Author: Karen GoatKeeper

Are there books you remember years, maybe decades after you read them? These are memorable books indeed.

So many books today are just fluff: read them today and forget them tonight. I read many of these. They are a great way to close out the day, settle the mind down ready to drift off to sleep.

What Makes Memorable Books Memorable?

The book speaks to you, means something on a deep level. It can be a philosophy of life or a way of looking at your own life.

Any book can do this. One silly bit of fluff I read helped me realize being short was only the obstacle of being vertically challenged. It didn’t mean I was not a worthwhile person. At the time I read this, I needed that change of view.

Other books can reach out to huge numbers of readers with deep themes. Harry Potter does this. Under the fluff of magic is the value of friendship and loyalty, the putting of others before your own life, if necessary.

My little bit of fluff is from a book long forgotten and rightly so. Perhaps Harry Potter will vanish over time too, but the themes will remain important. Other books like “The Three Musketeers” have these themes.

Themes in Writing

Memorable books often have an underlying theme in them. It is woven into the characters and the plot, becoming part of the story.

A more obvious way is through allegory. “A Rustle In the Grass” and “Watership Down” are two of these. On the surface these books are fun stories to read. Under the surface are the social themes that sometimes don’t become obvious to the reader until after the book is read.

That is the important part of writing books or stories with a theme: they are part of the story. Preaching never really gets a theme across as it is shoving the author’s ideas in your face.

How many memorable books have you read? My answer is: not enough.

Books by indie authors – those who self publish – often get ignored or thought of as not as good as a ‘regular’ book. I recently came across an indie book disaster that reinforces those opinions.

Self Publishing Responsibilities

A traditionally published book has a team of people working with the author. Many self published authors like me have no such team. That leaves me responsible for writing the best possible book myself.

Writing the book is only the first step. It is an important step, but only the beginning. The other steps include spelling, grammar, editing the book, the cover, the summary, the publicity. The list seems overwhelming.

Writing the Book

A novel needs a plot, relatable characters and setting, pacing, timing. The indie book disaster I came across had none of these. There were attempts, but it never seemed to figure out what the book was really about.

This novel does have research and work behind it. When I think of Stephanie Taylor, the main character in Life’s Rules, she is a real person to me with an extensive history. Much of what I know about her will not show up in the novel, it influences how she acts and behaves in the novel

Every character in the indie book disaster had this extensive history dumped into the novel. Sometimes this was repeated more than once.

That highlights another problem. Repeating the same information or the same words over and over until the reader starts counting them.

Why Read an Indie Book Disaster?

Reading good books is important for an author. Reading not good books is too. These remind me about why I do so many drafts looking for the problems, trying to work them out.

One thing I don’t want to do is publish an indie book disaster.