Credit: From the site TVtropes.org

“The rain was comin’ down like all the angels in heaven decided to take a piss at the same time. When you’re in a situation like mine, you can only think in metaphors.” — Dick Justice, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne

By PJ Parrish

Maybe I’m just hanging around the wrong people these days.

I’ve been lucky to have some free time this month so am reading for pleasure. But have started and put aside four books. It didn’t dawn on me until this week why: The protagonists are all hot messes. Maybe it’s because I see enough losers in real life that my patience with fictional ones has snapped its last thread. Coupled with the fact that every character on TV seems damaged, deranged or just too ditzy to live.

Now, we all love a flawed protagonist. Their personal journey is a parallel track that runs along side the main murder plot and creates interest and empathy. But man, does everyone have to be addicted, divorced, friendless, childless, and beset with demons from their screwed up childhoods? Do we really need another detective whose only steady relationships are with Cutty Sark and John Coltrane?

I really wish I could name names here because I hit some passages that are really worth quoting to make my point. And none of these books are old noir. Each is of recent vintage and a couple are big-name writers.

This all dovetailed with a recent Facebook post by my writer-friend and Shamus winner Rick Helms. He’s on a cruise with lots of time to read, but he, like me, has lost patience. To quote:

[I’m] relaxing with a generally well-written private eye novel by a writer new to me. Like many PI novels these days the protagonist is almost painfully damaged. Whether it’s alcohol, drugs, gambling, or just plain paralyzing depression or grief, a large segment of the mystery writing community frequently writes broken protags. Some of these characters have been very critically successful. I have sort of a different take. I tend to regard emotionally damaged protags as a bit of a crutch.

Sure, I’ve written them…[my PI] Pat Gallegher is a gambling addict dragging half a century of failure behind him like a Dickens ghost. My small town police chief Judd Wheeler has PTSD and panic attacks. My forensic psychologist Ben Long presents with a dramatically exaggerated version of my own high-functioning autism. In each case, however, they are coping adequately with their difficulties. While they may experience distress, they don’t wallow in it. None of them wakes up hung over to a living room strewn with pizza boxes and beer bottles and days of dishes piled in the sink (the universal literary language for desperation and giving up). They are managing well despite their problems. Their personal tragedies impact their lives, but they aren’t the story itself. 

Rick goes on to say he’s old enough to remember reading the lastest new releases by Ross Macdonald and his own work is influenced by Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Brett Halliday, and the like. He, like me, has a special love of Macdonald. To quote:

Lew Archer TOLD the stories of his investigations. He never WAS the story. The pathos and distress in his stories were always portrayed by the people he interviewed in the course of his investigations. He regards a murder victim or an oil spill in Santa Barbara with the same dispassionate observations as he might describe a businessman’s special baseball game. Archer is an observer of tragedy, seldom reacting to it with more than average empathy. He cares, but he doesn’t lose himself in his investigation. In the end, he walks away with little observable growth or change in his basic character, because he was never broken in the first place. The story was never about him. It was about solving the case.

He also cites Parker’s Spenser as a relatively mentally healthy and confident guy doing a tough job while maintaining a long-term relationship. He cares about people, but — with the possible exception of when Ruger nearly killed him in Small Vices — he rarely allows his own personal condition to do much more than put a hitch in his giddy-up.

Likewise, as Rick points out, “We know little of Phillip Marlowe’s inner emotions and mental functioning. We know his opinions, because Chandler was full of them, mostly of the sardonic variety. But nobody would refer to Marlowe as damaged.”

When did the shift to a protag’s personal journey begin? I’m not well-read in the old stuff to even guess. But I do know I’m weary of the dreary dick. Is it time to call them out as the tired cliches they are?

Okay,  we have to stop and back up. Time for definitions. I love definitions. They bring clarity to fuzzy topics like this. Is a cliche the same thing as a trope? Or is the latter just an uppity word for the former? Lemme give it a go:

Cliche: Using certain phrases, expressions, devices, or archetypes that have been used so much they lose freshness. Maybe they were once intriguing, but when readers see something too often, they become desensitized, and the idea no longer carries the currency it once had. Examples: the naive female rookie patronized by boss and colleagues. (Tyne Daly, playing clean Kate to Eastwood’s dirty Harry?) The slimy defense lawyer. The good-cop-bad-cop. The crabby lieutenant who suspends a rogue underling.  The PI who gets the crap beat out of him but jumps out of bed the next morning all dishy and doodle. Add your own to the list…

Trope: A familiar character type, plot point, setting, or writing style that has become instantly recognizable to readers. Very common in genre novels and when done well, every effective. Examples: In the romance, “enemies to lovers” trope (lifted from Jane Austen). The lone gunslinger and embattled sheriff. (Come back, Shane!)

Most folks conflate cliches and tropes but they are distinctly different. Tropes can be good things, helping a character to come across as an old friend or making classic situations feel fresh again (think Romeo and Juliet transformed into West Side Story.)

Time for some Joseph Campbell here. In his The Hero With a Thousand Faces, he drew upon works by psychoanalyst Carl Jung to develop recognizable literary archetypes. According to Campbell, everyone from Homer’s Odysseus to Neo in The Matrix is living out the same epic story. George Lucas credits Campbell for the Star Wars trilogy, using the King Authur trope to create boy-king Luke Skywalker, who gets a magic sword, is guided by an old mentor, and storms a castle to save a princess.

One of my favorite tropes is Austen’s Mr. Darcy. He’s handsome, mysterious, sexy. I loved how Helen Fielding used him in Bridget Jones’s Diary: “It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It’s like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting ‘Cathy’ and banging your head against a tree.”

Let’s face it, crime fiction is at its heart tropian. We rely on situations (crimes, usually murder), archetypes (loner cop holding out for justice) and even some “rules,” which of course can be broken.

But how do you honor the great traditions of our genre without being banal? How do you cleave to such a well-worn path and still give your readers some new vistas? How do you utilize trope and not slide downhill into cliche?

Our dilemma is that a story has to feel new and yet be familiar enough to be recognized as part of the genre. Writers often want to pay homage to their favorites from the past, but characters have to distinguish themselves in their own present or they petify into stereotypes. In the early books, Spenser seemed a Marlowe knockoff, but Parker quickly made him into his own man.

Years ago, I got into a lengthy blog discussion on this subject with a bunch of crime writers. Luckily, I kept this quote from Brian Lindenmuth: “the PI novel is the haiku of the mystery genre; there may be only 17 syllables but in the right hands those syllables will sing. There is the potential for a lot of power in that framework.”

I liken crime writing to classical ballet. There are only five positions for the feet and arms in ballet. But within that strict framework, anything is possible, from swoony-romanticism of Swan Lake to George Balanchine’s Stravinsky-twitchy Agon.

The trick, if it can be simplified as such, is that you have to take our beloved tropes and turn them into your own, like Fielding did with Emma and Bridget Jones. A while back, I contributed a short story to an anthology whose theme was honoring the PI tradition. Being on a John D. McDonald binge back then, I decided to create a female McGee whose business card read: Mavis Magritte, Salvage Consultant, Slip C12, Duncan Clinch Marina, Traverse City, Michigan. I had a ball writing that thing. Mavis has to prove her best friend Eunice Meijer didn’t kill her creepy lover Dirk. And yes, they drink gin.

Trope on, crime dogs. In the meantime, take some inspiration from the pas de deux from Balanchine’s Agon.

By PJ Parrish

I’ve begun my annual Edgar banquet chairman duties. I enjoy this a lot because it forces me to pay close attention to some of the best writing our genre has to offer. This year, as in the past, I thought I’d share the openings of the six nominees for Best Novel. Some really seasoned vets in the mix and a couple you might not know.  I tried to break the excerpts off at logical places to give each writer enough time to find their narrative legs. All typos are mine, by the way. I had to hand-enter these. Curse you, Amazon…

Let’s take a look at how they have chosen to open their stories. My comments follow each excerpt.

Flags On The Bayou. By James Lee Burke.

Morning on the Lady of the Lake Plantation can be  grand experience, particularly in the late fall when the sky is a clear blue, and the wind is blowing in the swamp, Spanish moss lifting in the trees, and thousands of ducks quacking as they end their long journey to the South. However, in this era of trouble and woe it is difficult to hold on to these poignant moments, as was the case last evening when our Christian invaders from the North lit up the sky with airbursts that disintegrated into curds of yellow smoke and descended on the grass and swamp in configurations that resembled spider legs.

A twisted piece of hot metal landed no more than ten feet from the chair in which I sat and the artist’s easel on which I painted, but I did not go inside the house. I would like to tell you that I am brave and inured to the damage cannon fire can wreck on the bodies of both human beings and animals. But that is not the case. There’s a Minie still parked in my left leg and I need no convincing of the damage Billy Yank can do when he gets up his quills. The truth is I both fear the wrath of our enemies, as I fear the wrath of God, and at the same time wish that I could burn inside its flame and be cleansed of the guilt that I never thought would be mine,

______________________

Well, you know you’re in Burke-landia from the get-go, right? This is a writer renowned for his lyricism, and we are firmly in the narrator’s point of view here. I admire, as always, Burke’s descriptive power. I love the image of “curds” of yellow smoke, and I am a sucker for a vivid sense of place. But such a leisurely build is not everyone’s cup of tea, including mine. The pace is slow and deliberate, thanks to the long paragraphs and phrasing. I do like the way Burke gently reveals details about his narrator — he’s a wounded vet who now finds peace in painting. And that last subtle line is terrific — he needs to be free of a guilt that he might feel is not rightly his. That last line would make me set aside impatience and read on. How about you?

All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

Charon County was founded in bloodshed and darkness.

Literally and figuratively.

Even the name is enveloped in shadows and morbidity. Legend has it the name of the county was supposed to be Charlotte or Charles County, but the town elders waited too late and those names were already taken by the time they decided to incorporate their fledging encampment. As the story goes, they just moved their fingers down the list until they settled on Charon. Those men, weathered as whitleather with hands like splitting mauls, bestowed the name on their new town with no regard to its macabre nature. Or perhaps they just like the name because a river flowed through the county and emptied into the Chesapeake like the River Styx.

Who knows? Who could know the thoughts of these long-dead men.

What is known is that 1805 in the dead of night a group of white landowners, chafing at the limits of their own manifest destiny, set fire to the last remaining indigenous village on the teardrop-shaped peninsula that would become Charon County.

___________________________________

Another slow, measured opening that, like Burke’s, centers around the sense of place. Cosby has chosen to establish Charon County as a character, including an overt mythological reference to Charon, the ferryman who carried souls over the river Styx that separated life and death. Nice, that. Sort of forebodding. We don’t get a clear sense of who is narrating here. I suspect, unlike Burke’s, it’s omniscient. I like the pacing: The opening graph is long but relief comes with the break “Who know?…” Then we get the kicker graph that tells a village and its people was brutally wiped off the earth. A couple fine images here, including “weathered as whitleather.” Had to look that up: Whitleathering is a special tanning process that keeps leather white. I would definitely read on.

The Madwomen Of Paris by Jennfier Cody Epstein

I didn’t see her the day she came to the asylum.

Looking back, this sometimes strikes me as unlikely. Impossible, even, given how utterly her arrival would upend the already chaotic order of things at the Salpetriere — not to mention change the course of my own life there. At times I even forget I wasn’t present at that pivotal moment, for I can see it so clearly in my mind’s eye: The bloodstreaked clothing and skin. The wild eyes and unnkempt hair. The slim legs, bare of stockings, covered with bruises and mud. That single bare foot — for she had lost her boot at some point — as white and fragile as an unshelled egg. My mind replays her screams as the orderlies drag her from the ambulance, an otherworldly mix of falcon and banshee interspered with strangled pleas: nonono, don’t TOUCH me and I will kill myself and — most chilling of all: They are coming. Do you hear me? THEY ARE COMING! I marvel at the sheer physical strength I saw — or think I saw — her displaying, at the way she fought so viciously against the men attempting to drag her into the administration building that they had to briefly lay her down to attend to a wrist she had bitten, a cheek she had scratched, a kick she had successfully landed to a loathsome man’s privates…It’s all etched into my head with such clarity that, more than once, I’ve consulted the journal I kept at the time, scanning through its scribbled pages to affirm that these “memories” are, in fact, not memories at all. That rather, they are imaginative reconstructions, woven together from various medical reports and doctors’ musing, and from snippets gleaned from those who did witness her arrival — or else were party to it, and bore the injuries to prove it.

_____________________________

Do you notice a pattern here? We seem to be getting all slow-build, contemplative narrations. No action to be found. I found all six entries to be of the same nature. With Epstein’s, I am a little put off by the dense second paragraph. When I read it cold the first time, I didn’t care for it at all. By having to retype it for this post, I was forced to slow down and consider it more carefully. I love the opening line and the fact the writer chose to set it off by itself. But that big chunky second graph is a lot to chew on. Lots of descriptive memories embedded. Too many? What do you all think? Again, like Burke’s opening, we are locked into the narrator’s memories. Everything is in the past. I’m guessing Epstein is using an unreliable narrator here — she’s in an asylum, says she never saw the patient, and even admits her “memories” might be false. Intriguing, if a bit turgid for my taste. Not a fan of all those colons, elipses and dashes. And I found some points repetitious, especially her telling us several times she actually witnessed nothing.

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

You may not remember me, but I have never forgotten you, begins the letter written in the kind of cursive they don’t teach in schools anymore. I read the sentence twice in stinging astonishment. It’s been forty-three years since my brush with the man even the most reputable papers called the All-American Sex Killer, and my name has long since fallen to a footnote in the story.

I’d given the return address only a cursory glance before sliding a nail beneath the envelope’s gummed seam, but now I hold it at arm’s length and say the sender’s name out loud, emphatically, as thought I’ve been asked to answer the same question twice by someone who definitely heard me the first time. The letter writer is wrong. I have never forgotten her, either, though she is welded to a memory that I’ve often wished I could.

_________________________

I like this opening best. Yes, we are in narrator’s memories AGAIN. But Knoll keeps things tight and moving along, taking us quickly back to the present with the image of holding the letter at arm’s length. There’s a lot of good tension building here. We know immediately we’re dealing with a serial killer. We know the narrator has a relationship to her. We know it’s haunting her. Tight and tense. Well done, I say.

An Honest Man by Michael Koryta

The yacht appeared nine weeks after Israel returned to his father’s house, and even from a distance and under the squeezed red sun of dawn, he could see that the vessel was in trouble. Adrift, rudderless, a possession of the sea rather than a partner of it.

Like anyone who’d grown up on an island off the coast of Maine, he’d seen boats drift before — five of them he would later recall for investigators — and in four of those circumstances, the boats had been empty. In the fifth, a child had been aboard, alone after cutting the lines at a dock and letting the tide take him. The boy’s goal had been to teach his parents a lesson and Israel supposed he’d succeeded, because the boat was in the rocks before they got to it.

So five times he had watched the meandering, listless behavior of a boat without a human hand to direct it, that drunkard’s drift, and five times no one had been hurt. The sixth time would be different.

Why? What was so different about this one? the investigators would ask.

____________________________

Again, we are getting another slow build, the storytelling unfolding through a narrator’s memories. Must be a trend. The action has ALREADY HAPPENED and thing are now in the hands of investigators. Given that I had read the similar approaches of the other nominees, I was longing for an active opening by this point. But I like this opening. It creates tension via the idea that Israel (the narrator) has seen many “drunkard drift” boats before (nice line, that) — but there’s something really hinky with this sixth boat.. I’d read on, but I am really longing for some present-time action and less remembrance. Which leads us to…

The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger

The Alabaster River cuts diagonally across Black Earth County, Minnesota, a crooked course like a long crack in a china plate. Flowing out of Sioux Lake, it runs seventy miles before crossing the border into Iowa, south of Jewel, the county seat. It’s a lovely river filled with water that’s only slightly silted, making it the color weak tea. Most folks who’ve grown up in Black Earth County have swum in the river, fished it pools, picnicked on its banks. Except in spring, when it’s proned to flooding, they think of it as an old friend. On quiet nights when the moon is full or nearly so and the surface of the Alabaster is mirror-still and glows pure white in the dark bottomland, to stand on the hillside and look down on this river is to fall in love.

With people, we fall in love too easily, it seems, and too easily fall out of love. But with the land it’s different. We abide much. We can pour our sweat and blood, our very hearts into a piece of earth and get nothing but fields of hail-crushed soybean plants or drought-withered cornstalks or fodder for a plague of locusts, and we still love this place enough to die for it. In Black Earth County, people understand these things.

If you visit the Alabaster at sunrise or sunset you’re likely to see the sudden small explosions of water where fish are feeding. Although there are many kinds of fish that make the Alabaster their home, the most aggressive are channel catfish. They’re mudsuckers, bottomfeeders, river vultures, the worst kind of scavengers.Channel cats will eat anything.

This is the story of how they came to eat Jimmy Quinn.

________________________

This is a prologue. Nice and short, thank goodness, because you know how much I dislike them. Krueger, like Burke, is known for his ability to create a memorable sense of place. It’s his hallmark. Again, a slow build, a leisurely fat first graph to tell us where we are — this river is special, Kreuger is stressing, so special you fall under its spell. But then things start to turn darker. The water “explodes” with jumping fish and the worst are the rapacious catfish. And that last line — set off in its own paragraph, please note! — what a good kicker. This opening reminds me of David’s Lynch’s famous opening shot from Blue Velvet: To the accompaniment of Bobby Vinton’s romantic song and chirping birds, the slow-mo camera reveals an ldyllic suburban street with children playing, white picket fences, red roses. A man angrily battles a snake-like garden hose and has a stroke. Then the camera burrows into the grass, the music is replaced by awful gnawing sounds and we get creepy close-ups of devouring beetles. Like that, Krueger sets up a lovely normal then plunges you into cannibal-abnormal. Bill, I didn’t know you had it in you, man.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead.

From then on whenever he heard the song he thought of the death of Munson. It was the Jackson 5 after all who put Ray Carney back in the game following four years on the straight and narrow. The straight and narrow –– it described a philosophy and a territory, a neighborhood with borders and local customs. Sometimes when he crossed Seventh Avenue on the way to work he mumbled the words to himself like a rummy trying not to weave across the sidewalk on the way home from the bars.

Four years of honest and hard work in home furnishings. Carney outfitted newlyweds for their expedition and upgraded living rooms to suit improved circumstances, coached retirees through the array of modern recliner options. It was a grave responsibility. Just last week one of his customers told him that her father had passed away in his sleep “with a smile on his face” while cradling in a Sterling Dreamer purchased at Carney’s Furniture. The man had been a plumber with the city for thirty-five years, she said. His final earthly feeling had been the luxurious caress of that polyurethene core. Carney was glad the man went out satisfied — how tragic your last thought to be “I should have gone with the Naugahyde.” He dealt in assessories. Accent pieces of lifeless spaces. It sounded boring. It was. It was also fortifying, the way that under-seasoned food and watered-down drinks could provide nourishment, if not pleasure.

_________________________

See what I meant about the narrator-memory trend? Must be something in the drinking water this year. I like the cleanliness of Whitehead’s style — no fussy colons and commas, a good mix of long and short sentences. Note that even though both graphs are longish, that long-short mix helps the pacing. The voice feels authentic, weary-wry, and that’s what drew me in here. (I should have gone with the Naugahyde!) I like this guy Carney and I want to know what pushed him off the “straight and narrow.”

Whelp, that’s it, crime dogs. Would love to hear what you all think about these openings. All our lines are open to take your calls.

And just because this is my post and I love this opening so much, here’s Blue Velvet.

“If you’re going to shoot, shoot, don’t talk!” — Tuco, from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

By PJ Parrish

Man, I was this-close to loving the book. It was a bestselling thriller. It leapfrogged from Rio to Paris. It had a terrific manly-but-vulnerable reluctant hero. It had more plot twists than Père Lachaise.

I get to the climax. The hero is in jeopardy, trussed up like a turkey by the bad guy. All looks grim. This being a thriller, I know he will prevail but I was hooked because I had to find out how he was going to worm out of this. But then came…

The speech. The villain spent two and half pages telling the hero why he had to kill him.

Argh! Just kill me now.

Gawd, why do writers do this? Why do we have to get, in otherwise good books and movies, grandiose monologues where the villain tells how everything unfolded since their rotten childhood and ends with why they are hell-bent on detroying the good guy to get even.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I adore a well-rendered black hat. Directors love them because they light up the screen. Actors love to play them because it’s a chance to be remembered. James Cagney smashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in Public Enemy. Robert Wagner pushing Joanne Woodward off the building in A Kiss Before Dying. Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber before he shoots the executive: “That’s A Very Nice Suit, Mr. Takagi. It Would Be A Shame To Ruin It.”

But a good villain is not an easy creation. We have many great posts on this subject in our archives, so I won’t belabor the usual how-to points here. I just want to make the case for why you shouldn’t let your bad guys flap their lips at the end. And forgive me for using so many movie references, but they tend to be more universal and easy to excerpt here.

Evil gloating is one of the worst tropes in fiction. It s a crutch to prop up a lack of solid character-building. All good villains, as we’ve said here often, have their own backstories and complex psychologies. It is your job as the writer-in-charge to lay this all out over the course of your story rather than depending on a tiresome monologue in the third act.

There are some variations on this trope:

Revealing the Evil Plan: This is where the villain lays out exactly why he had to A.. Invade Fort Knox. B. Find the Holy Grail to prove Mary Magdalene had a daughter living in the south of France. D. Put Hitler’s brain in a jar so he can be revived and take over the world.

Emotive motives. This shows up alot in mediocre TV cop shows. After the killer is caught, he whines about his past, usually in a long, self-pitying speech about why he had to do it. “My brother stole my girl and kilt my dog, so he had to die!”

I won’t quote it here because it’s way too long. But one speech that really irked me in both the book and the movie comes at the end of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The hero Mikael Blomkvist is being tortured by the murderer Martin Vanger. Vanger goes into a monologue that actually starts with, “Sit down, relax, have a drink. I like that part a lot. Having a chat when both of you know that one of you is going to die.”  Ugh. Well, it does give Lisbeth time to sneak up and whack Vanger with a nine iron.

Why you suck. This time it’s personal. In a speech, the bad guy just can’t help telling the good guy how pathetic he is. There’s a great site called The True Tropes Wiki (hat tip to them, by the way, for helping me research this.) They call this one The Hannibal Lecture after this great dialogue tidbit: “You’d like to quantify me, Officer Starling. You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube.” But in lesser hands, this trope is really tiresome.

Sometimes, as with Hannibal Lecter, a villain speech isn’t a bad thing. Inserted in the right moment, and kept short, it can illuminate character and propell plot. The “Greed is Good” monologue that Oliver Stone gives to Michael Douglas in Wall Street is a prime example.

And I love this bad guy speech from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. It turns the trope on its head. Watch the very brief video. It’s worth it.

There’s also a wonderful villain monologue in Shane. Yeah, it’s a speech, but it works. The set-up: Shane, the gunfighter with a mysterious past, rides into town and is hired by hardscrabble rancher Joe Starrett. He tells Shane that a war of intimidation is being waged on the valley’s settlers, led by a ruthless cattle baron, Rufus Ryker. At one point, Ryker gives a long motive speech trying to justify his actions:

Look, Starrett, when I come to this country, you weren’t much older than your boy there. We had rough times, me and other men that are mostly dead now. I got a bad shoulder yet from a Cheyenne arrowhead. We made this country. Found it and we made it. With blood and empty bellies. The cattle we brought in were hazed off by Indians and rustlers. They don’t bother you much anymore because we handled ’em. We made a safe range out of this. Some of us died doin’ it but we made it. And then people move in who’ve never had to rawhide it through the old days. They fence off my range, and fence me off from water. Some of ’em like you plow ditches, take out irrigation water. And so the creek runs dry sometimes and I’ve got to move my stock because of it. And you say we have no right to the range. 

Boo-hoo, you might say. But it works here because it humanizes the black-hearted Ryker and gives the turf war context. You need to do this for your bad guys.

I can’t let this post go without one last thing. We have to talk about the evil laugh. It’s a very old trope, dating back to 17th century literature. But we think of Vincent Price, at the end of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Or the Wicked Witch of the West. Or Hedley Lamar in Blazing Saddles, just before he chokes on his candy. Sometimes, the evil laugh tapers off into the wicked chuckle. But at it’s finest, it’s just…

Muahahahahaha…Hahahahahahaha… AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And nobody does it better than Glenn Close. I leave you with Cruella:

By PJ Parrish

Good morning, crime dogs. Or, should I say, love dogs. Because I’m abandoning my normal dark and stormy heart to critique a romance submission today.  Hey, this is how I got into this business many moons ago. And I’m so not old that I don’t remember how it felt when the stars make you drool just like paste fazool. See you on the flip side.

Saturday, April 6

CHAPTER ONE

The tinkling of the harp drifts upstairs to the bedroom level. My Louboutin stilettos plunge into the high pile beige carpet. I step carefully, concerned the point will catch the carpet and snag it, possibly sending me flying across the room. Crossing the bedroom, past the loveseat and gas fireplace, I stop in front of Curt and hold his face in my hands. His fresh shaved skin is soft under my fingers. The musky scent of his aftershave lingers around him. He moves closer and places his lips on mine.

“You ready for your big night?” I ask. This party is to celebrate Curt, but I need it to secure my social standing in Arlington and Washington, D.C.

“Do we really have to go downstairs?” Curt murmurs in my ear. His lips brush the top of my ear. His breath is warm on my cheek.

“Do I have to remind you that this birthday party is for you? I spent months planning.” I step backward. After all the effort I’ve put into this, I can’t believe he’d indicate he doesn’t appreciate it, doesn’t want it.

“You know, I didn’t really want to make a big deal this year.” Curt sounds weary.

Slow breath in, slow breath out. I won’t lose my temper with Curt tonight. “Curt, these parties are important. Milestones are important. 35 is a big deal, especially with all the success you’ve had.” I pause. “Connections in this city are everything. You know that. Everyone from your work, and mine, will be here.” He may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding suburbs, but I wasn’t. I work for every single connection, and this party is part of that. But I am worried about what’s on Curt’s mind. Something’s been weighing on him.

“Alicia, stop. I don’t want to have this argument again. The party is happening.”

Pouting, I sit on the bed next to him. I play the role he expects.

“Alicia, I love you. You know that. The party will be fun. I appreciate all the work you’ve put into it.” He rests his hand on my thigh.

A smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. I stand beside Curt, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, and giving him a squeeze. “It’s going to be the party of the year,” I chirp and kiss the top of his ear softly.

“Don’t start things you’re not prepared to finish.”

I laugh. “We’ll finish this later.”

“I will come back to this after the party.” Curt’s finger trails down the v-neck of my gown. He always knows how to diffuse a situation, including my temper.

_________________________

You know, romance and crime fiction aren’t all that different at heart. Both are fueled by passions. Both depend on a build up and release of tension. Both imply a satisfying ending — be it a happily ever or justice served.

The rules for success in either genre are similar:

• Build believable three-dimensional characters. And keep a firm control, via your plotting, on what they do.
• Keep it fresh. Avoid the sad cliches that can bring your story down to the mundane and get it rejected, either by an editor or an Amazon browser. The boozy cop in conflict with his superior is just as tiresome as a breathless (always green-eyed) beauty who falls for a bad boy at first sight. Be original or be gone.
• Create a juicy conflict and a disruption in the protagonist’s world. Tension in crime fiction usually arises from murder. Tension in a romance can come from personal relationships, a couple’s differing backgrounds or family dysfunction. (Romeo and Juliet).

The main differences? Sex and death. Romance has to have the former. Crime fiction has to have the latter. I used to joke that I got out of the romance novel biz because I got tired of sex. (See video at end). There are infinitely more ways to kill someone than to bed them. So I have great respect for romance writers who make it all feel new again.

As for our submission today, it didn’t come in with a set genre tag. So I am guessing that it is romance. Could be romantic suspense, but no way to tell with such a limited sample. So forgive me, submitting writer, if I err.

What I like about this submission is there is definately some tension, right from the get-go. Alicia and Curt at clearly at odds. On the surface, it is about his not wanting to go to the party. But something deeper is going on between these two because the author makes a point of telling us that Alicia is uneasy about their social gap

Curt was born with “a silver spoon in his mouth” in Washington D.C. circles while Alicia had to work hard for every connection she has made. So kudos, writer, for bringing in some tension early. You could have made the first 400 words all lovey-dovely but you wisely began layering some conflict in with Alicia’s thoughts.

You have a pretty good grip on dialogue. I like how you use it to convey information and build tension between the couple.  It’s not just gooey chitchat, and you don’t have any throat-clearing.

Some things could have made this scene a little stronger, however.

Drop a hint about what this party is about. You say the couple both recognize it is important, so put in a few choice details to pique our interest further. I would like to know, at this point:

Where are we? You are too spare on description. A sense of luxury is faintly implied: She wears $1500 heels and there’s a thick carpet and a loveset in the bedroom. A harpist is playing. It this their home? Is this their wedding day? Have they snuck upstairs at an embassy party for a quickie? Whose bedroom is this? If it’s theirs, well, you missed a chance to up the tension even more — they sit down on a bed as they argue. Can there be a more potent metaphor for conflict?

Why be coy? A little world-building would help.

I get peevish when writers withhold description. Yes, you don’t want too much too early. But we get more details on how Curt smells than where we are. Don’t be afraid to SHOW us where we are. Description is a powerful tool — it helps create mood and can really enhance your tension.

Let’s go to the line edit. My comments in red.

Saturday, April 6 Argh. You don’t need a time tag. Find a way to weave it into the narrative if it’s important. Are you in flashback or about to jump in time or geography? If not, don’t bother. Time tags set up expectations in readers’ minds — they see one and they think you’re going to jerk them around in time and space. 

CHAPTER ONE

The tinkling of the harp drifts upstairs to the bedroom level. My Louboutin stilettos plunge into the high pile thick beige carpet. I step carefully, concerned the point will catch the carpet and snag it, possibly sending me flying across the room. Worried that I will trip. (Keep physical choregraphy simple!) Crossing the bedroom, past the loveseat and gas fireplace, I stop in front of Curt I go to Curt, pause and cup his face in my hands. and hold his face in my hands. His fresh shaved skin is soft under my fingers. The musky scent of his aftershave lingers around him. Be specific. “Musky” is cliche. If it is worth mentioning, make it mean something, as you did with Louboutins: The woodsy-clove smell of his Sauvage cologne drifts up to me, making me remember when we were in college and the Brut he used to buy at the drugstore. (Make it mean something! Dribble in backstory!)

He moves closer and places his lips on mine. kisses me. Set this off by itself.

“You ready for your big night?” I ask. This party is to celebrate Curt, but I need it to secure my social standing in Arlington and Washington, D.C. Let this info come out more naturally later.

“Do we really have to go downstairs?” Curt murmurs in my ear. His lips brush the top of my ear. His breath is warm on my cheek.

“Do I have to remind you that this birthday party is for you? I spent months planning.”

Physical movement needs new graph. Let dialogue stand on its own, I step backward. After all the effort I’ve put into this, I can’t believe he’d indicate he doesn’t appreciate it, doesn’t want it.

“You know, I didn’t really want to make a big deal this year.” Curt sounds weary. She has stepped away from him and he should react to that. Maybe he DOES something that conveys weariness. She’s in a gown you say later. What is he wearing? Agaiin, description and details matter. Maybe he tugs at his tuxedo tie? SHOW don’t TELL.

Slow breath in, slow breath out. I won’t lose my temper with Curt tonight. How about: I won’t lose my temper. Not tonight. By making it into two sentences, you stress that she has lost it before and that tonight , for some reason, must be different.  Again, look for any small ways to increase the tension.

“Curt, these parties are important. Milestones are important. 35 Never start a sentence with a numeral. “A thirty-fifth birtday is imporant.”  is a big deal, especially with all the success you’ve had.” I pause. “Connections in this city are everything. You know that. Everyone from your work, and mine, here is where you can hint at what they do. “Work” is too meh.  “Everyone from the law office will be here. Everyone on both sides of aisle. Everyone from K Street. BE SPECIFIC will be here.”

You need a break here. Because what’s coming next is important. Curt may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding suburbs, Yikes, watch your syntax here. He wasn’t born in DC AND the suburbs. Do you mean to say that he was born wealthy and NOW his position in DC is crucial? Clarify. but I wasn’t. I had to work for every single connection, and this party is part of that. Tell us what her job is.

But I am worried about what’s on Curt’s mind. Find a way to SHOW us, don’t tell us, she’s worried. Something’s been weighing on him. Something like: I take another step back so I can get a clearer look at him. There were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept. It wasn’t just the party. Something else was bothering him. 

He slowly turned and went to sit on the edge of the bed. You need this action. “Alicia, stop. I don’t want to have this argument again. The party is happening.” Not sure what you mean here. Is he saying, yes, I will go downstairs. Or we have to go downstairs. 

Pouting, This is out of mood and character and makes her look childish. I sit on the bed next to him. You never had him sit down. I play the role he expects. Not sure what you’re getting at here. The dutiful wife? She does nothing here. 

“Alicia, I love you. You know that. The party will be fun. I appreciate all the work you’ve put into it.” He rests his hand on my thigh. Well, that’s rather brotherly. They ARE SITTING ON A BED (theirs?) Surely, such a cool motion makes her react or think something? Don’t let these moments go to waste.

PROBLEM HERE. You did a nice job of building tension between these two and suddenly, whiplash. She gets lovey-dovey, chirping and kissy? It makes no emotional sense. See next graph.

A smile pulls at the corner of my mouth. SIMPLIFY: I stood up and smiled. I stand beside Curt, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, and giving him a squeeze. “It’s going to be the party of the year,” I chirp and kiss the top of his ear softly. Need to rewrite this graph. If she stands up, remember that he is still seated and she would have to bend down to squeeze/kiss him. And I don’t buy the change in her emotions. Make it transition somehow.

“Don’t start things you’re not prepared to finish.”

I laugh. “We’ll finish this later.” Again, the mood change is way too abrupt. You’ve leached the tension out of your opening. 

“I will come back to this after the party.” Curt’s finger trails down the v-neck of my gown. Have him stand up first He always knows how to diffuse a situation, including my temper. You’re too close to romance cliche here. Suddenly, the maiden succumbs to the man’s “charms”? You can do better.

Okay, dear writer. I think you’ve got a good start here and I like the tension you’ve set up between Alicia and Curt. This is a start and I would like to know what will happen to this couple. Think about paying more attention to “world building” here. I know it’s not of mega-universe proportions, ie, you’re not sending us off to the distant planet of Uvardis. But hey, the world of Washington society and politics is pretty weird and alien. Make it come alive for your characters — and your readers.

Thanks for your submission!

Dear readers: I had my second eyeball surgery yesterday (run of the mill cataracts) and can’t see the computer screen quite yet. Well, I can see it if I cover the “new” eye but that’s makes it hard to type with one hand and my head hurts a little. Plus I just want to lay around, feel sorry for myself and watch Project Runway reruns. Actually, I feel pretty good because for the first time in 15 years, I can see without glasses. So considering how squeamish I was about having Dr. Louis slice off my lens and sew on a new one, I am pretty darn happy. If you are facing cataract surgery, buck up and do it.  

My sister Kelly is stepping in for me today. She’s working on a project helping a cop-friend write a non-fiction book. The experience has granted her some insights we crime dogs maybe don’t normally think about. Be back soon. — Kris

By Kelly (PJ Parrish)

We write about crime, death, torture, corpses, graveyards and cops and we do it very often with a glass of wine near our keyboards or across from each other at a restaurant table. It’s pretty easy for us to use our purple Post-Its to move one murder from chapter forty to chapter thirty five, because, when you write fiction, you can kill anyone you want whenever you want and then finish off the wine and go to bed.

Sometimes, with enough wine or after a particularly gruesome scene, Kris and I would wonder what kind of people we are to be able to write this stuff, and almost always, the answer is that no matter how graphic we may get, in the end, we know none of it is real.

But I have learned it’s far different when it is real.

I have had both the pleasure and discomfort in recent months of assisting a new author on a true crime novel. He is a police officer and he had a story he wanted to tell but he had no idea where to start. As writer of police procedurals, I needed technical information about his department. Outside a bowling alley one night, we struck a deal. I would do a little editing for him. He would answer my police questions.

I thought it would be easy. Like many authors, we have frequently done light editing and critiquing for charity auctions and occasionally for friends, and I suspected this would be no different. There were things I didn’t anticipate.

First was the author’s passion for his story. His need to tell the story eliminated any of the usual author ego issues and it made the editing more honest and easier. Second, I did not realize how different it would be writing about events and people that were real.

Over the next few months, as the story unfolded on my laptop, I found myself weighed down by the sadness of it. I started to think about the victim at the oddest times. I even found myself playing the “what if” game on the crime, building on the tragedy of a murdered police officer and making the nagging sense of loss for a man I never knew even deeper.

Now driven with a duel passion, we kept on.

But even as the chapters went back and forth over the internet, and the scenes started to come alive with more vivid images, and I began to see the finished project as publishable, the late night haunting continued.

I expected at some point, that the repeated exchanges of the same chapters and scenes would work to dull the emotional impact. But it didn’t. It got to the point where I would postpone sitting down to edit until I knew I had two days to be depressed afterwards.

Then I was allowed access to the crime scene photos. And I looked.

Now everything was real.

The project is nearly completed now. The author’s passion has not waned, and except for his heavy work schedule, I am sure he would prefer to write until dawn, even as he wraps up the final chapters. On my end, I continue to fill his pages with red ink, and the learning process for both of us goes on as a book is nurtured to maturity. And as strange as it sounds, when it is complete, I know I will miss it. I will miss the author’s passion and dedication and I will miss the people in the book, because in a way, telling the story allowed the victim to live once again, if only on pages and if only for a few months. I hope we have done him justice in our efforts.

I have thought recently about what I will ultimately take away from this experience. It is a complicated answer because I know I will reap some sense of satisfaction from helping a new author, and as someone who deeply respects law enforcement, there’s a part of me that is honored to have even penned a single word.

But I suspect that in the end, what I take away from this will be something far different and more meaningful.

By PJ Parrish

I might have to kill the bird.

Emily Dickinson’s poem is heavily with me this week. You know the line: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.”

I might have to tell a writer to give up on her story and start over. And believe me, I know how that stings.

Over the decades, I’ve critiqued hundreds of manuscripts. I’ve read countless manuscripts and short stories for contests, including for Mystery Writers of America anthologies and the inaugural year of the ITW Thriller Awards. Shoot, back in my newspaper days, I was a preliminary screening judge for the Pulitizers.

I’ve also done maybe a hundred charity critiques for writing conferences. Since joining The Kill Zone, I’ve done quite a few First Pagers. And I’ve had, oh, maybe 30 or so friends or acquaintances ask me to read their stuff. Some of them are still talking to me.

Let me interject here. I am not saying this to set-up a woe-is-me whine-fest. I’ve done this willingly, happily, and in most cases, with true affection for the brave souls who put themselves out there. But here’s the thing:

You can tell quickly if a submission is good. I’ve heard countless editors and agents say this, and it’s true. Screenwriter Josh Olsen wrote about this in The Village Voice in his essay “I Will Not Read Your F*%!ing Script.” (Click here for link. Warning: his language is salty.) Money graph:

It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you’re dealing with someone who can’t.

(By the way, here’s a simple way to find out if you’re a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you’re not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)

I work hard on the critiques I do, whether it’s a full manuscript or 450 words for First Pagers here. I try hard to be truthful but constructive. I start with the notion that even in the rawest submission, there is something good to say.

Until there is not.

Every once in a blue moon, I get a manuscript that is truly hopeless. Such is my dilemma this week. I am critiquing a partial for a regional writer’s conference. And for the first time, I don’t know what the heck to tell this writer without coming off like a….fill in the negative noun of your choice.  I’ll go with arse because it’s the cleanest one I can think of.

So I will tell you guys. Because maybe it will help someone out there who might recognize, from this example, a misstep off their plot path or a failure of character construction. (Note: I have heavily disguised the details of this submission).

It runs five chapters and about 50K words. Quick synopsis.

Chapter 1: Opens fast with an already-has-happened abduction of two teenage girls. Opening line to the effect of: Greta could see nothing. They are blindfolded and bound, in the trunk of a car. Scene is all from one girl’s POV. Greta is thinking about where they are going and why. She hears one man say one line, “We know what your mother did.” Nothing else. Car stops, trunk opens. Greta senses bright sunlight creeping around the edges of her mask. End of chapter.

Chapter 2: Greta is sitting on a bench on a Miami Beach boardwalk, watching the sun go down. Lots of description of this. Her friend Ellen joins her. They talk about school and Ellen’s crush on a boy. They decide to go get something to eat then go to Club Salsa, sneak in with their fake IDs and meet some guys. They get in Greta’s VW and drive away from the beach. End of chapter.

Chapter 3: Opens at Mexican restaurant with long description of atmosphere. More dialogue about what they will do after school. Greta is upset that her mother expects her to become a lawyer like her. Ellen says she wants to go out of state to get away from family. They pay and leave. End of chapter.

Chapter 4. Opens with long description of Miami and Little Havana as Greta drives to the club. They sit in parking lot and a car with two guys pulls up. Description of loud music coming from the car. One of the boys tries to pick up Ellen as Greta hangs back. The two couples go into the club. End of Chapter.

Chapter 5: Opens with abductors ordering Greta and Ellen to climb out of the trunk and take off their blindfolds. Greta looks around at what appears to be desolate scrubland (The Everglades? She isn’t sure) and sees a small nondescript building. END OF SAMPLE

Okay, let me have it. Because I know you guys know exactly what is wrong here. Let’s hit the major points first, then I will get into more detailed issues.

First, the time line is screwed up. Like whiplash, screwed up. Chapter 1 is present-time action. But chapters 2-4 are all flashback, setting up “the normal world” of Greta and Ellen before the disruption (kidnapping). Second, in chapters 2-4, NOTHING IS GOING ON, PLOT-WISE.

I know what happened here. The writer fell into the trap that we (especially James) talk about often here. Writers want to create sympathy for their protagonists, so they feel compelled to world-build the characters’ nice lives before they get wrecked on the rocks. But this writer, in her heart of hearts, sensed the boredom of chapters 2-3, so decided to tack on a frontispiece frenetic action scene. Then she realized the plot corner she had painted herself into and three chapters later, jumped back to the present-time abduction scene.

I don’t know if she intends to keep moving back and forth between present and past. Gawd, I hope not. It’s exhausting for writer and readers.

The other issues:

Point of view: Except for a lapse into Ellen’s POV at the club for a few lines (yes, head-hopping in mid-scene), we are in Greta’s POV. Problem is, Greta not a very interesting narrator. The writer misses using what I call sensory logic when Greta is blindfolded. (For example, she says the car has moved onto I-95 but cannot see this).  Illogically, we get almost no feelings or thoughts from Greta about what danger they are in.

Dialogue: It is all trivial, banal girl chit-chat about college, boys, parents. Dialogue must do one of two things: Say something unique or say something uniquely. It should advance the plot and/or enhance character.

Description: The writer is in love with the sound of her own voice. Every chance she gets, she tells us what things looks like (hello, there are five senses!). Overwrought writerly imagery that does not sound true to a teenager’s sensibility.

Choreography: Moving characters through time and space is easy. Keep it simple and clear. This writer spends way to much time driving around (the abductors and the girls). The chapter should begin in situ: “The club was hot and crowded by the time they got in past the bouncer.” Not, they drove across the MacArhtur Causeway, passing through Overtown and finally reached Eighth Street, where they parked in a lot next to Club Salsa).

So I am sure you guys see the problems. My question is, what do I do with this? I usually try to suggest to struggling writers some possible solutions, some ways to get back on the true path. I don’t know, from a “mere” 50 pages what the nut story is. I’m guessing it involves something dark about Greta’s mom’s past that has caused the abductors to target Greta and Ellen. Geez, I sure hope so because we need some meat.

I truly don’t what to tell this person.

Actually, I do know. She has to throw this out and start over.

I’ve written often here that WHERE you choose to open your story is one of the most important decisions you make. You are parachuting your reader into a strange world and if you don’t pick the right moment, they will crash into the trees, the chute won’t open, or they will drift off into the ether. Most of the time, writers get into a scene too early. We get cops who are awakened by phone calls and told to come to the crime scene instead of opening with the cop at the scene. We get characters who think, ponder, muse and wonder before they finally act — Denise had long thought about killing Mark, but he had been a pretty decent husband for 20 years now. She remembered the day he proposed…

This writer, I think, got into her chapter 1 too late. By opening with the girls already blindfolded and “senseless” we have been deprived of an even juicer action scene of the actual abduction. So maybe open with them at Club Salsa and Greta notices a shady older guy following them. The creepy man disappears but Greta is shaken and tells Ellen they have to leave. Then, maybe in the lot, maybe in a dicey neighborhood, they are abducted.

What then? Well, we know, right? You stay in the present and keep your plot momentum moving forward. So how do you then rebuild the “normal” lost world? By switching perhaps to Greta’s mom’s POV after she realizes Greta is gone. By brief slashes of backstory via Greta’s memory. By bringing in other characters who can fill in the gaps. Action, then explanation.

Sigh, again. Back to my dilemma. I read and re-read this submission, trying hard to find something positive to say. I ended up in the same place Josh Olsen did. From his essay:

So. I read the thing. And it hurt, man. It really hurt. I was dying to find something positive to say, and there was nothing. And the truth is, saying something positive about this thing would be the nastiest, meanest and most dishonest thing I could do. Because here’s the thing: not only is it cruel to encourage the hopeless, but you cannot discourage a writer. If someone can talk you out of being a writer, you’re not a writer.

Hope is, truly, the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And, as Dickinson goes on to say, “Sore must be the storm that could abash the little bird.” I am at a loss for kind words.

Bird killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?

p.s. I apologize for any typos today. Had cataract surgery Friday. Am fine but one-eyed until they get around to the other one. Argh.

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall. —  Eleanor Roosevelt

By PJ Parrish

Of all the things writers have to worry about, you wouldn’t think description would be at the top of the list. Yet I can’t tell you how many times this has come up in all the workshops I’ve done over the decades. The questions!

How much description do I need? How should I describe my main charcter? Did I spent too much time describing the haunted mansion? Should I describe the weather?  Speaking of weather, Elmore Leonard doesn’t have description. Why can’t I just leave it out like he does?

As someone who loves to describe stuff, I think of description is just one potent ingredient that goes into the alchemy of a great book. But “potent” is the operative word here. Too little and you’re missing a chance to emotionally connect with readers. Too much and you’re risking them skipping over your hard-wrought pages.

Where’s the sweet spot?

Some writers are renowned for revelling in description.

“Then the sun broke above the crest of the hills and the entire countryside looked soaked in blood, the arroyos deep in shadow, the cones of dead volcanoes stark and biscuit-colored against the sky. I could smell pinion trees, wet sage, woodsmoke, cattle in the pastures, and creek water that had melted from snow. I could smell the way the country probably was when it was only a dream in the mind of God.”  ― James Lee Burke, Jesus Out to Sea

Some writers opt for none. I had to leaf through five of my Elmore paperbacks until I found something that came close to description. From Mr. Paradise.

They’d made their entrance, the early after-work crowd still looking, speculating, something they did each time the two came in. Not showgirls. More like fashion models: designer casual wool coats, oddball pins, scarves, big leather belts, definitely not bimbos. They could be sisters, tall, the same type, the same nose jobs, both remembered as blonds, their hair cropped short. Today they wore hats, each a knit cloche down on her eyes, and sunglasses. It was April in Detroit, snow predicted.

• Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
• Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

I can almost hear some of you out there mumbling, “Okay, but this doesn’t help me. What do I describe and how much do I need?”  I’ll try to help. But let’s have some fun first. Quiz time! Can you name the characters being described in these famous novels? Answers at end.

1. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate’s appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled.
2. [His] jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down–from high flat temples–in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.
3. He was a funny-looking child who became a funny-looking youth — tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola.
4. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished — and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.
5. Her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever.
6. [He] was utterly white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached bone, and his face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for two brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flames in a skull.
7. [He] had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.

Back to work. First of all, I come down on the pro side of description. As I said, it is one of the potent tools in your craft box. When done well, it creates atmosphere and mood, sets a scene, and gives your reader a context to the world you are asking them to enter. It also helps your readers emotionally bond with your characters, having them see, feel, hear and smell the story.

But I get why so many writers, especially beginners, get frustrated with description. Dialogue — good and bad — sort of spools itself out. Action scenes have a certain momentum that keeps the writerly juices flowing. But when you have to pause and face that blank page and come up with describing the scene or person in your head — well, it’s like trying to speak a foreign language. It get that. I really do.

Here’s the thing I have learned: Only describe the stuff that is necessary for readers to understand and connect to your story. Example: Your character walks into a room. If UNDERSTANDING THE ROOM SENSORILY adds to your story, then yes, you have to describe it. If not, don’t. Consider this example:

John opened the door and walked into the room. The smell hit him — decaying flesh but with a weird undernote of…what was that? Pine trees? The pale December light seeped around the edges of yellowed window shades and at first he couldn’t make out anything. Then details swam into focus — an old coiled bed frame heaped with dirty blankets. And suspended above the bed, hundreds of slips of paper. No, not just paper. Little paper Christmas trees. No, not…then he recognized the pine smell. It was coming from the air fresheners, those things people hung on their rearview mirrors. The heap of blankets on the bed…he moved closer. It was a body. Or what was left of one.

I made that up, basing it on a scene from the movie Seven where cops Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman discover a corpse. Love this movie…

Writing this scene in a thriller, of course you have to describe it. You filter it through the characters’ senses so the reader can experience the horror.

Now, if Brad and Morgan were just walking into any room, that had no SENSORY bearing on your plot, you’d write:

They entered the room. Bare bones furniture overlaid with dust. A quick scan told them it was empty, no sign anyone had lived in the place for a long time. Another dead end.

See the difference? Describe, but only when it makes a difference.

So where is your sweet spot? I can’t answer that. Like any skill, it’s something you have to practice, play with, and fine tune. It also is part of your style. Your way of describing things should be singular to you. You can watch that scene from Seven and your way of describing it should be completely different than mine.

One last point before we go. The biggest mistake writers make when describing is being overly reliant on sight. Be aware, when you the writer enter a scene, that you do it with sensory logic. Always consider the sequence of the senses. Smell is often the first thing you notice. Sound might be the primary thing triggered.  Sight is rarely the first sense to connect.

One more quick example from one of my favorite authors. I love how Joyce Carol Oates uses smell to open her description of the one-room schoolhouse she attended as a child in rural New York:

Inside, the school smelled smartly of varnish and wood smoke from the potbellied stove. On gloomy days, not unknown in upstate New York in this region south of Lake Ontario and east of Lake Erie, the windows emitted a vague, gauzy light, not much reinforced by ceiling lights. We squinted at the blackboard, that seemed far away since it was on a small platform, where Mrs. Dietz’s desk was also positioned, at the front, left of the room. We sat in rows of seats, smallest at the front, largest at the rear, attached at their bases by metal runners, like a toboggan; the wood of these desks seemed beautiful to me, smooth and of the red-burnished hue of horse chestnuts. The floor was bare wooden planks. An American flag hung limply at the far left of the blackboard and above the blackboard, running across the front of the room, designed to draw our eyes to it avidly, worshipfully, were paper squares showing that beautifully shaped script known as Parker Penmanship.

So, Oates is leading the reader into the room. Note the PROGRESSION of senses: First, you smell varnish and wood smoke. Next, you become aware of the quality of the light — gauzy from the windows and ceiling lights. Only then does Oates move to sight, and even then we have to squint to bring the scene into focus. Take note, too, of the small telling details she uses that make us build an image-painting of this room in our imaginations — desks in a row like a toboggan, old wood like horse chestnuts, and the one I love because I can remember it — paper squares of perfect Parker Penmanship.

Answers to quiz:

1. Rhett Butler Gone With The Wind
2. Sam Spade The Maltese Falcon
3. Billy Pilgrim, Slaughterhouse Five
4. Jay Gatsby The Great Gatsby
5. Lestat Interview With The Vampire
6. Harry Potter. The Sorcerer’s Stone.

Every morning, every evening
Ain’t we got fun?
Not much money, oh, but honey
Ain’t we got fun?

By PJ Parrish

Well, I am feeling pretty flush today. Got our November royalty statement from Thomas & Mercer for our book She’s Not There and I made $46.27. Hey, not too shabby for a book that came out six years ago. Then I got a royalty check from my ex-agent for one of our early Louis Kincaid book for $4.56. To top things off, I found a five dollar bill while walking the dogs yesterday.

So I figure now I can almost afford that nice bottle of Sancerre I’ve been eyeing.

Seriously — and we must be serious if we are talking about book revenue — I’ve been doing some thinking about what motivates us poor souls to keep writing. And let’s be honest — because we must be honest when it comes to money, right? — making a living at the writing thing is what any sane person aims for.

But man, it’s not easy.

I read an article in Publishers Weekly the other day. It was about an Author’s Guild survey of novelists’ income for 2022. I almost wasn’t going to write about this today because, darn it, we don’t need any more reasons to be depressed. But I think there’s a nickel lining in this.

I’m going to give you the highlights of the survey here in plain-speak because PW tends to get obtuse when it comes to money. If you want to read the whole thing, click here. Here goes:

The survey breaks down its numbers by types of authors (full time vs part, traditional vs self). The nut takeaway is that most authors don’t come near to making a living from their craft. Well, duh…

In 2022, according to 5,699 published authors who responded, the median gross pre-tax income from their books was $2,000. If you combine that with other writing-related income, it jumped to $5,000. That’s actually up 9% from the year before, adjusted for inflation. Most that increase came from full-time authors. (Their income was up 20% vs part-timers who saw a 4% decline.)

You still there? Come on, stay with me. If you wanna be a pony soldier, you gotta mount up.

The survey points out that having other income-generating activities made a big difference — stuff like teaching, editing, ghost-writing, conducting events, or journalism. This is what the survey calls “combined income.”  The combined income of full-time, established authors (those who had written a book in 2018 or before) rose 21% from 2018 to 2022. But it was still only $23,329 — below poverty level. Income from books alone went from $9,997 to $12,000.  In other words, don’t quit your day job.

Our biz is still a story of the haves and have-nots. The survey found that the top 10% of established authors who participated in the survey had median book income of $275,000 last year. On the flip side, the bottom 50% had median book income of $1,300. The rich get royalties, the poor get sofa change.

I’ll wait while you go top off that scotch…

What about traditional vs self-publishing? Well, PW suggests there’s an emerging trend here. Book-related income for full-time self-published authors was $10,200 — much less than full-time traditionally published authors, who earned $15,000. BUT….full-time self-published authors more than doubled their book income in 2022 compared to 2018, to $19,000. Over that time, established full-time traditionally published trade authors’ book income only rose 11%, to $15,000.

What does this mean? That self-published authors are now significantly more effective at boosting their earnings than their experienced traditionally published counterparts. But we all here already sort of knew this, right?

And get this…

Publishers may be paying more attention to the threat from self-publishing. Newer full-time traditionally published authors saw their income rise in 2022 to $18,000, compared to $15,000 for their established counterparts. PW suggests that publishers have plenty of incentive to lure self-published authors.

Age plays part in this. The survey found that the overwhelming majority of authors under 55 earned their income by self-publishing. Even among authors 65 and older (which was the survey’s largest demographic), 41% reported earning the majority of income from self-publishing.

Some more takeaways:

● Traditionally published authors earned more in from nonbook writing-related income than book-related income ($5,000 vs. $7,400), while self-published authors earned more from book income.

● Romance authors had the highest median gross income from their books, out-earning mystery, thriller, and suspense writers by more than three-fold and literary fiction authors nine-fold. Graphic novelists ranked second.

● Black authors’ median book-related income was $800 vs. white authors’ $2,000. Participating white authors were 36% more likely to be traditionally published than Black authors (38% vs. 28%).

●The audiobook format is a dramatically underpublished growth opportunity: 55% of traditional and 64% of self-published authors have none of their books in audiobook format.

So, this brings me back to my question: Why do you do this?

True confession time: When I was starting out as a romance writer way back in 1980, all I wanted to make some money. I had read an article in a business magazine about all these housewives who were raking in the dough writing Harlequins.

{{Pause for laughter to subside}}}

I was working fulltime as a newspaper editor up in the management tree, but deep in my heart, I missed writing. Plus, how hard could it be to write a novel, right?

I wrote a partial manuscript called Her Turn To Dance, set in the New York ballet world. I shipped it off to all the New York publishers and sat back and waited for the offers to roll in. Seven months of crickets. Not even the dignity of a rejection form. I gave up and went back to doing employee evaluations. Then I got a letter from an editor at Ballantine Books. She apologized for taking so long, saying “due to the enormous volumn of admissions in the mail, I’m afraid we cannot keep up to date.” Then came this:

If Her Turn To Dance is still available, I would be very interested in reading the complete manuscript. Please send it to my attention here at Ballantine. Is this your first novel or have you published before?

Turns out that editor, Pamela Dean Strickler, was an ex-dancer. She found my partial manuscript in the slush pile. (Back then, you could send your stuff in without an agent). I still have her letter. They sent me a check for $1,250 (that’s me holding it below). A year later, retitled The Dancer, the book came out. 

I got lucky. An editor liked my stuff. Believe me, sometimes that is all it takes. Pamela died about ten years ago and I wish I had made an effort to reconnect and thank her. Because she turned me into a pro. And I was very lucky to go on, switch to mysteries, reconnect with my sister as a co-author, and have a long and successful career in publishing. I made some pretty decent money. But you know what? The money became secondary.

I was writing because I loved doing it. I was writing because it was what I had to do. That’s why I did it.

May your year be peaceful. May your pockets be full. And may you do it for fun.

“It is easy to be wise after the event.” — Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

By PJ Parrish

I’ve been doing a lot of reading of my old stuff lately. It’s all in prep to get the last of our backlist titles re-packaged and up for download. What a chore — and eye-opener — this has turned out to be.

First, it’s a lot of grunt work. Some of our books are so old they hail from the dark ages of Word Perfect. (For the record, the BEST word processing system ever designed). There is no manuscript that I can feed into the Amazon maw. So here’s the primitive process:

1. Dig around in the dusty bins of the house to find an old paper copy of the book
2. Send it to our book scanner (Blue Leaf in Ballwin, Mo). Our guy Brad then rips the book apart, scans it, and sends us a Word document.
3. The manuscript comes back surprisingly clean. But it has quirks. The spacing is off at times, “t” often comes out “st” and Louis’s name is sometimes Louie. So I have to CAREFULLY read every single line. This is hard to do because:

• I am a bad copy editor.
• Reading for typos is like taking three Ambiens.
• I get caught up in the story and miss the typos. This is sometimes a good thing because I hit a passage and think, “Damn, I’m good!” This is sometimes a bad thing because I hit another passage and it’s, “What the hell was I thinking?”

Once I have a clean manuscript, I ship it off to my sister Kelly who has mastered the art of formatting. (If you don’t know how to do this, hire someone who does. Please. If you are self-pubbing, one of the biggest turn-offs to readers is shoddy formatting. It screams amateur.) So, Kelly makes it pretty with perfect chapter breaks, drop-caps, correct page numbering and a table of contents. We write new backcopy and design a new cover  (you can’t use your original publisher’s).

Covers, as we’ve talked about here, are important. Again, hire a pro! If you have series, it’s best to brand them with linking graphic devices, type faces and colors. We chose black backgrounds and an odd type face. Here a sample of the covers, original and new, for book we’ve just finished.

The left one, from our publisher Kensington, was adequate. But it looks dated now (design trends mutate!). I always disliked it because the only image is a nondescript (purple?) house that had no relation to the story. In our re-branding new covers, we’ve used a human figure on every book because we think it gives the reader a person to begin to bond with, be it a victim, protag or villain. (Also the necklace the dead girl wears turnss out to be a big clue).

So Thicker Than Water is available in ebook and very pretty trade paperback. Click here.  Now we take you back to our regular programming.

I’d like to return to my first point, way back in the first paragraph. Because this is what I really want to stress for you guys out there who are struggling with getting your first book out there in the world.

Eye-opening.

That is my biggest take-away from this experience of getting our old stuff back out there. Because no matter where you are in your writing, rewriting or editing process, you have to be willing to have your eyes opened. And your ego closed.

You really have to be ruthless in rewriting. You have to make hard choices, sometimes about passages or whole chapters that need to be cut. You have to recognize that your plot foundation might be shaky. Or that your characters are cardboardy. I always tell folks one thing, going into a new story:

Write the first draft with your heart. Then write the second, third, tenth or twentieth draft with your head. We’ve now re-published ten of our old books. Yes, we did some rewriting on all of them. The first one, Dark of the Moon, we have yet to re-publish because we believe it has fundamental problems that need more than a normal rewrite can solve. Here’s some of the things we learned in this process with our freshman effort book:

We got preachy. Our protag, Louis Kincaid, is biracial. The issue of race is, at times, important in the plot but more often than not is tangential to the story. Still, a couple times we allowed Louis to sound pedantic. Here’s the thing about themes: The more dramatic your theme, the more you need to underwrite. Go at your theme — be it bigotry, spouse abuse, environment, gay rights — obliquely, and always through the lens of your characters, not through your writerly narrator. You can make your point but you can’t be didactic.

We fell prey to stereotypes. Dark of the Moon is set in a small southern town in 1983. Our dialogue was too dialect-dependent. Our characters came across as one-dimensional. And we managed to have nothing positive to say about the town itself. Remember: your setting is a character. Treat it with respect.

We lost track of “book” time. This was an issue in our first two books, wherein we didn’t account for lapses in time. We neglected to tell readers that X-days had passed or we didn’t account for holidays like Christmas. (Hey, readers notice that little stuff). The sequence of events must be clear in the reader’s mind. We now use timeline boards and chronologies.

We didn’t know what we wanted to say. I’m going out on limb here and say all good books have themes. I don’t think we understood this until about book 4. Yes, you want to entertain readers. But beneath the grinding gears of plot, even light books can have something to say about the human condition. A romance might be “about” how love is doomed without trust. A courtroom drama might be “about” the morality of the death penalty.

We missed the theme in Dark of the Moon. Only now, as we rewrite it, are we understanding that the theme is every person’s search for home. For Louis, it was literally going back to the southern town where he was born and then understanding that it wasn’t “home” at all. The entire series now has a theme — Louis, a man who has walked uneasily in two racial worlds — trying to find his spiritual home.

I know you’re tempted to dismiss theme as mere enhancement. Le cerise sur la gateau, as the French say. But it’s essential. Try this experiment: Write the back copy for your work in progress — three paragraphs at most. Ha! Can’t do it? Well, you might not have a grip on what your story is about at its heart. Now often your theme doesn’t show itself until you’re well into your plot. Well, that’s okay. But when it begins to whisper, listen hard. Good fiction, Stephen King says, “always begins with story and progresses to theme.”

Eyes open, crime dogs.

Good morning, crime dogs. It’s been a while since I tackled a First Pager but this one intrigued me. It’s a mystery, the submitter tells us. And within the mystery are things we can unearth, to learn, as always. Catch you on the flip-side.

By PJ Parrish 

If Only Twice

Cora Jean sat in her new apartment, piled high with boxes of her belongings, wondering where to start and asking herself why she was even here. The musty odor of damp cardboard filled her lungs adding to her melancholy. She clenched her hands, stood up and paced the floor. “The boxes, the boxes,” she said. “The never-ending pile of smelly boxes.” She kicked one. Her eyes teared up. She reached into her jean pocket and pulled out a box cutter. She stared at her wrist. Her hand trembled. She pushed the button extending the blade. The shiny blade. The inviting blade. The mesmerizing blade. She inhaled, held her breath and closed her eyes.

“Be careful with that boxcutter.” A voice from behind her said.

She twisted around, tripped over a box and dropped the box cutter. The stranger caught her before she hit the floor. He helped her to a chair.

“Those things can be tricky to use,” the stranger said.

“Who are you?”

“Your door was ajar. It looked as though you might need help.”

“I know how to use this.” She picked up the boxcutter and held it tightly in her hand.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Lew. I was checking on someone in apartment 12 B.”

“You have friends living in this building?”

“Mr. Whitley in 12 B can be cantankerous at times but, most are friendly. Here, give me that.” Lew reached for the box cutter, gently took it from her hand and retracted the blade.

“I know how to use that thing.”

“I will help you open your boxes.” He put the box cutter in his back pocket. “Let’s see, you have five boxes. Where do you want to start?”

She rolled her eyes. “Five boxes! Where did you learn to count?”

“I see only five. How many are there?”

She turned her head slowly examining every corner of the apartment. She moved to the bedroom door. On the bed were two boxes.

“There are a bunch in here. See you’re wrong.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t look in the bedroom.”

“There are so many I don’t know where to start.”

“Let’s start with the living room.”

“But they’re so big.”

“You can do it. One box at a time. I’ll help you.”

“The living room.” She compressed her lips. “Um, the living room maybe a good place to start.”

“Yes, the living room,” Lew said.

_____________________

As I said, this one interested me. There are some issues with it, especially with the critical opening paragraph and we’ll get to those. But let me say that I think this writer has potential and that this set-up scene can, with some work, make for a good opening. This is a great example of a submission that is pretty good but with some effective tweaking, can shine. First, what I like:

We know who were dealing with from the get-go. The two characters interacting here are named and their voices are distinct from each other — Cora Jean timid and troubled and the interloper Lew mysterious and vaguely creepy in his earnestness to help. I also like that the writer chose to place us directly in a disruptive situation — Cora feeling lost and even suicidal in a new home and confronted by a strange man. I mention this because many writers, dealing with a troubled character like Cora, would have given us paragraphs or a whole scene/chapter of her sitting amid her boxes moping, thinking, fretting and/or remembering what brought her to this point.

But no. This writer rightly drops us into the messiness and saves the backstory and “why” for later. If nothing else, that is a lesson to take away here. So, dear writer, you’re on the right road.

But…you can do better. The opening scene can be better. You can hook your reader with more tension. None of it requires major surgery. It’s a matter of little things adding up to big changes. Let me make a few suggestions.

Take a hard look at that first paragraph. It’s way too long and you’ve crammed way too much info and emotion into it. I have a hunch you felt it necessary to compact everything into one graph because Cora Jean is alone at this point. And maybe if you just kept going, in a sort of stream of consciousness, it would feel more urgent. But the effect is just the opposite. The opening line and graph should be a PROMISE of the mystery to come. A hint is always more powerful than a hammer.

And let’s talk about that box cutter. I love it! It’s so powerful but you missed an opportunity to make it work on two levels. (More to come on that). A box cutter is one of those “homey” but nasty gadgets. It’s so useful and well designed. Yet inside is hidden an awful weapon. One slip and your Ikea bookcase looks like blood-spatter scene. (Been there, cut that)

So Cora has a box cutter: Is it a benign tool to open something — or is it a deadly means to close something — i.e. her life. Chilling.

Yet you’ve buried this great detail amid the physical choregraphy of the opening graph. Let me suggest how powerful simple paragraphing can be:

Cora Jean sat in her new apartment, piled high with boxes of her belongings, wondering where to start and asking herself why she was even here. The musty odor of damp cardboard filled her lungs adding to her melancholy.

“The boxes, the boxes,” she said. “The never-ending pile of smelly boxes.”

Her eyes teared. She stood up and kicked a box. She reached into her jean pocket, her fingers curling around the peice of metal. She pulled out the box cutter and stared at it.

She raised her left arm and looked at her wrist. She pushed the button on the box cutter, extending the blade.

The shiny blade. The inviting blade. The mesmerizing blade.

Good stuff. But it can be even better. Some suggestions to work on:

Try harder to come up with a more compelling opening line. “Cora Jean sat…” is so passive and blah. And “her new apartment” and “her belongings” are superfulous. It is implied by the packing boxes.

Also, “wondering where to start and asking herself why she was even there” is you, the writer, telling us her state of mind, rather than showing the reader through her thoughts and actions. You need a bit of description! The smell of damp cardboard is good, but think harder about using Cora’s other senses to give us a FEEL for where she is, physically and mentally. Don’t tell us she feels “melancoly.” SHOW US. Something like:

The room was dark, yet she knew it was only just past three.  Shadows moved across the gray walls. Just the reflection of the bare tree branches outside the window, yet she felt like they were fingers reaching in to touch her. 

The room smelled stale, not just from the musty cardboard boxes piled all around her, but from something else, like an old woman’s perfume. She stared at the moving boxes, wishing she had remembered to label them. She had been in such a hurry, she had no idea what was in them. Her eyes welled with tears, as the thought came back to her again.

I have no idea of what I am doing here.

Use descrption and her sensory prism to show us her mood and emotions.

After you’ve established Cora’s emotions more vividly, then it’s time to move on to the action — the introduction of the mysterious stranger. You’ve done a pretty good job with this part. Nice dialogue, but watch that you don’t waste it on repetition or unecessary chattter. And make sure it is logical in its progression. I rewrote this a little:

“Be careful with that boxcutter.” A voice from behind her said.

She twisted around, tripped over a box and dropped the box cutter. “Who are you?”

“I’m Lew. “Your door was open and –”

She grabbed the boxcutter from the floor and held it out. “I know how to use this.”

He took one step back. “I was here to check on someone downstairs and walked by your door. You looked like you needed some help.”

“You have friends living in this building?”

He nodded but his eyes were still on the boxcutter. “Mr. Whitley in 12 B. He’s cantankerous at times but most folks here are friendly.”

He paused, seeming to stare at the piles of cardboard boxes. “You look like you could use some help with those.” He nodded to the boxcutter in her hand. “I know how to use that,” he said with a smile.

Cora Jean hesitated then retracted the blade.

I changed the dialogue up a little to stress a couple things. First, I don’t think it’s believable that Cora, being so sad and stressed at first, would allow a strange man to simply take the blade from her. It also makes her look weak. Why not let her keep it as she warily retreats (retracts the blade).

And this is the kicker: Note that I tried to make the line “I know how to use that” work harder for your characters. It now has a double meaning. Is Lew a good samaritan or a slasher? Well, read on to find out…

Also, one last point about your dialogue. You know how to craft it. But make it work harder. The dialogue you have after the blade thing is just taking up space. It is doing nothing to advance your scene or add to the tension. Good dialogue does one of two things: Says something unique or says something uniquely. Sure, sometimes people have to say mundane things to move your story along. But try hard not to use it in this fashion. Use simple narration instead: Cora knew there were six boxes in the living room and at least three more in the bedroom. She slipped the boxcutter back into the pocket of her jeans. “Some of them are heavy,” she said softly. “Yeah, I could use some help.”

So, good start, writer. Rework that opening paragraph to squeeze as much tension-juice out of it as you can. Make your dialogue work harder. Use some description to enhance mood. But based on this, I would read on, if for no other reason than to find out what Lew is up to. Thanks for letting us read your work.