No Time to Read!

If you love books like me, you know that reading is fun. And as you have fun reading hundreds and hundreds of books, you'll one day come across a book that'll make you say:

"Wow, I wish I can write a book like this."

or

"This sucks. I can write better than this."

And on that day when you say those words, you take the first step. Reading books suddenly isn't enough for you. You'll start having ideas forming in your head, and this tiny urge to get up and start writing those ideas down. Congratulations! You've taken the first step to becoming a writer.

However, as someone who has started to seriously write his first novel, I've got to warn you. THERE IS NO TIME TO READ!

Writing takes a lot of time and effort. In fact, it takes so much time that reading books is barely an option anymore. If you're like me, just because you want to be a writer doesn't mean you want to stop reading books. I still love to read books, but now I don't have any time to read at all.

I've come to realize that it's a small, yet important sacrifice to make. If you're going to write a lot, you can't use your time to read anymore. There is no time to read. So focus your time and effort on finishing your novel.

Hook in your Readers with the First Pages

I've just looked over the terrible first eight pages of my novel (but that's okay, because I'll just keep on writing forward, and go back to those pages when I start editing my novel).

So I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you what I've learned so far about writing the first few pages of my novel (and from what I've learned from reading other novels).The first pages of a novel are very important, especially for an unpublished, aspiring writer. These pages are the opening hook for your novel, the purpose of which is to immediately draw the reader into your story.

Now, how do you write a good opening hook for your story.......

umm.......

uhhhhh........

I have absolutely no idea how to do this.

The only thing I do know is what I wouldn't like to read as the opening hook for a story. So, in my opinion, don't put these in your opening pages.

1) It can't be slow paced. The beginning can never be slow.

2) There shouldn't be long descriptions of something, like a mountain or the country, that are several paragraphs long.

3) It shouldn't start out as something happening to the main character, but it turned out to be just a dream

4) There shouldn't be a long narrative that contains a character's backstory.

5) Don't start with "Once upon a time...."

6) Don't talk about the weather.

7) And please, no cliches.

At the moment, these are all I can think of. Though there are probably more things out there that you should avoid when writing your first pages.

JUST DO YOUR BEST AND THINK OF WHAT YOU YOURSELF WOULD LIKE TO READ IN THE FIRST FEW PAGES WHEN YOU START READING A NOVEL. That's the best advice I can give you.

(*There are sometimes exceptions to the rule. A few great novels out there began with terrible first pages and was still a success. I can't think of any of those novels now, but I'm sure there are a few out there).

Blockade Billy

by Stephen King

This novella comes out on April 20, 2010. Go on and read it!

For more information about this novella, click here.

Stephen King is also the author of various other novels (too many to list all of them), like Carrie, Duma Key, and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Morpheus Road: The Light

by DJ Machale

This novel comes out on April 20, 2010. You've got to read it.

To find out more about the book and also read an excerpt of it, go here.



DJ Machale is also the author of the Pendragon series (which I highly recommend for fantasy/scifi readers). He also wrote other books... which I haven't read (sorry, DJ Machale). Also, he did a bunch of TV shows too, like Ghostwriter and Are you Afraid of the Dark? (which are great shows that I watched when I was younger).

Review: Knightley Academy

by Violet Haberdasher (her real name is Robyn Schneider)

Before I go into the review, I have two things to say:

1) The pen name Violet Haberdasher makes me think of a purple rabbit for some reason.
2) I don't understand why she needs a pen name. Her real name, Robyn Schneider, is a fantastic and unique name.

Knightley Academy by Violet Haberdasher is a fantastic novel. I would recommend it to anyone, especially those who love the premise of a young boy going to an amazing school and fighting enemies. Sorry if you're thinking of Harry Potter by JK Rowling, but this book has no magic. However, what it does have is chivalry, sword fighting, characters with strength, a touch of humor, mysteries with red herrings, and many more fantastic elements.

This novel is about a boy named Henry Grim who is a simple commoner with a brilliant mind. However, due to some circumstances, he was able to attend the famous Knightley Academy, which was a school only for noble born students. But because of Henry, that tradition is broken. Together with the help of his friends, Adam, Rohan, Frankie (she's a girl), and his tutor, Professor Stratford, he tries to survive school and stop a war at the same time.

If you love stories of chivalrous knights and tales of strong characters who stands up even when society tries to bring them down, this is the book for you.

Although, I still wish there was some sort of awesome, climatic battle at the end. Despite that, the novel did end in such a way that I wish there was a sequel in my hand now.

For more information about the novel, click on this.


Violet Haberdasher, if you're reading this, thanks for writing a fantastic novel.

Also, thanks to those who read my blog, and especially to those who're going to go read Knightley Academy because of my blog.

John Smith



PS: I discovered Violet Haberdasher from Kaleb Nation. They are both funny people who make great vlogs and write great novels.

How to build a Platform for your Novel

For any of you who don't know, a novel platform is basically a group of people who want to read your novel.

So how do we find these people who want to read your novel? How do we build a platform to support your novel when it comes out?

First off, before you get started, you have to actually start writing a novel. Even if you manage to build a platform for your novel, it means nothing if you don't actually have a novel for the people to read. So write a novel while you're also building a platform (but you should devote most of your time to the novel).

Now that you're writing your novel, let's begin:

There are many ways to build a platform. However, one of the most common and easiest way is to blog it (which I'm doing). When you blog something, anyone in the world can read it. This allows you to get the word out on your novel so that a lot of people can know about it. Blogging is fast, it's free, and you can do it in the comfort of your own room.

The only problem with blogging is that you have to compete with a bunch of other blogs out there. However, you don't have to fight with those other blogs. Instead, you can combine forces and link with each other, which will get your readers to read their blog and also get their readers to read your blog. You can do this by guest posting on their blog and allowing them to guest post on your blog. So go out there and read other blogs and get to know those blog owners. Leave comments on their blogs and email the blog owners. Let them know that you're there and that you're interested in their blog, and that they also might be interested in yours.

Another way to build a platform is social networking. Get a twitter and/or facebook account (follow me), and tell the people on your account that you have a blog. Your friends, followers, and fans will then read your blog and support you. This will spread the word about your novel through the network and get more and more people in your platform.

Well, that is pretty much all I'm doing to build my platform. It's not much, but it's a start.

However, there are still more ways to help build your platform (which I might do sometime in the future).

You can (after you finish your novel) post the first few chapters of your novel for your readers to enjoy, so then they will want to read the rest of your novel.

You can go to school, and libraries, and etc... and talk about your novel (spread the word without the internet).

You can send ARC (advance reader copies) to some people (like famous authors) so they can read it and then review it (hopefully good reviews) and tell other people about it.

You can make book trailer videos about your novel and then youtube it.

In a nutshell, just do everything you can possibly think of to spread the word about your novel. That is how you build a platform.

PS: If you want help building your own platform, then email me so that you can guest post on my blog, or I can guest post on your blog. In other words, we'll link our blogs together, and our readers can read each other's blogs.

What is a Platform?

A platform is a group of people that want to read a certain book or go see a specific movie or listen to some music or etc....



Let's use a movie as an example. You've just finished making a movie, and you want a lot of people to go watch it. To get all these people to watch it, you have to market the movie. You do this by putting trailers of your movie on the internet and on TV. You can also invite some critics to watch your movie so that they can review it (hopefully good reviews). There are many ways to market your movie so that these people will want to watch it. These people, who all want to watch this specific movie, are your platform.


Because of the marketing you've done to build your platform, these people are all excited about going to watch the movie even before its released. They tell there friends, they twitter and facebook it, they make plans to go see it, etc... The movie has a platform of people that want to see it.


This can also apply to novels as well... if you know how to build a platform for your novel.








PS: If you want help building your own platform, then email me so that you can guest post on my blog, or I can guest post on your blog. In other words, we'll link our blogs together, and our readers can read each other's blogs.