Author Archives: Joe Moore

About Joe Moore

#1 Amazon and international bestselling author. Co-president emeritus, International Thriller Writers.

A Key to Creating Conflict in Fiction

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Today’s post is brought to you by Conflict & Suspense, two things every novel needs. Yes, every, no matter the genre.

I’m not just talking about plot here, but characterization, too. It’s this latter aspect that some writers fail to take full advantage of. To illustrate, let me talk about one of my favorite movies of all time.
12 Angry Menis the 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Reginald Rose (based on his play). The plot is disarmingly simple. Twelve jurors deliberate in a capital murder case. The entire drama, save for a short prologue, takes place inside the jury room.

At first, the verdict seems like a done deal. All the early chatter is about how guilty the defendant is (he’s a slum kid, accused of stabbing his father). One of the jurors (Jack Warden) has tickets to the ballgame and would love to get out early. Others don’t see the point in spending a great deal of time actually deliberating.
They take an initial vote. And only one juror, Number 8 (Henry Fonda), votes Not Guilty. Everybody else grumbles.
And for the next hour and a half, we sit in on the deliberations.
The movie violates all the currently fashionable, postmodern, ADHD stylistic conventions. No quick cuts or explosions or overbearing music. It’s all talk. It’s even in black and white, for crying out loud!
Yet, no matter where I happen to come in on the film when it’s on TV, if I start to watch I have to finish.
Why? Because inter-character conflict works its magic. What Rose did was bring together twelve distinct characters, each with their own background, baggage and personality, and throw them into what is essentially a great, big argument.
Therein lies the real untapped secret of creating conflict: orchestration. That means you cast your characters so they have the potential of conflict with every other character.
In 12 Angry Men, for example, there’s a Madison Avenue ad man (Robert Webber) who spouts bromides and tosses out suggestions, just like he would at a brainstorming meeting at the office. “Let’s run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes.” He’s amiable, easy with a laugh. But he never makes a final decision. He vacillates. Finally another juror (Lee J. Cobb) gets fed up. “The boy in the gray flannel suit here is bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball!”
There’s a mousy bank clerk (John Fiedler) who automatically draws satirical comment from the macho salesman (Warden). There’s a coldly rational stockbroker (E. G. Marshall) who arrogantly dismisses all reasonable doubt, until backed into a corner by Fonda. There’s a young man who grew up in the slums (Jack Klugman) who, at one point, turns to E. G. Marshall and asks, “Pardon me, don’t you sweat?”
“No, I don’t,” Marshall says. There is nothing more to that exchange, but the line is memorable because of Rose’s superb orchestration, knowing the personalities and quirks of all his characters.
Then there’s the bigot (Ed Begley) who in one unforgettable moment alienates everyoneelse on the jury.
But it is, finally, the main conflict between Cobb and Fonda that is the focus of the drama. Cobb wants to get this kid executed (for reasons that become heartbreakingly clear at the end). Fonda wants to give the kid his due under the Constitution––the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
And that’s another lesson about conflict: the stakes. They have to be high. In fact, I hold that death must be on the line. Not just physical death, mind you. There is also professional and psychological death. Unless you have one of these overhanging, your story is not going to be as gripping as it should be.
In 12 Angry Men, physical death is on the line for the kid, but more importantly it’s a matter of psychological death for each of the jurors. After all, they could be sending an innocent man to the chair. In addition, each of them has some inner baggage to deal with. Like the old man ignored by his family (Joseph Sweeney), and the newly naturalized citizen trying to make it in America (George Voskovec).
Orchestration for conflict is essential in any genre, including comedy. Especiallycomedy. Think of, say, City Slickers.You have three friends from the city going on a cattle drive out west. They are very different from each other – one is a joker, one is macho, one is just a loser. Then they come in contact with someone who is unlike any of them – Curly, the ramrod. The comedy flows naturally out of the conflict between the different personalities.
So as you’re getting ready to write, you would do well to create a chart of all your important characters, a grid like the one produced below (taken from my article “Vitamin C For Your Thriller” in the July/August 2013 issue of Writer’s Digest):

Then figure out points of conflict between the characters, as in this example:
You will be pleased and amazed at all the natural plot tension, subtext and foreshadowing that will emerge from this simple exercise.

Trouble is your business, writer friend. Go make some.
What are some of your favorite ways to increase conflict, tension and suspense in your work?

Summertime, and the Reading Is Easy

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It’s time for another couple of questions for our readership. Summer starts today (as I am writing this) which traditionally (if not necessarily accurately) signals an upsurge in reading. I accordingly am curious as to what YOU are reading, right now (yeah, I know, you’re reading me. I mean when you’re done here). I of late (the past several months) have found that I can read more quickly if I juggle several different books at once: fifty pages or so at a gulp, and then on to another, and so on. I mention this because I am currently reading six books at once, which works out roughly to one for each of my personalities (none of us like to share). I review books for bookreporterdotcom; five those books are for review, and the sixth is one that I picked from my reading bucket list. Here’s what we’re reading this week:


SECOND HONEYMOON — James Patterson & Howard Roughan
THE SILENT WIFE — A.S.A. Harrison
EVIL AND THE MASK — Fuminori Nakamura; translated by Satoko Izumo
NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT — Derek B. Miller.
EYE FOR AN EYE — Ben Coes
and from the bucket list: MAIGRET’S RIVAL by Georges Simenon


Your turn. What are you reading now? And do you read one book at a time, or a couple, or several?

Reader Friday: A Collective Noun for Writers?

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It occurs to us that the world needs a collective noun that refers to a group of writers. (As in, “a murder of crows.”)

What would be your idea for a collective noun for writers? To get the idea ball rolling, check out a list they started over at Quill Cafe.

Cast your vote in the comments!

The Love Sandwich

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By Elaine Viets
          My condo looked like someone had a frat party in the living room. I’d barely said hello to my husband in a week. But I finished “Final Sail,” my Dead-End Job novel, on time.
          Newly married private eyes Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont investigate two cases undercover. Helen works as a stewardess on a 143-foot yacht to find an emerald smuggler. Phil signs on as estate manager for a trophy wife, Blossom, after her  80-something husband, Arthur Zerling, died suddenly. Arthur’s daughter is sure her father was murdered.

          When I turned in “Final Sail,” I knew I’d written the perfect book. All I had to do was wait for the editorial letter to confirm it.
          In the novel business, the editorial letter is the in-depth evaluation of your work. You only get one if your editor cares about your work.
         Two weeks later, the letter arrived. “As usual you’ve written another fun, witty installment in the Dead-End Job series,” my editor wrote.
         Yep, I thought. I’m a pro.
         “Even though Helen and Phil have started their own agency, they’re still getting involved in plenty of dead-end jobs. Who would have known stewardesses go through so much on those yachts? Makes me want to cruise myself one day (but certainly not as ‘the help!’).

         “Of course, as one of your first readers, I do have a few thoughts/suggestions on revision.”
          Uh-oh. I had a sinking feeling.
          “As always, take what I say with a grain of salt,” she wrote. “If it doesn’t resonate with you, don’t feel compelled to use it.”
          That’s New Yorkese for “fix it.”

          I was hit with a boatload of improvements:
         Clarify the cause of rich old Arthur Zerling’s death.
         Find a better motive for the trophy wife, Blossom, to kill her young lover.
         Explain why Blossom killed her old husband in the first place.
         Could I also intermingle the two cases? Oh, and that couple on the yacht – the fat, cigar smoking gambler and his blond wife – tone them down and “redefine” their relationship.
         Wait! One more thing. Could I “strengthen the end of the book.” Switch the sections so it ends on a happy note? 

       “So now it’s just a little more revising,” my editor wrote.  “I think your readers are so going to enjoy this book!”
         She’s served me a love sandwich – two warm, tasty chunks of praise wrapped around really tough meat.
         I had two weeks to tear up my perfect book and revise it.
        I knew most editors don’t give novels in-depth criticism. I knew I was lucky mine cared.
 So how did I react?

          Like someone who’s just heard she has a fatal disease. You know Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief? I went through them all: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and  acceptance.
           First, denial. There’s nothing wrong with this book, I told myself. It’s good. No, great. My editor is ruining it. I won’t do it. So there.
           I wasted a whole day in denial, before I switched to anger. Now I was furious. What does my editor know? She lives in New York. She doesn’t even know any real people. She hasn’t been to Florida in years. I live here.
          Next came depression. I reread her note and realized how much work I was looking at.
          After two days of this war raging in my head, I reached acceptance.
          Maybe she’s right after all. Better to have her criticize my novel than let the reviewers rip it.
          I now had twelve days to rewrite “Final Sail.” The more I worked on the rewrite, the more I saw my editor was right.
 I finished the rewrite on deadline.

 And the New York Times reviewed it.
 “One way for a fugitive to hide in plain sight is to work at low-wage jobs,” Marilyn Stasio wrote, “which is what Helen Hawthorne has been doing in Elaine Viets’ quick-witted mysteries.”
 Thanks to my editor, I have this terrific Times quote for the jacket cover. That turned out to be a delicious love sandwich.

15 Tedious Tasks for Writers

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Nancy J. Cohen

Lately my mind has been a blank when it comes to writing blogs. It could be due to the influx of out of town visitors we have been hosting this month that makes it difficult to concentrate. Or it could be due to my WIP revisions on a book that’s over 104,000 words long. This might sap my mental energy. Regardless of the reason, it’s a good time for some mindless activity in between polishing the prose or escorting visitors around town. Here are some photos of the activities that have been leading me astray (not to mention gaining another pound).

I look a bit too relaxed there, don’t I?

Consider these tasks when you feel brain dead, too distracted or too tired to think straight. Here’s a list of jobs to do when you want to be productive without much mental effort.

• Organize your Internet Bookmarks/Favorites and verify that the links are still active.
• Verify that the links you recommend on your Website and your Blogroll are still valid.
• Update mailing lists and remove bounces and unsubscribes.
• Back up your files to the Cloud or to other media.
• Clean out and sort your files on the computer and in your office drawers.
• Convert old file formats to current ones.
• Delete unnecessary messages from your email Inbox.
• Eliminate duplicate photos stored on your computer.
• Delete old contacts from your address book.
• Unfollow people from Twitter who are no longer following you.
• Delete friends from Facebook who have deactivated their accounts.
• Sort your Twitter friends into Lists.
• Post reviews of books you’ve read to Goodreads, Amazon, Shelfari & Library Thing.
• Get caught up on a tax deduction list for your writing expenses.
• Index your blog posts by date and subject so you have a quick reference.

What else would you add?

Fun Tip of the Day: Google Authorship

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Have we talked about Google Authorship here before? I just enabled this neat little feature, which causes Google to display your picture and a profile box during searches on your name.

Here’s a screenshot of doing a search with my Google Authorship profile enabled. When I begin typing my name in Google’s search box, my picture appears along with the various search result options.

And here’s a picture of the search results. A box highlights my profile information, including a photo.

It’s hard to get everything on one screen to show you, but my Google Plus profile information also appears in a box with a photo. The example below shows Basil Sands’ picture instead of mine. Why, I’m not sure. Basil’s an IT guy, so maybe he can tell us, lol.

I just did a random sampling of searches on the TKZ bloggers’ names. The results indicate that most of us, but not all, have already set up a Google Authorship profile. Google Authorship is an incentive to get more familiar with Google Plus, which is much less popular as an outreach tool among authors compared to, say, Facebook.

So, have you been using Google Authorship as part of your Google Plus identity? Do you have any user tips or best practices you can share?

Write Who You Know (?)

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By Clare Langley-Hawthorne

I’ve often been asked whether I have any characters in my novels based on real-life people It used to seem strange to me that many would-be writers seemed so concerned about real people suing them over characters in their novels. This is probably because I’ve never overtly based a character on anyone I actually know. Until now…

To be honest I’m still pretty nonchalant about the whole issue. It’s not like I’m incorporating anybody famous or likely to sue for defamation. From what I’ve heard from many writers, even when they did write a character based on someone they knew, that person didn’t recognize it was them anyway! All too often people who know you either erroneously assume they are one of your characters or fail to see the glaring resemblances to those who you do include:)

In my latest WIP I do have a character drawn from a person I actually know  (someone who basically would have made a good Nazi…) but I am creating a fictional composite nonetheless. Although there are some core (evil) traits which have caught my eye, I am conscious that I am writing a novel not a memoir and so the real life person really provides only a jumping off point for my character to develop. (Nonetheless I am looking forward to this character coming to a ‘sticky end’ in the book – call it a kind of karmic catharsis that cannot be achieved in real life!).

I think when including characters based on actual people, writers should probably be aware/think of the following:

  • Be mindful that you may run afoul of defamation laws if what you have done is so obvious that most readers would recognize the person and think less of them in real life (there are of course a myriad of laws/cases and exceptions and a discussion of the complexities of the law is beyond what this post requires:). Usually the person would have to be pretty well known and have a reputation that could be compromised by what you write (and I’m guessing that most people’s Aunt Maud or Cousin Loopy wouldn’t fit this bill).
  • Consider the consequences of including any characterization that is instantly recognizable as someone you know (be it friend, family member, colleague) carefully. You need to understand you could cause offence and/or alienate people as a result.
  • Understand too that many people close to you will assume (correctly or incorrectly) that they must be a character in your book and will scour the pages trying to identify who they might be. You should plan on how to respond  because 99.9% of the time they will be totally wrong. 
  • Other than that, recognize that everyone creates characters based on their own experiences, memories and the people they have known. It is therefore inevitable that some aspects of people’s lives or characters will pop up and inhabit a writer’s imaginary world.  

So have you ever consciously included a character in one of your books based on someone you know? Were they ever the victim or perpetrator? Did anyone ever recognize themselves as a character in your book and if so, were they right? 

My Favorite Movies About Fathers

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James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

In honor of Father’s Day, I thought I’d share (with help from my film scholar son) ten of my favorite movies about dads.
FATHER OF THE BRIDE           
(1950, Dir. Vincente Minnelli)
The great Spencer Tracy plays the father of the gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor, who has decided to get hitched. What follows are the stages of a bride’s father that seem as inevitable as the stages of grief: testing the young man about his financial future; meeting the in-laws; trying to keep down wedding expenses; surviving the emotional shakeups. The comedy is as fresh today as it was in 1950, and being the father of a daughter myself, I cannot help tearing up at the end. Top of the list.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
(1962, Dir. Robert Mulligan)
Gregory Peck isAtticus Finch, the widower raising his two children in Depression-era Alabama. He is a paragon of decency, honor and the values that make one a compassionate human being. One of those times when the perfect role met the perfect actor for that role. It’s also, I think, the perfect movie score.
PARENTHOOD
(1989, Dir. Ron Howard)
Steve Martin plays Gil, the flustered father of an overanxious son, who also happens to have a less than perfect dad himself (Jason Robards). The movie is spot on about the various types of parents and their quirks, with the underlying message: you never stop being a parent. Highlight for me (and most dads, too) is when “Cowboy Gil” saves his son’s birthday party from utter ruin. 

KRAMER VS. KRAMER
(1979, Dir. Robert Benton)
One of the first movies, based on the novel by Avery Corman, about single fathers. Dustin Hoffman captures the spirit of the times, a 70s guy who thinks he’s got everything . . . until his wife leaves him. Hoffman and the son, played by Justin Henry, make it on their own for awhile, and then the ex-wife (Meryl Streep) returns and demands custody. This was the first male two-hanky movie.
SHANE
(1953, Dir. George Stevens)
One of the great American films of any kind, Shane is sometimes mistaken for a typical Western, with a gunslinger and bad guys. In reality, the movie is about the father, played by Van Heflin, trying to eke out a living as a homesteader with his wife and young son. Shane (Alan Ladd) comes into his world to help. It’s all mythic, and Jack Palance is one of the great villains in cinema history. But once Shane has done his work, he tells the boy to grow into a man just like his father, “strong and straight.”
LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY
(1938, Dir. George B. Seitz)
When Lewis Stone stepped into the role of Judge Hardy, father of the irrepressible Andy (Mickey Rooney), neither he nor Louis B. Mayer thought he would become the Ward Cleaver of his generation. Stone is the quintessential father, who knew when to let Andy take responsibility for his own actions, and when to cut him some slack and teach him lessons about life. So popular were these movies that Stone and Rooney filmed short subjects for MGM, which were sort of public service announcements. The studio brass figured no one had more parental authority than Judge Hardy. You’ll even find them immortalized in the great Warner Bros. cartoon Hollywood Steps Out (1941). Of course, Judy Garland and a young Lana Turner are in this one, too.
The following films are provided courtesy of Nathaniel Bell (M.A., Film Studies, Chapman University):
THE KID
(1921, Dir. Charles Chaplin)
Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” rescues an abandoned baby boy (later to grow into the adorable Jackie Coogan) and teaches him how to survive in the slums. The ensuing comedy-drama reaches a sentimental pitch worthy of Dickens. Images of Chaplin caring for the youngster in his pathetically ramshackle apartment, cutting diapers and cooking breakfasts, are the very picture of fatherly devotion, demonstrating that love, not money, is the greatest gift a father can bestow.

THE CROWD
(1928, Dir. King Vidor)
In this silent masterpiece, a young man with grand ambitions is humbled—first as a husband, then as a father—by the struggle to earn a living in the Big City. Witnessing the change from a carefree and naive youth to a man brought low by misfortune is a pungent reminder of the responsibilities that come with being a family man and provider. The gritty details are almost oppressive (this may be the first film to actually show a toilet), but it’s worth enduring for the powerful scene in which the father is pulled back from the abyss by his five-year-old’s innocent declaration, “I believe in you, Pop.”

TARZAN FINDS A SON!
(1939, Dir. Richard Thorpe)
Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan) discover the infant survivor of a jungle plane crash. Naming him “Boy,” they adopt the tot and return with him to their treetop abode, where Tarzan passes down his best vine-swinging techniques. Later, when the inevitable search party comes to reclaim Boy, Tarzan’s fatherly instincts—powerful as a gorilla’s—kick in full force. For all its creakiness, this 1939 potboiler is probably one of the best demonstrations of that primal paternal impulse to defend your children at all costs.
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK
(1944, Dir. Preston Sturges)
Sturges brings his withering satirical sensibilities to bear on the American small town in this WWII screwball classic. The entire cast is brilliant, but it’s William Demarest who steals the picture as Edmund Kockenlocker (the name alone, as James Agee once suggested, places him firmly in cartoon strip country), the trash talking, pipe smoking town constable whose protection of his two teenage daughters verges on the psychopathic. His favored technique for fending off potential suitors is taking a wild kick, missing the mark, and falling flat on his back.

Happy Father’s Day! Enjoy!


Become a Better Writer!

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By Mark Alpert

It’s simple. If you want to improve your writing, you should read great books. And study them.

I just finished an amazing novel that was published last year, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. It’s set in the not-too-distant past of the Bush era, when the war in Iraq was raging and the airwaves in America were full of over-the-top patriotic extravaganzas. The U.S. Army has organized a Victory Tour for a squad of infantrymen whose combat heroics were caught on video and broadcast on the evening news, making instant celebrities out of the young, rowdy soldiers. Billy Lynn is the baby of the squad, a 19-year-old who won the Silver Star for his valor during the firefight but can barely remember what happened. He’s overwhelmed and exhausted by all the fawning attention he gets from armchair warriors during the Victory Tour, which culminates in a farcical halftime show at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium on Thanksgiving Day. And he even toys with the idea of deserting, because the Army is planning to send him and his fellow grunts right back to Iraq as soon as the football game is over.

Reading the book is pure pleasure. Fountain is such a good writer, his sentences make you shake your head in wonder. Here’s the opening of the scene describing Billy’s brief visit to his family home in Texas:

Billy went to Stovall, to the three-bedroom, two-bath brick ranch house on Cisco Street with sturdy access ramps front and back for his father’s wheelchair, a dark purple motorized job with fat whitewalls and an American flag decal stuck to the back. “The Beast,” Billy’s sister Kathryn called it, a flanged and humpbacked ride with all the grace of a tar cooker or giant dung beetle. “Damn thing gives me the willies,” she confessed to Billy, and Ray’s aggressive style of driving did in fact seem to strive for maximum creep effect. Whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr, he buzzed to the kitchen for his morning coffee, then whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr into the den for the day’s first hit of nicotine and Fox News, then whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr back to the kitchen for his breakfast, whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrrto the bathroom, whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrrto the den and the blathering TV, whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr, whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr, whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr, he jammed the joystick so hard around its vulcanized socket that the motor keened like a tattoo drill, the piercing eeeeeeennnnnhhhhhh contrapuntaling off the baseline whhhhhhhiiiiirrrrrrr to capture in sound, in stereophonic chorus no less, the very essence of the man’s personality. “He’s an asshole,” Kathryn said.

I love that long sentence with the sound effects. When I encounter a sentence this good I like to read it over and over, sometimes even try to memorize it. Or simply copy it word for word, as I’ve done here. It’s an attempt at sympathetic magic. I’m hoping that some of the author’s skill will rub off on me.

The novel is also brilliantly structured. It starts with the limo ride to the Cowboys stadium a couple of hours before kickoff and ends with the same limo picking up the soldiers after the game. In between we get to see the football players suiting up in the locker room, the team owner’s luxurious suite, the equipment room, the drunken fans, and of course the fabulous Cowboys cheerleaders. There are some flashbacks, but not too many. The only really extended one is the description of Billy’s depressing homecoming. I was expecting the author to eventually describe the heroic deeds of the infantrymen in the firefight in Iraq, but that expected flashback never arrives. We just get a few bits and pieces of it: Billy’s despair as one of his comrades dies in his lap, his sergeant’s pride in Billy’s heroism (expressed, jarringly, as a painful kiss after the battle). The omission is disappointing in a way — we want to know what happened there! — but it fits with the theme of the novel. The soldiers themselves don’t want to think about what happened. And when the fawning armchair warriors bombard them with thoughtless questions, asking them what they felt during the firefight, the grunts can’t respond. If you weren’t there, you can never really understand.

Best of all, the book is funny. The soldiers defy their hopeless fate by constantly goofing around. When one of them passes out drunk in the stands and a woman in the next row offers to spread a blanket over him (it’s a cold November day), his buddies protest:

“Oh, ma’am, don’t worry about him,” Crack assures her. “We’re infantry, that’s kind of like being a dog or a mule, we’re too dumb to mind the weather. He’s fine, believe me, he don’t feel a thing.”

“But he could freeze!”

“No ma’am,” Mango chimes in. “We punch him every once in a while to keep his blood moving. See, like this.” He delivers a sharp whack to Lodis’s bicep. Lodis snarls and throws out his arms, but his eyes never open.

“See?” Mango beams. “He’s fine. He’s happy. He’s like a cockroach, you can’t kill him!”

In short, I urge you to read this novel. There’s no better way to learn how to write fiction.