Less is More {or Less}

Had a great response for the Platform Group Therapy! (And it's not really therapy, ya'll, so much as just getting us thinking and writing about how we can connect with people who might be interested in our subject matter!) I'll be sending out an email latter on today, probably.

I'm curious what my writing buddies think about less is more. In today's society, this hardly seems accurate. The more you have of something, the better. (Ah...otherwise I wouldn't have 15 women interested in having MORE of a platform.) But when it comes to writing, haven't we all heard less is more?

Some possible meanings: 1) less prose to convey more; 2) less pages to cover more action; 3) less telling, more showing (doesn't quite fit the analogy...but we've all heard this). Sure, readers son't want to sit around reading a 987-page novel (although I'm sure there are a few historians out there who don't think this is enough to quote get the time period across). So many of us are working withint page-limit boundaries for category-type books, and those who are working on single titles don't want to go much more over 100,000-120,000 words or editors will gawk at your word count.

Q4U: How do we manage this? Are there some tried and tested rules you use to make sure you keep within a certain limit? Do you rely on a crit partner (like I do) to tell you when you should leave some little additional detail off? How do you decide what to cut and what NOT to leave to the reader's imagination?

Platform...Again

Many of you are members of ACFW. I have been taking agent Terry Burns' online course about pitching/promoting/marketing/etc. And one aspiring author wrote (Not sure who, so don't ask! If you do follow the course, then you know just how many emails we get every day!) in about just wanting to concentrate on her book instead of building a platform and publishing credentials. Terry responded (essentially) that since they get so many queries a day - if he had two aspiring authors side-by-side on his desk, both of whom had excellent writing skills, he'd choose the one with the better platform over the one with none. It's a no-brainer for an agent.

So, with that in mind, I'm now of the mind that building our platform - even for fiction - is really important. It sounds like agents aren't comparing apples to apples when it comes to those of us who aren't published. It's apples and oranges...and I'm beginning to think the orange is much heavier due to platform. *sigh*

Since we're all part of this great online writing community of encouragers and accountability, I think those of us actively seeking to build platform should stick together! If you comment in this post, then I'll assume you're of the same mindset I am and think this is important. I'll do my best to compile email addresses from your profiles and we can start a more in-depth discussion about the particulars of your platform (or lack thereof) and brainstorm about how to make it bigger!

It'll be like platform group therapy. :)

Platform

After reading this article about platform, I started looking at mine. The biggest thing going for me is my license in Marriage and Family Therapy. I loved counseling and learning more about how to help people with varying degrees of mental disorders. I also felt that this population was underrepresented in Christian fiction (although I will concede that there are a few authors out there who have included a secondary character here or there with a serious mental problem), and this became sort of a soapbox of mine. So Mind-Healing Fiction was born, as was my tagline, "Where Romance Meets Therapy."

According to the platform article, these things must be on your business cards, which you hand out at conferences or tack up on community boards, etc. Now platform is most essential for non-fiction writers, but it can't hurt for fiction. I love how Scoti Springfield Domeij wrote that a platform isn't all about YOU. It's about a "God-given passion, understanding how God gifted you, and using your writing and speaking to make a difference in the lives of others." He asks you to begin by asking who your audience is, how you can serve them with your distinct mesage/specialty/niche, and what information are you offering for your audience to benefit them?

Tough questions, some of them. But it's got me thinking about what else I can use this blog for besides just writing about my dream to publication. So, I'm asking for your help. I'd like to start a weekly "help" post, sort of like practical ways to fight a particular mental disorder or something like that. I could maybe highlight one disorder per month. What do you think about this idea? What could I call the weekly post? (Like, think Mary DeMuth's "Free Critique Per Week" kind of idea...something I would call the post every time.) Something catchy. And thoughts would be appreciated!