Polarizing Author Thoughts: Prologues and Epilogues

Polarizing Author Thought for your Thursday:

While there are exceptions to every rule, and I’ve definitely read a few in-the-dawn-of-time narratives that didn’t need to exist, prologues contain valuable information that enriches the reader experience but could not be obtained through the prescribed narrative perspective of the rest of the book/series. You don’t HAVE to read them—no one is forcing you—but you are missing out if you don’t. Full stop. You are missing out.

EPILOGUES, on the other hand, are useless, pointless, and unnecessary. Yes, I know that was redundant; I feel that strongly about it. I don’t want to be given a tidy, satisfying ending, then be slingshot ahead five years to A. have that rug ripped out from under me or B. overdo the “happily ever after” by giving us Albus Severus Potter, named after the two most toxic people in the parents’ lives (after Umbridge, of course).

And I think, that is the problem, more than anything, is putting information into an epilogue that either changes or dictates the reader’s overall experience of the story. If you are of the belief that Dumbledore and Snape were villains in Harry Potter’s story—and an overwhelming number of people believe that—it might make you angry to find out he then named a child after them. Showing us that glimpse into their future takes away our choice as readers to decide for ourselves how we feel about those characters, when he could have named him Ronald Neville. Even naming a child after Draco would have been less polarizing to the fandom. Draco Cedric.

That got a little off-track, but I really, really hate epilogues.

---

Remember, if you enjoy reading this, consider helping me keep it going by supporting my Patreon or just buying me a coffee.

Advertisement

Addressing the Booktok Controversy: Returning Books

In recent weeks, the hot button topic of conversation has been readers returning books to Amazon for a full refund, after they have read the whole book. Now, up until a few days ago, this was simply a conversation I felt was accomplishing nothing but elevated blood pressure.

It is not as if the people manipulating the system are poor and can’t afford to buy the books they want. Not to generalize but people living in poverty know how to budget for things they want, they don’t steal unless it’s a necessity for survival (if you see someone shoplifting bread, eggs, or milk, no you didn’t), they don’t do things to pull other people down.

The majority of the questionable morals belong to the middle and upper middle class, or upper class, who don’t believe they should have to pay for luxury items, like books. They believe they are above the law and entitled to free things.

I don’t know where these attitudes come from, but they don’t belong to people with whom authors can reason. For the most part, these authors are expending a tremendous amount of energy and time begging and pleading with these system manipulators, hoping they can impart some kind of terrific philosophical wisdom and make them see the errors of their ways.

Frankly, I think it’s a waste of time and blood pressure.

But now, someone has taken a step that may actually head the conversation in the right direction–a petition to Amazon to change their policies. Do I think it will work? Not necessarily but it’s better than begging people who don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong to stop doing it. That said, if you would like to sign the petition, here is the link.

---

If you would like to know how to help this author directly, visit my Patreon.

I Write for People to Read

I write for people to read.

I don’t know if it’s the extroverted side of me coming out through my creativity, but I never understood the point of writing something you never intended anyone else to read.

Naturally, there might be people I don’t want to see something or an appropriate time for something to be read. Not everyone gets to read first and second drafts. I’m not super excited about my conservative boomer family or conservative Gen-X co-workers reading my trilogy about condemned souls that has been generously seasoned with spice and F-bombs.

I also understand, once something is published, there’s really not a lot I can do to stop those people from getting their hands on it.

But at the same time, I never kept a diary when I was the age to keep a diary. I was fairly guarded with my words because I was a teenager and teenagers are guarded with everything, but I still didn’t write anything I didn’t expect someone would some day read.

Even in my thirteen-year-old brain, I was sure my summer scribblings would one day be on the library shelves.

But I am an extrovert. I struggle with the execution, but I love (the idea of) getting acquainted with people. I love sharing bits of myself, I love learning bits about other people. I’ve always been a little awkward doing those things in the meat space and find it much easier to communicate through written words but that no one said extroverts couldn’t be paralyzingly awkward.

And my writing is a bit of myself. It’s something I have done my whole life. I’ve never known any time when I wasn’t telling stories. I probably even told stories in baby gibberish.

I want people to read my stories.

Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, all of it. I put it out into the world with the hope someone will read it and enjoy it.

Sometimes, I’ll write something, just dump words out of my brain, and send it to my sister, asking where I would find the best audience for the thing. Should I capitalize on this thing by posting it to Vocal? Is it more suited to the blog? Where should I put this? Sometimes she’ll tell me. Sometimes I think she thinks I’m overthinking.

Most of the time, I know where something belongs.

That doesn’t always mean anyone reads it.

And therein lies my biggest struggle.

I am willing to share the words. I don’t see the point in not sharing the words. But I feel like so few of the words ever get seen.

---

If you enjoy my content, please visit my Patreon.

Bored

What do you do when you can’t even figure out what content to produce to keep yourself entertained?

I have lamented this on here before (which is part of the problem) but I don’t know what to share with people. I have no interest in producing MORE writing tips or editing tips; the internet is saturated with them.

I don’t feel like I get any engagement from behind the scenes content–research bits, character sketches, that sort of thing–and lack of engagement is the quickest way to reinforce my belief that I am a boring human.

I think that’s it, ultimately. I am boring. People tell me that I’m interesting, that I have a lot to say, but when I ask them for guidance, they just repeat themselves. “You’re not boring!” Okay, but I think I am so tell me what it is about me that makes you think I’m not boring? Maybe the thing that you find interesting would be interesting to other people. I might still think it’s dumb but at least having someone say it’s interesting to them gives me hope that I just think I’m boring because I have to spend all day every day listening to the same stupid stories.

I know that those same stupid stories are new to other people and I can’t accurately gauge their entertainment value. But in this case, no news is not good news. No engagement IS engagement. No engagement is rejection of my offerings from the vox populi.

Sometimes it’s an algorithm thing. But my anxiety doesn’t understand that word. My anxiety says, “No one liked this, that means it was terrible. Whatever you do, do NOT repeat this.”

If I post too many more of these, this is going to be my brand. At least in this arena. WordPress is going to start marketing me as the Debbie Downer who has nothing valid to say. Because I keep presenting myself in that light.

I have things to say. I have A LOT of things to say. I’m just not sure if anyone wants to hear them.

---

If you enjoy my content (TELL ME!), please visit my Patreon.

Out With the Old

I am not a proponent of new years resolutions, generally speaking. While I’m not an extremist zealot about it, I do, sometimes, think seriously about the ridiculousness of time and dates.

Last year was a constant barrage of how horrible 2020 was and talk of yelling Jumanji instead of Happy New Year at midnight and the more those talks continued, the more I thought about this arbitrary thing we call a year.

At 11:59 pm, November 1, 2001, I was not mature enough to drink alcohol. At midnight, sixty seconds later, I magically matured. I feel like New Years Eve is the same concept. 12:01 am January 1, everything resets and all the problems of the previous year are erased.

So I don’t get on board with resolutions.

Goals are a little different to resolutions, though, and I saw someone else talk about the things they are leaving behind in the coming year–everything from judgment to junk–that no longer serves them. So I thought I’d try a little of that.

First off, goals.

I obviously have two books coming out this year. I heard a lot of excuses regarding the status of the first one and why C0VID was to blame for it’s low performance but truly I hope it’s because it’s the first of a series and people are waiting until they can get all three. Because I don’t find comfort in the idea that in a year of homebound free time, the reason people, who are boasting about reading 2-300 books in 2020, did not buy mine.

No, I’m far more comforted by the idea that sales will jump in September with the release of the third book.

But in addition to that, I want to put out some short fiction.

I don’t know that I want to get involved in more anthologies. They are a lot of work for what amounts to “exposure” in the long run.

Sure I have awards from Dragons Within and an LGBTQ bestseller for Fractured Realities but …

A lot of work for very little pay off.

That’s not saying I won’t take the opportunity if the right one comes along; I just don’t plan to seek them out.

In terms of what I want to leave behind–I have taken on a great deal of anger in 2020 and I don’t like it. I am not an angry person but circumstances–

I have absolutely heard people outright refuse to be vaccinated then in the next breath suggest none of this is ever going to end; masks and isolation are life now, concerts and festivals and conventions will never come back. Well yeah, Karen, if you refuse to get a FREE AND SAFE vaccine, then, yes, you’re correct. It will never end.

But I don’t want to be angry. I am a positive, kind, pleasant person. My customer service voice IS my normal voice. I want to be that person again.

So I guess that’s my how we’re starting 2021 post. If you want to follow along on these quests, follow me here and join me on Patreon.

Building a Loyal Audience

I want to talk a little about audience.

I write books. Books are a special animal in that they are not readily conducive to multitasking, they are time consuming, and they draw a very specific kind of audience. People who like certain genres of book are quite in tune to what they like about that genre and if you stray from those parameters, you run the risk of being roasted, as it were.

Which is largely why I have worked vehemently to keep my book out of the paranormal romance category.

I honestly wasn’t even going to have a romantic element but I got talked into it. By the romantic element.

He’s just so damned charismatic he could probably sell water to a drowning man.

But building an audience, as a writer, is a special beast as well. One tip—or pointer or bit of advice—I found on the subject of audiences and social media is to make sure 80% of my content is on topic. It’s fine to, once in a while, show off a picture of my cat because writers have cats, right? But if I want to showcase my cat, it is better to have an Instagram for the cat and one for the words. Because if I flood my account with cat pictures and draw in thousands of cat lovers, they’re not going to care when I drop news about writing.

If they even see it at all.

What I need to do instead is aim all of my content toward the kind of reader who will want to read my books. In this case, urban fantasy readers are who I am trying to draw in. But also readers in general. So I use those hashtags and I write captions about that kind of stuff.

What all of this means, essentially, is that while I would appreciate the sales, I don’t want just everyone buying my books. I don’t want people who enjoy cozy mysteries or Christian fiction to buy my books out of an obligation to me as their friend. I don’t want family to buy my books because they think they should.

I want people who are going to dive in with both feet and devour half the book before realizing they need to go to bed. I want people who are going to be excited about my book(s). And that’s a harder audience to reach.

Casting a wide net and scooping up all the little fish in a 100-foot radius is fine but isn’t it better to use a rod and reel to catch a smaller collection of bigger fish? Who wants to clean all those little fish? Bigger fish are easier to prepare. Now that I’ve reached the 500 followers mark on Instagram, I feel like I can back off a little. Not in terms of content—although, unfortunately, that has happened—rather in terms of casting the net. I don’t need to join follow loops and just gain everyone else as a new follower. I need to draw in followers who found me under their followed hashtags. I follow “#amwritingurbanfantasy” because I want to see what I’m up against. So my goal is to end up under a hashtag someone else is following. Multiple times because it’s not something that happens on the first try.

But the real issue is I don’t want pity follows, pity buys. If you are interested in my books, buy them. If you’re not, share them so someone else might find them. Don’t buy out of obligation or loyalty then leave it to collect dust for the rest of forever. I appreciate your purchase and will never say don’t buy it, outright without quantification. But I don’t want it collecting dust on your shelves.

That said, if you would like to support my content, please join me on Patreon.