Writing for Children

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When you’ve spent your entire career writing adult thrillers and true crime, switching to a children’s chapter book takes some getting used to. Jumping back and forth between the two is even more difficult. After struggling with both projects, I decided to stick with one till completion, then finish the other.

Because my chapter book is meticulously outlined and half-written, I chose to concentrate on that project first. Plus, a chapter book’s optimal range is 10,000 words — a fraction of the word-count of an environmental thriller.

When I read the opening sequence of my chapter book, it seemed too advanced for young readers. I needed to stop, home in on my target age group, and relax the language and pacing. After all, early readers don’t have the same mental acuity as adults. They need easier wins.

Children’s books are separated into three categories, all with different guidelines for word choices, pacing, viewpoints, and the amount and style of illustrations.

  • Picture books
  • Chapter books
  • Middle Grade

Picture Books

A standard picture book is 32 pages long.

Picture books follow a compact story arc with a beginning, middle, and end. Jump into the action quickly, introduce a problem, and have the main character solve it by the end. The “rule of three,” where a problem recurs three times before a solution is found, is a common and effective technique. Illustrations will convey much of the emotion and setting, so your text should focus on the action and dialogue. Avoid using words to describe what the illustrations show. A picture book is meant to be read aloud, so the language needs to have a natural rhythm and flow.

Ages 3-5: Around 500 words, these stories have simple language and relatable topics like starting school, picky eaters, or a nighttime routine. Illustrations consume the pages—big, bright, and fun.

Ages 4-8: These picture books can be slightly longer, up to 800 words, with a slightly more complex plot. Still, you’re limited, because the illustrations take center stage.

As a visual medium, the writer must consider how the story will unfold across two-page spreads.

Chapter Books

To write a chapter book, you need to develop relatable characters, create a simple yet engaging plot, and break the story into short, purposeful chapters that build a new reader’s confidence. A typical chapter book is aimed at the 7-10 year age group and has a word count between 5,000 and 15,000 words. The sweet spot is 10,000. This allows the writer more freedom than a picture book.

Chapter books fall between early readers and middle-grade novels. The target audience is a new independent reader who’s often supervised by an adult. A solid, unique story idea is the foundation of a successful chapter book—especially since many are written as a series—that includes the main plot and core theme(s).

If you include an ill-advised subplot, be careful not to divert focus from the main plot. The young reader is just beginning to get comfortable reading on their own. Making the story easy to understand and follow is essential. Sure, many chapter books are read aloud to an adult, but don’t rely on that. What if the child is reading alone?

A chapter book must have a full narrative arc. If you watch a plethora of animated films, you’ll see they’re all structured like an adult novel or movie. And so, that’s exactly what I did. The story should be action-packed with lots of dialogue to hold a new independent reader’s attention, but never leave the main character and sidekick in trouble for long. A flip of the page is more than enough suspense.

Around 48-80 pages, chapter books often include black-and-white illustrations at the beginning of each chapter or where you want to show the new reader what’s going on. For example, when I introduce a new animal character, I’ll include an illustration to cement that picture in the reader’s mind. Because the illustration is in black-and-white, I need only mention color rather than a detailed description.

Middle Grade Novel

Most middle grade novels are geared toward ages 8-12. They are the in-between books for readers who have outgrown chapter books and are too young to emotionally handle or enjoy themes and ideas found in young adult novels. Middle grade novels run about 30,000-55,000 words.

Young readers need to relate to the characters, but they don’t mind “reading up.” Meaning, the main cast should be in the upper range of the target age group. For some reason, 13 and 14 year-old characters are considered a no-no. They’re too old for middle grade novels (perhaps due to puberty?) and too young to star in YA.

If you choose to write in this genre, you may want to read this article about middle grade novels. In it, the author includes an important distinction:

“What may work for an 8-year-old likely won’t work for a 12-year-old. So although we bundle it all into middle grade, the genre actually has two sub groups. This is important to understand in order to know your audience when writing, and thus appropriately adjust your themes and word count.

Two Sub-Categories

  • Lower Middle Grade

Lower middle grade novels tend to be read by kids aged 8 to 10 years old. There may be a sub plot or two, but the main plot will dominate the focus, and all themes will certainly be G or PG rated.

  • Upper Middle Grade

Upper middle grade novels can have a higher word count, and will be read by children aged 10 to 13 years old. There will likely be a subplot or two that help to carry the story in a substantial way. Themes may be a bit more complex, or PG or PG-13 rated.”

Even though I spent quite a bit of time researching techniques for my new target audience, I enjoy the challenge of writing a children’s chapter book. It’s rewarding, fun, and exciting.

Have you ever considered writing for children? Do you write children’s books now? If so, for what age group? Any tips to share? Categorize your favorite children’s book and tell us why you loved it as a child.

How to Describe Characters

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I was reading a mystery the other day and noticed something—myself, pondering. I’d just read a passage describing a character. I shan’t print the actual prose, but here’s something I made up to give you the idea:

She wore a dress the color of jade. A platinum chain, deceptively thin on her smooth neck, held a diamond pendant. She had a sleek gold watch on her wrist, stacked against an array of jangling bracelets. Even her stiletto pumps whispered of indulgence and private fittings.

A couple of paragraphs later my brain sent me a message: Hey, I don’t remember a single thing she was wearing.

Which got me to thinking about what kind, and how many, physical details one should include. And my first thought is that one telling detail is much more powerful than a list. Consider this passage from The Godwulf Manuscript, a Spenser novel from Robert B. Parker:

Bradley W. Forbes, the president, was prosperously heavy—reddish face; thick, longish, white hair; heavy white eyebrows. He was wearing a brown pinstriped custom tailored three-piece suit with a gold Phi Beta Kappa key on a gold watch chain stretched across his successful middle. His shirt was yellow broadcloth and his blue and yellow striped red tie spilled out over the top of his vest.

This, IMO, is too much. And I was tripped up by broadcloth. What the heck is broadcloth? All those colors—red, white, gold. And what does “blue and yellow striped red” look like?

Here’s a better mix from The Americans by John Jakes. Carter Kent is a student at Harvard in the 1880s. Rebellious in nature, Carter got on the wrong side of his German professor.

In Carter’s opinion the man belonged in the Prussian army, not in a classroom. His curly blonde hair lay over his forehead in damp, effeminate ringlets. He had protruding blue eyes, and a superior manner, and loved to strut in front of his classes with a gold-knobbed cane in hand. He issued study instructions as if they were military orders, emphasizing them by whacking the cane on the desk.

Here damp, effeminate ringlets is striking. The gold-knobbed cane also. But here we have Carter’s impression of the man. Prussian army … military orders. And an action— whacking desks. That latter picture is one that sticks most in my mind.

Now let’s look at three character descriptions from the first page of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. It is, of course, in the POV of Philip Marlowe:

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one. He had a young-looking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other.

Notice there’s one telling detail—bone white. That’s striking, and that’s enough. The rest of the description is the impression the character’s looks make on Marlowe.

There was a girl beside him. Her hair was a lovely shade of dark red and she had a distant smile on her lips and over her shoulder she had a blue mink that almost made the Rolls-Royce look like just another automobile. It didn’t quite. Nothing can.

Two specific details here—dark red hair and a blue mink—and both of them are wrapped up inside Marlowe’s impression. Here is a rich woman who doesn’t seem to care about the drunken Lennox (…distant smile…)

The attendant was the usual half-tough character in a white coat with the name of the restaurant stitched across the front of it in red. He was getting fed up.

Detail: white coat with red stitching. But the impression is what stays with us. I know what Marlowe means by a “usual half-tough character.”

Chandler then goes on to use both dialogue and action to augment the descriptions. Dialogue for the half-tough guy:

“Look, mister,” he said with an edge to his voice, “would you mind a whole lot pulling your leg into the car so I can kind of shut the door? Or should I open it all the way so you can fall out?”

Action for the woman:

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.

Finally, if you’ve got a character with a definite voice (and you should!) you can often capture the reader with just one line. Here again is the great Chandler:

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. (Farewell, My Lovely)

From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away. (The High Window)

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. (The Little Sister)

Redoing the description that kicked off this post, perhaps:

A platinum chain, deceptively thin on her smooth neck, held a diamond pendant. I smelled trouble. Or was that her perfume?

Suggestions (not rules…ahem):

  1. Don’t give us a list. Look for that one, telling detail.
  2. Consider using an impression from the POV character.
  3. Augment the description with dialogue and action.
  4. Use the voice for all its worth.

Over to you now. As I sit here in my faded sweatpants the color of an old gray mare, and my L.A. Rams T-shirt with a hole in the left armpit, I wonder: Do you have the same reaction to lists of details (i.e., forgetting them almost immediately)? What is your approach to character description?

Minutiae

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I just returned from Boucheron in New Orleans. The first time I was there in 1975, Mardis Gras was in full swing and most folks were juiced to the gills. I say most, because I only remember bits and pieces of that six-day trip. Today, people still drink there, heavily, and not just at night. As the sun lowers in the thick, humid air, neon still shines bright, reflected in puddles of fluids I don’t care to ponder.

But back to Bouchercon. This mystery thriller gathering of writers and fans is likely the largest in North America. There were panels, presentations, and lots of authors. Many of them drinking. Other than going out for meals (and they were all splendid) I spent most of the time in the bar, talking with other attendees, who may or may not have been partaking of spirits and club soda.

If you’ve never been to any writers conference, the bar is where business takes place. No matter if you drink or not, it’s like a Serengeti  watering hole and almost everyone gathers there at one time or another in the evenings.

For some of us, it’s early afternoon.

Besides networking as we call it, I was on a panel along with four other excellent authors who shared their thoughts on “setting.” as a character. We’re all nice people, and everyone agreed that settings can  become a character that can, and will, drive a story.

If you don’t think so, read Fear in a Handful of Dust by John Ives, the pseudonym of a prolific author, Brian Garfield.

I picked that title up back when it was released in 1978 and was blown away by Ives/Garfield’s gritty dialogue and the reality of people struggling to survive in the desert. The cast is limited to essentially five characters, an insane mental patient, and four doctors.

The sixth character is the Mojave Desert.

But that’s not what this blog is about…sorry.

It’s also not about making sure your microphone is turned off. One of the panelists almost said something that would have followed her for years. Remember. All mikes are hot, whether they’re turned on or not. And now, finally, back to my original subject.

During the course of our panel discussion that wandered nearly as much as this blog, fellow participants mentioned that in one of his own novels, a troll emerged at an earlier conference to bring up what that individual thought was an important mistake in let’s say, Mr. Smith’s novel.

“At one point in your latest work, you write that it rained on May 25, 1964. Well, that’s incorrect. I looked it up through Goggle, ChatGap, and an old man who siad he was there, but I’m not sure, because he’d been at a conference and couldn’t remember much about what happened, but the point is, through rabbit holes and research, I discovered that it in fact didn’t rain that day like you said. Did you realize that?”

Personally, I would have suggested that the troll kiss my…

However, Mr. Smith was shaken by that point. He shouldn’t have been.

He should have said in a loud, firm voice, “It’s fiction, you moron!!! Take it as entertainment and not nonfiction.”

So maybe Mr. Smith wanted it to rain that day in his book in order to accomplish some plot point, mood, or setting. Who’s to say a tiny little cloud didn’t pop up in Nebraska and drop an inch of rain in about an hour.

Case in point. Here in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, the National Weather Service office is at the DFW airport. That’s where records and airplanes are kept, but Texas is such a strange animal that it has rained at my house only thirty miles away while not a drop fell at the airport.

Therefore it was recorded as a rain-free day.

When I was a kid playing softball at my uncle’s house in the country, a cousin knocked a fly ball over the roof and into the front yard…where it was raining, though not a drop fell in the back yard. So we all ran around to the other side to get soaked, much to our mother’s pleasure.

And while I’m rambling around here on several subjects, let me point out to everyone that the thermometer at DFW is surrounded by concrete! It’s hotter there than at my house where we have trees and grass, so in my humble opinion (and that’s the only one that counts right this moment, in my opinion), the days when we reach that magic (gasp) number of 100 only counts in the middle of all that concrete!

Envision me shouting this fact like Sam Kinison.

So with that, please return to your writing. Be accurate with real places (one way vs. two-way streets for example), tell your fictional story (maybe change the name of your town so your streets can run the way you want them to), and don’t worry about the minutiae!!!

Pronounced muh-NOO-shee-ee, it refers to the small, precise, and often useless details or trifling matters of something, often in a literal sense.

Sam Kinison again, worrying about these things will only give you an ulcer!!!!

Reader Friday-What’s Your Rallying Cry?

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Motto: Adage, aphorism, maxim, rallying cry.

Famous people are famous for their mottos. They spew them out when they’re in front of a microphone and their fans.

Here’s a few: (Photo credits to Pixabay)

Question for TKZers this morning.

What are the words you live by no matter the circumstance that might arise in your world?

Here’s mine: This is all temporary.

(Click to view on Amazon)

  • Let’s hear yours. That thing you think when all is sunshine and roses–or, when the bottom drops out of your life.
  • How does your motto show up in your writing? Do you choose to read stories that illustrate your motto?

 

 

Cozy Detective Tips

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By Elaine Viets

You knock on your neighbor’s door, and it swings open. Funny, Melanie always locks her door. You step into the hall, and see Melanie on the living room rug, dead as a mackerel. The police say Melanie’s death was an accident. She tripped.

But you know Melanie was no klutz. You’re sure she was murdered. The suspects could be her soon-to-be-ex-husband, her new boyfriend, or her boyfriend’s wife.

How do you investigate Melanie’s death if you’re a cozy detective?

You don’t have access to local, national or law enforcement databases, AFIS fingerprint databases, and other official sources.

Many writers cozy up (sorry) to someone in law enforcement. Even that shrewd spinster, Miss Jane Marple, had Sir Henry Clithering, a retired Scotland Yard commissioner, to make sure the local cops didn’t kick her off a case. Dame Agatha’s other creation, Hercule Poirot, had Inspector James Japp.

There are other ways to get information besides befriending a cop.

Check the suspect’s official biography.

Look at verifiable facts such as the suspect’s parents’ names, marriages and divorces. Check for brothers and sisters. Crooks can make up entire fake families.

Better yet, maybe your suspect doesn’t get along with their real family, and those relatives will happily spill the tea to your cozy detective.

Check the suspect’s birthplace and birthday, education, marriages and divorces.

College and high school yearbooks may have information about the suspect’s early years, as well as some mortifying photos.

You’d be surprised how many serial killers are well educated. The Unabomber went to Harvard. At age 16, no less. The Roadside Strangler graduated from Cornell.

Amy Bishop graduated from Northeastern and was hired at the University of Alabama. When she was denied tenure and her appeals were turned down, Amy was furious. At a faculty meeting Amy shot six people and killed three. Anyone who’s sat through faculty meetings might have some sympathy for Amy.

Check the suspect’s military service.

What does it mean if your suspect served in the military?

Not a whole lot. At least 20 serial killers served in the military, from Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh to David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam. Uncle Sam gave serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer an honorable discharge after two years because Dahmer’s performance was impaired due to alcoholism.

Check the suspect’s social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Dozens of killers have confessed on Facebook or Twitter. Some even livestream the murder.

Check the local police records, if they’re available.

 Not just for arrests, but for incident reports, including neighbor complaints, reports of thefts, noise, and more. Your suspect could be the complainant, witness or suspect. Never underestimate fights between neighbors. In New York, Houston and other cities, people have been shot dead over parking spots.

Check with the Better Business Bureau. If the suspect has a business, you may find out he’s a cheat and a liar.

Check with delivery people.

 Do you have a friend or a relative who’s a delivery person? FedEx, UPS,  Amazon, as well as Lyft and Uber drivers, have all kinds of useful information. They  know who gets a fifth of Scotch delivered every Thursday, and who had to go to the hospital because her boyfriend broke her arm.

In one of my novels, a pizza delivery person gave my amateur detective the information to solve a murder, thanks to the delivery person’s dashboard cam.

Last but not least

don’t forget to Google the suspect’s name.

 

“Sex and Death” on the Beach, the first book in my new Florida Beach series, is on sale at Thriftbooks.com. Save $7! https://tinyurl.com/57wkt7e5

Finished the Draft. Now What?

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Finished the Draft. Now What?
Terry Odell

marked up manuscript printed in 2 columns

Since my last post, I reached “the end” of the current manuscript. Yippee! Of course, now the real “fun” begins. Editing. Previously, I’ve talked about how I attempt to fool my brain with printing the manuscript in columns and in a different font. You can find that post here. That’s what I’ll be doing for the next several weeks before sending it off to my editor.

One thing I’m super happy about is that I found a title. I know some authors can’t start writing without one. For me, it’s usually the last thing I come up with. I can think of only two exceptions. What’s In A Name? got its title when I was forced to fill out an entry sheet for a RWA chapter contest. There was this big, blank line that said “Title.” The title was almost a placeholder, but I realized that it actually fit the story. Subconscious at work? Maybe. Probably.

The other one was Starting Over which is exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t so much a name of the manuscript, but rather the name I gave the folder in my computer where I would be saving drafts, chapters, notes, etc. The title worked, for the book, too, as it turned out.

When rights reverted, indie publishing still wasn’t a thing, so I approached another publisher. They accepted it, but didn’t want the same title, so it became Nowhere to Hide, which I kept when rights from that publisher reverted to me.

What was I talking about? Right. The new book and its title. It’s part of my Mapleton Mystery series, and the pattern for titles throughout has been a two-word title, the first word being “Deadly.” You’d think coming up with one word would be easy. Ha! Not for me.

Since I had finished the draft, I had some idea of a theme (I don’t think of those when I start, either). It came to me. Deadly Ambitions. It worked, my writing buddy liked it, and my editor liked it.

That puts me one step closer to publication.

But first, I have to whip this draft into shape.

We talk about first pages a lot here at TKZ. They’re important. Very important. It’s been months since I’ve written my first chapter, and there were changes as there always are when I’m starting a new book. Am I starting in the wrong place? Am I info dumping? Will it entice new readers to keep going? (The current wip is the 9th novel, and the 12th work in my Mapleton mystery series.) I write them so they can be read as stand alones, but there’s always the temptation to make sure new readers don’t feel confused when I introduce recurring characters. I know that bugs the heck out of me, which is the main reason I prefer to start with book one in a series. JSB is always saying readers will wait for answers, but how long?

My Mapleton books are small town police procedurals. Sort of. I’ve had reviewers comment that there’s a “cozy feel” to them. But they definitely do not fit the rules/guidelines/expectations of a cozy.

When I’m reading, I like seeing the off-the-job side of my protagonist. Through the series, Gordon has dated, become engaged, married, and is now at the “newlywed phase is starting to wear off” point. Angie, his girlfriend-fiancé-wife has been with him in some capacity since book one.

My dilemma, as is frequently the case, is how much page time she gets, along with how much page time Daily Bread, the diner she runs, gets. Are readers going to want to skim those scenes to get back to the Cop Stuff and Chief Stuff Gordon has to deal with? In the current book, she’s playing a significant role and is personally involved in one of Gordon’s cases. (No spoilers.) She’s part of the opening scene, but is it too much? Not enough? I’ll pose that question to you, TKZers.

These were the opening paragraphs in my first draft.

Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Chief of Police, moseyed over to Jerry Illingsworth, newly elected mayor of the city. This was Jerry’s night, and it was in full swing. The event room at the Community Center was filled with his supporters, all enjoying the food and drink.

Angie, his wife, was in charge of the food, and she’d done a great job, deviating from the usual fare at Daily Bread. Jerry had requested something more upscale, and she’d been happy to comply, especially since her restaurant was closed for remodeling. The extra work provided much needed income.

Gordon snagged a shrimp-topped canape—Angie’s term. Gordon called them nibbles—from a passing server. The group around Jerry wandered off, and Gordon moved in to congratulate the new mayor.

“Would it be inappropriate for me to say It’s about time?” Jerry gave a quiet laugh. “Three recounts before Nelson Manning accepted—reluctantly is too kind a word—defeat.”

When I started my edits, I thought I’d devoted too much ‘dumping’ of who Angie was and her role, so I tightened it to this. (Only the second paragraph was changed.)

Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Chief of Police, moseyed over to Jerry Illingsworth, newly elected mayor of the city. This was Jerry’s night, and it was in full swing. The event room at the Community Center was filled with his supporters, all enjoying the food and drink.

Gordon snagged a shrimp-topped canape—his wife Angie’s term—from a passing server. She was the chef, so she would know. Gordon called them nibbles. The group around Jerry wandered off, and Gordon moved in to congratulate the new mayor.

“Would it be inappropriate for me to say It’s about time?” Jerry gave a quiet laugh. “Three recounts before Nelson Manning accepted—reluctantly is too kind a word—defeat.”

What’s your take? Too much? Too little?

~~~~~

woman pouring a smoked Manhattan into a glassOh, and for those of you who are interested in my images from our anniversary getaway last month, you can find them here.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Danger Abroad

When breaking family ties is the only option.

Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle.

Blackthorne, Inc. taps Security and Investigations staffer, Logan Bolt, to track down Madison Westfield. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.

Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together put them in more danger? Can a budding relationship survive the dangers they encounter?

Available now.

Like bang for your buck? I have a new Triple-D Ranch bundle. All four novels for one low price. One stop shopping here.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn?

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by Debbie Burke

Most people are familiar with “fight or flight” response to a threat. Physiologist and Harvard Medical School chair, Walter Bradford Cannon isolated those two reactions in the 1920s after observing animals in the lab. When animals were frightened or under stress, they displayed behaviors that evolution had programmed into them millions of years before for survival. Faced with a threat, animals either stood their ground and fought the attacker or ran away from it.

Photo credit: Bernard Dupont CC by SA 2.0

 

Our human ancestors developed the same programming. They either grabbed a big stick to fight off the lion or they ran like hell to escape it.

These physiological reactions are involuntary, triggered by the autonomic nervous system. Signs include dilated pupils, heightened hearing, racing heart, rapid breathing, and tense muscles to prepare the body to fight or run away.

“Freeze” is a third possible reaction to threats and wasn’t widely recognized untill the 1970s. Its evolutionary purpose may have been to avoid attracting the attention of a predator. If the prey didn’t move, the predator would hopefully not notice it and walk on by.

Public domain photo

I’ve watched young fawns remain completely still to blend in with cover. However, when deer freeze in the headlights of your speeding car, that option often doesn’t work out well for survival.

Recently I learned about a fourth reaction: fawn. The term was coined by psychotherapist Pete Walker in 2003 to describe behavior intended to appease the threat and avoid being harmed.

Photo credit: Andrew Lorenz CC by SA 3.0

For instance, dogs may roll on their backs and display their bellies to acknowledge the dominance of another dog. Crouching and cowering are also signs of fawning.

This reaction is often seen in human abuse victims who try to please or show subservience to a potential attacker to deflect violence. They also may agree with the threatening person, hoping to head off an argument that could lead to possible abuse.

This article by Olivia Guy-Evans describes physical responses that occur in the body during fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

While fight, flight, and freeze are instinctual, fawn is a learned behavior, according to Shreya Mandal JD, LCSW, NBCFCH. When faced with chronic stress and threat, some people develop the fawn reaction to survive.

In a June 2025 article in Psychology Today, she writes:

“Rooted in complex trauma, the fawn response emerges when a person internalizes that safety, love, or even survival depends on appeasing others, especially those who hold power over them. It is a profound psychological adaptation, often shaped in childhood, in homes where love was conditional, inconsistent, or entangled with emotional or physical threat.

“For many survivors, especially those from marginalized communities, fawning becomes a deeply embodied pattern. As a trauma therapist and legal advocate, I’ve witnessed this adaptive strategy in clients across many settings: survivors of interpersonal violence, those navigating carceral systems, immigrants shaped by colonial legacies, employees navigating toxic work environments, and children of emotionally immature parents. The fawn is the child who learns to become invisible or overly helpful to avoid punishment. It’s the adult who minimizes their needs in relationships. It’s the employee who fears negative consequences and retaliation. It’s the incarcerated woman who apologizes before speaking her truth in court.”

The person may not consciously be aware of what they are doing. They simply understand they will “stay safe by pleasing the powerful.”

As crime writers, we often put our characters in conflict with others. When you write these scenes, try viewing them through the lens of what Pete Walker calls the “four Fs.”

Do they fight the threat?

Do they flee?

Do they freeze in their tracks?

Do they fawn to appease the attacker?

Their reactions depend on their individual personalities and psychological makeup. Often their behavior is shaped by childhood trauma that conditioned their responses to conflict.

If you’re not sure how your character would react to peril, try writing short sample scenes. In the first example, have them fight. In the second, they flee. In the third, they freeze. In the fourth, they fawn. Which of the four scenes seems the most authentic for your character’s personality and background?

Another prompt to develop your character is to put them in a risky situation and free-write what they do. They may surprise you by reacting in a way you didn’t expect. A character you thought was timid may stand their ground and put up a ferocious fight. A blustering, aggressive character may freeze or fawn when faced with actual danger.

When a character surprises you, dig deeper into the reasons behind their action. Were they the only defense between their younger sibling and an abusive parent? Were they punished without reason or treated unjustly? Did they resolve to never be put in a submissive position again?

Short writing prompts like these help you get to know your character and learn how they react under stress. Their background may not be shown in the story but you, as the author, will better understand how to portray them in an authentic, realistic way.

~~~

TKZers: When confronted with danger, does your main character fight, flee, freeze, or fawn?

~~~

 

Debbie Burke’s new book The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate is now for sale in hardcover, as well as ebook and paperback.

Fear of Failure

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* * *

Babe Ruth played professional baseball for 22 years (1914-1935) and is considered one of the greatest players who ever lived. He had almost 3,000 hits in his career, averaging more than one hit per game. For many years, he held the record for the number of home runs hit during a single season (60 in 1927). His total number of home runs over his professional career was 714, a record which stood until 1974.

But there’s another statistic you may not have known: Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. Apparently, he never let the fear of failure keep him from playing the game.

* * *

Fear is part of being human. It goes along with the DNA, and it can be healthy because it instills the instinct for survival we all need. But fears can be unhealthy if we give in to them and become more cautious than we need to be.

Once we let our fears control us, things can get out of hand. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear of something that causes anxiety when a person is exposed to that particular thing.

We all know about fear of heights (acrophobia) and fear of spiders (arachnophobia), but when I searched around for a complete list, I found more than one hundred things on healthline.com to be afraid of! Here are a few I found interesting.

 

Fear of flowers (anthophobia) – Better not go for a walk in my neighborhood.

Fear of numbers (arithmophobia) – I have a friend who insists she “can’t do numbers”

Fear of books (bibliophobia) – Oh no!

 

Fear of failure (atychiphobia) – Ah, now here’s one we can relate to.

* * *

Failure is something we all experience, but I suspect the fear of failure is more acute in disciplines that require creativity than in other areas. The very word “create” implies something new, and that means it may not work.

I’ve read research that shows high achievers are very likely to experience fear of failure. (I imagine some of us here at TKZ fall into this category.) Having achieved success in their professional lives, these folks see anything less than a fabulous accomplishment as inadequacy.

Many high achievers will work hard to avoid that stigma, but others would rather drop out of the race than risk what they perceive as failure.

So how do authors stay in the game and handle that scary thought that they won’t be able to write another book as good as the last one?  There are ways to minimize those concerns. According to an article on betterhealth.vic.gov.au, the same things that enhance creativity can be used to fight the fear of failure.

“There are several ways you can try to fight your fears.… Simple changes, like exercising regularly, can reduce your stress levels. So can eating healthy meals, getting enough sleep, and reducing or avoiding stimulants like caffeine and alcohol.”

And don’t forget the Babe. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate.

 

So TKZers: Do you experience a fear of failure in your writing? How do you fight it?

* * *

The saga continues with Knights in Manhattan, the second novel in the Reen & Joanie Detective Agency middle grade mystery series.

  • Joanie is afraid of flying.
  • Reen is afraid she might not catch the thieves.
  • Mrs. Toussaint isn’t afraid of anything.

Join the fun with the R&J Detective Agency as they track down nefarious crooks in Manhattan. New York will never be the same.

$1.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Google Play

Ride the Lightning

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I got an email last week which I post here with the sender’s permission.

Dear Mr. Bell,

I’ve been reflecting on something I thought you might find intriguing, given your strong defense of flexible structure in storytelling and your view that both plotters and pantsers benefit from it.

I’ve come to think of it as The Paradox of Spontaneity:

Spontaneity feels wondrous because it bypasses conscious control. But it’s only possible because of preexisting order.

The metaphor that struck me is lightning. Rather than being random, it’s the sudden visible manifestation of a vast, invisible system of order, aka, the atmosphere.

It even goes a step further with what’s called the Schumann resonances, which describe how all lightning strikes worldwide combine to maintain a fairly steady “heartbeat” of the planet. Old-fashioned car antennas pick up on this. Watch closely, and they’re always vibrating, tuning in to this heartbeat like an AM/FM stethoscope.

The Earth and the ionosphere form a gigantic spherical resonant cavity, like the body of a guitar. Every year, roughly 1.5 billion lightning strikes excite this cavity, forming low-frequency electromagnetic waves. These waves settle at specific resonant frequencies, mostly around 7.83 Hz. Isn’t it amazing how so many “random” lightning strikes both originate from and sustain order?

And yet, people often say structure steals the heart of stories! They forget that even hearts must beat to an orderly drum, or they wouldn’t be alive.

It’s like we crave the romantic idea of “the pure waters of creativity” so much that we forget: without structure, you don’t even have water yet. Reminds me of a neat, little orderly formula called H₂O.

Since you’ve written so persuasively about structure as a friend, not a foe, to creativity, I thought you might appreciate the connection.

What a brilliant insight! Our world vibrates with a great cosmic heartbeat. It sends us signals, bursts, and we experience them as spontaneity. It is not chaos theory; it all comes from a connected web of structure and order, which is what holds everything together.

Imagine an Earth without gravity. We’d all be Starlink satellites. Gravity allows us to move around on the ground, to dance, to run for the end zone, to put our arms around each other and sing or pray or bring words of comfort.

All of this is wild and wonderful. Structure is beautiful.

Yet there seems to be a notion out there that a thing called “story” can exist apart from structure. That’s not possible. Heck, it’s not just impossible at the novel level; you can’t even write words, sentences or paragraphs without structure.

I write lehslitrr.

Oops, I mean thrillers.

As writers we all love to ride the lightning. Should we just wait for it to happen? Or are there ways to attract it? Let me suggest a few methods.

  1. The Bradbury landmine. Ray Bradbury’s brain was a lightning rod. It worked at night, sometimes in his dreams, but mostly at the subconscious level. When he woke up he’d record as quickly as possible anything that came to the surface—images, concepts, bits of a scene. Only later would he see what kind of structure was being offered.
  2. Outliners can use the “killer scene” method. One of the most enjoyable parts of my planning is sitting in a coffee house with a stack of index cards, writing down scene ideas which come to me in visual form. I don’t think about the outline at this point. I just ride the lightning. When I have 30 or 40 cards, I give it a day, shuffle the deck, and then start to assess what scenes I love and where they might fall in the story, or where they might be giving me new direction. With cards, it’s easy to move them around (which is why I like the corkboard view in Scrivener).
  3. Pantsers ride the lightning as they write, and do so right on through to a completed draft. Nothing at all wrong with that (it is simply a longer version of what outliners do in #2). At some point, though, structure and craft need to take a hand. I’ve read so many manuscripts (and more than a few books) by “discovery writers” that drag like a rusty anchor because they fail at the structural level.
  4. Ride when you’re not writing. You see an image, a billboard, a person crossing the street. Or you overhear a bit of conversation and find you imagination starts firing. Let it go.

(For ten more ways to “goose the muse,” see my TKZ post here.)

I was at a Starbucks once, looking out the window at the parking lot, when a scene from my WIP started playing on the movie screen of my mind. I have no idea how long I was like that, but at one point a man sitting in a chair across from me said, “Are you all right?”

“Huh?” I said.

“You weren’t moving,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “I was working.”

“Working? What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

He looked at me with that expression of wonder and pity we sometimes get when we give that answer.

Thinking back, I wish I’d said, “I ride lightning.” He probably would have switched chairs.

What about you? Do you ride the lightning? When does it happen for you?

Heroic Words of Wisdom

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What is a hero? One answer is a legendary figure, such as Hercules, who accomplishes great deeds. Yet another is an ordinary person who does the right thing, no matter how lonely that might be. This being the Kill Zone, the answer to the above question is the principal character of a story. A character who strives to right a wrong, stop a threat, or protect the weak, who faces and overcomes challenges despite the odds to triumph in the end, sometimes at great personal cost.

We have three excerpts dealing with heroes today. Joe Moore ponders the role of beauty and intelligence in a hero. PJ Parrish looks at the different sort of supporting characters who team up with heroes. Larry Brooks considers how the hero’s role changes over the course of four-act structure.

As always the full version of each post is worth reading as are the original comments, date-linked at the bottom of their respective excerpt. Joe’s original was short enough I included all of it, but it’s worth checking out the comments.

This summer I attended an interesting workshop by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who discussed his approach to crafting thrillers. It was his opinion that main characters need to be handsome (or beautiful, if female), intelligent, and successful. As he described his approach, “I write a main character that women want to sleep with, and men want to be. ” In other words, more James Bond than Monk. His reason for his writing main characters that way? “I like to write books that sell.”

It’s an interesting thought. I’d always assumed that a main character didn’t need to be particularly genetically or intellectually gifted. I always assumed that overcoming adversity was what made a hero appealing to readers.  But when I think back about books I’ve particularly enjoyed–SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, COMA–I have to admit that those protagonists were handsome and brilliant. I just never thought of those characteristics as being requirements for popular appeal.

What do you think? Is physical beauty, in particular, central to creating an appealing main character?

Joe Moore—August 19, 2014

If you are considering a series, it’s a good idea to think hard about second bananas. First, they have great appeal. (Sorry, I had to get that out of my system before I could go on). But they are also very useful. More on that in a moment but first, it might be useful to examine the different types of pairings you might create:

The Teammate: This is actually a dual protagonist situation, wherein there are two equally active case solvers. The classic example is Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles. (Maybe Asta the dog was the sidekick?) Modern examples are Paul Levine’s Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord, and SJ Rozan’s Lydia Chin and Bill Smith (who appear in alternating books and sometimes together).

The Sidekick. This character is not an equal to the protag but almost as important in propelling the plot. He or she is a fixture in a series, a reoccurring character. The classic example, of course is Holmes and Watson. But others include Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin, or Cocker and Tubbs from the old Miami Vice series.

The Confidant: One step lower on the totem, this character might not actively work a case with the hero, but acts as a sounding board for the hero. My fave confidant is Meyer, who sits on the Busted Flush sipping scotch and spouting wisdom about chess and economics as he listens to Travis McGee ponder out the case. (or his latest lady problem) Meyer serves as an anchor of sorts when McGee’s moral compass wanders. More on that later!

The Foil: Some folks use “foil” and “sidekick” interchangeably, but I think the foil deserves its own category. This a character who contrasts with the protag in order to highlight something about the hero’s nature. Hence the word “foil” — which comes from the old practice of backing gems with foil to make them shine brighter. We can go all the way back to the first detective story to find a great foil: In Poe’s The Purloined Letter, the hero Dupin has the dim-witted prefect of police Monsieur G. Some folks might even say Watson is a foil for Holmes because his obtuseness makes Holmes shine brighter.

Or consider Hamlet and Laertes. Both men’s fathers are murdered. But while Hamlet broods and does nothing, Laertes blusters and takes action. And the contrast sheds light on Hamlet’s character. Hamlet himself says, “I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star in the darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.”

PJ Parrish—August 18, 2015

In her book “The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By”, Carol S. Pearson is credited with bringing us life’s hero archetypes, four of which align exactly with the sequential/structural “parts” of a story.  (For those who live by the 3-Act model, know that the 2nd Act is by definition contextually divided into two equal parts at the midpoint, with separate hero contexts for each quartile on either side of that midpoint, thus creating what is actually a four–part story model; this perspective is nothing other than a more specific – and thus, more useful – model than the 3-Act format from which it emerges.)

Those four parts align exactly with these four character contexts: 

Orphan (Pearson’s term)/innocent – as the story opens your hero is living life in a way that is not yet connected to (or in anticipation of) the core story, at least in terms of what goes wrong. 

And something absolutely has to go wrong, and at a specific spot in the narrative.

The author’s mission in this first story part/quartile, prior to that happening, is twofold: make us care about the character, while setting up the mechanics of the dramatic arc (as well as the character arc) to come.  There are many ways to play this – which is why this isn’t in any way formulaic – since within these opening chapters the hero, passive or not, can actually sense or even contribute to the forthcoming storm, or it can drop on their head like a crashing chandelier.  Either way, something happens (at a specific place in the narrative sequence) that demands a response from your hero.

Now your hero has something to do, something that wasn’t fully in play prior to that moment (called The First Plot Point, which divides the Part 1 quartile from the Part 2 quartile).  In this context, and if your chandelier falls at the proper place (in classic story structure that First Plot Point can arrive anywhere from the 20th to 25th percentile; variances on either end of that range puts the story at risk for very specific reasons), you can now think of your hero as a…

Wanderer – the hero’s initial reactions to the First Plot Point (chandelier impact), which comprise the first half of Act 2 (or the second of the four “parts” of a story).  The First Plot Point is the moment the story clicks in for real (everything prior to it was essentially part of a set-up for it), because the source of the story’s conflict, until now foreshadowed or only partially in play, has now summoned the hero to react.  That reaction can be described as “wandering” through options along a new path, such as running, hiding, striking back, seeking information, surrendering, writing their congressman, encountering a fuller awareness of what they’re up against, or just plain getting into deeper water from a position of cluelessness and/or some level of helplessness.

But sooner or later, if nothing else than to escalate the pace of the story (because your hero can’t remain either passive or in victim-mode for too long), your hero must evolve from a Wanderer into a…

Warrior – using information and awareness and a learning curve (i.e, when the next chandelier drops, duck), as delivered via the Midpoint turn of the story.  The Midpoint (that’s a literal term, by the way) changes the context of the story for both the reader and the hero (from wanderer into warrior-mode), because here is where a curtain has been drawn back to give us new/more specific information – machinations, reveals, explanations, true identities, deeper motives, etc. – that alter the nature of the hero’s decisions and actions from that point forward, turning them from passive or clueless toward becoming more empowered, resulting in a more proactive attack on whatever blocks their path or threatens.  Which is often, but not always, a villain.

But be careful here.  While your hero is getting deeper into the fight here in Part 3, take care to not show much success at this point (the villain is ramping things up, as well, in response to your hero’s new boldness).  The escalated action and tension and confrontation of the Part 3 quartile (where, indeed, the tension is thicker than ever before) is there to create new story dynamics that will set up a final showdown just around the corner.

That’s where, in the fourth and final quartile, the protagonist becomes, in essence, a…

Martyr (Pearson’s term)/hero – launching a final quest or heading down a path that will ultimately lead to the climactic resolution of the story.  This should be a product of the hero’s catalytic decisions and actions (in other words, heroes shouldn’t be saved, rather, they should be the primary architect of the resolution), usually necessitating machinations and new dynamics (remember Minny’s “chocolate” pie in The Help?), which ramp up to facilitate that climactic moment.

This is where character arc becomes a money shot.  Because by now everything you’ve put the hero through has contributed to a deep well of empathy and emotion on the reader’s part.  This is where the crowd cheers or hearts break or history is altered, where villains are vanquished and a new day dawns.

Larry Brooks—November 2, 2015

***

  1. As Joe asked, “is physical beauty, in particular, central to creating an appealing main character?”
  2. Do you have a favorite type of supporting character AKA second banana? Personally, I love a great sidekick. Do you have a second banana of any of the type’s Kris listed from your own fiction you’d like to share?
  3. Do you agree that a fictional hero can go through a sequence of roles over the course of a novel or movie? Any thoughts on Larry’s mapping that to four-act structure?