Author Archives: James Scott Bell

About James Scott Bell

International Thriller Writers Award winner, #1 bestselling author of THRILLERS and BOOKS ON WRITING. Subscribe to JSB's NEWSLETTER.

High Impact Interval Writing

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

My favorite philosopher/comedian is Steven Wright, master of the pithy weird-but-somehow-connected observation, such as, “I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.”

He also invented a microwave fireplace. “You can lie down in front of a fire for the evening in two minutes.” (He also put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.)

Which reminds me that we are all pressed for time these days (I’ve determined to work 25 hours a day on my book, which means I have to get up an hour earlier).

This goes for keeping the ol’ bod in shape. Which is why I’m into HIIT. That stands for “high impact interval training.” It’s a workout that alternates intense bursts of activity (sometimes as little as 30 seconds) with a short rest, then another burst, rest, etc. This way, so “they” say, you can get great cardio benefits in as little as four minutes. Which beats driving to a gym, waiting for a machine, working out for thirty or forty minutes, showering, getting dressed, and driving home while thinking, “Where has the day gone?”

I’ve integrated HIIT into my routine, along with strength training on an official Chuck Norris Total Gym. I want to be like Chuck. When he does a pushup, he does not actually push himself up; he pushes the Earth down.

I thought about this the other day when I was quota challenged. I needed words and needed them fast, but I was tied up with my inner editor, the pest, and indulging in too much thinking and strategizing. This wasn’t about my outline, with my signpost scenes. It was about those spaces in between, in the scenes, that were giving me pause.

Frustrated, I opened up a blank text note and just started writing without thinking, typing to oil the gears, writing (in Ray Bradbury’s phrase) by jumping off a cliff and growing wings on the way down.

What happened was the first few lines came along, but without much meat on them. Then the wings started to form. I was writing in flow, flapping wildly, and the words were coming from that magical place just beneath the surface. As I wrote I didn’t stop to analyze; I just felt the rich vein of story I’d tapped into and wanted to record it as fast as I could.

When I stopped I checked to see how many words I’d written. I kid you not, it was exactly 250. If you’ve read my craft articles long enough, you’ve probably run into my idea of “The Nifty 250” (sometimes enlarged to 350). I like to do that early in the morning, to get a jump on the writing day. But it also works when you’re well into the day and feel stuck.

That gave me the idea for HIIW—high impact interval writing. Why not do this all the time? Why not work in increments of 250 words? Write them, get up, walk around, deep breathe, stretch, sit back down, analyze, and integrate the good stuff into your draft. Then do it again.

This is a bit like the Pomodoro Technique, developed by entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo when he was a university student.

Cirillo recognized that time could be turned into an ally, rather than a source of anxiety. The Pomodoro Technique essentially trains people to focus on tasks better by limiting the length of time they attempt to maintain that focus and ensuring restorative breaks from the effort. The method also helps them overcome their tendencies to procrastinate or multitask, both of which are known to impair productivity.

Try this next time you’re stuck:

  • Open up a blank document. (This gives you total freedom to write)
  • Start writing, and let it flow, forgetting about trying to shape into anything. Get the words down fast and furious. Go for 250 words (that’s about one page, double spaced, 12 pt. type).
  • Get up, stretch, take a deep breath, pour yourself some more coffee or tea, then look at what you wrote.
  • Highlight the gold nuggets and expand on them if you like.
  • Copy-paste the nuggets into your draft.

I’m mostly an old school, butt-in-chair writer. If I’m going good, even after meeting my quota I’ll keep on writing until I sense the beginning of diminishing returns. With HIIW, I’ve found the words come faster and fresher. As the great Ray put it:

“This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour cold critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today—explode—fly apart—disintegrate! … It doesn’t have to be a big fire. A small blaze, candlelight perhaps…Look for the little loves, find and shape the bitternesses. Savor them in your mouth, try them on your typewriter.” — Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

What kind of writer are you? Sit down and grind it out? Write when you feel like it? Or something in between?

Exposition Delayed is Not Exposition Denied

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Here we are with another first-page for critique. You know the drill. See you on the other side.

CHAPTER ONE

Kendari

It’s dark outside. It’s the type of darkness that stifles noise to save us from the monsters that hunt in the night. But our monsters are already circling in celebration, and we are trapped.

Tonight we mentally prepare for the brutal reminder that the Mearrin rule the food chain. For some, preparation means sleep, and for others, like me, it means lying awake in the hours before the sun rises.

It’s the eve of Sacrifice Night.

Shadows jump outside, blocking the light creeping through the gaps of my shuttered window. My breath catches and my heart throbs against my ribcage when the thrum of chaotic music leaks through.

There are hours before the sun rises to force the Mearrin to dissipate back to their homes, and my eyes burn with exhaustion. I have to stay awake, even as Duna and Aster sleep fitfully on either side of me, their beds pressed firmly against mine in the tiny space of our shared room.

Mother is gone delivering a baby for the night, and I am the oldest at home, leaving me responsible for staying awake to watch and listen. I have to make sure no rogue Mearin enter while euphoric on iron water. There’s nothing I can do to defend us if they decide to break the door down or reach through a window to slice our throats with claws as long as our fingers.

JSB: I really like this page. It’s full of dark dread and mystery, and has a distinct voice. The opening disturbance is palpable. It begins world building and establishes a lead character we care about. One of my structural pillars is “the care package.”

The Care Package is a relationship the Lead has with someone else, in which he shows his concern, through word or deed, for that character’s well being. This humanizes the Lead and engenders sympathy in the reader, even if the Lead happens to be a louse.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is not just some lone rogue. She is the protector of and provider for her mother and sister, Prim. What she does in taking Prim’s place in the Games is the ultimate sacrifice of love. When she makes it, we are so much on her side that we will follow her anywhere, rooting for her all the way.

This page has that same feel. Thus, I have only a few suggestions.

RUE

RUE stands for “resist the urge to explain.” Exposition is often best delayed on first pages so we can get fully immersed in the story world by way of the characters. I would cut this paragraph:

Tonight we mentally prepare for the brutal reminder that the Mearrin rule the food chain. For some, preparation means sleep, and for others, like me, it means lying awake in the hours before the sun rises.

We don’t need this because what follows shows us what’s happening. The one item about the food chain can wait until later. Right now it’s most important to feel what the Lead is feeling and not let anything get in the way.

The Kicker

I suggest moving the line It’s the eve of Sacrifice Night to the end. That’d really make me want to turn the page!

Some Rearrangement

The opening paragraph jolted me a bit, as I pondered how darkness can stifle noise. Here is a suggested rearrangement of the opening lines for your consideration:

Our monsters are already circling in celebration, and we are trapped.

Shadows jump outside, blocking the light creeping through the gaps of my shuttered window. My breath catches and my heart throbs against my ribcage when the thrum of chaotic music leaks through. 

There are It’s hours before the sun rises to force the Mearrin to dissipate back to their homes, and my eyes burn with exhaustion.

Also this line confused me: Mother is gone delivering a baby for the night. The way that’s phrased grammatically can make it seem like Mother is delivering a baby FOR the night (in other words, turning the baby over to something dark or evil). Simply change it to: Mother is gone for the night, delivering a baby.

Typo

I have to make sure no rogue Mearin enter… (Should be Mearrin—two r’s.)

And that is all I’ve got. If I were browsing and read this page, I would definitely keep going. Well done, intrepid writer!

Over to you, TKZers.

Mass Market Paperbacks, RIP

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

My favorite era of publishing is the post-war mass market paperback boom of the 1950s. Here was a galaxy of genre fiction, from hardboiled detectives like Mike Hammer and Shell Scott, to standalone crime fiction from the “red-hot typewriter” of John D. MacDonald and a slew of others. And the covers! Oh, those glorious covers, with just enough salaciousness to catch the eye, but not enough to get the book placed in brown paper at the far end of the newsstand (what they used to call “smut”).

I have a story about that. When I was a kid I read many of the classics well ahead of my classmates. I mean, I read Moby-Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities,  Les Misérables, The Last of the Mohicans,The Hunchback of Notre Dame and other such like. Full disclosure: these were in the form of Classics Illustrated comic books. Those gems were written with great care to be true to the source material.

I made regular trips on my bike to Sipe’s Market and Green’s Drugstore to buy these comics, along with Archie, Superman, and Batman. And then I’d spend a little time at the spinner racks of paperbacks. At the time, the early to mid-60s, secret agents were hot. Not only James Bond, but also the hit TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (I still remember what that stood for: United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.)

So one day I was spinning a rack and came upon a series I didn’t know. The title was The Man From O.R.G.Y.

Cool, thought I. A new secret agent! I brought it to the cash register. But the man took one look and said, “This is not for you, son.”

“But I have the money,” I said.

“I’m not going to sell it to you,” he said, then added, “You can ask your parents why.”

Which I did. My mom delicately, oh so delicately, informed me that this was inappropriate for kids, and that the abbreviation stood for something “bad” that adults did. Later, in the schoolyard, I found out from a classmate what that bad thing was. Sheesh! Adults did that? Gross!

But my love of paperbacks was firmly established. Much later, when pursuing a writing career, I would scour used bookstores for titles from the classic era of Fawcett Gold Medal, Bantam, Dell and others. I eventually acquired a full set of all the 1950s stand-alones by the great John D., and bunches from other writers of the time. They are on my shelves now.

My own early books came out in trade paperback size, then hardcover. But I always wanted to be in MM. I realized my dream when I got a three-book contract with Kensington for the first (and only?) zombie legal thriller series, written under the nom de plume K. Bennett. I have the rights back and publish them under my own name, with new covers…though I wish I had rights to the old ones!)

That’s why it is sad to hear about the imminent death of the format. In the Substack Inside Agenting by the noted literary agent Richard Curtis, he writes:

[Mass market paperbacks] are scheduled to die at the end of this year.

Their death notice was recently announced in Publishers Weekly: “Sales of mass market paperbacks have steadily declined in recent years, to the point where they accounted for only about 3% of units sold at retailers that report to Circana BookScan in 2024. The format will take another big blow at the end of 2025, when Readerlink will stop distributing mass market paperbacks to its accounts.” ReaderLink describes itself as “the largest full-service distributor in North America” with six U.S. distribution centers supplying over 100,000 stores. All major publishers are shifting their focus to trade paperback as the format of choice both for originals and reprints. Even paperback publishers that prospered with genre literature like romance and science fiction are pushing their chips onto the larger trim size.

The reasons for this demise are:

  • Tissue-thin profit margins. Publication and distribution has become exceedingly cost-ineffective compared to other (and higher priced) print formats like hardcover and trade paperback.
  • The gradual disappearance of paperback racks and other displays in drugstores and supermarkets, and the explosive growth of chain bookstores whose bookshelves do not display MMPBs as effectively as trade paperbacks.
  • The decline of book departments at big-box stores like Walmart, where paperbacks failed to meet the test of profitability per square foot of display space compared to other consumer goods like deodorant and panty hose.
  • The rise of e-books as a preferred reprint format. Because e-books are released simultaneously with hardcover editions, as opposed to mass market paperbacks which are traditionally issued a year or longer after a book’s first edition, e-books have a huge advantage over MMPBs. Plus e-books are cheaper.

The one thing that never changes is change, right? But we writers are corks on the surface of the roiling sea of publishing upheavals, surviving, because no matter the format we have what the world needs—stories. And good stories, with actual human voice, will find their place. Always.

What has been your relationship with mass market paperbacks?

What is Your Writer’s Mind Like?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Happy Easter! As the minister once said, “This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.” Not exactly the true meaning, but there you are.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled post.

Hugh Howey, the breakout indie author of Wool (and the Silo series) once described his writer’s mind as “a pack of caffeinated Jack Russell terriers.” Fabulous! I totally get that.

The lyrical hippie satirist Tom Robbins said his mind was “like a pinball machine on acid.” When you read his work, you know that fits perfectly.

My favorite comedian, Steven Wright, said in an interview that he sees the world as a French impressionist painting in the pointillist style of George Seurat. He doesn’t see the big picture; he sees the dots, and finds one here and one over there, different colors, but somehow makes a connection. These he turns into one liners:  “I went to a restaurant that serves breakfast at any time, so I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”

I began to wonder how I’d describe my own writer’s mind. It’s not as rowdy as frenzied Jack Russells, nor is it a ring-dinging arcade game fueled by a variety of hallucinogens. It might have a little pointillism from time to time, but mostly it’s like Marty McFly skateboarding in Back to the Future.

One imagines Marty having fun freestyling, but when he has a location to get to he rides with purpose. Sometimes he catches the back of a passing vehicle to pull him along for a while. When he gets to where he’s going, he does a pop-up pickup of the skateboard, and he’s done.

When I develop a project, I like to freestyle, have fun, try things. Soon enough I have a location to shoot for—a plot for a novel, novella or short story. When my idea is sufficiently developed, I latch onto it and it pulls me along as I write. When I’m finished, I pick up the skateboard until such time as I start freestyling again.

I thought it might be fun, in lieu of my Sunday tutorial, to throw this question out to all of you: what metaphor would you use to describe your writer’s mind?

Have at it!

Thesaurus Love

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Let’s give a little love to the poor thesaurus. Because there’s a bit of writing advice that’s been floating around long enough to become a critique-group axiom. It has to do with the work of Mr. Peter Mark Roget (1779 – 1869) and the throwing of shade thereon.

I trace this back to an article written for the 1988 Writer’s Handbook (which sits on my shelf) by one Mr. Stephen King. It is titled “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully—in Ten Minutes.”

In said article Mr. King advises not looking at reference books when writing a first draft. Use them later if you wish. Except the thesaurus. “Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket…Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.”

A similar edict was issued by the author of Robert’s Rules of Writing (a book I am not gifting to Brother Gilstrap): “The minute you pick up a thesaurus, you’ve muddied the waters. Into the clear running stream of your prose, you’ve introduced a foreign agent. Nothing sticks out in a piece of prose like the words you’ve plucked from those long lists of synonyms, each one more obscure than its predecessor.”

Not that these gentlemen have an opinion or anything. But I wonder, is such unqualified vitriol (or should I say contempt? Or disdain?) justified? I think not.

First, King offered his opinion in the context of writing a first draft. He didn’t want a writer stopping to grab a physical reference book off a shelf, thus breaking “the writer’s trance.” Just make a guess or mark the spot, and look stuff up after the draft is done.

That’s valuable advice for writing in “flow.”

But with the digital tools available to us today, you can find synonyms in under ten seconds. Flow isn’t the issue it used to be.

Second, both of the above authors assume that the word one is looking for is a “fancy” word, one that does not traipse easily into the writer’s mind. That word will always be “wrong” they say, because its obscurity will confound the poor reader.

However, it may not be a fancy word the writer is looking for. It might simply be an alternative to the word that he immediately typed. With a synaptical flex of the brain a preferable word may come easily to mind. But if not, a click opens the e-thesaurus for a quick perusal.

Example: In my fourth paragraph, above, I originally wrote A similar command. I didn’t sound right to me; not precise enough. No writing guru has a warrant to command anything.

So I clicked open my Mac dictionary, typed command and hit the Thesaurus tab. Up came this list: order, instruction, directive, direction, commandment, injunction, decree, edict, demand, stipulation, requirement, exhortation, bidding, request. I chose edict right away. This isn’t a “fancy” word, or a word I wouldn’t normally use. Boom, in it went, and I continued typing.

That’s the value of a thesaurus for me—it reminds me of words I do know but can’t quite put my finger on at the moment.

The thesaurus also gives me a more expressive word when I need it. If I type something like He walked into the room I might want a more descriptive word than walked. I can usually think up something better on the spot, but on occasion I’ll pop open the thesaurus for a quick look.

I also will use the thesaurus when editing my previous day’s output. The other day I was editing a short story about road rage, where I’d written that a character driving a car gave a hefty blast on the horn. A few paragraphs later I wrote The monster truck’s horn blasted. That’s what I call an “echo.” I don’t like using the same descriptive word in close proximity. So up came the thesaurus. I chose blared.

I know there are some who might say that’s too much “work” for so little “return.” To which I have a simple rejoinder: Bosh. (I also could have used nonsense, balderdash, gibberish, claptrap, blarney, moonshine, garbage, hogwash, baloney, jive, guff, tripe, drivel, bilge, bunk, piffle, poppycock, hooey, twaddle, gobbledygook, flapdoodle, crapola or tommyrot. But I digress.)

I’ll take this ROI every time, not only because it pleases me to do good work, but because I also believe most readers, even subconsciously, appreciate the effort. (Now is the time to repeat Twain’s oft-quoted aphorism (maxim, adage, precept, dictum): “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”)

By the way, you might want to hang on to your printed thesauri (yes, that’s a word), for who knows what AI will do to the digital versions? This is not an idle thought. A few weeks ago I was working on a post for my Substack, about the late George Foreman. I ran it through ProWritingAid and it flagged “Foreman” fifteen times, suggesting (in no uncertain terms) that I change it to “work supervisor.”

A final note: I went to the bookstore and finally found the thesaurus I wanted. But when I got home and opened it, all the pages were blank. I have no words to express how angry I am.

Your turn (chance, moment). Do you ever use a thesaurus? 

(Note: I’m teaching at the Vision Christian Writers Conference at Mount Hermon today, so will check in when I can!)

Recapture Your Mojo

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began in 1999 as an informal way for writers to accept a challenge: Write a 50,000 word novel in a month. It grew into a non-profit organization, and at its height had hundreds of thousands of writers participating world wide. I was one of those writers. I found the challenge infectious, even joyful. Some critics found it “ridiculous” to think that most writers could come out with a competent novel in a month. But that missed the point.

It was mainly about exercising your writing muscles, learning discipline, and even coming up with a story that you could later whip into shape. It also fostered a supportive and community spirit.

Of late, however, the revenue needed to keep it going just wasn’t there. And now the interim director has announced that NaNoWriMo has come to an end. See her statement here.

You can find what other TKZers and commenters have to say about it, both pro and con, by putting “NaNoWriMo” in our search box. You might start with this one.

Another factor is that NaNoWriMo faced significant blowback last year, as described in this article in the New York Times:

For over 20 years, writers around the world have participated in National Novel Writing Month, or #NaNoWriMo, as it’s known online. The challenge is simple: Write 50,000 words in the month of November. Well, as simple as writing 50,000 words can be. (That’s 1,667 words per day, for those of you doing the math at home.)

Of course, using a generative artificial intelligence platform, like ChatGPT, could make those words go by much quicker. But is that really ethical? In the spirit of the event? Good for the craft of creative writing in general?

These are some of the questions that fueled a heated debate this week among writers, editors and others in publishing who fear the creep of A.I. in their industry. It started with a statement from NaNoWriMo, the nonprofit organization that coordinates the writing marathon every year. It ended — though perhaps there is more to come — with resignations, a lost sponsor and plenty of prickly feelings in what is meant to be an uplifting community.

“NaNoWriMo does not explicitly support any specific approach to writing, nor does it explicitly condemn any approach, including the use of A.I.,” the organization wrote on its website at the end of August. To fully condemn the technology, it said, would be “to ignore classist and ableist issues.”

“For some writers, the decision to use A.I. is a practical, not an ideological, one,” the statement continued, noting the “upfront cost burdens” in the publishing industry as well as the challenges that writers with different mental and linguistic abilities may face. “The notion that all writers ‘should’ be able to perform certain functions independently is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly.”

More:

Online, the reaction to the statement from many writers was swift and critical. The organization later updated its blog post to emphasize that it was speaking in broad terms and that it was “troubled by situational abuse of A.I,” but it appeared to do little to assuage writers’ concerns.

Multiple writers, including Daniel José Older and Maureen Johnson, announced on X that they would be stepping down from NaNoWriMo’s writers board. 

According to Ms. Johnson: “It was a way of encouraging people to sit down and set aside a block of time to learn to build writing muscle by drafting, by writing badly, by getting over self-doubt and boredom and writer’s block….What I saw in their statement was the opposite of that.”

One of the comments on the article said:

Allowing ChatGPT in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a nuanced issue. On one hand, using ChatGPT can aid in generating ideas and overcoming writer’s block, aligning with the event’s spirit of creativity and exploration. On the other hand, the challenge is meant to push writers to develop their own narratives and discipline. Extensive reliance on AI might undermine the authenticity of personal effort and creativity that NaNoWriMo aims to cultivate. Ultimately, while using ChatGPT for brainstorming or assistance can be valuable, it’s crucial that participants maintain their own creative control and write the bulk of their novel to stay true to the event’s goals.

This twist was added:

This comment generated by ChatGPT in response to the query, “Should authors participating in National Novel Writing Month be able to use ChatGPT to write their novels? Please answer in 150 words or less.”

I can’t speak to all the ins-and-outs of the controversy. Suffice to say, I much enjoyed doing NaNoWriMo. I even used it to form the foundation for two novels that were eventually published. But most of all it gave me a good jolt of writing energy. I loved the feeling of exhilaration mixed with fear and trembling, what that “eccentric Frenchman” Phillipe Petit must have felt as he walked a tightrope across the Twin Towers in 1974.

There is much value in that for the writer. So what’s to stop you from designing your own NaNoWriMo? Nothing, except perhaps accountability. To solve that, you could put the word out to family and friends. Or you could get with a writing pal or two and do it together.

And if a whole month seems too long, two weeks will do it. Instead of completing a 50k novel, think of it as a 20k start of a novel. That works out to a little under 1.5k words a day.

Or set whatever goal you like, so long as it is a real stretch. How many words can you comfortably write a day? Multiply that by three, and off you go!

Of course, no A.I. during this run. That would defeat the whole purpose, which is to exercise your head.

Sorry to see you go, NaNo. Thanks for the workouts.

Did you ever participate in a NaNoWriMo? Would you ever consider designing your own NaNo?

What Film Noir Can Teach Writers

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

You humble scribe with the “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller

Recently, I joined my son in Hollywood for our annual ritual—dinner at Musso & Frank, followed by opening night of Noir City, the film festival at the Egyptian Theater hosted by Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation.

There’s always a pre-screening reception in the courtyard outside the theater, where many attendees come dressed in 1940s fashion. Local distilleries provide liquid refreshment, and a band with a torch singer performs vintage songs from the era (classic American film noir ran from 1941 and The Maltese Falcon to 1958’s Touch of Evil).

Just what is film noir, and why does it have such a loyal following?

As the French name implies, this is “dark film.” It always revolves around crime, and who among us hasn’t had a passing thought of such ilk from time to time? Even if it is just to wonder “Could I get away with it?” Film noir allows us to indulge that fascination without getting too close.

Film noir has a distinctive look—rich black-and-white (as opposed to neo-noir, like Body Heat). Indeed, cinematographers, like the great John Alton, were just as important as the writer and director. (See Alton’s masterpiece He Walked by Night sometime).

The noir world grinds out rough justice. No bad deed goes unpunished. A guy makes one bad move years ago, and has managed to find a new life…until that past catches up with him to exact retribution (Out of the Past).

Sometimes, the hammer falls on a decent guy who makes one bad choice.

In Side Street, Farley Granger plays Joe Norson, a mailman working like a dog to support himself and his pregnant wife. One day he delivers mail to a lawyer’s office and, alone there, finds $200 in cash. On impulse, he takes it. What he doesn’t know is the dough is part of the lawyer’s extortion racket.

And then there’s a murder.

Soon enough, the bad guy is after Joe, and so is the law, considering Joe a suspect in the murder. Hoo boy. Can he possibly get out of this? We watch to find out, pulling for the guy. Noir justice happens, but exacts a heavy price.

Not all noir leads are good guys who make a bad choice. Sometimes they’re bad guys through and through, and we watch to see if he gets away with it (Touch of Evil). Heist noir (Criss Cross; The Asphalt Jungle) is like that.

Thus, shades of black and white mix, which is just like life.

And makes for compelling fiction, too. The character with a “moral flaw” is more interesting—and more realistic—than a pure, immaculate hero. We relate to characters like that because deep down we know we have flaws, too, and that should our flaws get out of hand, it will lead to disaster.

In a way, noir is like classic Greek tragedy. The purpose of tragedy was to create “catharsis” and warn us of what happens when we follow the dark side.

Thus:

  • Give your Lead a moral flaw, and show it via inner conflict and the “mirror moment.”
  • Indeed, give all your characters, even minor ones, a moral flaw. Even if those are never revealed, it help you come up with more original actions and dialogue.
  • Consider exacting a price the Lead must pay for justice to prevail, a “wound.”

If you want to explore film noir more deeply, I recommend Dark City by Eddie Muller (affiliate link). There are also scores of B-movie noirs available for free on YouTube.

Here are ten of my favorites:

The Maltese Falcon (1941, Dir. John Huston)
Double Indemnity (1944, Dir. Billy Wilder)
Out of the Past (1947, Dir. Jacques Tourneur)
Too Late For Tears (1949, Dir. Byron Haskin)
Act of Violence (1949, Dir. Fred Zinemann)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950, Dir. John Huston)
99 River Street (1953, Dir. Phil Karlson)
The Hitch-Hiker (1953, Dir. Ida Lupino)
Pickup on South Street (1953, Dir. Sam Fuller)
Touch of Evil (1958, Dir. Orson Welles)

Are you a film noir fan? What are your favorites? 

Write Like Melted Butter

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Back in the day (and for you kids, when an author of my vintage uses “back in the day” that’s a bit further than when The Big Bang Theory was a hit) there was a TV commercial for Thomas’ English Muffins. A narrator extolled the benefits of said breadstuff, then a smiling kid held one up and said, “And lots of nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter!”

I salute the ad man who came up with this line, because back in that same day the federal gummint guidelines had butter on its dietary hit list. Bosh, thought the ad man. That smooth, warm taste of liquified gold coating the taste buds is the most enjoyable part of this culinary treat.

Which is how I think about style in fiction. When the prose has nooks and crannies of “unobtrusive poetry” (as the great John D. MacDonald put it) my reading pleasure buds pop with delight and I am likely to search out more offerings from that writer.

Which brings me to the subject of metaphors and similes. They are the melted butter of prose.

For example, Raymond Chandler would have been just another detective fiction scribbler were it not for the magic of his style. Here are a few of my favorites:

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

I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief. (Farewell, My Lovely)

She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. (The Big Sleep)

Here are some from other authors:

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances. (Shakespeare, As You Like It)

“Sit down, Montag. Watch. Delicately, like the petals of a flower. Light the first page, light the second page. Each becomes a black butterfly. Beautiful, eh?” (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)

She faced the children’s mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit’s ears. (Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”)

She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it’s there, because it can’t hurt, and because what difference does it make? (Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon)

I shall now lay down the rule (yes, I said it) for metaphors and similes: they must be in the words that the viewpoint character would actually say or think. If they are not, it is no longer unobtrusive. It’ll stick out like a garlic breath burp at a dinner party. (Hey, not bad.)

There is only one exception to this rule, and that is if the voice of the author is the selling point, the raison d’etre of the book’s allure. Old-school Omniscient POV (e.g., Dickens) had it. So did the post-realist novels of the 60s and 70s (e.g., Vonnegut, Pynchon). Almost always it is found in comic novels, e.g., Douglas Adams, and most abundantly in the writing of the late Tom Robbins. You read his books for the flights of literary fancy, the voice of mushroom-laced, hippie-dipped, Zen-flavored farce:

Every toilet bowl gurgled like an Italian tenor with a mouthful of Lavoris, and the refrigerators made noises at night like buffalo grazing. (Jitterbug Perfume)

Like a neon fox tongue lapping up the powdered bones of space chickens, the Rising Sun licked away at the light snow that had fallen during the night. (Skinny Legs and All)

It was as if the dishwater, as gray and oily as a mobster’s haircut, washed away his arrogant confusion. (Skinny Legs and All)

So how can you find your own melted butter? Wide reading of authors who do this well is, of course, a given. In addition, I offer a couple of writing exercises to expand your style muscle. Note, this means you do the heavy lifting in your own brain; it can’t be handed to you by a machine. It’s fun, costs nothing, and will improve all of your writing.

People Pegging

Go to a public place—a park, a coffeehouse, a mall—and people watch. Home in on someone for a few seconds, then write in your notebook the following:

  1. He walks like a __________
  2. If he were an animal, he’d be a ____________
  3. His mood is the color of a ___________

Detail Digging

Wherever you are, pick a random item within your sight—pen, cough drop, lip balm, glasses, book, cup. Then:

  1. Write five things this item reminds you of.
  2. How would an advanced-race alien describe this item?
  3. Imagine this item appearing in your novel. From your Lead character’s POV, write three metaphors—one based on sight, one on touch, and one on smell.

Spend just an hour doing one or both of these exercises and you will actually feel your style improving.

Which is so worth it. Raymond Chandler would have told you that. This observation was found in one of his notebooks after his death:

“Without magic, there is no art. Without art, there is no idealism. Without idealism, there is no integrity. Without integrity, there is nothing but production.”

Don’t just produce. Monkeys can do that. AI is doing it now. Who cares?

Bring a little magic to your prose.

Write like melted butter.

Do you think about style when you write and/or edit? Do you search out fresh metaphors and similes? Do you love it when a writer is able to pull off “unobtrusive poetry”?