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.

Playing The Writing Game

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It helps to think of writing as a game.

We all want to make some scratch from our efforts to tell a great story. We all, at one time or another, have a dream of appearing on Today touting our upcoming #1 NYT bestseller. Then we wake up.

Side story: I was once in a Starbucks when Bruce Jenner, the Gold Medal decathlete, came in. I’d been a Decathlon fan as a boy after watching The Bob Mathias Story (starring Bob Mathias himself) on TV. Mathias was the first two-time Gold Medalist in the Decathlon, and one of the greatest athletes we’ve ever produced. So, wiseacre that I am, I sidled up to Bruce and said, “Say, aren’t you Bob Mathias?” To his credit, he cracked up, and we had a nice little conversation, in which I said, “I dreamed of being a Decathlete.” Bruce: “And then you woke up?”

I relate that because part of being a champion in any sport is a matter of two things: natural talent and hard work. I could have worked harder at the Decathlon than anyone in the world, but I just didn’t have the industrial springs in my legs that Jenner and Mathias were born with. My sport was basketball and I worked at it, got to be good enough to play in college, but I didn’t have the hops of a Michael Jordan, though I humbly assert that had I been six inches taller I might have given Larry Bird a run for his money (I could shoot lights out).

So there’s talent and work involved in any successful enterprise. Which is why I often think of this writing gig like my favorite game, backgammon.

This ancient game has been around for 5,000 years, and is brilliantly conceived. Dice are involved, so there’s always an element of chance. A player who is way behind still might win if the dice give him a roll he needs at just the right time. But there’s also strategy, which means you need the ability to think, which is something you’re born with. You can develop the latter through work, which is what education used to be about. (Don’t get me started.)

There’s one other element of backgammon—risk. The “doubling cube” allows a player at any point to double the stakes. The other player may decline and forfeit the game for the original bet (playing for penny stakes is enough, which is a good reason to keep pennies in circulation!). Or he may accept the risk and later, should things change favorably, double back.

So someone who knows how to think strategically, can calculate odds, and take risks at the right time will win more often than the average player who depends mostly on the rolling bones.

Early on I studied the game by reading books. I memorized the best opening moves for each roll. I learned how to think about what’s called the “back game,” what the best “points” are to cover, and when it might pay off to leave a “blot.”

And I played a lot of games with friends and, later, on a computer. I discovered a couple of killer, though risky, opening moves. I use them because they can pay off big time, though when they don’t I find myself behind. But I’m willing to take these early chances because they are not foolhardy and I’m confident enough in my skills that I can still come back.

This, it seems to me, is analogous to the writing life. There is luck involved. I sold my first novel because I happened to be at a convention with an author I had met on a plane. This new acquaintance showed me around the floor, introduced me to people. One of them was a publisher he knew. That publisher just happened to be starting a new publishing house and was looking for material. I pitched him my book and he bought it a few weeks later.

But I was also ready for that moment. I had been studying the craft for several years and was committed to a weekly quota of words. I’d written several screenplays and at least one messy novel before completing the project I had with me at the convention.

Thus, as in backgammon, the greater your skill, the better your chances. The harder you work, the more skill you acquire. The old saw “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” certainly applies.

There are different talent levels, but that’s not something you have any control over. And someone with less talent who works hard often outperforms the gifted but lazy writer.

Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll always win big in any one game. Far from it. If the dice are not your friends, things might not turn out as planned. That book you thought was a sure winner might not be.

But if you love writing, you don’t stop playing.

And don’t ever worry about the dice. You cannot control them, not even if you shake them hard and shout, “Baby needs a new pair of shoes!” The vagaries of the book market are out of your hands.

Just continue to work, write, play and take some risks. It’s a game, after all.

Comments welcome.

NOTE: This post partially adapted from and brought to you by How to Make a Living as a Writer and The Mental Game of Writing.

Reader Friday: Social Media

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Social media started off so innocently, as a way to connect with friends and family and like-minded individuals. There was Friendster, then Myspace, then Facebook (which now has over 3 billion users). Along came Twitter (now X, with about 600 million monthly active users). There’s Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok. There’s even a YouTube-Twitter-Facebook spinoff exclusively for politicians called YouTwitFace.

What is your view of social media today? Do you use it, avoid it, or something in between?

Writing For Fame

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

O quam cito transit gloria mundi. – Thomas á Kempis (“How quickly the glory of the world passes away.”)

How many people today have heard of Thorne Smith? Or Booth Tarkington? Or Carroll John Daly?

All three were wildly famous in the 1920s. Smith was the author of the popular Topper series of novels about a couple of fun-loving ghosts and their friend, Cosmo Topper. Tarkington won the Pulitzer Prize—twice!—for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. And in the world of pulp writing, Daly was as popular as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

They are mostly forgotten now, which is the fate of the overwhelming number of writers who ever lived.

Which brings me to Arthur Schopenhauer. Read any Schopenhauer lately? I read some Schopenhauer in college, and this is what my face looked like after I tried to understand him:

JSB, age 20 (or Arthur Schopenhauer)

But as I did some research in the library of Project Gutenberg, I came across Schopenhauer’s essay on Fame.

“As a general rule, the longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development. The fame which lasts to posterity is like an oak, of very slow growth; and that which endures but a little while, like plants which spring up in a year and then die; whilst false fame is like a fungus, shooting up in a night and perishing as soon.”

If you write for fame, you’re writing fungus. Worth remembering.

However, we do want our name to be known as a “brand,” meaning a reliable producer of quality fiction. That’s part of a marketing strategy, which also includes self-promotion. Agent Barb Roos has some good advice on this topic.

The notion of self-promotion tends to send authors running from platform conversations faster than a politician dodging a direct question. We see self-promotion as something only self-involved people who clearly think too highly of themselves would do. Of course, we think ourselves too holy, too busy, or too sophisticated to engage in such activity. After all, we are writers, right?

Her bottom line:

If you don’t talk about yourself and what you write, no one else will.

My follow-up point will make you uncomfortable, but it is a truth you must wrap your mind around if you want to survive and thrive in today’s publishing world. Self-promotion is essential to the success of your product.

The trick is to divorce self-promotion from the desire for fame. Schopenhauer again:

“From the point of view of human happiness, fame is, surely, nothing but a very rare and delicate morsel for the appetite that feeds on pride and vanity—an appetite which, however carefully concealed, exists to an immoderate degree in every man, and is, perhaps strongest of all in those who set their hearts on becoming famous at any cost. Such people generally have to wait some time in uncertainty as to their own value, before the opportunity comes which will put it to the proof and let other people see what they are made of; but until then, they feel as if they were suffering secret injustice.”

The desire to have others recognize you as significant (which is what fame is) inevitably leads to comparisons, envy, disappointment, bitterness. Instead, put that emotional energy into writing the best book you can (you, not the machine), pour your heart into your material, and promote it wisely. Rinse, repeat.

And here’s some unsolicited advice for those public figures who violate the maxim: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

“And so people who feel that they possess solid intellectual capacity and a sound judgment, and yet cannot claim the highest mental powers, should not be afraid of laborious study; for by its aid they may work themselves above the great mob of humanity who have the facts constantly before their eyes, and reach those secluded spots which are accessible to learned toil.”

But laziness and click-bait catnip is the currency of “influencers” today. For them, I offer Aesop’s fable “The Mischievous Dog.”

There was once a Dog who used to snap at people and bite them without any provocation, and who was a great nuisance to every one who came to his master’s house. So his master fastened a bell round his neck to warn people of his presence. The Dog was very proud of the bell, and strutted about tinkling it with immense satisfaction. But an old dog came up to him and said, “The fewer airs you give yourself the better, my friend. You don’t think, do you, that your bell was given you as a reward of merit? On the contrary, it is a badge of disgrace.”

Moral: Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.

Comments welcome.

Reader Friday: Ideas

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Andy Rooney

”My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you’re a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea. That’s the way to get an idea.”
—Andy Rooney

Where do you get your ideas? How do you decide what idea to develop into a book?

How Not to Write Your Novel

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

There are a lot of ways not to do something. Like the new boat owner some years ago who was filling up his pleasure craft with fuel for that first time out. Only he mistook the tube that is meant to hold fishing poles for the gas tank. After completing his work he started up the engine.

The gas fumes ignited and blew the boat owner into the sky. He came down in the drink and was rescued, but the boat was a goner.

You can be just as creative in finding ways not to write your novel. With a little thought and not much effort, you can easily devise methods to prevent you from actually finishing your book. Or finishing a book that has a chance to sell.

So if not finishing or not selling are your goals, I’m here to help you with the following three tips:

Wait for Inspiration

Go to your favorite writing spot with your laptop or pad. Perhaps it’s a Starbucks, maybe a library, or it could be your own kitchen table. Sit down with a cup of coffee and hold it in two hands. Sip it slowly. Do not put your fingers anywhere near the keyboard.

Glance outside a window if one is available. Wait for a flock of geese to fly by in V formation.

If you’re in public and no window is available, simply observe the other patrons and make sure they can see your expression of other-worldly concentration.

You are waiting for inspiration. It must come to from on high and fill you like fire. Until then, do not write a word. If you’re tempted to start working, open up Candy Crush immediately. Tell yourself this will relax the mind so inspiration can pour in. Or allow yourself “just a minute or two” of scrolling. After half-an-hour congratulate yourself on not writing.

If you absolutely feel you must type a few sentences, take 15-20 minutes to do so,  then sit back and tell yourself they’re not good enough. Repeat the above pattern.

If you spend three or four hours in this fashion, it will be time well spent in not writing your novel.

Of course, those who think it wise to finish their novel do things backwards. They don’t wait for inspiration. They go after it, as Jack London said, “with a club.” They follow the advice of Peter DeVries, who said, “I only write when I’m inspired, and I make sure I’m inspired every morning at 9 a.m.”

These poor souls think the secret to writing a novel is to write, and work through minor problems quickly and major ones after the first draft is done.

They do things like this:

Establish a writing quota. A quota based not on how much time they spend thinking about writing, but how many words they get down. Some do a daily quota, others do it by the week. But they figure out what they can comfortably get done and set a quota about 10% above that as a goal to shoot for.

Review the previous day’s writing and then move on. By looking at what they wrote the day before, they get back into the flow of their story. They fix little things, spelling and style mostly, but then get on with the day’s current work.

And then they look up one day and see a finished manuscript. They have lost sight of how not to write a novel.

Look Over Your Shoulder

It was a great pitcher Satchel Paige who said, “Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.”

It’s good life advice, but in order to not write your novel, you must ignore it.

To not write your novel, constantly worry about how bad your book might turn out to be. Pause every thousand words or so and think, This is about the worst piece of crud known to man. Where did I put the bourbon?

This is sometimes known as the “inner critic,” and he is your best friend for not writing a novel.

If you think about those doubts long enough, you can even develop them into fears. Jack Bickham, a novelist who was even better known for his books on the craft, put it this way:

All of us are scared: of looking dumb, of running out of ideas, of never selling our copy, of not getting noticed. We fiction writers make a business of being scared, and not just of looking dumb. Some of these fears may never go away, and we may just have to learn to live with them.

Of course, some writers learn not only to live with doubt and fear, but defeat them. How do they do that? Mostly they simply pound away at the keyboard. They concentrate on the words in front of them and kick that inner critic to the curb. They train themselves to do this via writing exercises, such as:

The Five Minute Non-Stop. Write for five minutes, first thing in the morning if possible, without stopping to think about what you’re writing. No correcting. Just write.

The Page Long Sentence. Choose something to describe (a room or a character) and write a page-long sentence about it, not pausing to edit and going on whatever tangents present themselves.

The List Maker. Whenever you’re stuck for an idea to pursue, make a list. Brainstorm ideas without assessing them. Get lots of ideas, then pick the best one.

Writers who have dulled the inner critic don’t worry about getting the words right. They get the words written.

They really have not got this not writing a novel thing down at all.

Quit

If all else succeeds and you still are intent on not finishing your novel, or finishing one that has a chance to sell, you have a surefire fallback position: stop writing.

David Eddings said, “Keep working. Keep trying. Keep believing. You still might not make it, but at least you gave it your best shot. If you don’t have calluses on your soul, this isn’t for you. Take up knitting instead.”

I hope this has been helpful. Now get out there and don’t write your book!

Does Your Story Have Speed and Snap?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Some questions for you today as we consider what we write and what readers want from our writing.

A book recently showed up on Project Gutenberg called Plotting the Short Story. It was published in 1922, just as the golden age of pulp was taking off. And while its focus was on short-form writing, I found much of what it said relevant to full-length. Let’s have a look:

The modern short story calls for speed and snap. We have made this remark before, but, if one is to judge by the number of spineless manuscripts that swell the average editor’s daily mail, it will bear repetition many times. The story must be placed before the reader with trip-hammer strokes. Readers who seek mental relaxation in short stories are usually busy people who read in much the same manner that they eat—“quick-lunch” style. They have not the time to wade through pages of rambling descriptive matter or absorb weighty paragraphs of philosophic reflection. They refuse to be instructed; they want to be amused, and like their stories served up piping hot, as it were.

Don’t you think that still hold true? Certainly people are busier than ever. The year 1922 seems positively soporific compared to today. And consumers of commercial fiction still “seek mental relaxation” (which is another way of saying don’t make them work too hard to figure out what’s going on, or wear them out with “weighty paragraphs.” (See Pat’s post and the comments thereto).

On method:

There are a great many writers, of course, especially among those who have “arrived,” who do not find it necessary to commit their plots to paper, but who work them out in their minds before they begin their stories, or build them up detail by detail after their stories are begun. To these writers, plot balance and movement have become instinctive, and they find that their words flow easier and that their imaginations are more active when they begin their stories with only a half-formed plot in mind or, indeed, with no plot at all, their theory being, that the creative mental powers are given fuller play if permitted to invent while the story itself is in the process of development than if forced to form a fixed plot-plan before the story has begun to materialize.

Your dedicated panster could not have put it more elegantly. But a word of warning:

But in the main these writers rely upon word-grouping (style) more than upon plot to put their stories “over,” and even the best of those who adopt this policy occasionally come to grief, for it is not an easy matter to fashion a plot and beautifully formed word groups at one and the same time. Such a plan, if consistently followed, usually proves fatal to the beginner.

A technically-correct plot upon which to build one’s story is as essential to success as a thorough understanding of the language of one’s country; and the only way for the novice to make sure his plots are free from technical flaws is for him to work them out on paper, according to fixed rules, with the same care that he would use in solving a knotty mathematical problem.

This describes my own journey. I was a free-flowing pantser at first, traipsing joyfully in the meadows of my imagination each day, trusting that it would lead to the kinds of stories I loved to read. It didn’t.

Authors…should therefore make an exhaustive study of the plot, calling to their aid several authoritative text books in order to get the teacher’s point of view, and analyzing the stories they read in the current magazines so they can get a line on the plot as it is handled by successful writers, and at the same time become acquainted with the editorial preferences of the different periodicals.

So I started to study, diligently, and apply what I was learning to my writing. Then I started to sell. Thus, I do believe getting foundational plot principles into a writer’s “muscle memory” will save them years of frustration:

Once the simple rules of plot construction become fixed in his mind, and he gets the feel of the plot, the writer can begin a story with nothing to build on but a vague idea and a burning desire with some hope of working out a well-proportioned plot after the story is well under way, but until he does master these rules he courts disaster each time he begins a story unless he has worked out his plot in advance.

Toward the end, the author states:

Enthusiasm is the chief requisite in plot making.

That is, plot principles alone aren’t enough. To this must be added—

—a spark…that starts a conflagration in the writer’s brain and makes him an object to be pitied until he sits down before his typewriter and pounds out a story to make us sit up half the night to read. 

A machine can construct a plot. It can even produce “competent” fiction. But as Brother Gilstrap recently put it, “Stories need to be more than conduits for plots and twists. Books we love connect with us emotionally because a human author infused that emotion into their work.”

All of it works together—plot, speed, snap, spark. You must learn them through experience, and without an aversion to that little word work.

Comments welcome.

Reader Friday: Three Things to Forget About

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“I tell would-be writers that there are three things to forget about. First, talent. I used to worry that I had no talent, and it compelled me to work harder. Second, inspiration. Habit will serve you a lot better. And third, imagination. Don’t worry, you have it.” — Octavia Butler

What are your thoughts on the mix of talent, work, and imagination? 

There’s Something Bigger Than Amazon

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner had a routine called The 2000-Year-Old Man. Reiner played a reporter interviewing the world’s oldest man, who would tell him all sorts of things that happened in the distant past. One time the subject was religion:

REINER: Did you believe in anything?

BROOKS: Yes, a guy, Phil. Philip was the leader of our tribe.

REINER: What made him the leader?

BROOKS: Very big, very strong, big beard, big arms, he could just kill you. He could walk on you and you would die.

REINER: You revered him?

BROOKS: We prayed to him. Would you like to hear one of our prayers? “Oh Philip. Please don’t take our eyes out and don’t pinch us and don’t hurt us. Amen.”

REINER: How long was his reign?

BROOKS: Not too long. Because one day, Philip was hit by lightning. And we looked up and said, “There’s something bigger than Phil.”

I’ll return to this later.

I was too busy to give a thoughtful reply to Terry’s post about Amazon and their new “Ask This Book” feature. Enough has been said about it there—and everywhere—that the issues are clear.

Most pressing for authors and publishers are copyright and permission. Does this feature, which provides plot summaries and character analyses, violate copyright? Or is it more like a flexible version of CliffsNotes?

Or is ATB different in kind? The Authors Guild thinks so. It argues that what Amazon is doing is creating an interactive book from the original material, i.e., another iteration of an author’s intellectual property, for which the author should receive compensation. I suspect there is a lot more to come on this matter.

It should be noted that someone can go straight to AI now and ask for a summary and analysis of a book. I went to Grok and asked for a summary of a thriller by one of my favorite authors. I got it. Accurately, too. Without spoilers. When I asked specifically for the spoiler answer to the ultimate mystery, I got that, too. I then asked for an analysis of the main characters. Check. (In deference to the author, from whom I did not seek permission, I will not post the answers.) Is ATB merely a more convenient way for a reader to get the same information?

And speaking of permission, this feature is being rolled out by Amazon without giving the author or publisher the choice to opt in or out, as with DRM. This has raised the temperature in many a discussion. Given that, what should an author do? I don’t think many will pull their ebooks off Amazon in protest, because Amazon is their biggest revenue stream. It’s irrelevant whether one is wide or exclusive.

Which brings me back to Phil. Because there’s something bigger than Amazon in all this. And that is Artificial Intelligence itself. We all know it’s here, it’s growing, and it’s here to stay. There have been innumerable discussions, debates, and jeremiads on how writers use this borg. For me, the firm no-go zone is having it generate text that is cut-pasted into a book, even though AI can now replicate a writer’s particular style (see Joe Konrath’s recent post and the examples therein).

What I’m most concerned about is the larger issue of melting brains. Using AI as a substitute for hard thinking atrophies the gray matter. “Use it or lose it” is real. In the past, a reader who wanted to know what’s happened in a book had to “flip back” actual pages to find out. That was work, and therefore good for the noggin. AI bypasses that neural network.

This brain rot is bad for the species, especially among the young. It tears my heart out to see a man or woman walking down the street, looking at their phone, while pushing a stroller with a toddler in it, who is likewise staring at a device full of dancing monkeys or pink rabbits. That child’s brain is being robbed of essential foundations built only by looking around at the real world in wonder.

The school years used to be a daily session of ever more complex thinking. Learning to write a persuasive essay—with a topic paragraph and supporting arguments—was once a major goal of education. Now AI can do that for you in seconds, so you can go back to playing Candy Crush.

We all know this. But what can we do about it? Take responsibility for our own actions. Don’t let AI do all the work for us, or for our kids and grandkids.

And if you’re upset with Amazon’s ATB, cool your jets and register a polite response to KDP customer service. There’s enough vitriol out there. We’re awash in so much Ghostbusters II mood slime now that we don’t need to add to it.

Because as bad as brain rot is, soul rot is worse. And a hate-laced, click-bait habit will inevitably turn your soul into the picture of Dorian Gray. Don’t go there.

And those are my myriad thoughts. Help me sort them out in the comments.

Reader Friday: What’s in a Name?

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Here’s an oldie from TKZ emerita Jordan Dane:

JSB’s favorite short story collection

Answer any one or all:

1.) What’s your favorite way to select a character’s name? (Do you have any favorite GO TO resource links?)

2.) Do you care about name origins or meanings?

3.) How do you select names for a character with different ethnic backgrounds?