The Name Game: How Do You Name Your Characters?

Let's talk about naming your characters for the new Roundtable.

What resources do you consider the most valuable when coming up with character names?

Samantha Dunaway Bryant: When I’m working in a contemporary, close to real-world setting, I look at details like where my character is from, what year they were born, who their parents were, and use that to help me select a likely name.

Census records and baby name books are useful for this.

Cindy Bergquist: Some come to me. Some I reference my favorite character naming book, The Character Naming Sourcebook. 

Lisa Haman: For me it depends on the story I'm writing. For The Insignificant Amy Dodd, I tried to think of a name that sounded like someone who is invisible. For Philippa Marlowmellow, since it was a parody of the noir detective stories I tried to make the name sound like an old detective series.

Van Allen Plexico: Writing ALPHA/OMEGA from 2005-2024, I needed a LOT of Russian names. Like 35 distinct Russian characters. I used every source I could find for first and last names, from websites to baby name books.

And I still wasn't completely happy with the range of Russian names!

Bree Jackson: If I’m going for symbolic, I take attributes of the character (ie: strength, beauty, resilience,etc…) and translate those words into different languages. Then I derive a name from the word that works best. In other instances, I’ll ask my beta reader group silly questions like “I need a name that isn’t Chad to describe a gym bro guy who looks like he lives off of wheatgrass and unseasoned chicken.” The results are entertaining and useful.

Chris Pocase: There were two methods I used to use when coming up with character names. The first one was to take two Latin words and sort of splice them together to make a name. But I plan to rename those characters since the combinations can be fun to come up with but difficult to pronounce.

The other method…use Google Maps and pick a random place in the USA, and look at street names. There are some really interesting ones especially in rural areas

Kay Lee: Sounds weird but I feel like my characters name themselves lol. Based on the personality of that character names that seem like a fit just kind of come into mind and make sense.

Writing Folks Who "Just Ain't You"

As writers, we all know that little swell (or maybe massive swell) of butterflies when we try to capture the voice/characteristic/personality of characters who clearly aren't us. It may be writing across gender lines, racial lines, sexual identity lines, or just a pessimist trying to write an optimist, or a rural trying to write an urban. 

For this roundtable, let's talk about how we do that in a way that satisfies a writer's need for authenticity. 

Where do you fall on the scale between "I can write any kind of anybody" and "It's really hard to write people who aren't like me"? Why do you think that is?

Ron Thomas: Fortunately, there is more than one “me” in my head! I can draw on my serious side for a lead character and my wise ass side for the sidekick. Even the villains draw on a bit of “wish fulfillment” for me. I heard a long time ago that mystery writers are closet criminals...

James Palmer: This is always a challenge, especially if you're writing BIPOC or LGBTQ+ characters. I don't know what the answer is except for getting to know different types of people, especially those from these groups, and read the fiction they write. Any writer who gets it right is a good choice too. Matt Ruff is a white dude, but his Lovecraft Country is a masterclass on how to write black characters without comparing their skin to coffee or cocoa every paragraph.

Brian K Morris: I like to think I can write, pretty much, any type of character. To do it correctly, I need to research them, their way of life, their mode of thinking. In a way, it’s profiling the subject by studying others.

And this doesn’t just cover a demographic. When I’m asked to write an existing character, or I pitch a story to do so, the same kind of research needs to happen. I need to get them right. If they have a distinctive way of acting or speaking, I need to emulate that as best I can.

Sheela Chattopadhyay: I find that this is more of a matter of perspective, rather than just a straight line issue. You need to understand the cultural differences that can affect someone's perspective to make this happen in some cases. In other cases, you have to understand where the person is coming from and their motivations.

Crime Fiction: Private Dicks, Armchair Detectives, and Cops on the Job

For our next writer roundtable, let's talk about crime fiction and mystery fiction. 

Which "slice" of this genre do you prefer to write, detectives solving mysteries (or cops solving a procedural) or a more general telling of the crime and folks involved? Why?

Danielle Procter Piper: I prefer to tell the story of the investigator. It's tricky, though, because sometimes it's difficult to stay one step ahead of a very intelligent character. You have to keep tossing obstacles at him or her just to keep the story going. It's also fun to pair him or her with a partner who keeps veering things off course, just to add to the struggle and fun. 

Paul Storrie: Hard-boiled detective fiction. As Chandler put it, "Down these mean streets a man must go who is himself not mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." (Okay, these days I don't object to a bit of tarnish and, of course, the "man" might be a woman or nonbinary. ) Though I have enjoyed some procedurals, I prefer the private investigator. The underdog. Not part of the system, but striving for some kind of justice nonetheless.

Van Allen Plexico: "Get caught"?! Dude--spoilers, but my criminals get away with it! 😅 I mean, things never go the way they expect, but they at least get away with something!

And so far, I've come up with the objective first, after a lot of historical research, and then puzzled out what they're trying to do and how they go about doing it. Then, once I'm telling the tale, I allow it to grow in whatever useful and interesting directions it wants to go.

Aaron Rosenberg: I definitely write "someone solving a mystery", I'm not entirely sure how you'd do a mystery otherwise. 🙂

Sean Taylor: I vastly prefer to write a mystery. For me, I dig a good P.I. tale, and often the more hard-boiled or at least hard-boiled inspired the better. That's my preference when writing AND reading. I don't think I could ever want to write a cozy or an armchair type of detective. I want grit and action and disillusionment. I also enjoy writing something with a more noir approach, where an everyperson ends up in the middle of some mess and must figure their way out of it, and often that mess involves crime and criminals. 

Bobby Nash: I like following characters as they solve a mystery or chase down a bad guy. For me, the characters are where it starts. The mystery, procedural elements, or even the chase all work in service to the characters. Not every character handles a situation the same way. How Snow approaches a problem is different than how Sheriff Myers approaches it. These character traits inform how the story unfolds. My stories tend to involve solving a case or mystery, but I try to spend time with both the protagonists and antagonists. Still, it all starts with the characters.

Snow is much more of an action/thriller. There are mysteries in the Snow stories, but not all Snow stories are mysteries. As with everything I do, I try to make sure it starts with the characters. Everything that happens in a Snow book does so through Snow-covered glasses. How do the things in the story impact Abraham Snow? How does he react to events? From there, the crime builds around Snow.

The same is true of my other characters as well. At least I hope so. As you mentioned, they have vastly different approaches. I could drop Abraham Snow, Tom Myers, Harold Palmer, Catherine Jackson, and John Bartlett, all investigators and law enforcement in their own right, into the same plot and I would come away with five different stories because of how these characters handle the plot would be different and therefore take the story in a different direction. Tom Myers investigates differently than John Bartlett or Catherine Jackson. Their personalities are different. They have different skill sets. Those attributes help define how these characters solve their mysteries/cases.

Jason Bullock: I have to say I'm drawn to writing mysteries that deal with seasoned investigators encountering the improbable only to find it was the most reasonable explanation at the time. I love a cliffhanger!

HC Playa: I have written a grand total of one mystery short story which I totally winged. Was that the best approach? No, not at all. My story for "The Dragon Wore a Badge" (an anthology that is not yet out), falls in the solve the mystery category, although the person who was the crime victim centers more in this story. So perhaps a bit of both mystery/crime telling for that one. Did I wing that one as well? Why yes, yes I did. 😂

Now, technically book two for Of the Other series that I am working on features a kidnapping that our MCs have to solve....so I guess I write "person(s) solving a mystery."

Ian Totten: I do crime fiction. There’s something about writing grittiness, and an honest portrayal of this that appeals to my mind. It depends on the story, but I rarely give the reader an idea of who the antagonist is.

When writing a mystery, whether procedural, cozy, PI, etc., how do you craft your tale and plot? Just jump in and wing it as you go? Or do you start with the crime and work backward to figure out where the criminal went wrong and what caused them to get caught? Or have a main character just putter along until that final clue or witness falls into place? 

John French: My first ever published story was a detective story for which I had a great closing line and then wrote the story to get there. Generally, I start with a situation or what I want to happen then choose the detective best suited for it. How it goes from there varies, sometimes I know what's going to happen, and sometimes the story or characters take over. But it's always an investigator - police detective, PI (licensed or not), or someone else who would naturally investigate or punish crime.

Bobby Nash: I start with the inciting incident. With In The Wind, Sheriff Tom Myers’ first standalone novella, the idea of the safe house being hit was what I came up with first. I then built the story from there. The first step was getting to know the guy in protective custody. Who is he? Why is he there? What kind of criminal is he? What will he do when the safe house is attacked? Once I had that in place, I started figuring out the rest. Who’s after him? Why? Where does he go? What parts of Sommersville do we need to visit in this story? We’re worldbuilding as we work the investigation. Then I start layering in the pieces until we get to the end.

In Such A Night, I started with the murder and worked outward from there. In the upcoming Standing on the Shadows, we start with a small-engine plane crash. That uncovers a long-buried secret. Then, I build the crime off of that beginning. In Snow Falls, it was with our main character getting shot and left for dead. Evil Ways started with an action scene designed to introduce the characters and also lay the groundwork for the sequel, Evil Intent. Deadly Games! started with a flashback to introduce the characters and their relationships before time jumping to the present situation.

I usually have an idea of the ending when I start, but there have been instances where the ending changed as a result of the story unfolding organically. I don’t do detailed outlines. I know certain plot points to hit, what clues need to be there, that sort of thing, but I leave the story open enough to make discoveries along the way. Some of my better twists resulted in trusting the characters. In one instance, the villain of the story was not who I, the writer, thought it would be. I was at the end of the story, a short piece, and realized that who I thought was the bad guy was not the actual bad guy at all. The twist was great so I went back to insert the appropriate clues so the readers could have the chance to deduce the bad guy’s identity. I like to play fair and have all of the clues appear in the story. To my surprise, the clues were already there. This is further proof that my characters are way smarter than I am.

Writing clues can be nerve-wracking. To me, because I know it’s a clue, they seem so blatantly obvious that there should be a neon sign pointing at them, flashing the words THIS IS A CLUE!  With Evil Ways, I was pleasantly surprised that some of the clues to the killer’s identity were not caught by readers on the first read-through. When I pointed them out in conversation with readers, I could see the dots start to connect. That made me happy.

Paul Storrie: I've got to map it out ahead of time. That way I know the clues and have a rough idea when it makes sense for them to be found. I also need a solid idea of how the story wraps. (I've never quite bought into the idea that if the writer is surprised, the reader will be too.)

Danielle Procter Piper: I'll get a basic idea in my head: For instance, in Venus In Heat, I knew I wanted to write a story about the concept of "obligate carnivores" or "obligate herbivores" and prove such things don't actually exist. Because of the thriller/mystery element, I went with a real fear—people getting eaten. To amp it up, I decided they'd be small children. So, that was the exciting part, the part that makes the reader squirm and wonder what's going on. Next, I chose my main characters and decided to go with ones I was very familiar with: An almost goody-two-shoes retired veterinarian, and a shady streetwise para-policing agent...so there's the combo I mentioned earlier with the intelligent investigator partnered with a near opposite who keeps throwing the case sideways. After that, I took the beginning of an older idea that never went anywhere and made it the start of an entirely new, wild story. It was author Tim Dorsey who told me he writes by just letting the story and characters drag him along, no plotting or planning, and I find that's the most fun for me, too. I'll see logical plot points manifesting in the future and write toward them, then drift along that stream until another starts to appear. Winging it, most people call it. 

HC Playa: In my hybrid planning/seat of the pants approach I know who did the thing, but they aren't the big bad, and why they did it and where, but it's the laying down the breadcrumb trail to my big bad that's tricky. I come up with the next two or three plot beats and then have to stop as I figure out how to keep the trail going and possibly send them on a goose chase. I haven't written that particular style story before, so it's a bit slower than just going, "Ooh, and now there's an explosion" 😁

Jason Bullock: I have to admit that I start my task by exploring an event, a crime, or a problem that could be currently being experienced by my protagonist. I then settle that character into the thick if things. Skipping to a major theme plot element catches readers right out of the gate holds them by the frontal lobe till I'm ready to go back to the beginning of the scene where it began before the main character was involved in the time stream.

Aaron Rosenberg: Oh, I have to know the details of the mystery--who, how, when, where, and why--before I ever start writing. Then I can see what clues got left behind, what hints there are, what trails--and what red herrings, as well. Trying to wing it would result in a ridiculous amount of backfill as you finally figure everything out.

Sean Taylor: I generally have an outline when I work. Yes, I'm not typically a pantser. I'm a notorious plotter. Because of that, I know the ins and outs of the crime, but I still like that surprise when something I didn't even think was important becomes a major clue like the watch in Rick Ruby's "A Tree Falls in a Forest." That started as a throwaway clue, then became more and more important as the story progressed. Rick is an odd blend of capable detective and putterer, working all the angles until he gets the right bite on the line. Then he's smart enough to know that's his new direction to focus on. 

Is it more important that the reader be in the dark along with the MC or should the reader have access to stuff the "detective" doesn't? Which ratchets up the tension best for you?

Aaron Rosenberg: I do mysteries from either first-person or limited third-person POVs, meaning they see what the main characters see, nothing more. I don't believe in hiding details from my reader, having the main characters figure something out or see something and not share it in order to dazzle the reader at the end, but I also don't believe in giving the reader more information than the main character. It's a shared journey, everyone has the same information at the same time.

Jason Bullock: I often times do the reveal of what's important when the MC is encountering the event. Disguising that key clue amidst a bevy of red herrings which are laid out for them to take a whiff at is a great way a murder, robbery, kidnapping, etc. The hidden clue in plain sight is what makes the reveal even better by the main character. "Tweak a strand on the web and the Spider will show itself."- Douglas Aldridge, (protagonist from my novella ENOCH Initiative ©2023)

Paul Storrie: I tend to go with the traditional hard-boiled, private eye, first-person narrative, so the reader gets the clues when the detective does. Haven't yet written a mystery where the reader has more info than the detective.

Danielle Procter Piper: I like to follow the hero precisely, allowing the reader to try and guess what's happening. Showing them how the character thinks and why, explaining how motivations and past experience play into his or her worldview but will take a side trip to write stuff the hero doesn't know if it's necessary to add clarity for the reader. If the reader knows just about everything already and is simply following the hero's path to resolution then I feel the story is not about solving anything or encouraging new ways of thinking and seeing things, but about caring for the characters instead. Either can work. I prefer to write stories of discovery instead of stories about emotions.

Bobby Nash: I prefer to play fair with my readers. All of the clues the detective uses to solve the case need to be in the book. I hate it when detectives use a piece of information or clue to solve a case that the audience did not see. That’s not fair to the readers. I like for readers to be able to try and solve things along with the characters in the book. Plus, if they didn’t figure it out, after the reveal, they can go back and see the clues. That said, I do spend time with the antagonists. In those instances, the protagonists will not have that information. It’s a bit of the best of both worlds, though can be tricky. In my novels, Evil Ways and Suicide Bomb, we follow the killer in each, seeing events through his eyes, hearing his thoughts, but I still keep the identity secret until the hero characters discover it. That can be tough. You have to be careful with how you write those scenes.

Sean Taylor: One of the reasons why I specified crime fiction not just mystery fiction for this roundtable is they are different animals but the same genus, so to speak. In a mystery, someone is trying to find clues and solve the crime. In thriller crime fiction (like Die Hard for a movie example) the villain is already known to the MC, and the only mystery is how the hero is gonna save the day. In a thriller, the reader is usually more knowledgeable than the MC since the POV will bounce from head to head as needed to keep a more "cinematic" pacing and plotting. In mysteries, as most have said before, clues come a little at a time, drizzle by drizzle, and often are packaged with red herrings or rabbit trails. Personally, with Rick Ruby, I like to see him do his due diligence as a capable detective, but sort of stumble into the final piece based on something he did intentionally earlier in the act of investigation, something that he doesn't know he knows yet, but the bad guys may think he knows so they make their move. 

Not So Famous Last (and First) Words

All writers tend to have their favorite opening sentences (or paragraphs) and closing lines from stories they've read. They tend to be so well know they end up on mugs and shirts and all kinds of what-nots and doodads. 

You probably know the lines so well, I won't even have to list the sources. Go ahead. Try it.

• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
• So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
• It would be pretty to think so. 
• Call me Ishmael.
• It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
• As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
• The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
• After all, tomorrow is another day.
• Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
• But I don't think us feel old at all. And us so happy. Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
• He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
• The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
• I am haunted by humans.
• There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.

But what about your favorite opening and closing lines from your work? Lay 'em on us. We want to know. 

Elizabeth Donald: ​

Sara Harvey thought she was doing pretty well until the corpse started in with the puns. -- Blackfire

It really was a dark and stormy night. -- A More Perfect Union

Ernest Russell: 

1st line; Orland squinted as he tilted the bottle.-- From an unpublished short story

Last line; As he hit the river, his hand closed on liquid nothing. -- From an unpublished short story

Larry Young:

 It's been so long I forgot how much I hate sportin' the aluminum underwear. -- One Shot, One Beer

Anna Grace Carpenter: 

Opening -- On a hot July day Mama went cracked, locked my sisters and me in the tool shed, and lit us up like a Christmas tree. - Of Lips and Tongue

Opening -- Opening: During my last days on Malachee, I told Diamondback Jack it didn't matter how many souls I sent to an early grave, I could only die once for my sins. -- A Fistful of Dust

Van Allen Plexico: 

Down rained the night, cloaked all in fire and brimstone. -- First line of Lucian

Hawk awoke naked and screaming in the heart of a shattered galaxy. -- First line of Hawk

My father burned. -- First line of Barnak

The ghost of a god stood on a dead world and screamed his frustration at the shattered stars. First line of Kings of Oblivion

John Linwood Grant: 

Private Carter failed to die tonight. -- opening line of Songs of the Burning Men

David Wright: 

Everything you know about Genghis Khan is wrong. -- unreferenced

Allan Kemp: 

Nell cradled the semi-automatic assault rifle like a baby, keeping it close to her body and giving it plenty of support with both arms. -- unreferenced

Lucy Blue: 

To make the black cat bone, you have to boil the cat alive. -- The opening line from a horror/romance story in Eat the Peach, "Black Cat Bone"

Guess what, he told her, whispering in his mind, knowing she would hear him. I can do magic, too. -- My favorite closing, from The Devil Makes Three: 

Marian Allen: 

My wife and Lonnie's wife leant against the back door with their arms crossed over their chests and that blank look they always get when they're trying to decide whether to laugh or rip us new ones. --First line of "Lonnie, Me, and the Hound of Hell"

“You make me sick,” said Tartarus. -- Last line of Silver and Iron

Bobby Nash: 

Abraham Snow knew he was about to die -- and the thought of it pissed him off to no end. -- Snow Falls

Ef Deal: 

When a guy like Czesko says he wants to get baptized, you know it's gonna be weird night. --  "Czesko," F&SF March 2006

Mari Hersh-Tudor: 

She was alien, and she was going to die before he could find out where she came from. -- The War Dogs

The backflow regulator exploded in a shower of hot metal and sparks and this time it definitely, absolutely, was not Arin Riobi’s fault. Starfly lurched and threw Arin across the cramped compartment as it dropped out of hyperspace. Unintentionally. -- How Not To Hire A Mechanic

Danielle Palli:

So you see, my darling. You're not the only one with secrets. -- Between the Layers, Book #3 in The Data Collectors trilogy 

Sean Taylor:  

The woman across the table from me wasn’t really a woman at all. -- -- From "It's Christmas, Baby, Please Come Home," Show Me A Hero

The man who killed me wore a tattoo of Santa Claus across his chest. -- From "Sin and Error Pining," Show Me A Hero

The woman’s accent was just German enough to get his attention, all dripping with sexy gutturals and thick vowels, just exotic enough to trick a man’s ears into thinking he was having a drink with Marlene Dietrich instead of some two-bit nightclub singer in a no-account New York dive like Belle’s, but the comparison stopped cold at the woman’s voice. -- Opening from "Die Giftige Lilie,” The Ruby Files Volume 1

 “Oh boy. I should’ve tried harder to get killed.” “Like I’d let you get off that easy.” -- Closing from "Die Giftige Lilie,” The Ruby Files Volume 1

White by Default? A Character Assumption Roundtable

This new writers roundtable topic comes from a recent discussion on a Pulp Writers list of which I'm a member. I thought the topic a pertinent one, so I wanted to share it here as well. 

The key kernal for this discussion comes from an exchange my fellow pulp writer I.A. Watson had with one of his editors, and is as follows:

Editor: About this villain, Ms Zeuzi. Why is she White? Aren’t there enough White characters in your book? 

I.A. Watson: Where do I say she’s White? I don’t describe her appearance at all, except her business suit and mannerisms. 

Editor: You don’t say she’s not White. You could have mentioned she’s African American or Latino. You don’t. 

IW: There’s lots of characters in the book, some of whom are White, but I don’t say they are Caucasian or put in a description of their skin colour. Why do I need to specify that Ms Zeuzi is non-White if it doesn’t come up in the story? 

Editor: Readers default assume characters are White if you don’t say otherwise.

I’m really not sure about this. Advice?

Is this true in your experience? Why do you think that?

Lee Houston Jr.:  Only in regards to classic characters created before the late 1960s, and the writers of the day didn't dare challenge the "social norms" of their time.

Erwin K. Roberts: Before "enlightenment" came to the various media, there were occasional stealth minority characters. In his book,  Space Cadet, Robert Heinlein's three protagonists were a kid from Des Moines, a wild & wooly Texan, and a quiet fellow from colonial Venus. One presumes they all had white skin. After they finish training, the three spend a year or so on a spaceship with a crew of about a dozen. What is not revealed, until after they leave the ship, is that one of the ship's officers was "as black as the ace of Spades." Not exactly politically correct, but I'm sure a lot of younger readers circa 1950, or so, were shocked by the revelation.

Kristi Morgan: This is true, and applies to writing that has more than just humans in it too. I am in the middle of editing stories for a collection that contains humans, elves, dwarves, and kobolds. Every story started of with dialogue or what their characters were doing, but nothing about what they looked like. My mind assumed they were human and probably white unless the writer said otherwise, and most of them never did. Readers are not mind readers. Unless you describe the characters, we will make up our own descriptions in our mind.

Van Allen Plexico: I think readers consciously or subconsciously look for cues, even tiny ones, that tell them more about a character. Those cues can come via outright descriptions of appearance, yes. But also via tiny comments during dialogue, manner of speech, name, and so on. And those don't even have to be intentional or conscious decisions on the part of the author in some cases, I think.

So, no, I don't think all readers default all characters to white as long as there are any reasons not to... But likely some do.

Alan Lewis: In most cases, I'd say it is true. Or maybe, more to the point, we like to make the characters like ourselves, so we default many characters to our own race.

Lucy Blue: I know as a reader, i do this, and I always assumed that everybody just defaulted to their own race until told otherwise. But of course, that isn't true--readers of color have gotten so used to white being the "default setting" in fiction that they make that assumption, too. (May that someday not be so.) So yeah, as a writer, I struggle with this. I don't want to point out every character's race as soon as they're introduced, but if a character's race is important to the story, I want the reader to have a clear picture of them. That's one great thing about writing science fiction and fantasy; in those worlds, a lot of the time it doesn't matter what skin tone the characters have; readers can picture characters however they choose. But in writing any kind of contemporary or "realistic" fiction, it's definitely a concern.

Rose Johnson Streif: This is weird, but the characters tend to remain somewhat amorphous to me until they are described, or begin to take shape. I have a highly visual mind, but I want to see what the writer sees when I am reading someone else's work. I'll fill in the blanks as time goes by, but I want to see their world, not impose my own. (That's for my own work.)

And so, as to race, I'll pick up cues, wait until the author says it outright, or just not assume. But if it goes on for too long without description, I probably will default to white, because the author probably did too. (And I dislike not having descriptions. I don't need info dump, but show me these people you created, d@mmit.)

Marian Allen: I think it's true. If somebody's ethnicity doesn't matter to your third-person story or doesn't impose itself on your first-person narrator's consciousness, don't bother with it.
Herika Raymer: I usually default to the race of the writer, not sure who else does. It's usually the correct assumption, unless otherwise stated.

Gary Phillips: I once wrote a novel giving hints as to various characters' race -- she was a natural blonde, his name was Kurasawa and so on, but deliberately gave no indication of the main charater's race. And being black but with a "whitebread" name, left my photo off the back Of, and the anti-hero, the main guy is only called O'Conner, though plenty of black folks have Irish sounding last names.

How do you handles such descriptions of ethnicity or do you prefer to let the reader default to their preconceptions?

Erwin K. Roberts: I tend to sprinkle minority characters around my stories. But only if the story is not slowed down by explaining how and why the character happens to be there.

Sometimes there is a compelling reason for a minority character, or group, to be included, even it such a thing was not common to the period. In my Sons of Thor the first section is set in World War One. The French need a battalion of Infantry to provide security for a very important meeting. There can not, must not, be any German sympathizers or spies among them. Who they gonna call?

Well, there's this Regiment that the U.S. Army dumped on them. The Yanks just couldn't figure out what to do with the unit calling themselves The Men of Bronze. The 369th Infantry Regiment is best known as The Hellfighters From Harlem. How many Germans are in an all African-American (to include some of the officers) unit? This retired Missouri National Guardsman was proud to shine some fictional light on the former 15th New York Infantry Regiment.

Marian Allen: GENERALLY SPEAKING, I don't think of characters as being a particular ethnicity or race so much as I think of them as individuals OF a particular ethnicity, race, or background. I might specify this lady has milky skin and red-gold hair, or this guy might have tightly curled black hair, brown eyes, skin the color of bittersweet chocolate .... If there were no such thing as the concept of "race," or if we understood that "ethnicity" doesn't mean "everybody but white," how would we describe characters? That's what I try to do. It kind of pisses me off when writers don't describe characters unless the characters are people of color, or when writers do describe characters UNLESS they're people of color, in which case they're "black" or "Oriental" or some nonsense.

Lee Houston Jr.:  Unless I am writing either aliens in science fiction stories or contributing a story to an already established character, I usually don't mention ethnicity and let the readers judge/decide for themselves.

Alan Lewis: I only feel that the color of a character's skin should be important if it is a factor in the story.

For example, in my Black Wolf stories, the lead character is a black man, living in 1930's South Carolina. He lives in a predominantly black neighborhood and is always dealing with racist attitudes when he ventures into the white parts of town. He dates a young white woman, which was very taboo in those days. All these factors come into play in the stories, telling the daily struggles with racism while the man is simply trying to do his job.

Now take away the prejudice and time period and drop him into a contemporary setting, and those issues of race are greatly reduced. Therefore, the color of his skin isn’t an issue and doesn’t need to be made part of the story.

Van Allen Plexico: I will admit I do feel a responsibility to make the casts of my stories at least somewhat diverse in terms of race and gender, rather than monochrome and all guys. I don't do this out of any sense of trying to be "PC", but because it makes the story more interesting and more appealing to more people, and it's more logical in a world of diverse people, particularly one set in the future. The fact that it is the right thing to do is only a happy side effect.

To convey this, I try to provide as many cues as reasonably possible (short of doing any harm to the narrative) to make the characters "visible" in the minds of the readers as close to how I've imagined them as possible.

As a made-up example:

Hawk drew off his glove and stared down at his olive-skinned hand, flexing it carefully. 

Hawk glanced over at Falcon, then ran his hand back through his thick, black hair. 

I generally follow Roger Zelazny's rule that you should provide no more than three outright physical descriptions of a character when you introduce him or her (more than that and they get fuzzy in the reader's mind, rather than clearer), and then fill in any remaining visual blanks during the course of the narrative or dialogue later, as needed, as you go.

2015 PULP FACTORY AWARDS ANNOUNCED

Van Allen Plexico receives his award from Rob Davis.

On Friday night, April 17th, at this year’s Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention, the sixth annual Pulp Factory Awards were presented.   These awards spotlight the best in new pulp fiction and artwork from the previous year.  The award trophies were presented by the Yahoo Pulp Factory Group Moderator, Ron Fortier and Rob Davis, Art Director for Airship 27 Productions.

The Best Pulp Novel went to Van Allen Plexico for his space opera, “Legion III : Kings of Oblivion from White Rocket Books.

The Best Pulp Short Story went to Ian Watson for his “The Fort of Skulls” which appeared in “Pride of the Mohicans” from White Rocket Books.

For the very first time, the Best Pulp Anthology/Collection award went to White Rocket Books for “Pride of Mohicans.”

The Best Pulp Cover went to Mark Williams for his painted cover to “Legion II : Sons of Terra” from White Rockets.

Best Interior Illustrations went to Fabio Listrani for his illustrations in “Zombies Vs. Robots: No Man’s Land” from IDW.

Our congratulations to all the winners and especially to White Rocket Books for their near sweep.  The awards themselves reflected nominations from twenty-four new pulp publishers.

Successful Book Marketing

Ready for our first roundtable of 2015? This one is for authors, publishers, and book marketing folks. Okay, let's kick off the new year right, shall we?

What has been your greatest success in book or ebook marketing?

J.H. Glaze: My greatest success in ebook marketing was a promo I did last year that generated 9,800 downloads in 24 hours. It resulted in residual sales of 450 ebooks over the next week. This was done through a promotion combining at least 10 of the eBook promo sites, some paid - some free, Facebook shares, Twitter Re-Tweets, and posting to groups.

My greatest success in Paperback marketing is definitely Horror Cons. Last year in October, I sold more than $1,400 worth of books over a 3 day weekend. The Conventions usually result in extended sales for about 6 weeks afterward. I have developed a specific strategy and technique for selling at cons, so you may not achieve the same results if you rush out and get a table for the first time. People who have had tables next to me will tell you, I’m a selling machine when I’m working the floor.

John Hartness: Marketing is raising general awareness of your brand or a specific product. It isn’t about sales, it’s about eyeballs and stickiness. The more eyeballs you get on your name, the more often, the stickier you become in people’s minds. Coke is a ubiquitous product, so much so that people will sit down in a restaurant and order a “Coke” when all they really mean is “brown carbonated sugary beverage.” Same with Kleenex and Xerox. Those brands have been marketed so well that they have their own definition. Stephen King is a good example of this – for forty years his name has been synonymous with horror fiction, regardless of his forays into other genres and styles.

Marketing is a long-tail process, and very little that you can once today will have a net effect on your overall branding in a positive light. The same cannot be said for negative branding, just look at people who make headlines for being idiots. Marketing is a cumulative process, and building a brand takes years, and lots of effort.

Promotion is a short-term, sales-focused “event.” A great example of this is the yearly “Toyotathon” that we see so many commercials about. They are trying to cram a quarter’s worth of sales into a month, because fourth quarter sucks for car buying. We try to do the same thing when we drop the price of a book to $.99 or free for a couple days. We try to cram a month’s worth of “buys” into a day. By far the most effective promotion I’ve participated in was when my book was selected as the Kindle Daily Deal. I moved several thousand copies in one day at a reduced price, and about a thousand copies over the rest of the week at full price. And I topped Stephen King on the horror bestseller list! Yes, I screen-capped that bad boy!

A marketing and promotion tool that I have found works very well is my email newsletter. A monthly newsletter has seen a 20% increase in subscribers since I re-launched it, which is a long-tail success, and when I have featured backlist titles in the newsletter, I have seen a corresponding increase in sales of that title for the month it is featured. So that’s a short-term promotional benefit.

Iscah: Direct sales events like at conventions, festivals, fairs, etc.

Mat Nastos: My first book, THE CESTUS CONCERN, was by and far my biggest success to date. With it (between sales across all platforms and my free giveaways), I've moved well over 100,000 copies to readers. Within the first 45 days I was already hitting that 1500 copies per month mark and it went up from there. The keys for it taking off were:

• Finding the right genre to target (men's adventure, action & adventure, and cyberpunk to start...but I constantly tweaked things)
• Having a professional cover that put out the message I wanted and worked for the audience I was targeting (this is a problem for a lot of indy and self-pubbed books)
• Making sure my product pages and my sales blurbs were killer. 
• Finally, adjusting your keywords/tags to help target what potential readers are actually searching to buy, and not getting caught up in focusing on what I wanted them to be. Readers and what they perceive your work to be is more important than my own perception when it comes to building an audience. Once you've got that audience in place you can start messing with their perception, but you need to catch them before you do that.

Frank Fradella: If you do a big con well — like, say, Dragon*Con — the ROI on that is fantastic. It not only sells books (which is great), but it introduces some 50,000 to your brand, which makes sales easier later. And by "do well," I don't mean sitting on your ass behind a six-foot table waiting for sales to come to you. I mean hustling. Do panels, network, schedule signings, host events at the show, launch a book, do giveaways, offer con exclusives. It's a higher price point that most online options, but the benefits outlast the con by several orders of magnitude.

Van Allen Plexico: I've been doing 6-7 cons a year for the last 20 years, and for the last ten I've been doing tons of panels and events, including usually 16-18 panels every Dragon*Con. I have worked my socks off promoting those books during those panels and events and have built something of a name brand/recognition that way. But it's still confined within a fairly small customer base; the trick is to break out of that and hit the more mainstream audience that doesn't really do many cons, etc.

Percival Constantine: Making the first book in a series free, even if it's only temporary, and including links in the back of each book for reviews, email sign-ups, and the next book in the series. But the most successful thing has been to have a clean, organized website with a mailing list.

Susan Burdorf: I have a book out in which I have two short stories - the publisher periodically posts the book with deals she promotes and she will often brag about its Amazon ranking to encourage a look see. Many of the authors I know have joined up to put a first book in a series of books into a boxed set and they have had great success with that because once folks read one book they feel the need to collect the rest of the books.

Mandi M. Lynch: Hard to say. But I have had best luck with Clockwork Spells and Magical Bells. I think it was due to the support we got from the editors.

What marketing strategy taught you the most about what not to do and what did you learn?

J.H. Glaze: Paid advertising on blogs did not result in increased sales. No matter how many subscribers a blog has you are going to be seen by a very limited audience. The blogs with wide distribution sell ads through 3rd party vendors, but still, advertising is not a very cost effective way to get book sales in any medium.

Blog reviews get much better results and can often be obtained for the price of a free book, however most bloggers who do reviews have roomfuls of books they have received for reviewing. If somehow they find the time to review you, and especially if you get a good review from them, be sure to package a portion of your soul and mail it to them to show your gratitude.

John Hartness: Buying an expensive booth at huge conventions. I did New York Comicon in 2013, and I did the show fairly cheaply, couch-surfing at a friend’s house and splitting the cost of the booth three ways. Total expenses – around $1000-1,1000 counting meals, airfare, booth rental, cabs, subway fares and booth furnishings. Total revenue - $950. This doesn’t count the cost of the books, which was probably another $500.

Dragon Con – I spent $350 on a piece of a booth with 13 other authors, sold $1,100 or so, and still ended up spending $2,000 on hotel, food, gas, parking (!) and memberships. Books cost me about $700, because I didn’t sell everything I brought.

Long answer made short – I hand-sell books as well as anyone in the business, and if a convention will cost me more than $500 to attend, I know I will not, under any circumstances, turn a profit at that convention. So I do fewer conventions now, and I tend to only do the ones where I can stay at home, or the ones where I get a free table to sell my wares.

Iscah: Head knowledge and plans don't get you very far without action. I had some lovely marketing ideas that might have been very effective if I had done half of them. But on to something I did sort of well, which was offline selling...

To give you a tip for direct sales, "Smile and engage but keep it short". I'm an introvert who prefers to avoid crowds, so I sort have to put on a sales persona to make it through events. I'm not saying you should be fake, but be the friendliest version of yourself you can be. And try not to ramble. Once introverts get going, we like to have in depth conversations, which is great for building friendships, but lousy for crowded events. Let people who want to leave, leave, so there room for someone else to walk up.

Mat Nastos: Biggest lesson is to know what and how to promote to my various channels. To know that promoting a freebie sale to my social channels is not smart. Each channel you've got - web, social networks, email list, etc - has its own requirements and needs in terms of what/how you sell. Not knowing how to make use of those things will cost you sales. It's sort of like people on Twitter who retweet when someone does a #FF with their name...makes no sense -- you're asking people who already follow you to follow you...Same principal with marketing.

I spent the first month or so marketing the wrong message to the wrong channel.

The other thing I learned was the effectiveness of a proper roll out for my promotions. Learning how to do a build up before a promotion and then what to do to maintain traction once a promotion was over. Making sure I didn't shoot my wad by marketing everything all at once. You can waste a lot of time and resources that way, and miss out on sales.

Frank Fradella: Cyber Age Adventures — the online magazine I founded in 1999 that featured literate, thought-provoking prose stories in a shared superhero universe —taught me a lot about what not to do. While we put out an award-winning product, having a name that made no allusions whatsoever to our content was just plain stupid. And creating a product so groundbreaking that nobody even thought to look for it was the kiss of death. Even now, if you check Google for the number of people looking for "superhero magazines," you'll find that number dwarfed by the number of searches for "superhero novels." Which is why I now own the url superheronovel.com. Live and learn.

Van Allen Plexico: With LUCIAN, I made certain the ads referenced the similarities of Lucian to Loki from Thor/Avengers. I wrote the book in 2002-03 but am glad to take advantage of the fact that they are very similar characters in similar settings, to appeal to new Loki/Hiddleston fans. Apparently it worked.

Perry Constantine: This wasn't so much something I learned from a specific strategy, but more what I've learned from a combination of things. Have a purpose behind each promotion. If you want to get people hooked on a series, then don't start a free run before the second book is available. And when that second book is available, you'd better have a preview and a buy link of that second book at the end of the first. If your goal is to get reviews, make sure you include a note at the end of that book politely asking for reviews and providing a link where those reviews can be posted. Make sure your covers are branded appropriately so that they can be identified as being part of the same series. That can mean using the same cover artist for each book, making sure each book has the same style of cover, or even having a unifying series logo. And also, maintain productivity. Today's readers are really in love with series, but what they love even more is an active series. If they see a series being promoted with book one and book two and book two came out three years ago, they might be a bit more adverse to trying that series given that it appears dormant.

Susan Burdorf: Marketing strategies are so reliant on the author themselves and their fan base that it is hard to really suggest any one thing and point to it as a success or failure. I do know that Boxed Sets are the "thing" right now according to Mark Coker of Smashwords. But once that fad stops being popular I am sure someone else will come up with something else equally as successful. I think that some of the things that indie authors like to do as far as trying to work the numbers is to be part of someone else's book release as a guest author where they get to promote their book, play a game or two in the hour or half hour they are allowed to be spotlighted, and offer amazon or other gift cards to participants. That seems to work really well.

Mandi M. Lynch: Just dumping flyers on a flyer table does not work. Engaging people helps for a relationship and people show interest because of that.

Just how effective can a cheap or low-investment be in the long run? What kind of return on investment can one expect using cheap or free promotion services on the Web?

J.H. Glaze: Most of the cheap or free marketing services on the web have been overrun with self published authors. As a result, services which used to get great results for a low investment, have tripled their prices over the last 2 years and waiting lists are extremely long.

Here is an example: 18 months ago I could promote one of my horror novels through BookBub.com to about 600k people for about $45. Today, to reach the same number of folks costs $110 for a one day promo run, but here is the catch – that price is only if you are promoting a book that is on sale from full price to a free giveaway for a limited time. The price goes up it you have only discounted the book. Here is the link to their rate sheet: https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing
Here are some things to remember when doing paid promos:

• If you only have 1 book available, the only reason to do a paid promo for a free book is to try to get reviews. !0,000 downloads will result in 2 reviews if you are lucky.
• If you have a series of two or more books, giving book 2 in the series as a free download will result in a boost in sales of book 1. I believe it is because people don’t like to start with book 2. I have had that proven time and again. If you give away book 1, sales of book 2 are minimal at best.
• It takes money to make money, but you don’t want to throw your money away. Before you use a service, post in a forum and ask if anyone has used it before, and what kind of results to expect from it.
• Sales results from promos can be genre specific. I am a horror author. Romance authors can expect to pay a lot more for their promo, because a larger percentage of the market tend to read romance.
• Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing. If you can get people to read it, review it, comment on it on pages, and tell their friends about it you are good to go. The only way to do this is to write awesome fucking books!

John Hartness: Marketing yourself can be cheap and effective, but there is no magic bullet. There’s no “do this and you’ll sell a ton of books.” Most bestsellers have no idea what they did to catch lightning in the bottle. If editors knew which books would be huge hits, they’d only buy the books that would be huge hits. It’s all a gamble. But by using the cheap and free self-promotion tools like MailChimp, Wordpress, Twitter, Facebook and others, you can create an impact and get enough eyeballs on your work to make a difference.

Iscah: That's tricky. Some of my highest investment attempts this year yielded the fewest results, while one event that cost me only a bit of time and gasoline yielded my highest sales for a weekend. Budget is something to keep in mind, but targeting is more important. Know (or get to know) your audience, and make it as easy as possible for the potential buyer to get to where they can purchase your book.

Mat Nastos: Biggest lesson is to know what and how to promote to my various channels. To know that promoting a freebie sale to my social channels is not smart. Each channel you've got - web, social networks, email list, etc - has its own requirements and needs in terms of what/how you sell. Not knowing how to make use of those things will cost you sales. It's sort of like people on Twitter who retweet when someone does a #FF with their name...makes no sense -- you're asking people who already follow you to follow you...Same principal with marketing.

I spent the first month or so marketing the wrong message to the wrong channel.

The other thing I learned was the effectiveness of a proper roll out for my promotions. Learning how to do a build up before a promotion and then what to do to maintain traction once a promotion was over. Making sure I didn't shoot my wad by marketing everything all at once. You can waste a lot of time and resources that way, and miss out on sales.I like promotion like I like my women: cheap and easy. Free is even better. Everything I've done in terms of marketing (from way back in my days doing affiliate marketing until now) has focused on that free or cheap side of the scale. There are enough spots on the web, if planned out correctly, that you can make a pretty big impact using them. It's all about planning, timing, and implementation. Knowing when and how to roll out that free/cheap promotion is the biggest key to success.

The effectiveness comes down to planning. Set your goal and then put your plan together to meet that goal.

Frank Fradella: Check your watch and mark the date, because the advice you'll receive on this point will alter drastically from one year to the next. Right now? A good strategy (if you have a back catalogue of books in a single series) is to give away the first book as an ebook to drive sales to the rest of the series. But before you talk about how much money to spend (or not spend) on marketing, you absolutely must be able to identify your target market with pinpoint accuracy. You need to know their age, their gender, their average income, their spending habits... everything. If you can do that, you can get your product in front of them much more effectively.

Van Allen Plexico: A $19 Twitter ad got me 800 downloads of LUCIAN and 800 downloads of Sentinels: When Strikes the Warlord in a single day each.

Perry Constantine: It can be very effective, provided it's targeted at the right audience. And to veer slightly off the point of the question, this is why every writer needs an email list. It's the cheapest, most-effective marketing tool. Even when compared to more costly services it's still the most-effective tool in the long run. BookBub may get you several thousand downloads on a free book, but if you don't have an email list, you've basically put the cash you spent into a big pile and set fire to it. Those readers are not going to remember your name.

And yet, so many writers I know do not have an email list. Why? It's so simple to set up and most services allow you to start free (ReachMail is free for up to 5000 subscribers, MailChimp is free up to I believe 2500).

Beyond that, you need a web presence—and no, that does not mean Facebook and Twitter. You need a dedicated website, and no, that does not mean a yourname.wordpress.com or yourname.blogspot.com site. It means yourname.com. And yes, this costs money, but if you want to be serious about making a living as a writer, then you need to treat it like a business and not a hobby. And businesses require investment. And it's not like this is a massive expense. I have a site with Bluehost that costs me $140 for three years, plus $15 a year for a domain name. That's about $5 a month for a website. If you can't spare $5 a month, then you're clearly not taking this thing seriously. Get a website and if it's a Wordpress site, then install a free plugin called MyBookTable so you can list all your titles in your catalog easily.

A website and a mailing list are the two cheapest investments an indie author can make, and they are the two that will serve you best in the long run. Especially with rumors that Facebook is going to require all ads be paid in the future. So the days of posting links to your books in five dozen Facebook groups are not going to last (and if we're being honest, it was always the least effective marketing you could do). Invest in a website and get a mailing list.

Susan Burdorf: I think it depends on what your goal is. If you go cheap that does not mean you cannot make it classy. At book fairs or signings a lot of authors are just trying to collect emails with which they can create a fan base they can then send information on book releases, cover reveals, next book signings, etc and that is good. Some offer "gifts" to reward their fans (Paperwhites, Kindles, Nooks, large Amazon cards). You just have to make it fun for the folks. To encourage people to come to my tables at book signings I will offer a free "gift" which is usually something I hand make (I quilt, make jewelry, etc so for me I can do something that costs me almost nothing because I already have the supplies at home).

In conclusion my advice is this: whatever marketing strategy you employ just make sure it will not cause you to go bankrupt either financially or emotionally. And ALWAYS treat your readers and fans with respect. Even if they do not treat you the same way.

Mandi M. Lynch: It depends on the investment. A blog guest post with links is free and will hang around forever. $10 worth of cheap black and white flyers generates a lot of trash.

Don't Suck. Okay, Well Can You Be More Specific?

As I mentioned here not so long ago, some awesome advice I got from a friend way back when was this: "Don't suck." That's all well and good, because I knew what Frank was saying to me when he said that.

But what does that advice mean to you? 

If a writing mentor were to tell you "don't suck," what would you understand that to mean?

Ralph L Angelo Jr: I'd have to think that means make sure you write something engaging and interesting. Something that presses all the right buttons with your audience, but also is true to yourself and not just a cookie cutter book or project. In other words, don't just go through the motions, but actually write something you would want to read and of course something you are proud to put your name on at the end.

Mark Koch: While producing something you are proud of, ensure that you consider how it will appear to the reader. Write only for yourself, and you will likely be the only one who appreciates your writing.

Mark Bousquet: To me, this means, "Don't be lazy." We all have those moments in a story when you know you need to do something you don't want to do because it's time consuming - maybe it's trying to find out the right handgun a Norwegian soldier should be using in World War 2, or going back through your story to provide infrastructure for a new subplot you introduced at the end of a draft. If you know something needs to be done, do it. Now or later is fine, but before publication.

Peter Welmerink: I believe if a writing mentor told me to DON'T SUCK, he'd be saying to make sure, when I am all done with letting my writing SUCK on that FIRST DRAFT, by simply writing without abandon or caring about if sentence structure, grammar, the rest, was all good and just GETTING THAT FIRST DRAFT DONE, by telling me to DON'T SUCK, he/she would be saying to go through that SECOND DRAFT with care and conscience and polish it to perfection.

Van Allen Plexico: Do your best work. Don't settle for less. Don't put something out for public consumption that reflects badly on you. Drink from the glass or cup; don't use a straw. You're a grown up.

Marian Allen: Be technically competent and respect your readers.

Violet Patterson: Tell an unforgettable story.


Ray Dean: In one of my writing communities a member complained that one of the first reviews she had on a self-published novel stated that she needed some editing for basic grammar and sentence structure. She lamented that she didn't have the money to pay someone to edit. We offered her ideas on how to get some help with editing or resources for her to help and edit her own work. Later that day she replied to the thread saying... "That's okay, I like my novel... my MOM likes my novel... haters gonna hate!" I'm not saying that her mother isn't able to identify good work when she sees it, but discounting that review as merely a hater probably isn't the best thing to do. We can always get better... learn more about plotting, grammar, characterization, etc. We can always improve and we should... to me "Don't Suck" means if you can make something better... do it. Don't get lazy.

Selah Janel: Don't write to a formula or what you think you should be writing about. Do what hasn't been done or try a different take on things. Don't write with the mindset to try to advance plan what the next new thing or big bestselling idea will be. Write what you know and be true to the writer you are. Definitely edit and pay attention to spelling, grammar, and formatting. If you're writing to a specific call or magazine, then write what the guidelines ask for. Stretch your wings and be original, but the editors definitely are asking for certain things for a reason. Keep going, keep reading, keep writing, keep pushing yourself to get better.

Lee Houston Jr.: "Don't Suck" to me means I make sure that everything I submit for publication is the best I can humanly create. The reader deserves no less.

Shelby Vick: It boils down to:  Don't cheat the reader. That applies to Western, SciFi, mysteries, etc.

Rebekah McAuliffe: Don't be afraid to bend the rules. Technique and methods should be important, but don't let them overshadow the actual writing of the story.

Tony Acree: Make sure you run spelling and grammar check at least once. Hmm. Twice. And never, ever, start your story with "It was a dark and stormy night."

Terri Smiles: Work at it, revise, revise revise, until it becomes what I intended. For me it was advice to blow deadlines if I needed to in order to create a product I was proud to have my name on.

H. David Blalock: Know your limitations, then push harder. Get outside your comfort zone and take the reader with you. Readers get bored with the same storyline over and over again. Show them something they, and you, have never seen before. Most importantly, don't leave them hanging.

TammyJo Eckhart: Don't be afraid to push the edges of what a genre should include or should be about. While you'll have a harder time selling your work, you'll be more satisfied with it and those readers and publishers who find you will appreciate that you aren't mundane.