Do Some Great Research--On Your Characters!

Your book has a major and minor cast, whether you're writing fiction, memoir, or nonfiction. People move stories, illustrate theories and ideas, and rumble in the background of all great literature. It's up to you, the writer, to get to know them.

This week, interview your main players. Find out some important details about them. You can start with the questions below, which I use whenever I need to get deeper into my story and the motivation of my players.

1. What’s your height, weight, eye color, hair color?
2. What do you like or dislike about your looks?
3. How old are you really?
4. How do you feel about your age?
5. What three things are in your refrigerator?
6. What sort of work do you do?

7. What’s your favorite possession?

Just take good notes. Be a researcher for your own book. You might learn some new things!

How to Start a Law Firm | Marketing

In the last few posts I've discussed starting a law firm blog, how to get your legal blog noticed on Google, and starting a law firm marketing generally.

Once again, if you haven't considered building an internet presence for your law firm, or don't think it is important, think again. An internet presence can do three things for you easily and cheaply that can't be done anywhere else:

(1) establish you as an expert in your niche;

(2) build a relationship of trust with your clients before they meet with you (everyone checks the web now for information); and

(3) provide a marketing vehicle that is quickly overtaking all others out there.

Assuming you've already followed my earlier advice and started a law firm blog and started optimizing your law blog for Google, you may notice that people still aren't finding your site. Or that it is taking a long time and you still can't even find your site on Google. The reason for this is that the way that Google determines which pages it puts at the top has a little bit to do with optimizing your blog, but it has a lot to do with a separate factor called backlinks.

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks are a term of art meaning all of the links from other sites pointing to your site. I think I touched on this briefly in one of my last posts by emphasizing the need to link to previous blog posts whenever you put up a new post. This provides backlinks to your older posts (which are separate webpages and will show up on Google as their own page) free and easy. The reason Google loves backlinks for determining the ranking of pages on its site is simple: Google is interested in content. They want to make sure the sites that provide the information people are looking for are highest up on its pages.

Google has figured out that one of the best ways to do this is to see how many links a particular web site has pointing to it, and looking at the keywords embedded in the link. The more links a site has pointing to it with relevant keywords, the more authority it must have out there in the real world. This is important for your law firm marketing efforts, because the more people see you, the better.

Let's look at this site, "How to Start a Law Firm," as an example. Google crawls this site every once in a while to see what the content is and what the keywords are to try to find out what it is about. By scanning, it can find out that this site is most likely about how to start a law firm. But then as I've gotten links (both by building them myself, and through others), Google becomes sure of what my site is about, and becomes more confident that I know what I'm talking about (why would people link to me if I wasn't saying anything interesting?).

Certain sites have linked to me that are law sites, and the link to my site says some variation of "how to start a law firm." Google then assumes I have some authority on this and puts me near the top of the rankings. Right now I rank #7 on Google for how to start a law firm. The same would be true with a site providing divorce advice for men, how to stop wage garnishment, or any other information relating to the law.

To take it one step further, after Google crawls this post it will probably start to think I am moving toward law firm marketing. It has seen phrases like law firm marketing, how to market your law firm, building a law firm internet presence, and information on how to get legal clients from the internet. Pretty soon it will start thinking that this is what this site is about and start ranking me high for that search term.

If you can't tell by now, backlinks are the key to getting your legal website or blog traffic. You want Joe Citizen to type into Google Seattle DUI attorney and have your site come up number one (the first spot gets something on the average of 60% of clicks - it pays to be number 1).

Now that you know how important backlinks are to your success as an internet lawyer marketer, the next question should be, how do I get backlinks to my law blog or website? The answer to that question will come next.

How to Start a Law Firm | Google Ranking

I've already discussed in recent posts starting a law firm blog and optimizing your law firm website. When I was learning this stuff, however, examples were always more helpful than theory (kind of like the practice of law itself). So I've decided to put together a little example, so once you've decided to start a law firm you can actually get clients to call you.

Before I begin with my example, I would point out that this site is a great example of how to get ranked pretty highly on Google. If you will notice, how to start a law firm or some slight variation is embedded in almost all of my blog titles. This immediately helps Google recognize what this site is about. The name of my site also deals with that, as does each and every post.

In fact, I'd almost bet you got here by searching Google for "how to start a law firm" or some variation (there is another way that maybe I'll discuss in my next post). This process is called search engine optimization (SEO).

If you were like me, you are probably asking yourself, what is SEO? All it is is making your site look the best it can so Google knows what your site is about and gets other people to it.

On to the example. There is a guy out there, we'll call him John, who wants to be an Albany accident lawyer. So, the first thing he does is set up a website, including, if he can his three targeted keywords: (1) Albany; (2) accident; and (3) attorney. This will insure that the Google bot will immediately have an idea of what his site is about - it's in the name.

The next thing you'd do, and this is something people often miss, is to make sure your heading details what you want. The heading is the thing that pops up at the very top left hand side of your screen whenever you go to a web page. For example, www.google.com has Google there. For your site, to get clients to your legal website, to maximize your law firm website marketing, you'd want to get at least your three keywords in there.

The next thing you'd want to do is, particularly for your legal blog, is put some posts up that are on topic and use your keywords. The Seattle DUI attorney might have posts on why you need an attorney if you are involved in an DUI in Seattle, or things to look for in a Seattle DUI defense lawyer, or even the first five things you must do if you are pulled over by the cops in Seattle. Do not stuff the keywords - make them a part of the article, but consciously be inserting them as you write. And every once in a while bold the words you want (but not too much - once or twice is plenty) and link your keywords (and variations) back to your main page and then to older posts as you build them up.

For example, I've written about how to create a legal blog here in the past, so I have linked back to those posts, both because Google likes that, and because it makes it easier for readers to find my old posts. The times moving forward when I discuss starting a law firm with no money, drafting a law firm business plan, or naming your law firm, I'll link back to those posts too.

Keeping these factors in mind will greatly help you increase your legal web presence and sign up more clients. Google loves this stuff, and if you want to rank high on Google, you have to play their game. Next, more on getting backlinks to your legal blog or website.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or comments, I'd love to hear them.

Disguises and Masks: A Great Way to Understand and Uncover Your Book's Characters

What's behind the veil? If everyone in literature wears a disguise or mask that veils their true self, what are your book's major players hiding behind?

This week's writing exercise asks you to unmask these folks through a series of nitty-gritty questions. Spend about 20-30 minutes on this exercise, if you can. Be prepared to dig and learn!

Pick one of your characters and write an answer to one of these questions, as if you were interviewing them.

1. What broke your heart?

2. What do people who know you think of you?

3. Who would you eliminate from your life?

4. What do you wish never happened to you?

Mixing Things Up--A Recipe to Break the Block

Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby, once taught a very effective exercise in a writing class I attended. She had three lists on the whiteboard: people, different ages (such as 13 year old, 2 year old), and different objects. She asked us to choose one from each list and write a scene.

I loved it. It led to the pivotal theme for my new novel, Qualities of Light, which will be published in 2009 by Spinsters Ink.

Here's an adaptation of Alison's idea. You can try it this week, if you want. It's very effective for getting out of a writing rut.

Set a timer for 20 minutes. Write a scene that takes place in one of these places:

in a bus stop shelter in downtown Minneapolis

at O'Hare's airport security

streetside cafe in Gordes, France

laundromat in Gillette, Wyoming

riverside picnic area

Where there's an argument about one of these objects:

penknife

silver coin

piece of sea glass

diaper

cell phone that doesn't work

Mix them up--one from each list--and see what happens!

A Great Exercise from Listen to Me's Lynn Lauber

In her excellent book on writing craft, Listen to Me, memoirist Lynn Lauber writes: "If you find yourself telling the same story over and over, but in a way you don't find satisfying, try changing person or point of view."

I've used this technique to get a new viewpoint on my characters, especially when I feel the icy chill of writer's block.

Try it right now. Take a story you know well, from your life or your writing, and tell it from someone else's point of view. Tell it anew, seen from your dog's eyes. Or your grandfather's. Or, instead of the fictional character Jason's, try his partner Monique's. Write for 20 minutes or two pages' worth. See what happens when you break out of the known voice or view.

Can you catch a new image of where the writing could go from here?

Slowing Down--and Engaging the Creative Brain?

Sometimes the best writing comes when we're slow, dreamy, not thinking about accomplishing anything. Does this happen to you?

Maybe it's because the right brain engages, that non-linear side of our creative selves. This week, I spent many lovely hours immersed in a book that talks about this right-brain gift to creative folks: My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Dr. Taylor is a brain scientist who wrote about having a left-brain stroke that changed her entire way of being in the world. Suddenly without any linear perception or abilities, she came to appreciate the "wholeness" of her right-brain self. Of course, we need both sides of ourselves to function, but in today's world, we tend to use one or the other predominantly.

Open a blank document right now, on your computer, or in your writer’s notebook—wherever you’re reading this post. Call it Random Right-Brain Ideas. Begin a list of ten things you think of, smell or hear, see as you look around your room or office.

Sometime later today—or right now, if you can—set a timer for 20 minutes and pick one of these to write about. Do a “freewrite” where you don’t edit, just let yourself go into slowness and see what’s hanging out there.

Later, look at the writing and ask yourself how it connects to anything important in your life, a question you’ve been wondering about. Or your writing project?