I wanted to share with you today some things I learned at our International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) meeting last week from our guest speaker Carol Daniel of KMOX radio here in St. Louis.

The seven Cs of communication is a list of principles for written and spoken communications to ensure that they are effective. The seven Cs are

1. clear
2. correct
3. complete
4. concrete
5. concise
6. considered
7. courteous

Other notes:

• Does your message/story matter?
• Does it move people?
• Does it break through?
• Does it carry any weight at all?
• Your target is shell shocked from everything that has been going on.
• Say what needs to be said.
• We are all powerful as individuals and should speak truth. Once we do, it is out there and our job is done. It is up to the receiver to do with it what they will. But we have spoken the truth and that is very important.

 

Nicole Evelina is a USA Today bestselling author and biographer who writes historical fiction, nonfiction, and women’s fiction. Her six books have won more than 40 awards, including four Book of the Year designations. Nicole was named Missouri’s Top Independent Author by Library Journal and Biblioboard as the winner of the Missouri Indie Author Project in 2018, and she has been awarded the North Street Book Prize and the Sarton Women’s Book Award. One of her novels, Madame Presidentess, was optioned for film.

One of the most frequent responses people have when they find out I am an author is something along the lines of “Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book about XYZ.” While that can get annoying, it’s perfectly valid. There’s a reason that the phrase “everyone has a book in them” exists.

 

Try It Out

But how do you know if you really do have a book in you? The easiest way is to try out writing and see what happens. What do you want to write about? Write down every idea you may wish to cover in your book. If it’s fiction, can you shape it into the rough outline of a plot or at least the beginning of one? If it is nonfiction, can you group your ideas into chapters? Once you have this roadmap, you’re ready to write.

Start small. Don’t freak yourself out by thinking now you have to write this whole book. No, you don’t. At this point, you are just writing for you. Every chapter tells a story. Look at your outline and think about what the story is for your first chapter. Maybe it is how your hero got himself into his current mess or an overview of how you came to be interested/trained in the subject you’re writing about. Concentrate on telling that story right now. The other chapters will come in their order.

 

What’s the Answer for You?

If you find that this exercise is fun or that it comes easy to you, you may well just have a book in you. Or you may find that what you are writing morphs into something else entirely; you may have a short story, poem, song, or screenplay in you instead. Wherever your muse takes you, follow.

There are a few other ways to tell if you might have a book in your future:

1. You enjoy writing. For most authors, writing is like breathing; we couldn’t survive without it and get anxious when we aren’t working on one story or another. It’s a truly transportive experience.
2. You’re passionate about your subject/story. This will come through in your writing and readers will be able to tell. They can also tell when you’re not. Plus, you need to have passion for it because you’ll be with this story for a long time.
3. You can stick with it. It can take years to write a book, especially when you are just starting out. Not to mention all the edits that go into making it great. If you aren’t the kind of person who can maintain interest for a long period, writing long-form things like books may not be for you.

You do not have to write every day, in spite of what some people say. When the muse is there, grab it. Write early in the morning or late at night after others have gone to bed. Write on your lunch hour, when you have a few spare minutes (even 10–15 will yield you a few words), or when you’re waiting at the doctor’s office. Eventually all those words add up.

And you get better as you go along. If you keep at it, don’t be surprised if by the end of your book, you hate the beginning. That’s because you’ve grown along the way. And it happens to most writers with every single book they write.

My last piece of advice is to read. Read as much as you can in the genre in which you are writing. Believe it or not, you become a better writer the more you read because you begin to see the commonalities in plot and character structure, what works well and what should never happen again. You’ll see turns of phrases you like and descriptions you want to imitate. There is no training ground like the page.

Now, get your butt in a chair and fingers on that keyboard. (After you’ve outlined, of course.)

 

Nicole Evelina is a USA Today bestselling author and biographer who writes historical fiction, non-fiction, and women’s fiction. Her six books have won more than 40 awards, including four Book of the Year designations. Nicole was named Missouri’s Top Independent Author by Library Journal and Biblioboard as the winner of the Missouri Indie Author Project in 2018 and has been awarded the North Street Book Prize and the Sarton Women’s Book Award. One of her novels, Madame Presidentess, was previously optioned for film. She also has four non-fiction books due to be published from 2022–2024.