Writing a Holiday Story

 

Fall has the best holidays. Don’t you think so? Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. In my family we also have all our birthdays, two in September, one in November, one in December, and I’m in January (Winter, but close enough). So, celebrations happen every other week between birthdays and holidays.

But in addition to all the holidays and family celebrations, the weather is cooler so we get to go up to the mountains to play in the snow, pick apples and drink hot chocolate. And the food is amazing.

These are my favorite months. Without intending to, I seem to set most, if not all, of my stories in the fall.

But should writers include holidays like Christmas in their stories? Will this still make books unrelatable, let’s say, in the summer as a beach read?

I think a good book can be read any time of the year. But there are obviously, advantages and disadvantages to branding a book a “holiday” book.

I remember when Silhouette Romance used to put out a Christmas gift box every year with three or four books, and I loved it. I used to buy it every year. I knew the stories would be holiday themed, and that was what I was looking for. I enjoyed reading stories about Christmas. Back then, I don’t think they had Hallmark movies every day the way they do now, so it was a treat to read romantic stories about Christmas.

So, holidays in books do have a marketing advantage. If a writer knows that her book will be released during a certain holiday, then that can be part of the marketing done to sell the book.

A couple of years, I participated in a traveling Holiday Blog. I think it was called the 12 Days of Romance or something like that. We gave away prizes every day and each writer wrote a short Christmas themed story. The writers and our readers had fun.

This can work well for other genres too. Horror writers can connect with other writers during Halloween, for example.

Group marketing campaigns like this help with expanding readership as well as giving writers the opportunity to promote their individual books.

If writers want to include a holiday as part of the story they should make the most of it. Use sensual details to really allow the reader to feel the mood of the holiday. For example the author can include holiday music playing on the radio when the character gets in the car. She might be annoyed and turn it off showing that the character is tired of hearing Christmas music everywhere. Or maybe the character sings along because she loves Christmas music. Definitely include the holiday parties where characters can run into each other and can enjoy holiday treats and delicious tamales or homemade cranberry sauce. Be specific about holiday traditions and foods.

The more sensual details you include, the better the book will sell during that season.

In fact, this book can have a new life every year around the same time. Rather than dying out, it can be a book that sells year after year.

Also, if the book really uses the holiday as an extra character or setting, consider putting the holiday in the title. This year, I saw Mistletoe and Mr. Right and The Twelve Dates of Christmas. I had not doubt that these books were Christmas themed. If I wanted to get into the mood for the holidays, I would have purchased these books instead of another.

Some advice to those who might wish to write a holiday story: have a mixture of traditional story and something new. Do not write a cliched story.

One of my favorite Christmas movies is The Family Man with Nicholas Gage. It has some typical Christmas themes like Christmas is about family, and it has the tired storyline of the businessman who has nothing but his money for Christmas and doesn’t know what he’s missing. But there’s an interesting twist when an angel gives him a “glimpse” of the life he could have had, and he wakes up married to his college sweetheart with two children. And he hates it! He wants his old life back so badly.

Throughout the whole movie, instead of realizing what he missed out on, he tries hard to go back to what he had. Finally, at the end of the movie when he does return to his “real” life, he understands how incomplete his life is.

There are many holiday hooks that we are familiar with, but the movie is not a cliché. The character is not a scrooge, but he has those workaholic tendencies and has discarded relationships for the sake of business. There is a lot we are familiar with in that movie and it captures our attention for that reason, but the story is different enough that it doesn’t feel like we’ve seen it a million times.

I tend to add the holidays are part of the background of the story; I have not written a Christmas story. But I think both options are great.

If you choose to add holidays to your books, do so with intension and use the holiday to draw readers to your book. And remember to include promote your book during the holiday to make the most out of that element of your story.