Hello and welcome back to the Fiction Author Business School Podcast.So glad you guys decided to come listen to me drone on today.
So this week I am doing, I am reteaching my character workshop which is entitled How to Write Characters That Jump Off the Page Without guessing, being cliche, or banging your head against the wall.
Kind of a mouthful, I know, but it very well conveys what I'm teaching in there.I taught it about a month ago, and I'm teaching it again because it went so well.And that workshop is ongoing as I record this.
So the first thing that I taught was kind of a training on mistakes that people make that are making fiction writing so much harder than it has to be.
It is technically entitled five mistakes, but I also gave two bonuses just because I like to over deliver.So there's actually seven mistakes total that I talk about.
Now this is similar to a podcast that I did a month or two ago where I talked about five mistakes, but they're slightly different too.So there's a little bit of overlap there.
I decided that I wanted to, because it's such a good training, it's so full of really good nuggets and things that are just important for you to understand if you really want to make a go of your writing.
So I wanted to go ahead and post that as just that first training we did as a podcast.But the problem is it was really, really long.And I know you guys are not a fan of super long podcasts.So I'm actually going to divide it into three.
It went about 90 minutes and that way you're only getting like three 30 minute podcasts.It won't be directly into 30 minutes exactly for each one because I need to find a good place to
divide them but it'll be about that it'll be about 30 minutes apiece um so yeah i'm gonna go ahead and let you dive into the first section of it and i'm going to post them three consecutive days you'll actually get three podcasts this week which is a lot more than usual but um just kind of the way that we're rolling this week because we're doing the character workshop if you want to get in on that character workshop you still can okay it's going on right now there are replays so you've already missed um
like the first day training but that's what I'm going to put on the podcast so if you listen to the podcast you'll get that first training anyway.
The second training is called the real difference between flat characters and unforgettable characters and how to harness it.The third training we're going to do it's a four-day workshop so it's one training each day.
The third training is entitled, Are You Accidentally Making Your Characters Boring and How to Fix That.
And then the fourth one is, oh I'm blanking on the title of it, it's something about how to write bestsellers on purpose for the rest of your life, something like that. So anyway, I'm not putting all of the trainings on the podcast.
I'm only doing the mistakes training over the next three days.So if you still want to get in on those trainings, you absolutely can.
Even if you can't make it live because you just are doing something else, working or something, there is a replay link.But in order to get the replay link, you have to register.Otherwise, I don't know where to send the link.I need your email address.
So if that is something you want to do and you want to get in on this free training, you can.And the replays will be available for probably about five days after the end of the training, which is this Thursday.
So even if you're coming to it on the last day, you'll still have four or five days after that to rewatch the trainings.
So in order to register, just go to bit.ly forward slash unforgettable characters and register there and then you can get the replays of the trainings.Meanwhile, let's jump into the first few mistakes that we're talking about.
This is called five mistakes you're probably making that make character creation unnecessarily hard.You're also gonna get two bonus mistakes, just because I like to under-promise and over-deliver, but overall, there's five and then two bonus ones.
So I'm gonna quickly tell you what they are, and then we're just gonna jump into them.They are not being intentional with your writing, thinking that free online writing advice will help you write a bestseller.
Don't worry, I'm gonna explain all of these.Not understanding the real reason that readers buy by your books, not understanding the invisible and foundational aspects of writing, pantsing without direction or plotting with your conscious mind.
And then the two bonuses are not harnessing all three levels of emotion and not using belief alignment to achieve your desires.So I know that's a lot of big words, but just bear with me, I'm gonna walk you through these.
Okay, so first of all, before we get into the mistakes, I wanna give you a couple of definitions just so that you know what I'm talking about as we go through.
First of all, I always tell people that I teach authors how to write what I call six-figure stories, but I need you to understand that a six-figure story is not necessarily defined by what the story brings to you.So it's not defined by what
necessarily you make on the story.It's defined by what the story has the potential to be based on how well the story is told and how well the narrative is written.
So you could write a six-figure story, quote-unquote six-figure story, that doesn't bring in six figures because you never actually publish it.But by my definition, which I'm going to give you here in a minute, it would still be a six-figure story.
You can also write a six-figure story that doesn't bring in six figures because it's not very well marketed.We all know that there are really good stories out there that don't make very much money because they're not well marketed.
And on the flip side, there can be really good marketing to where somebody sells a lot of a book up front because their marketing is dialed in, but the book is so poorly written, it is not a six-figure story, that after that they never sell another copy again because everybody who bought it or downloaded it and read it didn't really like it, right?
So you kind of have to understand that there is the writing and then there is the marketing, but a six-figure story specifically is based on how well it is written. Okay, so there's basically three aspects to a six-figure story.
For my definition, in order for your story to qualify as a six-figure story, it needs to have these three things.It is going to sell well, okay, and bring in royalties for you, but it doesn't necessarily have to be six figures.
This is just a book that readers see it, and they are willing to buy it. Second, it needs to stand the test of time.So I want you guys to start thinking about this because it's something that not a lot of authors think about.
There are some books out there that are very high selling.Romance genre is one that's well known for being very high selling, right?We have very voracious readers in the romance genre.They can read five to 10 books a week in some case, okay?
So you can definitely make money selling those kinds of books.And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.If that's what lights you up, then I'm here to support you and you do that.
But there is just one thing that I want you to think about, and that is simply that a book that is consumed that quickly by the reader is generally not retained by the reader.It doesn't stick around.It doesn't stand the test of time.
I'm talking about the kinds of books that, yes, they tend to be very mainstream now, but even the classics, even though they're a little hard to read, admittedly, because very often they're written in Old English, they stand the test of time because of the story.
Shakespeare, right? Dickens.These kinds of things affected people on a deep level because of what actually happens in the story and because of how well written the characters were.
And so even though they're a little bit hard to read now because we speak and write differently, they have still standed, stood, sorry, the test of time.
And again, going back to the books that are read very voraciously and very quickly, again, it's not a bad thing and you can definitely make money doing that.But those books are read in a day or two and forgotten.
And that is, again, it's not a bad thing if that's what you want to write, but that is not what I consider a six-figure story.
A six-figure story is one that is going to stand the test of time because it really creates deep emotion in people and they will remember it.
Our goal in writing six-figure stories is to write characters and plots as well, the whole story, that will live rent-free in your reader's heart and mind for a long time, if not forever.Okay, that is a six-figure story.
And it has the potential to bring in six figures for you due to the fact that it creates deep catharsis for the reader.
Okay, again, it's something that makes them feel something, and that more than anything else is what's going to lead to you making money on your fiction writing.But we're going to get into these things in a little more detail as we go along.
So I just want you to understand that definition of what a six-figure story is when I talk about it.The second definition is what I call a soul story. A soul story comes from your unique well of creativity.
It's going to come from your subconscious mind, from your soul, from your spirit.It is a passion story for you to write.If you are trying to chase a trend and are not passionate about what you're writing, that is not a soul story.
You can write that story, and I can pretty much guarantee it's not going to do very well, but you can write it.But I'm looking for a passion story.So when I say soul story, this is what I mean.
And finally, it needs to be written in a way that will help you connect with your reader by bringing them catharsis.So you're probably starting to see some similar themes here, and we're going to get into more detail.
You'll understand these things a lot more by the time we get to the end of the presentation.So we are about to go into the seven mistakes.Again, it's five plus the two bonus.
But before we do, I also want to say that I don't actually love calling them mistakes.I do that because that's just the lingo that we use, right?
But what we're going to go over today are actually more just like common things that authors do that keep them stuck, or maybe things that they don't do that they should, right?
But these are things that can definitely be improved upon and pretty easily to make your writing journey a little bit easier.In truth, there are no mistakes, okay?None whatsoever.
Anything you've done, tried, experienced, experimented with, or explored to further your writing up to this point was absolutely necessary to your success.It's just you on your own journey figuring it out.
In fact, everything you've done, I would argue, has led you here to me, to this workshop, so that you can finally start to perfect your story and your characters and your writing process in a way that feels natural and truly fun.
Okay, we all know that writing is hard work and all of us are going to have brain cramps at some point, right?But overall, writing should be really fun and
I hesitate to use the word easy only because everybody defines that differently, but it should feel pretty natural, okay?It shouldn't feel like you're beating your head against the wall all the time.
If that's what you're doing, I mean, my instinct is to say you're doing it wrong.Is there really right or wrong in writing?I don't know, but you can definitely make it easier for yourself.And that's where I come in.
That's what I'm here to help you do is just to make it feel easy and fun and kind of effortless and natural.
I know that you've hit obstacles along the way, but it's through those obstacles, which are really moments of growth, that you discover your true fiction writing strength and resilience.
So I just want you to remember that as we head into the workshop, okay?Throughout this workshop, I'm gonna give you a peek into fiction writing techniques that you've probably never used before.
Literally, I do not know of anybody that teaches fiction writing the way that I do.So I'm just gonna invite you to make the next four days an experiment. excuse me, just go along with me, do the work, and see what happens.
I think you're probably going to be pleasantly surprised at how liberated you feel in your creativity by the end of the workshop.
So even though this might be somewhat counterintuitive sometimes, and it won't be that counterintuitive, but just in the sense that maybe you haven't done it this way before,
I have literally never found anyone who fully rejected it and thought it was a terrible way to write fiction.In fact, pretty much all of my students go, wow, that was so fun.
I have never done it that way before, and I can't believe how much more I know about my characters now.So that's more than likely going to be how you feel too. I am not going to ask you to show up perfectly.
I know you're all busy and you're working around things.And again, thank you so much for being here live.Those of you who aren't giving me your time, I know that's not always easy, but I am going to ask you to embrace your imperfect humanness.
I ask that you be courageous in your writing this week and as fully present as you possibly can be.And most important of all, that you have fun and enjoy the journey.With all that said, let's begin.Okay.
The number one mistake that many new writers make, especially, is not being intentional in their writing.Now, let me start by clarifying that I am not talking about plotting versus pantsing or discovery writing here.
We are going to get into those things a little bit more in a few minutes.But whether you're a natural pantser or an outliner, you can still be intentional. We're gonna kind of talk about stages a little bit for these different mistakes.
And stage one is just, I have a story in mind and I want to try and write a book.That's it, okay?When you first conceive of it, when you first say, you know, I'm actually gonna try and write this thing down.
How many of you have heard the advice, just start writing?Tell me in the chat, how many of you have heard that?Yeah, probably most of you, right?So, It might be the worst advice anyone can give you.And don't get me wrong, there is some value in it.
I get it.The people who tell you this, they're trying to be helpful, right?And there's something to be said for getting into the mindset of continually putting things down on the page. because very often we're afraid just to get started.
And that's usually what people are trying to get you to do when they tell you to just start writing.But I'm going to give you an analogy here.This was something I didn't have the time to write completely down as I recreated these slides.
But I want you to imagine an architect, OK?He is building an office building.And do you think that an architect could build that building perfectly without any kind of blueprint or instructions?
you think that's very logical that an architect could do that.You might even say something like, well, if he's really good at what he does, if he's really experienced, if he's done this a bunch of times, then maybe.Yeah, sure.
Then maybe a really experienced architect is going to be very intuitive about things and he's going to be able to keep a lot in his head and know where things go, but things are still going to get forgotten.
They're going to slip through the cracks and
Here's maybe the most important thing for you to know, and that is that the more experienced the architect, the more times they have built something, the more buildings or houses or whatever it is they have built, the more sure they are that they need that blueprint.
So you will not find experienced architects that do not have extremely detailed blueprints for what they're doing, okay?The same thing is true of your writing.
the most people start out not being intentional because we're just trying to put our story down on the page.Right.And that's we all do that.You know, I did that.
But when writers become more seasoned and the more they write, they start to realize that they want to plan things in advance.
And the reason is just to save themselves time, usually so that they're not spending so much time just trying to figure out their story.OK, so, again, you want to make sure that you're being intentional.
Intentional writing, I want you to understand, doesn't make you less creative.It actually enhances your creativity.Our creativity thrives the most within loose constraints.
And we already have these constraints in writing, things like genre and tropes and themes, right?So I don't want you to be worried about being intentional and that it's going to affect your writing negatively.
It's literally not possible for me or anyone to stifle your creativity. I'd have to be like Big Brother and be able to get into your head and control your thoughts in order to do that.
I want you to think of your creativity like walking through a network of caves.These caves are yours.You created them.They represent your creative mind.
Now, I can't make you move through the caves, I can't choose what direction you go, and I can't change the structure of the cave, again, because they're your caves, they're your creation.But by using a little bit of intentionality,
and helping you plan certain elements of your story, I can guide you to the places where the cave just opens up in front of you, and that's really fun and really empowering, and it's really exciting when that happens for you in your writing, okay?
So I want you to try and be intentional, and there are elements of your story that I want you to plan before you start writing.Now, notice I didn't say you're going to outline.That's not what we're talking about here.These are two different things.
You can plan something about your story and still pants your story if that's the way that you prefer to do it.Okay, so it's not creating an outline.
I'm talking about planning aspects of your story that will guide you as you pants your story or as you outline your story if you're an outliner.Okay, so just understand they're two different things. Now, what are these elements you should plan?
I'm not going to go into them in a lot of detail right here.
We're going to get into some of them for the homework today, but we're going to go into them in a lot of detail in days two and three as we move through the workshop, okay, because that's kind of what the workshop is for, is to show you how to do certain things that will really give you a leg up in your writing.
All right, so the next mistake.Thinking free online writing advice will help you write a bestseller. I don't think I wrote this whole thing down.Let's see.Well, we're moving into stage two here.So remember stage one was just, I want to write a story.
I'm going to try and write it down.Stage two is realizing maybe you need some help writing your stories.Maybe you need to know a little bit more about Storycraft in order to make your story better.
So you say, let's see what free information I can find online.So tell me if you've ever had this experience before.You start,
by maybe Googling something you're looking for, like how to write a great character, or how to make your characters three-dimensional, or something like that.
And you start finding all these writing blogs that are free online about how to write characters.And you start reading them, and they might even have some pretty good information.
They might even have a few things that make you go, oh, that's a good idea.I'm going to incorporate that.I need to do that for my character.And you start doing it.
But then the problem is that at the end of the day, you still don't have a step-by-step plan. Plugging in some things that are giving you good ideas.But more than that, there's links in these articles to other articles that also sound pretty good.
And so pretty soon you're kind of going down this rabbit hole and you're reading article after article and you have 57 tabs open.
your head starts to spin, and your brain starts to cramp, and it is good information, don't get me wrong, but by the end of the day, you just feel like you've spent all day doing this, or however long you did it for, and you still are not exactly sure how to write a great character, which is what you were looking to find out anyway.
Has anyone ever done that before, had that experience before, and kind of gone down that rabbit hole?Who hasn't heard that yet?I'm looking at some of your comments here. Numerous times, yep.Many rabbit holes, uh-huh.Yep, in there, guys.
We've all done it.And it's not, even though we might get some good ideas, it's not terribly fun.So yeah, me too, a lot.Here's the thing.
As I said, we might find nuggets that are really helpful, but beyond those nuggets, and honestly, in spite of them, following free online writing advice may be the slowest path to bestsellership.And let me explain why.
All right, this is my bacon cheeseburger analogy.If you don't like bacon cheeseburgers or you're a vegetarian or something, substitute, just take a minute and think of like your favorite food that makes your mouth water when you're hungry, okay?
I'm going with the bacon cheeseburger. we're gonna say that I want a bacon cheeseburger, okay, I want the experience, you might say, of eating one, but I don't really want to fully commit to that experience yet.Why?
It doesn't really matter why, I have my reasons, right?
Either I'm not hungry enough for it, maybe I don't trust the person who's making it, not that it would be like harmful to my health, but just that they won't make it the way I want it to be made, maybe I don't want to pay for it, maybe I
Maybe I'm doubting it's the food I really want.Like, do I want that?Do I not?You know, something like that.Whatever the reason, I just don't want to fully commit to the experience yet.But I do still want to have the experience.
So I decide that I'm going to try and manufacture that experience by eating the free morsels that other people who have committed to the experience of the bacon cheeseburger have cast off.
Now it might be different depending on what food you're thinking of, but for the bacon cheeseburger, the castaway morsels I can get from other people is probably pretty much just crumbs or small pieces of the hamburger bun, okay.
And maybe those crumbs really are delicious, you know.Maybe they've touched the meat or gotten some cheese or some bacon grease on them, so they're good, you know.But it's still not the same thing as eating a bacon cheeseburger, right.
Those crumbs might be super delicious, but it's not the same experience as biting into an actual bacon cheeseburger where you get everything, the bacon, the beef, the lettuce, the tomato, the crunch of the onion, the mayo, the ketchup, the mustard, or whatever your condiments of choice are, right?
So let me ask you this, is it really logical to think that I can duplicate the experience of eating a real bacon cheeseburger just by picking up the crumbs that others have left behind?No, probably not.
But this is what you're doing, whether you realized it before or not, when you're reading online writing advice.
You're just picking up morsels that others are giving you, but it's not indicative of the true whole body of knowledge you need to be able to write a six-figure story.
In fact, most free online writing advice is really just surface-level stuff that's been regurgitated by hundreds, if not thousands, of blogs.And in our day, it's what the AI is now picking up on and regurgitating to, okay?
And again, it's not that it's incorrect or that it's bad advice, it's just way too general to be of any use to you.
So one more analogy, let's say that you have something you need to fix, and it's something, it doesn't matter what it is, but you're gonna need to unscrew parts of it, fix something, put something in, screw it back together, and you just don't know how to do that.
So you start looking online for a YouTube video or something, and the only thing you can find is something that says, this is a screwdriver. it helps you remove and put in screws.
You're going, well, that's great, that's true, and that's helpful for part of it, but I need the rest of it in order to know what to do.Same thing here.
Free online device does not give you a foundational understanding of story, which we're going to talk about more in a minute. It does not harness transformational human psychology or use the three levels of emotion.
And I know you're probably going, whoa, those were big words, wait a minute, what are those things?I'm going to define them for you in the next few mistakes, so hold on.
But the point is that I'm trying to make is just the free online advice is not going to give you the things you need, and we're going to talk about them more.
So all I'm saying is that if you're going to get help understanding story to make your own story better,
and writing stories so that your reader will connect with them and you can make money on them, then using a system that is detailed and that will actually give you a useful framework for storytelling but still emphasizes your unique creativity is what you need, okay?
And the free online advice is not going to give you that.All right, so let's move into mistake number three.Not understanding the real reason that readers buy books.Why do you guys think readers buy Fiction books, tell me in the chat.
No right or wrong answers, just what comes to mind when you think about why readers would buy books.Escapism, mm-hmm, anything else?Satisfying story, characters who become friends, I like that.Entertainment, yep, yep, good, okay.
So most people, most of you, probably wrote some variation or thought about, if you didn't write it down, of the three E's.And those are enlightenment, escapism, entertainment, or some combination there, right?
The main reasons that people read stories and that people come up with for why readers read stories usually fall under one of those umbrellas.And they are all correct.All of your answers are right.
But I want you to go a little bit more high level here because Any reader could experience one of those things, the three E's, through activities other than reading a novel.
So what makes them buy the novel specifically instead of engaging in some other activity?I'm going to tell you the reason.And listen up, lean in.
If you guys can wrap your head around this one simple concept, it's going to change the way you approach fiction.It really is.And if you embrace the change, it's going to get your writing and sales results much, much sooner.
It's going to really help you Simplify the journey, if you will, and get to where you want to be faster.Readers read books in order to feel a big emotion in a safe space.And see, here's my little note I didn't edit out.
I'm going to repeat that, okay, because I really want you to let this sink in.Readers read books in order to feel a big emotion in a safe space.It's this, the feeling of the emotions in the safe space, that will bring them escapism
entertainment, and emotional enlightenment.The other thing is that readers not only want to feel the big emotions, they want to release the big emotions, okay?
This process in storytelling is known as catharsis, when the emotions build, build, build, build, build throughout the story, and then we get to release them, usually in the climactic moment, okay?
It's important to understand that our fast-paced, instant gratification society doesn't really hold space for big emotions, which means they tend to build up energetically in our bodies and we have no outlet for them.
Your audience, your ideal readers, they guarantee that they either generate big emotions of their own or they are receptacles for other people's emotions.This has been proven.
Either way, humans yearn to both feel big emotions and release those emotions, and fiction has a unique way of helping us to do this. It feels so good to read a book and then release our emotions at the end.
It's actually very healthy and very helpful to do so. So guess what?
By writing fantastic, emotionally cathartic stories, rather than just, you know, kind of, okay, mediocre stories, you are actually promoting better mental, psychological, and emotional health among your readers.True story.
And this is why readers read books.And now most of them, of course, cannot articulate everything I just said, but they just know that they love reading books because of the way it makes them feel.
So I said, if you could understand this concept, it would change the way you approach your fiction.Why is that? You might call this mistake 3b.
It's not one of the seven mistakes, but it's sort of a sub mistake, and that is that most writers focus on royalties and fame, and I don't mean fame in a negative way, just becoming like well-known as an author, rather than on serving your reader.
Now, it's important to understand that there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money on your writing or become well-known as a storyteller, okay?We all want that.I want it.You want it.Nothing wrong with that, okay?But this is really
a situation where you're focusing on the wrong thing in order to get the results you want.So we hear this in other industries, like, for example, losing weight.
You might hear people say, well, instead of focusing on every single morsel of food you put in your mouth or every single calorie, instead, focus on small changes you can make in your lifestyle that are something you can sustain for the long term, and then the weight will start to fall off naturally, right?
kind of the same thing here.Instead of focusing on royalties and becoming well-known, which is what you want, you need to make sure you're focusing on the right things, and then those things will come naturally.
So the more you focus specifically on royalties and getting your story into the world, the less it's going to work the way you want it to.You'll get fewer royalties, fewer downloads, all of that.However,
If you focus on serving your reader, on helping your reader connect to the story, on making every aspect of your story highly emotional and highly cathartic, it leads to your readers loving the story more.
They're going to connect with it more emotionally.They're going to gush about it.And when that happens, your fame as the storyteller and your royalties from sold books follow naturally.
But if you're just focusing on your royalties, then you aren't taking the time to make sure that your book is connecting deeply with readers. and therefore the royalties never follow.You see what I mean?
So I'm not saying it's wrong to want those things, but you want to focus more deeply on your connection with the reader and on making sure that your story is serving the reader, again, by helping them feel those emotions in a big space, and then things like money and fame will follow.
So this is what I want you to start doing in order to fix this mistake.I want you to start focusing on making every aspect of your story emotional for your readers, okay, and easy for them to connect to.
Now, what does that mean, easy for them to connect to?It means meeting them where they are and understanding how human beings connect with stories, which we're gonna go over in the next mistake, number four, here in just a minute.
But it also means helping them live in the experience of the story.So it's kind of on par with showing, not telling, which I know you've all heard of, but it's a lot more detailed than that, okay?
Rather than just getting the story down for them to read, you need to help them live in the experience of the story. I can show you how to do that.This is what I teach inside the Legendary Fiction Forge.
So again, just focus on making every aspect of your story emotional for your readers, easy for them to connect to, and use every one of those aspects to lead them toward catharsis, which is why they read books in the first place, right?
So I know this is a lot to process, but the point is it's not about what genre you're writing, it's not about what tropes you're writing, it's not about
what happens in your story, all of that is unique to you and you are going to figure out what your story is.
But then it's putting in these elements so that no matter what happens in your story, your reader will connect with it because you're making them feel something, right?And that is what you need to focus on.
Okay, that's where we're going to end for today.Once again, thank you so much for being here with me today and listening.Once again, make sure and listen to all three podcast episodes this week to get the full training with all of the mistakes.
And one more time, if you still want to take advantage of this free character workshop that I'm doing, just go to bit.ly forward slash unforgettable characters.
I will also put that in the show notes and you can still register and there still is plenty of time. to watch the replays, okay?Thank you so much again.You have a wonderful week of writing and I will be back soon.
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