Unpacking Suspense with Agent Zach Honey

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By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Writing conferences are a mix of exhilarating and exhausting, inspiring and overwhelming, work and play.

Terry Odell and I recently attended the Flathead River Writers Conference. In today’s and tomorrow’s posts, you’ll hear about the experience from each of us. Terry also tried out her new Olympus camera and will hopefully share scenic shots tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos from the conference taken by other guests:

Susan Purvis and Debbie Burke at the book table

 

No, this isn’t a stick up. Dr. Erika Putnam leads the audience in exercises to alleviate “writer’s slump” from hours bent over the computer.

 

 

 

Author/storyteller Chris La Tray is Montana’s Poet Laureate who starts each morning by reading the tattoo on his arm—a challenge from Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.

It reads: “Men Wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.”

Does that sound a little like writing? 

A young writer shares her story with a friend. Isn’t this what conferences are all about? 

A couple of days before the conference, Terry arrived from Colorado to check out this corner of Montana. On Thursday, we drove around Flathead Lake, while showers and sunshine played tag.

On Friday, the sun won out over showers. In Glacier National Park, snow closed the higher elevations of Going-to-the-Sun Road so we didn’t make it up to Logan Pass (6000+ feet) to see mountain goats and bighorn sheep. But we visited Lake McDonald, waterfalls, and the historic lodge. Any day at Glacier is a good day.

As a Montanan, I performed my sworn, sacred duty to introduce Terry to huckleberry-peach pie and huckleberry chocolate.

Literary agent Zach Honey

Now to the conference highlights from one of the guest agents, Zach Honey of FinePrint Literary Management.

Zach was born in Greensboro, NC and raised in Montana, leading to an affinity for both sweet tea and waist-deep snow. He specializes in thrillers in rural settings because of the potential for dark, scary adventures in remote, isolated locations.

Zach gave a talk about the elements of suspense that’s tailor-made for the crime dogs of TKZ. He kindly agreed to allow me to unpack his presentation. Thanks, Zach!

Suspense and mystery apply to all stories in all genres.

Why does the reader keep turning pages?

Why does the listener lean toward the person telling the story?

Why does the viewer keep watching the movie?

To find out what happens next. 

Suspense contains three elements:

  1. Hope – where the reader experiences pleasure about the prospect of desirable events.
  2. Fear – where the reader experiences worry about undesirable events.
  3. Uncertainty – the cognitive imbalanced state of not knowing the outcome of events.

When readers feel a close connection to a character, esp. the POV character, they hope for a good outcome for that character and fear the danger that threatens the character.

Villainous characters also need to connect with readers, although it’s a different type of connection. Readers are intrigued and fascinated by evildoers. That interest can be deepened and made more complex by incorporating backstory. Why is the villain willing to or driven to step over the line? Will s/he get away with it?

Suspense can be short term for the duration of a scene or long term sustained over the entire book or film.

Types of suspense:

 Mysterious suspense – Info is withheld from the reader.

Horrific suspense – Something bad will happen. Often a tragic ending. Examples: Stephen King, Dean Koontz.

Romantic or comedic suspense – Something bad will happen that may also be funny/entertaining and usually leads to a happy ending.

Paradox of suspense: Suspense contains an inherent paradox because readers or film viewers often know the end beforehand. Knowledge of the end should preclude suspense, yet it doesn’t.

Readers continue to read despite knowing who the murderer/villain is.

Photo credit: Laura Loveday, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED

People who’ve watched Psycho multiple times still jump at the shower scene.

That leads to the question: Why does someone who already knows the outcome still feel suspense?

Zach offered these theories:

Moment by moment forgetting – the reader/viewer is so caught up in the present tense moment that they temporarily forget the outcome.

Desire/frustration theory of suspense – The reader/viewer feels frustrated because they want to change the outcome of an imminent event, but they can’t. That’s why the movie audience shouts, “Don’t go down in the basement!” Of course, the character inevitably does and meets their doom.

Zach cited Alfred Hitchcock as the renowned master of suspense. Hitch defined differences between mystery and suspense:

Mystery is an intellectual process.

Suspense is an emotional process.

Mystery requires withholding information from the reader/viewer.

Suspense requires giving information to the reader/viewer.

A classic example is the bomb under the table.

In mystery, only the character who placed the bomb knows it’s there. None of the other characters nor the reader is aware of it. When it explodes, it causes immediate surprise and shock.

In suspense, the reader knows the bomb is about to go off, but the characters don’t know. The reader’s knowledge leads to excited, horrified anticipation of the disaster that’s about to happen. Five minutes of suspense delivers five seconds of surprise/shock.

When the reader or audience has more information than the character does, that also causes dramatic irony.

Dramatic irony has great impact on the reader. The combination of the intellectual process (knowledge of what happens next) together with the emotional process (the fear, hope, uncertainty of what happens next) delivers an effective power punch for authors to exploit.

Additional tools:

Raise the stakes – what will be lost if the hero fails?

Lower the hope – what if the hero can’t succeed b/c their abilities or resources are reduced?

Foreshadowing – creating dread for something that may happen in the future.

A big thank you to Zach Honey for explaining the mystery of suspense.

~~~

Stop by tomorrow to read Terry Odell’s impressions of the Flathead River Writers Conference.

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TKZers – what is your favorite technique for building suspense in your stories? Are any of the tools that Zach mentioned new to you? If so, do you want to experiment with them?

~~~

 

 

Suspense is high but the price is low for Debbie Burke’s latest thriller Deep Fake Double Down. Only $.99 at this link.

Who Do You Believe?

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Distrust and caution are the parents of security. –Benjamin Franklin

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool. –Stephen King

* * *

I left the kitchen and was strolling down the long hall toward my office, sipping a cup of coffee as I considered what new disasters I could throw at my characters, when something happened that I had never experienced before.

Picture this: the door at the end of the hall that leads into a utility room was open. Suddenly, an animal leaped out of the utility room into the hall and ran furiously. TOWARD ME! It was a chipmunk.

Now I’m not one to panic in a situation like that, and I know little critters are afraid of big humans, so I waved my arm (the one not holding the coffee—I didn’t want to spill on the carpet), and I shouted, “STOP! GO BACK!” as if Mr. Cutie could understand me. He didn’t play his part in the drama, though. He just kept coming.

At this point, I was afraid I might be in danger of getting bitten by the rodent, so I used that tried-and-true defense mechanism: I screamed for my husband to come quick.

When the chipmunk got within a foot or two from me, he made an incredible right-hand turn at full speed into an adjacent hall. Any tight end would have appreciated that maneuver. Then he turned again and ran straight into MY OFFICE. Not good.

While I was standing there looking dumbfounded and considering the next steps in the chipmunk eviction process, my husband sauntered in from another part of the house. “Did you call me?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said. “A chipmunk came running down the hall. I thought he was going to attack me!”

Now you have to visualize his reaction. Eyebrows slightly raised, a disbelieving tilt of the head, and body language that shouted, “I don’t think so.” What he actually said was “A chipmunk?.”

Now my husband knows I wouldn’t make something like that up, but he still didn’t believe me. We live in a suburban neighborhood. We rarely even see a squirrel around here, so he assumed I was mistaken, and it must have been a mouse or a baby squirrel or something else. After a suitably sarcastic remark, I described the cute little face and the stripe down the back of our unexpected visitor, and that convinced Frank that I had indeed been accosted by real, live chipmunk. So we barricaded Mr. Chips in my office, drove to the hardware store, bought a cage, and finally trapped our unwanted guest without harming a single hair on his cute little head.

After we dropped Chippie off at a park many miles away from our home, I reflected on our experience, and how useful the concept of disbelief or distrust is to authors, especially writers of mystery.

In any murder mystery, there are characters who mislead the authorities, and other characters who are trying to find the truth amidst all the noise. But even more important are the readers who are trying to figure out who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. If the author can mislead the reader artfully enough, it will result in a surprising climax that readers love.

* * *

In my second novel, Dead Man’s Watch, a man has been accused of murder and everybody thinks he’s guilty. He had motive (his wife died of a drug overdose from drugs bought from the murder victim) and opportunity. He admitted that he had met the drug dealer on the night of the murder with the intent to kill him. But he claims he didn’t go through with his plan.

However, the main character was a childhood friend of the accused and doesn’t want to think he could be guilty. She doesn’t believe he would lie to her, so she visits him in prison. Here’s a snippet of their conversation:

He smiled sadly and turned back. “Kathryn, I know you’re a real nice person, but you don’t owe me anything. Let it go.”

“I can’t let it go, Brad. I have to do this.” She paused and waited for him to focus back on her. “But first I have to know. Did you kill him, Brad?”

He jerked his head up so fast, she sat back in her chair. His eyes burned into hers. “Do you think I could be a killer?”

“No.”

“Good. That makes one person in the world who thinks I’m innocent. Maybe you can convince the jury.”

“Did you kill him, Brad?” She had to hear him say it.

Did you notice Brad avoided answering the question the first time? But Kathryn persists. She needs to hear him say he didn’t kill the man. Different readers might come away with different opinions on whether Brad is innocent, or just willing to use his friend to help him.

* * *

While the character Kathryn in the Watch series is a determined but naïve young woman, the main character in my new novel, Lacey’s Star, is different. Cassie Deakin is just as determined as Kathryn, but her outlook on life is far more skeptical. She is reminded frequently in the course of the book to be careful who she puts her trust in.

At one point in the book, Cassie and Detective Frank White are searching for Sinclair, a man who claims to have evidence that his young sister was murdered. Unable to track down Sinclair, they meet with law enforcement officers who had talked to him recently. When Cassie hears that Sinclair had trusted a group of strangers enough to share some important information with them, this is her reaction:

“Sinclair sounds like an idiot. If he convinced those bikers there was something of real value in Uncle Charlie’s barn, the only explanation is that some of those bikers decided to steal it. If that’s what happened, then Sinclair is the reason Uncle Charlie got injured.” I could feel the heat rising in my face. I wanted to get my hands on Sinclair and shake him until his teeth fell out.

* * *

In both books cited above, the matter of trust is an important theme. Characters have to decide who they can trust, and the reader has to decide who’s telling the truth. My job is to tilt the playing field without the reader noticing.

So TKZers: How do you handle issues of believability and trust in your books? Do you incorporate an unreliable narrator? Do you try to mislead your readers?

* * *

GET IN, SIT DOWN, BUCKLE UP, AND HANG ON!

Come along for the ride as private pilot Cassie Deakin lands in the middle of an unwanted adventure and discovers her beloved Uncle Charlie has been attacked and seriously injured by thieves.

But Cassie has a problem. She doesn’t know who she can trust. Still, she reluctantly agrees to team up with Deputy Frank White, a man she definitely does not trust, to solve the mystery behind the attack on her uncle.

But as Cassie and Frank peel back the layers of one mystery, they uncover a deeper and more sinister crime: the murder of an eight-year-old girl decades earlier. Armed with only a single, cryptic clue to the death of young Lacey Alderson, Cassie makes a crucial discovery that lands her in the crosshairs of a murderer.

Lacey’s Star is now available for pre-order for $1.99. Click here.

 

Beginnings Are Easy. Endings Are Hard.

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Back when Lost became a TV phenomenon, I watched the first season and was just as hooked as everybody else. Man! Each episode ended with an inexplicable and shocking mystery, and I had to keep watching.

A group of my writing friends were also caught up, posting how fabulous this all was.

But then came the second season, and I posted a warning. “It’s easy to come up with a cliffhanger if you don’t have to explain it. The day of reckoning is coming. I think you’re going to be massively disappointed.”

“Bah,” came the answers. “The show is great!”

“Just wait,” I said.

“Bah!”

Well, the day of reckoning finally came. I was on Twitter while the final episode was showing. It was a madhouse of frustration and even rage, with an occasional defense that got ratioed badly.

Some time after this, leaked documents and private conversations with the writers came out. One of the writers was asked by his friend, “How are you going to pay all this stuff off?” And the writer answered, “We’re not. We literally just think of the weirdest most f****** up thing and write it and we’re never going to pay it off.”

Mission accomplished.

But for those of us who write mysteries and thrillers we hope will sell and make fans, that’s not how we roll. We all want a satisfying, resonant ending.

I can write opening chapters all day long that’ll grab you by the lapels and get you flipping to Chapters 2, 3 and beyond. But wrapping up a twisty plot in a way that is both unpredictable and convincing? That takes some work.

That’s why, before I start writing, I have to know who the bad guy is, his motive, and his secrets. It takes imagination and brainstorming. That’s why one of the greatest plotters of the pulp era, Erle Stanley Gardner, spent hours walking around, talking to himself, working on what he called “the murderer’s ladder” before he wrote one word of a new story.

The murderer’s ladder was Gardner’s way of showing the step-by-step machinations of the villain, from the initial act of treachery (usually murder) through the first attempts at cover up, and then progressive steps to keep from getting caught.

The worth of this pre-work is that all of the villain’s steps are “off screen” in what I call the shadow story. Knowing the shadow story is the key to plotting mystery and suspense. You know what the villain is planning (the reader does not) and that spills into the present story in the form of red herrings and various ways the villain attempts to evade, frustrate, or even kill the hero.

In working out the murderer’s ladder, you avoid having to rely on a contrived ending to wrap things up.

Plus, as you outline (or just starts writing, if that’s what floats your boat), the plot starts to unfold almost automatically. I say almost because your main task now is to avoid predictability. When you know the shadow story, that’s easy. You can pause at each step and ask yourself: What is the best off screen move the villain can make? Also, ask yourself what the typical reader would expect to happen next—and then do something different. If you work off the shadow story, the ending will ultimately make sense.

Of course, your ending is subject to change without notice. Sometimes a new twist ending occurs to you as you close in on the final pages. That happened to me with Romeo’s Town. The nice thing was, the steps on the murderer’s ladder were the same. All I had to do was tweak them a bit.

Yes, endings are harder than beginnings. They’re also more important, because that’s the last impression you make on the reader. It’s what sells, in Mickey Spillane’s axiom, your next book.

The ending of this post is brought to you by The Last Fifty Pages: The Art and Craft of Unforgettable Endings.

Discuss!

For the Love of It–Words of Wisdom

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Back in 2016 when I was working on the first two novels in the Empowered series and taking a self-study crash course in indie publishing, “writing to market” was the topic d’jour in indie author circles and on self-publishing podcasts. Chris Fox’s Write To Market laid out how to do this. I have indie author friends who were adroit at figuring out the tropes and trends in their particular sub-genre and successfully hit their particular market’ bull’s-eye.

Contrast that with advice I’d read years before, from agents and editors, to be aware of the market, but not chase it, since you’ll always be behind. Instead write the story that you most want to tell, which still seems like very sound advice. Another way of putting it is to know the reader expectations of your particular genre, but first and foremost, write what you love. Finding the place on the publishing Venn diagram where those expectations and what you love intersect can connect you with readers.

Today’s Words of Wisdom looks at the importance of writing “for the love of it.” Rather than the usual trio of excerpts we have a quartet of briefer ones on writing what you love, the different kinds of love you need, how writing what you love can rejuvenate and power your writing, and how love for a project can be a vital factor in your success. Two are from JSB, since they build nicely off each other. Even more than usual, given the short length of the excerpts, it is worth checking out the full versions, which are linked at the bottom of their respective enteries here.

I thought I’d follow on from Jim’s terrific post yesterday about writing with heart, and discuss an issue that is just as important in my view – writing what you love and not what you think the market will love. It drives me crazy when people say “you should write a romance – you’d make more money that way” or (even weirder) “You should write erotica – it’s really hot (no pun intended) right now.” For some reason there always seem to people wanting to make ‘helpful suggestions’ on what you should write – usually by pointing out the ‘hot’ genre on the current bestseller list, as if that is all it takes. Hey, if you just added a paranormal element to your mystery, shazam, you’d have it made.

If only it was that easy…For many wannabe writers the thought of becoming the next J K Rowling or Stephenie Meyers is enticement enough, as is the belief that somehow if you write to what you think the market wants, your future will be secure. Wrong.

Setting aside the obvious (that by the time you’ve written what the market loves now, the market has already shifted to something else) there is something more fundamental at stake. As my agent always says, you must write what you love. Why? Because it shows.

It shows if you are writing a romance when you think it’s ‘easy money’. It shows if you write a YA fantasy when you really want to write contemporary thrillers…If your heart isn’t in it, the readers will know you’re faking it.

Clare Langley-Hawthrone–June 14, 2010

The world is full of entertaining distractions, and many of them would give me more pleasure than writing my novel would, at least in the short term. Yet I convince myself that this isn’t true. I put down my newspaper and tell myself, “You know what? My novel is more interesting than the CIA director’s scandalous affair. So what, the guy fooled around with a fawning younger woman, what’s so interesting about that? Come on, stop searching the Internet for lubricious details. Stop exchanging snarky e-mails with your friends. Get back to work!”

And this brings me to the second lie I tell myself. At some point in the process of writing a novel I become convinced that this book is the best thing I’ve ever written. No — the best thing ever written by anybody. Crazy, right? The lie is so absurd I can’t seriously entertain it for very long. But it’s a useful delusion to have, especially when I’m struggling with the book and the deadline is approaching and I have to devote practically every waking moment to finishing the damn thing. Why put in all the effort if the novel isn’t fantastic?

Then I finish the first draft and stop telling myself the lies. They’ve served their purpose, so I don’t have to believe them anymore. I wait a few weeks, and then I’m ready to look at the manuscript again and confront the truth: the book is a mess. Some parts don’t make sense, other parts are boring. I don’t love the book anymore. But I don’t hate it either. Now it’s time for some tough love. An intervention. I have to whip the manuscript into shape.

And then, after all the revisions are done and the final changes sent to the copy editor and the advance reading copies distributed to the reviewers, then I’m ready to fall in love with the book again. But this time it’s not a blind, self-deluding infatuation. I’ve done my best to fix the novel’s flaws, but I know it’ll never be perfect. I love the book despite its imperfections and infelicities. I’m at this stage now with my next novel, which will be published in February. I’m still collecting blurbs and composing the jacket copy, but I can’t make any major changes to the book. This stage is the literary equivalent of zipping up your lover’s dress and clasping the pearls around her neck, getting her ready for her big night on the town.

Go out there, beautiful. Knock ’em dead.

Mark Alpert—November 17, 2012

 

We have to have that in our writing if we’re going to keep doing this for the long term. You’ve only got so much time. Give that time to the stories you’re burning to tell. Do that first, and the money will follow. How much, no one can say. But joy tips the balance in your favor. For example, in addition to my novels and novellas, I’m writing short stories about a boxer in 1950s Los Angeles. I make some scratch every month on these. But more than that, I love writing them. It’s a different voice and genre than I normally write in, which has the added benefit of keeping my writing chops sharp.

If you love what you do you’ll do more of it, and  you’ll do it better, and that will increase the odds of making a decent buck at this—either through self-publishing or finding a traditional publisher who believes in your voice and vision. Or some combination of the two.

So my question for you today is, do you love what you’re writing? If not, why not?

James Scott Bell—September 29, 2013 

  1. Love

An inner fire to make it as a writer will get you through years of cold reality. I suspect that the majority of writers who make it to full-time status love what they do. Writing is a part of them, a calling as well as a vocation.

It’s certainly possible to write out of sheer business-mindedness (I think, however, that this is much easier when you write non-fiction). Yet there’s a certain something that gets translated to the page by the writer who loves the work. I believe you can write what you love and, if you do so with the other characteristics listed below, earn a fair return.

  1. Discipline

“One of the big lessons of sports for dedicated individuals and teams is that it shows us how hard work, and I mean hard work, does pay dividends.” – John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach

Love is not enough. Ask anyone who’s married.

Work puts legs on the dream.

  1. Perseverance 

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” – Randy Pausch, “The Last Lecture”

The true writer puts this thought in mind: I am going to write and never stop because that’s what I want to do. I will keep learning and growing and producing the words. I’ll keep carving out time to write, even if it means giving some things up. And it will always be too soon to quit. 

James Scott Bell—November 2, 2014

***

  1. Where are you on the spectrum of writing for love – writing to market? Does writing to market work for you?
  2. Do you maintain your love for a project throughout the process of writing it? Any tips?
  3. Has love for a particular story or novel rejuvenated your writing?
  4. How important is it to you to write what you love?

The Importance of Crafting Connected Settings

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Kill Zoners – Please welcome a most-helpful guest post from my good friend and long-time writing colleague, C.S. (Susanne) Lakin, who hosts the popular craft site Live, Write, Thrive.

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Settings in fiction are often a mere mention. Characters are talking and doing things, but often readers get a glimpse of the setting via a few lines of description and a dash of sensory detail on the side—and call it good.

A character enters a building in some unidentified place (town, countryside, the Moon?) and goes into a room that has no description whatsoever. Or, if there is some description, it’s more like a laundry list than a place personally experienced by the character and colored by their perspective and mood.

The character walks outside, where there is no notice of weather or time of day or season. The reader can’t see the neighborhood or the environment. The character doesn’t seem to notice or react to where he is.

Truth is, if a writer doesn’t care much about setting, the reader won’t either.

Is that a problem? Maybe not for some readers. But most people will agree that the task of a fiction writer is to immerse her readers into her story. And story is setting. Characters have to be somewhere while they are talking, thinking, and engaging in action.

Setting can be functional and boring. Or it can be powerful in the hands of a master. It behooves fiction writers to become masterful wordsmiths in order to build compelling worlds.

Chances are, you’ve heard of deep point of view. Imagine a camera lens that zooms in for a close-up. Deep POV is when the description filters directly through the point-of-view character on an emotional level in real time.

When readers see what the character sees and feel what he feels, it allows for intimate interaction and creates a shared experience in which the story comes alive through the character’s senses, thoughts, beliefs, emotional focus, and judgments.

Not every story uses deep POV, but all writers need to work to create a level of closeness between the character and reader, which requires a deft hand to bring about. The setting is the story element that facilitates this.

Experiencing details about the setting through the protagonist’s emotions and senses makes the reader feel truly part of the story. This means that choosing the right setting for each scene is important to not only help events unfold but increase reader-character connection.

Don’t Opt for Blah Settings

Settings work best when they include an emotional quotient. This is where the setting has a specific emotional resonance to the protagonist and possibly other characters. It holds meaning in some way, or acts as a symbol, charging up the scene. I call these powerful types of settings “connected settings.”

For example, it may be that the setting is connected to some past life event and serves as a reminder of what happened as well as triggers feelings associated with it. Imagine a character being asked to an important business lunch in the same restaurant where his girlfriend turned down his marriage proposal. Even though time has passed, maybe years, an echo of that hurt and rejection will affect him while he’s there and, in turn, will influence his behavior.

Choosing a setting that evokes an emotional response is important since a character’s feelings about his environment add realism and tension to the scene while drawing readers in.

Does your protagonist, for example, have a strong emotional connection to one or both parents (who may still be living or have died before your story starts)? By having your character visit a place that holds powerful memories of that parent, positive or negative or both, those emotions can drive a scene, and the memories triggered there can induce conflict.

Let’s say your protagonist has just had a huge fight with her mother over the man she plans to marry. She might drive back to her childhood home or go sit in the bedroom in her parents’ house in which she spent her childhood. There, she might remember the vicious fights her parents had before they divorced and how painful they were to listen to. She might, at that moment, feel a strong determination to never be like her mother. Or, she may suddenly be afraid to commit to marriage, fearing her marriage may end up just like her parents’.

How to Create Connected Settings

So how do we go about creating connected settings? The first step is to brainstorm the best setting match for a particular scene. This is achieved by looking at what will happen in the scene and which emotions are at play.

Think of a scene you need to write. Then follow these steps:

  • Identify your hero’s scene goal—what must he do, learn, or achieve? What do you want him and the other characters involved to feel at the start of the scene.
  • Once you know the answers to these questions, brainstorm different types of settings where this scene might take place, ones that fit the story and are logical locations for your character to visit. Consider what issues your character is dealing with and what kind of environment might escalate inner and outer conflict.
  • Make a list of the scenes with the most potential. Often the settings that pop immediately to mind are the most obvious, but with a bit of digging, some more creative and interesting choices can be unearthed.
  • Once you have a few options, look at each possible setting in turn and think of how you can describe the location to evoke a specific mood that will make your character’s emotional reactions more potent. Tension can be a factor too. Depending on what is about to happen in the scene, you might want your character to feel off-balance. Or maybe you wish to lull him into a false sense of security so he doesn’t see what’s coming. Either way, the details you pick to describe the setting will help steer his emotions.
  • Think about what the character will learn, decide, or do as a result of what happens in the scene. The setting can act as an amplifier for this end result simply by surrounding the character with emotional triggers that will lead him to that high moment at the end of the scene.
  • Think of how your character will change by the end of the scene and if this means a shift in mood or perspective. Consider how the setting can play a part in that mood shift.

Choosing a strong setting for the scene and then seeding it with triggers creates a push-pull effect, one that amplifies a character’s internal struggle. Through his interaction with the setting, we can home in on the needs, desires, moral beliefs, fears, and personal biases that drive his behavior. How the protagonist reacts to these triggers can allude to past experiences that may still have power over him in the form of emotional wounds.

Go through all your scenes and consider the setting. Consider how you might change or alter your setting to give it more emotional quotient, to impact your characters more strongly. Then dig in and rewrite. You and your readers will be glad you did.

Have you chosen a powerful connected setting for one of your scenes? Share about it in the comments.

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C.S. Lakin is an award-winning author of more than 30 books, fiction and nonfiction (which includes more than 10 books in her Writer’s Toolbox series). Her online video courses at Writing for Life Workshops have helped more than 5,000 fiction writers improve their craft. To go deep into creating great settings and evoking emotions in your characters, and to learn essential technique, enroll in Lakin’s courses Crafting Powerful Settings and Emotional Mastery for Fiction Writers. Her blog Live Write Thrive has more than 1 million words of instruction for writers, so hop on over and level-up your writing!

A Special Place In Hell

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By John Gilstrap

It’s been nearly 45 years since Avram Davidson, writer-in-residence at the College of William and Mary told me at the end of two semesters of toxic mentorship that I had no talent and that I should not bother to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. He was old and cranky then and he didn’t have the decency to stick around on the planet long enough for me to gloat at him.

I wish I could say that I shrugged off his cruel dismissal–well, I did eventually, I suppose–but it took more years than I care to admit. Upon publication of Nathan’s Run, one of my classmates from that workshop gave me a heartwarming plaque that hangs in my office in clear view as I write this.

I’ve written about this experience before, but it was brought back the front of my mind by a fictional confrontation that occurs in the excellent Netflix series, “Sex Education.” (Lest there be any doubt, this is not one to watch with the kiddos.) The scene in question occurs in the show’s fourth season, when our heroine, Maeve, has come to America from England to attend a college workshop conducted by the famous and fawned over literary genius, Thomas Molloy, who spills out quotable nonsense about how writing should take something from the writer. This is an exercise in suffering for one’s art.

While the other students in this workshop are bowled over by this pretentious twit, Maeve is more circumspect, sharing with him that she preferred his first book over the second one that won all the prizes. He’s impressed, he says, and then he tears her work apart under the guise of helping her tap that deep vein that makes writing hurt. When she finally pens her new first chapter, he tells her–wait for it–that she does not have the talent to make it as a writer.

Yeah, I had a flashback. I haven’t finished the season yet, but I can only hope that Maeve will be able to rub the asshat’s face in it before the final credits roll.

There’s an X Factor to teaching that I don’t pretend to understand. The best teachers in my life found a way to be thoroughly honest in their assessment of my work, driving me to be better without breaking my spirit. The problem with assessing art is that creativity is by its very nature relative. There is no objective standard, yet we all know bad when we see it. And then, in the truly confusing circumstances, we see stories and art that we know is objectively bad yet it still moves us. Those pieces are victories for the creator.

The lectern is a powerful thing. To stand there behind the mic is to be perceived as an expert by the people in the audience who are looking back at you. This is an opportunity to inspire. Or foment anger. Provide hope or project pessimism. If you’ve been to a writer’s conference, you’ve no doubt encountered the speaker who has experienced only failure, and whose mission seems to be to make the dream of publication seem hopeless.

Even if it were true, what’s the point of making people feel sad? Everybody knows that writing is hard and that getting published is even harder, yet people succeed at it every day. Why not concentrate on the probability of success–however much smaller than the probability of not-success–and fire people up to keep going?

I think there’s a special place in hell for people who try to ruin other people’s dreams.

What about you, TKZ family? Did you have teachers or coaches or bosses who inspired you to do things you never thought possible?

 

First Page Critique: A Death In Vegas, And It’s Not The Corpse

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By PJ Parrish

Today’s submission is a second attempt. I read the first draft of this a couple years back and I thought it was a hot mess back then. We didn’t print it here because I thought the writer needed a second chance. So here is the new version. Give it a read and we’ll talk. The writer calls this a light mystery with serious intent.

CHAPTER ONE

It’s not easy starting your life over when people think you murdered your husband and got away with it. Especially in a place like Morning Sun, Iowa.

The folks in Morning Sun — there’s only about four hundred of them — don’t have much tolerance for weird people, especially a rattlebrained housewife who tries to bail out of her marriage after a couple of little marital “tiffs.”

But I was born and bred in Morning Sun, and on that Fourth of July when my husband Brad came at me with the Ginsu knife we had just bought off a late-night infomercial, I didn’t figure I had a lot of options.

The police believed I killed him. My neighbors believed the police. My relatives believed the neighbors. But fortunately for me, the jury didn’t believe any of them.

So I walked. Actually, I ran.

Three thousand miles to be exact, all the way to Las Vegas. I had to get out of Morning Sun and I figured Las Vegas was a good place to reinvent myself. It’s the kind of town where everyone takes big chances. It’s the kind of place where dwelling on the past is about the only thing that’s really a sin.

Like I was doing now.

I rubbed my neck, pushed Brad out of my head and myself out of my chair. My Payless pinchers were where I had kicked them off when I came back to the office and hour ago. I glanced up at the surveillance monitor. So was Mr. Cranko. He was still planted like a Buddha at blackjack table 15, his sausage fingers ruffling his chips, the ash of his Marlboro about to fall to the green felt.

A tap on the door drew my eye to the door. Pete, my night manager, came in and tossed a yellow paper on my desk.

“Hey boss,” he said. He glanced up at the monitor. “How much is Cranko in?” he asked.

“Twenty-seven thousand,” I said.

Pete shook his head. “How does a Searchlight plumber get that much to play with?”

I shook my head even though I knew Cranko was a meth dealer. Half the lizard people in the desert were. I looked down at the yellow paper.

“How many?” I asked, giving the paper a poke.

Pete shrugged. “Just two. One for panhandling. The other for soliticting.”

“Male or female?”

“We couldn’t tell.”
_______________________________

Okay, we’re back. What is the basic problem here? C’mon, I know you all pay attention when we preach about this at The Kill Zone.

Yup, that’s right. Too much backstory. Too much thinking, remembering, musing, regretting. I wish I had enough room here to show the original version because this is actually much better. But this still isn’t ready for prime time. The protag’s past is interesting, but it’s just that — past tense. We’re already about 350 words in and nothing much is happening IN THE PRESENT. Sure, we get some dialogue and I suppose Pete coming in and interrupting the protag’s thoughts might pass for “action”. But it is interesting? Where is the disturbance in the norm, as James always pleads for?

Okay, true confession. My sister Kelly and I wrote this. It was one of our freshman attempts many many years ago. I found it while cleaning out the hard drive the other day and we decided to drag it out, hit it with the paddles and see if it could be resusitated.

Sigh. I dunno. I really like this protag and the arc of the story we wanted for her — she’s trying hard to make up for some bad life decisions, she’s in a dead-end job in Vegas, and she can’t find a new road forward. Her arc involves not just reinventing herself but also rebuildingg a badly damaged relationship with her dad. But this first chapter is fatally flawed because our desire to impress you with her backstory is getting in the way of the forward motion. SOMETHING HAS TO COMPELL HER TO CHANGE.

But no. We go on for about seven more pages describing the drab old-fashioned casino where she works, her sad attempts to start dating again, and how envious she is of the glamorous new casino, The Monolith, opening next door. So she opens her window and watches the klieg lights, the red-carpet crowds next door. More thinking, regretting, sighing…

Then, guess what happens at the end of chapter 1? Here it is:

I started away from the window.
That’s when I heard the scream.
A second later, I heard the thud of something against metal. My first thought was that something had fallen on the Dumpster in the alley.
But things, inanimate things, didn’t scream.
I went back to the window, and looked up. Nothing but the klieg lights waving like windshield wipers against the navy blue sky. I forced myself to look down.
It was so close to my open window, I could smell the blood.

To make a too long story short, a showgirl has fallen off the roof of the Monolith. Or was she pushed? Well, that’s where the story — and our protag’s story — finally begins to come alive.  Here’s the opening of Chapter 2:

I knew she was dead, but her eyes spoke to me.
They were green, probably from contacts she didn’t need, but an emerald green nonetheless. A red and gold sequined headdress covered her blonde hair, and her long legs were contorted under her. Her black fishnet stockings were caught on the chain-link fence like a giant spider web.
I watched as red feathers floated down, one settling on her forehead, right next to the line of blood that ran from her ear.

So, why am I sharing this? Not for sympathy. We know that if we want to do something with this story, we have a lot of work to do. I’m sharing this so you really understand a couple things about effective openings:

  1. Yes, your character’s backstory is important because it provides a context for their arc in your present-tense plot. And you want the reader to care about your protag. BUT…something in the present must trigger the protag’s journey out of the past.
  2. Act first and explain later. I think our opening paragraph is fine — it’s a good tease. But we need to find a way to get to the catalyst event — the dead showgirl — more quickly and weave our protag’s backstory into the plot later.
  3. Don’t waste time on dialogue and secondary character that do nothing to move your plot along. This means the stuff with Pete and Mr. Cranko has to go. They add nothing. Remember: Your real estate is precious in the early pages. Don’t clutter it up with flaccid dialogue and spear-carriers.
  4. Make your protag pro-active not re-active. Part of our character arc is that our protag has always dreamed of being a private detective. But we need to hint at this in chapter 1. Right now, she’s boring. We need to juice her up.
  5. First person is tough. Everything is filtered through one POV and man, if your character is moping and groping, who’s gonna care? If you chose first person, make your narrator sing. Even if it’s off-key at first.
  6. Don’t make this common mistake: Spend time, pages and energy world-building the norm, then when something bad happens to disrupt it, the reader will care even more. Nope. Hint at a norm but don’t belabor it. Get your plot moving and later, you can layer in the “norm” that has been lost.
  7. And find a way to tell us your protag’s name. Big duh for us….we don’t tell you her name until page 23.

Whelp, there you have it. Oh, I forgot one more thing I’d like you to take away from this lesson, maybe the most important thing:

8. Everyone writes crap. We had already published two of our Louis Kincaid series books when we wrote this. What’s weird is neither of our Louis books had these flaws. What happened to us? [I am laughing as I write this] Shoot, I don’t know. I think we got so enamoured of our character and her sad little life back in Morning Sun, Iowa, that we forgot that we needed a plot. In trying to save her, we lost our story. So when you do write something bad — and you will — set it aside, let it bake a few weeks, months or years in the drawer or hard drive. Then pull it out and give it a whiff.

Does it smell like cheese? Then it is. Admit it and try again. To paraphrase Woody Allen, sharks and writers die if they don’t keep moving.

 

Remember to Breathe

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I wrote this post four years ago, but the subject is important enough to redux. Plus, I needed the reminder. Maybe you do, too.

When chaos starts shaking the to-do list in my face, I close my eyes, lean back, and breathe… It’s amazing what a few deep breaths can do. There’s a running joke in my family that I’m so chill, I’m practically a corpse. It’s true! My blood pressure rarely, if ever, rises above 110/60, even under stressful conditions. And you know why? Because I take advantage of the most powerful and the most basic gift we have — the ability to breathe.

It may not sound like much of a superpower, but controlled breathing improves overall health. Controlled breaths can calm the brain, regulate blood pressure, improve memory, feed the emotional region of the brain, boost the immune system, and increase energy and metabolism levels.

The Brain’s Breathing Pacemaker

A 2016 study accidentally discovered a neural circuit in the brainstem that plays a pivotal role in the breathing-brain control connection. This circuit is called “the brain’s breathing pacemaker,” because it can be adjusted by alternating breathing rhythm, which influences our emotional state. Slow, controlled breathing decreases activity in the circuit while fast, erratic breathing increases activity. Why this occurs is still largely unknown, but knowing this circuit exists is a huge step closer to figuring it out.

Breathing Decreases Pain 

Specifically, diaphragmatic breathing exercises. Ever watch an infant sleep? Their little tummy expands on the inhale and depletes on the exhale. They’re breathing through their diaphragm. We’re born breathing this way. It’s only as we grow older that we start depending on our lungs to do all the work.

Singers and athletes take advantage of diaphragmatic breathing techniques. Why not writers? If you find yourself hunched over the keyboard for too long, take a few moments to lay flat and concentrate on inflating your belly as you inhale through your nostrils. Then exhale while pulling your belly button toward your core. It takes a little practice to master the technique. Once you do, you can diaphragmatically breathe in any position. The best part is, it works!

Count Breaths for Emotional Well-Being

In 2018, another scientific study found that the mere act of counting breaths influenced “neuronal oscillations throughout the brain” in regions related to emotion. When participants counted correctly, brain activity showed a more organized pattern in the regions related to emotion, memory, and awareness, verse participants who breathed normally (without counting).

Controlled Breathing Boosts Memory

The rhythm of our breathing generates electrical activity in the brain that affects how well we remember. Scientists linked inhaling to a greater recall of fearful faces, but only when the participants breathed through their nose. They were also able to remember certain objects in greater detail while inhaling. Thus, researchers believe nasal inhalation triggers more electrical activity in the amygdala (brain’s emotional center). Inhaling also seems key to greater activity in the hippocampus, “the seat of memory,” according to Forbes.

Relaxation Response

The “Relaxation Response” (RR) is a physiological and psychological state opposite to the fight-or-flight response. RR therapy includes meditation, yoga, and repetitive prayer, and has been practiced for thousands of years. These stress-reducing practices counteract the adverse clinical effect of stress in disorders like hypertension, anxiety, insomnia, and aging.

Yet, research on the underlying molecular mechanisms of why it works remained undetermined until a 2017 study unearthed a fascinating discovery. Both short-term and long-term practitioners of meditation, yoga, and repetitive prayer showed “enhanced expression of genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function…” and more efficient insulin secretion, which helps with blood sugar management. Relaxation Response also reduces the expression of genes linked to inflammatory responses and stress-related pathways. In simpler terms, controlled breathing helps boost the immune system and improve energy metabolism.

Creativity

This probably goes without saying, but I’m mentioning it anyway. Good brain health increases creativity. Creativity helps inspiration. And inspiration ups the word count.

Shawnee and Mayhem continue to wreak havoc on the Killzme Corporation — the largest animal trafficking ring in the country — by killing one poacher at a time. The stakes grow increasingly higher when the nefarious group retaliates by putting a bounty on their heads.

Meanwhile, the traffickers set their sights on capturing Orca for profit and pleasure.

With a ticking clock and no place left to hide, Shawnee and Mayhem alternate between undercover surveillance and clandestine battles to save their loved ones and the Innocent Ones from Killzme’s evil plans. Skills are tested. Tenuous alliances are formed. Not everyone will make it out alive.

Set in a world of cultural wonder, environmental threats, and looming danger, this heart-stopping eco-thriller will have you glued to the page from the first sentence to the last.

Now available for preorder! Steal it for the special preorder price of 99c.

Little Writing Pests

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

For the last few years in L.A. we’ve been invaded by a nettlesome pest called the No-See-Um. That’s because, as the name implies, they’re hard to see. Of the family ceratopogonidae, they are tiny flying demons who bite and suck your blood.

Actually, it’s the femme fatale of species who do the biting, leaving itchy welts. The male is content to seek nectar from flowers, then lounge in a hammock with a good book. The females, on the other hand, need protein for their eggs, and seek it in our precious bodily fluid. As one site explains, “Their mouthparts are well-developed with cutting teeth on elongated mandibles in the proboscis…The thorax extends slightly over the head, and the abdomen is nine-segmented and tapered at the end.”

I mean, ick, amirite?

When summer rolls around, these creatures come out in force, like hormonal high schoolers at Zuma Beach. I don’t know if they’ve replaced the larger mosquito, but I haven’t seen the latter lately.

When the weather’s warm, I like to do morning typing outside, with a nice cup of joe at my side. But if I’m not protected in some way, like long sleeves, my skin becomes an epidermal Home Town Buffet for these airborne spawn of Hell. Indeed, I’m typing this in my backyard, and these devilish creepies are buzzing around me. It seems that when I breathe out, the CO2 attracts them, and they become ravenous for a meal.

Mrs. B has concocted a peppermint essential oil mix that we spread on our exposed skin. That frustrates the little buggers. They’re really fast, though. I try to swat them, usually to no avail. But dang it all, this is my yard, and I will not concede it to them!

You know what else? They’re small enough to get through normal screens. So when we have our windows open, a few manage to get inside our house. This has to be a bio-plot. Were they developed in some lab and unleashed upon the world? (Like that ever happens.)

Anyway, so as not to waste this unnerving experience, I extend to you a writing metaphor. There are some little pests that pop up and fly around the page, such as:

Annoying Adverbs

Elmore Leonard said, “Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’ . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.”

While I’m not an absolutist on this, I think the use of adverbs should be as rare as a solar eclipse. Therefore, cut as many as possible. You can use the “end of word” Find feature in Word for this (see Terry’s explanation of that function).

Look always for a good, strong verb. Instead of He walked softly across the room use He padded across the room.

Swarming Semicolons

We’ve had this discussion before. I haven’t changed my opinion: “The semi-colon is a burp, a hiccup. It’s a drunk staggering out of the saloon at 2 a.m., grabbing your lapels on the way and asking you to listen to one more story.”

In nonfiction, the semicolon serves a good purpose. It ties thoughts together. You use them to make an argument and add evidence. But fiction is not an argument (unless your name is Ayn Rand). It’s an emotional ride, and semicolons are speed bumps. Eliminate them. Use a clean em dash or period instead.

Misplaced Attributions

I see this all the time in manuscripts by new writers. In dialogue, the attribution is often in the wrong place. The simple rule (yes, rule) is this: put the attribution after the first complete clause, or in front of the sentence. Not this:

“I don’t think we should case the joint. We should just go in with guns blasting. Then we can take the money and get out. Shock and awe, right?” said Maxwell.

This:

“I don’t think we should case the joint,” Maxwell said. “We should just go in with guns blasting. Then we can take the money and get out. Shock and awe, right?”

Or:

Maxwell said, “I don’t think we should case the joint. We should just go in with guns blasting. Then we can take the money and get out. Shock and awe, right?”

Or an action beat:

Maxwell slapped the table. “I don’t think we should case the joint. We should just go in with guns blasting. Then we can take the money and get out. Shock and awe, right?”

Elliptical Errors

And speaking of dialogue, you don’t use ellipses for interruptions. Not this:

“I don’t think…”

“Shut up, Max!”

Our friend the em dash is for interruptions:

“I don’t think—”

“Shut up, Max!”

Use ellipses for a voice trailing off.

“I don’t think…” Maxwell shook his head.

Apostrophe Befuddlement

It’s its when it’s possessive, and it’s when it’s “it is.”

Clear?

It’s not that hard! Use it’s only when you’re putting it and is together. The apostrophe is telling us there’s a letter missing. Every other time, use its. People get this wrong all the time because everywhere else the apostrophe is used to denote possession.

Which brings us to another bit of confusion. When should you use the possessive ’s for a name ending in s?

Is it: That’s James’ car or That’s James’s car?

The leading style guides recommend the latter. My personal preference is to use ’s as well, except when it sounds odd. So I use Dickens’ instead of Dickens’s.

Of course, you can avoid the whole issue by not giving your characters names ending in s.

Okay I’m tired of repeated attempts to suck my blood, so I’ll go indoors now and leave it to you to talk about any other writing pests that bother you.  

Also, what’s the mosquito or no-see-um issue where you live? How do you handle it?