A Video Teaser from HOW TO WRITE A SERIES

I got the video to work. The solution: I took it off WordPress, which was eating the video player code.

Here’s The Video

This is a short excerpt from the beginning of the HOW TO WRITE A SERIES class. I hope you enjoy it.

And in case you were wondering, I drew the mindmap. 😀

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By Holly

Novelist, writing teacher, on a mission to reprint my out-of-print books and indie-publish my new ones.

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Tracy Lucas
10 years ago

Been trying to find the video here, and can’t get anything but a “file not found” page. Granted, I’m (very) late to the party, but I’m interested in buying the “How To Write a Series” course and wanted to check this out first. Any tips?

Bill Tillman
Bill Tillman
12 years ago

Ok, Holly put it up on my Facebook page. 8-=)

Bill Tillman
Bill Tillman
Reply to  Holly
12 years ago

Holly,

You didn’t do it Holly I did, by linking my You Tube acct. with Facebook I just inserted a copy onto my page to give you some extra coverage.

Bill

koldham
koldham
Reply to  Bill Tillman
12 years ago

i did the whole likey thing xD love promoting links i like.

Kelly.

Samsudin Bachtarysev
Samsudin Bachtarysev
12 years ago

HI
Sorry me English bad.I wil publish a book the is Chechen people.His book writing
russian Can you Holly help me.
Thank you
Samsudin

koldham
koldham
Reply to  Samsudin Bachtarysev
12 years ago

Chechen? That sounds like an interesting topic, but do you mean you want to translate it from Russian? I think your best bet there is to either take further classes in English so you can translate, or to pay for someone to do it for you.

Holly’s courses are to give you guidance on how to create novels, how to structure them and various other skills that are imperative to good novel writing. To my knowledge, she doesn’t actually do ‘English’ classes though, they really work under the assumption that you have good literacy skills to begin with.

If you can understand English text, then the courses would still be really useful as I’m sure you can apply the skills you learn regardless of the language you write in.

Hope this answers your question and good luck with your novel.

Kelly.

Elmi
12 years ago

You rock Holly, as always. Will definitely recommend it, but writing a book is already a big enough challenge for me, I’d rather just focus on finishing ONE and not think of writing a whole bunch of them. But once I’ve passed that specific hurdle, I’m in 🙂

Rebecca Anne
Rebecca Anne
12 years ago

Hi Holly I don’t know whether the second video is another teaser or not but I can’t find the link.

Danzier
Danzier
12 years ago

I did the “It’s broken, download it and then play it” routine when this was first posted, and I was simultaneously shocked and excited to find that the “teaser” was a nice 20-minute video! Unfortunately, I didn’t save it, so I came to download it again, and the fixed version is maybe 2 minutes, introduction only.

Chalk me up as one more on the “guaranteed sale when the money is here” list. 😀

Penny
Penny
12 years ago

is this do-able at your own pace? I would love to take this course after I’ve finished with this semester in school.

Victor
12 years ago

Wow, Holly, I’ve been waiting for this course to come along. You don’t know the mountain of frustration I’ve been climbing for a year and a half trying to figure out everything your course is teaching–ALL ON MY OWN!!

::breathes::

Thanks!

V.

Lee
Lee
12 years ago

I was actually being facetious about trying to watch it on my Droid. I really didn’t expect it to work anyway, but guess what? I was highly surprised and impressed that it did indeed run flawlessly.

Kudos on pulling *that* rabbit out of the hat.

As for the clip: freakin’ eerie how you clearly explained the thought process behind me creating my series (currently writing book 3 now) that I had no conscious knowledge of.

Definitely looking forward to getting into the course.

…Freakin’ eerie…

Esther P.
12 years ago

Holly,

That teaser was great. It seems like a professional and informative how-to with an easy to approach interface. I only wish that I could afford it, being a sixteen year old with no pocket money except for that penny I picked up five minutes ago!

PolarBear
12 years ago

That’s a teaser! 😉

henya
henya
12 years ago

Thanks for the great info. (Still trying to digest 192…)

Jim
Jim
Reply to  henya
12 years ago

192 comes about because it is the product of the number of choices in each category multiplied by each other: (4 Character choices) x (4 Connections choices) x (3 Time choices) x (4 World choices). 192 is the number of combinations, sure, but at any one time, the number I would deal with is, rather obviously, one – one combination.

Another way to look at it might be to say that the significant number involved is 4, the total number of categories – Characters, Connections, Time, and World. There are some number of choices in each category, but there are only ever four categories.

Danzier
Danzier
Reply to  Jim
12 years ago

I look at it as a chart, with each catagory holding the contents of the remaining catagories. It reminds me of this poem (which was in a children’s poetry book I had as a kid, before I paid attention to who wrote things…):

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks;
Each sack had seven cats.
Each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives…
How many were going to St. Ives?

(Spoiler Alert!)

Just me.

Danzier
Danzier
Reply to  Holly
12 years ago

I have a piece of software called Dramatica that I mess with when my muse doesn’t want to talk to me. According to the developers, it has 32,768 types of story that you can pick using that software…so 192 types of series somehow didn’t seem like enough. 😀

Danzier
Danzier
Reply to  Danzier
12 years ago

I got the free trial version, actually read the theory book beginning to end, tried using the software, and tanked. It’s fun to mess with, but useless for writing. Especially when you can’t even save. Plus, some of the stuff in the theory book was poorly defined, and I should have stopped at the third “typo”. Caveat emptor indeed.

Cher Gorman
12 years ago

It works fine now. Thank you. Great teaser!

Cher

Brian
Brian
Reply to  Holly
12 years ago

I’ve found that if you paste something into the html editor, it’s best to publish it from there without going back into the visual editor. The visual editor tries to “help” by reformatting, and screws up a good percentage of the time.

Lee
Lee
12 years ago

Well maybe I’m not supposed to be trying to watch it on a Droid (too lazy to get out of bed and power up the PC), but it just sits there too.

Walter Kraus
Walter Kraus
12 years ago

Have also difficulties playing. Any chance of putting it on you tube?

Tristano
12 years ago

Windows XP SP3, Internet Explorer 8: Video doesn’t play (only download).

Kelly Oldham
Kelly Oldham
12 years ago

192 types? Wow. Once I’m all caught up on my diploma work, and actually do the courses I’ve already signed up for… then I think I will have to do this one. Thanks for sharing. 😀

Tea Jay Dorian
12 years ago

Hello Ms. Lisle,
That’s an interesting video! I’d like to see more stuff like this. 🙂

Also I have a question: is it “bad” if my book seems to have all of these character categories going on at once? It’s written in first person, mostly from the view of a single character, which I suppose makes it “the loner.” BUT, it also has a small circle of about 6 people who are (I think?) “bullet-proof: they often get in these terrifying, dangerous predicaments, get injured and upset and it looks like they might die–but they don’t. On top of this, there’s a larger circle of people (less important characters) who are “fair game” and will randomly get picked off.

AND, on top of all this, the world is a major factor that links everything together–it’s the Dream Realm, where humans go when they sleep–and then it starts to bleed into the human world and there are all kinds of global changes as the two worlds merge. (If not for the MC, I think this would totally be a “world” book).

So…is this bad? Do you think having a character set-up like this make the book confused, or …?

Thanks, and sorry for the long comment! 😀
~Tea Jay Dorian

Felicia Fredlund
Reply to  Tea Jay Dorian
12 years ago

Hi Tea!

If you go the course you’ll know that what you probably have (only you can decide) is a world character with a fair game cast, which have a few bullet-proof characters. At least that’s what it sounds like to me. Since this is a teaser I shouldn’t say too much, but that was my impression. 🙂

Tea Jay Dorian
Reply to  Felicia Fredlund
12 years ago

Hey Felicia,
Thanks for the input. I have a question though–“go the course”? Do you mean she has a course on this? If so, is it free? Is it online? (I’m hoping both!)

Tea Jay Dorian
Reply to  Holly
12 years ago

Hi Holly,
Thanks for clearing that up! Now I get it. ^^

And yeah, the protagonist himself is totally a loner-type. He’s always angsty and trying to get his pushy, enthusiastic friends to leave him alone. XD

Silverbill
Silverbill
12 years ago

Holly,

Great teaser!

Bill

Laurel
Laurel
12 years ago

Great teaser, Holly. Timely, too: Looks like my two NaNo winners might be the beginning of a series. Thanks for posting!

Carolyne
Carolyne
12 years ago

Won’t work for me either.

Jim
Jim
12 years ago

Download? OK, it works, but that is _not_ intuitive. And one should not have to download the video to get it to play. It really should just start playing by hitting the “play” icon in the middle of the screen. If it doesn’t (and it doesn’t), I think Ms. Lisle wasted her $127 on EasyVideoPlayer 2.

Kenneth Pennington
Kenneth Pennington
12 years ago

Hit download and go from there. It works

Eva
Eva
12 years ago

Doesn’t play for me either. I’ll try to download.

Lee Pletzers
12 years ago

Didn’t work for me either, so I clicked the download button. Very interesting, Holly

melissa
melissa
12 years ago

when you said teaser – you weren’t kidding!!!!
🙂

Paige
Paige
12 years ago

Cool!

Cher Gorman
12 years ago

The video won’t work for me. I hit play and nothing happens….

Cher

Sally R
Sally R
12 years ago

So I love this premise…do you have a course on writing scripts–documentary or reality based specifically. I am VERY interested in taking that course. Pls let me know!

Maladicta
Maladicta
12 years ago

Played like a dream after that handy little hint. 😉

A very enthralling teaser. and you have such a lovely ‘reading’ voice. I’m feeling very calm and happy now. Now I want to do the course!

Lee
Lee
Reply to  Holly
12 years ago

I enjoyed the video too. I stumbled onto it after you fixed it, so I had no problems. 🙂 And I have to agree with Maladicta (hmm, interesting): you do have a lovely speaking voice. I’m looking forward to doing this one…as soon as I finish the free plot outline course. I’m such a beginner. Been writing a long time but mostly short stuff, poetry, songs, reviews–NaNoWriMo and WriDaNoJu wins. (If by win you mean, reached the 50k word goal, and nothing more!)

Over time I plan to take all your courses, Holly. I’ve been a fan of your writing diaries for years. Your wit, humor and generosity are inspiring. And your intelligence is, well, refreshing! You help me relax and encourage me to face the blank screen and get to dreaming, scheming and, yes, screaming. On occasion. Not at you. At me. At power surges. At silly mistakes. At software. At “help” files provided with software. You know how it is.

Thank you, Holly, for all you do for writers–aspiring or experienced veterans–everywhere.

Nicole Bedford
Nicole Bedford
12 years ago

Definitely not playing.

Hauckston
Hauckston
12 years ago

I love the teaser… just have to finish a couple of other courses. Thank you for including me, Holly!

Bonnie
Bonnie
12 years ago

Lovely little teaser – great Mind Map!! have you got one for ‘Revising your Novel’? Played out on Mac OSX 10.6, Firefox 3.6.13., without any problems, must be my lucky day.

claudia c
claudia c
12 years ago

Oh, i see..you have to download it onto your computer and then open. That´s the trick!

Brian Lilly
Brian Lilly
12 years ago

Click at the bottom of the screen where it says download and then hit run and it works fine that way. Hitting the play button on the original screen does not work

KittyB78
KittyB78
12 years ago

Same here. I press play and nothing happens. Windows ME, Firefox 3.6. 13.

claudia c
claudia c
12 years ago

Ditto for me, but it looks like a lot of fun!!

K. Britton
K. Britton
12 years ago

I can’t get the video to work for me either.

Windows Vista
Google Chrome

Gary Speer
12 years ago

Nope. I can’t get the video to play either. I’m using Chrome browser on a Windows 7 machine.

althea preston
althea preston
12 years ago

It’s not playing for me either.

Windows XPSp3
Firefox 3.6.13
All plugins up to date.
I too click the play button but nothing happens

R. Canepa
12 years ago

Hmm, I can’t seem to get the video to play. Mac OSX 10.6, Firefox 3.6.13. I even restarted the browser. Click the play button and it just sits there.

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