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.

More on the Current State of Publishing

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Clare’s recent, thought-provoking post brought up several musings about the current state of the traditional publishing industry vis-a-vis the indie world, especially in light of the pandemic. In one of her comments Clare asked: “I do wonder though whether there will be flow on effects even for indie writers – are people seeing sales increase or decrease? Are they finding visibility any harder or easier? I wonder about the state of the industry as a whole and how it’s impacting writers.”

This post is an attempt at an answer.

Let’s first take a nostalgic stroll back to the early days of the indie explosion. I’m talking roughly 2009 – 2013. The discussions back then were full of sound and fury, signifying something. What that something was remained to be seen. It was not uncommon for early firebrands of self-publishing to predict, and often cheer for, the death of traditional publishing. Indeed, a few declared the proper term should be “legacy publishing,” which has baked into it the assumption of obsolescence and demise.

But as Twain once observed about his own obituary, reports of trad pub’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Back in 2013, here at TKZ, I likened traditional publishing to the boxer Jake “Raging Bull” LaMotta who, though often bloodied, refused to be knocked out. I wrote: “So will this Raging Bull of industry still be around in twenty years? I think so. I’d like it to be. I’m a hybrid, and traditional publishing’s been good to me. But it will have to fight smarter, not just harder.”

Here in 2021, traditional publishing is still around and still punching, though it keeps having to huddle with its corner men between rounds to adjust strategy.

It’s hard to get a handle on how that bout is going. A recent story in the NY Times about sales in 2020 quoted one publisher as saying, “It was harder to get people’s attention around books that didn’t…have a big name attached to them.” There was also concern about the shuttering of bookstores which led to many new books “languishing” as “panicked retailers focused on brand-name authors and readers gravitated toward the most popular titles.”

Then came this little tidbit: [A]bout 98 percent of the books that publishers released in 2020 sold fewer than 5,000 copies.

Yikes! Now, that has to refer to print copies, because any major publisher that can’t sell more than 5k digital copies either isn’t trying or is so incompetent it deserves to go under.

On the other hand, I see in the industry newsletter The Hot Sheet (subscription required): “Through the week ending June 19, NPD BookScan shows year-to-date print sales up 19.6 percent over 2020. Adult fiction has enjoyed a 31 percent gain over 2020; YA fiction has grown by 68 percent, driven by backlist titles shared and promoted on TikTok.”

Thus, it appears the only thing I can say with certainty about tradpub is that there is no certainty. From the Times story: “One of the most significant things that’s going to change is the re-evaluation of all that we do and how we do it,” said Don Weisberg, the chief executive of Macmillan.

Of course, the same can be said of the indie world, because it’s always been that way! Indie writers who do this as a career have, from the jump, been ready and able to immediately shift and transition with every new circumstance (and at a pace the behemoth trad industry simply cannot duplicate).

Indie publishing has moved from the Wild West to the Gilded Age. According to Prof. Edward T. O’Donnell, “The Gilded Age, as the name suggests, was in many ways a golden time. This exciting period saw spectacular advances in industrial output and technological innovation that transformed the United States from a predominantly agricultural nation—ranking well behind England, Germany, and France in 1865— to the world’s most formidable industrial power by 1900.”

The indie authors making bank are those who have embraced change and innovation, and combined them with optimistic energy and consistent output. Many have indeed seen “spectacular advances” (in the career sense).

So what about advances in the publishing biz sense? How are they currently ranging inside the Forbidden City? I’ve not been able to track down any definitive answer. What I pick up is anecdotal and suggests that while there are still large-advance deals being made, it is not nearly so many as back in the pre-Kindle salad days. With the Big 5, first-time authors who don’t score a jackpot deal seem to be looking at a range of $5000 – $20,000 per book.

With small and mid-size publishers, the no-advance contract seems to be quite common.

To answer Clare’s question (“…even for indie writers – are people seeing sales increase or decrease?”) mileage always varies widely. Personally, my indie sales went up 8% in 2020 as compared to 2019. So far this year, it’s up over the same period in 2020. I attribute this to several things:

1. Production.

2. Taking advantage of KU promotions.

3. BookBub (3 features in 2020; 2 so far in 2021).

4. The ongoing growth and nurture of my email list.

a. A reader magnet that adds 70-100 subscribers a month;

b. Regular (about once a month) communication with my list.

5. The massive shift to online buying during the pandemic.

6. Business-like approach. In truth, every writer, traditional or indie, needs to approach their career as a business (my business plan is laid out in my book How to Make a Living as a Writer).

So, Should an Author Go Traditional or Indie?

In Clare’s post, commenter Ben Lucas asked, “I was also wondering if it would be risky to go with a publisher as a fist time author vs. risk and go indie? Maybe traditional publishing will be shunned some day?”

Ah, risk! That’s the writing life, my friend. Any choice you make involves risk. Your consideration must be, therefore, what risks you are willing to take balanced against your long-term career goals.

If your goal is to be as popular as a Child, Koontz, King, or Steel, then a Big 5 contract is the avenue (with at least a glance toward Amazon Publishing. See, e.g., Robert Dugoni). Naturally there is huge competition for relatively few slots. I liken this to a Wheel of Fortune. You try to get a book on the Wheel, but there’s no guarantee you’ll hit the jackpot.

Similarly, you can spend years trying to get on the Wheel and never make it. Or, you finally get your chance and the Wheel comes up goose egg, and you lose your place at the table. Hopefully, someone told you up front that fifty percent of tradpub books  fail to break even.

There used to be a vibrant midlist in traditional publishing, where a writer who was not top-tier could still find a home for the long haul. But according to virtually every expert, the midlist is pretty much gone. According to Publishers Weekly:

As one Big Five editor who specializes in commercial and literary fiction said of his category, “There used to be a lot more books that could sell 40,000–50,000 copies. Now more sell fewer than 10,000 copies.” It seems, he said, that “it’s either feast or famine.”

Those suffering from the famine are, to an extent, a group once known as the midlist. Ironically, if you ask most editors or literary agents to define the term, you’re unlikely to get a specific answer. Few can say, for example, how many books one needs to sell to be considered midlist. The only thing sources agreed on is the fact that the term is negative.

And yet there are still careers out there that are building steadily from the mid to the upper tiers. See, e.g., Sarah Pekkanen.

If traditional is your goal, let me offer this advice: be sure you or your agent negotiate a reversion of rights clause tied to a royalty minimum, not some definition of “in print.” For example, if your royalty is below $500 in any given royalty period, you are entitled to reversion of rights. You need this or your publisher will be able, quite easily, to retain the publishing rights to all your hard work. With digital sales and Print-on-Demand, a book never truly goes “out of print.”

Going indie is a risk, too, because you have to be good and you have to be productive. Even so, you may not gain the market foothold you hoped. Still, if you find joy in creative control, can think like a business, and can control your expectations, you have a shot at making readers and dough. (For more on the paths to publication, see my post here.)

And always remember this: people want stories. That never changes. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of getting pulled into a fictive dream. If you can provide that, time after time, you have a shot to make it in this game, whatever path you choose.

Comments are welcome.

Reader Friday: Good Writers

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“While it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.” – Stephen King, On Writing

Discuss!

Getting Specific With Details

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Happy Independence Day to you all! Today I shall be grilling a couple of bone-in ribeyes while sipping a cool 805, a California blonde ale (I mean, what Los Angeles noir writer can resist a blonde ale?)

Notice: In the above paragraph I did not merely write steak and beer.

Specificity of detail is the subject of today’s post. It is a bit of a riff off Brother Gilstrap’s recent disquisition on research, and Garry’s post wherein Ian Fleming extolled specific details that “comfort and reassure the reader on his journey into fantastic adventure.” I want to focus on the little details that crop up all the time as we write. How much time should we take tracking them down? Are they really all that necessary?

If you care about creating the deepest reader experience you can, then I say yes.

I saw the guy run across the street and get in his car.

is not as good as

I saw the guy run across the street and get in his Corvette.

The latter pulls us deeper into the fictive dream. The former merely moves us along.

And yet, one can get too fancy:

I saw the guy run across the street and get in his 2021 Sebring Orange Corvette Stingray, with its 6.2L V8 DI engine and 8-speed dual clutch transmission.

I started thinking about this recently when I read a review of the thriller Coyote Fork by James Wilson, especially this paragraph:

The novel’s dynamics and the broad outlines of the plot are not especially unusual for the thriller genre. Where Wilson does go off-piste is with the resolution. Refreshingly there are no fisticuffs or explosions, no implausible escapes from submerged cars or cellars slowly filling with nerve toxins, and none of those slightly over-detailed descriptions of firearms – you know the sort of thing, “he recognized the gun immediately, it was a WarCorp Deathsprayer PB600, one of only fifteen ever made, with a fine silver finish and a customized barrel mounted by a laser sight….”

Interesting thought, that, especially for those of us writing thrillers with weaponry involved. But it applies to all detail work in this way: We want to be authentic without over-larding the prose. We don’t want Papa Bear or Mama Bear writing—we want it to be just right.

How do we achieve that level?

  1. Determine the amount of detail you need

A simple guideline: If you’re only going to mention something once, and it has no other significance to the story, choose one specific detail, and that’s it. Thus:

The doorman opened the door becomes The green-uniformed doorman opened the door.

The guy in the kiosk was stuffing his face with a snack. >>> The guy in the kiosk was stuffing his face with Funyuns.

Already the writing is more vivid.

If the item mentioned is going to reappear or have some importance, you can consider adding to the description. Let’s take our Corvette example:

The guy ran to his Corvette. I’d have to be on my toes—by way of the gas pedal—to keep up with him. Those babies have a V8 engine and eight speeds. At least the hot orange color would make it easy to follow.

Notice I did not use “Sebring Orange” here. That’s because it’s a specialty paint unique to Corvettes, and most people wouldn’t know that. Which brings up the second consideration:

  1. Make sure the specific detail is something the viewpoint character would know

Terry recently wrote about this very thing. You’ve got to consider the knowledge, education and background of the viewpoint character.

For example, a dance instructor who has a gun pulled on her probably wouldn’t think this way:

I backed up against the wall. The guy reached under his coat and came out with a Glock-17 9 mm Luger pistol.

On the other hand, a character like Brother G’s Jonathan Grave has specialized knowledge. The trick is to slip it in naturally, as in this clip from Hostage Zero:

Venice clicked the remote control in her hand, and the image on the screen changed to a much younger version of the plain vanilla face, but this time accompanied by a complete set of fingerprints. “This is his Army induction photo from twenty years ago,” she explained. “His service record is unremarkable. In and out in six years with an honorable discharge as an E–5.”

Jonathan recognized E–5 as the Army’s rate of sergeant. To achieve a third chevron in six years was admirable, but nothing special.

Of course, never allow author intrusion into the narrative.

Sam didn’t know a thing about knives, but was glad to have this one on hand. It was a Buck 110, made in the good old U.S.A. Released in 1963, it set the standard for lock-back folding knives. And with its Paul Bos heat treatment it had an edge retention second to none.

  1. When in doubt, use the character’s impression of the thing

If you need specificity in a detail, but it’s something the character wouldn’t know a lot about, use a subjective impression instead.

Sam pressed the silver button. The blade unlocked. Easy now. Pull the thing open all the way. Yeah, he could work with this. Like that ape in 2001 who found out a bone can be a weapon.

  1. Fast research

If I’m “in the zone” as I write a scene, I’ll put in a placeholder (e.g. ***) for a detail to be put in later, and keep on writing.

Otherwise, I find out what I need as fast as I can, then get back to work.

One way to do this is with Google images. I once needed the word for the glass outcropping over the entrance of a hotel. I assumed it was just a glass awning, but wanted to be sure. So I Googled hotel glass awning and clicked on Images and there they were, whole bunches of them. Only they are called canopies.

Boom, done, back to work.

  1. How much research on small details is necessary?

There’s a fabulously successful author who has said, “Research for me is a very strange process, because I don’t do any…I depend on what I’ve already read, what I’ve already found out, maybe years before.”

This means that sometimes his lead character is going the wrong direction on road in Georgia. But then, how many readers are going to know that? And of those who do know, how many of them will be so bothered they won’t buy another book by said author?

It’s an ROI calculation.

My own bottom line is this: I’m willing to spend a little extra time to get every detail right. I’m sure I sometimes miss, but it’s not for lack of trying.

How about you? Are you a “detail person”? Do you need to get the little things right?

The Pulp Writer’s Mindset

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

JSB, Pulp Writer, and his Maltese friend

Back in 2012, when self-publishing was proving to be a legit way to make actual, long-term money, I had a choice to make. I was in a good spot. I’d completed a contract and was ready to go out to find another.

A year before, I’d dipped my toe in the indie waters by self-publishing a novella and a book of writing tips. At the end of that year I looked up and saw that I had an extra ten grand in my bank account. And I quietly, calmly contemplated this with the serene thought: ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

Then came an event I wrote about in this space. I called it The Eisler Sanction. Barry Eisler, who along with his buddy Joe Konrath was a leading light in the burgeoning self-publishing movement, had just turned down half a mil (!) from his publisher to go indie.

So, with a completed thriller ready to go out, I had a sit-down with my agent and friend, Donald Maass. To his enormous credit, Don left the decision to me. (This was back in the days when agents were freaking out about self publishing, warning writers that their careers could be tarnished forever if they tried it and “failed.”)

I also spoke to some traditional writers who’d found success going indie.

One in particular represented the wild ride of that time. A year earlier he’d told me he was wary of self-pub. He was a moderately successful thriller writer, an award winner in fact, with nice mass market editions put out by his publisher, great covers and all that. Now he was saying he’d changed his mind and was going for it.

He’s been a very successful indie ever since.

Thus, I decided to take my novel, Don’t Leave Me, directly to market.

At the same time, I was a) writing new work, fast and furious; and b) getting the rights back to my traditional novels (almost all of which I have now).

Along the way I discovered that the kind of writer I truly was: a pulp writer!

My models were the great pulp-magazine writers of old. The guys who had to churn out marketable work during the Great Depression or they wouldn’t eat. Writers like Robert E. Howard, Erle Stanley Gardner, W. T. Ballard (who was a friend of my parents), Cornell Woolrich (the greatest suspense writer of all time), not to mention latter-day pulpsters like John D. MacDonald, Mickey Spillane, and Gil Brewer. This latter group moved into the exploding paperback originals market of the 1950s. All of them knew how to write fiction that made readers want more.

Isn’t that what every one of us wants out of this gig?

And while “pulp writer” was a pejorative back then (Mickey Spillane famously quipped, “Those big shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar”) it didn’t matter a whit to those writers, who kept turning out books that sold in the hundreds of thousands, even millions.

If you are writing books to entertain readers in the hopes of getting a fair financial return, you are a pulp writer in your soul.

You know who else is? A fellow named Lee Child. His story is well known. He was working in the TV biz in England when, as he says, “My boss said something to me one day that made it impossible for me to work for him any longer: ‘You’re fired.’”

He then sat down to write a book about a character that would sell to the American audience. Jack Reacher was born. Knowing that production is key, Child kept writing about this character, and his books sold in increasing numbers. When he submitted Persuader, his publisher decided this is our guy, and put their massive marketing muscle into the release. That’s how James Grant became the Lee Child we know today. True to the pulp mindset, he adopted his nom de plume after noting that successful thriller authors had short, snappy names…and that the letter C would shelve his books at the front of the thriller section in bookstores. Right next to B. Ha!

He also stuck to his series character.

Now, I love my stand alones, but I came across something Erle Stanley Gardner once said. He called a hit series character “the pulp writer’s insurance policy.” He tried out several in his early pulp days (like Sidney Zoom, master of disguise, and Speed Dash, a crime-solving “human fly”) until he hit it big with a fellow named Perry Mason.

I’d written a trilogy for Hachette featuring a lawyer named Ty Buchanan. These were good, my best work to date, so I was thrilled to get the rights back. Book #3 has, in my humble opinion, the most perfect ending I’ve ever written. So even though I get emails asking me to write another in the series, I am loathe to mess with that ending.

Thus, I needed another series character, which is how Mike Romeo was born.

Now I’m happily finishing Romeo #6, and intend to keep right on going.

With the pulp mindset, I also produce short stories. This brings in a little scratch via my Patreon community.

And I will never stop. Because I love being a pulp writer.

Which is, deep down, what you are, too.

Right?

***

Coincidentally, this post is brought to you by How to Write Pulp Fiction.

Father’s Day Reading and Viewing Pleasure

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Happy Father’s Day. Allow me  to recommend some of my favorite books and movies about dear old Dad.

At the top of the list, of course, is To Kill A Mockingbird. Little needs to be said here. Both book and movie are timeless classics. If ever there was a role that was meant for a specific actor, it was Atticus Finch for Gregory Peck. The movie score by Elmer Bernstein is also perfection. I’ll admit it, as soon as that score begins in the opening credits, I’m already reaching for a Kleenex.

Speaking of which, I remember reading Avery Corman’s novel Kramer vs. Kramer when it came out in the late 70s. I was a few years away from marriage and fatherhood, but I was still blubbering at the end (please keep this to yourselves). The 1979 movie, starring Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, and cute kid Justin Henry, is every bit as effective.

My favorite comedy on the subject is Father of the Bride (1950). Spencer Tracy plays the father of Elizabeth Taylor, who has become engaged. What follows are the stages of a bride’s father that seem as inevitable as the stages of grief: testing the young man about his financial future; meeting the in-laws; trying to keep down wedding expenses; surviving the emotional shakeups. It’s amazing that this comedy is as fresh today as it was back then. And yes, the ending has me at the Kleenex box again. (What is this going to do my rep as a thriller writer?)

Laurence Fishburne in Boyz n the Hood (1991)

On the other side of the spectrum is John Singleton’s 1991 urban drama Boyz n the Hood (very strong language, so be advised). Ten-year-old Trey is getting in trouble at school, so his mother Reva (Angela Bassett) decides he needs to go live with his father, Jason “Furious” Styles (Laurence Fishburne). When she drops Trey off, she says to Furious: “I can’t teach him how to be a man. That’s your job.” Furious becomes the solid rock in Trey’s life—teaching, admonishing, correcting. When he asks his boy what he knows about sex, Trey gives a boy answer. Furious replies, “Any fool … can make a baby, but only a man can raise his children.” The film cuts to seven years later and follows Trey and his friends through a series of encounters until the final, crushing climax. Trey almost makes a life-altering, criminal mistake, but once again his father is there when he needs him most. Outstanding performances by all, especially Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Ice Cube.

Speaking of solid-oak fathers, in the late 30s and into the 40s the quintessential dad was Judge James Hardy, played by Lewis Stone. He was the father of the irrepressible Andy (Mickey Rooney) who was in constant need of correction and advice. This series was wildly popular, sixteen in all, with Stone in fourteen of them. If I had to pick one to start with, it would be Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), as it is the film that adds Judy Garland to the series (not to mention a young Lana Turner!)

And then there are father-son reconciliation films. These are the flip side of mother-love-and-sacrifice movies (e.g., 1937’s Stella Dallas.) The two that get me every time are October Sky (1999) and Field of Dreams (1989).

The Crowd (1928)

I want to mention one more movie that most people, sadly, are unfamiliar with. That’s because it comes from the rich history of silent films. King Vidor’s The Crowd (1928) is an unflinching look at the pre-Depression working stiff and what happens when optimistic ambition runs up against cold, hard reality. The climax is unforgettable, only this time it’s the young son who saves the father from destruction: “I believe in you, Pop!”

Honorable Mentions:

Tarzan Finds a Son (1939)
Life With Father (1947)
The Godfather (1972)
Parenthood (1989)
Finding Nemo (2003)

Any movies or books about fathers you’d like to add? And please feel free to share any memories of your own father if you are so moved.

As a special treat, here is a priceless moment from the old Dick Cavett show, where Groucho Marx sings the Harry Ruby song “Father’s Day.”

Writing Lovely Moments

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field (1963)

I believe writers are here to “bring the light.” It’s a dark world out there and most readers, I venture to say, don’t want more of the same in their leisure hours.

By that I don’t mean we avoid the harsher edges in our fiction. Indeed, that’s what the best thrillers take us through in order to deliver us at the end.

I do mean, though, that light (e.g., hope, justice) is a powerful—even necessary—element for today’s market.

Which brings me to the subject of lovely moments.

The other night Mrs. B and I re-watched one of our favorite movies, Lilies of the Field. This 1963 gem was a low-budget production that ended up nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay. Sidney Poitier took home the Best Actor prize for his performance. Lilia Skala, the Austrian actress, was nominated for her supporting role (and should have won, in my humble opinion).

It’s the story of an itinerant worker, Homer Smith (Poitier), who is driving his old station wagon across the Arizona desert. His car needs water, so he pulls into the only homestead within miles. It turns out this is the humble dwelling of five nuns who are scraping out their subsistence by growing vegetables, raising chickens, and milking one cow. The nuns do not speak much English. We learn later they escaped over the Berlin Wall and came 8,000 miles to this desolate place.

The iron-willed Mother Superior (Skala) is convinced that God has sent “Schmidt” to them for a very special purpose—to build a chapel for the poor, mostly Mexican locals to attend mass.

Mass for this community is administered outside a local hash house by a priest who works out of a motor home. In a conversation with Homer, the priest admits that when he was ordained he prayed to be called to a majestic cathedral in some wealthy diocese. Now, he notes ruefully, he has to pray that his tires don’t blow out.

Near the end, with the chapel finished, the priest is brought in to see where he will now be saying the mass. He is so moved he can hardly speak. Finally, he says to the Mother Superior, “Many years ago, I made a very vain and selfish prayer. Now He has answered my prayer through you, through many people. I pray now I become worthy of His trust. And yours.”

A lovely moment. It’s with a minor character, but it deepens the emotional impact of the entire film.

So I’ve been thinking about how to add such moments to our fiction. Here are two prompts:

  1. Where can your Lead show mercy?

One of the best examples of this type of moment is from, not surprisingly, Casablanca. A desperate young wife asks Rick to answer the most important question in her life. She and her husband, refugees from Bulgaria, are desperate to get out of Casablanca, but need exit visas signed by the French police captain, Louis Renault. These visas cost serious money. The husband is trying to raise it in the gambling room, but is losing. The wife, however, has been approached by Louis (offscreen) with his standard offer—if she will sleep with him, he will grant the couple their visas.

Casablanca (1942, Warner Bros.)

The young wife wants to know if Renault is a man of his word. Rick knows immediately why she’s asking. He tells her, with cynical disdain, that yes, he’s a man of his word.

Then the wife wants to know something else:

“Monsieur, you are a man. If someone loved you very much, so that your happiness was the only thing that she wanted in the world, and she did a bad thing to make certain of it…could you forgive her?”

Bitterly, Rick says, “Nobody ever loved me that much.”

She goes on: “And he never knew, and the girl kept this bad thing locked in her heart, that would be all right, wouldn’t it?”

“You want my advice?”

“Yes, please.”

“Go back to Bulgaria.”

But a few minutes later Rick goes to the roulette table and suggests the husband bet everything on 22. The croupier picks up the cue, and 22 wins. Rick says, “Leave it there.” And 22 wins again.

Rick tells the husband, “Now cash it in and don’t come back.”

A lovely moment. So lovely that when the Russian bartender hears what Rick has done, he rushes over to give Rick a kiss on the cheek!

This is also what I call a “Pet the Dog” beat, which is where the Lead forgets for a moment his own troubles in order to help someone who is weak or vulnerable. He doesn’t have to do so. Indeed, his action puts him in jeopardy (Louis begins to suspect Rick is not as neutral as he claims to be). But the action bonds us deeply to the Lead, compelling us to read on.

  1. Where can your Lead be shown mercy?

Les Misérables (1935, 20th Century Pictures)

Who can forget the mercy shown to Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables? When the ex-convict is fed by a kind priest, Valjean repays him by stealing a basket of silverware. He doesn’t get very far before the gendarmes nab him and drag him back to the priest’s abode. They have caught him red-handed with stolen silver! Now all the priest has to do is make a complaint and Valjean will be back in prison forever. They are not prepared for what the priest does next:

“Ah! here you are!” he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. “I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”

Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of.

“Monseigneur,” said the brigadier of gendarmes, “so what this man said is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this silver—”

“And he told you,” interposed the Bishop with a smile, “that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back here? It is a mistake.”

“In that case,” replied the brigadier, “we can let him go?”

“Certainly,” replied the Bishop.

The priest then gets the silver candlesticks and hands them to a bewildered Jean Valjean.

“Now,” said the Bishop, “go in peace. By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night.”

Then, turning to the gendarmes—

“You may retire, gentlemen.”

This is, of course, the great turning point in Valjean’s life. And an unforgettable moment in a classic novel.

What lovely moments in books or films are memorable to you?

 

Avoid the Bait-and-Switch Opening

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Today’s first page is a thriller submission. Read it, then we’ll talk.

Out of the Cold

Cara Conroy sat straight up in bed. Sweat soaked both her and the bedding. Instinct drove her hand into the nightstand draw and around the grip of her Glock 26. Her eyes swept the haze of her moon-draped room.

Sampson perked his ears and padded to the bed, laying his muzzle next to Cara’s leg. His soulful eyes searched hers, hypervigilant and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

It had happened again. She was absolutely positive.

Cara fought the urge to run to the next room and check on her daughters. She knew they were fine, but so had all the mothers whose children hadn’t been. She heard it all the time—I looked away for just a second—and a second was all it took.

The urge won. She threw back the covers. Her feet barely touched the floor before she raced, heart pounding, Sampson on her heels.

She held her breath. The Glock shook ever so slightly as she toed the door open a crack. The light from the hallway sliced into the darkness, and illuminated the innocent faces of her daughters who lay sleeping, unaware of the dangers lurking for them in an evil world.

Sampson stealthed into the room and nosed each girl in turn. The ceiling fan thrummed its constant low thump like a tire out of round. Cara searched for Raina’s faint snore, an assurance the child was still breathing. After finding its reassuring cadence, she lowered her weapon and dragged back to her bedroom. Inside the sanctity of her own room, she closed the door and leaned her back against it, allowing it to support her controlled collapse.

Silent sobs wrenched her gut.

***

JSB: This author can write. The prose flows. Exposition and description are kept to a minimum, but with just enough to give us a feel for the setting and the setup.

All good. But I have an overarching critique, which I’ll attempt to explain.

What we have here is a type of opening that agents warn about, namely the “character alone” variety. I see two types of these. The first type is “character alone, thinking/feeling.” This is when the author gives us a character who is in the throes of some deep emotion or thinking about some terrible situation. The author believes this will immediately bond us to the character. It doesn’t, because we don’t know the character yet. The author is asking us to sympathize with a stranger.

But Jim, this is the first page! Of course the Lead is a stranger!

True that, but the better way to get to know a stranger is by observing what they do.

Which leads me to the second type of “character alone” opening, one that is functionally better: character alone, doing. When we see a character engaged in some sort of action that holds our interest, we’ll follow her for a long time before wanting more exposition.

JSB Axiom: Act first, explain later.

So why am I not giving full-throated approval to this opening, which is a clear case of character-doing, along with the elements of fear and child endangerment? Isn’t that the very essence of what I preach for the opening—a disturbance?

Stay with me on this.

You know how we’re warned about not opening with a dream? I agree with that. You read an incredibly gripping opening chapter, only to have the character wake up at the end. It feels like a big cheat, a bait-and-switch.

Because it is.

(Literary mavens may delight in reminding yours truly about one of the most famous openings of all time, from Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca: Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. Of course that is not a cheat because the narrator tells us up front that she’s describing a dream. But thanks for playing.)

This opening is not a dream, but it has a bit of bait-and-switch to it. It gives us a potential threat, but it turns out only to be in the Lead’s head.

We get this set up: It had happened again. She was absolutely positive.

Okay, we think, “What is it?” We read on.

In the next paragraph we get the answer: there have been kidnappings of small children! So Cara grabs her Glock and checks on her kids.

Is there a kidnapper in the house? Are her children gone?

Nope, all is well.

So there was never really an it. It feels a bit like waking from a dream, no?

One way out of this is to put an actual it in the scene—a real noise, a seen shadow, an open window. True, a disturbance that awakens the Lead is a bit of a cliché, but I don’t think readers care if the writing is taut and action-oriented (which this author is capable of).

There’s also disconnect here that lessens the tension. Look again at: It had happened again. She was absolutely positive. Okay, fine. That’s why she woke up in a sweat, right? And we’ll find out it’s because of the kidnappings that have happened.

But then we get: She knew they were fine.

Wait, what? A second ago she was absolutely positive it had happened again.

So if she knows they’re fine, why the sweats and the Glock?

Also, the it alluded to appears to be about children kidnapped in public. I looked away for just a second.

But this scene is taking place inside a home.

Further, if Cara is so concerned about a potential kidnapping, why isn’t she sleeping in the same room with her daughters? Why doesn’t she have a security system? Why doesn’t she station her hypervigilant dog near the front door?

So when at the end of the scene Cara collapses as silent sobs wrench her gut, I’m unmoved.

I’m also confused because a silent sob is an oxymoron. A sob is, by definition, a sound. You can have a loud sob, a weak sob, a low sob…but not a silent sob.

Yet, whatever it is, it is wrenching her gut.

But why such a reaction? Cara seems to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown because of some kids being snatched somewhere out there in an “evil world.” The collapse into gut wrenching sobs is meant to garner our sympathy. Instead, it causes me alarm about her mental state. What it doesn’t do is compel me to care about the character.

Here’s a suggestion that will help you here, dear writer. And also anyone writing a scene of heavy emotion.

Show us the character fighting against the emotion, not succumbing to it.

This has a two-fold benefit.

First, it give us an action rather than a reaction. The action can be internal (She told herself she would not cry! Her kids needed her…) or external (She took a deep breath and forced herself to stand…) or a combo of both.

Second, we are drawn to characters who, by strength of will, fight against obstacles in their way. We don’t have sympathy for characters who don’t fight.

The only thing Cara fights in this scene is the urge to run to the next room and check on her daughters. But why? She’s sweating, armed, worried about her children. Why would she fight against checking on them?

In sum, the actions taken and motivations for same confuse me.

So I offer these takeaways:

  • Re-think your opening to give us real action in response to real stimuli.
  • Show your character fighting, internally and/or externally, against breaking down. She has her kids to protect!

Notes:

the nightstand draw

Should be drawer.

Sampson stealthed into the room

Be very careful when stretching a word into a new meaning. I was pretty sure stealthed was not a word, so I looked it up. Ack! It apparently is a word, a slang term, and not one to be used in polite society.

nosed each girl in turn

I get a picture of the dog poking the girls with his nose, making me wonder why they didn’t wake up. I would think a mom wouldn’t want the dog to disturb her softly sleeping daughters. Did you mean sniffed?

Cara searched for Raina’s faint snore

I’m not sure you can search for a sound. You can certainly search for the source of a sound. But Cara knows the source. Use listened instead.

After finding its reassuring cadence

Again, finding is the wrong word in this context. Use hearing.

she lowered her weapon

Ack! She was pointing a loaded weapon into a dark room where her children are sleeping? The most basic of rule for loaded handguns is don’t point them in an unsafe direction. This is especially so if the gun is shaking in her hand! What if it goes off accidentally?

A Final Word

Don’t let any of this discourage you, writer friend. You’ve got what it takes to write good, gripping scenes. So go forth and write them. Get them critiqued, and write some more.

And never stop.

Carpe Typem.

Comments are welcome.

Write Like You’re in Love, Edit Like You’re in Charge

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Several years ago I tweeted the words that are the title of this post. The phrase went viral (is there such a thing as going bacterial? I’m done with viruses!) It got passed around and was picked up by the great writing tips author Jon Winokur (@AdviceToWriters). The phrase aptly sums up my approach to writing a novel.

I thought today I’d unpack it a little, and ask for your responses.

Write Like You’re in Love

Coming up with a great idea, one that gets your nerve endings buzzing, is like love at first sight. You’re giddy. You can’t wait to spend precious months with this new romance.

When you start writing it’s all champagne and moonlight walks on the beach.

But then, out of the blue, you find yourself in an argument. The book is resisting you. Or vice versa.

Usually this happens to me around the 30k mark. I start to think maybe this isn’t going to work out after all.

You say to the book, “You’re not giving me what I need.”

And the book says, “This is how you treat me? After all I’ve done? I’ve given you the best pages of my life!”

Fortunately, I’ve found this little dustup to be only temporary. Let me suggest two ways to kiss and make up with your novel.

First, go more deeply into the characters. Pick any one of them (and not necessarily your Lead) and write some backstory. Create more of their history and use that to come up with a secret or a ghost.

A secret is simply that which the character doesn’t want anyone to know about, for some personal reason related to backstory.

A ghost is an event from the past that haunts the character in the present, and causes the character to act in certain ways. It’s best to let those actions happen without an immediate reveal. It creates mystery for the reader, always a good thing.

Five or ten minutes with these brainstorms will get your story juices flowing again. You’ll want to keep writing just to see what happens to these people!

Second, jump ahead and write a scene you feel excited about. Write it for all it’s worth. Then drop back and pick up the story and figure out a way to get to that scene.

These tips will help keep the love fires burning, like bringing the wife flowers even when it isn’t Valentine’s Day.

(Also see my post “When Writers Hit the Wall.”)

Edit Like You’re in Charge

Once you have a complete draft, you move into the hard-scrapple world of revision. And here you need a system.

The late Jeremiah Healy was a popular author-speaker on the conference circuit. In one of my writing books I found a clipped page from a newsletter I used to get called Creativity Connection. I’d saved it because it was a summary of one of Healy’s talks. In it he described his system of approach after writing a first draft:

  • He set aside the draft for a month.
  • He printed out a hard copy and read it through in one day, not making a marks on the manuscript (“Once you start, you won’t be able to stop.”)
  • He looked for “holes in the plot, underdeveloped characters, anomalies, and inconsistencies.”
  • He edited the draft to address any problems.
  • He next submitted it to three beta readers. “One should be an intelligent general reader. The second should be familiar with your genre. The third should be the dumbest bunny you can find.”
  • Then another edit, based on this feedback.
  • Finally, create the “cinderblock manuscript.” By this he meant the final polish on the old-school paper manuscript you used to submit to a publisher (the shape of a cinderblock). He worked especially hard on the first three pages. “When agents—who get buried in 50 manuscripts a week—decide which of the ‘cinderblock’ manuscripts to take home and read, they do so by reading the first three pages. It may be harsh, but it’s not arbitrary. Eighty-five percent of book buyers decide their purchases by applying the same test.”

That’s a good system, and very close to the one I use myself.

And systems can often be improved by adding a formula. Here’s one I’ll leave you with. It came in an early rejection letter the young (1966) Stephen King received from a science fiction magazine. It was a form rejection, but the nice editor had scribbled the following on it:

“Not bad, but puffy. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”

Now it’s your turn. How do you keep the love as you make your way through the first draft? Do you have a system for revision?

Advice for the Demoralized Writer

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I know a demoralized writer. [Note: This is a composite portrait, though everything in it is fact based.] Said writer had written a number of good novels for a small house, then landed a two-book contract with one of the Big 5. The first book came out to mostly positive reviews, but not massive sales. The second book had to build on the first and make some serious money to justify the advance. The author worked really, really hard on this novel. It was in a popular genre, had a good title, and a great cover. The writer did all the right things marketing-wise, too.

But the book didn’t hit it big. It got a large number of 2 and 3 star reviews (some 1s as well, but those seem unfair, which is usually the case with 1s). Suffice to say, this has ended the professional relationship of said writer with Big Pub.

Demoralizing.

This writer has not written anything since. I have suggested the indie route, but this writer does not have the desire to learn a whole new set of tasks. It appears this career, until further notice, is over.

Another writer I know of was given an insane advance and a two-book contract back in the wild 90s, when such deals were not uncommon.

The first book, a thriller, was put out with a big marketing push from the publisher. I remember seeing the book featured prominently in the window of a Barnes & Noble. The bio on the dust jacket described said author as the next big name in action thrillers.

Well, the book tanked. Had it been even a moderate hit, there’s no way it could have sold enough copies to cover the advance.

When the second book came out, the publisher gave it no support. I went to the same B&N to find it. It was not prominently displayed. Indeed, I found only one copy, spine out, in the thriller section. This book died. The author, someone told me later, had fallen into the abyss of strong drink.

For a writer, demoralization is always lurking, waiting to be a soul killer. We can’t let that happen.

We’re talking here about the mental game of writing. (Someone should write a book about that.) It’s every bit as important as the craft. Without the right brain settings our writing will stall, drift, flame out or otherwise suffer. All writers must be ready to meet the challenge of demoralization.

The main cause of which, the philosophers and theologians tell us, is expectations unfulfilled. We set ourselves up to desire a result, and want it so deeply, that when it doesn’t happen devastation is inevitable.

Buddha figured this out and proposed a solution: get rid of all desire!

The Stoics, on the other hand, accepted that we all have desires and dreams and worries and fears. Their key to happiness is learning how to focus your thoughts only on what you can act upon, and forget the all the rest.

As Prof. Massimo Pigliucci puts it in his course Think Like a Stoic:

The Roman writer Cicero explained the Stoic position by considering an archer who is trying to hit a target. The archer can decide how assiduously to practice, which arrows and bow to select, and how to care for them. They also control their focus right up the moment they let go of the arrow. But once the arrow leaves the bow, nothing at all is under the archer’s control. A sudden gust of wind might deflect the best shot, or the target—say, an enemy soldier—might suddenly move.

Hitting the target is what you’re after, so it’s what you pursue. But success or failure does not, in and of itself, make you a good or bad archer. This means that you should not attach your self-worth to the outcome but only to the attempt. Then, you will achieve what the ancients called ataraxia: the kind of inner tranquility that results from knowing you’ve done everything that was in your power to do.

For a writer, then, what is out of your control is how your book does in the marketplace. What you can control are your work habits, study of the craft, and interactions with editors and beta readers. On a daily basis, it’s you and the page. You control what words you put down, and how many.

When the book is published, you control what marketing methods to pursue. You can spend money on ads, put out the word on social media, notify your email list, and beg your mom to buy copies for the entire extended family for Christmas.

But after that, it’s out of your hands. The Stoics would say: Don’t give any thought to outcomes. Eradicate such musings from your mind as a good gardener kills weeds.

I learned this lesson years ago. I won a literary award, the Christy. It was the first year of the awards, so I had no expectations. Thus, I had a good, relaxed time at the banquet, and winning was frosting.

The next year I was a finalist again, but this time I was all hopped up on really wanting to win again. That’s all I thought about in the weeks leading up to the banquet. My stomach churned at the dinner, and not because of the rubber chicken. When I didn’t win I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. This feeling lasted a couple of days.

And then it occurred to me that this was a useless and stupid way to feel.

So I went back to the wisdom of the Stoics (one helpful book is The Stoic Art of Living by Tom Morris).

Epictetus

Cut to: Fifteen years later. I was again up for an award, this one from the International Thriller Writers. I did everything in my mental power not to think about it. When I did, I noted the thought and immediately replaced it with something like, “Stop it!”

My wife and I went to New York for the convention and the banquet. When the finalists in my category were announced, I noted that I was pleasantly serene. Epictetus would have been proud!

When my name was called as the winner, it was an unexpected gift, which is the best kind. All the more because I hadn’t been knotted up with expectations.

I offer this example simply to illustrate that you can control your thoughts. It takes practice. It takes many times when you think, Oh, here’s a thought. Is it about anything within my control? No? Then get outta here! (See also this stoic article.)

So to any demoralized writers out there, if writing is still something you want to do (and, deep down, you know that it is), then do this: keep showing up at the keyboard. Dive bravely and daringly into the daily page. Get lost in the telling of your tale. When you start to think But what if this isn’t good enough? or What if this doesn’t sell? or What if I’m just a talentless doofus? give yourself a quick kick to the cerebrum and write some more.

Do this over and over, and soon your brain will get the message and make it a habit. Demoralization will lose its power over you.

You’ll be a writer again.

Quotes

“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.” – David Eddings

“I write as fast as I can and still remain comfortable….If I write rapidly…I find that I can keep up with my original enthusiasm and at the same time outrun the self-doubt that’s always waiting to settle in.” – Stephen King, On Writing

All of you have faced demoralization at one time or another. How did you handle it? Any advice for a demoralized writer?