Romancing the Reader

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I’m no expert in the romance genre. I do know it’s the best selling slice of the fiction pie and is dominated by female authors (along with some guy named Sparks).

And I’m pretty darn sure of this: there’s a romantic relationship in these novels. (Check me on that.)

Reasons given for the popularity of romance novels include deep emotional connection, vicarious pleasure, escapism, and the satisfaction of a “happily ever after” ending.

Which is why the romantic subplot is so often utilized in other genres. Everyone (or almost everyone) loves a love story. Whether that’s the subject of the book, or merely an aspect of it, love and its machinations draw readers in and connect them to the characters in a singular fashion.

Someone who I’d say has a handle on this is Nora Roberts. She’s published a few books (I think the number is 225 right now, but may have just ticked up). Most of them landed at or near the top of the NYT list.

I was going through one of my many binders full of clipped Writer’s Digest articles (dating from 1988) and came across a profile of Roberts from 2001, back when she’d published “only” 130 novels.

The reason I saved it was three-fold. First, because of her work ethic. For most of her career she’s held to an 8-hour writing day, five days a week. She says she had an advantage in being educated by nuns. “I was raised with discipline and guilt—they’re wonderful writer’s tools.”

Also of interest to me is her method. Her practice is to “pants” a “short” first draft. It gives her the basic story. Then she goes back to the beginning and adds elements to fill things out. Then there’s another pass (a “polish”) and she’s done. (I do think that’s a fine way to write a novel. I would call that short first draft actually a very long outline! That’s one way to “discover” your story.)

And third, she gave her thoughts on what makes a successful commercial novel:

Your characters have to jump off the page. They have to appeal to the reader in some way. If you don’t care about the people, then it’s all action, and who cares about that if you don’t care about who drives the action or who the action happens to? It’s all about who these people are.

(Horn toot: there’s a book out there on how to write “jump off the page” characters.)

Roberts says, “Character is plot. Character is everything and the story wraps around them.” I’d add that plot is also character, in that the story wrapping around them has to challenge them to the max, and force their true character to be revealed and, in most cases, transformed.

A romantic subplot, as I mentioned, is a powerful way to add flavor to a novel, in any genre. All my series—Kit Shannon, Mallory Caine, Ty Buchanan, and Mike Romeo—have a romance element. I’m a sucker for love, too.

There’s another, equally potent plot device which I call the “Care Package.” It refers to a relationship the Lead has before the book begins, one where the Lead cares deeply about someone else. Katniss Everdeen has her mother and Prim. Luke Skywalker has his aunt and uncle. Dorothy has Toto.

The bottom line is that we always root for a) people who fall in love; and b) people who care about other people, with no thought of personal gain. We want decent people to succeed.

That’s how an author can romance the reader. And readers who fall in love with your book will be anxious to buy another one.

Comments welcome.

The Major Characters of The Woman in White

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In her previous post, Kay DiBianca provided us with the history and plot of the first mystery novel, Wilkie Collins Victorian masterpiece The Woman in White.

Count Fosco, accompanying himself on the concertina while singing “The Barber of Seville.”

Today’s second part will look at the major characters of the novel, and show some of the connections between them, which is a vital aspect of this story.

Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White is a big novel, with a large cast. In this second part, I will discuss the most. Collins’ narrative style is epistolatory, with each POV providing  a written account that bears on the events of the novel and the unraveling of several intertwined mysteries at the heart of the story.

Several of these characters provide points of view, and I’ll note the ones who do. As much as I can, I’m discussing the characters in the order in which Collins’ introduces them into the storyline.

***

Walter Hartright: Our first point of view is also one of our main characters. Hartright is a young drawing-master unemployed at the start of the story. His late father had been a highly successful drawing-master who had been able to earn enough income that Walter’s mother and sister would be financially secure, while Walter had “succeeded to his connection,” meaning inheriting his father’s reputation as a drawing-master.

Walter is kind and curious, but also a bit naïve in the ways of the world and love at the start. He proves willing to help a stranger, the mysterious woman in white. He falls in love with his pupil Laura Fairlie, and has a significant character arc which demonstrates his considerable courage.

Professor Pesca: A teacher of Italian saved from drowning by Hartright when both were vacationing at the sea shore. Highly intelligent, passionate, and gregarious, as well as very loyal, Pesca has embraced the customs and dress of his adopted homeland, England, and vowed to repay his new, dear friend for saving his life. He finds Walter the drawing-instructor position at Limmeridge House.

Anne Catherick: The night before Hartright is to leave London for Cumberland to take up his new position as drawing-instructor at Limmeridge House, he takes an evening walk out of the great city, and encounters mysterious and distressed young woman in white, who, he later learns, had escaped from an asylum.

She questions Hartright, and is relieved when he says he does not a certain baronet. She asks his help in reaching London, which he gives, and assists her into a taxi. She refuses to tell him her name, but is very grateful for his aid. Anne is suffers ongoing distress and anxiety, typically dressing all in white, and believes she knows a great secret about Laura’s betrothed, Sir Percival Glyde.

Marian Halcombe: One of Hartright’s new students is the half-sister of Laurie Fairlie, his other pupil at Limmeridge. She the first person (aside from servants) Walter meets after arriving at Limmeridge House. Tall with a lovely form Hartright finds at odds with her mannish face, Marian has piercing eyes and a keen intelligence, Marian is fiercely protective of her beloved half-sister, and becomes friends with Hartright, to the point of considering him to be like a brother to her. Marian tell Hartright the name of the woman in white.

She is our third point of view, and the most significant one after Hartright’s. When she realizes Hartright and Laura have fallen in love, she convinces Hartright to leave his position and Limmeridge for Laura’s matrimonial benefit, asking the family attorney to help him find employment, which leads to Hartright joining an expedition to Honduras. On more than one occasion, she laments being unable to act in the fashion of a man in order to protect her sister. She’s daring, and at a crucial moment, puts herself at great risk to discover what the villains are up to.

Frederick Fairlie: Laura Fairlie’s uncle, and the man who hired Hartright to tutor his niece and her half-sister in the art of drawing. Fairlie is a supreme hypochondriac who is also extremely noise adverse, and wants nothing more than to be left alone with his precious collections of coins and Rembrandt etchings. He uses his valet as a human etching stand without concern for the fellow’s wellbeing.

Fairlie refuses to become involved when Sir Percival demands Fairlie’s niece Laura (now Lady Glyde) give him control her fortune, rather than just receiving the income from that fortune as stipulated in the marriage agreement. His refusal is a master class in deflection and passive-aggression, and he falls back on his proclaimed invalid status repeatedly, claiming the stress of all of this is too much for him. The man who should be the guardian of Laura is anything but. He will be another point of view character.

Laura Fairlie: the beautiful half-sister of Marian Halcombe, heiress of Limmeridge and the Fairlie family fortune. Hartright realizes Laura looks remarkedly like Anne Catherick.

Sensitive and intelligent, Laura is very honor and duty bound, no matter her love for Hartright. Despite misgivings about her impending marriage, she persists in upholding the arrangement. She cares deeply for her beloved half-sister Marian, and wants to see provisions for Marian made, which Sir Percival will not allow.

Vincent Gilmore: the knowledgeable and dedicated family attorney, representing Laura’s interests in her marriage with Sir Percival. Summoned by Marian to aid her sister, he does his utmost to uphold the marriage agreement concerned Lady Glyde’s fortune.

Sir Percival Glyde, Baronet: Laura Fairlie’s fiancée and then husband. Described as handsome, thanks in part to his distinguished baldness on the front half of the top of his head. He initially is charming and attentive, but as the narrative progresses, his short temper, utter lack of empathy, and abrasiveness come increasingly to the fore.

At a crucial moment, Percival insists on his wife signing a document, the nature of which he refuses to disclose. There is a mysterious connection between Glyde and Anne Catherick. He illustrates the old maxim, “appearances can be deceiving.”

Count Fosco: An Italian nobleman and close friend of Sir Percival, and married to Laura Fairlie’s aunt. Physically large and corpulent, Fosco is highly educated, fluent in English, urbane yet quirky in his tastes. He has a knowledge of science and a love for music. He dotes on his pet mice and canaries, letting the mice roam over his vast person.

At one point when Laura refuses to sign the mysterious document, Fosco intervenes, calling for a pause, and then proceeds to play “The Barber of Seville” on his concertina. He is instantly attracted to the unconventional Marian Halcombe. He can be gentle, yet also possesses a powerful personality not to be thwarted.

A telling conversation occurs between Fosco and Laura and Marian, when Percival observes that a sandy, melancholy lakeside would make a perfect location for a murder. Laura says “the crime will cause its own solution.” Fosco replies:

“The fool’s crime is the crime that is found out; and the wise man’s crime is the crime that is not found out. If I could give you an instance, it would not be the instance of a wise man.”

Fosco is another point of view character.

Countess Fosco: The wife of Count Fosco, and Laura Fairley’s aunt. Before her marriage the Countess was unconventional, loud, ‘unlady-like’ in brashly offering observations, but since her marriage, has become an exemplary wife, loyal, seen more often than heard, and Fosco himself refers to her in very loving terms. She is a ready helper when needed in her husband’s endevors

Mrs. Catherick: The mother of Anne Catherlick, we learn no love is lost between her and her unfortunate, distressed daughter. She is connected in someway to Sir Percival Glyde and a secret he possesses. She is also a point of view character at one point in the novel.

There many other, more minor characters, but these are the ones I see as major.

This first mystery is well worth reading, or listening to in audio. Accomplished actors Ian Holm and Tim McInnery have both narrated the book.

***

Have you read The Woman in White? If you have, do you have a favorite character? If not, are you interested now in doing so?

Note: I greatly enjoyed putting this together, which was good because I managed to catch COVID for the first time at the start of this week, after returning from a writer’s retreat. I did my best to proof this post–fingers crossed no typos slipped past my slightly fogged brain.

Image of Count Fosco from The Victorian Web.

Reader Friday-Playing With The Storymatic

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We’re going to have a bit of fun here at The Killzone today. At least, I’m pretty sure it’ll be fun…

Have you heard of The Storymatic? Check out this website. It’s also available for purchase on Amazon. There are several versions of the game also–even one especially for the kiddos in your life.

* * *

So, here’s what I’d like to do.

I have chosen four “story prompt cards” from the box. See below.

There are two “plot” cards and two “character” cards from which to build a story.

Then, (and this is the audience participation part) you will use the prompts to write the first line or first paragraph or so of the story and share it with us right here on TKZ. Sound fun?

Here’s our assignment:

CHARACTERS: House Cleaner, Investigative Reporter

PLOT: Something Inside The Wall, Safety Deposit Box

***

Now it’s your turn, TKZers. Give us the first line or paragraph of your story using the above prompts. Don’t hold back now!

Look for mine in the comments. Let’s go for it . . .

 

 

 

 

Timeless Writing Advice from C.S. Lewis

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By all accounts, Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis was a writer’s writer. He was a British literary scholar who penned fiction and non-fiction along with many, many assorted pieces. Think Chronicles of Narnia (Lion, Witch, Wardrobe) and Miracles. When C.S. Lewis died in 1963, he was famous world-wide as a brilliant man and a decent one, too.

Recently, I was Facebook scrolling and an image popped up in my feed. It was a copy of short letter Lewis wrote on 14 December 1959 to a schoolgirl in America whose teacher contacted Lewis asking him to give writing advice to her student. Here’s the image:

I read this four times to let the simplicity, yet depth, of his words to sink in—the timeless writing advice from a true master. While several of his 1959 points are modified by sixty-six years of technological advances (replace radio with smartphone, but don’t dismiss the hushed computer keyboard as a clackity-clack mechanical typewriter).

The main points C.S. Lewis sets forth are eternal. Read decent stuff… filter crap. Avoid distraction. Use the ear. Evoke personal interest and imagination. Be clear. Bake the manuscript. Get in the zone; the flow. And know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.

Kill Zoners — What timeless writing advice can you give to today’s schoolgirl in America?

BTW, visit the S.S. Lewis official website for a complete catalog of his works.

Attention New Writers: Ignore Naysayers, Go Traditional

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By John Gilstrap

Full disclosure: some of this post first appeared as a late-in-the-day comment on Brother Bell’s excellent post last Sunday.

Dear Rookie Writer,

No matter what you hear from your writer buddy who heard it from a friend who knows a guy in the publishing industry, agents and editors are hungry and actively hunting for new material. Are they picky about quality? Of course they are. Can it be hard to get an agent’s attention? You betcha, Red Rider. Is it the single most reliable model to make some scratch as a newbie without any readership? One hundred percent.

The vast majority of new writers (read: yet-to-be-published writers) I meet at conferences and such espouse no interest in making a living as a writer. Most just want to see their books in print, whether it be on paper or with electrons. When they hear that their pacing is off or that their characters are flat, they seem not to care. And why should they? They just sat through three sessions on self-publishing that pumped them up on a thrilling publishing world with no gate keepers.

These new writers commit themselves to the indie route because at its face it’s easier. In the end, 90+% of them will spend thousands of dollars in production costs and will complain that they’ve only been able to a hundred copies, mostly at their family reunion. Still, they print business cards pronouncing themselves to be published authors and dare anyone to claim otherwise.

The biggest obstacle to success in indie publishing is the inability for real talent to rise above the noise of the dreck. And when the rare exceptions like Andy Weir rise up and get notice, their careers only get supercharged after signing with a traditional publisher. (Work with me here. There are undoubtedly other one-off exceptions, but they are extremely rare.)

If a new writer wants a shot (nothing close to a guarantee, but at least a shot) at selling thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies of his book, then I believe the traditional route is the only one to consider.

First, there’s the issue of the money flow. It’s a one-way valve. Author pays nothing. Yes, the royalty scale is a minority percentage of overall revenue (a negotiated percentage–thus the importance of an agent), but the publisher has taken all the risk. X% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

The right traditional publisher opens up doors to marketing routes that are otherwise locked for indies (Goodreads, BookBub, etc.). They can get your book into libraries, and they have access to the otherwise locked-away network of sub agents who can sell your book to foreign publishers so your book can be published in multiple languages. Each copy sold is more cash in the author’s pocket.

Then there’s the access to studios for film options.

This is the entertainment business, folks, where the odds of true success are slim. But as a rookie, you want to stack as many of the slim odds in your favor as you can. If you go the indie route first and your book does not sell, you have all but closed the door to future entry into the traditional publishing world. Make your career choices accordingly.

Now, the case FOR indie publishing:

Back in the day, when I had a Big Boy Job, I was the director of safety for an international trade association. In the words of Ron Burgundy, I was a pretty big deal. My particular squint on safety management principles was both unique and effective. I traveled extensively to speak to large crowds. For a brief while, after I left the association, I considered writing a safety management book and joining the speaker’s circuit. (Working title: Safety is Not Number One)

Had I followed through, I would have had to self publish that book because the potential market is very small. I could have sold the hell out of the books I brought with me (or I could have made it part of the speaking fee), but there wouldn’t be enough money to attract a publisher.

If (God forbid) Kensington were to shift its focus and drop my Jonathan Grave series, I would consider continuing it independently, but I would be doing it with a substantial established readership base.

There is no one common path for everyone. But before choosing your path, or dismissing one, I urge you to evaluate your goals and objectives.

AI And The Novel: Can A
Million Monkeys Be Wrong?

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By PJ Parrish

In the wee wee hours of the morning this week, I had an idea for a new story. Now, most things that happen around 3 a.m. usually don’t end well, and I should have remembered that, considering that the last time I was startled awake at that hour was when a coyote and neighborhood cat were squaring off in my driveway.

But no, I got up, grabbed a pen and wrote down an opening paragraph. Let me share it here now:

The deep waters, black as ink, began to swell and recede into an uncertain distance. A gray ominous mist obscured the horizon. The ocean expanse seemed to darken in disapproval. Crashing tides sounded groans of agonized discontent. The ocean pulsed with a frightening, vital force. Although hard to imagine, life existed beneath. Its infinite underbelly was teeming with life, a monstrous collection of finned, tentacled, toxic, and slimy parts. Below its surface lay the wreckage of countless souls. But we had dared to journey across it. Some had even been brave enough to explore its sable velveteen depths, and have yet to come up for precious air.

Whee, doggies! What’s that smell?

Okay, I didn’t really write that. But I had you going for a sec, didn’t I. But someone DID write it. Actually, it was 1,476 people who wrote that, give or take a few. This gawd awful paragraph was created years ago by Penguin Books for a project called “A Million Penguins.”

Maybe you heard about it. The idea was to write a novel with a million collaborators to be called a “wiki-novel”. It was launched by Penguin Books in collaboration with Kate Pullinger on behalf of the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University.

This is what the Penguin folks said on their website: “We’ve created a space where anyone can contribute to the writing of a novel and anyone can edit anyone else’s writing….we want to see whether a community can really get together, put creative differences aside (or sort them out through discussion) and produce a novel.”

Anyone could call up the site and contribute to the story. Because the site got more than 100 edits every hour, Penguin imposed “reading windows” that froze the novel so that editors could read over what had been changed to get their bearings on where the story was going. Chaos reigned. A month in, Penguin mercifully pulled the plug.

I was thinking about the Penguin project this week after reading an article at Literary Hub about how AI is transforming our business, and why writers should embrace it. To quote the author Debbie Urbanski in part:

So here’s what I really want us to imagine for the purpose of this essay: An AI writes a novel and the novel is good.

This is what a lot of people, and certainly a lot of writers, are angry and scared about right now. That AI, having been trained on a massive amount of data, including copyrighted books written by uncompensated authors, will begin writing as well or better than us, and then we’ll be out of a job. These concerns over intellectual property and remuneration are important but right now, it feels they’re dominating the discussion, especially when there are other worthwhile topics that I’d like to see added to the conversation around AI and writing.

Such as: how can humans and AI collaborate creatively?

Which brings me to a third possibility to consider: Can AI and a human write a novel together?

Sigh. I dunno. She posits that there is a “collaboration” possible between writer and AI. And that’s where I get queasy.

I collaborated with my sister Kelly on 15 books and a lot of short stories. It was at times a fitful process but always fruitful because we were equals and more important, we recognized that there was a third party in the collaboration that was always going to win any argument — the story.

I’ve had a couple other experiences with collaboration. Jeffery Deaver and Jim Fusilli asked me to join 14 other writers for a novel called The Chopin Manuscript, published by the International Thriller Writers. Deaver got the plot in motion and we each had a chapter after that. It was fun, frenetic and in hindsight, not a bad novel considering the inevitable clash of styles and egos. I remember I gleefully killed off one of the main characters in a great chase through the Paris catacombs but Jeff overruled me. We went on to write two more “serial thrillers” for ITW.

Letting another brain into your writing process isn’t easy. It should be approached with only the greatest care and clear-mindedness. When it goes bad — and I know some writers who’ve had it go very bad — it conjures up the Infinite Monkey Theorem:

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare. In fact, the monkey would almost surely type every possible finite text an infinite number of times. The theorem can be generalized to state that any sequence of events that has a non-zero probability of happening will almost certainly occur an infinite number of times, given an infinite amount of time or a universe that is infinite in size.

Which is how I view AI. I’m a retired Luddite who has no real stake in this brave new world. But I know that I should be paying closer attention. I have a friend who has been asked to write a script about the history of the mystery genre. He is struggling mightily because the subject is both broad and deep. He resorted to ChatGPT. And damned if the thing didn’t spit out a workable script. But it has an oddly lifeless quality, like someone afraid to color outside the lines.

So what happened to The Million Penguins project? The university behind it published A Million Penguins Research Report. It concluded:  “We have demonstrated that the wiki novel experiment was the wrong way to try to answer the question of whether a community could write a novel, but as an adventure in exploring new forms of publishing, authoring and collaboration it was ground-breaking and exciting.”

Groundbreaking. Exciting. Sounds just like what they’re saying about AI. Or is that sound just the thundering footsteps of a million monkeys?

Keep coloring outside those lines, friends.

 

Scars Tell a Story #WriteTip

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Close-up of a scarred male lion

Click to Enlarge

While watching my wildlife gorge on peanuts, bread, almonds, dates, and raisins one morning, an impressive male bluejay caught my attention. Tall, well-built, and mysterious. The moment he landed on the food table in front of my window, the scarring on his face came into focus, and I wondered what happened to him.

Scars tell a story, an undeniable truth of the past. Perhaps “Scar” had a run-in with a hawk in his youth. The scars looked old, as though they’d formed during his development years or changed him as a young adult. The feathers atop the usual bluejay markings were much darker — midnight black — the skin obviously disrupted by a traumatic experience.

What was Scar’s wounding event? Did he fight this battle alone? Or did a predator kill his entire family in the nest?

I can only speculate. The answers died long ago.

All in all, Scar is a happy little dude, but also more cautious than the others, which adds some validity to my hypothesis as to how he received the scars. I’m intrigued by Scar, and pray a human didn’t hurt him. He piques my interest. Keeps me guessing about his past.

If Scar was a character in a novel, I could never stop flipping pages until I’d unraveled the mystery behind his scars. The author would have hooked me simply by showing me his face. What seems like a minor detail like a scar adds to the hero’s characterization. And you can bet an emotional scar lurks behind the physical disruption. All species, including humans, are affected by past events.

bluejay on snow

Not Scar. I cannot photograph him while we’re building trust.

Take Scar, for example. He waits for others to sample the food before he takes a bite. He watches how I interact with the other bluejays before he approaches.

He’s careful.

Reserved.

Suspicious of humans or new food sources.

The rest of the party (my favorite collective noun for a group of bluejays) scream with excitement and joy.

Not Scar. He’s quiet. Hangs back. Learns. Only after he’s gathered enough intel to satisfy his inquisitive mind does he feel safe enough to fly closer. I admire that about him. It shows he’s intelligent.

As writers, we’re told to include emotional scars but we also shouldn’t avoid physical scars. And not only for villains. Heroes wear scars, too.

Tattoos are often reminders of a special time in one’s life or symbolize what the wearer loves, embodies, or believes in. They can also help the wearer regain control over a trauma or cover, even enhance, a physical scar.

Years ago, I knew a young woman who was born with a cleft palate and left with scars from the corrective surgery. She never felt beautiful. All she could see were her scars. But she was beautiful, inside and out. Since few could make her see herself through their eyes, she turned to drugs and alcohol and eventually lost her life.

Some say, it’s more difficult for women to deal with facial scars than men. I know from personal experience that isn’t necessarily true. Both men and women try to hide scars public. It’s easier than having to retell — or relive — the story behind them.

Back in 1995, I was involved in a car accident that threw me into the windshield. Half conscious, I opened my eyes while stuck in the glass and tried to break free. The movement tore off my left eyebrow, eyelashes, upper eyelid, a chunk of my nose, split open my upper lip, and cracked all my teeth. The hospital called in a plastic surgeon to repair the damage to the left side of my face. Doctors told me I’d never regrow my eyebrow or eyelashes. For a girl in her twenties, it was devastating news.

I’ve never been one to follow the norm, or listen to doctors who think they can predict the future. Instead, I prayed for a miracle. Little by little, as I picked glass shards out of both eyes for several weeks, tiny hairs filled in my eyebrow and my lashes sprouted new growth. The doctors couldn’t believe it. My progress from the accident to full eyebrow and lashes is now in medical journals.

The emergency plastic surgery left me with scars on my eyelid, nose, and above my left upper lip. If you and I met in person, you might never notice. I only allow those closest to me to see my scars without makeup. When I’m tired, they pop right out. Not sure why scars get more visible then, but I’m not alone…

A dear friend for the last 30+ years got badly injured on a motorcycle when his gas tank exploded. The melted skin covering his right armpit looks like it belongs to Freddy Kruger. And the deep scarring on his forehead and zipper-like indent in his skull are still prominent 40 years after the accident. I love his scars. He wouldn’t be the same man without them.

Not only are scars reminders of past trauma but how one dealt with the injury and pain, then and now.

Like me, my friend also covers his scars in public. Only those closest to him are allowed to see the extent of his old injuries (2nd dimension of character = the person family and friends know). Neither of us regret our scars. They remind us that we’re lucky to be alive, along with all our other physical scars. Doesn’t mean we want to share them with the world (1st dimension of character = one’s public face).

See how a detail like a scar can inform one’s character? Keep it in mind while crafting your hero or secondary characters. Just remember to note them in your story bible, so a scar on the left cheek doesn’t move to the right in subsequent chapters and/or books. LOL

Would anyone like to share their scars and the story behind them? Have you ever seen a scarred bluejay or other backyard bird? I don’t dare photograph Scar until he gets to know me better, or the trust we’ve built may crumble.

The Shadow Knows

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Orson Welles as The Shadow

For years, classic radio audiences thrilled to this opening: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” This was followed by a sinister laugh. (Orson Welles played the role for a couple of years.)

The Shadow was a good guy, a vigilante who stopped bad guys. It was the secret identity of one Lamont Cranston, a wealthy young man who spent time in the Orient and learned a hypnotic power “to cloud men’s minds.” Thus, he could make himself “invisible” to the criminals, who could only hear his haunting voice.

There’s also an invisible part of every novel you write. And once again, the Shadow knows!

I refer to what I call the “shadow story.” That’s what’s happening off the page. Meaning that when a scene is unfolding before us, characters who are not in the scene are still active. They are reacting to plot developments, and planning and carrying out counter moves.

You may choose not to know about any of that, but in your story’s world, it’s happening nonetheless.

Why not harness its power?

When you identify the shadow players and track their moves, it offers abundant fodder for shocks, red herrings, and twists in the plot that is “onscreen.”

Now, I know many a successful mystery writer has “pantsed” a plot. That was Sue Grafton’s method, though each day she “interacted” with her unfolding story by writing notes to herself before she worked on the WIP. She’d ask questions and list possible answers. In other words, she was developing the shadow story alongside her developing plot.

Another well-known “discovery/intuitive” mystery writer said he will pants along and find himself writing something that comes to him on the fly. For instance, a potted plant in a fancy vase will jump into his imagination, and he’ll put it in, not knowing how or when it would pay off.

This author also admits he’s had many novels that stalled and were discarded. Yet he still produces successful books.

Be that as it may, I’ve found that plotting the shadow story early is indispensable in my own writing. Knowing who the villain is from the jump, I can drop in all sorts of happenings that deepen the mystery and how it will all be wrapped up at the end.

As I plot the book, I include scene squibs that won’t show up in the finished product, but are there to suggest mysterious happenings that won’t be explained until the end.

That’s one of the nifty things about Scrivener.

Scrivener lets you write a scene (or chapter) and record a summary of it on an “index card.” You can look at the cards on a corkboard, and also in the outline view.

Further, you can color code the cards. I have colors for the main plot and subplot(s).

I also have a color for the shadow story. These are index cards with squibs on what the offscreen characters are doing. In the “Inspector” pane I hit the “Metadata” tab, then uncheck the box that says “Include in Compile.” That way, when I compile the manuscript for editing, the shadow story doesn’t show up in the manuscript.

But at any point I can print the outline view, with the shadow story scenes showing. This gives me a nice overview of the proceedings, and I can tweak things and get ideas for upcoming scenes.

Here’s how it looks in the Binder View (click to enlarge):

And in the Outline View (click to enlarge):

As I write, one of my scenes might need a twist or surprise. I can then turn to my shadow story outline, and add to it, and use that for the twist.

Yes, there are many ways to write a novel. I offer the shadow story as a tool, and a powerful one. If you use it, as you write feel free to hum the old standard, “Me and my shadow/Strolling down the avenue…”

What about you? Do you ever give thought to what characters are doing off-page?

Give Me a Break

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While in the middle of edits for my upcoming novel scheduled for release in October, 2025, the development editor we’ll call Francis (because I just heard that name on the television)  had several questions about how and why I break chapters the way I do. He also wondered about the placement of character viewpoint breaks within a chapter, and had several suggestions about both. I have to admit, I ignored them after explaining why.

Considering those questions, I started wondering about freshmen authors, who tend to overthink everything and find they, too, are unsure when to break chapters. I’m afraid you’ll see the word “chapter” wayyyy to many times in this post.

The truth is, for me, these breaks come naturally both between chapters and character viewpoints. I don’t consciously say to myself, “Self, I think I’ll stretch this action scene for a few more pages, and wrap things up with a little witty banter before moving on to a different scene.”

If you dig around in books on writing, or the internet, you’ll likely see where a chapter break accentuates a change of place, point of view, or plot. The new chapter tells us we’re in a different place in the novel and the stage has been reset to advance the story.

It also gives the reader a break, kinda like a commercial on television, so we can go make a sammich without missing anything, risk becoming disoriented about the plot after we put the book down to feed the dog or get a grandchild off the roof before they fall into the pool like last time.

Our attention spans are getting shorter, and I like to blame the internet and social media, because social media should be blamed for most of life’s problems, and of course the internet is just a place to noodle around between repeated news stories and Best Of lists.

But there’s this thing called pacing that has to be considered, and it’s all tied up with the chapter above.

We can’t simply cut off a conversation in the middle of a sentence or thought, or can we?

Carlton the Doorman points at two men in blue seersucker suits. “I know you’re both innocent of fashion murder, and it was only by chance you put on these matching suits this morning…or is it?”

His eyes drifted to the body stuffed behind the palm tree, and wondered why the interior decorator decided to use a Queen Palm, instead of a Date Palm. It was all so mysterious, just like those two men who were comparing pocket squares.

Now we have a cliffhanger, and the reader starts the next chapter, which is a shift in plot or viewpoint.

Dammit! I wanted to know how those two put on such garish suits, and now we have a renegade interior decorator to deal with, but the author wants me to read about Elizabeth and her challenges in digging through a file cabinet full of incriminating evidence on the third floor.

So now that chapter plods along, and it’s essential to the plot, but does it have to so long?

My development editor might think so. Maybe he wants it to be a shift in viewpoint within the chapter. It could have worked, I guess, but I like a fresh start and broke both chapters at those specific spots to build tension and anticipation for the next one. It also ends the scene, because I’m tired of writing about it and want to move back to the Seersucker Twins after finishing with the antagonist’s viewpoint.

The truth is, my chapters are long enough to play out the scene without putting in stuff people don’t want to read and will skip ahead. Be they short or long, I break at a point that feels natural.

“Sonny Hawke found himself in an aloha shirt on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande without a gun or badge, and wondered if anyone would take him for a Texas Ranger . Maybe there was a way to play this out before the cartel leader figured out that not all Rangers look alike.”

There we have a break, making the reader wonder the same thing and anticipate the next time Sonny appears.

Then I’ve had copy editors ask why my chapters in the third act are substantially shorter. By the time we’re racing toward the end, chapters are even shorter. Why? Because it subconsciously builds tension. There are times they’re only a page or two, but those quick breaks make readers feel like they’re on a rapidly descending roller coaster.

This is also a technique to keep tired or sleepy readers engaged. We want them to sprint toward the end.

“It’s nearly midnight, but this book is moving right along.” Sleepy Reader flips a couple of pages. “Wow, these are short. I can read another.”

We imagine the reader propped on pillows while a spouse snores quietly. “I’ll turn off the light in a second, but dang this chapter is brief, too. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster and this thing is moving fast. This is like eating potato chips. I can have another, and another. I can finish the book tonight and it won’t be too late when I’m finished.”

The truth is, I’ve heard this from more than one fan, who tells me they slogged through the next day because they stayed up past one in the morning, because they had to finish the book, and it was a good read.

Don’t be concerned about word or page counts, just end the chapter at a natural break. You’ll find them easy enough.

Reader Friday-Let’s Have Coffee!

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What and where is your favorite place to have a cuppa joe, either alone or with a pal?

Here’s mine: Sundance Espresso.

It’s located in Selah, Washington–a little burg about 4 miles down the road from Yakima, where I live. It’s a great little place, owned by some very special folks, and is a business staple on the main drag going through town.

They serve coffee drinks, sandwiches, muffins, and other snacks. They also feature some handcrafted gift ideas. But the most important item they sell is good old-fashioned friendly service.

Oh . . . and did I mention they stock local authors’ books, including mine?  🙂

 

If you’re ever in central Washington, you must stop in when that coffee craving comes over you.

Let me know . . . I’ll meet you there!