Category Archives: scenes

Emotional Words of Wisdom

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Emotion is the key to compelling, engaging, immersive fiction. Show your characters experiencing emotions, and make your readers feel something in response.

Today’s Words of Wisdom pulls excerpts from three previous TKZ posts about putting emotion into your fiction. Joe Moore discusses creating an emotional connection between your characters and your reader. Jordan Dane lays out key ways to infuse emotion in each scene. James Scott Bell looks at putting emotion into the most intense moments of each scene.

As writers, when it comes to our readers, if they have little or no emotional connection with the characters in our books, they won’t care what happens to them. And if they don’t care, we’re in trouble.

An emotional connection is created when a reader formulates conclusions about our characters’ personalities based on what we show the characters doing and saying. It’s not good enough for the narrator to “tell” the reader what a brave and generous guy our protagonist is or that our antagonist is a heinous villain. We have to show the reader through the characters’ actions, dialogue, interior thoughts and reasoning, and the way they treat others and their life choices from one situation to the next. Then a connection can start to form.

A solid approach to establishing each of these is to ask: what would you do? How would you react to a situation that you’ve created in your story? It doesn’t matter whether you’re assuming the persona of the protagonist, antagonist, secondary character or a mere walk-on. You are a human and so are they. They should act and react like humans, think like humans, and reason like humans. Only when they do will the reader form the critical bond or connection. Otherwise, all you have is two-dimensional paper-doll cutouts lacking depth and dimension.

Some helpful techniques include using universal experiences. Who has not told a lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings? Who hasn’t been faced with deciding between what’s right and what’s easy? Who hasn’t felt animosity or even hate for someone who has wronged you? When your character is in a similar situation, examine how you would react?

If you want your reader to like your character, analyze what it is that makes you like or love someone in real life. Use those emotional traits to build your character. And the opposite is also true. To create a character you want the reader to hate or despise, look for someone you dislike and figure out why. Are they egotistical, self-centered, mettlesome, cold, cruel, or mean? Utilize those universal feelings to build a strong antagonist. But never lose sight of the fact that you’re dealing with humans. Even Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader had strong human characteristics, good and bad.

One universal element that we all can relate to is pain—both physical and mental. Don’t be afraid to dish out the pain when it comes to developing your characters. It’s okay to put pain in their path because it gives them an opportunity to overcome something and by doing so become stronger or wiser or both. Pain, like any other obstacle, is an opportunity for character growth.

The more human you can make your characters, the better chance you’ll have of your readers forming a connection with them. Always consider how you would react, then have your characters act in a similar, logical manner. And throw in a shot of pain once in a while to keep things interesting.

Joe Moore—October 3, 2012

 

10 Key Ways to Infusing Emotion into Each Scene

1,) Put the reader into the scene using the senses – If you expect your reader to “feel” the world you’ve created, put them into every scene. If your protagonist is walking down a dark alley with gun drawn, you have to be there alongside him, author. What sounds can he hear? What does he smell? What are his physical reactions to his surroundings and how does that play on his fear that’s building? Anticipation is a key element in creating suspense and building on tension. Have patience to let the tension mount.

2.) SHOW don’t TELL – If you truly write the scene as if the reader is looking through the eyes and body of your relatable character, that will put them into the scene. If you only “report” what the character is thinking, it distances the reader from your character. ‘Telling’ takes all the unexpected discoveries from the reading experience and it stifles what the reader can imagine. The reader doesn’t have to think. They’re ‘told’ what to think and imagine. Focus on the action of your character and give them a physical reaction. Rather than ‘telling’ the reader that your character is afraid, show how that fear manifests itself in trembling fingers, trickling sweat, and a punishing heart beat.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” E. L. Doctorow

3.) Make your characters relatable and sympathetic – Dare to give your villain an odd sense of humor or have her fight for a cause she cares deeply about, so her wicked obsession feels real. Your mercenary could be a loner, but give him a dog to take care of. Load up the emotional baggage in your character’s past and force him or her into a conflict where they have to face their worst fear. Dare to make your perfect hero vulnerable. All these human frailties create relatable and sympathetic characters and will have readers rooting for them.

4.) Reach for the emotion/Make it over the top – Milk the scene for every drop of emotion. It’s not just about choosing the right words. It’s about creating effective imagery triggers that will connect with readers. If you think you’re done with a scene, go back over and layer in MORE of what that scene is about. Ratchet up the emotion beyond where you might normally go. The added touch pays off when you’re using words to put the reader into the scene.

5.) Foreshadow the danger or the obstacles ahead – If anticipation ramps up the suspense, foreshadowing helps the page turning pace of your novel and keeps the reader invested. It creates ‘flow’ between scenes and chapters. Don’t waste a scene ending or a chapter ending. Make it work for you. If a scene or chapter ending fizzles to a close, that gives the reader a chance to put the book down. Tease them with a hint of things to come and they won’t want to let go of the story.

Jordan Dane—May 19, 2016

 

So how do we show when we’re in the intense portion of a scene?

Nancy Kress, my former colleague at Writer’s Digest, had a great article on that in the January, 1993 issue. She gives five ways. Here they are, with my comments.

Physical Reaction

This is the one we usually go to first. Because it’s effective. Rendering how the character feels physically helps the reader vicariously feel it, too.

The trick is to find original ways to do it. Readers are used to sweaty palms, racing hearts, and twisting guts.

Does that mean never using them? Not at all. Just give them a little boost:

Her hands were slick and slippery now.

Her heart thrummed like a souped-up engine. 

His stomach rocked in a greasy hammock. (This is like something I read once in a Stephen King story, but can’t remember which one. Anyway, you get the idea).

So: Don’t just grab the first description that comes to you. Play around a little. Add your touch of originality.

Action

Actions speak louder than words, right? You can always show the character doing something as a result of the emotion.

Again, watch out for the instant answer. An angry boss pounding his fist on the table, for example. That’s expected. Add something to it.

How about pounding a coffee mug down, spilling the brew?

How about yanking out a drawer, scrambling the contents?

A good exercise is to visualize the moment and let your character improvise, try different things. Go a little wild. You’ll hit on something surprising that seems right. When that happens, you know it will surprise the reader, too.

And a surprised reader is a delighted reader.

Dialogue

What a character says in the context of a scene should reveal emotion. And the way you can tell if you’ve succeeded is that you don’t need an adverb to make it clear.

Not:

“Get out of here, John!” Nancy said angrily.

“That’s the last time I pet a lion,” said Tom offhandedly.

No finer example of how it’s done is this clip from Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants.” A man and woman are sitting at a train station, sipping drinks, as the man jauntily tries to tell the woman that an abortion is no problem. (The mastery of the story is that the word abortion is never used).

“Then what will we do afterward?” [Says the woman]

“We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.”

“What makes you think so?”

“That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.”

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the string of beads.

“And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.”

“I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it.”

“So have I,” said the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy.”

That last line hits hard. We know how she feels from the context and word choice. We don’t need said the girl sarcastically.

James Scott Bell—June 2, 2024

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What are your thoughts on forging an emotional connection with readers, infusing emotion into each scene, and upping the emotional intensity?

Three Unforgettable Scenes and No Weak Ones

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I believe it was the writer-director John Huston who once said a great movie has three unforgettable scenes, and no weak ones. Makes sense to me. Maybe that’s the difference between a good book and a great book, a fine read and an unforgettable one. Let’s think about it.

Huston wrote and directed many great films (let’s not talk about Annie. Why Ray Stark tapped Huston to direct his first and last musical, I’ll never know). One of my favorites is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) starring Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and John’s dad Walter Huston (who took home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar). It’s a stark, noirish drama set in Mexico. The first unforgettable scene (for me) is a brutal fight in a bar, when Bogart and Holt confront the man who owes them money. It’s brilliantly choreographed, and done without musical score.

And then there’s a scene that is with us today, whenever anybody utters the line, “Batches? We don’t need no steenking batches!”

I also love the scene where Walter Huston dances around calling out Bogart and Holt. “You’re dumber than the dumbest jackass! Look at each other, will ya? Did you ever see anything like yourself for bein’ dumb specimens? You’re so dumb, you don’t even see the riches you’re treadin’ on with your own feet. Yeah, don’t expect to find nuggets of molten gold. It’s rich but not that rich. And here ain’t the place to dig. It comes from someplace further up. Up there, up there’s where we’ve got to go. Up there!”

Let’s talk thrillers. Let’s talk The Silence of the Lambs.

There’s the  first time Clarice meets Lecter. When I saw the movie I felt  a distinct chill throughout my body as Clarice first approaches Lecter’s cell in the bowels of the prison.  We watch from her POV and she first lays eyes on him.

He’s just standing there, looking like Anthony Hopkins, in a position that’s hard to describe. It’s almost like he’s at attention, but with the slightest smile that is full of mystery and menace. It just radiated off the screen. And then begins the cat-and-mouse game that is almost ten minutes of pure tension, primarily through dialogue (as in the book as well).

Quieter movies or books need those unforgettable scenes, too. To Kill a Mockingbird  has several to choose from. There’s the cross-examination of Mayella Ewell (the movie version is enhanced by the knockout performance by Collin Wilcox as Mayella). At the end there’s the revelation of Boo Radley (brilliantly portrayed by a young Robert Duvall).

And then there’s the scene at the jail where Atticus faces a lynch mob, and the scene takes a most unexpected turn. See for yourselves:

It’s no undiscovered writing tip to say that we ought to strive for unforgettable scenes. Some writers don’t think about it. They just go from scene to scene doing the best they can with them. I prefer to be more intentional.

One of the things I used to do (before Scrivener came on the scene) was take a pack of 3×5 cards to a local coffee establishment and start brainstorming “killer scene” ideas for my upcoming project. I didn’t pre-judge. I just wrote and looked at the cards later. I remember writing cards for my first Ty Buchanan legal thriller, Try Dying. I had this “vision” of Ty getting on a conference table and tap dancing. Wait, what? But it fit in the book as Ty, whose fiance was killed on page one, is in the conference room of a big-time lawyer trying to intimidate him:

I grabbed my notes and stuffed them in my briefcase. With a quick step on the chair I jumped onto the conference table. As Walbert’s eyes opened wider, I did a little three-step tap dance.

“What are you doing?” he howled.

“Gene Kelly,” I said.

“Get off that table!”

“This is what it’s going to be like, Barton. You looking up at me from now on.”

His face changed colors. Cheeks rosy like the dawn. I don’t know why I did it, except that I never liked bullies. On the schoolyard or in a plush conference room.

Gerry Spence, the greatest trial lawyer of his day, was once asked on 60 Minutes what he’d have done if he were a cowboy in the old West, facing a guy with a knife. “I’d leave him bloody on the floor,” Spence said, “which is the way I try cases.”

I jumped off the table and said, “See you in court, Barton. I’m going to leave you bloody on the floor.”

Let your imagination run wild, without judgment. That’s how you get the gold. That’s what Walter Huston would say. He’d point to your head. “Up there’s where you’ve go to go. Up there!”

How about you? What scenes do you remember from books or movies that were unforgettable?

Trouble is Your Business

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Imagine the first storyteller. I’ll call him Og. He was out hunting for meat. He was about to bag him some wolf when he got surprised by a mastodon lumbering by.

Bummer.

He dropped his club and ran. He hid in some rocks. An hour or so later he came back to his prey and found it being devoured by a saber toothed tiger.

Double bummer.

Then Og had to trek back to the waiting fire. His tribe was sitting there awaiting some steaks (they were tired of berries and roots.) They looked at Og and grunted something which can be roughly translated, “Where’s the meat, man?”

Og was on the spot. His position as chief hunter-gatherer was up for grabs, depending on what he said next.

The last time something like this happened, and the tribe asked what went wrong, Og merely shrugged and threw dirt at them. This didn’t help matters at all. They seemed unwilling to give Og more chances.

So now Og gets on his haunches and says, “I was out hunting like always, and had a wolf in my sights. I threw a rock and got him right on the head. He went down. I was about to go get him when I heard this ROAARRRR!”

He pauses to take stock of the reactions around the fire. Every face is turned toward him. He can see consuming interest in their eyes.

He has them hooked.

Good, Og thinks. Let’s see if I can keep them that way while I figure out how to get out of this.

“I spin around,” Og says, “and there is a tiger with those long, spiked teeth. There is spit dripping off those teeth. His eyes were huge, as big as lakes! I could smell his fur. It smelled like death.”

The audience is leaning forward now. Og thinks, That went well. If I take time to describe things this way, it stretches out the story and the tension. And that bit about the smell, that was pure genius.

Og is beginning to develop a style.

He’s also searching for an ending, and so he lays out, beat by beat, a story of this encounter with the tiger and the ensuing fight to save his own life. He finally gets to the end and speaks of a mighty battle with the beast, until his ultimate triumph.

Someone in the audience asks, “So where’s the tiger?”

Og must think up a twist ending. So he comes up with the speculative fiction genre, and says the god of the mountains came down and took the tiger as tribute. He was about to call down fire from the sky on Og’s tribe. Og told him not to, that it would be bad, and he would fight the god if he had to. The god relented.

So Og has saved all their lives. Or so the story goes.

Well, the reaction of the listeners is so good that Og gets a double portion of berries. An attractive woman gives him a blanket of squirrel fur in honor of his exploits. One of the old men gives Og his best club. A couple of the younger tribe members hand over their favorite trinkets, and promise more if Og will tell more stories.

And Og thinks, Maybe I can make a living at this.

Og’s brother, who collects the booty, keeps 15% of it.

Og had more thrillers on his tongue.

Later, Og began to tell stories that were about his emotions. How he was having to deal with past demons, like his father flicking pebbles at him when he was a boy, and when he fell in love with a cave girl who later got stepped on by a wooly mammoth. Og starts calling these “character driven” stories, but knows they are based on the same idea: a high stakes threat to the character’s life and happiness.

And you know what? The essence of story has not changed—from Og to the early myths to the Greek drama to Shakespeare; from Jane Austen to Herman Melville to Mark Twain; from Dashiell Hammett to Raymond Chandler to Sue Grafton.

It’s all about trouble.

Trouble comes on a continuum, from the annoying to the life-threatening. When you can’t find your reading glasses that’s one kind of trouble. A kidnapped child is quite another.

Every scene in your book should have some form of trouble that produces emotions that are also on a continuum, from low-level worry to outright terror.

That’s your palette, writer. Dip into it each day as your write your story. Always be thinking How can I make more trouble? How can I make it worse?

Then stick the landing. Nail the ending. And readers will line up to give you a double portion of berries.

Are you making enough trouble? Do your openings disturb? Do you write “friend talking to friend” scenes that need more tension (watch out for eating scenes)? What are some of your favorite ways to make trouble (a la “bring in a guy with a gun”)?

Note: The link in the post takes you to an Og-inspired thriller that is on Kindle-sale for 99¢ this week. The book is Your Son is Alive.

How to End a Scene

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

John Gilstrap, r., with aspiring writer

Had a great last week with Mrs. B. We traveled back east to visit my big brother, whom I hadn’t seen in years. We also visited some old friends. Our final stop was at a house in the woods of West Virginia, where a writer named Gilstrap and his lovely wife Joy make their home, along with guard dog Kimber. As we relaxed and chatted, listening to the breeze in the trees (as opposed to the sirens on the streets), the talk naturally turned to writing. One of the topics was the perennial question: Can someone learn to write a novel by studying the craft?

You all know my answer to that, because that was my experience. I related that it was something I read in Jack Bickham’s book Writing Novels That Sell that set off paparazzi light bulbs going off in my head. It had to do with what a scene is, and especially how to end it so a reader must turn the page.

Now, a scene has three component parts: Objective, Obstacles, and Outcome.

Objective

A novel is about a character using strength of will to attain a crucial objective. For example, in The Fugitive, the wrongly convicted Dr. Richard Kimble must avoid being captured, or he’ll be sent to Death Row for a murder he did not commit. To exonerate himself—and get justice for his murdered wife—he needs to stay free long enough to find the one-armed man who killed her.

Each scene in the film has a sub-objective that connects to the big one. Thus, early on, the wounded Kimble has to sneak into a rural hospital and treat himself, without arousing suspicion. Later he poses as a janitor in a hospital in Chicago with the objective of gaining access to the records of the prosthetics wing. Why? So he can get a list of one-armed men to track down.

Obstacles

Conflict and tension are the lifeblood of a scene. When the viewpoint character is confronted with obstacles to gaining his scene objective—in the form of opposing characters, physical barriers, time pressure, or all three—things get tense.

In the rural hospital scene from The Fugitive, Kimble must sneak past the loading dock and find a treatment room. After stitching himself up, he needs to shave off his beard and steal some clothes. He does this in the room of a patient who is out like a light. But a nurse walks into the room! And a state trooper has arrived because Kimble might be in the area! The tension mounts as we worry about his cover being blown at any moment.

Outcome

A scene has to end at some point, and needs to answer the question: did the viewpoint character realize his objective?

Bickham lists four types of endings: Yes, Yes But, No, No and Furthermore! 

A NO answer is always a good default, because it makes the character’s situation worse. When a character is set back in his quest, the reader’s worry mounts. And that is what readers want to do: worry about characters in crisis all the way to the end.

A YES needs to happen on occasion, but when it does, brainstorm how it can lead to more trouble, turning it into a YES BUT. For example, in the scene in The Fugitive where Kimble poses as a janitor, he is temporarily stuck on a crowded trauma floor. He spots a little boy in distress. When a doctor tells him to take the boy to an observation room, Kimble has a scene objective: Help this boy! As he pushes the gurney Kimble sneaks a look at the X-rays and the chart, and starts asking the boy diagnostic questions. He determines the boy needs surgery right away. In the elevator he changes the orders and takes the boy to an operating room. He alerts a doctor and shows her the orders. The boy will be saved! That’s a YES answer. However, his earlier look at the X-rays was seen by the doctor who asked him to help. She confronts him and calls security. Now Kimble is outed and has to get out of there! He’s in worse shape because of his good deed. That’s a big BUT to the YES.

The “but” in a YES BUT and the “furthermore” in a NO AND FURTHERMORE can also be a portentous question hanging over the proceedings, a hint of something worse yet to come. You leave the situation temporarily unresolved (a “cliffhanger”) and cut to another scene (perhaps with another viewpoint character). If you write in First Person POV or Limited Third Person (meaning one viewpoint character throughout the book) you can end a chapter on a cliffhanger and finish it up in the following chapter.

Now, to some aspiring scribes this might seem overly technical, perhaps with the reaction, “I don’t want to think about what I’m doing, I just want to do it!” Which is sort of like an apprentice plumber saying, “Don’t fill my head with how to use an augur, a pipe wrench, a drain inspection camera, or plumber’s putty. I’ve got my plunger, now get out of the way!”

Those few pages in Bickham’s book were easy to understand and put into practice. Which is when my fiction began to get favorable attention and, eventually, a publishing contract.

Bickham, like his mentor Dwight Swain, also writes of the “sequel” portion, which is generally about emotion (regarding the setback), analysis of what’s happening, and a decision on what to do next. But that’s a subject for another time.

And here is how you end a blog post: Comments are open.

How to Avoid Dumb Moves

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

There was a hilarious commercial a few years ago riffing off of horror movie clichés. It has a group of teens running from some unseen threat, wondering where to hide:

Which brings up the subject of dumb moves.

My wife and I enjoy old TV crime shows, like Peter Gunn, Mannix, Hawaii-Five-O, Dragnet.

We watched one the other night. The PI is looking for a sadistic killer of prostitutes. He gets a call from one who is scared, asking him to meet her at a bar. She thinks she knows where the killer is but doesn’t want to tell him over the phone.

So the PI goes to the bar and wisely sits at a table far from the door. The hooker comes in, spots him, sits down. She’s scared she may be next. But she wants money to show the PI where the guy hides out.

PI agrees and off they go walking down—naturally—a dark city street.

At which point my wife says, “It’s a set up. Don’t go there!”

But he does go there. They get to a chain link fence with an opening. Woman tells PI to follow.

“Don’t do it!” Mrs. B says.

He does it.

And, of course, a few feet later the killer and his thug buddy subdue the PI.

Now what? The killer proceeds to tell PI what he’s going to do. He’s going to kill another girl. Then he’s going to kill the PI. “You won’t know when it’s coming,” he says with a smile, then knocks him out.

PI comes to with just a bad headache. And of course nabs the killer at the end.

We’ve talked before about the TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) character. That happens because it violates a rule (yes, I said rule): Every character in every scene should make the best move possible in pursuit of their agenda.

Violation of the rule results in the dumb move, and readers hate that.

In the above scenario, there are two.

First is when the PI goes through the fence. What else could he have done? Well, for starters, how about not going through the fence? Maybe we can buy that he follows the girl this far, but his PI sense should have told him not to enter unknown territory. But the PI walks right into the trap.

The other dumb move is the killer’s. A sensible killer (if I may suppose such a thing, and Sue and Debbie can check me on that) would have offed the PI right there. But he has the idea that making him wait is the better move.

Um…no.

(Need I go into detail about the “chatty villain” who explains his whole scheme while holding a gun on the hero? Or, worse, sets up the hero to die a horrible death then walks out, giving said hero—often named James Bond—the opportunity to use some clever device to get out of harm’s way. “You expect me to talk?” Bond asks Goldfinger, as Bond is about to be sliced in two by a laser. “No, Mr. Bond,” Goldfinger says. “I expect you to die.” And then he walks out!)

Maximum Capacity

So, when you write a scene—which means Objective, Obstacles, and Outcome—give some thought before you begin on the best moves each character can make. This is called “acting with maximum capacity.”

No character should ever be passive, even the minor ones. Give each character a goal, even if it’s as simple as (in Vonnegut’s words) getting a glass of water. Then have the goals clash, which creates conflict.

The tension will rise unless a move proves dumb.

You should also give thought to what the main characters are doing “off screen.” In other words, they aren’t in suspended animation, waiting to come onstage and improvise. While the viewpoint character is dealing with the scene trouble, other characters are planning their next moves, and they should be at maximum capacity, too.

I call this “the shadow story.” If you give this some brainstorming time, you’ll be developing a lot of plot material, as if by magic.

This is not to say that every maximum move is always positive. Indeed, a character flaw can hinder a best move even though—and this is key—the character thinks it’s best at the moment.

Farley Granger in Side Street (1949)

An example would be a familiar noir trope—the nice guy who is struggling to support a family. Such a film is the noir classic Side Street (1949) starring Farley Granger. Granger plays a decent guy named Joe who has a pregnant wife (Cathy O’Donnell) but has found only part-time work as a mailman. He longs to treat his wife to some of the finer things in life.

One day Joe delivers mail to a lawyer’s office and catches glimpse of a guy putting two C notes into an accordion folder, then shoving it into a file drawer.

The next day, Joe brings the mail into the office, but the lawyer has left a note saying he’s in court and will be back soon.

Joe remembers the two hundred bucks. He looks at the filing cabinet. He hesitates…he resists….he starts to leave. But then desire overtakes judgment. He breaks into the filing cabinet and stuffs the folder into his mailbag. He takes it to a rooftop where he won’t be seen.

There he discovers that the folder contains not two hundred, but thirty-thousand dollars.

Now his wife can have a private room for her delivery.

But of course the thirty Gs belongs to a criminal who will soon hunt Joe.

The point is you can have a fundamentally good character make a maximum move for the wrong reason—and for which he will pay the consequences.

So remember, write your scenes to the max so readers don’t do what Dorothy Parker once suggested: “This is not a novel to be lightly tossed aside. It should be thrown with great force.”

What dumb moves annoy you in fiction or film?

Some Scene Should be Hard to Write

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I was happily writing along in my WIP, the next Romeo thriller, and things were going pretty much as planned. That’s a great phrase for an outliner…as planned preceded by pretty much. That gives me the right amount of room to enhance or deviate from the plot outline while knowing I’ll still be on track with the overall story.

But then I came to a scene and it started fighting me. I had it outlined. I knew the general structure of the scene. But it wouldn’t flow. I’d start, write a few lines, then stop because it felt…not right.

Why was this happening? Was I overthinking? Trying too hard? That’s certainly a danger in our craft. The vile scourge of perfectionism is always lurking in the shadows. The old advice First get it written, then get it right applies. We should write like we’re in love, and only later edit like we’re in charge.

But I wasn’t loving this scene.

Finally, it hit me. The reason I was having a tussle with it is that it’s one of the most crucial in the entire series (this book will be #9). In fact, what happens here will affect all the books in the future.

Then I had a further thought: That’s why it’s hard, Bucko. It should be!

Because the difficulty was telling me that I’d hit on a vein of story that was deeper than I first thought. It was my signal that the richest material was still there in the rocks, and it was time to chip away and find it.

Raymond Chandler once said of Dashiell Hammett, “He did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that never seemed to have been written before.”

Wouldn’t you like readers to say that about you? By going deep into the difficult, you can get there.

Now, some say that’s too much work. Why not let the characters decide? This brings up the oft-cited experience, “My characters took over.”

Let’s think about that.

In one sense, it’s good to have a character surprise you from time to time, because that means the character will surprise the reader, too.

But then again, who’s the boss? Are the characters running the show, or the writer?

I know there are some who advocate always following the characters, wherever they lead.

But what if it’s off a cliff?

Bradbury famously said you should jump off that cliff and grow wings on the way down. Far be it from me to disagree with the great Ray, but it seems to me it worked best for his primary métier, short fiction. It is less successful in his full-length novels, especially the crime ones that came later in his career.

So I kept digging into the difficult. I re-wrote the scene maybe a dozen times, tweaking, discarding, adding and subtracting sentences.

There was a moment when one of the two principal characters was supposed to say, “Yes.” But I found myself typing, “No.”

The next morning, I woke up with the conviction that it shouldn’t be either Yes or No (see Sue’s post on answering Yes/No questions). I came up with something else and, finally, it clicked. I felt like Goldilocks tasting the porridge and pronouncing it “just right.” (Or “Just Write” as the case may be.)

So now it’s all settled and I can move on.

Until it’s time to edit, when I read the scene again.

Ack!

Do you think a scene should ever be hard to write? Or are you more with the “merrily we roll along no matter what” school of writing?

Are Smartphones Impairing Thrillers?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

“I gave a smartphone to my dumb cousin. Now he’s average.” – JSB, channeling his inner Steven Wright

Free Girl Smartphone photo and pictureInstead of my usual craft post, I’d like to open up a discussion. Here’s the question: How do smartphones impact the way we write thrillers?

Let’s say your hero is out in public and has to take down a thug. Maybe he bends the law a little as he does, though he is morally justified.

In today’s world, a dozen smartphones will capture the encounter on video. And then, boom, the hero’s face and actions go viral. 

Now every cop, friend of the thug, past enemies, and thousands of social media jockeys know who he is, or at least what he looks like. 

Heck, you can’t even have a bar fight anymore without the world finding out about it. 

So: How do we thriller writers deal with this?

  • What are the consequences of such a scenario in a stand-alone thriller? Must it become a major plot complication?
  • What are the consequences for a series? Will the viral notoriety follow the hero from now on? Must it be dealt with in each subsequent book?
  • Or can you pull a retcon? What, you may ask, is a retcon? It stands for “retrograde continuity,” a fancy term for when material in past books is “adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work that recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former.” (Wikipedia)
  • Or should we do whatever we can to avoid these scenes? Would that be realistic?
  • Or would the large majority of readers not care that much if smartphone recordings don’t happen in a scene such as I’ve described? Maybe you get a few emails or are docked one star in a review. But if the scene works in all other aspects, is that a big deal?

Give this all some thought and let’s start a conversation!

Reader Friday: Page Turners

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Welcome to Reader Friday. Thank you to Steve Hooley for inviting me to guest post. Let’s get to it.

Do you remember reading under the covers? I do. Or, maybe you still do . . .

Usually, it was because I couldn’t put the book down. Aha! Enter the topic for today—something about which I still have much to learn.

There have been many discussions in these halls regarding the importance of scene endings and getting the reader to turn the page . . . and to keep turning pages.

Today, I thought we could have a little fun by sharing our favorite-of-all-time scene endings—as readers. You might have to dig into your memory a bit. That’s okay, we’ll wait.

I’ll start the scenes rolling. Mine just happens to be from Damage Control, by our own John Gilstrap, the fourth in his Jonathan Grave series if you don’t count the prequel. This excerpt is not only the end of the scene, but the end of the book . . . which made me immediately start the next in the series. Double whammy, John!

The man Munro saw was dressed all in black, and his face was covered by a black mask.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Jonathan said. He smiled at the sight of the spreading stain in Munro’s trousers. “Well, here I am.”

I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s a killer scene ending.

Over to you, Killzoners. What’s your favorite-of-all-time scene ending?

***

 

 

Deb Gorman, owner of Debo Publishing, lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, Alan, and their very smart German Shepherd, Hoka. Together they have seven children, 24ish grandchildren, and a few great-grandchildren scattered about the country.

 

 

 

Believing that one of the most foundational bedrocks of humanity—family relationships—is under attack, she writes redemptive stories of families in crisis.

 

Cutting the DULL from Your Scenes

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

George Horace Lorimer was the legendary editor of The Saturday Evening Post from 1899 to 1936. He brought the circulation up from a few thousand to over a million, and made it a place known for quality fiction.

In the early days of his reign he received a letter from an indignant author which read, “Last week you rejected my story. I know that you did not read it for, as a test, I pasted together pages 15, 16 and 17, and the manuscript came back with the pages still pasted. You are a fraud and you turn down stories without even reading them.”

Lorimer responded, “Madam, at breakfast when I open an egg, I don’t have to eat the whole egg to discover it is bad.”

Painful, but true.

We talk a lot here at TKZ about opening pages. We all know how important they are to agents, editors, and readers. But we should think the same way about every scene in our novel. And thus to the topic for today: Cutting the DULL from your scenes. To wit:

Description Dumps

We talk often about avoiding “info dumps.” That is, larding on exposition or description in a way that makes the story seem to stand still. Yet, we need to know the setting of a scene, too.

The way to go is to write not so the reader merely sees the scene, but rather experiences it.

The best descriptions are a) woven into action, and b) consistent with the mood of the story. Stephen King’s “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” is a melancholy tale about a traveling salesman who is thinking of ending it all. Here’s the opening paragraph:

It was a Motel 6 on I-80 just west of Lincoln, Nebraska. The snow that began at midafternoon had faded the sign’s virulent yellow to a kinder pastel shade as the light ran out of the January dusk. The wind was closing in on that quality of empty amplification one encounters only in the country’s flat midsection, usually in wintertime. That meant nothing but discomfort now, but if big snow came tonight—the weather forecasters couldn’t seem to make up their minds—then the interstate would be shut down by morning. That was nothing to Alfie Zimmer.

You can go line by line and see how King uses mood words within the simple action of a man arriving at a Motel 6 with a depressed disposition.

Here’s the great Raymond Chandler, as his cynical PI Philip Marlowe takes a drive in Chapter 13 of The Little Sister. Notice how this tells us as much about Marlowe as it does about the setting. (I love it because I have taken the same drive many times, albeit on the freeway):

I drove east on Sunset but I didn’t go home. At La Brea I turned north and swung over to Highland, out over Cahuenga Pass and down on to Ventura Boulevard, past Studio City and Sherman Oaks and Encino. There was nothing lonely about the trip. There never is on that road. Fast boys in stripped-down Fords shot in and out of the traffic streams, missing fenders by a sixteenth of an inch, but somehow always missing them. Tired men in dusty coupés and sedans winced and tightened their grip on the wheel and ploughed on north and west towards home and dinner, and evening with the sports page, the blatting of the radio, the whining of their spoiled children and the gabble of their silly wives. I drove on past the gaudy neons and the false fronts behind them, the sleazy hamburger joints that look like palaces under the colors, the circular drive-ins as gay as circuses with the chipper hard-eyed carhops, the brilliant counters, and the sweaty greasy kitchens that would have poisoned a toad.

Do you experience the scene like Marlowe does? How could you not?

So: Always describe your scenes in words that reflect the tone, which you’ll most often find in the mind of the viewpoint character.

Uninteresting Characters

Why does a story seem dull to a reader? In short, predictability. Subconsciously, the reader is anticipating what a character will do or say. If the character does do or does say something along those lines, the experience for the reader is boredom. “I’ve seen that before,” their sub-mind whispers. “Why keep reading?”

So: When you think about the scene you’re going to write, plan one action (even if it’s just a line of dialogue) a reader won’t see coming. A good practice is to make a quick list of the things the average reader might expect to happen…then don’t do those things.

Lethargic Action

Kurt Vonnegut said a character in a scene must want something (the scene Objective), even if it’s just a glass of water. I’d add that the Objective must be something essential. So if it’s a glass of water, the character better be dying of thirst.

So: Make the Objective an essential step toward solving the story question. The story question should involve death stakes (physical, professional, or psychological). Otherwise, why should the reader care?

Leaden Prose

John D. MacDonald went for what he called “unobtrusive poetry” in his style. He wanted sentences that “sing,” but not in such a way that it sounds like Ethel Merman in the shower. Like this, from Darker Than Amber:

She sat up slowly, looked in turn at each of us, and her dark eyes were like twin entrances to two deep caves. Nothing lived in those caves. Maybe something had, once upon a time. There were piles of picked bones back in there, some scribbling on the walls, and some gray ash where the fires had been.

Leaden prose, on the other hand, is like Amish furniture from the 1850s. Functional, yes, but that’s it.

So: Work on expanding your voice. I wrote a book about that. Do some morning pages where you write page-long sentences. Try things. Make up wild metaphors, not to use (necessarily) but to stretch. Read challenging prose, even in nonfiction. Read poetry out loud (I recommend Robert W. Service).

And remember Hitchcock’s Axiom: “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”

Discover Your Scene

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

We’ve often discussed here the different approaches to writing a novel. In dualistic terms, we sometimes use the terms “plotters” and “pantsers.” Or, “outliners” and “intuitive (or discovery) writers.” There are some ’tweeners (“plantsers”), too. Doesn’t matter, as long as the author creates a finished work that’s the best he or she can do.

But that’s on the macro level. Today I want to focus on the micro level—the scene—and make a pitch for the mini-outline.

A scene is a unit of action, usually defined by a single setting and linear time. To work as dramatic action, there needs to be a viewpoint character with a scene goal—the Objective—who is met with conflict—the Obstacle(s). The scene ends with the Outcome, which can be failure, setback, or portent.

The occasional success is allowed, but should lead to more trouble. Like in that great pet-the-dog scene in The Fugitive where Kimble, posing as a hospital custodian, checks a kid’s x-ray and determines he needs the operating room, stat. He changes the orders in the elevator. And saves the kid’s life. Success! Ah, but a doctor saw him looking at the film, confronts him, and calls security. Trouble!

All right, you’re about to write a scene. You know who the viewpoint character is.

You can pants it. Or you can plan it. This is our micro issue.

Some simply start writing, letting the scene unfold in their head as they take it down. Like transcribing a movie playing in the mind.

The other way is to take a few minutes to think about the three Os listed above.

Objective—Who is the viewpoint character? What does this character want to achieve in the scene? (As Vonnegut once said, a character has to want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.)

Obstacles—Brainstorm possible areas of conflict, e.g., another character with an opposing agenda. Or physical barriers (the bridge is out; the building is locked). Make a list, push past the familiar, then choose the best ones.

Outcome—I see five possible scene endings: 1) success; 2) success, but with a cost; 3) failure; 4) failure with a setback (the situation gets worse); and 5) open-ended (we have to wait for the outcome. This is a staple of multiple POV thrillers, cutting away from one scene to another scene with a different POV).

Writing with this mini-outline enables me to pick the best course among many possibilities. It also helps me to avoid clichés and stereotypes, which are often the first things that come to mind when you simply start writing a scene.

In short, I dig up the best nuggets with a few minutes of brainstorming instead of writing a scene, seeing what I came up with, and doing a lot of fixing. I’ll still have things to fix, but I do that with light editing of my previous day’s work. (Whatever approach, it’s the fixing that is the key to writing books that actually sell and not just take up space. That’s why I wrote a new writing book up for a pre-sale deal now.)

I’ll give you an example from my WIP, my next Mike Romeo thriller. I have a scene where Romeo goes to a house that used to be owned by a key witness. His Objective is simple: find out where the guy moved to.

In my head I had Mike knocking on the door and hearing a voice ask what he wants. Mike lays it out, but the voice refuses to answer the question, tells Mike to go away. There’s an Obstacle. Despite his best attempts at persuasion, the Outcome is failure.

That was my first thought, and it wasn’t enough. Had I written it out and moved on, I know I would have been disappointed upon revision.

So I brainstormed. First, more Obstacles. I thought about the setting. What else was there? How about a smell? Maybe dust…or smoke…ah! Popping into my mind: the odor of marijuana. The “sweet, skunky” smell of burning hippie lettuce. Where would that come from?

Why, the house next door. I brainstormed who it might be. Not one, not two, but three young guys, in folding chairs by a car they are presumably working on, passing around a pipe.

Mike asks them if they knew the guy who lived next door. Their answers are less than helpful, but sure does make them laugh. Mike tries the house across the street and this time it’s a thin old guy on a lawn tractor holding a hoe like a lance. Reminds Mike of Don Quixote. They guy is a misanthrope, not helpful at all.

So after three Obstacles, the ultimate Outcome was failure. Mike doesn’t get the answer he’s looking for.

What follows is a reaction beat. A full reaction beat is made up of Emotion, Analysis, and Decision. (Many of you will recognize all this as the Swain/Bickham “scene and sequel.”

Which we can go into another time.)

Point is I came up with a scene that works for my WIP, with ideas formed with a few minutes of brainstorming.

So I ask: What is your approach to scene writing? Fly into it? Plan it out? Something in between?