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7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing

I got a great Ask about this a little bit ago about how to establish an audience for your writing. Here’s my answer!

#1 Start small… with people you already know

When you’re just starting out, many of your fans or supporters will be the people who already know you. Your friends, family, co-workers, peers, acquaintances, etc. Share and talk about your writing with these people, and pluck up the courage to ask for their support! At least a few of them will genuinely like your writing, and you never know who might have a connection that can help get you more exposure.

#2 Don’t feel try to “sell” or “promote” yourself to these folks. Instead, make authentic, person-to-person connections

Sometimes writers fail to create an audience because they have a perception of what it means to “self promote” which leads them to plaster their social media with desperate pleas to buy their book, or feel pressured to “sell themselves” to new friends and contacts. It seems counter-intuitive, but the best thing you can do is to make genuine, authentic connections with people and be open about your writing with them.

That way, when your friend who works at a bookstore needs someone to open for a touring reader… they think of you. Or when you have a release party to celebrate your release, your co-worker will come (and maybe bring their friend who happens to be a newspaper writer… see where I’m going with this?). When you have authentic relationships with people, they will help you grow your base without having to beg or sell to them.

#3 Make friends with readers, other writers, editors, bookstore clerks… basically anyone in the literary world

Truth: There’s a lot of networking, nepotism, and hobnobbing going on in the literary world. Of course, we all know this stuff happens at the super-famous level. People network their way into recognition all the time. Celebrities get book deals. Keanu Reeves is allowed to be an actor. You might not be lucky enough to be bumping elbows with the elite, but your connections can help you no matter how small they are.

#4 Write your social media posts like you’re talking to your friends, not the anonymous masses

This ties into #2. When you use social media to share about your writing, make it personal. A lot of writers feel like they have to sell themselves on social media, so they end up making promotional posts that are basically like “buy my book!” or “read my writing!”

But if you share something real, much like you would if you were talking to a friend, people are much more likely to respond. I know this from personal experience. My highest-performing posts about my writing are always the ones that make a connection and share something personal with my followers.

Additionally, if you’re using certain platforms (Facebook and Instagram for sure do this), your post will get buried by the algorithm if it’s overtly “promotional.” So in certain instances this becomes not just wise but absolutely necessary so that your posts get seen.

#4 Consider trying to get a story traditionally published

This can help in a few ways. First, you’ll have made a connection with the editor of that magazine. (Connections!) Second, your work will be seen by a new audience of readers. Third, it can give you credibility that makes people (editors, readers, etc.) more likely to give your work a second look further down the line.

#5 Get off the internet

My biggest base of supporters are the folks in my town. That’s because they see me and interact with me regularly. It’s way easier to keep the attention of people IRL than it is online, in my experience. Here are some ideas of how to make friends in the real world who can be supporters of your writing:

Attend or give a public reading

Start or join a writing group

Hang out at the bookstore

Go to any and all literary events in your town

Make friends with other creative people: musicians, artists, photographers.

Seek out collaborative projects with other writers and creatives

#6 Accept that, yes, it takes time

Building an audience doesn’t happen overnight. But there can be a cumulative, exponential effect over the long run. Take Tumblr for example. Most people who have a blog can probably remember how it took forever to get those first 10 followers. But once you have the first 10, it’s a little easier to get the second 10, and so on. It’s the same with an audience.

There may be huge surges in your popularity that leave you feeling awesome, then after that you may find your growth starts to lag a bit. That’s totally normal. Which leads me to my last tip:

#7 Remember that it’s quality, not quantity, that counts

Especially in the age of social media, we can get totally hooked on numbers. How many followers, how many email subscribers, how many patrons, etc. But in my experience it’s the quality of your audience, not the quantity, that counts. Focus on building real relationships and delivering something great to just a few loyal readers rather than trying to please everyone. Those people will be the ones to help promote you and have your back when it’s really important.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope this helped!

tipping point kendal and erin are from @comicaurora

how do I describe things in my stories? Like clothing, room, characters etc. it feels I put in too much detail. And is it also necessary to always describ new scenary? For example, when a character goes to their friends house the first time, is it necessary to describe the rooms they enter? Because I want my readers to be able to visualise properly but it feels as though I'm overflowing them with information sometimes

Describing Scenery, Clothing, and Other Details

The amount of description varies from one author to a next, and how much or little (or often) you describe things will be part of your unique writing style. However, you definitely don't want to overwhelm the reader with a bunch of unnecessary detail. So, really the key is to do two things: give the reader just enough detail that they can fill out the rest, give the reader details that are important.

Give the Reader Just Enough Detail - Human brains are amazing. We're generally good at filling in missing details. If I show you the following image:

... your brain is perfectly capable of imagining the rest. You can imagine the mountain peaks and the rest of the lake. You don't need to see them to understand they're there and imagine what they look like.

That said, if I say, "Brenda appeared, wearing her signature torn jeans and favorite band t-shirt..." that's a pretty good image of what this person is wearing. The reader doesn't need to know what cut or color the t-shirt is, whether it's tucked in or loose, what band is depicted or what the specific design is, what color and cut the jeans are, where the holes are, what shoes they're wearing... none of that matters unless it does.

Give the Reader the Details That Are Important - If it's important that Brenda is wearing tennis shoes because later she'll be identified in a security video because of those shoes, then that then becomes an important detail you'd want to include in that description. Otherwise, don't bother. The reader doesn't need to know she's wearing white high-tops unless that's important for some reason.

So, when a character enters a new place or encounters a character for the first time (or encounters them in a new scene/situation), you want to give a little bit of detail to help the reader imagine what they should be seeing in their mind's eye. You also want to give them any details that are important for them to know later. You just don't want to overwhelm the reader with a bunch of unnecessary details.

Here are some other posts that will help:

Guide: Describing Character Appearance and Clothing The Right Amount of Description (5 Tips!) The 3 Fundamental Truths of Description Description: Style vs Excess/Deficiency Weaving Details into the Story How to Make Your Description More Vivid Adding Description to Your Writing

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TRC ANIMATIC :))

Idk what's happening my animatic keeps disappearing from tags, I'm trying to upload the yt version to see if it shows this time

If you come across this I hope you like it anyway :)

Guys!

I was so drowned with finals I slept less than 5 hours a night for two weeks,, but now I'm done. So I finished that animatic I started in December (what a bad idea to start this with that much work tbh), had so much fun doing it! All I could think of the last four weeks was this haha

I will finally add that the lyrics are very much linked to the scenes so make sure to listen to them

i loved your recent answer about pacing it was so helpful! it wasn’t my question but the advice was brilliant! not sure if i’ve just missed it but do you have a post on showing not telling? i’m not great with exposition and writing descriptions about things that matter in a scene! thank you :)

Guide: Showing vs Telling

I talk a lot about showing vs telling but I don't have a whole post about it, so here goes! ♥

"Showing vs telling" is one of those phrases that strikes fear into the hearts of newer writers, but it's actually very simple and nothing to worry about.

This quote, which is paraphrased from something once said by writer Anton Chekhov, is the absolute best illustration of showing vs telling.

...

Telling: Sally walked outside and saw the moon was shining.

Showing: Sally walked outside and carefully stepped over the puddles of moonlight left behind by the evening's rainstorm.

...

Telling: It was a long walk to the road.

Showing: Sally skirted the shadows as she traversed the muddy distance between the house and the road.

...

Telling: Sally was mad.

Showing: She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, her nostrils flaring as her mind raced through every mean word Harold had said.

...

Humans are pretty good at interpreting sensory details. If it's night and we see light shining in a puddle, we know that light is coming either from the moon or an artificial light. We can look up in the sky and see whether it's the moon or whether there's an artificial light nearby. If we suddenly find ourselves standing in a forest and hear wolves howling nearby, we can probably guess we're in a remote location and are possibly in danger. If we go outside and smell wood burning and see black smoke, we can guess there's a fire. If it's cold outside and there are homes with fireplaces nearby, we might assume someone has a nice fire going in their fireplace. If we're in the middle of nowhere, we might guess it's a campfire. If it's the middle of summer, we might worry that there's a wildfire or wonder if a neighbor is burning yard waste.

Showing vs telling is all about taking the direct thing you want to tell the reader--Sally was mad--and thinking about the sensory details that would illustrate that thing for the reader. What can be seen? What can be heard? What can be smelled? What can be tasted? What can be felt?

You don't have to pull every sense into your description, though. Only the ones that best convey the thing you're trying to convey. In the case of "Sally was mad..."

What can we see? Her fists are clenched, her jaw is tight, her nostrils are flaring.

What can we hear? She is grunting, spitting through her teeth when she speaks, she's breathing heavily.

What can we smell? Well, in the case of anger, we generally don't smell anything. Though, if the thing she's angry about has any smells associated with it--like being mad about burning some cookies--that is certainly something to consider.

What can we taste? A third-party observer might not taste anything, but Sally might taste the char of the burned cookies. Or she might taste bile in her throat that resulted from anger-related stomach upset.

What can we feel? Again, a third-party observer might not feel anything associated with someone's anger--unless it's the vibration of a tapping foot of the hot breath of someone's angry words--but Sally might feel her heart racing or heat rising into her cheeks. She might feel the grit of the burned cookies in her mouth.

Showing vs telling means looking at those possibilities and choosing a few that can be combined to create the impression you want to give.

However, sometimes--for the sake of pacing, scene transitions, exposition following a time jump, and for other reasons, telling can actually be the better choice.

Here are some situations where telling is better than showing:

1) When something happened but it isn’t critical for the readers to see the thing actually play out. If the burned cookies played only a small role in Sally's anger, it may not be important to show how the burned cookies affected her. It might just be better to say, "The burned cookies only added to Sally's fury."

2) When clarifying less important things that happened during a “time skip.” If the situation that caused Sally's anger happened off the page, that might be a good time to tell rather than show. Otherwise, you have to do a little flashback to show the thing happening, but that might not make sense to do, especially if the thing that happened wasn't as important as the fact that she's in a bad mood when the new chapter begins.

3) When you need to make a long conversation, speech, or description a little bit shorter. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm your reader with page after page of description, so sometimes it makes more sense to tell things directly to the reader rather than to show them. Any time you get to something that can be told or shown, ask yourself if this is an opportunity to bring some description into the story, or whether "showing" the thing would slow things down or clutter up a section that already has a lot of description.

4) When you need to deliver back story or other important information. If Sally being angry about the cookies preceded an event that was important to her backstory, and this story is being told by one of Sally's acquaintances to another character in the story, this might be a time when it's better to just say, "She was angry about some burned cookies, and that's why she stormed into the village and accidentally bumped into Lord Rotherwell." Otherwise, you once again get into sort of a flashback type situation, which might work in some backstory explanations but not others.

I hope that helps! :)

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i was reading my writing so far and noticed that it's kind of hasty? it feels like the scenes pass too quickly and characters act and make decisions too fast. i'm kind of a pantser and still on my first draft so there's definitely gonna be a lot of revisions but i was wondering if you'd have any advise on how to make the time in my story pass more naturally as opposed to stuff happening kind of rapid-fire. my story is high fantasy if that's relevant. i hope i worded this in a way that is understandable.

(also thanks so much for running this blog, it's very helpful)

Scenes Feel Rushed (Scene Elements/Structure)

The thing about scene pacing is it has nothing to do with time. It isn't about how long it takes the reader to read the scene, the amount of time that elapses in the story during the scene, or how fast/slow these events play out. Here's why:

-- readers read at different speeds -- scenes can occur over a period of minutes or days in your story -- scenes can be fast-paced or slow-paced depending on need

So, if your scenes are feeling rushed, it's not because you need figure out how to make the time pass more naturally. It's because not enough is happening in your scene. In other words, you don't have a good grasp on what scenes are supposed to accomplish and how to structure them.

Scene Elements

Your scene should include the following elements:

1 - A Writer Understood Purpose - First and foremost, as the writer, you should understand the purpose (aka "goal") of the scene in terms of what it accomplishes in the bigger story. Does it advance the plot in some way? Does it develop the protagonist and/or other main characters in a way that is crucial to the plot? Does it develop the setting, back story, or otherwise give the reader information they need in order to understand the story?

2 - Clearly Established Setting - Imagine if you went to see a play, but the stage had no backdrop, no scenery, no props. It was just a big empty stage with actors on it. Imagine how much you would lose without understanding where this scene was taking place. It works the same way in fiction, which is why it's important to start a scene by giving the reader some idea of where it's taking place. Using sensory and emotional description, you can give the reader a good image of the scenery and what it means to the POV character/s and the scene that's about to unfold.

3 - Relevant Characters - A scene can't play out without its requisite characters, but "requisite" is the keyword there: only characters who are relevant to the purpose of the scene--as well as "background extras" who are there to fill small-but-necessary roles and lend to an authentic setting... such as the teacher and other students in a classroom scene, or other patrons and servers in a restaurant scene. However, don't include main or secondary characters just to include them. They should be there because they need to be or because it makes sense for them to be there.

4 - Scene Conflict - Just as every story needs a conflict (an over-arching problem that must be resolved), so does every scene. Scene conflict can be internal (within the character's heart and mind) or external (in the character's environment). The purpose of the scene is to either resolve the scene conflict or propel it toward a future scene.

5 - Clarified Motivation and Goal - Because you understand the purpose of the scene (what you're trying to accomplish in the scene as the writer) and because you know the conflict/problem that must be resolved, it's important to clarify your character's scene goal (what they're trying to do in order to resolve the scene's problem, or their attempt to resolve it) and what is motivating them to resolve this conflict. Why is it important to them?

6 - Relative Balance of Exposition, Action, and Dialogue - Most scenes should have a relative balance of exposition (narrator explaining things), action (things happening), and dialogue (characters talking.) However, there are sometimes scenes that will lean toward more exposition, more action, or more dialogue. It just depends on the needs of the scene, but generally-speaking, you want a reasonably good balance. If there's no story-centric reason 90% of the scene needs to be dialogue, you need to make sure you balance things out a little more between dialogue, action, and exposition.

7 - Exploration of Emotion - Even in stories that are fully plot-driven, there needs to be an exploration of the emotions being felt by the characters in the scene, and an attempt by the writer to translate those emotions to the reader. The movie Jurassic Park, for example, was pretty fully plot-driven... it wasn't really about exploring internal conflicts or character arcs... but the emotion felt by the characters at throughout the story went a long way in making the reader feel things alongside them. Who can forget Dr. Grant seeing the dinosaurs for the first time:

Or Lex trembling when she saw the raptor in the visitor's center:

By illustrating character emotion using external cues (body language, facial expressions, gestures) and internal cues (sensations like heart pounding, processing what emotions are being felt and what it means), and by exploring how these emotions relate to the plot (and character arc, if there is one), we can create a much deeper sense of what's happening in the scene and why it matters.

Scene Structure

Scenes, like plot, have their own structure. Just as with plot structure, you can vary your scene's structure according to the needs of your scene, but generally speaking it will look like this:

Beginning - hook and setting establishment

Conflict Development - introduce or reiterate the scene conflict; clarify character motivation, goal, and what's at stake. Introduce the obstacles or challenges that raise the stakes or make it more difficult for the character to achieve their scene goal

Climax - The conflict reaches its peak... the character attempts to resolve the scene conflict for good, or at least temporarily. Or, at the very least, something significant occurs

Resolution/Denouement - The scene conflict is either resolved or it's set aside to be dealt with later. The character reflects on what happened, what it means, and what's next

Transition to Next Scene - We usually want to end a scene with some hint of what the next scene will be to create a smooth transition to the next scene. This could be a statement of time, like, "In another week, Roland would return from Bruges and she could finally talk to him about what was going on." Or, it can be a cliffhanger, like, "But it wasn't Bernard and Cleo who got out of the taxi... it was Roland and Cleo. But Roland was supposed to be two-thousand miles away in Bruges..." Or, it can be an establishment of what comes next. "Whatever Roland was up to, she'd have to wait until tomorrow to snoop around and find out more."

By making sure your scene includes the proper elements and generally follows a basic scene structure, you can ensure that there's enough happening in the scene to keep it from playing out too quickly.

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the dream thieves is the most perfect book ever because adam and gansey are going through a divorce, blue is breaking up with adam, ronan lets go of his crush on gansey in favor of perusing his para-religious devotion to adam full time, kavinsky is obsessed with having a threesome with gansey and ronan and sends gansey a dick pic from ronan’s phone, gansey starts dating blue behind adam's back the second they're freshly divorced and adam and blue have broken up, ronan turns kavinsky down and as a reaction to that kavinsky kidnaps ronans brother and then kills himself in front of their whole group. everyone is completely unfazed by this except for gansey who seems to care a little bit which adam thinks is cute. it's also in this book that the hitman who killed ronan’s dad starts hitting on blue’s mom. sound off in the comments if you know of any other ya books similar to this

writers' resources

sick of using "very _____" ? : https://www.losethevery.com/

want to simplify your writing ? : https://hemingwayapp.com/

writing buddies / motivation ? : https://nanowrimo.org

word you're looking for but don't know ? : https://www.onelook.com/thesaurus/

need a fantasy name ? : https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

need a fantasy name ? : https://nameberry.com/

want a name with meaning ? : https://www.behindthename.com/

who wants a map maker! : https://inkarnate.com/

story building / dnd ? : https://www.worldanvil.com/

need some minimalistic writing time ? : https://zenpen.io/

running out of ideas ? : https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

setting a goal ? how about 3 pages / day ? : https://new.750words.com/

what food did they eat ? : https://www.foodtimeline.org/

questions on diversity within writing ? : https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/

now what was that colour called ? : https://ingridsundberg.com/2014/02/04/the-color-thesaurus/

want more? : https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lyralit :]

@rosy-cozy-radio I LOVE YOUR BOYFRIEND

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currently working on: also history hw, also about ww2!

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nine people i want to get to know better

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sweet, savoury, salty: hmm.. depends!

craving: fries!

tea/coffee: tea!!

currently working on: college assignments... and part two of a fanfic!

🏷 - @wildflowerdoeeyed @dollaches @maggierheesgirl @necktattooed @pinescent-and-gingerbread @red-doll-face @zloshy

Hey there! I just came across this blog and im wondering if I could get some advice. I have a lot of trouble keeping motivation for a story. I'll have a new idea that im really excited about, ill write 10-20 pages of it, and then get bored of writing it. Any tips on how to keep myself invested in writing my own stories?

5 Reasons You Lost Interest in Your WIP, Plus Fixes!

It's not uncommon for writers to lose interest in their WIP. Staying on track, or getting back on track, are skills you'll acquire with time. Here are some of the reasons you might have lost interest in your WIP:

#1 - You're Not Sure Where the Story is Going. When you figure out a way into a story you're excited about, the beginning can be a piece of cake. It's all set up and inciting incident, which can be really really fun to write. But if you're not sure what needs to happen after the inciting incident, you can find yourself meandering and get bored quickly.

Fix - If you're writing a story that is plot-driven or a combination of plot-driven and character-driven (as most stories are these days), it may help to familiarize yourself with Basic Story Structure and also have a look at my post about How to Move a Story Forward.If you're writing a character-driven story, you can adhere to basic story structure or a more loose structure, but your character's arc will be the focus of the story. If you think plot and structure may be what's holding you back, you might spend time on my Plot & Story Structure post master list to read some of the other posts there.

#2 - Something Isn't Working. Stories are often like a house of cards in that one misplaced "card" can bring the whole thing crashing down. Sometimes you lose interest because an element or event didn't quite work, and you can feel in your gut that something's not right, so your brain interprets that as losing motivation. It's not really that you've lost interest in the story... it's that you've lost interest in the dead end path it's on.

Fix - Go back through what you’ve already written and look for something that’s not pulling its weight. It could be an unnecessary character dragging the story down, a subplot that is cluttering up the story or drawing attention away from the main plot, or it could be a scene/scenes that don’t add to the story. It could even be a combination of these things. If you can find it and fix it, your motivation may return.

#3 - You're Just Not in the Mood to Write. It could be that your interest in your WIP is just fine, you're just not in the mood to write. Our brains aren't always great at interpreting signals from our bodies, including other parts of our brain. The thirst signal is sometimes misinterpreted as hunger, which is why if you're feeling hungry when you shouldn't, you should try drinking a glass of water. Sometimes, in the same way, we're just not in the mood to write and our brains misinterpret that as a loss of interest in our WIP.

Fix - Consider what's going on in your life at the moment. Are you stressed? Are you distracted? Are you not feeling well? Sometimes you just need to give yourself a few days or weeks to let things resolve, and then you'll find your motivation has returned. Try doing things to Fill Your Creative Well in the meantime, or try some of the exercises in this post: Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists

#4 - You're Overly Focused on Quality. One of the biggest WIP interest/motivation zappers is focusing too much on quality in your early drafts. If you're fixated on things like description, flow, theme, symbolism, grammar, etc. in your first draft, you're going to mentally

Fix - Remember, your early drafts should be more about getting the story down and working out the kinks. Don't worry so much about things like description, grammar, details, etc. until you've got all of that hammered out. And remember that the whole point of editing and revision is to polish your draft. You get the story down and make it pretty later.

#5 - You're Letting Yourself Get Distracted by New Ideas. The thrill of coming up with a new idea is part of the fun of being a writer. One of the pitfalls of being a writer is new ideas sometimes distract you from your WIP. We can be completely into our WIP, then a new idea comes along and our brains say, "Ooo! Look at the shiny pretty!" And off we go. Some writers, particularly seasoned ones, are able to work on multiple WIPs at once, but you should focus on one WIP at a time if you commonly lose interest before they're finished.

Fix - When you get a new idea, write it down in a notebook and/or in a document on your device. Once the idea is "down on paper," just forget about it. Imagine that it vanishes once it's recorded and you close the notebook/document. It takes practice, but you'll get better at ignoring the pull of a new idea.

Here are some posts from my Motivation post master list that might also help:

Guide: How to Rekindle Your Motivation to Write Feeling Unmotivated with WIP Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists Getting Excited About Your Story Again

Have fun with your story!

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