Category Archives: Writing

Knives Out! Every Writer
Needs Sharper Tools

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It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” — Ernest Hemingway

By PJ Parrish

If you want to do it right, you need a good sharp knife.

I never believed this until recently. For decades, I struggled along with cheap knives picked up at yard sales or the sale rack at Target. Useless, these dull tools all eventually found their way to a sad dark drawer of my kitchen, leaving me dependent on one little plastic job and an old serrated steak knife to do everything I needed, from slicing a tomato to carving a turkey. (See actual evidence below).

Which leads me to my friend Peter. He was a terrific cook and believed in good knives. He had a set of Wüsthof knives, which I came to learn was the ne plus ultra of knives. He kept them sharpened, whetted and ready. When he would come to my place for dinner, he would scoff at my pitiful duo. “You can’t be a serious cook without good knives,” he said.

Peter left me his knives when he died last spring. They came to me in a box, gleaming and razor sharp. They frightened me. I was sure I’d slice an artery if I tried to use them.

Well, I didn’t. I came to appreciate the way the paring knife could effortlessly slice a tomato paper-thin. I loved the way the 8-inch utility knife churned through an onion. Carving a roast with the 10-inch chef’s knife was an epiphany. The right tools have made me a better cook.

Life is like this. Sometimes, you’re tempted to make do with the inferior, to take the easy route, to tackle a task with less-than. You folks out there who do carpentry or gardening know what I mean. You buy shoddy tools, you get shoddy results. Or you have to work twice as hard. Or you slice off a finger.

You can probably tell by now that this is a metaphor. As in life, as a writer you can’t get the job done with acquiring the right tools. You have to learn the craft. And here’s something you’re not going to like to hear: What tool you seem to lack, that’s the one you need the most.

Where do you find the right tools? Well, there are a million how-to books out there in the ether. Not all are good. Most are dull, and many are useless and should be stuck in a kitchen drawer. So let me suggest you start with The Kill Zone archives. Our contributors are laser-focused on practical craft advice, and a couple of us have written some pretty good how-to books. See that search box at the right top of this page? Type in what you need and you’ll find the tools.

Don’t be afraid to face your weakness. Find the right knife for the job you need done.

Are you bad at plotting? Does your story have a thicket of sub-plots obscuring the true story? Does your plot lack dramatic arcs (“What’s an arc?”) Does your middle act sag? Well, type “plot structure” in the search box.  Great tips galore. Start with this one from James Bell, which is a basic lesson in why plot and character go hand in hand. Trouble coming up with a great ending? Debbie has it down. Type in sub-plots, or three-act structure, layering scenes or chapter transitions and you’ll find more knives.

Are your characters lacking? Are they stereotyped, unbelievable, wooden or one-dimensional? Every great story begins and ends with great characters. If this is your weakness, find the tools to help.  Start with this post from Laura Benedict. Need to learn about motivation? Type in “man in the mirror” or “What does your character want?”

Does description leave you cold? We can’t all be Elmore Leonard. Most of us need at least a little descriptions to make our readers care. I love description so whenever my sister and I got to this, she’d shovel the football to me. Or she’d send me back a chapter she had worked on with big read capitals saying: INSERT DESCRIPTION OF MANSION HERE. I finally forced her to do it herself so she could learn. And she did. Start with this post for some great tips.

Stymied about your setting? You can’t tell a story without creating a world. Setting is, to my mind, one of the most neglected aspects of craft that I see in our First Page Critique submissions. If you struggle with this, check out Terry’s guide here. Or read Jordan’s inspiring take.

Is your dialogue tone-deaf? Dialogue is action. Dialogue is sleight of ear. Dialogue is hard to get right. It might be the hardest writing craft to master. Here’s a terrific primer from emeritus TKZer Jodie Renner to start with. What point of view works best for your story? Let John Gilstrap clarify things here. Should you use a dialect? Read this first.  Does your dialogue sound fake? Try this knife. 

One last piece of advice. Knives get dull. Even the really good German ones. You have to get them professionally sharpened, at least every couple months. I go to Precision Sharpening & Key Shop where Jeff (that’s him and Bird at left) keeps me sharp.  Not sure where the metaphor is here, other than to say that even old dogs like me — even the most experienced writers, and especially the well-published — need to keep their craft honed.  Or they lose their edge. And as anyone can tell you, when you lose your edge, you lose your readers.  And now, I am off to pick up my knives from Jeff. Stay sharp, my friends.

This post is dedicated to my friend Peter, who loved food, knives and the Redskins.

 

Mixed Up Words

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Mixed Up Words
Terry Odell

Judging from some recent posts, it’s looking like we all need a break from what’s happening around us. I thought I’d follow in the footsteps of Debbie’s mondegreens, Elaine’s eggcorns, and and JSB’s bloopers with a little more fun with words—although I’m sure they weren’t fun for the authors who made the mistakes.

These errors are from the spectrum of publishing—from indie to major publishing house authors. Whether or not some of these were typos on the part of the author and missed in editing, or whether the author didn’t know the correct word doesn’t really matter. However, given editorial passes these days are often far fewer than in the past, it behooves the author to get as much right as possible, and not hope an editor will find and fix errors. Sometimes it’s the little things that get overlooked, such as a NYT best-selling author having “That to” instead of “That, too.” (and there are different house style for the comma, but that’s not the error.)

Below are examples. Spellcheck wouldn’t have flagged any of them. Do you recognize these vocabulary errors? I’m sure you do. Why didn’t the editors?

  1. Rowdy little hoard
  2. His jacket was pealed back
  3. The car pealed away from the curb
  4. He’s cooling his heals in the lockup
  5. A single star shown brighter than any other
  6. The plain of his abdomen
  7. Ran her fingers down his chest toward his naval
  8. The bullet had come to rest against the seventh vertebrae
  9. Emerged like a breach birth
  10. “You saved his life today. He’ll probably give you an accommodation or something.”
  11. “The state trooper gave the children law enforcement’s universal anecdote: orange juice and candy bars.”
  12. He was injured trying to diffuse the bomb.
  13. She poured over the pages of the book.
  14. She peddled her bike down the sidewalk
  15. He waited with baited breath.
  16. He knocked on the door jam before entering the room.

And, one I didn’t learn until a reader (not my editor) pointed it out: discrete vs discreet.

What errors have you found in recent reading? The floor is yours.

Heather's ChaseMy new Mystery Romance, Heather’s Chase, is now available at most e-book channels. and in print from Amazon.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.” Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

First Page Critique – The Recruiter

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Photo credit: Thomas Quine, Creative Commons lic.

 

Please welcome today’s Brave Author who submitted the first page of The Recruiter for feedback. Enjoy the excerpt then we’ll talk about it.

~~~

The butt of the revolver smashed into my face, slicing open a half-inch gash above my left eyebrow. I pressed a hand to my bleeding forehead and cursed.

“You have a smart mouth,” Mr. White said.

“And you’re wasting my time,” I replied, feeling the sting of sweat in the wound. As soon as I pulled my hand away, I could feel the blood begin to pool again. In a few seconds it would trickle down and stain both my shirt and suit jacket a deep red.

Shit. I just had them both dry cleaned.

“Your time is my time,” Mr. White said. With his thick Eastern European accent, the line sounded more cartoonish than I bet he intended.

“Not until you pay me it isn’t. And for the past half-hour I’ve sat here and answered questions about everything from my shoe size to my favorite porn star.” I turned to the hired muscle standing behind me, the one whose gun now had drops of my blood on its handle. Guy was wearing Ray Bans even though it was 1:30 in the morning and we were inside an empty bar. Douchebag. “By the way,” I said to him, “my favorite porn star? It’s your Mom.”

This time the butt came down on the back of my neck. I almost passed out but bit my tongue until the gray spots in my vision disappeared. I spat a mouthful of pink saliva onto the dirty floor and sat up.

“I’m a thorough businessman,” Mr. White said as he twisted a pinkie ring between his thumb and forefinger. Another unintentionally cartoonish move. “And I don’t make deals with someone based solely on their reputation without asking some questions of my own.”

“Cut the shit. My reputation is the only reason your boy hasn’t blown my brains out all over this table and we both know it.” To that, neither man had a reply. “So if you’re done with the HR interview, let’s talk about why I’m sitting here, because it sure as hell isn’t for the company.”

Mr. White twisted his pinkie ring a few more times–gold, of course, and shiny–before he finally smiled. He nodded to Ray Bans and a black briefcase fell on the table in front of me. A thin cloud of dust from broken peanut shells and cigarette ash puffed up where it landed.

~~~

First off, congratulations to today’s Brave Author for an action-packed start. Nothing like the protagonist being pistol whipped to catch the reader’s attention.

Immediately following are a couple of great lines that firmly establish the genre as gritty and hard-boiled:

“In a few seconds it would trickle down and stain both my shirt and suit jacket a deep red.

Shit. I just had them both dry cleaned.”

Clearly, this ain’t the first rodeo for the as-yet-unnamed protagonist. For now, let’s call him Tough Guy or TG.

TG is no stranger to violence. In fact, he provokes it:

“By the way,” I said to him, “my favorite porn star? It’s your Mom.”

That earns TG another thump on the back of his neck.

The Raymond Chandler vibe predisposes me to like this page because Chandler is my all-time favorite author. The writing is crisp, clear, and error-free. The voice is strong and sardonic. The description is sparse but still paints a vivid picture of a grimy, low-end bar.

“A thin cloud of dust from broken peanut shells and cigarette ash puffed up where it landed.”

Good job of drawing the reader deeper into the story with action and unanswered questions. We want to learn who these people are, why they’re meeting, and what’s at stake.

We know Tough Guy isn’t tied up since his hand is free to wipe away blood. That raises more questions: Why does he tolerate being smacked around? Why does he bring more abuse down on himself? To prove his toughness?

Cops, private investigators, and fixers in 1930s and ’40s movies behaved that way and the audience bought it. But contemporary readers will wonder about TG. If he’s really that good, he could–and would–disarm Ray Bans after the first blow. Further, a pro would not risk unnecessary injury simply for the sake of hurling a snarky insult…even though the line about mom being a porn star is very funny. 

Here’s a possible different approach: TG baits Ray Bans with the insult about his mom, knowing the guy will retaliate. He’s prepared for the attack and takes the gun away, making RB look stupid in front of his boss. TG also makes himself look smarter and more competent to the reader.

Suggest you identify the protagonist on the first page by having Mr. White address him by name. Two possible opportunities: “You have a smart mouth, Mr. XYZ.” Or “Your time is my time, Mr. XYZ.”

A few small nits:

A revolver is generally perceived as a weapon from an earlier era. Semi-auto pistols with high capacity magazines are more likely to be today’s gun of choice for the well-armed thug.

Unless Tough Guy can see himself, he can’t know the gash is a half-inch long. Suggest you just use “gash” without the measurement.

“I could feel the blood begin to pool again.” Blood wouldn’t pool if it’s running down his face. Blood generally pools on a horizontal surface like a floor or table.

The blood on the gun butt is more likely to be smears than drops.

None of these issues is significant and all are easily fixed.

My biggest concern is the portrayal of Mr. White which veers into clichés. Mr. White’s thick Eastern European accent, pinkie ring, and stock dialogue have been done in countless books and films. The Brave Author even acknowledges that by calling him “cartoonish.”

Unless this is meant to be a satire, like Steve Martin’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), the author might consider a fresher approach to describing the heavy.

There are some great humorous lines.

“Guy was wearing Ray Bans even though it was 1:30 in the morning and we were inside an empty bar. Douchebag.”

“So if you’re done with the HR interview…”

Overall, this page is well written, strong, and compelling. I’m sure Brave Author will find a fresher way to characterize Mr. White.

The excerpt was a pleasure to read. It was also difficult to critique because I found so few problems. All were minor and readily fixable by this obviously capable writer.

A fine job, Brave Author! Thanks for submitting. Let us know when this is published.

~~~

TKZers: What are your thoughts on The Recruiter? Any ideas for the Brave Author? Would you keep reading?

~~~

 

 

Coming soon! Debbie Burke’s new novella, Crowded Hearts, will be FREE for a limited time. Watch for the announcement here at TKZ.

 

 

 

Literary Themes

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I don’t usually think of myself as a writer who sets out with any particular theme(s) in mind when I start a novel – usually my books begin with either a character or a historical event that sparks my imagination and then (as I am a planner not a pantser) the plot and details follow. While I know I am drawn to particular historical periods, character traits, and (dare I say it) political movements and issues, I hadn’t really ever thought about thematic elements in my work until I was putting together an updated project grid listing my current and proposed writing projects. It was only then that I saw some of my little thematic quirks – and of course now I’ve seen them I can’t unsee them!

Literary themes usually address fundamental aspect of society or humanity. In crime fiction issues such as the concepts of justice, punishment, and the nature of good and evil, inevitably come into play. When I think about some of my own favorite writers I soon realize they turn to similar themes in their work. In a series, these themes may recur because they underlie a protagonist’s backstory or motivation (childhood trauma, addiction, poverty etc.) but exploring thematic elements can also (accidentally perhaps) reveal a lot about an  author and the issues they keep come back to in their work.

It was interesting to see the kind of themes that seem to recur in my own books as they certainly seem to suggest I have a few existential and philosophical debates that remain unresolved in my subconscious:) Some of the particular themes I noticed (in no particular order) include:

  • Patriotism (I often seem drawn to characters fighting for political independence or going against the established notion of patriotic duty);
  • Good versus evil in a spiritual/supernatural sense (I often explore religious, occult, and spiritualist ideas);
  • A women’s role in society (okay, no surprise there, since I have suffragette characters!);
  • Dislocation (My characters are often feel they don’t belong or are disassociated from the life they currently live);
  • Loss (this surprised me as I hadn’t realized just how many characters I have dealing with the aftermath of loss).

In addition, I also found that I seem to have an inordinate interest in both India and Ireland. The latter is probably explained by my Irish roots (thanks Ancestry.com!) but I’m not sure about the India obsession (I’d like to think I lived there in a previous life, but given my Ancestry.com results I would have been too poor to leave the farm in Ireland!). I also have a weird attraction to the year 1916…with 3 unrelated books set in that year without me consciously realizing it!

So TKZers, have you ever explored the themes that underlie the books you write or the books you love to read? When you look at your own work, do you see recurring themes? If so, what are they?

 

 

 

 

 

Reigniting The Passion

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By John Gilstrap

Let me get this out of the way first: I love what I do. I am privileged and honored to make my living by entertaining people with stories. People ask me if or when I intend to retire someday, and I don’t even know what that means. When a novelist “retires”, do the stories just go away? Do characters somehow stop appearing in his head? I’ve always figured that as long as readers keep reading what I write, I’ll continue to feed them with stories.

That said, 2020 has been a helluva year. Beyond all the other weirdness that’s been inflicted on all of us, this is also the year that I signed on to write two full-length thrillers. As always, my next Jonathan Grave thriller will hit the stands in July, but before that, February 23, 2021, will see the release of Crimson Phoenix, the first book in a new series that I’m confident I’ll hawk in a post that is closer to the publication date.

A few weeks ago, our buddy James Scott Bell wrote a post here on TKZ about how Erle Stanley Gardner churned out 100,000 words per month for fifty years. I’m not that guy. If I can pound out 2,500 words in a day, I’m thrilled. My record for one day was 8,000 words and that left me exhausted. I’m not cut out for that kind of production.

So, here we are, in the middle of the pandemic stuff, and as stress rose, avenues for relaxation were shut down.

As a relief valve, I got myself a Zoom account. Every Wednesday evening, I gather with two author buddies at a virtual bar for virtual happy hour. These are folks I’ve known for decades. Every meeting starts with a toast, and then we shoot the sh*t for a couple of hours. It’s surprisingly refreshing.

Because we’re writers, we complain a lot. There’s life, a little bit of politics, the state of the industry, and the ups and downs of daily life.

Sooner or later, we inevitably come to the subject of movies. We talk about some of the contemporary stuff that’s out there (thank God for Amazon Prime and Netflix!), but the real passion for all of us turns out to be Westerns. Tombstone is, of course, the greatest Western of all time–argue this point at your own peril–and there is considerable disagreement about The Wild Bunch being a close second. Shane is a favorite of one of the revelers, but I must confess that I don’t agree. I mean, Alan Ladd? Really?

Then it happened. I said, “We should write a serial Western.”

In that instant, a new project was born. Over the course of 30 minutes, we worked out the only rules: The story will be set in 1880, and each of us will write from the point of view of our own characters. My character is Jake Bristow, a grieving farmer from Virginia. Somehow, for reasons yet unknown, we will all end up in an Oklahoma town on the same date for what will be an epic and legendary gunfight against bad guys we have yet to determine.

Logistically, we each write a chapter in turn. I started the effort and passed it on to the next author in the line, who put brilliance on the page, and then Author #3 took his turn. The ball is back in my court now. In only 9,500 word, we now know who the characters are, what their motivations are, and they’ve already crossed paths. Hint: They don’t like each other very much yet. But we do know why they’re headed to Oklahoma.

At our most recent happy hour, we all revealed that individually, we haven’t had this much fun at the keyboard in a long, long time. The project is liberating. I’m writing in a completely new, different voice and I’m getting lost in new lines of research. Perhaps most refreshing is the element that is inherently missing in writing: the thrill of teamwork among friends. What I find most fascinating is how our vastly different writing styles work in a single stitched-together narrative.

And yes, I’m being deliberately circumspect about mentioning the other authors’ names. That’s not my place.

Now, to the point of this post. The cooperative Western project has reignited the passion for writing in all of us. It’s as if by shifting to another project that is strictly for fun, if only for a few thousand words at a time, the elements that stir creativity get a fresh swirl. That inures to the benefit of every other project on our plates.

I’ve stated in this space more than a few times that half of being a professional writer (a professional anything, really) is showing up to work every day. During the dark days of summer, I confess that showing up had become a drag. Now, I can’t wait. I’m getting up earlier, spending more time at the keyboard. I’m enjoying the process again.

So what about you folks? What are your tricks for reigniting the passion for writing that you know is there, but sometimes dwindles?

 

It’s STILL A Dark And Stormy
Night…Thank Goodness

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By PJ Parrish

I’m a little under the weather this week, so this one will be short and sweet. Okay, not sweet. Maybe snarky. Or snirky with chuckles. Because what else can you be when you are confronted with the utterly stink-ola winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Awards?

You know Edward Bulwer-Lytton, right? (That’s him above, by the way). He’s the writer who gave us the wonderful “It was a dark and stormy night…” It was the opening line of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

So many things we could pick apart there, right crime dogs? First, contrary to the advice of Elmore Leonard, he starts out with the weather. Second, contrary to James Bell, he slips in a — gasp! — semi-colon. Third, he TELLS us we’re in London instead of finding a graceful way of showing us his location. And fourth, the rest is just a hot wet mess.

To be fair, Edward Bulwer-Lytton was considered quite the writer in his day, even more popular than Dickens. He coined the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” and “the almighty dollar.” And he gave us the useful barb “the great unwashed.”  Among Bulwer-Lytton’s lesser-known contributions to literature was that he convinced Dickens to revise the ending of Great Expectations to make it more happily-ever-after.

So how did Edward become a Snoopy cartoon punchline? Back in the ’80s, a San Jose State graduate student named Scott Rice, was sentenced to write a paper on a minor Victorian novelist of his choosing and opted for Bulwer-Lytton. Years later, Professor Rice came up with the idea for the contest. The contest became an international phenomenon, getting thousands of entries every year.

I love reading these every year. (Click here to read them all) The winners are, to me, the Lucille Balls of writing. Lucy Ricardo was infamous in I Love Lucy for being tone-deaf, but Ball herself was an accomplished singer.  Likewise, it takes a pretty darn good writer to write wretched stuff on purpose. So, without further ado, here is the Grand Prize winner for 2020, by Lisa Kulber of San Francisco:

Her Dear John missive flapped unambiguously in the windy breeze, hanging like a pizza menu on the doorknob of my mind.

Now, we critique a lot of opening lines here at TKZ, so let’s examine why this works so well. First, there is the substitution of the word “missive” for the merely banal “letter.” Then we get the nicely active verb “flapped,” but it is gloriously underlined by the adverbial hair ball “unambiguously.” And then, the pièce de résistance — the vivid simile “hanging like a pizza menu” overlaid by the metaphoric wonder “the doorknob of my mind.”  It takes real talent to mix both simile and metaphor…so gleefully gelatinous.  I am in awe.

Okay, a couple more. And this one, crime dogs, is near and dear to our black hearts. The First Prize Award in Detective Crime Fiction this year went to Yale Abrams of Santa Rosa, Ca.

When she walked into my office on that bleak December day, she was like a breath of fresh air in a coal mine; she made my canary sing. 

Man, that’s good. Short, sweaty…definite sense of mood here, right? And notice how gracefully Yale manages to convey that our narrator is male without even telling us? Let’s move on to the Detective Fiction Dishonorable Mentions. And we don’t even have to leave the pebbled-glass office to do it. From Jarrett Dement of Eau Claire:

She sauntered into his smoke-filled office with legs that, although they didn’t go quite all the way to heaven, definitely went high enough for him to see that she was a giraffe. 

What I love about this opening is the amuse-bouche at the end. This is so pedestrian until we get to the unexpected injection of raw animal passion at the end. Here’s another from Paul Kolas of Orlando:

The first thing I noticed about the detective’s office was how much it reminded me of the baggage claim at a nearby airport: the carpet was half a century out of date, it reeked of cigarettes and cheap booze, and I was moderately certain that my case had been lost.

Such an assured sense of voice at work here. You will never mistake this writer for Patricia Highsmith. Onward, to a gem from Leo Gordon of Los Angeles:

The fact that the cantor’s body was covered with a lamb shank, salt water and a mysterious concoction called charoseth, led Chief Passover Homicide investigator Ari Ben-Zvi to describe the pattern of murders as “uneven, perhaps unleavened.”

Kudos to our writer for dropping us right into an action scene — the discovery of a dead body. As James always says, act first, explain later. And I love the symbolic use of the charoseth. It is a sauce used in seders, composed of bitter herbs and sweet fruits, so obviously the writer is using it to set up the idea that this murder will create mixed emotions, a nice motif to support his theme.

And here is our final winner, from Belinda Daly of London.

Handsome French policeman, Andre Poiret, grappled with the puffed-up albino hitman, who was about to shoot the beautiful high-class call girl, Gigi Lamour, who was taking a shower in her apartment, with his big gun. 

Again, we are smack-dad in an action scene. No throat-clearing here. Note the adjective “handsome,” which of course tips us off that Andre is the hero. Ditto “beautiful” which tells us Gigi will be a love interest before she is found floating face down under the Pont Neuf in chapter 20. And leave it to a great stylist to leave the best for last — “with his big gun.”  Obviously, a subtle hint at the sexual tension underscoring the story’s romantic subplot. It couldn’t have been placed more zestfully.

And with that, my friends, I am off to have a good hot shower and a strong martini, one olive and two Advils, please.

 

Concrete Tips for Adding Tension, Suspense, & Intrigue to Any Story

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by Jodie Renner, fiction editor & author of writing guides

Are you in the process of writing a novel? Maybe a thriller or other popular fiction that you hope will grab readers and really sell? Besides a great character and a fascinating plot, you’ll also need some tried-and-true fiction-writing techniques to take your story up a level or three.

To keep readers engaged and eagerly turning the pages, all genres of fiction, not just thrillers, need tension and intrigue – and a certain amount of suspense. And of course, you’ll need to ratchet up the tension, intrigue, and suspense a lot more if you’re writing a fast-paced, nail-biting, page-turner.

Here are some techniques for engaging your readers and keeping them riveted: 

~ First, create a protagonist that readers will care about, and give him some worries and secrets. Make your hero or heroine intriguing and complex, clever and resourceful. But not perfect – make them vulnerable too, with an Achilles heel and some inner conflict, regrets, and secrets. In most cases, you want your protagonist to be likeable too, or at least have some endearing traits to make readers worry about her and root for her. If readers can’t identify with or bond with your character, it’s pretty hard to make them care what happens to her. Essential Characteristics of a Thriller Hero

~ Get up close and personal. Use deep point of view (first-person or close third person) to get us into the head and body of your main character right from the opening paragraph. Show his thoughts, fears, hopes, frustrations, worries, and physical and sensory reactions in every scene. Engage Your Readers with Deep Point of View.

~ Show your hero or heroine in action in the first paragraphs. Rather than opening with description, background info, or your character alone musing, it’s best to jumpstart your story with your lead interacting with someone else who matters to them, preferably with a bit of discord and tension. And show his/her inner thoughts and emotional reactions, maybe some frustration or anxiety.  Act First, Explain Later.

~ Give your character a problem to solve right from the get-go. It can be minor, but creating an early conflict that throws your lead off-balance will make your readers worry about him. A worried reader is an engaged reader.

~ Withhold information. Don’t tell your readers too much too soon. This is so important and a common weakness for new fiction writers. Hold off on critical information. Hint at a traumatic or life-changing event early on, then reveal fragments of info about it little by little, through dialogue, thoughts, and brief flashbacks, to tantalize readers and keep them wondering and worrying.

~ Keep the story momentum moving forward. Don’t get bogged down in lengthy descriptions, backstory, or exposition. Keep the action and interactions moving ahead, especially in the first chapter. Work in background details and other info little by little, on an “as-needed” basis, through dialogue or flashbacks – not as the author/narrator interrupting the scene to explain things to the readers. See my blog post Don’t Stop the Story to Introduce Each Character! 

~ Introduce a significant, meaningful story problem. Now that your readers care about your main character, insert a major challenge, dilemma, goal, or threat within the first ten chapters, a big one that won’t be resolved until the end. Create an overarching sentence about this to keep in mind as you’re writing your story:

“Will (name) survive/stop/find/overcome (ordeal/person/difficulty/threat) on time?”

~ Show, don’t tell. Show all your critical scenes in real time as they’re happening, with action, reaction, and dialogue. Show your main character’s inner feelings and physical and emotional reactions. Don’t explain as the author or narrator – stay in the character’s viewpoint. And don’t have one character tell another about an important event or scene after it happened. Instead, show that scene as it’s unfolding or as a flashback. Of course, briefly narrate or “tell” transition scenes. Tips for showing instead of telling.

~ Make use of compelling, vivid sensory imagery to take us right there, with the protagonist, vividly experiencing and reacting to whoever/whatever is challenging or threatening him. Show his reactions to his environment, including what he’s seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, even tasting, and also any discomfort – is he hot, cold, tired, stressed, hungry, thirsty, afraid? Is sweat pouring down his back? Are his feet sore? These details bring him to life for the readers, who feel that hunger, thirst, fatigue, or discomfort too. 

~ Use brief flashbacks at key moments to reveal your viewpoint character’s childhood traumas, unpleasant events, secrets, emotional baggage, hangups, dysfunctional family, etc. Show these in real time for greater impact.

~ Insert some conflict/tension and a change into every scene. There should be something unresolved in every scene. Your character enters the scene with an objective or goal (agenda), but she encounters obstacles in the scene, so she is thwarted in her efforts to reach her goal. By the end of the chapter or scene, she or circumstances have changed.

~ Put tension on every page. Every page needs some tension, even if it’s just doubt, questioning, disbelief, disagreement, suspicion, or resentment simmering below the surface.

~ Add in tough choices and moral dilemmas. Devise ongoing difficult decisions and inner conflict for your lead character. Besides making your plot more suspenseful, this will also make your protagonist more complex, vulnerable, and intriguing.

~ Delay answers to critical plot questions. Look for places in your story where you’ve answered readers’ questions too soon, so have missed a prime spot to increase tension and suspense. Draw out the time before answering that question. In the meantime, hint at it from time to time to remind readers of its importance.

~ Plan a few plot twists. Readers are surprised and delighted when the events take a turn they never expected. Don’t let your readers become complacent, thinking it’s easy to figure out the ending, or they may stop reading.

If you’re writing a thriller or other suspense fiction, ratchet up the tension and conflict even more with these techniques: 

~ Create a cunning antagonist. Your villain needs to be as clever, determined and resourceful as your protagonist – or even more so. Make him or her a serious force to be reckoned with! See my post here on TKZ, Create a Fascinating, Believable Antagonist.

~ Ratchet up the problem to a serious threat, and make it personal. Your hero or someone he cares about is personally threatened. It’s a life-or-death situation.

~ Establish a sense of urgency, a tense mood, and generally fast pacing. Do this by your choice of words and tight writing.

~ Use the setting to establish the mood and create suspense. This is the equivalent of ominous music, harsh lighting, strange camera angles, or nasty weather in a scary movie.

~ Create a mood of unease by showing the main character feeling apprehensive about something or someone or by showing some of the villain’s thoughts and intentions.

~ Keep hampering your hero or heroine throughout the novel to increase worry, tension, and suspense. Stir in some of these ingredients: a ticking clock, obstacles, chases, traps, restrictions, handicaps, injuries, bad luck, etc.

~ Keep raising the stakes. Keep asking yourself, “How can I make things worse for the protagonist?” As the challenges get more difficult and the obstacles more insurmountable, readers worry more and suspense grows.

~ Get us into the head of the villain too. For increased anxiety and suspense, show us the thoughts and intentions of your antagonist from time to time. This way the readers find out critical information the hero or heroine doesn’t know, things we desperately want to warn her about!

~ Use foreshadowing to incite curiosity. Tease the readers with innuendos. Drop subtle hints of troubles to come. Hint at the main character’s past secrets. What is the character worried about or afraid might happen? Capitalize on this. For more specific tips on this technique, see my TKZ article, Fire up Your Fiction with Foreshadowing.

~ Add in some revelations and epiphanies to put a twist on things and reward readers for their interest and involvement.

~ Use cliff-hangers. Put your hero or heroine in hot water at the end of some chapters to incite reader curiosity and questions and compel them to go to the next chapter. Then maybe use a jump cut to go to a different scene, so they have to read more to find out what happened in the previous chapter.

For a list of techniques to consider when writing suspense fiction, see my Checklist for Adding Suspense & Intrigue here on TKZ.

Then, in the Revision Stage: 

~ Amp up, condense, or delete any scenes that lag, and tighten up your writing.  Are some of your sentences and paragraphs too long? Are you inadvertently repeating words, ideas, actions, or imagery in close proximity? Go back and make sure every scene, paragraph, sentence, and word enhance the story and drive the plot forward. Critical Scenes Need Nail-Biting Details.

Use short paragraphs and mix it up with brief narration and snappy dialogue. Vary the sentence structure and length. Use shorter sentences at tense times. More tips: Pick up the Pace for a Real Page-Turner.

~ Word choice is critical too. Vary your words. Use specific, evocative nouns, and verbs that really capture the action and add tension, rather than overused ones like “walked” and “ran.” For examples and more, see Nail it with Just the Right Word.

Have some of these techniques worked for you? Which ones do you find the most helpful in your own writing? Do you have any other tips to help new suspense fiction writers create a novel that will captivate readers, sell lots of copies, and garner great reviews? Or examples from your own work or a bestselling novel you’ve read? Let us know in the comments below.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the author of three writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, at her Amazon Author Page, her blog Resources for Writers, and on Facebook. 

The End of the Story…

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I took my 1999 Honda Accord into my mechanic last week for its regular oil change and inspection. The body showed its age but the car still rode nicely, even beneath the weight of its 333,500+ miles. 

One of three things can happen when one takes a car made in the last century and with high mileage in for an oil change and a look under the hood.  The first is that the mechanic can come into the waiting room and say to you, “You’re all set.” The second is that he can come up to you with a clipboard in hand and say, “You need your (fill in the blank) replaced, but hey, we can do that right now if you like!” The third is that he can stick his head into the waiting room and say, “You need to see this.” “This” is never good. Rest assured that he is not going to tell you that he found a winning Super Lotto slip taped to the engine block.

Number Three happened to me. I was solemnly ushered into the workshop as an organ dirge started playing in my head.  My car was up on a lift and appeared okay until the mechanic started pointing at certain areas with a pen and demonstrating that particular areas were loose.  I am not mechanically inclined but I could see that the undercarriage had some major rust in a couple of strategic places where the thigh bone connected to the knee bone, and the knee bone connected to the leg bone, and…you get the idea. My car was breaking apart. I received a long and patient explanation to the effect that repairing it would cost much more than the car was worth, what with the age of and the miles on the car. In answer to my question of how long it would last in its present state, the mechanic shook his head and said, “Possibly five years, if you don’t hit a pothole, but more likely five miles. Or five blocks.” His summation — “You need a new car” — was one that required no further explanation. 

Some retroactive anxiety reared its head.  I had been driving my granddaughter and her friend all over the city during the Labor Day weekend in a car that was ready to come apart. The realization of what might have happened sealed the deal. I did some extensive research over a couple of days and leased something called a Honda Fit Hatchback. It has all sorts of bells and whistles that I am getting used to — I can now answer my phone using the steering wheel and rudely hang up on people, just like Ray Donovan  — but it is not much of an adjustment. 

I am a little upset. I try not to get too attached to the things of this world.  Cars specifically have never been important to me other than as a means of getting reliably from Point A to Point B. I am surprised by my emotional attachment in this case, however. I had a lot of physical and psychic DNA in that Accord. I used it to drive my children thousands of miles, to schools, parties, vacation destinations, movies, friends’ houses, shopping, concerts, and doctor visits. My granddaughter has been a passenger in it on an average of once a week since she was born almost fourteen years ago. I did some business traveling as well with it, going to and through thirty-seven states and having some adventures along the way, including a Pulp Fiction experience in Arizona and an encounter with tribal police in New Mexico which could have gone badly if not for my charming courtesy and winning smile.  I witnessed the most horrific traffic accident I have ever seen outside of a small town in North Texas. I drove to author conventions in Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, Nashville, Madison, Cleveland, and Phoenix,  made well over a two dozen trips to New Orleans and southern Louisiana, and somehow acquired a bunch of dear friends in the process. My Accord was always part of the story. Now it is gone. I donated it to a charity and watched as it boogied on down the road and across the rainbow bridge without me. 

 

The Honda Fit has a transmission which is called  “continuously variable,” a term that accurately describes my mood right now. It will in all probability be my last car, given my age and the manner in which my older friends seem to decline precipitously once they hit the downside of seventy. That’s part of a story that will be written at a future time by someone else. 

And on that note…

…have at it, chillun! Please tell us a car story, or your favorite book involving a car,.whether as part of a book written by someone else (you by all means can mention Christine or Drive), written by you, or a personal experience. Thank you and good day. 

All photos by Al Thumbs Photography

The soundtrack for today’s submission:

Rapture — Blondie 

Marquee Moon — Television

Y’All Think She’d Be Good 2 Me — C. C. Adcock

This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) — Talking Heads 

Spare Me a Little of Your Love — Fleetwood Mac

Looking for A Kiss — New York Dolls

What a Party — Fats Domino

Soul Kitchen — X

It’s All Over — Willie Nile

Sorry You Asked — Dwight Yoakam

Time Has Come Today — Chambers Brothers

The Kids Are Alright — The Who

Bitches Brew (album) — Miles Davis

Reader Friday – Traditions

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Reader Friday – Traditions.

TraditionstraditionsSundown today marks the start of the year 5781 on the Jewish calendar. Our family tradition revolves around the meal (which is true for virtually all Jewish holidays–they tried to kill us, we prevailed, let’s eat). Sweet dishes are the norm on Rosh Hashanah, to kick the new year off to a sweet start. At our table, dessert is always Pflaumkuchen (plum cake). The recipe varied, depending on which relative was in charge of dessert, and living where we do now, prune plums are almost impossible to get, but regardless of the details, it’s always going to be plum cake for dessert.

Any holiday traditions you’d like to share, food or otherwise? Have you ever included them in your writing?