What’s the secret to writing a widely successful book? Author Kristina Stanley has discovered the secret, and she’s developed a software to help other writers do the same. On this episode of the ROI Online Podcast, Steve chats with Kristina about her personal writing journey, how she became an entrepreneur, and the truth about how difficult it really is to write a good book.
Kristina and her husband of 30 years love sailing. But, as they sailed through the Caribbean, she found she needed more than just pretty scenery to keep her brain occupied. She read one of her favorite books, “Moonlight Becomes You” by Mary Higgens Clark, and decided she wanted to write her own novel. She pulled from her love of mystery novels and finished her first manuscript, “Avalanche.”
The process, it turns out, was much more difficult than she had imagined. Not only do you have to keep track of all the characters in the story, but you also have to make sure the story is fundamentally sound. The characters, setting, and plot all have to be intentional, crystal clear, and connected. It took a lot of hard work to turn her ideas into engaging books, but her connection with other established authors, support from her husband, and love of the craft kept her going.
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Two books later, Kristina found an agent and a publisher. Her debut novel, Descent, hit no. 1 on Amazon’s Hot New Releases in one week. The following books in her Stone Mountain Mystery trilogy, Blaze and Avalance, soon followed. As she worked on her next novel, her husband saw the way she organized her book in an Excel document and thought, “There’s got to be a better way.” When he found there weren’t any tools to help writers visualize, organize, and improve their manuscripts, he and Kristina decided to make their own.
After eight years of research, Kristina and her husband created Fictionary.co, an innovative editing software that helps writers tell the best stories possible. Writers plug in their manuscript and the AI software determines the book’s 38 Fictionary Story Elements, determined by universal storytelling principles. These elements are key to all fiction stories and similar to Donald Miller’s StoryBrand Framework, which has helped businesses apply the age-old concept of storytelling to their marketing.
Kristina has used Fictionary.co for two of her books now. Look the Other Way, The first book she published edited with the software was her “best book” by far in terms of profit. During the process, she also saw the benefits Fictionary.co could provide for editors: how it can help them become better, more rounded editors while providing their writers with even more value. Her dream is to have more editing agencies become Fictionary Certified Story Coach Companies.
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You can learn more about Kristina and Fictionary.co here:
https://fictionary.co/
https://twitter.com/TheStoryEditor
https://fictionary.co/
https://kristinastanley.com/
Here are the links to Kristina's books on Amazon:
Descent (A Stone Mountain Mystery)
Look the Other Way
Read Don Miller’s book, Building a StoryBrand.
And to get your own copy of The Golden Toilet, click the link below:
https://amzn.to/2X3NKlB
Available for FREE when you sign up for a 30-Day Trial Membership with Audible.
