Tag Archives: marketing

Working on the @#$&! Synopsis (again)

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been concentrating the last few days on sales and marketing, trying to connect my words with people who may actually want to pay me for them. Short stories are (relatively) simple — a potential publisher (or overworked minion) reads the story and decides if it’s worthwhile. So, for that effort I need only a simple cover letter with a one or two sentence blurb about the story, a bit of biographical data, and the story does the rest, living or dying on its own merits.

A novel is a more difficult sell. Nobody has time to read all the crappy writing that comes over the threshold every day, so the evaluation process has been streamlined. This makes things more difficult for the deserving writer, but it makes things possible for the agents and editors (and their minions) who have better things to do than read bad fiction. (Better things like, for instance, reading my fiction.)

The chaff is separated from the wheat based on a few criteria; the initial submission to an agent is the minimum amount of material required to prove that the writing is not so badly flawed that it’s not worth any further consideration. The reader has a giant ‘NO’ stamp hovering over the page during the entire evaluation. An agent wants to know a few key facts: 1) Can this guy write? Does he have command of the language, with coherent paragraphs and facile use of imagery? 2) Can he put together a coherent narrative — an actual story with a beginning, a middle, and an end? 3) Are there interesting people who grow or change? 4) (bonus) Is the writer a pro who will be reasonable to work with?

Question 1 is answered with a sample of of the actual work. This is often (but not always) the first three chapters of the story. The bonus question 4 is answered with a polite, informative, and coherent cover letter. That leaves two questions which much be answered by a separate piece of writing, a marketing piece drafted solely for this purpose, called the ‘brief synopsis’. I have been wrestling with this beast off an on for more than a year, now. It is not a simple exercise. How do you distill a whole damn novel into a few paragraphs, give some idea of characters and events, and somehow retain the drama you just used tens of thousands of words to build?

I had a synopsis I was satisfied with, but increasingly I discovered that the definition of ‘brief’ that my first effort was based on was by no means typical. Back in I went with the text machete, but when I chopped out a bunch, the remainder wasn’t compelling. I started from scratch. Somewhere back in time on this blog you can read about my pleasure with the result. I managed to maintain this happy feeling for quite some time by avoiding rereading it. Now I’m pretty sure that although it sucks less than the first attempt, it still sucks.

Quite by accident I stumbled across a description of a synopsis that carried one helpful bit of information that none of the others ever did: Start with a paragraph that describes the structure of your story. The Monster Within takes place in four parts that are defined by the progression of the main character through four stages of personal change. By starting with that simple fact, then by describing the four stages, the synopsis is much more coherent and focuses attention on the character-driven nature of the story.

That synopsis advice runs counter to other help articles I’ve read, but hit me as such an obvious and practical tip that I wonder why I never did that before. Perhaps I even did, but then read too many “how to write a synopsis” pieces that focussed on simply condensing the story. (Actually, I still haven’t gone back to read my current synopsis. Maybe I snuck the structural information in there anyway. I’ll check after I finish the first draft of the new one.)

Once more must I muster all my skill to write a nonfiction article about a work of fiction, that somehow is a faithful representation as well as a compelling read in its own right. This time I’m ignoring the advice of all those helpful ‘how-to’ articles, and just trying to be natural. It’s been going pretty well, although I haven’t checked the length yet. That could come as an ugly surprise.

I should say it was going pretty well, right up until I got to the end. I left out so many plot points through the course of the synopsis that I’m stumped about how to make the ending make sense. Instead, I am sitting here writing about writing about my novel. (I suppose I’ll have to leave a comment about writing this episode.)

It just occurred to me that I could write a completely different ending that works for the synopsis. Once someone bothers to read the whole novel, the mismatch won’t matter… right?

Thanks!

Rakin’ in the Big Bucks!

Posted on by
9

Now that Jer’s Novel Writer is selling just a little more briskly than I had hoped, which sure is nice (my warm gratitude to all those folks who have purchased a key… you guys rock!), I can breathe a little easier about the whole eating-and-paying-rent thing. It will be longer before the money runs out.

Nice mug!

You want one. You know you do.

And now, today, a whole new revenue stream opened up! Yowza! Yes, the laws of statistics dictated that sooner or later it would happen. With billions of people bouncing around on the Internet, and some percentage of those people either intoxicated or otherwise mentally challenged, it was only a matter of time before factors converged and someone clicked the fateful button.

Someone bought a Suicide Squirrel Alert Coffee Mug.

I’m not sure how long I’ve had the link over there in the sidebar, but it’s easily been more than two years. Piker Press will put a link to Jer’s Junk up when I have something in the current issue (thanks guys!) so it’s quite possible that this sale was related to my Peek of the Week over there this week.

Yep, 2 1/2 years, one mug sold. It doesn’t sound terribly impressive, but when you consider it in terms of percentage growth, this year has been explosive! And don’t worry, you can still be the first on your planet to sport a Suicide Squirrel t-shirt!

SSDC t-shirt

I think I’ll spend some time today on the Muddled University merchandise.

Finally, thanks to those folks who start their Amazon shopping adventure by clicking the link over there in the sidebar.

Thanks!

A Couple of Days Wasted

Posted on by
7

There comes a time in any geek’s life when he (usually it’s a he) wants to say, “make these two folders the same.” Of course it’s not quite that simple, but it’s not terribly complex.

Not until you look at the software available for the task these days, anyway, and this isn’t just a Mac thing. Oh, there are utilities out there, all right, but they all have two things in common: they do too much and they cost too much. I didn’t want to pay thirty dollars, not when I could spend two days of my life instead. That’s what my life is worth, these days.

So, over the last couple of days I made a folder merge utility. It came out pretty nice. I thought I’d put it up at the Hut as freeware, sort of a promotional thing.

But…

It deletes files. Of course it does; when you synchronize folders and files don’t match something’s going to get deleted. It’s in the nature of the program to delete files. (The fancier programs allow you to reconcile the differences between files. That’s why they cost money.)

But…

Someone’s going to delete the wrong files. With this sort of software that’s a dead certainty. I show in living color when a newer file will be replaced by an older one, but in this day and age is that enough? The software itself is pretty solid now. It does exactly what it says it does. I don’t think that’s enough.

Thanks!

Focussed Marketing

Posted on by
4

Tonight I was watching the Finns skate against the Czechs. It was a decent contest, but Finns had my boys pretty much outclassed. My Bili Tigri goaltender gave up three, but that doesn’t reflect the chances the Finns had. None of that matters.

I have noticed in a few international matches that Garnier Fructis, the shampoo, is a major sponsor. At first this struck me as odd. In general, hockey fans are not the crowd I’d be selling fancy shampoo to.

Unless…

Fructis Mullet formula.

Pay dirt, baby.

Thanks!

Trying to come up with non-fiction markets

Posted on by
13

I’ve been trying to think of ways to sell the sort of writing I do here in the blog (only more polished, of course). I’m not coming up with much. Travel mags in general want articles about fun places, not someone’s experiences in them. They are not looking for what goes by the name “narrative nonfiction”; instead they want descriptions (and photos) of local landmarks and tourist attractions. They don’t care about the pretty bartender in some back alley pub, or my musings on a conversation overheard, or about a man with no nose.

I suppose I could write in a more traditional travel style, but there are lots of people gunning for those gigs (“Paid to travel? Cool!”), and while few of them are very good, that still leaves more than enough to fill the void, people whose style is naturally more matter-of-fact than mine. Articles for those who actually go to the attractions when they visit a place are best written by people who travel the same way, rather than some guy who prefers to hang out in dark and quiet bars and watch the locals.

Magazines and Newspapers often have columnists who are more or less free to ramble, as long as they keep the focus relevant to the readers, which generally means “local”. The only place I’d be able to contribute something like that would be a rag catering to ex-pats in Prague, but in general my “local” is much different than theirs, and when I write about how annoying ex-pats can be, it may not go over very well. Still, it’s something I should look into. Maybe someone’s looking for an irascible voice that will piss people off. The other tricky part about that is that I would have to lead a more interesting life, and write about it with fewer words.

Gonzo Travel Magazine, that’s what I need. Maybe Letters From a Bowling Alley, or perhaps Rock Stacking World. That would be a sweet gig, traveling the world on assignment, hanging out in rocky places, meeting other stackers, and just generally screwing around. Remind me to search Writer’s Market for rock stacking.

Any of you guys have any ideas? Do you know any magazines or newspapers that actually exist that might like this sort of thing?

Meanwhile, one of the waiters here at the Bowling alley is blindfolded. I bet there’s a story there.

1

Thanks!

The cover letter I’d LIKE to write

Posted on by
Reply

One of the biggest hurdles on the way to becoming a commercially successful writer is getting your first book published. This requires convincing total strangers to take a chance on you, and that means you have to present yourself to total strangers in the best possible light. The first light flashing along the runway to stardom is the cover letter the agent or editor will read. It’s not necessarily a deal-breaker if the cover letter isn’t perfect (as long as it’s clean), but it is likely the first bit of your writing your potential business partner will see.

Publishing is a name-dominated industry. When you have never had a novel published before, you are at a disadvantage. It is much safer for a publisher to go with a writer who writes complete crap, but crap that sells. The cover letter, therefore, is all about getting an agent or editor excited about your story — excited enough to eventually risk thousands of dollars (for an editor) or hundreds of hours (for an agent). For that reason, the cover letter is all about the story, the thing the reader of the letter will eventually have to sell.

As I sit and continue to hone the letter, I feel that perhaps for me the cover should be more like the ballyhooed End User License Agreement for Jer’s Novel Writer. More about me and the way I do business than about the actual issue at hand. And so I give you the cover I would like to write.

Dear Editor/Agent

I am a writer. I’m not some guy who scribbles in his spare time, I write all the time. Sometimes I forget to eat. Man, did that ever piss off my ex-wife when I would get dizzy when I stood up from my computer and she’d ask “when did you eat last?” (only she didn’t speak so formally) and I’d think for a moment and try to remember if I ate yesterday and generally I’m pretty sure I did or I’d really be a mess now so I’d say “yesterday…?” and she’d roll her eyes and say something like “How can you even do that?” and I’d say, “well, I was in a groove” but she never appreciated that kind of stuff.

We’re still friends, by the way. She’s remarried, couple of kids, everything’s cool.

So, eating turns out to be pretty important, not just for marital tranquility, but for health as well (remember the dizzy part?), and that is why I am writing to you, dear Editor/Agent. I can happily spend every waking moment torturing myself for just the right word, but sooner or later I have to go to the grocery store, and they always want money. While I would write for free (in fact I have been for some time), I cannot eat for free.

I know, I know, it makes no sense to me, either. Accepting that, the obvious solution is to sell my writing, which is something you could do far better than I.

As a concrete example of the stuff I’d like you to help me sell, enclosed are the first few pages of The Monster Within. It’s about a mercenary named Hunter, and let me tell you, Hunter is messed up. You read the first part, and you say, “Dang, that guy’s messed up.” Then you read the next part, and you say, “Dang, that guy’s really messed up.” Then you read the part after that and you say, “Holy Crap!” but right after that is “Ooooooh.” That’s when you flip back to the other parts and say “But I thought… dang! Now I get it! Hunter is monumentally messed up, and wicked dangerous.” You gotta love heros like that. There’s sex, too, and it’s not even gratuitous.

Monster weighs in at an all-muscle 140,000 words; it’s a powerful beast that will grab you by the throat and drag you from cover to cover.

Unless you don’t like that kind of thing, of course. If you’re shy, the beast will simply hold your hand. Enclosed is an envelope plastered with stamps worth damn near a buck of my food money, just so you can get back to me. (Note that although my mailing address is foreign, my not-in-the-US-ness is not formally recognized by any government. You can pass me my grocery money just as easily as you could to any other US citizen.)

I have another work in progress, The Quest for the Important Thing to Defeat the Evil Guy, which is exactly like almost every other fantasy novel except it has evil talking squirrels and a hot stepmother.

Yours,
Hungry Writer

Notes:
There are a couple of reasons not to use this cover letter. First, it makes me seem psychotic. It’s important that people don’t realize you’re psychotic until after you ink your first book deal. After that it’s marketing gold. Second, the tone of the cover letter is light and flippant, and the tone of the novel isn’t. This would set up false expectations. One could argue that Editor/Agent would appreciate both cover letter and novel for their unparalleled (adjective carefully chosen, just beating out orthogonal) use of the English language, and would forgive the difference in tone, but Editor/Agent seems to be easily distracted.

On the other hand, the query does use “wicked dangerous”, and ends with “hot stepmother”. I bet Editor/Agent doesn’t get many queries like that!

1

Thanks!

Monster on a diet

Posted on by
1

It wasn’t easy to do; there was some good stuff in there. It’s just that I wanted to start with the voice of the main character. I added some at the start of the now-first chapter, giving the style of prose I do best a workout right at the top. Now, three paragraphs in, the reader will either be saying, “All right, this guy can take me for a ride,” or she will be quite right to put the book aside. Before, readers had to hang with me a while before I gave them a compelling reason to do so.

I won’t submit the revised work for a couple of weeks at least; it needs time to gestate, and there are still some rough spots to smooth over. (I still want to work in a subtle promise that at least one major character that you will really like is going to die.) Additionally, I’m working up a new cover letter with more detail about the story. It seems I have been short-changing myself by trying to keep the description down to two or three sentences. I don’t even remember where I heard that advice, but I’m glad to hear from reliable sources that’s it’s just plain wrong.

I submitted an earlier draft of my cover letter to another Web site for constructive ridicule, but it’s looking like I missed out on the constructive part. I’d point you there, but the cover letter contains spoilers. If you really, really want to see it, let me know. The ridicule part may turn out to be pretty entertaining. We’ll see when the joke is sprung.

By the way, I would like to thank Jojo for her critique of the new opening. Thanks, Jojo!

Thanks!

I feel so… dirty

Posted on by
Reply

I am a whore.

Doing some more work for Zepter – they still owe me for the vacuum cleaner stuff, but somehow I’m back at it. “It’s all for the second camera for Pirates,” fuego reminds me. Sure. If we gat paid. And if we get paid for that previous work I’ll take this back:

Zepter is a bunch of cheap-ass sons of bitches.

For the benefit of anyone searching on Google for info about this company, let me say that again:

Zepter is a bunch of cheap-ass sons of bitches.

Although they did come up with tickets to the world Hockey championship game. I gave up my spot (you’re welcome, Mito, if you ever say thank you), but that was a nice gesture on their part. Maybe they’re just waiting for an invoice.

So tonight fuego and I were working on the copy for the Zepter Bioptron, which probably represents the state of the art for light therapy. I spent the evening writing copy that fell into two categories: “Not provably false” and “They’ve already said it once so it won’t make things any worse to say it again.” And honestly, it’s probably not complete bullshit. This is the technological answer to “You should get out more,” without the dangerous UV. So I’m OK with that.

Still, I wrote things tonight that… well, let’s just say I wrote some things. Let there be Light — 50W, polarized, in a narrow band of the visible spectrum, with a timer, on a flexible stand.

I met the manager of Zepter’s health products today. It was an early morning meeting in a fancy hotel that luckily was near my pad. It was a beautiful morning walk, and the rays of the sun lifted my already doing-alright spirits. This is the very feeling Zepter is marketing. Whether they deliver it or not I have no idea. I met up with fuego and the client was a little late but this is Eastern Europe and that’s the way it works.

Let’s call her Sofia. It’s as good a name as any. She’s a doctor, living in Zurich, spending time in Milan, and she is distractingly attractive. The period when the button of her shirt finally gave up the good fight and when she pulled things back together is but a vague and hazy mam – uh, sorry – memory. Mmmm… Kryptonite. But Dammit Jim, she’s a doctor! She was part of the team that developed this little marvel. She was smart, no doubt, and enthusiastic, and (according to fuego) far more together on what she needed going in than the average Zepter product manager. It was a good meeting.

Except for the part where we said we’d have a draft in two days. That was nuts. But by then all I could think about was the button holding on for dear life. I tried to use my Jedi Master Force Stuff: Just let go, little button. You’ve been working harder than any little button ever should; no one would blame you if you relaxed for just one second.”

I am no Jedi, but it’s better to try to use the Force when you don’t have it that to completely forget you are a Jedi Master when your life is in peril. But I’ve gone on about that before.

The button held, resolute, against great pressure. Some of the greatest pressure I’ve seen in some time. But she had much more going on than that, and I’ve already done her a disservice emphasizing her beautiful, freckled, gravity-defying bosom over her other qualities.

Dang. I can’t resist irony even when it turns me into an ass.

(Turns me into?) But seriously, she was way more that. It was the smile that reached all the way up to her brown eyes. It was the way she was confident without being overbearing. It was the way that, on some fundamental level, for her life is still fun. I am not going to smooth on her. I am what they call “not boyfriend material,” and I don’t see that changing. “Insensitive, lazy, self-centered, unemployed workaholic” is not how one gets “ideal date” status, and I’m enjoying being that way.

And now I’m writing copy. In fairness to all, it was a done deal we were writing this copy before the meeting. This morning was about what copy to write, not whether to write copy. fuego had already thrown us into the tar pit; it was just nice to see a pretty, intelligent, witty face there while we sank beneath the surface.

Thanks!

Advertising reaches a new low

Posted on by
35

They have the Monaco Grand Prix playing here in the bar, and I’m mostly able to ignore it, but something just caught my eye I had to mention. One of the cars had a flat tire, so they switched to a camera on the car facing directly backwards so we could watch the smoke trailing behind as the car sped around the track toward the pits.

“Star Wars” the rear wing of the car proclaimed. (You may not have heard – there’s a new Star Wars movie out.) I thought to myself “those guys lucked out. They’re getting bonus exposure for their advertisement and their car’s still in the race.” The car pulled into the pits where the crew was waiting. They put on a new tire, topped off the gas, and the car was back out on the road. A textbook pit stop.

The crew members were all dressed as Imperial Storm Troopers.

Thanks!

Monster News

Posted on by
6

Recently I went through the exercise of distilling a 500+ page novel down into an entertaining 20 double-spaced pages. Dang. It’s not a place for my ramblin’ style; it’s all about being to the point, moving along, yet still creating sympathy for at least one character and providing a good read. At the heart of it is the question, “If I could have written it in twenty pages, don’t you think I would have?”

But it has been a rewarding exercise. That came home tonight as I worked through the comments from people who provided feedback for the synopsis. The most magical moments were when I read comments that forced me to distill into a few words the key moments in the book. With that understanding I can look back on the big fat pile of prose and see where I missed opportunities, or simply didn’t articulate what I meant to say. There are now parts of the synopsis that serve as criticism of the larger work. When I am sure the distilled ideas of the synopsis are sharply represented in the novel, I’ll feel much better about the whole work.

I have read long, disjointed, incoherent works from established writers, and I wonder if the novel would have been different if the writer had been forced to write a synopsis. It’s a hell of a chore, and when I’m big-time and I don’t have to do it any more I’m sure I won’t. So please, when the third novel comes out with my name bigger than the title on the cover, but you read it and it kind of sucks, drop me an email and say, “maybe you should write a synopsis of the next one, and pass it around.”

Seeing the holes in the story I feel better about it than ever. I am filled with an arrogant self-deception, an optimism that says if I fix all the problems all that’s left is art. It’s a silly conceit when put that way, but the business is 90% perspiration, right?

One thing I’d like to ask the real writers is, “How do you keep the art through endless revisions?”

All right, I rambling now, in a muddled way, and it’s time to stop.

Thanks!

Cultural Icon

Posted on by
Reply

This is (obviously) a logo for a Czech sausage company. And of course it makes perfect sense, when one is selling sausages, to depict a man (or perhaps Liza Minelli) enjoying a link or two. Still, I have a Beavis and Butt-Head giggle-snort reaction whenever I see this. In the US they would have “updated their image” long since, but here in good ‘ol Eastern Europe there was no image updating until the ’90’s. By then this symbol had become quite hip.

The logo is available in three different styles (two with the androgynous sausage eater) in several different image formats in a press kit on their Web site. Unfortunately, I don’t have a vector image program and when I resized the png I lost some of Liza’s lovely long eyelashes.

1

Thanks!

Halloween

Posted on by
3

I went out with Jesse to Joe and Jo’s last night. We sat in the cool, misty night air under the awning on the front patio and enjoyed the smoke-free atmosphere. We talked about a lot of stuff, like being happy and liking beer, about the perfect buzz, about the past and about the future. There was no table service out there, but Kelly brought us one round after I reminded her that we were her favorite customers. How that fact had up until then escaped her I’m not sure. It was a fine evening, and most congenial.

After a while a large group of kids (they seemed like kids to me anyway) gathered on the patio, all in costume. It was a birthday party. I remembered why I like Halloween so much. I’m not into getting all dressed up myself (the time I went as a ho to a Pimp ‘n’ Ho party notwithstanding), but I do enjoy seeing other people all dressed up. Especially people younger and more attractive than I am.

“That girl in the black angel costume is really cute,” Jesse said. “You should hit on her.” I just laughed. Jesse perhaps had been misled by my easy banter with Kelly the waitress and thought I could use that ability to cut a particular woman out of her party and strike up a conversation. I bet you could train a sheepdog to help with something like that. It would make a good beer comercial anyway – you could start with footage from a real sheepdog competition where the dog is separating the indicated sheep from the rest of the herd and cut to some jolly happy outdoor party scene and have a guy indicate which girl he’s interested in. The dog would run off and be cute and adorable and all that, and slowly pull her out of the party so the guy could strike up a happy jolly conversation with her. It has nothing to do with beer, but not many beer commercials do.

But I digress. Something about the beers last night is making it hard for me to stay on one subject this morning. I had no specially trained border collie, and really no urge to even try. Anyway, there is a crucial difference between chatting with a waitress and striking up a conversation with a stranger. The hired help has to laugh at my jokes and at least stay close long enough to see if I need anything. They’re a captive audience. That gives me the time I need to wear them down to the point where someday they actually are happy to see me. I estimate that takes about three and a half weeks of regular exposure.

In fact, this is a measure of just how successful I was with Kelly. I had the camera with me last night, so I decided to take her picture. She was bussing tables on the patio and I held up the camera and said, “Hold still.” She held still and smiled dutifully, but it was gloomy outside and my first attempt didn’t come out well. “Can I move yet?” she asked. “Hold on one more sec,” I said. “Because it’s raining out here,” she finished. I made some big points then. (In my own defense she did come in under the awning and give me another chance to take her picture.)

It will be interesting to see how much the process is further slowed when I’m unable to flash my rapier wit in Czech. (When I put it that way, maybe it’ll help if they can’t understand what I’m saying.) I should be working harder to learn the tongue of my soon-to-be-adopted home. They conjugate nouns there, those wacky czechs.

I wonder if American Culture Poisoning has grown in the Czech Republic to the extent that people dress up for halloween. I hope so. That’s something I’ll miss.

See? I got back to the original topic eventually.

I’ve noticed a lot of people here in the coffee shop with buck teeth this morning.

2

Thanks!

Human-Powered Mini-Blimp Races

Posted on by
16

In this day and age of contrived sporting events (basketball games with style points?) it’s time we turned our attention back to day when sports were sporting and athletes were athletic. For that reason the time has come to launch HPMBRL, the Human-Powered Mini-Blimp Racing League. It would be like the Tour de France in 3-D, with elements of the America’s Cup thrown in.

Best of all, it would be very photogenic, and there would be lots of surface area for sponsor’s logos.

To get off the ground the league would need star power. Who better than retired world-class cyclists? Would people pay to see Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault (probably spelled that wrong) go head to head once more? You bet they would.

So who would the likely sponsors be? It would be fun to see Boeing sponsor a team, and maybe Rutan’s company—the crew that build SpaceShipOne. Bicycle companies would be naturals, as many of their components would be used in the blimps’ drive trains. Fuji already has a blimp presence, and a photogenic sport would be a natural for a photography company. I could imagine GM or Ford sponsoring a team.

I haven’t figured out the actual rules for the race, but I can imagine a series of great big hoops suspended at various heights above the ground that the fliers must pass through, or perhaps simpler would be a simple requirement that they pass over a certain sopt on the ground. In the hoop scenario, there would be a great deal of emphasis on positioning and tactics as the flyers approached the hoop.

Wind, of course, would be a major factor. Courses would be designed with the prevailing wind of the area in mind. There would be legs of the race that featured long, hard climbs into the wind, and others that would allow the blimps to sweep down to where they are practically skimming the Earth as they are swept along with a tailwind, knocking the hats off the awe-struck spectators.

So there you have it. HPMBRL (probably need a better acronym) extends the careers of great athletes, pushes technology, looks cool, and would be a sponsor magnet. What could possibly go wrong?

1

Thanks!

Guess I Should Plug the Software

Posted on by
Reply

– not getting stuck on some detail or having t go back and find something you wrote somewhere a hundred pages ago, and inevitably editing instead of getting new ideas down. Of course, when the time comes to edit, you want to be sure you find all the places you weren’t sure about the first time you wrote them. If you’re not sure you will find the trouble spots later, you won’t be able to let them go for now.

Key features are:
– Outline that grows with your work, or you can use to define the parts of your story ahead of time.
– Character database where with two clicks you can store character names and descriptions for later reference.
– Margin notes so you can jot something down next to text you want to revisit later. This is an amazingly handy function.
– Regular note panel so you can remember the last time you ate.
– It actually knows what a chapter is (or whatever organizational structure you want to use).
– Better performance than most word processors for really, really big documents.
– More accurate page count.

If you are interested in the software, drop me a line. Man, I dig those margin notes.

Thanks!