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.

What Writers Can Learn From It Happened One Night, Part 2

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Last week we began a discussion of Frank Capra’s 1934 classic It Happened One Night. It was spurred by my meeting with a couple of young ladies at Trader Joe’s who do not watch black-and-white movies. Matters took an alarming turn in the comments when Brother Gilstrap told of a 22-year old fellow in media who’d never heard of Clark Gable or John Wayne!

This almost drove me to drink. Instead, with hope in my heart and zeal in my fingers, I clack on.

The plot of It Happened One Night (which Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin refined after priceless feedback from a writer named Myles Connolly) is simple. Spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) wants to get to her husband in New York, flier King Westley. But she is held a virtual prisoner on her father’s yacht so he can pay off Westley to have the marriage annulled. She dives overboard and swims to freedom. Wishing to stay incognito she gets on a night bus, but is woefully deficient in street smarts. Another passenger, a fired newspaper reporter named Peter Warne (Clark Gable), spots her and offers her help her get to Westley in exchange for her story, exclusive. She resists until she realizes that only he can keep her on the down low. And so the journey begins.

Death Stakes

As I’ve written many times, the best fiction is about a battle with death, which comes in three forms: physical, professional/vocational, or psychological/spiritual.

For Ellie, it’s psychological death, as it usually is in a romance. The standard trope is that unless they two “soul mates” end up together, they’ll “die on the inside.” Here, there’s a twist: Eillie wants to get to Westley mainly to rebel against her controlling father. She’ll “die inside” if she isn’t allowed to live her own life.

For Peter, it’s professional death. His editor at a New York newspaper has told him never to show his face there again. Peter needs a story, a scoop, or his reporting days are over.

Lesson: Nail your death stakes from the jump, or your plot will have a weak foundation. You can have more than one on the line, though one should be primary. For example, a thriller will almost always have physical death as the crux, but the character can also have psychological challenge as well.

A Romance of Opposites

Morality and Relationships, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT – Once upon a screen…Who are these two at the start of the picture? Ellie is a spoiled brat. Thus, one part of the plot is The Taming of the Shrew. But the brilliant move by Capra/Riskin is that Peter is an egotist who also needs taming. It’s a perfect balance.

There are two main romance tropes: 1. The couple who hate each other at first, then grow into love; and, 2. The lovers who want to be together but are kept apart by other forces, e.g. Romeo and Juliet. This movie is obviously the first kind.

Lesson: Know your tropes because the readers expect them. Disappointed readers do not become return buyers. Your task is to originalize how tropes are played out. This movie does that exquisitely.

Three Unforgettable Scenes and No Weak Ones

Writer-director John Huston once said that a great movie must have at least three unforgettable scenes, and no weak ones. Here are the three I’d pick in It Happened One Night.

1. Early in Act 2 Peter, to conserve their money, rents a single cabin at an auto camp, registering as husband and wife. Ellie is aghast. Peter ties a rope across the room between the two beds and throws a blanket over it. “Behold the walls of Jericho,” he says. “Maybe not as thick as the ones that Joshua blew down with his trumpet. But a lot safer. You see, I have no trumpet….Do you mind joining the Israelites?”

Ellie just stands there, defiant. So Peter decides to show her how a man undresses. It’s “quite a study in psychology.” He takes off his coat, his tie, then his shirt. He’s about to remove his pants when Ellie quickly scoots to the other side.

What made this unforgettable was not only Gable’s delivery of the lines, but the fact that he wore no undershirt. After this movie came out, undershirt sales in America suffered a serious decline!

2. The most famous scene in the movie is the hitchhiking scene. Peter has been bragging to Ellie how he knows everything, including the right way to dunk a donut. “I ought to write a book about it.” On the road, he explains to Ellie he can get a ride by the magic of this thumb and explains the various thumb moves. He says he’s going to write a book about it called “The Hitchhiker’s Hail.” Ellie is not impressed.

As cars stream by, Peter tries every one of the moves and not a single car stops. Crestfallen, he says, “I don’t think I’ll write that book after all.”

Ellie says, “You mind if I try?”

“You? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’ll stop a car and I won’t use my thumb…It’s a system all my own.”

Ellie then waits for the next car. When it comes she raises her skirt and sticks out her attractive gam. The car screeches to a halt. The taming of the egotist has begun.

3. The wedding scene at the end, when Ellie is about to marry King Westley once more and makes an unforgettable escape.

Lesson: However you plan your scenes, be ye outliner (before) or pantser (during) push yourself to the original, the fresh, the unanticipated.

Spicy Minor Characters

I call minor characters the “spice” of great fiction (see Mr. Charles Dickens for the Master Class). Two of them come by way of two of the best character actors of the time, Roscoe Karns and Alan Hale.

Mini Tribute: Character Actor Roscoe Karns | Classic Movie Hub BlogKarns plays Oscar Shapeley, an oily (and married) traveling salesman who fancies himself a ladies’ man. On the night bus he starts yakking to Ellie. “Shapeley’s the name and that’s the way I like ’em.” On and on he goes, until Ellie cuts him down with a line.

“Hoo hoo!” says Shapeley. “There’s nothing I like better than to meet a high-class mama that can snap ’em back at you, ’cause the colder they are, the hotter they get. Yessir, that’s what I always say. When a cold mama gets hot, boy how she sizzles. Now you’re just my type. Believe me, sister, I could go for you in a big way. Fun-on-the-side Shapeley they call me, with accent on the fun. Believe you me!”

Peter has been watching all this with amusement, but finally saves Ellie by telling Shapeley to move to another seat because “I’d like to sit next to my wife.” Shapeley quickly complies.

Later, Shapeley will show up again, after figuring out who Ellie really is. Peter will then scare the pants off Shapeley by pretending to be a mobster who is “holding that dame for a million smackers.” And if Shapeley talks, the mob will find him and his family. Scared to death, Shapeley runs off into the woods.

Davelandblog: It Happened One Oscar NightIn the hitchhiking scene, the car that stops is driven by Alan Hale (you may remember him as Little John in The Adventures of Robin Hood). He is loud, jovial, talkative.

“So, you’re just married? That’s pretty good. But if I was young, that’s the way I’d spend my honeymoon. Hitchhiking. Yes, sir.” He begins to sing: “Hitchhiking down the highway of love on a honeymoon!”

It turns out he’s a “road thief” who picks people up then drives off with their luggage. It’s a short bit, but a flavorful spice.

Lesson: Do not waste your minor characters by making them clichéd or throwaways. Give them a life of their own, with unique tags of manner and speech. Readers love spice. It’s one of the best ways to elevate your work above “AI slop.”

Dialogue

I’ve long held that the fastest way to improve any manuscript is with sharp, orchestrated dialogue. The movie is full of smart Riskin banter. One example: When Peter first sits next to Ellie on the bus, she is not pleased. He offers to put her bag up top for her. She gets up to do it herself. The bus lurches forward and she falls back on Peter’s lap. She quickly scoots off. Peter grins. “Next time you drop in, bring your folks.”

Lesson: Standout dialogue is a craft that can be learned. I ought to write a book about it.

Pet the Dog

A “pet the dog” beat is a moment in Act 2 when the lead helps someone who needs it, even though it comes with a cost. In the movie, the passengers on the night bus are bonding by singing “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” (a popular ditty of the day). Then the bus hits a muddy rut and comes to a hard stop, tossing the passengers. They mostly laugh, but suddenly a little boy is screaming “Ma! What’s the matter with you? Somebody help!” Peter rushes over, determines the mother has passed out and assures the boy she’ll come around.

“We ain’t ate nothin’ since yesterday,” the boy says. He says his mother has a job waiting for her in New York but had to spend all their money on the tickets. Peter reaches into his pocket for a bill, a ten-spot he and Ellie need for the trip. He hesitates. Ellie takes the bill, hands it to the boy and tells him to buy something to eat at the next stop. The boy says he “shouldn’t oughta” take it. He holds the bill out to Peter, “You might need it.” Peter waves him off and puts on a smile. “I got millions.”

Lesson: Pet the dog moments deepen our bond to characters. Think of Katniss with little Rue, or Richard Kimble getting the distressed boy to the operating room in The Fugitive. The key is that the act puts the character in a worse position in the plot.

Final Thoughts

Capra always said that the Gable in It Happened One Night was the real Gable—unabashedly masculine, with a vein of sardonic humor. Colbert showed herself adept at drama, comedy, and pathos, playing a “brat” whose inner decency finally breaks out. In true rom-com fashion, each transforms the other for their ultimate good.

Would that today we had more movies as tight and multi-faceted as It Happened One Night.

And books, too.

Black-and-white movies forever!

Comments Welcome.

Note: It Happened One Night is free to watch on YouTube.

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s the famous hitchhiking scene:

What Writers Can Learn From It Happened One Night, Part 1

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

The sun was shining, the sky was blue (sorry, Elmore, for starting with the weather). So I decided to take a walk to Trader Joe’s. At checkout the pleasant young lady asked, “How’s your day going?”

“Swell,” I said. “It’s such a nice day, I walked here.”

“You walked?”

“Only half a mile.”

“Nice. Any plans for the rest of your day?”

“I’m going to watch an old movie.”

“Oh, which one?”

“The Women.”

“I haven’t heard of that one.”

“1939. Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Roz Russell.”

She frowned. “Is it in black and white?”

“It is indeed.”

She pursed her lips.

I said, “Don’t you watch black and white movies?”

“Not really,” she said.

“Oh boy!” says I. “There are so many great movies waiting for you to see! You can start with Casablanca.”

“I’ve heard of that. I’ll have to check it out.”

Another pleasant young lady appeared to bag my items. “Check what out?” she said.

“An old movie,” the checker said.

“Casablanca,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” said the bagger.

“You’ve seen it?”

She shook her head. “But I’ve heard about it.”

“You both need to see Casablanca.”

“I will,” said the checker with a smile. The bagger nodded.

“My work here is done,” I said.

It is my work indeed to extol the virtues of classic movies for entertainment, edification, and writing instruction. When I started teaching over 25 years ago and would mention Casablanca, everybody had seen it. Not these days. When I speak to young writers now, most of them have not seen it. Which blows my mind!

Yes, Virginia, there are black and white movies you must see if you wish to write (and now I wonder how many youngsters know where Yes, Virginia comes from. But I wonder a great many things these days).

It Happened One Night (1934)Today I want to talk about another pure classic every writer, especially romance writers, should know—Frank Capra’s 1934 mega-hit It Happened One Night. Arguably the first true rom-com, the movie swept the major Oscars: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay.

And it almost didn’t get made.

Capra tells the story in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title. The short version is that no one but Capra and his screenwriter, Robert Riskin, wanted to make the movie, originally titled Night Bus. Capra had to fight the mercurial Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures to get it done. And potential stars kept turning it down.

MGM owed Cohn one of their stars for a picture, because of a previous deal. For Night Bus, Louis B. Mayer sent him Clark Gable, partly to “punish” Gable for being difficult over salary. It was “punishment” because Columbia was considered far below MGM in prestige. Which is why Gable showed up to his first meeting with Capra three sheets to the wind. He had no idea this was going to be life changing for him.

Finding the lead actress was more difficult. After several turn downs, Capra went to his last resort. He had worked with Claudette Colbert before, but the movie turned out to be a stinker. She wasn’t wild about working with Capra again, but said she’d do it if she got double her usual salary and the shooting would be finished in four weeks so as not to interrupt a planned vacation. She thought that would be a deal breaker. But Capra accepted. A shooting date was set.

But there was another problem, the script itself. Capra and Riskin had laughed a lot as they wrote the first draft of Night Bus. But their enthusiasm wasn’t shared by anyone else. It had some funny bits, but they were too close to the material to see the gaping hole.

Which is when Capra showed it to a “beta reader,” his friend Myles Connolly.

The Golden Advice That Made a Hit

Myles Connolly was a “hard-boiled newspaper reporter” turned Hollywood scribe. He was especially adept at seeing what was wrong in other scripts. He told Capra:

Frank, it’s easy to see why performers turn down your script. Sure, you’ve got some good comedy routines, but your leading characters are non-sympathetic, non-interest grabbing. People can’t identify with them. Take your girl. A spoiled brat, a rich heiress. How many spoiled heiresses do people know? And how many give a damn what happens to them? She’s a zero. Take your leading man. A long-haired, flowing-tie, Greenwich Village painter. I don’t know any vagabond painters and I doubt if you do. And a man I don’t know is a man I’m apt to dislike, especially if he has no ideals, no dragons to slay. Another zero. And when zero meets zero you’ve got zero interest.

He went on to suggest making the heiress want something to make her more sympathetic, like getting away from her controlling father. And make the man a tough, crusading reporter on the outs with his pig-headed editor and needing a story. Boom! Capra and Riskin knew he was right, and set about re-writing the script.

Retitled It Happened One Night, Capra shot the movie in the allotted four weeks. And the rest, as they say, is movie history. Next week I’ll unpack it.

For now, two takeaways. First, for your lead character, you must create an immediate rooting interest, something that hooks the reader and gets them on the character’s side, even if the character is flawed at the beginning. An opening objective. Scarlett is a brat, but she’s also in love with Ashley. [Tip: We always root for people in love, at least for a while.] So we’ll follow her along for a time to see if she gets him. We’ll also see that she has an inner strength [Tip: We always root for people fighting long odds] and hope that moxie might turn Scarlett into a better version of herself.

Tip: Ask, What does my character yearn for before the story begins?

The other takeaway is the value of a trusted editor or beta reader. I’ve been lucky over the years to work with some fantastic editors who made me a better writer, and with some priceless beta readers (starting with Mrs. B) who always see things I don’t. This is not a profession that rewards pride or narcissism, so don’t park your keister in either place.

Myles Connolly saved Night Bus from bombing. Had it done so, we might never have had all the great Capra movies to follow, or the roles where a “new” Gable really strutted his stuff—from San Francisco to Gone With the Wind, all the way to Teacher’s Pet.

1. Do you consider your lead character’s yearning before the story begins?

2. Do you have a trusted editor or beta reader(s)? How have they helped you? What advice can you give to a writer who wants to find a good one?

On Starting a New Project

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Evan Hunter author photo from The Moment She Was Gone

Today is release day for Romeo’s Truth. (Ebook at deal price; print to follow shortly.) Tomorrow I begin working in earnest on Romeo #11.

I make it my goal to hit the ground running on a new project as soon as a book is released. I’ve written before about being like a movie studio. I want to have a main project and a few in various stages of development, waiting to get a green light.

Starting a new novel is always a high. I know there will be low points, like the “30k wall.” I don’t know why this happens, but I’ve heard other authors experience it, too. When I get to that mark I begin to think of the long road ahead, and also wonder if my foundations are strong enough. I look at my outline and structure. My main concern is having the hero locked into a death struggle. My definition of great fiction is that it is the record of how a character fights with death. Death comes in three forms: physical (as in the thriller); professional or vocational; and psychological/spiritual. The stakes have to be that high to generate optimum reader interest.

There’s always a way to break through the wall, or at least climb over it. Once that’s done, I’m off and running again to the end.

I always celebrate when I finish a book. Do something fun, like take my long-suffering wife out for a nice dinner. Or cook our favorite meal at home, which always involves a ribeye steak and nice bottle of California Cabernet, followed by a movie or one of our favorites shows, like a Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett, or a Poirot with David Suchet.

 Before starting work on the new book, I pause. I’m anxious and ready to go, but there’s also a little knot of hesitation. How do I do this again? Write a whole book? Thriller writer J. T. Ellison once said, “It’s the whole getting started thing for me. I forget how to write a book. The first ten thousand words are like digging fossils from rocks.”

In a TV interview, Dean Koontz expressed a similar feeling, So he goes into a huge room in his huge house, where shelves are packed with all his books, foreign and domestic. He looks a them and says, “I did it before, I can do it again.” That’s Dean freaking Koontz! (Over 140 novels, 500 million sold).

So I have a little ritual. I settle into my chair with a cup of my favorite java. I look at the visual inspirations in my office. There’s a photo of John D. McDonald, pipe in mouth, typing away. There’s an author photo of Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain, looking at me as if to say, “Don’t give me any excuses. Write!” There’s the black coffee mug with WRITER on it, which  I bought the year I decided I was going to be a writer, even though naysayers had told me I couldn’t learn how. I put that mug where I could look at it every day, which I did for the seven years it took me to sell my first novel.

Then I put on coffeehouse sounds via Coffitivity, wiggle my fingers, and start typing.

How do you feel about starting a new project? High, hopeful, or hesitant? Do you have any writing rituals?

Traditional Publishing Advice

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It’s been 18 years already! Can you believe it? The Kindle came out in late 2007. So did a little device I like to call the iPhone. These twin explosions (to put it mildly) changed the world of publishing and reading—and even the culture—forever (I mean, in 2006 you never saw a mom or dad pushing a stroller in broad daylight with their face glued to a phone, as little junior or missy plays with a tablet with digital bunnies instead of looking at live birds flying in the sky).

In 2007 we had two major tragedies: The Sopranos ended and Keeping Up With the Kardashians began.

Evel Knievel, age 69, died in 2007 (shockingly, of natural causes). Tony Bennett, age 80, got married (but did he leave his heart in San Francisco? I certainly hope not).

Where were you in 2007? I was on the verge of signing a new contract with a major publishing house. Traditional publishing was my home. Back then all writers longed to make it through the gates of the Forbidden City.

Then in 2008 and ’09, seemingly out of nowhere, brand-spanking new writers publishing 99¢ Kindle books directly on Amazon started raking in huge bucks. The indie revolution had begun.

It exploded over the next several years, along with prophecies of the demise of traditional publishing. At the time I noted that reports of trad’s death were greatly exaggerated, likening the biz to Jake “Raging Bull” LaMotta who was famous for getting bloodied but never going down.

And so today we have the two paths—trad and indie—firmly established, each with its own set of challenges. I have been a happy indie since 2012. It’s a joy to publish a book the moment I deem it ready. So I wonder what advice I’d give today to an author yearning for a traditional publishing contract. Let me give it a whirl.

  1. You’re going to need lots of patience. And by that I mean, lots.

Over at the Books & Such Literary Agency blog, Rachel Kent explains a typical timeline in trad publishing:

  • Revamping the proposal with your agent for submission to editors: 1–4 months
  • Agent pitching and selling the project: 2 months–2 years (sometimes longer and there’s no guarantee of a sale)
  • Contract negotiation: 2 weeks–4 months
  • Final book is due: 0–18 months after contract
  • Editorial revision letter back to author: Approximately 2 months after book is turned in.
  • Revisions done by author and sent back to publishing house: 7-30 days from the time the revision letter is received.
  • Galleys to author: 4–6 months after revisions
  • Galley corrections back to publisher: 7–14 days after receipt of galleys.
  • Book goes to the printer: 1–14 days after galleys are finalized.
  • Book ships to stores: 1–2 months after it is sent to printer.
  • Book officially releases: 1–2 weeks after stores receive the product.

Note that chilling number: It can take up to 2 years for an agent to pitch a project with no guarantee of a sale. And if the book is published, there is no guarantee that it will sell in sufficient numbers to get another contract.

If it’s still your dream to be traditionally published, that’s fine. Everyone should pursue their dreams. Just be aware of the above, and:

  1. Don’t expect the system to change for you

It’s a glacially slow and frustrating process. It is what it is. I wish it was what it could be. So does writer and former agent Nathan Bransford. He recently offered a “Publishing Submission Bill of Rights” for the publishing industry which I like very much, including:

Article 1 – If you are a publishing professional who’s open for submissions, you owe everyone who follows your submission guidelines a timely response…

Article 2 – If you are an author or agent who doesn’t follow submission guidelines, you are not entitled to a response…

Article 3 – One month for queries and two months for manuscripts is an acceptable timeline unless otherwise agreed – If you’re a publishing professional who can’t stay on top of incoming submissions you should close for submissions, get more assistance, or request fewer manuscripts. Again, it’s unfair to authors to leave them in limbo with hazy timelines…

Article 4 – “Thanks but not for me” is not only an acceptable submission response, it’s better than saying something just to say something – The submission system should reward timeliness and clarity over detailed feedback…

Article 5 – If you receive “thanks but not for me,” you are not owed further clarification. Don’t ask. Don’t bog down the process or put undue pressure on agents and editors who simply say “not for me.” If they only have a gut feeling and don’t have anything helpful to add, don’t follow-up. Just move on.

All that said, the primary advice I’d give to a young writer seeking trad publishing is keep the main thing the main thing. The best book you can write is the main thing. And don’t be a snoot about learning the craft. Learn what works, and why, before you go off and “break the rules.” And don’t think AI is going to give you any shortcuts. If you rely on it for the writing itself, it will give you a competent product at the same time it melts your brain. And competent fiction does not make fans. Unforgettable fiction does, and for that you must tap your heart and your blood, and know how to translate them through craft.

Further advice:

  • No agent is better than a bad agent. Do your due diligence.
  • Educate yourself on publishing contracts, esp. the non-compete clause and the reversion of rights clause (tie the latter to royalties, not “out of print”).
  • Don’t hang your ultimate happiness on getting published. If you don’t make it, you’ll be severely disappointed. If you do make it, your books may not sell enough to keep you inside the Forbidden City. And if you do make it to the “A List” and think you’ll be eternally and gloriously happy, read the end of The Great Gatsby again.
  • Manage expectations, write and learn, and find your joy in the production of good words.

Carpe Typem.
Seize the Keyboard.

Over to you now. What’s your view of traditional publishing these days? Any further advice you’d give our hypothetical writer?

How Long Should a Series Go?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

A little horn toot today as I announce that my tenth Mike Romeo book, Romeo’s Truth, is available for pre-order for Kindle. And at a special deal price, too. (The publisher insisted on this, and after a tense three-hour meeting I agreed to go along with it. Since I am also that publisher, I’ll leave it to the psychologists to figure out what’s going on in my head, a project my wife has been working on for 44 years.)

Ten is always one of those numbers you pause and reflect upon. A tenth anniversary. A tenth child. A tenth bagel. Thus, this series author wonders, wherefore art thou going, Romeo? How long should a series go?

I look at some of the big name series authors and am in awe. As of this post John Sandford has written 36 Prey books (#36 is coming out next year). And 12 Virgil Flowers books. He’s 81 years old and still cranking them out without employing ghost or co-writers or, God help us, AI.

And then there’s Michael Connelly, with 25 Bosch books, 8 Lincoln Lawyers, and 6 Renée Ballards.

(One interesting difference between Lucas Davenport and Harry Bosch is that Sandford has frozen Lucas’s age while Connelly has Bosch aging chronologically with each book, making Bosch about 74. Funny, but in the first Prey book, Rules of Prey, Sandford describes Lucas as having “straight black hair going gray at the temples.” Makes me wonder when Lucas started using Grecian Formula.)

Even dead series authors are still at it. Robert B. Parker is “co-writing” two series, Spenser and Jesse Stone, 15 years after his death. Ditto Vince Flynn, Stuart Woods, Clive Cussler and others.

How can that be? Money, of course. That’s why the traditional publishers of these books perform literary reanimation. It makes complete economic sense.

On the other hand, many a series that doesn’t earn enough dough is dropped, leaving the authors pleading for their rights back, which may or may not happen.

With indie publishing, the author is in full control of the length of a series. Money is a factor, but not the only one. Maybe a series is only making Starbucks scratch but the author still enjoys the writing. (I have no advice to pass along to those who produce by bot. The reward of working hard on a book and nailing it to one’s satisfaction is a joy that cannot be bought by prompt.) Sweating a novel is also fantastic exercise for the brain, which I’d like to keep healthy for the years I have on this orb.

There are also the readers to consider. If they’re pleased, I’m pleased. One reader offered:

“As others have said, this SERIES was hard to put down. The main characters were exciting and not one dimensional at all….I tried to figure out why the plots were so engrossing. There were no chapters…. Just a fast paced, hard hitting story line that flowed from one moment to the next and plot twists that kept one guessing. I hope Mr. Bell writes more in this series.”

Mr. Bell will. I am already at work on Romeo #11. If you’re new to the series, you should know that you can read any of the books as stand-alone thrillers. Romeo’s Truth is a good one to whet your appetite for the others.

If you’re outside the U.S., got to your Amazon store and search for: B0FT6ZR4PJ

As I worked on the last lines of the book, I got that feeling that happens sometimes when an author finishes a project into which they’ve poured blood. A warmth, a palpable satisfaction. And I realized how much I love my characters—Mike, Sophie, Ira, C Dog. It’s that deep affection that comes only when you’ve walked side-by-side with people through a life-threatening crisis (even though it was a crisis of my own making!)

Thanks for listening. Now tell us about a series you love, and why. And if you’re in the midst of writing your own, how are you feeling about it?

Picturing Your Characters

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

One of my favorite noirs is the 1944 classic Laura. Dana Andrews plays a NYC detective investigating the murder of the beautiful Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). It becomes personal when he sees a framed portrait of Laura and is enraptured by it. And why shouldn’t he be? It’s Gene Tierney, after all.

I thought about this the other day when I read a story about the artist Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) and his painting “Portrait of a Young Woman.” The subject was Simonetta Vespucci, wife of Marco Vespucci who was cousin to Amerigo, the explorer for whom our country was named (history lessons are no extra charge here at TKZ). Sadly, Simonetta died at age 22 or 23, probably of tuberculosis. Botticelli was clearly captivated by her beauty. I am, too.

Sandro Botticelli, “Portrait of a Young Woman” (1485)

I understand the allure of the Mona Lisa. Her enigmatic smile has been the source of centuries of speculation, and even song. Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa? Or is this your way to hide a broken heart? But I admit sometimes she frustrates me.

Simonetta invites. I gaze at her eyes and wonder what’s going on behind them. She wears the trappings of wealth—a head covering festooned with pearls and feathers, and a medallion that may have been the gift of Lorenzo de Medici, the Florentine who was patron to both Botticelli and Michelangelo, and whose brother Giuliano may have been Simonetta’s lover.

Is she thinking, How did I ever get into this mess? Or, I’ve finally found happiness and I am at peace.

Well, just like with Mona Lisa, it’s not the answer that counts, but the imaginings and the various pathways they open in the vast neural networks of the mind.

Which is why I always find a visual for my characters.

When I start assembling my cast I first choose a name. I usually use Scrivener’s Name Generator for this. I start a Character Sheet and write what their role in the story will be.

Then I go looking for an image. Several authors I know use AI for their character images. My preferred method is simply to search Google Images for “Middle aged fisherman” or “Thirty year old businesswoman.” Then I scroll around looking for a face, and especially eyes that spark something unanticipated in me. That’s the key. I want to be surprised. I’ll copy that image into the Character Sheet then write some notes on what the eyes are saying to me.

Later I can open up the Corkboard View and see all the faces at once. When I write a scene, I can put the picture of a character onscreen as I type.

In the years before Google I used to buy magazines with lots of pictures, like Us and People (and no, I didn’t buy that picture magazine). I’d go through them and cut out faces and toss them in a box. When I started a project I’d take out the box and play casting director.

Much easier now.

Shell Scott

In the 1950s, Richard Prather wrote a series of PI books that outsold all others except those by Mickey Spillane. His hero was Shell Scott, and his defining feature was a buzz cut of white-blond hair. The publisher, Fawcett Gold Medal, decided to put a picture of Shell on the books.

 

Travis McGee

In the 1960s, John D. MacDonald gave us Travis McGee, and Fawcett did the same thing.

[FWIW, Sam Elliott played Travis in a TV movie and didn’t fit the profile at all. Much better was Rod Taylor in a little seen adaptation of Darker Than Amber (1970). Catch it if you can. Taylor is spot on.]

Personally, I think it’s better when readers form their own picture of a series lead. When I first conceived of Mike Romeo I went looking for a face…and found one that was, and is, perfect (for me). But I shan’t reveal who it is. Let the readers form the image for themselves. That gives them a “personal” Mike.

But for my own use in a project, a picture is a portal into a character’s soul.

What about you? Do you like to find pictures for your characters? Or are the pictures in your head enough?

Trouble is Your Business

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Imagine the first storyteller. I’ll call him Og. He was out hunting for meat. He was about to bag him some wolf when he got surprised by a mastodon lumbering by.

Bummer.

He dropped his club and ran. He hid in some rocks. An hour or so later he came back to his prey and found it being devoured by a saber toothed tiger.

Double bummer.

Then Og had to trek back to the waiting fire. His tribe was sitting there awaiting some steaks (they were tired of berries and roots.) They looked at Og and grunted something which can be roughly translated, “Where’s the meat, man?”

Og was on the spot. His position as chief hunter-gatherer was up for grabs, depending on what he said next.

The last time something like this happened, and the tribe asked what went wrong, Og merely shrugged and threw dirt at them. This didn’t help matters at all. They seemed unwilling to give Og more chances.

So now Og gets on his haunches and says, “I was out hunting like always, and had a wolf in my sights. I threw a rock and got him right on the head. He went down. I was about to go get him when I heard this ROAARRRR!”

He pauses to take stock of the reactions around the fire. Every face is turned toward him. He can see consuming interest in their eyes.

He has them hooked.

Good, Og thinks. Let’s see if I can keep them that way while I figure out how to get out of this.

“I spin around,” Og says, “and there is a tiger with those long, spiked teeth. There is spit dripping off those teeth. His eyes were huge, as big as lakes! I could smell his fur. It smelled like death.”

The audience is leaning forward now. Og thinks, That went well. If I take time to describe things this way, it stretches out the story and the tension. And that bit about the smell, that was pure genius.

Og is beginning to develop a style.

He’s also searching for an ending, and so he lays out, beat by beat, a story of this encounter with the tiger and the ensuing fight to save his own life. He finally gets to the end and speaks of a mighty battle with the beast, until his ultimate triumph.

Someone in the audience asks, “So where’s the tiger?”

Og must think up a twist ending. So he comes up with the speculative fiction genre, and says the god of the mountains came down and took the tiger as tribute. He was about to call down fire from the sky on Og’s tribe. Og told him not to, that it would be bad, and he would fight the god if he had to. The god relented.

So Og has saved all their lives. Or so the story goes.

Well, the reaction of the listeners is so good that Og gets a double portion of berries. An attractive woman gives him a blanket of squirrel fur in honor of his exploits. One of the old men gives Og his best club. A couple of the younger tribe members hand over their favorite trinkets, and promise more if Og will tell more stories.

And Og thinks, Maybe I can make a living at this.

Og’s brother, who collects the booty, keeps 15% of it.

Og had more thrillers on his tongue.

Later, Og began to tell stories that were about his emotions. How he was having to deal with past demons, like his father flicking pebbles at him when he was a boy, and when he fell in love with a cave girl who later got stepped on by a wooly mammoth. Og starts calling these “character driven” stories, but knows they are based on the same idea: a high stakes threat to the character’s life and happiness.

And you know what? The essence of story has not changed—from Og to the early myths to the Greek drama to Shakespeare; from Jane Austen to Herman Melville to Mark Twain; from Dashiell Hammett to Raymond Chandler to Sue Grafton.

It’s all about trouble.

Trouble comes on a continuum, from the annoying to the life-threatening. When you can’t find your reading glasses that’s one kind of trouble. A kidnapped child is quite another.

Every scene in your book should have some form of trouble that produces emotions that are also on a continuum, from low-level worry to outright terror.

That’s your palette, writer. Dip into it each day as your write your story. Always be thinking How can I make more trouble? How can I make it worse?

Then stick the landing. Nail the ending. And readers will line up to give you a double portion of berries.

Are you making enough trouble? Do your openings disturb? Do you write “friend talking to friend” scenes that need more tension (watch out for eating scenes)? What are some of your favorite ways to make trouble (a la “bring in a guy with a gun”)?

Note: The link in the post takes you to an Og-inspired thriller that is on Kindle-sale for 99¢ this week. The book is Your Son is Alive.

How to Describe Characters

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I was reading a mystery the other day and noticed something—myself, pondering. I’d just read a passage describing a character. I shan’t print the actual prose, but here’s something I made up to give you the idea:

She wore a dress the color of jade. A platinum chain, deceptively thin on her smooth neck, held a diamond pendant. She had a sleek gold watch on her wrist, stacked against an array of jangling bracelets. Even her stiletto pumps whispered of indulgence and private fittings.

A couple of paragraphs later my brain sent me a message: Hey, I don’t remember a single thing she was wearing.

Which got me to thinking about what kind, and how many, physical details one should include. And my first thought is that one telling detail is much more powerful than a list. Consider this passage from The Godwulf Manuscript, a Spenser novel from Robert B. Parker:

Bradley W. Forbes, the president, was prosperously heavy—reddish face; thick, longish, white hair; heavy white eyebrows. He was wearing a brown pinstriped custom tailored three-piece suit with a gold Phi Beta Kappa key on a gold watch chain stretched across his successful middle. His shirt was yellow broadcloth and his blue and yellow striped red tie spilled out over the top of his vest.

This, IMO, is too much. And I was tripped up by broadcloth. What the heck is broadcloth? All those colors—red, white, gold. And what does “blue and yellow striped red” look like?

Here’s a better mix from The Americans by John Jakes. Carter Kent is a student at Harvard in the 1880s. Rebellious in nature, Carter got on the wrong side of his German professor.

In Carter’s opinion the man belonged in the Prussian army, not in a classroom. His curly blonde hair lay over his forehead in damp, effeminate ringlets. He had protruding blue eyes, and a superior manner, and loved to strut in front of his classes with a gold-knobbed cane in hand. He issued study instructions as if they were military orders, emphasizing them by whacking the cane on the desk.

Here damp, effeminate ringlets is striking. The gold-knobbed cane also. But here we have Carter’s impression of the man. Prussian army … military orders. And an action— whacking desks. That latter picture is one that sticks most in my mind.

Now let’s look at three character descriptions from the first page of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. It is, of course, in the POV of Philip Marlowe:

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one. He had a young-looking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other.

Notice there’s one telling detail—bone white. That’s striking, and that’s enough. The rest of the description is the impression the character’s looks make on Marlowe.

There was a girl beside him. Her hair was a lovely shade of dark red and she had a distant smile on her lips and over her shoulder she had a blue mink that almost made the Rolls-Royce look like just another automobile. It didn’t quite. Nothing can.

Two specific details here—dark red hair and a blue mink—and both of them are wrapped up inside Marlowe’s impression. Here is a rich woman who doesn’t seem to care about the drunken Lennox (…distant smile…)

The attendant was the usual half-tough character in a white coat with the name of the restaurant stitched across the front of it in red. He was getting fed up.

Detail: white coat with red stitching. But the impression is what stays with us. I know what Marlowe means by a “usual half-tough character.”

Chandler then goes on to use both dialogue and action to augment the descriptions. Dialogue for the half-tough guy:

“Look, mister,” he said with an edge to his voice, “would you mind a whole lot pulling your leg into the car so I can kind of shut the door? Or should I open it all the way so you can fall out?”

Action for the woman:

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

Finally, if you’ve got a character with a definite voice (and you should!) you can often capture the reader with just one line. Here again is the great Chandler:

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

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)

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. (The Little Sister)

Redoing the description that kicked off this post, perhaps:

A platinum chain, deceptively thin on her smooth neck, held a diamond pendant. I smelled trouble. Or was that her perfume?

Suggestions (not rules…ahem):

  1. Don’t give us a list. Look for that one, telling detail.
  2. Consider using an impression from the POV character.
  3. Augment the description with dialogue and action.
  4. Use the voice for all its worth.

Over to you now. As I sit here in my faded sweatpants the color of an old gray mare, and my L.A. Rams T-shirt with a hole in the left armpit, I wonder: Do you have the same reaction to lists of details (i.e., forgetting them almost immediately)? What is your approach to character description?

Ride the Lightning

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I got an email last week which I post here with the sender’s permission.

Dear Mr. Bell,

I’ve been reflecting on something I thought you might find intriguing, given your strong defense of flexible structure in storytelling and your view that both plotters and pantsers benefit from it.

I’ve come to think of it as The Paradox of Spontaneity:

Spontaneity feels wondrous because it bypasses conscious control. But it’s only possible because of preexisting order.

The metaphor that struck me is lightning. Rather than being random, it’s the sudden visible manifestation of a vast, invisible system of order, aka, the atmosphere.

It even goes a step further with what’s called the Schumann resonances, which describe how all lightning strikes worldwide combine to maintain a fairly steady “heartbeat” of the planet. Old-fashioned car antennas pick up on this. Watch closely, and they’re always vibrating, tuning in to this heartbeat like an AM/FM stethoscope.

The Earth and the ionosphere form a gigantic spherical resonant cavity, like the body of a guitar. Every year, roughly 1.5 billion lightning strikes excite this cavity, forming low-frequency electromagnetic waves. These waves settle at specific resonant frequencies, mostly around 7.83 Hz. Isn’t it amazing how so many “random” lightning strikes both originate from and sustain order?

And yet, people often say structure steals the heart of stories! They forget that even hearts must beat to an orderly drum, or they wouldn’t be alive.

It’s like we crave the romantic idea of “the pure waters of creativity” so much that we forget: without structure, you don’t even have water yet. Reminds me of a neat, little orderly formula called H₂O.

Since you’ve written so persuasively about structure as a friend, not a foe, to creativity, I thought you might appreciate the connection.

What a brilliant insight! Our world vibrates with a great cosmic heartbeat. It sends us signals, bursts, and we experience them as spontaneity. It is not chaos theory; it all comes from a connected web of structure and order, which is what holds everything together.

Imagine an Earth without gravity. We’d all be Starlink satellites. Gravity allows us to move around on the ground, to dance, to run for the end zone, to put our arms around each other and sing or pray or bring words of comfort.

All of this is wild and wonderful. Structure is beautiful.

Yet there seems to be a notion out there that a thing called “story” can exist apart from structure. That’s not possible. Heck, it’s not just impossible at the novel level; you can’t even write words, sentences or paragraphs without structure.

I write lehslitrr.

Oops, I mean thrillers.

As writers we all love to ride the lightning. Should we just wait for it to happen? Or are there ways to attract it? Let me suggest a few methods.

  1. The Bradbury landmine. Ray Bradbury’s brain was a lightning rod. It worked at night, sometimes in his dreams, but mostly at the subconscious level. When he woke up he’d record as quickly as possible anything that came to the surface—images, concepts, bits of a scene. Only later would he see what kind of structure was being offered.
  2. Outliners can use the “killer scene” method. One of the most enjoyable parts of my planning is sitting in a coffee house with a stack of index cards, writing down scene ideas which come to me in visual form. I don’t think about the outline at this point. I just ride the lightning. When I have 30 or 40 cards, I give it a day, shuffle the deck, and then start to assess what scenes I love and where they might fall in the story, or where they might be giving me new direction. With cards, it’s easy to move them around (which is why I like the corkboard view in Scrivener).
  3. Pantsers ride the lightning as they write, and do so right on through to a completed draft. Nothing at all wrong with that (it is simply a longer version of what outliners do in #2). At some point, though, structure and craft need to take a hand. I’ve read so many manuscripts (and more than a few books) by “discovery writers” that drag like a rusty anchor because they fail at the structural level.
  4. Ride when you’re not writing. You see an image, a billboard, a person crossing the street. Or you overhear a bit of conversation and find you imagination starts firing. Let it go.

(For ten more ways to “goose the muse,” see my TKZ post here.)

I was at a Starbucks once, looking out the window at the parking lot, when a scene from my WIP started playing on the movie screen of my mind. I have no idea how long I was like that, but at one point a man sitting in a chair across from me said, “Are you all right?”

“Huh?” I said.

“You weren’t moving,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “I was working.”

“Working? What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

He looked at me with that expression of wonder and pity we sometimes get when we give that answer.

Thinking back, I wish I’d said, “I ride lightning.” He probably would have switched chairs.

What about you? Do you ride the lightning? When does it happen for you?

Don’t Leave Out the Good Stuff

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It’s First Page Critique time. Here we go:

THE END OF THE SUMMER

TEN YEARS AGO

November. The rain started first thing that morning and Marc Newman listened to the fat drops splatter against the window panes. He sat at his desk, diddling with a pencil, watching the rain and ruminating. She was still on his mind. About nine-thirty the Sheriff and two deputies knocked on the front door. They were there to arrest him for murder. He had been expecting them for months.

He didn’t resist and didn’t say anything.

At the Sheriff’s office, Newman endured the fingerprinting, photographing his mug shot, and watching a deputy type up the arrest form. He was allowed to call his attorney, Harold deLuca.

That afternoon, he was taken from his cell to an interview room. A woman introduced herself as Assistant District Attorney Melonie Edgars.

He wondered why deLuca wasn’t there.  

She told Newman that he was being charged with the first degree murder of Lya Marie Reynolds. She wanted him to sign a paper indicating he understood his rights under Miranda v Arizona. He didn’t respond to her request.

“Mr. Newman, I’m here as a courtesy. We already have enough evidence on you to put in prison for the rest of your life. This is your chance to get your story on the record and that might help you during your trial. Tell me what happened on August 13th of this year.”

“I’d rather wait for my attorney to get here before I answer any of your questions.”

Edgars leaned back and sighed. “Guilty people always say that. Are you guilty of murder, Mr. Newman?”

He wanted to tell her to go screw herself but remained quiet instead.

“Did you know Lya Reynolds?”

He said nothing.

“She was only three weeks from her sixteenth birthday when you murdered her. Did you know that?   Her sweet sixteen. Turned out to be pretty bitter for her didn’t it.”

He looked away.

“Did you know she was pregnant when she was murdered?”

A tear rolled down Newman’s cheek. He didn’t try to wipe it away.

Edgars laid out several eight by ten glossy prints. “These were taken when we found her body. It was a vicious attack. Only someone who really hated her could have done this.   Look at them Mr. Newman. Look at what you did.”

“I . . . I, huh.” Newman gulped for air.   “I didn’t do this.”

“You’re a liar, Mr. Newman. And I can prove it.”

JSB: Writer, we have some work to do. Let’s roll up our sleeves.

Give Us the Good Stuff

There are two ways to render action on the page—scene and summary. A scene is showing us what’s happening in real time. Summary is telling us what happened.

In Stein on Writing, Sol Stein explains:

Narrative summary is the recounting of what happens offstage, out of the reader’s sight and hearing, a scene that is told rather than shown.

An immediate scene happens in front of the reader, is visible, and therefore filmable. That’s an important test. If you can’t film a scene, it is not immediate. Theatre, a truly durable art, consists almost entirely of immediate scenes.

Just as every form of writing that is expected to be read with pleasure moves away from abstraction, every form of pleasurable writing benefits from conveying as much as possible before the eye, onstage rather than offstage.

The first half of your submission is all summary. Summary does not grab or engage. In fact, it should only be used to transition from one scene to another. Let’s say a guy has to leave his house and drive to the office. Unless the character is going to get into an accident, get shot at, or find a snake in his car, just write: John stormed out of the house and drove to the office.

But when there’s real conflict, real purpose, do not summarize it. Here, you open with a fellow getting arrested, taken to the station, and booked. All that is fodder for suspense, tension, worry. But you can’t create any of that in summary form.

She told Newman that he was being charged with the first degree murder of Lya Marie Reynolds. She wanted him to sign a paper indicating he understood his rights under Miranda v Arizona. He didn’t respond to her request.

Again, summary. Give us the good stuff! Interrogation scenes, like courtroom scenes, carry conflict by definition. Show show show!

All that being said…an author with a strong narrative voice can open with summary, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), or with description, as in The Time It Never Rained (Elmer Kelton). Just know it takes some real wordsmithing to pull that off in a way that draws readers in.

Research the Good Stuff

We’ve got a lot of work to do here. The scene is implausible and needs the help of an expert (see Terry’s recent post and the comments). When you write about legal procedure and courtrooms, you need to nail the details (which often differ depending on state and local settings).

Our trouble starts with this: Here’s a guy who is suspected of murdering a pregnant teenager. The DA has “enough evidence” to put him away. How is this guy not in the clink? If the DA is involved and the case is heading for trial, that means there’s been an arrest, a booking and an indictment.

So we have the booking, and he watches a deputy “type up” the arrest form. Even ten years ago I doubt typewriters were used for this. Everything is computerized. And they wouldn’t let the suspect sit there and watch. He’d be in a cell. If he wants to call his lawyer, there’s usually a phone in a semi-private area they’ll allow a suspect to use.

As to the questioning itself, no ADA is going to tell a defendant she’s there to help him with his trial. Indeed, this ADA would not be talking to Newman at all because he has not signed a Miranda waiver and he’s asked for his attorney to be present before questioning. And yet the ADA goes on with her interrogation. She should be disbarred.

Perhaps you are setting up a later court hearing where the statements are thrown out by a judge. Most readers aren’t going to buy that. After years of Law and Order and myriad other TV shows and movies, we are well aware of Miranda and its meaning.

Side note: Unfortunately, there is a legal clinker on every episode of Law and Order. Whenever the detectives slap on the bracelets they immediately advise, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…” Etc.

Problem is, in real life police do not give Miranda at the point of arrest. Miranda only comes into play when they begin to interrogate the suspect. Indeed, if the suspect starts mouthing off or says something incriminating on the way to the station, those statements are admissible in court. The cops want them to talk.

The bad effect of this trope is that some readers will object if you write the scene correctly. I enjoyed this thriller, but the author makes a huge mistake. When the police arrest Alan they do not read him his rights! How can the author not know that? 

That’s why, in my thrillers, if someone’s arrested I include a line or two, or an internal thought explaining the actual procedure.

End of rant side note.

Write the Good Beats, Cut the Useless Ones

A useless beat is redundant and makes a sentence flabby:

He wanted to tell her to go screw herself but remained quiet instead.

“Did you know Lya Reynolds?”

He said nothing.

We don’t have to be told he remained quiet instead. It’s obvious from the action.

He wanted to tell her to go screw herself.

“Did you know Lya Reynolds?”

He said nothing.

Reads better, doesn’t it?

Further, emotional beats need to be woven into the fabric of the scene in a plausible fashion.

“She was only three weeks from her sixteenth birthday when you murdered her. Did you know that?   Her sweet sixteen. Turned out to be pretty bitter for her didn’t it.”

He looked away.

“Did you know she was pregnant when she was murdered?”

A tear rolled down Newman’s cheek. He didn’t try to wipe it away.

It’s much too sudden for a tear to roll. It’s only been seconds from He wanted to tell her to go screw herself. What we’re missing are the beats where the inner turmoil heats up enough to start the waterworks.

How you write this depends on what you’re doing with the character. Did he do it? Is he feeling remorse? Or is this human pity for a victim of foul play? Whatever the answer, we need more to justify whatever he’s feeling, especially when it’s the opposite of what he felt a few seconds ago.

One minor note: You’re using the old-school double space after a period. No longer done.

Assignments

  1. Rewrite this opening without any narrative summary. Present-moment scene only. Put the good stuff in.
  2. Do your research on arrests, criminal referrals, and in-custody interrogations.
  3. Read the first chapter of Michael Connelly’s The Last Coyote. Bosch is on involuntary stress leave and forced into a counseling session with a police psychologist. It’s twelve-pages long. That’s how it’s done.

Let’s help the writer out further in the comments.