Avoid Inappropriate Language In Your Writing (And I'm Not Talking About Swearing)

There is nothing more irritating than when you're reading along, and you come across a bit of inappropriate language in the book you were enjoying. Everything was going fine, and you were enjoying the read, but then the author decided to use that word. The word that yanked you out of the narrative, and left you frowning in disapproval. Maybe you kept reading, hoping it was a one-off thing, but it kept happening. After a while you just couldn't deal with it anymore, and you tossed the book into your "donate to charity" pile.

Because who the hell writes a sweeping, Viking romance novel where the lead uses the word "dude" all the time?

Not cool, bro. Seriously not cool.

What Is "Inappropriate Language" in a Novel?

A lot of people think of "inappropriate language" as anything pornographic; descriptions of sex, curse words, intimate detailing of gore, etc. All of these things are perfectly fine, and I covered some of that in my entry Profanity in Fiction: When It's Okay To Say "Fuck". That's not what we're talking about in this entry. This entry is talking about using language that, because of time period, genre, or your established world, will knock the reader out of the story because they know the language you're using doesn't belong here.

Got an example?

I do, since you asked!

Many years ago, I was editing a manuscript. The manuscript in question was pretty tropey, and it was full of some of my least-favorite favorites of the romance genre; past lives, split-screen telling where we bop back and forth between the now and the then, a heroine whose actions make no sense, and whose job is a sheer convenience of the plot... I could go on, but I won't. The problem I kept running into was the sheer lack of research put into the story, which was a problem given that half of it was specifically set in the 7th century in what was ostensibly the actual Middle East.

There were a lot of problems with these sections. There was no attention paid to the fashions that would have been worn, and the city we were in was never mentioned (though it felt like it was supposed to be Baghdad). No attention was paid to religious observances, and even the general layout of the city was sort of hand-waved away in case we began to notice that the setting the author was trying to use was flat and empty. In short, I was getting irritated. Fully half the manuscript seemed to have been an afterthought, just filling out the page count. Then we see our villain, who in the only mark of real fantasy, had unearthed and practiced some form of dark magic. The author referred to him as a warlock, and that was when my brain jammed on the brakes.

Why was that a problem, you ask? Well, the author clearly came from an Australian background, and was using a British English term for an evil spellcaster. Not an issue, if we'd found it in the modern-day sections of the story. The problem was that we had people in the 7th century in the Middle East, using a word that wouldn't be invented for another 300 years on the other side of the world. Here's some more on the etymology of the word warlock, if you're a nerd like me.

Was that the author's fault? Yes and no. This example is kind of obscure, however, it came as a result of little to no effort being put in to make the historical time period come across as either rich or genuine. A little research into the folklore of that area would have turned up all kinds of myths regarding magic users, and terms used to describe them. Even if all someone did was check the history, that person would find that the word sorcerer would be significantly more appropriate.

Small Pebbles Start Big Rock Slides

It might not seem like a big deal to use the wrong word every now and again, particularly if your audience still gets the point you were trying to bring across. But if you don't pay attention to the words you use, and the phrases that crop up in your work, then it can sneak up on you when you've done something that you cannot square with the world you've created.

The face you'll be wearing when it comes time to edit.

Here are some more, quick examples.

- Someone says "Yes, Fearless Leader!" while they're trying to be sarcastic. Problem is, the book takes place in a dystopian future where no one's heard of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which is where the phrase came from. How did it survive?

- Your hero's condition is referred to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The problem is that this is a WWI-era story, so it would be called shellshock. PTSD wasn't a term anyone conceived of until after Vietnam.

- The author describes the villainous banker's mustache by saying it made him look like Hitler. But the book is set during the Prohibition era, before the Nazi party's rise to power, and long before the celebrity of Adolf Hitler. Why would anyone not our modern reader get the reference?

Language is just like anything else in your story; it has to be seamless. In the same way you can't have heroes using certain guns ten years before they were invented without some kind of explanation, you also can't have colloquial slang from the 1980s crop up in your Civil War epic. Unless, of course, you are making the purposeful decision to use inappropriate language as a way to generate humor, or as a way to spoof the genre, tone, or setting in question.

If you're trying to play it straight, though, the devil really is in the details.

Thanks for stopping by! If you'd like to make sure you keep up on all my releases, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter! And, if you'd like to help support The Literary Mercenary, then stop by my Patreon page to toss a few bucks in my jar every month. Seriously, $1 goes a lot further than you might think.

How AdBlock Hurts The Creators You Love

Is there anything worse than Internet ads? They clutter up your search results, they get in your face when you're trying to check your mail, and they crowd in on the sides of the blogs you're trying to read. Worst of all, though, are the mini-commercials that play before the song you really want to listen to, or the tutorial you're trying to watch. Really, with so many businesses trying to jam their products in your face, it was a godsend when you got AdBlock installed on your computer, your tablet, your phone, and if you're old-school, on your desktop, too.

The problem is, what's good for you is actually terrible for the creators making the stuff you like.

After all, wouldn't you help us out if it didn't cost you anything?

Ads Are How Most Online Creators Get Paid

Most people never stop and ask how creative professionals on the Internet get paid. After all, if you buy an author's book, then that author gets a cut of the sale (which are called royalties). If you buy a painting, then the artist who painted it gets a piece of that (or all of it, if the painter is selling it him or herself). But what about people who create YouTube videos, who write blogs, or who design any of the dozens of other things you can get free access to on the Internet? How do they get paid?

Simple. They get part of the ad revenue generated from their pages.

Take this blog, for example. I don't charge any membership fees, and anyone can read it for free on any device. In fact, the more people who read my blog, the more money I make. Because, in addition to dispensing wisdom on the writing profession from my soapbox, this page has ads on it. The more traffic I get, and the more people who see those ads, the more money I make. That's the same for anyone who uses an ad-based platform, whether it's writers at InfoBarrel, or YouTube celebrities like Jim Sterling.

Speaking of Mr. Sterling, he did an episode of The Jimquisition last year for the Escapist covering this very topic. As such, I thought I'd share it to hammer the point home.

So, there you have it. No one likes Internet ads. However, if you have AdBlock on your devices, then you are, effectively, not counted when the end of the month rolls around and our paymasters figure out how much money our traffic earned us. And, to be honest, we need all of the numbers we can get, because it takes thousands of hits for us to earn as little as a few bucks.

That's why I'd like to ask a favor of my regular readers. If you have AdBlock installed on your devices, would you consider turning it off when you read either The Literary Mercenary or Improved Initiative?

If you'd rather keep blocking ads, but you still want me to keep creating content on a regular basis, you could visit my Patreon page to become a patron, instead. $1 an entry, or even a month, goes a long way toward helping me provide even more content for you, my readers.

Well, thanks for stopping by! If you'd like to make sure you don't miss any of my updates, then plug your email into the box on the right, or follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter!

3 Tips For Formatting Your Manuscript (So Editors Won't Want to Stab You)

Writing isn't easy. It's a long, winding road that takes a combination of guts, perseverance, and no small amount of luck, in order to reach that shining plateau of professional success. You'll meet a lot of people along the way, and some of those people are going to be editors. In order to make a good impression on your editors, here are some basic formatting rules you should follow, regardless of what your manuscript happens to be about.

Trust me, you'd rather have them as friends than enemies.

Rule #1: The Tab Key Is Now Dead To You

Never say its name again. Ever.

The tab key has likely been your friend for years now. When you first started writing papers, you were told in no uncertain terms that you hit the tab key in order to indent your text. Well, that was true then. However, you're not printing out a book to turn in for a grade. You're going to send it off to be published. And that means your old friend tab is just going to drag you down.

Why is that? Because in the age of the ebook, and digital publishing in general, the tab key is persona non grata as far as your software is concerned. If you're trying to publish a manuscript into multiple formats, then the first thing you'll notice is your hundreds of tabs have completely screwed up your page appearance. Either you get a page covered in bizarre spacing, or you get a page with no spacing at all, making it impossible to tell where one part ends, and another begins.

What You Should Do Instead

Go to the options in your word processor. Click Format, and then click Paragraph. Once you're in this screen, you set the first line indent to .5, and check the box that says Automatic. After you've completed that simple step, boom, your manuscript will automatically format your paragraphs in a way that will transfer over easily, regardless of whether you're using an Amazon, Smashwords, or Adobe format for your finished project.

Rule #2: Stop Putting Two Spaces After Your Period

Seriously. Stop that shit.

This one is a little less cut-and-dry than the tab issue, but it's still something that irks the living shit out of a lot of editors. You see, the whole reason that people have been taught to put two spaces after a period was that during the days of typewriters and real, physical newspapers, that was how publications in New York did it. The problem was that typewriters weren't universal, and when you were inking the day's happenings you didn't want your page to look too crowded. Some American papers used two spaces, some used one.

However, you're not writing your manuscript on a typewriter. You're writing it digitally, and you can assume there's a uniform number of spaces both in ebook and physical format.

What You Should Do Instead

Just stop. Really, it's that simple. Not only that, but if you're writing a 100,000 word manuscript, you'll cut out entire blank pages that were otherwise spread throughout your work.

Rule #3: Stop Thinking Page Count, Start Thinking Word Count

Seriously, it doesn't matter what page you're on.

This is another one of those changes that came about thanks to publishing, as an industry, going digital. The reason that page count doesn't matter is because you could take the same story, publish it in a dozen different formats, and get a different page count every time. In .epub you have 25 pages, in the physical anthology you have 20, in .pdf you have 16, etc.

You know what doesn't change? Your word count. That's why publishers use word count as the basis for the heft of a manuscript instead of page count. Because a 100-page novel may be thick or thin depending on spacing, but 50,000 words is 50,000 words no matter how you cut it.

What You Should Do Instead

The best way to achieve this mindset is to write projects that fill a certain word count. Anthology calls will typically ask for short stories in 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000-word increments (but 20,000-word novellas are not unheard of). If you participate in calls like these, even if your stories aren't chosen for inclusion, you begin to get a sense for how many words it takes to tell a story of a certain size. That sense of story will allow you to lengthen or shorten a project during the plotting/brainstorming phase, ensuring that you don't end up shooting for a novel, and winding up 30,000 words short of where you wanted it to be.

This concludes my introduction to formatting. If you are an author, or an editor, and there are other habits you find lurking in the slush pile which you feel deserve extra attention, then please use the form on this page to send me an email.

If you want to make sure you get all my future updates, then please follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. If you want to help support The Literary Mercenary, then stop by my Patreon page to become a patron today! If you join by the end of November, there's a free gift in it for you, too!

Wil Wheaton is Right: Authors Every Year Die of "Exposure"

Authors, and really creative types in general, are used to be treated like some bizarre kind of second-class citizen when it comes to our work. On the one hand, people love and value what we do, assuming the existence of movie theaters, book stores, art galleries, comic books, and all the other things produced by creative people and devoured by the populace for entertainment are a guide to go by. On the other hand, no one seems to want to pay for it.

This situation flared up again, when the Huffington Post contacted geek demigod Wil Wheaton and asked to republish a piece that he wrote. For exposure. You know, in case you didn't know who he was, or something.

Huffington Post: An Artist's Interpretation

What Happened?

So, here's the way things went down according to Mr. Wheaton's blog post on the subject. An editor from the Huffington Post contacted him, and asked if he would be willing to let them re-publish his article "Seven Things I Did To Reboot My Life". It's a solid piece, it generates lots of traffic, and it makes sense that the Huff Po folks wanted to get in on that. Wil said sure, that sounds great, what sort of payment are we talking about? Huff Po's answer included terms like "unique platform" and "wide reach".

Boiled down, the answer amounted to, "we're not going to pay you for it, but we're going to put it in a place where a lot of people are going to see it, and we'll make a lot of ad revenue from it."

The Literary Mercenary's Post-Engagement Breakdown

I made my feelings known on this issue pretty clearly over two years ago in my entry Professional Rule #1: Never Work For Free. However, because of the nature of this particular incident, I feel that more than a blanket statement about how creators need to pay artists the value of their work is necessary.

Value will vary, based on work.

All right, let's rewind back to the beginning of this sorry situation. We have an article that's been written by Wil Wheaton, who is a celebrity with a known fan base. That's important to mention because when you have someone that's a Name, with a capital-N, that person brings a guaranteed readership to the publication. It's why reality TV personalities and rock stars get book deals with no questions; publishers know they are going to move copies based on that person's name. So, we have the winning combination of a well-received article, and a famous author.

That's a solid one-two punch from Huff Po's perspective. If they can get the go-ahead to reprint this, they're going to see a jump in traffic. More traffic means more advertising, and more advertising means more money for them. In case you were wondering, the Huffington Post is valued at several million dollars. Also, in case you were wondering, they pay exactly $0 of that to their contributors.

Put another way, that's like Random House asking to republish a novel from Stephen King or George R. R. Martin, and then paying the author nothing for either the rights to the book, or royalties from its sales. In short, the Huffington Post is sitting on a mountain of advertising money that comes from the ads on their site, but when it comes time to compensate the people making that money by creating the site's content, the company line is, "you should just be happy we're putting your work in a place where so many people will see it!"

That takes balls.

Not just because you're telling your authors, who are making you money through their sweat, effort, wit, and audience clicks that you can't afford to pay them, even though you're a multi-million-dollar website. Publishers can set up whatever pay structure they want, and if you approach them as an author you're pretty much agreeing to play by their rules. No, this took balls because Huff Po knocked on Wheaton's door, said, "that's an awfully nice blog entry you've got there. Would you be willing to give it to us so we can make money off of it without sharing any with you?"

What Needs to Change

In a nutshell, authors need to get a slice of the pie.

My go-to example here is a platform like Infobarrel (if you're curious about what I write there, here's my archive). While it isn't as big as the Huffington Post, and certainly doesn't have the reach, what it does do is cut its writers in on the site's profits.

Here's how it works. Authors create content, and the content is then posted on the site. Infobarrel tracks the views, ad clicks, and all the other activity that goes on during the month. At the end of the month it splits the money each article made, keeping a portion for itself, and giving the rest to the author who is responsible for the traffic. So, if you join the site, write an article, and your post goes viral, generating millions of hits over the next month, then you are going to have your rent, food, and possibly a small vacation, taken care of. Not only that, but the site is also going to see a big influx of cash. In a situation like this, everyone wins!

There is, of course, no guarantee that using a site like Infobarrel, or Helium, or whichever other sites are still online, is going to mean money in your pockets. After all, there's no guaranteed way to predict whether your latest makeup tutorial, movie review, or explanation of the behind-the-scenes causes of World War I, is going to be a huge success. However, the more content you produce, and the bigger your audience grows, the more likely you are to bring in regular traffic that makes you, and the site, money.

Paying authors will probably cut down on the number of Ocean's 11-style heist plans, if nothing else.

There are, of course, a thousand different discussions branching off this main one. For example, should authors be paid up-front for their work, especially since there's no guarantee it will be a traffic magnet? Should authors with a bigger fan base or following be paid more, regardless of their skill? What, precisely, are we using as the basis for when authors are being taken advantage of?

Actually, I have a simple answer for that last one. If you want to take an author's hard work, and then use it to generate a profit, but you are not willing to pay that author in any way, shape, or form besides allowing them to sign their name to the piece, then you are exploiting that author. Pay them by the word, share your ad revenue, and by all means try to get a good deal on the work, but do not simply swipe it, post it online, and then roll around in the money like some kind of political cartoon.

As always, thanks for stopping in. If you'd like to help support me and my blog, then stop by The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page, and drop a dime in my jar. If you want to make sure you don't miss any of my future updates, the please follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter!

What is Author Blaming, And How Can You Deal With It?

We're all familiar with victim blaming. You know, when you look at a victim of a crime and suggest that what happened was somehow, in some way, that person's fault. The tired old saw of, "it's terrible she got raped, but look at what she wore to the club!" is perhaps the most well-known example of victim blaming. Others, like how the fellow who got mugged shouldn't have been flashing his cash around at the bar, or how the family who got burglarized should have installed a security system, point out that, at some level, people viewing the situation want to believe that the victims brought what happened on themselves. That there is some blame these victims can be saddled with in order to make them at least partially (if not fully) culpable in the terrible events they've endured.

Using this as a basis, I'd like to explain author blaming, why it happens, and how you can deal with it.

Are You Saying That Writers Are All Victims?

Don't get ahead of me.

By using the term author blaming, I'm not attempting to claim that authors deal with something that's anywhere near as bad as the victims of actual crimes. I'm not attempting to belittle victim blaming that happens in other areas, nor to usurp the sympathy for those victims to re-direct it onto my own cause. The point I'm trying to make is that authors, as well as other creative professionals who are not yet household names, often face extreme criticism from people who insinuate that an author's lack of monetary success is entirely their own fault.

I've got no joke, so have a silly goat instead.

If you're a creative professional, you've likely have a conversation that goes something like this with a friend, family member, or just a casual acquaintance.

Person: Wow, I really admire the guts it takes to put yourself out there. I love what you create, and I can't wait for your next project.

You: It's the job! Long hours, crap pay, but every day is a little closer. If I can grow my fan base a little, and get a firm hold in a niche, I'll be able to do more.

Person: So, you up for going out to lunch?

You: I wish I could, but I've got $5 to my name right now.

Person: Ugh! Have you ever considered just working a regular job so you can stop being so poor all the time?

Authors have to deal with a bizarre Catch-22. On the one hand, our profession is outside the realm of most people's experiences. For the average person the path is clear; you go to school, get some kind of training, get a job, and then you work that job (or a job like it) until you retire. To those people, people who have never stepped off the path where they work for someone else, an author is a rare and magical thing, because they're people who have decided to use their own talent to create stories (or blog entries, poems, or whatever else you write) instead of putting on the workaday yoke.

On one side of the coin, the author is the daring revolutionary, refusing to follow the status quo while blazing his or her own path with nothing but guts and talent!

On the other hand, though, most people seem to believe in the idea of cosmic fairness. Put in simple terms, if you write good books that deserve to be read and recognized, then fate will ensure you rise to stardom. Even if you wrote a book, published that book, marketed that book, and are actively writing more books, there's this unquestioned assumption in many people's minds that if you're not a success, it's because you aren't good enough to be one.

On the other side of the coin, authors should be punished for stepping off the path, and for their arrogance in believing that their creativity means they should be able to make a living.

It's kind of like nudity in a slasher movie. The public wants to see authors take their tops off, but then when the market drives a machete through our chests it's obviously our own fault for not deciding to stick to the straight and narrow like the chaste girl in glasses. You know, the one who's probably going to survive to the end, and chop the market's masked head off in the bargain.

How Do You Deal With That?

Make no mistake, it is homicide-inducing levels of frustrating to have people who are not creative professionals themselves, and who have no idea what it takes to do your job, try to tell you what you need to do to be successful. Or worse, telling you, personally, that you're a failure and should give up (something that happens a lot more virtually than it does in person, but it's not an unknown occurrence). However, depending on how well you know someone, and how much effort you're willing to put in, there are some steps you can take to turn the situation to your advantage.

Everyone loves bullet points!

Step One: Correct Your Audience's Misconceptions

Interactions between authors and non-authors are a lot like when you have to deal with tourists from another country. In this case, the country of normal. Tourists have an idea of what life in your country is like, and they make an effort to speak your language and follow your customs. Unfortunately, their knowledge is imperfect, so you have two choices; correct their knowledge, or walk away and let someone else deal with it.

Sometimes it may be as simple as directing them toward the massive archive of work you have created (between this blog, Improved Initiative, my Amazon author page, and my Infobarrel article archive, I think I'm starting to make a dent), and explaining to them that you weren't hoping to live independently off the sales of one book. You might also need to explain that you work longer hours as an author than anyone who has to punch a time clock, just in case they thought you were trying to skate by on an hour of writing a day. Sometimes the conversation may be more complex, and you'll have to explain current trends in fiction, illustrate how difficult it is to get assistance marketing your work, or explain that even if you sell a lot of copies, it might be months before you actually have that money in your bank account.

No matter what, though, you must maintain a professional, and friendly demeanor during the first step. You're not attempting to prove your critics wrong, but rather to show them that their assumptions are based off of an incomplete knowledge of how your career actually works.

A lot of people will just tell you you're making excuses, and walk off in a cloud of smug. Some people won't, though, and that's where the next step comes in.

Step Two: Show Them How They Can Help You

Sometimes step one is all you get. Someone criticizes your career choice, and you engage them in a conversation about it. Sometimes nothing gets resolved, and all you get for your trouble is a headache and a lot of wasted energy. Other times, though, someone will have his or her perspective corrected, and realize there are many more factors at play than personal effort, and that it's just as impossible for an author to self-levitate through use of their bootstraps as it is for anyone else.

A lot of the time this is where the conversation ends. If you're lucky, and you make a positive impression, it's possible to turn this person into a supporter. That's why it's important to give people business cards, persuade them to take a look at your book, or if you're online give them web addresses where they can find your work (sort of like I did above).

The key with this step is to weave people into your network by showing them all the different ways they can help support you and your career if they want to. For example, people who really like your work can buy your books, and leave reviews to help make your books more visible. If someone wants to give money right to you, then you can put a tip jar on your blog (like I have in the upper right corner), or they can become a patron on your Patreon page (mine is right here, if you're curious) to help fund you by tossing a few bucks in your account every month.

If your mysterious someone doesn't have the money to support you financially, or simply isn't sold on being that big of a fan, that's all right, too. They can still support you by following you on your social media pages (I'm on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, for instance), and by promoting your posts through liking, sharing, and most importantly actually viewing them. Between book sales, blog traffic, patronage, and just using word of mouth to make more people aware of you, it's possible for one person to make a big damn difference in your career.

Not Everyone is Going to Be a Fan

It doesn't matter how talented you are, or how many people love your work, you're not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Your Aunt Rita will always pat you on the hand, and tell you that she prays for you, because she's too polite to say she thinks you're refusing to grow up. Your friend Jake will live through you vicariously, but he'll never buy a copy of your books because he'll feel like he should get one for free because he knows you. And there will always be people, at conventions, on forums, and even at talks and book signings you set up, who will think you're a sham because you don't have a laundry list of awards, and you don't have a six-figure income.

When that happens, it's best to just do like Disney says, and let it go.

Trolls gonna troll.

You should make an effort to get as many people on your side as possible. After all, sometimes all it takes is one person to share your post with their massive group of online friends to find yourself at the start of a viral avalanche. Maybe that person you were polite and friendly to knows someone at a major publishing house, or a radio station, or a TV network, and suddenly you find doors opening to help boost your profile that you'd never expected.

Author blaming happens, and it happens a lot. How you respond to it can often have unexpected consequences, though.

What Is Character Agency (And Why Do You Need It)?

So, let's say you're reading a book. Your main character is just working his regular job, dealing with life, when suddenly a group of werewolves tries to kidnap him. He's not a fighter, he has no combat experience, and he has no idea that these creatures even exist. He's saved at the last moment by a vampire, who whisks him out of harms way. The two forces fight over him like a soccer ball, until it's finally revealed that he is the key to creating the ultimate monster. His power is unlocked, and he immediately starts tearing into those he considers the villains of this centuries-long struggle for power.

Does this sound familiar at all?

Here's your hint.

Yes, this is the general plot of the movie Underworld, but it's also the plot to dozens of modern fantasy novels if you lightly tweak the story, the creatures, or you flip the gender of the "lead" and his love interest. The reason the word "lead" is in quotes, by the by, is because while Michael Corvin is one of the central macguffins of the entire film, his character really is little more than a talking soccer ball. He could just as easily have been replaced by a corpse, and the film wouldn't have lost a great deal.

Let's Talk About Character Agency

Character agency, in a nutshell, is how much a character can act in the context of the story. Put another way, it's how much your character decides to act, instead of being acted upon. Characters like Michael Corvin, Bella Swan, and others don't act; they are acted upon. In some few instances, they react. They don't participate in the plot; the plot is something that happens to them.

Even Winston was a master of his own fate, by comparison.

It is, in a very real way, like passive tense. Characters without agency are passive. These characters are acted upon, and they have very little to do with the story. They tend to be surrounded by other forces, and to be pushed back and forth by those forces. Characters like Christine Daae in The Phantom of The Opera, for example. While she is, ostensibly, one of the leads of the story, she's little more than a puppet being controlled alternatively by Raoul and the Phantom. She sings because the Phantom tells her to, and she runs away from the Phantom because Raoul wants her to. She's kidnapped by the Phantom so Raoul can chase them, and even when Christine is told to make a choice at the end of the play (or novel, whichever version you're enjoying), her choice is nullified by the Phantom, who sends them all away.

At no real point does Christine decide what she's going to do, or how she's going to do it. She is an object, and objects are not characters that garner a whole lot of interest.

If you're not sure whether or not your character has agency, then ask what they're doing. Characters who have agency will see problems, and do something to try and deal with them. The actions the characters take don't have to work, they don't have to be smart, and they don't have to be brave, but the character has to be able to act without someone else pulling his or her strings.

But They're Not The Real Main Character!

Lack of agency tends to happen a lot in what I've dubbed cat's paw syndrome. This is when your story has a "lead," but that lead isn't really the main character of the story. The main character, the one doing all the acting and who is really behind the plot, is someone that the lead will slowly uncover. Typically this is because the actual main character is supposed to have a lot of mystery and build-up surrounding him or her, and we need an outside source not to spoil the surprise. Hence we have a cat's paw who, while part of the story, isn't actually the person the story is about.

I'm sure we can all think of at least one story that goes like that...

While you can argue that characters like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, and even Dracula are all the true main characters of their books, films, etc., that doesn't mean the author gets to knock off early when it comes to the rest of the cast. Jonathan Harker, while he may not be the main character of the novel, is still capable of taking action within the story. Even though he is trapped by the count, and left to the brides for months on end, he still manages to escape and make his way back to England. Not because they let him go, or because Van Helsing kicked in the door and rescued him, but because Harker was capable of taking action on his own.

We see this in non-horror series as well. Sherlock Holmes is the reason you read his stories, but the narrator and character whose perspective we get is that of Dr. Watson. And while Watson is constantly jerked around by the machinations of his slightly-crazed flatmate, that doesn't reduce him to a perspective on a rope.

Don't Skimp on Character

Agency is something all characters need in order to step into the third dimension. In order for us to buy that the story is real, and to maintain both our suspension of disbelief as well as our enjoyment, we have to see people taking actions. While they can be forced into decisions from time to time, or follow the obvious course, we still have to see them actually doing something in order to invest us in their story.

Even if they aren't, technically, the real lead.

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Do Book Giveaways Really Work?

Your job, as an author, is to tell a story. Whether you're writing shorts about tragic romances or medieval political thrillers that go on for thousands of pages, all you have to do is tell your story, and tell it well.

Well, that, and sell thousands of copies so you can pay your bills at the end of the month.

Pictured: The kind of sales that make most authors salivate.

We rarely stop and consider just how many copies of a book we have to sell in order to actually turn a profit. For example, say you get 50% of ebook sales, and your ebook is priced at $2 (this is just an example, your numbers will vary based on publishing company and method). That's $1 a sale. So how many books would you have to sell just to pay your rent/mortgage? 800? 1,000? More?

If you're reading this, chances are you think that's fantasy territory. The idea of selling a fraction of those numbers, even if you have to do it by hand at a convention, sounds like a huge windfall. However, there are authors who manage that kind of overnight success. And one way they've done it is through book giveaways.

Or, at least, that's what you've been told.

The Legend of Mark Dawson

If you keep an eye on the latest success stories from fellow authors, you've likely hear the tale of Mark Dawson's success. And if you haven't, it's on Forbes. Even if you've never read his story, though, you're going to feel like it's all too familiar. Dawson was an author who put a lot of love, skill, and heart into one book, and because his publisher didn't do its job on the marketing front it went largely ignored. So Mark wrote another book, and decided he would publish it himself. He put in a ridiculous amount of research, put it up on Amazon, and nothing happened. So he decided, for a lark, to host a free giveaway for a weekend. Two days later, he checked his numbers...

Holy shit... numbers!

... and found he'd moved 50,000 copies. They were, in fairness, 50,000 copies he would receive no money for, but that is a lot of eyes to get on your book with a single promotion. It also meant that Mike suddenly had a significantly bigger audience than he'd had before, and they were all leaving positive reviews of the free book they'd just downloaded. They wanted more, and that hunger was enough to kick him into high gear. That was when he created the globe-trotting assassin John Milton, and started writing a series about his adventures. Which, in turn, led to a six-figure income.

So All I Need To Do Is Run A Book Giveaway?

Yes, and no.

You see, a book giveaway is not a guarantee that you are suddenly going from the poor house to the big house. You're not drilling for oil or mining gold; you're recruiting. Part of how successful your giveaway will be is determined by how good your book is. The rest is pretty much determined by how many people see your giveaway, and decide to take part in it.

Artist's depiction of Dawson's giveaway.

The reason Mark Dawson, and other authors like him, keep cropping up in our social media feeds and in the news is because they conjure huge numbers of readers out of the ether. Often that's because they work hard, they cultivate an audience, and they make sure to keep their readers happy by giving them what they want. However, going from nowhere into the stratosphere is caused by one, impossible-to-predict quantity.

Luck. Pure, simple, do-da, clueless, luck.

Hosting a book giveaway is good for your numbers. There are readers out there who regularly scroll through free offerings to make sure they have all the ebooks they could ever want. Readers are also loathe to pass up a free book, and if all they have to do is click a button to get a book, then they probably will. The catch is that your book still has to stand out in order to get readers to actually open the file. As we all know, just because you download something, that's no guarantee you're going to read it anytime soon.

So, in an ideal world, every giveaway you host will generate a legion of fans who have just discovered you, and you will experience a huge burst of activity as your new base devours all your other books like a plague of literate locusts with money to burn. What is more likely to happen is that between a few hundred and a few thousand (depending on your reach and how many people help spread the signal) people will download your free book. Of those downloads, a fraction will read it. Of those who read it, a fraction will decide they like it, and seek out more.

Speaking of, check this out and see if you like it. The first two stories are free!

When the worst case scenario is getting more readers who will add you to their list of authors they like, and the best case scenario is an explosion of popularity and overnight celebrity, there's no reason not to host a book giveaway. You should, however, keep your expectations reasonable. Sometimes the lightning doesn't strike, but that's no reason not to fly your kite the next time the clouds get stormy.

Hopefully you found this week's installment something you can take to heart. If you want to make sure you get all of my updates, then either plug your email address into the box on the right, or follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter. If you'd like to help support me, then visit The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page, and toss some bread in my jar. Every little bit helps, and you'd be surprised how far $1 a month can go.

Also, if you prefer novels to short stories, go check out my latest sword and sorcery release Crier's Knife!