5 Techniques to Write a Better Book | Livestream Replay

All right. Hello, welcome. Happy Tuesday to you, my friend. All right, so today we're gonna pack some punch into a fairly short live stream. Do say hello when you're tuning in, so let me know that you are here. But we're gonna cover some pretty cool techniques today. More formally known as literary devices. These are things that can help you write a book that's less boring because you know we're all about that hashtag, no boring books here. Of course we are so about it that we even put it on a mug. So yeah, I'm going to keep this short. We actually had a death in the family this past weekend, but I still wanted to hang out with you guys today. So. Yeah, but we're going to, we're going to keep this one under a wrap. A couple of dates for you to mark in your calendar while we're letting folks join in and do say hello when you join in, but a couple of dates. So October 17th we're going to be doing another deep dive training and this thing is all things Amazon. We are going to spend two hours talking about selling your book on Amazon. Keywords, descriptions, international nuances, pre sales and of course Amazon ads. So it's going to be a jam packed deep dive training. I'm going to have a couple people from my team joining in because I am not the Amazon expert, but there's folks in my team that spend all day, every day pretty much working on Amazon stuff. So pretty excited for that one. And of course our next live stream will be happening same time, same place. Tuesday, October 13th. Oh, the deep dive training is a zoom meeting so you need the link. I will post the invitation on the community tab in YouTube closer to the time and then also of course if you aren't getting our book launchers launch letter, you should head on over to book launchers.com and subscribe to our newsletter because you'll get the invitation that way as well. All right, so five techniques I love to use to create, well, just better writing and there you can use them in different situations. I'm just cleaning up a couple tabs on my, on my screen here, but I like to use them in different situations. So some of the ones I'm going to share today you can use in all situations in your book. Others are going to be great for chapters and subtitles. Others will be things that are just good for the material inside of your book. Okay, so just going to say hello to who's here. Molly is so great to have you here. Hello, Derek. Hey. Fantastic to have you on a live stream. Kayla, wonderful. Hey, Jacqueline made it, too. Thank you. Ella, hello. And Brian, thank you and thanks for your kind words. Jill. Oh, wonderful. Aubrey, thank you. And thanks for the hugs. And Jade as well, and poetry from the heart. So, yeah, thanks so much. All right, so, yeah, if you guys are cool, we're just going to stick right to the topic. So. So you guys don't see Julie have an emotional breakdown. Yeah, it's been one of those. One of those weeks. But it is really good to be here with you and talking about some cool writing techniques. So the first one I'm going to share. And by the way, just as we're getting into this, let me tell you that I'm not an English major. I did an undergrad in business and then I did an mba. So I had to actually look up what one of them was called. I'm like, I know there's a name for this and I know it's a technique. I had to look it up. So. So there's going to be some word wizards here that are going to have some way better examples. And so guess what? That's going to be one of the prizes we're going to give away today because of course, there's always prizes on the live stream. So just telling you that I am not a. You don't have to be a literary expert or an English major to use these things in your writing. All right. The first one is in fact the one I had to look up. It is called consonants, and I didn't know it. I knew it had a name. I just didn't know the name. But it's it a cool one because I think when you use consonants in your writing, it creates a flow and a rhythm and it really keeps the reader engaged. And consonants is when you have a repetition of sounds, you know, throughout a particular word or a phrase. It is kind of like rhyming, but it's just a repetition of sounds. So a couple examples. Let me see. You have to lift it while you shift it. Just making this up. He won't eat much meat. Pitter patter and cheer and cheer and beer are kind of cheers and beers. Those are kind of more common phrases that you may have heard. Those are all examples of consonants as we're going along. If you've got some cool examples, go ahead and chime in in the chat and. And give me better examples. Those were ones that I just came up with off the top of my head to give you an example of what it is. But using that inside of your writing, but also chapter titles, subtitles, little headers in your book, it can draw attention, but generally speaking, in your writing, it can create that rhythm and that flow that keeps people reading, which is really cool. The second technique is a simile. And. And there's tons of these techniques, by the way. I just picked my 5 favorite, and I have one also that I think is really overused, so we're going to talk about that one too. But simile is a figure of speech that compares two different things using like. Or as. This is probably throwing y' all back to English in high school or maybe even before high school. But I like similes and also metaphors, but I like them because they make your writing more interesting. Also really help the reader visualize and imagine and also understand the information. And this is a really great tool in your writing. It also is great in your book descriptions, and it can be used in your subtitles and possibly chapter titles, too. So it's got a lot of uses. The movie was shot like Blair Witch Project, but with a storyline more like the Wedding Singer. You can picture both of those things. Or, you know, just. Rather than just saying he was really hungry, you could say he was as ravenous as a stray dog that hadn't eaten in a week, or her hair stood up like she'd been struck by lightning, or like she stuck her finger in a light socket. So those are just some examples, samples that will help you as well. All right, let's just see what people are chatting about. Eugene's coming at us from the uk. Hello. So great to have you here. Cesar's joining us for the first time, which is fantastic. Thank you for joining us. We've got. Jacqueline from my team is here, as well as Angela. So if you guys have other questions that I'm not talking about today, they can always help you out there, too, or refer you to a video where we've probably covered it as well. Okay, so let's see. Jay Mace. Three. Welcome. All right. And Jill's in the UK as well. That's fantastic. Okay. Efren is adding flavor. Love the spice. Yeah, I love it. Writing a book is like going into labor. Well, trust me, it's not. Writing a book is better, but it's all good there. Talk about poetry books, too. I'd love to, but I don't even. I don't write them, I don't read them, and we don't publish them, so I don't have a lot of value to add in the poetry book world. Otherwise, I would talk about them. So I'm sorry, but some of these things are useful in poetry, I'm sure. That's my metaphor. Yeah, that's great. And Southpaw the poet. Hey, we've got a couple poets, it looks like in the house. That's awesome. Thank you. Oh, and we've got Reem from Iraq. Wow, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. We are talking about techniques to help you be a more interesting and engaging writer. These are typically known as literary devices, but if you're like me, you may not have known they had names. Some of them I did know similarly, but the consonants. The first one I talked about, I didn't. All right, so the third one I want to touch on is actually kind of cheating, because I'm going to take it an umbrella category to cover a bunch. But figurative language, and I love similes, uh, and that's why I gave it its own number. But really, any of the figurative language techniques, I think can be very useful in your writing. Metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, symbolism, it's open season. These will all help you make your writing interesting, engaging, even more dramatic, which can really help. I mean, we're talking about nonfiction, but we are all about writing no boring books. And so incorporating some of these things into your writing just makes it so much more interesting for your reader. You know, one example is he has a heart of stone. It's a very common one that's very figurative. So I thought rather than me come up with some examples when I am struggling to have full brain capacity at the moment, I thought we'd turn it over to you folks, and that would be part of our first prize of the day. So give me an example of figurative language that would apply to a subject that you write about. I mean, you can make something up, too. Maybe it's something specific to what we've talked about today. And while you're doing that, giving me an example of figurative language, I'm going to go ahead and do our draw for YouTube. For those of you who don't know if you're new, for those of you who are new, thank you so much for joining us today. And if you comment on the day a video is released, so if you're watching this replay on the same day, you just missed us live. We're sorry we missed you. But you can still comment. And every. Every time you comment on the day a video is released, you get entered to win some of our fabulous swag. And we have our oh, so soft Journal. And we also have our hashtag no boring books mug. So both of these are what we give away to two lucky winners every two weeks when we do our livestream. So I'm just going to have a quick drink of water, and then I'm going to do our draw one of them for our YouTube commenters. Okay. Okay. So drum roll, please, while you guys are typing away there. Our first YouTube Prize winner is. Let's see. And the winner is. Oh, I didn't mean to sound disappointed, but, I mean, it's funny, actually. So backstory on this. This person commented diligently week after week after week after week, trying, trying, trying to win something. And then it seems like we pick his name every single week. So, Kevin 2.0. I actually know he's not on the live stream today, and I also know he is saving up his good karma because he wants to win our next fabulous swag, which we are releasing when we hit 25,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel. So I'm going to go ahead and. Because I know that's what Kevin would have asked me to do. So picking a new name. But congratulations, Kevin. I hope your luck sticks so you can get the cool new swag we've got coming out. All right, our next winner is. Fitness. Yay. I don't know if she's here live, but I know she is pretty diligent about catching all the content because she has a book coming out in October, so she's been so soaking up all our tips. So please, when you find out that you are the winner, email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know if you want the mug or the journal. Congratulations. Okay, so let's see what we've got going on here for figurative language. Okay, here. Oh, you guys have some good ones. All right, Angela, it's going to be up to you. And Jacqueline, can you guys. Oh, goodness. Jacqueline wrote, I'm sorry, I was laughing at Jacqueline's. She said, I knew someone who said, I'm so hungry, I could eat a buttered toilet seat seat. Isn't that fantastic? Oh, if Jacqueline wasn't on my team and didn't already have all our swag, I. I'd be picking that one as the winner today. Oh, my goodness. Okay, let's see. I'll mention a couple others while Angela and Jacqueline pick the winner for this one. Fruit grows in valleys, not mountaintops. Cool. The water shined like a mirror. Oh, I like that one. Let's see. You can't pour from an empty cup Absolutely. Stephen. Hey. You're here randomly. Well, that's great. I'm glad you're randomly here. That's fantastic. And it's so funny. All right, so Angela and Jacqueline, let me know when you've picked a winner. Sorry, I'm still giggling about the better toilet seas. So gross. But see, it sticks in your head. Right? So if you're reading that, wouldn't you stop and think about it and laugh and then keep reading and be happy that you are reading that particular book? Maybe. I'm not sure what context about eating a butter toilet seat really fits with, but he went at, like, a pitbull on. Put pit bull on a pot roast. Ooh. And that also has that kind of the consonant sounds. It also could almost be an alliteration, but I like that for a lot of reasons. Very cool. All right. And hey, Kay, thanks for joining in. All right, so I'll wait for Angela and Jacqueline to come back to us on our winner there. Don't worry. We've got another one for you as another chance to win your own mug. All right, so the fourth technique that we're going to touch on today is called foreshadowing. And foreshadowing should not be something new for anybody here, but I wanted to highlight it. I think you often think about foreshadowing as it pertains to fiction, but I think in nonfiction, it's a great technique, especially for opening up chapters or if you have a particularly long chapter. This is a really, really useful technique just to keep people wanting to keep going in your book. So foreshadowing a course is when you tease the reader that something's going to happen in the future. You know, it's subtle. In fiction, typically, it can be something that you throw back to, you know, you allude to in an early chapter, and then it comes back later in the book. But in nonfiction, it tends to be more direct. You know, really, it's like you're opening a loop in the mind of your reader with the promise that you'll close it later. And open loops really keep the mind wanting to keep, you know, keep reading, keep going. I mean, you see this in television all the time. The open loops, you know, you know, the episode is about to end about five minutes before, you know, when there's a sudden car crash, and you don't know if somebody lived or, you know, some sort of unexpected news is. Is dropped on the main character, you know, and then that's left. They don't. They don't wrap that up for you that's an open loop and it keeps you going. So in nonfiction, a couple of examples, you're, you know, you could start your chapter by telling them why they need to read this chapter. And that's one of the techniques I talk about. There's a YouTube video on starting your chapter in. I think it's four more interesting ways to kind of engage your and you can just start your chapter by saying you are about to learn the single most important step to writing a book that does not bore your reader to tears. Or you could be explaining something, you know, maybe say you Right now you're uncovering the secret to researching keywords. Let me try this again. Right now you're uncovering the secret to researching keywords that will crush your competitor on Amazon. In chapter four, though, you're going to find out how creatively craft your book description to use those same words to sell your book and get the attention of search engines. Something like that. You're teasing the fact that here's what you're learning right now, but we're building on that later. And here's what you're going to learn and why you're going to want to, you know, you're going to learn to crush your competitor and sell your book by using these keywords that you've now learned to find. So that would be another way to kind of foreshadow what's coming in the book and keep them wanting to read it. I think this is easier to do if you are thinking about your reader while you're writing, which is something we're always talking about and always is encouraging you to really think about is, you know, what's in it for the reader? Why do they need to read this section? And if you're always thinking about the reader, I think you'll naturally end up foreshadowing what's coming and why. They need to know that, because you're going to be always thinking about making sure you're delivering on that powerful hook for your reader. And you don't do this constantly because that would get frustrating and annoying. But it's a great technique just to keep people going. And in their minds, they're going to want to know that piece that you've opened up and get back to it. We got one more five, and I got one other one after number five, which is one that I think is overused. But number five is actually my personal favorite, so I saved my personal favorite for last. And there's no reason other than it's just my personal Preference. I don't have scientific study to say this is the best technique. It's just my own personal preference, and I think part of it is my own childhood experience. But this one is great for chapter titles, subtitles, even title of your book, but really like chapter titles and subtitles. This is fantastic. You just don't want to overuse this one because if you do, you can come off as cheesy. But it's alliteration. And I say childhood because my dad, he does it. He says it all the time with my son Jackson now, but when I was a kid, he always said, peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. And his other one was Susie Sells seashells by the seashore. That was her other. His other one that he always, always did. And so I think that's probably why I have a personal preference for alliteration. But it is an engaging thing. And that's where I. Somebody had just given that example of the pit bull. Sorry, I don't remember who had said it. The pit bull on the pot roast. And see, that one catches you too, right? You get that, that sound, that repetition sound. Angela knew it would be alliteration. Yeah, well, I'm a little predict. Or as I like to say it, I'm transparent. Right? So that's. That's surprising. Love, love, love alliteration. See, I'm not the only one. Yay. So let's see, I'll come back to the. The. The chat and try and figure out who won in a second. Let me just make sure I've said all I want to say about that. Oh, no, there was one other thing. So let's hear your best alliteration right now. It's got to be original. No, no copying, you know, Peter Piper, any of those kind of things. And bonus points if you can give me an alliteration that pertains to no boring books. So, like, the five best techniques to beat boring books. So give me your best alliteration attempt around no boring books. I'm going to draw the final YouTube prize, but don't go anywhere. I still have the one that I think is overused. And of course, we're going to do the prizes from the figurative language example as well as this alliteration. So hang on, let me just go over to my names where they are. Let's do the drum roll. All right, here we go. There was a ton, by the way, of people entered into this draw. By far the best ever. So thank you so much for all your comments lately. You guys make My day and my week. It has been so fun to have so much interaction on every video Tuesday and Friday, especially the ones where we had Ben Preston and Robert Bell, who took some time to share their best tips with you. There was tons of comments, so thank so much for that. It means a lot to me, and it really, I think, encourages our other authors to be willing to do those spotlights with me. Okay, so congratulations to. Oh, my goodness, Kevin McGuire. So thank you. Kevin, I don't know if you're here today. I haven't seen you, but usually Kevin's gonna say, draw another name as well. So I'm just gonna assume that's what he's gonna say. And of course, Kevin, if you want some more swag will hook you up. But I think you're probably going to be excited to find out what our new swag is and save your karma for that, too. All right, so I'm drawing again. It's the Kevin day, isn't it? Okay, so. Oh, a new name. All right. MC Room. R H E U A M E. I'm not sure if you're here live today, but if you're checking out this live stream after the fact, just email us@teamokons.com Angela makes a note of the winner, so she'll know that you should be winning a mug or a journal. So just let us know. Make sure you include your mailing address with that. So congratulations, and thank you so much for commenting on the day a video is released. All right, let's see. Okay, so let's see at One Life in which include which prize you want. Okay, so I think that must be who won. I'm just trying to find who won. Okay, we like One Life. Show up. Breathe. What was the. Can you post what the winning alliteration was for me, Angela, so I know what that one was. Awesome, you guys. That's great. I'll just try and scroll up and find it. Oh, there it is. My depression seeped in like drizzle. Slowly and drip by tiny drip. That is a good one. Great. So congratulations, One Life Show Up. Breathe. Email us@teamokers.com and let us know your mailing address and which prize you want. That's awesome. All right, let's see these. No boring books. Alliterations. I love alliterations. Oh. Oh, Caesar, that's a. That's a winner right off the top. All right, first, Derek has boring books breed bad business. Oh, this is good. Caesar says boring books bug me. I like that one. Okay, and. And Jacqueline says Now she wants bread. Did I say it wrong? Boring books, bread, bad business. Or is it breed brat bread? Oh, dear. Okay, I need a little help there. Very boring books are buried. Very boring books. Books can never be boring. All right, those were great. Those were really fun. I'm just scrolling down to see if there's any more here. I'm going to go with Caesar, I think. Unless Jacqueline and Angela see another one there. I think it's supposed to be breed. It is. Okay, so it's supposed to be. Probably supposed to be boring books breed bad business. That's pretty awesome. Okay. All right. Wasn't me. I thought, am I embarrassing myself by not knowing how to pronounce words? And then I'm going to try and pull the Canadian card, but then there's probably somebody else here who's Canadian says, no, that's not how we say it in Canada. Burn boring books. That got dark fast. Good one. All right, you guys are alliteration pros. Those are all my favorite. I do think I'm going to go with Caesar as my winner, so thank you so much, Caesar. Email us@teamokonstrates.com these are all fantastic. Yeah, see, Molly's from Canada, so I can't pull the Canadian card and just say we say. We say bread. Funny here. All right. Oh, hey, Kelly. I'm so glad you made it. It's great to have you here. Okay, so let's dive into my final one, and Angela will answer you. Cesar, just look. Angela will type in the email address, so you know where to email us to get your. All right, so the final one that we're going to touch on today is the one that I think gets overused. Any guesses? What do you guys think might get overused? I mean, there's so many literary devices out there, but there is one that I see in pretty much every book. And some books really go to town using this one all over the place. They use it to start chapters. They use it to start paragraphs. They use it to start to head up chapters. Speakers at conferences also use this one a lot. And yes, it is not a bad thing. I'm not saying don't use this one, just saying use it with similes. Probably get overused. Well, similes was actually my number two favorite. So they could get overused, but I actually don't think enough people use them. Metaphors. I think there's a lot of metaphors. There's certain metaphors that definitely get overused. No, I'm talking rhetorical questions, my friend. Emojis okay, so a rhetorical question, of course, you know what that is. It's a question that's asked for effect. You don't really expect to get an answer. And my. I mentioned this because I've been to a lot of conferences. I used to be in real estate and go to a lot of financial and real estate conferences. And I can't count the number of times somebody stood up on stage and went, do you want to make money? Something like that. And of course we all want to make money. We want money. It's just like, do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be fit? Do you want to be a recognized expert in your industry? Do you want more clients? Do you want me to stop asking questions that I already know the answer to? So I don't really want an answer. So I. And I've seen paragraphs start with, like, five different rhetorical questions. And ultimately, I think there is value in having a couple of rhetorical questions, but they are really, really overused in nonfiction books. So use them sparingly and only use them when the question is going to have a very strong impact. Otherwise, just deliver the tips. Because, let's face it, we know you want to make money. We know you probably want to have more clients, and we know that you probably want to be a recognized expert in your industry, you want to sell more books, all of those kind of things. So just tell me how to do it. You don't need to ask me. But there is a time and a place for rhetorical questions. But I, you know, in my personal experience, I would say that rhetorical questions are largely overused when it comes to nonfiction books. Whew. All right, that's what I had for you today. Thank you so much for being here. If you missed the beginning, just a reminder to mark a couple of really important dates in your calendar. October 17th is our next Deep Dive training. We are talking about all Things Amazon on October 17th. It will be a zoom meeting, so you will need a link to come to that. You will get that link by being a subscriber to our launch letter over@book launchers.com or you can check out the community tab in YouTube. I'll be posting that link in October. And our next livestream where we can do this all again with some more fun prizes, will happen on October 13th. And oh, and by the way, I don't have a firm date for this yet, but we are getting oh, so close to 25,000 subscribers. I think we're just over 1500 subscribers away from that. When we hit 25,000 subscribers, we are having a party and we are also going to be unveiling our new book launcher, swag. This is something that only Angela, who's our executive assistant in charge of operations over at Book Launchers, it's only Angela and I know what it is. Nobody else on our Book Launchers team knows what Our super secret 25,000 subscriber swag is going to be. So we'll be unveiling it. I'll be drawing. I'll be drawing a couple of names from my YouTube besties list. So you know those folks that I give a shout out occasionally, then say thank you for being my bestie for always commenting on the videos and liking and sharing. So those folks, I'll be drawing from a couple of their names because they've likely won all the swag already. And then we'll also be drawing from a couple of folks who join us for that big live stream party. And of course, there'll be books and other prizes as well, all to celebrate 25,000 subscribers. So if you aren't already subscribed, make sure you do that and tell your friends so we can hit 25,000 subscribers much faster. All right, thank you again so much for being here today. Yes. And Jacqueline's agreeing with me about the endless rhetorical questions. All right. It was great to see some new faces here and of course, all of you that always join. I appreciate you so much. We'll see you again in two weeks. All right, bye.