Capitol Tech U Doctoral Presentation - April 2024.pptx
Writer's Digest - February 2024 USA. pdf
1. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2024
WritersDigest.com
WRITERS HELPING WRITERS SINCE 1920
SCREENWRITING TECHNIQUES FOR MORE CINEMATIC PROSE
RETHINKING PROLOGUES: How
and When to Use Them Effectively
PUT THE KIDS TO WORK:
Writing Realistic Children Characters
USING THEMATIC WRITING
to Draw Readers in
Hone Crucial CONTENT-
EDITING SKILLS
Making the Most of TITLES
FOR MICROFICTION
AUTHOR TAN TWAN ENG
ON WRITING ABOUT
REAL PEOPLE IN
HISTORICAL FICTION
Hook Your Readers
WD INTERVIEW
Michael Cunningham
THE PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING AUTHOR
SHARES HIS UNIQUE STRATEGY FOR
REVISION AND WHAT INSPIRED HIS
FIRST NOVEL IN NEARLY 10 YEARS
2.
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5. WritersDigest.com I 3
INKWELL
8 SECOND TO NONE
BY WHITNEY HILL
10 PLUS: Worth a Thousand Words • Tantalizing
Titles • Poetic Asides • Write It Out
COLUMNS
16 INDIELAB: 3 Reasons Why Authors Resist
Book Marketing, and 3 Ways to Overcome That
Resistance
BY CLAUDINE WOLK
19 INDIE AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Mel Walker
BY AMY JONES
20 WD 101: You Don’t Have Time for This
BY JEFF SOMERS
22 WRITERS ON WRITING: Tan Twan Eng
23 MEET THE AGENT: Sophie Cudd • The Book Group
BY KARA GEBHART UHL
24 BREAKING IN: Debut Author Spotlight
BY MORIAH RICHARD
58 YOUR STORY: Star Voyager #124
64 AGENT SPOTLIGHT: Myrsini Stephanides • Arc
Literary Management
BY KRISTY STEVENSON
66 ON NONFICTION: 5 Ways Into Your Lyric Essay
BY KATE MEADOWS
68 PUBLISHING INSIGHTS: 4 Ways to Write Hooks
for Books
BY ROBERT LEE BREWER
70 LEVEL UP YOUR WRITING (LIFE): Opening Lines:
Get Them Right … or Else!
BY SHARON SHORT
72 BUILDING BETTER WORLDS: The Basics of Trade
BY MORIAH RICHARD
74 FOR ALL AGES: 10 Pitfalls to Avoid When
Self-Publishing a Picture Book
BY BROOKE VITALE
76 FRONTLIST/BACKLIST: The Worst What-Ifs
BY AMY JONES
NEXT DRAFT
61 HONE THESE CRUCIAL CONTENT-EDITING
SKILLS: POV AND SETTING
BY KIM CATANZARITE
JANUARY/FEBRUARY | VOLUME 104 | NO. 1
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5
52
THE WD INTERVIEW:
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author shares
his unique strategy for revision and what
inspired his first novel in nearly 10 years.
BY AMY JONES
48
Your Book’s Next Chapter
Your Book’s Next Chapter
When and how you can republish your book
after contract termination or rights reversion.
BY AMY COOK
6. 4 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
LEARNBYEXAMPLE
Theme
COMPILED BY JESSICA STRAWSER
I know there will be a morning
when I wake up and don’t think of
my brother. But it’s not today. I don’t
know when that day will come, or if
I want it to. What does it say about
us when we begin to accept some-
one else’s sacrifice? When we begin
to forget. Is it natural, the way things
should be, all ordained and right in
the flow of life? Or is it a betrayal to
their memory? An injustice.
I don’t know. I really don’t know.
—Where They Lie, Joe Hart (suspense)
We must see all scars as beauty.
Okay? This will be our secret.
Because take it from me, a scar
does not form on
the dying. A scar
means, I survived.
—Little Bee,
Chris Cleave
(literary fiction)
Jessica Strawser (JessicaStrawser.com) is editor-at-large for WD and the author of popular book club novels, including the Book of the
Month selection Not That I Could Tell and the People magazine pick The Next Thing You Know. Her sixth novel, The Last Caretaker, just
released in December from Lake Union.
We weren’t meant to see everything,
we weren’t built to do everything, we
aren’t capable of knowing everything.
At a certain point, peace has to be
found with the choices we’ve made.
—The Celebrants, Steven Rowley
(book club fiction)
When you’re young, and you love
someone, want to be them, and
resent them all at the same time, it’s
hard to step back and separate out
those different feelings. They just
become one big swirl of emotion,
and it’s easy enough to label it as hate.
—The Daydreams, Laura Hankin
(contemporary fiction)
“ … You don’t get to choose the
circumstances. That’s the point of
luck: it happens when and where it
happens.”
—The Unhoneymooners,
Christina Lauren (romance)
I’ve always had
the same pre-
dicament. When
I’m home, in
Kentucky, all I
want is to leave.
When I’m away, I’m home-
sick for a place that never was.
—Groundskeeping, Lee Cole
(literary fiction)
“There is in each of us a fundamen-
tal split between what we think we
know and what we know but may
never be able to think.”
—Inheritance, Dani Shapiro (memoir)
Lee’s love felt easy. Light on her
skin, fresh on her tongue, the first
drizzle of the monsoon, and just as
dependable. It felt fueled by itself,
not a mold he wanted to pour her
into like molten silver.
Oscar had been able to love
her without reservation because
he knew he could never have her.
Who was it that said, “The only
kind of love that lasts forever is the
unrequited kind”?
— The Vibrant Years, Sonali Dev
(women’s fiction)
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10. 8 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
Second to None
Writing secondary characters that hook readers.
BY WHITNEY HILL
N
arratives have at least one
clear protagonist whose
point of view informs our
experience of the story, carrying
our thoughts, emotions, and hopes
or expectations for the conclusion.
While these characters may receive
the bulk of the focus, secondary char-
acters can make or break the story as
much as the protagonist(s).
DEFINING SECONDARY
CHARACTERS
Secondary characters may not carry
the plot or drive the action in the way
a main character does, but they still
play a key part in a satisfying story.
It’s important to think of them not as
mere placeholders or vehicles to prog-
ress the plot, but in terms of their rela-
tionship with the main character. They
may take on a range of roles, such as:
• Antagonist or someone who pres-
ents an obstacle or challenge
• Sidekick/squad/crew, i.e., the
main source of direct and ongo-
ing support for the protagonist
• Love interest or romantic partner
• Family, whether by birth or found
• Friends or acquaintances
• Teachers, mentors, and guides
• Bosses or authority figures,
who may be sources of power
or boundaries laid on the main
character
• Holders of resources or informa-
tion that don’t fit into the above
categories, but which the protago-
nist needs to engage to advance in
the story
• Bystanders, i.e., people or entities
who are simply present in the
environment, like the nonplayer/
nonstory characters in a video
game
Even if your character is alone
in the wilderness, there will still be
a secondary character: the environ-
ment or even the protagonist’s own
doubts, fears, and beliefs.
There’s also a time element to
these relationships: past, present, and
(intended) future. As a story or series
arc moves forward, relationships need
to grow, atrophy, or otherwise change
in response. If they don’t, under-
standing why could be an important
plot point of its own.
Developing meaningful secondary
characters adds depth and nuance to
a narrative by creating more oppor-
tunities to connect with the plot or
themes. Despite not being the main
focus, we often find readers or view-
ers latching onto these characters,
particularly when they see something
of themselves or their situation in a
secondary character that they do not
in the lead role. However, this only
happens when there’s a reason to care.
MAKING READERS CARE
The ingredients of a meaningful sec-
ondary character may vary by genre,
theme, or medium, but there are a
few reliable foundations writers can
build on.
Personality
Strong secondary characters don’t
need to be physically, emotionally, or
magically strong to be beloved. They
don’t even have to be likable. But they
do need to have a personality trait
that makes them relatable—and they
need to be consistent in their person-
ality or have a demonstrated reason
for changing.
Why? Because it’s human nature
to establish patterns. This isn’t just
something we do with stories; it’s
11. WritersDigest.com I 9
something we do with people in real
life as well, to help us find a faster,
subconscious shorthand to navigat-
ing our feelings and reactions. When
we apply that to characters, it cre-
ates a connection and an emotional
response based on what we know or
believe about ourselves and others.
Done well, this can become a
point of immersion; a well-developed
secondary character becomes repre-
sentative of a personality pattern the
reader or viewer already understands,
creating an individualized archetype.
Backstory
The building blocks of personality are
often carved from lived experiences
related to identity, culture, employ-
ment, relationships, or location.
It isn’t necessary to create a
detailed backstory for every char-
acter, but it can help to do this for a
handful of those with important roles
or recurring appearances. Questions
to apply to the current story that can
help flesh out backstories include:
• What past event needs to
be addressed in the current
narrative?
• What does this character want?
What is their motivation?
• What’s in their way or what’s
stopping them?
• What do they need to learn?
• How are they feeling at the open-
ing of the story, about both events
and other characters?
• How are they perceived by others,
and how does this align with how
they want to be perceived?
• How do their relationships
evolve?
• What does the end look like?
Working through these questions
can uncover key events, emotional
wounds, dreams or ambitions, and
past relationships for each character
that influence the present. Exploring
this not only with the protagonist but
also with recurring secondary char-
acters adds dimensions to make them
more interesting, enriching the over-
all experience and deepening engage-
ment with the story.
Of course, keep the main char-
acter in mind as you work through
these questions with each secondary
character. The point is not to outshine
the protagonist, but to ensure that
recurring secondary characters have
a compelling reason to be featured in
the story.
It also provides clearer opportuni-
ties to demonstrate how, when, and
where a character has evolved or can
do so later.
Character Evolution
As we go through life, it can be easier
to see one of two situations: where
everyone else has changed except
ourselves, or where we have changed
and left everyone behind. In writing,
as in real life, these are perspectives
to be wielded carefully.
When characters fail to evolve,
they run the risk of becoming pre-
dictable caricatures of themselves—
and that makes them boring. If we’re
bored, we lose interest, which could
be disastrous for a story. While it
could be a possible device for a plot
twist, that twist might feel abrupt
and unsatisfying for readers who
checked out or dismissed the affected
character.
On the other hand, when charac-
ters evolve too quickly or easily, it can
be confusing. Without a clear reason,
like a physical, emotional, mental,
spiritual, or moral struggle, the evolu-
tion seems random. Furthermore, for
characters who were opposed to the
protagonist’s goals, evolution without
reparation or repentance of some
kind will also likely seem too easy,
dissatisfying, or even fake.
Whether you’re writing a stand-
alone or a series, consider how the
main plot points affect and either
change or entrench the answers to
your backstory questions. Plot points
represent a major shift in the story
that will ripple outward. While main
characters are expected to react to
these directly, secondary characters
may react directly or to one of the
ripples. It depends on their proxim-
ity to the protagonist, their personal-
ity, and their backstory. In any case,
these are opportunities for character
evolution.
Creating characters readers care
about offers not only the opportu-
nity for deeper connection with the
present work, but also future oppor-
tunities for spin-offs featuring those
characters. Romance novels and
superhero films and TV franchises
often leverage this to great effect,
so think about how these character
development foundations could grow
into further work.
EXAMPLES
Let’s look at a couple of examples
where secondary characters con-
nected with readers or viewers and
added depth to the narrative.
Shadows of Otherside
My own Shadows of Otherside urban
fantasy series follows the first-person
point of view of an air elemental hid-
ing from a bounty on her kind. A
key secondary character is an elven
prince who initially presents as one of
the greatest antagonists.
At the start of the series, read-
ers hated this antagonist. He was
superior, cold, and followed elven
law in a way that directly harmed the
12. 10 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
Bob Eckstein is a New Yorker cartoonist, NY Times–bestselling author, and adjunct professor
at NYU. His new book is The Complete Book of Cat Names (That Your Cat Won’t Answer
to, Anyway).
Worth a Thousand Words
protagonist. Later in the series, read-
ers clamored to protect him at all
costs. Why? Because bit by bit, pieces
of backstory were teased out in the
context of his personal growth, and
meaningful shifts (which included
reparations at deep personal cost)
occurred in his relationship with
other characters.
This accomplished two important
things: First, readers had more con-
text for the initial personality traits
and behaviors; and second, the char-
acter arc provided relatable evidence
of change and redemption. Even with
everything being filtered through the
protagonist’s direct perspective, read-
ers were able to come to an under-
standing of a character they had
initially strongly disliked. With that
understanding came sympathy and
connection.
“Lucifer”
In an example from television, the
Netflix series “Lucifer” largely follows
the charismatic and selfish namesake
character. Over the course of the series,
viewers become acquainted with key
figures like a hench-demon, a human
love interest, and an angelic brother.
In addition to Lucifer’s key per-
sonality trait of not lying, each of the
secondary characters has their key-
stone trait, belief, or guiding principle.
Over the course of the series, we see
these tested and either confirmed or
evolved, and the character along with
them. As a result, each of the second-
ary characters has meaningful and sat-
isfying developments that impact the
rest of the ongoing story—and keep
viewers personally invested, which led
to the series being saved from network
cancellation and extended.
PITFALLS TO AVOID
To close, let’s consider what might
weaken the writing of a secondary
character.
When we don’t take the time to
flesh them out as carefully as we do
the protagonist, it can be easier to
fall into the use of harmful (or sim-
ply tired) tropes and stereotypes.
When developing secondary char-
acters, make sure to examine your
own experiences and possible biases.
Exploring online resources like
TVTropes.org or WritingTheOther
.com can help with understanding
which tropes or themes carry poten-
tially harmful elements.
Another pitfall is assuming the
universality of our own experiences.
In addition to potentially resulting in
some of the aforementioned harm-
ful tropes, this can lead to not seeking
out new information or perspectives
that could deepen all of the characters.
It can also lead to secondary charac-
ters that are overly similar to the main
character. If secondary characters are
simply shades of the protagonist, that
should be a considered choice.
Creating secondary characters that
hook readers requires writers to
develop these characters as carefully
as we do the protagonist. Defining
a clear role; developing personality,
backstory, and points of evolution;
and avoiding tropes and stereotypes
are all ways to craft a full cast of char-
acters readers can love.
Whitney Hill (WhitneyHillWrites.com) is
the author of the Shadows of Otherside
fantasy series and the Otherside Heat para-
normal romance series. Her books have won
the grand prize in the 8th
Annual WD Self-
Published E-Book Awards and made Kirkus
Reviews’ Top 100 Indie Books list. You can
find Whitney hiking in state parks or on
Twitter and Instagram @write_wherever.
“I just want to say thanks for getting me into this writing group.”
13. JANUARY 4
How to Get Published: Land a Book Deal in 2024
FEBRUARY 8
Establish (or Improve) Your Email Newsletter
MARCH 7
Create an Author Website
APRIL 11
Literary Citizenship: The Easy Way
to Market and Promote
MAY 9
Effective Book Marketing
JUNE 6
Today’s Key Book Publishing Paths
JULY 18
Will Your Nonfiction Book Sell?
or scan the QR code below to find
out more and register.
Visit WritersOnlineWorkshops.com
2024 WEBINARS
WITH JANE FRIEDMAN
SAVE THE DATES!
14. 12 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
I
f you are struggling with titling
your essays and articles, it’s
important to realize a good title
is vital—it can make the difference
between an editor reading your piece
and relegating it to the slush pile.
A little-known secret: Often, an
editor will assign on the basis of a
compelling headline that displays an
angle that makes it stand out, even if
the pitch isn’t fully fleshed out. Even
better if the title evokes emotion or
even anger. I love a good allitera-
tive title, that also plays on words
such as a piece I wrote for Writer’s
Digest, “Polishing Your Prose: Tips
for Self-Editing,” or my student’s title
“Seoul Searching in San Francisco” in
Bloomberg (which plays on the words
soul and Seoul, evoking a journey and
a spiritual quest).
I always try to put a title at the top
of the page when I’m working on an
essay. It may change, but at least it
gives me a roadmap and helps keep
me focused as I write.
Here are 11 title tenets to craft
yours, with examples of compel-
ling titles from me, my students, and
other writers.
1. ANSWER A BURNING
QUESTION
What question does your essay ask?
Answer the question in your title. It can
be either direct or indirect but implied.
EXAMPLES:
• “Why Do People Take the
Public, Social-Media Spectacle of
Celebrity Death So Personally?”
Tantalizing Titles
Want a headline that stands out? The answer is in your essay.
BY ESTELLE ERASMUS
• “Elijah the Prophet Will Toast You
on Zoom: Ways to Get Through a
Socially Distanced Passover”
• “How to Bullyproof Your Child”
ESTELLE’S EDGE: Try writing up a
short sentence about your piece’s
meaning or purpose, or the situation
that has to be overcome.
2. SHARE YOUR CHALLENGES
What are you dealing with that others
can relate to and also evokes emotion?
EXAMPLES:
• “I Was Uncontrollably Angry
After Giving Birth”
• “What to Do About Your Tween’s
Toxic Friend?”
• “My Husband Doesn’t Post About
Me on Facebook and That Makes
Me Sad”
3. INSERT AN IMPORTANT
MOMENT
Cover what is at stake and how is it
focused on in the essay.
EXAMPLES:
• “My 9-Year-Old’s Unexpected
Seizure Taught Me the Power of
Letting Go”
• “I Had Quintuple Bypass Surgery.
A Trait I Never Guessed Might
Affect My Heart May Be to Blame.”
• “I Had My Daughter in Midlife and
She Became My Writing Muse”
ESTELLE’S EDGE: Think of words
or phrases related to your topic and
the emotional implications and cul-
tural significance. If it’s motherhood,
words that work might be birth,
placenta, breastfeeding, rules, post-
partum depression, binky, obligations,
musings, child-free time.
4. OFFER WORDS THAT
RESONATE
What are your protagonists saying?
Are there any phrases, colors, or
specific details that stand out? Or is
there a single word that is repeated
throughout the piece?
EXAMPLES:
• “The Red Cane”
• “Don’t Blow Up Your Life for
a Byline”
• “Friends, Fleetwood Mac, and the
Viral Comfort of Nostalgia”
5. SET UP A PROBLEM/
SOLUTION
Write the first part of the title as the
situation or problem or vice versa,
and then write “and that’s why I real-
ized …” or found or this happened, or
I did this to solve X.
EXAMPLES:
• “I Lost My Brother to a Cult
When I Needed Him Most. A
Tragic Twist of Fate Brought Us
Back Together.”
• “I Was Told My Parents Were
Dead. 38 Years Later, I Got an
Email That Changed Everything.”
• “When to Reply on Social
Media—and When Not to”
6. INCLUDE THE ACTION
HAPPENING
You can pull it from any part of the
piece, including the inciting incident
15. WritersDigest.com I 13
or narrative arc: the beginning, mid-
dle, or end.
EXAMPLES:
• “When Your Tween Acts Up in
Lockdown”
• “A Fake Uber Driver Tried to Pick
Up Me & My Daughter”
• “Singing My Dad Back to Me”
ESTELLE’S EDGE: If you are still strug-
gling to define your headline, take spe-
cific words out of your essay and look
them up in a thesaurus or dictionary
to find synonyms that might work in
your title and get ideas percolating.
7. SHARE A NUMBER
Numbers in headlines promise spe-
cific information and insights and
solidify the concept for the reader.
EXAMPLES:
• “15 Kinds of Kisses for My
5-Year-Old”
• “6 Reasons We Don’t Let Our
Daughter Sleep in Our Bed”
• “8 Ways to Defend Yourself From
Writing Coaching Scams”
8. EQUATE TO A CELEBRITY
The idea is to pose the concept: Like
[CELEBRITY NAME], I am also deal-
ing with [AN ISSUE]. Or, this celeb-
rity helped me deal with [AN ISSUE].
EXAMPLES:
• “How John Mayer Helped Me
Become a Better Therapist”
• “Like Naomi Campbell, I’m an
Older Mother. My Experience Is a
Gift to My Child.”
• “Why Penny Marshall’s ‘Laverne’
Was the Role Model That Saved Me”
9. SEEK OUT SETTING
Go through your essay and see where
it takes place, or where most of the
scenes occur and highlight those
places in your title.
EXAMPLES:
• “Thanksgiving in Mongolia”
• “Georgia on My Mind”
• “My Husband Wore Really Tight
Shorts to the Eclipse Party”
ESTELLE’S EDGE: Do word map-
ping to figure out a way to discover
new connected words that you can
use. For example, if your piece takes
place at a farm, you might word
map: Sunnybrook, rooster, wake up,
milking.
10. “VERB” YOUR WORK
Which verbs resonate as you read?
If so, jot them down in the Notes
app on your phone. Use active verbs
like churned, sauntered, splintered,
spiraled, collapse, turbulent, and pep-
pered to paint a picture for the reader.
EXAMPLES:
• “Unmuting a Brother-Sister
Relationship, One Chord at a Time”
• “What to Do When Your Tween
Is Trash-Talking You”
• “Mom Hacks to Cut Through
Other People’s Crap”
11. MAKE A PROVOCATIVE
STATEMENT
Remember, it is only clickbait if the essay
doesn’t deliver on the title. Yours will.
EXAMPLES:
• “Confessions of a Former Hoarder”
• “My Secret Life as an Underage
Massage Therapist”
• “Being Hypnotized Into a Past Life
as a Man Brought Me True Love”
TITLE GENERATOR JUNCTION
A title should draw readers in. It
should inform. Intrigue. Entertain.
Show the stakes. Often changing just a
few key words, or switching the focus
or tone, makes the difference between
an OK title and one that gets attention.
ORIGINAL TITLE: How I Stopped
Wishing My Neurodivergent
Children Were Different
FINAL TITLE: How I Discovered That
My Children’s Neurodiversity Is a Gift
MAKING IT WORK: The key word gift
makes the title focused on the positive,
not the negative, which works better to
draw in readers by showing a benefit.
ORIGINAL TITLE: An Astrologer
Returned My Dad to Me
FINAL TITLE: I Thought Love Was Lost
to Me Forever, Until an Astrologer on
New Year’s Eve Gave Me a Way Back
MAKING IT WORK: The emotional
stake is clear now, and the solution
was about her love life, not her father.
ESTELLE’S EDGE: If you want to see
your byline in a particular publication,
model the titles the publication uses.
Now that you have a great title, when
you are submitting, make sure you
add it to the subject line of the email
to the editor. Let them see your craft
before they even start reading your
work—and it will get noticed.
Estelle Erasmus (EstelleSErasmus.com) is
author of Writing That Gets Noticed: Find
Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get
Published, and host of the Freelance Writing
Direct podcast (EstelleSErasmus.com/
podcast). She teaches journalism classes at
New York University’s School of Professional
Studies and for Writer’s Digest University.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok
@EstelleSErasmus for publishing and writing
advice, and sign up for her Substack focused
on craft and publishing opportunities at
EstelleSErasmus.substack.com.
18. 16 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
INDIELAB
New rules. New strategies. New paths to success.
KNOW HOW IT WORKS OR
WHERE TO START.
Authors consider writing to be a
creative endeavor and book mar-
keting to be a business endeavor,
two very different disciplines, yet
the same creativity that you used to
write your book can also be used to
market your book. Some of the best
book-marketing ideas cost noth-
ing. The trick is to take the time to
commit to book marketing. Make
no mistake about it, every author
must promote their book if they
want to sell it. Put frankly, if Coca-
Cola needs to promote its products,
so do you. The focus on book pro-
motion is not reserved for the indie
author alone. Traditional publishers
expect their authors to market their
books and finance a promotional
effort as well.
A good starting point is the key
to your success. Every great book-
marketing plan starts with the iden-
tification of three key items about
the book.
• Message
• Audience
• Hook
These will form the backbone of
E
very author wants to do
right by their book. They
want to give their book the
best chance to be seen and sold.
Desire and action, however, are two
very different prospects. When it
comes to book marketing, authors
shy away. Why?
Three reasons:
1. It’s too soon!
2. It’s intimidating!
3. It’s scary!
If authors can take the leap from
writer to book marketer, their book
sales will soar, their publishers will be
thrilled, and their coffers will over-
flow. Specific ideas and strategies to
promote and market books can be
found in other resources. This article
focuses on changing the author’s
mindset. Let’s take the reasons why
authors resist book marketing one by
one and offer ways to overcome the
resistance.
1. AUTHORS FEEL THAT THEY
ARE SIMPLY NOT READY
TO MARKET THEIR BOOK
BECAUSE THEIR BOOK IS
NOT COMPLETED.
The fact is, it is never too early in
BY CLAUDINE WOLK
the writing process to begin to mar-
ket your book. Even though the act
of writing a book is a Herculean
task, authors must learn and engage
in book marketing as well. Book
marketing is work, but it is crucial.
Don’t panic. Let’s reimagine the
term book marketing for a min-
ute. Book marketing can mean just
about anything you do to promote
your book. It could include a simple
mention of your book to a stranger
in an elevator or hiring a publicist
to pitch you as a guest on a pod-
cast. In other words, book market-
ing does not have to be complicated
and involved. It includes all the
possible things that you can do, big
and small, to get the word out about
your book.
Simply telling people that you are
writing a book is book marketing.
But there are other, more standard
book-marketing tasks you can per-
form as you write your book that
will help catapult your book sales
when your publication date comes.
2. AUTHORS ARE INTIMI-
DATED TO START BOOK MAR-
KETING BECAUSE IT’S NEW
TO THEM AND THEY DON’T
3 Reasons Why Authors Resist
Book Marketing, and 3 Ways to
Overcome That Resistance
19. WritersDigest.com I 17
My advice to face this fear is to
embrace the exposure. You wrote
the book, so subconsciously, you
are ready for the attention that your
message will receive. Own it. By
owning it, your book-marketing
efforts will be even better because
you will have the confidence of your
message and you will be motivated
to get it to your audience. You are
in a unique position to come up
with effective book-marketing ideas
because it is your message.
If anxiety at the thought of
publication and promotion creeps
in, remember that you have a
message that is so important that
you wrote a whole book about it!
Your book’s worthiness is inherent
in the fact that you took your
precious time and energy to write
it down for others to consume.
Regardless of the overall outcome
of your book-marketing efforts, you
will come away from your project
knowing that you gave it the very
best chance to be seen.
The key to successful book mar-
keting is to match the people who
need your book with your book.
That’s it! Embrace book marketing,
authors. Start by identifying your
book’s message, audience, and hook.
Remember that you are not selling
but sharing your message with read-
ers who already desire it. Your
readers are waiting … WD
Claudine Wolk (ClaudineWolk.com) is
the co-author of Get Your Book Seen and
Sold: The Essential Book Marketing and
Publishing Guide.
your book-marketing plan. If you
take the time to dig in and identify
these items, you will then have the
strong foundational elements to
create an effective book-marketing
plan. What is also interesting is
that you can begin to identify your
book’s message, audience, and hook
as you write your book and that the
process can be fun!
“Message” is what your story
is about. What are you trying to
impart with your story or nonfic-
tion book? Books tend to have more
than one message, so grab a sheet of
paper and write down all the pos-
sible messages related to your book.
Once you have exhausted all the
possible messages, try to winnow all
the messages to one (or two) over-
arching messages.
Identifying the audience for your
books means identifying all the
possible readers for your book and
then narrowing the field to one or
two key audiences. For whom, spe-
cifically, did you write this book?
Who do you imagine walking into a
bookstore, gently pulling your book
off the shelf, and carrying that book
to the cash register to buy it? Take
some time to imagine the specifics
of that reader. Where do they buy
books? Are they married? What do
they watch on Netflix? What do they
eat? Where do they shop? What
kind of money do they make? What
podcasts do they frequent? Dig deep
here to identify your specific reader.
A hook is something about you,
your story, or your message that is
unique. While we all understand
that “there is nothing new under the
sun,” there is most definitely some-
thing unique about you or your
story that will set your book apart
from the rest of the books out there.
Take Tina Turner, for example.
Turner wrote a book in 1986 titled I,
Tina. When you are a famous per-
sonality like Tina Turner, your name
is already a hook, hence the title,
I, Tina, and the picture of Turner
on the book’s cover. But, when you
combine a famous personality with
never-before-released revelations of
that celebrity’s life with a famous ex-
husband, you have two hooks.
You don’t have to be famous,
though, to have a great hook. Simply
going to the next level in your story
can be a fantastic hook. In the novel
More Than You’ll Ever Know by
Katie Gutierrez, the main character,
Lore, was married to two men at the
same time, resulting in murder—
a great story by itself. The author
takes the story to the next level by
introducing a new character, Cassie,
who years after the 1985 murder,
becomes obsessed with the story
and forms a relationship with Lore.
The story alternates between the two
unreliable narrators and leaves it up
to the reader to decide who is tell-
ing the truth. This is an example of
taking a story with a good hook to a
whole other level.
Once you have developed your
message, your audience, and your
hook, you have the fundamentals to
use in all of your book marketing.
3. IT’S SCARY TO PUT YOUR-
SELF OUT THERE.
Authors believe that to actually start
book marketing means that they are
really going to write this book and
share it with the world. It is scary to
put your book out into the world.
It may be one thing to write a book
but to let other people actually read
it can be a frightening prospect for
authors. Not only will readers see
the book but they will also see the
author, up close and personal.
20. 18 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
INDIELAB | WORKSHEET
Book Marketing
1. Close your eyes and think about marketing your book. What emotions come up? List them here.
2. Dive a little deeper. What is behind those emotions? (i.e., If you’re afraid, what are you afraid of?)
3. Now that you’ve identified the emotional roadblocks, let’s focus on your book. What is your
message?
4. Your audience?
5. Your hook?
6. Moving to the big picture: What is your ultimate book-marketing goal?
7. Name one small step you can do right now to get a little closer to that goal and a short plan for
implementing it.
21. WritersDigest.com I 19
Kiss You Back, Doctor Know, The
Singapore Stunt (Contemporary
small-town romance)
WHY SELF-PUBLISH? I enjoy the fact
that I can write in multiple series
at the same time and collaborate
with other authors in anthologies
and shared worlds easily. I’ve had
the honor of participating in sev-
eral fundraising anthologies raising
money for such causes as United
Help Ukraine, A Book A Day
Scholarship Fund, and the National
Pancreatic Cancer Foundation.
WISH I’D KNOWN: I thought net-
working could occur later after I had
a finished book. The indie author
community, especially in romance,
is super-supportive. Connecting
with other authors and industry
professionals early in your journey
can save a lot of heartache, provide
some much-needed perspective, and
help keep your creative cup filled.
I’ve been fortunate to connect
with many kind and caring souls
who have happily shared their
experiences, lessons learned, and
advice. Don’t be afraid to make
these connections early in your
author career. A new-to-the-scene
author who smashed this lesson out
of the ballpark is Alexandra Hale.
She writes small-town romance and
prior to publishing her first novel,
she attended romance author sign-
ing events and networked. She spent
time at nearly every table, intro-
duced herself, asked questions, and
took notes.
WRITING ADVICE: Focus on com-
pelling, interesting, and unique
characters. Readers come for the
genre and the tropes but stay for the
characters. Lean into your unique
perspective of the world and cre-
ate characters that are distinctive
and align with your brand. A funny,
quirky heroine with a personality
that keeps people guessing will have
readers flipping page after page.
In my small-town romance series
book 5, Trace’s Forever, Kimberly
Conrad, a secondary character, and
best friend of the main character,
left such an impression with read-
ers that my inbox was flooded with
demands to feature her in her own
novel. The problem was that Trace’s
Forever was the last book in the
Lake Hope series. I moved on to a
travel romance series (The Vagabond
series) and brought Kimberly along;
problem solved, she gets her HEA
with my latest release, The Singapore
Stunt. It’s a win-win. Readers get
their favorite while also being intro-
duced to a new romance series.
MARKETING STRATEGY: I post across
social media a mix of graphics,
reels, and videos about upcoming
releases, author life, and inspiration.
I also market in my author newslet-
ter, NL swaps with authors in my
genre, paid promo such as Written
Word Media, The Fussy Librarian,
Red Feather Romance. Paid book/
review/release tours with PR firms
such as Indie Pen PR. And of
course, the pay-to-play advertising
market—Amazon, BookBub, etc.
More than 90 percent of the
authors in the romance genre are
female. I market myself as that rare
bird, the male romance author. That
curiosity factor helps when I reach
out to podcasters and other author
streaming platforms. I’ve been fea-
tured on a number of author chan-
nels, including Angela Anderson
Presents, Brown Book Series, The
Book Buzz Show, and many others.
WEBSITE: AuthorMelWalker.com
AWARDS OR RECOGNITION:
• RRAW (Romance Readers and
Writers Experience) Man of
Action Winner 2022
• Romance Writers of America
– National Conference 2023 –
Keynote Speaker
• RWA.org/online/events/rwa_
conference/featured_speakers
.aspx WD
INDIELAB | AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT
Mel Walker
Amy Jones is editor-in-chief of WD.
BY AMY JONES
23. WritersDigest.com I 21
me, and the writing covered a fun
range of topics I enjoyed digging into.
But writing those articles was
drudgery: The style guide was
enormous—instead of simply using
Chicago or AP style with some
minor deviations, they had a lengthy
style bible covering every possible
question.4
Worse, the style guide
changed frequently, and they usually
didn’t alert you to those changes;
you were expected to just keep up
with it. I also had to source—and
size and crop!—images for every
piece, and they were very picky
about the image quality and, of
course, had a dense set of require-
ments about where you could
source from and what the images
depicted. I was also required to fol-
low SEO guidelines that resulted in
sentences that were English only by
association,5
and source every state-
ment of fact. Every. Single. One.
Worst of all, though, was their
attitude.
Looking back, it’s amazing how
long I stuck with it, because my edi-
tors at this job were kind of rude.
Minor mistakes were highlighted
with the exasperated tone of the
Very, Very Patient. They kicked back
articles for revision for a lengthy list
of minor offenses and complained
bitterly—and at length—about each
and every one as if I was purpose-
fully ruining their day.
As I started making higher rates
with other clients, I noticed that the
more a platform or publication paid,
the more likely it was that I was free
to focus on the writing (as opposed
to worrying over image sourcing or
style minutiae), and the atmosphere
and attitude were much more col-
legiate and professional.6
People
acted as if my writing, my voice
and unique insight, was the valu-
able thing, not my ability to use the
SEO phrase “monkey hair banana”
organically 12 times in a 500-word
article.7
I stayed with that job for far
too long, in part because I actu-
ally enjoyed the freedom of writ-
ing about a variety of subjects at my
discretion, and in part because my
creditors still refuse to accept poems
as payment.8
Slowly, though, I real-
ized that not every freelance writing
job was an exercise in existential
dread, because the more you get
paid to write the more you’re getting
paid to write instead of being paid
to manage content.
THE JOB DESCRIPTION
The root of the problem lies in what
I described at the beginning of this
article: The writerly tendency to
feel like we don’t really deserve to
be paid for our work. If you apply
for a job as the Assistant (to the)
Regional Manager, you look at the
job description and decide whether
the compensation you’re being
offered is worth it. As writers, we
often don’t ask to see a job descrip-
tion at all. We assume that the only
way to justify the money we’re being
paid to do something we’d gladly
do for free is to lard up a job with a
bunch of unrelated work.9
The core problem with this sort
of work is that acceptance of your
articles (and thus, receiving pay-
ment for them) is tied not to the
writing but to the mechanics of the
content management system you’re
tasked with using and all the other
stuff, but you are most likely still
being paid by the word. So, you
research, conduct interviews, and
write a terrific piece—but your
pay is contingent on a bunch of
stuff you are explicitly not being
paid for, because you’re being paid
by the word or for the article, not
the sized image or the properly
inserted HTML tag. The fact that
these unpaid services are usually
the things writers aren’t particularly
good at is just a little extra salt in
the wound.
Of course, it’s easy to say “don’t
take low-paying gigs that require all
kinds of unpaid work” when your
rent is paid and you’re not routinely
climbing out of bathroom windows
to escape creditors. But keep in
mind the simple fact that the more
you get paid to write, the less your
time will be wasted. WD
Jeff Somers always wanted to learn
ballroom dancing, but became a writer
instead. Since that fateful day, he’s
published nine novels, numerous short
stories, and Writing Without Rules, which
seeks to tempt others into making the
same mistake. He lives in New Jersey with
a Duchess and numerous cats.
4. I have a personal style called Somers which is easy to learn: All grammatical and most spelling
mistakes are, in fact, brilliant subversions of your prosaic expectations and you will never truly
understand my genius. This works a lot more often than you might think.
5. Luckily, is my specialty, this.
6. For example, my habit of producing some of the longest and most syntactically obscure run-on
sentences in the history of the English language became an affectionate joke instead of a reason
to stop paying me.
7. <bursts into tears>
8. To be fair, my poetry is legendary in its terribleness. I tried pasting one into a footnote here and
Writer’s Digest reduced my rate by $0.02 a word in retaliation and told me the entire staff col-
lectively felt attacked.
9. Why is the “unrelated work” never something like “taste-testing whiskey” or “nap-testing
advanced hammocks”? I demand answers.
24. 22 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
WRITERSONWRITING
ways I wanted them to. For my nar-
rative, I wanted to make Maugham
more of a social person, more loqua-
cious and outgoing, but because of
what I had found out about his char-
acter, I knew it would not be authen-
tic: Maugham was afflicted with a
lifelong stammer, which made him
reticent and shy. I came up against
similar walls with the writing of Dr.
Sun and Ethel Proudlock. I was deter-
mined to retain the psychological
authenticity of these people, but to do
so, the directions of my plot had to
accommodate them.
It was more liberating to write
about the fictional characters, to be
able to animate and motivate them
according to the requirements of the
story I was trying to tell. The only
real-life character I had freedom in
writing about was Maugham’s lover,
Gerald Haxton. And that was only
because he had left almost no trace
of his journey on this earth. WD
T
he House of Doors, my third
novel, is set in 1910 and
1921. One of its protagonists
is W. Somerset Maugham, who is
traveling around Malaya, at that time
a British colony. Still recovering from
ill health following a misadventure,
Maugham accepts an invitation to
spend two weeks recuperating at his
old friend’s home by the sea on the
island of Penang. The famous writer
is accompanied by his “secretary,” a
rogue called Gerald Haxton.
Aside from Maugham and
Haxton, two other historical figures
feature in my novel: Dr. Sun Yat Sen,
the Chinese revolutionary conspir-
ing to bring down the monarchy in
China; and Ethel Proudlock, the first
Englishwoman in Malaya charged
with murder.
On my book tour in the U.K.,
people have remarked that it must be
so much easier writing about real-life
figures than fictional ones: these peo-
ple already existed, and all I needed
to do was to recreate them on the
page—their appearances and their
actions, their backgrounds, their
political and philosophical views.
With fictional characters on the other
hand, these people confidently said
to me, I would have had to conjure
them out of nothing and breathe life
into them—a much harder task.
I smiled, but I did not correct
them. I, too, had thought the same
when I first started writing The
House of Doors. I had researched
Maugham exhaustively: I read, I’m
quite certain, every biography ever
written about him; I studied and
analyzed many of his novels, short
stories, and his nonfiction works. I
collected references to him in the
diaries and autobiographies of the
people who had crossed his path. I
studied photographs and watched
archival videos of him on the inter-
net. There were more than sufficient
materials for me to work with.
The scarcity of books written in
English about Dr. Sun Yat Sen, on the
other hand, made him a much more
difficult person to research. One of
the plotlines in my novel concerned
the six months he spent in Penang in
1910, rising funds for his revolution.
The island was the base from where
he schemed and plotted to overthrow
China’s monarchy and to replace it
with a Republican government. But
I was fortunate to be able to visit a
little townhouse in Armenian Street
which had been his headquarters,
and which was now a museum dedi-
cated to him.
For Ethel Proudlock, I once again
resorted to books and newspaper
articles written about her. I spent time
in the National Archives of Singapore
studying the transcripts of her trial.
The standards of court reporting in
1910 were uneven, and I was glad
of my years as a lawyer in trying to
make sense of the transcripts.
All this research should have made
the writing of these people easier.
But to my dismay, I was mistaken.
It was extremely restrictive to write
about real figures in a work of fiction.
I had the characters all ready-made
and fully formed, true, but I couldn’t
make them act, think, or speak in the
Tan Twan Eng
The House of Doors is Tan Twan Eng’s
third novel and was longlisted for the
Booker Prize in 2023.
27. WritersDigest.com I 25
and physical health, and that type of
stress is something all writers should
consider when starting the journey
to publication. ADVICE FOR WRITERS:
Read your work out loud. Perform
it if you can, like a radio drama or
audiobook. When performed, a
book comes to life and starts taking
up sound and space in the physi-
cal world, and since the method
was first recommended to me by
an English teacher, I’ve applied
it to everything I’ve ever written.
NEXT UP: Nothing to announce
yet but stay tuned for another
sweeping historical epic explor-
ing the many facets of the Black
experience in America. WEBSITE:
AveryCunninghamAuthor.com
Mariely Lares
Sun of Blood
and Ruin
(Adult historical
fantasy, February,
Harper Voyager)
“The morally upstanding Lady
Leonora doubles as the masked vig-
ilante Pantera in 16th
-century Spain-
occupied Mexico.”
WRITES FROM: San Diego, Calif.
PRE-SUN: Sun of Blood and Ruin is
my debut novel and the fifth book
I’ve written across different genres.
TIME FRAME: The genesis of this
story began in 2017. I wrote a lot of
it during breaks at my full-time job
on my phone. It took about three
years and some thousand rounds of
edits to polish. ENTER THE AGENT:
Heather Cashman followed me on
Twitter, so I kept her in mind to
query because we had similar tastes
for favorite books. I still remember
where I was and what I was doing
when I read her email saying she
loved my book and wanted to see
it in every bookstore in the world.
about the original Black elite, 1920s
Chicago seemed an ideal setting.
The cultural, social, political, and
economic changes that define this
country in the modern era rose out
of the Roaring ’20s, making it fer-
tile ground for this type of narra-
tive. Prior to The Mayor of Maxwell
Street, I was halfway through an
ambitious four-year project revolv-
ing around hoodoo culture in Jazz
Age Memphis. TIME FRAME: From
outline to completion, the timeline
was about 10 months, which was
daunting for a muse-driven pant-
ser like myself. There were very
early mornings, very late nights,
and some hellish combinations of
both. ENTER THE AGENT: My agent
is the fantastic Richard Abate, a
man who took a chance on a com-
plete unknown and has shown me
nothing but support at every step.
We were connected by a mentor of
mine, who is also represented by
Richard. He offered to represent me
in 2020/2021. By 2022/2023, The
Mayor of Maxwell Street was under
contract with Hyperion Avenue.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: The faultless sup-
port of my publishing team. Led by
my editors, Cassidy Leyendecker
and Adam Wilson, everyone at
Hyperion Avenue has championed
this project through each milestone.
No door has ever felt closed. WHAT I
DID RIGHT: For years, I harbored so
much self-doubt that when chances
to write, to publish, to start my
author career came, I turned them
away out of fear of failure. … if I’d
allowed fear to prevent me from tak-
ing the chance, [this] book would
not exist today. WHAT I WOULD
HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: I certainly
wouldn’t have tried to do everything
at once. The strain of doing it all was
deeply detrimental to my mental
BIGGEST SURPRISE: Publishing is not
a meritocracy. It’s all about hype, and
no two author experiences are the
same. Rejections and criticism are
not a proving ground of self-worth.
They say knowledge is power. But
I have found that the less I know,
the better I sleep. I wish I could just
write my stories and stay hidden. I
have to do the tough stuff though
for the love of books. WHAT I DID
RIGHT: I’m so glad that I took the
time to carefully research Mexican
history and Mesoamerican mythol-
ogy. With so many different perspec-
tives and debates even after 500 years,
especially surrounding the conquest
of Mexico, it felt like navigating a
maze. I don’t know if that helped me
break in, but it was important for me
to show the truth, even though the
story isn’t 100 percent historically
accurate, because we can’t honor our
past without honesty. WHAT I WOULD
HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: I prob-
ably wouldn’t have started writing
before having a clear grasp of the
plot. I understood the characters
and their motivations, but I didn’t
plan the details. ADVICE FOR WRIT-
ERS: Write what excites you. Your
enthusiasm will come through in
your writing and engage your read-
ers. Your first draft will more than
likely suck. Channel your inner jazz
maestro, let those words groove like
a sax solo. And if it’s not sizzling yet,
don’t be shy; toss it back in the word
oven until it’s as golden and fluffy as
a soufflé. More often than not, writ-
ing is all about the delicious rewrites.
NEXT UP: The sequel of Sun of Blood
and Ruin. A rom-com in the future
perhaps. WEBSITE: MarielyLares
.com WD
Moriah Richard is the managing editor
of WD.
29. T
hematic writing enables your readers to enjoy
your story on a deeper level by encouraging them
to think about big issues, to reflect on their lives
and beliefs. By selecting a theme, and then integrating
symbols and allegory that support the theme, you’ll add
dimension and vitality to your writing.
For many writers, though, identifying your theme
isn’t easy. Sometimes, of course, your theme is clear
and purposeful—you set out to write about family val-
ues, bullying, independent decision-making, or another
big idea. Other times, the theme only becomes appar-
ent as you draft your story, or even after it’s finished.
Occasionally, even after you’re done, you have no sense
at all of your theme or whether you have one. If that’s
your situation, ask yourself if this lack of clarity comes
from a forest-trees conundrum. While you’re slogging
through the metaphorical woods, tripping on plot roots,
forging streams alongside your characters, actually writ-
ing the book, you don’t have a sense of the forest, the
larger picture. Only after you’re out of the woods, look-
ing at the scope of the forest through a wider lens, does
your theme become clear—because that’s what theme is:
the overarching story arc.
Broadly, there are two kinds of themes: a unifying
principle or a dominant idea. A unifying principle refers
to a structural element that serves as a through-line for
your story. A dominant idea encourages deep thinking
about a universal issue, be it an idea, an attitude, a belief.
The unifying principle in Irwin Shaw’s Nightwork, for
example, is the transcendent power of reinventing your-
self. In the book, we follow a thief around the world as
he uses money he stole to fix his eyes, buy nice clothes,
and travel to glamorous resorts where he meets people
who expand his horizons, and ultimately, who value
him for the man he has become. The larger story arc is
not about recovering the stolen money; it’s about self-
determination to be who you want to be, to live the life
you choose. Stephen Chbosky’s coming-of-age novel The
Perks of Being a Wallflower also uses the unifying princi-
ple of self-determination to share a larger story—in this
case, finding your place in the world. We follow Charlie,
a “wallflower,” as his life unfolds in a series of firsts—first
dates, first viewing of The Rocky Picture Horror Show,
first friends having sex. We’re with Charlie as he strad-
dles the threshold between adolescence and adulthood
and understand his struggles to figure out where he
truly belongs.
HIGHLIGHT YOUR THEME WITH
AN EPIGRAPH
When done well, an epigraph, an apposite quote at
the beginning of a book or chapter, sets the thematic
mood. Epigraphs are typically short excerpts from
an existing work, a quote from a novel, a line from a
poem, a verse from the Bible. Consider how the fol-
lowing epigraphs foreshadow the books’ themes.
• MAGICAL REALISM: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. The
theme is expressed in the title of chapter one:
“Don’t let appearances fool you.” The epigraph
reads:
It’s a Barnum and Bailey world,
just as phony as it can be,
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
if you believed in me.
“It’s Only a Paper Moon”
—Billy Rose and E. Y. “Yip” Harburg
• LITERARY FICTION: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper
Lee. The theme looks at the battle between
righteous honor and virulent injustice in our legal
system. The epigraph reads:
“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
—Charles Lamb
• CRIME FICTION: The Godfather by Mario Puzo. The
theme focuses on dueling dichotomies: crime and
justice and loyalty and betrayal. The epigraph reads:
“Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.”
—Balzac
WritersDigest.com I 27
30. HOOK YOUR READERS
Integrating a dominant idea, a global reflection,
throughout your story is another effective approach to
thematic writing. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia
Alvarez focuses on the choice between cowardice and
courage in the face of soul-annihilating oppression. Set
in the Dominican Republic in the decades leading up
to the 1960 murder of three of the four Mirabal sis-
ters, this fact-based novel showcases the cost of cow-
ardice and the price of courage. In My Sister’s Keeper,
author Jodi Picoult considers the ethical complexity of
being required to save someone’s life. The story revolves
around two sisters, one dying, the other conceived as a
bone marrow match to keep her older sister alive. Anna,
now 13, is expected to endure her umpteenth surgery,
this time to donate her kidney, without having any say
in the matter. She refuses and sues for emancipation.
This tale of life and death challenges readers to witness
impossible choices.
Once you have your theme and epigraph set, it’s time
to ensure you’re layering in thematic references that sup-
port and reflect your theme. One of the most effective
ways to do this is through symbols, whether expressed as
imagery or text.
Symbolic Imagery and Text
A symbol refers to a material thing that represents a
nonmaterial thing, usually a tangible item that illumi-
nates an intangible concept. Let’s say that your theme
is “family first.” You might select an acorn and an oak
tree to visually represent this abstract concept. An
acorn, the tiny seed that spawns a mighty oak, is a
frequently used symbol, representing the concepts of
deferred gratification and long-term potential. This
works well because an oak tree, while sturdy, with
deep roots and expansive, spreading branches, takes
a long time to grow. One of the world’s most success-
ful investors, Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO
of Berkshire Hathaway, puts it this way: “Someone is
sitting in the shade today because someone planted a
tree a long time ago.” You find acorns on door knock-
ers, family coats of arms, fences, and the like. Add in
sensory-based language to describe the experience of
sitting under an oak tree to reinforce your theme. As
E. L. Doctorow explained, “Good writing is supposed
to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is
raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
Sometimes your symbols can find life in metaphors
or similes. As you assess your options, aim to choose
symbols that resonate broadly because of a shared
understanding of their meaning. For instance, the
weather offers multiple opportunities to add thematic
gravitas. Jesmyn Ward uses the metaphor of a hur-
ricane in her memoir, Men We Reaped. The mem-
oir follows the lives and deaths of five young men she
knew growing up in Mississippi. Thematically, the
memoir looks at the definition and meaning of home.
Hurricane Katrina played a seminal role in Ward’s early
THE MEANING OF SYMBOLIC
For symbols to work in supporting your themes, it’s
important you adhere to the generally understood
meaning of the symbol. A dove, for instance, rep-
resents peace; a heart, love; an owl, wisdom; rain,
sadness. Consulting reliable sources such as The Noun
Project and Visme can help guide your selection.
CHOOSE WORDS AND PHRASES
THAT SUPPORT YOUR THEMES
Weaving words and phrases that support your theme
allows you to subtly reinforce your ideas.
Let’s say you’re writing a middle-grade novel about
Gavin, a young boy who has to grow up fast after his
parent’s divorce leaves him rudderless. His parents
are immersed in their own affairs, picking up the
pieces of their lives, licking their emotional wounds.
Metaphorically, Gavin finds himself adrift in roiling seas
and has to navigate his way to solid ground on his own.
You select an epigraph from National Geographic
Fellow Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey: “True naviga-
tion begins in the human heart. It’s the most important
map of all.”
By selecting words that relate to navigation, your
theme will be woven into the story with a light touch.
Notice the words I’ve already used to describe Gavin’s
situation: rudderless, choosing your own path, adrift,
roiling seas, navigate, solid ground.
This approach enables your readers to travel along-
side Gavin as he charts his course, enhancing reader
engagement.
28 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
31. years. She wrote: “Life is a hurricane, and we board up
to save what we can and bow low to the earth to crouch
in that small space above the dirt where the wind will
not reach.” Think about a hurricane—you are powerless
to control it. All you can do is hunker down and wait it
out, hoping it doesn’t destroy you or your home in the
process. In Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, the Sea, a famous
playwright leaves his glittering London life for an iso-
lated house on the sea to write his memoir and finds
himself haunted by dark and frightful memories. The
weather reflects the theme of regret amid the lies we tell
ourselves. “The rain came down, straight and silvery,
like a punishment of steel rods.” This powerful image
allows readers to experience the punishment alongside
the protagonist.
Allegories
An allegory is a literary device that can add thematic
import to your stories. Allegories help deliver broader
messages about the human experience, teach moral
lessons, and address controversial issues in a non-
confrontational way. They’re similar to metaphors in
that both illustrate an idea by making a comparison to
something else. However, allegories are complete stories,
while metaphors are brief figures of speech.
An allegory is an engaging way to reveal a hidden
meaning without explicitly stating it. Toni Morrison, in
her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, recounted an African
folktale as she warned about the frailty of language—if
you don’t want to lose a language, you must protect it. In
the allegory, a bird represents language. It’s up to people
to safeguard the bird lest it die or fly away. According
to scholar Dr. Michael Austin, writing in Reading the
World: Ideas That Matter, “The folktale at the heart of
Morrison’s speech functions rhetorically much as the
parables of Jesus do in the New Testament.” Morrison’s
story works on two levels, literal and figurative. On the
one hand, the parable is about a bird—a literal narrative.
On the other hand, the story about the bird was designed
to get us thinking about a culturally sensitive issue (our
language) in a new way—a figurative interpretation. This
duality adds thematic depth.
Some authors use allegory to facilitate conversations
around controversial issues without confronting them
head-on. A classic of the form, George Orwell’s Animal
Farm is, on one level, a fable where farm animals run a
society that divides into factions. On another level, how-
ever, the book tells the story of the Russian Revolution
and expresses Orwell’s criticism of Stalinism. It also
reveals the power of propaganda, showing how a gifted
orator can spin even the most damning facts to his
advantage. The phrase, “Four legs good, two legs bad,”
for instance, becomes a mantra designed to fire up anti-
human sentiment, a metaphor for Orwell’s underlying
theme that in the wrong hands, language can be used to
oppress people.
Allegories are also used to drive home moral lessons.
Aesop’s Fables, for example, teach children that slow and
steady wins the race (“The Hare and the Tortoise”), no
act of kindness is wasted (“The Lion and the Mouse”),
and necessity is the mother of invention (“The Crow and
the Pitcher”).
In American Born Chinese, an allegorical graphic
novel, author Gene Luen Yang tells three stories that
come together at the end. In the first story, the Monkey
King represents an idealized man, someone who works
diligently to improve himself so he can strengthen his
kingdom and become a worthy god to his subjects.
However, he was turned away at a gods’ party because
ALLEGORIES OFTEN INCORPORATE
PERSONIFICATION
Dictionary.com defines “personification” as “the attri-
bution of human nature or character to animals, inani-
mate objects, or abstract notions …” Personification
increases engagement since readers are required to
imagine the connection you describe, an active pro-
cess. While personification is a hallmark of allegorical
writing, it can be used in any mode to support your
theme.
In the horror novel The Haunting of Hill House,
author Shirley Jackson uses personification to bring
terrifying menace to the house. Consider this example,
from page one of the novel: “Hill House, not sane,
stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness
within.” Shel Silverstein personified an apple tree in
his novel The Giving Tree. He wrote: “Once there was
a tree, and she loved a little boy.” In both examples,
an inanimate object becomes a device to reinforce the
theme—one filled with terror, the other filled with love.
WritersDigest.com I 29
32. HOOK YOUR READERS
he was a monkey. The second story follows Jin Wang, an
American born Chinese boy. The teacher who introduces
him to the new class does not even ask where he is from,
telling the class that Jin just arrived from China, though
he actually came from San Francisco. In the third story,
Jin who wants to fit in, to be a regular American boy,
decides his name is part of the problem—people mispro-
nounce it all the time. Jin decides to take what he called
“an American one,” Danny. It doesn’t help, since changing
your name doesn’t change who you are. American Born
Chinese is an allegorical examination of stereotypes and
perception. When an allegory is well-constructed, the
duality gets people thinking about complex issues in
new ways.
Thematic Writing Next Steps
To ratchet up your writing with a thematic punch, follow
these steps:
1. Identify your theme.
2. Select an epigraph that supports your theme.
3. Choose symbols to add nuanced heft.
4. Consider whether your story and theme lend them-
selves to an allegory.
5. Add sensory-based atmospheric descriptions to rein-
force your theme.
Taken together, these tactics will ensure your story
is rich with meaning, and those are the stories readers
crave. WD
Jane K. Cleland (JaneCleland.com) writes the multiple award-
winning Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries and the Agatha–award
winning bestsellers, Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot and
Mastering Plot Twists. She is a contributing editor for Writer’s
Digest magazine and the chair of the Wolfe Pack’s Black Orchid
Novella Award in partnership with Alfred Hitchcock Mystery
Magazine. Visit Jane’s website for details about free monthly
webinars on the craft of writing.
ATMOSPHERIC DESCRIPTIONS CAN
SUPPORT YOUR THEME
Atmospheric depictions allow your readers to experi-
ence the setting in the same way the characters do. In
Chris Pavone’s The Accident, we experience the para-
doxes between darkness and light, safety and danger,
and good and evil. “Isabel stares across the room, off
into the black nothingness of the picture window on
the opposite wall, its severe surface barely softened
by the half-drawn shades, an aggressive void invading
the cocoon of her bedroom. The room is barely lit by
a small bullet-shaped reading sconce mounted over
the headboard, aiming a concentrated beam of light
directly at her. In the window, the light’s reflection hov-
ers above her face, like a tiny sun illuminating the top
of her head, creating a halo. An angel. Except she’s
not.” This excerpt is laden with symbolic imagery. At
first, the mood is heavy, hard, frightening. The imagery
remains stark until the abrupt shift at the end, where
fear turns to hope. Consider the underlying thematic
driver revealed in this brief description—is Isabel
merely human in a nonangelic sense? Or is she the
devil incarnate?
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh tells the story of
a woman whose 5-year-old son dashes into the street
on their walk home from school. He’s hit by a car—a
hit and run—and he’s killed. She runs away, to escape
the memory, the horror, her guilt. This excerpt explains
what she sees in the place she now calls home: “The
road continues to narrow, and I can see the swell of
the ocean at the end of the lane. The water is gray and
unforgiving, white spray bursting into the air from the
wrestling waves. The gulls sweep in dizzying circles,
buffeted by the winds that wrap themselves around
the bay.” The narrowing road and the gray, unforgiv-
ing water mirrors her view of herself, of her future. This
hopelessness is reinforced by the birds flying in circles
in a futile search for sustenance.
Fortifying your theme by introducing symbols to
create atmospheric descriptions serves to deepen the
reader experience.
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34. HOOK YOUR READERS
A
dult fiction is full of child characters, just like real
life. But unlike in real life, where kids are nearly
impossible to ignore—bringing pops of color,
heart-tugging vulnerability, and seemingly endless energy,
noise, and mess to just about everything they do—on the
page they often come across as placeholders, background
fodder rather than fully formed players in the story.
This is a missed opportunity because, when given
proper attention on the page, kids can raise the stakes,
emphasize the themes, add comic relief, and make sto-
ries more relatable and moving in ways no other char-
acters can. They can’t help it: They’re miniature adults
in training, all their reactions and impulses amplified in
disproportion to their size, with very little filter.
Think of the 6-year-old who stole the show in Jerry
Maguire. It’s a rom-com, rags-to-riches sports tale, and
midlife crisis drama—but the adorable Ray, with his
oversized glasses, affinity for random facts, and soft spot
for the decidedly un-kid-friendly Jerry, is half the reason
we care.
I’ve participated in book club discussions of my own
novels with hundreds if not thousands of readers, and
I don’t believe I’ve ever left a meeting without someone
remarking on the book’s supporting cast of children.
What I hear again and again isn’t that my own takes are
so earth-shattering, but that they stand out because so
many other novels depict kids in ways that simply don’t
ring true.
We write what we know, and I’m at a stage of life with
two elementary schoolers at home. But for all the time
and energy I’ve spent trying to tune out parenthood so I
can write, I’ve devoted just as much attention to study-
ing where and how children translate most effectively to
the page.
Here are nine of my favorite approaches, easily adapt-
able for any genre.
1. Let Them Play
Ever notice how kids can turn almost anything into play?
Where adults would pull out their smartphones and
fill time with mindless scrolling, kids stay engaged and
open to creativity and possibility. Waiting in the bus line
turns into a game of “I Spy.” Checking out at the store
means they want to put all your groceries on the belt,
saying, “Beep! Beep!” and “Price check in lane 6, please.”
Stopping by your office means playing teacher or boss,
draining your stapler, and using up entire pads of sticky
notes in one sitting.
When a scene is dragging or getting too intense, try
asking yourself what would happen if someone on the
page—child or adult—got a little more playful.
In my domestic suspense novel Not That I Could Tell,
one of my most asked-about scenes features a stay-at-
home mom attempting to play hide-and-seek with her
preschooler. Tension is mounting amid a police investiga-
tion next door, and she knows it’s only a matter of time
before her son realizes two of his neighborhood friends
are missing along with their mom, a good friend of hers.
“Mommy, you count to ten and I’ll go hide behind the
curtains in the dining room. Ready, go!”
Clara stifled a laugh. “Thomas, hide-and-seek
only works if you don’t tell me where you’re going to
hide. I’ll count and you pick a new place, okay?”
“But the curtains are a great hiding place!”
“But you just told me you’re going to be there. I
already know.”
“Okay. Close your eyes—no peeking! I will go
hide now—and do not look behind the curtains.”
Thomas pointed an ultra-serious finger at her, then
backed toward the hallway.
Clara shrugged and covered her eyes with her
hands. “One,” she began. “Two… Three…” … She
didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts anyway.
She’d seen patrol cars come and go from Paul’s
house again yesterday afternoon, and the uncertainty
about what was happening or not happening was
driving her mad.
… “Ready or not, here I come!” she called.
Maniacal giggling came from the dining room.
Clara hadn’t needed Detective Bryant’s reminder
of what she’d witnessed years ago to be mind-
fully grateful for what she had. Even at her most
exhausted, she relished the off-key notes of Benny
singing in the shower, the Muppet-like form of
Thomas’s bedhead, the new fascination Maddie had
with sticking out her tongue and going cross-eyed
trying to see it.
32 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2024
