Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

017 Build and Grow Your Creative Writing Career with Justin Sloan

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Today I chat with Justin Sloan. He’s a multi-faceted writer with a lot going on. He’s a video game writer(with credits on the Game of Thrones; Minecraft; Story Mode), a novelist(Allie Strom and the Ring of Solomon; Falls of Redemption and more), and he is also a screenwriter(Wrecked and My Husband’s Prego).

Justin also has two nonfiction books on how to take your writing from hobby to career in  Creative Writing Career Book 1 co-authored by Norman Felchle and Creative Writing Career 2, co-authored by Stephan Bugaj. If you want to read his amazing fiction, Justin has the first books in the Ally Strom and Back by Sunrise series FREE. Also, the FIRST 1o People to email Justin – justinsloanauthor (at) gmail (dot) com – will receive a Free Audio book… only available until June 1st. 

You can find more about Justin at his website www.justinsloanauthor.com or you can connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

 Watch the Video Interview

In the Intro I talk about…                                        

Summary of Interview

justin sloan author pic

Justin Sloan is a multi-faceted writer and creative entrepreneur.

Besides writing the books, video games and screenplays above, he’s also co-host of these podcasts: Self-Publishing Answers podcast; Creative Writing Career podcast and Military Veterans in Creative Careers podcast.

 

Here are the highlights of the interview…

  • How he was inspired to start writing his novel because of  a love for Game of Thrones and wrote 160,000 words in 3 to 6 months.
  • How writers need to devote themselves to self-editing: Justin mentions books like The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Volger.
  • He talks about his own story of how he was talking to all these professionals about how to have a life as a creative writer and from that he interviewed these people who were doing it – which became the nonfiction book Creative Writing Career 2.
  • Justin shares how new writers can set up your own career plan and how to put the pieces in place to them moving so you can work toward your career as a creative writer. A big part of that ties into author platform – how you set everything up to represent you.
  • Justin talks about how he began connecting with creative professionals from Pixar and Disney and he says a big part of networking, is how you set up your profile on LinkedIn or other social media. It’s important that your profile and who you are as an author to be focussed as you begin to network with creative professionals.
  • As he took classes on Screenwriting at Johns Hopkins, he fell in love with the craft. He encourages writers to write a screenplay of your book before you turn it into a novel. Tools here are: Final Draft(Mac); Movie Magic Screenwriter; or Amazon StoryWriter.
  • Justin encourages writers to read through good screenplays like Matrix; Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, etc. Analyze them and find your voice. Then work on your own screenplay. He encourages writers to focus their screenplays on 1 or 2 locations and 5 characters or less. There’s more chance your screenplay will be bought that way.
  • Justin recommends that writers do other things that help to contribute to who you want to be as a writer. For example, if you can, go work at one of these literary management companies or Literary magazines are looking for readers. That will open more doors for you.
  • We talk about writers who choose the self-publishing route – which means you’ll do more of the work – but you also have greater control. Self-published authors make a lot more in royalties.
  • I asked Justin to talk about his fantasy novels, and they sound amazing. You can find out more on the Justin Sloan Amazon Author Page.

You can find Justin at www.justinsloanauthor.com. His latest book is Book #2 of the Eternal Light Series. Click here to pre-order Dawn of Destiny.

 

 

 

*Photo Credit: Justin Sloan

*Some of the above links are affiliate links and help to support this blog

3 Groups of Words or Phrases to Edit in Your Novel

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Do you ever find yourself reading through your book and feeling like something is off, but not sure what needs to be changed?

If that’s you, you’re not alone.

When I was going through edits with my editor for my new release, she would send me back comments on word echoes, weasel words, cliches, repetitive words or phrases. She noticed all the things I missed… and there was a bunch of changes I needed to make.

Making changes to all those words you poured hours into creating is no fun… but it is an important part of writing a book readers love.

So, I thought I’d share some of the groups or phrases that keep popping up as I write, that I’ve needed to change or delete.

3 groups of words or phrases

3 Groups of Words or Phrases to Edit in Your Novel

When you discover so much to either change or delete in your novel, it can feel discouraging. And sometimes you might even feel like throwing in the towel ~ if you don’t know what steps to take next.

So here’s 3 ideas that I hope will help you write a un-put-down-able novel:

1.Echo Words and Echo Phrases. These are words or phrases that are repeated 2, 3 or more times in one paragraph, or many times in the same scene. For example, in my recent novel, I repeat the words wink, nervous and anxious a lot. I’m not sure why, but there it is. So I used the thesaurus to find words that relate or I took them out completely and rewrote the sentence.

Here’s an example of Echo Words to watch for: treasured, smirk, wink, anxious, nervous, smile, frown, smile, engulfed, tag, played, playful, washed over(ie. anger washed over her; grief washed over her, etc), harboured, gasp, eventful, grip, pace, shudder, seeped, pace, swivel, turn, look, looked, looks, looking.

When a reader reads these echo words or phrases, they experience a ‘stumble’ in their reading. And as writers our goal is to for the story to flow smoothly and be as compelling as possible.

Some examples of vague, useless or weasel words are: very, wonderful, at all, often, some, maybe, really, however, of course, great, in such a way that, a bit, even, though, not true.

2.Redundant words. These are words that share the same meaning twice…. which is a needless repetition.  For example, look at the phrase sit down: If you are going to sit, then it means you will be down. So you only really need the word sit. These are phrases that we hear all the time and when we write, it’s difficult not to use those redundant phrases.

Here’s some examples of redundant words or phrases: burning hot, honest truth, kneel down, climb up, sit down, stand up, crouch down, flinch back, tall giant, short midget, new recruit, free gift, sad misfortune, close proximity, new innovation, roaring noise, bare naked, completely naked, recur again, cancel out, anonymous stranger, dark-haired brunette, advance planning, true facts, dead body, suffocated to death, live witness, join together, poisonous venom, literate readers, etc.

A great book that helps you cut out extra words is You Can Write a Novel, by James V. Smith, Jr. He talks about how to Gain A Page(GAP) by having a goal to shorten every chapter by a page but cutting out extra words. This is something I want to learn how to do better as I tend to be really wordy when I write.

3.Create White Space on the Page. If you look at bestselling novels, you’ll find a few pages that don’t have as much text as other pages. The writer has created white space on the page. White space is important because it helps to pick up the pace of the story. It gives the reader’s eyes and brain a break. When there’s white space it can also highlight really great writing.

Some good ways to create white space, is by writing quick and brief dialogue. When you have a long section of dialogue with short responses, it creates white space… which can make for snappy reading. You can also add active and compelling body language to create a page-turning story.

Ultimately, we all want stories that start strong and have fresh writing that draws us in… until we type the end.

Easier said than done… I struggle with all three of these.

But I’ve been learning and working on applying these ideas to my work in progress. I hope these editing ideas help you too.

When your story has as few wasted words as possible, then the reader can start at the beginning and read right through to the end, uninterrupted. When each word in your sentence really fits, it’s magical. That’s one of the ways your novel becomes un-put-down-able.

That’s a compelling read.

 

Do you have words or phrase that you need to edit during your rewriting process? What are some of your tips for making your writing fresh? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments… let’s learn from each other 😉

 

 

 

*Some of the above links are affiliate links and help to support this blog

014 Learn the Magic Building Blocks that Persuade People to Take Action with Ray Edwards

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On this week’s podcast I had a great chat with Ray Edwards. Ray is a communications strategist, a copywriter, a speaker over at www.rayedwards.com. He hosts one of the top iTunes business podcasts. His clients include Michael Hyatt, Tony Robbins, Jeff Walker and many other bestselling authors and successful entrepreneurs.

To sell your products and services online, you must be able to write persuasive web copy. Ray is one of the highest-paid advertising copywriters, provides a step-by-step, fill-in-the-blanks system for writing persuasive copy for websites, sales and promotions. Ray’s sales copy is amazingly effective – having sold an estimated $200 million in products and services over the last 5 years. He shows you how, step-by-step, you can use the same methods he does in his new book How to Write Copy That Sells .

Ray also has a online course – Copywriting Academy – which includes a step-by-step blueprint on how to write emails, blog posts or anything else that sells your books or products. Right now – for a limited time – Ray has a new short but powerful ebook he’s offering for FREE called, The ONE WORD That Doubles Your Sales.   Connect with Ray on Twitter.

Here’s some Resources I’ve found helpful lately…

1.Writing Active Hooks Book 1: Action, Emotion, Surprise and More by Mary Buckham. This is a great reference on how to write riveting sentences that draws readers into your story.

2.Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers. In this book, Derek tells his story of how he started, grew and eventually sold CD Baby for $22 million. My biggest takeaway from this books: “If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff.” Derek Sivers.

3. Last chance to register for Ray Edward’s Copywriting Academy is Friday, April 15th. If you want a better idea of how to write emails that can change your world and attract double the readers to your website and email list… don’t wait. It’s available for just a few days.

Also, my newest novel is available on Amazon.  Anchoring Annaveta(Russia to Canada Trilogy – Book 2) is a Historical Romantic Suspense set in 1914 – 1917 Russia 😉

Summary of the Interview…

*Ray explains that copywriting is writing words that persuade people to do something, buy something or believe something. Copywriting is persuasion in print. Nowadays its print on our digital device, on websites and even on our watches.

*Everything on your website – your about page, your blog posts, your podcasts, your emails – is ALL copy. Every word you write should be from a perspective of strategy. Strategy is the overarching approach you take to achieving an objective. Strategy is that you want to write to influence. If you’re an author who writes stories – then your strategy is – you want everything else you write to draw people in to buying your books and reading your stories.

*When you think about your About page on your website, Ray says to ask yourself what if this is the only words of mine that people will ever read?  Will it lead them to read the next thing or will they click away in 5 seconds, only to be gone forever?

*A great goal for writers, is to have everything they write to be for strategic influence. So if you have a specific goal in mind for selling a certain book or online course, etc.,

“When you’re marketing your business or books, everything you do ought to point back to everything else you do.” Ken Davis

*The Magic Building Blocks: Sales Letter is your conversation written out – thinking about all the questions your potential client will ask.

6 Building Blocks to Build any short(even 1 paragraph) or long Persuasive Message. Ray calls it the P.A.S.T.O.R. framework:

Original meaning of Pastor was Shepherd – someone who takes care of and protects his flock. Think of that imagery as you’re writing persuasive copy. You are shepherding people to truly get to a place where they pick the right answer for themselves, whether it’s yes or no.

When you have that approach – and come from that place in your thinking – you never come off as pushy or sleazy.

Ray uses the Acronym P.A.S.T.O.R.

P. = Person, Problem and Pain: Start by identifying the person you’re writing the message to. The problem you’re helping them solve and the pain that, their problem causes. If you’re a fiction writer, what problem are you helping them solve? You might think there’s no problem for fiction. But, for fiction writers, the problem you are solving for readers, could be that they want to escape from their day-to-day life, to be inspired or to learn. You are solving a problem in fiction: need to be entertained;  need to escape; boredom with your own life; or for readers who suffer from a malady or illness and can’t go anywhere to be entertained so they read books.

A. = Amplify the consequences of NOT solving the problem: How many times have you heard someone say: if you read one thriller this year, make sure it’s this one. They are amplifying the fear of missing out.  Aspirations: if you long for or enjoy living an adventurous life through books.

S. = Story, Struggle, Solution and System: If you’ve written a story, you’re selling the first part of a story. ie. all movie trailer start with: in a world where no one understands…  A movie trailer is a great microcosm of how we sell story to an audience. We make them curious. We have to know what happens next to keep readers/listeners interested. Solution and System: this speaks more to someone who is selling a product or service – like an editor; or design covers or a publisher – you are selling a service and a product to people. You might sell the story of your struggle. If you have edited a ton of books and you figured out a system to make good books better, then you might come up with a book called… e.g. Story Grid.com by Shawn Coyne.

T. = Transformation and Testimony: Talk about how life will change if you read this book, buy this product or engage your services. How you’ll be able to save time, money and achieve their goals. Testimony is where others tell the story of how the product or service was helpful to them. Human nature is that we look to these testimonies of people we know, like and trust to give us a recommendation.

O. = Offer: The offer is where you let people know: this what I have to sell you. Buy this book and go on this adventure with these characters; or buy this book and learn how to edit your book.  The mistake people make is they think they are selling “the thing.” e.g. The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne – he  knows he’s not selling a book – no one woke up this morning to say I want a couple hundred page book on editing. Rather writers of fiction are wanting a book that will transform their story that editors and publishers and readers will be drooling over to get their hands on. It’s all in my book; or my online course, etc. People buy the journey – the destination.

R. = Response: This is the part people mess up most often.  They don’t ask for a response – the sale. So what you should do now, is buy this book; or hire me. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

Take that formula above, and you can write a blog post, write a sales letter and it will be super persuasive.

*Watching Movie Trailers can help you learn how to sell the story.

Ray came up with the term Dominant Story Idea(DSI) that he found in Movie Trailers.

The best and the most successful Movie Trailers do 3 things: 1) First give you what the story is about (DSI) e.g. Batman and Superman will fight 2) Offer a sample of the feelings you’ll get when you watch the movie itself.  3) Provide you with proof that the movie works. e.g. The Firm starring Tom Cruise. 1) A young lawyer passes the bar, gets his dream job and a fancy job and it seems too good to be true… it is – he’s working for the mob. 2) Mitch McDeere is innocent – he wants status – he’s getting money and power – then he gets into scary trouble. Every story has these same elements. 3) Prove this movie works: compelling scenes and in the background we hear ominous music and know bad things are about happen. We get the feeling that we have to know what happens.

You can do the same thing with your story idea. 1) Showcase your dominant story idea.  2) Give sample feelings – in your copy show samples or tell stories about your product or direct their imagination to show them in the end state that your product provides. ie. James Patterson – you’ll get certain feelings from reading his books.  3) Prove that your story works. Samples, screenshots, celebrity endorsements, etc. Need to have an online presence so that readers get to know you.

If you’re an indie author you are your chief marketer for your books.

*Ray says that you need to learn how to speak to your specific audience, but this type of formula for copywriting will work for any business. The basics structures of psychology are the same. Most people are drawn toward pleasure and are repelled from pain. Most people are more willing to listen to a story than to facts and data.

Every communication we have is an attempt to persuade people in some way. In some way we are persuading people everyday. The question is whether we are doing it consciously or unconsciously. That they can or should do something. Even when we are talking to our teenager that they can make the varsity squad, or when you are dating someone – you are selling yourself to them.

The truth is you need to learn how to persuade people to take the action you want them to take. The way to do that is to learn the art and craft of writing copy. Learn how to invite people into the story of your product. e.g. All Marketers Tell Stories by Seth Godin. Tell them the story in such a way that people see themselves in the story as the hero winning the day. If we can do that, they will buy.

The biggest mistake people make when they are writing copy, is not writing from the viewpoint of the reader. When you’re writing copy, imagine how old they are; what does their house look like; where do they work; what do they do for fun; is their house quiet or noisy; Then ask yourself what kind of state of mind will they be in when they read your email.  It’s similar to when you’re talking to someone who seems to be reading your mind.

Learn to Write from your reader’s perspective. And remember that the READER is the hero of the story. 

It’s really about learning the art of listening.

The big key is to learn to understand your audience better. 

To find out more about Ray Edwards and what he’s got going on go to his website www.rayedwards.com. Also click this link if you want the free training and ebooks he has available right now.

What was your biggest aha moment from Ray’s tips on copywriting? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

 

*Photo Credit: www.rayedwards.com

*Some of the above links are affiliate links and help to support this blog

 

013 Lorna Faith on How to Uncover the Author Inside You Interviewed by Parker J Cole

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This is an interview I had with Parker J. Cole on BlogTalkRadio PJC Media a little over a week ago. It is all about the process of getting past the fear of writing and getting your ideas from the page into book form.  I am still learning, so I hope this interview helps you too. You can follow Parker J. Cole on Twitter.

In the Update I mention helpful resources for writers:

  • Daring Greatly  by Dr. Brene Brown. This is a book that helped me to unlock creative blocks and understand how to have compassion on myself as a writer. It is so helpful to getting past writing blocks, fear insecurity and many other forms of resistance that we face as writers.
  • Iterate and Optimize: Optimize Your Creative Business for Profit by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant and David Wright. This book really helps writers to understand how to grow their creative business wisely. How to 1)do a self-assessment so you can lay a solid foundation to improve yourself as a authorpreneur 2) learn by example 3)steps to take to optimize your business so it’s more profitable 4) lessons learned from other successful authors.
  • I also mention my online course for first-time writers or for writers struggling to get their books written, formatted and self-published. You can find more details at https://www.writeandpublishyourfirstbook.com.

Also, I’m excited that my next book in the Historical Romance series – Anchoring Annaveta – will be released April 1, 2015… that’s tomorrow!

I hope these resources are helpful to you. Please add your comments or questions below… I’d love to hear from you 😉

In this Podcast, you will learn:

About me and my own story of overcoming resistance and self doubt and why I started this blog and the Create A Story You Love Podcast.

  • How you can know if you are a writer inside
  • What is stopping you from writing your book and how an elementary teacher’s negative words stopped me from writing for over 20 years)
  • Steps you can take to help you give yourself permission to use your creativity
  • 3 Ways that you can tap into your creativity
  • How having a deadline can help you to finish the book you are writing or want to write
  • The aspects of a good story that grab your attention
  • 4 Part Story Structure and how this structure helps you to write popular genre fiction
  • Some tropes to great stories
  • I share how since I started blogging I share my writing and indie author journey and how my posts reflect what I’m continually learning.
  • that it’s okay to give yourself permission to make mistakes. That sometimes what it takes to learn and grow is for you to be a ‘not-so-good artist for awhile so you can be a good artist later.’
  • How by writing with vulnerability, helps us to understand ourselves and helps us to overcome fear and unbelief in ourselves and our ability to write the story we love.

How did you know you were a writer? Please share! I’d love to hear your story in the comments 🙂

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