Monthly Archives: June 2010

Synopsis Writing Made Easy

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James Scott Bell


Every author I know hates writing a synopsis. They hate having to try to boil down their beloved story into 2 – 3 double spaced pages. They agonize over it, moan about it in public, throw fits, start the occasional bar fight. They would rather run in front of the bulls at Pamplona, wearing clogs, than write a short overview of their novel.

But don’t buy your airline tickets to Spain just yet, because it’s really not that hard. If you’ll just follow these guidelines, you’ll always have a solid synopsis, one you can show to any agent or editor and leave them wanting more.

A good synopsis is what I call “back cover copy on steroids.” It’s intended to “sell the sizzle” and give just enough of the steak to create confidence in the project.

This is not the same thing as a detailed outline, or treatment, which is much more substantial. The synopsis is a selling document. So approach it that way from the outset.

Before You Write the Synopsis

Build a foundation. Start from the ground up, one brick at a time.

Your first brick is a one sentence summary of your book. If you can’t boil your book down into a single, compelling sentence, you are not ready to write it or sell it.

Second, expand that one sentence into back cover copy. That’s about 250 words of copy meant to sell your book to a harried consumer. You can easily learn to do this by getting books of similar genre from the library and reading the cover or dust jacket copy. Or read descriptions of such books on amazon.com. Read a lot of these, studying the form. Write your own back cover copy. Work it until you have something that would make a consumer want to buy the book.

Now you’re ready to write the synopsis.

The Parts of the Synopsis

1. The Opening paragraph

This tells us who the main character is, what he does (vocation), what he’s like. Then one line on what the character wants at the present moment. A day before the story opens, what is the character going for? Goals? Drives?

Every Lead needs the above things. This first paragraph sets up the rest of the synopsis. Here’s an example. (Note: The first time you introduce a character, use the full name and put it in ALL CAPS):

WALTER NEFF is a hotshot insurance salesman on the make for more business. He likes making money and having the occasional fling with women he makes house calls on. Even if they’re married.

2. Second paragraph

The Disturbance. (See my post on the subject). What is the incident that gets the story rolling?

One afternoon he calls on a client, and finds the client’s wife, delicious blonde PHYLLIS DEITRICHSON, wrapped in a revealing towel from sunbathing. She gets dressed and meets with him in the living room. During his pitch, Neff makes little comments about her looks and a game of sexual cat and mouse ensues. One thing for sure, when Walter Neff leaves the house he knows he’s gone overboard for Mrs. Phyllis Deitrichson.

3. Basic plot paragraphs

Now you lay out the main plot, and I do mean main. The synopsis is not the place to detail all the subplots, though you should certainly mention the important ones briefly and show how they complicate the main plot.

You obviously have a lot of freedom in this section. You’re going to be covering at least a page and a half with main plot material, the “sizzle” of the story. In the case of our example (obviously from the movie version of Double Indemnity) you’d stick to the plot to murder the husband and collect the insurance money, and the opposition represented by Barton Keyes, the sharp-eyed adjuster who can smell a scheme from miles away.

Here’s an example of one such paragraph from the middle of the synopsis:

Walter comes in to work the next day, and sitting in the hallway the last man he wants to see—Jackson, the guy from the train who talked to him in the dark. Keyes has brought Jackson in because the account of the “accident” is starting to stink. Walter has to keep from being recognized as Jackson tells his story. Keyes slowly pulls in the net, though around whom he doesn’t know yet. All he knows is that the “little man” inside him is raising Cain. And Walter knows all about how dangerous that little man is—to him and Phyllis.

4. Final Battle paragraph

Toward the end you write about the “final battle.” It’s the darkest point your Lead character faces, what’s at stake, why it’s a battle to the “death.” (It should at least feel that way to the character).

With Keyes closing in, Walter and Phyllis grow increasingly agitated. They try to meet in secret, but the strain begins to show. The seeds of distrust are sown. Then Walter discovers that Phyllis is seeing another lover. Now he must choose whether to run or take out his revenge—even if it sends him to the gas chamber.

5. Resolution

The last paragraphs (try to keep it to one or two) tell how the story ends. Don’t leave that out in your synopsis. Agents and editors want to know how you’re going to wrap things up.

Walter confronts Phyllis about her lover. Phyllis shoots Walter, wounding him, but can’t finish the job. Running to his arms she states her love for him. He doesn’t buy it. “Good-bye, baby,” he says, then shoots her in the gut.

Losing blood, Walter dictates a confession to Keyes at the office late at night, then turns to see Keyes listening. Walter tries to get out, but doesn’t make it past the front door. Keyes calmly calls the police.

And there you have it. A quick, easy guide to crafting a synopsis. Just remember:

• Don’t try to tell everything, especially with regard to subplots.

• Aim for 2 – 3 pages, double spaced. If you go to four pages no one’s going to arrest you, but you may be pulled over for holding up traffic.

• Rewrite and rewrite until it sounds like the marketing copy on dust jackets and back covers of similar books. Give it to some faithful readers for feedback. Make sure they, and you, are jazzed by it.

• Send it out when requested, then wait for the offer to see the full manuscript. While you wait, be working on the synopsis of your next novel.

So what about you? How do you feel about the “dreaded synopsis”?

It’s Conference Season Again

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By John Gilstrap
www.johngilstrap.com

For me, every June marks the beginning of the writers conference season. That’s when American Independent Writers (AIW) sponsors its one-day confab in Washington, DC. Next up, in a couple of weeks, will be CraftFest and ThrillerFest, followed by Bouchercon and Magna Cum Murder, with the season ending in October. A couple of months ago, I attended my first Left Coast Crime conference, and I liked it so much that I’ll probably be returning to that again next year, which will cause me to reset the beginning of my season.

This begs the question (that’s for you, Jim), “Are writers’ conferences worth the money and effort?”

My answer is a definitive maybe. It all depends on what you seek to get out of your attendance, and what you’re willing to do while you’re there.

Agent pitch sessions. I know many authors who found their agent through the speed-dating ritual of agent pitch sessions, so I think their value is well documented—so long as you, the author, do your research and dedicate yourself to not wasting anyone’s time. First of all, don’t even begin the process until your book is finished, and your pitch is well-practiced. Just because an agent is at a conference doesn’t mean that she’s the perfect choice for your book. Concentrate on pitching agents who specialize in the kind of book you write. Don’t pitch your romantic suspense novel to an agent who loves political thrillers and does not represent romantic suspense.

Panels. Frankly, these are the wild cards of writers’ conferences. Depending on the makeup of the panel, they can be entertaining, informative, or deeply horrible. A lot about the success or failure of a panel depends on the level of preparation by the moderator, and the rest has everything to do with the chemistry created by the panelists. I believe in always putting on a good show for the attendees, but a lot of authors are very much into themselves and therefore tend to ignore the audience that’s in front of them. Also, more than a few authors are terrible public speakers. I say go to panels with reasonable expectations.

The bar. Whether you drink or not, the bar at the conference hotel is the place to be if you want to make lasting relationships with industry insiders. Too many conference attendees make the mistake of going to bed early. The bar teems with authors and editors and agents, all laid back and having a good time. Get to know them. Join the conversation groups. This isn’t the place to pitch (unless asked); it’s the place to get to know future business contacts—maybe future friends—as people, and not as stepping stones for your career.

More than anything else, these terrific business opportunities are all about having fun. So, go have some!

What say you, fellow Killzoners? Any thoughts about conferences that you’d like to share?

The Anarchist in Me

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by Simon Wood

Today TKZ is delighted to welcome fellow thriller writer and anarchist Simon Wood. I toured with Simon back when Boneyard was released, and in spite of that we remain friends. I highly recommend signing up for his newsletter, it’s easily one of the most entertaining out there…

I saw my author-friend, Tony Broadbent, not too long ago. We hail from the same hometown back in the old country. We got to chatting and he gave me a pat on the head and told me, “You’re like the Gary Oldman of the mystery world.”
 Gary Oldman is one of my favorite actors, but I wasn’t sure of the correlation and asked, “Is that a good thing?”
 “Yes,” he exclaimed. “There’s a lot of anarchy in your writing.”Picture 220.jpgHow subversive, I thought. I’m a rebel without an agenda. Mother will be delighted.

Well, the little exchange got me thinking about my writing. I don’t think people hit the keyboards with an agenda or a theme tucked under their arm—or if they do, it sort of sticks out. Agendas and themes develop on a subconscious level. Well, they do for me. I don’t go out of my way to put a slant on my stories. I just try to entertain, but inadvertently, I show a little leg now and again. So, I looked for the anarchy. And I think I saw it in the shape of conflict.

Stories require conflict. It’s a driving force that characters and stories thrive on, especially in mysteries and thrillers. The nature of the genre means there are going to be casualties and collateral damage. So, I like to inject my stories with a lot of conflict. The problem is that I’m quite a literal person and I think about things in very pure terms. Blame my engineering background. When I think conflict, I think about it in its most basic of meanings—total annihilation. Everything my lead character holds dear is under attack. I create this person so that I can destroy them. I place them and their world in an ivory tower, then go about stacking as much C4 explosive around the foundation as possible to blast it all apart. It only seems fair, doesn’t it? Conflict by its nature is salt to a wound. Character assassination is key for me. Only by putting everything in a protagonist’s world at extreme risk can the character grow. There can’t be a comfort zone or a safe haven for this person. Wouldn’t you want to read about a character in a situation like that?

I flicked through some of my stories to see what I did to my characters and the annihilation is always there. Characters are put through the wringer and their lives will never be the same. This theme continues in my latest book, Terminated. I’ve really gone to town on the story’s protagonist, Gwen Farris. Her reputation is destroyed, her home life obliterated and she’s framed for crimes she didn’t commit. Everything she holds dear is in shambles, but if she’s to fight back, she has to develop into someone she’s never been before. Her life will never be the same and there will have to be a lot of rebuilding by the end, but she’ll be a stronger and more courageous person for it.

So I guess I do have anarchistic bent. Sorry. It wasn’t intentional. It’s just the way I tell ‘em.

Yours destructively,
Simon Wood

Simon Wood is an ex-racecar driver, a licensed pilot and an occasional private investigator. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. A longhaired dachshund and five cats dominate their lives. He’s had over 150 stories and articles published. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines anthologies, such as Seattle Noir, Thriller 2 and Woman’s World. He’s a frequent contributor to Writer’s Digest. He’s the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. As Simon Janus, he’s the author of The Scrubs and Road Rash. His latest thriller, Terminated, is out in mass paperback. Curious people can learn more at www.simonwood.net .

It’s perfect. Now make it perfecter

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By Joe Moore

Here’s a comment I hear from new writers: “I want to edit and polish my writing as I go, but I wind up getting nowhere because I’m obsessed with making it perfect the first time.”

This is so often the case starting out. You want every word to shine and sparkle and dazzle. So you spend a day or a week or a month or forever trying to get that first chapter not just perfect, but perfecter.

In my opinion, this is a crutch. It’s an excuse. It’s a disease that infects all writers when they first start out. And it will eat you alive with a good chance that your writing will be damaged. It’s as easy a trap to fall into as a subprime, interest-only mortgage with nothing down. So how do you get past this nasty little hang-up?

First, you must convince yourself that NOTHING is perfect, especially when it comes to writing fiction. Now I’m not talking about spelling, punctuation, grammar and syntax. Those are the rules of writing just like the speed limit and stop lights are the rules of the road. But those rules have NOTHING to do with perfection, only correctness. Perfection is a mental concept. It can never be achieved. There will always be room for improvement.

Next, you must allow yourself to write less-than-perfect prose the first time with the understanding that it’s more important to tell the story.

Another tip that helps is to come up with a set of REALISTIC goals that drive your writing. Your goals should be reasonable and obtainable. Make them short-term, easy and convenient. Such as: I will write 500 words per day. I will not look at what I’ve written until I complete 5000 words. I will not stop writing each day until I finish the current chapter. You get the idea. Make your goals reasonable so perfectionism doesn’t get in the way.

I believe that perfectionism creates doubt. Doubt smothers creativity. It slows down the stream of consciousness. Allow yourself to shape the story first no matter how rough, then carve out the details. And remember that you’re the only one demanding that your writing be perfect. Give yourself a break and just tell the story.

Harry Shaw, in his book Errors in English and Ways to Correct Them, said, "There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting." Science fiction master thriller writer Michael Crichton said: "Books are not written–they’re rewritten."

So don’t worry about perfection. Work at telling a good story.

Do you suffer from wanting things perfect from the start? How do you get past it and complete your manuscript?

Open Tuesday Rant: I Beg You to Stop

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James Scott Bell


All right, I want you all to stop it.


I’m not the Language Sheriff. Grammar was not my strongest subject in school. I doubt I can tell a gerund from a gerbil. But there are some obvious sins that are creeping into our mother tongue. And some of them are worth beating back with a stick.


This is one of them.


“Begs the question” does not mean “Invites the question.”


It doesn’t. No matter how many times you use it that way, no matter how many talking-heads-trying-to-sound-smart blabber it on TV. Whoever started this trend should be taken out back and slapped around with a copy of Strunk and White.


Begs the question is a fallacy of logic. “Begging” here does not mean “pleading.” It is an alternative use of the word, and it means to “assume the answer.” It’s a form of circular reasoning.


Professor: Make an argument that war is always wrong.


Student: War is always wrong because too many lives are lost.


Professor: That begs the question. You assume that loss of life is, ipso facto, wrong. But you have yet to prove that. Loss of life might very well be justified for a greater purpose. Try again.


Student: Will this be on the test?


That’s what begging the question means. So when I hear some White House correspondent tell the home studio, “The President has decided to visit the Gulf Coast again, which begs the question, Will that do anything to stop the leak?” I want to make him eat his microphone so he can’t do any more damage with it.


So that’s my rant. Do not, under any circumstances, use begs the question as invites the question.


Now it’s your turn. What language sins drive you batty?

Write what you love not what the market does

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I thought I’d follow on from Jim’s terrific post yesterday about writing with heart, and discuss an issue that is just as important in my view – writing what you love and not what you think the market will love. It drives me crazy when people say “you should write a romance – you’d make more money that way” or (even weirder) “You should write erotica – it’s really hot (no pun intended) right now.” For some reason there always seem to people wanting to make ‘helpful suggestions’ on what you should write – usually by pointing out the ‘hot’ genre on the current bestseller list, as if that is all it takes. Hey, if you just added a paranormal element to your mystery, shazam, you’d have it made.

If only it was that easy…For many wannabe writers the thought of becoming the next J K Rowling or Stephenie Meyers is enticement enough, as is the belief that somehow if you write to what you think the market wants, your future will be secure. Wrong.

Setting aside the obvious (that by the time you’ve written what the market loves now, the market has already shifted to something else) there is something more fundamental at stake. As my agent always says, you must write what you love. Why? Because it shows.

It shows if you are writing a romance when you think it’s ‘easy money’. It shows if you write a YA fantasy when you really want to write contemporary thrillers…If your heart isn’t in it, the readers will know you’re faking it.

I did a course in Australia years ago on ‘how to write a romance’. I admit I did it as a lark and in the mistaken belief that ‘anyone can write a romance’ (I cringe now when I think of my attitude). I had never actually read a Harlequin romance before I did the class, and once I had, I realized I didn’t enjoy them at all. They weren’t my thing. So why did I think I could write one?? It wasn’t until the end of the course that I realized my mistake: it felt fake, and then the realization set it, I was writing a romance for all the wrong reasons.

When I came to the US, I did another class and this time I fell into a different trap. This class was full of so-called serious writers and I felt the constant pressure to prove my ‘literary merits’ (when given everyone’s ego was impossible – the only way members of this class felt good was by putting other members down). So then I faced another hurdle – how could I write what I loved when all I was worrying about was making sure what I wrote was ‘literary’ enough.

It took a while before I could set aside my misconceptions (that I should write what will sell, that I should write something ‘worthy’ etc.) Eventually I sat down and wrote what I loved, what I actually wanted to read, and you know what, it showed…(and, thankfully, it also got me published!)

So what about you? Have you ever felt pressured to write for the market, or to switch genres just because there was money it in? How have you dealt with the ‘helpful’ suggestions people make which means putting the market ahead of your heart?

Ya Gotta Have Heart

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James Scott Bell

Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder. – Raymond Chandler

John D. MacDonald wanted to bury the corpse. In this case, the corpse was one of his books. In 1963 he accepted an offer to write a novelization of a movie. The movie was Judy Garland’s I Could Go on Singing. MacDonald took the gig because the money was good.

The book wasn’t. Even he knew it. After it went out of print, MacDonald never gave permission for it to be printed again.

Since I collect MacDonald, I snagged a copy from a bookstore owner I know, who charged me a fair price. I did read it. And no, it isn’t up to MacDonald’s usual standards.

It’s pretty obvious why: his heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t his material.

Lesson: If you’re going to get your writing noticed, read, published and re-read, you have to put your heart into it.

You’ve no doubt heard that before. At least once at every writer’s conference, you’ll hear someone on a panel say, “Forget chasing the market. Just write the book of your heart.”

I understand what’s being said, though I would tweak it a bit. You have to find the intersection of the market and your heart, then get that heart beating.

I’m a professional writer. I cannot afford to frolic in the fields of eccentric experimentation. But that doesn’t mean I only write what I think will make money.

There are those who have done that. Nicholas Sparks is right up front about how he chose his genre. He saw the tear-jerker-romance-by-a-male-author slot as a great business opportunity. David Morrell talks about this in his fine book, Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing. Morrell himself says he couldn’t do it that way. He has to have something “gnawing” at him to write. He has to find the heart of the matter.

It’s like when I was a criminal defense lawyer. (Spare me the jokes. When your son or daughter is arrested, you’ll call someone like me.) Anyway, defense lawyers have an essential part to play in our system of justice. It’s called upholding the Constitution. That’s what you have to believe when you’re defending someone who is pretty much cooked as far as the evidence goes. You have to believe that, or you’ll do a lousy job.

I write for readers. I write so that readers will enjoy what I write and buy my next book. But to do that, I have to find the heart of the story and ramp up the passion level.

See, the unexpurgated “book of my heart” would be a post-realistic satirical look at the philosophy department of a major university, written somewhat in the style of Kurt Vonnegut channeling Jack Kerouac.

Could I sell such a book? I don’t know. I know I’d enjoy writing it, but I also know it would be tough to sell a marketing department on it.

I could write it for fun, and might someday, but right now I need to keep earning a living.

So what I do is take my favorite genre, thrillers, think up concepts and then make them the book of my heart. I find ways to fall in love with my story.

The way it happens for me is through characters, getting to know them deeply, creating a colorful supporting cast –– and then scaring the living daylights out of them in the plot.

How about you? What gets you amped about your writing?

About that barn on your property…

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John Ramsey Miller

I’ve been censusing for six weeks and I’ve about used up all the Census form non-compliers in two counties. Saying good-by to my team was very much like the day I left summer camp in the early sixties. The job is over and during it I have only written this blog and little else. I am going to go back at writing with a cold vengeance and I’m not going to stop for a long time.

Because I can pretty much write whatever I like here, I am going to relate an incident and because of John Gilstrap’s blog I’m going to ask you to guess if it is reality filtered through my memory, part fictional, or full-blown bullsh*t.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been spending sometimes 10 hours a day knocking on doors of people I don’t know. Because I was working in my own community the first several weeks, I had on my list the name of someone I know very well. So instead of visiting the house right off, I called him on the phone. Now this person is a good friend of mine so I borrowed a cell phone because he had my number in his phone and he’d know it was me. The conversation went something almost exactly like this:

I dial…

“Hello?”
“Yes, this is Special Enumerating Census Agent Lamar D.Smithe with the United States Census Non-Compliance Division in Washington DC. Is this 221 Farm Pond Lane ? A Mr. A. B. Sedgewick?”
“It is.”
“Do you have a problem if I record this interview.”
“Why are you recording this interview?”
“I am recording this conversation in case I deem that further action is to be taken.We understand that you stated to certain people that you didn’t fill out your census form. “
“I sent in my form the same day I received it.”
“But you didn’t fill it out before you mailed it?”
“Of course I did. Why would I send it in blank?”
“We got tens of thousands of blank EQ forms from people whose pens were out of ink and like that, but mostly for various anti-governmental reasonings too numerous to list. Well, if you had put the intel we requested ––because it is a Federal offense not to comply––why I would be calling you? I assure you I do not call people at random.”
“Maybe it got lost in the mail.”
“Are you implying misfeasance on the part of the USPS? Is that what you are implying?”
“I have never told anybody that I would not send in my form. How can I clear this up?”
“You can comply now over the phone. Doing so and answering the few questions will arrest the investigation and any prosecution forthwith.”
“Okay.”
“These questions are non-invasive and the same laws that protect your privacy mean that failure to answer them truthfully results in a fine of up to two-hundred- and-fifty thousand dollars and/or imprisonment of five years. Do you swear hereby to tell the truth to this officer knowing as I have stated that lying to a sworn Federal agent in pursuit of his duty is a felony?”
“I knew lying to an FBI agent is a crime.”
“But you can lie to a census agent because we are less important? We can arrest and that as well and cross state lines. Were you living in your residence as of April 1, 2010?”
“Yes.”
“Were you alone or were there other residents in the abode at that particular time?”
“Just my wife and I.”
“Names, please. First name last, middle name and last name first.”
(He gives the names, last first and first last with middle initials)
“I see And what about the names of your three children?”
“We don’t have any children.”
“Not living in your home, you mean.”
“We don’t have any children living in any home.”
“Do you have any other homes?”
“No.”
“Any barns?”
“Barns?”
“Somebody may have been residing in your barn on April first, if you have one.”
“I don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Our records indicate a barn on your property. A blue barn with an air conditioner mounted in the wall. I’m looking at the satellite image right now. And what appears to be a Golden Retriever in the yard with a red collar.”
“I don’t have a barn. Who did you say you were?”
“That’s something we can rediscuss after I’ve cleared you …or not.”
“If you are who you say you are, why is your number a local cellular number?”
“Do you occasionally look at pornography on the internet?”
“Who is this?”
“Just answer my questions, sir.”
“I believe all I have to give the census is the number of people who live in my house, ages and sexes.”
“So now you want to tell me about the sexual materials you look at on the net.”
“Okay. So what is your name and badge number?”
“Enumeration Special Agent Buddy Blivins Badge 666213-7-11 ha. “
“Who the hell is this?”
“We’ve already established that to my satisfaction, Sir. On what date did you lose your virginity? By date I don’t mean first date or second. I need the actual year when you lost it. This question may seem irrelevant and invasive, but I assure you these statistics are important to the government for the allocation of funds for birth control for high school students.”
“Miller…”
“How did you know it was me?”

What do you think, fact or pure fiction of or a bit of both?

Little White Scholarly Lies

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By John Gilstrap
www.johngilstrap.com

One of the few undeniable, irrefutable take-to-the-bank rules of the publishing industry is that nonfiction is easier to sell than fiction. It’s as true in the bookstore as it is on an editor’s desk. If you’re a celebrity, your book is a slam-dunk, even if you have precious little to say. If you’re just an average Joe, on the other hand, you’d better have a pretty enticing angle.

James Frey had just such an angle in his explosive memoir of addiction entitled, A Million Little Pieces. You might remember that book as the target of the Greatest Oprah Meltdown Ever, when she found out that the ridiculously unbelievable, over-the-top autobiography was, in fact, fiction. The world learned this when The Smoking Gun did a little elementary school-level fact checking. Frey’s publishers, Doubleday and Anchor Books, were shocked—shocked, I tell you—that a book with their name on the spine (and its earnings in their coffers) was not everything that the author had crossed his heart and hoped to die and pinky-swore was absolutely true.

After all, if it weren’t true, they couldn’t have marketed it and promoted it as vastly more profitable and easily promoted nonfiction.

Stephen Glass had gasp-inducing angles, too, on all the wild news items he wrote for The New Republic in the late nineties. For a kid in his twenties, he had remarkable access to some of the world’s most interesting people and fascinating stories. After stories were published—many of them fantastical and negative—the subjects (victims?) wrote letters to the editor complaining about inaccuracies and fabrications, but hey, isn’t that what people always do when they’re called out by hardworking investigative reporters? It took different elementary school-level fact checking from a Forbes Magazine reporter to knock down that house of cards.

The Stephen Glass scandal rocked the journalistic world. So many investigative reporters, quoting so many unnamed sources, all of them looking for a marketable angle, were shocked—shocked, I tell you again—that one of their brethren had cheated.

Truth is, I expect a fair level of fabrication from young and hungry “journalists” who are looking for their marketable angles. What’s the harm in a little fantasy, after all, if you’re giving the editors and the audience what they want to read? Isn’t the fact that targets can never confront their accusers part of the beauty of using unnamed sources? And if anyone presses too hard on the accuracy thing, there’s always the convenient excuse that the 24-hour news cycle demands corner-cutting, thus transforming the reporters into victims themselves.

Sorry, Killzoners, but you don’t live and work in Washington, DC for as long as I have without becoming cynical.

Even my cynical outlook, though, didn’t prepare me for the New Yorker’s revelation in April that the late, presumably great Stephen E. Ambrose was himself a serial fabricator of facts. His claim that his benchmark autobiography of Dwight D. Eisenhower was based on “hundreds and hundreds of hours” of one-on-one interviews was a bit overstated. The real number of interview hours, while apparently hard to nail down specifically, numbered “less than five.” I understand that we all succumb to hyperbole from time to time, but even the forgiving, non-cynical among you have to concede that there’s no innocent way to exaggerate less-than-five into hundreds-and-hundreds.

Ambrose cheated. Apparently, his many Eisenhower-related books (I confess I’ve never read them) are replete with footnotes and annotations referring to these one-on-one interviews that never happened. All those quoted passages, then, really are only quotes from Ambrose’s imagination—a representation of what he thought Ike would have said if asked.

This one hurts, folks. We’re talking about the author of Band of Brothers here. The author of D-Day. The guy was a freaking brilliant author. He just, you know, made up a lot of his nonfiction facts. The income from his work, however, was very real, and I’m sure that continuing royalties will continue to pay a lot of bills for his descendents.

Let’s be clear: I don’t begrudge the Ambrose estate a penny. Nor do I begrudge the incomes of Messrs. Frey and Glass. They’re gifted writers who understood the markets they were selling to, and they gave their publishers exactly what they craved. I think the authors did a crappy unethical thing, but I know a lot of people who make their livings doing crappy unethical things. (I mentioned that I work in Washington, right?)

When Kurt Muse and I wrote my only nonfiction opus, Six Minutes to Freedom, I made it clear from the beginning that while the story would be 100% true, I was going to take shortcuts for the sake of pacing. Since I was changing names anyway—a requirement of many of the participants before they would agree to be interviewed—what difference would it make if I combined some personalities and created dialogue that represented the gist of what was said, even if the direct quotes were fabricated? Hell, in the “true” movie The Perfect Storm, Warner Brothers took us into the wheelhouse to witness the conversations of people who never lived to be interviewed, and the world ate it up.

Unlike the other examples I mention of fabrication, when I wrote Six Minutes to Freedom, I was protective enough of my integrity as an author to clearly explain my shortcuts in my Author’s Note. I was honest. And I paid a price. More than a few nonfiction purists objected to my admitted juggling of reality, preferring, no doubt, to read works of history by true scholars like Stephen E. Ambrose. He used footnotes and everything.

So, Killzoners, what do you think? Borrowing from the great Stephen Colbert, is “truthiness” a high enough standard in the world of nonfiction? On a scale that measures ethics alone, absent personal preference, are the offenses of Frey, Glass and Ambrose all equal? And the depressing, distressing elephant in the room: Does any of it matter in the end if the little white scholarly lies sell books?

First Page Critique: Kerguelen

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by Michelle Gagnon
We’re winding up our first page critiques this week. Thank you everyone for your patience, especially all of you brave folks who submitted pages. We apologize for any delays in posting them.
Today I thought I’d talk a little bit about formatting. As a savvy commenter pointed out last week, some of the first pages we’ve posted appear to be longer than others. Some of you sly dogs submitted a 10 pt font, single-spaced page. This isn’t something an agent or editor will let you get away with, however, so in the interest of keeping the process as fair and helpful as possible I re-formatted today’s submission (which ended up weighing in at TWO full pages, not one).
Here’s why: the point of this process is that we’re critiquing what most agents would read, and that’s one page. You have that much time to grab their (and our) attention. So fudging the formatting doesn’t really help. The main goal should be to make that first page compelling enough to keep a reader turning to the second, and then the third…and so on.
Here, then, is the true opening page of Kerguelen:

Prologue

My boots are slick with blood and guano. I push my feet through dead terns and petrels, their downy wings flopping, their necks lolling as though life never belonged there. I plow ahead, daring not lift my feet. In some places the litter of birds is half-a-foot deep across this flat headland overlooking the gunmetal ocean. Not a sound from the cliff-face rookery just beyond the edge, an odd braid of birds now and then falling off into dead space. I turn around and follow my plowed trail over the headland back toward my cottage.
Day without wind—a rarity. Fog creeps past the knobheads of grass and fennel, thinning, whispering above the flagstone steps of my cottage. It’s simple really. Fog is moisture, water laden with whatever is in the air: pollution, particulates, poisons. Give us our gales, thank you, from sea-borne air currents that daily carry more and more of the rest of the world to us. Even as far away as the southern Indian Ocean. No one lives isolated—even on a remote island like Kerguelen. Air circulation patterns being what they are in our little whirlpool pocket of climate, yes, in time, we will breathe the same air as everyone else.
There. My last breath was joined by some remainder of a cough from a 19th century Liverpool tubercular ward and a little something from a hacking terminal flu case in Coeur-d’Alene and, of course, the tick-tick-ticking of some isotope, Strontium 90, perhaps, Lawrencium, Polonium.
Some of us thought of going underground, but now it’s surely too late for that. We hope that each day will bring a topping out, and then we will begin the downhill slide, nursing our inevitable lesions, losing hair, pressing on despite frail appetites. We’ve all read and reread the survival manual. We know how it will go. We just hope it won’t turn out as badly as all that.
The good news here is that I would definitely keep reading. I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic novels anyway (ORYX AND CRAKE, anyone?) I do think the language could use a merciless edit, however. Some of the metaphors didn’t really work for me, they felt somewhat melodramatic and cumbersome. For example, in the second sentence: “I push my feet through dead terns and petrels, their downy wings flopping, their necks lolling as though life never belonged there.”
I think the image of the dead birds is powerful enough on its own: lose the “as though life never belonged there.” Also, consider cutting “my feet.” You also repeat “plow” in the first paragraph, a big no-no. I’m not entirely certain what a braid of birds looks like: that expression briefly took me out of the story.
I’m assuming that the rookery is on a sea cliff- shouldn’t there be a splash when the birds hit the water? I actually think incorporating one makes that sentence more effective. Word choice is always critical. Instead of “some of us thought about,” I would write, “some of us considered.” It’s tighter and less clunky. Also, the second half of that sentence, “but now it’s surely too late for that,” is overwritten. Just say, “it’s too late for that now.”
I’m a little confused by the “topping out” and “eventual slide” in the final paragraph. Is the topping out when air quality reaches the absolute worst point, then gradually starts improving? Or is it when the worst of those air currents finally reaches the island, setting about the inevitable death of the inhabitants? I think if that information is being offered on page one, clarity is key. I love how the page ends, however. Great work.
So, to sum up: compelling premise, just needs some tightening up. And since I’m just emerging from full-bore editing mode on my own manuscript, here are my suggestions for a much tighter opening page:
My boots are slick with blood and guano. I push through dead terns and petrels, their downy wings flopping, necks lolling. In some places the litter of birds is half-a-foot deep across this flat headland overlooking the gunmetal ocean. Not a sound from the cliff-face rookery, except for the occasional splash of a dead bird tumbling into the water. I turn around and follow my plowed trail over the headland back toward my cottage.
Day without wind—a rarity. Fog creeps past the knobheads of grass and fennel,
whispering above the flagstone steps of my cottage. Fog is moisture, water laden with
whatever is in the air: pollution, particulates, poisons. Give us our gales, sea-borne air
currents that daily carry more of the rest of the world to us. No life remains isolated—even
on a remote island like Kerguelen. Air circulation patterns being what they are, in time we
will breathe the same air as everyone else.
There. My last breath was joined by the remnants of a cough from a 19th century
Liverpool tubercular ward, combined with a hacking terminal flu case in Coeur-d’Alene
and, of course, the tick-tick-ticking of some isotope: Strontium 90, perhaps, or Polonium.
Some of us considered going underground, but it’s too late for that now. Every day we pray for a
topping out, after which we begin the downhill slide, nursing our inevitable lesions, losing hair,
pressing on despite frail appetites. We’ve all read the survival manual. We know how it will go.
We just hope it won’t turn out as badly as they promised.