Jade Varden Official Blog

Some storytellers know how to be frightening. But does it come to them naturally, or is being scary a skill that writers can learn?  Boo Like most things, writing is about 10% artistry and 90% grueling work. In other words, I believe much of the skills that create a writer can be learned. And if you can learn to write, you can definitely learn to be scary. After all, isn't it something that everyone practices doing every single October? For Halloween, people dress up to look frightening and throw parties meant to scare their guests. Haven't you ever pulled a prank on someone, or crept up behind a friend to startle them? You've done stuff to scare other people before. Now, you have to harness that innate streak of meanness...and put it on the page.  It's okay to be a little mean, sometimes. That's really what scaring people is all about. That...and a few other tricks.  Sudden shock: This is a classic horror device you'll find in every sin...

When was the last time you looked at your books on Amazon? If you're doing your promotional tweets and paying attention the way you should, your answer should be today or yesterday at the earliest. If you're not looking at the page all the time, you're missing opportunities to sell more books. You can use that page to find more buyers, and that's pretty invaluable. Right in Front of Your Face If you're anything like me, you don't need to be reminded to look at your book's Amazon page. I checked it every 20 minutes for three weeks after I published my first book, no exaggeration. My biggest thrill came from receiving my first review, but this was only slightly more exciting than seeing something in the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section. Seeing something appear in this section meant that someone actually bought the book, and I paid attention. I'm still paying attention to that section of my book pages, and yo...

Cross-marketing is a fancy term that's usually applied to product linking. You may not be aware of it, but you see cross-marketing all the time. When the commercial tells you that the cheese spread goes great with this cracker, that's cross-marketing. Coupons from soda that allow you to buy candy is another example. Cross-marketing is everywhere, and you can use a form of it to promote your self-published books. Finding the Links You're not a huge corporation and you probably don't have a bunch of industry-related ties, but as an indie author you can still use cross-marketing to push your work. Like every other type of indie promotion, it only requires a little bit of outside-the-box thinking.  Let's play a game. Answer this question: what's your book about? Make a list of words that come to mind when you ask yourself this question. Think about all the different activities and events depicted in your book and place them on the list.  Now use it ...

Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus all allow you to customize your profile. If you haven't yet, you're missing all sorts of marketing opportunities for your books and current projects. It may seem like a small detail, but wallpaper matters in social media...especially if you're trying to get anyone to buy something of yours. Did You Change Your Profile Wallpapers? All the experts and how-to guides tell you that to be a successful indie author, you've got to get out there and promote your stuff on social media . So you get yourself an author-specific Twitter profile, a Facebook fan page, maybe even a Google Plus profile. You start gathering followers and you show off your clever side with skillful updates.  If you're doing it all with a generic wallpaper that was provided to you, then you're not doing yourself any favors. The wallpapers on your social media pages are marketing opportunities, and they're free . It's time for you to start maki...

I used to imagine my ideal writing spot: a dark, quiet room. There would be a desk against the wall and a single lamp just next to my elbow. Here I would sit and type, alone with my words.  Now I write every day, and I've come to learn that this was an insane idea. Please don't sit in the dark day after day and write...no, not even if you're writing horror stories or dark tragedies. When you're a writer of any kind, make sure you're getting out enough.  Who's Out There?  It sounds romantic to be a starving artist, a brooding and melancholy wordsmith. Can't you just see Poe pacing around in a room made of stone, candlelight flickering against the wall, mumbling to himself about death and ghosts and murder? It's hard to write like that, and it's not good for you to sit in the dark all the time. Environment absolutely affects you when you're writing. If you're sitting indoors all day long in the same spot doing the same routine...

For some authors, it isn't enough to write a book. Some authors aspire to write the great American novel. That usually means it's an epic novel. And when I say epic, I'm referring to the length of the story. In books, epic is a sort of grandiose way of saying super long . Big Stories Some stories just can't help but to be big. Gone With the Wind , my favorite, is a massive book. Yet the story simply can't be shortened, and that's just how it is. Despite the length of the novel, I wouldn't want to spend one less moment with Scarlett.  But a book doesn't automatically have merit simply because it's long. Extreme length is a huge, huge turn-off to many readers, in fact. An epic novel is epic because it usually spans many, many years and details many different events. There's a lot of change and character growth, many obstacles and challenges...a boatload of characters and interaction. A lot happens, and that keeps readers engaged.  ...

Unless you're Doc Brown or Marty McFly, you're forced to slog through time the normal way. Like the rest of us, you see time march by on a minute-by-minute basis. The events of the morning take place before the things that occur in the evening. But when you write books, you're allowed to break all natural laws and visit any point in time at any moment you like. You may even get really bold with your book, and write a non-linear timeline.  Time Travel Many stories occur along an accellerated timeline. Something happens in the spring that sets it all in motion. The summer that follows is action-packed. By the time the autumn leaves are falling, the hero or heroine has learned a few lessons. When winter blusters in, the protagonist has captured the love interest, banished the villain and resolved all the issues. It's a neat 80 thousand words, give or take, and a simple enough storyline for audiences to follow.  There's another option. Instead of writing sc...

Scarlett is one of those great, unique character names that stands out. But it's also a color and a decently recognizable word. Other character names are much more unusual, inventive...and sometimes, borderline psychotic. Crazy character names just aren't often a good idea, and forgive me if that word is a bit offensive. But honestly, can you find a better descriptor for names like Sookie Stackhouse, Ever Bloom and Midshipman Hornblower? Name That Character I didn't make up those examples above; other authors did. I'm not the most well-traveled girl in the world, but I haven't ever met anyone named Sookie or Ever. Good character names are memorable, and the really weird ones always are. But good character names should also be easy to pronounce. Otherwise, you're just going to have readers stumbling over their own tongues when they attempt to describe your book to others. It seems like a small point, but if your book is difficult to describe verbally...