Author L.K. Hill's Musings on Fantasia

Friday, September 11, 2015

Friday Funnies #7

Welcome to Friday Funnies! Because everyone needs a good laugh on Friday.

(All pictures can also be found on my LOL Pinterest Board or my Geektastic Board.)

Source

Hope everyone got a good laugh out of one of those. Have a great weekend! :D

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Using the 12 Steps of Intimacy for Non-Physical Romances

Picture Source

I guess this week I'm focusing on romance, though I honestly didn't plan it that way. After writing Monday's Post, 4 Tips for Writing Better Romance, I started looking for pictures to use in the post. My first thought was Pride and Prejudice. Classical romance, right? But then I realized that the post was about the progression of physical intimacy, and because of the writing constraints of her day, Jane Austin really didn't use physical intimacy at all. In fact, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy don't even kiss until their wedding day. So I figured it might not be the best example for that post, despite the fact that it's one of the most well-known, classical romances in literary history. (I used a P&P pic anyway, but only because it showed something else I was talking about. :D)

So then that got me thinking about people who don't write racy scenes. I write romance in, and I'll do a love scene every once in a while, but I keep it at a PG-13 rating. Of course YA is all the craze right now, and as a genre, generally those writers need to keep it at a similar rating. And then of course middle grade on down rarely has overt romance, but could you write, say, a young, puppy-dog type romance, with almost no physicality to it, but still use Linda Howard's 12 step progression?

I think you can. But it's trickier. And requires deeper thought. So lets go through this.

1. Eye to body contact.
2. Eye to eye contact.
3. Voice to voice contact.

Okay, chances are these three things will remain largely the same in any relationship because 1) they don't require actual, physical contact between two people. And 2) because this could be the start of any kind of relationship, not necessarily a romantic one.

4. Hand to hand contact.

Now this one depends on what you're writing. If you want a physical connection but want to keep it PG-13 or even PG, this one's still okay. But what if you're writing, say, a romance where two people are too shy or in some way unable to have a normal romance. Could you convey step 4, a progression in intimacy, in some way other than have them actually touch or hold hands?

I think you could do this through dialogue or how these characters interact (other than physically). So perhaps they could just talk with one another and reveal something about themselves that most people don't know. This shouldn't be something super-secret or super personal. This is just the hand-holding step after all.

5. Arm to shoulder contact.
6. Arm to waist contact.

Same things apply here as apply to #4. Just come up with more personal things for your characters to reveal to one another that doesn't include physical contact. Of course you can use the plot/world of your story to help with this stuff. Depending on why you're staying away from the physical aspects of the romance and exactly what your characters interactions consist of is what will affect what they reveal and how/why they reveal it.

7. Mouth to mouth contact.

So the one thing that would be different about this step from the previous three is that the characters must reveal or share with each other something that they not only they haven't shared with others, but something they specifically wouldn't share with anyone other than the other person in the romance. Because let's face it: personal things can be revealed in non-romantic relationships. But you wouldn't romantically kiss someone you have a non-romantic relationship with. So this has to be something that would ONLY be revealed to them.

(I know this is vague, but the details will depend entirely upon your characters, your story, your plot, and your world.)

8. Hand to head contact.

This one, again, must be something that would only be revealed to the specific person in the romance, but it can be deeper, or just a further branch off of #7.

9.-12. These become even trickier when we aren't talking about physical contact. I'm not entirely sure intellectual sex is a thing. But this is a great opportunity to get creative. Is there some way to represent emotional or intellectual consummation of the relationship? Well that depends entirely on you and your story. You may not even need to take it this far. If you're writing YA or middle grade, you may just get to step 7 or 8 in the emotional progression and leave it at that at the end of your story.

So I'm not sure if this makes sense to anyone. My point is that the 12 steps of intimacy can be used in a symbolic way to show the progression of a relationship, even if you're not dealing with the physical side of things.

Just something I was thinking about.

(Creds to Linda Howard for the 12 Steps of Intimacy.)

Has anyone ever used a progression like this for intellectual romance?

Monday, September 7, 2015

4 Tips to Writing Better Romance

So this past weekend, as I do every year, I attended the League of Utah Writer's annual fall conference. This conference is always great, which is why I always go. They have fantastic classes, I get to network with other authors, sell a handful of books, etc. I even taught a class myself this year. So, as per usual, you'll probably see a few conference-inspired posts over the next couple of weeks.

So on Friday when I got there, the first thing I did was go and set up my author's table, piling books, bookmarks, cards and other swag all over it. The woman at the table next to me was Amy Jarecki. I'll admit that I didn't particularly recognize her, but her name sounded familiar to me. She, on the other hand, said she recognized me, and asked if we'd ever met. Neither of us could remember a particular time, but we both attend this conference regularly and figured that must have been it. (The next day she figured out a specific time she remembered me from. It was a workshop we both attended a few years before. I still didn't remember her specifically (I felt so bad!) but I did remember the workshop.)

Anyway, we hit it off and started talking. She is actually a VERY successful romance author. Now, I don't read or write genre romance, but I quickly realized that this woman knows how to sell her books. So I picked her brain about it, and she was more than happy to share with me. I was so stoked! So, the next day, when I was trying to decide which class to attend during a certain hour, I decided to attend hers.

It was, of course, on writing better romance relationships. And since I--and most authors--have romance in their stories, even if they don't write genre romance, I figured, why not? Oh I was so glad I did! I learned so much!

So I give full credit for these tips to romance author Amy Jarecki (check out her website HERE) and to Linda Howard for the steps of progression.

4 Tips for Writing Better Romance

Source Hawkeye and Cora, The Last of the Mohicans

1. Create plenty of conflict within the romance

A. The two characters at the center of your romance should have opposing goals (external
conflict/plot)

B. They should also have opposing emotional life paths (internal conflict)

Source Can anyone name this couple?

2. Define your characters' personality types. Amy suggests a book called Are You My Type? Am I Yours? by Renee Baron and Elizabeth Wagele. This book goes into detail about the nine personality types. There are plenty of personality systems you can use. Pick your favorite and use it actively. It will enhance your characters and their interactions with one another and deepen the reality of your story.

3. Remember the power of FEAR. Plot out your characters' actions, reactions, motivations, goals and conflicts in detail. Of course we want to do this with every character and story even if romance isn't involved. But the main reason people don't get what they want right away in a relationship or claim love the instant it strikes them is because of fear. So this should be a dominant emotion in your romance arc.

Source Kate and Sawyer of Lost

4. Keep in mind Linda Howard's 12 Steps to Intimacy. This is just a logical progression to physical human intimacy. It's not rocket science or anything, but it's something to keep in mind when crafting a relationship. It basically describes the steps people go through in their physical relationships.

1. Eye to body contact. (Basically just checking one another out.)
2. Eye to eye contact. (If no romantic sizzle at this point, then the relationship will not progress to romance.)
3. Voice to voice contact. (Being flirty. :D)
4. Hand to hand contact. (First real fear is often felt here, but it's a major turning point in the relationship.)
5. Arm to shoulder contact. (She demonstrated this as putting arms around each other, but I really think it could be any contact that's between hand to hand and full body. Just leaning arm to arm could qualify, in my opinion.)
6. Arm to waist contact. (A bit more intimate than arm to shoulder.)
7. Mouth to mouth contact. (Ah, first kisses.)

Source Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

8. Hand to head contact. (This one was interesting to me because touching someone's head can actually be more intimate than kissing, depending on the kiss. I just never really thought about that before. Interesting.)
9-12. From there we get more intimate touching, including hand to body, mouth to breast, hand to genitals and genitals to genitals. Whether you explore those depends on what kind of novel you're writing. Most romance novels are pretty racy. For me, I generally don't do that much detail in a love scene. (And obviously these steps weren't something anyone attempted to demonstrate in a writing workshop. :D)

So that was the gist of it. Follow those four tips and your romance--be it the entire crux of your novel or just a side plot--will be deeper, more real and more compelling.

(Btw, the unnamed couple in the second picture is Beth and Daryl of The Walking Dead. :D)

Anyone else have any tips for writing great romance?

Monday, August 17, 2015

Last Day of Citadels of Fire Sale!!!

Hey Guys, short and sweet today!

It's the last day to get Citadels of Fire for $2.99 on Amazon! If you write a review, you can enter to win Kindle Fire just in time for Christmas! Check out details on the Giveaway HERE.

Friday, August 14, 2015

3 Ways to Grow Your Audience on Any Social Network

Hashtags: A quick word on these. For those who don't know, hashtags are absolutely indispensable! I don't think people ever put enough emphasis on this. I was amazed when I first got on Tumblr about how many people found my posts who weren't following me and who I hadn't yet interacted with. I'm telling you, PEOPLE SEARCH HASHTAGS to find things they're interested in. Hashtagging your posts will grow your audience EXPONENTIALLY more quickly that not having hashtags will. You'll be amazed at the growth. And of course it depends on the network. I believe in using hashtags on EVERY network, because it helps the search feature on any network present your work to people who are searching for your subject matter. But it's also true that hashtags are much more effective on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram than on Facebook or Goodreads. Still, I hashtag absolutely EVERYTHING I post.

This is the frame I use for everything. This
meme actually isn't mine. I pulled it off
Pinterest and will post it with credit, but
I still put my frame on it so that when
people see it, they know it came from
my account.

Branding: When I started my TWD account, I just made an arbitrary decision to do all my pictures using a particular frame. I just liked it and decided that all my pics (theories, memes, even stuff I re-posted) would have that frame. I then just posted those same things straight over to Tumblr. Now, most people do more blog-type things on Tumblr, as I mentioned above, so it was definitely a different format for Tumblr. But it's worked phenomenally well. I got this comment a while ago on Tumblr, so obviously it's become a trademark of my account and people know me by it. This is branding at it's most basic. Create a look for your account. You may even be able to do the same one on many/most of your social network platforms, which actually makes less work for you because you won't have to convert to a new format for each one. Then just stick to it. Just with books, brands, businesses or anything else, you want your brand to stand out so that people not only recognize it, but learn to look for it. Do this with your social networking!!!

Theory slide from my TWD account.

Post Often and Consistently - I've said it in past posts, but the more you can post, the better. Your audience will grow just fine if you're posting once a day. It will grow 3x faster if you post 3x a day. And I know, that's a lot. You're afraid you won't be able to sustain it. But this is where brainstorming comes in. Once you get the creative juices flowing, you'll be amazed at how many ideas you come up with.

For example, I'm posting 3x a day on my author Instagram account right now because I'm trying to grow my audience. I post one thing about myself/my books in the morning. This could be an event, a report on my progress, a picture of a cover, something that inspired some part of the story like a character or setting picture from Pinterest, a picture of what I'm working on (screenshot of Scrivner, perhaps?) or any number of other things. Once you start looking for things to post, you'll probably end up with more ideas than you have time to post. Then I post something about reading in the after (quote or picture about reading, something by a favorite author, quote or cover from what I'm reading, etc.) and something about writing in general in the evening. (Again, quote, picture, author, whatever.)

Follow these tips and your audience and interaction will increase on any social network you're currently trying to grow.

What do you do to grow your audience?

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

5 Crucial Steps for an Online Marketing Plan: Branding and Branching Out (Part 5)

Sorry Everyone! This was supposed to go up on Friday, but I didn't get it written in time and didn't have time to actually write it on Friday. So this is going to be a run down of the networks that I'm on and how I handle them as an author, in case anyone wants to branch out.

Most newbie authors (or anyone starting out online) are just on one network. And usually it's a common one like Facebook or Instagram, but as you get a handle on those networks, I would strongly recommend branching out. While there will always be some crossover with the audience, I find that the percentage is very small. So with every new social network you master, you'll get a new audience, new potential customers, and new potential friends.

Facebook - I won't go over how to use Facebook, as most people these days are familiar. As an author, I post pics about reading and writing, fun pictures that have to do with either popular stories, or specifically with mine, my events, progress on my books, or information about my stories, characters, settings, etc. Really the sky's the limit, and as long as your audience hears from you regularly, it's a win-win.

For examples, check out my author page here: http://facebook.com/lkhillbooks

Twitter - This is usually the second most used network for authors, so I'll just give some general advice. Twitter is very much a broadcasting system, but don't use it just to shout "Buy my book!" all day. It should be interactive. Use it to spread great information, fun pictures, and network with people who have similar interests as you. Feel free to broad cast events and important things. (I do put out tweets when my books are on sale, etc.). Just don't do ONLY that or you'll lose followers quickly.

For examples, check out my feed here: http://twitter.com/lkhillbooks

Pinterest - This was the third network I discovered and got REALLY addicted to. It's very visual, but a lot of pinterest is how-to posts as well. You can figure out how to do ANYTHING on Pinterest. I keep recipes and DIY boards, fan boards for books, films, TV shows and more. The thing is, most pins are linked to their source, so it's really easy to pin a picture from, say, your blog, and it will be linked to your blog. So when people click on the image, it will redirect them to your blog, author page, or other web site. So by simply sharing on Pinterest, you can reach a whole new audience. And anyone who clicks on your pin is someone you know is already interested in your subject matter.

For examples, check out my boards here: http://pinterest.com/lkhillbooks

Instagram - I've talked a lot about Instagram this past week with my TWD fan account, and now I'm trying to build up my author account. Keep in mind that Instagram, like Pinterest, is very visual. The best things to put on there are pictures. Now, I'm a bit of a hypocrite saying that because I do theories on my TWD account which are all words. But I do try to keep relatively few words in each slide and also add pictures, and that works well. I will also say that my real pictures and memes (either funny or tragic pictures or clever jokes in picture format) generally get more likes and interactions than my theory slides do. So the visual rule still applies on this platform.

Tumblr - I did an entire post about Tumblr a few weeks ago. Check it out here: [4 Reasons Every Writer Should Be On Tumblr.] The gist is that Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform, so it's very easy to take your blog or even posts from other platforms and simply convert them over and post them here to. It opens you up to a new audience, which is always a plus. I will say that the pictures I mentioned above that do better on Instagram do worse on Tumblr. So you can see that Tumblr is focused on blogging, which is words. So pictures don't do quite as well. I do still post lots of pics here, though.

For examples, check out my boards here: http://tumblr.com/lkhillbooks and here: http://tumblr.com/twdmusicboxmystery

Google Plus - The thing I love most about Google Plus are their circles. You can categorize people by specific likes, dislikes, and functions that suit you. So I have different circles for bloggers that are willing to review different genres. So I have an entire circle set up for bloggers who review crime fiction, another for historical fiction, another for fantasy. Then I've got one for other authors, for editors, and then circles that are just people who like me, like TWD stuff, The Wheel of Time, or other subjects I enjoy seeing in my feed. By the same token, you can join communities built around specific subjects and share your posts to those specific communities. This is such an ingenious system because you are automatically sharing your information with people you know will be interested in it, rather than with the general public and just hoping a few people click on your link.

So, for example, when I share TWD stuff on G+, and I just share with the general public, I only get a handful of +1s. If I share it to TWD Circle community (which is 100,000 strong, btw) I get tons of +1s, reshares, and comments. See the advantages here?

For more, check out my feed here: https://plus.google.com/+LieselHill/posts

Goodreads/Amazon - Okay, being an author, I should probably touch on Goodreads and Amazon. I don't want to go into much detail because I want to talk about these networks as a way to do more general marketing, so it doesn't JUST apply to authors. So for these two platforms, that are almost exclusively for book sales, the best way to handle your page is to keep it up to date and interact with others who are also on the platform. I honestly don't post much directly to either of these networks. My goodreads profile is linked to a lot of my other networks, so my most recent blog posts and facebook links show up there. But other than that and keeping my profile up to date, I don't do much with them.

I hope this helps those looking to branch out. Let me know if you have specific questions. I'd be happy to do more in-depth posts on how to start, build, and grow any one network, and also what to post, if there's a need.

Come back tomorrow for some general tips on how to grow your audience on any social network. :D

What's your favorite social network?

Monday, August 10, 2015

Citadels of Fire Epic Giveaway!

Hi Everyone!

How's your week going? Good, I hope! Well, just wanted to let everyone know that the e-version of my historical fiction novel, Citadels of Fire, is currently on sale for $2.99 (down from $9.99). As with my crime novel, The Botanist, I'm doing a giveaway in exchange for reviews.

So if you know anyone who reads historical fiction, I'd appreciate any help you could give me spreading the word!

This will work the same as my other giveaway HERE. Anyone who gives me an honest review can enter to win a Kindle Fire HD at the end of the year.

So here's how it works. I'm giving away a Kindle Fire HD. The lucky winner should receive it just in time for Christmas. (Yea!) This giveaway is going to go all the way until November, which is a long time for a giveaway, but it's got to be that way to give people time. Here's why: The only way to gain entries to this giveaway is by reviewing The Botanist. So of course, I need to give people time to read the book and write the review.

Most people who enter bookish giveaways are avid readers to begin with. If you're reading anyway, you might as well give yourself the chance to win a Kindle Fire while you do it, right?

But that may not even be all of it! I MAY be giving away more prizes, just depending on the number of reviews I get.

Source

I'd love to get a thousand reviews. For a thousand or less, I'll just be giving away the Kindle Fire HD.
For every 100 reviews over 1000 that I get, I'll also give away a $25 Amazon gift card. So, if I get 1100 reviews, I'll give away the Kindle Fire + one gift card. If I get 1200 reviews, I'll give away the Kindle Fire + two gift cards, etc.
And IF--one can only hope--I get 2000 reviews, I'll give away a second Kindle Fire. So spreading the word for more entries will bring more prizes and more chances to win! Just sayin'. :D

So, hop on over to Amazon, or your favorite book retailer, grab a copy of Citadels of Fire, and then enter for your chance to win!

I'd also love help spreading the word. To that end, I've embedded some tweets below. (Sharing is caring! :D)

So, enter below, have fun, and happy reading!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Praise for Citadels of Fire:

"... a tale of love and war, loyalty and betrayal, murderous wolves and insane tyrants. What more could you ask for?"--The Every Free Chance Reader

"I...love rich historical novels...a fascinating tale of Russia in the time of Ivan the terrible."--Voracious Reader

"My favorite part of the story was the subtlety and beauty of the romance. "--Second Run Reviews

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