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.

Is Our Writing Culture In Mortal Danger? Part I

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Kant_fotoThe philosopher Immanuel Kant was sipping his morning coffee one day, reading the philosopher David Hume. That’s what philosophers used to do––drink coffee and read each other’s work.

At some point, Kant slammed his mug down with a great thunk, for what he was reading was an outright challenge to the whole enterprise of philosophy. Hume, the great skeptic, was saying, in effect, “Dudes, you can’t really know anything. Deal with it.”

Kant would later write that this provocation awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber.” He had to answer! So he went out and wrote one of the towering works of all Western philosophy, The Critique of Pure Reason.

I was thinking about good ol’ Immanuel the other morning as I quaffed my own warm brew. I’d traveled over to that great writing blog Writer Unboxed to read a post by my friend Porter Anderson. Porter is one of the more astute observers of the publishing scene.MwNaNqJY_400x400 You can and should check out his work here.

This day Porter pulled a Hume on me. Like the Scottish skeptic, Porter has doubts. They are somewhat evident in the title of his post: The Dreaded Training Debate: What If It Can’t Be Taught? By “it” Porter means the art and craft of writing fiction. Since I am one of those who believe it can be, he definitely had my attention.

There is a lot of material in Porter’s wide-ranging and expressive rant. He challenges the notion that it’s the best time on Earth to be a writer, suggests a definition of writing “success” that seems to me too restrictive, and intimates that “better books” and indeed our “writerly culture” itself may be doomed.

My coffee mug came down with a thunk. I was awakened from my own dogmatic slumber. I would have to reply! I left a comment, but deferred a fuller critique until now.

This is Part I.

I see the issues raised by Porter this way:

Issue 1 – The Toadstool Effect

Issue 2 – Is It The Best or Worst Time to Be a Writer?

Issue 3 – Is the Party Over?

Issue 4 – What Counts as Writing Success?

Issue 5 – Can Fiction Writing Be Taught?

It’s always good to begin a discussion like this with points of agreement, and that’s what Issue #1 provides. Porter writes:

“Like toadstools,” one seasoned observer called it in a note to me recently — this sudden proliferation of “author services,” especially the ones there to teach you, instruct you, train you. They’re everywhere, these kitchen-sink companies, and many of them seem to be peddling (or claiming they do) parts of the job we’re not even sure can be taught.

As he made clear to me in the comments, Porter is concerned about the onslaught of less than “adroit” training:

I do believe, however, that we have generated here an overheated “training wing” attached to this new everybody-into-the-pool stage in the industry’s development. I think the mushrooms are getting pretty thick on the ground and that many, many offerings are neither as adroit nor as potentially valuable as yours. Beyond the buyer-beware rule, always good, is an implication that I think overstates what many people believe they can learn to do on the receiving end of instruction.

Porter and I agree on this, though I don’t find the “toadstool effect” unique to writing. The digital age has unleashed a veritable planet of multiplying fungi, making promises about everything—business, sex, health, wealth, writing, acting, plumbing, fame, “dogs and cats, living together. Mass hyseria!”

The only antidote to this in a free market is the ancient and wise admonition, Caveat emptor. A writer-in-training simply must be about due diligence in these matters. How?

Look at samples of the work. Look for recommendations. Distinguish mushrooms from toadstools.

I note in this regard that none other than Mr. James Patterson is offering an online course on writing for $90. Were I a newbie I would reason thus: James Patterson has sold a few books. He seems to know how to tell a story. The course is 22 lectures. The price is quite reasonable. People who’ve taken the course seem to be pleased. If I’m going to invest in being a writer, this looks like a winner. Sign me up!

But what about some high-falutin offer by someone I’ve never heard of? I’d look at what’s being offered, the cost, and the background of teacher. From Porter in the comments:

So I’m saying that if someone is instructing other writers but has not had the experience of success AS a writer — if they’re teaching you fiction but their own fiction doesn’t sell — then I think, yes, that’s reason to stop, think, and carefully assess whether this is the person to study with.

Completely agree. Which, I quickly add, does not rule out taking a flyer on someone whose artistic output is limited. Some of the best teachers are like that. Michael Hauge in screenwriting. Lee Strasberg in acting. You just have to dig a little deeper to make an assessment. Look for what other students say about them. How have those students fared themselves?

As far as dollars go, you can spend a lot for a course, but relatively little for a book. I love books on writing. My shelves (and my Kindle) are filled with them, all highlighted. My philosophy has always been if I learn only one thing from a book, and it helps my writing, it’s worth it.

I can think of only two writing books out of the many hundreds I’ve read where I did not learn something. Exercising mercy, I shall not name those books.

A further note. There are toadstools that are extra toxic. Right now there is a class action lawsuit against one of these services. Such services will always be with us. The Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross could have run one of these, believing as he did that people are “sitting out there waiting to give you their money! Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it?”

Well, we’ve only covered Issue #1, and I’m happy to say a general agreement has been reached.

Next week, not so much.

So what is your view of “author services” out there? Good, bad, ugly? How can you tell the difference?

In Praise of Entertaining Fiction

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Burroughs“I have been writing for nineteen years and I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing, and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.”

So wrote Edgar Rice Burroughs in an article for Writer’s Digest in 1930. The full text may be found here. I love the up-front honesty of the statement. It resonates with me because the first “real” book I read all the way through was Tarzan of the Apes. I still remember the feeling of being gripped by a story that wouldn’t let me go. When I finished, I knew I wanted to do the same thing someday.

I can even remember the precise moment I got pulled in so deep I put everything aside–playing outside, watching TV, riding my bike to the candy store–just so I could finish that book!

Allow me to share that moment with you.

Chapter One begins as a narrative frame, the voice telling us that he cannot vouch for the truthfulness of the tale, but what he is about to reveal is based upon the “yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead.”

The man is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. The text continues:

We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888, John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.

A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final destination.

And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.

I was hooked for sure. But the best was yet to come.

We are introduced to Black Michael, a mutineer, and I loved pirate stories as a boy. In Chapter Two, Black Michael takes over the ship and instead of killing the Claytons, as heTarzan_of_the_Apes_in_color was wont to do, he spares them because John Clayton had saved Black Michael’s life in Chapter One. Instead, the pirate sends Clayton and his pregnant wife to the jungle shore, where they will be on their own to survive!

But the best…not yet!

In Chapter Three the baby is born, a son, as John tries valiantly to make a safe home in the jungle for them, hoping against hope that a party from England will eventually find them.

Alas, it is not to be. Poor Alice dies. And the baby! The baby must still be nursed! The chapter ends with the last, sad journal entry of a man soon to be dead himself:

My little son is crying for nourishment—O Alice, Alice, what shall I do?

Great heavens! I was so into the story now. But there was more! I fell indelibly under the spell of Burroughs with the beginning of Chapter Four:

In the forest of the table-land a mile back from the ocean old Kerchak the Ape was on a rampage of rage among his people.

Wow!

The younger and lighter members of his tribe scampered to the higher branches of the great trees to escape his wrath; risking their lives upon branches that scarce supported their weight rather than face old Kerchak in one of his fits of uncontrolled anger.

The other males scattered in all directions, but not before the infuriated brute had felt the vertebra of one snap between his great, foaming jaws.

A luckless young female slipped from an insecure hold upon a high branch and came crashing to the ground almost at Kerchak’s feet.

With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until her skull was crushed to a jelly.

And then he spied Kala, who, returning from a search for food with her young babe, was ignorant of the state of the mighty male’s temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of her fellows caused her to scamper madly for safety.

But Kerchak was close upon her, so close that he had almost grasped her ankle had she not made a furious leap far into space from one tree to another—a perilous chance which apes seldom if ever take, unless so closely pursued by danger that there is no alternative.

She made the leap successfully, but as she grasped the limb of the further tree the sudden jar loosened the hold of the tiny babe where it clung frantically to her neck, and she saw the little thing hurled, turning and twisting, to the ground thirty feet below.

With a low cry of dismay Kala rushed headlong to its side, thoughtless now of the danger from Kerchak; but when she gathered the wee, mangled form to her bosom life had left it.

Oh man! That was it! I was left hanging with a baby, all alone in the jungle, in the last chapter. Now I am completely into the story of…an ape! An ape who has lost her baby! And this villain named Kerchak. I wanted him to get his just desserts! I knew this poor ape Kala would find the Clayton baby and take him as her own. And that sooner or later, one or both of them would have to kill Kerchak in a duel to the death.

This was more than mere entertainment. This was magic. A story world unlike anything I’d ever seen, even when watching the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies I loved so much.

Burroughs, no doubt, influenced generations of boys to become readers, authors, or perhaps flat-out adventurers. But when I mentioned the Burroughs quote at the top of this post to an online group of veteran writers, I was delighted by several women saying the John Carter and Tarzan books were favorites of theirs, too.

Which proves that great storytelling is great storytelling. That’s what we writers must aim for, every time we sit down and clack the keyboard. As Burroughs himself put it in that WD article:

“I have felt that it was a duty to those people who bought my books that I should give them the very best within me. I have no illusions as to the literary value of what I did give them, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that I gave them the best that my ability permitted.”

So what author carried you away like this when you were a kid?

 

 

Once More With Feeling: Revisiting The Art v. Commerce Debate

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Crumbling Wall

Last Christmas I watched the 1938 Henry Fonda movie called I Met My Love Again. The plot: A woman returns to her Vermont sweetheart ten years after running off to Paris with a writer. Those dang writers! Love ‘em and leave ‘em!

Joan Bennett plays the woman. She meets the writer during a snow storm. Her sleigh overturns and the horse runs off. She finds a cabin and knocks on the door. An Errol Flynn lookalike answers. He has a roaring fire going and a page in a typewriter.

Joan comes in and warms herself. They talk a bit, and he tells her he’s renting this cabin to get some writing done. This dialogue follows:

“You’re a writer?”
“Yes.”
“Do people really publish what you write?”
“Yes, the wrong people. You see, I’ve got to make a living, so I write trash to keep alive.”

She looks down at the page in the typewriter and reads:

Then I picked up the knife and sank the sharp steel blade into his chest. He sighed gently, and turned his great eyes – those eyes I once loved so – to mine. That was my first man.

CHAPTER TWO

I Go Straight

The writer admits:

“That’s the trash, a confession story, slated for the March issue of I Tell All. It’s the true story of a gal named Lyla Rigby. I am Lyla Rigby.”

I snorted. What a great example of the old bias against “writing for a living.” Such a “trashy” thing to do! A real writer wrote novels, labored over them, and did it mainly for art’s sake. Those who slummed in the world of pulp fiction were to be scorned, which is why many of them hid behind pseudonyms.

That kind of thinking was certainly widespread back in the day. But its tentacles still exist, as evidenced by the hissy fit Harold Bloom threw several years ago when Stephen King was given a major literary award. There is also a steady vibration of snark in articles such as The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur. Here’s a clip:

Yet the notion of the artist as a solitary genius—so potent a cultural force, so determinative, still, of the way we think of creativity in general—is decades out of date. So out of date, in fact, that the model that replaced it is itself already out of date. A new paradigm is emerging, and has been since about the turn of the millennium, one that’s in the process of reshaping what artists are: how they work, train, trade, collaborate, think of themselves and are thought of—even what art is—just as the solitary-genius model did two centuries ago. The new paradigm may finally destroy the very notion of “art” as such—that sacred spiritual substance—which the older one created.

The article posits that the concept of the artist changed drastically in the 20th century. “As art was institutionalized, so, inevitably, was the artist. The genius became the professional.” This awful turn of events has led to the crumbling of “mediating structures” like publishing companies, who were once the gatekeepers.

[W]e have entered, unmistakably, a new transition, and it is marked by the final triumph of the market and its values, the removal of the last vestiges of protection and mediation. In the arts, as throughout the middle class, the professional is giving way to the entrepreneur, or, more precisely, the “entrepreneur”: the “self-employed” (that sneaky oxymoron), the entrepreneurial self.

Which, the article concludes, leads inexorably to the death of art itself:

It’s hard to believe that the new arrangement will not favor work that’s safer: more familiar, formulaic, user-friendly, eager to please—more like entertainment, less like art. Artists will inevitably spend a lot more time looking over their shoulder, trying to figure out what the customer wants rather than what they themselves are seeking to say.

There it is, the old “art v. commerce” angle, complete with hidden assumption that something popular cannot be art, and something artistic should not be popular.

Yet Dickens, Dumas, Dostoevsky—The D Boys—all wrote great artistic works for a popular audience. Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe certainly desired a wide readership. In the pulps, Chandler and Hammett and Dorothy Hughes had the readers, but also said meaningful things about the mean streets and the human condition.

None of these authors wrote without the desire for financial return. As Dr. Johnson so eloquently put it, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”

Out on the edges, sure, you have the solo artist who doesn’t give a rip what others think. And so creates experimental pieces that don’t sell, except on rare lightning-strikes occasions.

On the other side of this divide are those who “write” monster porn (yes, it really exists) and somehow find people willing to pay for it.

But in the great in-between are those who want to entertain an audience. For some that is enough. Others want to add a little more heft to their style or theme, and that’s a good thing. Still others want to transcend genre conventions and reach for the stars. I especially like that.

So isn’t it about time to put the “art v. commerce” debate to bed? It was okay for cocktail parties in 1965—“Honestly, are you comparing Mailer to Hemingway? How droll.”—but was it ever really a substantive discussion?

How many artists are there, truly, who don’t care a fig about income? (By the way, if you do want to “suffer” for your art, it’s very easy not to make money, so have at it.)

Is the disdain for “popular art” productive or even valid?

And here’s the big one: how concerned should we be about the “crumbling” of the mediators—publishing companies, critics, agents?

The discussion may now begin.

 

How Should Characters Change?

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Riggs

Got an email from a writer which asked the following (used by permission):

Dear Mr. Bell,

Ok, so I’m big on stupid questions. I just had a thought as I was musing about my latest book. I know the main character has to change. That’s a big deal. But what about secondary characters? What about the bad guy? Do the secondary characters change, but less? or something… And I want the bad guy to go from neutral to really bad… Does that make sense? Not something I can google…

First off, that’s not a stupid question at all. In fact, it’s a great question with good instincts about the craft. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

The Main Character Can Change in Two Ways

In my book, Write Your Novel From the Middle, I explain that not all MCs have to change from one state of being to another. That kind of arc is, of course, common in fiction.

For example, Ebenezer Scrooge. He starts out as a misanthrope and ends up a generous, compassionate member of the community. Martin Riggs, the suicidal cop in Lethal Weapon, changes from self-destructive loner to close friend of his partner, Roger Murtaugh, and Murtaugh’s whole family.

This type of change comes only through the fire of Act II. A life lesson is learned. Now the MC is a new person with something of value for the community. As my friend Chris Vogler puts it, the hero returns home with an elixir: he has new wisdom and insight to share with his ordinary world.

Of course, as I also note, the MC can change in the opposite direction. Michael Corleone goes from a loyal American soldier to the soul-deadened Godfather of the Corleone family. That’s because in Act II his father is nearly killed by members of another crime family. At the crucial “mirror moment,” Michael realizes he’s the only one of the three brothers who actually knows how to exact revenge. Thus begins his negative slide.

In this type of large-scale change, the MC goes from pole to pole.

But that’s not always how a character changes. There’s another way. That’s when the MC retains the same basic nature, but grows stronger because of the life-and-death challenges of Act II.

An example is Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. He’s the same decent man at the end as he was at the beginning. But he has had to learn survival skills. He is forced to grow stronger because he was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. When he escapes from a prison bus, he has to stay alive and out of the law’s reach so he can find the real killer.Marge

Marge Gunderson, of Fargo, is the same decent, small town police woman at the end as at the start. But she has to ramp up her skills to bring a vile murderer and a devious scam artist to justice. This is not like the misdemeanors she’s used to!

So consider what kind of change your MC is going through: change of nature, or growing stronger?

Also consider this: A character can resist change. He can be “offered grace” (Flannery O’Connor’s term) but turn it down. That’s what makes for tragedy.

In Act IV of Othello, Emilia, Desdemona’s attendant (and, unfortunately, the wife of Iago) pleads Desdemona’s innocence to Othello in no uncertain terms. But when she exits, Othello mutters that she is a “subtle whore” and refuses to believe her. He kills his wife instead.

Finally, change can come too late, which is also tragic. Think Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.

Secondary Character Change

A powerful trope is the change of secondary characters, brought about by the courage and example of the MC.

JonesHere is where The Fugitive elevates above most action films. The opposition to Richard Kimble is Sam Gerard, the lawman played by Tommy Lee Jones. He makes it clear early on he has only one job: catch Kimble. When Kimble has a gun on him and insists he’s innocent, Gerard says, “I don’t care!” Because it’s not his job to care. At that point Kimble thinks, “Oh, crap” (my interpretation of Harrison Ford’s facial expression) and so he dives off that spillway and goes kersplash in the waters below.

But observing this, and other behaviors of Kimble––as well as seeing what a lousy job the Chicago cops did on the original investigation––Gerard does begin to care. Until, at the end, he helps Kimble get the real bad guy.

Another example is Louis, the corrupt French police captain in Casablanca. Watching how Rick gradually begins to take sides against the Nazis, Louis finally finds his conscience at the end, letting Rick off the hook for murdering Major Strasser. To the arriving police force Louis says, “Round up the usual suspects.” Not only that, Louis walks off with Rick to join the war effort. It is “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

This kind of change enhances the theme of a story. We like to see things like justice and honor prevail. When they do, it ought to be powerful enough to inspire secondary characters, too.

Bad Guy Going From Neutral to Worse

There is no reason at all you can’t show a villain growing more villainous as the story moves along. You can show this via parallel plotline from the villain’s POV, or you can utilize it as the “shadow story,” which I wrote about here. What happens off screen with the villain? How is he altering his plans, ignoring his conscience, falling further and further from his humanity? Give it some thought and weave that material into the narrative as you see fit.

A plot is about a character who uses strength of will against the forces of death––be they physical, professional, or psychological. No one goes through such a crucible without changing or becoming stronger.

It’s your job to show us the change and make us glad we stuck around for a whole book to see it.

What are some of your favorite examples of character change?

 

Reader Friday: A Room With a View?

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AVT_Blaise-Cendrars_5947A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be … Like Saint Jerome, a writer should work in his cell. Turn the back.

– Blaise Cendrars 

Can you work with a view? Do you need silence or do you like a little noise? Where is your preferred place to write?

How to Get Readers to Lust After Your Book

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Book loveThe word lust in our language is usually limited to the sexual arena. But it was not always so. The Greek philosophers used the term epithumia to indicate an intense desire which can be directed toward good or ill. Whatever the end, the desire is more than intellectual curiosity. It’s a feeling of I really must have this!

Which is precisely the feeling you want to induce in browsers who come across your book. It’s not enough to make the novel look “interesting.” You’ve got to raise epithumia so the blood starts pumping a “buy” message to the head.

In addition to a quality, eye-pleasing cover, there are at least three essential factors for raising desire levels in potential customers. They are excitement, killer copy, and grabber sample.

  1. Excitement

If you are not jazzed about your own book as you write it, it’s going to be that much more difficult to excite a reader. The first order of business, then, is to make sure you are pumped about your own project.

Because writing a book is like a marriage. Your first idea, getting charged up about it, is like falling in love. Once you commit to the writing of a book, you’ve married it, and we all know marriage has its ups and downs. You’re not always going to be starry-eyed and ready to sing “In Your Eyes” at the drop of the hat.just-the-facts-ma'am

(By the way, we need to bring back the daily wearing of hats.)

So you work things out, recapture that magic feeling, because you’re dedicated to the marriage.

Editing, of course, is marriage counseling.

Try not to write any scene until something about it excites you. I brainstorm for the unexpected––in action, dialogue, setting, or new characters. One of those will set off a spark in me, and I know I’m ready to write. I want to sustain that feeling throughout the book. There’s an alchemy there connects reader an author.

  1. Killer Copy

Your book description is the next lust inducer. It’s like that perfect outfit that accentuates the positives. It’s Betty Grable’s legs.

GrableWhat would be the male analogue? This guy?

FabioBut I digress.

Book description copy (sometimes called “cover copy,” sometimes a “blurb,” though I usually reserve that term for someone’s endorsement) are those few lines that sum up the book in a way that increases the desire to buy. It is crucially important. There are people who have marketing degrees that specialize in this kind of writing.

But you can learn to do it. My formula is three sentences and a tagline.

Three Sentences

Sentence #1 – Character name, vocation, initial situation

Dorothy Gale is a farm girl who dreams of getting out of Kansas to a land far, far away, where she and her dog will be safe from the town busybody Miss Gulch.

Sentence #2 – “When” + Doorway of No Return

Note: The Doorway of No Return is my term for the initial turning point that thrusts the Lead into Act II. I describe it in detail in Super Structure.

When a twister hits the farm, Dorothy is carried away to a land of strange creatures and a wicked witch who wants to kill her.

Sentence #3 – “Now” + The Death Stakes

Note: Death can be physical, professional, or psychological

Now, with the help of three unlikely friends, Dorothy must find a way to destroy the wicked witch so the great wizard will send her back home.

You may have heard the term “elevator pitch.” That’s what this is, a short plot outline you can spout on a short elevator ride. You can now expand or revise each sentence as you see fit. Just remember this is the “sizzle” and not the “steak.” Don’t try to pack everything about your plot into the copy. Just enough to whet the appetite of the busy browser.

Tagline

Sometimes wrongly called a “logline” (that’s a screenwriting term for how scripts are “logged” with a sentence describing the plot), the tagline is more of a teaser. It’s what you see on movie posters. Some famous taglines are:

In space, no one can hear you scream. – Alien
Don’t go in the water. – Jaws
Earth. It was fun while it lasted. – Armageddon
His story will touch you, even though he can’t. – Edward Scissorhands
Reality is a thing of the past. – The Matrix

Coming up with a great tagline is fun, but it takes some work. The best way to go at it is to write a bunch of them. Then choose the best ones and refine, rewrite, refine again. Get some help from friends. Brainstorm. Test them on a few people.

By the way, the two exercises above are a great thing to do before you ever write a word of your novel. Because if you can’t nail this much about your idea, and pack it with epithumia, it’s a pretty fair bet you need to shore up the foundation for the long building project ahead.

Here’s the tagline and copy I did for my thriller Don’t Leave Me:

When they came for him it was time to run. When they came for his brother it was time to fight.

Chuck Samson needs to heal. A former Navy chaplain who served with a Marine unit in Afghanistan, he’s come home to take care of his adult, autistic brother, Stan. But the trauma of Chuck’s capture and torture threatens to overtake him. Only the fifth graders he teaches give him reason to hope for the future.

But when an unseen enemy takes aim at Chuck, he finds himself running for his life. And from the cops, who think he’s a murderer. A secret buried deep in Chuck’s damaged soul may be the one thing that can save him. But can he unearth it?

Now, needing to protect his only brother from becoming collateral damage, Chuck Samson must face the dark fears embedded in his mind and find a way to save Stan . . . or die trying.

 

  1. Grabber Sample

The final touch in our lust generator is a great opening. That’s the free sample readers will see online, or on the first few pages when browsing in a bookstore (remember those days?).

I advise that any novel begin with a disturbance and an actual scene. In these days of short attention spans you simply must …

Squirrel!

Want to learn what a grabber opening is? Just click on the button that says “First-page Critiques” on our blog masthead and you’ll get a list of the critiques we’ve done over the years. I’m telling you, spend a week studying these and you’ll be a sample monster, a grabber virtuoso, a hook hotshot.

All right, friends, now it’s your turn. What makes you lust after a book? What is something that would turn off your desire?

The Power of the Shadow Story

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ShadowsI was at a conference a couple of weeks ago and a new writer came up to me, said she had a great concept and had used one of my books to outline the plot. She was now 30k words into the novel and scared. She said it felt like she was looking out at sea from a tiny raft. There was this looonnng way to go in Act II, but now she wasn’t sure she had enough plot material to make it.

“Ah,” I said like a liposuction surgeon, “the sagging middle. No worries. I’m here to help!”

We sat and talked a bit about signpost scenes and she understood all that. But it was clear she needed more “story stuff” in her plans.

So I suggested she write the shadow story. This is the part of the novel many writers never think about, yet it’s one of the most powerful plotting techniques there is. It will take you places you’d never find if you only danced around in the light.

Simply put, the shadow story is what is taking place away from the scene you are writing. It’s what the other characters are doing “off screen.” By giving thought to the shadows, even minimally, you greatly expand your store of plot material.

A few tips:

Start With The Antagonist

The most important shadow is the opposition character. Someone once said a good plot is two dogs and one bone. So while your Lead is gnawing the bone in one scene, your antagonist (off screen) is laying plans to snatch that bone away. Or setting in motion a scheme to kill the lead dog. Or messing with the dogs who are helping the lead dog.

Or maybe he’s overusing canine metaphors.

Whatever it is, by getting into the head of the opposition character, who is somewhere else, you will come up with all sorts of ideas for plot complications. It’s almost automatic. Fresh scenes, mysteries, obstacles will spring up from your writer’s mind. Your Act II problems will begin to melt away.

Supporting Characters

You also have a cast of supporting characters, major and minor, who all have lives and plans and motives of their own. Here you will find the fodder for those plot twists every reader loves. Like when a seeming ally turns out to be a betrayer. Or an enemy becomes a friend. Why would that happen? Let their shadow stories tell you.

Shadows Inside the Lead

You can also delve into the shadows and secrets of your Lead. Maybe you’ve done this already, by giving your Lead a backstory and answering key questions about her life (education, hopes, fears, lost loves, etc.)

But every now and then, in the middle of the writing, pause to come up with something going on inside the Lead that she is not even aware of. Try what I call “the opposite exercise”: The Lead, in a scene, has a specific want or need (if she doesn’t, you need to get her one fast, or cut that scene!) Now, pause and ask: what if your Lead wanted something the exact opposite of this want or need? What would that be? List some possibilities. Choose one of those. Ask: Why would she want that? How could it mess with her head?

Then look for ways to manifest this inner shadow in some of your scenes.

Or imagine your Lead doing something that is the opposite of what the reader or, more importantly, you would expect in that scene. What sort of shadow (secret) made her do that?

Just by asking these sorts of questions, you deepen your Lead and add interesting crosscurrents to the plot.

That’s the power of the shadow story.

Practical Tools

There are two excellent ways to keep track of your shadow story material.

First, Scrivener. I know some people are intimidated by all the bells and whistles of this program. My advice is to use it for a few simple things (mapping your scenes on the corkboard; keeping track of your cast of characters) and then learn other stuff at your own pace, and only if you want to. At such a reasonable price, Scrivener is cost effective for whatever you use it for.

Here is a screen shot of a scene being written (click to enlarge). The page with the text is just like a Word document. Scrivener lets you dedicate a document to one scene or chapter.

Mount Hermon 1 Notice on the bottom right there’s a box labeled “Document Notes.” This is place where you can jot down anything relating to the scene on the left. Perfect for shadow story. You can be as brief or as detailed as you like.

The other method is to use the Comments function in Word. Just insert a comment which gives the shadow material:

Mount Hermon 2

Remember, all sorts of good stuff happens in the shadows. Go there, snoop around, then come back to the light and finish your novel.

 

How to Show What Your Characters Think

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homer-simpsons-155238_1280I love hanging out with writers. Who else can you talk to about such important matters as the possessive apostrophe, or whether to use semi-colons in fiction? (On this last one, I usually get pugnacious and am asked to leave the room).

So last week I’m at a conference and some colleagues and I are sitting around the breakfast table on morning when the subject of character thoughts comes up.

The short version of the issue is this: Is it unfashionable these days to use italics to show a character thinking?

This is the sort of question readers don’t care about, but which affects them. We as writers are always looking for the best ways to keep readers inside the “fictive dream.”

Traditionally, there have been two ways to show a character thinking. You either do it with italicized lines, or unitalicized with the added attribution he thought or she thought. Thus, you might have the following:

John walked into the room and saw Mary by the window. I wonder what she’s doing here, he thought. [Note how the thought itself is in a first person voice]

John walked into the room and saw Mary by the window. What was she doing here, he thought. [Note how the thought is now in a third person voice]

John walked into the room and saw Mary by the window. I wonder what she’s doing here?

You’ll sometimes hear talk about “deep POV,” which means we are so ensconced inside the viewpoint character’s head that italics or attributions are not necessary. I’m not a stickler on this. I don’t mind he thought or she thought on occasion, and don’t think readers even notice. But it’s worth, ahem, thinking about. If you’ve got a strong POV established, you can dispense with attributions and render the thought in a third- or first-person way:

She opened the door. Saw his body. Bullet holes all over him.
He deserved it, every bit of it.

She opened the door. Saw his body. Bullet holes all over him.
You deserve it, Frank, every bit of it.

On the matter of italics, it’s become something of a meme among writers and writing groups that italics are out of date. I think that’s mainly because italics can be abused. I’ve seen it done this way, and it always rubs me the wrong way:

  Rip looked at her with those cobalt blue eyes.
  Kiss me, kiss me now, oh please, I need to be kissed.
  “I like you, Dakota, I really do,” Rip said.
  If you like me, go for it, my lips are ready for yours.
  “Do you like me too?” Rip asked.
  Like you! Can’t you see it in my eyes? No, maybe he can’t, because my heart has been broken so much it has grown calluses and become a hard, unnatural thing. Oh, break my heart, please break, so that you melt and warm my eyes for him, so he will take me in his arms and give me the love I have been yearning for.
  “Yes,” Dakota said. “I like you.”

Now, I don’t mind a short, italicized thought when the emotions are running high. It’s sometimes the best way to render the emotional impact on a character without stopping the flow of the action. Thus:

   He shoved her to the ground. Searing pain ran up her elbow and exploded at the base of her neck. She wanted to call for help, but her mouth wouldn’t work. His laugh filled the void as he took off his mask.
   John!
Her former lover had…

Or:

   “I hope you’re happy,” Max said.
“Oh I am,” said Constance. “So, so happy. Especially since you had the liposuction.”
He laughed then. And it chilled her to the bone.
“Now,” he said, “we are going to make love.”
   Fat chance.

Sometimes, for stylistic reasons, you may want to try second person POV thoughts. Yes, that’s what I said. It works if the emotion is running high.

   He walked over to the window and looked at the street. A homeless guy was preaching to an invisible choir.
Well, this isn’t exactly what you wanted, is it? You wanted fame and fortune, and you got a cheap room in a crummy hotel, and you know you deserve it. Welcome to reality, pal. You done good, real good.

To sum up:

  1. Use italicized thoughts sparingly, if at all. Save them for short, intense thoughts.
  1. You don’t need italics, or he thought/she thought if the POV is deeply established.
  1. If the POV is deep, you don’t even need he thought/she thought. Use them on occasion if you wish, but also analyze your scene to see if you might do better without them.

So those are my thoughts on thoughts. What do you think about my thinking?