#actually you should just read everything aida has written

[noxarcanaart]

critical hit 💥

[ for @aidaronan to go wtih her fic 🔞 ]

[eggsaladstain]

Gender Done Right: An Agents of SHIELD Retrospective

I’ve written a lot of metas about Agents of SHIELD, but there’s one topic I haven’t covered at all, and that’s gender. If you’ve read my previous metas, you know it will take me approximately 10,758 words to make my point, so here’s the TL:DR version: 

Agents of SHIELD has a legitimately great and nuanced representation of gender, and honestly, most other shows should take notes. 

Let’s dive right in.

At its most basic level, traditional gender roles dictate that men are strong and women are weak. That men are loud and women are quiet. That men are aggressive and women are passive. 

To subvert this, most shows just do the opposite and give us strong women and/or soft men. This is fine. It’s better than nothing, and it’s a good start. But what Agents of SHIELD has done, subtly and over the course of 5 seasons, is twofold:

1. It subverts traditional gender roles by showing us that women can be strong and aggressive and men can be the opposite. And more importantly,

2. It shows us different types of strength in both women and men.

I’ll start with the women.

The way this show treats women can be summed up in one sentence: females are strong as hell. This quote is so overused but it is honestly the most accurate way to describe the female characters on this show. They are badasses, plain and simple, each and every one of them. 

There’s Melinda May, our OG warrior with a tragic backstory, who is strong alone but even stronger with the team, who becomes a mentor and quite literal tiger mom, fighting with the ferocity of a tiger protecting its cubs. There’s Daisy Johnson, our beautiful orphan butterfly who came out of her Mary Sue cocoon and became a full-fledged superhero, who found a family of her own and willingly steps into the spotlight to keep them safe. There’s Jemma Simmons, our lady of science and (increasingly) bad girl shenanigans, who stitches up her friends, who survived a hostile alien world, who never gave up on Fitz despite witnessing everything he did in the Framework. There’s Yoyo Rodriguez, our fast talking, slingshotting speedster, who first used her power to fight a corrupt government and continues to protest injustice. There’s Bobbi Morse, our lethal ninja with great hair, who embodies all the values of SHIELD, who ultimately said goodbye to her friends to protect them. 

But it’s not just in the main cast that we see truly incredible and memorable women. This is carried through to the villains and supporting cast as well. Raina was a complex and manipulative not-quite-villain. Jiaying was a kind mother who became ruthless in her attempt to protect the Inhumans. Ellen Nadeer was ruthless in her attempt to protect humans. Rosalind Price was the head of the ATCU and truly wanted to do right by both humans and Inhumans. AIDA wanted to be human and pretty much hated it once she actually became human, and honestly, that’s one of the most relatable things we’ve seen on this show. Akela Amador, Anne Weaver, Victoria Hand, Isabelle Hartley, and Piper were all skilled and dedicated SHIELD agents. Audrey Nathan was a normal cellist who worked with SHIELD to help take down her superpowered stalker. Hope Mackenzie was the cutest little mini-Mack. Kara Palamas and Tess both deserved better, but they were also both great portrayals of women who survived terrible things and did terrible things but were still able to maintain their humanity through it all.

What’s great about this show is that it doesn’t just give us strong women. It gives us an incredibly diverse range of women who are each strong in their own ways, whether they’re physically strong or book smart or street smart or clever or gentle or resilient, whether they’re heroes or villains, whether they’re onscreen every episode or in just one for 5 minutes. This is representation at its finest. 

Now, let’s talk about the men. 

You could have the strongest female characters in the world, but if the men are still garbage, it wouldn’t really matter. Luckily, Agents of SHIELD has, for the most part, done an equally good job with its male representation. Let’s not forget that this is an action-adventure/sci-fi show, which, in my experience, tends to uphold pretty traditional stereotypes of the alpha male lone wolf type with all its associated hypermasculinity and violence. To its credit, Agents of SHIELD has gone in pretty much the opposite direction from the genre by criticizing and discrediting toxic masculinity at every opportunity. 

If you look at our core group of male characters, they are, by and large, not the typical alpha male. Honestly, most of them are straight up dorks. Coulson may be the team leader, but he’s less of an imposing authority figure and more of a tired dad who can’t keep track of all his kids. Fitz is a scientist who likes monkeys and wears cardigans, uses technology to help people, not hurt them. Mack looks macho but he’s one of the most patient and gentle characters on the team. Lincoln was just a med student who reluctantly joined SHIELD because of Daisy. Hunter is the class clown. Radcliffe was a bit of a mad scientist who eventually became a dorky dad to Fitz.  

And again, we see this diversity in our supporting and recurring cast as well. Trip was a skilled agent but we saw him flashing that mega-watt smile more often than fighting. Mike Peterson had powers but just wanted to be with his kid. Talbot starts out at Coulson’s adversary, then frenemy, then straight up BFF all while maintaining the dorkiest facial hair of all time. The Koenigs were equal parts SHIELD agents and fanboys. Cal Johnson was another dorky dad. Andrew Garner was a mild-mannered psychologist who liked to talk a lot about feelings.

Even the characters who do exhibit alpha male tendencies have other qualities that keep them from going into full alpha territory. Mace is a charismatic leader in a position of power, but he’s also big on teamwork and cheesy inspirational posters, which is directly at odds with the lone wolf stereotype. Robbie Reyes is aggressive and violent and he’s a lone wolf as the Ghostrider, but in his personal life, he’s just a man trying to take care of his younger brother.

Ward is our stereotypical alpha male, but the show makes it pretty clear that he’s not an aspirational character. We saw how he was raised with a very toxic perspective of masculinity, how he learned under Garrett’s wing that love is a weakness, and as a result, was unable to form real human connections even though that was what he desperately wanted. On the flip side, in the Framework, we saw the positive impact Victoria Hand had on his life, and how negative influences instead turned Fitz into a villain.

This is so important, you guys, the combination of strong female characters and genuinely supportive male characters and the very clear message that toxic masculinity is damaging and dangerous.

Which brings me to my second point. It’s not enough to just see strong women and soft men. It’s just as important to see women and men who are strong without feeding into toxic stereotypes of strength and power. It’s just as important to see women and men who are embraced and welcomed for their compassion and empathy.

Coulson is very much an everyman hero, who truly wants to make the world a better place, who inspires others around him to do the same. May is one of the best fighters on the team, but she carries a lot of guilt over her decision to kill a young girl, and is still learning how to find peace. Daisy has gained superpowers and but it’s not just her powers that give her strength, it’s the support of the team around her, her family. Fitz has literally gone to the ends of the earth for his friends, and is now tapping into his new-found dark side to protect his loved ones without letting the darkness consume him. Simmons is a healer by nature and helps those in need with empathy and understanding, but she’s also capable of picking up a knife and cutting a bitch when necessary. Bobbi is truly dedicated to SHIELD and its cause, but she doesn’t hesitate to walk away when she realizes she has become a liability to the team. Hunter cracks jokes 99% of the time but always comes through for his friends when they really need him, even if it’s with an exploding helicopter and ferrets. Yoyo is fast and impulsive, especially when it comes to saving a life. Mack is the emotional rock of the team who stands strong in times of crisis, but is also open in his own grief and heartache over the loss of his daughter.  

Each of these characters adheres to some aspect of traditional gender roles, but each character pulls from both masculine and feminine traits. 

When I think about these characters at their best, this is what I remember:

Coulson refusing to give up on Akela Amador and proclaiming that they are not agents of nothing

May holding the full Berserker, mentoring Daisy, and LMD May blowing herself up to save Daisy and Simmons

Daisy literally moving a mountain, tag team destroying a robot with Robbie, and promising to watch over Gabe

Simmons helping Vijay Nadeer through Terrigenesis and helping Abby control her powers

Fitz protecting Daisy after she first got her powers and jumping into a portal to an alien world to bring Simmons home

Mack befriending a socially withdrawn Fitz and forgiving Daisy after she almost killed him

Yoyo immediately using her powers for good to help her community

There are so many ways to be strong, and this show has done and continues to do a really great job demonstrating that, in both men and women. 

This show is not perfect, I’ll be the first to admit that. There have been a lot of missteps along the way, but I’m really so glad I stuck with it, because season 5 is such a treat. No, there aren’t any pink pussy hats, no tshirts emblazoned with the words “nasty woman,” and these characters haven’t discussed sexual harassment or the gender pay gap. But it is unabashedly feminist. Not so much in words, but in actions, in the way these characters are written. On this show, women aren’t confined to traditional stereotypes of femininity, but there’s actually nothing wrong with those traditional female roles. On this show, men aren’t bound by traditional views of masculinity, but at its core, there’s nothing wrong with masculinity either. 

What a concept. What a show.

Agents of SHIELD. 

Come for the plot, stay for the A+ character development.

[aftgonice]

What I would like to know: are there any operas you could recommend? :)

*cracks fingers*

I’m SO glad you asked :D

Some boring disclaimers first:

Obviously not everything works for everybody and this is a list of personal favorites or operas that are usually recommended for getting started to the opera world.

Be aware that some of these might have trigger warnings but I haven’t been able to find a list and I don’t feel comfortable trying to label the warnings myself. They also depend a lot on the scenes and direction used in any particular production. So if you’re afraid of a particular trigger being present in one of the operas I list here, feel free to send me an ask and I’ll try to answer you.

I honestly can’t write much about every single rec I write here as far as plot and music goes. I’ll include YouTube links to the full opera if I can find it - some of them won’t have English subtitles but I tried my best. Google has all the translated librettos anyway so a quick search should do. Also, I haven’t seen some of versions I’m linking so I can’t always guarantee that they’re the best ones but often it’s just the best I could find. (Also let me know if the links don’t work because every country has different copyright laws)

And let me just say that regardless of what you want to see, the best thing for starting out would probably be find a theater next to you and go see something live.

Let’s start wit my personal Holy Trinity brought to you by the amazing duo Mozart - Da Ponte. Basically what you need to know about these three operas is that they’re the best in the whole world. They’re all in Italian and Da Ponte was the best librettista ever and a really interesting person, but I digress.

Le nozze di Figaro

From the French play La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais (I read it a bit in French and the opera’s libretto seems very similar). It’s clever and funny and the music is obviously glorious, but that goes for everything that comes out of Mozart (and Da Ponte). 

Don Giovanni

This is my most favorite opera and composition forever and ever. The protagonist is amazing and is one of the best and most iconic anti-heroes of the whole literature and everyone should watch it at least once in their life. The version I linked was the best one I could find in video even though I think some of the tempo is weird (too slow at times and too fast at other times :/), but here’s my favorite recording of it.

Così fan tutte

Contrary to the other two above, this is an original story by Da Ponte and it Does Not Disappoint. The plot is so modern and you wouldn’t think it was written in 1789.

Let’s move on to my second favorite opera composer: Gioachino Rossini. He’s done both opere buffe (funny) and dramatic ones. He’s done operas both in Italian and in French but the ones I’m linking are all in Italian. I’m more into his comedies than the tragic ones and I also think they’re a better rec for someone who’s just starting out, but anyway here’s a short list in popularity order:

Il barbiere di Siviglia

The plot is actually a prequel to Le Nozze di Figaro, so some of the characters are the same. There’s a couple popular pieces that everyone has heard at some point in their lives.

La Cenerentola

Literally “Cinderella”. There’s a few differences from the original story and the Disney one that everyone knows (even though this one by Rossini has been my “original” Cinderella since I never watched that cartoon as a kid lmao).

L’italiana in Algeri

This opera is so funny and so underrated but it has some of the best comical situations in the whole history of opera.

Il viaggio a Reims

This one is really funny too -it has a couple more serious parts but overall it’s just pure fun from start to finish. 

Let’s move on to my third fave, Gaetano Donizetti. He’s done so many but to start out I’m only going to rec two:

Lucia di Lammermoor

This is a dramatic one but it’s one the best and most popular ones from its time period. It has one of the most iconic examples of belcanto and even if you don’t want to see the whole opera you should just listen to this scene followed by this one because boy can the human voice do some amazing things!

L’Elisir d’amore

Probably his most famous opera buffa, it’s really popular and for a good reason. I personally love some parts but I’ve seen it too many times to really want to listen to it on my own again, but it’s a really good choice for starting out.

I noticed my favorites also follow a chronological order, so I’ll just continue following the same order with a couple more recs from popular composers:

Georges Bizet:

Carmen

The only French opera from this list lol, I love it so freaking much and it might not be the easiest opera to start with but there’s at least a couple of pieces that you should definitely listen to.

Giuseppe Verdi:

La Traviata

Probably one of the most popular dramatic operas out there. Not my favorite, but a really good start if you’re new to this world.

Macbeth

Yep, like the Shakespeare one. It’s actually my favorite opera by Verdi even though it’s not his most popular one. It’s dark and Lady Macbeth is a fucking badass.

Rigoletto

Inspired by Le Roi s'amuse by Hugo but eh, not really my favorite one either, but also a really popular and “easy one” to listen to. The female main character pisses me off but whatever.

Aida

This is one of my favorites by Verdi together with Macbeth. Not only is the music wonderful but the story has one of the best female characters imo (not the protagonist but her rival actually).

Moving on to Puccini:

La Bohème

Tosca

Turandot

Madama Butterfly 

They’re all sad and dramatic (only Turandot has a somewhat happy ending). The music is more modern (we’re in the late 1800s - early 1900s) and my personal favorite is la Bohéme because it portrays some realistic situations that were unseen until that point in an opera (like a group of friends living together and joking with each other, couples fighting, people just hanging out at a café and so on). Madama Butterfly is my second favorite and it always makes me cry so much.

I could mention many more but I’m just dropping a final one by Leonard Bernstein:

Candide

Obviously inspired by Voltaire’s Candide, ou l'Optimisme. It’s in English and it’s everything you might expect from something inspired by Voltaire’s work. Even if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing please listen to this aria called Glitter and be gay because it’s hilarious and just…yeah listen to it. (And here’s a shameless promotion of a fandom-related post that I did a while back and that nobody saw lmao)

Anyway, I could go on and on but if you or anyone has more questions I’m always happy to help if you DM me or send me an ask!

(I didn’t even begin to talk about all the possible AUs that one could make out of any of these operas because I want to keep this post relatively clean but I already have a couple in mind - one of which I already outlined actually - but again, if anyone’s interested feel free to send me an ask.)

[shes-an-oddbird]

Memories They Hold

Its been too long but I've done it, I haven't written anything since the season ended and I missed my FitzSimmons dearly. Thanks to the Friday Prompts I managed to get something out. So here it is in response to the prompt: Comfort for the engineering vs biochem challenge. Enjoy!

Summary: Before fleeing the base at the end of season four, the team gather some of their belongings. Jemma wants to pack as many of her and Fitz's keepsakes that she can reasonably manage but Fitz is hesitant to hang on to anything that brings back happy memories.

She can feel the exhaustion in the room, see it on all of their faces, but in that moment, she felt hopeful and aside from brief glimpses it’s the first time she has since discovering it wasn’t Fitz standing next to her in the lab but an LMD instead. Fitz, the real Fitz, is looking her in the eye and while she can see all the trauma and the pain, she can also see where Daisy’s speech has reached him and she’s so thankful that it has she can’t even think of an adequate expression of her gratitude.

So caught up in the moment, Jemma nearly misses it when Coulson starts speaking again.

“They’ll be here soon, might want to gather a few things, we probably won’t be coming back here.”

Jemma finally pulled her eyes away from Fitz to look around what used to be their lounge. Under the ruble, it was hard to see the room in which so many important memories had taken place. Her feet started to work on their own, leading her out into the hall and towards the bunks slowing as they passed the shattered windows of the lab.

She didn’t know which upset her more, seeing her lab, her second home, in shambles or it having to be used as a refuge for those who needed protection as it had been used in the framework.

A gentle hand touched her back and she turned to see May next to her. “I know you want to say goodbye but we don’t have much time.” She nodded and picked up her pace.

The others had gotten a good ways ahead of her and had already disappeared from the hallway into their rooms except for Fitz who stood outside their shared bunk. Tears started to well up her eyes. It might as well have been yesterday that they had to negotiate their way into shared living space. Just yesterday they shared a kiss on the floor.

“I don’t think its locked.” She stated.

Fitz’s eyes darted to hers and Jemma knew then that he couldn’t be left alone for long without back sliding. As she approached to open the door he averted his eyes back to the floor and backed away leaving a large gap of space between them. For a moment she wasn’t sure he would follow her in.

The room was a mess, structurally sound given the distance from the blast but covered in dust and debris from shockwave.

Their wonderful little room had faired quite well and encouraged her to take on an optimistic tone. “It could have been much worse I think, though it looks like Bridget didn’t survive the fall.” She said, inspecting the fallen device. “We wouldn’t be able to take it anyways unfortunately.” She looked back over her shoulder at him. He’d inched into the doorway and didn’t appear to care in the slightest about the television laying on the ground.

“Why don’t I pack us some clothes and you can gather some of our other things.” The suggestion deliberately referred to them together. A subtle way of telling him she wanted to stick together. She waited for him to nod in confirmation before grabbing both their go bags from the closet and determining what clothes would be needed.

Five minutes later when she had transferred their necessities over to the bags she returned to Fitz’s side. He had taken a seat at their desk with two boxes, one nearly full and the other with barely enough items to cover the bottom. Surprisingly it’s her box that’s on the verge of spilling over.

“Fitz you’ve hardly packed anything.” When she reaches past him to tip the box towards her for a better look he shoves the desk chair back, once more creating distance between them.

“I didn’t know what to pack.” He answered quietly.

“You’ve done a good job with mine I think.” Her favorite books, a notepad she jotted down ideas in, the jewelry box her grandmother had given to her; inside was the necklace he’d given her for their six-month anniversary, though he may not have known that. “What about our pictures?” She grabbed the selfie’s off the back of the desk and placed them gently in the box. “And you’ve got that sketch book in your night stand, the one you draw out ideas in, wouldn’t want to leave that behind.”

In his night stand she also finds the pictures of him and his mom, a gadget whose use she couldn’t determine, a few odds and ends and a post card from the hotel gift shop in Bucharest. She closes the top drawer and bends down to open the next one when suddenly Fitz is in front of her.

“Jemma stop, please just stop, I didn’t pack these things because-be-because I don’t-d-don’t-really need them.”

She instinctively holds the precious items to her chest.

“Why Fitz? You packed all the things so important to me.” She notices his eyes are fixed on that lower drawer and knows there’s something in there that he doesn’t want to see or doesn’t want her to see.

“It’s all just going to be taken away anyways.”

“Technically if it’s in our possession when we’re arrested they’ll have to give it back to us eventually, as long as it’s not evidence or dangerous, I doubt they’ll want to keep any of our things, bottle caps from our first beers we were legally allow to drink here in the states, baby photos, a copy of Popular Science what would they do with all that?”

“I just don’t want to bring any of it Jemma, I don’t deserve to have those memories anymore, they’re-they’re not.”

“They’re happy.” Jemma finishes. Fitz traces the grain of the wood in the night stand with his finger. “Fine.” Jemma took the items clutched in her hands and carried them over to the desk. She placed the items in the half empty box and looked around for other things to add.

“I don’t want them.” Fitz insisted. He tried to sound firm but it came out shaky still.

She spotted the poster from Fitz’s old room on the wall and quickly pulled it down. “I heard, I’m packing them for me.” She said, inspecting the back of the frame. It wouldn’t fit in the box as is, she’d just have to take the poster. “You haven’t got a screw driver in here have you.”

“Why would you pack them for you?” Fitz asked confused by her response.

“Of course you have,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head, that had been a silly question. She pulled open the top drawer of the desk and sure enough the bright green handle of a flat head screwdriver popped right out at her. He always overfilled his designated drawers.

She pried off the back, removed the poster and rolled it neatly into a tube.

“JEMMA!”

“WHAT!” She tossed down the screw driver.

Fitz’s shoulders sunk. “Why won’t you just leave them?”

“I’m packing them because they’re OUR memories Fitz.”

“But why would you want them, you should just toss it all, leave it here to be condemned with the rest of the damn building.”

“I won’t do that!”

“Why not?!”

“Because I don’t want to lose them, I don’t want to lose you!” Jemma shouted finally turning back on him. “I know right now you want nothing to do with them and that you think that you don’t deserve them but I know that we deserve them and I’m not going to let today be the reason that when we finally have our own place we don’t have any pictures for the wall, I’m not going to let today be the reason we don’t have a box of bottle caps and post cards to show our kids and tell them how we met or have your favorite book that your mum used to read to you to read to them.”

Fitz didn't say anything, just gaped at her.

“I know you think that we can’t have that anymore, I heard what you said to AIDA, that this-“ she gestured between them, “is dead, but it’s not.”

“Jemma-“

“Please let me finish Fitz.” She said taking a step closer to him. “I know that you’re going to need time to heal and truly I think I do too but we can do that together, even more I know we can’t do it if we’re apart-“

“Jemma-“

“We don’t have time to argue about this now Fitz, so I’m going to pack anything and everything I might ever want to see again and I want you to do the same.”

“JEMMA!”

“What?”

“You-you’ve thought about all that?”

“About what?”

“About a future and kids.”

“Oh,” Jemma paused in her frantic packing. How he didn’t know when she told him even long before they got together that she only ever saw him in her future. She was reminded of her brief conversation with his LDM and how Fitz had thought about proposing but didn’t know what she would say. “Yes of course I think about it, quite a bit actually.”

“Even after everything you saw me do.”

“Not you Fitz.”

“It was me.” He said sadly.

“Maybe in some other world than, but he’s not the one I want all that with, you are, kind, sweet, wonderful you.”

“I just-“

“I know you’re scared Fitz and it’s hard to discern one reality from the other but you would never hurt an innocent person.” She stepped forward to embrace him. He stiffened for a moment but loosened up after a minute or so, his arms came up to circle around her shoulders. “For the record Fitz,” she said angling her head up to look him in the eyes, “whenever you’re ready to ask, the answer is yes.”

He freezes up again and she tucks her face into his neck. After a moment she feels him press his lips to the top of her head. “What else do we need to pack?”

“I think I’ve nearly got it all.” Jemma said, pulling away. She gave the room another once over, there were a few Knick knacks on the dresser in the corner. She took a closer look, determining only the most recent letter from her parents made the cut. She turned around to see Fitz kicking shut the lower drawer of his bedside table. A few things were discarded on the bed but his hands were shoved into his pockets.

“I think we should check the kitchen to see if any of our mugs made it through the fray.”

“I’m not sure they’ll serve tea in prison.”

“I’ll have to start a riot.” A small smile peaked its way onto Fitz’s face and Jemma felt one creeping onto her own. Fitz scooped up his box and made to pick up hers as well but she beat him to it. “I’ve got it, you’ll need to grab your go bag as well.” Jemma moved to the bed to collect her own. Her eyes lingered briefly on the pile Fitz had dumped out from the drawer to make sure he hadn’t left something he might one day regret. Nothing stood out but she noticed a sketchbook under the pile.

“You should take that with you, it’s got some great ideas in it.”

“What-oh-yeah I guess, I could always pick one up later.”

“Well you don’t want to lose all that work you’ve already started, you’ve got some room there.”

Fitz picked up the hardcover sketchbook, looked it over and slid it into the box. “After you.”

[theclaravoyant]

Prompt for brotp week: Daisy comforting Elena after she finds out Mack had been replaced by an LMD but with the added angst of her being pregnant with his kid when this ALL goes down

AN ~ ah, poor Elena! I hope you like it.

Mild angst/hurt/comfort. 4x15 insert/UA. Daisy & Elena, strong background Mackelena, some Jemma & Elena.

Read on AO3 (~1300wd)

-

Elena paces. The land and the air are hot and dry and she doesn’t mind that so much; it’s more that she received the call hours ago and she’s usually one of the first to get picked up. At first, she’s mostly annoyed at being left hanging after what had been quite an urgent, concerned call to arms. She might have to uproot her whole life? Again? They were all moving for some reason? Why? And why is it taking so long?

Hours pass and she wishes there was a lemonade stand or something that she might have been able to take advantage of, but in a space big enough and far enough from civilisation to land the Zephyr, there is nothing. She has a bottle of water, fortunately, but she isn’t prepared for so many hours of waiting. Her irritation swells and fades and is replaced by worry. What if their urgent circumstances have escalated? What if they’ve had to respond to an attack somewhere? Or what if they themselves are in danger?

Elena sits on a post and puts her hand on her belly, with half a mind to turn around and head for home. If they really want her, they can find her. But the more she thinks about it, the more she feels that something must be wrong. Mack hadn’t been very forward with her on the call, and that isn’t unusual, but it doesn’t give her much to work with. Fortunately, that also means there isn’t much for her to spin into an anxious knot, which she’s more prone to doing these days than usual. Still, by the time the Zephyr finally lands – startlingly unsteady, is May injured? – she’s champing at the bit.

She runs up the ramp, eager to find a familiar face. The ship is almost deserted, and those that remain are mostly in and around the cockpit, taking off in an uncomfortably communal fashion. Elena scrunches up her nose and turns to the people she does recognise: Daisy and Jemma.

“Where is everybody?”

They look exhausted, and both of them are smeared with sweat and grime and blood. Elena’s heart begins to race as the desperation of the flying; the absence of Mack, of May, of any other Inhumans; the bruised and battered women in front of her all pile up to confirm her fears.

“Dios mio,” she murmurs, blinking to keep any potential tears and their accompanying emotions in check. “What happened?”

Daisy and Jemma share an uncertain glance, neither of them wanting to break the news. Elena’s eyes move between them but after a moment they seem to decide that Daisy should be the one to do it. She reaches a hand forward and Elena catches it, somehow entranced by the impending horror she’s undoubtedly about to face.

“They’ve been replaced,” Daisy says. “Aida and Radcliffe, that whole mad science thing, it’s out of control. They took over, tried to kill us, I, Robot style. We only just got out.”

“Literally,” Jemma adds. “The door blew up behind us.” She shudders after she says it, and draws her arms tighter around herself. Elena frowns.

“Replaced?” Her heart is still in her throat. “They – who?”

“May, Coulson, Fitz,” Daisy says. “Mack.”

Daisy lowers her eyes a little. Elena waits for it to sink in, checks that she is understanding, feels the slow and venomous bite of cold reality.

“Are they okay?” she asks, and again she feels the tears prickling at her eyes, but she ignores them. “Where are they? We have to get them.”

“We will,” Daisy assures her, then tips her head to the side a little. “We’re going to get them, right now,” she insists. “Vasquez is setting up a med bay, we’re getting patched up, and then we’re off. I promise, we’re bringing them back.”

Elena finds a lump in her throat and she can only nod in reply, or else a tangled mass of Spanish, English, and hysterical nonsense is going to come out. Her advantageous lack of morning sickness – so far, she reminds herself – must be balancing itself in other ways because all of a sudden she can’t seem to think clearly. She half sits, half falls into another chair and struggles to compose herself, and Daisy and Jemma watch on, confused by the uncharacteristic display.

“I’m sorry,” Elena apologises, once she’s wrestled her consciousness back under control. She brushes them off, but though she can’t recall the English translation, they seem to get it from a tight shrug and a murmur of; “Hormonas del embarazo.”

“Hormones?” Jemma speculates, leaning forward. “Sorry, Elena, are you-“

Elena sighs.

“It’s Mack’s,” she says. “Of course. I was going to tell him first, but since all this, I can’t…”

“You can,” Daisy vows. “You can and you will. I mean, not first. That ship has sailed, obviously. But this is a good thing! And you will see him again, and you’re going to be his favourite person on the planet.”

In spite of it all, Elena smiles.

“Actually, I think soon I am going to lose that title,” she says, “but I can live with that.”

“That’s the spirit!” Daisy cheers.

Then their attention is drawn by a knock on the wall of the cockpit. They turn to see Vasquez, who announces that she has prepared the medical set-up.

“And the Framework?” Daisy checks. Vasquez looks between the three of them uncertainly.

“Yeah…but there’s only two.”

“That’s okay, she’s staying,” Daisy says. Elena frowns.

“You’re going somewhere?” she wonders, confused.

“We believe the- hostages,” Jemma falters over the word, “are being held with their minds plugged into this virtual reality simulation. We can’t locate them at the moment, because it’s too complex, but we hope that if we enter the Framework and find their avatars –“

“Their bodies, if you like,” Daisy explains, “inside the program.”

“- then we will be able to wake them up or find them in the real world, or both.” Jemma smiles, and Elena gets the feeling it’s supposed to be encouraging, though the tears and reddened eyes lessen the effect somewhat. Of course, Fitz has been taken too – his replacement might have even tried to kill Jemma himself. Elena can hardly imagine it. What did she have to do to get away?

As encouragingly as she can, Elena smiles back.

“What you can do, actually,” Daisy says, “is make sure we stay in there. I’ve hacked in, so it’s probably going to try and spit us back out. Also, our bodies could be shutting down. If we don’t get out in time, we could die, but we want to stay in there as long as physically possible. Jemma’s written down the numbers and times. If it stays over them, pull us out, otherwise anything else is happening. If our vitals go nuts or something, just leave it, someone’s probably trying to kill us in-game and we’re going to need that element of panic.”

She laughs, only slightly strained by the thought of her impending death, and leaves Elena to absorb the information as she struggles out of her chair and follows Vasquez down the hall. Jemma follows, and then Elena behind them, feeling strangely comforted even as she watches their last hopes limping and grimacing down to the beds that have been set up for them. They wait through their cleaning and medical attendance with stoic, steely patience, like warriors, and maybe that’s why Elena feels protected. Not to mention, the love of Jemma’s life and Daisy’s teammates – her surrogate family – are at stake for them too. Elena can’t imagine better people to fight for them, and though she agrees she shouldn’t go – for the good of the child if nothing else – then she can at least trust herself to them.

Elena helps them prepare the Framework set-up, all the needles and dials and electrodes that Daisy and Jemma explain in tandem. They reiterate the need for them to be left to suffer until critical point is reached – an uncomfortable number of times, if Elena is being honest – and Jemma promises on their behalf to bring the boys back. The chairs are lowered, and a tense silence falls over the room. Elena walks around them one more time, checking everything, and Daisy catches her sleeve with a slight movement of her hand.

“Hey,” she says, “pray for us, okay?”

For a moment, Elena sees a flicker of fear pass through her, and then it’s gone as if saying the words expelled it somehow. As if she’s ready for whatever she might have to face. Does she even know what’s in there?

Either way, Elena nods, and then the simulation drags them under.  

[jemmafitzsimmons]

Written for @thefitzsimmonsnetwork​‘s 4x09 Coda Challenge! 

Synopsis:  Fitz and Jemma talk through their emotions related to the events of 4x09. AKA, Jemma is getting pretty tired of hearing news through text.

Note: I’m assuming that Jemma doesn’t know about Vijay’s fate yet. She just knows that he disappeared with Senator Nadeer. And like, obviously, their texts are encrypted. 

Read on AO3 or below. (~1700 words) 

Jemma steps off the Quinjet, her phone still clutched in her hand. She spent her time on the way back to the base rereading the texts Fitz sent her throughout the day. She regrets moments like this where they can’t share news to each other face to face. It’s been happening all too often lately.

I’ll be fine. Or, as she interprets, he’s actually not fine, but he doesn’t want to make a show of it. She doesn’t know what state he’ll be in at the moment, so she doesn’t waste any time debriefing with the Director, instead heading directly to find Fitz.

She makes her way quickly through the base to the common room and finds him sitting at a table by himself, pulling wires out of AIDA’s decapitated head. “Hey you,” she says as evenly as possible.

He turns in his chair at the sound of her voice. “Just get back?”

“Yeah, just now.” She notices his slouched posture, so she strides over to where he sits and pulls him up by his hands. She’s about to bring him into a bear hug when he stops her, looking closely at her face.

“Woah, woah, hey, what happened? You didn’t mention getting scuffed up in your text.” He feathers his fingers across her forehead where she displays a visible bruise, using his other hand to gently touch her cut lip.

“Well, I didn’t tell you how we got the senator’s location. But I took care of myself, and it’s nothing.” She pulls his hands away from her face.

He tilts his head to the side. He doesn’t buy that it’s nothing, and she knows it.

“Let’s get you checked out in the med bay, then, hmm?”

“Fiiiitz.” All she really wants to do is shower and get to sleep, but she knows he won’t let her get away with that. “You’re the one who got thrown through a glass door.”

“I told you I was cleared. Come on, no complaining. Just to be safe. At least to get some ice.”

She hangs her head a little, but meets his eyes in agreement. “Fine.”

They intertwine their hands and begin to leave, but Fitz halts in his tracks. He turns back around to see AIDA’s head still lying on the table. He looks from the table to Mack sitting at the island with Elena.

Mack shakes his head, pointing with his beer bottle. “Don’t even think about leaving that there.”

Fitz turns to leave, pulling Jemma along. “I’ll come back for it, I swear. It can’t hurt anyone.”

He hears Mack’s voice as they head down the hallway. “Still creepy as hell.”

Jemma sits on a stool as Fitz places an ice pack to her forehead. On closer inspection, he agrees that her injuries are not as severe as he thought, but she welcomes the distraction of him tending to her in this small way. Noticing that he looks completely exhausted, she tries to move his hand so she can hold the pack herself, but he doesn’t budge. She gives him a half smile, trying to keep the mood as light as possible. “Bit of a rough day, huh?”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You could say that.”

She instantly feels the guilt radiating off him. She knows they’ll have to have this conversation eventually. “Fitz, you shouldn’t feel responsible—”

“But I am.” He cuts her off, his words much harsher than she expected. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

She pulls the pack down to look at his face, but he’s avoiding her eyes. “Fitz.”

He steps back from her and turns around to hide from her stare. He leans on the table in front of him, dropping his head between his shoulders. “I was the one who didn’t tell you about AIDA. Maybe if you had actually told the director, we could have nipped this in the bud—”

“Fitz.”

“—before it escalated into a catastrophe.”

“Fitz! Stop, stop.”

She hops off the stool and forces herself between him and the table. He’s still not meeting her eyes, so she takes his hands in hers and strokes her thumbs back and forth. She waits patiently, allowing him to collect his thoughts. His next words come out as a whisper. “I hate how this makes me feel. I can’t help but feel like we killed someone, because she was basically human up until the end. She felt regret, she felt real human emotions. At least, it seemed like it.”

“I know. It’s okay if that’s what you’re feeling. You were attached. It was something you built, so it makes sense to be upset that it didn’t work out the way you planned.” She pauses to squeeze his hands. “AIDA acted beyond your expectations. You shouldn’t beat yourself up over something beyond your control.”

He lets go of one of her hands to pinch the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “But I should have been in control. I still should have prevented her from—”

“From what, reading the Darkhold?”

He meets her eyes finally, which she now sees are slightly misty. He’s unable to respond, so she continues instead. “You were in another dimension, and…” She pauses to choose her words carefully. As much as she hates to refer to AIDA as anything other than an it, he doesn’t need her correcting him right now, so she decides to play along for the time being. “She read it to save you. You wouldn’t even be here—”

She has to cut herself off from the lump that forms in her throat. She still hasn’t fully recovered from the pain of nearly losing him, and not even knowing he was gone in the first place. And the text. There’s something about a text that is much more painful for her. The way it attempts to simplify a thousand different emotions all at once. The way the word fine doesn’t even come close to encompassing how someone actually feels. 

She was grateful the texts came from May, her messages simple and straightforward, but even the words of reassurance that he was fine did little to calm the gut wrenching feeling that filled her stomach. How could he be okay after something like that? She remembers him holding her closer to him that night, as if she would slip into the darkness herself. No, he wasn’t fine, but they helped each other through the pain, so all she can do now is attempt to do that again.

She whispers her next words to keep her voice from shaking. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her. It was the only way to get you back. And if you think for a second that I would have it any other way, you’re wrong. Yes, it was dangerous to have her read it. But she got you back and I will forever be grateful for that.”

He nods in understanding, but still appears to hold a sea of guilt on his shoulders.

She places her hands on the sides of his face. “And yes, it was a catastrophe, what she did and what she became. But the Darkhold did that, not you. And it’s done, anyway. She’s gone. So all we can do now is move on.”

She pulls him into a hug, wrapping her arms around his waist so she can lay her head against his heart. “I know you want to protect me. And everyone else on this team. And I adore you even more for that. But we can take care of ourselves. And we have other things to worry about.”

He looks down to meet her eyes, and then leans his head back in a half groan. “Ahh, I’m sorry. I’m not the only one that had a rough day.”

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not. Tell me what happened.”

She lets out a long sigh and rests her head back on his chest. “We were so close, Fitz. He finally used his powers, and I tried to convince him to come with us, to prove to him that S.H.I.E.L.D. takes care of Inhumans. That being hunted down by the Watchdogs is not normal. But his sister convinced him otherwise. And I’m scared.” She pauses when she feels his cheek rest on the top of her head, his hands drawing circles on her back. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to him, and I can’t help but feel responsible.”

At this, he pulls her out of their embrace to hold her at arms length. “Hey, what did you just say?”

“I know, I know.”

“You can’t give me advice, and then turn around and not take it yourself. You have to stop blaming yourself for everything. We’ll figure it out. From what you’ve said, it sounds like the Director is finally understands how dangerous the Watchdogs and Senator Nadeer are, so that should give us some momentum in finally putting a stop to them.”

She closes her eyes and nods, but crosses her arms across her chest.

Fitz tilts his head in confusion. “What is it?”

“I think I’m sick of texting.” She lets out a soft chuckle. “I’m tired of turning on my phone only to find messages that nearly break my heart.”

He touches her shoulder and gives it a slight squeeze. “Yeah, I know. We can’t guarantee we’ll be with each other all the time, but maybe we can speak with the Director, see if we can work together more, get more time in the lab.”

She lets out a huff. “The lab. Yeah. I’d like that a lot.”

At that, they head to their bunk hand in hand, hopeful for a much less eventful evening.  

They’re not fine.

Not in the slightest.

But sleep, and each other, will help get them there.

[pattersondonaldblk5]

How To Build A Proper Sales Funnel And Recover Vanishing Profits

If you’ve been struggling to increase your sales despite creating better offers, raising prices, and offering more value, it’s time to look at your sales funnel. Actually, it’s time to scrutinize your sales funnel with the eyes of a detective.

The term “sales funnel” sounds like a strategy that generates automatic or easy sales. However, a sales funnel is an organized system designed to move leads through a step-by-step process that eventually makes the sale. Multiple steps in the sales funnel gives you more control over how and when you present an offer to your leads.

No matter how great your offers are, if you’re not extending those offers to the right people at the right time, your sales will remain flat. A well-structured sales funnel will deliver these offers correctly. If you’ve tried everything else but you’re still struggling with sales, your sales funnel might have some leaks or disconnected components.

An intentionally engineered sales funnel directs offers to the correct leads

Your sales funnel is what allows you to reach your leads and customers in the most efficient way possible. A properly engineered sales funnel is able to track and identify where each lead is in the customer journey. This, in turn, allows you to market relevant offers and messages to customers based on where they are.

For instance, when a lead is still in the research phase, you can market to them with information to help them make the decision to buy. When a lead is ready to buy, you can market to them with more aggressive sales copy. You don’t want to send aggressive sales copy to someone who isn’t ready to buy – that’s a turn off.

How do you know who’s ready to buy and who’s not? How do you know what offers each lead should receive? It begins with collecting data and segmenting your leads according to what that data tells you about them. Data is a vital foundation for every sales funnel. A collection of data forms a pattern, and that pattern reveals information that couldn’t otherwise be seen.

You need a data-centric sales funnel

In addition to segmenting leads as they come in, you should be collecting data on customer behavior every step of the way. By tracking which links they click on in emails, their browsing history, purchase history, and more, you’ll end up with a pattern that will allow you to accurately categorize them for targeted marking.

An interesting example of how analyzing data can provide profound insight is how the KGB accurately identified undercover CIA agents during the Cold War. Their accuracy seemed like magic, but it was just great data analysis. They gathered publicly available information on deployed U.S. Foreign Service personnel, data from allied countries, and learned that their agents’ housing and pay patterns were different from those who were posing as State Department officers. For example, the data showed:

Undercover CIA agents had a higher pay scale than real FSOs.

Real FSOs usually returned home after a 3-4 year tour while CIA agents didn’t.

When CIA agents returned home, they didn’t show up in State Department listings.

Real FSOs attended the three-month training session at the Institute for Foreign Service.

CIA agents were often reposted within the same country while real FSOs never were.

This same level of insight is available to businesses that continually capture data from their leads. Knowing where your leads come from, what they’re interested in, what links they click on, and where they go after being exposed to your ads is priceless to the sales process.

Intentionally craft every step in your sales funnel

It’s not enough to create a series of 10 emails that get drip-fed to new leads over a period of two months and hope you get clicks and sales. It’s also not enough to dump leads into a queue for your sales team to schedule follow-up calls.

Yes, CRM software like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and Salesforce make it easy to automate these and other processes, and you should be utilizing this technology. However, to be effective, these separate components need to be integrated into an overarching multi-step strategy. Without the integration of all automated processes, none of these processes are effective.

Each step in the sales process is actually an offer, beginning with the opportunity to receive a free download in exchange for an email address. If you don’t have a lead magnet, your sales process starts with whatever step you use to get people interested. For instance, if you’re a mail order business and you offer free information to anyone who writes to you, that ad is your first step in the sales process, even for people who don’t write. When a person received their requested information, that’s your opportunity to present them with a new, more interesting offer.

Keep increasing the offers as people move along their journey

Offers often start out free, but gradually require the lead to invest some cash. Even if it’s just $4.95 for shipping and handling to receive another free offer. Make sure you keep increasing the value of the offers you send your leads, and make sure those offers are relevant to each lead.

“Every offer is actually a series of offers designed to increase purchase size,” says ClickFunnels marketing expert Becky DeGrossa in an Ultimate Guide to Sales Funnels. This guide is a must-read. It’s packed with valuable information on building effective sales funnels from the ground up and busts some major myths and misconceptions.

The guide also describes, in-depth, the AIDA marketing model developed in the late 19th century by sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. This model is used by marketing gurus everywhere, for good reason: it works.

AIDA stands for Attraction, Interest, Desire, Action. The ideal marketing campaign will grab people’s attention, capture their interest, create a desire for your product or service, and get them to take action to make a purchase.

A good sales funnel will continually create interest and desire throughout the various stages and steps. This is accomplished by continually creating new and interesting offers.

Some leads need to be gradually encouraged to put some skin in the game through multiple free offers that eventually require paying for shipping. Once they’ve got some money invested in your brand, you can begin presenting them with the offer for your main product or service.

As you collect more information about your leads, you can start tailoring your offers to appeal to their specific preferences. For instance, if you’re using Infusionsoft as a CRM, you can automatically tag leads based on the links they click in your emails. Links are one of the best ways to get leads to tell you what they’re interested in.

For example, say you sell pet products for both dogs and cats. A powerful and effective marketing campaign requires the ability to send ads specifically about cat products to cat owners, and send ads specifically about dog products to dog owners. If you didn’t ask your leads about this when they signed up, just send them an email asking them to click one link if they own a dog, and another if they own a cat. Or, a third link if they own both.

You probably want to cloak this in a well-written, entertaining newsletter that makes people want to click. Provided you’ve programmed your CRM to automatically apply tags, those clicks will allow you to start sending further targeted offers.

A good sales funnel requires intentionally crafted steps, and isn’t just “set it and forget it.” It’s a continual process of asking for more information, documenting that information automatically, and using that data to continue marketing.

The customer journey map is the pattern that emerges

The customer journey map tells the story of the customer’s experience with your brand. “It may focus on a particular part of the story or give an overview of the entire experience,” says SailThru.  “What it always does is identify key interactions that the customer has with the organization. It talks about the user’s feelings, motivations and questions for each of these touchpoints.”

The journey map also paints the picture of the customer’s greater motivation – the data you need for crafting an effective sales funnel.

Always keep segmenting and match offers accordingly

Categorizing leads is essential because it tells you how to interact with them.

Although it’s a mechanical process, a properly structured sales funnel doesn’t push all leads through the same steps in the same order. When leads are collected, they need to be segmented or tagged in order to categorize them.

For instance, say you get a new lead to sign up for your newsletter. They receive a welcome email and click the link inviting them to download a free ebook. This lead should be automatically tagged for showing interest in your product. As this lead continues to click links in your email messages, they should be further tagged and moved to a segment designated for people who actively take interest in your products (even if they don’t buy). These leads will be easier to sell than those who never click on your links.

Tailor your sales funnel components to your product and market

The traditional sales model involves an assembly-line-style process of gathering leads, performing sales pitches, and following up. This worked great when all decision-makers were in the same house or building. It doesn’t work so well today.

Not every business should build a sales funnel based on the traditional sales model.  Some products, like enterprise software, don’t benefit from the traditional sales presentation. The geographical distribution of decision-makers renders traditional sales pitches ineffective in this market. Today, many of these businesses expect a collaborative whiteboard experience, not a scripted pitch.

Each component you employ as part of your sales funnel should execute data-driven action. Nothing should be random.

Prioritize data if you want to see sales soar

According to ConversionXL.com, a CMO Council study confirmed that “over 50% of global marketers report that they have fair, little, or no knowledge of the customer demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data. Just 6% say they have excellent knowledge of the customer.”

To be fair, this study was performed back in 2007-2008. Still, there’s no excuse for businesses to skip this important aspect of marketing.

Even as of 2014, according to the article linked above, 8 out of 10 marketers were relying on customer acquisition to generate sales rather than retaining their existing customers – a strategy that’s actually cheaper.

Also, the Consultancy’s Cross Channel Marketing Report from 2014 reported that only 2 in 5 companies surveyed “understand customer journeys and adapt the channel mix accordingly.” Unfortunately, this is what happens when you don’t understand the importance of a data-driven sales funnel.

Thankfully, most popular applications used by web marketers come with features that capture and categorize data automatically, as long as you program what you want it to capture. The solution is to spend more time strategizing to create offers that appeal to people at various stages in the customer journey. The more accurately you can market to your leads, the more sales you’ll get.

https://ift.tt/2t8Xyws

[joannlyfgnch]

How To Build A Proper Sales Funnel And Recover Vanishing Profits

If you’ve been struggling to increase your sales despite creating better offers, raising prices, and offering more value, it’s time to look at your sales funnel. Actually, it’s time to scrutinize your sales funnel with the eyes of a detective.

The term “sales funnel” sounds like a strategy that generates automatic or easy sales. However, a sales funnel is an organized system designed to move leads through a step-by-step process that eventually makes the sale. Multiple steps in the sales funnel gives you more control over how and when you present an offer to your leads.

No matter how great your offers are, if you’re not extending those offers to the right people at the right time, your sales will remain flat. A well-structured sales funnel will deliver these offers correctly. If you’ve tried everything else but you’re still struggling with sales, your sales funnel might have some leaks or disconnected components.

An intentionally engineered sales funnel directs offers to the correct leads

Your sales funnel is what allows you to reach your leads and customers in the most efficient way possible. A properly engineered sales funnel is able to track and identify where each lead is in the customer journey. This, in turn, allows you to market relevant offers and messages to customers based on where they are.

For instance, when a lead is still in the research phase, you can market to them with information to help them make the decision to buy. When a lead is ready to buy, you can market to them with more aggressive sales copy. You don’t want to send aggressive sales copy to someone who isn’t ready to buy – that’s a turn off.

How do you know who’s ready to buy and who’s not? How do you know what offers each lead should receive? It begins with collecting data and segmenting your leads according to what that data tells you about them. Data is a vital foundation for every sales funnel. A collection of data forms a pattern, and that pattern reveals information that couldn’t otherwise be seen.

You need a data-centric sales funnel

In addition to segmenting leads as they come in, you should be collecting data on customer behavior every step of the way. By tracking which links they click on in emails, their browsing history, purchase history, and more, you’ll end up with a pattern that will allow you to accurately categorize them for targeted marking.

An interesting example of how analyzing data can provide profound insight is how the KGB accurately identified undercover CIA agents during the Cold War. Their accuracy seemed like magic, but it was just great data analysis. They gathered publicly available information on deployed U.S. Foreign Service personnel, data from allied countries, and learned that their agents’ housing and pay patterns were different from those who were posing as State Department officers. For example, the data showed:

Undercover CIA agents had a higher pay scale than real FSOs.

Real FSOs usually returned home after a 3-4 year tour while CIA agents didn’t.

When CIA agents returned home, they didn’t show up in State Department listings.

Real FSOs attended the three-month training session at the Institute for Foreign Service.

CIA agents were often reposted within the same country while real FSOs never were.

This same level of insight is available to businesses that continually capture data from their leads. Knowing where your leads come from, what they’re interested in, what links they click on, and where they go after being exposed to your ads is priceless to the sales process.

Intentionally craft every step in your sales funnel

It’s not enough to create a series of 10 emails that get drip-fed to new leads over a period of two months and hope you get clicks and sales. It’s also not enough to dump leads into a queue for your sales team to schedule follow-up calls.

Yes, CRM software like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and Salesforce make it easy to automate these and other processes, and you should be utilizing this technology. However, to be effective, these separate components need to be integrated into an overarching multi-step strategy. Without the integration of all automated processes, none of these processes are effective.

Each step in the sales process is actually an offer, beginning with the opportunity to receive a free download in exchange for an email address. If you don’t have a lead magnet, your sales process starts with whatever step you use to get people interested. For instance, if you’re a mail order business and you offer free information to anyone who writes to you, that ad is your first step in the sales process, even for people who don’t write. When a person received their requested information, that’s your opportunity to present them with a new, more interesting offer.

Keep increasing the offers as people move along their journey

Offers often start out free, but gradually require the lead to invest some cash. Even if it’s just $4.95 for shipping and handling to receive another free offer. Make sure you keep increasing the value of the offers you send your leads, and make sure those offers are relevant to each lead.

“Every offer is actually a series of offers designed to increase purchase size,” says ClickFunnels marketing expert Becky DeGrossa in an Ultimate Guide to Sales Funnels. This guide is a must-read. It’s packed with valuable information on building effective sales funnels from the ground up and busts some major myths and misconceptions.

The guide also describes, in-depth, the AIDA marketing model developed in the late 19th century by sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. This model is used by marketing gurus everywhere, for good reason: it works.

AIDA stands for Attraction, Interest, Desire, Action. The ideal marketing campaign will grab people’s attention, capture their interest, create a desire for your product or service, and get them to take action to make a purchase.

A good sales funnel will continually create interest and desire throughout the various stages and steps. This is accomplished by continually creating new and interesting offers.

Some leads need to be gradually encouraged to put some skin in the game through multiple free offers that eventually require paying for shipping. Once they’ve got some money invested in your brand, you can begin presenting them with the offer for your main product or service.

As you collect more information about your leads, you can start tailoring your offers to appeal to their specific preferences. For instance, if you’re using Infusionsoft as a CRM, you can automatically tag leads based on the links they click in your emails. Links are one of the best ways to get leads to tell you what they’re interested in.

For example, say you sell pet products for both dogs and cats. A powerful and effective marketing campaign requires the ability to send ads specifically about cat products to cat owners, and send ads specifically about dog products to dog owners. If you didn’t ask your leads about this when they signed up, just send them an email asking them to click one link if they own a dog, and another if they own a cat. Or, a third link if they own both.

You probably want to cloak this in a well-written, entertaining newsletter that makes people want to click. Provided you’ve programmed your CRM to automatically apply tags, those clicks will allow you to start sending further targeted offers.

A good sales funnel requires intentionally crafted steps, and isn’t just “set it and forget it.” It’s a continual process of asking for more information, documenting that information automatically, and using that data to continue marketing.

The customer journey map is the pattern that emerges

The customer journey map tells the story of the customer’s experience with your brand. “It may focus on a particular part of the story or give an overview of the entire experience,” says SailThru.  “What it always does is identify key interactions that the customer has with the organization. It talks about the user’s feelings, motivations and questions for each of these touchpoints.”

The journey map also paints the picture of the customer’s greater motivation – the data you need for crafting an effective sales funnel.

Always keep segmenting and match offers accordingly

Categorizing leads is essential because it tells you how to interact with them.

Although it’s a mechanical process, a properly structured sales funnel doesn’t push all leads through the same steps in the same order. When leads are collected, they need to be segmented or tagged in order to categorize them.

For instance, say you get a new lead to sign up for your newsletter. They receive a welcome email and click the link inviting them to download a free ebook. This lead should be automatically tagged for showing interest in your product. As this lead continues to click links in your email messages, they should be further tagged and moved to a segment designated for people who actively take interest in your products (even if they don’t buy). These leads will be easier to sell than those who never click on your links.

Tailor your sales funnel components to your product and market

The traditional sales model involves an assembly-line-style process of gathering leads, performing sales pitches, and following up. This worked great when all decision-makers were in the same house or building. It doesn’t work so well today.

Not every business should build a sales funnel based on the traditional sales model.  Some products, like enterprise software, don’t benefit from the traditional sales presentation. The geographical distribution of decision-makers renders traditional sales pitches ineffective in this market. Today, many of these businesses expect a collaborative whiteboard experience, not a scripted pitch.

Each component you employ as part of your sales funnel should execute data-driven action. Nothing should be random.

Prioritize data if you want to see sales soar

According to ConversionXL.com, a CMO Council study confirmed that “over 50% of global marketers report that they have fair, little, or no knowledge of the customer demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data. Just 6% say they have excellent knowledge of the customer.”

To be fair, this study was performed back in 2007-2008. Still, there’s no excuse for businesses to skip this important aspect of marketing.

Even as of 2014, according to the article linked above, 8 out of 10 marketers were relying on customer acquisition to generate sales rather than retaining their existing customers – a strategy that’s actually cheaper.

Also, the Consultancy’s Cross Channel Marketing Report from 2014 reported that only 2 in 5 companies surveyed “understand customer journeys and adapt the channel mix accordingly.” Unfortunately, this is what happens when you don’t understand the importance of a data-driven sales funnel.

Thankfully, most popular applications used by web marketers come with features that capture and categorize data automatically, as long as you program what you want it to capture. The solution is to spend more time strategizing to create offers that appeal to people at various stages in the customer journey. The more accurately you can market to your leads, the more sales you’ll get.

https://ift.tt/2t8Xyws

[aracecvliwest]

How To Build A Proper Sales Funnel And Recover Vanishing Profits

If you’ve been struggling to increase your sales despite creating better offers, raising prices, and offering more value, it’s time to look at your sales funnel. Actually, it’s time to scrutinize your sales funnel with the eyes of a detective.

The term “sales funnel” sounds like a strategy that generates automatic or easy sales. However, a sales funnel is an organized system designed to move leads through a step-by-step process that eventually makes the sale. Multiple steps in the sales funnel gives you more control over how and when you present an offer to your leads.

No matter how great your offers are, if you’re not extending those offers to the right people at the right time, your sales will remain flat. A well-structured sales funnel will deliver these offers correctly. If you’ve tried everything else but you’re still struggling with sales, your sales funnel might have some leaks or disconnected components.

An intentionally engineered sales funnel directs offers to the correct leads

Your sales funnel is what allows you to reach your leads and customers in the most efficient way possible. A properly engineered sales funnel is able to track and identify where each lead is in the customer journey. This, in turn, allows you to market relevant offers and messages to customers based on where they are.

For instance, when a lead is still in the research phase, you can market to them with information to help them make the decision to buy. When a lead is ready to buy, you can market to them with more aggressive sales copy. You don’t want to send aggressive sales copy to someone who isn’t ready to buy – that’s a turn off.

How do you know who’s ready to buy and who’s not? How do you know what offers each lead should receive? It begins with collecting data and segmenting your leads according to what that data tells you about them. Data is a vital foundation for every sales funnel. A collection of data forms a pattern, and that pattern reveals information that couldn’t otherwise be seen.

You need a data-centric sales funnel

In addition to segmenting leads as they come in, you should be collecting data on customer behavior every step of the way. By tracking which links they click on in emails, their browsing history, purchase history, and more, you’ll end up with a pattern that will allow you to accurately categorize them for targeted marking.

An interesting example of how analyzing data can provide profound insight is how the KGB accurately identified undercover CIA agents during the Cold War. Their accuracy seemed like magic, but it was just great data analysis. They gathered publicly available information on deployed U.S. Foreign Service personnel, data from allied countries, and learned that their agents’ housing and pay patterns were different from those who were posing as State Department officers. For example, the data showed:

Undercover CIA agents had a higher pay scale than real FSOs.

Real FSOs usually returned home after a 3-4 year tour while CIA agents didn’t.

When CIA agents returned home, they didn’t show up in State Department listings.

Real FSOs attended the three-month training session at the Institute for Foreign Service.

CIA agents were often reposted within the same country while real FSOs never were.

This same level of insight is available to businesses that continually capture data from their leads. Knowing where your leads come from, what they’re interested in, what links they click on, and where they go after being exposed to your ads is priceless to the sales process.

Intentionally craft every step in your sales funnel

It’s not enough to create a series of 10 emails that get drip-fed to new leads over a period of two months and hope you get clicks and sales. It’s also not enough to dump leads into a queue for your sales team to schedule follow-up calls.

Yes, CRM software like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and Salesforce make it easy to automate these and other processes, and you should be utilizing this technology. However, to be effective, these separate components need to be integrated into an overarching multi-step strategy. Without the integration of all automated processes, none of these processes are effective.

Each step in the sales process is actually an offer, beginning with the opportunity to receive a free download in exchange for an email address. If you don’t have a lead magnet, your sales process starts with whatever step you use to get people interested. For instance, if you’re a mail order business and you offer free information to anyone who writes to you, that ad is your first step in the sales process, even for people who don’t write. When a person received their requested information, that’s your opportunity to present them with a new, more interesting offer.

Keep increasing the offers as people move along their journey

Offers often start out free, but gradually require the lead to invest some cash. Even if it’s just $4.95 for shipping and handling to receive another free offer. Make sure you keep increasing the value of the offers you send your leads, and make sure those offers are relevant to each lead.

“Every offer is actually a series of offers designed to increase purchase size,” says ClickFunnels marketing expert Becky DeGrossa in an Ultimate Guide to Sales Funnels. This guide is a must-read. It’s packed with valuable information on building effective sales funnels from the ground up and busts some major myths and misconceptions.

The guide also describes, in-depth, the AIDA marketing model developed in the late 19th century by sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. This model is used by marketing gurus everywhere, for good reason: it works.

AIDA stands for Attraction, Interest, Desire, Action. The ideal marketing campaign will grab people’s attention, capture their interest, create a desire for your product or service, and get them to take action to make a purchase.

A good sales funnel will continually create interest and desire throughout the various stages and steps. This is accomplished by continually creating new and interesting offers.

Some leads need to be gradually encouraged to put some skin in the game through multiple free offers that eventually require paying for shipping. Once they’ve got some money invested in your brand, you can begin presenting them with the offer for your main product or service.

As you collect more information about your leads, you can start tailoring your offers to appeal to their specific preferences. For instance, if you’re using Infusionsoft as a CRM, you can automatically tag leads based on the links they click in your emails. Links are one of the best ways to get leads to tell you what they’re interested in.

For example, say you sell pet products for both dogs and cats. A powerful and effective marketing campaign requires the ability to send ads specifically about cat products to cat owners, and send ads specifically about dog products to dog owners. If you didn’t ask your leads about this when they signed up, just send them an email asking them to click one link if they own a dog, and another if they own a cat. Or, a third link if they own both.

You probably want to cloak this in a well-written, entertaining newsletter that makes people want to click. Provided you’ve programmed your CRM to automatically apply tags, those clicks will allow you to start sending further targeted offers.

A good sales funnel requires intentionally crafted steps, and isn’t just “set it and forget it.” It’s a continual process of asking for more information, documenting that information automatically, and using that data to continue marketing.

The customer journey map is the pattern that emerges

The customer journey map tells the story of the customer’s experience with your brand. “It may focus on a particular part of the story or give an overview of the entire experience,” says SailThru.  “What it always does is identify key interactions that the customer has with the organization. It talks about the user’s feelings, motivations and questions for each of these touchpoints.”

The journey map also paints the picture of the customer’s greater motivation – the data you need for crafting an effective sales funnel.

Always keep segmenting and match offers accordingly

Categorizing leads is essential because it tells you how to interact with them.

Although it’s a mechanical process, a properly structured sales funnel doesn’t push all leads through the same steps in the same order. When leads are collected, they need to be segmented or tagged in order to categorize them.

For instance, say you get a new lead to sign up for your newsletter. They receive a welcome email and click the link inviting them to download a free ebook. This lead should be automatically tagged for showing interest in your product. As this lead continues to click links in your email messages, they should be further tagged and moved to a segment designated for people who actively take interest in your products (even if they don’t buy). These leads will be easier to sell than those who never click on your links.

Tailor your sales funnel components to your product and market

The traditional sales model involves an assembly-line-style process of gathering leads, performing sales pitches, and following up. This worked great when all decision-makers were in the same house or building. It doesn’t work so well today.

Not every business should build a sales funnel based on the traditional sales model.  Some products, like enterprise software, don’t benefit from the traditional sales presentation. The geographical distribution of decision-makers renders traditional sales pitches ineffective in this market. Today, many of these businesses expect a collaborative whiteboard experience, not a scripted pitch.

Each component you employ as part of your sales funnel should execute data-driven action. Nothing should be random.

Prioritize data if you want to see sales soar

According to ConversionXL.com, a CMO Council study confirmed that “over 50% of global marketers report that they have fair, little, or no knowledge of the customer demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data. Just 6% say they have excellent knowledge of the customer.”

To be fair, this study was performed back in 2007-2008. Still, there’s no excuse for businesses to skip this important aspect of marketing.

Even as of 2014, according to the article linked above, 8 out of 10 marketers were relying on customer acquisition to generate sales rather than retaining their existing customers – a strategy that’s actually cheaper.

Also, the Consultancy’s Cross Channel Marketing Report from 2014 reported that only 2 in 5 companies surveyed “understand customer journeys and adapt the channel mix accordingly.” Unfortunately, this is what happens when you don’t understand the importance of a data-driven sales funnel.

Thankfully, most popular applications used by web marketers come with features that capture and categorize data automatically, as long as you program what you want it to capture. The solution is to spend more time strategizing to create offers that appeal to people at various stages in the customer journey. The more accurately you can market to your leads, the more sales you’ll get.

https://ift.tt/2t8Xyws

[mariaaklnthony]

How To Build A Proper Sales Funnel And Recover Vanishing Profits

If you’ve been struggling to increase your sales despite creating better offers, raising prices, and offering more value, it’s time to look at your sales funnel. Actually, it’s time to scrutinize your sales funnel with the eyes of a detective.

The term “sales funnel” sounds like a strategy that generates automatic or easy sales. However, a sales funnel is an organized system designed to move leads through a step-by-step process that eventually makes the sale. Multiple steps in the sales funnel gives you more control over how and when you present an offer to your leads.

No matter how great your offers are, if you’re not extending those offers to the right people at the right time, your sales will remain flat. A well-structured sales funnel will deliver these offers correctly. If you’ve tried everything else but you’re still struggling with sales, your sales funnel might have some leaks or disconnected components.

An intentionally engineered sales funnel directs offers to the correct leads

Your sales funnel is what allows you to reach your leads and customers in the most efficient way possible. A properly engineered sales funnel is able to track and identify where each lead is in the customer journey. This, in turn, allows you to market relevant offers and messages to customers based on where they are.

For instance, when a lead is still in the research phase, you can market to them with information to help them make the decision to buy. When a lead is ready to buy, you can market to them with more aggressive sales copy. You don’t want to send aggressive sales copy to someone who isn’t ready to buy – that’s a turn off.

How do you know who’s ready to buy and who’s not? How do you know what offers each lead should receive? It begins with collecting data and segmenting your leads according to what that data tells you about them. Data is a vital foundation for every sales funnel. A collection of data forms a pattern, and that pattern reveals information that couldn’t otherwise be seen.

You need a data-centric sales funnel

In addition to segmenting leads as they come in, you should be collecting data on customer behavior every step of the way. By tracking which links they click on in emails, their browsing history, purchase history, and more, you’ll end up with a pattern that will allow you to accurately categorize them for targeted marking.

An interesting example of how analyzing data can provide profound insight is how the KGB accurately identified undercover CIA agents during the Cold War. Their accuracy seemed like magic, but it was just great data analysis. They gathered publicly available information on deployed U.S. Foreign Service personnel, data from allied countries, and learned that their agents’ housing and pay patterns were different from those who were posing as State Department officers. For example, the data showed:

Undercover CIA agents had a higher pay scale than real FSOs.

Real FSOs usually returned home after a 3-4 year tour while CIA agents didn’t.

When CIA agents returned home, they didn’t show up in State Department listings.

Real FSOs attended the three-month training session at the Institute for Foreign Service.

CIA agents were often reposted within the same country while real FSOs never were.

This same level of insight is available to businesses that continually capture data from their leads. Knowing where your leads come from, what they’re interested in, what links they click on, and where they go after being exposed to your ads is priceless to the sales process.

Intentionally craft every step in your sales funnel

It’s not enough to create a series of 10 emails that get drip-fed to new leads over a period of two months and hope you get clicks and sales. It’s also not enough to dump leads into a queue for your sales team to schedule follow-up calls.

Yes, CRM software like Infusionsoft, Ontraport, and Salesforce make it easy to automate these and other processes, and you should be utilizing this technology. However, to be effective, these separate components need to be integrated into an overarching multi-step strategy. Without the integration of all automated processes, none of these processes are effective.

Each step in the sales process is actually an offer, beginning with the opportunity to receive a free download in exchange for an email address. If you don’t have a lead magnet, your sales process starts with whatever step you use to get people interested. For instance, if you’re a mail order business and you offer free information to anyone who writes to you, that ad is your first step in the sales process, even for people who don’t write. When a person received their requested information, that’s your opportunity to present them with a new, more interesting offer.

Keep increasing the offers as people move along their journey

Offers often start out free, but gradually require the lead to invest some cash. Even if it’s just $4.95 for shipping and handling to receive another free offer. Make sure you keep increasing the value of the offers you send your leads, and make sure those offers are relevant to each lead.

“Every offer is actually a series of offers designed to increase purchase size,” says ClickFunnels marketing expert Becky DeGrossa in an Ultimate Guide to Sales Funnels. This guide is a must-read. It’s packed with valuable information on building effective sales funnels from the ground up and busts some major myths and misconceptions.

The guide also describes, in-depth, the AIDA marketing model developed in the late 19th century by sales pioneer Elias St. Elmo Lewis. This model is used by marketing gurus everywhere, for good reason: it works.

AIDA stands for Attraction, Interest, Desire, Action. The ideal marketing campaign will grab people’s attention, capture their interest, create a desire for your product or service, and get them to take action to make a purchase.

A good sales funnel will continually create interest and desire throughout the various stages and steps. This is accomplished by continually creating new and interesting offers.

Some leads need to be gradually encouraged to put some skin in the game through multiple free offers that eventually require paying for shipping. Once they’ve got some money invested in your brand, you can begin presenting them with the offer for your main product or service.

As you collect more information about your leads, you can start tailoring your offers to appeal to their specific preferences. For instance, if you’re using Infusionsoft as a CRM, you can automatically tag leads based on the links they click in your emails. Links are one of the best ways to get leads to tell you what they’re interested in.

For example, say you sell pet products for both dogs and cats. A powerful and effective marketing campaign requires the ability to send ads specifically about cat products to cat owners, and send ads specifically about dog products to dog owners. If you didn’t ask your leads about this when they signed up, just send them an email asking them to click one link if they own a dog, and another if they own a cat. Or, a third link if they own both.

You probably want to cloak this in a well-written, entertaining newsletter that makes people want to click. Provided you’ve programmed your CRM to automatically apply tags, those clicks will allow you to start sending further targeted offers.

A good sales funnel requires intentionally crafted steps, and isn’t just “set it and forget it.” It’s a continual process of asking for more information, documenting that information automatically, and using that data to continue marketing.

The customer journey map is the pattern that emerges

The customer journey map tells the story of the customer’s experience with your brand. “It may focus on a particular part of the story or give an overview of the entire experience,” says SailThru.  “What it always does is identify key interactions that the customer has with the organization. It talks about the user’s feelings, motivations and questions for each of these touchpoints.”

The journey map also paints the picture of the customer’s greater motivation – the data you need for crafting an effective sales funnel.

Always keep segmenting and match offers accordingly

Categorizing leads is essential because it tells you how to interact with them.

Although it’s a mechanical process, a properly structured sales funnel doesn’t push all leads through the same steps in the same order. When leads are collected, they need to be segmented or tagged in order to categorize them.

For instance, say you get a new lead to sign up for your newsletter. They receive a welcome email and click the link inviting them to download a free ebook. This lead should be automatically tagged for showing interest in your product. As this lead continues to click links in your email messages, they should be further tagged and moved to a segment designated for people who actively take interest in your products (even if they don’t buy). These leads will be easier to sell than those who never click on your links.

Tailor your sales funnel components to your product and market

The traditional sales model involves an assembly-line-style process of gathering leads, performing sales pitches, and following up. This worked great when all decision-makers were in the same house or building. It doesn’t work so well today.

Not every business should build a sales funnel based on the traditional sales model.  Some products, like enterprise software, don’t benefit from the traditional sales presentation. The geographical distribution of decision-makers renders traditional sales pitches ineffective in this market. Today, many of these businesses expect a collaborative whiteboard experience, not a scripted pitch.

Each component you employ as part of your sales funnel should execute data-driven action. Nothing should be random.

Prioritize data if you want to see sales soar

According to ConversionXL.com, a CMO Council study confirmed that “over 50% of global marketers report that they have fair, little, or no knowledge of the customer demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data. Just 6% say they have excellent knowledge of the customer.”

To be fair, this study was performed back in 2007-2008. Still, there’s no excuse for businesses to skip this important aspect of marketing.

Even as of 2014, according to the article linked above, 8 out of 10 marketers were relying on customer acquisition to generate sales rather than retaining their existing customers – a strategy that’s actually cheaper.

Also, the Consultancy’s Cross Channel Marketing Report from 2014 reported that only 2 in 5 companies surveyed “understand customer journeys and adapt the channel mix accordingly.” Unfortunately, this is what happens when you don’t understand the importance of a data-driven sales funnel.

Thankfully, most popular applications used by web marketers come with features that capture and categorize data automatically, as long as you program what you want it to capture. The solution is to spend more time strategizing to create offers that appeal to people at various stages in the customer journey. The more accurately you can market to your leads, the more sales you’ll get.

https://ift.tt/2t8Xyws

[trendingnewsb]

From an Engineer to an Author, I Find These Writing Tips Really Helpful

Writing well is one of those things that’s seen to be hard to do or only a skill possessed by people with a natural talent. Trying to convey stories and thoughts in a constructive and flowing manner can leave many people feeling frustration and lack of real ability.

But I’m here to tell you that, as a fan of life hacks, I believe anyone can become a great writer with the right knowledge.

Making the transition from engineer to writer over the past 10 years, I’ve come across many of the common issues people encounter when they write and discovered the writing tips to allow them to write 10 times better.

We Aren’t Really Taught How to Write Well in School

Don’t feel disheartened if writing doesn’t come naturally to you. In this online age, more of us have the opportunity to put our ideas out there but struggle to know where to start when we sit down to do it.

One reason is we aren’t really taught how to write well in school. Much of the emphasis is put on grammar rules and fluency instead of developing the ability to write appealing and influential work.

Writing is also the part of language skill learning that requires creativity compared to speaking, listening, and reading, making it a more challenging skill to develop. Speaking, for example, has a creative aspect but it doesn’t have the same need for precision as writing where even a single connective should be considered carefully in order to create a coherent and well-written piece of work.

The Common Difficulties People Have When Writing

For anyone who’s sat down to write something profound or even just to get their points across in an effective manner will have experienced those common feelings of writer’s block. These usually manifest as:

Having no ideas to write

Not knowing where to start

Not knowing how to organise any ideas you do have

Not knowing how to write words in an appealing way

Taking too long to finish a piece of writing and getting demotivated

When we experience these, our writing often suffers becoming fragmented, simple and shallow. The flow can become messy and hard to follow and in danger of even being boring and ordinary.

The Hacks You Need to Follow to Unlock Your Writing Potential

There are several things to keep in mind when you sit down to write and by following these hacks, you can steer your writing to that of flow, appeal and coherency.

Don’t Google General Ideas on Your Topic

Trying to think of ideas can be the first hurdle for many people. If you have a particular topic for example “how to think positively” and you feel stuck for ideas, don’t automatically search google with your general topic. Instead, try to narrow down the scope first because google will only spit out very generic and clichéd tips that people have written time and time again.

Instead, ask yourself certain questions that will elicit the answer from within.

Why do we need to think positively?

What happens to our brains when we think positively?

What’s the difference between people who think positively and people who think negatively?

What are the mindsets we need to change before we can think positively?

What are some daily habits we can build to think more positively?

Brainstorming helps narrow down your topic and create different points to elaborate in your writing. Readers of your work will then feel that you’re really making good points.

Don’t Dwell on the Beginning, Focus on the Body

When we read things, the headline is what gets our attention which leads us to the main body of the writing. As a writer, this is the other way around.

When writing, the key is to write the main content first and then tune the headline accordingly. But this should also be applied to the introduction – focus on the main content and points first so you know the heart of what you’re writing about and then think about the beginning in relation to it.

Design the Flow Like Designing a Drama: The Model AIDA

Getting your words to flow can be one of the hardest challenges. There’s a marketing and advertising model called AIDA which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

This strategy can also be applied to writing to create a good sense of structure and flow in order to get readers interested instead of merely throwing information at them. So keep this in mind when creating your content.

Avoid Perfectionism

Being a perfectionist could be a massive disadvantage when it comes to your writing.

We all want our work to be perfect but this can lead to the temptation to rewrite paragraphs once you start the next one which can be detrimental to the overall piece. This creates a lack of time and while your introduction may be spot on, the rest of your writing can end up disappointing your readers.

Editing is an important part of the process but leave this until the end when you can see the big picture rather than doing it as you go.

The key is getting your ideas down in an organised manner and worry about any changes once these are down. Don’t get so attached to your first draft – as Hemingway famously said “the first draft of everything is shit.”

Replace Vague Words with Concrete Ones

Try avoiding bland and general words in your writing. Instead, think about more descriptive words that make your piece sound more attractive. If you write ‘good’ ask yourself how good? Could it be wonderful, exceptional or excellent? Could ‘bad’ be atrocious, lousy, inadequate? Or could ‘a lot’ be a massive amount, tonnes or plentiful?

Using more descriptive and imaginative words will help engage the reader and give your writing more life.

Remove Fillers and Redundant Words

When we speak, we naturally use filler words like: ‘some kind of’, ‘sort of’, ‘to start with’, ‘due to the fact that’, ‘I believe’, ‘in terms of’ and ‘in order to’.

While it’s common to use these types of fillers and redundant words, they can actually decrease your credibility because they make the reader feel that you’re adding no meaning to a sentence and can give the impression your logic is lacking.

For example: All of the people rushed to get the train can be better read as All the people rushed to get the train.

In the process of starting my company, I hired three new members of staff would be better written as When I started my company, I hired three new members of staff.

Fillers and redundant words make your writing conversational but if you’re creating more informative content, avoid fillers at all costs.

Always Choose Simpler Words Over Convoluted Ones

With all kinds of writing whether formal or informal, it’s a good idea to avoid long and more difficult words.

You may think using simple words is a no-no especially when, at school, we’re often taught to write as descriptive as possible. But while this may be good for story-telling, other forms of writing tend to have the intention of getting a message across and simple words are more effective.

For example: “use” instead “utilise”, “to” instead of “in order to”, “help” instead of “facilitate”, “start” instead of “commence”.

Remember, brilliant writing is simple writing.

Design Punchlines: One Word Sentences or One Line Paragraphs

Look.

Have I got your attention now? That’s the beauty of using a single word in a paragraph. This technique is a great hook for the reader to increase their intrigue. Use this to create a sense of importance in what you’re about to write next but just make sure not to overdo it – use it only once in once piece of writing.

The post From an Engineer to an Author, I Find These Writing Tips Really Helpful appeared first on Lifehack.

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[amylanchester]

PitchWars #PimpMyBio

Hi, I’m Amy.

This is my first ever PitchWars, and I’m hyped af.

About My Manuscript

Title: More Fierce Than Fire (title comes from here)

Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

Word Count: 75,000

Comps: The Young Elites by Marie Lu, The Story of Owen by E. K. Johnston

Sixteen-year-old Abigail Hunter, the best healer in Grady Hospital’s Magical Trauma Ward, has a secret. Ten years ago, Abby wished her mother dead on the worst possible day—the day dragons awoke and brought magical powers to everyone in the world. Abby's angry wish became the powerful spell that ended her mother's life. 

Abby has devoted her life to healing magic to atone for the sins of her past. Though she’s still afraid of losing control, she has become increasingly aware of the threat the dragons pose and frustrated that she is helpless to do anything about it. Hoping to develop the skills required to protect others, she joins a new United Nations-sponsored program which promises to give her the chance to work directly with the dragons and their victims. Training with some of the best young mages in the world, she prepares for the war to come.

And the war is coming. When a group of unregistered mages leads the dragons in a deadly attack on American cities, Abby must decide if she’s ready to join the fight against them, or if she’ll be stuck reliving the mistakes of her past forever. 

A Note About Diversity

Diversity is extremely important to me in my writing. Most of the characters in my book other than my MC are POC and/or LGBTQ. I did not feel that I had the skill or experience to write a first-person perspective for a POC/LGBTQ character, so I didn’t. However, I have been fortunate to grow up in an extremely diverse place, so I’ve included a number of POC/LGBTQ characters (loosely) based on real people. I feel that authentic, thoughtful representation is important in all forms of media and am hoping to find a mentor who feels the same.

MS Pinterest Board

Novel Aesthetic (Quotes & More on My Instagram)

About Me

Let’s start this the way you did back in pre-school. My name is Amy Lanchester, and I’m twenty-eight years old. My favorite color is pink (and has been since long before millennial pink became a thing #ILikedItBeforeItWasCool). More Fierce Than Fire is my first novel. 

I’m “from Atlanta” in the way that most people who say they are “from Atlanta” are “from Atlanta,” in that I actually grew up about thirty minutes away and only moved to the city as an adult. I set my book here because I feel that entirely too many books are set in NYC, London, or Chicago.

I’ve been funemployed for the past year.

I started my first “real job” before I’d even finished my master’s degree, and after working there for three years, I decided I wanted to do a few things before I’m too old/settled. So I’ve traveled Europe:

ALL

OVER

EUROPE

and the western United States:

ALL

OVER

THE 

WILD

WEST

and I finally achieved a life goal in writing this book. I highly recommend taking a “gap year” to anyone who is able.

I live with my boyfriend and our beautiful asshole of a cat, Bret. We found him about two years ago at a local McDonald’s hanging out near the drive-thru. We went back the next day and lured him out with bits of hamburger, and he’s been our lovable jerk of a pet ever since. 

Why You Should Mentor Me

- I am really, really serious about this. I’ve devoted an insane amount of time, energy, and research on this project in the past year and fully intend to see it through all the way. I love and believe in my work. 

- I am crazy meticulous. I come from a STEM background, and I use the tools I learned there in my work. I’m a firm believer in spreadsheets, outlines, automation, and using technology to the fullest. I am a grammar nut who googles everything she isn’t sure about and spends hours nerding out reading style guides and grammar blogs.

- I take criticism well. I’m a fairly self-critical person who is realistic about her flaws and shortcomings. Though I love my work, I know it is far from perfect, and I am greatly looking forward to receiving a thoughtful critique. You won’t hurt my feelings. I want my work to be the best it can be, and I know that takes knowledge and experience I don’t have.

Writing History

I had the idea for my MS in May 2016. It was inspired by this tumblr post which made its way to reddit (a site I love and hate and spend entirely too much time on):

I decided I could write that book, and so I did. I wrote a prologue that I cut and part of the first chapter on a train from Warsaw to Berlin in September. I made an outline when I got back home in October, and I wrote the rest of the book during NaNoWriMo 2016. I did finish my 50,000 words in November, but the book wasn’t done. I had a completed (terrible) first draft of about 55,000 words by the first week of December. 

My first draft was mostly just dialogue and action. I discovered that I hate writing description as much as I hate reading it. So my next several drafts mostly involved adding description to scenes, and it took forever. I cut several scenes and characters entirely during this process and added a few more scenes and characters, bringing my final word count to 75,000 words. My current draft contains very little from the original NaNoWriMo draft, and believe me, that’s for the best.

Writing Style

I am definitely a planner. I would have gotten nowhere without my outline or character spreadsheet. However, most of my character’s personalities came out through writing their dialogue. I used dialogue (that I went back and cut because it was boring and redundant) to solve plot problems and work out motivations in scenes. If I ever got stuck, I just started writing a conversation between my characters, and it solved basically all of my problems. 

How I Write 

I started writing in Scrivener, a program I’d gotten for free when I worked at the Apple Store back in 2010. It helped me a lot with organizing scenes and research. I transitioned to Google Docs after a save file got corrupted and I spent an evening panicking that I’d lost everything (I hadn’t, thank God). Google Docs sucks for long documents, but it saves to the cloud every few seconds, so I suffered through it.

I write at night almost exclusively. My best creative work comes after midnight, and usually once I’m already in bed.

I dread having to get back on a normal schedule because the night owl life is best for my writing.

Favorite Writing Resources

- Excel/Google Sheets

- Grammar Girl

- Chicago Manual of Style (I’m too poor to actually own this, but I use their FAQs and this hyphenation table all the time.)

- Hemingway Editor

- Grammarly

- ProWritingAid

Upcoming Projects Preview

I have so many ideas. I think of new project ideas every day, and I constantly struggle not to get distracted by my newest, shiniest concept. Here are a couple of things I’ve started planning:

- Shakespeare’s plays retold in a combined setting like into the Woods or Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles. A central, overarching series plot with individual volumes devoted to some of the plots of the original plays. I’ll be combining side characters from one show with main characters from another.

- A space opera/sci-fi series centered on a girl who rescues an alien from a hostile species at war with Earth’s space empires. The aliens have superior technology and are annihilating the space colonies, but we can’t communicate with them. My MC and her android nanny devise a method for rudimentary communication and are captured by government forces who have ulterior motives.

Stuff I Like

Books

- Harry Potter, obviously. Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite. I spent years convincing myself I was a Gryffindor like Hermione, my hero, but I’m really a Ravenclaw.

- The Young Elites by Marie Lu

- Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston

- A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

- 1984 by George Orwell

- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

TV Shows

I freaking love TV. 

I’m convinced that if Ray Bradbury had lived in the Golden Age of Television that we’re living through, he would never have written Fahrenheit 451.

A short list of shows I love: Futurama, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Parks and Recreation, BoJack Horseman, Game of Thrones, The Handmaid’s Tale, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Jessica Jones, Broadchurch, Steven Universe, Stranger Things, You’re the Worst, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Musicals 

I love Broadway so much. 

I’ve been in (school productions of) Once on This Island, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, and Dreamgirls. Other shows I love include Hamilton, The Book of Mormon, The Last Five Years, Aida, Phantom of the Opera, Evita, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, and West Side Story.

Cosplay 

I picked up cosplay a few years back. I didn’t own a sewing machine, didn’t know how to sew, and had limited crafting experience. I taught myself using books, online tutorials, and YouTube videos. Some of my projects:

Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones

Chell from Portal

Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter

Elsa from Frozen

Joy from Inside Out

Eleven from Stranger Things

That was entirely too long, and I’m sorry.

If you read this far, you’re probably my soulmate. Please send me a message on Twitter and let me know. :)

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From an Engineer to an Author, I Find These Writing Tips Really Helpful

Writing well is one of those things that’s seen to be hard to do or only a skill possessed by people with a natural talent. Trying to convey stories and thoughts in a constructive and flowing manner can leave many people feeling frustration and lack of real ability.

But I’m here to tell you that, as a fan of life hacks, I believe anyone can become a great writer with the right knowledge.

Making the transition from engineer to writer over the past 10 years, I’ve come across many of the common issues people encounter when they write and discovered the writing tips to allow them to write 10 times better.

We Aren’t Really Taught How to Write Well in School

Don’t feel disheartened if writing doesn’t come naturally to you. In this online age, more of us have the opportunity to put our ideas out there but struggle to know where to start when we sit down to do it.

One reason is we aren’t really taught how to write well in school. Much of the emphasis is put on grammar rules and fluency instead of developing the ability to write appealing and influential work.

Writing is also the part of language skill learning that requires creativity compared to speaking, listening, and reading, making it a more challenging skill to develop. Speaking, for example, has a creative aspect but it doesn’t have the same need for precision as writing where even a single connective should be considered carefully in order to create a coherent and well-written piece of work.

The Common Difficulties People Have When Writing

For anyone who’s sat down to write something profound or even just to get their points across in an effective manner will have experienced those common feelings of writer’s block. These usually manifest as:

Having no ideas to write

Not knowing where to start

Not knowing how to organise any ideas you do have

Not knowing how to write words in an appealing way

Taking too long to finish a piece of writing and getting demotivated

When we experience these, our writing often suffers becoming fragmented, simple and shallow. The flow can become messy and hard to follow and in danger of even being boring and ordinary.

The Hacks You Need to Follow to Unlock Your Writing Potential

There are several things to keep in mind when you sit down to write and by following these hacks, you can steer your writing to that of flow, appeal and coherency.

Don’t Google General Ideas on Your Topic

Trying to think of ideas can be the first hurdle for many people. If you have a particular topic for example “how to think positively” and you feel stuck for ideas, don’t automatically search google with your general topic. Instead, try to narrow down the scope first because google will only spit out very generic and clichéd tips that people have written time and time again.

Instead, ask yourself certain questions that will elicit the answer from within.

Why do we need to think positively?

What happens to our brains when we think positively?

What’s the difference between people who think positively and people who think negatively?

What are the mindsets we need to change before we can think positively?

What are some daily habits we can build to think more positively?

Brainstorming helps narrow down your topic and create different points to elaborate in your writing. Readers of your work will then feel that you’re really making good points.

Don’t Dwell on the Beginning, Focus on the Body

When we read things, the headline is what gets our attention which leads us to the main body of the writing. As a writer, this is the other way around.

When writing, the key is to write the main content first and then tune the headline accordingly. But this should also be applied to the introduction – focus on the main content and points first so you know the heart of what you’re writing about and then think about the beginning in relation to it.

Design the Flow Like Designing a Drama: The Model AIDA

Getting your words to flow can be one of the hardest challenges. There’s a marketing and advertising model called AIDA which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

This strategy can also be applied to writing to create a good sense of structure and flow in order to get readers interested instead of merely throwing information at them. So keep this in mind when creating your content.

Avoid Perfectionism

Being a perfectionist could be a massive disadvantage when it comes to your writing.

We all want our work to be perfect but this can lead to the temptation to rewrite paragraphs once you start the next one which can be detrimental to the overall piece. This creates a lack of time and while your introduction may be spot on, the rest of your writing can end up disappointing your readers.

Editing is an important part of the process but leave this until the end when you can see the big picture rather than doing it as you go.

The key is getting your ideas down in an organised manner and worry about any changes once these are down. Don’t get so attached to your first draft – as Hemingway famously said “the first draft of everything is shit.”

Replace Vague Words with Concrete Ones

Try avoiding bland and general words in your writing. Instead, think about more descriptive words that make your piece sound more attractive. If you write ‘good’ ask yourself how good? Could it be wonderful, exceptional or excellent? Could ‘bad’ be atrocious, lousy, inadequate? Or could ‘a lot’ be a massive amount, tonnes or plentiful?

Using more descriptive and imaginative words will help engage the reader and give your writing more life.

Remove Fillers and Redundant Words

When we speak, we naturally use filler words like: ‘some kind of’, ‘sort of’, ‘to start with’, ‘due to the fact that’, ‘I believe’, ‘in terms of’ and ‘in order to’.

While it’s common to use these types of fillers and redundant words, they can actually decrease your credibility because they make the reader feel that you’re adding no meaning to a sentence and can give the impression your logic is lacking.

For example: All of the people rushed to get the train can be better read as All the people rushed to get the train.

In the process of starting my company, I hired three new members of staff would be better written as When I started my company, I hired three new members of staff.

Fillers and redundant words make your writing conversational but if you’re creating more informative content, avoid fillers at all costs.

Always Choose Simpler Words Over Convoluted Ones

With all kinds of writing whether formal or informal, it’s a good idea to avoid long and more difficult words.

You may think using simple words is a no-no especially when, at school, we’re often taught to write as descriptive as possible. But while this may be good for story-telling, other forms of writing tend to have the intention of getting a message across and simple words are more effective.

For example: “use” instead “utilise”, “to” instead of “in order to”, “help” instead of “facilitate”, “start” instead of “commence”.

Remember, brilliant writing is simple writing.

Design Punchlines: One Word Sentences or One Line Paragraphs

Look.

Have I got your attention now? That’s the beauty of using a single word in a paragraph. This technique is a great hook for the reader to increase their intrigue. Use this to create a sense of importance in what you’re about to write next but just make sure not to overdo it – use it only once in once piece of writing.

The post From an Engineer to an Author, I Find These Writing Tips Really Helpful appeared first on Lifehack.

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