Just Go

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James Scott Bell


I love writing about the craft of fiction. I love it because I had to teach myself how to write back when I was being told writing could not be learned. I had come to believe that (about 90% of me, anyway) because I’d taken a workshop in college with Raymond Carver, and I couldn’t do what he did. I didn’t really know that what he was doing (literary short stories) was clearly different from the kind of thing I wanted to do (e.g., Raymond Chandler). I just thought I didn’t have what it takes to be a writer.

Anyway, you wake up one day knowing you have to figure out how to write or something inside you will wither up and die. So I set about to see if writing fiction could be learned, and I discovered it could. Along with good writing books and studying bestsellers, I started to get it. And after I got published, I started to teach it.

For me there are few things as enjoyable as learning a new technique, or getting a different perspective on an old one.

It’s kind of like golf. Golfers are always tinkering with their game, trying things out, seeing what works. It can begin, if you don’t watch it, to drive you a little bit mad. As you’re getting ready to tee off, you might find yourself thinking of the 22 most important things at point of impact– and immediately freeze up.

Which brings me to the point of this post. When you write, you have to write freely. You can’t let a lot of craft knowledge freeze you up.

Sometimes, those who are writing their next novel put too much stress on all the things they think they should be doing, and end up not doing much of anything.

When you write, write. And try to get a first draft done as quickly as possible. It’s best to concentrate on only a few basics and just go.

1. Make sure the stakes are high enough for the Lead. I advocate “death overhanging” as being the key to this. There are three kinds of death: physical, professional and psychological. If you look at the most popular novels out there, one or all of these are at work in the plot.

2. Make sure the opposition to the Lead is stronger than the Lead. Only then will readers truly be “worried” enough to read on.

3. Make sure your individual scenes are packed with tension or conflict. That means you never have a scene where everything is hunky-dory. At all times, in some way or other, there is worry, fear or outright confrontation.

And that’s about it. There will be more work to be done, of course. Especially upon revision. But as you go through your first draft, let these fundamentals guide you. Don’t freeze up thinking about myriad things.

Just go.

It’s between writing stints that you study and learn and adjust. A good golf teacher will tell you never to work on your swing in the middle of a round. Finish the round, and then go over to the practice tee and work on things. Review your fundamentals and if need be consult a teaching professional.

Keep learning, keep practicing, but when you write, write like it’s play. Get caught up in what you’re doing.

You writers out there, what do you concentrate on when getting that first draft down?

Want to know who done it? Check out the cast.

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John Ramsey Miller

Most of us watch TV to be entertained, get inspiration, or to see what not to write. I like cop and lawyer shows. I also love Westerns and gangster-related shows. I record several and watch them at my leisure, and I suspect a lot of my fellow authors do the same thing. Cop anybody, CSI anywhere, Burn Notice, Sopranos reruns, The Closer Sedgewick, Law & Disorder, and many others. I discovered that the most famous actor on a show is the almost always the offender (usually a killer), and I’m stunned that the other cast members don’t know it until long after I do. Not much surprise in dramas due to this factor. In my experience well-known actors rarely take a part that is going to consist of being interview by the cops because their egos and agents won’t allow them to. And producers can’t resist bringing recognizable faces into their series for a juicy cameo.

I’ve been called back to work for the Census Bureau to help close the doors on the files. I’ve been riding county roads all week and will all next week, and who cares…? Anyway, I haven’t had much time to think about writing this week.

I’m not going to be doing this blog so much in the future as I have in the past. I’ve decided to take every other week off. In order to do that I started thinking about who I’d like to have share Saturdays with me. I wanted someone who would add a new dimension to the blogs we publish here. Living out here in the wilds, I run out of things to say that doesn’t involve chickens. So, I made out a list of the authors I know and respect and I gave it a lot of serious thought. (I know–John Miller and serious thought are strangers). I kept coming back to one name and last night after a scotch or two I called and asked him if he would be interested. He is, after all, one of the busiest men I know. Most authors, unless they live in a box, know Joseph Hartlaub, and Joe agreed to be here with us blogging every other week.

Joe is an entertainment attorney specializing in music and publishing, a talented author in his own right, he knows weapons and hand-to-hand combat, he’s an actor, and for years has been a critic for BookReporter.com. Joe flat knows his stuff when it comes to most aspects of our trade. Nobody reads more books than Joe, or appreciates a good book to a greater extent. I know he will add a whole new dimension to our site, and I hope you will all welcome him warmly. He has also become a very good friend of mine. It’s nice to work with friends. You readers are in for a treat.

This week they auctioned off the Roy Rogers Museum. In that spirit …Happy Trails.

Constructive Criticism & Incandescent Rage

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by Michelle Gagnon

The first time I heard Lee Child speak, he discussed how he reacts to his editor’s comments on each manuscript. Lee claims to initially go “incandescent with rage.” He closes the email, fumes for a bit, then goes back and reads it again a day or so later. And the second time, he sees some of what the editor is talking about.

I think this is a common reaction of writers everywhere. How dare someone criticize your baby? Clearly they just didn’t get it. But I’ll tell you what- the difference between an author who gets published, and one who doesn’t ever sell that manuscript, frequently correlates directly to how that author processes and responds to constructive criticism.

Which is not to say that the editor is always right. I generally retool the manuscript based on approximately three-quarters of my editor’s comments. It’s one of the reasons I use up to ten beta readers for each book. If one person says something, and it doesn’t strike a chord with you, it might be just their impression (one example: for my upcoming novel KIDNAP AND RANSOM, my editor noted that the book, “doesn’t depict Mexico in a very favorable light.” And she’s right- it doesn’t, mainly because the bulk of it is set in the poorest slums in Mexico City. So that one I dismissed outright).

But if more than one beta reader reacts to something, that usually means it necessitates a change. For the same book, the majority of my readers (among them, my esteemed fellow bloggers) thought that there was a coincidence in the book that was just too darn convenient. And going back through it, I realized they were right. There had to be a better way to move the plot forward. In the end, I rewrote over two-thirds of the book based on feedback. And the end product was a stronger, more believable storyline (I hope).

This came up recently when I reviewed a manuscript for a friend from a local writing group who is struggling to get their first book published. I sent a detailed assessment of what I thought the strengths and weaknesses of the story were, bearing in mind what I know from experience editors respond negatively to. The writer’s reaction surprised me (particularly since I had more positive than negative comments). I received detailed responses to each negative note, arguments for why this scene and that character had to be in there.

Now, it’s this author’s choice to keep or discard whatever they like- after all, it is their book, and their name on the cover if it ever gets published. Sadly, unless at least a few of those changes are made, I suspect it will continue to garner rejections.

What I realized early on was that when an agent responded to a submission with a rejection, but also provided a response detailing why they rejected it, it was important to take note. A form letter rejection is one thing. If they bother to let you know what in particular prevented them from signing you, it means that you’re actually very close. I see the same thing in my critique group. When someone writes something that is a hot mess, few people say anything. The author invariably (and wrongly) takes this as proof that what they’re holding in their hands is perfect. The truth is, people say less when something is unsalvageable. When a heated debate begins, or everyone agrees on the salient strengths and weaknesses, the author has come close to hitting their mark.

So, going back to Jim’s “before you submit” post…before you send out that first stream of submissions, pass the manuscript along to people you trust. Aim for folks who you know will be hard on it (sometimes that means avoiding friends and family). Listen to what they say. Feel free to go incandescent with rage for a few days, then sit back down and read their responses more closely. And make those changes: kill those darlings, cut that exposition, come up with better ways for events to transpire. No manuscript ever suffered from revision-the more you change it, in general, the better it will become.

A Whole New World

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by John Gilstrap

Michelle had a schedule conflict, so she asked me to switch blogging duties with her this week. She’ll be posting tomorrow in my spot, but we should be back to normal next week–or to whatever masquerades as normal among Killzoners.

I am amazed and grateful and totally baffled at the thing that keeps on keeping on with my eBook sales. As I write this post on Wednesday evening, No Mercy continues to hold the #4 slot in Kindle sales, while Hostage Zero holds the #17 slot. That’s nine days in the top five and top fifty, respectively–much higher cotton than I have seen in a very long while. Making the deal even sweeter, I received an email yesterday from the folks from Books On Board, the world’s largest independent eBook retailer, informing me that Hostage Zero is the #3 bestseller there. That’s all wonderful. I even got a brief mention in the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s where it gets confusing: On amazon.com, the sales rankings for the print version of my books seem to be going the wrong way. Mind you, I have no idea how any of the rankings translate into real sales, but as I write this, the Hostage Zero sales ranking is well into five figures, while the print version of No Mercy sits at 2,896. (FYI, 2,896 in total sales means, according to the site, that it’s #72 in Books>Literature & Fiction>Genre Fiction>Action & Adventure. How’s that for splitting hairs four times?)

My point is that there seems to be a disconnect between print popularity and eBook popularity on amazon.com. I have no idea why, but I suspect that the mean demographic of the eBook buyer/reader is significantly different than that of the hardcopy counterpart. I think that the marketing model between the two camps is entirely different. For example, among eBook community (of which I am an enthusiastic member), word of mouth buzz–the Holy Grail of book sales–is many times more efficient. You hear a rave review of a book that sounds interesting, and you have it in your hands with a couple of clicks of a mouse. Combine the buzz with a price point that allows readers to buy two eBook thrillers by a new-to-them author for less than the price of a single eBook by a franchise author, and a runaway critical mass is easier to achieve. From there, the author and publisher pray that the momentum becomes self-sustaining.

If my suspicions are correct that the marketing models between print and eBooks are dramatically different, I think it’s clear that the difference is one-way–that eBook readers are aware of what print readers are reading, but not necessarily the other way around. When you look at the Kindle Top 100, the vast majority of titles are bestsellers in their own right in the bricks-and-mortar world, and became eBook bestsellers as a matter of transferred momentum. Problem is, it’s difficult for that momentum to transfer the other way.

Think about it. In my recent travels, I was disappointed to discover that Hostage Zero and No Mercy were both absent from every airport bookstore I visited. The spaces where they might have been stocked were filled instead with the paperback versions of the hardcovers that occupied the same spots a year ago–and then, only if the hardcover predecessor made The List. Given the price per square foot of retail space, it makes sense that airport bookstores would dedicate real estate only to the surest sales. In order to ride the momentum of a runaway eBook, those stores would have to order new stock and take a new risk in an economic environment that punishes risk takers. Extrapolate that logic out to drug stores and grocery stores and all the other retail locations that used to be outlets for paperbacks, and I think it’s clear that the mass market original is a format on life support.

On the flip side, though, I think the market for $25 hardcovers is likewise pretty bleak. It’s the price, not the format. As it is, bestsellers are discounted down to $15 or less in the Big Box stores, a number that is feasible only because non-bestsellers are still sold at full price to offset the lost revenue. The print side of publishing seems to be creating a retail environment where bestseller prices are unsustainable, cheaper options are difficult to obtain, and full-price hardcovers will have an ever-shrinking market consisting only of people who are willing to shell out five times more than they need to for the same entertainment.

It’s a whole new world indeed. What do you all think? When you look into your personal crystal ball, what does the publishing world look like five years from now?

First page critique of IMPERFECT JUSTICE

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By Joe Moore

I had an author approach me at ThrillerFest to say how much he enjoyed visiting and reading TKZ. He also asked if I would post the first page of his WIP for a Kill Zone critique. So here we go.

“Oh God.”

I stood for a moment in shock not only from the horrific scene, but the fact that I had verbally reacted. I never express my thoughts in words, but what I saw would crack the resolve of even the strongest individual.

My usual response is to smile and say nothing, or more likely, release a torrent of smartass comments. I guess I use humor to release the pressure of stressful of situations, but in this case I couldn’t think of anything even the slightest bit ironic, or remotely funny.

I felt the bile rising in my throat, and grit my teeth to maintain some measure of composure. I knew I should call for help, but when I pressed the transmit button on my shoulder mounted microphone, the words wouldn’t come out. It was as if I couldn’t force air through my vocal cords. I swallowed hard and shoved my emotions as far as I could below the surface, but it didn’t help and my vision blurred as mist began to form in the corner of my eyes.

I hadn’t actually expected a body to be here. The last few calls like this had been mistaken identity. Some moron saw a pile of clothes next to a dumpster and assumed it was a dead body. I had no reason to think that this situation would be any different, but when I turned the corner to the address given to me by the police dispatcher, there was the bloody mess. Instead of seeing a homeless person sipping on a bottle of cheap wine, there was a body with an ear to ear gash across her throat.

Along the edge of the cut, a stain of blood traveled down the front, and left dark streaks on her once tan blouse. On the ground, the twin headlight beams of my cruiser sparkled off the surface of pools of blood on each side of her. Since the blood hadn’t yet dried, that meant one thing, this had just happened.

The first thing I would do is delete everything after “Oh God.” down to the paragraph that starts with “I hadn’t actually expected a body . . .” All the stuff about how the cop normally reacts is unimportant. What we want to know is how he reacts now. We can learn all the other info later if it’s really important.

I would have liked to read the cop’s radio chatter inserted right after the “Oh God” reporting the discovery of a body. If he believes the murder was just committed, shouldn’t he approach with gun drawn in case the killer is still there? Shouldn’t he call for backup?

This piece starts off a bit too soft for me. Raise the excitement with dialog, actions, reactions. Those elements will tell us so much more about the character than exposition. Let him tell the dispatcher that this one is REAL, not one of the previous false alarms. It may be routine for a cop to discover a murder victim, but it’s not for the reader. Outside of a funeral home, most people have never even seen a dead body. Pull the reader into the scene and explain the inner thoughts later. Overall, this first page needs a shot of literary adrenalin but I’d be interested in reading on a few more pages.

What do you think? Is opening with the discovery of a dead body unique or cliché? Would you like to see more action and reaction? Would you read on?

Open Tuesdays

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image It’s time for another Open Tuesday while our blogmate, Kathryn Lilley, is on medical hiatus. Bring us your questions, comments and discussions. If you have a question about writing, publishing or any other related topic, ask away in our comments section. We’ll do our best to get you an answer.

And don’t forget you can download a copy of FRESH KILLS, Tales from the Kill Zone to your Kindle or PC today.

On the Road

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Apologies for the brevity of this post but my family and I are on the first week of a two month long holiday across the National Parks of the American West. We have done Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite so far. Off to Death Valley today…but all this roughing it (I am by no means the camping type) reminds me of the lengths to which some people will go in the name of book research. While I have been down the Orinoco most of my research involves strolling the streets of London or hanging out at the British Museum…hardly onerous! But what about you? How far have you gone in the name of research? What would you or wouldn’t you do?

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Before You Submit

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James Scott Bell

The May/June issue of Writer’s Digest has a sidebar from YA editor Anica Morse Rissi, wherein she gives nine things you can do to elevate your manuscript before submission.

The list is right on, not only for getting a manuscript ready to submit to agents or editors, but also if you’re considering self-publishing. So I’m going to give you the tips with my own commentary on them.

1. Revise, revise, revise.

As the author of a whole book on the revision process, I’m not going to quibble with this one. You can, however, become “revision obsessed” and spend way too long on a project. In my book I give a process for getting over that, but you can just as well come up with one of your own, so long as you eventually send your work out. Not too soon, but not too late, either.

2. Start with conflict and tension.

This is perhaps the most important tip of all. Some of our highest traffic here at TKZ has come from posts on what to do — and what not to do — on first pages, as well as the numerous first page critiques we’ve done. Search those out in the archives. Now, conflict or tension does not have to be “big.” It can really be any sort of disturbance to the Lead’s ordinary world.

3. Don’t start with backstory.

An obvious corollary to #2. Backstory is best when it is delayed, although little sprinkles can be added to the first pages for depth. Just make the action primary up front.

4. Give the readers something to wonder about.

Mystery, unanswered questions, portents, threats. All good at the beginning and, indeed, throughout—so long as you are prepared to give satisfactory answers (unless you write for Lost, of course, then you can just keep on raising questions).

5. Avoid explaining too much, too soon.

A corollary to #4. My rule for the opening is act first, explain later. Readers do not need to know everything you do about the setting and characters at the start. They will wait a long time if there’s something dynamic and disturbing going on at the beginning.

6. Make sure your story has plot arc and emotional arc.

This is another way of saying that you need to give us the stakes inside the character, as well as outside. One way to do this is via internal conflict, which is the battle between two strong but opposing desires in the character. In High Noon, the town marshal must battle his desire to do his duty as a lawman versus his desire to keep his new Quaker bride (the producers raise the stakes nicely by having the Quaker bride look exactly like Grace Kelly).

7. Read your dialogue out loud.

This is a great practice. You hear it differently than you read it. An alternative (my own preference) is to have Word read it back to me in speech mode. Either way, you’ll catch things to change every time.

8. Use adjectives, adverbs and dialogue tags sparingly.

As far as adverbs, do a search for LY words and kill as many of those pests as you can. For dialogue tags, use said and asked as your defaults, and only when needed to figure out who’s speaking. Resist the urge to use things like he growled or he expostulated.

9. Make sure your details matter.

All details, and I mean every one in your manuscript, should do “double duty.” Not just describe, but describe in a way that sets the tone you desire. Details can characterize, foreshadow and carry motifs. In other words, don’t waste them.

To these fine suggestions, I would also add the following (from my chapter on “The Polish”)—go over each chapter and see how much you can cut from the beginning and the end. You’ll be amazed at how much faster your chapters grab, and how you’ll be left with a feeling of momentum after each scene.

So what other things do you do before you submit?

NOTE: I’ll be conducting a series of webinars for Writer’s Digest this month. The first is on novel structure. Would love to have you drop in!

First Page

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When my book, UPSIDE DOWN was nominated for the first ITW Award in Phoenix, John Gilstrap was seated at my table, along with our agent, Anne Hawkins. I wish I could be seated at his table tonight. As I wrote him, I feel like Robert DeNiro in WISE GUYS when he was waiting in that diner to talk to Joe Peschi just after he became a “made” man. My fingers are crossed for Gilstrap’s NO MERCY winning an ITW award tonight.



And now to the first page, a resubmission of an earlier first page, which was critiqued a few weeks ago:

THE BULLET’S NAME

Boone, NC 1937

Jasper Green was in the middle of a sentence when, from beneath the thin plywood table, the heavy Colt in Jack Longbow’s hand responded to the positive pressure on its trigger sending a forty-five caliber hardball erupting through the surface of the table, exploding the bottle of whiskey, and entering just below Green’s lip, painting the pine-board wall behind him with his brains.

A split-second after the gun’s slide cycled another round into the chamber, Longbow spun in his chair and swept the room, ready to pull the trigger if Green had backup.

Longbow stopped the gun’s motion at the bartender and measured the threat the negress represented. Eyes wide open, her small hands flying into the air with fingers spread, she responded to the weapon’s unblinking eye by urinating on the floor.

Behind Longbow, Green’s gun, no longer being gripped by a living hand, was taken by gravity to the floor.

The corpse farted.

Longbow swung the gun and almost shot it through its still heart.

As though propelled by the issuing gas, Green toppled onto the floor, the open wounds dribbling a crimson molasses.

With his left hand Longbow lifted his Panama from the table by its crown and inspected it for blood spatter before perching it atop his head. Springing the safety up, Longbow slipped the auto into its holster under the seersucker jacket.



Thoughts?

#1 Paid in Kindle Books

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by John Gilstrap

A couple of weeks ago, I posted our marketing strategy for Hostage Zero which included a limited time free giveaway of the ebook version of No Mercy in all e-formats. In principle, it seemed like a good idea: We’d let people have a risk-free peek at the first book in the series, and with luck, they’d have whetted appetities for the second installment.

Well, apparently the strategy worked. Within hours, No Mercy shot to #1 on the free-book Kindle list, where it stayed for its entire free-book run. The attention brought some very hot reviews to the amazon.com No Mercy page, and sparked some favorable cyber word-of-mouth. That’s all good, but free is free. Then a funny thing happened.

When the free-book status expired on July 5, No Mercy stayed at the #1 slot, only this time in the PAID Kindle Store, outselling Stieg Larsson’s Tattoo series books. I told myself it must be an anomaly. After a couple of hours, I figured it would slip off the list. Only it didn’t. The book stayed at #1 for over two days. As I write this, 4:37 on July 8, it’s still at #3 in the Kindle Store.

It gets better. Hostage Zero–my new release–is currently at #61 and climbing (falling?) in the Kindle Store. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol is #62.

All of this is very cool, but I have no idea what it means in the larger sense. Hopefully, the trend will contine and my books will become one of those word-of-mouth sensations that sets the world on fire; but it’s also possible that this is a brief flash–fun for a while, but ultimately not a big deal.

It’s not at all clear to me whether the ups and downs of the ebook market has any effect on the paper-book market. When a Kindle reader calls her Luddite Aunt Betty to say that she just read this amazing book, Aunt Betty will need to be able to find that book in the local bookstore in order to share the experience. I venture to guess that No Mercy will be a hard find this far after its initial publication. Can a runaway ebook prompt a bricks-and-mortar bookseller to restock a title? I guess we’ll see.

Hell, I don’t even know how much I make off the sale of an ebook.

Whatever this is that is happening, though, is very, very exciting.