To She or Not to She

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Joe Moore

By Elaine Viets

When I was growing up, men were men and he meant everyone, men and women both. Not any more, bud. Now we want gender neutral writing.
    Too bad English lacks a pronoun that includes men and women both.
    I believe words have power, and using he to mean both sexes disenfranchises women. I weasel around the dilemma by using they. That works, most of the time. When it doesn’t, I alternate between using he and she, giving separate but equal treatment to the sexes.
    I’ve tried to sneak in their as a singular pronoun, but my publisher’s copyeditors put the kabosh on that. Copyeditors put the “cop” in editing, issuing citations for breaking the rules.

Recently, my copyeditor friend Les Weatherford addressed that issue. Most of this blog is stolen from Les.
Les doesn’t like the term sexist. That word “seems a bit harsh, a bit accusatory.” Here are Les’s thoughts on what he calls “a significant hitch in the English language.”
Consider this example: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as ______ could.

    How do you fill in that blank? “You can’t use it,” Les said. “That doesn’t refer to people. They? Grammatically incorrect. The subject of the clause is the singular.”
    He proposes these options:
    “Recast the sentence to make the clause plural: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as they could. But the emphasis shifts from the individual to the group, which may not be the president’s intent.
    “Use two pronouns: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as he or she could. That reads fine in a single sentence, but becomes cumbersome when repeated over long passages.
    “Follow the rule that many of us were taught in grade school: He equals he or she: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as he could. Problem: Sexist.” Er, not gender-neutral.
    “Be creative: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as s/he could. Problem: It’s ugly. Says one writer: ‘That’s just god-awful. It might even imply some sort of gender-reassignment surgery has occurred.’

    “Rules were made to be broken. Go with the flow: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as they could. Problem: singular subject, plural pronoun. Purists will beat you to a pulp.
    “Persuade the academic authorities to come up with a neuter pronoun. Here is the sentence as it would be written with a pronoun set proposed in 1975 by Christine Elverson: The president said success depended on everyone working as hard as ey could.” Yeah, ey and eir. Look like typos, don’t they?
    “Problem: Elverson proposed ey nearly four decades ago. When was the last time you used it in a sentence?” Never!
    Les popped the question to writers and editors. He read their responses and came to this conclusion:
    “The storytellers like their. Most formal writers prefer he or she or she or he but acknowledge that their probably is going to win and that they can live with that. The universal he hangs on with one vote. Nobody suggested creating a set of neuter pronouns.”
    Les believes “their and they eventually will win. Only the people who say ‘It is I’ will stick to the universal he, and they are dying off day by day.”
    Thank you for your research, Les. You’ve proved Les is more.
    TMZ readers and writers, where are you on this issue?

First Page Critique: PHV

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Joe Moore

Nancy J. Cohen

Today we have the privilege of reading the first page of “PHV.” My critique follows.

“I want out.”

I squared my shoulders and said it louder, “I’m finished. I want out of the firm.” I repeated it three times.

Silence. Then a loud honk from behind let me know the light had turned green. I hit the gas and made the short sprint to the next stoplight. Usually the downtown traffic made me crazy.

However, today I was in no hurry. Today, I planned on telling my dad that I quit. He and the firm could do their deals without me mopping up after billionaire clients and their obnoxious offspring. I was done being his cleaner.

I made a quick right turn the wrong way into an alley and pulled into a trash strewn vacant lot. The garage attached to our office building had been under construction for three months and I’d made a deal with the owner to park here. So far, all he had charged me was getting a nephew out of a marijuana jackpot. Given the price of parking in Dallas, that was cheap.

Thankfully, the elevator was still running. The construction supervisor told me that until we were out of dutch with the city, it was technically closed down, but they used it anyway. He’d slipped me a maintenance key. The price? One DUI. Again, to avoid walking around the block to the front door, it was well worth a couple of phone calls. I was used to barter. It’s what I did.

The elevator doors slid open at three where my office was located. Since I wasn’t on the letterhead at dad’s law firm; I insisted on being separate from the sixth floor suite. Plus, I didn’t like it up there with the Texas hair and two-thousand dollar boots. I did my best work when I could blend into the background.

To my surprise, the upper floors of the garage were silent. I heard none of the usual jackhammers, concrete saws, and swearing that had greeted me since the building inspector had threatened to condemn the structure. What I did see was the ass end of a black Suburban parked by the landing and I heard voices coming down the stairwell. Something was wrong here. I hadn’t seen a non-construction vehicle on my floor in weeks. Ducking under the plastic chain with the “Out of Order” sign dangling from it, I crossed the short hallway to a window overlooking the front of the building.

MY CRITIQUE FOLLOWS

“I want out.” GOOD OPENING LINE. I AM WONDERING WHAT IT IS HE WANTS TO ESCAPE.

I squared my shoulders and said it louder, “I’m finished. I want out of the firm.” I repeated it three times. DON’T KNOW THAT THE LAST LINE IS NECESSARY. WE GET THE POINT.

Silence. Then a loud honk from behind let me know the light had turned green. I hit the gas and made the short sprint to the next stoplight. Usually the downtown traffic made me crazy.

OOPS, I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS SITTING IN TRAFFIC. HE MAY HAVE BEEN TALKING ON THE PHONE OR IN HIS OFFICE. MAYBE ESTABLISH LOCATION RIGHT AWAY BY SAYING HIS FOOT PRESSED HARDER ON THE BRAKES IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH?

OH, SO HE’S TALKING TO HIMSELF? MAYBE MENTION HE’S PRACTICING HIS SPEECH.

CHANGE LINES TO: I pressed my foot harder on the brake and said it louder for practice: “I’m finished. I want out of the firm.”

CLEANER HAS ANOTHER CONNOTATION FOR ME. IF YOU WATCH NIKITA, THAT’S THE NAME FOR THE ASSASSINS WHO DISSOLVE BODIES IN ACID. THEY CLEAN UP FOR THE FIRM, TOO, BUT A DIFFERENT KIND.

Practicing my speech one more time in the side view mirror, I grabbed my briefcase and picked my way through the beer bottles and burger wrappers to a hidden door leading to the garage elevator. HE’S LOOKING IN THE SIDE VIEW MIRROR AT THE SAME TIME AS HE’S PICKING HIS WAY TO THE DOOR? WATCH YOUR GRAMMAR. I’d already ruined on pair of heels in this mess and had no desire to do it again. HEELS? IT’S A WOMAN? CAN YOU INDICATE THIS SOONER, LIKE WHEN SHE PRESSES ON THE BRAKES?

Thankfully, the elevator was still running. The construction supervisor told me that until we were out of dutch THIS MUST BE SLANG BUT I’M NOT SURE WHAT IT MEANS with the city, it was technically closed down, but they used it anyway. He’d slipped me a maintenance key. The price? One DUI. Again, to avoid walking around the block to the front door, it was well worth a couple of phone calls. I was used to barter. It’s what I did.

The elevator doors slid open at three where my office was located. Since I wasn’t on the letterhead at dad’s law firm; COMMA INSTEAD OF SEMI-COLON I insisted on being separate from the sixth floor suite. Plus, I didn’t like it up there with the Texas hair and two-thousand dollar boots REFERRING TO MEN OR WOMEN HERE?. I did my best work when I could blend into the background.

To my surprise, the upper floors of the garage were silent. GOOD FORESHADOWING I heard none of the usual jackhammers, concrete saws, and swearing that had greeted me since the building inspector had threatened to condemn the structure. What I did see was the ass end of a black Suburban parked by the landing INSERT COMMA and I heard voices coming down the stairwell.

NEW PARAGRAPH. Something was wrong here. I hadn’t seen a non-construction vehicle on my floor in weeks. Ducking under the plastic chain with the “Out of Order” sign dangling from it, I crossed the short hallway to a window overlooking the front of the building. AGAIN, WATCH YOUR “ING” PHRASES. TECHNICALLY, HE’S DUCKNG WHILE CROSSING THE HALLWAY. YOU COULD CORRECT THIS BY ADDING THE WORD “AFTER” BEFORE DUCKING.

NOT SURE OF HER LOCATION HERE. SHE’S STILL IN THE GARAGE? IF SO, WHY IS THERE A WINDOW? MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE I LIVE IN FLORIDA, BUT OUR ABOVE-GROUND GARAGES DON’T HAVE WINDOWS. OPEN AIR SPACES , YES.

MORE COMMENTS:

This story is intriguing in that something is wrong when the narrator arrives at work. I think you’d raise suspense by having the story start there. Like this:

Something was wrong. I hadn’t seen a non-construction vehicle on my garage floor in weeks. So what was that black Suburban doing parked by the landing? Nor did I hear the usual jackhammers or concrete saws that had greeted me ever since the building inspector threatened to condemn the structure.

With some tightening, this could come across as a lot more suspenseful. I’d also prefer a hint of something more about this person other than she plans to quit her father’s firm. That can be rather clichéd. Maybe tell us what she’d rather be doing with her life. I don’t get much of a sense of her personality. It’s a good start, though!

NOTE: I am away on a research trip and will not be able to respond to comments. Thanks in advance for your replies.

TKZ-recommended Indie Publishing Resources List Posted, Dictionary of Vintage Crime Terms

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Joe Moore

In case you missed it: We’ve posted the list of TKZ-recommended Indie Publishing Resources as a link in the sidebar (“Indie Publishing Resources We Love”). The list, which was requested by readers during a Reader Friday discussion, includes indie publishing resources that have actually been used by members of the TKZ community. If you would like to add to the list or make corrections, please leave a comment in the list document, or in the Comments following this blog post. Thanks!

Found Treasures: Dictionary of 19th-century Crime Terms

“The Secret Language of Crime” is a delightful dictionary of vintage crime lingo. Written in 1859 by the Police Chief of New York City, the dictionary contains priceless words that cast a spell from the past: “barnacles” for handcuffs; “beau-traps” for fortune hunters; “cheese” as a command to be quiet and listen.

You can read more about resources for vintage words over at The New York Times. Take a look at the dictionary and tell us, which word do you think should be resurrected for modern use? My vote goes to “ambidexter,” for someone who befriends both sides of an issue. We could use some more ambidexters in Congress this week!

Phrasing for Immediacy and Power

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Joe Moore

I’m excited to announce that editor and award-winning author, Jodie Renner, is joining TKZ. Jodie has made numerous guest appearances here, sharing her wealth of knowledge and experience with everyone. She will be a terrific addition to our team. We look forward to seeing Jodie’s posts as she alternates with Clare on Mondays. Welcome to the Zone, Jodie. – Joe Moore

Thanks so much, Joe! I’m honored to join such a talented, articulate group of writers here on The Kill Zone! – Jodie Renner

BTW, for any of you authors interested in techniques for adding tension, suspense and intrigue to your novels, I have two articles on this topic in the latest two issues of Suspense Magazine.

* * *

State Cause Before Effect, Stimulus before Response

by Jodie Renner

Have you ever been engrossed in a novel, reading along, when you hit a blip that made you go “huh?” or “why?” for a nanosecond? Then you had to reread the sentence to figure out what’s going on?

Often, it’s because actions are written in a jumbled-up or reversed order, rather than the order they occurred. Do this too often, and your readers will start getting annoyed.

For example:
John pulled the Mercedes up and Karen got her brand-new shoes soaking wet when she quickly opened the door and stepped right into a puddle.

First the reader reads: “John pulled the Mercedes up and Karen got her brand-new shoes soaking wet” and goes “Huh?”, then reads the rest and is subliminally irritated that he had to reformulate his original thought-image.

Better: John pulled the Mercedes up and Karen quickly opened the door and stepped out — right into a puddle. Her brand new shoes were soaking wet.

In my blog post here last Wed. on bringing your characters to life by showing their reactions and emotions, I discussed showing immediate, visceral reactions before the delayed, reasoned ones. In other words, showing character reactions in the order they occur, starting with the emotional reaction and automatic reflex, which should occur immediately after the stimulus, just like it does in real life, not with a delay to explain anything.

Along the same vein, when showing actions and reactions in your fiction, it’s important to pay attention to the syntax of the sentence.

In general, state the cause before the effect, the action before the reaction, the stimulus before the response.

This way, the ideas flow more naturally and smoothly, and readers don’t have to skip back in the sentence to figure out what’s going on, which confuses them momentarily and jolts them out of the story.

As Ingermanson and Economy say in Writing Fiction for Dummies, “Here’s a critical rule: Always get the time sequence correct and always put the cause before the effect.”

Similarly, Dwight V. Swain discusses this same issue when he talks about “motivation-reaction units” in his excellent book, Techniques of the Selling Writer.

Here are some “before and after” examples, disguised, from my fiction editing. The “after” examples are just one or two of many possibilities.

~ State little actions in the order they occur:

Before: David yelled out in pain when the door slammed on his fingers.

After: The door slammed on David’s fingers and he yelled out in pain.

Or: The door slammed on David’s fingers. He leaped back and yelled out in pain.

Before: She pulled her arm away when the man tried to grab her.

After: The man tried to grab her, but she pulled her arm away.

Or: The man tried to grab her arm, but she pulled away.

~ Describe physically sequential actions in the order they occurred:

Before: Jake walked the five hundred yards over to the police station and left his car in front of the restaurant.

After: Jake left his car in front of the restaurant and walked the five hundred yards over to the police station.

Before: Rushing to escape the flames, he turned towards the fire escape as soon as he’d left the room.

After: Rushing to escape the flames, he ran out of the room towards the fire escape.

Before: Boyd jumped out of the car as he reached the parking lot and ran into the building.

After: Boyd drove into the parking lot, jumped out of the car, and ran into the building.

As I said, if you don’t write the actions in the order they occurred, it causes momentary confusion for the reader. Do that enough and they start getting subliminally annoyed.

~ Watch those “ing” verbs:

Also, avoid using the way-too-common “ing” verbs (gerunds) for actions that occur one after the other. Verbs ending in -ing imply simultaneous action, where often, there is none:

Before: She slammed the car door, running up the sidewalk.

After: She slammed the car door, then ran up the sidewalk.

Before: He took out his keys, starting the car.

After: He took out his keys and started the car.

In the “before” examples above, the –ing verbs imply that the actions occurred at the same time, which is impossible — she can’t run up the sidewalk as she’s slamming the door. He can’t start the car while he’s taking out his keys.

Here are a few more disguised examples from my editing:

Before: He disappeared for fifteen years, coming back better dressed and full of stories.

After: He disappeared for fifteen years, then came back better dressed and full of stories

Before: Sarah stood up and stretched, ambling over to the trash can, tossing her empty coffee cup into it.

After: Sarah stood up and stretched, then ambled over to the trash can and tossed her empty coffee cup into it.

~ But break the “stimulus before response” rule occasionally for effect:

To add more suspense and intrigue, show a character’s reaction to something shocking before describing what she is reacting to. This way, you’ll have a moment of suspense between the horrified reaction and the revelation of what’s being seen. Also, it may take a paragraph or more to describe what she’s seeing, so her reaction would be delayed, which can be a bit anticlimactic.

Example:
“…the beam of her flashlight scanned the floor ahead. She stopped and gasped in horror.
Calvin lay on the concrete, his eyes starting unseeing at the ceiling. Blood spattered the floor around him. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.”

Look through your WIP and see if there are places where you’ve put the cart before the horse. To avoid reader confusion and possible annoyance, it’s almost always best to describe events in the order they happened.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook Twitter.

The State of Self-Publishing at This Moment in Time

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Joe Moore

by James Scott Bell

@jamesscottbell

Today’s post is brought to you by a “Happy Birthday.” On this day in 2004, the print version of Write Great

Fiction: Plot & Structure was published by Writer’s Digest Books. I wanted it to be practical and immediately useful, the kind of book I was looking for when I was learning how to write. It was my desire to deliver writers from what I call “The Big Lie,” that good fiction writing technique cannot be learned. Bosh. Piffle. Hooey.

I still get emails and tweets each week from authors who give the book an esteemed place in their fictional development.

For this I am truly grateful. So thanks for allowing me a moment to toot a birthday horn and let loose a balloon. Now on to today’s subject

•••

We know some things about self-publishing that we didn’t know a few years ago.

First of all, we have to define the epochs. Yes, self-publishing has epochs.

There were the early years, which archaeologists call the Konrathian Period. Here you will find those who jumped in early and eagerly as the Kindle was taking off (late 2007 to 2010). Etched in the fossil record you’ll find names like Mr. Konrath himself, Amanda Hocking, John Locke, TKZ emeritus Boyd Morrison and many others. The period is marked by some staggering sales of 99¢ novels. Also by wild and sometimes intemperate remarks about the demise and dastardliness of traditional publishing.

Barry Eisler ushered in the next epoch, the Lower Entrepreneurial. This was in early 2011 when Barry turned down a cool half a mil from St. Martin’s Press in order to self-publish his next John Rain thrillers. At the time I called this “The Eisler Sanction” because here was a legit and well-paid traditional author taking a businesslike look at the future and deciding to go indie. It was the sort of risk entrepreneurs take in new and untested markets. Thus, a little more intentionality had evolved out of the rough-and-tumble Konrathian.

Over the last year or so we have entered what I call the Mature Entrepreneurial. The risks and rewards are more evident now. A certain reality has set in. We have track records that help us assess the relative merits of traditional versus indie publishing. For example, some of the risks of going straight into self-publishing:

1. Foregoing an advance (even at the lower rates now being offered by publishers. “15k is the new 50k,” an agent told me recently).

2. Missing out on the chance that a traditionally published novel or series might be that “one in a hundred thousand” that breaks out into huge sales and makes a “star.”

3. Not having behind you a team that does things very well: edit, design, get books into bookstores.

4. Getting lost in the Sargasso of mediocrity that is the digital book world.

However, rewards look like this:

1. Author as master of own destiny.

2. Not roped to a single brand.

3. Books published as soon as the author deems them ready.

4. Royalty structure more favorable.

But what about actual money? During the Late Konrathian and into the Lower Entrepreneurial, dollar signs sparkled in the eyes of many new writers. Dreams of scoring big with one or two books, or maybe a series of shorts, danced like a temptress in scribal heads.

Reality has a more temperate message: Self-publishing is a volume business, and the product has to be quality. And it takes time, lots of time, to grow a customer base.

Gee, just like any business! Imagine that!

Also, for more and more writers, it’s not just a money game. In a recent interview at Huffington Post, Eisler says:

Then, there’s the issue of happiness. I wouldn’t divorce money from happiness. Most people would be happy making more money than less. But my happiness quotient wasn’t driven entirely by financial considerations.

Because of my personality and business experience, I found it very frustrating to have to entrust business decisions to people whose thinking, work process and conclusions I didn’t necessarily agree with or respect. I’ve had publishers make terrible business decisions for my books. I found it painful and frustrating to have to live with those decisions. I find it much more satisfying to be responsible for and in charge of those decisions.

So where are we with self-publishing at this moment in time? It continues to evolve, of course. But every month we have more and more data and testimony about methods and results. Which puts us on the brink of a new epoch, The Vocational, wherein writers wisely choose their path based on what they feel called to, where they feel happiest, where their writing can flourish according to their own definition of success.

Which is what it should come down to, after all. Not someone else’s definition of success, but your own.

Define it. Write it down. Then go for it.

NOTE: I’m in travel mode today. Mix it up in the comments and I’ll get to them when I can. Talk about where you are in your publishing journey. What does the landscape look like to you?

The Writing Buddy

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Joe Moore

By Mark Alpert

Thirty-one years ago I enrolled in the MFA creative writing program at Columbia University. I don’t have anything useful to say about whether such writing programs are worth the money. I was writing poetry at the time, so the MFA degree didn’t help me launch my career as a novelist (which didn’t start until a quarter-century later). But at least I got one tangible thing in exchange for those two years of tuition fees: a lifelong writing buddy.

I met Neil Davison at the first poetry workshop that September. The professor asked each of us to read one of our poems to the rest of the class. It was excruciating. No one offered any criticism during that first workshop, but the air in the room was thick with intellectual condescension. The only poem I remember from that morning was Neil’s. It was a surrealistic piece about a moose that had the face of Neil’s grandmother. You see, it’s kind of memorable, right?

We went to lunch together after the workshop, and we’ve been friends ever since. We laughed our way through grad school, coining nicknames for all our odd classmates (The Captain of the Thunderbirds, The Second-Story Man, The Spanish-Jewish Girl Who Is Neither Spanish Nor Jewish). After we got our master’s degrees, I became a newspaper reporter while Neil went on to get a Ph.D. and become an English prof at Oregon State University. And over the decades we’ve continued to read and enjoy each other’s writing. Neil’s an expert on James Joyce, and in 2004 he was invited to deliver a paper at a conference in Dublin that commemorated the hundredth anniversary of Bloomsday, the pivotal day of Joyce’s Ulysses. He convinced me to come along, saying the conference was just an excuse for an epic pub-crawl. He was right.

This weekend I’m taking my family to Oregon to attend Neil’s daughter’s bat mitzvah. My kids asked me recently, “If you had to pick just one of your friends to be your companion in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, who would you choose?” (As you can see, the Alperts are mentally preparing themselves for the much-anticipated debut of Walking Dead season four.) The truth is, Neil wouldn’t be the best choice for a zombie-killing wingman. He’s too nice. But he’d feel right at home in a dystopia where the survivors dissect books instead of decapitating the undead.

Writing can be a lonely occupation. So it’s a true gift to have a literary pal, someone who’s eager to share his or her strong opinions about Philip Roth or Susan Sontag. I’m looking forward to seeing Neil again. Perhaps he’ll have another weird poem to show me.

Reader Friday: Invent a Title!

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Joe Moore

Let’s pretend this picture is the cover art for your next book. What title would you pick for it? Create a one-sentence cut line describing your story!

A News Story with Book Inspiration Potential

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Joe Moore

Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

My husband sends me strange links and records off the wall TV programs for me because he knows how I think about story inspiration. Sometimes a news story could fill out a back story of a character or become the main action or mystery behind a book. Recently he sent me this LINK. This story came from Associated Press reporter Sean Murphy. Who doesn’t love a cold case murder mystery?

Especially one that has a double twist.

Jimmy Williams, Leah Johnson, Michael Rios

You would think that discovering the skeletal remains of three teens (who were thought to have run away in 1970) in a rusted car at the bottom of a lake would be interesting enough. How did their car end up in the lake? Why weren’t they found until now? Rumors had run rampant. Locals speculated that the three teens had stumbled upon a drug deal at a rural airstrip and been killed with their bodies dumped, never to be found. Some folks thought the kids ran away to California, never to be heard of again. Most people who knew the kids suspected foul play, but leads went nowhere.

Police found a vehicle (a 1969 Camaro believed to belong to one of the missing kids) while conducting a routine diver training exercise at Foss lake, 100 miles west of Oklahoma City. Score one for the home team. But if that wasn’t enough, the over-achievers found a SECOND car, containing two to three more bodies. (Ew, that they don’t know if they have two or three bodies. That doesn’t mean poor math skills. It could mean they only have “parts.”)

Foss Lake outside OKC – Crime Scene

All the skeletal remains are likely connected to missing persons reports that are still open and unsolved. Unrelated, presumably. The teens were on their way to a high school football game and went missing in 1970. The second vehicle, thought to belong to John Albert Porter, most probably carries the remains of another man and a woman. The grandson of Porter feels certain the find solves the case of what happened to his grandfather.

Both cars were found submerged in twelve feet of water, fifty feet from the end of a boat ramp near the marina. I’m not sure how both vehicles would have ended up fifty feet from the end of a boat ramp. Talk about taking a wrong turn?! Lakes in Oklahoma can be filled with sediment due to the red clay soils. They would make excellent training cases for police divers, but tough for anyone looking for six missing people, apparently.

The bones were sent to the Medical Examiner’s office for determination of cause of death. You can’t just presume drowning, but without flesh on the bones and with all the abrasive sediment, that can’t be an easy job. If the bodies can be identified, that could give six families closure.

But a writer can conjure all sorts of other explanations for a story like this one. Who would’ve wanted to see the kids dead? What had they witnessed? With two cars in the lake, who was using the red dirt lake for a body dump site? Without the flesh on the bones, what if someone in the area was harvesting organs to sell on the black market?

So what do YOU think happened? How would you spin this emotional gut wrenching story for the two vehicles?

Show Your Characters’ Reactions to Bring Them Alive

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Joe Moore

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, & speaker

A novel won’t draw me in unless I start caring about the protagonist and worrying about what’s going to happen to her – in other words, until I get emotionally engaged in the story. And it’s the same for most readers, I think. For me to warm up to the protagonist, he has to have some warmth and vulnerability and determination, some hopes and insecurities and fears.

As readers, to identify with and bond with the protagonist – and other characters – we need to see and feel their emotions and reactions to people and events around them. When the character feels and reacts, then they come alive for us and we get emotionally invested and start to worry about them and cheer for their small victories. Once you have your readers fretting about your hero and rooting for him, they’re hooked.

As the late, great Jack M. Bickham said, “Fiction characters who only think are dead. It is in their feelings that the readers will understand them, sympathize with them, and care about their plight.”

Show those feelings.

So bring your characters to life by showing their deepest fears, worries, frustrations, hopes and jubilations. If readers see your hero pumped, scared, angry, or worried, they’ll feel that way, too. And a reader who is feeling strong emotions is a reader who is turning the pages.

And engage the readers’ senses, too, so they feel like they’re right there, by showing us not only what the character is seeing, but what they’re hearing, smelling, touching, sensing, and even tasting.

Show their physical reactions, too.

Besides showing us your character’s emotional reactions, show their physical reactions as well to what’s happening to them.

Show the stimulus before the response, and show the reactions in their natural order.

To avoid reader confusion and annoyance, be sure to state the cause before the effect, the stimulus before the response, the action before the reaction.

And to mirror reality, it’s important to show your character’s visceral reaction to a situation first, before an overt action or words. And show involuntary thought-reactions or word-reactions, like a quick “ouch” or swear word, before more reasoned thought processes and decision-making.

As Ingermanson & Economy put it, “Here’s a simple rule to use: Show first whatever happens fastest. Most often, this means you show interior emotion first, followed by various instinctive actions or dialogue, followed by the more rational kinds of action, dialogue, and interior monologue.”

And don’t skip those first steps! Remember, we’re inside that character’s head and body, so you deepen their character and draw us closer to them by showing us what they’re feeling immediately inside – those involuntary physical and thought reactions that come before controlled, civilized outward reactions.

As Bickham points out, it’s important to imitate reality by showing the reactions in the order they occur. You may not show all of these reactions, but whichever ones you choose, show them in this order.

First, show the stimulus that has caused them to react.

Then show some or all of these responses, in this order:

1. The character’s visceral response
– adrenaline surging, pulse racing, stomach clenching, heart pounding, mouth drying, flushing, shivering, cold skin, tense muscles, sweating, blushing, shakiness, etc.

2. Their unconscious knee-jerk physical action – yelling, gasping, crying out, snatching hand or foot away from source of heat or pain, striking out, etc.

3. Their thought processes and decision to act

4. Their conscious action or verbal response

Showing your characters’ feelings and responses will bring them to life on the page for the readers and suck readers deeper into your story world, your fictive dream.

But don’t go overboard with it — you don’t want your protagonist to come across as gushing or hysterical or neurotic. It’s important to strike a balance so the readers want to relate to and empathize with your main character, not get annoyed or disgusted with her and quit reading.

So how do we strike that balance? How do we as writers find the emotions to bring our characters to life, but also find a happy medium between flat, emotionless characters that bore us and hysterical drama queens or raging bulls that make us cringe?

Bickham advises us to consider how we’ve felt in similar circumstances, then overwrite first, and revise down later. “I would much prefer to see you write too much of feeling in your first draft; you can always tone it down a bit later…. On the other hand, a sterile, chill, emotionless story, filled with robot people, will never be accepted by any reader.”

Do you have any techniques that work for bringing out your characters’ reactions and feelings? And for ensuring that you don’t go off the deep end with it?

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter.

First Page Critique: Love Always, Lola

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Joe Moore

Our new first-pager is an entry titled “Love Always, Lola. My comments follow and, as always, a big thank you to our brave writer. We welcome your input and insights. — PJ Parrish

I hate kids. I have to.

“Lola? Did you hear my last question?” The disembodied voice over the phone asks.

I blink, feeling for all the world like I’m about to lose my lasagna on the wood floor of my bedroom. Zoe, my mentor here at Corner House Crisis Pregnancy Home, smiles and waves her hands in the air like she’s trying to keep the tape reel going in my mind.

“Um, yes. I like kids. Enough. They’re great.” I look down at the red and white checkered quilt on my twin-sized bed, rubbing my swollen belly to get rid of the itch.

“Do you have any experience working with them?” Mr. Compton, the voice, wants to know.

“A little, I guess. I used to babysit for my mom’s church and stuff.”

“What about camp? Do you have any experience with camp, maybe family camping trips or summer camp?”

I trace a circle around my stomach with my fingernail.

Zoe plants her hands on her tiny stick hips. “Focus!” she whispers.

“No,” I blurt. “No family camping trips or anything. But I am CPR-certified.”

“Great, that’s a start,” Mr. Compton says. “Can you tell me why you’d like to work at Camp Qavah this summer?”

“Well, I feel like I have a really great connection with kids.” Like I’m carrying one right now, literally connected to her by an umbilical cord. “I’m looking for an opportunity to grow and become my own person this summer.” I’d love to run away from who I am right now. “And I’m not afraid of hard work.” I once used my former roommate’s toothbrush to scrub the suite’s toilet.

“Fantastic.” Mr. Compton seems satisfied with my answers. “One last thing—you’ll be replacing one of our other counselors who’s had to cut her commitment short for the summer. Your first day would be mid-July. Will it still work for your situation?”

He puts it so delicately, but we both know what situation he’s talking about. That situation is currently kicking my ribs like she’s a jiu jitsu master.

“Uh, yeah. I think so. I’m due around the first of June. Mid-July should be fine.”

***

First, a personal bias: I am not a big fan of novels that open with dialogue. (I know, the first line isn’t in quotes but it is what we call “internal dialogue” in that we are in the narrator’s thoughts.) So maybe this goes to a taste thing. But I wasn’t pulled into this opening. To begin with, the first line might sound intriguing but when you think about it, it makes no sense. Why does she HAVE to hate kids? And the moment we find out she’s pregnant, the line becomes almost off-putting. Either way, the question just hangs there, unanswered, provocative for sake of provocation. Second, because the first page is almost all dialogue, there was no way for me to find my footing in the world the writer was trying to conjure up. When a reader first picks up a story, they are like a coma patient—fluttering open their eyes in an unfamiliar world, wondering, where am I, when am I, who am I? The writer has an obligation to quickly and efficiently orient. (that’s how writer and teacher Benjamin Percy put it, not me, alas.)

Yeah, I know. Some great books open with dialogue. Charlotte’s Web opens with “Where’s Papa going with that axe?” And then there’s Little Women: “‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.” But it’s a tough act to pull off and in this case, it backfires because the writer has provided me with so llittle context or setting. And what does that do?

Confuse me. And that’s death to a first page. I am confused from the get-go because I think I am overhearing a telephone conversation between Lola and “disembodied voice.” Then suddenly Zoe is there but where is “there?” Is Zoe the voice? Is she in the room with Lola? Is she listening in on an extension? Speed-bump. Okay, call me dense. But the last thing you want your reader to do in your first page is work hard on the little stuff.

Third thing: There’s not a lot of tension here. Maybe this isn’t a mystery or thriller but still, we need a compelling reason to follow Lola. And although her voice — cocky, cynical and sassy — is interesting in a snarky sort of way, the set-up isn’t enough. Telephone conversations are such a dead way to move your story along. You need them at times to impart info but I don’t think you want to waste your crucial opening with such a static — disembodied — device. Also, this style is pretty bare-bones spare (the only detail we have is that Lola is at a pregnancy crisis center). Sometimes openings give TOO MUCH information (ie backstory) but I think this one gives too little, maybe because the writer believes by holding back, he/she creates a sense of mystery. I forget who said this but it works for me: The only thing you hold back is what happens next.

All this said, there’s some good lines here, sharp observation, and the writer has a good grasp of how to construct dialogue. The writer has a nice touch. I just wish she/he had chosen a more compelling opening scene, something that is worthy of their talent. What Lola and Compton are talking about is pretty banal. This would work as a later scene, but only after the writer has hooked me into this character’s situation and her voice. I’d suggest the writer find some really good female protag fiction to read. I mention this only because I am re-reading Wally Lamb’s “She’s Come Undone” right now. It’s a really good job of entering a female viewpoint via first-person POV. Ditto “The Lovely Bones.” Anybody have any other good examples?

***

I hate kids. I have to. I’m not crazy about kids either but this line was sort of offputting.

“Lola? Did you hear my last question?” The disembodied voice over the phone asks.

“Um, yes. I like kids. Enough. They’re great.” I look down at the red and white checkered quilt on my twin-sized bed, rubbing my swollen belly to get rid of the itch.

“Do you have any experience working with them?” Mr. Compton, the voice, wants to know.

“A little, I guess. I used to babysit for my mom’s church and stuff.”

“What about camp? Do you have any experience with camp, maybe family camping trips or summer camp?”

I trace a circle around my stomach with my fingernail.

Zoe plants her hands on her tiny stick hips. “Focus!” she whispers. Hard to whisper when you use exclamation point.

“No,” I blurt. “No family camping trips or anything. But I am CPR-certified.”

“Great, that’s a start,” Mr. Compton says. “Can you tell me why you’d like to work at Camp Qavah this summer?”

“Well, I feel like I have a really great connection with kids.” Like ~~I’m carrying one right now,~~ literally connected to her by an umbilical cord. Nice line but you might want to put these thoughts in italics because they are used in quick succession during dialogue. “I’m looking for an opportunity to grow and become my own person this summer.” I’d love to run away from who I am right now. “And I’m not afraid of hard work.” I once used my former roommate’s toothbrush to scrub the suite’s toilet.

He puts it so delicately, but we both know what situation he’s talking about. That situation is currently kicking my ribs like she’s a jiu jitsu master. Nice image.

“Uh, yeah. I think so. I’m due around the first of June. Mid-July should be fine.”