Thanks to all of you, it is good to be number one on Amazon Kindle, Children’s Books-> Science Fiction Category. It happened on May 12 and 13, one day after my birthday, thanks all for the gift
The simplest explanation on how to write a story
Every story is made of six elements. They are: Where, When, Who, What, How, and Why. No, I’m not trying to be funny, but this is all there is. Let’s look at each.
WHERE. It designates the location. The story happens somewhere. It can be in Los Angeles, New York, Timbuktu, Mars, or far, far away. In “Arboregal” the location is a giant tree, a very unusual and important part of the story in this case.
WHEN. Time is an essential element of being. The story could happen in the past, present, future, or a combination of these. Stories are sequences of events; therefore, the time is implicit even if not mentioned. In “Arboregal” the time is mentioned in passing.
WHO. The characters are the most important element of the story. If there are no characters in a story, there is no story, but a documentary. The characters are the equivalent of fuel, once ignited reaction happens in space (where) and in time (when.) In “Arboregal” the four main characters are selected to give maximum “bang” for the story. Different character traits for each one of them raises the tension, and, consequently, produces a good story. The heroes’ problems are compounded by the villains, Hellferata and Dracu Mort.
Mixing all these ingredients, just like Nathan mixed the ingredients for the experiment in “Arboregal,” and using your imagination, like igniting a match, the story will happen. Three elements will be produced from this reaction: What, How, and Why.
WHAT. What’s going to happen when four teenagers appear in a strange world where life exists only in giant trees? What will the Lorns do when the heroes arrive in their tree? What’s going to happen when the villains are pursuing them?
HOW. How will the heroes survive in this world? How will they get back home? How will they outwit and perhaps escape certain death?
WHY. Just like Who element, Why is most important. It is the explanation of why it all happened. Why are the heroes appearing in “Arboregal?” Why is the Lorn Tree so big? Why do Hellferata and Dracu Mort hunt them? If Why is not answered at all, or superficially, the story will be weak, or non-existent.
There is no predetermined order in selecting these six elements. It can start with any of them, even with Why, although most stories start with the What, or Who.
And that’s all it takes to create a story. Remember, you don’t learn to play piano, or oil painting by reading books. Therefore, you will not learn to write a book by reading a book. You learn to write a book by writing a book. Now, go and write a great story of your own by mixing Where, When, Who, and What, How, and explain Why.
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The Lorn Tree model
“Arboregal, the Lorn Tree” story takes place in a giant tree. To write a more realistic story about this unusual setting I had, and have as I’m writing the Cascade Tree imagine myself in a tree. That should be easy, right? After all, when I was a kid I climbed in a lot of trees, I even fell from one or two, and survived without any broken bones, but imagination and memories can take me only so far. I even climbed in a few Oak Trees here in Glendora, my hometown, recently. It was kind of embarrassing, as a mature person to be up in a tree with a camera, balancing precariously, wondering what people would think of me, or expecting the cops to invite me down for questioning.
Well, one day it hit me; why not make a model of the tree I’m writing about? No dangerous or embarrassing climbing up real trees, and I have a visual aid for the tree when I write. The Lorn Tree was the first model I made. It stands about 30 inches high, it is modeled after a California oak tree, and the skeleton is made from Styrofoam board. I added bulk by spraying insulation foam I bought from Home Depot and presto, a 3D tree.
It is not very pretty, but it is practical. And also it served as the model for the paintings I made.
There was an additional bonus, the Dragon Head as you see in the left and right picture was accidental, and soon after realizing what my feverish mind created, I incorporated it in the story. Later it became the picture for the cover. Do you see it in the left picture?
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How big is the Lorn Tree?
The Lorn Tree is described to be a giant tree, as big as a mountain. Bigger than the tree in Avatar, the movie? Yes. Did I get the idea about a giant tree from Avatar? Not at all. I wrote the story in 2002, many years before Avatar was even conceived, I presume. However, ideas are available to anyone. I’m not the first to think of a giant tree. George Lucas had giant trees in “Return of the Jedi” on Endor, with cuddly Ewoks living in them. And as far as I know, Chewbacca lived in giant trees on his home planet.
So, how big is the Lorn Tree? Big enough to contain entire villages on its branches. About 6,000 ft tall, more than a mile high. Words, however, do not do this tree justice. The picture above shows the relation between this tree and the largest buildings on Earth. The Empire State Building or Sears Tower would barely reach its canopy.
And this is where the story takes place.
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How the story for “Arboregal, the Lorn Tree” started
Once upon a time, when I was a kid, back in the last millennium, Christmas was a magic time, and the Christmas tree occupied a special place in our home. My dad always brought home the largest noble fir that could fit in the room, and that was a ten-foot tall tree. I remember lying down on my back under the tree and wondering, “How wonderful it would be to live in a Christmas tree. Dwell in a small cottage, explore the branches, and live in an enchanted world.”
Life goes on and two decades later, I am vacationing in the Sequoia National Park in California. General Grant is one of the largest trees in the world and I, like everyone else there, was gawking at this magnificent tree. The sequoias are very proportional trees and it is deceiving how normal and not so giant they look from a distance. A corral like fence encloses General Grant to prevent people from trampling on its roots, or inscribe graffiti on its bark. Not being able to walk right to the trunk, it is difficult to assess how big the tree really is. But then, I paid attention to a branch that had fallen off the tree and it was close to the fence. That branch was about five feet in diameter. I looked up and saw that it broke off from one of the main branches, a hundred feet or higher up in the tree. Judging by the size of the remaining stub, the main branch must have been a good fifteen feet across. At that moment, it dawned on me how big this tree really was. A car could have driven on that branch. Or, maybe cottages could be built on it. Wouldn’t be wonderful to have a cottage up there and live in an enchanted world of giant trees?
A story idea germinated as I was admiring the tree. However, it took another two decades before I wrote the story in 2002. The title of the original story was “The Planet of the Giant Trees.” Nine years later in 2011, I decided to publish the book, and renamed the story “Arboregal” as in Royal Giant Tree.
It took five decades to bring a story from seed to seedling to a published story. Good things take time just like the giant sequoias take time to become giant trees.
Arboregal, the Lorn Tree is available at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Arboregal-Lorn-Tree-Dumitru-Sandru/dp/0983669503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322952105&sr=8-1
A new e-Book enhanced color edition is available at Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106244
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Book Trailers and how to develop one
Books can be advertised through trailers just like movies. But, can a book trailer help with the sales of the book? It sure can. For my book “Arboregal, the Lorn Tree” http://arboregal.com I developed the following book trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/T9IHGneomBY
Question is how do you develop a book trailer? The following is a description about how I developed my book trailer and the steps involved. This could help anyone with the inclination and time. This blog is about how to do it yourself.
Tip: if you’re not an expert in all the details described below, search the Internet on “How to” and there is a plethora of good info about all the steps I’m describing.
Before you start, you must plan the book trailer content. Don’t forget the hook for your story. For inspiration, view my book trailer, as one example http://www.youtube.com/embed/T9IHGneomBY
or search for many other trailers that are available on the Internet.
Unlike movies, which have an abundant source of images and sounds, books have only silent words, which must be converted into captivating images and sounds. In essence, a book trailer becomes the audio-visual back-cover description of the book.
In case of my book, “Arboregal, the Lorn Tree” I painted several oil paintings with sceneries from the book. Since the story happens in a giant tree, the paintings of the cottages provide an idyllic and charming feeling as shown here: http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/sandru/all the pictures of my painting became the images for the book trailer. You too must create images, be that drawings, pictures or videos, and above all, they must be captivating.
To have the greatest impact a trailer must have sound, such as spoken voice, or music, or other audio effects. Besides being an artist, I am a composer as well. In my book, I included the lyrics from two of my songs, “Up in the Lorn Tree” and “I am lonesome.” The melody of these two songs suited the mood of the trailer perfectly. “Up in the Lorn Tree” tune is a happy, folksy, woodsy flute piece to denote the rural/arboreal life of the Lorn people that dwell in this tree. “I am lonesome” tune is a dark and sad strings piece that imparts a feeling of danger and forlornness caused by the evil Hellferata and her son, Dracu Mort.
Book trailers can be developed by using a variety of tools. I used Power Point, and here are the steps I took once I had all the material and the outline in place.
- Start with a Power Point Presentation. I laid out the slides to fit my outline.
- Go to Slide Show, and Custom Animation. If you haven’t used this feature before you’ll have to do some learning, trial and experimentation, but it’s fun.
- Add sound, but only after you are happy on how the images are sequenced, timed, and presented. You may have to adjust the timing for the images to coincide with the sound. Now you have a PP slide presentation.
- To convert the slides into a ready to play presentation, you’ll need to convert the PP extension from .ppt to .pps. In this way, the trailer can be attached to an e-mail and is readily playable. However, beware that PP imbeds only .wav sound, and this format is very large. You can use MP3, but it has to be in the same folder.
- Youtube is the place to show your trailer. You will need to convert the PP presentation to video. I used Moyea PPT to Video converter. It was easy.
- Signup on Youtube, it belongs to Google, and load your video. Caution: be careful what tags you place on your video. If you write YA Fantasy as I do, do not use the word “fantasy” in your tag, your video will end up in the wrong video “neighborhood.”
And that’s it. Six easy steps, maybe, and a lot of time. Is it worth the effort? For my book, “Arboregal, the Lorn Tree” ( http://www.amazon.com/Arboregal-Lorn-Tree-Dumitru-Sandru/dp/0983669503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320426562&sr=8-1 ) the answer is YES.
In case you missed the trailer here the link again
http://www.youtube.com/embed/T9IHGneomBY
Have fun, and sell lots of books!
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