6. Q&A Session from the Day of Inspiration Summit (Part 1)

In this engaging Q&A session, recorded live during the Day of Inspiration Summit, Suzy Vadori addresses a range of questions from aspiring writers. Suzy dives into the intricacies of writing backstory, the benefits of coaching at different stages of your manuscript, and how to effectively build a platform as a nonfiction writer. This episode is packed with practical advice for writers at all stages of their journey.

Main Topics:

1. The role and handling of backstory in fiction writing.
2. The timing and benefits of working with a writing coach.
3. Effective strategies for building a writer's platform.
4. Tips for writing collaboratively with a writing partner.
5. Managing and balancing multiple characters in epic fantasy.

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Intro and Outro Music is Daisy by Zight and used under a CC by 4.0 DEED Attribution 4.0 International license. For more music by Zight visit https://www.youtube.com/zight

Transcript

0:49

Welcome to Show Don't Tell Writing with me, Susie Vidori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction and nonfiction that will wow your readers, broken down step by step. This show explores writing techniques and writing styles. It shows you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writing careers and coaches writers live on their pages so you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you're just starting out, drafting, editing, or currently rewriting your first book, or maybe even your tenth, this show will help you unlock the writing skills you didn't know you needed but you definitely do. I'm looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas From your mind onto the page in an exciting way for both you and your readers so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams while having fun doing it. Let's dive in. On July 19th, we held a live day for hundreds of writers to celebrate the launch of this podcast. I had such a great time meeting all of these writers, and this episode we're gonna share an excerpt from the live Q and a that I held where writers could ask things they wanted to about the writing process. And I would answer. This is part one of three and I hope you really enjoy, because if other writers have these questions, you probably have them too. Hey everyone. Welcome. Welcome to your q and a session with me. I am here to answer all of the questions that you've been posting all day long in the Facebook group and to also answer any of the questions that didn't get answered during the session today. This has been a huge, huge undertaking, this writer summit. And I am so excited that you are all here in celebration of my new podcast. Show. Don't tell writing. Thank you. Thank you. We couldn't do it without you guys. I'm going to share as much writing advice. I do not gatekeep. I will share everything with you. Get a notebook. Um, it's going to go fast. I'm going to share a ton of information. Some of it will be new to you. A lot of it will probably be new to you, or you will hear it in a different way. And it will give you tons of ideas that you can go away tonight and work on your own writing and apply that. So questions. Okay. Anonymous said, based on the way that you put together your epic fantasy, do you feel it's worth writing backstory or history for certain characters or the world just for you? And it, like, it doesn't make it on the page past a couple of lines maybe. Okay, this is a great question. So we hear a lot of times in writing forums and things that backstory is bad, or backstory is terrible, and you know that you don't write it. And that is, is true. You don't want to put three pages of backstory. And the reason is, and backstory is just a character's history, right, or the world's history. And the reason that you don't want to do that is because your reader is excited for what's happening in story present, and they don't want to stop to learn about something that happened in the past. Okay, or that happened before, or that happened extraneously, or extra information. It can also be a form of info dumping, which is telling, right? And we're on the Show Don't Tell podcast today. So we've got this problem. If the reader needs the information, right? Then how do we get it across? So yes, it's a terrific idea. to sort of do all of that on a separate page. You can write as much as you like about their backstory and don't just count it as your word count for the day and throw it into a chapter. That's a mistake that I see a lot of writers make. And the problem with it is that readers don't need all that information right now. So when you're looking at it and you're deciding, the first thing you should decide is do your readers actually need this information? And if the answer is no, leave it. out. Now that doesn't mean that you don't need the information as the writer. You may still need that information because it will help you decide how they're going to act and feel and react in the present moment and the story that you're telling. So it could be really helpful. Um, we talked with some of the writers that have been on the podcast already during this event, we've talked about the fact that they didn't know their characters as well at the beginning, and then they got to know them as they went through. One way to get to know your characters really quickly is to do this exercise, right? So take some time away from your writing, but don't just throw it in there. Then what you can do is you can take those little details, from your character's backstory, and you can put it in when they're important. Okay, so whether you have a story that's in story present, and then you have some flashbacks, or whether you have, sometimes you've got a really complicated structure where you have dual timelines happening, one in the past and one in the present, and hopefully they all weave together eventually, remember this, okay? Readers Are mostly concerned with what's happening in story present and they only care about what happens in the past if it helps them predict or decide or understand what's happening in the present. Okay, I'll say that again. They only are following one story and that's what happens in story present. That's what they care about the most. And so they only backstory if it helps them decide. Or predict or, or understand what's happening in story present. And if it isn't doing that, your bit, your snippet that you really want them to know, leave it out. You may need to know it as the writer, but don't share it with your reader because they don't care and it will slow the pace down. And that's where you get this problem where people say you're info dumping or too much backstory, right? So pay attention to those moments. The reason we don't care as much about the past is kind of an obvious one once you hear it, but we don't think about it this way. It's because you have a spoiler. We talk about spoiler alerts. The problem with the past is anything that happens in the past when you're visiting the character in the future, if I find out about them 20 years ago, and you put them in mortal danger 20 years ago, guess what? I already know that they survived, so I'm not that stressed. Right? I already know that they live in the suburbs and have three kids and, you know, have a front yard and a dog. I already know all of that. And so I'm less interested in what happened to them 20 years ago, because I know that they turn out the way that they turn out. Right? Now, if that person in your story that lives in the suburbs with the three kids and the dog is now Dealing with a crisis and something that happened in their past is going to change the way that they react, then do it. Flash us back. Show us that past so that we can try to predict what's going to happen in the future. But remember, I'm never going to be as stressed. Those scenes in the past or your backstory are lacking tension. They're lacking tension. So that's hopefully that helps you. Okay. Wayne, how far ahead should I be writing before working with a coaching program? I have somewhere between 60 to 80 pages in draft form now estimating around 17, 000 words. Okay. Great question. Wayne, if you're thinking about coaching, the answer is whenever you're ready. Um, so there are two separate, Sort of approaches that you can take. Obviously, when you're sharing it with readers and you want a reaction, then take the story or you're sharing with an editor. That's going to look at it at the end. Take the story as far as you can on your own. But this other option that you're asking about, which is coaching. Be from the very beginning, right? I've had guests on the show where we've worked on this from the very beginning, outlining it, saving you tons of time, all that stuff. So the answer is whenever you feel like you're stuck or you want to go faster, or you just know that there's something missing and you don't want to keep writing because if you're, if you're sort of stuck and you know that you're missing something, then writing to the end, isn't going to help. Because you're just going to have to go back and replace that missing piece through the entire book. Right? So there's two choices. You can either work with the coach from the beginning. You can come at it in the middle. Um, they're all valid and, and there's different ways to do it. I will say that when I take on a new writing coaching client and I work with a writer, the first thing that we do is overlay an outline. And I use the inside outline that Jenny Nash has designed. It's a three page document, unless you're Tinashe Martin, who you've met on this podcast, who's was 16. Um, but yeah, it should be a three page document. It doesn't take a lot of time, especially if you've already written an entire book and you want to be coached through it. It's a way for me to get up to speed really quickly and see what the whole book is about. I can see, literally, I'm very fast at looking through them. I can see potential issues or have a conversation with you about the entire book based on that three page document. So it's a lot of. To put together. Put together. So whether you're at the very beginning or you're at the end in revising, or whether you're somewhere in the middle and you've got those 60 to 80 pages done and then you're not really sure what's gonna happen, then we would look at it in that construct first, and then we would start looking at the scenes and the pages and see how to make it happen for you. One of the most important things about being a book coach or, or having somebody help you with this process is that it's not. It's still your idea and it's still, you know, you articulating what it is that you hope to say to the world and the conversation that you want to start. And so when you come up with that, a great coach or mentor or critique partner or any of the above editor, any combination beta reader, any combination of those things. And if you want to know what those are. Ask me and I'll talk about them. Any combination of those things is that they should be paying attention to what you wanted to accomplish in the first place, right? And not what they want for your book, because it's different for everybody. This is such a personal journey. Okay. Bonnie B, what is the best way to write with a partner? So the best way to work on a book together with somebody else, there might be a lot of reasons why you do that. And I'd love to talk with you about what those reasons are. It can be a lot of fun. We talk a lot about being a solitary exercise. This can be a lot of fun and you can learn from one another. The best way is to have a really clear, Outline, again, I'm talking about outlines. Now, when I say outlines, I don't mean that you have to spend days and days and days, like sometimes an outline can be an hour or something or a plan together and agree on certain things. And what I would say is that maybe you work on that first couple of pages together and you understand what, what are you doing with tenses? And what about voice? And what about these things? What are the rules and what do you want this book to be? And have that discussion really upfront. If you're doing a dual. Point of view, sometimes writing with a partner can be really neat. What I would suggest in that respect is that you each write a different character and that will make sure that their voice is unique. And it also means that you don't have to do as much matching later on. If you're both trying to write in the same. point of view or the same character, the same voice. It's going to be really tricky to match it later on. If you're doing it that way, then I would say, choose who the final say is, or choose who's going to edit it later, right? Choose who gets the final edit, because depending on who that is, you're going to change that, that voice. Okay. Sunny, after submitting a requested. Non fiction proposal. I've received rejection stating that I wasn't in a position to help promote the book due to my platform. Mm, yeah. Admittedly, I do not have 10, 000 social media followers or speaking engagements arranged first before I publish this book. How can I strengthen my platform? An experienced public speaker and have a presence on most social media platforms, but, and most active on Facebook. Thank you. Okay. Amazing question, sunny. This comes about all the time. So for those of you who are new to the writing space or write fiction in nonfiction, instead of writing a query letter to be agented, you will actually submit a proposal which includes, it's basically a really complex, um, long document. It can be 30 to 50 pages. And it can have, it's mostly a marketing document. So it shows how you're going to support, it shows how you're going to support your book once you get it out. So the actual proposal isn't about what your book is about, which seems really counterintuitive because publishers, I wouldn't say that they don't care, but they're less interested in that than that you have a market already waiting for that book. And that it. It puts nonfiction writers at a real disadvantage if, like Sunny, they don't have that same platform. However, Sunny, you did say that you are a public speaker. And this is how I usually coach people, because I do work on proposals, nonfiction proposals with writers. And what I would usually say is that Think bigger. It ain't bragging if you've done it, right? So, so we tend to be really shy and we don't make it big enough. It's the same thing as asking for a job or writing our resume. We're not going to lie, but you want to make sure that you're giving yourself credit for what you do have, because what, what you're saying in this question is, okay, I don't have 10, 000 social media followers on my own accounts and that's fine. However, if you're a public speaker and you spoke at a convention, That, you know, to a room full of 200 people. That's fine as well. You could say I spoke to 200 people or you can also share. I spoke at this convention, which has a membership or a mailing list of 40, 000, right? Because all of those people heard that you were speaking there. So you do have a platform. You have a wider reach. then you think, make sure that you are using that. Okay. So first of all, before you go and say, okay, I've got to go create this huge like platform before you do that, realize that you have a platform that you may not be thinking of. So what I usually do with writers is have you write down sort of all the groups that you have access to, or that you have influence. To, or that you can, can actually look for. And so if you're doing that already, then make sure you're giving yourself credit for that, because you will have an audience for that book. You'll have an audience when you, when that organization announces that you're speaking for them. And you can go back to those organizations that you've worked with in the past. That can be part of your marketing plan as well, and ask them to support your book launch. So there's a bunch of things that you can do, but what could you do to, to further your platform now? There's a million things you could do. I could talk about that all day long, but here's what I would say is take a look at others in your space. And notice what they're doing, but don't copy them or don't compare yourself and say, okay, I have to be so and so. Find something that you love to do. We often have conversations around, you know, okay, I'm a writer, but I'm an introvert. How am I supposed to get out there and be promoting things? It's not comfortable for me, but there are other ways to do it, right? There are articles to write or ways that you can do it through your writing submitted to a magazine. for listening. Right. Okay. Now my proposal becomes, I have, you know, published in this magazine, which reaches all of my audience. It's a, it's a different way to frame it. So hopefully those give you some ideas, but do the things that you love because it's, it's a long, it's a long haul. It's a long haul. Okay. Dem, follow up on a platform question answer, but shouldn't I have a book before I speak? You don't need to have a book before you speak. It can help in certain circumstances for sure because it just gives you automatic credibility, but you certainly don't need to have a book before you speak. What I will say is that the process of writing a book about your passion topic, so whether that's, you know, fiction, non fiction, whatever it is, the process of honing your thoughts and figuring out what that journey is. So quick tip here, when you're talking non fiction writing, so fiction writing, we talked a lot about that. We talk a lot about character arcs and your protagonist and where they go and, you know, where they are at the beginning, the change that they undergo. The same thing is actually true in nonfiction, like a business book, for example, in a memoir, if you're writing about yourself, that protagonist is you, right? So what does that change? If you're writing a nonfiction business book, this is a tricky one, flip the script, okay? Your protagonist is your reader. And so the journey is the reader, This journey and where they come, where they are at the beginning, when they pick your book up, why are they picking it up? Where are they in their life? And where do you want to take them at the end? And so you can actually map the exact same steps. So the process of doing that, Deb, for people sometimes creates the opportunity to become a speaker. Sometimes really hones your message so that you are so clear that audiences want you to come and speak. And it can also help you write that speech. Um, that process of doing that. Figuring that out. Okay. Shelby E. I find myself adding and making plenty of characters. How much is too much? I love all the characters I include, and each has a purpose, but I don't want to include too many either. What advice do you have on the amount of characters? Okay, there's no right answer, but there is an answer. Um, So, Shelby, it depends on, and I hate answering, it depends, I like giving solid facts, but depends on your genre, and there are two different things, okay? There are point of view characters, right, so how many characters are actually telling the story. So, epic fantasy, the lucky thing is, that is the genre that you can have one of the most biggest cast of characters, maybe only rivaled by space opera. So you're fine because your readers, we talk about genre as being a contract between your readers and your readers are expecting to have a lot of characters. Now, that being said, you still need to pay attention to the number of point of view characters, okay? When you have multiple points of view, and what I mean by that is like you've got a chapter like told by Susie and then you've got a chapter told by Shelby and then you've got a chapter told by, so it's, it's how many people's heads do we get to be in? And. the more that you include of that, the more difficult it is for you as a writer. Okay. And It might seem easier, but the more difficult it is to do correctly or to do well and to have readers actually follow along, okay? So you do want to pay attention in that circumstance. The max would be four or five, even in the epic fantasy of point of view characters. If you've got more than that, pare them down. Tell the scene from somebody else's point of view. See what you can do, because readers can't connect to all of them. Now, I say this, there's of course exceptions to every rule, but just know that don't make it difficult just for the sake of making it difficult. One other thing I'll say on point of view, uh, because there won't be a payoff. One other thing I'll say on point of view characters is if you don't have at least 20 to 30 percent of the book in that character's point of view, don't just throw in one chapter from a different character's point of view. Find a way to do it different because your reader won't ever connect with that point of view character. They can't. It's only one chapter, right? So you've got to give them an arc. You've got to give them a reason. And introducing being in one character's head and then never resolving it, and thus never going back into their head, is extremely frustrating to your reader. So even if it's fun to do, or if it's the way that it comes to you, and part of the problem is, We can do it in movies, right? And miniseries, Netflix series does this all the time. They'll drop into, you know, a character's backstory for an episode or something, and they can do that, but your readers just make it easy on them because they won't follow you. They won't love it. Thanks for tuning in to Show Don't Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vidori. Help me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing, planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Spotify or wherever you're listening. Also visit SuzyVidori. com forward slash newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list to stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training, events, and writing courses in my community. If you're feeling brave, check the show notes and send us a page of your writing that isn't quite where you want it to be yet for our Show Don't Tell page review episodes. Remember, that book you're writing is gonna open doors you haven't even thought of yet. I can't wait. You're feeling called to write that book? Keep going, and I'll be right here cheering you on. See you again next week!