Crowdfunding for Writers

Neera

In 2006, a young entrepreneur was running a support platform for video bloggers. He called it fundavlog. 

Keen on spreading the word; he started a blog explaining the idea behind fundavlog and coining a term for the concept he was trying to introduce. 

I have used a recent buzzword within fundvlog babble. That word is Crowdsourcing. My first interpretation of it was a broad one… one that can be applied to generalities surrounding concepts/observations such as ‘smart mobs,’ ‘wisdom of the crowds,’ ‘new economies,’ ‘open-source,’ and ‘self-sustaining communities.’

…

But I have decided that another similar term can be used to explain the general ideas being presented here. And I think that term is ‘Croudfunding.’ Money is the root. Money incubates, inspires, and give rise to good content. Money provides new and/or rejuvenated opportunities. — Michael Sullivan

Michael figured that building a community from an online ‘sphere’ was a challenge but not impossible. He looked at the idea from different angles and completely out of the box. He was very impressed with mediaventure.org, both the initiative and projects funded through it.

He wanted fundavlog to raise money for projects like mediaventure.org. But unlike mediaventure.org, he wanted the focus on content creators rather than the industry.

Although his project failed, he came up with two basic rules for crowdfunding:

Rule #1 Not to pilfer facilitated funds.

Rule #2 Absolute transparency.

Crowdfunding is based on “reciprocity, transparency, shared interests and, above all, funding from the crowd.”

If you haven’t read yesterday’s article, I suggest you read it first and then come back to the current one to understand how crowdfunding can be your prime strategy to write and sell books.

Crowdfunding is not a marketing platform.

Most people make the mistake that they think crowdfunding is a marketing gimmick, just like Mailchimp or LinkedIn.

That is not true.

Crowdfunding is a sales platform just like Amazon.

It is a place where you can test your book idea and sell it even before you have written it. 

Isn’t it cool?

Before I get into details to describe the difference, let me clear a few more concepts about crowdfunding. 

There are typically three types of crowdfunding: 

  1. Reward crowdfunding, where you raise your funds by reaching out to supporters, who receive a small gift or product sample if they pledge a certain amount.
  2. Debt crowdfunding is where you receive a loan and pay it within a specific time frame — some prefer this over a bank loan because it can be much faster.
  3. Equity crowdfunding means you give a portion of company ownership to the people who provide you with funding.

Although Kickstarter works on the Reward Model of raising money, one thing to understand is that you are, in fact, raising a debt which you will have to pay in the form of the product which you have specified in the pledge.

So when you hear someone say they raised $1M on Kickstarter, they haven’t raised any money at all. They have, in fact, pre-sold their products.

Ben Einstein has written an excellent article to explain the misconceptions about money raised on Kickstarter. Have a read of it. The link is below.Crowdfunding is Debt
Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms are often misunderstood. It definitely isn’t investment: It’s…beneinstein.medium.com

Crowdfunding is one more market.

It’s one of the rare self-publishing markets that offer to pay you in advance. It also has a great financial incentive, paying roughly 92% of your list price.

But once your campaign has run its course, it’s pretty much over until the next time. The platform isn’t designed for long-term sales.

Since 2009, Kickstarter has helped raise over $5B in revenue for nearly 200,000 successful projects.

Of this, publishing rates $185M on 18,000 successful projects. Publishing is sixth out of fifteen potential categories. That’s an average of $10,000 per successful project, but it’s not exactly a linear curve. Only 4,200 projects have made $10,000 or more—still, a respectable 23%.

Gaming is the biggest category. The reason being Gamers adopted crowdfunding years ahead of writers and readers.

Readers are traditionally anti-technology. It took Kindle more than a decade to be accepted. Even now, given a choice, people prefer paper books to digital books.

But pandemic changed that big time. All of a sudden, there is a surge in eBook and audiobook sales.

However, writers’ participation at Kickstarter is increasing. Several bestselling authors are launching their books on Kickstarter.

Michael Sullivan, a bestselling fantasy and scientific-fiction writer, has successfully run eight campaigns; his last campaign raised $168,000.

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits campaigned to raise $44,700 for printing and publishing his book Zen Habits: Mastering the Art of Change. 8,211 backers pledged $244,255 to help bring his project to life.

Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo started a project to raise $40,000 to publish Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls — 100 Tales to Dream Big. That humble children’s book packed with 100 bedtime stories about the lives of 100 extraordinary women from past and present, illustrated by 100 female artists from all over the world, raised $675,614, much more than the wildest imagination of the creators. Their second campaign was even bigger, which raised $866,193.

But no one can beat New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson’s records of raising $6.8M.

Crowdfunding can be a very influential market.

The important thing to keep in mind is that Kickstarter or any other crowdfunding site is one market. A very influential market.

Even a career-defining market.

It can be a complete bust, but only if you treat it lightly and give up too early.

Even if you have a few failed attempts, it doesn’t matter. Where else can you get the word out for your project and get paid in advance?

For many writers, Kickstarter is becoming their launching strategy. Once you have run a few campaigns, you will know how much effort to put into it and how much reward you will get from it.

Fear of the failed campaigns

A false hurdle to starting a Kickstarter campaign and any long-term Kickstarter success is the fear of what happens if your campaign fails to fund. 

There is no doubt that some of your campaigns are going whether you work at them casually or aggressively.

But does it matter?

You fail at submitting your articles to reputed publications.

You fail at getting your manuscript accepted by the traditional publishers several times.

You fail at selling your book on Amazon.

Failures are just the stepping stones to success.

So what is my game plan?

Publishing hasn’t hit the same critical mass in the audience as Gaming has, but the potential is there. 

Every writer who will use crowdfunding will improve the market and bring more audience to the platform.

That is what we need to do.

I intend to study Kickstarter for six months to a year before launching my first campaign. 

During that time, I will support several campaigns both in publishing and other categories. 

All that exposure will help me understand what kind of books do better on Kickstarter.

There is no secret to crowdfunding. Crowdfunding rewards ingenuity and hard work. Writers are familiar with both.

References:

  1. Archived blog on fundavlog.
  2. Crowdfunding Your Fiction: A Best Practice Guide by Loren L. Coleman.
  3. Kickstarter Stats

Disclaimer: I am learning about Crowdfunding. If my understanding is incorrect or the information doesn’t align with facts, let me know, and I will correct those.

Photo by Nicholas Green on Unsplash

I Am Learning About Crowdfunding

Neera

(What I am finding is more interesting than cryptocurrency)

I have always been mesmerized by the concept of crowdfunding. 

Not because of the stories about people raising millions of dollars for their project, but because of many other reasons:

  • It is a great way for creators to get the word out for their projects.
  • To find out if anyone else is interested in their project
  • Get enough money to start the project.
  • Sell before they actually build 
  • Reason to go actually finish and deliver the product.

But my interest had been superficial. I had never gone to a crowdfunding site to find out what kind of projects are being funded, who are floating them, and the benefactors.

Until recently, when I bought a book bundle (where multiple authors get together and release a number of books at low prices), and one of the books was Crowdfunding Your Fiction: A Best Practice Guide by Loren L. Coleman.

The book revived my interest, and I started going to the crowdfunding sites just like a new writer would explore Medium. It is early days but what I have discovered so far is really interesting and encouraging.

What is crowdfunding anyway?

According to Loren Coleman, a veteran in crowdfunding, it is a little bit eBay, a little bit Etsy and a whole lot of speculation. 

You have a project you want to create, a story, a board game, a piece of technology, you post your idea on the crowdfunding market and make a promise. 

If X number of people agree to give you Y dollars each, you will create the item in Z amount of time and send all your backers a copy.

That’s it.

There is no rocket science to it. 

Although it is considered a new concept, the core idea of “the crowd” funding ventures is nothing new.

The history of crowdfunding.

Between 1200 –1800 traders used to finance shipping ventures. The trading expeditions used to be very risky, expensive, and yet exceptionally profitable. Traders would get a share of the profit or bear a part of the loss. This approach would provide shipping companies with a sensible risk management strategy.

In 1713, a young poet, Alexander Pope, raised money to translate the ‘Iliad.’ Alexander Pope was quite keen on translating Homer’s epic poem, ‘The Iliad’, into English but lacked the necessary resources to publish it. He asked donors to pledge two gold guineas to support his work in exchange for having their names published in the book. He was perhaps the first one to run a reward-based crowdfunding campaign and successfully completed a creative project.

In 1783–84, fans crowdfunded Mozart’s tour. Mozart was performing three piano concerts in the Viennese concert hall but didn’t have enough money to travel. He sent an invitation to prospective backers offering concert manuscripts in exchange for financial support for the tour. 176 backers donated enough funds to make his tour happen.

In 1885, New Yorkers donated millions to install the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was a diplomatic gift from the French people to the US. But the efforts to raise funds for its pedestal stalled. When all means failed, Joseph Pulitzer decided to launch a fundraising campaign through the newspaper. More than 160,000 New Yorkers chipped in. $100,000 was raised in five months.

Digital crowdfunding.

The modern digital crowdfunding has its roots in 1996–97 funding of British rock band Marillion. Marillion’s fans raised $60,000 through an internet campaign to support their tour to the United States.

The first online website, “fan-funding,” to raise funds for artists, was launched in 2003. Soon after ArtistShare platform was established where artists could seek funding from their supporters to cover their production costs in exchange for free, early access to their album, song, or another piece of art.

The first peer-to-peer lending platform Zopa kicked off in 2005 in the UK. Zopa was followed by Lending Club and Prosper in the US in 2006.

In 2007, the Australian Small Scale Offerings Board (ASSOB), which is considered the world’s first equity-based crowdfunding platform, was established.

After the 2008 financial crisis, people turned to the internet to seek funding. IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, launched in 2008 and 2009, respectively, made crowdfunding a household word. Many other platforms started, and in just five years, crowdfunding grew 1000%.

To date, people have raised more than $34 billion worldwide using these platforms.

Whatever your reason for raising money, there is a crowdfunding site for you.

Just how much money can be raised by crowdfunding?

In few words, much more than your target.

In 2015, Pebble Technology started a campaign to raise $500,000 to build a smartwatch. They were at the right time at the right place. This was their second Kickstarter campaign which beat their original Kickstarter record from 2012 by over $10 Million dollars. They raised $20,338,986.

The biggest amount ever raised is by Cloud Imperium Games which has raised over $317 million for the development of their video game Star Citizen, breaking a record funding volume for a single project. They have been crowdfunding since 2012, both through crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and their own website.

Travel Tripod by Peak Design, Goal $500,000; Raised $12,143,435.

The World’s Best Travel Jacket, Goal $ 20,000; Raised $9,192,055.

The Veronica Mars Movie Project, Goal $2,000,000; Raised, $5,702,153

Okay, these some of the extra successful projects. 

For every successful crowdfunded project, there are many unsuccessful projects. 

But that is not the bad news.

In fact, the news is mostly good for crowdfunding.

In July 2018, The Conversations (a research-based news and analysis publication) analyzed Startnext, (the biggest German crowdfunding platform), to figure out what was behind crowdfunding’s success? 

At that time Startnext had more than 100,000 pledges to more than 2,000 projects. They gave The Converstaions access to their whole database. 

This is what they found:

  • It was never too late to get a campaign on a successful track — provided its creator manages to get a surge in pledges rolling.
  • Attracting a lot of support in the first day or two was considered a crucial indicator of quality. The Conversations analysis found that even projects that fell short of this average path to success, succeeded. Nearly 90% of the projects that are under track after two-thirds of the campaign still become success stories.
  • Even more strikingly, 40% of severely under-track projects still make it in the end. These are projects that are more than 70% off their targeted amount with a handful of days to the deadline.
  • A large fraction of successful projects (23%) were late bloomers. Meaning the average crowdfunding campaign started off with a healthy amount of pledges, levelled off in the middle of the funding phase, and then got a boost in the last few days.

Their biggest insight, it is never too late with crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding is best learned by participation.

Just like Medium or a social media platform, crowdfunding is a community bases activity. It can be best learned by participation. 

There are many platforms. Some are listed below. 

Source: The Best Crowdfunding Sites

Hop on to anyone and participate. Follow and back campaigns. You can invest with as little as $1. There is a merit in doing that because then you will start getting emails about how the campaign is going. 

Build sample campaigns for yourself, even if you don’t intend to launch everyone.

Research by surfing your preferred categories at least weekly and other categories at least monthly. 

Watch the failed campaigns too, you will learn a lot from them.

When a project interests you for content or just for the campaign, back it. Leave a word of encouragement under comments. Encourage good campaigns.

References:

  1. The History of Crowdfunding
  2. Crowdfunding success and failure: what actually happens during a campaign.
  3. Top 20 Most Funded Kickstarter Projects of All Time (2019).

Let me know what your thoughts or experiences are about crowdfunding.

In my next article I will write about crowdfunding your book project.

Photo by alex bracken on Unsplash

I Am Half Way Through My 100 Articles In 100 Days Challenge

Neera

On 13 April 2021, I set myself a challenge, to write 100 articles in 100 days.

I was following Violinist Hilary Hahn, who started a 100 Days of Practice project. She posted a video of her practicing violin on Instagram for 100 days with #100daysofpractice and invited others to join her. 

Austin Kleon (the writer of How To Steal Like an Artist) connected Hilary Hahn’s idea with comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s, “put a cross each day when you have achieved your task/habit and don’t break the chain” and created a PRACTICE/ SUCK LESS GRID.

Image by the author

I am halfway through the grid, and I haven’t broken the chain so far.

I wanted to achieve three things with this challenge.

  1. To get better at article writing.

2. To bring the writing time down from 5–6 hours to 1–2 hours.

3. To build a system to publish every day.

I wanted to write a post to evaluate where I have reached so far.

Did I get better at article writing?

Two years ago, I challenged myself to write 30 articles in 30 days on my website. That single exercise helped me more than anything else. But it was a very demanding challenge, and I couldn’t gather enough courage to start a similar challenge again. 

But I knew I have to if I wanted to get better fast. 

There is nothing better than concentrating on one activity and doing it every single day to get better at it. The improvement is remarkable. 

For one, I do not have the dread of writing an article. When I was writing one or two articles a week, I dreaded the day those were due. I would procrastinate and take a long time to come to the actual task of writing. Now I know I have to write and publish before the day is over. So I get on with the job and do it as quickly as possible.

I am typing much faster. My thoughts are much clearer. And I am writing more and more articles from memory. Writing 1200–1700 words article a day brings clarity to your thought process. You start developing your perspective about things, and you no longer waffle. 

I am much more fluent now than I was 50 days ago. I have been writing on varied topics such as Life, Writing, Learning, Travel, Authorpreneurship, Productivity, Self-Improvement, and even Short Stories. As a result, I have a healthy backlist of articles.

Did I manage to bring the article writing time?

I used to take 7- 8 hours to write an article. The day my article was due, I had to clear the whole day. I will start in the morning and sometimes wouldn’t be able to publish till late at night. I would agonize over the topic, second-doubt everything I wrote, spend hours researching and editing used to take even longer than writing.

Now I write the most articles within 2–3 hours. I use a stopwatch and write in 15-minutes sprints. I have developed a distinct voice. Although I would like to get my writing time down to one hour, I am quite happy with a 1–2 hour time frame.

The articles that need research still take longer than the ones I write from memory. This article is mostly written from memory; hence it is written relatively quickly. I have gone back and forth to get some facts from time to time, but most of it is from my head. 

Nowadays, I don’t research while writing an article, which used to be a big time-waster. So instead, I either do it beforehand or after writing the article. 

When I come up with a topic, I first write down all I know about it. Once I have done that, then I go and do the research. This way I do not get influenced by what other people are saying. I only use research either to strengthen the point I am making or to give an alternate viewpoint.

I can form an outline in my head as I am writing. As soon as I decided to write this article I knew I am assessing myself against what I was set out to achieve when I set this challenge. So three questions became the outline for this article.

I don’t pre-plan topics anymore. I have about 128 drafts sitting in my draft folder, but I rarely use them. Instead, each day, I come up with a topic to write about without much effort. Usually, it is from what I have been reading or something I have already written about, and I have a new take on it. 

When I can come up with a new topic, I feel really excited about it. If I leave it for a day or two, there is no guarantee that I will feel the same level of excitement. So I write and publish on the same day. But I do leave the article for a few hours before editing it. 

Have I been able to build a system to publish every day?

Definitely yes. And it is straightforward.

In fact, publishing becomes a mindless task once you start doing it every day.

It doesn’t have the kind of dread when you publish once or twice a week. 

Initially, I created a small checklist to remind me of the things I must do before publishing.

  1. Run Grammarly and fix all grammar, punctuation, and readability errors. 
  2. Get Microsoft word to read the article back to me one paragraph at a time and remove any superfluous material, tidy the sentences, and get rid of repetitive words.
  3. Insert the feature image and make sure all images have credits.
  4. Insert the footer with CTA (call to action).
  5. Pick the correct tags.
  6. Publish. 
  7. Add to a publication or leave it on my profile.

After a while, I didn’t even need this checklist. It has become second nature. 

I stopped bothering to send my articles to big publications because they take a long time to respond. Since my aim is to publish every day, I couldn’t wait for them to get back to me. 

When I started with Medium last year, getting accepted by a publication was a big thing. But getting into publications was hard. Publications receive far too many submissions than they can publish. Besides, Medium has changed its policy regarding publications, and many big publications are closing down.

It seems like I have almost achieved what I set out to achieve with this challenge. But the icing on the cake is extra achievements. Here is a list of them.

Other Achievements

  • I won a $500 bonus from Medium in early May.
  • Many of my articles are chosen for further distribution.
  • I won 300+ new followers. 
  • Editors of many publications have invited me to submit my articles to their publications. 
  • Several people subscribed to my newsletter A Whimsical Writer.
  • Surprisingly, my most read articles are travel articles.
  • I published five fictional stories which were well accepted.

What to expect in the next 50 days?

It will be nice to become a member of the $100-month club. However, I am not holding my breath for it. It will happen in due course, and while I am learning and growing each day, I am happy.

I want to write more series, like the three article series I did on How To Write Stories From Everyday Life. I can provide much more value with these. 

I would also like to collaborate with other like-minded writers who are committed like me, to help each other grow. 

It will be nice to see my follower numbers grow. 

Last but not least…

A big thank you to all those who read my articles and kept cheering for me. Without those claps and helpful comments, it is tough to keep going. 

So please keep them coming.

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

The Art of Noticing

Neera

I was in the public library, where, near the entrance, where they put new books on display, was Helen Garner’s face on a book cover, looking at me intently. She seemed to be wondering whether I was worthy enough to read her superbly written prose.

I picked up the book. It was titled “Yellow Notebook Diaries Volume I 1978–1987.” I was in my early twenties during those years, still trying to figure out who I was and Helen had already written her first novel, “Monkey Grip.”

I opened it and read the first line…

“Maybe it’d be a good idea to start another diary, just to cream it off. I bought this yellow book today.” 

— Helen Garner

It would be a good idea for me too, to start another diary too, where I can practice writing like Helen Garner. Where I can learn to notice little things, insights and idiosyncrasies of being human. It will be good if I could write a page a day. Maybe that’s too much of an ask. I know I will not be able to keep up the promise. I will take that pressure off right now. I will write whenever I can.

A writer’s job is to record what is happening around her. I need to pay attention to my things around me. 

Pay Attention to What You Care About.

Rob Walker, writer of the wonderful book “The Art of Noticing,” wrote in his newsletter:.

Pay attention to what you care about; care about what you pay attention to.

There is a connection between noticing and attention and caring and observations. 

We often end up “noticing” or paying attention to things we really care about.

Austin Kleon wrote about Amy Meissner is a textile artist, who used to run the mending and clothes repair workshops. All her workshops had the same caption: “Mend a thing.”

Because she believes, once you’ve mended something, if you didn’t have sentimental value attached to it before, then you certainly do once you’ve taken the time to care for it.

That might me the reason why I am so attached to the tapestries I have made. I can still remember what I was thinking when I embroidered a particular part of the tapestry. As if my thoughts got woven with the threads and became a part of the tapestry.

Rob Walker, talked about a student who made a planter for the cactus he cared for. He’d done that, on the theory that “by nurturing or caring for something, you pay more attention to it.” 

Rob drew a diagram of care/notice cycle.

Image by the author

He says it is helpful to ask yourself:

  • Is this thing I am paying attention to, do I actually care about?
  • This (other) things I do really care about, am I giving it the attention I should?
  • Am I noticing what I want to notice?

A Lone Shoe

One of Rob’s readers wrote:

For decades I’ve walked and hiked trails and sidewalks and driven country roads. Sometime… more often than seems plausible I come across a shoe. One shoe. Never a pair of shoe. I make up a story about how each one must have ended up this way or about the person who has the other shoe. I don’t remember all the shoes or all the stories. But I always remember to take time to ponder. — Phyllis

Practicing the Art of Noticing.

I am so surprised how all these stories are blending with Helen Garner’s way writing which is based on noticing.

Helen writes in her diary:

A man in metro, a 1950s relic but real, not an affectation — untidy, perfectly period clothes — lumber jacket, tight trousers, big worn, non-descript shoes. He was playing and exuisite basic rock-and-roll guitar and singing ‘Corinna’ through a little amp that looked like a white Daisy Duck radio.”

While driving to the veggie market I decide to notice something. Just to test my noticing skills. But what? I settled upon noticing shades of green. 

A few days’ rain has turned every bit of vegetation into different shades of green. I noticed a tree with fresh big leaves. It’s a light green. The leafy kind of light green with a tinge of yellow at the edges. The grass on the ground has different shades too — deeper green, pastel green and eucalyptus green. The green on the shrubs has more red tone even orange at places. That is strange, I had never noticed before that each green has a tinge of some other colour at the edges. Sometimes yellow, sometimes red, sometimes purple.

I came home, rather pleased with myself. While putting the vegies away I heard a fly trapped somewhere in the kitchen. I couldn’t see it. I tuned myself to the sound, deciding to continue practicing the Art of Noticing.

Her buzzing is getting more desperate with time. Seems like it is trapped in the overhead exhaust fan above the stove. I open one screen of the canopy to let it out. I can’t even see it. That’s all I can do. It will have to find its own way out. No one can help you when you are trapped, more than opening the door. You have to find your own way out. I go to the bedroom to chane, by the time I come back the buzzing had stopped. I put the screen back. I might have saved a life today.

Conclusion

It wasn’t hard to notice things once you consciously make an effort.

Rob Walker’s book, The Art of Noticing — 131 Way To Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration and Discover Joy in the Every Day, could give you a good start.

Photo by Bookblock on Unsplash

How To Write Stories From Everyday Life (Part 3 – How to shape stories)

Neera

I started writing this series because I want to get back into writing fiction this year. In addition, it is a way for me to remember what I learned while writing a short story a day during NaNoWriMo in 2014.

In the previous two articles of this series, I talked about getting ideas for everyday stories and writing them. 

Today we are going to explore how I shape my stories. I use several fiction writing tools, which I am going to touch on briefly in this article. There are books written on each one of them so that I won’t go too deep. Later on, if needed, I will write separate articles on them.

The process I used to shape my stories has five steps:

  1. Narrator/ Point Of View 
  2. Description
  3. Dialogue
  4. Ending
  5. Editing

Narrator/ Point Of View (POV)

After you have written the first draft of the story and rested it (for at least a day), it is time to examine it critically. The first question to ask is who should be the narrator of the story.

Usually, it the person who has the most to lose. But there could be exceptions to this rule. Sometimes it makes sense to tell the story from an observer’s perspective. Other times a completely unexpected narrator gives a new angle to the story. In one of my stories, The Blessed, I used an old decaying temple as the narrator.

A narrator in fiction is the one who tells the story. The narrator determines the point of view of the story. If the narrator is not a character in the story, the story is a third-person narrative. If a character is telling the story, it is a first-person narrative. 

The first-person narrative is more intimate, intense, and engaging, but it could be limiting. You can tell only the central character’s perspective. The third-person narrative can be distant but allows you to tell a more balanced story.

There is another point of view used in storytelling, called deep-third or close-third. Like the first-person narrative, the deep-third focuses on a single character and takes the readers directly into the character’s mind. Writing as if in the first person, deep-third is a hard technique to master, but it provides the benefits of both the first-person narrative and omnipresent viewpoint of the third-person narrative.

How to choose which one to use. It depends upon the kind of story you are telling and the emotion you want to evoke. My rule is — more intense an emotion I want to evoke, the more likely I will use the first-person narrative. My stories A Christmas Wish and The Goddess are first-person narratives. 

But here are some markers to help you decide:

  • If the story about an individual with a distinct voice and quirky habits or language, use the first person.
  • If the story is about the internal conflict where the character indulges in lengthy ruminations, choose the first person again.
  • If you want your readers to identify with the POV character, choose the first person or close third.
  • If your character is not making the right choices or is a negative character, but you want readers to be sympathetic towards him/her, use the first-person or close-third.
  • If you want to describe your character from the outside and give her thoughts, choose the close third person.
  • If you want to include your opinion along with the characters’, choose the third person.
  • If you want identification between reader and character, perhaps because you’re going to show the irony of the situation or mock your character, choose the third-person narrative.

Once I have decided on the narrator and point of view character, I view my first draft to see if I need to rewrite it. Chances are, my subconscious had made the right decision when I wrote the first draft. If not, I would write it again. 

But before embarking on doing the second draft, I will consider the description, dialogue, and how to end my story. 

Let’s have a look at those too.

Description

In a short story, there is not much space for descriptions. Besides, long descriptions are out of fashion. Whereas older novels and stories are full of lengthy and flowery descriptions, modern writers are not bothering with them. 

Why?

Because readers skip them.

So what is the point of spending a lot of time on something that readers will skip?

Today readers don’t have much time. They want fast-paced stories where the action is happening either through dialogue or physical movement. And they are interested in interesting conflict and how it resolves. 

But the description is still fundamental. As a writer, you need to know everything about the setting, people, and the situation before telling the story. 

What does the place look like where the story is taking place? What are the physical characteristics of the characters? What are they wearing? Why are they doing what are they doing? That kind of detail, described in the fewest possible words, differentiated a good story from an amazing story.

Not every detail will make it to the page. The details that will make into the story will be the ones that are vivid and significant. But every detail will give you insight into your character. 

For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. 

— Stephen King, On Writing.

Dialogue

Dialogues are the magic weapon in a writer’s arsenal. 

Dialogues make the story come alive. 

Dialogues also reveal the characters, their thoughts, and their intentions. 

Dialogues are the easiest way to introduce conflict in the story.

A lot can be said with a little exchange of dialogue than multiple pages of description.

I make sure I include dialogue in my stories for one or more than one of the above-listed reasons. 

But dialogue is a dish that is served well-done. Poor dialogue can make readers quit reading your story in disgust, but great dialogue can heavily invest your readers into your characters’ cause. 

Don’t include dialogue for the sake of including dialogue. Instead, make them work for the story.

Ending

Some stories reach their conclusion without any effort. Others don’t; it doesn’t matter how hard you try. I have so many half-written stories sitting in folders.

My theory about such stories is — it is better to leave them by giving them an interesting twist than giving them a forced ending.

What readers are looking for in a story is a feeling—an emotional response. We can achieve that by leaving some questions unanswered. Or even by asking the questions within the story.

Another thing that makes a story impactful is what readers take away from it. 

Brainstorm some themes that are important to you and work your short story around them. This will not only make your readers care more about your story (which means it’ll be written better), but it’ll also make it more satisfying for you to write.

Editing

Editing is where the magic happens. But, unfortunately, it is also the hardest skill to master. Because by this time, you are so heavily invested in your story that it is hard to strike off even a single word.

But editing is one skill we all need to master. Without self-editing, we can’t become good writers. 

My first pass is to get rid of any filter words. Filter words are extra words that put distance between readers and a character’s experience. Words (such as seemed, thought, heard, touched, realized, understood, felt, sounded like, experienced, etc.) are usually explanatory words that remove the reader from the action by describing a character’s thought process or action in an explanatory way.

My second edit is for the tense consistency (and I suck at it). I have recently learned to watch for continuous tense (verbs ending with “ing”) and replace them with past tense. 

My third edit is to replace weak verbs with strong verbs. (A list of strong verbs found right here).

And my last edit is to cut any superfluous words to bring the story to the length needed. I usually do that by reading the story aloud. 

That’s it, my friends. My process to write short stories from everyday life. Now I need to follow my own advice and write good stories about the things happening around me.

Photo by Shail Sharma on Unsplash

How To Write Stories From Everyday Life (Part 2 – Writing the first draft)

Neera 1 Comment

In yesterday’s article, I suggested three ways to pick stories from everyday life. Today I am going to talk about how to develop them into a stories.

You have to keep in mind that this form of storytelling is different from plot-driven storytelling, where the plot thinks for you.

There is basically only one plot in all plot-driven stories, whether you consider Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots or Georges Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.

And that plot is — there is a central character who wants something intensely and goes after it. He struggles and faces obstacles after obstacles, leading him to climax, after which he either wins or loses.

In this format of storytelling, the plot leads you to the considerations such as theme, setting, point of view, structure, narrative arc, etc. Plot-driven storytelling works well for anything above 5000 words.

Usually, stories from everyday life events are written as micro-stories (300 words or less), or flash fiction (up to 1000 words), or short stories (1000–2000 words). Anything longer than that, you need to follow plot guidelines.

Now that we have got plot-driven stories out of the way, let’s concentrate on non-plot-driven stories.

There are five elements to consider while writing stories from everyday life events. They are:

  1. Emotion
  2. Characters
  3. Conflict
  4. Scene
  5. Insight

Emotion

Emotion is the most important consideration to write everyday stories.

When reading a story, readers want something to touch their hearts. They want to feel something — love, compassion, hatred, pity, anger, wonder, surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, hope, trust, joy, shame, envy, anticipation etc.

In the short form, you can’t have too many emotions. So you need to concentrate on one.

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need to find your short story. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Characters

Stories are always about someone. Micro-stories or even a story of few paragraphs has a character. Even the stories about animals, vegetables, or machines have central characters.

One of the main characteristics of a story is that the lead character goes through some form of transformation. However small, but the transformation is there. It doesn’t even have to be a positive transformation.

Long-form fiction has several characters in it. You do not have that luxury in short stories. The more characters you have, the more words you will need to describe them and their relationship and interactions with each other.

Keep the number to as few as possible. Two are ideal. Three or four are permissible. Anything more and you will end up writing a novella or a novel.

Conflict

conflict is the breeding ground from where the stories emerge.

It could be an internal conflict (conflict happening in the protagonist’s mind, also depicted as man vs. mind) or external conflict (man vs. man, man vs. nature).

Since the short stories don’t have much space, they mostly start when the central character is at the end of the road—a desperate man taking desperate measures.

Once you have chosen the key emotion, elaborate on the conflict around it. Make it simple and focused. Narrow down your ideas as much as possible.

Think of all the things that can go wrong for your character. Everything you don’t want to happen to you or your friends should happen to your character. The only conflict is interesting. 

Scene

When you write a story, you have two choices. You can show, or you can tell. If you are showing you are writing a scene. If you are telling you are writing a summary.

A scene is vivid and intimate; a summary is distant and efficient. The scene is where the writer engages the imagination and the emotions of the readers. Everything important in your story should happen in a scene.

You now have a key emotion, one or two-character, and a conflict. Next, think of a scene where this conflict unfolds.

You start writing from the middle. When the action is over, and the aftermath is unfolding. Suppose it is a story about a long-standing marriage in trouble. You don’t need to write about the years of prosperity and bliss.

Insight

When does an anecdote become a story? When there is an insight.

Stories from everyday life are reflective. The writer examines an event or a memory to draw home a message. Sometimes the message is explicit, other times it is implied. But it is always there. Without a message, a story has no reason. 

When reading a story readers are on the lookout for insight. It invites them to introspect and examine their own thoughts and beliefs. It is through insights that readers build a connection with the writer. 

When the readers feel the same emotion you as a writer want to convey and get the same insight you want them to get, you have succeeded in writing an emotive story.

Here is a story by Nardi Reeder Campionthat appeared in Readers Digest a little while ago to illustrate the significance of insights in everyday stories.

Nardi describes a time in her life when she was down in dumps when she discovers a diary that had been kept more than forty years by a maiden aunt who had gone through some bad times herself.

Aunt Grace had been poor, frail and forced to live with relatives. 

“I know I must be cheerful,” she wrote, “living in this large family upon whom I am dependent. Yet gloom haunts me. Clearly, my situation is not going to change; therefore I shall have to change.”

To help her hold her fragile world together, Aunt Grace resolved to do six things every day:

1. Something for someone else

2. Something for herself

3. Something she didn’t want to do that needed doing

4. A physical exercise

5. A mental exercise

6. An original prayer that always included counting her blessings

The rest of the story described how these six steps help change Aunt Grace’s life.“Can life be lived by a formula?” Nardi asked herself. 

“All I know is that since I started to live by those six precepts, I’ve become more involved with others and less ‘buried’ in myself.” Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I have adopted Aunt Grace’s motto, “Bloom where you are planted.”

“It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is.” — George Will

And even more extraordinary is the number of stories they’re carrying around — waiting to be written.

Now write the first draft.

Write the story as it comes to you.

Remember, it is only the first draft. The aim of the first draft is to find the story.

Don’t worry about polishing it or introducing various storytelling elements to it. All that can be done later. Don’t worry if you can’t take it to a conclusion either. Take it as far as you can.

When you get really stuck, use the TPIOM technique.

TPiOM is the refined version of James Altucher’s Idea Machine technique for fiction writers.

TPiOM stands for Ten Ideas in One Minute. If you can’t figure out what bad thing will happen to your protagonist, list ten possibilities in one minute. You must write ten doesn’t matter how unlikely they are to happen, and you must write them quickly before your left brain gets a chance to interfere. 

Then chose the most unusual one and proceeded with it. 

Don’t worry about the word count.

Write as many words as you need to tell the story. 

Don’t worry about bringing it to a certain length. 

If your story is about a conversation you had over coffee, capture as many details as you remember — describe the cafeteria, the smell of coffee, what your friends were wearing, the waiter in the background, the crockery. Try capturing dialogue as best as you can.

Once you have done it, put it aside and pat yourself on the back.

Today’s work is done.

Your draft is rough, but we can smooth it out in revisions.

Because stories aren’t written, they are re-written.

——-

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash