Self Help
ILLUMINATION Book Chapters First Chapter Writing Tips
Please help yourself to first attracting readers and then making it easy for them to read the next chapter.
The chapters I chose not to read and didn’t include in ILLUMINATION Book Chapters Extravaganza 2 have prompted some self-help tips. I intend these tips for new and or first-time writers and authors on the platform.
Link to the first chapter
From all subsequent chapters, please! I’ll tell you why.
Readers want easy. I’m a reader. I really want to read your first chapter first. For example, I found Chapter 4, but there’s no link. Do I feel like searching for the first chapter? I might if I’m intrigued, but if not, I will move onto the next juicy title.
I smiled when I found bakagaijin links to chapter two from chapter one, but he also includes a link to the Table of Contents in his subheader!
Chapter 2 of The Family Business
I might have to steal this idea, thanks, bakagaijin. Now I’m going to read his second chapter. He gave me a link. It would be rude not to click it.
For new readers who are not writers, I make their lives easy and give them an invitation to read all my published chapters. By adding the first chapter and previous and next chapter links to all my chapters, there is no fear of losing them. Unless they run out of time or they don’t like the story!
I also have a table of contents that is pinned on my profile page.
An excellent example of linking to your first chapter
Congratulations to Carla Woody! She gets the prize for making sure her readers can find every single chapter of her book. She provides a table of contents at the end of the preface and each chapter. Such a delight to get to her book Preface by scrolling down to the end of Chapter 8.
I suspect, like me, most readers will look at the choices they have high on the home page of ILLUMINATION Book Chapters. This means the latest chapters. If you don’t have a table of contents and or links to your first, next, and previous chapters, how will your readers easily find you?
Image
All book cover images must have the name of the copyright owner. I didn’t know the ins and outs of who had the creative ownership. The author or the artist who designed it? You might find it revelatory that Canva owns the art if you used their tools to make your cover.
I’ve updated my old book cover caption to include a link to the artist who designed mine.
I’d say every author must ensure they know who owns their book cover. The Creative Law Centre explains the most likely scenarios.
White space
I really want to read a first chapter. The title enticed me; the image drew me in. But the great wall of text that greeted me, ugh.
Please, authors, will you consider breaking the huge chunks of paragraphs up into smaller bite-sized pieces?
Five sentences, at most, is the usual recommendation for this platform. That doesn’t mean you can write 90-word sentences! I used to write like that. With no commas. Double ugh!
Also, we have to consider many people are reading our work on their phones. Readers appreciate lots of white space. Authors appreciate being read. Perfect.
Writing speech in stories
Conversations can get really confusing when you have a dialogue between two people in the same paragraph!
I’m not an expert at writing conversations. In the past, I often referred to books to see how my favourite authors did it. I just grabbed a book from my shelf and flicked through it until I found a piece of dialogue.
Attention to detail is key, as it is so easy to put speech marks in the wrong places. And commas! My work is not perfect. Neither am I saying yours has to be. You will improve the more you practice.
I’ve been writing for years and prolifically for the last year. I can see the quality improvement from the start to now. Again, still not perfect. When I get that publishing deal with Penguin, their expert editors and proofreaders will see to the mistakes I missed! A girl can dream, can’t she?
You can find lots of info online. Try to make it as easy as possible for the reader to read a good flow of conversation.
Prolific readers won’t finish reading a story when it gets confusing. My mum won’t, I won’t. We expect a story to be easy to read and entertaining.
Here’s a Masterclass.com article that explains and shows how to write speech simply.
I’m looking forward to reading more first chapter soon.
May you find many new readers for your hard work.
© 2021 Karen Madej. All rights reserved.
If you missed the first three Self Help tips, here they are.
New Challenges Improve Your Skills