Help! My Plot is Getting Away From Me!

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

(Today’s post is adapted from the book Plotman to the Rescue: A Troubleshooting Guide to Fixing Your Toughest Plot Problems. It is used by the kind permission of the author.)

Here’s a question I get from time to time. What do I do if I’m in the middle of my novel and there are so many things happening, so many characters running around, that I’m losing my way?

You would think this question would come primarily from “pantsers,” the If-I-knew-what-my-story-was-about-before-I-wrote-it-I’d-be-bored school of writing. But it arises with the plotter, too, who has perhaps been overly ambitious in the planning. As sometimes happens for the plot engineers, a sudden twist or turn or character may try to horn in at, say, the 20k mark, throwing the whole outline off.

So what do you do when you discover you’ve a) gone down that infamous rabbit hole; b) have plot points or characters popping up you didn’t plan for; c) are lost in a dark forest; or d) have fallen off a cliff into the bleached bones of the author’s graveyard?

I will allow you one wail of frustration.

Now let’s get a handle on things.

First of all, where are you, as the ad men used to say, “outline wise”? Do not skip over this part, pantsers, for you better have an outline, too.

Wait, what?

I’m talking about a “rolling outline,” one you put together as you roll along. When you finish a scene or chapter, write a quick synopsis of who the viewpoint character is, what he wants and what happens, as in: Ishmael gets depressed, decides to go to sea, and sets off to find a ship.

Scrivener is ideal for this because you can put the rolling outline on scene “cards” and view them on a virtual corkboard. But Word or even Excel will work fine, too.

Now, if you feel your plot is getting away from you, print out the current version of the rolling outline and do this:

Clean House on Characters

How many viewpoint characters have you got? This means you have more than one character with a storyline of their own. For example, in a traditional romance you usually have two viewpoint characters, the lovers. In a long historical or fantasy novel, you may have three, four or more.

If this is so for you, precisely define the following: What is each character’s death-stakes objective? (Death being physical, professional, or psychological.) If it’s not death, find a way to make it so, or drop this as a plotline. In the alternative, consider taking away this character’s viewpoint scenes and converting that line into a subplot. This means the character shows up in scenes told from another character’s point of view and (this is crucial) complicates the viewpoint character’s objective.

For example, you have a woman as a viewpoint character, and a man as another viewpoint character. The man’s plotline is not working out in a death-stakes way. You might remove him as a viewpoint, but have him show up in the woman’s plotline as a potential lover or long-lost brother or secret agent or alien from a parallel universe.

Clean house. Keep only the crucial characters.

For further study: The Stand by Stephen King, and Strangers by Dean Koontz. You’ll see how these authors make the several character lines work on their own terms before bringing the strands together.

Cut Scenes That Don’t Connect to Plot

Now that you are squared away on the objective of the main character or characters, assess each scene you’ve written so far. Ask:

  • Does the goal in the scene relate in some way to the overall, death-stakes objective of the Lead? If not, cut it.
  • Does the scene present an obstacle to the attainment of the objective, emotionally or physically or both? If not, why is it there?
  • If the scene is part of a subplot, how does it intersect with the main plot? How does it complicate matters for the Lead?

Write or Rewrite Your Pitch

If you’re a pantser, you may not have a pitch for your novel. After all, you’re still discovering what it’s about! Well, if you’ve done some thinking as this post suggests, you’ve made discoveries. Try putting them together in a pitch—250 words or less that would make someone interested in this story. Doing this will give you focus on where to go next.

If you’re an outliner, rewrite your pitch to include the elements you’ve uncovered. Get excited again about your journey.

Be sure to read Sue’s post on crafting a pitch.

Push On

Now finish your draft. Don’t do any more dawdling. You should have enough direction to push right on to the end. As you do, keep adding to your rolling outline. It will be helpful when you get to the editing stage.

Can you describe a time when your plot got away from you, or you felt lost? Is this a common occurrence for you? What do you do to get back on track? 

 

Extracurricular Passion

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by Steve Hooley

March is National Reading Month. Since we are writers, and readers are vital to our success, I thought it would be appropriate to “share” our national month with the rest of the world and rename it “World Reading Month.”

Reading month was established in March to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss (3/2/1904) and his contribution to increasing the interest of reading in children.

We’ve discussed ways to get young people interested in reading.

We’ve discussed our favorite writers’ style and the Rushmore authors.

If you thought “extracurricular” in the title of this post is being used with the connotation of “extramarital,” I’m sorry. It’s not. I did use the phrase to draw you in, and please don’t stop reading now. We have a three-course meal, plus dessert and drinks, so stay with us.

Our “extracurricular” activity today is “outside our normal curriculum” of writing fiction and the craft of writing fiction, specifically reading nonfiction.

Now we’re getting into hobbies and special interests. And this is where your passion for your special interest kicks in and you can’t wait to tell the rest of us how exciting it is to study entomology and the Giant Weta.

Therefore, we will dispense with any pretense of an academic prelude, and move directly to the discussion where each of you can lecture on the importance of your beloved subject.

But, on second thought, I better provide some “meat” for our meal, or I’ll lose my job here as a cook. So, here are three dishes for our main course: (Remember, it’s World Reading Month.)

 

Benefits of Reading

This is a short list of the many benefits of reading.

  1. Improves brain connectivity and memory
  2. Increases vocabulary and comprehension
  3. Empowers ability to empathize with other people (note this was listed under reading fiction)
  4. Aids in sleep readiness
  5. Reduces stress
  6. Lowers blood pressure and heart rate
  7. Helps fight depression
  8. Helps prevent cognitive decline with aging
  9. Can help increase IQ in children
  10. Improves concentration and ability to focus
  11. Improves analytical thinking skills
  12. Improves writing skills and communication skills

 

Reading Disorders

  1. Dyslexia – occurs on children with normal vision and intelligence. Symptoms are late talking, learning new words slowly, and delay in learning to read. Common with 3 million cases/year in the U.S. Treatment can help, but doesn’t cure.
  2. Phonological Dyslexia (auditory dyslexia) – difficulty processing the sounds of individual letters and syllables, and cannot match them with the written form
  3. Surface Dyslexia (visual dyslexia) – difficulty recognizing whole words, from probable vision issues or processing
  4. Rapid Name Deficit – difficulty with naming a letter, number, color, or object quickly and automatically
  5. Double Deficit Dyslexia – combination of both phonological and rapid naming deficit, and is the cause for the majority of the weakest readers
  6. Alexia – occurs after stroke or brain injury
  7. Hyperlexia – have advanced reading skills, but have problems understanding what is read or spoken out loud
  8. Specific Skills
  9. Word decoding – similar to phonological dyslexia with difficulty sounding out words
  10. Fluency – difficulty with reading quickly and accurately
  11. Poor reading comprehension – difficulty understanding what is read
  12. (My addition) – Sine Tempore Legere – Without Time to Read – children and adults who are too busy with work, hobbies, school activities, TV, and social media – currently undecided whether there is a cure, or whether this is terminal

 

Early History of Reading

Beginnings

  • 4th millennium BC – Mesopotamia – picture symbols on clay used to keep track of business transactions
  • 2600 BC – beginning of cuneiform script – used to document laws, record deeds of kings, and keep records of transactions – each syllable had a different sign – number of characters ran into the hundreds – learning to write and read was an enormous achievement
  • 2300 BC – earliest author named, woman, Akkadian princess and High Priestess, Enheduanna – wrote temple hymns, signed her name

 Reading as Performance

  • 200 BC – punctuation was added – erratic into the Middle Ages – written material reached the illiterate masses through public readings
  • 5th century BC – Greek historian Herodotus read his latest works at the Olympics
  • 1st century AD – author readings became a social convention in Rome
  • Being read to became an avenue for entertainment and acquiring knowledge, especially for women, well into the 19th century
  • Texts were meant to be heard rather than seen – reading silently remained a curiosity

 Reading Silently

  • 330 BC – Alexander the Great’s troops were awestruck when he read a letter silently in front of them
  • 9th century AD – first regulations requiring scholars to work in silence in monastic libraries
  • As better punctuation was added, books became more accessible, and pictures were included, silent reading became the norm, with more and more readers
  • 14th century – Chaucer recommended reading in bed

 Print Revolution

  • Earliest print technology originated in China, Japan, and Korea by rubbing pages against inked woodblocks
  • 13th century – print technology reached the western world – woodblock printing widespread by the 15th century
  • 1430s – Gutenberg – first mechanical printing press in Strasbourg, Germany
  • 1450 – press was operational and printing copies of the Gutenberg Bible
  • Churches began to educate the masses
  • Village schools and literacy grew
  • Book sellers began printing copies of popular ballads and folklore
  • Early 18th century – periodicals began to be published
  • Novel as a literary form took root in France and England
  • 1849 – Dickens – Pickwick Papers – serialized in a magazine, combining the attraction of the novel and the affordability of the magazine

 Libraries

  • 7th century BC – Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, put together the first library – collection of clay tablets
  • 331 BC – Alexander the Great’s successor, Ptolemy I, founded a library in Alexandria, Egypt
  • 2nd century BC – library in Alexandria is catalogued
  • 18th century – proliferation of lending/circulation libraries in Europe and N. America

 

Okay, enough of the main course. It’s time for dessert and the after-dinner drinks and entertainment. It’s time for you to share your extracurricular passion, your nonfiction passions and interests.

 

Our Questions:

  • Do you read any nonfiction beyond craft-of-writing? What topics do you like to read or study? And why do you think they are important.
  • Have you written any nonfiction books (excluding craft-of-writing)? Tell us about them, and why we should buy and read them.
  • Are there any nonfiction projects you are considering, planning, researching, or currently writing? Is there anything you can tell us about them without revealing your trade secrets?

True Crime Thursday – Eyes of a Killer

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Photo credit: perchek industrie-Unsplash

By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

 

April is National Donate Life Month to promote the importance of organ, eye, and tissue donation. I covered this subject in an article for Montana Senior News. While researching, I spoke with people who had either been recipients of donations or surviving family members who agreed to donate organs, corneas, or tissue from their deceased loved ones.

The stories were bittersweet but also heartwarming. A recurring theme ran through them: the worst day for one family is the best day for another family.

 

Miranda Denison with the tools of her trade.

A major source for my article was a woman named Miranda Denison, one of six people in Montana with the unusual job of harvesting corneas. When someone dies, she or one of her colleagues goes to the hospital or funeral home to remove the thin, dime-shaped tissue that gives sight. She carefully packages it, then arranges transportation to an eye bank. There, the corneas are medically evaluated and, if viable, sent to hospitals to be transplanted. The surgery has a 95% success rate of restoring vision.

Miranda’s duties are similar to that of a coroner or medical examiner. She undresses bodies and thoroughly examines them, draws blood and other fluids for lab analysis, makes note of injuries, scars, tattoos, needle tracks, and signs of trauma or disease that might affect whether or not the corneas can be transplanted. For instance, IV drug users are excluded as donors, as are people with hepatitis C or who are HIV positive.

Donors’ and recipients’ identities are confidential but a transplant coordinator can act as an intermediary. This allows recipients to send thanks to the surviving donor family. With consent from both parties, they may communicate directly with each other, often forming lasting friendships because of the gift of life that connects them.

What does this have to do with True Crime Thursday?

Sometimes donors are victims of crimes. In such cases, recovery of organs takes place at the crime lab in Missoula, Montana.

Sometimes donors are perpetrators of the crime.

In the early morning hours of January 19, 2022, Kirk Brown, 48, shot and killed his dog and his mother, Florence Brown, 79, in the home they shared in Big Arm, Montana. Then he turned the gun on himself. He didn’t die immediately and was transported to a hospital where he later succumbed to his injury. The case was ruled a homicide/suicide.

Kirk Brown was a registered organ donor. Recovering his corneas was an especially grisly task because of the gunshot wound. Although Miranda didn’t work this particular case, she was familiar with it because her colleague handled it at the Missoula crime lab.

Miranda knows I write thrillers. After she told me about the case, we started talking about fictional possibilities.

If someone received the eyes of a killer, how would that affect them? Would they view life and people differently? Would they take on characteristics of the murderer?

The concept is not new. A 1920 French novel, Les Mains d’Orlac (The Hands of Orlac) explored the idea of transplanted body parts. After an assassin is executed by guillotine, his hands are attached to a pianist who had lost his in an accident. The pianist begins to commit crimes because he cannot control the grafted hands. That story inspired several horror films, including Hands of a Stranger (1962).

Other films, including Body Parts (1991), In the Eyes of Killer (2009), told stories of characters who develop criminal characteristics after receiving parts from a murderer.

I’ve never written horror or sci-fi/fantasy. But the idea of a killer’s eyes intrigues me. I may have to give it a whirl.

Kirk Brown’s corneas were indeed successfully transplanted—the silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud.

Thanks, Miranda, for introducing us to your unusual occupation and for triggering my imagination. 

~~~

TKZers: What are some other works of fiction or movies where transplanted body parts are the basis for the story?

How about the opposite scenario? Do you know of fiction where an evil character receives a good person’s organs that redeem the bad guy?

~~~

UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY is published!

Today is launch day for the seventh book in my Tawny Lindholm Thriller series.

An innocent father in prison. A guilty rapist set free. A surprise son from the past.

Investigator Tawny Lindholm and her attorney-husband Tillman Rosenbaum juggle three baffling cases where DNA is supposed to prove guilt or innocence. Instead, it reveals deception and betrayal, triggering a crisis in their marriage and an unimaginable threat to their family.

You can buy UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY from Amazon and major booksellers.

Home Invasion Redux (And A Bit Of Gun Porn)

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By John Gilstrap

On Monday, Sue Coletta posted a gonzo good post on setting up a plan to prevent/cope with a home invasion. She called it “Easy Prey Dies First” and the title says it all. If you haven’t read it, you should follow the link and do it now.

In her pulse-pounding opening, Sue painted a picture of waking up at 2 a.m. to the sound of breaking glass followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. What would I do?

I’ll get to my answer below, but let’s think through some options first. Given that violence never comes with a Playbill, we can never know until after the fact if the stranger in your house is there to take your life or merely to steal your stuff. Where I live, in West Virginia, it’s a distinction without a difference. We’re a true castle doctrine state. More than a few states, however, punish a homeowner for a violent encounter unless an intruder poses a direct, definable threat to their lives–and then only after they have made a reasonable effort to flee and seek shelter.

In my former home state of Virginia, lethal force was considered justified inside the home, but only if there was a direct threat. If a resident hears a noise downstairs, away from the sleeping area, the law tips against him if he seeks out a suspected intruder and confronts the bad guy. Prosecutors will charge the homeowner with manslaughter because, in the eyes of the law, the homeowner started the fight. The bad guy was merely stealing stuff.

These are important points to consider when you’re putting your home invasion plan together. It would suck to go to prison for defending your home with violence and then see your family be sued into poverty by the bad guy’s relatives.

Now, let’s assume that going to guns is an option. There are other supremely important considerations:

Are all of your family members accounted for?

One of the strongest arguments against having a gun in the house is the reasonable likelihood that it will be used accidentally against a family member. It would be beyond tragic for a late homecoming or a 2 a.m. trip to the kitchen to result in homicide. In the circumstance posited by Sue in her post, the shattering of glass pretty much takes those mistakes off the table.

I believe the solution here is to educate and train all your family members on the safe handling and use of the firearms you have in the house. Most shooting ranges have a young shooter program.

Involve the entire family in your plan.

Specifically, what do you want your kids to do? My suggestion if they’re young is to tell them that if they hear or see dangerous things in the middle of the night, they should yell for help, but never, under any circumstances should they open their bedroom door. If the kids are older, consider giving them a more active role in the plan.

And about bedroom doors . . . Closed doors add over five minutes of survival time in a housefire. Of the times I pulled dead kids out of fires, 100% slept with their doors open. Correlation is not causation, but the physics of fire behavior is pretty clear on this. A topic for a future post, perhaps.

Is calling for help an option?

We’ve all heard the cynical wisdom that when seconds matter, police are only minutes away. There’s a lot of truth in that, but it’s always–ALWAYS–a good idea to place a call or text to 9-1-1 to get law enforcement on the way. It establishes for the record that a crime is in progress and it gets officers on the way.

In rural areas and in some understaffed cities, response times can be disturbingly long–a fact that puts more pressure on the home defender.

Running away is always the best solution.

A punch not thrown never hurts. But our hypothetical scenario has the bad guy on the stairs, which define my way out of the house. Now that I’m halfway through my sixth decade, a jump from the second floor is not in the cards. But if you can get away, do so. And stay away. Your legal standing gets really murky when you leave a place of safety to return to a fight. In many states, that makes you the aggressor and the bad guy the defender.

Again, remember to include the kids in your plan. Generally, society frowns on parents who flee a home invader and leave their children behind to fend for themselves. Be sure to have a designated rally point somewhere away from the house so you can count noses after the house is empty.

Sheltering in place is bad advice.

Feel free to disagree and yell at me, but I believe this with all my heart. When you hide in a closet or in a corner, your surrender all maneuverability and grant all the advantage to the bad guy.

If violence is your solution, try to bring the fight to the bad guy.

This brings me back to Sue’s original scenario. Stairways are God’s gift to home defenders, the best possible place to have your violent confrontation with the bad guy because he has no place to go. He’s stuck in a chute with little to no maneuvering room and no ability to establish a good fighting stance. I would move as quickly as possible to meet him at the top of the stairs, looking down on him, and there we’d have a very serious discussion about his future.

I tell people that they should consider the stairs to the sleeping level to be their Alamo. That’s where they make their stand. As long as the bad guy is rummaging around the house where there are no occupants, there’s plausible deniability that he’s just after stuff. Once he hits the stairs, though, the only reasonable assumption is that he has capital crimes in mind.

Choose your weapons.

Hand-to-hand combat is for young people, and then only for those who have been trained on fighting skills. Without that training, if the confrontation comes to the laying on of hands, you’re going to lose. Knives are an especially bad idea because not only are you fighting at bad-breath distance, you’re going to get cut. As for impact implements like baseball bats golf clubs, consider the logistics of a full swing in a narrow space. It’s not going to end well.

Guns.

It’s my post so you knew it had to come to guns, right? People often ask what I think is the firearm to use against home invaders. (Much of what follows will get you in deep trouble with the law if you live in certain states. Check your state and local regulations,)

Spoiler: There is no right answer as to which weapon is best, but irrespective of your ultimate choice, it’s all on you to make sure you know how to use it in a way that does not pose a risk to innocent people. This is a lot less complicated an equation when you live in a rural environment, a quarter mile away from your nearest neighbor, than it is when you live in an urban apartment complex. After the bullet passes through your bad guy, it’s going to find another target, whether it’s the stud behind the wall or the sleeping baby next door.

I am a fan of shotguns as home defense weapons. When you’re sleep addled and operating in low light, the spread of pellets out of a smooth bore weapon gives you the greatest likelihood of hitting the bad guy. The farther you are from your intended target, though, the higher the likelihood that some of the pellets are going to miss the bad guy and seek mischief behind him.

Shotguns also give you many options in terms of ammunition, and you should base your choice on a number of factors, not the least of which is where you live. (See above.)

When most people think “shotgun”, I believe they see the venerable 12-gauge shoulder buster that is featured in cop shows. Deployed properly, it’ll definitely do a number on the bad guy, but an apartment dweller needs to give serious consideration to the size of the shot and power of the loads he’s using. One of the commenters on Sue’s post on Monday posited the use of a 12 gauge slug against an intruder. Um, no. Not unless he’s fifty yards away and looks like an attacking grizzly bear.

In most circumstances, even 00 (“double-aught”) buckshot is too hot for home defense. Every trigger pull of 00 buck launches 9 to14 .33 caliber pellets down range at 1,700 feet per second, give or take. It will drop whatever you hit, and at short ranges will likely pass right through your target with little reduction in speed. I think that a .410 shotgun loaded with #4 shot (.24 caliber pellets) is a better choice. It’s got far less recoil, but plenty of umph to stop your intruder. Even the hotter versions of birdshot will take the invader out of commission, and will pose less chance of collateral damage.

If the shotgun in your closet is already a 12 gauge, consider “short loads”, which have considerably less powder, and therefore lessen the hazards to your neighbors.

This is really scary stuff to contemplate, but I think it’s important to do so. Know that your plan will never be perfect, so it’s probably folly to rehearse the physical movements of a confrontation, but I think it’s worthwhile to think through the emotions and the intent. How long are you going to lay in bed talking yourself out of believing what you know to be true? How much time are you going to lose trying to remember where you stashed the ancient pistol you inherited five years ago from Uncle Charlie?

I get that many people think that this level of planning–even the discussion itself–is silly because the chances of this ever happening are miniscule, and I’ll stipulate that the numbers are on the side of the naysayers. But by the same logic, there’d be no need for smoke detectors or seat belts.

The scenario Sue posted guarantees that somebody’s going to get seriously hurt. I’d rather it not be me or my family.

 

First Page Critique: A Shooting
But Where Do We Go From Here?

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By PJ Parrish

Our First-Pager starts off with a bang. Literally. I will leave it at that for now. Let’s take a read and then discuss.

Sweet Sixteen Redux

New Town Mall

I was trying on a polka-dotted push-up bra when the gunfire began. The rat-a-tats came in quick bursts. A chorus of screams followed. The sounds were distant but unmistakable. This was no kid with a cap gun. Someone had come to the mall to kill. And my father was out there.

“Dad…”

The word limped out of my mouth, a prayer. Dad had brought me shopping as a present for my sixteenth birthday. He sat outside the dressing room at The Gap and American Apparel, glancing at his cell and offering some variation of “Looks nice, Grace” when I came out, even when I modeled an orange jumper that made me look like a baby convict. We mutually agreed, however, that it would be best for all parties if I spent my Victoria’s Secret gift card (a present from Mom) without his assistance. The last thing he’d said to me was, “I’ll be in the food court.”

I threw on my shirt and crept out of the dressing room, panic rising in me like a tide.

The saleswoman who’d been helping me was huddled behind the counter, a cell phone pressed to her ear. “I don’t know how many shooters there are. Just hurry.” She ended the call and waved me over. “The police are on the way. We need to—”

More shots rang out. She let out an ear-piercing cry and crawled through an Angels Only door, beckoning me to follow. Every cell in my body screamed for me to go with her, to get as far away from the shooter as humanly possible. But Dad was in danger. Because of my stupid birthday. I couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself.

Outside the store, panicked shoppers stampeded away from the food court, toward the T.J. Maxx end of the mall. I watched them pass, looking for Dad’s blue Cub’s jersey. When it was clear he wasn’t coming, I shuffled over to a cell phone kiosk and crouched behind a cardboard winky face. From there, I could see what everyone was running from: a man, dressed in black, with a short-barreled machine gun in his hands and a SpongeBob mask covering his face. Lifeless bodies were splayed across the floor like mannequins. One of them wore a blue Cub’s jersey.

No…it can’t be.

_________________________

I often say here that the better the submission, the tougher my comments are. This is because if the writer is doing the craft things right, if the story is compelling, you want to root for them even harder and help them if you can. Such is the case here. But here’s the catch for me — I can’t find too much negative to say about this! I’m not being lazy here. You all know how much I like to drill down into our submissions. But this writer is doing a lot of things right.

So that is our lesson today, folks. We can learn from submissions that need work. But we can also learn from submissions that don’t. So…

What works here, for me, at least?

Immediate conflict and drama. The writer chose a good entry point moment to begin their story. Something is happening right from the get-go — a mall shooting. The writer could have started earlier, say with daughter and dad talking just outside the store about why they were there — it’s a birthday gift shopping spree. The writer could have been more in the narrator’s head, having her think about how much she is enjoying her day with dad. But no. The writer wisely got the action moving first and kept the backstory out of the way (for the most part; more on that in edits).

Good choreography. Moving your characters around in time and space seems like a mundane craft thing but many writers don’t do this well. Your story is unspooling in your head like a movie — you see it so clearly, right? But your job is getting the reader to see it as clearly. So you have to be careful about telling us where people are, what precisely is happening. It isn’t fancy writing but it’s vital. This writer aces this. (with a few small hiccups).

Point of View. First person is, to my mind, harder than third because everything in this story must be filtered through one person’s senses and experience level. Our narrator is very young, so it’s doubly hard, but I think the writer has a good grip on this so far. I liked the young girl Grace immediately. She feels real to me. Notice the writer told us Grace is trying on a polka-dot push-up bra? The writer could have chosen jeans or a blouse. But the fact it’s a slightly naughty bra is what we call a telling detail — it tells us something specific about Grace.  And did you notice how gracefully the writer inserts the girl’s name and age? This isn’t easy in first-person.

Now, there are a couple things that need tweaking, here and there. So let’s go to a line edit. My comments are in red.

Sweet Sixteen Redux Not crazy about this title. It feels too soft and ambiguous for this story especially given the action opening. “Redux” is one of those weird words that everyone thinks they know but actually get wrong. It means brought-back or revived. Not sure what the writer is going for here. Maybe that her “sweet 16” was far from sweet, in fact, deadly, so she’ll get another chance to relive it? What do you all think?

New Town Mall You don’t need this tag, writer. You cover it, as you should, in the narration.

I was trying on a polka-dotted push-up bra when the gunfire began. This is a grabber first line but a nit to pick here. The way this is phrased feels almost like she’s thinking about the episode in retrospect. Most laymen, when they hear gunfire, do not immediately identify it as such. Victims of mass shootings describe it as car back-fire, fire-crackers, etc. In the first few seconds, their reactions are purely visceral. Not sure she would say “gunfire.” The rat-a-tats came in quick bursts. A chorus of screams followed. The sounds were distant but unmistakable. This was no kid with a cap gun.  See comment above. She evidently thought she was hearing a cap gun. Someone had come to the mall to kill. And my father was out there. Good ending to the graph!

“Dad…”

The word limped out of my mouth, a prayer. I like this line…Dad had brought me shopping as a present for my sixteenth birthday. He sat outside the dressing room at The Gap and American Apparel, glancing at his cell and offering some variation of “Looks nice, Grace” when I came out, even when I modeled an orange jumper that made me look like a baby convict. We mutually agreed, however, that it would be best for all parties if I spent my Victoria’s Secret gift card (a present from Mom) without his assistance. The last thing he’d said to me was, “I’ll be in the food court.” Okay, this needs some work. It’s too long (backstory) and thus puts a brake on the great action of the scene. I get that the writer wants to establish WHY Grace and dad are there because it creates sympathy and empathy. But just shorten it, maybe to:

I yanked open the dressing room curtain. Dad had been sitting there, thumbing his cell phone, while I tried on clothes. “Looks nice, Grace,” he had said when I emerged to model an orange jumpsuit. But now he was gone. Then  I remembered he had muttered something about meeting me at the food court.

I threw on my shirt and crept out of the dressing room, panic rising in me like a tide. Cliche…you can do better, writer. What does it FEEL like specifically to this girl? Bring up next line. The saleswoman who’d been helping me was huddled behind the counter, a cell phone pressed to her ear.

Need new graph when new person speaks. “I don’t know how many shooters there are. Just hurry.” She ended the call and waved me over. “The police are on the way. We need to—”

More shots rang out. She let out an ear-piercing cry and crawled through an Angels Only door, I have no idea what this is beckoning me to follow. Every cell in my body screamed for me to go with her, to get as far away from the shooter as humanly possible. But Dad was in danger. Possibly. Maybe it would be smarter to have her think that she has to FIND him. Because of my stupid birthday. I couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself. Why do I suggest cutting this last line? Because the line before it is much more powerful. Also, Dad being in danger isn’t really caused by her birthday. Unless you add something here that she was the one who insisted he bring her? Can you make it more personal to their relationship. She feels guilty — so give her a good reason!

Outside the store, choreography hiccup here. You have to move her outside first. Did she decide to go out the front entrance of the Gap? panicked shoppers stampeded away from the food court, toward the T.J. Maxx Another choregraphy hiccup. Is the Gap right next to the food court? The stampede she sees implies it is. Be specific. end of the mall. I watched them pass, looking I scanned the crowd but didn’t see Dad’s blue Cub’s jersey. When it was clear he wasn’t coming, I shuffled Not the right word, I don’t think, as shuffle is a slow casual verb. Scuttled? But that’s not a 16-year-old’s word. Scrambled? over to a cell phone kiosk and crouched behind a cardboard winky face. I’m probably dense as a log but I didn’t know what this was. A smiley face, or one of those yellow winking icon? It didn’t compute with cell phone kiosk for me. I stumbled for a moment so maybe it needs fixing? Not sure…

Then I saw him — From there, I could see what everyone was running from: a man, dressed in black, black what? trench coat? with a short-barreled machine gun in his hands machine gun is an old fashioned term. Need help here from my gun experts — what would you call this, keeping in mind this is a 16 year old? and a SpongeBob mask covering his face. if she can’t see his face she can’t tell us for sure it’s a man. Could be a boy. Could be a woman. Lifeless Ditto, she can’t KNOW they are dead bodies were splayed across the floor like mannequins. I like that you’re trying for a metaphor here in keeping with your setting but not sure it works. mannequins don’t normal “splay” — they stand upright. I’d lose the metaphor. Also, be careful that you don’t get too “writerly” here and slip into metaphoric thinking in such a visceral moment.

Also, like your verb choice of “shuffle” the word “splay” might not be accurate. It’s a nice word but splay is very specific in meaning — all limbs thrust out from the torso at oblique angles. Some of those shot would crumble inward; some would be merely prone. Also question whether Grace, at 16, would think in such a wording. Keep every emotion, reaction, word choice in her realm of experience — not yours.

One of them wore a blue Cub’s jersey. Nice. I might put it on a line of its own. But can you sharpen the image and make her reaction more visceral. Suggestion:

I spotted a body in dark blue shirt. There was a red target-shaped logo on the back. It was a Cub’s jersey. 

You told us Dad was wearing such a jersey so it’s more impactful to just stay with the visual of the jersey and let US connect the dots. And note the use of “target” in logo.

No…it can’t be. Good that you’re in her head. But unattributed thoughts need to be in itals.

So, as I said, I really like this opening. The solid writing bodes well. I want to know if Dad is alive, of course. And I want to know, of course, how this life-shaking event affects our protagonist. That is, I would guess, the dramatic trajectory for Grace. I am very curious what genre we are in — young adult or regular no-age-specific? I am curious, too, where the plot will go from here and what its main thrust will be. What kind of journey are you taking us on, dear writer? Mystery? Police procedural? Thriller? Where does Grace go from here? When you have such a dramatic opening, that is a big big question.

But I am curious. And that is a very good thing. So good job, writer.  

 

 

Easy Prey Dies First

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A crash startles you awake. Is it real? Are you dreaming?

Glass shatters.

Bolting upright in bed, all the muscles in your back and neck stiffen at once.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. Footsteps through broken glass.

Darkness swallows the bedroom. Even the moon doesn’t dare shine.

A little voice inside your head screams, “Run! Hide!” But you freeze, unsure of what to do or even if this is real. Your neck snaps toward the bedside table.

Through the blackness cherry-red digits blaze 2:00 a.m.

You slide your palm across the silk sheets. A lump. Your spouse is still beside you. You start to exhale but breath catches in your throat. If your spouse in bed, then who—

The bottom tread creaks, echoes off the walls. You reach to shake your spouse awake, but your hand never makes contact. Leaden footsteps grow closer…closer…

A gazillion questions careen through your mind. Why is this happening? You’ve always been so careful to lock the doors and windows at night. How did he get in? What does he want? To kill you? Rob you? Rape you? Or all the above?

Under the covers you kick your spouse, hush, “Wake up. Somebody’s in the house.”

Still groggy and out of it, s/he grapples to understand the situation.

Footfalls strike the hardwood. The stranger—probably armed, murderous—is in the hall with bad intentions. In a few more strides you’ll be face-to-face with this maniac.

An icy tongue licks up your spine. Move. Now!

Your toes sink into the carpet. A coolness prickles your bare legs. You take one step, praying to all that’s holy that you don’t step on the squeaky floorboard. A godawful stench wafts into the bedroom, and churns your stomach acids. Stale booze and cigarettes—like the serial predator who abducted you at five years old. Is he still in prison? Now’s not the time.

You summon your mind to clear. Concentrate. Focus.

The bedside clock flashes 2:01 a.m.

Another creak. This time closer, too close.

What do you do next? Jot down your answer before reading the rest of this post.

In my last post I mentioned I’d put a plan into a motion in case of a home invasion. Kay and Jeanne asked me to share that plan. While it’s not the best idea to share details of my personal plan (bad guys do read), I have no problem offering a few tips for you to create your own plan.

If a killer wants in your home, there isn’t much you can do about it. Nonetheless, there are ways to make your home safer.

According to FBI statistics, a burglar strikes every 30 seconds in the U.S., with almost 29% occurring with someone in the home. Technically, that would be a robbery, not a burglary.

If your house is broken into when no one’s home, it’s a burglary.

If your house is broken into while you’re there, it’s a robbery or home invasion.

Criminology reports don’t yet consider the most unique time in recent history.

Due to voluntary quarantines and more people working from home, the risk of coming face-to-face with a home invader has never been higher. Although burglaries can and do happen at any time, they’re most common during daytime hours. Those numbers spike during the summer months.

By learning how to properly secure and protect your home against invasions or burglaries at any time of the day or night, you can reduce your chances of becoming a victim. Evaluate your home, change your routine when you do leave, and implement other home security measures.

“Safeguarding your home is all about protecting the human asset which is why ensuring it is done efficiently is paramount. Remember, cheap is expensive so don’t gamble with your physical well-being.”

— Paul V. Viollis, Viollis Group International

It’s estimated 34% of all criminals enter a home through the front door. Shocking, right? Knowing this, all exterior doors should be solid core, not hollow. Consider reinforcing your door frames and hinges by installing dead bolts, three-inch screws in door jambs, and secure the sliders.

I watched an interview with an inmate who burglarized over 5,000 homes.

Guess which houses he targeted? The ones with sliding glass doors. Why? It’s one of the easiest entry points. That dowel rod or bar you put in the track is not enough. Nor is the flimsy lock on the handle. With a screwdriver pried under the door, a home invader can pop it open without any harm to the glass. Even with the security bar, a home invader can jerk the door right off the track—a slick move I used in my latest thriller. Thank you, Mr. Inmate. 😉

House alarms only secure the frame of the sliders, not the glass.

Let’s say the home invader has no burglary skills. He’s not interested in robbing you. He’s there to kill you, like in the scenario that began this post. By law, most sliders are made of tempered glass. Sounds like a good thing, right?

Yes and no.

If struck with a tire iron, tempered glass doesn’t shatter into a million pieces. All the shards stay intact as one big sheet. It’s a great safety feature to prevent injury to a child or an unsteady adult. But that same safety feature also protects the home invader.

“Once that glass shatters, I walk right through. Safety glass is not gonna cut you.” — Mr. Inmate

This video will show you how to secure your sliders, where to drill in the screws to prevent a home invader or burglar from lifting the door off the track, and demonstrates Glass Break sensors (more on that in a minute).

Another easy entry point for a robber, burglar, rapist, or killer is a garage door left wide-open. Remember, the majority of home invasions/burglaries occur during the day. How easy is it to pull out of the driveway and forget to lower the garage door? After all, you’re only running a quick errand.

The next time you drive away without lowering the garage door, remember this…

A home invader sneaks in while you’re out—hides—and waits for you to return. How safe are you now?

Believe it or not, residents of gated communities are often prime targets. Why? Because the front gates and/or guards offer them a false sense of security. Same is true for homeowners with an alarm system. Does that mean you shouldn’t install an alarm? No. Just don’t blindly trust that alarm without other safety measures in place.

If you let your guard down and forget to lock a window…

“If you leave one thing open, then leave it all open. Because the thief [or home invader] will find that one thing open.”

— Mr. Inmate

When asked how to safeguard one’s family, Mr. Inmate shared more wisdom.

“The only way to stop somebody is to deter ’em. Keep your doors locked. Keep your windows from opening up more than six inches. Glass Break sensors [are] the only way to deter somebody. Because when they see that Glass Break attached to that window [or sliding door] they know this is a well-secured home.”

Most alarm companies sell Glass Break sensors or detectors. They’re also available at online retailers. Incidentally, the anonymous Mr. Inmate didn’t go to jail for burglary. Police picked him up for loitering and prowling. Which means, he’ll be back on the streets.

Other safety measures…

  • Upgrade the locks on exterior doors and windows with high security locks.
  • Install a wide-angled peephole, cover when not in use.
  • Consider adding protective film to first-floor windows. For those who live in coastal communities, you’re all set. High-impact, high-wind hurricane glass is near impossible to break.
  • Install high intensity LED motion sensor lighting on all sides of your home.
  • Trim trees and shrubbery away from your windows—perfect hiding spots for home invaders. If you must have bushes, make sure they have thorny branches.
  • Add window stops to double hung windows.
  • Cement bases add stability to fencing. Although less attractive, open metal or chain link fences are the safest, as solid walls provide an easier foothold and privacy for the home invader.
  • Draw curtains and blinds in unoccupied rooms.
  • Try not to leave valuables in plain sight near windows.
  • Install smart locks. Many systems allow you to remotely check and lock your doors and windows.
  • Keep your keys and cell phone on the bedside table at night.

If you’ve taken every precaution and a home invader still gets inside, be sure to have a plan in place. Practice, like a fire drill.

The safest option is to flee.

Let a home invader take your valuables, not your life. Grab your cell phone and keys and climb out the nearest window, onto the roof. If you don’t have time to escape, hide and text 911. Text messages receive the same priority as phone calls. Even if the home invader finds you, you’ve already notified the authorities, which gives you a much better chance of survival.

Unless you have training, a weapon can and will be used against you. If you grab a gun, you better be able to pull the trigger without hesitation. A home invasion can turn deadly quick. Whose life is more important, yours or the scumbag who broke in?

Calculate. Every. Move.

How high is the roof? Will the fall kill you? If so, don’t jump. Stay put and wait for the police to arrive. Unless you’re dealing with a psychopath hellbent on murder, most home invaders won’t crawl on the roof to drag you back inside.

Easy prey dies first in the animal kingdom. Don’t be easy prey.

Think like a criminal—you’re a writer! Just because the bad guy broke into your home doesn’t mean you automatically play the victim role. Flip the script. He’ll wish he chose a different house. 🙂

Back to my original scenario. What did you jot down? Has your answer changed? How? Feel free to share any other home safety tips.

 

What Would A Famous Writer Tell You?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Here’s a fun little exercise I’ve used from time to time to jumpstart the ol’ creative battery. It only takes about 90 seconds. 

Begin by finding a quiet spot where you will not be interrupted. Sit in a comfortable chair, feet on the floor. Relax. Close your eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths. 

Now imagine that you are walking through a beautiful meadow. Take time to smell the flowers. (Note: there are no cows in this meadow.) 

Up ahead you see a cabin with a bit of smoke curling out of the chimney. Vividly imagine this cabin. Notice the materials and the colors. Smell the smoke. 

You walk up to the door and find it slightly open. You step into the cabin and see a famous writer—or one of your personal favorites—tapping away at a keyboard. (Note: The writer can be deceased, but try not to pre-choose who it is. Let your right brain hop in and provide the answer.)

The writer looks at you, slightly annoyed at being interrupted, and you tell said writer that you have come for one piece of writing advice that you desperately need. The writer, who is somehow familiar with your work, thinks for a moment, and says, “_______.”

Here’s what happened when I did this a few days ago. The writer was John D. MacDonald. He was writing on an electric typewriter with his ever-present pipe in his mouth. 

He finished typing a sentence and looked at me.

I said, “Sorry to interrupt, but I really need a piece of advice for my writing. Would you mind?”

MacDonald took a couple of thoughtful puffs, then said, “Work harder on your sentences.”

I wanted to pull up a chair and ask him to elaborate. But he waved me off. “I have to get back to work,” he said and started typing again. 

I walked back through the meadow, pondering his advice. I remembered something he once said about his own style. He wanted it to have “a bit of unobtrusive poetry.”

The key word is unobtrusive. He didn’t want readers noticing the poetry, just feeling it as it served the story. 

I had to admit I wasn’t taking enough time lately to think about my sentences. I determined to do more light editing after I’ve written a scene to see if I can add just a touch of unobtrusive poetry. I started to think about how. I can:

  • search for more active verbs.
  • freshen an adjective.
  • come up with a metaphor.
  • put the strongest part of the sentence at the end. For example, instead of He was holding a gun when he came through the door I can arrange it this way: He came through the door holding a gun.

You can do this exercise whenever you need some inspiration. In the past I’ve received advice from Hemingway, Mark Twain, and Raymond Chandler.

Then I let them get back to work. 

Care to try it? Don’t make something up on the spot. You want your subconscious to participate. Follow the steps for at least a minute and a half. 

Who did you find in the cabin, and what did that writer tell you? What will you do with the advice?

The Creep Factor

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“Wortham’s outstanding sequel to The Rock Hole (2011)… Burrows combines the gonzo sensibility of Joe R. Lansdale and the elegiac mood of To Kill a Mockingbird to strike just the right balance between childhood innocence and adult horror.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

I read that review back in 2012 and wondered, “What’s Publishers Weekly?”

I honestly didn’t know much about reviewers, or starred reviews, but I hadn’t written a horror novel, had I?

Burrows was simply the second book in my Red River series about precocious ten-year-old kids living in a Mayberry-like setting when a killer comes to town.

But horror?

Always a fan of that genre, I cut my teeth on H.P. Lovecraft, graduating from there to Stephen King, Karl Edward Wagner, Gary Brandner, Richard Matheson and I admit, I read a lot of John Saul and shame on me, V.C. Andrews, but I hadn’t set out to write a novel meant to scare, startle, shock, and even repulse my new readers. I just wanted to tell a creepy story and start it with something I’d written years earlier.

They say the key focus of a horror novel is to elicit a sense of dread through frightening images, themes, and situations.

I didn’t know that either, at the time.

But I did remember that Lovecraft wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

It was the unknown part I was shooting for somewhere around 2001 with an attempt to get Stephen King’s attention as part of an online short story contest after his book, On Writing, was released. Once I learned that he was looking for short stories, I sat down to write one.

Wait, what? I’d never written a short story.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. I’d attempted one back in the 1980s that was damned near a novella and it was almost published by a magazine that shut down only a month after they accepted my submission. Sigh.

Hey, just write shorter, I thought. And I did.

Five entries out of 1,000 submissions won the contest and their names were posted on Mr. King’s website, but my story, Drip, didn’t make the cut. Not wanting to waste the effort, I submitted Drip to several magazines. No one else wanted it either. I wonder if it was the title. Anyway, with a stack of rejection notices the size of a ham sandwich, I stuck it in a drawer until my editor called.

“Well, now that The Rock Hole is scheduled for release in a few months, when can we expect your next novel?”

“What!!!???”

“We need it pretty fast.” She gave me a deadline. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Toodles.”

I spoke into the dead line. “Neither can I.”

Somewhat desperate, I had an idea and dug that old short story out of my computer files to re-read what I’d written so long ago. It began with one word, drip, hence the title. The scene? Kendall Boden has a casual, one-sided conversation with a man with a bullet in his head, as blood slowly drips from the victim’s nose to puddle in his lap.

From there, someone discovers a headless body in the Red River, and the novel is off and running with Cody Parker’s nightmare premonition playing out in real life. A hoarder of the first order has filled the multi-story abandoned Cotton Exchange with tons of scavenged garbage and booby traps. Pursuing a lead, Cody and Deputy John Washington find themselves inside the fire trap, lost in a deadly maze of burrows and their own personal terrors.

Everything revolves around a suspect from the town’s past who needs to be caught before more headless bodies pile up, and they do.

So what was it that made some reviewers call this a horror novel, while I thought I was simply writing a second mystery?

Well, it scared the pee-waddlin’ out of folks for one thing. Trapped inside a shoulder-wide burrow?

Brrrr.

Some readers said they couldn’t finish it because it was too claustrophobic. That makes sense, we all have certain things that terrify us, and that includes spiders…

…that are in the novel, as well as rats and moldering corpses…

…yeah, they’re in there too, along with a lunatic who is the architect of it all, but even that crazy person isn’t as he seems.

Upon submission six months later, my agent told me that first chapter was the most frightening thing she’d ever read. Yeah, the unsellable short story, Drip, was Chapter One. Take that, Mr. King.

We’re all familiar with movies in this genre that startles us with people who suddenly jump out of nowhere, or shock us with a hand reaching from the darkness, or a human-like creature who looks at the audience with psychotic eyes from under lowered brows. I call them shock films.

But movies are different than horror novels.

Written or literary horror slowly feeds on audience’s deepest terrors, and not the abovementioned Shock Factor. It’s built upon those things which scare us as individuals, such as death, evil, the supernatural, or creatures that slither around out there in the darkness. It’s built upon the unknown.

How do you write horror? In my opinion you have to quit trying to say things that you think are scary.

Instead, create an atmosphere of dread. Show, don’t tell.

Horror isn’t splattered blood and guts. Oh, I guess that’s horrific if you really come across it. When I was a kid I followed my grandfather into a murder scene (he was a constable), and was witness to fresh blood still running down the walls and dripping from the ceiling in the living room of a small frame house out in the country. When he realized I was behind him, he knocked me back through the screen door with the flat of his hand and ordered me to stay outside.

Come to think of it, the sight of all that blood wasn’t horrific at all, but maybe it waited somewhere deep inside to reemerge in a more subtle way through my writing.

Again, horror is a carefully designed build of dread and suspense. To be successful, get inside the reader’s head and show them what scares them the most. Create a world where their deepest fears can be reality. Find something that’s common and benign, and dig deeper to reveal a surprise or twist that will haunt your reader long after they close the book.

Find something that’s festering inside them, and pick it out.

What’s more creepy than a huge old decaying building full of living, squirming creatures that live in absolute darkness and brush up against you, or crawl over your trapped body.

What about a troubled character with a pitiful, miserable past full of secrets that comes calling after years of treatment in psychiatric hospitals?

One reader told me Burrows scared him because he had a personal fear that tons of refuse could come down at any minute to crush him into paste. I’ve often wondered where that dread originated.

I thought I’d written an historical mystery thriller, but in the end, I hammered out a work that seriously creeped people out. Fans still tell me, “That was the scariest book I’ve read in years.”

“Why?”

They answer, “Because it could happen.”

Or, “Because I’m deathly afraid of rats.”

And often, “Because I’m claustrophobic. I had to read one chapter a night, then calm myself each time.”

I’ve heard, “I was shocked at the twist.”

And when they say, “Because there could be people like that living amongst us.”

I reply, “There are, and that’s horrifying because it’s real.”

What’s your creep factor?

 

 

 

Reader Friday: Global Recycling Day

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Today is Global Recycling Day, created in 2018 to recognize the importance of recycling in preserving our natural resources. “Think resource not waste.” Are you using any creative ways to use “waste” as a “resource” in your house, your writing space, or writing process? Or, are you recycling materials that would otherwise be discarded?