Writing Secrets

7 Quick Writing Tips (and Editing Advice) to Bring Your Words to Life

January 4, 2017 by Lisa Tener

Writing Tips from Real Life

Writing tips can help you transform ho-hum writing into a big Hallelujah! After I sent some feedback and writing tips to a client, I spent this morning editing her revised manuscript. I was thrilled to see the author’s writing improve so dramatically from one draft to the next.

writing coach Lisa Tener — Your Book Writing Coach

Eureka! Whatever I told her, I realized I should share with you today. Every writer loves to know what she (or he) can do better to improve her writing and make it sing. These writing tips can make a world of difference in your own revisions.

Today’s writing tips all focus on making the words leap out from the page and form a picture for your readers. Whether you are writing a how-to book, memoir or even a novel, you will truly draw your readers in if you paint a scene and share stories.

Sure, your book may have its abstract moments, but here we will focus on 7 writing tips that make your stories come to life—whether you are writing brief anecdotes that support your self-help tools or part of a larger narrative, such as a memoir.

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writing desk — Paint a scene from the get go, so your reader isn’t playing “catch up.”

Paint the scene at the beginning. Have you ever had the experience of reading a story and imagining the character in one place, only to find three paragraphs later that the room was dark, not light; the character was surrounded by people, not alone as you had thought; and that it took place in the car, not the office? Not only does such construction confuse your readers, it frustrates them and takes them out of the magical world you are creating (yes, even in a brief self-help anecdote!). Instead, picture the scene in your mind and make the essential details clear up front.

Be specific about placement: Don’t make your readers have to guess whether your sister stood above you, sat next to you or put her head in your lap as you spoke. You can clarify placement by the verbs you use (“she sat” “she stood”). You can also clarify it by picturing the scene in your mind very clearly and then writing. Don’t overdo this (“She used her right hand to reach for the object on her right.”). Keep it simple and sparse, yet clear.

Use specific verbs to imbue actions with emotion and motivational cues: “She went to the store.” – WEAK! “She walked to the store.” – BETTER. “She sprinted to the store.” – GOOD. “She dragged herself to the store.” EVEN CLEARER.

Let your readers draw the conclusions. Don’t you go telling me that he was nervous and she was nuts. Instead, have him do something that shows he’s nervous—a tic, a stutter, wiping the sweat from his hands. Have the dialogue show how nutty she can be. As a reader, I get to draw the conclusion of what the action means and now I’m engaged, rather than hearing some ho-hum account with the life sucked out of it.

Avoid overuse of adverbs. Swiftly, slowly, angrily—these are shorthand ways of conveying information without much life. Instead, tell me she sprinted or ran; that he shuffled; that she threw a vase.

Take the time to find the perfect word. In a first draft, feel free to be lazy and allow the words to flow quickly without weighing them. However, in your next draft, look for the places where you used a word more than once, or used a word that doesn’t feel as precise as you might like. Use a thesaurus and see if you can get at “le mot juste.”

Read aloud. Reading aloud always helps you hear what works and what needs work.

Writing vs. Editing

In an initial writing phase, it’s fine to keep this information in mind, but you can also let it go and just focus on getting your words on the page. Once you have a draft, use these 7 tips to edit that draft and make the writing more powerful, specifically painting a picture your readers can see, hear, smell, taste, feel and sense!

Here is more advice on how to tighten your writing. You may also hit a point when you’ve done what self-editing you can and it’s time to find an editor to take you further along that path. This post will help you hire an editor, know what to look for and what to ask them.

Your Bonus Writing Tip

Enjoy yourself. When you have fun writing and editing, your readers get to share in that fun. Write or edit outside (if it’s warm enough). Or write and revise somewhere cozy and inspiring. All the things you do to bring yourself into a light and happy space will bring light into the writing and reading experience—without your having to try. Your writing just naturally picks up your state of being.

One thing I do to get myself into a state of flow before working on my blog posts, articles and books is to journal. The Joy of Writing Journal: Spark Your Creativity in 8 Minutes a Day can help you get into a state where writing flows with ease. Check it out!

Do you have any writing tips or anything you recently did that improved your writing? Please share. Feel free to ask your questions below as well.

8 Blogging Tips to Reach Readers & Impress Publishers

July 25, 2016 by Lisa Tener

Tip: Blogging Can Help You Reach Readers & Lead to a Book Deal!

book writing coach Lisa Tener — Your Book Writing Coach

I’ve seen first hand what blogging can do for authors:

My clients have been approached by publishers and signed a book deal, because of their blog.
Several clients grew their following quickly—from almost no followers to a significant “platform” worthy of a book deal.
My website and many client sites now come up on page one of a Google search because of the relevant content in our blogs.

In my experience, blogging is often the easiest way to grow your author platform and develop the kind of following agents and publishers now require for a book deal.

Of course, it’s easy to waste one’s time writing a blog no one reads. This post will help you write a blog that takes off among your target readership.

Here are a few of the tips I give my clients, many of whom have leveraged their blogs for successful book deals

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niche audience for a blog: new moms — New moms would be considered a niche audience (and, yes, this photo is a few years old)!

Blogging Tip #1: Pick a Niche Audience. For your blog to support book sales, target your blog posts to the people who will buy and read your book. In addition to considering what your readers are looking for, think about specific age range, gender, interests, values and/or professions of your readers. Your tone, how technical or deep you go, and your examples should be appropriate to that target audience. Others will read your blog, too, but if you try to write for everyone, you’ll end up writing for no one!

Some bloggers have success combining more than one interest—food and writing, business and spirituality, yoga and cats. Such a dual approach can work to attract a niche readership, but it can also narrow your reach too much. You can lose many readers if they’re interested in your yoga posts but not your cat posts. If you have many interests, try to tie back in to the central interests of your readers.

Blogging Tip #2. Start Small and Experiment: You may have a longer term goal of blogging for a national news site or network. Starting with a blog on your own website allows you to experiment to see what readers respond to, what questions they have and what types of posts do well in terms of sharing and engagement. Starting with your own blog will also:

a) Develop content for your site, which helps your site be found in Google searches.

b) Make your site more valuable and useful to visitors who may likely stick around longer and get to know you.

c) Establish your writing ability and reliability for potential blogging sites . For reliability, post regularly, at least once every other week.

Blogging Tip #3: Think Big. After experimenting with your own blog, set a goal for one or two larger forums to approach:

A broad-based site, like the Huffington Post,
A more targeted site like WebMD (health information), Psychology Today (mental health information), or MindBodyGreen (wellness, alternative health and spirituality)
A niche site, specific to your target audience, such as Parenting (for parents), Autism Speaks (for parents and caregivers of children with autism) or The Yoga Blog (yoga).

Blogging Tip #4. Connect with Other Bloggers and Pay it Forward. If you want to eventually write for the Huffington Post, WebMD, Forbes or Psychology Today, read posts from bloggers in your field. Subscribe to their column to know when they post something new. Comment thoughtfully.

Spread the word about posts related to your expertise through social media. This way, you’ll:

a) Get a sense of the type of posts that blog picks up.

b) Become part of a blogger’s community and begin to develop a relationship.

c) Be recognized as a trusted voice in your area of expertise.

If you’re quick to comment on a blog post that goes viral, your comment (and accompanying link you share) may go viral as well. This happened to Dr. Victoria Dunckley when she commented on a Huffington Post article I sent her.

Quick Tips

Blogging Tip #5: Invite Blog Readers to Engage. Old fashioned news is static. Blog posts allow interactivity and can generate valuable discussion. Take advantage of the full power of blogging by inviting readers to engage in the discussion.

Invite your blog readers to share their experiences, posts their questions or offer their own opinions. In this way you develop a tribe—an engaged community—and your author platform.

Blogging Tip #6: Make Sharing Easy. Include social share buttons at the top and bottom of your post! Consider adding click to tweet to your blog posts!

Blogging Tip #7: Go Easy on the Eyes. Use images, white space, headers and short paragraphs to make it easy to read. Make sure your blog uses a responsive design—easy to read on any device.

Blogging Tip #8: Give Something Away. Offer a free report at the end of a post. This can help you stay in touch with readers. It will grow your mailing list (another author platform builder), as long as you require an email address and name to opt-in. For example, Download My Free Report: 5 Must Knows Before You Get Started on Your Book.

Your Turn

Bloggers: Please share the blogging tips and strategies that work for you. Detailed examples are welcome.
New Bloggers: What are your burning questions and biggest challenges?
Would-Be Bloggers: Not blogging? What’s holding you back? What do you need to move forward?

Writing a Compelling Self-Help Book: 3 Tricks You Can Borrow from Bestselling Novels

July 12, 2016 by Lisa Tener

You’re writing a self-help book. Is fiction relevant?

I believe so—and not just in order to justify my recent habit of staying up late reading beach novels. (Good ones, of course. The kind you can’t put down.)

Hear me out.

I’m still thinking about the characters, wondering how the plot will resolve in Beatriz Williams’ A Hundred Summers as I make my morning smoothie. The book stays with me. I want to get back to it and find out what happens next.

My friend, Robin Kall, introduced me to Williams’ novels through the Summer Reading with Robin author event at the Dunes Club last year (and again this year).

One reason Beatriz’ books are so compelling is her mastery of suspense. Both A Hundred Summers and the Along the Infinite Sea alternate between past and more recent past, two periods in time. As the more recent story unfolds, we get closer and closer to the distant past that has led us to the current situation.

So, how does this all apply to writing a self-help book? Here are 3 tips you can borrow from Beatriz Williams—or another adept novelist.

Get your readers to care. A novelist gets us to care by creating characters we relate to, characters who are both believable and vulnerable. You can get your readers to care by sharing stories of real life characters. Their stories take the information you share and bring it to life. The more of a picture you develop of the people in your anecdotes, the more your readers will connect and care. Another way to get readers to care, when you’re writing a self-help book, is to invite your readers to reflect on their pain or passion. Perhaps offer an exercise or journaling prompt where readers can explore why they want and need this self-help book—and what results they hope to achieve.
Be intimate. An academic tone keeps your readers at bay. Invite your readers in with a conversational tone and warmth. Imagine you are writing to one specific person (rather than a roomful of people) and your tone will naturally be more intimate.
Create suspense. You may wonder, “How do I create suspense with a self-help book?” Don’t give your readers everything at once. Teach step by step. Hint at what readers will discover later in the book. Lead up to the gifts of the final chapter. Not only will you create some suspense but your book will be better organized and more accessible. After all, readers can only digest so much information at once.

What are some of your favorite devices of a good novel? How might you employ them in writing a self-help book? I know I’ve only touched the tip of the trilogy. I invite you to think about additional secrets of novelists that you can engage to make your self-help book compelling—and share them here on the blog as a comment!

Connect with Your Readers and Avoid These 4 Phrases That Push Readers Away

June 10, 2016 by Lisa Tener

connect with your readers says Lisa Tener — Your Book Coach, Lisa Tener

When you connect with your readers, your readers feel more motivated, your book has more impact and you create loyal fans.

Yet, most of us have little idiosyncracies in our writing that can push readers away. The problem is that, if we are not aware of them, we can’t even see them to fix them.

In this post, I share four common ways authors push their readers away so you can check for them in your writing, particularly when editing—and repair the error—to connect with your readers instead. I see these errors all the time in people writing books, so don’t feel embarrassed if you make these errors.

The fixes are easy and they do the opposite. They draw your readers closer to you. They inspire your readers and strengthen your relationship with them.

When you connect with your readers, you offer them an experience they want to continue and they will read your book, finish it, get the most out of it and recommend it to others.

When you push them away, you may lose them forever. So, let’s empower you and make sure that doesn’t happen.

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#1 The Flub: “Most of you…” “Many of you…”

Example: Many of you have trouble saying “no.”

As you read a book, especially one that draws you in, don’t you feel as if the author is speaking directly to you?

For most readers, there’s a conversation going on. When you write “you” the reader feels connected. As soon as you write “many of you” or “most of you” your reader is taken out of this experience and you create distance between you and your reader.

#1 The Fix: Stick with “you.”

If you find yourself imagining speaking to a large group of people, you’re on the wrong track. Imagine an intimate conversation between you and each individual reader.

Example: If you’re like most people, you probably have trouble saying “no.”

#2 The Flub: “I want…” “I want you to experience…” “I want you to change…”

Example: I want you to love your hair.

It’s not about you and what you want. “I want…” feels a bit pushy.

#2 The Fix: Think like your reader.

Instead, think of what the reader wants. Offer the benefits of a particular behavior.

Example: With the right hair products, you can spend as little as ten minutes a day on your hair, receive compliments on a daily basis, and enjoy your curly tresses.

Much more inspiring and motivating, right?

#3 The Flub: “You must…” “You need to…”

Example: You need to stop thinking about him.

Ooh. This one’s even pushier than “I want…” You probably don’t like being told what you need to do. I know I don’t.

#3 The Fix: Inspire with possibilities.

Example: Once you learn to stop thinking about him, you’ll be back in the driver’s seat of your life. Rather than obsessing about him, you’ll be able to enjoy time spent with friends, alone and in nature.

I will say, in a somewhat humorous tone, it is possible that the phrase “You need to…” will work—in moderation. When in doubt, ask your beta readers.

#4 The Flub: “You [do x]” “You [think x]”

Example: You eat too much fat.

I’m guessing you don’t like when someone makes assumptions about you. Assumptions turn off most readers, especially if the assumption isn’t true.

In addition, we can’t know whether our assumptions about our readers are true.

There’s no need to make assumptions about your readers to make your point. The following phrases offer respectful and comfortable alternatives.

#4 The Fix: “You may…” “Perhaps you…” “Do you…?” “Many people…”

Example: If you are like x% of Americans, you eat way too much fat.

Another example: Perhaps you, like many Americans, eat too much fat.

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connect with your readers through imagination — Close your eyes and imagine a reader. Then write to that reader, still picturing the person in your mind’s eye.

One of the easiest ways to connect with your readers is to imagine one particular person you are writing to. It can be a real person or someone you imagine. Each time you sit down to write, imagine the person and write as if it is a conversation.

The result? Your readers will feel as if you are speaking directly to them—each and every one.

Here are 3 Super Tips to Rock Your Writing, two of which go beyond the discussion in today’s post. And here are some more tips from me and seven other authors for finding your voice for self-help and memoir authors.

As a reader, what phrases jolt you out of a cozy conversation with an author? What do some authors do that create distance?

How do you personally connect with your readers on the page?

Please share your comments and ideas below.

Staring at a Blank Page? Here’s Your Writing Cure

April 6, 2016 by Lisa Tener

The problem? Staring at a blank page…

And staring…

Do you ever freeze when you sit down to write?

You fidget with your paper clips, check email, decide to “do research” for the umpteenth time, even though you know you should just be writing?

In a recent consultation with a client in my Bring Your Book to Life Program, she found herself doing all those things and confessed, “I’m afraid of the blank page.”

If only every problem in life were so easy to fix.

Get yourself an outline. Start with chapters. Add subheadings. Maybe you’ve already done that.

Next, all you need to do is cut and paste the chapter outline onto your blank page.

Ta da! No more staring at a blank page. There’s writing. There’s structure. You’re on your way.

Writing by hand? No problem. Just write your outline on the page. Go from there.

I know it seems simple, but try it. You’ll be amazed at how this little, seemingly insignificant step can get you writing in the zone.

In Fraser Mccullogh’s post on writing website content, he also offers some excellent advice to help authors who are stuck. And his opening story provides an excellent example of using a story to draw readers in, whether you are writing a book chapter, a blog post or something else.

Looking for a course to help you get in the “writing zone” and write from a state of creative flow consistently? Check out Lisa’s weekly course, Get Your Writing Done.

How to Use Storytelling to Bring Your Writing to Life

February 16, 2016 by Lisa Tener

Sure, good storytelling is a must-have for memoir, novels or narrative nonfiction.

But have you thought about how storytelling can bring your self-help or how-to book to life? After all, it’s not terribly inspiring to be told what to do without any context. A story, however, engages your reader in a vicarious experience and, in the case of a self-help book, can motivate your readers to take action and embody the lessons, skills and wisdom your book has to offer.

So, how do you tell a good story?

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Set the Scene: A revealing detail or two will help readers understand exactly how your character feels and why the following events have such an impact. Perhaps your character just lost her job, or landed her first big account, for instance. In On the Verge, Cara Bradley brings the concept of “SoulForce” alive with a scene of her running track in college, drawing the reader into a vicarious experience.
Employ All Your Senses: We tend to stick with the visual and underplay the other senses. A striking sensual detail–smell, taste or touch–can have even more impact than a visual one especially for that reason: a hint of lavender, the taste of lemon rind, the feel of a poodle’s curly fur.
Use Examples: In Calming Your Anxious Child, Dr. Kathleen Trainor begins each chapter with an example of a child that illustrates a particular type of anxious child for a specific age group. By beginning the chapter with examples, she can refer back to the story for each step and teaching point in the chapter.
Develop Character: Even in a short anecdote, you can give the person a name, an unusual and fitting job or share quirky details about the person. If you are concerned about confidentiality, you can change details, such as name and occupation, and mention that the anecdotes are composites in your Introduction.
Show the Transformation: Tell a reader what to do and not much happens. Show how these steps have helped others–the wretched before and the “happily ever after”–and now your readers are motivated to make a change and take action.

And here are some of the wonderful side effects of storytelling:

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Engages readers emotionally and helps them stick with it.
Entertains readers and makes the book the kind people want to share with others.
Brings the material to life so readers can apply the information more easily to their own lives.
Adds credibility.
Inspires you as you write.
The “P-Factor”: Makes you more prolific.

#6 may be a bit of a surprise. I was surprised myself. The idea came out of a recent conversation with author Chris Spurvey, whose book It’s Time to Sell sold 10,000 copies in its first month.

I was amazed when Chris shared that he owes his prolific blog and article writing (75 plus articles in a bit over a year) to a practice related to storytelling, called “conscious stream of thought.”

Chris lets his mind drift and allows the scenes and stories that unfold in his day to evolve into writing. Listening to his daughter play her flute in another room of the house and allowing his mind to “travel through the walls,” Chris pictured her playing her flute, allowed the picture to “evoke feelings and emotions,” and then wrote, “Without any bias as tot he correctness or incorrectness of the thoughts.” There’s a time for editing, but this exercise is one for just allowing flow. Chris said he averages 800 words over a thirty minute period. After the process, he briefly edits and sends the writing off to his copyeditor. “Within 24 hours,” he says, “I am ready to publish my article.

7. A final benefit: your readers will see themselves in the stories. It will help them acknowledge feelings that may not even have known they had. It will awaken something in them.

I think again of Dr. Kathleen Trainor, a Bring Your Book to Life Program graduate whose book, Calming Your Anxious Child, published by Johns Hopkins University Press comes out in June. Each chapter begins with a story that captures many aspects of a reader’s situation. While the steps in her method are crucial, it’s the stories I remember and that remind me how to help my child when he feels anxious about something.

Can you think of other benefits of storytelling? Any specific tips you use to tell a story and bring it to life?