Author Archives: James Scott Bell

About James Scott Bell

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Death to The Big Lie

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start. Still in print! (Isn’t it crazy to think that back then “in print” meant paper and ink only?) It was published by Writer’s Digest Books. That imprint now is in the Penguin Random House house.

I wrote the book as a labor of love to help fellow writers who might be in the same place I was before I started selling. I explained this in the intro:

I wasted ten years of prime writing life because of The Big Lie.        

In my twenties I gave up the dream of becoming a writer because I had been told that writing could not be taught. Writers are born, people said. You either have what it takes or you don’t, and if you don’t you’ll never get it.           

My first writing efforts didn’t have it. I thought I was doomed. Outside of my high school English teacher, Mrs. Marjorie Bruce, I didn’t get any encouragement at all.           

In college, I took a writing course taught by Raymond Carver. I looked at the stuff he wrote; I looked at my stuff.

 It wasn’t the same.    

Because writing can’t be taught.

I started to believe it. I figured I didn’t have it and never would.

So I did other stuff. Like go to law school. Like join a law firm. Like give up my dream.           

But the itch to write would not go away.          

At age 34, I read an interview with a lawyer who’d had a novel published. And what he said hit me in my lengthy briefs. He said he’d had an accident and was almost killed. In the hospital, given a second chance at life, he decided the one thing he wanted was to be a writer. And he would write and write, even if he never got published, because that was what he wanted.          

Well, I wanted it too.          

But The Big Lie was still there, hovering around my brain, mocking me.           

Especially when I began to study the craft.          

I went out and bought my first book on fiction writing. It was Lawrence Block’s Writing the Novel. I also bought Syd Field’s book on screenwriting because anyone living in Los Angeles who has opposable thumbs is required to write a screenplay.

And I discovered the most incredible thing. The Big Lie was a lie. A person could learn how to write, because I was learning.

I am most gratified by the many writers over the years who’ve given a shout out to Plot & Structure. I feel a little like Van Helsing, having pounded a wooden stake though the heart of the Big Lie.

But if it should ever rise again, I’ll be ready.

So here’s the topic for today: What are some of the “lies” or “myths” you’ve been told about writing or the publishing business?

Note: This is no lie. My new Mike Romeo thriller, Romeo’s Fire, is available for Kindle pre-order at the special deal price of $2.99 (reg. $5.99). Check it out here.

Write Fight Scenes The Comic Book Way

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Carla Hoch

It’s a pleasure to welcome Carla Hoch back to TKZ. Carla is the author of the essential reference Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes. (See the TKZ interview here). She’s out with a follow up: Fight Write: Round Two—Crafting Chaos, Combat & Crime. Today’s post is adapted from that book.

Carla is a popular workshop teacher, trained in MMA, Muay Thai-style kickboxing, taekwondo, Brazilian jiujitsu, street defense, Filipino martial arts, judo, iaido and aikido. She’s a brown belt in Brazilian jiujitsu with Team Tsunami at Global Martial Arts. Learn more about her at FightWrite.net.

Here’s Carla:

You can write a great fight scene without knowing how to fight. But that doesn’t mean you can write a technically sound scene. And that’s ok; you don’t want to focus on technique anyway because most readers don’t know how to fight. You’d lose them in the midst of the blocking.

Sure, you may have a few readers who want more detail, and maybe even one who puts down your book because you didn’t specify what punches went into a combo. But you’re far more likely to lose readers by making a fight scene too complicated and needlessly specific.

Your fight scenes are not your story. They support it.

Which Moves to Write

Before you start putting moves together, it’s good to know which moves to focus on. That way you won’t waste your time worrying about the moves you won’t write.

And the good news is, what you won’t write is a lot. Even good-er news, you have visual resources available to help you understand the whole concept.

Get Graphic

When you’re trying to decide which moves to include in your fight scene, look no further than comic books and graphic novels. Books that tell stories visually are expensive to make. The real estate on every page is a premium. The moves these writers/illustrators include in their storylines are gross motor movements such as punches, stabs, and strikes with large objects. And the target for each tends to be above the waist.

That’s not to say that small moves won’t ever be illustrated. It is to say that the small move must be pivotal to the scene because they come at the cost of drawing something more easily imagined. Remember, every page of a comic book/graphic novel is expensive.

Another takeaway from illustrated media is its ability to make a flat picture a multi-dimensional experience. When we see a superhero in a comic book punch a villain, we see sweat and blood fly from the villain’s face. We see a call-out bubble that reads “POW!”

If there’s a zombie on the page, you can see how bad it smells. When someone screams, we see the veins in their neck bulge.

Graphic novel/comic book illustrations aren’t simply drawings; they’re an experience. Not only can you follow the fight visually, you can also hear it, smell it, feel it, taste it. You aren’t just holding the scene in your hands; you’re in it with the characters. That’s exactly what we writers should aim to achieve as well.

So as you’re considering the moves to write, think like an illustrator and ask yourself a few questions:

  1. Would this movement be easily understood if drawn?
  2. What exact moment of the movement would be drawn?
  3. Is the physical response easy to imagine?
  4. How can I make this a sensory experience?

Where to Start

To begin blocking your fight scene, know how it ends. What is the intended injury of the scene? I know I have beat this point like a second‐hand piñata, but it is that important. The intended injury determines the movement of the fight.

Once you decide on an injury, think of how it directly happens. Then step back and ask, how did that movement happen? Then step back to the previous move and ask the same thing: how did that movement happen?

When you ask yourself how something happened, you don’t get so hung up on wondering what comes next. Instead, you consider what created a certain result.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say your intended injury is a black eye. How did that injury happen? Instead of getting technical, just be literal.

The black eye happened from a punch to the eye. What happened before the fist hit the eye? A character punched. What happened before that punch? The character took a step forward. What happened before they took a step?

When in Doubt, Map it Out

One way to keep up with the fight moves of the scene is to map them. Ask yourself the above questions and jot down the answers. Then, look over the moves, cross out what wouldn’t end up in a comic book, and make note of anything you notice that seems o or could be improved. Keep in mind the last moment of action or contact.

There are a million ways to map a scene. And I suggest you map it out in a way that helps you keep it straight in your head.

However you map, your first action is the injury, so the character you’re starting with is the character that injures. Map that one character’s movements first. After the injury, ask how that injury was possible. The next movement will answer that question.

Continue asking yourself questions from each movement. The answers to each will help you determine what logically comes next.

Comments welcome.

Writing and Anger

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by James Scott Bel
@jamesscottbell

“One may achieve remarkable writerly success while flunking all the major criteria for success as a human being. Try not to do that.” – Michael Bishop

Maybe it’s just me, but has anyone else noticed things are getting a bit, er, heated out there in the arena we call media, both social and news?

I use “arena” advisedly, as it hearkens back to ancient Rome and the bloodthirsty crowds cheering the gladiators in their fights to the death, or the lions tearing apart adherents to a certain religious sect.

Today we have the madding crowd (not maddening crowd, please! Thomas Hardy is turning over in his cubby at Westminster Abbey on that frequent misuse) on X and Meta and Insta and TikkyTak. (Remember talk about YouTube, Twitter and Facebook merging into one site called YouTwitFace?)

Many a writer has added fuel to the fire, which invites (not “begs” please! Though that ship has sailed) the question: is it worth it to risk reputational capital by becoming just another flamethrower on the conflagration of discontent?

I’ll hazard a theory: you lose more readers than you gain that way.

Now, I quickly add that there is a place for calm and cool repartee in social media over issues of moment. If you feel you have to say something, go ahead. Just keep it classy, and be very aware that it’s bloody difficult to keep from getting sucked into tit-for-tat with haters, on their terms. “I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig,” wrote Shaw. “You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”

So if you’re a writer trying to make a living, or at least some reliable side income, count the cost and weigh the potential ROI before diving into the fray.

That does not mean silence. Writers write. Many a novel has started with the author burning about an issue.

One author asked himself some questions: “Should aggression be opposed by force? How shall an individual stand against tyranny? When is an individual or society to involve himself or itself in another’s affairs? What exactly is the true nature of justice?” That’s why Walter Van Tilburg Clark wrote the classic, The Ox-Bow Incident.

But note that Clark said his purpose was to “not only write as much as I could in dialogue, but to find my way into a typical western story situation, with all the typical western story people, and see if I couldn’t make the people come to life and the situation say something that could still be heard.”

Make the people come to life. That’s the key.

Orwell was impassioned in his essays, but how much more influential are his novels, 1984 and Animal Farm?

Ray Bradbury once remarked that he did not write to predict the future, but to prevent it.

So of course write a story about an issue that burns inside you. But make sure of the following:

  1. Filter everything through characters who are not mere hand puppets for your hobby horse (how’s that for mixing metaphors?)
  2. Give every character his or her due, even the bad guys, because—
  3. Bad guys don’t think they’re bad, they think they’re justified.
  4. Make sure your dialogue is organic and believable, not part of a “false triangle.”
  5. Draft angry if you must, but edit serenely. (And please don’t misquote Hemingway, who never said “Write drunk, edit sober.” That would have made him angry!)
  6. Think long and hard about what you post on social media. It’s going to be there forever.

Or you can write a poem, as I did recently:

Sometimes in life we find ourselves
Engaged in tense exchanges,
In meetings or at social fetes
That someone else arranges.

A stranger offers his opinion,
As if it were quite factual.
You beg to differ, have your say
With real facts, quite actual.

But then instead of answer calm
You’re accused of being wicked,
And told in no uncertain terms
Where your opinion can be stick-ed.

Thus it is, in Twitter world
That conversations vex.
There is no thought or listening,
There’s only scrambled X.

Some day perhaps we shall go back
To conversations civil
Where substance is the main concern,
Not vitriolic drivel.

And so I say, my angry friend,
Fear not a new opinion.
Better far to think than get
A right-cross to your chinion.

There. I feel better now. Comments welcome.

Torn Between Two Projects

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

There was a hit song back in the 70s called “Torn Between Two Lovers” (not to be confused with the Hannibal Lecter hit, “Torn Between Two Livers”).

In the song, a woman is telling her first love that he’s great, and everything she’s told him about her feelings is true. But there’s this other guy she’s met who fills an “empty place” inside her. Now, she says, I don’t love you any less, and I don’t want you to leave me just because I’m torn between the two of you. I’m feelin’ like a fool because that’s breakin’ all the rules, but still I want you around…

I always thought that first guy should have written a song in response, with the simple refrain: Buh Bye.

But I digress.

What I really want to talk about is being torn between two projects. It’s happened to me a few times in my thirty years at this gig.

Before I was published, I wrote a wild novel that was a complete joy. I had fun every day creating a pastiche of comedy and commentary. I fancied it a cross between Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams.

It was original! Surely a publisher would want original. Because that’s what they’d say. “We are looking for an original voice…”

That was only partially true. I quickly found out the second part: “…but not too original.”

In other words, they wanted a fresh voice for an existing market.

Perfectly legit, as the book business is, gasp, a business.

So when my original work of surpassing genius was rejected faster than a Snoopy story (remember the Snoopy-as-writer strips from Peanuts? He once got a letter: “To save time we are enclosing two rejection slips, one for this story and one for the  next story you send us.”)

Thus, it occurred to me that maybe I should spend a little time considering “the market” before deciding what to write.

Around this time, a good friend (and published author) said to me, “You’re a lawyer. Why aren’t you writing legal thrillers?”

Duh!

So I wrote a legal thriller and got a contract.

But then there were a few times when I had two ideas for a next book to fulfill a contract. Which one should I spend six months on?

So I made up a self-test. In a fit of modesty, I named it “Bell’s Pyramid.”

The base of the pyramid, PASSION, is the foundation, the most crucial factor. I came up with a list of questions and assigned a score, from 1-10, for each.

  1. How excited are you about the concept as it stands now?
  2. How invested are you in the main character?
  3. Does the main character have potential to deepen?
  4. Is there a theme involved for you?
  5. As a prediction, how excited do you think you’ll be about the book two months from now?

For POTENTIAL:

  1. How marketable is the plot?
  2. How are the stakes life or death (physical, professional, or psychological)?
  3. How likely is it that you can raise the stakes?

For PRECISION I would write a logline for each project. A logline is Hollywood-speak for a sentence that captures both the essence and market potential of a script. For example:

A great white shark hunts for food in the waters of a New England town at the height of tourist season.

Teenager Marty takes a time-traveling DeLorean into the past, where his young mother gets the hots for him, and where he must get his father to win her again before Marty ceases to exist. 

Then I’d assign a score, 1-10, on which logline best captures essence/market potential.

Add up all the scores, and there’s your WIP.

And the best part is that your project will not be angry that you have another “lover.” You can develop that other project on the side even as you write the first one.

So how do you decide what book you’re going to write next?

Library Love

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

“I’m completely library educated. I’ve never been to college. I went down to the library when I was in grade school in Waukegan, and in high school in Los Angeles, and spent long days every summer in the library… I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt.” — Ray Bradbury

I remember how thrilled I was when I got my first library card.

It was an actual card, it had my name on it. And it meant I could go in and take books off the shelf and check them out and take them home, just like a real person.

And so many books! Shelf after shelf, there for the taking. The library back then was almost like a church. You treated the space reverently. You only spoke in a whisper, and then only if you really had to. (These days libraries sound more like greasy spoons where waitresses shout, “Gimme a ham on rye!”)

I’ve never met a writer yet who didn’t have a love of the library. Early and often reading is  fundamental for a future writer. It’s how you get the structure of a well-tuned sentence into your head, how you learn to string scenes together that make readers want to turn the page.

The library is also a place of inspiration. John Fante, the great L.A. writer of the 30s, captured that in a passage from his famous novel, Ask the Dust. It’s about young Arturo Bandini who dreams about becoming a writer, and spends hours in the main branch of the L.A. library downtown.

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. A day and another day and the day before, and the library with the big boys in the shelves, old Dreiser, old Mencken, all the boys down there, and I went to see them, Hya Dreiser, Hya Mencken, Hya, hya: there’s a place for me, too, and it begins with B, in the B shelf. Arturo Bandini, make way for Arturo Bandini, his slot for his book, and I sat at the table and just looked at the place where my book would be, right there close to Arnold Bennett, not much that Arnold Bennett, but I’d be there to sort of bolster up the B’s, old Arturo Bandini, one of the boys, until some girl came along, some scent of perfume through the fiction room, some click of high heels to break up the monotony of my fame. Gala day, gala dream!

When I read The Illustrated Man in junior high, I exploded with the desire to write. I’d go to my local branch and look at the Bradbury books on the shelf. The B’s! And maybe Bell would be up there someday, bolstering up the B’s….

Some years later, after I’d been published, I went to that same branch when Bradbury came to speak. He supported libraries all over town. I had him sign my copy of Zen in the Art of Writing and talked to him a bit. He loved other writers and gave me his signature and a hearty “God bless you.”

That local branch is still my home base, about seven minutes from my house.

I was in there the other day, to pick up a book I’d requested. As is my custom, I wandered past the new releases, and the mysteries and thrillers. Hya Coben, Hya Connelly, Hya Parker. I took a few off the shelf, went to a chair, and read the opening chapters. In about five minutes I could hardly wait to get back to my keyboard.

Tell us about your first encounter with a library, and how it impacted you as a writer. Do you have a favorite library now?

Writing With Alert Watchfulness

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

The first time I rode a motorcycle I ran into a fence.

One of my college roommates, Rick, got a bike. One day I asked him if I could try it. He showed me the basics of clutch and throttle. No problem. At the time I was driving my dad’s old three-on-the-tree Ford Maverick. I knew the drill.

Only it’s different when it’s your first time using hands instead of feet. I let the clutch out too fast and twisted the throttle too hard. I lurched forward and before I could turn I rammed into a wooden fence. The bike listed and jammed my right ankle into a post.

When Rick stopped laughing he suggested I sign up for lessons with the local CHP.

I thought about that experience the other day while reading The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew B. Crawford. It’s about authentic identity getting lost in the midst of the noise and distraction of our digital age. We have what Crawford calls a “crisis of attention” which leads to fractured perceptions of the world. Crawford contrasts that with the intense concentration required of an ice-hockey player, a short-order cook, or the maker of fine pipe organs.

Also, Motocross champions. To compete at the top level, you have to develop what is called “alert watchfulness without meddling.” This makes possible a focus on what’s immediate and consequential, like an unforeseen bump in the track. In other words, you no longer need to stress about clutch and throttle; those are ingrained. Instead you rely on an intuition formed by long experience. Crawford explains:

This “alert watchfulness without meddling” by the conscious mind while one is riding on the street often takes the form of hunches: hypotheses about what might happen that are conscious but not fully articulate, because they don’t need to be. You recognize a familiar situation: there are strip malls on either side of a major thoroughfare, each with entries to the main road. The street numbers are posted only erratically, on haphazard buildings set far back from the main road. The car in front of you slows down, then speeds up, repeatedly. Hypothesis: this person is looking for a particular business, and when he spots it he may quickly veer across two lanes to get to it. Your motor responses are cocked and loaded, as it were, because you recognize the pattern.

That seems to me to describe what goes on in the head of an experienced writer engaged in the act of writing itself. Be the writer a planner or a discoverer (as we’ve discussed many times here) when they are into the writing of an actual scene “alert watchfulness without meddling” is the optimum practice.

For example, if you have structured your scene in advance (as explained here) you write with purpose. But if something pops up during the writing, some new possibility, your experience should “recognize the pattern.” You can consider it without “meddling” (which we often refer to as the “inner critic”). You form a hypothesis of how it might fit the overall story.

On the other hand, the wild-eyed panster should be “watchfully alert” against straying too far away from a pattern that best serves the story (not every “discovery” is a brilliant idea; not every glittering  nugget is gold).

How do you develop this alert watchfulness sans meddling? Writing and craft study. Writing alone can bring forth lots of words with little value. Just like a new golfer and ingrain bad habits by going out just to “play.” (Groundskeepers call that hunting gophers.)

On the other hand, just reading about the craft yields nothing without practice. In my early years studying writing, long before I was published, I’d design writing exercises based on what I’d learned in a book. This proved invaluable.

In college I also performed close-up magic. I got to occasionally hang out at the Magic Castle, the private club for pro magicians in Hollywood. Many of the legends of card magic, now in their 70s and 80s, were still around.

One of them was Dai Vernon, reputed to be the best card mechanic of the 20th century. I got to watch him up close, informally showing fellow magicians some moves.

Dai Vernon

I got all his magic books. In one of them he had “The Trick That Cannot Be Explained.” The reason was that he never performed it the same way twice. Everything was based on what the audience member did, from choosing a card to shuffling a deck. Vernon always produced the selected card in a surprising way, because he knew from experience literally hundreds of ways to manipulate cards. He would choose his method based on his “alert watchfulness” of what was happening. He didn’t have to take time to “meddle.” He just knew, instinctively, what to do.

I like that analogy applied to writing. When you have practiced your craft fruitfully and for a long time, you can perform “tricks that cannot be explained.” You form “hypotheses about what might happen that are conscious but not fully articulate, because they don’t need to be. You recognize a familiar situation.”

Does this resonate with you? Think about what’s going on in your mind as you write a scene. Are  you alert? Meddling? Hesitant? Risk averse? Or do you let it all out, even though you might run into a fence?

Should You Abandon Your Novel?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Back when I was doing the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference every year, I read a lot of manuscript excerpts for critique. One year I read the opening chapters of a fellow’s first attempt at a novel. He gave me the pitch and was obviously enthused about the idea. He’d had it for years, in fact, and was finally getting it down on paper (as we used to say). I marked up the MS for him and gave him some tips.

The next year he was back. When we met he showed me the same manuscript. “I made some changes you’ll like,” he said.

I asked him if he’d written anything else since last time.

“No,” he said. “Still working on this.”

A whole year (’nother) with the exact same book? Trying to get it in shape to submit to agents? And while I don’t remember the entire pitch, I do remember thinking it’d be a challenge to market.

Plus, it was his first novel. How many writers produce a publishable (or sellable) first novel right out of the gate? Not many (though I believe our own Brother Gilstrap is one of them, with Nathan’s Run).

I’ve had some people over the years come up to me and say, “I think I have a novel inside me.” And I bite my tongue to keep from saying, “That’s a good place to keep it.”

Because there are two things wrong with their sentiment.

First, if you only think you have a novel inside you, you won’t have the drive you need to make it in this game. You’ve got to think: I am a writer inside, and I’m going to write that book.

Second, no one is interested in publishing a novel. They want a novel-ist. They want someone who can deliver the goods over a career. The landscape is littered with first-time novelists whose second effort fell flat, along with their future prospects inside the walls of the Forbidden City.

Now that we have self-publishing, of course, there is no barrier to entry. But if you toss up dismal offerings that readers don’t respond to (except with one-star reviews or, what may be worse, no reviews at all) you’re not building a career, you’re just exercising your fingers.

So how long should you labor over a book before saying, “This isn’t getting me any further. Maybe I should start another one.”

There is no magical answer, but maybe I can offer some suggestions, such as:

Spending a year on one book is long enough.

Yes, that’s a bit overstated. If you’re intent on writing a novel that begins with the pre-Cambrian protozoa and ends at the Treaty of Versailles, that’s your choice.

But a novel-ist produces. A page-a-day is a book a year. A Ficus tree can write a page a day. Don’t be shown up by a Ficus tree.

If you have completed your first novel, celebrate. You’re ahead of most “I think I have a novel inside me” writers. If you’ve studied craft along the way, you will have learned a lot, so your efforts are not in vain. Almost every novelist in the 20th century had a “trunk” novel. Maybe years later they came back to the idea. Or maybe not. What they didn’t do was workshop it over and over, waiting for the cows to come home or the agents to come calling.

This assumes, of course, that you’re hoping to have a career or at least happy vocation that brings in a little dough for your efforts.

But what if this is my second attempt?

You’ve written two whole novels. Good job. Now compare the second one to your first. Did you improve? Consider getting some objective feedback from a few beta readers.

I don’t need no stinkin’ beta readers!

How big is that chip on your shoulder?

This sounds too time consuming. I want to be published yesterday.

When I was in college I wrote to a novelist I admired, the author of The Last Detail, Darryl Ponicsan. He wrote me a nice letter with some solid advice, ending with, “Be prepared for an apprenticeship of years.” (I tell that story here, with a comment from Mr. Ponicsan himself).

It did take me years, and some pretty clunky efforts, before I was published. I spent seven years writing and immersing myself in the craft before a publisher gave me a shot. I’m glad easy self-publishing was not an option back then (just expensive, worthless “vanity” publishing). Going through the grinder of submission and rejection made me a better writer. When my break came, I was ready.

But writing should be fun. This doesn’t sound like fun.

You know what the best fun is? Getting better at what you do. I loved basketball as a kid and had my dad put up a hoop on our garage. I spent hours and hours practicing, sometimes in the rain. I played hours of pickup every weekend at the gym. I got real good, and that was doggone fun. I played in college. For years afterward I had fun playing, until I blew out my knee. That was not fun. But it didn’t negate one bit all the satisfaction I got out of getting good, of hitting the winning shot with the crowd cheering.

This sounds like you’re talking to newer writers. Am I hearing you right?

Loud and clear.

So what about a “seasoned” writer? Should they ever abandon a book?

I’ve got the answer: It depends.

Okay, genius, what does it depend on?

First, on whether or not you’ve got a contract. You may not have the luxury of simple abandonment. You may be able to get a deadline extension from your publisher, but don’t make a habit of it.

If you’re an indie writer, or are writing “on spec,” you have more flexibility. We’ve talked about the “30k wall” here at TKZ. I seem to hit that with each book, even with an outline. I’ve found that a day or two of letting the basement boys have at, then coming back with a vengeance, always provides a breakthrough.

But I also have known a successful “pantser” who has written up to a point where the book flattens and loses steam, so much so that he sets the book aside and moves on.

I do my “pantsing” in the plotting stage. I explore many possible scenarios and outcomes, possible twists and turns, before choosing the path that has, for me, the greatest potential. If some twists pop up during the writing (and they always do) I take a little time to assess, and then tweak my outline. I prefer tweaking over abandoning.

I do have a file of first chapters. I can write first chapters all day long. I’ve done that as part of my creativity time, just to see what it sparks. Sometimes it is a jumping off point into further development. Other times I consider it writing practice.

Nothing is wasted when you exercise your writing muscles.

Can Artificial Intelligence save your bacon?

That is a whole can of worms (to mix metaphors). I’ve run plot problems by Mrs. B, whose intelligence is not artificial. So it is good to a brainstorming partner. The advantage of AI is you don’t have to make a phone call and set up a meeting. It is instantly available.

I would just advise not becoming too dependent on AI, because then you’re not exercising your imagination, as stated above. When that atrophies, it affects all aspects of your writing.

On the other hand, the more you work out that brain of yours, the stronger your writing will become. Plus, you’ll bring that secret sauce called self to the pages, the thing that makes your writing stand apart from the noisome pestilence of mediocrity.

Don’t ever abandon yourself.

How I have rambled on. You take over now in the comments. I’d love to hear what you have to say. (Mrs. B and I are watching the grandboys all day, so my responses may be limited. We never abandon grandboy time!)

Should You Go Ahead and Write Mediocre Books?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Years ago I was walking along Sunset Boulevard on a sunny day in Los Angeles (no surprise there) when I ran into a gent in a hat, with a big smile, holding a plate of cookies. He asked if I’d like to have one.

Being a struggling actor at the time, I eagerly accepted. It was an oddly shaped chocolate chip cookie. Not uniform or perfectly round. Each one was unique. That’s because they didn’t come out of a machine. They were handmade, and each glop that was put on a cookie sheet differed slightly from the others.

What was the same was the taste! My buds broke out into The Hallelujah Chorus. The cookie was a perfect blend of dough, chocolate chips, and nuts. I immediately went into the little store and bought a whole bag.

These were, of course, Famous Amos Cookies, and the man was Wally Amos himself.

As I walked away I thanked him, and he said, “Have yourself a real brown day.”

Wally Amos died last week at the age of 88.

The Famous Amos cookie thrived for a time, became legendary in Los Angeles. But as with many an entrepreneur, Wally Amos got underwater and had to sell. The new business soon went wide, not with unique Amos-style cookies, but with machine-made roundies that tasted no different than Chips Ahoy, which only make my taste buds sing a dirge.

And so we lost a singular savor to a dull sameness.

Which brings me to the state of writing today. We’ve discussed AI several times here at TKZ. Developments continue apace. I wasn’t aware of how apace things were until I read the latest issue of Jane Friedman’s Hot Sheet (subscription required). Jane interviewed Elizabeth Ann West, co-founder of Future Fiction Academy. What jumped out at me was a question about whether Big 5 publishers are using AI not only to create new “brand names” but also to extend established ones. West thinks the latter may already be happening:

I can’t say for sure. But if you read the Look Inside for some recent releases, those of us who write with AI all the time, we see the tell-tale signs that they’re using AI, particularly New York Times bestsellers. There’s one in particular, the first paragraph is like 15 sentences about boats, boats, boats inside of New York harbor. And when you compare that to this author’s previous work, that doesn’t even match.

AI also has a tendency to put four ideas in one sentence. You will open up a book and it will say, “Susie Q walked down the path, chewing her gum, her phone rang, and the scent of jasmine was in the air.” Most humans write in threes. Another big tell is echolalia. In the dialogue, you’ll see, “Jane, how are you feeling today?” And Jane says, “I feel fine, Elizabeth.”

And this is not to mention the thousands (tens of thousands?) of indies using AI to publish dozens of novels and novellas in the time it usually takes an old-school author to write one book.

The question is, are all these AI-generated books like the generic cookies that followed the Famous Amos sell off?

Does that even matter?

Some time ago, one of the leading voices for indie publishing, Joe Konrath, wrote a cheeky blog post asking:

Why write longer? Why write better? What’s the benefit?

Readers will forgive me if I phone-in a book. Or four. Especially with a series. As long as my first 12 are solid, I could probably make the next 6 mediocre, or even shitty, and most of my fanbase will stick with me.

Now, I’m not talking about releasing a book with errors in it; plot problems, story problems, typos, formatting probs, and so on, even though Maria [Joe’s wife] forgives authors for those indiscretions, and according to her they happen in about half the ebooks she reads.

I’m talking about releasing a book that would average 3.7 stars from readers, whereas if I spent an extra month on it, I could average 4.2.

Seems like a gigantic waste of time.

Yes, sure, if you want to put out product, lots of it, and fast, without laboring over it, you can. Especially with AI. You can even make money that way.

Now, I’m not claiming to be pure as the driven snow (I live in L.A., so the only snow I ever see is driven snow, meaning I have to drive to see it), but something in me makes me need to hand make my cookies, one by one, with some effort to make them as tasty as I can. I still think there are readers who appreciate that.

I don’t know the financial ramifications of writing with care versus pumping out mediocrities. It’s impossible to design an A/B test without a time machine.

But that’s my recipe and I’m sticking to it.

“Have yourself a real write day.”

Just thinking out loud today. Add your own thoughts in the comments about AI, mass production, care in writing—and does it even matter?

The Art of the Outline

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

[NOTE: I had this post prepped before seeing yesterday’s Words of Wisdom. Consider this an adjunct to that discussion and let’s continue the conversation in the comments.]

Partial of J. K. Rowling’s outline for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

At my first ThrillerFest I went to listen to a panel of writers talking about their working methods. I was a bit late to the packed proceedings, so found myself a place to stand in the back. A minute or so later a writer of some repute came in and took the spot next to me.

At about that time writer Andrew Gross was talking about working with Mr. James Patterson (I think Gross was the first, or at least among the first, of the Patterson co-writers). He went into detail about the single-spaced, eighty-page outlines favored by the world’s bestselling novelist.

At which point the writer next to me issued an anguished sigh. He sounded like Sisyphus looking down the hill after his rock rolled back to the bottom.

After the panel, as we walked out, I said to him, “I take it you don’t favor outlines.”

To which Lee Child said, “I don’t even know what I’m going to write in the next paragraph.”

And there we have the two ends of the spectrum on the perennial question new writers ask: Should I outline my novel before I write it?

We all know there are various opinions on the matter. Generally the issue is robustly discussed, with pros and cons, and usually ends with, “Well, do whatever works for you.”

At the extreme ends, however, you will often be treated to voluble zealotry. I call these camps the NOPs and the COPs—“Never Outline People” and “Copious Outline People.”

Your hard-core NOP will often assert that never, under any circumstances, unless you are a complete and utter doofus, must you ever attempt to outline, in any form or fashion, lest your story become an empty shell or bloodless ruin.

I find such conviction fascinating, for nothing in art, or even life, is a matter of such certainty.

Those pressing for the copious outline can also be a bit too fervid in their advocacy.

There are, of course, some famous “pantsers,” such as Mr. Child and Stephen King. Both extol the value of their approach. But I herein offer a theory: those guys, because of their backgrounds (Child from TV, King from voracious reading as a kid) have story and structure wired into them. The outlines are actually there, unfolding in their heads. They’re not so purely NOP after all.

And there are famous outliners, with J. K. Rowling and James Patterson at the head of that class.

My conclusion: all ultimately successful writers outline, whether they write it down beforehand, house it in their brains as they go along, or some mix of both.

Further, outlining should be considered an art. And as with any art, the more you practice, the better you get at it.

I thought about this recently as I revisited the first craft book I ever studied, Writing the Novel by Lawrence Block. He has an entire chapter on outlining. His definition is as follows: “An outline is a tool which a writer uses to simplify the task of writing a novel and to improve the ultimate quality of that novel by giving himself more of a grasp on its overall structure.”

He quickly adds: “Because the outline is prepared solely for the benefit of the writer himself, it quite properly varies from one author to another and from one novel to another.”

That’s where the art comes in. No two jazz pianists are alike, but they all know the scales.

Among the NOPs there is an assertion bandied about which Block traces to the sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon: “If the writer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next…the reader can’t possibly know what’s going to happen next.”

Block doesn’t think this “logic” holds up. “Just because a writer worked things out as he went along is no guarantee that the book he’s produced won’t be obvious and predictable. Conversely, the use of an extremely detailed outline does not preclude the possibility that the book will read as though it had been written effortlessly and spontaneously….”

Block does not advocate the “copious” outline, but rather chapter-by-chapter paragraphs to describe the action in each, using only enough detail “so that the storyline makes sense.”

Nor is the writer chained to the outline. Inevitably, things grow and change as you write. In those places, Block emphasizes, be ready to deviate from and rework the outline.

That’s the art of it. Like a jazz riff, but still ending up with a coherent tune with an overall structure. (Yes, there is a school—a small school—of music eschewing any effort at tonal coherence, which creates an effect similar to having your head peppered with a nail gun. But I digress.)

My own practice is to outline 14 “signpost scenes” (explained fully in Super Structure). It gives my story coherence (kind of important for readers) and meaning (the latter by way of the “mirror moment”), but also gives me the freedom to riff my way from signpost to signpost.

I actually do my “pantsing” before I lay out my scenes. I start what I call a “white-hot document,” which is me writing fast, following my synapses wherever they lead. (David Morrell does much the same thing, asking and answering questions like “Why?” and “So what?”)

I’ll open each day by revising, cutting, and adding to the document. This is fun and exciting, as the story begins to bubble up and, most important, take shape.

Finally, I start laying out the signpost scenes and brainstorming scenes I’d like to see. Then off I go and write the thing.

I’ll leave the last word with a writer named Dean Koontz, who I’ve heard has sold a few books:

Occasionally I encounter a critic or a would-be writer who believes that an author should let his characters create the entire plot as they act it out. According to this theory, any pre-planned plot line is hopelessly artificial, and it is supposedly preferable for the writer to discover the direction of the story only as the characters discover it. In some arcane fashion, this is supposed to lead to a more “natural” plot.

Balderdash.

When a master furniture maker crafts a splendid Queen Anne-style table, is he being “artificial” merely because he follows an established pattern? Are the paintings of Andrew Wyeth “artificial” because the artist limits himself to a painstakingly realistic rendition of our world?

The answers to both of those questions are, of course, the same: No!

***

If a writer allows his characters to seize total control, he is actually allowing his subconscious mind to write the book without benefit of the more sober and steady guidance of his conscious intellect, and the result is fiction as formless and purposeless as much of what takes place in the real world, precisely the kind of fiction that frustrates most readers. (How to Write Best-Selling Fiction)

Comments welcome.

Little Things Add Up to Something Big

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

We have today another first page for critique. The author describes the work as “Spec Fic with Horror Elements.” Let’s have a look and talk on the other side.

Bankside warehouse (Wikimedia Commons)

Bankside warehouse (Wikimedia Commons)

Watch All Night

Joe shivered his way down the cobbled alley lined with old Bankside warehouses. The February sun barely touched the first of them, but a freezing gust blasted its way in from the Thames. Nasty long winter, this. All slashing winds and feeble light. Soon be inside, though.

He buried his hands deeper into the pockets of the jacket Dil had “lent” him. The one that happened to be in his size and not Dil’s… but at least he’d have only bought it second-hand for Joe. Once this Eldmill job started, he’d sneak some money back to Dil. Move out of the hostel. Save up for a course, something working with at-risk teens. Do everything right this time.  No dealing. No recruiting runners. No prison. 

That must be it, that next one coming up, tarpaulin lunging from the roof, whip-crackling. All the warehouses he’d passed had already been turned into something new. They kept their listed historic shapes, though, their brown brick and shaded glass. Outside the Eldmill, changing into a swanky apartment building, plastic-wrapped packages clustered. A rusty security gate lay on the pavement. A forklift idled nearby. Unseen construction workers banged and drilled. 

He stepped past a mud-splashed bollard dug out of the ground to make room for hauling the packages into the building. Now he’d arrived at his new job. 

Fancy new glass door, steel frame glittered from the safety of the manufacturer’s tape that still covered it. Across about forty feet of beautiful granite floor, a reception desk fronted in warm, yellow-beige marble welcomed you. Two blokes in hardhats and multi-pocketed work trousers crossed the floor, the taller man sputtering laughter across one of those eco-mugs, printed with smiling golden giraffes, at something his mate said. 

Joe stepped back. The heel of his trainers smacked into the unearthed bollard. 

‘I’m not going in there.’

JSB: Well, I am chuffed to bits (that means “pleased as punch” in England) about this offering from across the pond. Let’s have a butcher’s hook (Cockney for “a look”) in detail:

Joe shivered his way down the cobbled alley lined with old Bankside warehouses.

This is an action opening. It has a character in motion, not mere narrative description. The descriptive elements, including the weather, are woven in as we move along.

Note the vivid descriptor shivered. A lesser hand would have written, Joe walked down the cobbled alley. He was shivering. 

Tip: Train yourself to take just a moment or two to consider alternatives to “plain vanilla” verbs. If nothing comes to you, write on and look later. I find the best time for this is when I edit my previous day’s work. It’s not a heavy edit and I don’t linger, but always pick up ways to make the writing stronger.

The February sun barely touched the first of them, but a freezing gust blasted its way in from the Thames. Nasty long winter, this. All slashing winds and feeble light. Soon be inside, though. 

Excellent. We’ve got the time and place and weather. Evocative words: gust blasted, slashing winds, feeble light. And a hint of what’s going on. Joe is heading “inside” somewhere. I want to know where.

We’re also in deep POV. The narrative portions are how Joe would think about these things.

Tip: To get into deep 3d Person, try writing a scene in First Person, then switch it.

He buried his hands deeper into the pockets of the jacket Dil had “lent” him. The one that happened to be in his size and not Dil’s… but at least he’d have only bought it second-hand for Joe. Once this Eldmill job started, he’d sneak some money back to Dil. Move out of the hostel. Save up for a course, something working with at-risk teens. Do everything right this time.  No dealing. No recruiting runners. No prison. 

I love this paragraph. It has background info but it’s slipped in unobtrusively. Joe has “borrowed” (stolen?) a jacket from a character named Dil. Joe has an honest streak in him, wanting to get money back to Dil. We know he’s been staying in a hostel and wants to save up money so he can make something of his life, something good. Do everything right this time. He’d been a drug dealer. He’s been in prison.

We’re only in the second paragraph and know just a little about Joe, but we have a rooting interest now. We love characters who have known hard times but who aren’t playing the victim, characters who want to better themselves.

There’s also mystery about what the “Eldmill job” is. Good. A little mystery in the opening prompts us to read on.

That must be it, that next one coming up, tarpaulin lunging from the roof, whip-crackling.

Superb. A tarpaulin is not merely hanging from the roof, it’s lunging. And the sentence ends with the original and striking whip-crackling.

Tip: The power of a sentence can often be improved by moving the most vivid word to the end. Hemingway did this all the time, e.g., Villalta, his hand up at the crowd and the bull roaring blood, looking straight at Villalta and his legs caving.

The author does more of the same here:

Outside the Eldmill, changing into a swanky apartment building, plastic-wrapped packages clustered.  

How much better this is than clustered, plastic-wrapped packages.

It may seem like a little thing, but an accumulation of little things adds up to a big thing indeed: a vivid reading experience, the kind that makes fans.

A rusty security gate lay on the pavement. A forklift idled nearby. Unseen construction workers banged and drilled. 

Visual and audible details. I’m there. (Tip: Don’t overlook the underused sense of smell.)

He stepped past a mud-splashed bollard dug out of the ground to make room for hauling the packages into the building.

Not: a bollard covered with mud. 

Fancy new glass door, steel frame glittered from the safety of the manufacturer’s tape that still covered it. Across about forty feet of beautiful granite floor, a reception desk fronted in warm, yellow-beige marble welcomed you.

The one cavil I have with this is welcomed you. That’s a slight break from Joe’s deep POV. Might I suggest instead: Across about forty feet of beautiful granite floor, a welcoming reception desk fronted in warm, yellow-beige marble.

Two blokes in hardhats and multi-pocketed work trousers crossed the floor 

Blokes is exactly the word Joe would use.

the taller man sputtering laughter across one of those eco-mugs, printed with smiling golden giraffes, at something his mate said. 

The man doesn’t just laugh, he sputters laughter, and not with any mug, but an eco-mug. And not just an eco-mug, but one with smiling golden giraffes. What a nice, original detail that is.

Joe stepped back. The heel of his trainers smacked into the unearthed bollard.  

Not the heel of his shoes, but the more specific trainers. And it doesn’t hit, it smacks. The author is choosing vivid descriptors each time. The little things!

‘I’m not going in there.’

Thus ends the page. I don’t know what the author intended here. It seems as if Joe says this out loud. Or maybe it’s someone else who is identified in the next line. And I believe it’s a British thing to use the single quote marks. Like Brother Gilstrap, I’m not a fan of that mark, but then again I don’t want to be a stuffy Yank. If that’s how they do it over there, so be it. I mean, they like blood sausage, so there you go.

I’m also not a fan of characters speaking out loud only to themselves. In movies or on the page it usually seems false. Consider changing that to an interior thought.

At least, however, if it is Joe speaking, we want to know why he suddenly doesn’t want to go in. The page-turning mystery is planted. And that’s the main point of these first-page critiques. Do we want to turn the page? I certainly do.

In short, my British writer friend, Bob’s your uncle!

Chime in, TKZers. What do you think of today’s page?