Make it Fun
Pretty much all writers start out as readers. We’re people who learned early that reading is fun. It takes us to faraway places, leads us through adventures that enrich our often humdrum, routine lives, and introduces us to characters who are larger than life and twice as interesting. If the story doesn’t extend us in some way, doesn’t take us on that trip, why would we want to read it?
As writers, we should be having fun telling the story as well.
That doesn’t mean the book you’re writing can’t have a serious underlying message or teach important lessons. But if that’s the reason you’re writing it and the attitude you take while you’re pouring it out, odds are it’s not going to be something others want to read.
If you’re going to take your readers on a great adventure, put them through wringers of suspense, bring them into danger that breathes down their necks every second, introduce them to characters that fascinate and amaze, you have to be writing something that you enjoy as well. If you’re forcing yourself to write things you don’t like and don’t enjoy reading, drop it. No one else is going to want to read it either.
It’s worth keeping in mind that readers mostly read for recreation. They don’t want to be preached to; they want to have fun.
We know that writing is a lot harder than most non-writers think. We know it takes time, effort, and dedication to give birth to a book. But if it’s not a labor of love, what’s the point?
So sit down, type until your fingers are sore and your butt aches, but remember to enjoy the journey!
Current release: MAGIC, MURDER AND MICROCIRCUITS
Blurb: A powerful wizard with a physics degree and a checkered past invents a shield to ensure he’ll never again be tortured almost to death.
The wizarding powers-that-be fear the repercussions of such a device and send his former girlfriend, an accomplished wizard herself, to retrieve the device or destroy it.
When the shield is stolen by the magical mafia, Ilene McConnell and Michael Morgan have to set aside their differences and work together to recover it. Michael claims he needs the device as insurance against the kind of injury and injustice he suffered once before. Ilene maintains its potential to upset the delicate balance of power makes it too dangerous and that it needs to be destroyed. But none of that will matter if they can’t retrieve it before a ruthless, powerful wizard learns how to use it for his own ends.
Karen McCullough
Magic, Murder and Microcircuits, ebook original, available now for Kindle, Nook, and other electronic formats through Smashwords
A Gift for Murder, Five Star/Gale Group Mysteries, January, 2011
To buy Magic, Murder and Microcircuits on Smashwords, click here.
Visit Karen’s website: http://www.kmccullough.com
