Tag: planning

Categories
Writing

Watched planning your series for NaNo

Watched PLANNING YOUR BOOK SERIES (for NaNoWriMo) from YouTube

Our Preptober continues with a discussion of how to plan for NaNoWriMo when you’re writing a series. Whether you’re on the very first book or you’re deeper i…

Tone should stay consistent between books — think about what emotional experience you want your reader to feel

Keep your ideal reader in mind — meet their expectations with consistency in the books in the series

In your Story Bible, take note of where each character left off in the last book / last we saw them — and what arc they’ve already experienced so you don’t repeat it

Track *all* of your characters not just POV, and consider who makes sense to show up in this book

Keep track of which questions remain open and which have been closed so far, and consider which you want to close in this book

Consider whether you need to “bring new people to town” to set up future POV characters

Categories
Writing

Watched How to Write a Novel from Scenes

Watched How To Write A Novel From Scenes Writing Great Scenes Video 5 from YouTube

I’m so excited for this video, because it’s the most in-depth and specific I’ve ever gotten in explaining how I go from a spark of an idea to a full-length novel.

TimeStamps:
0:00 Intro
2:18 Get An Eagle Eye View
6:06 Brainstorm Scenes
10:23 Fill In The Gaps
11:19 Example of Scene Cards
21:45 Start Writing
30:20 Final Thoughts

  • pair the most dramatic genre moments with the big plot points

Ideas for brainstorming scenes:

  • imagine imagery
  • imagine the character going through their life
  • what are the obstacles between the pair?
  • when is their first kiss?
  • when do they tell each other they love each other?

Make sure you know the hook of the scene, and the outcome of the scene to work towards as you write

After writing each scene, check in with your outline and see if it needs an adjustment / another scene inserted

Categories
Writing

Watched plan your novel for NaNoWriMo

Watched How to Plan Your Novel for NaNoWriMo from YouTube

You can plan your characters, your setting, your “rules” of the magic system or world. You can pre-plan any research or decisions that need to be made about the world you’re writing in (or the city, time period, etc.).

> what scenes do I already know, by act?

> think of transition between acts as “doorway of no return”

Categories
Writing

The first book in a successful series

Liked Planning a Series by Zoe YorkZoe York (romanceyourbrand.com)

Rule #1: Make the first book the most universally enjoyable trope possible from your list of ideas.

Categories
Fun Places Travel

Find cool places to stop on long drives

Bookmarked Make My Drive Fun (makemydrivefun.com)

Waypoint pop-up looks a little buggy but worth checking for road trip / trip planning ideas 💡

Categories
Getting Shit Done

Breaks scale up with project duration

Liked The Longer It Takes, The Longer-Longer It Takes by Uri (Atoms vs Bits)

Here’s two intuitions I have:

Almost-everything takes longer than I think it will
Longer things take disproportionately longer than I think they will

I think many of my projects take longer than planned not because the work itself takes longer than I think it will, but because of long stretches of time where I do nothing at all — something comes up, weeks go by, and suddenly I realise I’ve made no progress at all on that-thing-I-was-working-on.

Yep, that rings true 😂

Categories
Entrepreneurship Marketing Writing

Listened to Starting a Series from Scratch

Listened SFA 105 – How We Would Start from Scratch Writing/Publishing Books Today by LindsayLindsay from 6figureauthors.com

On this week’s show, Andrea, Jo, and Lindsay shared what each of them would do if they were new authors starting from scratch today with the knowledge and experience they’ve gained over their ten-plus-year publishing.

If you write across genres / with different pen names, be careful about telling the other genre readers to not ruin your “also boughts” and ARC early reviews

Try to write a reader magnet that will relate to all the books in the series

Write first three books before releasing — especially useful in sci-fi with extensive worldbuilding

Series of three 65-75k books (maybe on shorter side) — rapid release, 3+ weeks apart (or 1 week then 3 weeks) — then release another set of series with a slightly different look / angle to see what works better

Be sure to pick genre that length works

Research keywords to see what people are looking for

Research tropes of the genre and what people like (focus on what readers like rather than what you like)

Don’t do cliffhanger, but have a throughline mystery / story — maybe plan for six book series

Consider single POV for faster writing

At end of book, ask for review, promote newsletter with freebie

Prequel novella — free via newsletter — book funnel

Six-email automation series: freebie, followup to make sure they got it, invite to Facebook group, let them know about next book, ask for a review, invite to ARC team, could have preview chapter for next book

Website – page for each book with a sample chapter

Worth hiring editors — early books maybe do light editing to save money — spend a lot of time getting the story and writing in a good place

Website and newsletter most important marketing pieces when first starting out, could focus on those before social media

Advertising really important now, Amazon really competitive

Pricing strategies: Permafree tie-in story after three books? Permafree first book and two at full price ($3.99 probably for 80k book)? 99c first book, full price next books? 99c current release, full price other books in the series?

Just because you do rapid release doesn’t mean you’ll instantly have success

Categories
Marketing Writing

Listened to Writing Series That Sell

Listened SFA 060 – Writing Series That Sell with Sara Rosett by LindsayLindsay from 6figureauthors.com

We talked about the types of series, how many books to write in a series, and how to market it depending on whether you’re in all the bookstores or exclusive to Amazon.

Batch writing books can let you make lots of connections and drop clues in the books

Duets = two book series, basically only in romance

Cliffhangers – readers hate them but do increase read-through – best to only do if you can either have the next book on preorder or can say you’re working on it and will be out at x date

Can think of longer series as sets of linked trilogies, do smaller arcs within them, change themes

Trello can be used for story bible

Not that expensive to hire someone to create a story bible for you

If series isn’t going well after three books maybe wrap it up

Long pre-orders to judge interest (can compare btw books if pre-order length is similar)

Also can use demand for Goodreads giveaways (20-30% read-through on free books is good)

Market series that must be read in order by promoting book 1, sales or permafree

Bundles – could bundle books 1-3 once books 4-6 are out; could bundle your whole series once all books are out; could bundle all your related short stories and novellas; could bundle all your book 1’s

Categories
Finances

Financial planning tool

Bookmarked On Trajectory (ontrajectory.com)

Put Yourself on a Path
to Financial Freedom

The plans you make today can move you toward the future you seek—or not. OnTrajectory is a quick and easy way to move yourself forward, and prepare for life’s bumps and detours.

Categories
Resources and Reference Websites

Planning for your digital files after you die

Bookmarked Home – Digital Legacy Management (Digital Legacy Management)