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Author Archives: James Scott Bell
Herd Your CATS
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
We all know that getting a reader inside a lead character’s head is one of the keys to compelling fiction. But it has to be done seamlessly so it doesn’t jerk us out of the narrative and put a crimp in the fictive dream.
Which means we have to learn to handle what I call “Character Alone Thinking Scenes” (CATS) in a deft manner.
The first issue is whether to begin the book with a CATS. As last Wednesday’s first-page critique demonstrated (in my view, at least) the answer should almost always be No.
Why? Because we have to have a little personal investment in someone before we can care deeply about their feelings.
Imagine going to a party and you’re introduced to a fellow with a drink in his hand. You say, “How are you?” and the guy says, “I’m really depressed, man, I wake up every day and the room looks dark and the sun never shines, even though it’s out there, and I don’t see it because of the dark dankness in my soul, and life has lost its meaning, its luster, whatever it was it once had for me when I was young and ready to take on the world. Ya know?”
AHHHH!!!!
Well, the beginning of a book is like walking into a party. The reader wants to meet interesting people. And interest is aroused by what people do. The way you catch readers from the start is through action and disturbance, not feeling and expounding.
I can’t tell you the number of manuscripts I’ve read over the years that did not begin with a real scene, but instead opted for the inside of a character’s head. What I usually do in such cases is flip the pages until I get to some dialogue, because that automatically means we’re in a scene. And 98% of the time that is the best place to start. (Sure, an argument can be made that a great style might be enough to carry the opening pages. But it better be truly great and truly brief.)
So, re: the opening—save your CATS for later.
Once you’re into the novel there are two types of CATS to herd—active and reactive.
In an active scene, the character is alone but with a major scene objective (something that materially relates to the plot), and thinks while trying to overcome whatever scene obstacles are in her way.
In a reactive scene, the character is alone with a chance to reflect. She may be thinking about what’s already happened in the story, or her current psychological state, or the other characters. When done well, reactive scenes strengthen our emotional bond with the character.
A couple of examples. The first is from Dean Koontz’s Intensity. A young woman named Chyna Shepherd is thrust into the dark world of serial killer Edgler Vess. After Vess murders a family (not knowing Chyna is in the house, too) Chyna sneaks into his motor home in the hopes of saving her best friend, whom Vess has dumped there. Alas, she’s dead. But it gets worse. Vess starts driving away and Chyna is trapped in the back of the motor home.
Her objective now is survival. She must keep her presence in the vehicle a secret, find an adequate weapon, and somehow kill or disable Vess. As she looks for a weapon she makes a grisly find—the body of a young man hanging in the small closet, his eyes and mouth sewn shut.
She pulled shut the pleated-vinyl panel. Though flimsy, it moved as ponderously as a vault door. The magnetic latch clicked into place with a sound like snapping bone.
In all the textbooks she had ever read no case study of sociopathic violence had ever contained a description of a crime sufficiently vivid to make her want to retreat to a corner and sit on the floor and pull her knees against her chest and hug herself. That was precisely what she did now – choosing the corner farthest from the closet.
She had to get control of herself, quickly, starting with her manic breathing. She was gasping, sucking in great lungfuls, yet she couldn’t seem to get enough air. The deeper and faster she inhaled the dizzier she became. Her peripheral vision surrendered to an encroaching darkness until she seemed to be peering down a long black tunnel toward the dingy motor-home bedroom at the far end.
She told herself that the young man in the closet had been dead when the killer had gone to work with the sewing kit. And if he’d not been dead, at least he’d been mercifully unconscious. Then she told herself not to think about it at all, because thinking about it only made the tunnel longer and narrower, made the bedroom more distant and the lights dimmer than ever.
She put her face in her hands, and her hands were cold but her face seemed colder. For no reason that Chyna could understand, she thought of her mother’s face, as clear as a photograph in her mind’s eye. And then she did understand.
To Chyna’s mother, the prospect of violence had been romantic, or even glamorous. For a while they had lived in a commune in Oakland, where everyone talked of making a better world and where, most nights than not, the adults gathered around the kitchen table, drinking wine and smoking pot, discussing how best to tear down the hated system, sometimes also playing pinochle or Trivial Pursuit as they discussed the strategies that might bring utopia at last, sometimes far too enraptured by revolution to be interested in any lesser games …
Koontz then gives us a page-and-a-half of backstory, filtered through Chyna’s perceptions and thus relevant to the present action. She’s alone, but moving toward her scene goal. Her thoughts—which in real time would flash through her mind but in fiction time are detailed—are part of the action.
Now let’s take a look at a reactive CATS. This is from John Fante’s classic Ask The Dust. Arturo Bandini is a young writer living a meager existence in L.A. He has just decided to he’s going to steal milk off a truck. In his dingy hotel room, he reacts to his decision:
The night came reluctantly. I sat at the window, rolling some cigarets with rough cut tobacco and squares of toilet paper. This tobacco had been a whim of mine in more prosperous times. I had bought a can of it, and the pipe for smoking it had been free, attached to the can by a rubber band. But I had lost the pipe. The tobacco was so course it made a poor smoke in regular cigaret papers, but wrapped twice in toilet tissue it was powerful and compact, sometimes bursting into flames.
The night came slowly, first the cool odor of it, and then the darkness. Beyond my window spread the great city, the street lamps, the red and blue green neon tubes bursting to life like bright night flowers. I was not hungry, there were plenty of oranges under the bed, and that mysterious chortling in the pit of my stomach was nothing more than great clouds of tobacco smoke marooned there, trying frantically to find a way out.
So it had happened at last: I was about to become a thief, a cheap milk-stealer. Here was your flash-in-the-pan genius, your one-story writer: a thief. I held my head in my hands and rocked back and forth. Mother of God. Headlines in the papers, promising writer caught stealing milk, famous protégé of J. C. Hackmuth haled into court on petty theft charge, reporters swarming around me, flashbulbs popping, give us a statement, Bandini, how did it happen?
The scene continues, with Bandini eating an orange, doing some typing, all the while thinking about his prospects as a writer. The chapter ends with Bandini making the milk snatch, giddily bringing the two bottles back to his room, opening one and taking a long drink. And immediately spitting it out. He’d stolen what he hated—buttermilk.
There should be activity in a reactive CATS. It is often innocuous (rolling cigarettes, eating oranges, typing) but it provides the space for emotion and analysis.
The big thing to know about CATS is that they are the best way to control pace. If you need to slow things down a bit, give us more thinking. If you need to pick up the pace, compress the thoughts.
In other words, learn to herd your CATS and the readers will lap up your fiction.
The Weapon of Surprise
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Today’s first-page got me thinking about strategic decision making in fiction. That’s just a fancy way of saying that on occasion we need to step back, be objective, think about the overall plan, and be willing to give something up if it makes the whole thing better (which is where the admonition to “kill your darlings” comes from).
We writers are in a battle—for a reader’s attention. If the reader guesses where we’re heading, and we go there, said reader feels a twinge of disappointment. If that keeps on happening, the result is boredom and the battle is lost.
One of our primary weapons is surprise. When the unexpected happens on the page it delights readers. It pulls them more deeply into the story. It creates a mini-mystery. In my workshops I use the acronym SUES—Something Unexpected in Every Scene. It doesn’t have to be big (like a corpse dropping through the roof). It can be a small as a line of dialogue or a glimpse of something odd.
So let’s read this opening page and talk about it on the flip side:
Dark Elements
Sophia sipped her fish bowl-sized piña colada and wriggled her ring finger in the sun. The delicious princess-cut diamond fractured and rearranged the light, sitting on a platinum throne and presiding over her left hand like an ice queen. The sun was retiring to bed, and soon so would he. She lowered her sunnies and watched her fiancée hoist himself out of the pool, breathless after only two laps. He paused to recover under the shade of a palm. If she squinted her eyes long enough and let them go blurry, she could almost see what he would’ve looked like at her age. Almost. But that was a long time ago.
He towelled down his greying chest. I wonder if he knows, she thought, deep down surely he must know that I’m not marrying him for love. Maybe he thinks his sparkling personality has won me over, or his irresistible wit? Maybe he thinks I have a need for security, or some kind of daddy complex? Whatever it was, he wasn’t questioning it.
He came over to where Sophia lay on the sun bed, a polka dot bikini straining to cover her sensual curves.
“What did I do to deserve you, darling?” he said, kissing her forehead.
“You must’ve been a very good boy in a past life,” she said, smacking him on his wet speedo-ed bottom as he walked past. What was it with men and speedos? she thought, the older and more overweight the man, the smaller and more fluorescent the pair of speedos he tries to squeeze himself into.
Sophia herself had been a very bad girl in her past lives, and she was about to be bad all over again. She stretched her toned legs to check her tan and picked up a glossy magazine from the side table. As her lover boy went inside to shower, Sophia turned to a story about Kim Kardashian’s un-airbrushed butt, captured in its full glory on her recent holiday to the Bahamas. As she flicked through the uncompromising images, complete with dimples, cellulite and all, she smiled to herself. Not so perfect after all, are you? she thought, and for a fleeting moment she felt guilty for taking delight in another woman’s imperfections. But then again, celebrities aren’t really real people, are they?
Something stung Sophia’s ankle and she squished the first mozzie of the encroaching dusk. There’d be more where that came from, but she didn’t want to go inside just yet. She liked to milk every last minute of the dying sunlight out of these hot, lazy days. Daytime was her time, when she could do as she pleased while he was at work. Then in the evenings she felt like a B-grade actress, trying to play the role of the besotted fiancée with conviction.
At least it never got cold here, she thought. The nights were balmy and humming with cicadas as warm breezes tickled the tropical leaves. Kiralee Island felt wild, like anything could happen. Maybe she should wait a while longer, she thought, a few months at least, maybe even a year? What was the rush? The sex was surprisingly good, after all, and he was nice enough. She’d planned for next weekend, but it felt premature. You don’t pluck an under-ripe fruit from the tree just because you’ve become impatient, you wait for exactly the right moment. Yes, she could wait a while longer before she killed him.
***
JSB: Before I get to the editing, let me say up front that I like this voice. It’s got attitude, which is essential. It’s also funny and wry in its observations. All terrific qualities. But I suggest the strategy here ought to be reconsidered for one main reason: getting that last line to pop.
By the time we read before she killed him we already suspect this character. She’s a gold digger. She’s cold about it, too, mocking the guy’s personality and attempts at wit. Indeed, we are told outright she’s been a “very bad girl” in her past (lives).
So when we read the last line we’re not really shocked. It’s more like, “Oh, okay. She is taking this guy to the cleaners, and she’s also going to kill him. I could see that.”
What I suggest, then, is a rewrite of the page taking out all the on-the-nose references to her gold digging. And the snarky attitude toward the man. Keep the reader guessing about this relationship. Make the guy attractive. In fact, by using more dialogue, give us a reason to start liking the fellow.
And then, boom, drop the last line. Now you’ve got our attention. In fact, you’ve got us hooked.
The thing about voice, which everyone talks about but no one seems to be able to define (with, perhaps, one notable exception) is that when it’s good (as in this example) the author can easily overdo it. There’s a temptation to show it off at the wrong time (which is what I mean about strategy).
Thus, the observation about the Speedos (should be capitalized, as it’s a brand), while amusing, tells us we’re not exactly dealing with a warm personality. Again, that takes the surprise out of the last line.
The Kardashian bit seems forced and, by this time in our cultural zeitgeist, rather obvious. It feels like it’s in there only to be funny. Again, the temptation is to let voice show off at the expense of strategy. Voice should be in service to story, not the story itself. I say this because I really find this author’s voice has great potential. In fact, several times as I wrote this post I assumed the author was writing in First Person POV. When you can get a First feel into Third, you’re really on the right track with voice.
Now to some editing matters.
The sun was retiring to bed, and soon so would he.
Confusing, as the he seems to refer to the POV character, Sophia. I thought it was a typo. I’d just cut the entire line.
He towelled down his greying chest. I wonder if he knows, she thought …
Several times in this piece the author uses she thought when it is unnecessary. When we are firmly in the character’s POV, we don’t need it. The problem here is simply that we’re not firmly there. The fix is simply to get us into the character’s perspective with something like this:
She watched him towel down his graying chest. I wonder if he knows, deep down ….
Then you don’t need she thought. We know who is doing the thinking.
There are four other instances of she thought that can simply be cut.
He came over to where Sophia lay on the sun bed, a polka dot bikini straining to cover her sensual curves.
That’s a POV switch (“head hopping”) as the observance of the bikini is from his perspective, not hers.
Bottom line for me: The voice is promising, but I’d like it to be more seductive at first. Lull us into the scene so we’re really impacted by that last line. After that, there will be plenty of time for wry humor. Just don’t let that overtake your main task, which is to keep readers happily on edge from page one forward.
Okay, friends, take over from here. I’m traveling today so may not get a chance to comment. Help our brave writer out.
How to Cure Mid-Novel Sag
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
The plot doctor is in.
I see the waiting room today is full of pantsers. They have that lost look in their eyes that usually appears in the middle of their first drafts.
One comes up to me and says, “Doc, I was having so much fun! I was writing along, letting the characters take me wherever they wanted to go. Now I’m forty thousand words in, and I’m frozen. I don’t know what to write next! Every choice seems like a rabbit hole! Help me, Doc, please!”
“Of course,” I say. “Just have a seat and—”
“Is there any hope?”
“Who’s your plot doctor, huh? Now just wait a moment and all will be well.”
There are plotters here, too. One approaches slowly, as if fearing recognition. He whispers, “Doc, I can’t figure out what went wrong. I had the whole thing mapped out and the pieces were falling into place. But the middle is sagging. Not enough oomph. What can I do, Doc?”
“Well, let me tell you—”
“Not so loud, Doc. I don’t want these pantsers giving me the raspberry …”
I’ve treated many such cases over the years. A cursory examination of the patient usually calls for three things: a shot, a couple of pills, and preventive measures.
1. The Shot
The first step is a shot of the potent “mirror moment” drug. I’ve seen immediate improvement to the eyes (which sparkle) and the mouth (which smiles or shouts Yesss!) after an injection.
The mirror moment gives the writer a new and powerful insight into what their novel is really all about. That illumination shines both backward (to the beginning) and forward (to the ending), stimulating new scene ideas and added character depth.
2. The Pills
Now I give the writer a couple of pills, with the following instructions: take the first one and see if that clears things up. Give it a few days to work. If, however, the symptoms persist, pop the second.
The Best Move Pill
Step away from your manuscript. Go find a quiet spot or your favorite coffeehouse table, and use a pad and pen (I find this an aid to creativity).
Write down the names of every major and minor-recurring character in your novel.
Now, dedicate a page to each of these characters, answering the following question: Considering what this character wants out of the story, what is the best possible move he or she can make RIGHT NOW?
Please note that most of your characters will be “offscreen” at any given moment in your manuscript. That’s okay. They are not inert. They are in the process of planning, conspiring, sneaking, escaping, suffering … they are all doing or experiencing something. (When characters are offscreen, I call their activities “the shadow story.”)
This exercise will give you lots of plot material, scene ideas, and possible twists. See how it goes. After some time has passed if there is still significant sag, you have this:
The Guy With a Gun Pill
Raymond Chandler once wryly noted, “When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.”
Of course it does not have to be a literal man with a gun. It can be any character introduced in some surprising fashion. We’re not talking about a one-off character in a scene, but a recurring character who will add complications to the protagonist’s life.
When you place a new character in your story, you immediately inherit all of that character’s backstory, agendas, secrets, shadow story and so on. Additional scenes arise organically. As you create the new character, ponder a few questions:
- What can this character do to make life more difficult for my Lead?
- Can this character bear a secret that will upset my Lead’s applecart?
- Do they still make applecarts?
- Is there a hidden relationship this character can have with another in my cast?
- What is this character’s agenda?
- How far is this character willing to do to gain his objective?
- How can I give this character an even stronger motive?
Writers who dutifully take their medicine usually contact me in a few weeks to report being in the pink again. They have pep in their step and a twinkle in their eye, along with a few other clichés.
I am happy to hear it, but then I advise one further measure.
3. Preventive Medicine
If you want your heart to be healthy, you’ve got to eat healthier (and I never even went to med school!). Have you heard of Burger King’s new offering, the Rodeo Burger? It’s described as “two savory flame-grilled beef patties totaling more than ½ lb. of beef, topped with three half-strips of thick-cut smoked bacon, our signature crispy onion rings, tangy BBQ sauce, American cheese and creamy mayonnaise all on our sesame seed bun.”
I’m so there!
(Yeah, maybe once every three years.)
Anyway, I try to make my heart happy. It takes some discipline (e.g., steamed broccoli) and some hard work (e.g., actually eating the steamed broccoli).
Writing is no different. So if you’re a pantser, don’t be afraid of work and study. Get over the fear that any planning beforehand is stifling to your creativity. It’s not. You need to learn that surprises happen in the planning, too.
You plotters can continue to shore up your foundations with a growing knowledge of powerful story beats, which will allow you to leave a planned route for another choice. You can do that because you’ll know the next beat to write toward. You won’t be lost; you’ll be enjoying the trip!
Ah, the waiting room is clear. My work here is done. The doctor is out.
Do you often feel a sag in the middle of your manuscript? How have you solved that problem in the past?
The Power of Decency in Fiction
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
If you’ve been in my workshops or read a few of my writing books, you know about the “pet the dog” beat. The name is not original with me, but comes from the old Hollywood screenwriters. Blake Snyder changed it to “save the cat.” So pet lover-writers can choose their preferred metaphor.
I have refined the concept to make it something more specific than merely doing something nice for someone. In my view, the best pet-the-dog moments are those where the protagonist helps someone weaker or more vulnerable than himself, and by doing so places himself in further jeopardy. Thus, it falls naturally into Act 2, usually on either side of the midpoint.
I think of Katniss Everdeen helping little Rue in The Hunger Games. Or Richard Kimble in the movie The Fugitive, saving a little boy’s life in the hospital emergency ward (and having his cover blown as a result).
David Janssen as The Fugitive
And speaking of The Fugitive, I’ve been watching the old TV series starring David Janssen. The show was a big hit in the 60s, and after watching a few I came to see that a big part of the reason is the pet-the-dog motif in almost every episode. There usually comes a time when someone is in need of medical attention. Kimble, therefore, has a dilemma. He can help and give away his medical skills (leading to suspicions about his background). Or he can quietly walk away.
What do you think this decent guy does?
An episode called “Fatso” will serve as an example. It’s a particularly good entry, directed by one of the best of that rare breed, the female Hollywood director—Ida Lupino.
Kimble (now using the name Bill Carter) has hitched a ride with a traveling salesman who is fighting off sleep. For safety’s sake, Kimble takes the wheel into the next town. Unfortunately, an errant driver forces Kimble to swerve and rear end a parked car.
Knowing the local cops will soon be on the scene, Kimble tries to sneak away, but is nabbed by the sheriff and arrested for fleeing the scene of an accident. They take his prints. Kimble, sitting in the clink, knows it’s just a matter of time before they identify who he is.
Jack Weston as David in “Fatso”
He shares his cell with a sad sack, an overweight drunk named David (played by that reliable character actor of the time, Jack Weston). When the sheriff comes to release David, Kimble socks the lawman and knocks him out. He heads for the door. David begs Kimble to take him along. They hop a train, heading for David’s boyhood home.
Meanwhile, Lt. Philip Gerard (Barry Morse), who is always one step behind Kimble, gets the report based on Kimble’s prints. He flies to Kentucky where all this is taking place.
Kimble learns that David, who everyone calls “slow,” wants to see his estranged father, who is dying on the horse ranch where he grew up. David is full of fear because of his father’s disapproval. Something happened in the past that caused his father to throw him out.
Kimble and David arrive at the ranch and are met by David’s younger brother, Frank. This guy is a real jerk. He calls David “Fatso” and needles him about that terrible thing that happened.
Frank is also suspicious of Kimble. Why would a guy like this befriend a loser like David?
As the episode goes on, with Gerard getting closer and Frank feeding the local sheriff his suspicions, Kimble tries to help David. Knowing that the only way David can become whole again is to confront the past, not run from it. To gain David’s trust, Kimble admits he’s a doctor. He then walks David through the night that the barn burned down and killed several horses. David was drunk and alone on the farm, and everyone, including David, is convinced he set the fire.
But Kimble does some digging and finds out that Frank was AWOL that night from the local army base. He presents this evidence to David’s father and mother. They confront Frank. He confesses. He set David up to get him disowned and out of the will.
David’s father asks for David’s forgiveness.
It’s all very redemptive, but there’s one problem: Gerard has just pulled up to the house with the sheriff!
The mother, played with gusto by that wonderful character actress Glenda Farrell, sends Kimble out the back door and proceeds to delay the investigators.
In each show’s epilogue, as we see Kimble disappear into the night, we hear the dulcet tones of one of the great voice-over actors, William Conrad, giving an ominous send-off. In “Fatso,” he says: “A Fugitive has to watch his step. Every step he takes, every hour, every minute, every second, any move he makes might lead to Death Row. There’s no way of knowing in advance. There’s never any way of knowing.”
Thus, virtually every episode is built around Kimble, on the run, arriving in some locale where he manages to pick up a menial job, but then gets involved with another character who is having some life-and-death problem, too … and Kimble is in a position to help.
I say this pet-the-dog motif is the secret of the show’s popularity. David Janssen was perfect for the part. He does a lot of acting with his face—trying to appear innocent as the questions get more pointed; attempting to ignore someone’s troubles even as his core goodness makes that impossible.
The movie works in the same way, with a similar stellar acting job by Harrison Ford. There’s one moment that makes me smile every time. After Kimble saves the little boy’s life in the hospital, he’s confronted by a doctor (Julianne Moore) who had seen him checking out the boy’s X-ray. She calls security. Kimble races to the stairs and starts down, almost bumping into someone.
“Excuse me,” he says.
I love it! Even as he’s running for his life, he can’t give up his fundamental decency.
Why do we respond so strongly to this motif? It’s not hard to understand. In this life, which Hobbes described as “nasty, brutish, and short,” we long for decency, thirst for kindness, are grateful for compassion. Seeing it manifested in a lead character draws us to him, creates the bond that is one of the big secrets of successful fiction.
What are some of your favorite pet-the-dog moments in movies or books? Don’t you find yourself really drawn to characters who show compassion for the vulnerable?
Two Writing Mind Tricks to Get You Rolling
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles
You know me. I’m a quota guy. I call that the best writing advice I ever got. It’s the reason I can look back over 25 years and see all these books lined up.
I write 6,000 words a week. I divide that into six days so I can take one day (usually Sunday) off. If I miss a day for some reason, I make up the deficit on the other days. Since 2000 I’ve kept a record of my daily, weekly, and yearly word count on a spreadsheet.
Every now and then I’ll have a week where I do very little writing, if any. I highlight those weeks on the spreadsheet and note the reason. One time it was pneumonia. Another time it was a week-long conference. Most recently it was a trip to Ireland with my wife and daughter. I give myself a pass in these instances.
Aren’t I nice?
Most days, however, I try to write first or second thing in the morning. If I can hammer out a “Nifty 350” or a “Furious 500,” the rest of the writing day is so much easier. Some days the words flow. Other days writing feels like trying to jog in snow shoes through the La Brea Tar Pits.
You all know what I mean.
After 25 years of this, I dare say I’m familiar with just about every mental condition of the writing life.
So today I want to talk about two mind tricks that will help you get going on days when those snow shoes are attached.
- Fifteen Minutes
In the current (October, 2017) Writer’s Digest, David Corbett interviews Michael Connelly. At the end he asked Connelly for his best advice for aspiring writers. Connelly said:
I’d pass along what I learned from Harry Crews, who was my creative writing teacher at the University of Florida. He said if you want to be a writer you have to write every day, even it’s only for 15 minutes. It was the “15 minutes” that hit home. You have to keep the story fresh in your mind; you can’t let it slip away.
A few days ago I was avoiding the blank screen. I remembered the Connelly quote. I looked at the clock and said to myself, “At 11 a.m., I will give fifteen minutes to writing.” That felt doable. It wasn’t a heavy burden.
So at 11:00 I sat down and started typing. I noticed it wasn’t long before I was into the story again. When I next looked at the clock it was 11:25 and I’d typed 654 words.
- The One-Inch Frame
This idea comes from Anne Lamott and her book on writing, Bird by Bird. She writes about having an empty one-inch picture frame on her desk.
It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being. All I am going to do right now, for example, is write that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late fifties, when the trains were still running. I am going to paint a picture of it, in words, on my word processor. Or all I am going to do is to describe the main character the very first time we meet her, when she first walks out the front door and onto the porch. I am not even going to describe the expression on her face when she first notices the blind dog sitting behind the wheel of her car—just what I can see through the one-inch picture frame, just one paragraph describing the woman, in the town where I grew up, the first time we encounter her.
This has worked for me, too. If I bring my focus down to just one thing, and forget about the big picture that is an entire novel, it feels easier to accomplish. Invariably, after I fill that frame, I want to keep going. So I’ll write to another one-inch frame. After that I’m usually off to the races and the words flow again.
As Yogi Berra once said about baseball, “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.” The same goes for writing, especially if it’s something you want to do long term. That’s why I wrote a whole book on the mental game of writing.
Next time you’re stuck because you just don’t feel like clacking the keyboard, give yourself fifteen minutes or a one-inch frame. You can do that much, and you’ll probably end up doing much more.
So what about you? What tricks do you use to get yourself going when the going gets tough?
A Prologue Primer
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Today we look at a first page from another anonymous author. Here we go:
Prologue
“Where is my Aunt,” Daniel Dubov hissed at the stranger. It was midnight and he was standing on the roof top of the Angebilt Hotel waiting to rendezvous with Esther Fiedler, the owner.
“She’s still in the nightclub, enjoying Wini Rose’s trombone solo,” said the shadowy figure. “Somehow Mrs. Fiedler didn’t get the note telling her to meet you here, but I have a message for you.” Without warning, Daniel was grabbed and held tight while the Nazi slit his throat and dragged him behind some potted palms. The Nazi gloated that it had been so easy to finish this night’s mission and slipped through the darkness to the nightclub one story below.
Ludwig Lash, aka Flash, the leader and piano player of our swing band, handed me a bouquet of flowers to the cheers and claps from my colleagues and friends.
“Way to go, Wini,” my friend Mac shouted and gave a loud two fingered whistle.
I threw him a grin then looked around at the other four band members, and nodded my thanks to their encouraging smiles, well, all but one was smiling. Steve Beckett, the clarinetist, was scowling as usual. He definitely had a jealous streak and didn’t like all the attention I was getting. It wasn’t my fault that I finally graduated from college and Mrs. Fiedler, the owner of the hotel where our band played, decided to throw me a surprise party to celebrate. It was a surprise all right. Too bad I hate surprises. I smiled and waved to the audience and told Flash out of the side of my mouth, “Cover for me, please? I needed some fresh air.”
After a five minute stop to powder my nose, I climbed a flight of stairs to the rooftop of the Angebilt Hotel. I shivered a little in the cool breeze. It was in sharp contrast to the smoked filled stuffy room of the Top o The Town Nightclub. I took a deep breath and could feel myself relaxing, enjoying the twinkling lights of Orlando, eleven stories below.
As I was leaving to go back to the nightclub and do some mingling, I saw what looked like a shoe behind a potted plant. Going in for a closer look I noticed the shoe was attached to a body and the body sure looked dead to me. Any ordinary girl might scream but I was cultivating a tough cookie persona and tough cookies don’t scream or at least not very often. There was a scrap of paper next to the body. I bent over to grab it and that is the last thing I remember before coming to.
***
JSB: When is a prologue not a prologue? And should prologues be used at all?
Some time in the last fifteen years or so, one of those critique-group memes mushroomed, ready to chew up young writers, like that plant in Little Shop of Horrors. This meme is Never use a prologue! Editors hate them.
How did such a meme arise? Perhaps from the editors on conference panels who said, “Never use a prologue! I hate them.”
Just a guess.
Anyway, what are we to make of this? Prologues have a long and honorable history and are still being used by A-list novelists today. Okay, so you’re not A-list. Yet (and when you are, you can do whatever you dang well please).
What then, classically, is the role of a prologue? Here are three:
- To hook the reader from the get-go with a gripping scene.
- To lay out some mystery to be resolved later.
- Sometimes, to give us the POV of the villain engaged in an act of villainy.
All fine reasons. Here are some not so fine reasons:
- To give us backstory information only.
- To give us a scene that does not have an integral relationship with the plot.
- To tease.
This last one is what we have here. A prologue needs to be an actual scene—at least enough of a scene to get us bonded to a character. Even if that character dies.
If it’s not a scene, and we don’t click with a character—and especially if it’s as short as this—we have a teaser. But a teaser is not a function of storytelling. It’s a function of advertising. Like a movie trailer.
So … either cut this prologue or make it a full scene, from Daniel’s POV. As it stands now, we bounce out of Daniel’s POV and into the Nazi’s. And yet I’m not sure that there aren’t three POVs here. It’s not clear that the shadowy figure and the Nazi are the same. Physically, it appears they aren’t, because Daniel is grabbed and his throat is cut—an action that usually takes place from behind.
I’d say cut this, because a true prologue is separated in time from Chapter One. This teaser is merely some action happening just before the opening scene.
There is white space, and then the next scene. This is rendered in First Person POV, so I am assuming it’s Chapter One. If so, it should be so labeled. And this is where I would begin. If not, it’s still a distraction.
One more word about prologues. Being aware that the label Prologue might hit some editor or agent the wrong way, outfox them: Don’t label it Prologue!
Label it either Chapter One, or don’t label it at all. Begin with white space or a date stamp. Make sure it’s gripping and relevant and ends with a page-turning punch. Then you can label the next scene Chapter One and no one will be the wiser….heh heh.
As for the rest of the piece, there is nice potential. I like that she’s a female trombonist. That’s fresh. She goes up on the roof, discovers a body, and gets conked on the noggin. Nice disturbance to her ordinary world, I’d say!
I also like the voice. I threw him a grin … I noticed the shoe was attached to a body and the body sure looked dead to me. This has a nice, snappy, noir feel to it. And some attitude. That’s always a key for me to enjoy First Person POV.
I suggest a few tweaks:
smoked filled stuffy room should be smoke-filled room. (Stuffy is redundant)
but I was cultivating a tough cookie persona and tough cookies don’t scream or at least not very often. This is already a long sentence, and the last few words are superfluous. Don’t soften a good strike. The line is snappier this way: but I was cultivating a tough cookie persona and tough cookies don’t scream.
Similarly, clip the last line: I bent over to grab it and that is the last thing I remember.
Now I really would want to read on!
In general, for this type of writing, keep long sentences to a minimum. I’d look over all of it and see about dividing some of them into two or three. You can even make paragraphs out of them. Here’s just one example:
I threw him a grin looked around at the other four band members. I nodded my thanks to their encouraging smiles.
Well, all but one was smiling.
All in all, though, this is promising. Well done, author. Keep at it.
TKZers, what have you to say?
How to Talk Tough
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Mickey Spillane
Those of us who write thrillers, noir, and crime fiction know that a huge part of our craft is tough talk—dialogue from the mouths of hardboiled protagonists, street hustlers, cops, thugs, hitmen, femme fatales, homme fatales, and other denizens of the dark side.
It’s not easy to do it artfully, for it is much more than littering the page with the F-bomb and its misbegotten progeny.
I saw a movie the other day, a highly-touted crime thriller. I won’t name it because I don’t like to put down other writers, but I will say the dialogue was pretty lame. What I mean is that there were a lot of F words tossed around without any originality or élan. Characters would just spout “F you” or “F that.” (But that’s how people talk in real life! you might be thinking. Well, you’re not writing real life. You’re writing fiction, which is a stylized rendering of life for an artistic purpose. Just recreating “real life” sounds doesn’t move the needle.)
So how can you talk tough without falling into the lazy lacing of platitudinous profanities? Let me suggest a few:
- Be Witty
This is the toughest (!) form of tough talk, but it pays big when you can pull it off. The master of this kind of gab, of course, was Raymond Chandler. His novels featuring PI Philip Marlowe are filled with snappy banter that works because (and this is the key) it is perfectly in Marlowe’s voice. It never seems to be a strain. Like this exchange in The Long Goodbye:
“See you around,” the bodyguard told me coolly. “The name is Chick Agostino. I guess you’ll know me.”
“Like a dirty newspaper,” I said. “Remind me not to step on your face.”
Or this from The Little Sister:
“That slut. What does she say about me?” she hissed.
“Nothing. Oh, she might have called you a Tijuana hooker in riding pants. Would you mind?”
The silvery giggle went on for a little while. “Always the wisecrack with you. Is it not so? But you see I did not then know you were a detective. That makes a very big difference.”
“Miss Gonzales, you said something about business. What kind of business, if you’re not kidding me.”
“Would you like to make a great deal of money? A very great deal of money?”
“You mean without getting shot?” I asked.
“Sí,” she said thoughtfully. “There is also that to consider. But you are so brave, so big, so—”
“I’ll be at my office at nine in the morning, Miss Gonzales. I’ll be a lot braver then.”
Take your time with exchanges like this. Don’t force the issue. Play with the language. A different word here or there can make all the difference. I like the line from Lawrence Block’s short story “Headaches and Bad Dreams.” A detective is describing a suspect who is not exactly lovely to look at. “God made him as ugly as he could and then hit him in the mouth with a shovel.”
- Be Crisp
Tough talk is often clipped. It gives nice white space to the page, too. This was Robert. B. Parker’s preferred method. Here’s a bit from one of his Sunny Randall novels, Melancholy Baby:
“Sarah took a lot of drugs.”
“More than grass?” I said.
“Oh, yes. Hard drugs.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t use drugs.”
“Good for you,” I said.
“I graduate this June, and next year I want to be in a really good MBA program. I don’t want to do anything to spoil my chances.”
“So her drug use was disruptive?”
“Yes. She’d come in at night, late sometimes, and act crazy.”
“Like?”
“Like she’d be crying and seeing things and …” Polly shook her head. “Did you ever go to college?”
“I did,” I said.
“What did you major in?”
“Art.”
“Really?”
I could tell that Polly found that puzzling.
“How did you do?”
“I was a good artist and a bad student,” I said.
Go over all your dialogue scenes and look for words to cut. Replace some verbal answers with silence or an action beat. You’ll love the results.
- Be Over the Top
This is the opposite of #2. It should be done sparingly. But every now and then consider having one of your characters give vent with a paragraph or two of straight tough talk.
Mickey Spillane liked to do this. He of course invented the quintessential hard-boiled PI, Mike Hammer. But he also wrote stand alones. In The Long Wait (1951) the narrator, Johnny McBride, has been dragged in by the cops for questioning. McBride insults the cops (this will get him beaten up later) and tells them to inform him of the charges or let him walk. The lead detective says:
“I don’t know what kind of an angle you think you’re playing, McBride, and I don’t give a damn. The charge is murder. It’s murder five years old and it’s the murder of the best friend a guy ever had. It’s murder you’ll swing for and when you come down through the trap I’m going to be right there in the front row so I can see every twitch you make, and there in the autopsy room when they carve the guts out of you and if nobody claims the body I’ll do it myself and feed you to the pigs at the county farm. That’s what the charge is. Now do you understand it?”
Pick a tense moment of tough talk and put yourself inside one of the characters. Write a 200 word rant. Do not pause to edit. Come back to it later and review. Even if you only end up using one line, it’ll be a good one.
- Be Suggestive
As I said, tough talk does not have to be laced with expletives. You’re a writer. You have a whole palette of possibilities open to you.
Writers of the 40s and 50s often simply wrote things like: He cursed and walked out of the room. You know what? That still works. Readers can fill in the blanks in their own heads.
There are other methods. In Romeo’s Way I have a character, Leeza, who is young and foul-mouthed. Mike Romeo is trying to help her. She doesn’t want any. This character would definitely unleash a curse storm. But I didn’t want to lay that on the reader. So I did it this way:
She jumped back like I was the guy from Friday the 13th.
“I don’t think you’re safe here,” I said.
“What the h—”
“No time to talk. Come with me.”
I put my hand out. She slapped it. “Get away from me.”
“I’m on your side,” I said.
She began a tirade then, peppered with words with a hard K sound. She was a symphony of K. It was so constant and crazy, it hit my brain like woodpecker woodpecker peck peck woodpecker.
“Ease up,” I said. “There’s bad people who want you. Did you forget that?”
Woodpecker woodpecker!
“Your boss, one of your bosses, Kat Hogg, is in a car over there. Come with us.”
Leeza looked across the street. Then she turned and ran.
I said something that sounded like woodpecker myself and gave chase.
Dialogue, as I’ve said many times in workshops and in books, is the fastest way to improve a manuscript. So when it comes to tough talk, don’t be lazy about it. Be crafty.
The Ingredients of a Great Series Character
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet
Many pulp writers of old made good bank with a hit series character.
Edgar Rice Burroughs created Tarzan.
Erle Stanley Gardner gave us Perry Mason.
Dashiell Hammett penned the Continental Op.
The ladies were represented as well. An obvious pen name “Lars Anderson” wrote a series featuring college-educated Ellen Patrick, who fought corruption in 1930s Los Angeles as “the Domino Lady.” The pulp magazine she appeared in was Saucy Romantic Adventures, and wouldn’t you like to have a few original copies of that?
Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the most famous example of the hit series character. So popular was Holmes that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, couldn’t get out from under him. At one point Doyle killed off his detective, but the public demanded he be brought back. His resurrection was by way of the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. When it was first published in The Strand magazine, the circulation of that periodical went up by about thirty thousand.
In other words, Doyle, though feeling a bit trapped, took that feeling all the way to the bank.
What Makes a Great Series Character?
I see five qualities in the best series characters. If you can pack these in from the start, your task is half done. Here they are:
- A point of uniqueness, a quirk or style that sets them apart from everybody else
What is unique about Sherlock Holmes? He’s moody and excitable. Among the very staid English, that was different.
Jack Reacher? Come on. The guy doesn’t own a phone or clothes. He travels around with only a toothbrush. Funny how every place he goes he runs into massive trouble and very bad people.
- A skill at which they are really, really good
Katniss Everdeen is killer with the bow and arrow.
Harry Potter is one of the great wizards (though he has a lot to learn).
- A bit of the rebel
The series hero should rub up against authority, even if it’s in a quiet way, like Miss Marple muttering “Oh, dear” at the local constabulary. Hercule Poirot is a needle in the side of Inspector Japp.
- A vulnerable spot or character flaw
Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian has a vicious temper that sometimes gets the better of him.
Sherlock Holmes has a drug habit.
Stephanie Plum keeps bouncing between two lovers, who complicate her life.
- A likable quality
Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe has some of the greatest quips in the history of crime fiction. We like them because Marlowe is also vulnerable—to getting beat up, drugged, or otherwise manhandled by forces larger than himself (like Moose Malloy).
Wit is one of the great likability factors.
Another is caring for others besides oneself. Stephanie Plum has a crazy family to care for, not to mention her sometime partner Lula.
Will the Character Grow?
One decision you should make early on is how much character growth there will be. While you’ll hear a lot about the necessity for character arcs, they aren’t always necessary.
For example, Jack Reacher doesn’t change. I once heard Lee Child talking about this on a panel, and he said, “Arcs? We don’t need no stinkin’ arcs.”
Ahem.
Michael Connelly, on the other hand, has brought tremendous change to his series character, Harry Bosch. He decided, too, that he would age Bosch right along with the books, a decision he has come to ruefully regret. Bosch is getting up there!
At the very least, your character ought to grow stronger with each adventure. Why? Because without that there is no tension or conflict in the story. Each new tale must challenge the character in some way that threatens him with death (physical, professional, or psychological).
Test Marketing
Self-publishing today provides the writer with a way to “test drive” a potential series character. You can do that in a number of ways.
You can write a story and send it to several beta readers. These are people you know and trust to give you honest feedback.
You can publish in a free venue, like Wattpad, and collect the feedback that way.
There’s always the option of going to Kindle Direct Publishing, and using Kindle Select exclusivity so you can promote the story for free. Promote the heck out of it. Read the reviews.
The pulp writers of old weren’t shy about testing a character and then moving on if that character didn’t create enough buzz. Their big problem was the lag time between sending in a story and waiting months for it to appear.
Today, you don’t have to wait.
Who are some of your favorite series characters? What do you think is the key to their popularity?
The Midstream Temptation
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
I’m currently writing a series featuring a character named Mike Romeo. I have three books out in that series. I also have a little over half of the next Romeo completed.
But during my creativity time a couple of months ago, I was playing the first line game. That’s where I just make up first lines, not knowing anything else about what is to follow. I have a file full of firsts that I would love to develop someday. All I need is a 28-hour day and and a perpetual espresso machine.
Anyway, I wrote an opening line and it blasted me. I just had to know what it meant. So I found myself writing an opening chapter. And when I was finished I knew I had the makings of a stand-alone thriller that I wanted to write.
Only I wanted to write it now.
I call this the midstream temptation.
I was faced with a choice. Continue to write this new project, leaving Romeo sitting there waiting for me to get on with his story? Or finish Romeo and come back to the new one? (A third option, writing both at the same time, seems to have worked for Isaac Asimov, but it gets me too confused.)
When I was writing for a publishing company, they had a triple-barreled vaccine for the midstream temptation—a contract, an advance, and a deadline.
But as an indie, I am free to decide what to write, and when.
Now, I know enough about the mental game of writing to realize there’s a danger here all writers face. Sometimes you reach a point in a novel where you hit “the wall.” For me that’s usually around the 30k word mark. It’s a place where you’ve got a whole lot of book to go, but start thinking maybe your concept isn’t as hot as you thought. Or you wonder if you are really the writer you thought—or hoped—you were. Maybe the day of reckoning has come, and they’ll all find out you’re a total fraud!
For me, I just write through the wall. The doubts go away.
But that wasn’t the case with Romeo. I didn’t hit a wall. The book is solid. I know my signpost scenes.
So I had another thought (two thoughts in close proximity!). When I finish a first draft I always set it aside and let it cool for a time before my first read-through and edit. So! Why not let the Romeo cool off now? Use the cooling period to write this new one while it’s hot, and then approach my Romeo manuscript as if it is a first draft (a short one, to be sure)!
Which is what I decided to do.
This is the first time I’ve done something like this. The conditions had to be just right. So let me run through some thoughts on the matter:
- When you are tempted to leave a book in midstream for another idea, resist the temptation and keep writing on your WIP.
- If the new idea keeps demanding your attention, take one day off and…
- Put on your “thinking cap,” as Mrs. Barshay used to tell us Kindergartners. Ask yourself if you’ve merely hit a wall of doubt. I suspect a lot of the time the answer will be yes.
- Write some analysis. Talk to yourself about your WIP. Identify issues, and make a list of possible solutions.
- Keep at your WIP unless you are at a point where it’s pretty much complete in your mind. That means you have a good bulk of it done and are pretty sure where it’s heading, and how it’s likely to end. (Admittedly, this is more difficult for a panster. And it should be. Because you’re a pantser.)
- Take a day to do some freewriting on the new idea. Then take another day to map out where the story might go. Do a preliminary outline, at least of signpost scenes.
- Write the opening chapter. Then ask yourself if you, as a reader, would have to read on. Do you have compelling characters? Are the stakes death (physical, professional, or psychological)?
- If the answers to #6 are affirmative, take one more day to make sure you’re not going to the new project just to avoid facing the task of the WIP.
- Make your decision.
- Continue to meet your quota. (Don’t have a quota? Get one!)
I don’t know that I’ll ever do this again. My routine for twenty years is to finish a full draft while at the same time developing the next project with notes, index cards, character work and so on. I just got caught up in the excitement this time. The new idea kept tapping on the window, inviting me to come outside and play. And isn’t spontaneous play what we used to love as children?
Okay, so writers are big children. That’s how we roll.
But if we want to be paid for our play, we need more than a little discipline. So when a midstream temptation comes calling, subject it to hard and objective scrutiny. If it passes … go play!
And be sure to look both ways before crossing the street.
Have you ever had a major midstream temptation? What did you do? Do you ever hit a wall in your first draft? How do you handle it?