JomattoStyle: A Market Approach

In It for the Glory

Alright, let's push aside all that fancy fluff about improving your writing. At this point, you know whether or not you've got it. You're not looking to transcend your limits or some other new-age bullshit, you just want one thing: the glory.

Fortunately, the marketplace determines success not by quality, but by popularity. You don't have to be the best; you just have to be good enough. If you're looking for a shortcut to the top, I present to you: A Market Approach to Writing.

I'd imagine most writers these days try their hands at fanfiction before blossoming into original authors. I can hardly think of any site broader and more inclusive, which makes it an ideal representation of the marketplace.

FF.net's low barrier to entry, large readership, and feedback system form a somewhat competitive environment for writers. There are winners and there are losers. Money may not be involved, but time is—which is equally as valuable. The promise of validation, praise, and reviews is reward enough to lure in aspiring writers. For them, there's nothing more important than finding an audience.

Unfortunately, without the pressures of the market to weed out the trash, a lot of garbage remains on the shelf. That's why competition breeds quality. If there's an incentive to be better, then everybody would step up their game.

Keep in mind that what I say are assumptions derived from personal experience. Take it all with a grain of salt.

Measures of Success

What makes an activity worth doing? Recognition, and on FF.net, recognition comes in reviews. The goal is to get as many reviews as possible. It feels good to have dozens of people tell you how great your story is, but you’d be remiss to see that as the sole determinant of success. It’s the total feedback that counts, the combination of reviews, favorites, and follows, against the amount of effort you put in, the total number of words or chapters you publish. A 1000 chapter story with 1000 reviews is an embarrassment compared to a 10 chapter story with 100 reviews. You want legitimate glory, not fake glory. So forget about those inflationary tactics, writing “drabbles” so you can update with paltry word counts, holding chapters ransom, or threatening readers unless they “pay up.”

But you’re better than that. You know you got the stuff; it’s just a matter of luck, skill, and strategy.

Identifying Your Market

You have to determine your target audience. FF.net has broad categories and it falls on you, the writer, to narrow it down as much as you can. The natural choice is to choose the property you're most familiar with. Alternatively, you can choose one with the most potential, based on the number of total stories and how successful the top ones are.

I wanted to write character-based and relationship-driven stories aimed at teenagers and young adults, so I chose Kingdom Hearts because it was the best match for my material, and it was the most popular section under Games. My goals and target demographic were a solid match.

Popularity is not without its perils though. KH is crowded. A newly posted story will stay on the front page for an hour at most. Further division is necessary. I needed to target a specific niche. In non-yaoi, the most popular pairing was Sora and Kairi. Thus, my two principal characters were selected.

Try not to gauge your success against the entirety of a fandom, but against competitors within your niche. The next step is to examine market conditions: the size of the market, the competition, and the pace.

Size of the Market

Each category is limited by the size of its readership. One category might max out at 100 reviews while another can go as high as 1000. You want to know just how high you could go. Having identified Sora-Kairi as my main segment, the ceiling I was looking at was well past the 1k mark.

Competition

Before I wrote a single word, I had determined the best category and pairing for my stories and how much success was achievable given the limits of my segment's readership. It was time for a little research.

Since reviews are the golden commodity, I looked at many of them, analyzed their contents, and the writers who wrote them. Reviewers ranged from 12 to 20 years old, and gender was skewed depending on the genre. The two most popular genres are adventure and romance. Male authors tend to read and write adventure, while females do the same for romance. The market had been neatly divided into two distinct categories: adventure and romance.

There are two options here: do something different from the norm or execute the norm better than anyone else.

Once you've started your story, I'd suggest using the competition as benchmarks for your own success. It might put your success (or lack thereof) in better context.

Market Pace

Kingdom Hearts has dozens of stories being published and updated daily. Front page status does not last very long, and for most stories, it may be their only source of exposure. Depending on how rapid a fandom moves, you must adjust your pace accordingly. Speed, perhaps second to quality, is one of the most crucial determinants of success. You'll want to keep feeding the fire until it's able to sustain itself. Writers who can regularly publish updates with little to no loss in quality inspire confidence in readers who want a regular drip-feed of content. This is how a following is created. You'll make fans, and these are the people who, more than anyone, will validate your ventures as an author.

The Cool Kid's Corner

Although not necessary, a little networking never hurt anyone. Try to become friends with authors who are already successful, listen to their advice, and ride off their coattails. If you write something good enough, they'll give you an endorsement, and that could mean all the difference in the world. Never throw away free marketing. But networking requires effort. It's not just a simple "pls read my story and review, thnx," You need to show genuine eagerness and a desire to improve. You gotta put in that work and impress the ones you look up to. Everything is earned and rarely given.

Know When to Give Up

If this is truly a market approach, then you must know when to exit as well. Sometimes, the best laid plans get laid to waste. Nothing you can do about it. Either the market has changed beyond expectations or the competition is just too tough. There's no shame in admitting defeat. The important thing is that you recognize this and bail out while you still have your dignity. Don't continue to invest more time into a project with no return. You're better off allocating your resources elsewhere. If you're really that adamant about it, you can always try again later, but with a newer strategy. Cut your losses and start over. Hopefully, you'll be more experienced and wiser this time.

And on the Seventh Day...

Sundays will be my do-nothing day. It's important to have a designated rest point because no human can work at max efficiency all the time. Anyone who's ever ran a schedule will understand this. It's rare that everything happens on time. Slack is a natural accumulation, and if you want a foolproof schedule, then you must pencil in rest periods.

This doesn't mean I won't do anything for today. It just means I'm not locked into any one particular activity. I'm free to spend as much time doing whatever whenever.

Work that Money

My financial mindset was born from experience — not mine, but my siblings. I’ve seen them run their credit up and sink in debt. One of my brothers can’t even hold a checking account — he puts it all in his wallet. Fortunately, he's found a job now thanks to me. 

I’ve always been frugal to begin with. The concept of an allowance was as foreign to me as hedging risk with futures contracts. My only income was Chinese New Year’s handouts, and I had to make that last for an entire year ($150).

My family hails from a culture that values cold hard work. It’s the reason why colleges are brimming with Asians. They stress the importance of economy and saving, but I say to hell with that! 

I've been thinking about this real hard, and I think I'm gonna have to go for it. I'm gonna start trading. Instead working for money, I'm gonna make my money work for me. My background is journalism, and I think if I put my mind to it, I can be successful. It's all about luck and hard research. If anyone can do it, it's me. 

With the position I'm in, I've got nothing to lose — well, except for all my money anyways. I'm crossing my fingers! 

Planning for Twilight

With full social security benefits projected to run out sometime in 2033, long before I (and many of you) retire, I’ve been scrambling to get a hold of an uncertain future.

I don’t know how it works in other countries, but social security is a US program designed to help people out in retirement. Over the course of your working life, the government takes a piece of your paycheck, reserving a portion for social security.

Once you hit 65, congratulations, you can start collecting your benefits in the form of an annual payout of about $15,000 (current average) in your twilight years. It’s more supplementary than something to rely on. The rest of your expenses should be covered by your own personal nest egg, and unlike social security, your nest egg is something you can grow as big as you want — if you’re savvy enough.

I’ve been spending the last two weeks reading about 401(k)’s, IRA’s, real-estate, stocks, and investment opportunities—just your run of the mill financial basics. My sister and her husband just bought a new house, and I wondered if home ownership was everything it was cracked up to be.

Long story short, it’s not worth it for me — but it got me thinking about the future. In my ideal retirement plan, I’d be sitting around, playing video games, and traveling the world. It’s never too early to start planning for retirement. 

The earlier you start, the better.

Discrete

With the dawn of a new year, I decided to take stock and reevaluate things. I know I'm not alone in this. It's an annual tradition for the world. I've been busy compartmentalizing every aspect of my life into discrete areas. Too many things were jumbled up before. Now that everything is organized, I feel like I can finally see the way forward.

This blog was a weird mishmash of professional and enthusiastic topics. I think it's best to keep the two separate. It's liberating, in a way. I don't have to worry about keeping face. I like to indulge heavily in my passions, and keeping it contained because the wrong person out there might be paying attention is no way to live. If I'm going to go all out, I can't worry about that noise. Besides, it's not like any professional contacts are looking at this blog right now (famous last words).

So what is this blog really about? Everything and nothing. It's my personal blog. I'm not here to dwell in a niche or become an expert in some esoteric subject, because the only subject that matters here is me. I write what I want and when I want, and if somebody sees that, that's cool, but if not, then the status quo is maintained. It's no skin off my back.

I have a place for every piece of writing I can come up with. If I've got a clever one-sentence quip, then it's going on Twitter. If I'm feeling professional, then it's going up on JOMATTO | Pro. If I got something I want to say about fanfiction, then I'll post it on Jomatto:Insight, and for everything else, it'll be right here on JomattoBlog.

Here's to a new year of writing.

JomattoStyle: Express Yourself

Once upon a time, in one of my writing workshops, the professor asked me, "Who's your favorite journalist?" I said "Joseph Mitchell," a safe choice. Then she asked me again, "Who's really your favorite journalist?" Considering my style was a far cry from Mitchell's measured and methodical approach, she didn't believe me. I shrugged my shoulders as the class echoed her sentiment. It seemed I had established myself as a "stylistic writer."

I've always tried for an absolute objective voice. When you hear "journalism," that's what you think: a sort of dry, well-researched and authoritative tone on the subject matter. But it was only when I let myself loose did I finally earn recognition. It's been a running theme throughout my life. The moment I "be myself" is when things turn out great. Not only was this true in the classroom, but this was true online as well.

I point to Exhibit A: Love Sick. I've had modest successes before, but Love Sick was when I truly took off and entered the upper strata where kings feasted. I credit my success to the unique and refreshing first-person narrative. Here's the secret: the main character is modeled after me.

That's not to say that girls make me throw up or anything. Those unique character quirks are a result of my research and journalistic ability. It's my job to capture the lives of others. I draw on my own experiences and imagination to imbue the narrative with a sense of realism.

The point I'm trying to get at here is that your writing should be comprised entirely of YOU, of your experiences, of the people you know, of your beliefs, of what you find funny, of what you find offensive, of what scares you, and of all the unique characteristics that constitute YOU.

Of course, this is contingent on your mastery of the basics. Once you've gone as far as you can in the standard first-person past-tense template, that's when you should let it all out. Go wild. Set free all your bad habits, peculiar idiosyncrasies, and questionable preferences. If you like sentence fragments. Put them in. If you like to digress, then digress from the rooftops to the moon and to the stars! If you favor colorful metaphors and similes, then choke your readers with them, shove it down their throats every chance you get. Fancy big words? Type first and look them up later. Repetition? Repeat, repeat, and repeat as many times as necessary. It's only through excess can you find moderation.

Soon, you'll begin to see when too much is too much. You'll realize that your metaphors and similes make no sense, that the objects for comparison bear little relation to each other, that your repetition is really repetitive, that you've been using that word the wrong way this entire time, that your dialogue is super unnatural and stilted, that every character you create talks the same way, that you use the same words over and over, that your description is lacking, that your characterization leaves a lot to be desired, and that you pretty much suck at writing in general.

It's only after you've built up and broken down, can you truly begin to define your own style.

JomattoStyle: Perspective

Perspective isn't a consideration, it's a foundation you must abide by. It determines how the events are organized and how the action flows. Now before you start getting crazy ideas, I have but one rule for you to follow: stay consistent.

You're only gonna be worrying about two perspectives: first-person and third-person. It's the difference between "I hate you" and "he hates you." Which perspective you adopt hinges on your story idea. Is it going to be an epic with scenes happening in different places at the same time? Go third. Is it going to be about one person and how they grow as an individual? Go first. Once you've selected a perspective, stick to it like Wolverine on a bullet train.

Packaged with perspective is also the issue of verb tenses. Far too often do I read stories where the narrator slips into the future, past, and present all at the same time. It's not just wrong, it's stupid, and ignorant, and an insult to the English language. Okay, it's not that offensive, but it's so pervasive, there should be a Surgeon General's Warning slapped onto every word processor to keep this epidemic from spreading.

I go to school and entered class.

The untrained eye cannot catch this. If you can't see it, then please slap yourself with a dictionary a hundred times until the past and present tense forms of all verbs are seared into your brain. All verbs in a sentence must conform to one tense. There are exceptions (English has many), but this holds fast for 90% of your cases.

For beginners, my advice is to start in first-person, because that's our most familiar reference point. We are always thinking in terms of "I." If you're going to be writing as a character, I strongly urge you to stick with your own gender, not only because of the familiarity, but because you can easily expose yourself if you don't. There's a reason why Victor Frankenstein is an overdramatic, wailing, male lead--he was written by a woman.

For tenses, use the past form. It's the traditional mode of narrative and imposes a level of control necessary for grasping the basics. You don't wanna go fast when you start out, you wanna be slow and methodical. Slow and steady may not win the race, but at least you're not going to screw it up.