Category Archives: #writetips

Keeping Your Story Real…
Even When You Are Lying

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“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” — Stephen King

By PJ Parrish

We all tell lies. Some of us, like politicians, make it into an art form. But most of us just bump along through life moving along the lie spectrum from the little-white variety (“Of course you’re not too old to wear leopard leggings!”) to the whopper (“I’m a natural athlete.” – Lance Armstrong.)

We all lie. To prove it, I’ll start with a little Truth or Dare. Here are five statements about me. Which ones are lies? (Answers in a little bit.)

  1. When I was 47, I was in the Miami City Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker” directed by the acclaimed dancer Edward Villella.
  2. I once stood on my head at Les Invalides, the place in Paris where Napoleon is entombed.
  3. I interviewed Michael Jordan in the Bulls locker room for a story about “hang time.”
  4. I was invited to a party on the royal yacht Britannia where Queen Elizabeth asked me what I did for a living.
  5. Telly Savalas let me lick his lollipop.

Now, we writers are born liars. We have to be to create fiction. And the better we are at lying, the better our books tend to be. Okay, let’s elevate the conversation and call it “suspension of disbelief” instead of lying. We hear that phrase all the time, here at The Kill Zone, in reviews, and on panels at writers conferences. But what does “suspension of disbelief” really mean?

All fiction requires some suspension of disbelief, right from the get-go. We crack open a novel knowing what we are about to read is not really true. We strike a bargain of sorts with the author — we are willing to believe his story’s premise before we read even the first word. But that is a mere promise. The hard part for us, the writers, comes in maintaining that suspension of disbelief over the course of an entire story.

If you’re writing fantasy, horror, or science fiction, “suspension of disbelief” is a basic ingredient of the craft stew. In these unreal worlds, vampires fall in love, Harry Potter breaks the laws of physics and Virgin Air has daily flights through wormholes to Vega. That’s cool because these worlds are meant to be very different from our own.  But what about the “real worlds” of crime fiction? What lies can we get away with in our quest for dramatic impact?

Time out for the answers to my true lies:

invalides

  1. True, I was in The Nutcracker at age 47. I was only in Act I but when it was over, I wanted to do it all over again. The experience gave me a taste of the narcotic all performers feel.
  2. True. Here’s the picture at left to prove it.
  3. True, I interviewed Michael Jordan. It was on the occasion of Jordan’s comeback (first or second one, I can’t recall). Most the Bulls were nekkid or almost so. Mike was resplendent in a white suit. He was holding court surrounded by sycophantic sportswriters who all tried to elbow me aside. I was the ballet critic and talked to Jordan about the similarities between hang time and ballone (how dancers seem to float in the air). Jordan was fascinated by this but wasn’t happy when I told him Spud Webb was recorded by a physics professor as having the longest hang time in the NBA.
  4. True. I was sent by my newspaper to cover the opening of the Bahamian parliament in 1977 and got to meet Her Majesty on the yacht. Liz did, indeed, ask me what I did for a living. I don’t remember what I said because I was absolutely impaled by her icy blue eyes. For the record, Liz is even shorter than I am. But her husband Phil was very tall, very gregarious, and had a little too much to drink.
  5. Not true. I did get to interview Savalas. He gave me a big hug but did not let me lick his lolly.

Back to the issue at hand. Now, I can’t talk too authoritatively about fantasy, sci-fi or horror because I am not well-read in those genres. But I’ve read hundreds of crime books (and written a few), and I think some writers of crime fiction think “suspension of disbelief” gives them license to write whatever they want — damn reality or fact.

Which is a lie.

Crime fiction, in its way, is harder to write than sci-fi or fantasy when it comes to how much we can lie. That’s because while we crime writers are tethered to the realities of police protocol, forensics, legal procedures, we have to bend these truths in service of good plotting and dramatic tension.

I once heard a famous crime writer guy on a panel say that all crime fiction had to have verisimilitude. I used to think that was just a ten-dollar word for truth. But then I realized what he was talking about was not truth, but a conjured version of it.

Definition: Verisimilitude /ˌvɛrɪsɪˈmɪlɪtjuːd/ is the “life-likeness” or believability of a work of fiction. The word comes from Latin: verum meaning truth and similis meaning similar.

Verisimilitude is not truth. Verisimilitude is the “similar” to “truth.”  So the our goal as crime writers should be creating a credibility that reflects the realism of human life. It’s as if, when we create our fictional crime worlds, we are asking our readers to view them through a mirror…not directly on, but by a reflection, slightly altered for dramatic effect.

So why do some crime books feel so wrong? Why do some characters feel so false? When does good suspension of disbelief slide into the muck of lazy writing? Here are some ways I think this happens. (You guys please add your own!)

Characters do outrageous things. Yes, a character can go rogue or surprise. But their actions must arise from the realities of their nature as you have laid them out. Have you ever read a scene and you find yourself shaking your head and saying, “I just don’t believe the hero would do this.” That’s the writer not laying down the psychological foundation for the character to act a certain way.

Characters do stupid things. Yes, it’s good to have your hero go mano-a-mano with the bad guy in the climax, but you have to set it up. I read a thriller a while back where the female detective, fresh off a hot date, goes up into a creepy old house after a serial killer — in her heels and without a gun. This is a variation of the dumb-blonde-goes-into-the basement thing.

But…but…Clarice Starling went down into the basement after Jame Gumm! Yeah, but Thomas Harris set it up brilliantly by having her show up at the wrong house and then, when she realizes the killer is there, she goes into the basement after him because she knows Kathryn is still alive and the clock is ticking. (Harris establishes this by telling us Buffalo Bill keeps his victims alive so he can starve them and loosen their skin).

Don’t put your protag in peril by making them stupid or inept. Do it by creating a crafty set-up. Shape the action leading up to your end-game situations so your confrontation is believable enough for reader to buy into.

Dumb police procedure, legal things, and forensics. You have to be in the ballpark with this stuff. In real life, cases drag on forever, test results take weeks to come back from the lab, court cases drone on without Perry Mason moments. But that is boring in books. So we writers have to condense time, inflate authority, cross boundaries, and yes, even make some stuff up — yet still make it feel true. This is not easy. It helps if you have some experts to fall back on.  I’ve called on attorney friends for legal questions, on Dr. Doug Lyle to help me fudge forensics, and I have a retired state police captain on speed dial who keeps me honest but appreciates the fact I have to bend the truth for drama.

One of my favorite crime novelists, Val McDermid, has written two terrific non-fiction books on forensics. She has this to say on the subject: “By and large, I try to be pretty accurate in how I write about the science. But sometimes you do need to make changes for dramatic necessity – for instance, squeezing a test that would take three weeks into two days. That’s the area where we mostly fall down – compressing time frames.”  Click here to read more.

Getting the police stuff right is really important to me. My favorite crime movie is Zodiac, the fictionalized story of the real Zodiac killer who terrorized northern California for a decade. The movie shows the drudgery, time-dragging reality, and soul-destroying futility of police work, yet remains dramatically riveting. And the case never got solved.

I can get anal about cop details. I’m writing a chapter this week where Louis is tracing the steps of a suspect that leads him to an apartment where he sees — surprise! — a crime scene premises seal on the door. Louis learns from the owner that a woman was murdered inside a week ago. The local cops have cleared the scene. Can Louis go inside? Can he seize evidence that he thinks is relevant to the OTHER case he is pursuing?  I emailed my police captain, laying out this scenario. He wrote back (in part!):

“The Fourth Amendment only protects the “person’s” right from governmental action – the illegal search and seizure. Louis is “government” but the person whose rights might be violated is no longer a person — she is dead — so Louis could go in and seize her property and because she is not around to be prosecuted for the “evidence” he may seize then it is not a Fourth Amendment issue.  Second, the owner has permission and the right to enter the apartment so if Louis asks and the owner gives permission for Louis to enter with him then he has the right to be there. Once there anything that he sees in plain sight that he thinks is evidence he could seize.” 

Problem solved. Louis gets in, finds what he needs, plot moves forward. In reality, things would play out differently, my police captain said. But with this, I am in the ballpark of suspended disbelief.

Lost and Befuddled Amateurs. So what if your protagonist is not a cop or detective? What if they have no logical reason to get involved with the crime? This is a tough one, and one reason we get so many protags who are lawyers and journalists, as these jobs can dovetail with the crime world.  Now, if you wrote cozies, your readers allow for a suspension of disbelief by default, buying into the idea of the civilian-savior. But you still have to set things up so the protag isn’t just an idle observer (yawn) but an active participant (Yay!).

I have been working with a writer through Mystery Writers of America’s mentoring program. Her book features an engaging protag who works in a florist shop. While delivering flowers to a rich matron, the protag finds her dead body in the foyer. Cops are called, of course, but the writer had a problem: She couldn’t justify a flower shop employee having access to the case — or even a reason to solve it. The scenes weren’t believable because the cops would never let a civilian on scene let alone into the case. But through tough rewriting and hard rethinking of her protag’s motivations, the writer solved the problem by making the protag a disgraced journalist who is desperate to clear her reputation.

She’s learned the lesson. Yes, you can lie. But it better ring true.

 

First Page Critique of MOONSTONE

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Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

Cry baby Truss ZF-9327-85193-1-001

 

Another courageous author has submitted the first 400 words of a work-in-progress anonymously for critique. Read and enjoy. See you on the flip side with my comments, then join me with yours.

PROLOGUE

Waterford, MN
June 4, 1994

By the light of the moon you can catch fireflies, or sit by a campfire watching the embers drift upward toward the stars. By the light of the moon you can stroll down a dirt road, or just sit on a back porch with a tall glass of iced tea. By the light of the moon you can propose marriage, or just leave your lover.

And by the light of the moon, if you have a shovel, you can try to bury your past.

That’s exactly what Jack Cicero had in mind, on this night in early June. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, and the full moon was threatening to make an early appearance. As he ducked under the oak trees, darkness shrouded him, causing him to have to use his flashlight which lit up the area like a beacon. All of his senses went into high alert. He pushed his thick eye glasses tighter on his nose. He strained his ears to listen for the sounds of approaching cars. The night was silent except for sounds of the Snake River choking itself on the rocks in its path; and the pounding of his own blood in his head.

He pushed on not willing to test his luck. He spied a large rock under the trees, and set the flashlight down in such a way as to shield its light from the road. If he heard anything, he could grab it in an instant and kill it.

He picked up his shovel, and cursed and groaned as he stabbed the soft earth at the base of the rock. He had to hurry, because this moon was a reluctant, silent witness rising higher in the sky, threatening to expose him. Although she tried, the full moon failed to penetrate the thick oaks overhead. But that didn’t make Jack feel any better. Despite the cool night air, he was breaking a sweat. He swore and picked up the pace. He was in a race to put everything behind him, closing one chapter so that he could open another.

With a groan, he hefted one final shovelful. Then he patted the dirt down and scraped some of last fall’s dead leaves over his handiwork. For a moment he thought that he might actually vomit. He dropped to his knees, leaning against the large rock and bent his head. A single tear rolled down his cheek, soaking into the sandy soil below. A final act of contrition. He wiped his face with his sleeve, pushed off of the rock and stood up. It was done. But Jack knew that no matter how much he could try to hide the past, it could come back to haunt him. He’d always be looking over his shoulder for someone to figure out his secret and expose him. Considering he knew just about everyone in Waterford, the list of possibilities was longer than the river itself.

FEEDBACK

OVERVIEW: At first reading, I liked this introduction because it stuck to the action (for the most part) and did not slow the pace with back story or explanation. That takes discipline for an author to do this. The narrative is simple and pulls the reader into the story with its mystery. Well done. But as I got into this on a 2nd and 3rd read, I found things I would edit if this were mine. This author shows promise and if the following items are addressed, I would keep reading.

THE START: I understand what the author intended with the first paragraph – to set the stage with a light and breezy beginning of harmless imagery before the reader is shocked once they realize the story will take a dark turn. Who’s POV is this? No one’s. It’s omniscient before the POV becomes that of Jack. This tactic–and the use of YOU–pulled me out. If the story is set up properly, where we see Jack in the dark with a shovel, he could be doing ANYTHING until we learn what’s happening and the mystery begins. The shock factor would be presented in another way, without the need for the faux lead-in.

THE ACTION: What is Jack doing? He’s got a shovel and a flashlight, but it doesn’t appear as if he’s burying a body because he’s not carrying anything else. Is he digging something up? He starts by digging into the ground with his shovel but ends by patting down a mound of dirt and pushing leaves over the pile to hide what he did. The transition from start to finish didn’t describe enough for me to understand what he’s actually doing. With the vagueness, the reader might make an assumption that would prove false later on, and the author takes a chance of alienating the reader if this is not made clearer. I also wondered why Jack would pick a spot by a road where he can be seen with his flashlight. If he’s got a choice and wants to be secretive, why risk a location where he can potentially be seen? I know the risk of getting caught adds to the tension, but maybe there would be a way for the author to explain why Jack picked the spot (even if it meant risk of discovery) and still leave an element of mystery.

WORD CHOICES: In 3rd paragraph, “The night was silent, except for the sounds of….” If there are sounds, the night can’t be silent. The night might be “still” or “quiet,” but not silent if noise is heard.

In 5th paragraph, calling the moon “she” pulled me out and made me wonder if another character had stepped into the scene.

In 5th paragraph, the moon can’t be a “reluctant” witness to anything, but in one line the moon is shining on him, threatening to expose him, then in the next sentence, that description is contradicted by this – “the moon failed to penetrate the thick oaks overhead.” (Oaks are usually ‘overhead’ too. Directional words like up, down, overhead should be scrutinized during the edit process. They can usually be deleted.)

I’m not a fan of the word THAT. It’s often unnecessary and can be eliminated.

DESCRIPTIONS: This might be nit picky, but this phrase pulled me out of the narrative and made me wonder if there would be a better way of describing what is happening. This comes across as TELLING to me and could be more effective.

As he ducked under the oak trees, darkness shrouded him, causing him to have to use his flashlight which lit up the area like a beacon. 

“The area” is actually the ground but what’s on the ground? How does the light play across it? it might be a more effective line if the author could get the reader to actually see the effect of the light, rather than merely saying it “lit the area.” Do the shadows of spindly grasses elongate and move as the light passes over it? The effect could add a creep factor. What sound do they make in the wind…for a guy who is already nervous?

PASSIVE VOICE: One of my favorite TKZ posts of all time came from Joe Moore in Jan 2012 – Writing is Rewriting. A great overview of the draft and edit process. Below are some examples of passive writing. My first pass at editing is to delete and tighten my sentences into succinct and clearer writing. Many readers might not pick up on the passive voice, but authors should strive to hone their craft and challenge themselves with each new project.

3rd paragraph: “was threatening” should be ‘threatened.’

5th paragraph: “was breaking” should be ‘broke.’

Last paragraph: “could try” should be ‘tried.’

PARAGRAPH LENGTH: I prefer to give the reader some white space so the paragraphs don’t appear laden and heavy as they look ahead. A heavy paragraph could encourage a reader to skim. As Elmore Leonard (RIP) once said – “Try to leave out the part readers tend to skip.” I often break up longer paragraphs into 3-4 sentences and change the length of those sentences to create a natural cadence if the words were spoken aloud.

FOR DISCUSSION:

What about you TKZers? What constructive criticism would you give this author?

 

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John D and Me…And All The
Other Writers I Owe Big Time

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First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. ― Kurt Vonnegut

By PJ Parrish

I had been storing this blog to run around Thanksgiving, but John D. MacDonald forced my hand this week, so I’m posting early. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the books and thank the authors who have helped me along the way.

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Recently, I was asked by a writer friend Don Bruns to contribute to an ongoing series that has been running in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune called “John D and Me.” Cool beans, I thought, since other contributors included Stephen King, Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Heather Graham, JA Jance, David Morrell…the list went on and on. Click here to read my article. Don’t worry…it’s short. I chose to write about MacDonald’s short stories because, truth be told, I hadn’t read many of the guy’s novels back then. But I had found a yellowed dog-earred copy of his short story collection The Good Old Stuff in a used book store, and at that time, I was struggling mightily to write my first short story.

Actually, it wasn’t my first.  My first short story was way back in eighth grade. I was an inattentive student, but I had a lovely teacher Miss Gentry, who made us write a short story. The only touchstones in my little life at that point were The Beatles and my only dream was to run away to London. So I wrote about a lonely cockney boy who painted magic pictures. It was called “The Transformation of Robbie.” I got an A on it.

Miss Gentry

After class, Miss Gentry pulled me aside and said, “you should be a writer.” Twenty-five years later, I dedicated a book to her.

It should be noted that my sister and future co-author Kelly was also churning out short stories in those days. Her most notable effort was called “The Kill.” It was about a serial killer who knocks off The Beatles, one by one. We joke now that nothing much has changed: She still likes to write the gory scenes, I like doing the psychological stuff. I don’t have my early efforts, but she kept hers – see photo below right for the stunning cover she designed at age 11.

THE KILL KELLY

Fast forward to 2005. I am trying to write a story for the Mystery Writers of America’s anthology, edited by Harlan Coben. In addition to the big-name writers the editor invites, the anthology holds out 10 spots for blind submissions from any MWA member. I had a good idea for my story and four published mysteries under my belt. But I couldn’t get a bead on the short story’s special formula. What came so easy at age 14 wasn’t coming so easy at age 54.

So I cracked open The Good Old Stuff. Maybe it was because I had been reading Cheever and Chandler and was getting intimidated. But MacDonald made it look effortless. His stories, culled from his pulp magazine career, had an ease and breeze as fresh as the ocean winds. I realized I had been fighting an undertow of expectations, so I flipped over on my back and floated. The words flowed, the story formed. My first adult short story, “One Shot” got picked for MWA’s anthology Death Do Us Part. It was the second proudest moment of my writing life, right after Miss Gentry’s A.

Writing about MacDonald this month got me thinking about the debts I owed to other writers. Here are a couple I should thank:

E.B. White. Charlotte’s Web remains my favorite book of all time. I love it as pure story, but it taught me a very valuable lesson that all novelists should take to heart: Sometimes, you just have to kill off a sympathetic character.

Joyce Carol Oates. Lots of lessons from this woman about productivity and having the courage to write outside the boundaries of whatever box they try to put you in. But one book of hers had a huge impact on me — Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart. From this murky violent story of murder and race, I learned about the power of ambiguity, about the need to leave room in a story for the reader’s imagination to breath, to resist the urge to tie everything up in a neat bow. Also, she just makes me want to write with more metaphoric power. Check out her opening paragraph:

“Little Red” Garlock, sixteen years old, skull smashed soft as a rotted pumpkin and body dumped into the Cassadaga River near the foot of Pitt Street, must not have sunk as he’d been intended to sink, or floated as far. As the morning mist begins to lift form the river a solitary fisherman sights him, or the body he has become, trapped and bobbing frantically in pilings about thirty feet offshore. It’s the buglelike cries of the gulls that alert the fisherman – gulls with wide gunmetal-gray wings, dazzling snowy heads and tails feathers, dangling pink legs like something incompletely hatched. The kind you think might be a beautiful bird until you get up close.

The-Road-Cormac-McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I still think about this story years after I read it. From it, I learned about spare writing and especially the power of one indelible image. Michael Connelly talks about this, too, about how one gesture, word or image can have so much more impact than an avalanche of description. Connelly talks about how he wrote about a cop who seemed the paragon of cool, how nothing about the horrors of his job seemed to bother him. Except for one telling detail – the stems of his glasses were chewed down to the nubs. In The Road, the image I can’t get out of my head, the one thing that stands in my mind as the symbol of post-apocalyptic survival, is canned peaches.

In the story, a man and the boy discover a cache of supplies in an abandoned farmhouse. Among them is canned peaches. Yes, it’s a delicacy in a time of starvation, but McCarthy also uses it as a symbol marking the split in the world between the fruit-eating “good guys” and the cannibalistic “bad guys.” Here’s an exchange between man and boy:

He pulled one of the boxes down and clawed it open and held up a can of peaches.
“It’s here because someone thought it might be needed.”
“But they didn’t get to use it.”
“No. They didn’t.”
“They died.”
“Yes.”
“Is it okay for us to take it?”
“Yes. It is. They would want us to. Just like we would want them to.”
“They were the good guys?”
“Yes. They were.”
“Like us.”
“Like us. Yes.”
“So it’s okay.”
“Yes. It’s okay.”
They ate a can of peaches. They licked the spoons and tipped the bowls and drank the rich sweet syrup.

I can’t eat canned peaches anymore because of this. I want to cry just thinking about.

Neil Gaiman. When I was working on our latest book She’s Not There, I needed to find just the right children’s book that resonated with my adult heroine. It was happenstance that I found Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. Which metaphorically is what happened to my heroine. I just started  Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which, like my own book, is about the fragility of memory. I think what I am learning from Gaiman is the need to be original, to not follow the pack, to be true to yourself as a writer. He sums it up in this quote:

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that – but you are the only you.

David Morrell. Several years ago, David was the guest of honor at our writers conference  SleuthFest here in Florida. This talented teacher, prolific writer, and editor of the anthology Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, and creator of Rambo no less, had tons of great advice. But here is the single line that impacted me as a writer.

Find out what you’re most afraid of, and that will be your subject for your life or until your fear changes.

David credits this lesson to another writer Phillip Klass (pen name William Tenn) who told David that all the great writers have a distinct subject matter, a particular approach, that sets them apart from everyone else. The mere mention of their names, Faulkner, for example, or Edith Wharton, conjures themes, settings, methods, tones, and attitudes that are unique to them. How did they get to be so distinctive? By responding to who they were and the forces that made them that way. And all writers are haunted by secrets they need to tell. David talks about this in his book The Successful Novelist: A Lifetime of Lessons about Writing and Publishing. Click Here to read the first chapter.

And last but not least…

Unamed Romance Novel. I read this eons ago as part of my education back in the days when I thought I was going to make a million bucks writing for Harlequin. This novel (I won’t use the title here) taught me perhaps the most valuable lesson of all, one that every writer – published or un – should take to heart. Here is the line from the book that did it:

She sat on the sand on Miami Beach and watched the sun sink slowly into the ocean in a blaze of orange and pink.

When I read that line, I threw the book across the room. But then I picked the book up and put it on my shelf, where it still sits today. (Well, on my bathroom shelf). Because this book taught me that no matter how brilliant your metaphors, how original your story, how beguiling your prose, how deep your unexplored fears, if you have the sun setting in the east, nothing else is gonna work.

So who were your teachers, what were their books, and what did you learn?

Infusing Emotion into Every Scene and Chapter

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Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

is

Creating a book is inventing a believable world the reader can step into and escape. Your characters must seem real, as if the reader can hear them and see them. The conflict and what’s at stake must be strike a chord with readers. Readers are voyeurs who want to be taken on a journey. Since emotion is a key way to pull readers into your book and keep them there, I thought that should be the topic for today.

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.

6.) Pepper each scene with descriptive words and choose wisely – Word choices have always mattered to me. I take great pains to squeeze every ounce of emotion or sensation from the words I choose. I particularly like words that enhance the scene by the sound or imagery of the word: slither, sizzle, skitter, hiss, bam, punch, clang, klunk, snap, splat, etc. You can almost ‘see’ the action with the ‘sounds’ of these words. I didn’t realize this was one of my things until readers started to point it out as a good thing.

7.) Make the stakes high enough and make them real – Give your character something meaty to fight for. What would he or she die for? It’s not enough to ‘battle evil or fight for the good.’ Make their reason come from a personal place or sprout from their worst vulnerability. Force your protagonist to give up something he or she values most in the world in order to earn the status of hero in your book. Give your character a journey through your book so there is real change in him or her.

8.) Make your reader fear for your character as time slips away – If you’ve set the foundation for a reader to care about your protagonist and the world you’re creating, now introduce a short fuse burning—and suddenly pull the rug out and make that time table shorter. It will make for a breathless plot but will force the reader to care even more about what will happen.

9.) Savor the Twist – Do the unexpected. If the story appears to be going a certain way, surprise the reader with a well-planned twist that will force the protagonist to rise to the occasion with added conflict or will showcase his or her brilliance. Readers love to be surprised by a plot they didn’t see coming. I enjoy setting the reader up in different ways, especially when the clues were always there. Again, word choice or well-positioned elements of mystery, like red herrings, can enhance the effect of a good twist. Readers get excited when they are fooled and often will go back to reread passages. This is another way to trigger many levels of emotion in your reader.

10.) Wrap it all up and make the ending satisfying – A well-written ending, where the characters have been through hell and have come out of a very dark tunnel, can force the reader into that same feeling of having survived along with them. If there needs to be closure at a grave site, where someone didn’t make it, squeeze out every tear and make the ending a satisfying experience. Don’t squander the opportunity to leave your reader with a fulfilling ending to the

For Discussion:
1.) Did your writing tips (on layering emotion into your scenes) make the list? If not, share what works for you.

2.) What books have stuck in your mind as unforgettable emotional journeys?

Croco Designs

Croco Designs

Tough Target – The Omega Team series (Book 2 of 2) launches May 24th as part of Amazon Kindle Worlds. Read book 1 – Hot Target – and catch up. Both ebooks are priced at a bargain of $1.99. (The book page for Tough Target won’t be posted by Amazon until May 24.)

When a massive hurricane hits land, SEAL Sam Rafferty is trapped in the everglades with a cartel hit squad in hot pursuit—forcing him to take a terrible risk that could jeopardize the lives of his wounded mother and Kate, a woman who branded him with her love.

Omega Team Launch – Facebook Party with GIVEAWAYS on May 24 at this LINK.- I’ll be online at 5pm CST. Join the other Omega Team authors most of the day.

Lisa Black On Writing

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Today I welcome back to TKZ my friend and fellow ITW member, Lisa Black. I’ve asked Lisa to share her writing techniques with us. Enjoy! – Joe Moore

————————————–

L BlackI don’t know why we never get tired of hearing about another author’s writing habits, whether we’re looking for that one trick that will make our lives so much easier, or if it’s the voyeuristic thrill of seeing how someone else washes their dishes or packs their suitcase (“You do what? Seriously?”)

At any rate, here is mine:

I am a plotter, not a pantser, so before I start writing at all I have to know how the book begins, how it ends, and the major incidents which will take place. These points begin as amorphous thoughts rattling around in my skull for a day or a few years or a lifetime. I write a series, thus my character tends to be the same—a female forensic scientist in Cleveland, Ohio—so the rest of the book might stem from a new character, a puzzle, an incident or, in one case, simply a snarky comment I wanted my character to make. Most often I start with a building, something visual and brooding and a little intimidating—a skyscraper under construction, a wind-swept observation deck, the opulent and historic Federal Reserve building.

Then a theme: what am I going to be talking about? What new world is my character going to explore? I’ll research, looking for ideas, and come up with things I want to have happen. Then I have to think of links that tie those things together, what carries my character from one to the next.

Eventually I’ll have enough for an outline. It won’t look like an outline, more like a freestyle poem.

This happens
Then this happens
Then this happens and my heroine really doesn’t like it
Then this happens
Etc.

And penciled in between the second and third line will be scribbled addendums such as “oh wait, this happens too.”

Then I’m ready to start writing.

I have always been obsessed with word count, so I set a daily goal—whatever works for you, whether it’s 100 words or 3,000. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment each day without overtaxing yourself. I’ve done 1,000 words/day, 2,000 words/day 5 days/week, lately I’ve been doing 1000 words/day on the days I work and 2,000 words/day on the days I don’t. I used to write the total down every day so I knew how far I had to write the next day, but for the past few books I’ve made it easy on myself and kept it at a round number. If I write extra on one day, that’s a few less words I have to write on the next. I don’t rewrite until I’m completely done, except for minor fixes or things that I’m afraid I won’t remember if I don’t do them right away. Then I keep going until I have a full length completed first draft, minus vacations and major holidays…I’m not a total slave driver.

(I never take writing on vacation with me. I won’t want to do it, won’t do it, and then feel guilty all week because I’m not doing it. If I don’t take it along, conflict resolved.)

A schedule may not work for you, but unless your system totally rebels, I strongly suggest it. The most important factor is that writing becomes, like death, taxes and aerobics class, not optional. There are authors who write when inspiration strikes, who will then hole themselves up in their room and write for 16 hour days, but they seem to be the minority.

Since I started out writing at (she whispered) work, I’m not fussy about where or when I write. I prefer to write at home when my husband is at work and the house is quiet, but the disadvantage to writing at home is that there are so many opportunities for procrastination—laundry, bill paying, the newspaper, chocolate…. Sometimes it’s better to have laptop and will travel. I have written in restaurants, witness waiting rooms at the courthouse, next to a sleeping hospice patient while the caregiver gets a few hours off, and, of course (she whispered) at work.

When I finish the first draft, I take myself out to lunch and take a few days off before starting the second draft. According to industry wisdom I should put it in a drawer for six months and then rewrite, but who has that kind of time? When that is done I’ll send it to my sisters to read, and then do a third draft before sending it to my agent and biting my nails lest she say “This stinks. Throw it out and write something else.” Which has happened.

revisionsBy this point I’m sick to death of the thing and never want to see it again, but have to deal with whatever changes my agent suggests, and then, when I’m really sick of it and provided she doesn’t say ‘throw it out’, I go through the same kind of round with my editor.

When I’m not writing a book, I don’t write—other than personal letters, which I send out constantly and obsessively (my friends and relatives know much more about the minutia of my life than they care to). I don’t write short stories or blog posts or novellas. I wish I did, but my brain just doesn’t work like that. At this moment I haven’t written a thing in nine months and it’s starting to freak me out.

That’s my system. It seems to work for me. If it sounds great to you feel free to adopt it. If it sounds bizarre than keep doing whatever you’re doing. There are as many different writing styles as there are writers.

And that’s a good thing.

that darkness coverPlease share your writing method with us.

Lisa Black has spent over 20 years in forensic science, first at the coroner’s office in Cleveland Ohio and now as a certified latent print examiner and CSI at a Florida police dept. Her books have been translated into 6 languages, one reached the NYT Bestseller’s List and one has been optioned for film and a possible TV series.

Give your manuscript a running start

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By Joe Moore
@JoeMoore_writer

Whenever I disclose to someone that I’m an author, the response is pretty much the same: “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” Or “I’ve got a great idea for a novel.” Despite all the would-be authors out there, not every potential novelist actually gets to the writing stage. And even fewer produce a finished product. But for the ones who not only have an idea but are burning up with a desire to put pen to paper, I’ve put together a basic outlining technique that might help get things started—a simple list of questions to kick start a book. Answering them can give writers direction and focus, and help keep them going when the wheels sometimes come off the cart along the way. To continue my Writing 101 series, here goes:

  • What distinguishes your protagonist from everyone else?
  • Does she have an essential strength or ability?
  • How could her strength cause her to get into trouble?
  • Most stories start with the protagonist about to do something? What is that “something” in your story, and what does it mean to her?
  • Is that “something” interrupted? By what?
  • Is there an external event or force that she must deal with throughout the length of the story?
  • How is it different from the original event?
  • How will the two events contrast and create tension?
  • Does she have a goal that she is trying to achieve during the course of the story?
  • Is it tied into the external event?
  • Why does she want or need to obtain the goal?
  • What obstacle does the external event place in her path?
  • What must she do to overcome the obstacle?
  • Does she have external AND internal obstacles and conflicts to overcome?
  • How will she grow by overcoming the obstacles?
  • What do you want to happen at the end of your story?
  • How do you want the reader to feel at the end?
  • What actions or events must take place to make the ending occur the way you envision?

This outline technique has less to do with plot and more to do with character development. Building strong characters around a unique plot idea is the secret to a great book. Once you’ve answered the questions about your protagonist, use the same technique on your antagonist and other central characters. It works for everyone in the story.

These are general questions that could apply to any genre from an action-adventure thriller to a romance to a tale of horror. Answering them up front can help to get you started and keep you on track. Armed with just the basic knowledge supplied by the answers, you will never be at a loss for words because you will always know what your protagonist (and others) must do next.

Can you think of any other questions that should be asked before taking that great idea and turning it into a novel?

Good Metaphors Are Like Lemmings In Suicide Vests

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“Do you know why teachers use me? Because I speak in tongues. I write metaphors. Every one of my stories is a metaphor you can remember. People remember these metaphors because they are so vivid you can’t get free of them .”– Ray Bradbury

By PJ Parrish

I was watching one of my favorite movies recently, Sideways. I watch it over and over, not only because I enjoy it but also because of what it teaches me about writing great dialogue. There are a handful of these movies I return to again and again – Moonstruck, Casablanca, Bull Durham, The Godfather, Chinatown, Lawrence of Arabia, The Apartment — just to try to see how the magic is done.

So I get to the scene in Sideways where erstwhile novelist Miles has just learned his latest 800-page doorstop has been rejected yet again. Miles descends into a funk fog and laments to his friend Jack:

“Half my life is over, and I have nothing to show for it. I’m a thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I’m a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.”

Which brings us, quite vividly, to our topic of the day – the metaphor. One of our regulars, Jim Porter, has asked us to devote a post to the subject: “I quote Bobcat, when he was Bobcat. At some point, would y’all please write about metaphors–particularly the danger of mixing metaphors. I guess one question is, when is a metaphor finished so you can use another one? We covered this in college, of course, but I would appreciate a review.”

Normally, I don’t give metaphors much thought. I’m of the mind that the metaphor (and its sister the simile) is a lot like sex. If you think about it too hard you’re not doing it right. But then I sat through a day of cable TV political news wherein I discovered that…

The goalposts had been moved…
And we need to level the playing field…
But that might lead us down a slippery slope…
Because all we’re doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic…
And the solution is just a Trojan horse…

Makes me long for the good old days of top-rate political metaphor, like when Rep. Devin Nunes called the guys trying to shut down the government “lemmings in suicide vests.”

Metaphors and similes permeate our lives. I don’t think we even realize how much because they are so ingrained in our language, a sort of shared currency of comparison that we all use. We use metaphors to make sense of the world around us, to make the abstract concrete. We eat our hearts out and are starved for affection. We shoot down arguments and bottle up our anger. We open cans of worms and close the books on things. And while all of us have gotten to the fork in the road, more than a few of us lament the road not taken.

In simplest terms, a metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike objects or concepts. By portraying a person, place, thing, or action as being something else, a metaphor gives us a more vivid description or helps us understand something better.  When done well, a metaphor also ignites some special spark of recognition in your reader, where they say to themselves, “Yes! I see that! I know exactly what he is trying to tell me.”

Pause for definition: What’s the difference between metaphor and simile? (I sometimes get this wrong, but then I can’t get the lay-lie thing right either.)

Simile: Richard is as brave as a lion. Richard has a heart like a lion. My ex-husband is like a snake in the grass. Metaphor: Richard is a lion. My ex-husband is a real snake.

So how do we take these humble parts of speech and use them to enrich our novels? How do we turn the mundane into the sublime without resorting to clichés?

Aye, there’s the rub.*

*Metaphor, archaic. Origin: in ancient game of lawn bowling, a rub is a fault in the surface of the green that stops a bowl or diverts it from its intended direction.

I’m finding this topic hard to deal with. Good metaphors are like modern art or pornography. I know it when I see it but don’t ask me to define it. Maybe I’m just not the sharpest bulb in the drawer. I think it’s time for some examples:

Good Metaphors/Similes

“The water made a sound like kittens lapping.” — The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

“Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table.” — TS Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” – Macbeth, Shakespeare.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, turned to a dead channel.” – Neuromancer, William Gibson.

“Her voice is full of money.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

And one of my faves: “Honey, you are a regular nuclear meltdown. You’d better cool off.” ― Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham.

Here are two of Stephen King’s favorites, straight out of the great pulp tradition:
“I lit a cigarette that tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief.” – Raymond Chandler.
“It was darker than a carload of assholes.” — George V. Higgins.

Bad Metaphors/Similes

There are a couple reasons why things can go bad.

Cliches: Usually, metaphors fail because they aren’t fresh. Metaphors are at their most powerful when they are original, inciting new ways of looking at things. These are old and tired and should never appear in your novels: the elephant in the room, deader than a doornail, her hair was spun gold, his eyes were like emeralds and he had movie star teeth. No, don’t even use “Chiclet teeth” because it isn’t yours; someone got there before you.

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Non sequiturs. Sometimes, the metaphor just doesn’t make sense. I always think of Yogi Berra here, though he was technically the master of the malapropism. (“Texas has a lot of electrical votes.”). Lawrence Harrison, an op-ed writer for the Washington Post, came up with a  great word malaphor, which is a mash up of malapropisms and metaphors. Click here to see his hilarious blog devoted to it. The best example I found of this is from Stephen King’s On Writing, from a novel he refused to name:

“He sat stolidly beside the corpse, waiting for the medical examiner as patiently as a man waiting for a turkey sandwich.”

Why does this fail? Because what does waiting for a turkey sandwich have to do with patience? As Scooby-doo said, “huh?”

Here’s one of my favorite malaphors — and once again, it comes from politics. If you don’t get this, that’s okay. My wish for you, regardless, is that you live long and prosper:

“I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.” — President Obama

Mixed metaphors. I promised I’d get to this, Jim, so here we go. There’s a fancy name for mixed metaphors – catachresis. Who knew? This is where the writer gets his creative wires crossed and juxtaposes two unrelated comparisons in a single part of speech. Examples: She grabbed the bull by the horns of the dilemma . We have to get all our ducks on the same page. Let’s burn that bridge when we come to it. Here is a memorable one from Dan Rather: “They counted the votes until the cows had literally gone to sleep.”  And Al Gore once reminded us that “a leopard can’t change his stripes.” A couple more:

“All at once he was alone in this noisy hive with no place to roost.” -Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities.

“Anyone who gets in the way of this cunning steamroller will find himself on a card-index file and then in hot–very hot–water.” — Len Deighton, Winter: A Novel of a Berlin Family.

“He had that reputation. Some people thought he was over it, but old dogs rarely change their spots.” — David Baldacci, Hour Game.

And here’s a doozy from a Pentagon staffer quoted in the Wall Street Journal complaining about efforts to reform the military: “It’s just ham-fisted salami-slicing by the bean counters.”  Actually, there is something rather satisfying about this one, sort of like a Golden Corral all-you-can-eat word buffet .

Now here’s a caveat about mixed metaphors: Sometimes they can work. But you really have to know what you’re doing to pull this off. In the Len Deighton example above, I suspect he was purposely making his speaker sound obtuse. And then there are the rule-breakers, those writers who can juggle with chain-saws (don’t try this at home, kids). They mix and match metaphors to create an avalanche of style or an emotional effect:

“The moon was full. The moon was so bloated it was about to tip over. Imagine awakening to find the moon flat on its face on the bathroom floor, like the late Elvis Presley, poisoned by banana splits. It was a moon that could stir wild passions in a moo cow. A moon that could bring out the devil in a bunny rabbit. A moon that could turn lug nuts into moonstones, turn little Red Riding Hood into the big bad wolf.” — Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker.

And two lines I wish I had written:

“The voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses. Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.” — ee cummings.

Okay, time for some rules. Well, not rules really, because I don’t believe in rules when it comes to writing. But here are some guidelines about how to use metaphors and similes.

Keep It Simple, Stupid. Similes and metaphors should be useful, concise, and at best even memorable. If you work too hard at it, your exertions will show on the page. Like I said, it’s like sex. Bring your best technique, be creative, but relax, or it ain’t gonna happen.

Make Me Stand Up and Salute. An effective metaphor has the power to stir because it triggers a deep sense of recognition in the reader, relating to something in his experience and eliciting an emotional reaction. Often, the metaphoric connection is simplicity itself. This is a simile but it is one of my all time favorites from the late-great sportscaster Stuart Scott:

He’s cooler than the other side of the pillow.

Pure geometry!

Pure geometry!

Be Original: If a simile or metaphor doesn’t rise above the merely mundane, it won’t work. This is hard work, coming up with something that is uniquely your own. But this is where the book is made, where your voice emerges. Don’t go with what is facile, dull, easily digested.  Don’t be content to be literal and tell us someone is as “beautiful as a young Elizabeth Taylor.”  Find a new way to spark the reader’s imagination and let them fill in the gaps.  When I was struggling to describe my female protag (who I envisioned as looking like a young Charlotte Rampling), I didn’t say she had high cheekbones and hooded eyes.  I gave her a childhood memory about watching cheerleaders and what her father told her about beauty:

They’re plain arithmetic, Joey. You’re geometry. Not everyone gets it.

Here is one of my favorite bloggers Chuck Wendig on the subject. Click here for complete blog:

“Metaphors represent an authorial stamp. They’re yours alone, offering us a peek inside your mind. When a reader says, “I would have never thought to compare a sea squirt to the economic revolution of Iceland,” that’s a golden moment. The metaphor is a signature, a stunt, a trick, a bit of your DNA spattered on the page.”

Bend Me, Shape Me. Good metaphors are entertaining. They sneak up on the reader, tickling them, making them smile. Bend your images like Beckham and watch them soar and swerve. Don’t you love this one from Matt Groening:

“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.”

If you are struggling with metaphors, read some good poetry. Emily Dickinson is a great place to start. (“Hope is a thing with feathers…”) Langston Hughes is another (if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly…”) But maybe this is the best metaphor ever?

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Stay in Your POV:  We hear a  lot these days about writing from an “intimate” point of view. Basically, all that means is being so firmly in your characters sensibilities that every word, gesture, thought and description is filtered through their personal prisms. So that must include whatever metaphors/similes you assign to them.  A metaphor must arise organically from the character’s experience, age, background and even geography. A woman who grows up on an Iowa farm isn’t going to produce the same metaphoric connections that a Manhattan socialite might.

In my latest book, SHE’S NOT THERE, my protag is a skip tracer but also an avid birder. That gave me many chances to extend the metaphor through the lens of bird-watching.

Whenever he was in a place like this, or any place where humans gathered, he saw himself as a big bird of prey — a peregrine falcon maybe — soaring high above and looking down at the world from all angles. He could see things that others, so intent on their little ground lives, could not. He could see the big picture.

Later, this man compares a person he is chasing to a crow because crows are the smartest animals on earth. He remembers watching a crow deposit acorns in the middle of a busy street so cars would crack them open. The crow even learned how to time the red lights to go out and safely retreat the nuts.

Pay special attention to where your character is from and look for ways to use that in metaphors. When my skip tracer notices the color of a man’s eyes, he doesn’t compare them to jade. He says they are the color of the Cumberland River on a cloudy day. Now, I bet you haven’t seen the Cumberland but I am trusting you can imagine a muddy rural river and supply the missing metaphor.

Know When to Quit

This was part of Jim’s original question to us here at TKZ and I think it is an important one: “When is a metaphor finished so you can go on to the next one?” I had a friend who did stand-up comedy and he used to talk about “layering” — taking a basic bit and milking it for a extra laughs. But he said you had to know when to stop. So it should be with metaphors. Usually, the simpler the better and you don’t want it to go on too long or it begins to feels forced, like it’s just you the writer showing off.  I had to delete a couple bird metaphors from my book because it was losing its impact. Metaphors and similes are special; they are the jewels you add for extra sparkle, something to delight.  Maybe it’s helpful to think of them as accessories and remember what Coco Chanel advised about that:

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”

But how many per book or chapter? That’s something you just have to develop an ear for. Because writing is music, after all. And if the note feels false to you, you better believe it will be a clanger for the reader — and you don’t want a Metallica concert going on in your book. I resist the urge to insert too many metaphors — the birds! — which isn’t difficult because they come hard for me anyway.

Speaking of quitting…as my Tupelo-born friend Phillip says, I’m wiped cleaner than a blackboard. So, it you’ll excuse me, I’m off like a herd of turtles. I know we’ve barely scratched the tip of the iceberg, but it’s time to get writing. So let’s roll up our elbows, put our shoulders to the grindstone and get back to rapsodizing and metaphorizing. Now go nail one out of the park!

 

Write It On Spec — Guest Post by David Levien

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:The-Boyz0004.jpgDavid Levien on set of Showtime’s “Billions.” Photo credit: Jeff Neumann

Today we offer a heartfelt tip of the fedora to our guest blogger David Levien. David, in addition to writing one of my favorite detective series  — the Frank Behr books — is also the creative genius behind BILLIONS, the brilliant and addicting Showtime series which has just wrapped up its first season and has been renewed for a second. David graciously took time out of an impossibly busy schedule to offer some important suggestions and advice to writers new and seasoned, and will be intermittently available to answer questions and comments throughout the day. David, thank you! — Joe Hartlaub

You sit bolt upright in the middle of the night and scrabble around the bedside table for pen and paper before the spark of a brand new idea forming in your mind blows away on the wind. Or you’re jogging, driving, taking a shower when it comes. You scratch out the initial thoughts in a desperate rush before they vanish—maybe it’s the beginning or maybe the end that has come to you first. You probably don’t even tell anyone about it for a while, because you don’t want to chase away this fragile dragonfly of a thought that’s landed on your desk, and when you do talk, it’s likely only to a trusted friend, colleague, editor or agent. Then you set about writing it, for yourself, on spec. You build it out because you have to, it’s what you do, with no guaranteed reward.

Only when it’s done, standing sturdy and complete, bearing all that you could bring to it, do you share the piece, be it novel or screenplay or teleplay or whatever the métier, with the marketplace, with the world. That’s the way it’s supposed to go anyway. But sometimes, if you’ve been fortunate enough to build a career, a name, daresay a brand, opportunities come along. A money offer is made for you to write someone else’s idea, or a project based on other source material. Sometimes you take that fledgling idea of your own out, as a proposal or a pitch, and the meetings go well and a buyer comes aboard early. What a glorious state of affairs! They’ve bought in before you’ve even done the bulk of the work. There won’t be any sweat equity on this one, there won’t be any risk that you’ve wasted your time. No, you’re on their dime, they have a vested interest…but.

But along with that money, with that deal, with that contract comes outside input. Hey, they’re your partners, they’re invested, so why shouldn’t they have some say? They dug it enough to buy in the first place. You’re reasonable. You’re collaborative. You’re living for a time on their largesse. You listen. A few of those ideas may creep in. But your piece is still weak, vulnerable, its structure and tone yet to be fully formed. The doctors advise not to take a baby outside into the world for at least the first month, until the immune system gets up and running, because the risk of contamination is too great. The same goes for your project.

Sometimes, when the work doesn’t turn out as well as it was supposed to, you go back and do a post-mortem, and with dismay you see that it was one of those seemingly benign outside creative suggestions that turned virulent and blighted the whole enterprise. You try to find your way back to the original intention, but the helix of creation is too complex to reverse engineer. Your idea was a gift in the first place and because you wanted to or had to, you sold it to the highest bidder, and it’s not pure anymore. And neither are you. For that moment you’ve been bought and paid for. You tell yourself: that’s not going to happen next time.

If you’ve managed to build a career of any length you may look back and realize the ones that really work, the ones that made you, were the ones you wrote on spec, just for yourself, the way they were meant to be. I can certainly look back and see it that way. There have been some successes that were commissioned. “Runaway Jury” and “Ocean’s 13,” were work-for-hires and turned out well. But the ones that live closest to my heart, my private investigator character Frank Behr—he was created and the first book written on spec although later books in the series were written under multi-book deals, including my latest, Signature Kill, out now in paperback—my first movie “Rounders,” and even my television show “Billions,” (both written with filmmaking partner Brian Koppelman) were created with no outside interference. The eventual buyers who came to the table wanted them as they were. Writing it on spec is the most elemental way for a writer to work, and even though it can sometimes become a luxury or a hardship to work for free, the reward outweighs the risk by plenty. You know best, so be unreasonable, and treat yourself, force yourself, trick yourself, spoil yourself but do yourself the favor and write it on spec.

Checklist to Publication

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By Joe Moore
@JoeMoore_writer

I started writing in one form or another over 30 years ago. It included book reviews, magazine articles covering professional audio and video and operational and tech manuals. As marketing director for an international manufacturer, I was required to generate corporate reports and business plans. Some have said that my first venture into fiction were my business plans.

In addition, I reviewed fiction for 3 newspapers in Florida. I constantly read action-adventure novels (Cussler, Clancy, Fleming) and fantasy (Peake, Tolkien, Brooks). The reason I eventually tried my hand at fiction was because I got tired of waiting for the next Clancy or Brooks novel to come out so I attempted to write stories that would fill in the gaps between their books. If you read any of my novels you’ll see elements of all these authors peek out from between the words.

One of my motivations in blogging at TKZ is to share what I’ve learned with other writers, especially those that are just starting out. I try to cover the stuff no one told me way back when. If I can reveal the answer to a point of confusion or suggest a tip to a writer that’s just starting out, maybe I can save him or her valuable time and even possible rejection.

So my writing 101 series continues today with a checklist to publication.checklist_cleaned

Your manuscript is finished. You’re ready to find an agent/publisher or to indie publish.

First, you need to define your audience. It’s important that you know what type of person or group will go out of their way to find and pay to read your book. What are the characteristics of your target reader such as their age, gender, education, ethnic, etc? Is there a common theme, topic or category that ties them together? And even more important, what is the size of your target audience?

For instance, if your book is a paranormal romance set in the future in which the main characters are all teenagers, is there a group that buys lots of your type of book? If not, you might need to adjust the content to appeal to a broader audience. Change the age of the characters or shift the story to present day or another time period. If your research proves that a large number of readers buy books that fall into that category, making the adjustment now could save you a great deal of frustration later.

Next, you need to define your competition. Who are you going up against? If your book falls into a specialized sub-genre dominated by a few other writers, you might have a hard time convincing a publisher that the world needs one more writer in that niche.

The opposite problem may occur if your genre is a really broad one such as cozy mysteries or romance. You’re going to have to put a unique, special spin on your book to break it out of the pack. Or accept the fact that the genre and your competition is a wide river of writers, and you only hope to jump in and go with the current. Either way, make the decision now, not later.

The next issue to consider is what makes your book different from all the others in your genre. Do your homework to determine what the characteristics are of books that your potential audience loves. This can be done online in the dozens of Internet writer and reader forums. And you can also do the research by discussing the question with librarians and books sellers. Once you know the answers, improve on what your target audience loves and avoid what they don’t. In the early stages of your writing career, don’t be shy in seeking advice. There’s no such thing as a dumb question.

Just keep in mind that you can’t time the market, meaning that what’s really hot right now might have cooled off by the time your book hits the shelves. The moment you sign a publishing contract, you’re still as much as 12-18 months behind what’s on the new release table right now. Indie publishing can help, but there’s a motto in the business that applies to publishing: First to market wins.

Another detail to consider in advance is deciding how you’ll market and promote your book. Sadly, this burden has fallen almost totally on the shoulders of the author and has virtually disappeared from the responsibilities of the publisher. Obviously with indie publishing, it’s all on the author’s shoulders. Start forming an action plan including setting up a presence on the Internet in the form of a website and/or blog, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, etc. Also, is there a way to tie in your theme to a particular industry? How can you promote directly to your audience? For instance, if your romance novel revolves around a sleuth who solves crimes while on tour as a golf pro, would it be advantageous to have a book promotion booth at golf industry tradeshows? If your protagonist is a computer nerd, should you be doing signings at electronics shows? How about setting up a signing at a Best Buy or CompUSA? Follow the obvious tie-ins to find your target audience.

Writing is hard work. So is determining your target audience and then promoting and marketing to them. Like a manufacturing company, you are manufacturing a product. Doing your homework first will help avoid needless detours on the way to publication.

Any other “I wish I’d know that” advice?

Letting Go of Bad Ideas

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sbTLCLpgY

By PJ Parrish

As you know, I have trouble sleeping. Usually, it is because I can’t slow down the hamster wheel in my head. It is whirring around, filled with junk, to-do lists, misconjugated French verbs, woes real and imagined and regrets (I’ve had a few, too few to mention).

And then there are those story ideas floating around in my brain just as I’m trying to drift off. Those tantalizing fragments of fiction, those half-seen shadows of characters-to-be, those little loose pieces of plots just waiting to be sculpted into…

Books?

Here is the question I was pondering last night just before I finally drifted off: Is every idea worthy of a book? Does every story really need to be told? And then, in the cold light of morning, the answer came to me: NO, YOU FOOL!

You all know what I am talking about. Whether you are published yet or not, you undoubtedly have some of the following around your writing area:

1. A manila folder swollen with newspaper clippings, scribblings on cocktail napkins, pages torn from dentist office magazines, notebooks of dialogue overheard on the subway, stuff you’ve printed off obscure websites. At some point, you were convinced all these snippets had the makings of great books. (I call my own such folder BRAIN LINT.)

2. A folder icon in your laptop called PLOT IDEAS or some variation thereof. These are the will-o-wisps that came to you in the wee small hours of the morning, whispering “tell my story and I will make you a star!” So you, poor sot, jumped out of bed, fired up the Dell and tried to capture these tiny teases.

IMG_0487Here’s a picture of my PLOT file. Here are some of the WIP titles: Stud, Panther Book, Silver Foxes, Winter Season, The Immortals, Card Shark. Feel free to steal any of these.
Or maybe you’re one of those bedeviled souls who keeps a notepad by the bed — just in case. (Mine is right under my New York Times Crossword Puzzle Book and paperback of John D. MacDonald’s Ballroom of the Skies.

3. Manuscripts moldering in your hard-drive. Ah yes…the stunted stories, the pinched-out plots, the atrophied attempts, the truncated tries. (Sorry, when alliterative urge strikes, you have to let it out or it shows up in your books). These are the books you had so much hope for and they let you down. These are the books you went thirty chapters with but couldn’t wrestle to the mat for the final pin. These are the books you grimly finished even as they finished you. Maybe you even sent these out to either agent or editor and they were rejected. At last count, I have six of these still breathing in my hard-drive. And at least four others finally died when my Sony laptop did, lost to mankind forever.

So what do you do with all these ideas? You expose them to sunlight and watch them burn to little cinders and then you move on. Because — hold onto your fedora, Freddy — not every idea is a good one. Not every idea makes for a publishable book. And sometimes, you just gotta let go.

Let me give you a metaphor. I think you women out there will get this more readily than the guys. You have a closet full of clothes. Most of the clothes you never wear. But they were really good ideas at one time. Like that hot pink Pucci shift you found at the consignment store but makes your boobs disappear. Like those Calvins you haven’t been able to shoehorn into since 1985. Like that yellow blouse you got at Off Fifth that makes you look like a jaundice patient but you keep it because it is Dolce & Gabanna and you paid $59.99 for it.

I read a good blog entry a while back about “Shelf Books.” I am kicking myself for not writing down who coined this great term; I’m thinking John Connolly? Someone please help me if you know. The idea is that you sometimes have to finish a book just so you can get it out of your system and move on. Doesn’t that make sense? Sort of like cleaning out your closet of clothes that make you frustrated and sad, so you can create space for good new stuff?

We all have Shelf Books. Some are meant to be only training exercises. They teach you valuable lessons that you must learn in order to be a professional writer. I will never forget listening to Michael Connelly talk at a Mystery Writers of America meeting when I was just starting out. He said that he completed three novels before he wrote his Edgar-winning debut The Black Echo, because he knew none of the first three were ready to go out into the world. Fast forward fifteen years to last month when I moderated a panel at SleuthFest with our guest of honor C.J. Box, who told the audience that he wrote four books before he finally hit it right with Open Season (which, like Connelly’s debut, also won the Edgar for Best First Novel.) And I clearly remember reading Tess Gerritsen on her blog where she confessed she wrote three books before she got her first break with Harlequin. She also said how dumbfounded she was that some writers expect to get published on their first attempt.

I think I understand that last thing. I had the hubris to think the same thing myself when I was starting out. But it took me a couple tangos with bad ideas before I found a story that worked. I have also seen some of my published friends lose valuable time not wanting to give up on an idea because they got so emotionally invested in it. And I have seen many unpublished writers lock their jaws onto one idea like a rabid Jack Russell and chew it to death. We all can become paralyzed, unable to give up on our unworkable stories, unable to open our imaginations to anything else. I think it is because we fear this one bone of an idea is the only one we will ever have.  Don’t let anyone kid you — even veteran writers get into this mindset, frozen with fear that they have dried up, that they will never again have another good idea.

For unpublished writers, two things happen when they reach this point:

They self-publish — badly. Meaning without getting editing help or good feedback.
Or they get smart, take to heart whatever lessons that first manuscript taught them, put that book on the shelf, and move on to a new idea.

Here is my favorite quote about writing. I have it over my computer:

The way to have a good idea is to have many ideas.

— Jonas Salk

You have to know when to let go. And you have to trust that yes, you will have another idea. Maybe a good one. Maybe even a great one.

I think I will now go clean out my closet. There is a gold lame thrift store jacket in there I need to get rid of. Here it is. It’s yours if you want it. Check out my ad on LetGo. I will even throw in my un-used book title STUDS.

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