Author Archives: Dale Ivan Smith

About Dale Ivan Smith

Dale Ivan Smith is a retired librarian turned full-time author. He started out writing fantasy and science fiction, including his five-book Empowered series, and has stories in the High Moon, Street Spells, and Underground anthologies, and his collection, Rules Concerning Earthlight. He's now following his passion for cozy mysteries and working on the Meg Booker Librarian Mysteries series, beginning with A Shush Before Dying and Book Drop Dead.

Humorous Words of Wisdom

Posted on by

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” That’s certainly true in thrillers and mysteries. Humor can enrich an otherwise serious novel, lightening a reader’s mood at just the right time and providing emotional contrast.

Today’s Words of Wisdom looks at how to add funny into your fiction, with posts by Jordan Dane, James Scott Bell, and Reavis Wortham. The full posts for each excerpt are well worth reading, and date-linked below.

FIVE WAYS TO ADD HUMOR

2.) Write Earnest Dialogue With a Sarcastic Internal Monologue from the POV Character

Cut loose on your inner smart ass with this type of scene. The dialogue lines would read as idle banter or may not appear to have color, until the reader sees what the character is thinking or gets a whiff of their cynicism. Whether you write in first person POV or deep third, you can make this happen and add attitude to your character. Remember, people don’t censor their opinion when they think no one hears them, in their head. So let the sarcasm fly, without filter.

Example: From My WIP – Legacy in Blood. My 24-year old bounty hunter wannabe, Trinity LeDoux, argues with Hayden Quinn about coming along on a dangerous trip:

“We? Oh, no,” he said.

“Yeah, but that’s the deal. I go too.”

“That’s crazy. I’m not a coaster ride at Six Flags. You can’t buy a ticket and climb onboard.”

If Quinn were a ride, I’d definitely buy a ticket, but now wasn’t the time to embarrass us both. I had to find another way to pique his interest before he voted me off his island.

Example: Hayden notices Trinity is carrying a weapon when he “visits” her condemned warehouse home

“You’re carrying a weapon,” he said as he let me pass. “I feel better already.”

Busted. Okay, yeah. I had a gun tucked under my Ren and Stimpy T-shirt, my one big investment in my new career. I couldn’t read Hayden’s reaction, but his deadpan sarcasm had begun to grow on me.

I’d once argued that bullets were more valuable than a gun. My shooting instructor went ape shit crazy over that one, especially when I said, ‘Without bullets, any gun is only a passable paperweight.’ It’d been a chicken and egg argument. You had to be there.

3.) Use Funny Sounding Unusual Words to Add Color & Humor
How about these zingers? Bamboozled, bazinga, bobolink, bumfuzzle, canoodle, carbuncle, caterwaul, cattywampus, doohickey, gobsmacked, gunky are but a few of the words listed in my link below, but imagine how you might use these words in a story and who might say them. These words alone could stir your imaginings on a character.

Example: The word ‘parsimonious’ means stingy. Here is how I used it in my latest WIP – Legacy in Blood:

I hadn’t eaten since early yesterday. If Hayden didn’t kick me off his property, I’d eat enough to last. I’d stuff it in my cheeks like a parsimonious squirrel if I had to.
(The internal voice of Trinity LeDoux. She’s presently homeless and beggars can’t afford to be persnickety.)

4.) Try Tongue-in-Cheek/Deadpan Delivery in the Banter Between Characters
In my opinion, less is more. Write the banter in short punches and don’t explain. If the reader finds it funny, that’s good, but don’t overwork it by trying too hard to be funny. Also be mindful of pace. Too much of a diversion can slow the plot. Get in, get out. Or in the case of Robert Crais’s example below, add several quick schticks of the same idea (ie. John Cassavetes) through the book to reinforce the humor in short spurts.

Example: In Monkey’s Raincoat, Robert Crais carries on a schtick with Elvis Cole, PI. A new client flatters him by saying he looked like a young John Cassavetes. After that, Cole asks others if they think so too. Each short punch is funnier and funnier. Here’s one encounter:

“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Do you think I look like John Cassavetes twenty years ago?”

“I didn’t know you twenty years ago.”

Everyone’s a comedian.

Example of Lillian’s POV from my novella – Lillian & Noah:

“It’s a sexual fantasy site,” I said. “Members share their most intimate erotic fantasies on their profile.”

“In my day, guys just wrote those on a bathroom wall.” Vinnie snorted.

“Shut up, Vinnie. Let her finish.” Candy shushed him with her red nails. “What happens next, doll? I think I saw something like this on Days of Our Lives.”

I clenched my jaw as heat rushed to my face. Not even a pig in a blanket helped.

Jordan Dane—June 12, 2014

So let’s talk about humor used on occasion in an otherwise serious novel. Why have it at all? Comic relief, as the name implies, is a spot within the suspense where the audience can catch its breath. It delivers a slight respite before resuming the tension. It’s sort of like the pause at the top of a roller-coaster. You take in a breath, look at the nice view and then…BOOM! Off you go again. It adds a pleasing, emotional crosscurrent to the fictive dream, which is what readers are paying for, after all.

I see three main ways to weave humor into a novel: situational, descriptive, and conversational.

Situational

You can insert a scene, or a long beat within a scene, that takes its comic effect from the situation the character finds himself in. For an example I turn to the great Alfred Hitchcock, who almost always has comic relief in his masterpieces of suspense.

Like the auction scene in North by Northwest. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) has been mistakenly tagged as a U.S. secret agent by a group of bad guys. At one point, Thornhill walks into a fancy art auction to confront the chief bad guy (James Mason). But now he’s stuck there with three deadly henchmen waiting in the wings to send him to the eternal dirt nap.

So Thornhill hatches a plan. Act like a nut and cause a commotion so the cops will come in and arrest him, saving him from the assassins. This is how it goes down:

How do you find situational humor? You look at a scene and the circumstances and push beyond what is expected. Most humor is based upon the unexpected. That’s what makes for the punch line in a joke, for example. So make a list of possible unexpected actions your character might take or encounter, and surely one of them will be the seed of comic relief.

Descriptive

When you are writing in First Person POV, the voice of the narrator can drop in a bit of humor when describing a setting or another character. The master of colorful description was, of course, Raymond Chandler, through the voice of his detective, Philip Marlowe:

It must have been Friday because the fish smell from the Mansion House coffee-shop next door was strong enough to build a garage on. (“Bay City Blues)

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)

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

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

For descriptive humor, listen to your character. Use a voice journal to let the character riff for awhile. You’ll unearth a nugget or two of descriptive gold.

Conversational

Dialogue presents many possibilities for humor. First, you can create characters who have the potential for funny talk. Second, you can take create conversational situations where such talk is possible. I had two great aunts who lived together in their later years. They had a way of subtly sniping at each other over minor matters, which was always a source of amusement to me. So I put them in my thriller, Long Lost, as two volunteers at a small hospital:

Just inside the front doors, two elderly women sat at a reception desk. They were dressed in blue smocks with yellow tags identifying them as volunteers. One of them had slate-colored hair done up in curls. The other had dyed hers a shade of red that did not exist in nature.

They looked surprised and delighted when Steve came in, as if he were the Pony Express riding into the fort.

They fought for the first word. Curls said, “May I help—” at the same time Red said, “Who are you here to—”

They stopped and looked at each other, half-annoyed, half-amused, then back at Steve.

And spoke over each other again.

“Let me help you out,” Steve said. “I’m looking for a doctor, a certain—”

“Are you hurt?” Curls said.

“Our emergency entrance is around to the side,” Red said.

“No, I—”

“Oh, but we just had a shooting,” Curls said.

“A stinking old man,” Red added.

“Not stinking,” Curls said. “Stinko. He was drunk.”

“When you’re drunk you can stink, too,” Red said.

“That’s hardly the point,” Curls said.

And it goes on like that.

I think you can develop an ear for this kind of humor by soaking in the masters of verbal comedy. Start with Marx Brothers, especially their five best movies: The Coconuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup.

James Scott Bell—December 13, 2020

 

I sat in on a humor writing class once, and came out weeping. The presenter broke down humor with sentences like, “Writing comedically usually requires establishing a setup pattern and then misdirecting the reader by throwing in a punch line. The simplest way is to create a pair of ideas and then add an incongruent statement. I like to list three, because 30 is too many.”

Good lord.

How about misdirection, which can be funny by taking readers someplace they expect to go and suddenly shifting direction.

“I looked down at my five-year-old son who broke the window and lied about it. I was shocked to think he wouldn’t tell the truth, and had to get him to understand what he’d done wrong, so I knelt on one knee, took his small shoulders in my big hands and looked him in the eye. Son, I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“Quit picking your nose.”

Most of the things we laugh at in real life are true stories that someone exaggerates for effect. I once wrote a column about running from a bear while wearing a backpack…

“That thing was right on my heels, and I ran like rats across the tundra. My backpack came open and I left a string of equipment behind, my tent, half the food I’d packed, tent stakes, the stove, a laptop computer, two cameras, a chair, the kitchen sink and a VCR along with all my John Wayne videos. Now light as a feather, I left the bear far behind, sniffing the laptop full of newspaper columns and probably wondering what stunk so bad.”

Some other things I’ve learned:

Don’t try to write jokes. Look for something that happened in real life and make a few changes. Here in Texas, every truck has a trailer hitch. We all know they’re right there, but when the guys get together, someone inadvertently barks his shin on the damn thing. While we curse and rub that shin, the rest laugh like loons. What is it that makes us guys giggle like little girls? We’ve all done it. Exaggerated familiarity is funny

Don’t tell your reader something is funny: “Hurts, don’t it,” he joked. Like the old saying goes, if you have to explain it, it ain’t funny.

Avoid sarcasm, except to identify a character.

Surprise your reader.

I’ve judged humor writing contests, and cousin, exclamation points don’t make a story funny!

Use humor sparingly, unless you’re shoving it in someone’s face, like this slightly insane column I wrote some years ago about an Outdoor Detective that somehow caught on with readers. I only produce one of these a year. They’re a lot like fruit cakes, you don’t want too many, but an occasional bite is good.

Reavis Wortham—November 27, 2021

***

  1. Do you enjoy some funny to go with the serious in your fiction?
  2. Do you have a favorite trick or tip to share about inserting humor into a novel?
  3. Is there an author you feel who does this especially well?

BICHOK Words of Wisdom

Posted on by

I first encountered the expression, “Butt in chair, hands on keyboard,” on the Writing Excuses podcast years ago and it stuck with me. BICHOK. Such a simple proposition, and a succinct way of looking at a writing session. It’s also easy, for me at least, to drift away from practicing BICHOK. Distractions abound, as do tasks like research that are related to your work-in-progress but aren’t actual writing or revision/editing.

Today’s Words of Wisdom is about BICHOK, how you can benefit from daily/regular writing, and how to use different sorts of writing sprints to help achieve that. We have excerpts from Nancy Cohen, PJ Parrish, and James Scott Bell. As always, the original posts are linked from the bottom of their respective excerpt, and then the floor is open for your comments.

Writers sit in a chair for hours, peering at their work, blocking out the rest of the world in their intense concentration. It’s not an easy job. Some days, I marvel that readers have no idea how many endless days we toil away at our craft. It takes immense self-discipline to keep the butt in the chair when nature tempts us to enjoy the sunshine and balmy weather outside.

We don’t only spend the time writing the manuscript. After submitting our work and having it accepted, we get revisions back from our editor. This requires another round of poring over our work. And another opportunity comes with the page proofs where we scrutinize each word for errors. How many times do we review the same pages, the same words? How many tweaks do we make, continuously correcting and making each sentence better?

These hours and hours of sitting are worth the effort when we hold the published book in our hands, when readers write to us how much they enjoyed the story, or when we win accolades in a contest. As I get older, I wonder if these hours are well spent. My time is getting shorter. Shouldn’t I be outside, enjoying what the community has to offer, admiring the trees and flowers, visiting with friends? Each moment I sit in front of the computer is a moment gone.

But I can no more give up my craft than I can stop breathing. It’s who I am. And the hours I sit here pounding at the keyboard are my legacy.

BICHOK is our motto: Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard. This policy can take its toll on writers’ health with repetitive strain injury, adverse effects of prolonged sitting, neck and shoulder problems. We have to discipline ourselves not only to sit and work for hours on end, but to get up and exercise so as to avoid injury. This career requires extreme discipline, and those wannabes who can’t concentrate for long periods of time or who give up easily will never reach the summit. They can enjoy the journey and believe that’s where it ends, but they’re playing at being a writer and not acting as a professional.

We’re slaves to our muse, immersed in our imaginary worlds, losing ourselves to the story. And then we have to revise, correct, edit, read through the manuscript numerous times until we turn it in or our vision goes bleary. We are driven. And so we sit, toiling in our chairs (or on the couch if you use a laptop). Hours of life pass us by, irretrievable hours that we’ll never get back.

So please, readers, understand how many hours we put into this craft to entertain you, to educate you, and to illuminate human nature in our stories.

And this doesn’t even count the time required for social media.

I put myself in the chair until I achieve a daily quota. In a writing phase, this is five pages a day or twenty-five pages per week. For self-edits, I aim for a chapter a day but that’s not always possible. I do this is the morning when I’m most creative. Afternoons are for writing blogs, social media, promotion, etc.

Nancy Cohen—May 8, 2013

“Writing is almost a place of dreams for me.”

That is Mosley talking about the subconscious. He goes on to talk about how the act of creating fiction necessitates that the writer enter a dream world and inhabit it fully. Not just visit whenever the kids are quiet and the dishes are done. Not just swing by for a quickie when the husband is off playing poker. And not just deign to show up if you feel like it.
If you want a reader to live in the world you create, you the writer can’t just rent that space. You have to own it.

Mosley believes that only through daily contact with your novel can you maintain the subconscious threads that will keep it alive. The constancy of entering that fictional world every day will force not just the process along (Yea! I just wrote THE END!) but will engender a richness and authenticity in your fictional universe that you won’t otherwise achieve.

I used to go days without writing then burn myself out writing in furious 12-hour sprints. I thought it was working, but what I didn’t realize was that in those days I was away, my characters’s voices were dimming to whispers, my settings were fading like old pastels, and my plot was drifting off into the blackest bayous.

Here’s how Mosley describes this stasis:

The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do every day. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting to the unconscious mind. The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continuously set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It’s not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating discovering. The journey is your narrative. Keep to it and a tale will be told. Nothing we create is art at first. It’s simply a collection of notions that may never be understood. Returning every day thickens the atmosphere. Images appear. Connections are made. But even these clearer notions will fade if you stay away more than a day.

“Thickens the atmosphere.” God, I love that.

Now I am no angel. Decades of procrastination die hard. Sometimes old dogs can’t hear the call for new tricks, let alone do them. You guys undoubtedly have your own ideas on how to keep a daily pace and I’d love to hear them. Here are some of the things I do to force myself to return each day to my fictional world.

Just open the book

Sometimes just seeing your work on the screen gives you a jolt of confidence. Read that word count ticker-thing down in the left corner. Wow…I’ve made it to 43,034 words? Next thing you know, it’s an hour later and you’re up to 43,306.

Read yesterday’s work

Okay, your brain is bone-dry and you can’t face that sucky chapter 12. Open the damn file anyway. Do some rewriting. Even if you ignore sucky chapter 12 and go back and repave a pothole in chapter 6. Just the act of setting foot back in the fictional world will get you moving again. Or, as Mosley puts it:

One day you might read over what you’ve done and think about it. You pick up the pencil or turn on the computer, but no new words come. That’s fine. Sometimes you can’t go further. Correct a misspelling, reread a perplexing paragraph, and then let it go. You have re-entered the dream of the work, and that’s enough to keep the story alive for another 24 hours. The next day you might write for hours; there’s no way to tell. The goal is not a number of words or hours spent writing. All you need to do is to keep your heart and mind open to the work.

PJ Parrish—January 19, 2016

 

Then there are setbacks that come from life itself: pandemics, family issues, physical challenges, mental fatigue. All this can affect our work.

How to handle them? My advice has always been along the lines of the flippant doctor’s prescription for insomnia: Just sleep it off. I’ve counseled writers to keep writing, or “write your way through” whatever it is that knocks you flat.

But I know that’s easy to say and hard to do. So let me suggest an exercise I call writing sprints. This is where you set yourself a goal of writing 250 words—a nifty 250—as fast as you can. The three rules of writing sprints are: 1) Write without stopping; 2) Don’t judge what you’re writing as you write; and 3) Wait ten minutes before you look over what you’ve done and decide what to do with it.

I’ve broken writing sprints into five categories:

  1. Scene sprints

That scene you’re about to work on? Pick a spot in the scene, any spot, and write 250 words. It could be the beginning, or it could be the “hot spot” where the meat of the scene is taking place. You can also write an ending, too. There is no wrong decision.

  1. Emotion sprints

This is my favorite. Find a place where your viewpoint character is feeling something deeply. Then write 250 words just on that feeling. Expand it. Use internal thoughts. Use metaphors. Follow tangents wherever they lead. Later, you’ll use the best of this in your writing. Even if it’s only one line, you’ll have found gold.

  1. Dialogue sprints

I love dialogue. It’s fun and easy. In a sprint, don’t use quote marks or attributions. Just the dialogue between characters. Let them improvise. Let them argue. Let them reveal things. Usually you’ll find something that is delightfully surprising (and it will delight your readers, too).

  1. Description sprints

Go wild on describing a person, place, or thing. I often close my eyes for this, and let my imagination give me pictures.

  1. Random Word sprints

Open a dictionary at random (I used to carry a pocket dictionary for this, back in the days when it was acceptable to write in a coffee house). Pick the first word you see that is a noun, verb, or adjective. Write 250 words on whatever that word triggers. You can apply it to your WIP if you like. Example: You find the word bloodhound. You can just start writing and follow rabbit trails (hey, just like that dog!) Or can ask yourself, “How might a bloodhound figure in my story?” and then go. Maybe your Lead can have a memory of a bloodhound. Or maybe he feels like a bloodhound. Okay: what does he think about that feeling? Keep writing!

Here’s another benefit. After you’ve done those 250 words, you’ll almost always feel the flow. You’ll want to write some more. So write! Because setbacks won’t stop a writer who produces the words.

James Scott Bell—November 29, 2020

***

There you have it: why and how to have butt-in-chair, hands-on-keyboard.

  1. Do you practice BICHOK daily?
  2. What do you think about Walter Mosley’s observation that spending time with your work-in-progress helping your subconscious create?
  3. Have you tried any of JSB’s different sorts of writing sprints?
  4. How do you get yourself to the writing chair and practice BICHOK? Do you use a daily quota?

Words of Wisdom On Burnout

Posted on by

Writerly burnout. I never thought it would happen to me, until it did.

In 2016, I produced the first two novels in my Empowered series as well as a prequel novella to that series, with the novels scheduled for publication the following year. In 2017, I produced two novels, including the third Empowered and a space opera novel, publishing those as well that year. In the first half of 2018, I produced a novel and a novelette.

Not an unreasonable pace. But the whole time I was stressing about not writing fast enough.

By mid-2018 I’d published five novels since January 2017, along with the novella and the novelette, and was working on what was supposed to be Book 1 in my next series, which I published in September 2019. However,  I had started out in back January 2016 determined to produce four novels a year. After all, I knew indie authors writing at that pace, or even faster. Why couldn’t I? The result was lots of self-induced stress which eventually led to my burning out.

I didn’t stop completely, but I struggled to write the second novel in my second series and eventually trunked it. I did write the fifth and final Empowered novel during the first half of 2020, and then, that fall, moved to working on my first mystery novel. That ended up being a learning process which took two and a half years, with A Shush Before Dying releasing in April 2023. The second novel, Book Drop Dead, was published in June 2024. I’m now in the middle of writing the third book in my 1980s library cozy mystery series, and more mindful than ever of my own individual process and speed as a writer, especially given that mysteries are more challenging to write than my fantasy novels.

So, I did recover from my own burnout. A big help was advice here from our own JSB and other TKZ posters, especially on managing expectations, getting rest, and focusing on my own process and path rather than comparing my writing career to others.

As it so happens, this evening I’m on a panel about dealing with burnout, taking place as part of Orycon, our local science fiction convention. Tonight’s upcoming panel inspired me to dip into the archives for today’s Words of Wisdom.

We have an excerpt from James Scott Bell on finding a steady pace to avoid writerly burnout, and another by Joe Hartlaub on getting past writerly and readerly burnout. As always, links to each post are provided at the end of their respective excerpts.

The pressure comes when the writer who wants to make good dough at this thing (even a living) realizes that the only “formula” (and lottery-type luck is not a formula) is to keep producing quality work at a steady pace.

Notice that word, steady. I believe this is the key to avoiding writer burnout. Every writer has a sweet spot where production meets life and stays on its side of the fence. We call this a quota.

Now, those of you who’ve read my craft pieces over the years know I’m a quota guy. It’s the single most important discipline in my own writing life. I started down this road in 1988, and early on I remember reading about how important a quota was. The very first writing craft book I ever purchased was Lawrence Block’s Writing the Novel. In it, he has a section on quotas, and notes that most pro writers keep track of the words they produce, not the time they spend at the desk.

That got to me, and I have stuck to a quota ever since. It’s almost always been 1,000 words a day, six days a week, with a day of rest on Sunday.

Though I have cheated on occasion when a deadline was breathing down my neck, this “writing Sabbath” has been crucial for me. It gives my brain much-needed rest. I find I’m always energized to start up again on Monday. That is perhaps the main reason I’ve never truly felt burned out. Tired, yes. But the big fizzle, no.

It’s also important, I’ve found, to take daily breaks. I’m usually not more than an hour at a time at the keyboard. I’ll then take a five- or ten-minute stretch or stroll. In the afternoon I take a power nap—15 to 20 minutes.

One other thing I have to do is keep myself from “over-writing” when the going is good. Block addresses this in his book:

One thing you might try to avoid, in this connection, is attempting to extend your productivity. This sort of overload principle works fine in weightlifting, where one’s ability to manage more weight increases as one lifts more weight, but it doesn’t work that way in writing. It’s tempting to try to do a little more each day than we did the day before, and I still find myself intermittently struggling to resist this particular temptation, even after lo these many years. If I can do five pages today, why can’t I do six tomorrow? And seven the day after? For that matter, if I really catch fire and do seven today, that proves I can definitely do a minimum of seven tomorrow. Doesn’t it?

No, it doesn’t.

What does happen, in point of fact, is that this sort of overload generally leads to exhaustion … Find your right pace, make sure it’s one that’s not going to be a strain, and then stick with it.

And sometimes writing breaks are thrust upon us.

Like getting sick. I thank the Good Lord I’m pretty healthy most of the time, but last year I got taken out by a bout of pneumonia. It actually set me back a couple of weeks. I managed some writing, but mostly I rested and took my antibiotics and sniped at my wife (this saint continued to take care of me.)

I’ve also found that when I go to a convention, like Bouchercon or ThrillerFest, it’s almost impossible for me to get in any writing time. There’s too much going on, like Gilstrap holding court in the bar with his Beefeater martini. No one wants to miss that. So I give myself permish to take several days off when I attend. (I also find I can write on a plane going to a location, but not coming home. I think that has to do with my being a morning person, as I described a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, there is one exception to all this steadiness, and that’s NaNoWriMo. We need not revisit the debate over this singular month of writing madness (you can search for NaNoWriMo in our archives for that), but it’s there for you to consider.

What I’m saying is simply this: be as intentional about taking a break from writing as you are about producing the words. Be strategic, be smart. I’ve said this many times before, but here it is again: figure out how many words you can easily write in a daily session. Now up that by 10%. So if it’s 250 words, you aim for 275. 1000 = 1100. Try to do that six days a week.

But do not beat yourself up if circumstances conspire against you. Treat every new week afresh.

Do this day after week after year—with regular breaks—and you will not only avoid the B-word, you’ll see an amazing output of material. Which is the difference between someone who wants to write and a writer.

James Scott Bell—February 4, 2018

I’ve been repeatedly having the same vaguely disturbing conversation in person and via email with a number of individuals recently about books and reading. The topic is variously referred to as “reading fatigue,” “book burnout,” and “reading slump,” among other terms. The complaint centers upon the perceived feeling that new books being published are “all” following the same pattern. Elements of that pattern would include 1) “the placement of the word ‘girl’ in the title; 2) the unreliable first-person narrator; and 3) a missing child/husband/sister who seems to suddenly reappear with an inability to explain their absence.

It is true that publishing industry generally is reactive and not proactive. We all remember The Da Vinci Code. That book became a sub-genre unto itself. It seemed for a while as if every other newly published book concerned a hunt for an ancient relic that, depending on what it was and who was hunting it, would destroy, save, or enslave the world. Going back a bit further, Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent and John Grisham’s The Firm revived the popularity of the courtroom thriller, though it’s not as if that sub-genre ever really went away, once Erle Stanley Gardner had taken that beachhead in the 1930s with his Perry Mason novels.

There is some method to publishing’s madness, based on the proposition that if the public likes a certain type of book then it will want more of the same. I don’t recall a research  ever calling me and asking, “If you went to the library tomorrow, what type of book would you look for?” My answer would be “bound,” but that’s beside the point.

What does this mean for budding authors? My best advice is to not follow trends. If someone writes a book about an alcoholic housewife on a train who suspects that she has witnessed a murder being committed, and it becomes a bestseller, write your book about something else. Flip the script. Write about a recovering alcoholic who is as reliable as a Fossil Haywood and who, while doing some backyard gardening,  believes that she sees someone being murdered on the LIRR. I’m only kind of kidding. Do something different, because by the time you write your book and find an agent the publishers will probably be looking for something else. As for readers: if you’re tired of new books, look for an author who is new to you, or go back to the past and seek out something in your favorite genre among the mountains of books that have been published in the past sixty years or so. You can also seek out a couple of go-to authors. When I do my own reading, and nothing seems to please me, I pick up one of Timothy Hallinan’s fine novels, or an Elmore Leonard book, or start working my way through James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux canon, among others, to shake me out of my doldrums. Reading is good for you. You don’t want to stop.

Joe Hartlaub—November 4, 2017

***

Along with JSB’s and others advice, two books which helped me in dealing with burnout are Breakthrough by J. Dharma Kelleher and Dear Writer, Are You In Burnout?, by Becca Syme, as well as Becca’s YouTube series on burnout on her Quitcast channel there. To supplement Joe’s excellent advice on dealing with reading burnout I recommend checking with your local librarian for advice. Librarian’s love giving “reader’s advisory” and helping reader’s find their next great read.

The panel I’m on tonight, “Thinking Through Burnout,” asks several questions in the description that can serve as a jumping off point to our discussion today:

“Thinking is hard when you’re tired all the time. How do you manage burnout when it hits in the middle of a list of critical tasks? What coping mechanisms have worked for you, or not? Do you have tools or strategies to prevent burnout?”

In addition to that, have you ever suffered from reader burnout as described by Joe? If so, how did you get past it and reconnect with your love of reading?

Words of Wisdom: Breaking the Rules

Posted on by

Lake Quinault is an inspiring change of scenery

I took my wife for a short vacation this week to Lake Quinault, Washington, in the heart of the Olympic Rainforest, following advice for writers and non-writers alike to try a change of scenery for inspiration and renewal. It worked. I’m wasn’t surprised, since I’ve been visiting every winter since 2019 for the Rainforest Writers Retreat.

Taking a change of scenery is good advice to change things up. What about the so-called rules of writing–is it worth changing them up, in other words, break them?

Today’s Words of Wisdom tackles this possibility, with contributions from Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Kathryn Lilley and PJ Parrish.

I borrowed Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing the other day from the library – although I had read many of his rules before, I realized I hadn’t actually read the whole (albeit very short) book. Since we have been doing our first page critiques, I thought it was probably a good time to highlight his rules – many of which we have already discussed in our critiques – and to also fess up to my own shortcomings…

Here are his 10 rules…

  1. 1. Never open a book with weather
    2. Avoid prologues
    3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue
    4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…
    5. Keep your exclamation points under control
    6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”
    7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly
    8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters
    9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things
    10. Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip

While these are excellent rules, I have to confess to breaking at least half of these in my own work. I have used a prologue and (mea culpa) even the word “suddenly” on the odd occasion.

As a writer of historical fiction I also admit to giving pretty detailed descriptions of places, things and people in order to give the reader insight into the time period. However, the hardest rules for me, are rule number 3 and 4. While I certainly try and avoid overusing adverbs and bizarre speech handles such as “asseverated” I find when I try and limit my dialogue to using only “said”, it becomes stilted and hollow. My solution has been to try and limit my adverb use and to highlight gestures, actions etc. to provide appropriate texture to the scene – but still, I fear my dialogue drafts are way more ‘flowery’ than Elmore would like:) As part of my editing process I am extra vigilant when it comes to this rule, but also equally aware that stripping my work down too much saps it of its color. It’s a balancing act, as with most things in writing.

Clare Langley-Hawthorne—April 4, 2011

 

Right now I’m reading AN EXPERT IN MURDER, a bang-up mystery written by Josephine Tey (a pseudonym for Scottish author Elizabeth MacIntosh, 1896-1952). Tey was a writer who delighted in breaking the formulaic mystery writing rules of her era. Those rules, as proclaimed by a group of London-based mystery writers, had been set forth in a manifesto called “The 10 Commandments of the Detection Club”. (Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers were founding members of the club.)

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE DETECTION CLUB

  1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No (archaic ethnic term) must figure in the story. (Editor’s note: At the time, popular mysteries frequently included a character of Chinese descent. The writers used an archaic ethnic term that I don’t care to repeat here).
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

***

Josephine Tey gleefully broke most of these rules in her mysteries. Twin imposters? Check. A sleuth playing a hunch? Check. In some of her books, Josephine Tey herself featured as a sleuth. (The Detective Club probably never dreamed of creating a rule against doing that).

Because she was a gifted, excellent writer, Tey got away with jettisoning the standard writing tropes of her era.

Katherine Lilley—March 8, 2016

Don’t use adverbs!

Don’t use passive voice!

Keep backstory under control!

Write every day or you die!

It’s a wonder we get anything down on the page. Except maybe our own blood.

Writer’s rules aren’t anything new. A guy named S.S. Van Dine’s set down his Twenty Rules For Writing Detective Stories in 1928. (“There must be a corpse, and the deader the corpse the better.”) Many other famous writers have been compelled to weigh in with their own lists. Here are a few tidbits I culled:

  • Margaret Atwood: Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.
  • George Orwell: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
  • Jonathon Frazen: It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.
  • PD James: Don’t just plan to write – write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.
  • Joyce Carol Oates: Unless you are writing something very avant-garde – all gnarled, snarled and “obscure” – be alert for possibilities of paragraphing.
  • Ian Rankin: Have a story worth telling.
  • Zadie Smith: Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
  • Hilary Mantel: Be aware that anything that appears before “Chapter One” may be skipped. Don’t put your vital clue there.
  • Henry Miller: Work on one thing at a time until finished.
  • Mark Twain: Write without pay until somebody offers pay.
  • Richard Ford: Don’t have children.

I can agree with most of that. But then again, I have dogs. There are some rules, however, I found that I can’t endorse:

  • Mario Puzo: Never write in the first person.
  • Robert Heinlein: You must refrain from rewriting except by editorial order.
  • Jack Kerouac: Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind.

If someone can explain that last one to me, I’d be grateful.

It used to be that you had to read a book to get advice from the famous on writing. When I first read Annie Dilliard’s The Writing Life, I didn’t learn how to write but I was relieved to learn I wasn’t alone in my self-doubts. But now, thousands of writing tips are available to us at the tap of a finger, and anyone can hang out a how-to shingle. So how do you sift the wisdom from the chaff?

Rules can be confusing, arbitrary, and deeply frustrating. I guess the only good advice I can offer is what Bruce Lee suggests in the quote at the beginning of this post. Adapt what you find useful, reject what is useless, and find your own path. I’ve been writing novels professionally for about thirty years, and whenever I see someone — famous or not — laying down rules, my hairs go up.  Still, I have discovered a few “rules” along the way that I have found deeply useful:

Kurt Vonnegut: Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.  This taught me to dig deep for motivation for every character I put on the page, especially the villains.  Later, I heard Les Standiford preach the same principle when he said that until you understand what your character wants, not just on the surface but at his deepest levels, you can’t write a good story.

Linus Pauling: The way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. This taught me that not every story idea will work.  Some are good maybe for a short story. Some are ugly babies that might need a few years to blossom into beauties — ie, you might not be ready to tackle that story at that point in your life or technique. And many ideas  are just dumb or dull and you have to let them go. Sometimes you have to drown them.

David Morrell: Know your motivation. I’ve heard David speak at conferences about this and he has lots to teach writers. But this one always stuck with me. Here’s more from him: “Before I start any novel, I write a lengthy answer to the following question: Why is this project worth a year of my life? If I’m going to spend hundreds of days alone in a room, I’d better have a good reason for writing a particular book.” I urge you to click here and read the full post. It’s instructive and poignant.

Ernest Hemingway, who didn’t put his rules on paper, but did confide this to his friend Fitzgerald: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of sh*t. I try to put the sh*t in the wastebasket.”

So yes, study the rules. Learn the rules. Many even write a few unpublished stories that adhere to rules and old formulas so you can see the departure point. But then have the courage to break the rules.

***

My personal opinion is the rules of fiction writing are, as a cinematic pirate once said about the Pirate’s Code, more like guidelines. Important guidelines. Guidelines that are often vital to learn. In some cases, extremely helpful guidelines to follow at the start of your writing journey. But don’t turn them into absolute commandments always to be adhered to no matter what.

  1. Do you believe there are rules to writing? Or are they more like guidelines?
  2. Which “rules” do you agree with?
  3. Have you broken a writing rule or rules? If so, why and how?

Once again, I’ll be on the road for much of today but will try and reply to comments when possible. In the meantime, please share you own thoughts on breaking the rules.

Words of Wisdom on Writer’s Block

Posted on by

Woman with writer’s block.

Writer’s block—is it real? Is it why writers get stuck when writing, or can’t get started?

Today’s Words of Wisdom tackles writer’s block, with posts by Kathyrn Lilley, Elaine Viets and John Gilstrap. Afterwards, I give my own short take on it, and then open the floor for questions.

I never used to understand what people meant by “writer’s block.” I’d always felt immune to that scribe’s disease. When I wrote the first two books in my current series, I had a machine-like discipline. I’d get up at four a.m. every morning and write for at least two hours. No. Matter. What. My progress was always slow but steady. I wrote almost the same number of pages every day. My writing group members were in awe of me.

But then along came Book Three, and I went into a bit of a slump. Actually it felt more like an avalanche. Even though I loved the story I was working on, sometimes I’d find that days would pass without any progress at all. I eventually had to ask for–gasp!–an extension from my editor, who graciously granted it to me. But even then I kept running behind. Ultimately I made the new deadline, but barely. Now I have a recurring nightmare about missing the deadline, which has replaced my old nightmare about discovering that I’ve missed an entire semester of a class, just before the final exam.

So what exactly is writer’s block? I think the term is a bit misleading. It implies that the writer doesn’t know what to write about — such as a lack of inspiration, perhaps. In my case I knew the story I wanted to write, but I seemed to have lost the daily writing rhythm along the way. Maybe what I had was actually energy block. Or focus block.

So here were a few of my cures for The Block. All of them proved to be helpful at times:

  • Write 15 minutes a day
    You can write for at least 15 minutes today, even if you’re the busiest person on the planet. Doing that small amount per day helps you get the habit and rhythm back. Over time, your progress will add up.
  • Write at the same time each day.
    I think this is the single most helpful habit that will enable you to break through writer’s block. If you sit your butt down in a chair at the same time every day, your body starts to learn that this is the time for writing. Your writing flow will start to kick in at that time.
  • Free writing
    This technique is where you grab a couple of random words and “free write” them into your WIP for a set amount of time. Actually, this one has never worked that well for me. Whenever I try free writing, I get stuck at the same damned spot that I’m stuck in my regular writing. And then I get even more depressed about my writer’s block. But I know that free writing works wonders for some people. For great tips about free writing and other ways to break through The Block, I recommend Barbara DeMarco-Barrett’s book, Pen On Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide To Igniting The Writer Within. (Guys can pick up a few tips too!)
  • Put your writing first
    I have many acquaintances who have endless reasons for not writing. Anniversaries, birthdays, conflicting deadlines, vacations, relatives visiting…you get the idea. Unsurprisingly, these people are frequently blocked writers. Your writing needs to be a first priority in your life, or you’ll be doin’ time inside The Block.

Kathryn Lilley—June 16, 2009

 

My grandfather was a security guard. He worked weekends, holidays, and nights when temperatures plummeted below zero and frozen winds blasted the empty parking lots. He never said, “I don’t feel like guarding the warehouse tonight. I’m blocked.”

My grandmother babysat. She never said, “I’m not watching those brats today. I’m blocked.”

When I spoke at Fort Lauderdale High School, a student asked, “What do you do about writer’s block?”

“Writer’s block doesn’t exist,” I said. “It’s an indulgence.” Writing is a job, and working writers cannot afford writer’s block. It’s a luxury. Pros know that inspiration won’t strike like lightning. We can’t wait for it to hit us. We have to write.

I wish I had a dollar for every day I didn’t feel like dragging my sorry carcass to the computer. I could retire.

But I write because it’s my job. Even on the worst days, I love being a writer.

Many former newspaper reporters become mystery writers, including Michael Connelly, Kris Montee (PJ Parrish), and me. We’re trained to respect deadlines. Writing is our work and we sit down and do it. Early in my newspaper career, I told my editor, “I’m blocked. I can’t write this story.”

“Write something,” he said, waving the blank layouts. “We have pages to fill. We’re a newspaper, not a high school theater program: We can’t leave blank spaces on the page with ‘COMPLIMENTS OF A FRIEND.’ ”

Some days, the words flow, gushing in fertile streams. I feel alive and electric. Other days the words trickle out like water in a rusty, clogged pipe.

But I still write.

What do I do when the words don’t come?

I remember what Daniel Keyes, who wrote Flowers for Algernon, said at a speech:

“When I feel blocked I start typing – anything,” he said. “It doesn’t have to make sense: ababababsjsjsjfjfjfhhshshshkaka.

“Then I start typing words. Any words. The first words that come to mind.

“Next I start writing sentences. Again, they don’t have to make sense. But I keep on typing and eventually they do make sense and I’ve started writing. I may throw out ninety percent of what I wrote that day.

“But I wrote.”

You can, too.

Elaine Viets—March 10, 2016

 

Truth be told, I don’t believe in writer’s block.  There are days when the creativity feels like it won’t flow at all, and there are certainly days when I would prefer to do something other than tying my backside to the chair and hammering out words, but that’s what everybody feels about any job on some days.

“Writer’s block” is, I believe, too often an excuse to be wielded on those days when a writer would prefer to play hookie.  There’s nothing wrong with playing hookie, but whilst playing, it’s disingenuous to complain about not getting stuff done on your manuscript.  There truly is no substitute to a writer writing, even when the words don’t flow easily.

I think of creativity as a flow, and the writer as the pump.  When the pipes are filled and the pressure is even, creativity pours out of us, sometimes in such volume that we can’t handle it all.  Then stuff happens in our lives or in our surroundings that causes intellectual cavitation, and our pump loses prime.  All that flow reduces to a pool, and it’s hard work to get it going again.

Everybody has a proprietary secret sauce to re-prime their own pipes, but one that always works for me is to return to the basics: pen and paper.  I posted a video on the topic on my YouTube channel.  I don’t know why it works, but somehow, the tactile connection between my brain and the page, flowing through an old-fashioned fountain pen, never fails to set me straight.  For every book I write, I’d guess 20% of the prose starts as being written longhand.  Once the story is flowing again, I type up the handwritten pages and I’m off and running.

John Gilstrap—June 20, 2018

***

My personal view is that “writer’s block” is really fear, perfectionism, and/or the inner critic keeping writers from starting or stopping them cold mid-draft. Daring to write a crappy first draft can help. Simply letting yourself write, as all three of today’s WoW posts advice, is golden. Deadlines can also “unblock” a writer.

Feeling blocked can also be a message from the writer’s unconscious that there’s a plot or character issue that needs to be worked out. My go-to in that case is brainstorming, which was featured in a WoW post last December. Going up to what I call the “thirty thousand foot view” of my novel and sketching out the big picture story elements and/or revisiting advice on plotting, such as this JSB’s post here, usually helps fix whatever the problem is.

How about you?

  1. Do you believe in writer’s block? Or do you think something else is at work?
  2. What do you do when you can’t get started, or become stuck mid-draft?
  3. Any general advice about dealing with fear, perfectionism, or how to muzzle the inner critic?

I’ll be on the road for most of the day, but will pop in when I can. In the meantime, please share your take on writer’s block.

Making Trouble During An Ordinary Day And Other Character Words of Wisdom

Posted on by

In today’s Words of Wisdom, James Scott Bell gives us advice and an example of how make trouble for our hero in the midst of an ordinary day. Claire Langley-Hawthorne shares her approach in coming up with names for characters. Sue Coletta gives tips on how to misdirect the reader with characters.

 

We start to care about characters when trouble—or the hint of it—comes along, which is why, whenever I sign a copy of Conflict & Suspense, I always write, Make trouble!

Now, there are two ways to disturb HPHL [Happy People Happy Life] in the opening. One is something happening that is not normal, as I mentioned above. It’s an “outside” disturbance, if you will.

But there’s another way, from the “inside.” You can give us a character’s ordinary day as it unfolds—while finding a way to mess it up.

That’s the strategy Michael Crichton uses in his 1994 novel, Disclosure (made into a movie with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore).

The plot centers around Tom Sanders, an mid-level executive at a thriving digital company in Seattle. He’s married to a successful lawyer named Susan. They live in a nice house on Bainbridge Island, with their four-year-old daughter and nine-month-old son.

As the book opens, we learn that Sanders expects this to be a good day. He’s sure he’s going to be promoted to head of his division, which will set him up for a windfall of millions after an expected merger and IPO. So it’s essential he get to the office on time.

Crichton is not going to let that happen. Here’s the first paragraph:

Tom Sanders never intended to be late for work on Monday, June 15. At 7:30 in the morning, he stepped into the shower at his home on Bainbridge Island. He knew he had to shave, dress, and leave the house in ten minutes if he was to make the 7:50 ferry and arrive at work by 8:30, in time to go over the remaining points with Stephanie Kaplan before they went into the meeting with the lawyers from Conley-White.

So Tom is in the shower when—

“Tom? Where are you? Tom?”

His wife, Susan, was calling from the bedroom. He ducked his head out of the spray.

“I’m in the shower!”

She said something in reply, but he didn’t hear it. He stepped out, reaching for a towel. “What?”

“I said, Can you feed the kids?”

His wife was an attorney who worked four days a week at a downtown firm.

So now he’s got to feed the kids? He hasn’t got time! But that’s life with two working parents, so he quickly begins to shave. Outside the bathroom, he hears his kids starting to cry because Mom can’t attend their every need. Crichton stretches out this sequence. Even something as innocuous as shaving can be tense when the kids are wailing.

Tom finally emerges from the bathroom, with only a towel around him, as he scoops up the kids to feed them.

Susan called after him: “Don’t forget Matt needs vitamins in his cereal. One dropperful. And don’t give him any more of the rice cereal, he spits it out. He likes wheat now.”

She went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

His daughter looked at him with serious eyes. “Is this going to be one of those days, Daddy?”

“Yeah, it looks like it.”

Exactly!

He mixed the wheat cereal for Matt, and put it in front of his son. Then he set Eliza’s bowl on the table, poured in the Chex, glanced at her.

“Enough?”

“Yes.”

He poured the milk for her.

“No, Dad!” his daughter howled, bursting into tears. “I wanted to pour the milk!”

“Sorry, Lize—”

“Take it out— take the milk out—” She was shrieking, completely hysterical.
“I’m sorry, Lize, but this is—”

“I wanted to pour the milk!” She slid off her seat to the ground, where she lay kicking her heels on the floor. “Take it out, take the milk out!”

Every parent knows how true to life this is. A four-year old has definite ideas on their routine, and what they want to control!

“I’m sorry,” Sanders said. “You’ll just have to eat it, Lize.”

He sat down at the table beside Matt to feed him. Matt stuck his hand in his cereal and smeared it across his eyes. He, too, began to cry.

Can’t you just picture this?

Sanders got a dish towel to wipe Matt’s face. He noticed that the kitchen clock now said five to eight. He thought that he’d better call the office, to warn them he would be late. But he’d have to quiet Eliza first: she was still on the floor, kicking and screaming about the milk.

“All right, Eliza, take it easy. Take it easy.” He got a fresh bowl, poured more cereal, and gave her the carton of milk to pour herself. “Here.”

She crossed her arms and pouted. “I don’t want it.”

“Eliza, you pour that milk this minute.” 

Throughout the scene he’s looking at the clock, trying to gauge how late he will be. At the end of the chapter, Susan has finally come to Tom’s rescue, and says—

“I’ll take over now. You don’t want to be late. Isn’t today the big day? When they announce your promotion?”

“I hope so.”

“Call me as soon as you hear.”

“I will.” Sanders got up, cinched the towel around his waist, and headed upstairs to get dressed. There was always traffic before the 8:20 ferry. He would have to hurry to make it.

End of chapter. We want to read on. After what this guy’s been through just to get ready for work, we hope he’s day’s going to get better.

It’s not, of course. This is Michael Crichton. Things are about to get a whole lot worse for Mr. Tom Sanders.

This strategy will work whether you open in a home or office; in a car or on a boat; in a coffee house or Waffle House.

Just decide to be mean. Mess up your character’s day.

James Scott Bell—October 14, 2018

Character names

Finding the right name for a character is always a critical first step for me. I can’t just put in a placeholder or any old name in a first draft, I really have to be sure of at least the main character’s name before I can find the right voice. Usually female character names are easy – they come to me right away, or at least after just a little historical research (when you write historical like I do, the last thing you want is a modern name that’s completely wrong for the period). When it comes to male characters, however, there’s always some degree of angst. For example, in my current WIP I’ve only just realized that I’m using the same name for my principal male protagonist as in a book a wrote a few years ago – so obviously I have some favorites that I need to eliminate:) I also avoid names of ex-boyfriends or former colleagues (I find it difficult to separate the real person from the imaginary one when using particular names). When it comes to female characters I don’t seem to have the same sensitivity (I also accidentally named a maid after my sister and had no idea until she pointed this out to me…). In my current WIP I can’t work out exactly why the name of the antagonist doesn’t fit (my beta readers are happy with it after all), all I know is that it doesn’t…and I’m struggling to find a name that does.

This character angst has got me desperately looking for new naming strategies including scouring my bookshelves for random author and character names in the hope that these strike some inspiration (nope…) and resorting to baby naming websites (also with little success). So what to do when a character’s name is so elusive?? Honestly, I’m not sure (but maybe you TKZers can help!).

When starting a first draft I often ‘try on’ a couple of character names for my main protagonist (or protagonists) as I work through accessing their voice and POV.

Claire Langley-Hawthorne—April 26, 2021

 

Character Misdirection

Character misdirection is when the protagonist (and reader) believes a secondary character fulfills one role when, in fact, he fulfills the opposite.

Two types of character misdirection.

  • False Ally
  • False Enemy

These two characters are not what they seem on the surface. They provide opportunities for dichotomy, juxtaposition, insights into the protagonist, theme, plot, and plot twists. They’re useful characters and so much fun to write.

A false ally is a character who acts like they’re on the protagonist’s side when they really have ulterior motives. The protagonist trusts the false ally. The reader will, too. Until the moment when the character unmasks, revealing their false façade and true intention.

A false enemy is a character the protagonist does not trust. Past experiences with this character warn the protagonist to be wary. But this time, the false enemy wants to help the protagonist.

When Hannibal Lecter tries to help Clarice, she’s leery about trusting a serial killing cannibal. The reader is too.

What type of character is Hannibal Lecter, a false ally or false enemy?

An argument could be made for both. On one hand, he acts like a false enemy, but he does have his own agenda. Thomas Harris blurred the lines between the two. What emerged is a multifaceted character that we’ve analyzed for years.

When crafting a false ally or false enemy, it’s fine to fit the character into one of these roles. Or, like Harris, add shades of gray.

Sue Coletta—December 13, 2021

***

  1. Do you find trouble in your characters’ “ordinary day?” If so, any tips?
  2. How do you come up with names for your characters? I’ve used the U.S. Social Security tools for popular baby names by year and decade as well as baby name and other name guides.
  3. Do you create false allies or false enemies in your fiction? Any advice on how to do so?

Reading Words of Wisdom

Posted on by

I’m a lifelong reader, beginning with the Dick and Jane books in first grade, and being inspired by my mother’s avid reading habits. One of my earliest memories is of her reading a sci-fi thriller with a giant spider on the cover. As a grade schooler I read books about World War II and astronomy, and avidly devoured fiction like Silver Chief, Dog of the North, Call of the Wild, White Fang, King of the Wind (the first book I bought, at a school book sale), and Misty of Chincoteague.

Reading got me into trouble at school. In fifth grade I attended a brand-new elementary school that had modular classrooms with sliding walls. One day I snuck out of the back of my math class to go to the school library to, yes, read. Of course, I was found out.

I used to tell that story to students at the libraries I worked at, finishing with, “and look where I ended up.” It always got a laugh, especially from kids who loved to read. But of course, study math, too. I did, especially after my math teacher suggested to my parents to have my eyes tested. I learned I was myopic (which was why I struggled with math from the back of the class room).

The reading continued. My mother loaned me her set of Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom novels one summer, and during my sophomore year in high school I devoured thrillers like The Crash of ’79 and Black Sunday.

When I met my future wife at a job we both had while in high school, one of the many things that drew me to her was that she loved to read.

Reading is not only fundamental, it’s foundational to who I am, and, I strongly suspect, to most if not all of you.

With that in mind, today’s Words of Wisdom looks at reading. Clare Langley-Hawthorne shares the magic Sherlock Holmes worked on her as a young reader. Debbie Burke discusses the legendary Nancy Drew’s impact on her and many others. Finally, Sue Coletta discusses some of the important benefits of reading. You can read the full versions of each of the excerpts, linked from their respective original posting dates.

Luckily, both my boys are great readers (so we get to take lots of books with us!) and I love how we can now discuss books we’ve all read and how I can give them recommendations now that don’t (usually) provoke a whole lot of eye-rolling.  I also still read to them every night and have recently started introducing them to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.

A few pages into the Hound of the Baskervilles, however, and my boys were already terrified (not a good idea just before bed!) so we started instead with A Study in Scarlet and have just recently moved on to The Sign of Four. What is amazing to me is how, despite the old-fashioned language and pace, both my boys are already totally hooked – and I think it’s not really the mystery that draws them in but the character of Holmes himself. It really is amazing to think that a character which in many ways is such a product of his times can be still so intriguing over a hundred years later. As a mum of course, I do have to explain his drug use and the smoking…but, hey, I think of these as…er…’teachable’ moments!

I came to Sherlock Holmes quite late  (I was well into my twenties before I read my first Holmes’ story) – compared to my husband who devoured all the stories when he was in the 5th and 6th grade at school in Australia. Though I enjoyed the stories, I don’t think I appreciated the mesmerising qualities of Sherlock Holmes as a character until I started reading the stories aloud to my boys. I’ve been interrogated by them on every aspect of his character – from whether he was based on a real person, to why he knows so much, to how, on earth, he can make such amazing deductions…He’s like a super-hero in many ways but also an enigmatic and  flawed hero – which is what, I suspect, makes him so intriguing.

I’m looking forward to continuing to read these stories to my boys and then, I hope, handing the books over to them to read for themselves. To me, one of the great pleasures of being a parent, is passing on a love of reading. I already see each of my twins developing their own reading preferences and am glad that, at least in so far as Sherlock Holmes is concerned, they are gaining an appreciation for mysteries:)

So – tell me, are you are Sherlock Holmes fan?

Clare Langley-Hawthorne—March 31, 2014

 

Nancy Drew was the original Super Girl—independent, confident, smart. She was competent to handle any challenge, fearless in the face of danger, and resourceful at solving problems decades before MacGyver came along. She drove motorboats, rode horses, and played tennis better than her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. The girl sleuth never backed down from threats and brought villains to justice.

She is credited as an early influence on many girls who grew up to be accomplished, notable women, including Sandra Day O’Connor, Oprah Winfrey, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Laura Bush.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

Nancy’s heroic adventures kept my friends and me up long past bedtime, reading with flashlights under the covers. I remember saving for weeks to buy the latest release when it hit the neighborhood toy store that carried her books. If I recall correctly, the hardbacks in the late 1950s cost around a dollar, a serious investment for a kid earning a dime a week allowance.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

Additionally, I devoured the local library’s collection of Nancy’s earlier books published in the 1930s and ’40s, with dark blue boards and cool pen-and-ink illustrations.

The dust jackets on older editions had long since disappeared and, after thousands of check-outs, bindings were often held together by heavy tape.

I didn’t really know what a “roadster” was but I sure wanted a blue roadster convertible just like Nancy’s.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

In the 1950s, the books featured lighter blue, tweed-pattern boards with dust jackets.

Credit: www.nancydrewsleuth.com

By the 1960s, the dust jackets disappeared and the spine became bright yellow with illustrations incorporated into the front hardcover.

The last one I remember reading was The Secret of the Golden Pavilion (1959) which took place in the then-exotic locale of Hawaii around the time it became the 50thstate.

Throughout the 30 or so books I read, Nancy remained eternally 18-years-old (16 in earlier versions) but never attended school or college. Her successful attorney father, Carson Drew, encouraged her to pursue all kinds of dangerous adventures but no one ever got murdered.

Nancy’s only job was solving mysteries and she didn’t get paid for her efforts.

Realistic? Not very.

Fun and exciting? Yes!

Nancy solved her first mystery in 1930 (The Secret of the Old Clock) and kept unraveling puzzles in 56 classic hardcovers originally published by Grosset & Dunlap. Simon & Schuster added eight additional books in paperback. A complete set of 64 classics in hardcover sells for over $400. The classic series ended in 2003 with 175 books. Spinoffs continue to the present day, totaling more than 600 books, TV series, video games, and films.

Debbie Burke—April 26, 2019

Reading reduces stress.

A 2009 study by Sussex University showed reading may reduce stress by as much as 68 percent.

“It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination,” cognitive neuropsychologist David Lewis​ told The Telegraph.

Reading helps us relax.

There’s a reason snuggling up with a good book sounds so appealing. Because it is! Reading washes away the stressors of the day as we melt into the pages of a good book.

Reading fiction for fun.

Readers of fiction have increased creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Losing ourselves in a fictional character’s experiences make us more open-minded and allow us to spend time in someone else’s shoes. Thus, readers become better humans than non-readers.

Reading supports self-improvement.

Readers support lifelong learning. One of the best ways to do that is to pick up a book and learn something new. Waving at readers who prefer nonfiction!

In general, read is good for our wellbeing. 

Some of us read to escape reality or imagine worlds beyond our own. Some read to learn new skills—cooking, crafting, creativity—or about real people who intrigue or inspire us. Some read thought-provoking books, some dive into futuristic worlds beyond our imagination. Whatever the reason that brings us to the page, reading is one of the best forms of self-care.

Is reading contagious?

Absolutely! Rather than rattle off statistics, I’ll pose a question. How many books have you bought based on word of mouth? When we see another reader all excited about a new book, we want to feel that way, too. So, what do we do? We check out the book.

When children see their parents reading for fun, it plants the seed for them to become lifelong readers, as well. In adults, if one partner pleasure reads several times per week, it lights a spark in their significant other. My husband never read for pleasure till he married me. When he first took the plunge, he devoured more books per week than I did. Over the years as he built and ran his small engine business, he had less time to read. But he dives between the folds whenever possible. Why? Because he sees how much I enjoy reading, and it’s contagious.

Sue Coletta—August 8, 2022

***

  1. How has reading shaped you?
  2. What was the first book you read that changed you?
  3. Did you read Sherlock Holmes and/or Nancy Drew as a child?
  4. What are some of the benefits of you get from reading?

Plotting Words of Wisdom

Posted on by

Learning how to effectively plot stories and novels was one of the keys to eventual publication for me. Reading Plot and Structure by our very own James Scott Bell got me started on the path to being able to write fiction that succeeded in engaging and immersing readers in a compelling storyline.

Today’s Words of Wisdom shares three excerpts of TKZ posts from 2011-2013, each providing useful advice on the fine art of plotting your fiction. Interestingly, each one was originally published in May—perhaps there’s a special plotting vibe to that month. More likely it’s just coincidence, but we fictioneers live to find meaning, so, after finding these three wonderful post I like to think of May as being unofficial plotting fiction month.

First, Joe Moore presents screenplay 9-Act Structure. Then, Claire Langley-Hawthorne looks at a powerful tip from JSB’s Plot and Structure on his LOCK and strengthening a potentially sagging middle of a novel . Finally,  P.J. Parrish shows how to plot visually.

When I looked into plot structure for fiction—while I was still delusional about having the capability to actually plot—I found references to the Nine-Act Screenplay Structure. This is the basic framework of today’s blockbuster movies. You’ll see 3-Acts and 12-Acts, but I played with this version below as a format and had some success in conceptually plotting one or two of my earlier stories. Ah, the ambiguity…

It’s my belief that once your brain grasps the concept of this structure, you may automatically follow the idea whether you’re aware of it or not. As a visual learner, it helped me to draft this and embed it in my brain, like a time bomb triggered to go off when I sat in front of my computer.

The 9-Act structure is similar to the classic Hero’s Journey that you may have seen, but I thought this would be interesting to talk about. See what you think. Would something like this work for writing a novel?

Word of Caution – Once you see this framework, you may not enjoy movies the same way again. Just sayin’…

Nine-Act Screenplay Structure

Act 0—During Opening Credits First 5 Minutes (film time)
What strikes the conflict—sets it up—event years earlier may plant the seed of conflict

Act 1—Opening Image—The Panoramic Crane Shot Next 5 Minutes

Act 2—Something Bad Happens 5 Minutes
In a crime story, it’s usually the murder—Reveal the bad front man, but hold off on the introduction of the bad head honcho until later

Act 3—Meet Hero/Protagonist 15 minutes
Meet hero—give him 3 plot nudges to push him to commit

Act 4—Commitment 5-10 Minutes
The push—Usually one scene that’s a door to Act 5—1-way door, no turning back

Act 5—Go for wrong goal – approx. 30 minutes est.
A series of 8-12 min. cycles called whammos or complications followed by a rest period of 5 minutes or so to uncover some of the backstory. End this act with the lowest point for the protagonist. The dark moment.

Act 6—Reversal 5-10 Minutes—Usually 70 Minutes into the Film
The last clue discovered—Now Act 2 makes sense—It is the low point, a history lesson usually revealed by the bad guy/honcho—but reveals the Achilles heel of the nemesis too.

Act 7—Go for New Goal 15-20 Minutes
The clock is ticking—Hero has a new plan. The action seesaws back and forth with nemesis and hero gaining & losing ground between each other—usually takes place in 24 hours within the context of the movie. Favors are repaid, magic, good luck happens. The new plan is kept secret. New goal is achieved.

Act 8—Wrap it Up 5 minutes
Back to where it all began—a feeling of accomplishment & rebirth—the world restored. Ahh!

Now having outlined this plotting structure, I’m not sure if following something like this (without deviation) would hamper creativity by providing too much framework. This would be like “the rules” of writing. Maybe rules are there to be understood, but we shouldn’t be afraid to break them either.

I tend to “think” about my book ahead of time and let my brain ponder what I call my “big ticket” plot movements—like what my black moment will be for my main character(s). I also develop my ideas on who the main cast of characters will be and maybe where I might set the story location(s).

Joe Moore—May 19, 2011

For me, the hardest part of plotting is keeping things simple (as I have a tendency to overly complicate everything!) and because of this I outline (and re-outline) throughout the writing and editing process. Even if you don’t outline, however, I think you need to have a mental grip on the key elements of plot as you are writing.

Now, I get to make an unsolicited plug for James Scott Bell’s excellent book Plot & Structure: Techniques and exercises for crafting a plot that grips readers from start to finish. In this, Jim summarizes the basic plot elements with the acronym LOCK:

  • Lead (the main character that draws readers into the story)
  • Objective (what gives the lead a reason for being in the story – what compels and drives them -often either to get something or to get away from something)
  • Confrontation (the battle between the lead and the opposition – what is preventing the lead from achieving what he/she needs)
  • Knockout (an ending that answers all the major questions and which leaves the reader satisfied)

In so doing Jim neatly encapsulates the critical elements needed for a successful book – particularly a thriller or mystery. As Jim points out, confrontation is the engine of plot and at critical junctures in the book the lead must face his/her battles  in order to transition to the next level of confrontation in the story.

When facing a sagging middle, I always remember Jim’s comment that middles are all about confrontations and setting up for the final battle to come. This helps me keep focus and tension in those murky middle waters. I also find that right from the start I have the key plot elements in mind and these continually inform the writing process and keep me on track.

Claire Langley-Hawthorne—May 28, 2012

 

We talk a lot here at The Kill Zone about the difference between plotters vs pantsers. (i.e. do you outline or do you wing it?). But we never talk about the picture makers. I am a picture maker. I can’t keep control of my story, can’t control its pacing and rhythms, can’t really SEE where it’s going, unless I draw it.

I used to think I was alone in this but I found out many authors use some kind of story boarding. Some even use software for it, Scrivner being a favorite. My dear late friend Barbara Parker had beautifully rendered storyboards on her office wall that would have made any Hollywood mogul proud.  My scribbles aren’t nearly so neat but they do the job. It also something born of necessity because if you work with a collaborator, you both have to be literally on the same page.

My co-author sister Kelly and I happened upon our methodology by accident about nine books ago. She was visiting me here in Florida and one day I came home and saw this:

Kelly had written all our plot points down on scraps of paper and taped them to a board. (The wine is an optional but vital writing tool). We found this was a quick way to visualize our plot, move chapters or add things. It also acts as a chronology and time line, which is valuable during rewrites. We eventually graduated to Post-It notes. And the PLOT BOARD, as we call it, became more complicated as we refined our methods:

One Post-It per chapter, each with the salient plot points in that chapter. Usually, our Louis Kincaid books are written only from his POV so it’s all yellow. EXCEPT: we sometimes use pink for what we call “personal” chapters. This is because as we mix “case/plot” chapters with character-development chapters (ie personal) we are constantly aware of the need to keep the main plot moving. Too many pinks in a row? That’s death in a suspense novel so we find a way to distribute that extra pink stuff around. It’s all about pacing. This board above, however, is for HEART OF ICE, which is a more complex plot. It has five POVS, so we use a different color for each. Again, it helps with pacing.

But we do more than just plotting on boards. We often need some pretty elaborate drawings, maps, and charts to keep track of things.

This board above was for THE LITTLE DEATH. The plot concerns multiple bodies found in disparate locations in Florida’s cattle country. Louis finds no connections between the murders until he digs deep into each victim’s life. This board helped up keep the victims’s backgrounds straight as well as where the bodies were found in relation to each other (an important clue).

Here is a board for A THOUSAND BONES. This book drove us nuts because the plot, about a serial killer operating over almost 20 years, was very complex. Its backstory begins in 1964 and the main plot moves to 1990. The killer left tree carvings with each victim but the carvings changed as he got older. We had to kept track of each girl’s backstory, where the body was found (the color coding), what personal items were found with each, and what carving.

PJ Parrish—May 28, 2013

***

  1. What do you think of the nine-act structure? Do you have a plot structure, be it 3-act, 4-act, 7-point, W plot, or something else which you find especially helpful?
  2. Have you used the LOCK approach? Any advice on propping up a sagging middle of a novel?
  3. Have you plotted visually? If so, what’s your approach?
  4. If you’re a pantser, do you use any of these plotting approaches or others to help with your revisions?

Murder in Paperback

Posted on by

Once upon a time mass-market paperbacks dominated popular fiction publishing. You could walk into book stores, drug stores, grocery stores, even cigar stores and lunch counters, and find spinner racks stuffed with paperbacks. Romance, mystery, thriller, sci-fi, westerns, historical epics, you name it.

It all began in 1935 when English Allen Lane had a brainstorm, allegedly after spending the weekend visiting Agatha Christie and her husband. He launched Penguin books with ten books in paperback, including Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Links. In 1939 Robert de Graff started the first American mass-market line when he began Pocket Books. As this 2014 New Yorker article by Louis Menand pointed out, “[t]he key to Lane’s and de Graff’s innovation was not the format. It was the method of distribution.”

From the 1940s into the early 2000s they were a big part of publishing, and where indeed everywhere.

When I began buying fiction as a teen in the 1970s, all my purchases were mass-market paperbacks. I had built a small library by the time I met my future wife (at an after school job we both had while in high school, no less) and loaned her some novels to read once we started dating, after having discovered we had a mutual passion for books.

A section of our custom book shelves, sized for mass-market paperbacks.

Mass-market paperbacks were usually 4 inches or so wide, and 6 to 7 inches tall. Paper quality even in the 1960s and 1970s wasn’t great, but by the 1980s it had improved quite a lot, being more durable and often better printed than previously. They were still quite popular. Many of us waited to buy the mass-market paperback version of a new release by a favorite author, which was usually a year after the hard cover was published. Non-fiction was also published in mass-market. That was the format I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in while I was in college.

The thriving “paperback original” market persisted into the 1980s and early 90s. For a new genre author, it wasn’t uncommon to be initially published “only” in paperback.

So it surprised me when I began working at the library in 1987 that my branch had no paperbacks in its collection. None of the branches did. Apparently a decision had been made some time before I had been hired to stop buying them. This lasted for several years, so if a book was a paperback original we didn’t have it on our shelves. Patrons were disappointed, but the library had decided not to buy books in paperback because they wore out quickly. It cost money to put a new book in the computer system, as well as affix barcodes and spine labels. It wasn’t until sometime in the 1990s my library system began purchasing library books again.

It was hard because neighboring library systems did purchase them during that time, and we’d hear about it. Librarians want to provide “materials” (books, music, and later, video) which their patrons ask for and typically hate disappointing people.

We did have a collection of donated paperbacks, which we dubbed “Bring-Backs,” which filled a rollout cart with side shelving, and was a hit with our patrons, often being emptied out and needing to be restocked. Fortunately, we always seemed to have enough donations to keep it going.

When the library finally did resume purchasing paper backs in the 1990s, it was just a few at first. It took years for us to build up a collection. And yes, they did wear out faster than a hardcover. But if that was the only way a particular book in demand was available, we bought it. Patrons were pleased, save for the few holdouts who disapproved of the “pulp novels” and “lurid” romances we bought. Eventually, mass market paperbacks had a sizable presence on our library fiction shelves alongside hardcover and trade paper backs.

Mass-market paperbacks are still around, especially in romance and mystery, though sales continue to decline.

I’m self-published and all my print editions are 5.25 inches by 8 inches, so are close to the old mass market-size. We still have a large collection on custom built shelving at our house as well. Below is a photo of a part of those shelves:

Mystery and thriller readers still love to read in print, and that includes paperbacks, though more often the larger trade format is what is available.

I attended Left Coast Crime in Seattle this spring, and there were newly released paperbacks among the hardcovers. My haul of book giveaways included these paperbacks, one of which was the current “tall boy” mass-market paperback.

As an indie mystery author myself, I’ve been surprised to see my print sales being a greater percentage of my overall book sales, in contrast to when I published urban fantasy novels.

As far as I know, print sales are still a very substantial part of a traditionally published author’s sales. Publishers Weekly summed up print sales for 2023 in this article.

Now we turn to two excerpts from the Kill Zone archives dealing with paperbacks, by Michelle Gagnon and Mark Alpert.

Recently, Dorchester Publishing, one of the country’s oldest mass market publishers, announced that it is abandoning traditional print books in favor of digital format and print on demand.

That announcement reminded me of a conversation I had with an editor at a conference a few months ago. She predicted that in the coming digital shakeup, hardcover print runs would be smaller, trade paperbacks would boom, and mass market books would vanish entirely.

I was skeptical. After all, the great thing about mass market books is that they remain almost as cheap (or cheaper) than digital downloads, and they’re ideal reading material for all of those places you wouldn’t take your Kindle/iPad: the beach, the tub, the pool. So why would this be the first format to fall to the digital ax?

The fact that Dorchester is the first to make this shift is particularly bad news for Hard Case Crime, the imprint that has revitalized the pulp fiction industry with semi-ironic works by major novelists such as Ken Bruen and Stephen King. Going digital stands in stark contrast to what publisher Charles Ardai was attempting to achieve–a return to the era of dime store novels you could tuck in your pocket. (On a side note, how ironic is it that Ardai, who made his money via the dotcom boom, is deadset on producing books in print?) In response to the Dorchester move, he’s apparently considering moving the entire imprint to a different publisher.

I was encouraged to see that in the article, a representative from Random House expressed faith in mass paperbacks. These days, most midlist and debut authors are only offered a mass market release. If that shifts entirely to digital content, it would be a shame. For me, the best part of the publishing process was the day that I opened a box to find a stack of novels with my name on the cover. I’m not sure that opening a pdf file would convey the same thrill.

Michelle Gagnon—September 2, 2010

My third novel, Extinction, will come out in paperback on Tuesday. I’m a big fan of paperbacks in general; of all the books I buy, only about twenty percent are hardcovers. The main reason is the price difference. Whereas the list price for the hardcover of Extinction is $25.99, the price on the cover of the mass-market paperback is only $9.99. The difference isn’t quite so extreme after discounting — Amazon, for example, sells the hardcover for $18.80 and the paperback for $8.99 — but it’s still pretty significant for all but the wealthiest book-buyers.

Paperbacks are also lighter and more portable. They fit inside the pockets of my winter jacket. They’re easier to hide (in case you’re embarrassed about what you’re reading). And they take up less space on your bookshelves, which is an important concern if you live in a smallish apartment with a spouse, two kids and all their paraphernalia. (Electronic books would be even better in that respect, but I just don’t feel comfortable reading them. I can’t really relax when I’m holding a screen. I can’t ignore the screen’s presence, which makes it hard for me to get lost in the story.)

Don’t get me wrong — hardcovers have their place. When I buy a book as a gift, I never get a paperback if the hardcover is available. And I love certain authors so much that I just can’t wait for their paperbacks. (I’m talking about you, Lee Child. And you too, Dennis Lehane.) But I’m a pretty patient guy. I’m dying to read Gone Girl, but I’m willing to wait a few more weeks until the paperback comes out. I’ll bide my time by reading a classic or two. (I’m reading Blood Meridian now. What a freaking amazing book!)

Speaking as a writer now, I love being published in hardcover. I’ve been lucky to have gorgeous book jackets for all my novels. And it feels good just to hold the hardcover — it feels substantial, weighty, lasting. But I’m a relatively unknown writer trying to reach new readers, so publishing paperbacks is crucial to broadening my audience.

Over the past year I’ve noticed that a few very famous authors are eschewing the hardcover route for some of their books and putting out paperback originals. Stephen King did this last summer with Joyland, which was a fun read (definitely not weighty!) and had a great pulpy cover. Taipei, a serious literary novel by Tao Lin, also went straight to paper.

And there’s one more advantage to paperbacks that I haven’t mentioned yet: the teaser. After I finish reading a fantastic paperback, I love turning to the last pages of the book and getting a sneak preview of the author’s next novel. I’m pleased to say there’s a teaser at the end of the Extinction paperback, previewing the prologue and first chapter of my fourth book, The Furies. That novel will be published — in hardcover — next month.

Mark Alpert—March 22, 2014

***

  1. How about you? Did you read in mass-market? Do you still?
  2. What are you thoughts on the decline of mass-market paperbacks? Do you wish the format still flourished?
  3. When it comes to print books, do you prefer hardcover, trade or mass-market?
  4. If you are a published author, generally speaking how do your books do in print?

More Villainous Words of Wisdom

Posted on by

Today’s Words of Wisdom returns to an evergreen topic: villains. We love to hate them.  Our fiction needs them. They help drive the plot. Understanding the importance of villains can be the key to writing more engaging and gripping mysteries and thrillers.

Clare Langley-Hawthorne, James Scott Bell and Debbie Burke give advice and tips on creating better villains in your fiction. Afterwards, please give us your take.

It can often be all too easy to fall for the ‘psychotic’ serial killer or other sort of evil cliche without trying to provide for the reader a solid grasp of what lies behind this. Villains rarely consider themselves villains. Sometimes they feel justified (in their own perverted way) or compelled by something to do what they do. Unlike in real life, in fiction, we can often provide the reader with a rationale for someone’s behaviour.

So how do you create a believable villain? How do you ensure that, when it comes to the battle between good and evil, neither side slides into caricature? I’ve been thinking about this a lot in my current WIP and I have some to a few conclusions (or observations, at least) as I go through this process:

1. Characters don’t think they are dumb so don’t make them do ‘dumb’ things just because they are (cue manic Dr. Evil laughter) the bad guy.
2. Don’t fall into the trap of making evil generic. For every character there needs to be a specific reason, cause or motivation for his or her behaviour. The more specific and believable this is, the more believable a character will be.
3. Give you villain a clear objective. I’m not a big fan of the psycho who just seems to do stuff because he is, well, ‘psycho’ – this always seems to the to dilute the power of having an antagonist.
4. Think as much about the back story for your villain as you do for the protagonist of the story – this will ensure the character behaves consistently and with clear purpose. It also helps you avoid falling into a cliche if you have a fully realized back story.

Clare Langley-Hawthorne—July 23, 2012

 

Dean Koontz wrote, “The best villains are those that evoke pity and sometimes even genuine sympathy as well as terror. Think of the pathetic aspect of the Frankenstein monster. Think of the poor werewolf, hating what he becomes in the light of the full moon, but incapable of resisting the lycanthropic tides in his own cells.”

All this to say that the best villains in fiction, theatre, and film are never one-dimensional. They are complex, often charming, and able to manipulate. The biggest mistake you can make with a villain is to make him pure evil or all crazy. 

So what goes into crafting a memorable villain?

  1. Give him an argument

There is only one character in all storytelling who wakes up each day asking himself what fresh evil he can commit. This guy: 

But other than Dr. Evil, every villain feels justified in what he is doing. When you make that clear to the reader in a way that approaches actual empathy, you will create cross-currents of emotion that deepen the fictive dream like virtually nothing else.

One of the techniques I teach in my workshops is borrowed from my courtroom days. I ask people to imagine their villain has been put on trial and is representing himself. Now comes the time for the closing argument. He has one opportunity to make his case for the jury. He has to justify his whole life. He has to appeal to the jurors’ hearts and minds or he’s doomed.

Write that speech. Do it as a free-form document, in the villain’s voice, with all the emotion you can muster. Emphasize what’s called “exculpatory evidence.” That is evidence that, if believed, would tend to exonerate a defendant. As the saying goes, give the devil his due. 

Note: This does not mean you are giving approval to what the villain has done. No way. What you are getting at is his motivation. This is how to know what’s going on inside your villain’s head throughout the entire novel.

Want to read a real-world example? See the cross-examination of Hermann Goering from the Nuremberg Trials. Here’s a clip:

“I think you did not quite understand me correctly here, for I did not put it that way at all. I stated that it had struck me that Hitler had very definite views of the impotency of protest; secondly, that he was of the opinion that Germany must be freed from the dictate of Versailles. It was not only Adolf Hitler; every German, every patriotic German had the same feelings. And I, being an ardent patriot, bitterly felt the shame of the dictate of Versailles, and I allied myself with the man about whom I felt perceived most clearly the consequences of this dictate, and that probably he was the man who would find the ways and means to set it aside. All the other talk in the Party about Versailles was, pardon the expression, mere twaddle … From the beginning it was the aim of Adolf Hitler and his movement to free Germany from the oppressive fetters of Versailles, that is, not from the whole Treaty of Versailles, but from those terms which were strangling Germany’s future.”

How chilling to hear a Nazi thug making a reasoned argument to justify the horrors foisted upon the world by Hitler. So much scarier than a cardboard bad guy.

So what’s your villain’s justification? Let’s hear it. Marshal the evidence. Know deeply and intimately what drives him.

  1. Choices, not just backstory

It’s common and perhaps a little trite these days to give the villain a horrific backstory and leave it at that. 

Or, contrarily, to leave out any backstory at all.

In truth, everyone alive or fictional has a backstory, and you need to know your villain’s. But don’t just make him a victim of abuse. Make him a victim of his own choices.

Back when virtue and character were actually taught to children in school, there was a lesson from the McGuffey Reader that went like this: “The boy who will peep into a drawer will be tempted to take something out of it; and he who will steal a penny in his youth will steal a pound in his manhood.” 

The message, of course, is that we are responsible for our choices and actions, and they have consequences. 

So what was the first choice your villain made that began forging his long chain of depravity? Write that scene. Give us the emotion of it. Even if you don’t use the scene in your book, knowing it will give your villain scope.

James Scott Bell—October 26, 2014

 

I wrote mysteries like I read mysteries, from a state of ignorance, constantly trying to figure out what was going on.

I had a general idea of the bad guy’s motive, but never paid much that attention to the schemes and machinations happening offstage. All action took place onstage because the first or close third POV required the sights, sounds, smells, and emotions be filtered through the protagonist only. My focus stayed stuck on the hero.

The bad guy hid in the shadows behind the curtain until the big reveal at the end. Unfortunately he’d been hiding from the writer too!

Finally, thanks to the wise folks at TKZ, I recognized the big fat blind spot in my books.

Here’s the epiphany:

In crime fiction, the antagonist drives the plot. Unless a crime has been committed, or is about to be committed, there’s nothing for the protagonist to do. The antagonist acts, the protagonist re-acts.

I’d been following the wrong character around all these years! 

My realization probably seems like a big DUH to many crime authors. But I’m sharing it in hopes of helping others like myself who overlooked the obvious.

It’s fun to think like a villain! When I started writing from the bad guy’s POV, a whole new world opened up—a world without conscience, constraints, or inhibitions.

Jordan’s great post from last May says, “The best villains are the heroes of their own stories.” 

Actor Tom Hiddleston says, “Every villain is a hero in his own mind.” Most actors would prefer to sink their fangs into the role of a great villain than play the good guy.

The baddies in my earlier books had been flat and dull because I’d never gotten inside their heads. Finally, the missing element became clear and…my book won a publishing contract!

Why is the villain willing to steal, cheat, and kill? What rationalizations justify the harm done to others? 

A sociopath comes up with perfectly logical justifications and excuses for abhorrent actions.

Irresistible influences like greed, power, and lust can seduce an ordinary person over to the dark side.

Misguided righteousness can lead to horrendous consequences.

A law-abiding citizen may be forced into a corner where he commits acts he would never do under normal circumstances.

If an author roots around in the antagonist’s brain for a while, background, reasons, and rationalizations for antisocial behavior bubble up. Armed with such knowledge, it becomes impossible to write a two-dimensional character. Jim Bell offers a great technique—try to imagine the villain delivering the closing argument to the jury that will determine his fate.

Do you show the villain’s POV in the story or not? That choice is contingent on subgenre.

In a whodunit mystery, the identity of the villain is typically a surprise at the end. Therefore, that POV is generally not shown to the reader, although some authors include passages from the villain’s POV without revealing the identity.

Suspense and thriller novels often are written from multiple POVs, including the villain’s. When the reader knows early on who the bad guy is, the question is no longer whodunit, but rather will s/he get away with it?

The author can choose to show the antagonist’s POV or keep it hidden. But either way, you need to be aware of it because that’s what’s driving the story forward.

Even if you never show the villain’s POV, try writing scenes inside his/her head.You don’t need to include them in the book, but the act of writing them gives you a firmer grasp on that character’s deep desires and how those desires screw up other people’s lives. Once you really understand what the antagonist is striving for, that provides a solid framework from which the story hangs.

If you’re in a corner and your hero doesn’t know what to do next, check in with the villain. While the hero is slogging through steps A, B, and C to solve the crime, the bad guy is offstage setting up roadblocks D, E, and F to keep from being caught.

Debbie Burke—September 28, 2017

***

There you have it, advice on writing villains. Today the authors of our three excerpted posts pose the questions to help jumpstart our discussion:

  1. So how do you approach the process of creating villains? Are there any ‘evil doers’ in novels that strike you as the ‘dumb and dumber’ of their kind? What about the most chilling, compelling and believable villains in fiction?
  2. What’s your approach to villain writing?
  3. What is your villain doing right now? Do you prefer to show the antagonist’s POV or keep it hidden?