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.

Timeless Truths About Story

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

As storytellers, what do we know?

We know that people love to escape into stories in order to get some relief from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, aka life.

And we know that to the extent we provide that escape, we increase our odds of making some lettuce at this gig. And we know (or should know) that the craft of writing fiction is not some straitjacket around your creative genius, but a prism though which we refract and unleash the power of story. (See “Story and Structure in Love.”)

These truths do not change.

Which is why I was curious to see what a book offering “photoplay” (i.e., screenwriting) advice had to say…a book published in 1916!

A-B-C of Motion Pictures by Robert E. Welsh offers a short history of the movies and the business of making them. It has a chapter called “Practical Hints on Photoplay Writing.” Let’s have a look.

[The writer] must be certain that he possesses the power of observation that enables him to see the germs of stories in the little incidents that would ordinarily be passed by with scarce a moment’s thought.

This is the power of “What if?” It’s a muscle of the mind that can, and should be, developed by every writer. I used to read the newspaper (remember those?) looking for “what ifs” and marking them with a felt-tip pen. I would flip things around in a crime story (What if that robber had been a woman instead of a man?) or elevate something in an innocuous item (What if the president of the local PTA was on the run from the mafia?)

Most of the ideas would never go further, but sometimes I’d come up with a promising nugget. Like the news item that begins Try Dying and which landed me a three-book contract.

Exercise your head! Ask “What if?” all the time.

He must be gifted with the imagination that will enable him to create a full-bodied story—a plot—from this germ.

Anyone who wants to write full-length fiction needs to have “story sense.” This comes only through reading. Successful writers were readers as kids, or at least adolescents. So you have to have a certain acquired ability to know what a sentence is and how to string them together in some kind of coherent fashion. If you have that, you can learn and apply craft. As Welsh says:

Lastly, he must possess…the knowledge of dramatic principles necessary to relate his story in such a manner that the interest of his audience mounts steadily and is held to the end.

Boom! Can storyteller disagree with that? What’s the alternative? Not knowing or not caring about these principles? Writing merrily along with no thought about craft, then throwing up (and I use that term advisedly) untested, unedited books to befoul the marketplace and not sell?

What is plot? … It is a story woven around a central theme, which is usually a crisis in the lives of the characters. It has a definite beginning, which is at the time when the causes are born which gradually increase in strength and at the last give rise to the events which produce the climax, the height of the suspense and interest. It has a definite ending, which should come as soon as it has been determined whether the crisis overwhelms the characters or whether they pass through it successfully. The ideal plot is the plot of struggle, whether physical or mental.

Yes. I define plot as a life and death struggle met by a character exercising strength of will. Death can be physical, professional, or psychological. Think about the most popular novels of all time, and you’ll see a death struggle, an increase of “suspense and interest” leading to a climax followed shortly by THE END, thus avoiding anticlimax.

You do not have to follow your characters to the grave; the interest of the audience is over when the crisis is past. You may spoil the effect of a good story by trifling with its interest after that. That is part of the story-teller’s art that we spoke of as the third essential—the ability to know where to begin the story, so that no time is lost in useless detail, while at the same time making the necessary points clear, a knowledge of what incidents to introduce and how to group them so that they merge smoothly into the climax and the gift of stopping when the story is done.

Did you catch that? [T]he ability to know where to begin the story, so that no time is lost in useless detail. He would have loved our first-page critiques!

Make certain that your story is good by all the tests you can devise…

I have a great first editor (and wife), and excellent beta readers who see things I’ve missed. I know if I don’t fix them, readers will pick them up and experience “speed bumps” in the fictive dream. That increases the odds they’ll pass on my next book. No thanks. It’s worth the extra effort to polish the book.

Finally:

Typewrite your manuscript. Here are other rules of the game which the beginner often disregards: Write on only one side of the paper; use white paper about eight and a half by eleven; put your name and address on the first page of the manuscript; and, most important of all, enclose a stamped and addressed envelope for the return of the story should it be unavailable. Make carbon copies of all your stories.

Remember that! Stock up on carbon paper and don’t forget that SASE!

Ahem.

And there you have some timeless truths about storytelling. Ignore them at your peril.

New Year’s Diminutions For Writers

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

So we’re off and running into 2025. We’ve had some discussions of goals and resolutions, as is to be expected. Today I want to talk about something else—New Year’s diminutions. The things you should resolve to do less of in your fiction. Here are three.

  1. Ditch Marshmallow Dialogue

Check this exchange:

“Hello, Becky.”

“Hi, Kelly.”

“So, how is everything at home?”

“Oh, you know, the same.”

“I do! I totally know about that. It’s like that at my house, too!”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“It’s good to know I’m not alone.”

“Yes it is. Awfully good.”

“Well, listen, I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Really? I’m all ears.”

Unfortunately, at this point readers are not all ears. If they’re not asleep, they are wondering why they are bothering with this story.

Dialogue without conflict or tension is squishy and sweet.

Like a marshmallow.

Marshmallows are for hot chocolate and S’Mores, not fiction.

There is no sign of trouble anywhere in these lines. This is the kind of talk that goes on every day in countless coffee houses and kitchens, bus benches and laundromats. It’s the talk that comes out of people without any care or worry at the moment of speaking.

Or, if they are worried, are good at hiding it.

Which is precisely the kind of talk we don’t want in our stories.

We want care. And worry. And we want to see it, or at least sense it.

Make sure all the characters in your book, from the majors to the minors, have both an agenda, even if it’s as simple as (as Vonnegut suggested) getting a glass of water. Put agendas in conflict. Boom. No more marshmallow dialogue.

  1. Avoid the Expected

What makes a novel boring? I think the answer is easy: the reader expects something to happen, and it does. There is no surprise, no intriguing turn of events. And the characters are all out of the stereotype casting office. We’ve seen these people and this story before!

So try this:

Pause every now and then and think about your plot. Ask yourself what the average reader would expect to happen next. What are the stereotypical story tropes that immediately spring to your mind?

Take your time. Then ponder the list. All you have to do now is take the most obvious turns and do something different, maybe even the opposite of what’s expected.

When writing a scene, I always try to put in something unexpected. This can be as big as a new character or as small as a line of dialogue that is makes a reader think, Why on earth did she say that?

  1. Fumbled Flashbacks

The first question to ask about a flashback scene is, Is it necessary? Be firm about this. Does the story information have to come to us in this fashion?

A flashback is almost always used to explain why characters act a certain way in the present story. If such information can be dropped in during a present moment scene, that’s usually the better choice.

Be very wary of starting your novel in the present and going too soon to flashback. If the flashback is important, you should consider starting with that scene as a prologue or first chapter.

These are guidelines. In the hands of a good writer, a gripping first chapter, followed by a compelling flashback, can work—see the first two chapters of Lee Child’s Persuader for an example.

If you’ve decided that a flashback is necessary, make sure it works as a scene––immediate, confrontational. Write it as a unit of dramatic action, and not as an information dump. Not:

Jack remembered when he was a child, and he spilled the gasoline on the ground. His father got so angry at him it scared Jack. His father hit him, and yelled at him. It was something Jack would never forget . . . [and more of the same]

Instead:

Jack couldn’t help remembering the gas can. He was eight, and all he wanted to do was play with it.

The garage was his theater. No one was home. He held the can aloft, like the hammer of Thor. “I am the king of gas!” he said. “I will set you all on fire!”

Jack stared down at the imaginary humans below his feet

The gas can slipped from his hand.

Unable to catch it, Jack watched as the can made a horrible thunking sound. Its contents poured out on the new concrete.

Jack quickly righted the can, but it was too late. A big, smelly puddle was right in the middle of the garage.

Dad is going to kill me!

Jack looked around for a rag, anything to clean up the mess.

He heard the garage door open.

And saw his dad’s car pull into the driveway.

A well written flashback scene will not detract from your story. Readers are used to novels cutting away from one scene to another. They will accept a cut to a flashback if it is written with dramatic flair.

My “rule” of thumb is: One flashback scene in a novel is enough.

Over to you. What do you want to avoid in your own writing?

Carpe Typem in 2025!

(This post adapted from 27 Fiction Writing Blunders—And How Not to Make Them!)

 

See You Soon!

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Today commences our annual two-week hiatus here at TKZ. This blog has been hale and hearty since 2009, which is a testimony to the quality of our writers and commenters over the years. 

Blogging began back in 1994 when Justin Hall, a student at Swarthmore College, started publishing personal content on his website. He called it “Justin’s Links from the Underground.” This was his “log” on the web. A web log.

The term “weblog” came from Jorn Barger, a bearded James Joyce fan. Later, tech billionaire Evan Williams coined “blog” as both noun and verb, and “blogger” to designate one who blogs. As co-founder of Pyra Labs, he helped design the site Blogger which went public in 1999. (Williams would go on to co-found a micro-blogging site called Twitter.)

In 2004, “blog” was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year.

Blogs took off in the 2000s, with professional and monetized blogs like TechCrunch, Gawker, and Huffington Post becoming major players in media, offering insights into technology, gossip, and news.

Writers started blogging, too. One of the most influential blogs was Joe Kontrath’s A Newbies Guide to Publishing, which gave practical advice to writers trying to break into traditional publishing. At the end of 2010, however, his blog morphed over into leading the charge for indies. 

On August 7, 2008, a date that will live in fame, a group blog for writers called Kill Zone made its debut. Of its original cast, only our great founder and admin, Kathry Lilley, and a fellow named Gilstrap remain. I looked up John’s first post and saw this:

I faced a storytelling crisis last weekend. Staring down the throat of an August 15 deadline for Grave Secrets (coming in June, ’09), I needed an ending. 

So the first Jonathan Grave thriller was coming. It came (with a title change to No Mercy).

I mean, I already had an ending from the initial drafts, but I needed an ending. A kick-ass final sequence that would leave the reader exhausted and satisfied. The one I already had took care of the satisfaction part, but it didn’t have the roller coaster feel that I wanted.

So I shot one of the characters.

What a great tip. It’s another side of Raymond Chandler’s advice: Bring in a guy with a gun.

And that’s what we’ve always been about here. Tips and techniques and advice and encouragement for our fellow writers. God willing and the crick don’t rise, we’re going to keep on trucking (Okay, Boomer) in 2025.

While you, dear writing friends, keep on writing.

Merry Christmas and Carpe Typem. See you soon!

Every Story is a War

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

My office bookshelves are stuffed with the writing books I’ve studied and highlighted over the years. They’re like old friends. They helped me learn to write salable fiction. I also have eight big binders of issues of Writer’s Digest, all sticky noted, because I’d gobble up the fiction column each month. When I started, Lawrence Block was the columnist. Later it was Nancy Kress. And later than that I shared the column with Nancy.

I sometimes go through these just to see what I was highlighting in those days and get some helpful craft reminders. Recently I came across one of Nancy’s columns titled “How You Can Make Your Story Into a Battlefield” (June, 1995).

In it she boldly states, “Every story is a war. This means every story.” Realizing this, you begin to think “not like a carpenter patiently building a house, but like a general ordering forces.” Further:

Every war includes these factors: combatants who know which side they’re on; something significant at stake; murderous action in which both sides are struggling as hard as they can to prevail; an end to the war through victory, surrender, exhaustion or default; some means of deciding who won.

This doesn’t mean you have to write bang-bang thrillers. The war can be inside a character. I’ve often said that a plot is how a character confronts death—physical, professional, or psychological (or a mix).

Do you write sweet romances? Well, unless the lovers fight through obstacles because they must be together or lose the deepest part of their lives (psychological death), the story isn’t full capacity.

This is even true of comic fiction. Why? Because the characters in the comedy must think they’re in a tragedy of epic proportions. Jerry MUST have the soup that the Soup Nazi makes! So much so that he will give up his girlfriend (who has offended the severe chef) so he can place his order.

Thinking in these terms will ensure that your scenes have significance. You won’t just be filling pages; you’ll be like Patton or Alexander the Great, field generals who were geniuses at moving troops in battle.

Again, this applies to romance as well as crime, character-driven and plot-driven.

Now, Voyager, which I wrote about here, is about a young woman psychologically damaged and suppressed by her overbearing mother. Her attempt to break free and become her true self is what the war is all about. The battles are fierce. So the mother drops her neutron bomb (**spoiler alert**) and has a heart attack. It’s implied she brought it on herself, so as to shackle Charlotte (Bette Davis) with permanent guilt.

That’s war to the death in a so-called “woman’s picture” of the 1940s.

Kress advises that as you begin writing you ask:

  • What are the two sides in this war?
  • What is at stake? [JSB: What form of death?]
  • How soon into the story do the two sides understand, intellectually or emotionally, that they’re at war? Or, if the characters don’t know yet that there’s a war on, can I at least make sure the readers know it?

Think about each move a character makes as a battle tactic, and each physical action and dialogue exchange as a weapon. These can be subtle and involve subterfuge or distraction, as well as direct assault. But they’re all employed to gain the victory.

Readers are always subconsciously asking: Why should I care? Draw battle lines in your story, and they will.

Comments and questions welcome.

 

NOTE: Today’s post is brought to you by Kellogg’s Corn …. no, wait. Brought to you by The Art of War for Writers.

Bleeding for Your Book

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

JK Rowling (via Wikimedia Commons)

I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings. Ours was a joy, all of us together, including the three grandboys. I greeted them as they pulled up to the house. They tumbled out of the car like circus clowns. The two youngest held favorite toys. But the oldest, 10, had a thick paperback under his arm. It was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He’s about halfway through it. My heart sang.

Hard to believe that the Harry Potter series ended way back in 2007. JK Rowling did not publish another book until The Casual Vacancy in 2012. That novel was a stand-alone for adults, with the language and themes to prove it. Was Rowling worried about the abrupt change in genre? Not a bit. In an interview she put it this way:

Harry Potter truly liberated me in the sense that there’s only one reason to write, for me: If I genuinely have something I want to say and I want to publish it. I can pay my bills, you know, every day. I am grateful for that fact and aware of that fact. I don’t need to publish to make a living.

We both know what it takes to write a novel, we both know how much blood, sweat and tears go into writing a novel, I couldn’t put that amount of energy into something purely to say I need to prove I can write a book with swear words in it. So no, there was no nervousness – and again I don’t mean that arrogantly. I felt happy writing it, it was what I wanted to do.

I think we can all agree that JK Rowling can pay her bills. But what do you think of writing a novel as “blood, sweat and tears”? (Churchill actually said, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” But that was too long for a rock band, so it was shortened.)

It was not Hemingway who said writing was a matter of sitting down and the typewriter and bleeding (it was either Paul Gallico or Red Smith, or maybe both). But the sentiment is the same.

There does seem to be a small school of thought that says quality fiction knows not blood, sweat and tears. I don’t know about you, but I can tell a bloodless book within about 10 pages, if I haven’t set it aside by then.

I’ll add that you can’t just bleed on the page, as that only makes a stain. The sweat comes when shaping the blood into a narrative form readers can relate to. The tears indicate some frustration at times, and I contend if you don’t have those you aren’t pushing yourself beyond your current capacity. Of course, you’re not obligated to do that. But when asked what she aspires to as a writer, Rowling said, “To get better. I think you’re working and learning until you die. I can with my hand on my heart say I will never write for any reason other than I burningly wanted to write the book.”

There are also some who say you mustn’t let anyone else—editor or beta reader or spouse—opine about your story. Rowling doesn’t see it that way, and I daresay she’s sold a few books. Of her editor on The Casual Vacancy she said:

When he read the book, he singled out certain things about the book that I would have liked someone most to single out about it. I just knew I had the right person. It’s a very intangible thing. It’s like falling in professional love, isn’t it? And once you’ve got that, something clicks and you know you’re in safe hands.

We certainly made some cuts. I decided to move some things around, he made some great suggestions. The book is broadly what it was when I gave it to him. I didn’t change much but what we did change tightened it up a lot, which is what you want.

Rowling has, of course, gone on to write a hugely popular series of detective novels under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. They are the product of, what do you know? Work.

I often start with a kernel of an idea then work out how to get there. I plan and research a lot and know far more about the characters than actually ends up ever appearing in the books. I have colour coded spreadsheets, so I can keep a track of where I am going.

It is how I have always worked. It was the same for the Harry Potter novels. It’s well documented the level of detailed planning that went into those.

JK Rowling is what I call a real writer. She could sit back and sip gin gimlets and collect sea shells for the rest of her life, but she won’t. She can’t. She writes.

What about you? Do you bleed for your stories? It doesn’t have to be absolute agony, a la Proust. But shouldn’t you have some “skin in the game”? Shouldn’t you “open a vein”?

How Long Should a Chapter Be?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Some years ago I was at the dentist for a cleaning, and along the way the hygienist asked, “So what do you do?”

“I’m a writer,” I said.

“Oh? What do you write?”

“Thrillers.”

“I love thrillers…”

I knew what was coming next, and was powerless to stop it.

“…Have I heard of you?”

The answer to that is always No. So I changed things up a bit.

“Have you heard of James Patterson?” I asked.

“Yes!”

“Well, I’m not him.” 

At least she chuckled. Then I told her my name. Shocker: she hadn’t heard of me. So I gave her my author card. She leaned me back in the chair.

In a low voice, she said, “I know the secret of why James Patterson’s books are bestsellers.”

“Do tell,” I said, hungry to find out what a reader deems the magic elixir. 

“He writes really short chapters,” she said. 

By gum (pun intended), she got it. At least part of it. For Mr. Patterson is the writer who has unapologetically used the short chapter to help create a sense of propulsion, of page-turning momentum. 

Indeed, in a Patterson it’s not uncommon to read what would usually be a 1500 word chapter broken up into three or four numbered units. So a book with 30 chapters might actually come out to be 120 when published. Which raises the question, How long should a chapter be?

Of course, the answer is it all depends on your strategy. For thrillers, short chapters control pace. A more literary approach might go the other direction. 

My first Ty Buchanan legal thriller, Try Dying, has 127 numbered chapters. They are of varying lengths, but the gist is that I wanted it to move fast. Still, I was slightly embarrassed by this, as looking at a TOC with numbers 1 – 127 is almost comical. 

Andrew Vachss

Then I read a thriller by Andrew Vachss, who had one of the cooler thriller-author pics around. And I was pleasantly surprised to find he didn’t use chapters at all. Just a series of scenes set off by a drop cap. It looks like this (from Footsteps of the Hawk):

I liked it so much that all of my Mike Romeo thrillers are done in this fashion. Indeed, I was pleased to read an Amazon review the other day that said this: I particularly like the format of simply starting the next scene with a little space and a large initial cap. I write in scenes, and this allows me to be cinematic and use a “smash cut” or “jump cut” between them.

I note, however, that this only works in First Person POV. Otherwise, the reader would become confused as to who the viewpoint character is in a given scene.

A helpful article on chapters says:

Short chapters are good for plot-centered novels with fast pacing and suspense. They are also used in novels with longer chapters to interject action that takes place away from the main plot, perhaps to let readers in on something the main character doesn’t know.

The dangers in writing a lot of short chapters include underdeveloped characters and a plot that twists and turns too quickly for readers to absorb and enjoy it.

Long chapters are good for epic drama, for world-building with background, and for developing characters at a leisurely pace. The danger lies in bogging down the reader with excessive description, tedious monologues, and inadvertent repetition.

Chapters of any length are most effective when they form a satisfying unit in themselves and end at a natural break in the action or story in a way that invites the reader to continue.

So, writing friends, I ask, do you have a strategy for your chapters? Do you like a standard length? Does genre play a part in this? Have at it in the comments!

Writing Past Discouragement

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Got an email the other day from a young writer, thanking me for my craft books, which she says helped her finish a 100k MS that was pubbed by a small publisher. She goes on:

But now the spark has left my writing, and I don’t know what to do. My book barely sold any copies. Everything since then feels like a slog. My writing’s gotten worse, not better. I tried to be more “literary” in an attempt to be better, and turned out convoluted garbage instead of good stories. I don’t know what to do. I don’t believe in quitting, but I haven’t finished a novel-length manuscript since my book failed. That’s abnormal for me—I’d usually have another done by now. I have ideas, but there’s no joy left. No spark.

I’ve been half-heartedly querying a manuscript but I don’t even know if I want to roll with trad publishing. It seems more and more like a rigged system that churns out pandering, poorly-written garbage instead of actual stories. I’ve been trying to self-publish, but that’s failing, too.

I’m at my wit’s end, and I don’t know what to do. I just want to get the joy back into my writing. I’m only 25, and I already feel like a washed-up failure. What do I do?

Any of us who’ve written professionally for any length of time know this feeling. So the first thing I’ll say is, You’re not alone. Indeed, I have many multi-published, bestselling friends who have all been there at one time or another. I sent a group email to this wise company and got some great responses, some of which I’ve cobbled together (those are the passages in quotes).

Several of the writers offered a subtle warning about lashing out a rigged system that churns out pandering, poorly-written garbage. Publishing is a business, and some of that “garbage” is enjoyable for the one who really matters in this transaction, the reader. “Writing is what we do for OTHER PEOPLE—to inform, entertain, inspire, educate, chastise, or provoke. The end product should be completely other-centered, and what we produce has to be something other people want and need. Sure, it can be well-done and artistic, but not at the cost of communicating something valuable.”

You don’t want to develop a victim mentality. And while it’s good to have some moxie when you’re young, sprinkle a little humility into the mix, too. Recognize you still have learning and growing to do. Run that attitude right alongside your confidence.

Also, several pointed out that writing is not always a joy. For them (and me) it’s also a job. It puts bread on the table, so “writers do the work whether there’s a ‘spark’ or not. In my decades of writing that ‘spark’ hasn’t happened many times. Maybe once a book. Maybe. My writing epitaph could read She did the best she could.”

“A truck driver doesn’t get up in the morning and say to himself, Ah, I don’t feel like driving today’.”

Even when the words aren’t flowing, remember, “Writing is never wasted – even when it feels spark-less or pointless or decidedly not joyful. We’re learning and progressing all the time, even when the rejection form letter comes, even when the bad reviews pile up or the sales numbers stall out or our muse flies away. We’re showing up and getting stronger in our craft with every single sentence.”

And there is also a joy that comes only after the hard work pays off. “The ONLY book I’ve written where I felt any spark in the writing was my first one when I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was just writing with joyous abandon, amazed at what was coming out. After learning that what was coming out was NOT so amazing after all, I started REALLY being a writer, aka studying the craft, rewriting and re-re-rewriting. From that point forward, the joy has come only after I’ve had a buffer of a few weeks or months between being in the thick of a rewrite and then reading fresh what I wrote. Only then do I occasionally think, “Wow! I wrote that? Not half bad!”

Some practical advice:

  • “Find encouraging people. People to cheer you on. Join writing groups. Sometimes talking about writing is a motivation booster. Find a writing buddy to be accountable to every day. Do writing spurts where you set the timer (15-25 minutes) and write without pausing.”
  • Do Morning Pages.
  • Don’t write for the money or the fame. That’s a by-product of writing good book after good book.
  • Set yourself a weekly word quota this way: figure out how many words you can comfortably write in a day, 250 minimum (“A Ficus tree can do 250 words a day. Don’t be shown up by a Ficus tree.” – JSB). Whatever you’re comfortably doing, up that by 10%. You need to stretch. Then turn that into a weekly goal. If you miss a day, you can make it up on the other days. If you miss your weekly mark, forget about it and start fresh the next week. Steady production is, in my opinion, the key to the whole business.
  • To get in flow with your story, concentrate on going deeper with your characters. Write some free form pages on their background, their emotions. Have them write you a letter. Listen to them. Very soon, you’ll be jazzed again.
  • As for Trad v. Indie, don’t be seduced by the speed of indie publishing. Put your book through the same grinder as you would when trying to land a contract. Better to have one good book come out in a year than five lousy efforts in six months. The former begins to build a readership; the latter sinks that boat.

On the positive side, young writer, you have done what many wannabes never do. You completed a novel that was good enough to have a publisher give it a shot. That’s not insignificant. Build on that.

Carpe Typem. Seize the Keyboard.

Over to you, TKZers. Anything you’d like to offer our young writing friend?

Four Dialogue Tips

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I’ve always contended that sharpening your dialogue is the fastest way to improve any manuscript. I’ve heard editors and agents say they often take a submission and turn to a dialogue section. That’s because no matter how good the concept, flat, flabby, bland dialogue almost always means the writer is lacking in other areas.

Conversely, if your dialogue zings it demonstrates that you know what you’re doing and engenders trust in you as a writer.

Of course, this goes for readers, too. They love great dialogue. Provide it, and you’ll sell some books.

Here are four quick dialogue tips for your consideration:

Foreign Language

Sometimes you may have a character who has a foreign language as their primary tongue. My Romeo series takes place mostly in and around Los Angeles, so foreign tongues abound, especially Hispanic.

Certainly, you don’t want long blocks of foreign words, like this:

“Te lo digo, James Scott Bell es el mejor escritor de todos los tiempos. Si lees alguno de sus libros, lo sabrás. Mis favoritos personales son los libros de la serie de suspenso de Mike Romeo.”

For a short word or phrase, I’ll italicize it. If it’s a common word most people know, I don’t need to translate. Thus:

“Do you live here?” I said.

“Sí,” he said.

If it’s a longer line that requires translation, you can render it a few ways. Elmer Kelton in The Time it Never Rained, has this:

“No me mate!” the voice pleaded. “Me rindo!” (“Don’t kill me! I surrender.”)

You can also use other characters:

“No me mate!” the voice pleaded. “Me rindo!”

“What was that?” Smith said.

Jones said, “He saying he surrenders, don’t kill him.”

Or you can write:

He started rambling in Spanish. I caught a few words. It sounded like a surrender.

This is an area of the craft that had a lot of flexibility. The only “rule” is: Don’t confuse the reader. Eso es muy malo.

Interruptions

Fictional talk should have some tension or outright conflict. If a scene of yours seems to be dragging, try starting an argument. And have the characters interrupt each other.

In fiction, you show an interruption by use of the em-dash followed by a close quote. No period or other punctuation. You then immediately give us the other character’s quote. This is from Dashiell Hammet’s The Thin Man:

“Let’s go away,” she suggested. “Let’s go to Bermuda or Havana for a week or two, or back to the Coast.”

“I’d still have to tell the police some kind of story about that gun. And suppose it turns out to be the gun she was killed with? If they don’t know already they’re finding out.”

“Do you really think it is?”

“That’s guessing. We’ll go there for dinner tonight and—”

“We’ll do nothing of the kind. Have you gone completely nuts? If you want to see anybody, have them come here.”

When a character’s voice trails off, use ellipsis.

“I was wondering . . .”

I glanced at my watch. “Yes?”

“Hm?”

“What were you wondering?”

“Um, I forgot.”

Stylized Realism

In Debbie’s recent post about the Flathead River Writers Conference, I was fascinated by one of the questions a literary agent when considering a manuscript, to wit: Is the dialogue trying too hard to be realistic?

I think I know what she means. Sometimes a new writer will write dialogue that sounds like a transcript of an overheard conversation at Starbucks. If questioned about this, the writer might say, “But that’s how they’d really sound!”

This is a fundamental error. Dialogue in fiction should not be “pure” realism. It should be stylized realism for fictional purposes. The main purposes are to characterize the speaker and move the plot along. You want the sound of real speech without the fat or fluff that usually goes along with it.

Perhaps, too, the agent was indicating an aversion to the abundant cursing we often see on the page, in an attempt to reproduce what one hears on the street. Without understanding stylized realism, that attempt is more off-putting than attractive.

Does that mean you must have your gangbanger character say things like, “Oh, fudge. I’m going to muss you up, you foul stench.” Of course not. Watch some old Law and Order episodes to see how they manage stylized “hard” language. Or read Romeo’s Way, which has no curse words yet has a character who curses a blue streak. It can be done.

Action Beats and Said

A dialogue attribution has one simple job: to let the reader know who is speaking. Good old reliable said does that cleanly, efficiently, then politely leaves before causing any trouble. It can come after or before the dialogue:

“Come out to the car,” she said.

She said, “Come out to the car.”

In a longer line of dialogue, said can be placed in the middle:

“I think I’d better leave,” Millicent said, “before I lose my temper.”

An action beat is a nice, occasional substitute for said.

John pounded the table. “I will not have it!”

With a question, you can use said or asked:

“What shall we do?” Sarah said.

“What shall we do?” Sarah asked.

Whispered is also acceptable, as there’s no pithier way to express it.

If you feel the need to use a descriptive tag like growled or declared, etc., fine. Just don’t make a habit of it. You don’t want readers noticing all the attributions. I prefer letting the surrounding action and context make clear how something is said.

Some writers, under the erroneous impression that said is not creative enough, will strain to find ways not to use it for an entire book.

Big mistake. Action beats put the reader’s mind to work. In bits, that’s no problem. But an unending series of action beats has a wearying effect. The readers might not even realize why they are not enjoying the book as much as they thought they would.

That’s enough talk for one post. Now it’s your turn. Comments or questions welcome.

 

 

What Writers Can Learn From Now, Voyager

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

A case can be made that the greatest movie star of all time, the GOAT if you will, is Bette Davis. In a career spanning 50 years she never gave a bad performance, even in guest roles on TV shows like Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. That’s because acting was her life and she never wanted to give the audience short shrift.

She’ll forever be known for one of the few truly iconic performances in the movies, along the lines of Bogart in Casablanca, Gable in Gone With the Wind, and Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. That is the role of Margot Channing in All About Eve. (“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”)

Today I want to bring up a classic Davis “woman’s picture” (as they were called in WWII, to cater to all the women whose men were off fighting a war), Now, Voyager. As always, I encourage you to watch it, then refer back to these notes for craft study.

The plot concerns Charlotte Vale, the dowdy daughter of a rich, domineering Boston matriarch. She’s been driven to neuroses by her mother, who long ago decided Charlotte was too ugly and untalented to flourish in society.

**Spoilers Ahead**

Sympathy for the Lead

The first task of the writer is to get the reader connected to a Lead character. There is no plot without character; there is also no character without plot. A plot is the record of how a character, through strength of will, struggles against death (physical, professional, or psychological). Thus, the death struggle reveals the true character underneath.

When the Lead is an underdog, facing hardship and long odds, we get the sympathy factor. That is the emotional connection that bonds reader and character and makes the reader want to follow the story to see how it all turns out.

Disturbance

Don’t waste precious fiction real estate by having a character on page 1 just sitting around, thinking or feeling or flashbacking. Stir the waters somehow. Portend trouble.

At the beginning of Now, Voyager, we meet the homely, timid Charlotte Vale. She is in the final stages of a nervous breakdown, though her haughty mother (Gladys Cooper) is in denial about it.

Charlotte is contrasted with her niece June—a rich, pretty, outgoing social butterfly (Bonita Granville). June’s mother Lisa (Ilka Chase) has asked her psychiatrist, Dr. Jaquith (Claude Raines) to come to the Vale home for tea. When June teases Charlotte mercilessly, Charlotte loses it, lashes out, runs upstairs. Dr. Jaquith tells them Charlotte needs to spend a few weeks at his sanitarium in the mountains.

The rest gets Charlotte to a point where Dr. Jaquith believes she’s ready to take a step of faith (in herself; psychological death is at stake here. Will Charlotte ever become a new and better self? Or will she remain the “dead” daughter of a heartless mother?)

Dr. Jaquith approves Lisa’s idea that Charlotte take an ocean cruise. He gives her a book of Whitman poetry in which he has inscribed the line Now voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.

Thus, in introducing your Lead, consider:

Imminent Trouble. If there is a physical or emotional threat happening during the opening, readers are immediately drawn in. Certainly Charlotte is suffering emotional threat.

Hardship. What physical or psychological hardship might your character suffer from? This should be something not of their own making. Charlotte has been a true victim all her life.

Underdog. Readers love underdogs. How might your character face long odds? Charlotte’s age, profile and home life are not promising for a personality makeover.

Vulnerability. When Charlotte goes on the cruise, we know she is emotionally vulnerable. The slightest misstep could send her back to the sanitarium.

Indeed, a misstep like that is about to happen to Charlotte on the ship, until…

Doorway of No Return 

At the ¼ mark of the film, a handsome man unobtrusively helps Charlotte out of an embarrassing situation. The man is Jerry Durrance (Paul Henreid, who played Victor Laszlo in Casablanca). This is the emotional Doorway that sets the rest of the plot in motion—they fall in love.

Unfortunately, Jerry is married. There’s your plot.

They know they must part. At the final goodbye on the ship, Jerry gives Charlotte a bouquet of camellias to remember him by.

The Mirror Moment

What is this movie really all about? What is your novel really all about? You can find (or construct) the answer with the “mirror moment.”

Charlotte finally comes home to face her mother. And boy, does the mother try to smash Charlotte right back to where she was before.

This is the mirror moment for Charlotte. It’s where it should be, at the exact halfway point of the movie. She is thinking, Can I possibly stand up to my mother for the first time? If the past is any indication, I’m probably going to die (psychologically). Must I go back to being the old Charlotte again?

If only there was something to give her the courage to stand up for herself. Often, this courage is inspired by a physical item introduced earlier in the story, carrying with it emotional power. Like this:

Camellias! This emotional memory is enough to give Charlotte the courage to stand up to her mother. (And did you notice the actual mirror in the scene?)

Can Charlotte complete the transformation? What about Jerry and his unhappy marriage? What about the counter-attack by her mother?

Well…watch the movie! Treat yourself to one of the great film performances.

And you, writer, like Charlotte, take a step of faith with your writing. Stretch. Risk. This epigraph is meant for you, too: Now voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.

Comments and questions welcome.

One other note about Bette Davis. Like Bogart, you’ll almost always find her smoking her way through a movie. But here’s the difference. Davis always puffs on her cigarette in a way that is in keeping with emotional tone of the scene. It’s actually a wonder to behold, the way she uses what other actors treat as a throwaway prop. That’s why she is the GOAT.