Category Archives: writing advice

Flashback Words of Wisdom

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Flashbacks. Some claim you should never use them, and urge instead that you take the information/background/emotional backstory etc. contained in a flashback and find ways to include it in the present time of your story. At the same time others point out flashbacks can be a very powerful technique when used effectively.

Today’s words of wisdom flashes back to three posts about this potentially controversial topic. Joe Moore, James Scott Bell and Kay DiBianca provide insightful advice on how and when to use flashbacks.

Flashback is a writing technique that allows the author to convey backstory (events from the past) while remaining in the present. It usually involves a situation in which something in a current scene causes a character to reminisce or ponder a previous event. The reason to create a flashback is to build character or advance the plot, or both. The secret to successfully employing this technique is to construct a smooth transition into and out of the flashback so as not to confuse the reader.

One of the easiest ways to enter a flashback is with the word “had”.

As Jim walked through his old neighborhood, a distant dog barking reminded him of the day he and his friends had skipped school to . . .

In addition, you want to shift the time progression from simple past tense (As Jim walked) to the past perfect tense (his friends had decided). Once you’ve entered the flashback and established the “past”, you can then revert back to simple past tense. At the conclusion of the flashback, use “had” again to transition back to current time.

Jim climbed the steps of his childhood home knowing those summer days with his friends had been the best times of his life. 

In addition to transitions in and out of the flashback, it’s also important that the timeframe in which the flashback covers somewhat matches the real-time in which it’s experienced by the character. For instance, a flashback that covers the highs and lows of a woman’s previous marriage cannot be experienced during her stroll from the kitchen to the bedroom. But it would be an acceptable timeframe if she poured a glass of wine, strolled out onto her back porch and experienced it while sitting and watching the sun set and night fall. The reader must accept that the past and present timeframes are not unreasonably out of sync.

One final thought about flashbacks: it’s not a good idea to use one in the first couple of chapters. They can be quite confusing if thrown at the reader too soon. Wait until your reader has established at least a basic relationship with a character before taking them on a leap into the past. Flashbacks should be used sparingly. Better yet, use other techniques to relay backstory and avoid flashbacks altogether if possible.

Joe Moore—November 11, 2015

 

The Placing of Flashbacks

My advice here is simple:

Not too early. Get your story rolling with action. Get your readers invested in the characters. Then when you drop in the flashback it will have more impact.

Not too late. With your story hurtling toward the climax, the last thing we need is a scene that whips us into the past.

After the Door Slams. The plot is fully engaged only after the Lead passes through The Doorway of No Return—which should occur no later than 1/5 into the book. My counsel is to place a full flashback scene somewhere just before or just after the middle. (For a full treatment of structure, I humbly recommend my book.)

Getting In and Getting Out

Sure, you can start a flashback by telling us something like, Wendy remembered when she was sixteen…

And you can tell us when it’s over: Wendy stopped herself from thinking any more about it.

But here is a more elegant technique that works every time. When you’re about to go to flashback, put in a strong, sensory detail that triggers the memory in the POV character:

Wendy looked at the wall and saw a spider making its way toward a fly caught in a web. It moved slowly, purposely toward its prey. The way Lester had moved on Wendy all those years ago.

She was sixteen and Lester was the big man on campus. “Hey,” he called to her one day at the lockers. “You want to see a movie?”

We are in the flashback now. Write it out as a dramatic scene.

And how do we get out of it? By returning to the sensory detail (sight in this case) of the spider. The reader will remember that and know we’re back in the present:

Lester made his move in the back of the car. “This won’t take long, baby.”

The spider was at the web now. A wave of nausea hit Wendy as she watched it cover the fly.

But she could not look away.

The Backflash

A full flashback scene is not the only way to deliver backstory information. There’s also what I call the backflash. These are short bursts in which you drop info about the past within a present moment scene. The two primary methods are dialogue and thoughts.

Dialogue

           “Hey, don’t I know you?”

           “No.”

           “Yeah, yeah. You were in the newspapers, what, ten years ago? The kid who killed his parents in that cabin.”

           “You’re wrong.”

           “Chester A. Arthur! You were named after the president. I remember that in the story.”

Chester’s troubled background has come out in a flash of dialogue. This is also a good way for shocking information from the past, or a dark secret, to be revealed at a tense moment in the story.

Thoughts

“Hey, don’t I know you?”

“No.” Did he? Did the guy recognize him? Would everybody in town find out he was Chet Arthur, parent killer?

“Yeah, yeah. You were in the newspapers, what, ten years ago?”

It was twelve years ago, and this guy had him pegged. Lousy press, saying he killed his parents because he was high on drugs. They didn’t care about the abuse, did they? And this guy wouldn’t, either.

The nice thing about backflashes is they create mystery. You don’t give all the info at once, leaving the reader wanting to know more. You make them wait until the next backflash, and the next…as they feverishly turn the pages!

James Scott Bell—June 5, 2022

 

What is a flashback scene?

Smartblogger.com defines a flashback as

“a literary device where a story breaks away from the present narrative to delve into the past, by showing us a past event or a scene from the past.”

 According to novelist James Hynes in his Great Courses lectures entitled Writing Great Fiction,

“One of the fundamental principles of plotting is the withholding of information.…  A plot is the mechanism by which the writer decides what information to withhold, what information to reveal, and in what order.”

If the reader knows there was some disturbance in the protagonist’s past, but doesn’t know the full story, he/she will be compelled to keep reading to find out. When the author decides to reveal that fact, it may be effective to use a flashback scene.

The Power of a Flashback Scene

According to writingmastery.com,

“The beauty of flashbacks is that they give writers the freedom to fully show instead of tell the details of a traumatic or significant event in a character’s history, at the moment when it will be most powerful.”

 How to move from the present to the past

Transitioning to a flashback scene can be achieved by a character remembering something from his/her past. Or it can be a break in the story that presents some important background information that is crucial to the narrative. In either case, it’s important that the reader understand where he/she is in the story. To that end, transition can be accomplished in several ways:

A change in verb tense: If the story is written in the past tense, switching to past perfect will clue the reader in.

The use of italics: Although some readers don’t like long passages in italics, I’ve seen this device used and found it effective.

A specific date: A flashback can be a separate chapter or scene that is clearly dated to indicate a previous time.

However you decide to handle a flashback, it’s a device that can add strength to your story.

A Word of Caution

In his book Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell warns us about the overuse of this plotting device.

“There is an inherent plot problem when you use flashbacks—the forward momentum is stopped for a trip to the past…. If such information can be dropped in during a present-moment scene, that’s always a better choice.”

But if you feel the flashback scene is necessary, then JSB advises to make sure it works as a scene.

“Write it as a unit of dramatic action, not as an information dump.”

Kay DiBianca—January 15, 2024

***

How do you feel about flashbacks in fiction? Do you use them in your own fiction? Any advice on using them or, if you don’t, incorporating what they might contain in the present time of a novel?

7 Unusual Ways to Improve Focus

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We live in a world filled with distractions. Attention spans have shrunk from roughly 2.5 minutes in 2004 to about 40-47 seconds — some report a reduction to as low as 8 seconds — a drop of 60-70% since portable digital screens entered our lives.

Now more than ever, focus is at an all-time low, many preferring social media to writing. With the introduction of AI to shortcut the writing process, the problem is only worsening.

Writers who focus long enough to write without AI tools have become valuable to companies and organizations who hire freelance writers to grab the attention of their target audience. With the exception of tech companies who hire writers to train AI models — no amount of money is worth selling your voice! — all say they’ll trash your application if you use AI tools for any part of the application process: resume, cover letter, and writing samples.

Freelance writers need to able to flex their creative muscles, or they’ll never find work.

Authors need to be able to flex their creative muscles to touch the lives of readers.

Freelance writers — or authors who supplement their income with freelance work — have run across the “No AI” warning many times.

When I first ran across it, it made perfect sense. Of course, companies and organizations want the human touch. Any AI prompter can produce thousands of words on various topics. Only a real writer can trigger emotions in the reader.

Writers can’t flex those mental muscles without the ability to focus. In today’s world, new writers especially may suffer with a lack of focus. They’re juggling school, work, family, or all three, and don’t take their writing seriously yet. Many professional writers juggle just as much, if not more, but they’ve learned to hit the keyboard whether they’re inspired or not.

The ability to focus is an important life skill for us all. Hence my motivation for this post.

7 Unusual Ways to Improve Focus

Chewing Gum

Sounds crazy, I know, but I read this recently and couldn’t avoid diving headfirst into a research rabbit hole.

  • The physical act of chewing, or mastication, acts like a motor for the brain that activates motor fibers in the jaw that increase cerebral blood flow. This delivers more oxygen and glucose to regions responsible for attention and memory, such as the thalamus and hippocampus, according to Scientific America.
  • Chewing stimulates the trigeminal nerve, which is linked to the brain’s arousal system.
  • EEG studies show shifts in brainwave patterns associated with being both calm and alert — what researchers call “relaxed concentration.”
  • Improved Reaction Times: Many studies found that “chewers” have significantly faster reaction times on cognitive tests.
  • Reduced Stress: Gum can lower cortisol levels, which help manage anxiety that often interferes with focus, according to the National Institute of Health.
  • While non-chewers often see their performance decline over 30 minutes, gum chewers maintain consistent accuracy.
  • Some experts believe chewing serves as a form of productive fidgeting, keeping the brain stimulated enough to stay on track without being a major distraction, according to Science Daily.

The Spider Technique

This mental training exercise helps you ignore external distractions.

If you held up a vibrating tuning fork to a spider web, the spider will rush out to investigate. After several repetitions without finding prey, the spider wises up and stops reacting.

Train yourself to be the wise spider. When a door slams or someone enters the room, acknowledge the sound but choose not to glance over. Practicing “tunnel vision” helps build a mental barrier against interruptions.

Look at “Kawaii” Images

Kawaii means “cute” in Japanese. Hope this one doesn’t sidetrack you for hours, but looking at cute photos of baby animals can significantly boost performance on tasks that require high focus, like writing a novel. A study by Japanese researchers found that cuteness-triggered, positive emotions narrow the breadth of attentional focus, making you more detail-orientated and less prone to veering off-course.

Loop One Song on Repeat

I’ve done this one, and it does work.

Listening to music is common among writers, but listening to one song or album on a loop for hours is a specific high-focus strategy. Your brain has two attention systems: conscious and unconscious. Familiar, repetitive music occupies the unconscious system — the part that usually scans for distracting background noises to assess potential threats — without taxing your conscious mind. This creates a “trance-like” state, or as creatives call it, “the zone,” our ideal happy place.

Create a To-Do List

Sounds simple, I know, but it works. I’ve done it for years.

Rather than fight stray thoughts, whether it be ideas for future scenes or things you need at the grocery store, give them a temporary home by writing it on paper or in Notes on your phone. This externalizes the To-Do item and sends a signal to your brain that the item is safe and can be released from your working memory. Otherwise, your mind will keep trying to remember it.

Practice Positive, Constructive Daydreaming

Sometimes the best way to focus is to stop trying. I do this a lot, too. When I reach a point where I’m spinning my wheels or hit a mental wall, I walk outside and watch my wildlife. Or go for a 20-minute walk. Or take a shower. Or read a book for a while. Or meditate. Or exercise. Do anything that allows free thoughts to flow, like daydreaming. This engages the brain’s default mode network, which replenishes your “willpower reserves” and often leads to creative breakthroughs that a forced focus cannot reach.

Strategic Cold Exposure

Dunking your face in a bowl of ice water for 20-30 seconds is not only an anti-aging technique but a reset for your nervous system. Cold exposure triggers a sharp release of norepinephrine and activates the sympathetic nervous system. This is often followed by a parasympathetic rebound that leaves you feeling calm, alert, and mentally sharp.

How many of these have you done? Did they help?

Revision Block

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The proverbial brick wall.

Every writer has heard of writer’s block. Whether they believe in it or not, it’s been part of the conversation and lore around writing for a very long time. One of my favorite movies about fiction writing, Throw Momma From the Train, opens with Billy Crystal’s character blocked on the opening of his next novel. “The night was…moist,” he types. He crumbles up the paper and tries again, but remains stuck.

I believe writer’s block is either caused by genuinely not knowing where to begin or where the story goes next, or by fear—fear of exposing yourself, fear of failure, fear of simply screwing up, etc.

It turns out, for me at least, there’s also “revision block,” which I define as an inability to begin revising and/or being unable to finish a rewrite.

Perhaps you don’t know how to fix the issues you’ve found in your draft. Maybe you don’t know  where to start a revision. Maybe you don’t feel like you are making any real progress in rewriting your novel, or the revision seems to go nowhere.

Usually when I revise a novel, I dive in and begin immediately rewriting. With the five books in my Empowered urban fantasy thriller series, revision was a fairly straight-forward process, mostly fixing continuity errors, making sure things were clear, and keeping the tension mounting.

The first novel in the series, Agent, did require a complete voice edit at the direction of my developmental editor, Mary Rosenblum. Her observation that my hero’s voice was completely wrong gave me revision block for all of two minutes, but I recognized the problem she had identified, and set out to deal with it. Over five weeks, I went through the novel word by word to get the first person narrator’s voice right.

It was time well spent.

The rest of the series, as well as my two stand alone novels, didn’t require nearly that level of revision. There was usually a point during each where I felt stymied, but I always worked out what the problem was and finished the revision.

Things became more tangled when I turned to revising my first mystery, A Shush Before Dying, in 2021. I knew the first draft had serious problems. It was my first mystery novel, after all. The mystery storyline was clearly not ready for prime time. The red herrings, the suspects with secrets, the narrative head-fakes, the planted clues, I needed to work all these out, as well as learn how to layer in them into the narrative with subtly and misdirection. It took time, lots of time.

Progress on the second draft slowed until, in late 2022, I realized I was stuck.

The solution: I wrote a new high-level outline of the book. I took out everything in the manuscript save for the cozy subplot, and then began writing a third draft, which came together quickly. After revising that draft, I sent it to my beta readers, who gave me feedback, which was largely very positive. The final edits were mostly of the continuity and clarity variety, along with of course copy edits.

Book Drop Dead, the second novel in the series, took seven months to draft. By that point my writing process for mysteries was to work out the killer’s “shadow story” and the murder, followed by mapping out the investigation, and sketching a cozy subplot, all of which go into a detailed outline. As I drafted, I came up with more ideas, connections, clues etc., which could cause me to repeatedly pause as I worked out those ideas and any problems which arose.

I began the revision shortly before my annual writer’s retreat, Rainforest, in February 2024. It was work, and involved a several new scenes, as well as some rejiggering of the storyline but came together fairly quickly It was also fun in an intense, up against a deadline sort of way. I finished it, sent it to my betas, who had some great feedback. I rewrote the book one last time and then had it copy edited, and proofed. It was published in June 2024.

The third Meg Booker mystery, Fine Me Deadly, turned out to be a different beast.

The book also took seven months to draft, again in a halting start-stop fashion. The storyline was complicated, to put it mildly.

Granted, mysteries are always complicated, at least for me, and involve a great deal of skull sweat. My first two mysteries had passed muster with readers, including a former library colleague who had been our branch’s “mystery maven,” who possessed a deep knowledge of the genre, but I’d also heard how complex each was.

As with Book Drop Dead, I reoutlined Fine Me Deadly in a rolling fashion while drafting and kept a novel journal where I brainstormed as needed, outlined new plot twists, etc. I finished the draft in mid-January, and decided, for the first time, to put the book aside for several weeks, and then come back to it with fresh eyes, advice many writers have discussed here at the Kill Zone.

When I returned to it while at Rainforest in late February of this year, I read through a printed out copy of the novel in two days, and wrote a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline of the drafted novel, as well as lots of margin and in line notes. I returned home, unfortunately with Covid, which interrupted the revision.

When I recovered, I realized the book needed a great deal of work. The plot had logic holes and worse, the mystery storyline itself didn’t work.

So, I began working on outlining the second draft. This stretched for months, also in a start-stop fashion.

It became obvious by late summer that I was blocked on the revision. So I spent more time trying to figure out why. I finally wrote a new, high-level “major plot points” outline, along with making some major changes to a few relationships, including my sleuth now having a friendship with the murder victim. I was all set to begin revising the actual manuscript.

I decided to try an idea suggested by author Matt Bell in his book on novel writing, Refuse to Be Done. The advice, he notes, is the one thing people never want to hear: retype the whole draft into a fresh document. The idea is you’ll make changes as you retype, with your new outline for the revised version at hand. I did this for the first couple of chapters, writing a whole new scene at the opening, and then another new couple of scenes as well as changing existing ones.

Then I hit a wall. Revision block returned in full force. Despite all my work on re-outlining the book during and after the draft, after the draft the book’s narrative still felt forced and my brain just couldn’t get going on writing new material.

Why did revision block return, and so powerfully? While I knew the storyline, it remained extremely complicated and very twisty, especially for a cozy mystery. There were many moving parts. Too many. True, as readers had noted, the first two novels in the series also had complex mysteries, but this one went much further, into a bewildering, intricate puzzle box, which exceeded my own ability to fix.

The solution would be to cut out a lot of the complication, focus more on the cozy. Really, rework the novel into something simpler.

However, I realized there was another reason I was blocked:

I had run out of creative energy for this novel.

I came to realize, for me at least, there’s a finite amount of creative energy to be spent on a book.  I’d expended all of mine on Fine Me Deadly. I’d also created a storyline that sounded compelling in outline, but didn’t work out in practice. Yes, I had the elements of a mystery, including a cast of suspects, the head-fakes, secrets etc., but I’d put a lot of espionage elements into this cozy mystery, and created my own writer’s wilderness of mirrors adding further  the complexity.

All of this caused me to lose interest and burn out on the book.

So, this week, after considerable thought and separate discussions with two author friends, I decided to put the book a drawer for the time being, and move on to a new project.

As with writer’s block, the first step in solving revision block is to figure out why. It could be something as simple as a plot hole that needs fixing, and a high-level outline will do the trick. It might be because you’re afraid to make changes, and getting past that fear will get things moving again.

Then again, it might be that taking a break and writing a different novel will give you the distance you need, and also the chance to rekindle your love for that particular book.

Certainly I need some time to clear my head. I’m now writing something different, in a different genre, and giving myself the chance to play with a simpler storyline.

After I finish the new novel, I’ll see where I’m at. It could be I’m done with Meg Booker. Or it could turn out that all I needed was to write a new, different book to refresh my creativity energy and desire in order to finally revise Fine Me Deadly. Time will tell.

Have you ever encountered revision block? If so, how did you get past it?

Steinbeck on Writing

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I read Of Mice and Men in high school and was wiped out for a week. I’ve seen the 1939 movie adaptation only once, in college, and I can’t watch it again.

That’s storytelling power. John Steinbeck had it.

So I thought it might be of interest here to share some of his writing advice via an interview in The Paris Review. I’ve added some comments, which is rather cheeky considering Mr. Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize ahead of me. But here goes anyway:

  1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

JSB: I like this. It’s similar to what Ann Lamott counsels in Bird by Bird, i.e., the “one inch frame.” Just face your daily writing, with full attention. If you do this faithfully, at some point you’ll look up and see a full novel. And that’s a very nice feeling.

  1. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

JSB: I somewhat agree. I am a planner, and once I get going I want to finish that first draft as rapidly as I can. However, I do edit my previous day’s work. I sharpen it, and it gets me back in flow.

  1. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

JSB: I don’t think about readers, plural or singular, when I write. I think about the characters. I think about the market when I nurture and idea. I want a concept that will appeal to sizable slice of folks who have discretionary income to spend on books. But once I’ve put that concept into motion in a novel, I’m involved only with the characters and how they get out of trouble.

  1. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.

JSB: This is good advice, so long as  you’re not doing it a lot. If you do, there’s going to be a much bigger mess at the end than there was at the beginning. If you have too many scenes that are not “working,” the problem may be in the structural foundations or in scene writing itself.

  1. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

JSB: I believe “out of drawing” is an art term which means an element that doesn’t fit. “Kill your darlings” is another way to put it. But this advice has always puzzled me. Maybe that scene that’s dear to you is the best one in the book. I think the only test is, Does it work in the story? Does it slow things down? Are you showing off?

JSB Axiom: Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to distress your characters.

  1. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

JSB: I prefer to write dialogue and let it flow. When I edit the dialogue, that’s when I might say it out loud, or listen to the text.

So what do you think of this advice, TKZers?
Have you read much Steinbeck? How does he rate with you?

Words of Wisdom: Rules for Writers

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Are there rules for writers? Some say yes, some say no, while some say rules are meant to be broken. I believe there are rules. Perhaps they are really more like guidelines, to paraphrase Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, but they are guidelines worth knowing and heeding. If there’s a good reason to break one, especially if it helps the story or unblocks you, by all means break it, but it helps to know the rule (guideline) first.

Today’s Words of Wisdom dives into the TKZ archives to find an intriguing grab bag of rules. Joe Moore lays out the rules of writing, with humor, wit and more than a little wisdom. I share the first fifteen on his list, and it’s worth clicking on the date-link at the bottom of this excerpt to read the other nineteen.

Next, John Gilstrap gives us his “Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation,” thoughtful advice on how to approach a manuscript you plan on submitting for feedback at a conference. His first five rules are included in this excerpt, and again it’s worth clicking on the date-link below to read all ten.

Finally, James Scott Bell looks at science fiction grand master Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers,” and provides commentary on each. Here too it’s worth clicking on the link to read his full commentary.

Who said there are no rules for writers? Of course there are:

  1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
    2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
    3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
    4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
    5. Avoid clichés like the plague.
    6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
    7. Be more or less specific.
    8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
    9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
    10. No sentence fragments.
    11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
    12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
    13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
    14. One should NEVER generalize.
    15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

Joe Moore—December 17, 2008

Over the years, then, I have developed a list of Gilstrap’s Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation:

1. Number your pages and put your name or project title on every page. The reality is that I will lose your paper clip and I will drop your papers on the floor at least once. I don’t do this on purpose; it just always happens. Sometimes the pages get separated in my briefcase. However it happens, jumbled papers are jumbled papers. It helps to know which ones belong to whom, and in what order.

2. Have confidence in Times New Roman 12-point type. Reducing the font size to sneak in more story does not slip past unnoticed. I recently participated in a conference where someone actually gave me 15 pages of double-spaced 8-point type. Ignoring the fact that it pissed me off, I literally could not read the text. While I like to think of myself as young, my eyes are marching toward old age.

3. For me to believe that your story has any hope of success, something must happen in the first two hundred words. That’s the length of my interest fuse. Billowing clouds, pouring rain and beautiful flowers are not action. Characters interacting with each other or with their environment is action.

4. If you insist on walking into the whirling propeller that is a prologue, check first to make sure that your prologue is in fact not your first chapter in disguise. Next check to verify that your prologue is truly for the benefit of the reader, and not a crutch for the writer who needs to dump a bunch of backstory so that the first chapter will make sense.

5. Ten pages are plenty. Actually, five pages are plenty, but I understand that conference organizers can tout the larger number more easily. In my experience, unless dealing with a journeyman writer, the sins committed in the first few pages are replicated throughout. It’s rare that I discover a new issue on page thirteen or fifteen that hasn’t been noted several times previously.

John Gilstrap—July 22, 2011

Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers.” They are as follows:

Rule One: You must write.

Rule Two: You must finish what you start.

Rule Three: You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.

Rule Four: You must put it on the market.

Rule Five: You must keep it on the market until it has sold.

I’d like to offer my commentary on this list.

Rule One: You must write.

Pretty self-evident. You can’t sell what you don’t produce. The writers of Heinlein’s era all had quotas. Pulp writers like W. T. Ballard and Erle Stanley Gardner wrote a million words or more a year. Fred Faust (aka Max Brand) wrote four thousand words a day, every day. They did so because they were getting a penny or two a word, and they needed to put food on the table.

I always advise writers to figure out how many words they can comfortably write in a week, considering their other obligations. Now up that number by 10% and make that the goal. Revise the number every year. Keep track of your words on a spreadsheet. I can tell you how many words I’ve written per day, per week, per year since the year 2000.

Rule Two: You must finish what you start.

I remember when I finished my first (unpublished, and it shall stay unpublished) novel. I was still trying to figure out this craft of ours and knew I had a long way to go. But I learned a whole lot just from the act of finishing. It also felt good, and motivated me to keep going.

Heinlein was primarily thinking about short stories here, so the act of finishing was an easier task. With a novel, there’s always a moment when you think it stinks. When you wonder if you should keep going for another 50k words. Fight through it and finish the dang thing. Nothing is wasted. At the very least you’ll become a stronger writer.

Should a project ever be abandoned? If you’ve done sufficient planning and have the right foundation, I’d say no. If you’re a pantser … well, the temptation to set something aside is more pronounced. But you chose to be a panster, so deal with it.

Rule Three: You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.

This is a bad rule if taken at face value. Again, Heinlein was thinking about the short story market. With novel-length fiction, the old saw still applies: Writing is re-writing.

I’ve heard a certain #1 bestselling writer state that he only does one draft and that’s it. Upon closer examination, however, that writer is revising pages daily as he goes, so it comes out to the same thing—re-writing.

As for “editorial order,” Heinlein meant that once a story sold—which meant actual payment—you made the changes the editor wanted (that is, if you wanted him to send you the check!)

For all writers, a skilled editor or reliable beta readers give us an all-important extra set of eyes. Don’t skip this step. There’s always something you need to fix!

James Scott Bell—December 11, 2018

***

There you have it, three different sets of rules for writers. Do you believe that there are rules for writers? Do any of these resonate with you? What rules have you broken, and if so, why?

Even More Villainous Words of Wisdom

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Villains are the catalysts for mysteries and thrillers. Without them, there would be no murder to solve, no threat to stop, no dastardly deed to foil. They test the hero to the utmost, and must be confronted in one form or another by story’s end. Furthermore, not only are villains essential to mysteries and thrillers, they are also vital in many other genres ranging from fantasy and science fiction, to action, adventure, westerns and others.

Today Words of Wisdom returns to this evergreen topic once more with three insightful excerpts from the KZB archives. Elaine Viets offers advice on creating likeable villains. Becca Puglisi discusses villain backstories and their connection with the hero. Finally, Debbie Burke, who just published an insightful book on villains, shares wisdom on the villain’s story and behaviors.

The original three posts are all well-worth reading in full. As always, each excerpt is date-linked to the full version.

Make your villains smart. Or at least crafty.

Tiffany quickly becomes the fourth wife of rich old Cole Osborne and they live in luxury in Fort Lauderdale.
“I never went to college, but I wasn’t stupid,” Tiffany said. “I knew now that Cole had tied the knot with me, my struggle had just begun. Cole was very, very classy, and I had to fit in with his rich friends.”

Make your villains self-aware.

The Joni Mitchell song was Tiffany’s anthem, and she recognized herself in the lyrics of “Dog Eat Dog.” Especially the part about slaves. Some were well-treated . . .
And some like poor beasts
Are burdened down to breaking
Tiffany said, “This was a dog eat dog world – more so than the trailer park where I used to live. I was a well-treated slave, and I’d sold myself into slavery, but I knew that.”
Our villain has knows she’s living in comfort, but she can’t get comfortable.
“One misstep, and I’d be one of those poor beasts, working again at the local hardware store or greeting people at Walmart. I had a prenup that would give me a measly hundred thousand dollars if we divorced, but if I could hang on until Cole died, I’d get half his fortune.”

Make your villains work for their success. That way, readers can root for them.

Cindy knew she’s landed her pretty derriere in a tub of butter, but she knew her work has just started. Among other things, Cindy changed her name to a classier “Tish.”
She also “made friends with his housekeeper, Mrs. Anderson. She’d been with him for twenty years and three wives. I slipped her a little extra out of my mad money account that Cole gave me, and Mrs. A told me where to shop on Las Olas, the local Rodeo Drive, and which saleswoman to make an appointment with. She also advised me to ditch my long fake nails and get a nice, refined French manicure, then sent me to a salon where I had my long hair tamed into fashionable waves and the color became ‘not so blonde’ as the tactful stylist said.”

Make your villains aware of the stakes if they fail.

Now readers have more reasons to root for them.
“As I got into my mid-twenties, I had to work hard to keep my girlish figure,” Tiffany said. “My trainer was worse than a drill sergeant, and I endured endless runs on the beach. Awful as it was, it beat standing on my feet all day on a concrete floor, running a cranky cash register for nine dollars an hour.”

Create a conflict – and an even worse villain.

Tiffany says, “I thought I could sail smoothly into Cole’s sunset years and collect the cash when he went to his reward. But then that damn preacher showed up. The smarmy Reverend Joseph Starr, mega-millionaire pastor of Starr in the Heavens.”
As much as we may dislike money-hungry Tiffany, the bloodsucking TV preacher is even worse. He plays on Cole’s fear of death and walks off with a check for a million dollars on his first visit – and the Reverend has his sights set on more.
“Starr would work on Cole’s guilt and milk him for every dollar – my husband was one big cash cow,” the practical Tiffany said.
Now that her husband was in the hospital on life support, Tiffany has to find a way to kill her husband and put the blame on the Reverend Starr.
Does Tiffany succeed? Or does the Reverend Starr walk off with the money? You’ll have to read “Dog Eat Dog” to find out – and see if I made you root for her.
Tell us, TKZers. How do you humanize your villains?

Elaine Viets—June 10, 2021

 

THEY HAVE A BACKSTORY (AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS) 

Authors know how important it is to dig into their protagonist’s backstory and have a strong grasp of how it has impacted that character. Yet one of the biggest mistakes we make with villains is not giving them their own origin story. A character who is evil with no real reason behind their actions or motivations isn’t realistic, making them stereotypical and a bit…meh.

To avoid this trap, know your villain’s beginnings. Why are they the way they are? What trauma, genetics, or negative influencers have molded them into their current state? Why are they pursuing their goal—what basic human need is lacking that achieving the goal will satisfy? The planning and research for this kind of character is significant, but it will pay off in the form of a memorable and one-of-a-kind villain who will give your hero a run for his money and intrigue readers.

THEY SHARE A CONNECTION WITH THE PROTAGONIST 

In real life, we have many adversaries. Some of them are distant—the offensive driver on the highway or that self-serving, flip-flopping politician you foolishly voted for. Those adversaries can create problems for us, but the ones that do the most damage—the ones we find hardest to confront—are those we share a connection with. Parents, siblings, exes, neighbors we see every day, competitors we both admire and envy, people we don’t like who are similar to us in some way…conflicts with these people are complicated because of the emotions they stir up.

The same is true for our protagonists. The most meaningful clashes will be with the people they know. Use this to your advantage. Bring the villain in close and make things personal by engineering a connection between the two characters. Here are a few options for you to work with.

  • Give Them a Shared History. The more history the two have, the more emotion will be involved. Guilt, rage, grief, fear, jealousy, regret, desire—strong feelings like these will add sparks to their interactions. They’ll cloud the protagonist’s judgment and increase the chances their villain will gain an edge.
  • Make Them Reflections of Each Other. What happens when the protagonist sees him or herself in the villain? A seed of empathy forms. The hero feels a connection with the person they have to destroy, which complicates things immensely. Personality traits, flaws, vulnerabilities, wounding events, needs and desires—all of these (and more) can be used to forge a bond that will add complexity and depth to this important relationship.
  • Give Them a Shared Goal. When your hero and your villain are pursuing the same objective, it accomplishes a number of good things. First, it ensures that only one of them can be the victor, pitting them against each other. But they’re also more likely to understand one another. They’ll have different reasons and methods of chasing the dream, but the shared goal can create an emotional connection.

Becca Puglisi—September 5, 2022

The villain’s story is thus one of declining power while the hero’s story is one of rising power…In defeat, the villain’s mastery is handed over to the hero.  The villain’s deficiencies of character have been exposed; the hero’s deficiencies have been corrected.  The two journeys, one the inverse of the other, are completed.

In another article, Scott traces the stages that cause some people to become villains, both in real life and in fiction:

  • The pre-villain is an ordinary person living in an ordinary world that is safe and familiar.
  • Something happens that hurls this ordinary person into the “special world” that is dangerous and unfamiliar.
  • Often this new dangerous world is the world of abuse, with the ordinary person at the receiving end of emotional or physical abuse.
  • Typically, the abuser is a parent, but sometimes another authority figure, peers, or harsh social conditions damage this ordinary person.
  • The ordinary person suffers psychological harm that can assume the form of narcissism, psychopathy, depression, or schizoaffective disorders.
  • This mental illness distorts the ordinary person’s views of themselves and the world, often producing an extreme self-narcissism and/or collective narcissism of their community or nation.
  • The ordinary person remains unaware of their skewed perception of reality and is never able to acknowledge their damaged state nor their need for psychological and/or spiritual help.
  • As a result of their untreated trauma, the villain undergoes terrible suffering, often in private, but is unable to learn or grow from it. Their deep fears and sadness transform into anger.

Okay, that covers the villain’s backstory and motivations but…

What about mysteries where the villain is hidden until the end? How does a writer handle the origin story and motivations when the villain’s point of view is never shown?

We’ve all watched films with the tired old trope where the hero is captured and tied to a chair. Then, because the writer couldn’t think of a less clumsy device, the villain bares their soul to the hero, revealing they were driven to exterminate humanity because they’d been potty-trained at gunpoint.

To avoid that pitfall, Chris Winkle of Mythcreants.com offers these suggestions:

The most important method of showing your villain’s character arc – or any character arc – is demonstrating a change in behavior. If you keep their arc simple enough, that could be all you need. The basic unit of changing behavior would look like this:

  1.  
    1. The villain shows a clear pattern of behavior.
    2. An event occurs that would reasonably impact the villain.
    3. The villain shows a different pattern of behavior. 

Chris outlines several options for the unseen villain’s character arc:

Gain/Loss:

“The villain gains and/or loses something they care deeply about, and that drives their character change. Usually what they gain or lose is a person they love, but it can be anything as long as you can show the audience why it’s so important.”

Obsession: 

“This is a villain that changes their motives during the story because they acquire a new obsession or goal. Often that obsession is the main character, but it also might be a shiny new superpower.”

Revelation: 

“This is a great arc for villains who think they’re doing the right thing and consider all the harm they cause justified. In this arc, they have a revelation that challenges this belief, forcing them to adapt.”

Chris’s summary:

If you want a sympathetic villain and you can afford to give them their own viewpoint, that’s great. Give them a deep arc your audience will remember.

Debbie Burke—September 13, 2022

***

  1. Is it important to you for villains to be likeable? If so, how do you build that likeability?
  2. How much do you consider your villain’s backstory, and also any connection with your hero?
  3. What do you think about the advice Debbie shared about the stages of becoming a villain and showing their character arc?

Joe Hartlaub Words of Wisdom

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TKZ lost a beloved member of our family recently when alumnus Joe Hartlaub passed away. Debbie Burke did a wonderful post about some of his contributions here a few days after his passing.

I only knew Joe through his posts and comments at TKZ, but his warmth and wit shown through in his words. He encouraged me in my writing endeavors, and was over the Moon for me when he learned I had writing going to Luna aboard the Peregrine lander as part of the Writers on the Moon project. My bi-weekly Saturday TKZ spot was held by Joe before he retired from the blog, and passed it to Steve Hooley, who later passed it to me.

As Debbie noted in her post, Joe wrote on a wide range of topics. Today I’m sharing some of his writing wisdom. Since I couldn’t stop at three excerpts, we have one very short excerpt and three longer ones. Each post is date-linked at the bottom of their respective excerpts and are well-worth reading in their entirety.

I say to all: if you have a project of any sort uncompleted, for whatever reason: pick it up, resume work, and get it done. Nine words: so easy to hear, so quick to write, so hard to do. But please take the advice, so that you are not repeatedly kicking your own posterior down the road as I have been for the last few days.

May 23, 2015

My wife Lisa’s greatest joy — after her husband, of course, and our ungrateful, unappreciative daughter — is her enjoyment of wild birds. We (well, she) has a couple of large, impervious-to-squirrels feeders set up outside of our kitchen window, and Lisa will spend hours photographing the birds that come to take advantage of the seemingly endless supply of seed that is there for the taking. One characteristic of birds, however, is that they are slobs. They drop seed, they leave husks, and…well, you know the rest. We as a result get a nightly show in the form of nocturnal creatures gathering at night beneath the feeders in a heartwarming tableau. The opossums are first to arrive. They get there early to begin eating the seed that has been left on the ground. They eventually, however, are rudely shoved aside by the raccoons, the neighborhood bully boys who push aside the opossums as if they aren’t even there. The collective attitude of the masked bandits changes quickly, however, when the skunks arrive. Their “outta my way, kid” demeanor quickly changes to, “Oh, my, hello, Mr. Skunk! How nice to see you! We’ve been saving this pile of seed just for you.” Skunks are just so gentle and shy and cute as they walk up and begin eating. They don’t take any mess, however. I did see a young raccoon, one who apparently didn’t get the memo, try to nudge a skunk out of its way. The skunk engaged in some non-violent resistance, turning around and putting his tail up, resulting in three raccoons setting new distance and reaction records for standing side jumps. I didn’t know raccoons could jump sideways. They apparently can, if properly motivated.

What do those cute vignettes have to do with writing? Quite a bit, actually. After you’ve been writing for a while, you’re going to get the sense of what works and what doesn’t for you. Write what works for you. If you are good at writing action scenes but poor at writing dialogue, go with the explosions and karate and make you characters strong and silent. If you’re not able to write a convincing love scene without embarrassing yourself, don’t entangle your character in anything other than barb wire. If you can write great sex scenes but drop the thread on complex mysteries, keep the mystery simple and secondary to the amorous scenes in the bedroom or elsewhere. Our friend the opossum’s main strengths are to convincingly play dead (we’ve all run into folks like that, haven’t we, heh heh) and get places early. If you are good at writing action scenes, start with a strong one and jump from one to another. Your story may be best served by letting the plot drive it. As far as the skunk goes, we’re talking cute but dangerous. “Dangerous” isn’t too strong a word; making that midnight run out to a Sam’s Club for several five-gallon cans of tomato juice to erase the scent of skunk spray will make a believer out of you. So…the character is going to drive your story. Cute but dangerous? Think of Jack Reacher as played by, uh, Tom Cruise. If you are blessed with the ability to let plot and characters drive your novel, you’re like a raccoon. You can sense your story’s weaknesses and strengths, and sense when something can play out a bit or, alternatively, when it’s time to wrap it up.

Which animal are you when you write? One of the above? Or another? And why?…oh, and the animal at the top of my humble offering today? To paraphrase Raymond Chandler…”What. The owl? Oh. I forgot about him.” Not really. Owls are skunks’ natural predators. The reason? Owls don’t have olfactory glands.

May 21, 2016

I am miserable at outlining. A lot of writers are. I have a friend and client, an author who writes novels in huge chunks but never outlines. He emailed me the other morning to tell me that he had written 22,000 words in the last four days and still had no idea where his latest novel was going. I understand. But. I have an entire outline. It has a beginning and an ending and a wonderful middle — usually the hardest part — so I am writing most of the middle first, going, like John Coltrane, in both directions at once while listening to the Top 40 songs of 1944 for inspiration. I’ve changed a few things in the original outline along the way, not because the original idea did not work, but because I thought of something else that worked better. There is a mentality at work — and it’s not just with me — that says if one has an outline you have to rigidly stick to it. No. It’s your outline. You can change it if you want when you want and for whatever reason you want. Think of it as a house that you love but are going to remodel. To go back to Misery, the ending of that book is far, far different from what King originally envisioned. While his original ending appeals to me in a sort of sick, twisted way, I think he ultimately wrote a better book. All he did was change his outline just a bit.

My advice du jour, after saying all of that, is 1) don’t give up the story you have for the story you want. They might both be the same thing; 2) outline. You can change it. It’s yours. You will, however,  have a clear idea initially of where you are starting, where you are going, and how you are going to get there. Just leave yourself free to make rest stops, take detours, and see the sights along the way; 3) if you get an idea in the middle of the night, get upright and commit as much as you can to paper, screen, or whatever. You can change it later, run with it, or put it aside, but once you forget it, it’s gone; and 4) don’t listen to your pipsqueak under any circumstance.

April 6, 2019

It sometimes helps, however, to sit back for a moment (as opposed to a week, or a month, or longer) to discern what is one’s prime motivator, regardless of what they are trying to accomplish. I was reminded of this last week as I listened to a lecture titled “Counseling Your Client to Reduce Stress & Succeed in Litigation” given by Alan S. Fanger, Esq., as part of the lawline.com legal education series. Mr. Fanger, the president of EmpowerLegal, Inc. touched upon many subjects dealing with how to prepare a client for trial.  My major takeaway from his presentation, however, was a discussion concerning how to successfully accomplish a task. Mr. Fanger put forth the proposition that it is more important to focus upon what needs to be done to perform the task successfully than upon the consequences of the failure to do so. He concluded that focusing on consequences rather than how to do the job will guarantee failure.

Mr. Fanger used an example from the world of professional football to illustrate his point. You don’t have to be a football fan to appreciate it.  There was a cringe-inducing moment during the 2016 NFC Wild Card playoff between the Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks. A Vikings player named Blair Walsh was tasked near the end of the game with kicking a field goal which would have, all other factors being equal, won the game for Minnesota. It was a short kick (for a professional football player) of twenty-seven yards. Walsh missed it, in front of God and everybody. It wasn’t as if Walsh was pulled out of the stands to make the effort, either. The game in question was a low scoring one. Walsh had actually scored all nine of Minnesota’s points during that game by kicking field goals from longer distances. He missed that last one, however. It was indeed a bitter pill to swallow, one that some football fans remember to this day. While none of us can accurately predict what goes through anyone’s mind in the moments before making an attempt at a task, Mr. Fanger submitted that perhaps Blair Walsh was more focused on the enormity of what would happen if he failed — losing the game and thus failing to advance to the Super Bowl that year — than upon what he needed to do to succeed.

That conclusion may or may not be true. It makes sense, however. You may have heard of something which is currently called “analysis paralysis.” It’s a term applied to overthinking, which is easy to do because in a very subtle way it delays the need to make a decision as to what to do. Let’s look at a very famous incident that required immediate decision and focused implementation. I am sure that the name Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is familiar to all of you. Captain Sullenberger was piloting a commercial airliner when a bird strike shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport disabled his aircraft’s engines. Captain Sullenberger, a veteran Air Force and commercial pilot, made some calculations and concluded that landing at an airport wasn’t an option. He made a decision and told his control tower, “We’ll be in the Hudson.” That is where he landed his plane. The conclusion of that particular incident would have been quite different if Captain Sullenberger had focused upon and overwhelmed by the consequences of failure — job loss, destruction of property, and, oh yeah, loss of life — instead of upon the best method (under the circumstances ) of landing the plane and the passengers with which he had been entrusted. He made a decision and acted on it, focusing on what he needed to do to succeed. “We’ll be in the Hudson,” Just so.

Think about Captain Sullenberger the next time you sit down to write and find that the old bugaboo — “I gotta finish this” — gets in the way. You probably have near at hand everything you need to succeed, including writing instruments, a command of language, imagination, the will to start, and your own mind.  I had all of those within reach when I began writing today’s post. I didn’t consider what would happen if I didn’t. It was more constructive and more fun, actually, to start writing and see, to paraphrase Dorothy Sayers, where my whimsy would take me. The finished product is just a bit different than what I had envisioned it would be, but that’s okay, too. I’m happy with it. I don’t know if I kicked it between the goalposts, but I think I landed in the Hudson, and I hope I didn’t lose anyone.

January 25, 2020

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There you have it, four pieces of writing wisdom from Joe Hartlaub.

Please share you thoughts on these in the comments below.

More Short Story Words of Wisdom

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From practicing your craft in a few thousand words, to story anthologies and indie publishing, short stories continue to offer opportunities for growth, experimentation, and finding readers.

So, with that in mind today’s Words of Wisdom looks once more at short fiction, with three excerpts from the KZB archive.

First, Jodie Renner gives tips on planning a short story which also works as revision touch stones for writers who pants their stories. Then, James Scott Bell discusses two overlooked reasons to write short stories. Finally Nancy J Cohen’s 3Ps of writing advice apply to writing, submitting and publishing short form as well novel-length fiction.

I’ve judged short stories for several contests and anthologies, including for Writer’s Digest, and I’ve come up with some tips for writing a compelling short story that is worthy of publishing or submitting to contests, magazines, and anthologies. Of course, these are only guidelines—like any good cook with a recipe, you’ll tweak them to suit your own vision, goal, and story idea.

PLANNING STAGE:

  1. Keep the story tight. Unlike a novel or even a novella, a short story is about just a small slice of life, with one story thread and one theme. Don’t get too ambitious. It’s best to limit it to one main character plus a few supporting characters, one main conflict, one geographical location, and a brief time frame, like a few weeks maximum—better yet, a few days, or even hours or minutes.
  2. Create a complex, charismatic main character, one readers will care about. Your protagonist should be multi-dimensional and at least somewhat sympathetic, so readers can relate to him and start bonding with him right away. He should be charismatic, with plenty of personality, but give him a human side, with some inner conflict and vulnerability, so readers identify with him and start worrying about him immediately. If readers don’t care about your character, they also won’t care about what happens to him.
  3. 3.Give your protagonist a burning desire. What does she want more than anything? This is the basis for your story goal, the driving force of your story.
  4. Decide what your character is most afraid of. What does your hero regret most? What is his biggest fear? What is he most afraid might happen? Give him some baggage and secrets.
  5. Devise a critical story problem/conflict. Create a main conflict or challenge for your protagonist. Put her in hot water right away, on the first page, so the readers start worrying about her early on. No conflict = no story. The conflict can be internal, external, or interpersonal, or all three, against one’s own demons, other people, circumstances, or nature.
  6. Develop a unique “voice” for this story by first getting to know your character really well. A good way is to journal in his voice. Pretend you are the character, writing in his secret diary, expressing his hopes and fears and venting his frustrations. Just let the ideas flow, in his point of view, using his words and expressions. Then take it a step further and carry that voice you’ve developed throughout the whole story, even to the narration and description, which are really the character’s thoughts, perceptions, observations and reactions. (In a novel, the voice will of course change in any chapters in other characters’ viewpoints.)
  7. Create an antagonist and a few interesting supporting characters. Give each of your characters a distinct personality, with their own agenda, hopes, accomplishments, fears, insecurities and secrets, and add some individual quirks to bring each of them to life. Supporting and minor characters should be quite different from your protagonist, for contrast.
  8. To enter and win contests, make your character and story unique and memorable. Try to jolt or awe the readers somehow, with a unique, charismatic, even quirky or weird character; a unique premise or situation; and an unexpected, even shocking revelation and plot twist.
  9. Experiment – take a chance. Short stories can be edgier, darker, or more intense because they’re short, and readers can tolerate something a little more extreme for a limited time.

Jodie Renner—July 28, 2014

Today I want to talk about two often overlooked reasons for writing the occasional short story. The first reason is, simply, that they’re fun. Lawrence Block, one of the grand masters of crime fiction––short and long––says in The Liar’s Companion: A Field Guide for Fiction Writers:

I figured short stories would be fun. They always are. I think I probably enjoy them more than novels. When they go well, they provide almost immediate gratification. When they go horribly hopelessly wrong, so what? To discard a failed short story is to throw away the work of a handful of hours, perhaps a couple of days. In a short story I can try new things, play with new styles, and take unaccustomed risks. They’re fun.

Why should you sometimes write just for fun? I’m glad you asked:

  • Because “fun is the best thing to have.” – Arthur Bach
  • Taking a break from longer work to have fun refreshes your writer’s mind

Now, “fun” does not mean you’re just writing fluff. Far from it. Which leads me to the second overlooked reason for writing short stories: to deepen your intensity. Once again, Bradbury:

[T]he problem of the novel is to stay truthful. The short story, if you really are intense and you have an exciting idea, writes itself in a few hours. I try to encourage my student friends and my writer friends to write a short story in one day so it has a skin around it, its own intensity, its own life, its own reason for being. There’s a reason why the idea occurred to you at that hour anyway, so go with that and investigate it, get it down. Two or three thousand words in a few hours is not that hard. Don’t let people interfere with you. Boot ’em out, turn off the phone, hide away, get it done. If you carry a short story over to the next day you may overnight intellectualize something about it and try to make it too fancy, try to please someone.

Writing a short story this way sharpens your ability to concentrate, and also teaches you to bring intensity to the writing of scenes. Since scenes are the building blocks of your novels, that’s all to the good for your overall craft toolbox.

James Scott Bell—November 13, 2016

Usually when I’m giving advice to aspiring authors, I name the 3 P’s as Practice, Persistence, and Professionalism. In his recent post, James Scott Bell mentioned his 3 P’s for writers: Passion, Precision and Productivity. These are all valid and equally important.

Practice
It helps if you set a daily word count or page quota and a weekly quota, then put yourself on a strict writing schedule. This gives you definitive goals. Keep moving forward. If you get stuck, either you haven’t laid the proper groundwork or you are letting outside distractions snag your attention. Don’t get hung up on self-edits until you finish your first draft. It’s easier to fix what’s on the page once the story is complete. The point here is to write on an ongoing basis. Then follow James’ advice about Precision by learning how to hone your skills. Attend writing conferences. Read Writer’s Digest. Enter contests with feedback. Join a critique group. Go to meetings of your local writing group and sign up for workshops. And keep writing.

Persistence
Persevering at this career despite rejections, bad reviews, poor sales, and other setbacks is critical to success. If you drop out, you have only yourself to blame. Keep at it, and your skills will improve along with positive responses from readers, critique partners, and editors. “Never give up, never surrender.” That holds true for a writer same as for the crew of Galaxy Quest. Have faith in yourself. If you have the drive to write, you can improve your craft and learn marketable skills. The more books you have out there, the more chances you have to gain a following. Keep going despite the odds, and be versatile. At times, you may have to try something new and different. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Whichever route you take, quitting isn’t an option.

Professionalism
Always be polite and gracious, even when you get a bad review or a rejection. It’s hard not to take these personally, but they’re aimed toward your book and not you. You don’t want anyone saying you’re a gossip or you bad-mouthed your publisher or you made condescending remarks toward another author. It’s better to be known as someone who shares her knowledge, is helpful to her peers, and is a consummate professional in her dealings with editors and agents. If you need someone to hold your hand, turn to your critique group and not your publisher or agent. With their busy lives, these people don’t care to take on needy writers. They want career authors who will persistently turn in polished manuscripts, who establish and maintain a platform, who are active online, and who understand the publishing world. Act toward others as you’d wish to be treated. You never know when a writer friend from today might become your editor tomorrow, or an editor might become an agent, or a reviewer who raked your previous books over the coals might give you a rave review. The old adage, “Don’t burn your bridges,” holds true here, too. Be polite, courteous, and helpful at all times.

Nancy J Cohen—July 16, 2014

***

  1. Have you written short stories? If not, might you in the future?
  2. What do you think of Jodie’s planning tips? Do you think they could be useful when revising a short story?
  3. Have you written a short story just for the fun of it? Have you used them to deepen your intensity?
  4. What’s your take on Nancy’s 3Ps of writing advice?

Hooking the Reader Words of Wisdom

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“You ever killed anything?” Roy asked. (Dean Koontz, Voice of the Night)

The car was just sitting there, its hazard lights blinking like beacons in the darkness. (P.J. Parrish, Paint it Black)

I was talking to a woman about flowers when John the Baptist blew up. (James Scott Bell, Romeo’s Rules)

An opening line like the ones above grabs the reader and pulls them into the story. The hook at the end of the chapter propels the reader forward, making them turn to the page to find out what happens next. Yet another hook is the book description itself, which gets the reader hooked into opening the novel to read that first line.

In today’s Words of Wisdom, Kathleen Pickering discusses favorite opening hook techniques, Nancy Cohen tackles end of chapter hooks and Jodie Renner looks at how to hook the reader with a book description. The full posts are date-linked from their respective excerpts. Afterwards, I’ll have a few questions as fuel for our discussion.

Hooks–so many types! Of the various suggested techniques, I’ve listed my five favorite hooks below.

  1. Three-Pronged Hook. This is a wonderful approach using three sentences to pull the reader deeper into the story.

Here are three, expertly crafted Three-Pronged Hooks:

“I sleep with the dead. I don’t remember the first time I did it and try not to think about why. It’s just something I do.”  (In the Arms of Stone Angels, by Jordan Dane)

Or:

“Two Whom It May Concern: My name is Wilfred Leland James and this is my confession. In June of 1922 I murdered my wife, Arlette Christina Winters James, and hid her body by tupping it down an old well. My son, Henry Freeman James aided me in this crime, although at 14 he was not responsible; I cozened him into it, playing upon his fears and beating down his quite normal objections over a period of 2 months.” (Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King)

Or:

“The boy stood naked in the middle of the road. Sam Hall’s headlights caught him there, frozen in position, like a deer. He was covered in something slick and it dripped down his flesh.”  (The Evil Inside, by Heather Graham)

Makes you want to read more, yes? You’ll also see that expertly composed hooks manage to combine techniques to create a masterful atmosphere. With hooks created by the guest authors I’ve featured here today, if readers were fish, they’d be jumping into the boat.

  1. Startle Hooks.These hooks capture audiences quickly because the readers can’t quite believe what they’ve just read (like those hooks above). Folks will keep reading to discover what is really going on. Another example, and shameless plug, is in Mythological Sam-The Call, where Sam Wilson starts the first chapter with a surreal visual:

“I steer around the bend and my breath catches in my throat. A hideous, mythological hydra suspends across the bay, clawing each shore with twin, snarling heads straining towards the sky.” (Mythological Sam-The Call by Kathleen Pickering.

Couldn’t help but include myself here, especially in such good company, but  I hope you’ll agree that no normal dude driving along the road is going to see a snarling, mythological beast where a bridge is supposed to be. I’d like to think the startle factor will keep the audience reading to learn what’s really happening.

  1. Describe a personality and elicit emotion.  See how a master handles this one:

“Myron lay sprawled next to a knee-knockingly gorgeous brunette clad only in a Class-B-felony bikini, a tropical drink sans umbrella in one hand, the aqua clear Caribbean water lapping at his feet, the sand a dazzling white powder, the sky a pure blue that could only be God’s blank canvas, the sun as soothing and rich as a Swedish masseur with a snifter of cognac, and he was intensely miserable.” (The Final Detail, by Harlan Coben).

Superbly done. (Applauding from my chair!) This hook flashes Myron as a law enforcer of high caliber who knows danger, attracts sexy women, lives life like a hedonist and is bored out of his gourd, eliciting both envy and concern from the reader over a intriguing personality. All done in one sentence. Amazing.

  1. Establish a Setting. Mr. Coben also combines setting into the above hook, so I will cite the same quote. While establishing a setting is a gentler hook, when professionally cast as Coben has done, the results reel readers in hook, line and sinker. (I just know you were waiting for me to use that cliché!)
  2. Introduce the Main Character. This hook is most effective when working with character driven plots, especially if the author is establishing a series with a particular character. Here, F. Paul Wilson’s character, Repairman Jack, has developed a cult-like following by portraying a darkly dangerous Jack with a quirky yet endearing, under-the-radar life style.

“Jack looked around the front room of his apartment and figured he was either going to have to move to a bigger place, or stop buying stuff. He had nowhere to put his new Daddy Warbucks lamp.” (Conspiracies – Repairman Jack Series, by F. Paul Wilson)

Kathleen Pickering—September 27, 2011

 

Creating a hook at the end of a chapter encourages readers to turn the page to find out what happens next in your story. What works well are unexpected revelations, wherein an important plot point is offered or a secret exposed; cliffhanger situations in which your character is in physical danger; or a decision your character makes that affects story momentum. Also useful are promises of a sexual tryst, arrival of an important secondary character, or a puzzling observation that leaves your reader wondering what it means.

It’s important to stay in viewpoint because otherwise you’ll lose immediacy, and this will throw your reader out of the story. For example, your heroine is shown placing a perfume atomizer into her purse while thinking to herself: “Before the day was done, I’d wish it had been a can of pepper spray instead.”

This character is looking back from future events rather than experiencing the present. As a reader, you’ve lost the sense of timing that holds you to her viewpoint. You’re supposed to see what she sees and hear what she hears, so how can you see what hasn’t yet come to pass?

Foreshadowing is desirable because it heightens tension, but it can be done using more subtle techniques while staying within the character’s point of view.

Stick to the present, and end your chapter with a hook that stays in character.

Here are some examples from Permed to Death, my first mystery novel. These hooks are meant to be page turners:

“This was her chance to finally bury the mistake she’d made years ago. Gritting her teeth, she pulled onto the main road and headed east.” (Important Decision)

“There’s something you should know. He had every reason to want my mother dead.” (Revelation)

“Her heart pounding against her ribs, she grabbed her purse and dashed out of her town house. Time was of the essence. If she was right, Bertha was destined to have company in her grave.” (Character in Jeopardy)

“She allowed oblivion to sweep her into its comforting depths.” (Physical Danger)

Personal decisions that have risky consequences can also be effective. For example, your heroine decides to visit her boyfriend’s aunt against his wishes. She risks losing his affection but believes what she’s doing is right. Suspense heightens as the reader turns the page to see if the hero misinterprets her actions. Or have the hero in a thriller make a dangerous choice, wherein he puts someone he cares about in jeopardy no matter what he decides. Or his decision is an ethical one with no good coming from either choice. What are the consequences? End of chapter. Readers must keep on track to find out what happens next.

To summarize, here’s a quick list of chapter endings that will spur your reader to keep the night light burning:

  1. Decision
    2. Danger
    3. Revelation
    4. Another character’s unexpected arrival
    5. Emotional turning point
    6. Puzzle
    7. Sex

Nancy Cohen—April 9, 2014

BACK COVER COPY

Your back cover copy or book description is the biggest deciding factor for readers picking up your book for the first time. Not only does it have to be enticing and polished, but it has to strike at the heart of your actual story, hint at the genre and tone, and incite curiosity among the readers, to compel them to open the book and read the first page (which, as you know, is also critically important).

Your back cover copy or book description needs to:

– Grab readers’ attention – in a good way

– Incite curiosity about this book

– Tell us roughly what the story is about

– Give an indication of the genre and tone of the book

– Introduce us to the main character and his goal

– Tell us the protagonist’s main problem or dilemma

– Leave us wanting to find out more

James Scott Bell (Yes, TKZ’s beloved Sunday columnist and writing guru) gives us a great template for writing strong, compelling back cover copy in his excellent book, Plot & Structure.

Jim’s outline is a perfect jumping-off point for creating your own book description.

Paragraph 1: Your main character’s name and her current situation:

__________________ is a ________________ who ___________________________________.

Write one or two more sentences, describing something of the character’s background and current world.

Paragraph 2: Start with Suddenly or But when. Fill in the major turning point, the event that threatens the character, disrupts his world and forces him to take action. Add two or three more sentences about what happens next.

“But his world is turned upside down when…”

Paragraph 3: Start with Now and make it an action sentence, for example, “Now (name) must struggle with….”

Or use a question or two starting with Will: Will (name) be able to….? Or will she….? And will these events….?

Then add a final sentence that is pure marketing, like “(Title) is a riveting…. novel about …. that will …you…till the … twist at the end.

Now polish it up, making sure every word counts and you’ve used the best possible word for each situation. Aim for about 250-500 words in total.

There are of course many other ways to grab your readers in your book description, but be sure to use the main character’s name and hint at the threat that has upset his world and the obstacles he needs to overcome to win, survive or defeat evil, and right wrongs. And leave the readers with a question, to pique their curiosity and propel them into the story.

Then, if there’s space, you could squeeze in a great blurb or two, or a short author bio.

Jodie Renner—July 13, 2021

***

  1. Do you have a favorite type of opening hook to grab the reader? How do you come up with one?
  2. Which sort of end of chapter hook (AKA “mini-cliffhangers”) have you used? How much do you focus on them when revising your novel?
  3. What do you think of Jodie’s elements of an effective book description? Anything to add?
  4. Do you have any books or other resources you’ve found helpful in coming up with hooks?

What is Your Character’s Wounding Event?

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Characters need personal growth to achieve their goals. If the character seeks to improve themselves in some way — at work, in relationships, or spiritually — or defeat the villain, their fatal flaw will often sabotage early efforts.

Who they are and what they want is at odds with their fatal flaw, which makes it almost impossible to succeed. The character might not even realize they have this flaw until a situation, experience, or event triggers a tsunami of inner turmoil.

Fatal Flaw Defined

A fatal flaw refers to a character trait that leads to their downfall. The term fatal flaw implies the character is heroic and admirable in many other ways. Even the fatal flaw itself could be considered admirable in a different situation but it hinders them in the storyline.

The TKZ archive has several articles about character flaws (here, here, and here, to name a few).

But where does their fatal flaw stem from?

Often, the past is to blame. It doesn’t necessarily need to be from the character’s childhood, though it can be. Was the character abandoned as a child, emotionally, physically, or both? If so, they’d deal with abandonment and/or trust issues as an adult. Or perhaps, their fatal flaw stems from the opening scene in the novel.

What happened to the character to create the inner turmoil within them? We call this the “wounding event,” and it’s crucial to understand the character on an emotional level.

Many factors play a role in determining who we — and our characters — become in life, including environment, mentors/teachers, parents, genetics, and how they were raised. Life is filled with flawed people, all battling their own demons, some more than others. Specific events and long-term exposure to unhealthy ideals, behaviors, and relationships all play a role in shaping a human or fictional character.

The Wounding Event

The most crippling is emotional trauma. Unresolved pain — the wounding event — should impact the character’s life. This defining emotional experience from a character’s past is so debilitating they’ll do anything to avoid that pain again. It colors how they view the world and alters what they believe about themselves and others. The trauma instills a deep fear that it may happen again if the character doesn’t protect themselves.

Or perhaps, your character has a physical defect with long-lasting psychological effects, such as a crippling illness, birth defect, scarring, or disfigurement. The mistaken belief that the character must harden themselves to feel emotionally safe is what allows negative traits to emerge.

The wounding event creates a core belief or insecurity that manifests as a character flaw, causing them to act defensively or in self-sabotaging ways to avoid reliving the pain. The wounding event also refers to a traumatic experience that significantly impacts the character’s psychology and development, or a set of deeply ingrained fears that shape how they interact with the world. It’s the pivotal moment that created the underlying emotional wound that drives their behavior.

Whatever wounding event you choose when crafting a character, it should be hinted at or shown on the page. This will help the reader relate to, and empathize with, the character. It’ll also explain their actions.

At some point in the novel, the character must face their fears — an important scene in the character arc is about confronting and healing from their wounding event.

The ideal placement is about the midpoint. This confrontation within themselves gives the character the inner strength to overcome their fatal flaw and spins the story in a new direction, with a clearer perspective on how to proceed. Or they figure out how to use their fatal flaw to their advantage “through a vein of moral rightness,” as JSB said in an article about character.

Sounds a lot like the mirror moment, doesn’t it? 😉

Secondary flaws can also arise from the wounding event, which will compromise the character’s path and prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Wounds are powerful. Taking the time to probe your character’s past to unearth their wounding event will help you — and the reader — better understand what motivates them and their behavior.

For discussion, what fictional wounding event has stuck with you? To avoid spoilers, only include the title if the wounding event occurs early in the novel.

Or tell us about your character’s wounding event and the fatal flaw that followed.