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.

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.

Mass Market Paperbacks, RIP

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

My favorite era of publishing is the post-war mass market paperback boom of the 1950s. Here was a galaxy of genre fiction, from hardboiled detectives like Mike Hammer and Shell Scott, to standalone crime fiction from the “red-hot typewriter” of John D. MacDonald and a slew of others. And the covers! Oh, those glorious covers, with just enough salaciousness to catch the eye, but not enough to get the book placed in brown paper at the far end of the newsstand (what they used to call “smut”).

I have a story about that. When I was a kid I read many of the classics well ahead of my classmates. I mean, I read Moby-Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities,  Les Misérables, The Last of the Mohicans,The Hunchback of Notre Dame and other such like. Full disclosure: these were in the form of Classics Illustrated comic books. Those gems were written with great care to be true to the source material.

I made regular trips on my bike to Sipe’s Market and Green’s Drugstore to buy these comics, along with Archie, Superman, and Batman. And then I’d spend a little time at the spinner racks of paperbacks. At the time, the early to mid-60s, secret agents were hot. Not only James Bond, but also the hit TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (I still remember what that stood for: United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.)

So one day I was spinning a rack and came upon a series I didn’t know. The title was The Man From O.R.G.Y.

Cool, thought I. A new secret agent! I brought it to the cash register. But the man took one look and said, “This is not for you, son.”

“But I have the money,” I said.

“I’m not going to sell it to you,” he said, then added, “You can ask your parents why.”

Which I did. My mom delicately, oh so delicately, informed me that this was inappropriate for kids, and that the abbreviation stood for something “bad” that adults did. Later, in the schoolyard, I found out from a classmate what that bad thing was. Sheesh! Adults did that? Gross!

But my love of paperbacks was firmly established. Much later, when pursuing a writing career, I would scour used bookstores for titles from the classic era of Fawcett Gold Medal, Bantam, Dell and others. I eventually acquired a full set of all the 1950s stand-alones by the great John D., and bunches from other writers of the time. They are on my shelves now.

My own early books came out in trade paperback size, then hardcover. But I always wanted to be in MM. I realized my dream when I got a three-book contract with Kensington for the first (and only?) zombie legal thriller series, written under the nom de plume K. Bennett. I have the rights back and publish them under my own name, with new covers…though I wish I had rights to the old ones!)

That’s why it is sad to hear about the imminent death of the format. In the Substack Inside Agenting by the noted literary agent Richard Curtis, he writes:

[Mass market paperbacks] are scheduled to die at the end of this year.

Their death notice was recently announced in Publishers Weekly: “Sales of mass market paperbacks have steadily declined in recent years, to the point where they accounted for only about 3% of units sold at retailers that report to Circana BookScan in 2024. The format will take another big blow at the end of 2025, when Readerlink will stop distributing mass market paperbacks to its accounts.” ReaderLink describes itself as “the largest full-service distributor in North America” with six U.S. distribution centers supplying over 100,000 stores. All major publishers are shifting their focus to trade paperback as the format of choice both for originals and reprints. Even paperback publishers that prospered with genre literature like romance and science fiction are pushing their chips onto the larger trim size.

The reasons for this demise are:

  • Tissue-thin profit margins. Publication and distribution has become exceedingly cost-ineffective compared to other (and higher priced) print formats like hardcover and trade paperback.
  • The gradual disappearance of paperback racks and other displays in drugstores and supermarkets, and the explosive growth of chain bookstores whose bookshelves do not display MMPBs as effectively as trade paperbacks.
  • The decline of book departments at big-box stores like Walmart, where paperbacks failed to meet the test of profitability per square foot of display space compared to other consumer goods like deodorant and panty hose.
  • The rise of e-books as a preferred reprint format. Because e-books are released simultaneously with hardcover editions, as opposed to mass market paperbacks which are traditionally issued a year or longer after a book’s first edition, e-books have a huge advantage over MMPBs. Plus e-books are cheaper.

The one thing that never changes is change, right? But we writers are corks on the surface of the roiling sea of publishing upheavals, surviving, because no matter the format we have what the world needs—stories. And good stories, with actual human voice, will find their place. Always.

What has been your relationship with mass market paperbacks?

What is Your Writer’s Mind Like?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Happy Easter! As the minister once said, “This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.” Not exactly the true meaning, but there you are.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled post.

Hugh Howey, the breakout indie author of Wool (and the Silo series) once described his writer’s mind as “a pack of caffeinated Jack Russell terriers.” Fabulous! I totally get that.

The lyrical hippie satirist Tom Robbins said his mind was “like a pinball machine on acid.” When you read his work, you know that fits perfectly.

My favorite comedian, Steven Wright, said in an interview that he sees the world as a French impressionist painting in the pointillist style of George Seurat. He doesn’t see the big picture; he sees the dots, and finds one here and one over there, different colors, but somehow makes a connection. These he turns into one liners:  “I went to a restaurant that serves breakfast at any time, so I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”

I began to wonder how I’d describe my own writer’s mind. It’s not as rowdy as frenzied Jack Russells, nor is it a ring-dinging arcade game fueled by a variety of hallucinogens. It might have a little pointillism from time to time, but mostly it’s like Marty McFly skateboarding in Back to the Future.

One imagines Marty having fun freestyling, but when he has a location to get to he rides with purpose. Sometimes he catches the back of a passing vehicle to pull him along for a while. When he gets to where he’s going, he does a pop-up pickup of the skateboard, and he’s done.

When I develop a project, I like to freestyle, have fun, try things. Soon enough I have a location to shoot for—a plot for a novel, novella or short story. When my idea is sufficiently developed, I latch onto it and it pulls me along as I write. When I’m finished, I pick up the skateboard until such time as I start freestyling again.

I thought it might be fun, in lieu of my Sunday tutorial, to throw this question out to all of you: what metaphor would you use to describe your writer’s mind?

Have at it!

Thesaurus Love

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Let’s give a little love to the poor thesaurus. Because there’s a bit of writing advice that’s been floating around long enough to become a critique-group axiom. It has to do with the work of Mr. Peter Mark Roget (1779 – 1869) and the throwing of shade thereon.

I trace this back to an article written for the 1988 Writer’s Handbook (which sits on my shelf) by one Mr. Stephen King. It is titled “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully—in Ten Minutes.”

In said article Mr. King advises not looking at reference books when writing a first draft. Use them later if you wish. Except the thesaurus. “Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket…Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.”

A similar edict was issued by the author of Robert’s Rules of Writing (a book I am not gifting to Brother Gilstrap): “The minute you pick up a thesaurus, you’ve muddied the waters. Into the clear running stream of your prose, you’ve introduced a foreign agent. Nothing sticks out in a piece of prose like the words you’ve plucked from those long lists of synonyms, each one more obscure than its predecessor.”

Not that these gentlemen have an opinion or anything. But I wonder, is such unqualified vitriol (or should I say contempt? Or disdain?) justified? I think not.

First, King offered his opinion in the context of writing a first draft. He didn’t want a writer stopping to grab a physical reference book off a shelf, thus breaking “the writer’s trance.” Just make a guess or mark the spot, and look stuff up after the draft is done.

That’s valuable advice for writing in “flow.”

But with the digital tools available to us today, you can find synonyms in under ten seconds. Flow isn’t the issue it used to be.

Second, both of the above authors assume that the word one is looking for is a “fancy” word, one that does not traipse easily into the writer’s mind. That word will always be “wrong” they say, because its obscurity will confound the poor reader.

However, it may not be a fancy word the writer is looking for. It might simply be an alternative to the word that he immediately typed. With a synaptical flex of the brain a preferable word may come easily to mind. But if not, a click opens the e-thesaurus for a quick perusal.

Example: In my fourth paragraph, above, I originally wrote A similar command. I didn’t sound right to me; not precise enough. No writing guru has a warrant to command anything.

So I clicked open my Mac dictionary, typed command and hit the Thesaurus tab. Up came this list: order, instruction, directive, direction, commandment, injunction, decree, edict, demand, stipulation, requirement, exhortation, bidding, request. I chose edict right away. This isn’t a “fancy” word, or a word I wouldn’t normally use. Boom, in it went, and I continued typing.

That’s the value of a thesaurus for me—it reminds me of words I do know but can’t quite put my finger on at the moment.

The thesaurus also gives me a more expressive word when I need it. If I type something like He walked into the room I might want a more descriptive word than walked. I can usually think up something better on the spot, but on occasion I’ll pop open the thesaurus for a quick look.

I also will use the thesaurus when editing my previous day’s output. The other day I was editing a short story about road rage, where I’d written that a character driving a car gave a hefty blast on the horn. A few paragraphs later I wrote The monster truck’s horn blasted. That’s what I call an “echo.” I don’t like using the same descriptive word in close proximity. So up came the thesaurus. I chose blared.

I know there are some who might say that’s too much “work” for so little “return.” To which I have a simple rejoinder: Bosh. (I also could have used nonsense, balderdash, gibberish, claptrap, blarney, moonshine, garbage, hogwash, baloney, jive, guff, tripe, drivel, bilge, bunk, piffle, poppycock, hooey, twaddle, gobbledygook, flapdoodle, crapola or tommyrot. But I digress.)

I’ll take this ROI every time, not only because it pleases me to do good work, but because I also believe most readers, even subconsciously, appreciate the effort. (Now is the time to repeat Twain’s oft-quoted aphorism (maxim, adage, precept, dictum): “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”)

By the way, you might want to hang on to your printed thesauri (yes, that’s a word), for who knows what AI will do to the digital versions? This is not an idle thought. A few weeks ago I was working on a post for my Substack, about the late George Foreman. I ran it through ProWritingAid and it flagged “Foreman” fifteen times, suggesting (in no uncertain terms) that I change it to “work supervisor.”

A final note: I went to the bookstore and finally found the thesaurus I wanted. But when I got home and opened it, all the pages were blank. I have no words to express how angry I am.

Your turn (chance, moment). Do you ever use a thesaurus? 

(Note: I’m teaching at the Vision Christian Writers Conference at Mount Hermon today, so will check in when I can!)