To Blurb or Not to Blurb

As an author I greatly value blurbs for my books. A “Blurb” is a short description of a book, a review written for promotional purposes. Blurbs from other authors are valuable, but they are even more valuable if those authors write in my genre or can be viewed as subject matter experts for some reason. So, when I wrote The Orion Assignment, a thriller set in Ireland with a native Irish protagonist, I thought the blurb I got from native Irishman and crime fiction author Ken Bruen carried a lot of weight for potential readers. Beyond saying that he liked my book, it sent the message that I got the Irish characters and setting right.

And what about the subject matter expert angle. If someone requests a blurb from me because their protagonist is ex-military, or African American, or a senior citizen, are they taking advantage of me? After all, they hope my endorsement will increase sales. And is my third-party endorsement a lazy way around doing their research? Don’t they have any ex-military, or black, or older friends of their own to show their manuscript to?

Well, just because they asked me doesn’t mean they haven’t already gotten other experts or members of those groups to read their book. But maybe my voice will carry more weight than theirs. Or maybe he trusts my feedback more than theirs.

That’s a lot of maybe. But I do feel a responsibility to repay the universe for all the blurbs big-name authors have written for me. And I feel a responsibility to help other writers I respect to get their seniors, ex-soldiers and African American characters right. But it’s still me doing a favor for another author, so in general my rule is simple. It’s something I do for writers who are respected friends.   

Make Your Protagonist Shine

Sometimes we at Intrigue Publishing receive a manuscript from an author who tells a great story, writes wonderful prose and has a fine touch for dialog, yet we have to reject the book. Despite all else being perfect, a weak protagonist will sink a novel.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a weak hero. In fiction, heroes often have astonishing abilities, although anyone who does good deeds for others can be a hero. The protagonist is always the subject of the story. It’s the person who the story is about. He or she is the person who grows the most, takes the big risks and makes the big sacrifices. If those things don’t happen your protagonist is a weak one, even if he’s Hercules or Superman.

The very center of every story is change, and that has to revolve around your protagonist. In some stories, especially science fiction, it is common for the protagonist to change his world. More commonly, it is the hero who changes, grows, matures or learns an important lesson. This is why you often hear that a hero needs to be flawed. Your protagonist should at least start out with serious flaws. In the best stories, the obstacles the hero overcomes during the story teach him to overcome those flaws.

Also, a good protagonist is not ALWAYS positive. Neither Indiana Jones nor James Bond is a cheerleader. They know the world is tough and they have to be tougher. Like all of us, your hero needs to have an off day once in awhile, and make the occasional stupid mistake. And when he makes those mistakes, he should learn something from them. That’s a lot of what leads to the growth. (It took Dorothy a lot of missteps to realize there’s no place like home.)

You should also make sure your hero’s personality is the result of his or her past experience. You need to know this person so well that you know exactly what caused him to be the way he is. And at an appropriate time you can share that with the reader to officer added insight.

And, since this is the focal character, your protagonist needs to be the person who drives the plot. This is the person who walks headlong into the greatest danger. Who takes the big risk, who makes the big decision. And ultimately, this is the person who undoes the villain. Gotham City has a huge police force, but it’s Batman’s story so it must always be Batman who ultimately defeats the Joker.

If you can do all this in your story, you can be sure your protagonist will shine!

Leave Your Novel's Past in the Past

When I teach my class on creating characters I stress that the author needs to know everything about the people he creates including their entire life history. But as I read submissions to Intrigue Publishing it occurs to me that I should put more emphasis on the fact that you need not share all you know with the reader.

The thing about backstory is, it isn’t always relevant to your current story. As a reader I want to story to keep moving forward. If you stop to explain too much history, it just slows things down.

There’s a reason we reject novels with what we consider too much backstory. In real life, people just don’t think about past events that often, unless they’re tied directly to something that’s happening to them right then.  If the writer is solidly in his or her point of view character’s head, they will know what past events are relevant to the moment.

No matter how fascinating it is to the writer, readers don’t really want to know all about the character’s past. Readers want to be surprised from time to time. They want to discover more about the character as the story unfolds. So it’s more fun to drop hints to the past. As a reader I like to be thinking, “why did she react so strongly to that? Why did he say that? Why did he laugh at THIS situation?”

My best advice to writers is to write the whole story without ANY backstory. Just ignore it and let the characters do what they do. They, when you go back to read through the manuscript for your first re-write look for places where the scene doesn’t make sense unless you give the reader more information. If they need that backstory to understand the scene, find a place to reveal it. If it doesn’t really help that scene, you can reveal it later so the reader gets a chance to say, “Ah! So THAT’S why…”

I think important backstory is defined by how it affects the character now. It’s not about recorded history. It’s about the impact of that experience. For example: My detective Hannibal Jones listens to a lot of Classic Rock. I show this to the reader and let another character ask about it later on. That gives Hannibal a reason to reveal that he grew up in Germany listening to the American Forces Network radio. He was a child when his father died, and he had clung to the mix of music AFN played in those days.

So put that backstory in the background and help your readers (and editors) enjoy your story more.