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.

The Long and Short (Story) of It

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

If I may indulge in a little horn toot today. My latest release has dropped—just don’t drop it on your foot. Because the print version comes in at a honkin’ 612 pages (173k words). It looks nice on a shelf but will also work as an emergency doorstop. It sells for $28.95.

The ebook is considerably lighter, and is a “steal” at the special launch price of just $3.49. You might want to hop on that, as the price goes up to $6.99 in a few days.

Down These Streets is a complete collection of my short stories. From the introduction:

I’ve always considered short stories the hardest kind of fiction to write and—at the same time and in the right (write) hands—the most powerful form of storytelling.

I can still feel the emotional jolt of many Hemingway stories. “Soldier’s Home,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” come to mind. Even the work that got Hemingway the Nobel Prize, The Old Man and the Sea, is really a novella, coming in at a modest 27,000 words. But you’re knocked out at the end. The old man was dreaming about the lions.

In college I was fortunate to get into a workshop overseen by an acknowledged master of literary short stories, Raymond Carver. From him I learned the value of “the telling detail,” a small item in a story that reveals a universe of a character’s inner life.

The term literary is used primarily to distinguish such stories from other genres, like pulp fiction. Oh, how I love the world of classic pulp (1920-1950), so named because these magazines were printed on cheap, wood-pulp paper so the publishers could sell them for a dime or a quarter on newsstands. Writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Carroll John Daly, and Erle Stanley Gardner ushered in the hardboiled school of pulp writing.

In junior high, I found another kind of short story in Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. Here were flights of imagination mixed with sparkling prose and a “kicker” ending. Man, I wanted to be able to write like that (a desire not uncommon to nascent writers reading Bradbury). He seemed to be saying to me, “The door is open to my story world. Come in! But keep watch, for you never know what’s waiting for you at the end.”

This collection, then, is my homage to all these styles. There are stories with a twist, stories with a heart (the “literary” type), and stories with a punch (about a 1950s boxer in L.A. named Irish Jimmy Gallagher).

My title is taken from a Raymond Chandler essay on the fictional detective, which every pulp writer knows practically by heart. It begins: “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

I’ve also included a good chunk of my flash fiction (stories under 1,000 words). These are perfect when you need some quick escapism, or are fighting boredom in a waiting room or the grocery store line.

In fact, there are stories for any occasion—except, perhaps, rock climbing.

The door is open. Come in, enjoy, but keep close watch—because you never know what’s waiting for you at the end…

Order on Amazon.

Outside the U.S. go to your Kindle store and search for: B0FD4RYY9P

The main craft tip I have on short stories is this: every successful short story is about “one shattering moment.” That moment can be quiet or big; subtle or blunt; or a great plot twist that changes everything. And it can happen in five different places:

  1. Before the story begins (the story itself shows the aftermath of the moment)
  2. At or near the beginning
  3. In the middle, changing the entire trajectory
  4. At the end (best place for that juicy twist)
  5. After the story (the implied shatter)

I even wrote a book about this, with examples. But I don’t want you to buy that book. Not today, at least! Today the star is my own collection.

Thanks for your kind indulgence.

What’s one of your favorite short stories?

Lessons From Literary Dads

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! Don’t forget to tell a #DadJoke today.

What happened when two slices of bread went on a date? It was loaf at first sight.

Thank you! Tip your server on the way out.

Which brings me to four literary dads and what we can learn from them.

Atticus Finch

At the top of the list is, of course, Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. A widower, Atticus is faced with the prospect of raising two young children without a mother. His daughter, Scout, presents a particular problem. She has budding prejudices as the result of her social environment, the deep South of the 1930s. She also likes to solve her disputes with boys by beating them up.

His greatest challenge is the heart of the book. It’s when he is asked by a local judge to undertake the defense of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl. Atticus takes the case, knowing he is going to lose. So why does he do it? He tries to explain it to Scout:

“Scout,” said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things…it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down – well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience – Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”

Lesson: Live by the higher ideals, even if they fail in some circumstances, or any hope for civilization crumbles.

Daniel Peggotty

In David Copperfield, Daniel Peggotty offers a crucial counterpoint to David’s cold-hearted stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, as well as the odious and oily Uriah Heep (one of the best character names ever). Daniel’s love and loyalty to his family is the epitome of paternal virtue. He is the brother of David’s beloved nurse, Clara Peggotty, and happily welcomes young David into his home, treating him as he would a family member.

In particular, his devotion to his niece, Little Em’ly, results in a sacrificial quest to save her after she runs away with James Steerforth. He declares, “I’m a going to seek her, fur and wide. If any hurt should come to me, remember that the last words I left for her was, ‘My unchanged love is with my darling child, and I forgive her!’”

Lesson: A father protects his family, no matter the cost.

Vito Corleone

Wait, what? Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather? He’s the opposite of Atticus Finch, operating on the wrong side of the law. He has murdered and ordered murders. Now as he ages, he knows the future of his family is in the hands of his youngest son, Michael. Here he is, warning Michael of an impending attempt on his life…and sharing his sadness at Michael’s fate.

So why do we care at all about Vito Corleone? He’s the head of a crime family, for crying out loud. I think there’s a literary secret here. You can pull for a character who is not entirely good if, within the story context, he is “better” than the other bad people around him. In the case of The Godfather, Vito has refused to partner with another Mafia family in the drug trade. This leads to his attempted assassination. Thus, Michael’s revenge is understandable within that story world.

Lesson: You can love your children, but crime still doesn’t pay.

King Lear

Boy, what a bad dad. Which shows us we can learn from the negative (the raison d’etre of tragedy).

Lear is the opposite of Daniel Peggotty. Instead of familial loyalty to all three of his daughters, he rewards vain flattery and punishes the one daughter who expresses love, Cordelia. It isn’t long before the other daughters, Goneril and Regan, conspire to strip him of his power. He’s left a wandering lunatic, and runs for Congress. (I may be misinterpreting that last point.)

Lesson: Pride goeth before a fall. So, despite what TikTok says, life is not all about you.

In the immortal words of Graham Nash, we must “have a code that you can live by/And so, become yourself.” Nash wrote movingly about the inspiration for this song:

The origin of the song came from my recent infatuation with art. I had begun collecting photographs around that time, powerful images that had an emotional effect on me. One, in particular, was a Diane Arbus image of a boy in Central Park. It spoke volumes to me. The kid was only about nine or ten years old, but his expression bristled with intense anger. He had a plastic grenade clenched in a fist, but it seemed to me that if it were real the kid would have thrown it. The consequences it implied startled me. I thought, “If we don’t start teaching our kids a better way of dealing with each other, humanity will never succeed.”

Enjoy your day, dads. You matter.

Grammar Still Matters, Don’t It?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

What does a grammatically correct owl say? “Whom, whom.”

We all know the language, and the uses thereof, have fallen on hard times. Don’t U feel it 2? Texting, combined with the loss of grammar studies in schools, have set us on the slide toward becoming the Eloi, that docile future race in the The Time Machine who barely talk and are easy prey for the Morlocks.

Sites like X are rife with mistakes, of course, due to dull thinking and quick typing. I recall one of those innumerable back-and-forths dripping with vitriol, where someone ended with this zinger: Your ignirance is not a good look. That used to be called being “hoist on your own petard.” (Now it’s a “self own.”)

In the golden age of newspapers, you had reporters who pounded out stories that were examined by crusty, eagle-eyed editors with blue pencils and cigars, who put the writers through their paces.

What great wordsmiths we had then. I grew up reading the L.A. Times when it was owned by the Chandlers, and had columnists like Jim Murray, Jack Smith, and Al Martinez. And then there were the syndicated writers like Art Buchwald and Jimmy Breslin; and for laughs, Erma Bombeck.

Not to mention the workaday reporters who wrote clear, concise, and factual (remember factual?) stories.

As the publisher Joseph Pulitzer (for whom the prize is named) said of newspaper stories: “Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.”

Did you notice the word whom in the above parenthetical? That’s because I learned the trick of saying the sentence using him or them, and noticing the m, which means you use whom.

But today, with instant digital publishing and the lack of educated editors, we get the “mistake creep” that threatens to become epidemic. Here are just a few examples I’ve collected over the years:

The trick play gave Georgia a 14-0 lead, while the Michigan defense looked lost on defense on consecutive drives. (Where else would a defense look lost?)

Which doesn’t quite jive with Sunday’s piece. (I’m as much a fan of jazz as the next guy, but jibe is the word.)

I don’t know if the victory that’s already been had will get the attention commiserate with its significance. (Um, commensurate.)

Both real estate agents were reticent in not requesting an amendment to the contract of sale at the time the buyer made the statement. (Reticent means reluctant in speech. The word should be negligent.)

Besides being an alumni at the university, Smith revealed that the young woman also attended the graduate school. (The singular for a female graduate is alumna, but that’s another can of worms. Worse is that the object of the first part of the sentence is the young woman, not Smith. That’s a common error following the comma in a prepositional phrase. See the next example.)

As someone born in 1985, Reagan was long gone from the national scene when I came of age politically. (A neat trick to serve as president before you’re even born.)

I didn’t like it when my beloved English teacher, Mrs. Bruce, made us parse sentences. But I learned. Today, students do that homework by typing, “Grok, parse this sentence for me.”

I’ll quickly add, however, that AI can check your writing like one of those old-time editors, and that’s a valuable tool. Just be sure to ask for notes, not a re-write. Preserve your voice and your humanity. And know that AI may skip aspects of your writing that could be sharpened, so keep on learning your craft. That’s why I keep a copy of Strunk & White and Jan Venola’s Write Right! by my desk. And every so often review my heavily highlighted copy of William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

An article from Writer’s Digest (Aug. 2002, written by Becky Ohlsen) contains some solid advice on avoiding grammar and stylistic pitfalls.

Lose the flab, modifiers that say nothing, e.g., really, truly, very.

Sentences that start with “There was” or “There are.” Rewriting makes the sentence stronger.
NOT: “There were three people dancing in the street.”
THIS: “Three people danced in the street.”

Do a search for adverbs, words ending with -ly. Find a stronger verb.
INSTEAD OF: “He ran excitedly down the hill.”
THIS: “He bounded down the hill.”

Replace vague adjectives with actual description.
INSTEAD OF: “His shirt was quite loud.”
THIS: “His shirt was iridescent chartreuse with an orange quilted collar and 16 whalebone buttons.”

And learn the differences between homophones (words that sound alike). Two common mistakes:

Affect vs. Effect. A retired managing editor once explained it this way: The verb affect means to influence; the noun effect is the result of the influence. Example: How you spell will affect (influence) your pay. The effect (result) of poor spelling may be a pay cut.

Principal vs. Principle. A simple trick is to remember that principle is like a rule (both words end in –le). A principal is a main thing (the –a in main reminds you of the –al in principal).

Yeah, it’s work. But do you want your prose flabby or firm? Do you want readers putting your book down (at The End, mind you) with the feeling they especially enjoyed that ride, even if they can’t identify why? Do you want them anxious to find more of your work, or have them muttering, Meh, it was okay…

Up to you.

By the way, my favorite movie about a crusty but benign newspaper editor is Teacher’s Pet with Clark Gable and Doris Day.

So what is your relationship with grammar? Any common goofs you see out there that chap your hide? 

Satisfaction, Hey Hey Hey

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

There are two questions which currently occupy the greatest minds of our generation.

First, how does quantum physics explain the existence of the cosmos?

And second, how is Keith Richards still alive?

The latter inquiry was the subject of a recent article.

Richards shared with The Telegraph he quit smoking in 2019 and hasn’t lit up since. Additionally, he kicked his heroin habit in 1979 and stopped doing cocaine in 2006. However, Richards does indulge in a cocktail every so often, but he doesn’t drink to excess anymore.

He said, “I still like a drink occasionally – because I’m not going to heaven any time soon – but apart from that, I’m trying to enjoy being straight. It’s a unique experience for me.”

Being on the straight-and-narrow must be unique for someone like Richards, who has been tied so closely to “the rock and roll lifestyle.” There have been plenty of jokes made about his drinking and drug use over the years. Frankly, it’s a miracle he’s alive.

Keith Richards rocks on

Alive and rocking. At 81, he just had a solo effort hit the UK charts with Live 3.10.22, backed by the band the X-Pensive Winos.

Richards, of course, co-wrote with Mick the monster hit “Satisfaction,” as in “I can’t get no…” The song is about the vapidity of consumerism and the frustrated pursuit of, ahem, amorous congress.

Which brings us to the question of the day: Do you get satisfaction from writing fiction?

There’s an old saying: I don’t like writing; I like having written. I have never related to that, even when the writing is frustrating, as it often is. Because working through the frustration to a breakthrough is one of the most satisfying feelings a writer can have.

I’ve written before about the “30k Wall.” Most of my novels have run into that edifice, but each time I found—after a period of agony—the way around or through it. That’s a great feeling! And it comes out of the frustration, not in spite of it. Hello frustration, my old friend (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel).

Here are some other things that give me satisfaction as a writer:

  • Writing a particularly sparkling sentence.
  • Coming up with a twist.
  • Bringing a character to life.
  • Receiving a nod of approval from my tough but compassionate first editor, Mrs. B.
  • Seeing what needs to be fixed and figuring out how to fix it.
  • Writing an ending with resonance, especially when it brings a tear.
  • Nurturing a killer idea for a new project.
  • Finding just the right “mirror moment.”
  • Getting a startlingly good memo from The Boys in the Basement.
  • Hitting the flow state as I write.

In fact, they all make me more than satisfied. They make me happy.

This kind of joy cannot be handed to you by a bot. It only comes from “doing the work.”

I know there is a very small subsection of typists (I hesitate to use the term writer) out there who think writing fiction should never be “work.” It should only be “fun.” It should never involve taking constructive criticism, or sweating the small stuff (or the big stuff, for that matter), or even editing beyond the occasional search for typos. Books written this way may be fun for the creator, but not for the reader.

On the other hand, Mr. Stephen King extols the value of revising after others have read the manuscript. In On Writing he explains that his first editor is his wife, Tabitha. Then: “In addition to Tabby’s first read, I usually send manuscripts to between four and eight other people who have critiqued my stories over the years.” His practice is “two drafts and a polish.” In other words, does the work, and I’m absolutely certain he’ll break out someday.

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vince Lombardi

Where do you find satisfaction in your writing life?

Reader Friday: What Happens Next?

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Fredric Brown (1906 – 1972) was a spec-fiction pulp writer and a master of flash fiction—short-short stories with a twist. (I love his collection Nightmares and Geezenstacks.) He wrote a famous story called “Knock” which begins:

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

Without looking up the story, write the next line (or paragraph if you are so moved).

And AFTER you’ve done so, you may read the story here.

What Writers Can Learn From Stagecoach

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

In recent years, when I’ve done live teaching, I’ve noticed something. The audience keeps getting younger.

How’s that happen?

And I’ve noticed something else which astonishes me. More and more of these aspiring writers have never seen Casablanca! Or lots of the old classics.

Let me remove my ear horn for a moment and declare that when I was their age, everyone who wanted to write—indeed, most everyone at all with a streak of the artist in them—knew classic movies from the “golden age” of American cinema.

Yeah, I know, it’s generational. When I was a lad, we had three networks and a few local channels. We didn’t have 24/7 stimuli pounding our eyes and ears. We knew the richness of movie history—the poetry of Ford, the heart of Capra, the pure genius of Welles, the mean streets of noir. Astaire-Rogers. Tracy-Hepburn. Bogart-Bacall.

I’ve heard on more than one occasion from someone in their 20s or 30s that they just don’t like black-and-white films. They would rather watch full-color TikTok videos of dancing parrots and people slipping on ice than the greatest movies ever made. It’s a pity, because writers can learn so much from past masters of film.

Case in point is Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford.

This is the movie that turned John Wayne into John Wayne. In 1926, when he was playing football at USC, Wayne (then known by his given name, Marion Morrison) got summer work moving props for the studios. One day John Ford walked by. Knowing Wayne was a football player, as Ford himself had been, the director challenged Wayne to try and knock him down. Wayne, not knowing how important this guy was, did so. Ford took an immediate shine to the strapping lad.

For most of the 1930s, Wayne starred in low-budget, forgettable Westerns produced on “Poverty Row.” But when it came time to cast the central character of the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach, Ford fought to cast Wayne. The rest, as they say, is history.

While Stagecoach has many familiar tropes of the traditional Western—Apache attack, the cavalry, bars, a climactic gunfight—most of the movie is a tight drama about nine people on a stagecoach journey across the prairie to a town called Lordsburg. How did that plot birth a classic?

Orchestration

First and foremost, all the characters are distinct and contrasting. I call this orchestration. Just like different instruments blending together create a beautiful symphony, so disparate characters make for compelling drama (and, I might add, comedy).

Played by some of the best character actors of the day, we have:

  • A drunken doctor (Thomas Mitchell, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar)
  • A nervous little whiskey drummer (Donald Meek)
  • A sly, Southern gambler (John Carradine, based on Doc Holliday)
  • A woman of ill repute (Claire Trevor)
  • A pregnant wife trying to get to her soldier husband (Louise Platt)
  • A goofy driver (Andy Devine)
  • A bank embezzler (Berton Churchill)
  • A sheriff (George Bancroft)

John Wayne as the Ringo Kid

Along the way they pick up Ringo (with a great visual intro of Wayne spinning his Winchester, an image for the ages). The sheriff places him under arrest.

Lesson: A great novel orchestrates its cast. Even the minor characters. This enables endless possibilities for conflict and tension. Take time with this when planning (or pantsing), as it will pay big dividends as you unfold your story.

Style

Ford was one of the great visual artists of cinema. Parts of Stagecoach were filmed in what became Ford’s favorite outdoor venue—Monument Valley. His use of horizon and sky is unmatched (see also The Searchers). He once said, “Monument Valley is the place where God placed the West.”

His interiors are just as striking. His use of light and shadow is masterful in Stagecoach because it’s in black-and-white.

Lesson: I liken this to a writer’s style. We’ve had lots of discussions about this. Is it worth it to hunt for the right word? The right sound? Or in this age of pervasive sameness, now churned out by bots, is such care merely slowing us down in our pursuit of prolificity and page reads?

You have to decide for yourself. John Ford could have churned out Westerns every few weeks, like the Poverty Row guys. He could have added mere content to the glut. Instead, he made his movies unforgettable, shot by shot.

This is where voice comes in. Take some time to develop this “secret power.” It will lift your work above the lifeless ubiquity of botness that marks our era.

Stretching the Tension

The stagecoach journey is leading up to Ringo finding Luke Plummer and his brothers in Lordsburg, to avenge the murder of his father and brother. The last part of the movie is the countdown to the gunfight.

Ford doesn’t rush it. He begins with Luke and his boys in a saloon, hearing that Ringo is in town. Doc Boone (Mitchell) has a tense encounter with Plummer, warning him that if he takes the shotgun just handed to him, he’ll have him indicted for murder. The moment stretches. Will Plummer gun down the doctor? Smash him in the face? This silent moment lasts nearly seconds. Finally, with a wry smile, Plummer tosses the shotgun on the bar top. “We’ll tend to you later,” he says. When he and his two brothers walk out, Doc takes a swift drink. “Don’t ever let me do that again,” he says to the barkeep.

Outside, a woman on the balcony tosses Plummer a rifle.

We cut to the newspaper office. The editor rushes in and tells his typesetter, “Kill that story about the Republican convention and take this down. The Ringo Kid was killed on Main Street in Lordsburg tonight! Among the additional dead were…leave that blank for a spell.”

“I didn’t hear any shooting,” the typesetter says.

“You will.”

Step by step, the Plummer boys head for the showdown. Ringo, spurs jingling (another trope), comes up the other end of the street.

Lesson: When you’ve created a good, tight scene with great tension, don’t cut it off too soon. Stretch that tension. Read the opening of Koontz’s Whispers, which takes 17 pages to describe a rapist stalking a woman in a house. Study the last fifty pages of a Jonathan Grave thriller. Stretch tension as far as you can in a first draft. You can always cut back when you edit. But I think you’ll find you won’t want to.

Twist in the Tail

Usually in a Western, the climactic gun battle ends the movie. The townspeople gather around the hero and his woman embraces him; or the lone hero mounts his horse and quietly rides into the sunset as THE END appears.

In Stagecoach, there’s an added beat, because Ringo is still under arrest and headed for prison…or is he?

I’m not going to tell you because I want you to watch the movie!

Suffice to say it’s perfect.

A twist in the tail is a super satisfying way to end a story. And to bring us back to Casablanca (watch it now!), that movie has perhaps the most famous tail twist of all time, the one that ends with, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Lesson: How do you come up with a great twist in the tail? You write two, three, of even more possible endings. Choose the best one for your actual ending, then use the next best for your twist.

Here’s a further hint. A great ending often involves sacrifice; the hero offers his life (Casablanca) for a greater good. But the twist gives him a reward, a new beginning, another chance at life. It’s right there in Stagecoach, too.

As film critic Roger Ebert said, “Stagecoach holds our attention effortlessly and is paced with the elegance of a symphony. Ford doesn’t squander his action and violence in an attempt to whore for those with short attention spans, but tells a story.”

Wouldn’t you like to tell a story like that?

Comments welcome.

In the Mind of a Master Plotter

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

The best selling novelist of all time is Agatha Christie. With estimated sales of between two and four billion, she is miles ahead of #2 (guess who it is…I’ll reveal the answer at the end of this post.*)

Dame Agatha, of course, was the queen of the puzzle mystery—i.e., a corpse and a group of suspects, all of whom have a hidden motive or secret, but only one of whom is the culprit (the notable exception being Murder on the Orient Express).

The intricacies of her plots did not spring forth, fully formed like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. Indeed, they required meticulous planning in order to do two essential things.

First, Christie insisted that the clues to the murderer’s identity be on the pages, without tipping off the reader. No easy task! Yet she was adamant that the mystery writer “play fair” with the reader, and that once the mystery was solved, the reader could flip back in the pages to see that the clues were actually there.

Second, her plans allowed her to know where best to plant “red herrings.”

So she was a plotter, a planner.

But she was a pantser in the run-up to the plan! Her pre-plotting involved brainstorming, jotting, talking to herself in notebooks, creating characters, asking questions, testing motives and secrets and other pieces of the puzzle. Finally, she took this jumble and put it into outline form to write the book. In her autobiography, Christie describes this period of time:

There is always, of course, that terrible three weeks, or a month which you have to get through when you are trying to get started on a book. There is no agony like it.

In Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (a comprehensive analysis of 73 handwritten volumes of notes, lists, musings, outlines, and plans for her books) author John Curran writes:

So although it is true that she had no particular method, no tried and true system that she brought with her down the long years of her career, we know this appearance of indiscriminate jotting and plotting is just that—an appearance. And eventually we come to the realization that, in fact, this very randomness is her method; this is how she worked, how she created…

In one of her notebooks, while working on a Poirot mystery called Cat Among the Pigeons, she wrote:

How should all this be approached? In sequence? Or followed up backwards by Hercule Poirot — from disappearance … at school — a possible trivial incident but which is connected with murder? —but murder of whom — and why?

She speculates further on characters (spaces before some question marks are hers):

Who is killed? Girl? 

Games mistress? 

Maid? 

Foreign Mid East ?? who would know girl by sign? 

Or a girl who ?

She also used “mundane” activities to allow her subconscious to work. She told an interviewer once that she often got her plots “in the tub, the old-fashioned, rim kind – just sitting there, thinking, undisturbed, and lining the rim with apple cores.”

Eventually, all this “chaos” coalesced into a plot plan, with the author knowing “who done it” from the jump. But because she had so fully considered all the characters, motives, and secrets in her planning, she could easily switch the killer’s ID if she liked.

Her most famous book is probably And Then There Were None. In her autobiography she writes:

I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning…It was clear, straightforward, baffling and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation…the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been.

So there’s a peek into the mind of the world’s bestselling author.

Chaos >> Plan >> Writing

My own process is similar (though I’m a little behind Dame Agatha in sales). I brainstorm, write notes, make mind maps, prod “the boys in the basement,” and type away on what I call a “white-hot document.” The latter is me writing things down as fast as I can—snippets, scene ideas, potential plotlines, possible bad guys, allies, subplots, etc. I come back to this document the next day and highlight the best parts, expand on some things, then do more writing.

I’ll also start laying out my Scrivener cards and signpost scenes, and creating a corkboard of character profiles. In the draft for my next Romeo thriller, I have a sub folder called “Suspects.” I have 11 of them, with headshots I’ve selected online. This makes it easy to look at all of them at once and consider motives and secrets and hidden relationships. I think Agatha Christie would have been proud of me! (Or maybe she would have just patted me on the head and offered me a cookie.)

Finally, I’m ready to write.

So how does this all resonate with you? Are you a chaos-to-plan writer? Or do you prefer writing in the chaos?

For you cozy mystery writers, what is your planning like? Do you need to know who the killer is before you start writing? Do you come up with suspects, secrets, and motives first?

*The #2 best selling novelist of all time is Barbara Cartland, followed by Danielle Steel (source: Wikipedia).

High Impact Interval Writing

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Try this next time you’re stuck:

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

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

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

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

Exposition Delayed is Not Exposition Denied

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

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

CHAPTER ONE

Kendari

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

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

It’s the eve of Sacrifice Night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RUE

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

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

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

The Kicker

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

Some Rearrangement

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

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

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

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

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

Typo

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

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

Over to you, TKZers.