Today I’d like to step out of the writing career coach role and talk a little bit about my experience as being a judge in a multitude of writing contests, for both published and unpublished writers. One misperception people have is that judges go in to these contests for some kind of personal gain. I can tell you as a judge, the only gain I get from it is helping another person grow as a writer. Nearly every writing contest is a volunteer contest. The judges are not paid in any way. The only exception to that is that in published writing contests the judge will usually get the copy of the book they are judging. Judges are giving their time out of their love for the craft, and their desire to help other writers. It’s important that writers keep that in mind when they’re reading through critiques and comments from the judges.

I, as a writer, completely understand how painful it can be sometimes to receive those critiques from the judges. I also understand how painful it is when you have one judge who gives you straight perfect scores and another judge who rips you apart. You wonder how you can even use this information to develop your writing. We’ll talk a little bit about that in the next blog, but for today I want you to think about using the comments the judge says and recognizing them as individual readers because once you’re published, the readers are going to be just as subjective as the judges are.

Understanding that people are going to have wildly different opinions and that there is some validity in each perspective, can help you grow as a writer. Understanding that judges are there to genuinely try to help you as a writer will help take away that animosity that we sometimes feel when we get those harsh critiques.

If you have questions that you’ve always wanted to ask a judge, I’d love for you to put them in the comments and get a dialog started. As I said, I’ve judged a number of categories in both published and unpublished writing contests, large and small and I’d be happy to give you the point of view of a judge and help you with your writing.

Next time we’ll be talking about how to use those comments to help you develop your writing.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

For writers, writing contests are an imperative part of the process because they provide us with feedback and also help us thicken our skin. Remember, writing is a highly subjective industry, which means that we are constantly going to face rejection and conflicting opinions, whether by judges, readers, family members or even our own edits.

One way to effectively prepare for a writing contest is to have a professional edit done. If you have a crit partner that’s great. Not everyone has the time. I myself have to hire someone to do my edits because I simply don’t have the time to give the feedback to the other person. I always urge people to get a critique done first or a full edit because this is putting your professional foot forward. You wouldn’t go in to a job interview wearing jeans and likewise you don’t go in to a writing contest with a first draft.

Research some places. Writing Career Coach, of course, offers editing and I usually offer specials around the times of large writing contests. But beyond that, find either a critique partner, someone who is knowledgeable in the industry or a professional editor, to go through your writing and give you some feedback.

You can get a detailed edit where they will pick apart every little piece, or have somebody just do an assessment and give you an overview generalizing areas of strength and weakness. Either way, make sure before you go in to a writing contest that you’re taking the time to learn about the craft and build a strong showing in the contest.

Once you’ve toughened your skin and polished your writing it is time to get it out there. Find contests that have trained judges who are going to give you feedback on your work. While we always want to win writing contests in this subjective industry that won’t always happen. We need to be able to get something out of the contest no matter what. That is why feedback is so important. I’ll talk more about using the judges’ comments to improve your writing, but for now simply focus on finding good contests that provide real feedback.

If you’ve entered some good contests I’d love for you to share below. I know the Genesis Contest [unpubbed] and Carol Award [pubbed], both of which are sponsored by ACFW are good contests. The Daphne du Maurier Award from the RWA KOD chapter also has a good reputation and excellent feedback.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

In the previous two blogs we’ve talked about engaging the senses and using tone to help connect with your potential customer. Now we’re going to talk about saying the same things in different ways.

This is particularly helpful when you look at the new way that social media is developing over the last year to five years. Consider things like
• blogs
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• White Papers
• ebooks
• vlogs
• and all of these various forms of social media.

All of these appeal to a different segment of your population. We learned this in our previous blog on tone. And all of them appeal to different senses. We talked about this in our previous blog engaging the senses. What I’m talking about today is focusing our style to different people and different segments in different ways.

To clarify, people who read blogs are not necessarily people who read newsletter articles, whether e-newsletters or print newsletters. Likewise people who follow Twitter are not always the same people who follow Facebook. While there is overlapping readership, each of these areas appeal to a specific kind of consumer. Therefore, whenever you’re working on marketing copy, if your target market is found in any of these areas you need to make sure that you’re using copy that will appeal in each of these areas

For example, blogs are more conducive to more up-to-date information or expounding on an issue or linking to things. (Like the blogs that I’m doing here.)

Tweets, on the other hand, are more short bursts but are very well suited to finding a relevant article. These are for the person who is frequently reading up on the industry. You want to be the first to inform your customers of updates and innovations. Twitter lets you do that.

Blogs are designed for fairly contemporary information that can be used as a reference later.

Twitter would appeal more for if there was a new industry update I wanted to get out to my readership immediately. That’s when a Tweet would come in.

Enewsletters are more about developing relationships over time, making business connections and getting to know people. Ebooks and digital downloads, or e-newsletters, are better suited to expounding on a particular topic with a company that you’re either in relationship with or developing a relationship with.

Therefore, each of your customers is at a different stage stages, whether just finding out about you, or wanting to be on the cutting edge of what’s happening in your industry through Tweets, someone who wants to continue to learn gradually through your blogs, or someone who wants to see that information expounded on through your newsletters, each person has a different preference in their interaction with you. Therefore using all of these kinds of networking tools are imperative to helping develop your complete customer base.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

Authors call it tone.

That certain something that makes each story a little bit different.

To help you understand what this is, consider the difference between a term paper, a newspaper, and a love letter. All the words are different. The phrasing is different. Consider how the approach and the kinds of things that you talk about are different? All of these things speak to tone.

Business owners need to consider tone when writing marketing copy or hiring someone to write their marketing copy because your writing needs to appeal to different people, in different places, even within your target market.

While your target market may all be, for example, moms with toddlers, the needs of a mom with a single toddler versus the needs of a mom with twins or two young children that are a couple of years apart will be slightly different. So adjusting your tone to your target market and saying different things in different ways, restating things throughout your marketing copy, to help engage different segments of your target market, will help you to better engage your reader.

In a previous blog we talked about the senses. When you’re writing your marketing copy you’ll integrate senses here in tone using those different emotional ties incorporated with tone to appeal to each reader. This is just another way that fiction techniques help with marketing copy.
Now it’s time for all of you to sound off. Let’s try to see if we can do some writing practice. If you were going to write a 1 paragraph blurb to market my writing career coach program to someone how would you do it for an author, a business or a parent of a young aspiring writer?

 Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

Today we are interviewing author Lena Nelson Dooley. Her most recent book, Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico is available through Summerside Press.

Lena Nelson Dooley is a multi-published, award-winning author who loves to mentor other authors. With her 25th book release, she has close to 650,000 books in print.

Lena has spoken at conferences and writers’ meetings in four states. She also speaks at women’s retreats and event of all kinds. She lives in Hurst, Texas with her husband of over 45 years.

Lena’s door and heart are always open to those God places in her path. She seriously considers her ministry as a mentor, prayer warrior, even a champion of the downtrodden, her life’s work. 
 
Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico: It’s 1890, and Golden, New Mexico, is a booming mining town where men far outnumber women. So when an old wealthy miner named Philip Smith finds himself in need of a nursemaid, he places an ad for a mail-order bride—despite the protests of his friend Jeremiah. Hoping to escape a perilous situation back East, young Madeleine Mercer answers the ad and arrives in town under a cloud of suspicion. But just as she begins to win over Philip—and Jeremiah himself—the secrets she left behind threaten to follow her to Golden…and tarnish her reputation beyond redemption.

Writing Career Coach: What are some ways you prepared to market your book before you were published?

Lena Nelson Dooley: Before I was first published, we didn’t have the Internet to help us. With my latest book, I have a very active blog . I’m also a regular contributor at this blog www.bustlesandspurs.com. I have a Facebook profile as well as an Official Fan Page on that site.  In addition, I’m on Twitter and on Shoutlife, a Christian Internet Community.
 
I also booked a Book Release Party at the local Mardel Christian Store.
 
WCC: How do you plan and write your books?

LND: Although in most other things I do, I’m a planner, with writing, I’m more of a Seat Of The Pants author. I believe most SOTPers do almost the same work as detailed plotters, but we do it in our heads while the story percolates. I know the starting point and where we’re going. I also know many of the events along the way. Then I pray every day before I sit down to write, and sometimes stop in the middle of writing and pray. I couldn’t write a novel without the Lord.

WCC: What is it like working with editors? Do you have tips for getting along and building a great relationship with them?

LND: Early in my career, I was intimidated by editors. Not their fault. Mine. But when I realized that we were on the same team, wanting to make the books the best they could be, I’ve developed some real friendships with many of them. Remember an editor wouldn’t have a job without writers. And writers couldn’t get books published without editors. I also learned that I don’t have to accept every suggestion that is made. But I make sure there’s a real reason to disagree, and I let the editor know what that reason is. We can always work out a compromise that pleases both of us. Just as with rearing children, as an author, I pick my battles. I accept almost all the suggestions. Only where I think it affects what I’m trying to do with the story do I disagree. But always without being disagreeable.

Read more of Lena’s interview at Examiner.com

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

As written communication becomes more important in marketing, the smart business owner will begin to use fiction techniques to engage their potential market and to build relationship right from the beginning. When I say businesses need to use fiction techniques I don’t mean creating lies and trying to be fictitious. What I mean is using the five senses, as well as emotional connection to the environment to help pull the reader and thus the potential customer in to the scenario that the business is trying to describe.

For example, I recently needed to purchase tires. What are some of the senses associated with purchasing tires? You need to give a sense of safety. You need to give a sense of reliability. You need to demonstrate understanding of the needs of the individual tire purchaser. Therefore, building a scenario that causes the reader to think of these kind of things immediately causes them to think of what qualities they really want and need in tires. The same is true for say, business consulting. You want to help the potential client to see themselves accomplishing their goal, because when they see themselves there, they can see your role in helping them get there.

It is all about engaging the senses, but I don’t necessarily mean talking about what something will smell like or taste like. I mean using those five senses, like feeling the cold, sensing the slip of the tires when you’re driving. But what I mean even more than that, is how we interact with our environment.

An excellent writer will be able to take those five senses, connect them to an emotion, and draw the whole picture together. That’s what you need to do in your marketing copy. Not dreamy promises, not try to catch somebody with a jazzy jingle.

What you need to do is show them how that product is going to interact with their life. How it’s going to help them get to their goals, whether that goal is

- getting safely from Point A to Point B

- or growing a business

- or selling a book

- or whatever it is.

Knowing how to use the senses and knowing how to create a story world, a picture, an image in a customer’s mind, helps them to actually have a mental symbol of your product and will make them more likely to want to purchase from you and develop a relationship with you down the road.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

Today’s blog we’re going to look at the two most important parts of your story: beginning and the end.

You’ve heard the phrase in publishing, The first line of your story sells this book, the last line sells your next book.”

It’s more than that.

Your first line needs to introduce the story, introduce the character and point to the climax of the plot. The last line of your story needs to give a satisfactory resolution to that plot and also, if you can tie it back to the beginning, where your reader goes “Ah, now I understand what he meant there”. That is how you leave a great impression with your reader.

Think about ways you can do that as you’re working on your writing this week. What are the ways that the first line of your story is pointing to the climax of your book?

What is the way that the last line of your story is bringing the reader back to that very first line?

That’s your assignment for this week. If you have any ideas on how to do this we’d love to see your comments in the comments section.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

Today I’m going to vent about a writing pet peeve I have. It’s when writers try to do more than one thing simultaneously in your writing.

Now, by this I don’t mean trying to infuse sensory details while evoking emotional responses. That’s part of good writing. What I’m talking about is having someone walk down the steps as they’re running their fingers through their hair,
or talking to their sister while they’re looking at the man across the room.
Those two words, as and while, have become words that immediately jump off the page for me when I’m editing projects for clients. They tend to point to someone trying to either tell me what is going on or someone trying to do too many things at one time.
Remember, in writing we can only see one thing at a time. That means that you have to describe one action, the implications and then move on to the next action. By trying to tell me two things are happening simultaneously you’re going to pull me out of story world. Things are going to jump out of order and it’s going to distract me as a reader.
So make sure as you’re going through your writing and your personal revisions that you look out for the words as and while. Whenever you see those make sure that you’re not trying to describe two physical actions happening simultaneously.
Instead go in and change up those words and infuse more detail. Take your reader deeper down into your character.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

All right, so today we’re going to talk about three of my favorite little tools when I’m working on creating my story world. That is Google Earth, Dictionary.com and Wikipedia.

First, Google Earth. I like Google Earth because I can fly anywhere and see anything. If you’re not familiar with Google Earth just go to Google.com or put Google Earth in your search and you can download it. Once it’s on your system you can put in an address or a city or a landmark, and it’ll take you there. You can fly over top, you can go from the road view on most areas. But it gives you a sense of the terrain and what things look like and it really helps to add authenticity to your story.

Dictionary.com. I like this because I like words. You can get word of the day sent to you, but more than that, I like to be able to get some of those synonyms. I have my Flip Dictionary, I love my Flip Dictionary, It’s a very useful writer’s tool. But when I’m working, particularly when I’m working up at my office in town, I don’t always have my Flip Dictionary with me because that stays at my house. Dictionary.com is a great tool for me to go and get some of those synonyms.

Wikipedia. Now some people like to besmirch Wikipedia but I actually like it for a couple of reasons. One, because it is so subjective. I can go in there and find out what other people think of certain things, whether it’s accurate or not. As writers we need to understand how other people view things so that we can get inside of that point of view and help create more well-rounded characters. You can also find out interesting tidbits about some really obscure things. So while it isn’t my authoritative text for scholarly research, when I’m trying to create story world I love it.

So for today, using technology to build your writing, I would encourage you to check out Google Earth, Dictionary.com and Wikipedia during your ten-minute break and see if any of these resources will help you enrich your story world or build your writing in a new and exciting way.

I’ll see you next time when we’re going to be delving into some fiction techniques that will help you with your overall writing craft.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.