The Breakdown - Week of 6/15/20
We are back with another issue of “The Breakdown,” but first, five scene-specific creative writing prompts, drawn from my book “What Would Your Character Do? - Writing Prompts to Help You Destroy Writer’s Block, Write Faster, and Write More” (up on Amazon and free in Kindle Unlimited!)
Prompts
As mentioned before, these prompts from “What Would Your Character Do?" are designed to give you some momentum if you ever find yourself stuck in a scene. If these five prompts don’t work for you, hang tight! You’ll get another five in a week, or you could just buy, or check out, the book to pick from over 500 more.
Okay, so let’s get started.
If you're stuck in a scene, try to have your character:
Promise someone more than they can deliver
Separate two people who are fighting
Offer to help someone find someone else who's missing
Recall something they read in a book, a magazine, or saw on TV
Start to protest a point but get interrupted
Give those prompts some time to marinate, and if they’re not doing it for you, you’ll get five more next week!
News
(Click title links for the articles)
Nightfire: Temporarily Open to Manuscript Submissions
It’s not easy to find legitimate imprints open to unagented submissions, especially for works at less than 50,000 words, and Nightfire is the horror imprint for Tor/Forge. Horror is one of those genres that makes for a good entry point for both publication (horror magazines seem to be the one of the few genre-specific magazines that are often open to submissions) and a great entry point for scripts. If you can write a smart, low-budget, and genuinely scary screenplay, your chances of selling that screenplay improve exponentially.
McDermid reveals 2020 New Blood list of crime-writing talent
I like to highlight when well-known organizations or authors make a point of elevating debut authors. Not only because they’re doing a very good thing. But also because it’s good to know what catches these folks’ eye, especially when writing genre fiction. Note that Val McDermind, a well-known Scottish crime writer, speaks about why these stories appealed to her and were picked for her list, besides just the authors’ talent, and you’ll notice a theme emerging from some of my previous posts:
Deepa, Elizabeth, Jessica and Trevor tick all of these boxes and more, and if this year’s debuts share a theme, it is the irresistible and devastating way in which crime fiction shines a light on our times: homelessness, domestic violence, child trafficking and mental health are all dissected with an unflinching gaze.
You’ll hear me reiterate this theme over and over to you: If you want to increase your chances of a sale, write engaging material that also elevates the conversation about current and relevant topics and events.
You can view the official announcement here.
50 Black-Owned Independent Bookstores You Can Support Today
We all know that independent bookstores need our support, both during and after, the crisis. To be honest, black-owned businesses can use our support at all times (as do so many minority-owned businesses.) So, why not a two-for-one when it comes to supporting the pillars of our communities? Many independent bookstores have partnered with Bookshop.org to be able to sell online, just as easily as buying on Amazon, so check it out if you’re not quite ready to visit your local bookstore yet.
Netflix Nabs Faith-Based Musical ‘A Week Away’
“Clean & Wholesome” is a growing category on Amazon as far as books are concerned. And I’ve noticed a similar rise in both family-friendly and Christian-themed fare on Netflix. Now, I haven’t seen any trend reporting (other than the Amazon category growth) that says definitely that there’s a swing, hard, into family-friendly entertainment, but I can’t help but think with the increase in family-time due to Lockdown and at least a greater awareness of what our kids our entertaining themselves with, a legitimate trend may indeed emerge. If you’re looking for new untapped markets to explore, this may be one.
Michael Bay & Erwin Stoff To Turn Mark Greaney Audible Novel ‘Armored’ Into Action Thriller Film
This announcement caught my eye because I’ve seen a rise in audio-first originals kicking up a bit in the past year. I think that, in terms of adaptations, audio-first will become an increasingly viable way to get your story (your IP) out there, if you can build an audience for it. If you can’t score yourself an Audible Originals deal, there’s always podcasting which I’ll take a deeper dive into in an upcoming Premium article. Now granted, the author in this article is an established, published author and not a newbie, but did you know that Audible Originals is currently open to unagented submissions? Yeah, I didn’t think so. For some reason, few authors do. What they acceptance rate is, I don’t know. But I do know an author who applied and she heard back within a few weeks. It was a “no” but given it took her all of ten minutes to prepare her submission, why not give it a go? You can learn more about, and pitch, Audible Originals here.
Final Thoughts
If you want to increase your chances of becoming a successful writer, you have to start thinking of your work as IP (intellectual property) or Transmedia (stories with worlds big enough that many narratives from that world can be told across different types of media—think Star Wars.)
This doesn’t mean that you can’t sell your standalone book and still be successful. But, more and more agents, editors, and producers are looking for properties that can have many, many lives and reach as wide an audience as possible. So, increasing the scope of your thinking about your story can also increase it’s chances out there in the big, bad entertainment world.
Until next time!
~ Paula G.