by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

As storytellers, what do we know?

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

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

These truths do not change.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally:

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

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

Ahem.

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

By John Gilstrap

One of the great cliches of writing seminars is that prologues are a mistake. For new writers in particular, prologues are purportedly seen as solid evidence that an editor or agent should reject the story out of hand. To include a prologue, it is said, is to doom your chances of selling your book. Is there any truth in this trope? Of course there is. That’s how tropes are born.

Yet, when I go to conferences and agree to critique the first few pages of a manuscript, a solid double-digit percentage of the submissions are prologues, and they fall into two broad categories: the teaser and the backstory dump. The teaser prologue typically presents a character in crisis only to break away at a cliffhanger moment before we turn the page to Chapter One. The backstory prologue often presents a scene from our character’s past by way of explanation of the events that will be revealed beginning at chapter one.

The teaser prologue more often than not presents itself as an exciting coming attraction, as if to tell the reader, Honestly, don’t be turned off by the first five boring chapters. It’ll get interesting, I promise. Maybe it will, but even in the best case, the writer has tipped their hand to peril that we, as readers, know is coming. The prologue squanders drama, and there is no greater sin. The better solution would be to rewrite the boring chapters so that the exciting story builds consistently.

The backstory prologue screams to me of a structural issue with the story. Relevant events from a character’s past are better revealed as references during the front story. An example I like to use when I teach deals with Harry Potter–specifically with regard to the need to start a story in the right spot. When I ask the class when Harry’s story begins–not where the book begins, but when the story begins–ten out of ten students will agree that it begins with Hagrid delivering infant Harry to the Dursley’s doorstep. And they are wrong. Harry’s story begins when his parents were themselves students at Hogwarts and giving Snape a hard time. I personally believe that JK Rowling was a genius to start the story in the middle and bleed off the details of backstory as the front story progressed.

“But I really, really, really need to reveal events from the past in order for the book to make sense.”

It happens. This is why tropes are not rules. Some prologues are, in fact, necessary and work well. It’s all in the execution. My upcoming Irene Rivers series debut, Burned Bridges, opens with two teenagers disposing of the body of another teenager. I call that scene Chapter One. Chapter Two opens with “Thirty-five years later.”

See what I did there? I could legitimately have called that opening sequence a prologue but I chose not to because I didn’t see the need. The P-word has enough of a bad rep that I chose to avoid it. To be really honest, I waffled back and forth on whether I should cut the scene altogether, but I chose to keep it because a) it’s a cool, very relevant scene that b) helps with a future reveal and there was no other place to put it but at the beginning.

Here’s my advice, then:

1. Make sure that every scene in every chapter is engaging;
2. If prologue feels necessary, consider the possibility that you’re starting your story in the wrong place;
3. When possible, reveal backstory judiciously via the front story; and
4. If you cannot avoid including a prologue, consider calling it Chapter One instead.

Did I miss anything? Do you think I’m way off base here? Please leave a comment.

Oh. Any Happy New Year!

“When vultures surround you, try not to die.” — African proverb

By PJ Parrish

Hey, it’s good to be back at The Kill Zone. It’s good to be anywhere. (Apologies to Keith Richards). Holidays and a bout with RSV behind me, I’m ready to get going again. The fact that my Lions beat the NFC norsemen for the No. 1 seed has me doing a happy-dance. Just wish my dad Al were around to have seen it since he almost put his foot through the Zenith after a particularly brutal season back in 1959.

Today, I have the pleasure of critiquing a nice entry in our First Pagers. I took a liking to it when it first popped up on my radar. Maybe because it involves a mysterious priest and I loved the papal thriller Conclave. Best line of dialogue, delivered by a cardinal played by Stanley Tucci: “I could never become Pope on those circumstances. A stolen document, the smearing of a brother cardinal. I’d be the Richard Nixon of Popes.”

Our writer calls their submission a “psychological thriller with supernatural undertones.” Title: Campus of Shadows. (more on that at end). Here we go:

CHAPTER 1

My new apartment complex is painted yellow with black trim and has a scrawny hedge bordering the single-story structure. As I climb out of the car my nose shudders at the scent of something dead in the air. I glance around expecting to see a dead possum or a bird that flew into a window but find nothing. The tune, Bad Guy, blasts from the apartment’s inner courtyard. I can’t wait to get in there and check it out. I hesitate with my thumb on the lock button wondering how hard college classes will be, if I’ll be able to take it all in stride.

A constant ticking draws my attention to a vulture in a gnarled oak with branches twisted so low they could trip someone up. The vulture is the reason for the stench. It must have the remains of something stuck in its talons. A strange curiosity draws me closer like a rubbernecker on the highway and I spot a shadow hovering around it, a miniature cloud.

Maybe some fool around here feeds it. Spinning away, I discover a priest walking toward me from the courtyard of the apartment. His gait and his toothy smile are familiar. “Father Aether?”

“David Everest, how are you?”

“I didn’t expect you to be the first person I saw when I got to college,” I laugh, extending my hand.

“It’s been a long time.” His outstretched hand and mine connect.

“Oh,” he tugs his hand away. “I got a shock.”

“Sorry, I must have created static electricity when I slid out of the car. Didn’t you get transferred to Miami, Father?”

“I did. I was here for a… meeting. A soul freeing of sorts.” A bead of sweat trembles on his jawline. “Anyway, I have a friend whose daughter left something at home in Miami last week. I dropped it off for her.”

“That was nice of you.”

A gust of wind howls through the courtyard entrance blasting me in the face and tearing at his vestments. He shivers and backs away. “I need to go. Bless you, my son.”

As Father Aether hurries off, I’m glad he didn’t ask too many questions. I’ve hardly been to church since he did my first communion. The ticking sound starts again. The vulture is staring at me with a weird look like it’s waiting for something. “Get out of here you dumb scavenger.”

_____________________________

Let’s start with what I liked. There’s a nicely developed (if a tad undercooked) sense of tension right from the start. The main character is entering a new life and environment (college) and immediately interacts with a somewhat mysterious priest from his past. There are some atmospheric descriptive details — a hot gusty wind, gnarly oaks, and the shock-handshake is a nice touch. And then there’s that lurking vulture. (symbolism alert!)

Though written in first-person, the writer deftly handles the insertion of the protag’s name via the simple device of introduction with the priest. I pay attention to this sort of thing because too many folks writing in first person forget to identify their protag until too late in the chapter.

So, I’d call this a good start of a first draft. But it can use some beefing up here and there.

First, the opening line is very weak. My new apartment complex is painted yellow with black trim and has a scrawny hedge bordering the single-story structure. Unless this apartment is in a decrepit Victorian, a New Orleans whore house, or a remodeled abandoned Catholic church (oooh, I like that!), who cares what it looks like? Never waste your first line on something meaningless. Unless the description directly supports your mood, atmosphere or foretells something about character or plot, get rid of it.

Consider something like this as your opening, dear reader:

The smell hit me as soon as I got out of my car. Foul, like rotting meat, or that sweet-sewage stench that I had smelled  as a kid when I had wandered into the basement lab of my father’s mortuary.

I heard a loud hiss and looked up. A huge black bird with a bald red head was perched on the lowest branch of the oak tree. It was so close I could see its black-bead eye. A turkey vulture. But what the hell was it doing here on campus? We were at least ten miles from any landfill or scrub land. 

I know about turkey vultures since I used to live in South Florida. They are butt-ugly, creepy and they make this nasty hissing noise if you get close. They hang out along remote highways, or near the Everglades, maybe on farms. Never in urban areas. So for this charcter to see one here MEANS something is wrong. USE THIS!

The vulture is not supposed to be here. So make that foul smell work harder as a symbol of a rift in the norm.

An aside: Don’t know if you realize this, writer, but vultures have quite a role in Christian lore. They are considered a symbol of God’s judgment of shame, or a diseased spiritual condition. In Revelation 18:2, Babylon is described as being “a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird.”

Something to explore maybe: Birds are powerful symbols in all religions. In Hinduism and Judaism, they are even linked to exorcisms. Christianity is rife with bird symbols, good and evil.

Let’s talk about the sense of smell. It’s the single most powerful one in your writer’s toolbox. I’d like to see the writer exploit this more. And if you can, relate the smell — always — to something directly in the character’s experience. I made up the bit about dad being an undertaker. But see what it does? It personalizes the smell AND slips in a grace note of backstory.

Makes your descriptions work harder.

Other things: I’m not a big fan of persent tense first person. But that’s just my taste. What do you all think? I think it gets a little tiresome for most readers over the course of 300 pages or so.

I surmise that we are in South Florida here, given the turkey vulture and the reference to Miami. But is there some way you can gracefully let us know exactly where we are? Can you slip in where he’s going to college? Is there an UM ibis flag in an apartment window?

And let’s talk about the song “Bad Guy.” I don’t mind songs being tossed into scenes (unless it’s Coltrane blaring on the CD player while the dissipated PI drinks himself into a coma-funk — cliche!). Being an old fart, I had to look up “Bad Guy.” It’s by Billie Ellish and it’s about guys who put up a fake tough-guy front. I like that. But only if it means something about your plot or character. Otherwise, it’s just a gratuitous toss-in culture reference. Of course you can’t reprint lyrics in your book, but maybe, as your character goes into his apartment moments later, the song keeps bouncing around in his head — for some reason! Again, like the vulture — you felt compelled to put it there so make it mean something.

That’s it. Like I said, a good start. But look for places to go deeper, to give meaning to the bread-crumb symbols you are planting. But so far, pretty darn good.

Let’s do a quick, light line edit. My comments in red.

Campus Of Shadows Work harder to find a better title. “Campus” is such a blah geographic signpost word. We KNOW this takes place at a college. Ditto “Shadows” is dime-a-dozen title word in crime fiction, like “death” “darkness” “evil”.  You can do better. Finish your book. The real title might reveal itself as you move on. 

My new apartment complex is painted yellow with black trim and has a scrawny hedge bordering the single-story structure. As I climb out of the car you backed into the image here. Starting a book with “As I did…” is throat-clearing and passive. Be active: The smell hit me as soon as I… Can you imagine starting a fight scene like this: “As my heart raced, the bullet whizzed by my head.” No, you can’t.  my nose shudders at the scent of something dead in the air. I glance around expecting to see a dead possum or a bird that flew into a window but find nothing. I looked up. Then stay with the vulture The tune, Bad Guy, blasts from the apartment’s inner courtyard. I can’t wait to get in there and check it out. I hesitate with my thumb on the lock button wondering how hard college classes will be, if I’ll be able to take it all in stride. Put this down below, after the priest leaves. His feelings about going to college are out of place here and leech out the tension.

A constant ticking souds like a branch against a window or a clock. Vultures hiss. draws my attention to a vulture in a gnarled oak with low twisting branches twisted so low they could trip someone up. The vulture is the reason for the stench. It must have the remains of something stuck in its talons. A strange curiosity draws me closer like a rubbernecker on the highway cliche and I spot a shadow hovering around it, a miniature cloud. Not sure I understand what you’re going for here. Be clearer. 

Maybe some fool around here feeds it. Spinning away, implies fright. He’s scared? I discover see a priest walking toward me from out of the courtyard of the apartment. His gait and his toothy smile are familiar. “Father Aether?”

 There is a very gusty wind, you say. So use it. How about something more mysterious: I see a figure coming out of the courtward, head bent against the hard dry wind. He’s dressed in black robes, flapping around him like wings. (bird imagery!) As he nears, I see his white collar.

“Father Aether?”  

He stops. “David Everest, how are you?” NICE WAY TO GET THE NAMES IN

“I didn’t expect you to be the first person I saw when I got to college,” I laugh, extending my hand.

“It’s been a long time.” His outstretched hand and mine connect.

“Oh,” he tugs his hand away. “I got a shock.”

“Sorry, I must have created static electricity when I slid out of the car. Didn’t you get transferred to Miami, Father?”

“I did. I was here I’ve been here in Palm Beach or whatever for a… meeting. A soul freeing of sorts.” Exorcism? A bead of sweat trembles on his jawline. “Anyway, I have a friend whose daughter left something at home in Miami last week. I dropped it off for her.”

“That was nice of you.”

A gust of wind howls through the courtyard entrance blasting me in the face and tearing at his vestments. He shivers David is starting school somewhere in South Florida in August or September, the hottest months of the year. Shivers? and backs away.

New graph “I need to go. Bless you, my son.” This seems unnaturally abrupt. Did you intend this? If so, it needs something, a gesture perhaps, to predicate it. He glanced back at the courtyard, his eyes lingering on the second floor. He shivered, despite the heat. Or something better.

As Father Aether hurries off, there’s that “as” construction again. We all have our tics! I’m glad he didn’t ask too many questions. He didn’t ask ANY. I’ve hardly been to church since he did my first communion. The ticking sound hissing starts again. The vulture is staring at me with a weird look like it’s waiting for something. A little too spot-on. Of course they stare — they’re looking for carrion.

need new graph. “Get out of here you dumb scavenger.” Can you think of a juicier line or action? What is going to happen next? I assume he goes up to his new apartment? What can happen with the symbolic vulture that TRANSITIONS to what comes next? I can’t suggest cuz I don’t know your plot. But his dialogue line feels flaccid. 

So, that’s it from me. I’m sure our TKZ folks will have other helpful insights. Thanks for submitting, dear writer. Keep moving forward. Happy and healthy new year.

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

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

1. Ditch Marshmallow Dialogue

Check this exchange:

“Hello, Becky.”

“Hi, Kelly.”

“So, how is everything at home?”

“Oh, you know, the same.”

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

“Really?”

“Really.”

“It’s good to know I’m not alone.”

“Yes it is. Awfully good.”

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

“Really? I’m all ears.”

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

Dialogue without conflict or tension is squishy and sweet.

Like a marshmallow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Avoid the Expected

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

So try this:

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

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

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

3. Fumbled Flashbacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead:

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

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

Jack stared down at the imaginary humans below his feet

The gas can slipped from his hand.

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

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

Dad is going to kill me!

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

He heard the garage door open.

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

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

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

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

Carpe Typem in 2025!

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

If you’re like most writers, (me included) you’ve been off your game for more than two weeks during thus past holiday season. In a perfect world, we should write every day, but myriad distractions can keep the keyboard cool and gathering dust.

But it isn’t over, though the ball drop is history. There are decorations to store, food to finish from the fridge, and people still in the house and seemingly putting down roots. Others drop by to visit or exchange one last present or two. Then, the weather demands a different mindset. It’s windy and too warm here in Texas to get comfortable with writing again, while those who live in cooler climates are shoveling snow or hugging the potbelly instead of adding pages.

Then that manuscript that’s been sitting unattended all this time smells stale. Listless, you go back and tinker with a sentence or two, or punch up a paragraph. Bits of dialogue come to mind and you idly scroll up and down to find a place to plug it in.

One character has been ignored to this point, so half an hour is wasted on considering whether he or she needs more attention, and where. Then something comes up and you wander away to stop and wonder why you went into that particular room.

Around here I’m still picking up behind grandcritters, changing batteries in thousands of devices because everything in the world works on those expensive little cylinders. It seems they all run dry at the same time, and just in case, I went ahead and changed those in the manual smoke alarms before they start beeping at two in the morning. Light bulbs are the bane of my existence. I don’t care how modern they are, or how long they’re supposed to last. I change them with alarming frequency, and have a couple way high out of reach that need attention.

That one might wait until 2026.

Each time I finally sit down to work, an email pops up demanding upgrades for web hosting, cyber security, lawn services, pool services, registrations, and memberships. Everyone has been waiting for the work world to get back on schedule, so emails and phone calls are coming in at firehose volume.

The TBR pile beside the bed and chair is significantly shorter, and I need to finish that last book before writing consumed all my time. Here at the Wortham Ranch, I plowed through all my McMurtry books, and the output to date by James Wade and Taylor Moore. Mark my words, these two Texans are destined for greatness.

It’s been a great break from manuscripts, though in my world short stories took precedence for a while. I finished the third act of a serialized novella and sent it in. The first two installments have been released in Saddlebag Dispatches, a fine quarterly magazine from Roan and Weatherford publishing. In fact, follow the link below the first installation entitled Anniversary.

https://issuu.com/oghmacreative/docs/summer_2024_digital_final/s/55208784

The January, 2025, edition also contained a long feature on my life and writing. You might enjoy it and the photos on page 81. A couple of the shots are by my brother, John Gilstrap. Click the link below.

https://issuu.com/oghmacreative/docs/winter_2024_digital_final/59

These magazines are also available as hard copies. Simply order them from your favorite online bookseller, and speaking of books, if you’re gonna be a writer, write. Get back in the groove before you look up and find February is knocking on the door and your book is still on high center.

While we were off, Saddlebag Dispatches kept my own creative spark alive and now I’m hammering away at What We Owe the Dead, book three in the Comancheria series. The excitement I feel for this new fictional adventure feels as fresh as when my first novel came out fourteen years ago. I

This isn’t a New Year’s resolution, it’s a job full of possibilities if you can bestir yourself and get to work.

Just do it, and have a productive new year!