I often try to form the last sentence or two as questions, bringing the whole story essence into that moment-- "Can they love each other when they find out their love is based on deceit?" "Can he figure out who is behind the murders before the murderer wins the final round by destroying the one person that Jake can't live without?"

By using a strong hook at the end of the back cover blurb, you are leaving the reader wondering, thinking, considering. You're forcing them to speculate without too much information and one thing that never fails when it comes to mankind is curiosity. Make them wonder what the ending is, they'll go around, look at other things, then find themselves back at that book going, "Hmmm how does he resolve this? Can they get through this without losing themselves?" Starting and ending with a hook is one sure way to have your book remembered. If the hook is also catchy--it's one they won't forget and will talk about to other people. Once this is written, I often spend some time revising, tightening, and rewording the blurb until I'm happy with it. This usually involves me reading it out loud, like a movie trailer. If I hear it and I feel excited, then I know that I've got the paciing and flow nailed for the blurb.

This takes us to the final blurb-- the Query/Highlight blurb. Why do I have this one last? For me, this is one of the hardest to write because it's shorter than the back cover blurb yet is the one I use most often when I query publishers, agents, etc. For this blurb, I try to keep it to one paragraph--keeping the opening and if possible, the ending sentences. I go through the rest of the back cover things, removing detailed information and replacing it with generalized overviews. The goal with the query/highlight blurb is to get attention and make them want to hear more about the story. Often times you'll see this blurb in a magazine, front page of an epublisher's website, etc. It's a short 4-6 sentence paragraph that gives you more than the High Concept but less than the Back Cover.

Normally when crafting the query blurb, I remove the emotions sentences and increase the crisis ideas, making the reader antsy and anticipating the meaning of what is going on in the story. A good example is the query blurb for Mark of the Blood, my first Marauder book. Example-- Wrongly cursed by their patron goddess, Morrigu, nine Druid brothers fight the forcesof evil for eternity. Worlds collide as Kirstie Blake and Marauder Dr. Niam Maraigh hunt a rapist and succumb to the Mark of the Blood.

Notice that it not only gives you an overview of the series, but it also hints at what's going to happen within the story without bringing up the details? The goal of the query blurb is to make the person want more. So when you open up the page where Mark of the Blood is--you then read the back cover blurb, which is a bit more indepth and makes you even more curious. See, you're building up the tension in the blurbs. That's the ultimate goal. How does this work?

Someone asks you about the story you're working on. You might say, "It's Underworld meets Merry Gentry with a twist." This is actually the high concept I use for Treaty of Desire. There is more to the story than that, but in essence--it gets the point across. Now you've got someone going, "Tell me more. What do you mean? How is it like Underworld?" This is where you'd break out the query blurb.

"Taja Drevin, a Were-subqueen must learn the ways of the Seelie Fey in exchange for teaching the greatest mage among them how to access the glamour magick the Fey lost for closing the mortal world from Helia, the world all preternatural creatures live. Neither Taja, nor the mage, the heir Adrastai are prepared for the attraction that springs between them. But all is not well during this teaching--someone wants the treaty between the Weres and the Feys broken and they're willing to kill Taja to do just that. Can Taja and Adras discover who is behind the assasination attempts or will the Treaty of Desire be broken thus destroying any hopes of their world surviving mankind rediscovering them when the Gateway opens between the two worlds?"

Notice that now you've given them just enough to tease their attention and whet their appetite without giving out too much detail? My back cover blurb is just a couple sentences longer, speaking about Frelin, Adrastai's brother who is a major pain to Taja as well as the fact that both Adras and Taja are hiding secrets from the other which play factor in when they become lovers. The progression of each blurb helps to not only give snippets of info, but like movie trailers of thirty, forty-five, and sixty seconds--they let you see more aspects of the story without giving away the ending.

Even though people know romance novels will have a Happily Ever After, they still like discovering how they get to that point. It's the journey that people enjoy the most--take that away, then a reader won't bother with your story. But if you hint, tease, and make them wonder how it can be done--they'll pick up your book before they do anyone else's.

Remember-- Blurbs-- it's where it's happening. Without them we'd not get anyone interesting in reading what we write.