Performance Anxiety.
Yeah, Even Writers Get It

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If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear? — Stevie Nicks

By PJ Parrish

So I competed in my very first pickleball tournament on Sunday. How’d I do? Eh…

About as well as I did the first time I had to play the piano in front of real people. Sweaty hands, dry mouth, pounding heart. Then lots of dumb little mistakes, missing the notes, not watching Valerie, my violinist friend I was accompanying. So it was at the pickleball gig. Hitting too hard, no soft touch on the dinks. Too hung up on the folks watching me. And the worst — feeling like I was letting my partner down,

I kept flashing back to that piano performance. I was so sure I was going to screw up that I forgot to just stay in the moment and have a good time.

Which brings me to our topic today: You guys just have to relax!

By you guys I mean all of us crime dogs. We’ve got to get over our performance anxiety.  Yeah, we get it, just like actors, dancers, speechifiers. I mean, look at the clinical definition:  Performance anxiety is fear about one’s ability to perform a specific task. People experiencing performance anxiety may worry about failing a task before it has even begun. They might believe failure will result in humiliation or rejection.

Sound familiar? No matter where you are in your writing career, long-published to working on your first manuscript, you’ve probably had feelings of doubt. And you may have even (like me at several points in my decades-long career), worked yourself into a lather over the idea that you will be rejected, or worse, humiliated.

We writers don’t get stage fright of course. But WRITERS PERFORMANCE ANXIETY (WPA…I made that up) can manifest itself in some very real and harmful ways:

  • Fear of confronting the daily task of writing itself. (God, this is so bad! What am I even thinking? That I can actually write something someone wants to read?)
  • Fear of letting someone read your stuff. (I can’t face feedback from a critique group. I don’t want anyone to see this because they’ll know I’m a fraud)
  • Fear of finishing. (Because what comes next?)
  • Fear of sending your work out into the world. (Because that opens you up to possibility of…)
  • Fear of rejection.

Is WPA the same as writer’s block? I don’t think so. Writer’s block is a temporary lull in your momentum. It comes usually because you’ve plotted yourself into a blind alley or you’ve lost touch with your characters. It can be fixed. You can go back and find the true path. You can delete. You can rewrite.

But WPA goes to something deeper, I think. It comes from a fear that what you’ve made isn’t good enough. And, by extension, that who YOU are isn’t good enough.

And lest you think you’re unique in your WPA, get a load of this confession from novelist Anne Lamott:

I love readings and my readers, but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright, and the din of voices inside whisper that I am a fraud, and that the jig is up. Surely someone will rise up from the audience and say out loud that not only am I not funny and helpful, but I’m annoying, and a phony.

So first, you have to separate you and your work. I know, I know…that’s tough because your work comes from your heart and soul. But you’ve got to get away from the idea that this is personal. If your book isn’t working, it’s not because you’re not. If your story is flawed, it isn’t because you are.

Second, you have to let go of the idea of being perfect. (Trust me, I know a lot about this one). We all try to write something we hope everyone will love. We sweat every sentence, masticate every metaphor, spinning our wheels in mid-rewriting muck instead of moving forward. We try to be too writerly, too clever, too neo-whatever-is-popular-now. We forget that our first task is to tell a cool story that connects with readers.

I love this quote from screenwriter Robert McKee:

When talented people write badly, it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they’re driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience.

Okay, so maybe you’ve got WPA. What do I think you should do about this? Well, to be blunt, you’ve got to grow a pair. You’ve got to be brave about letting others see your stuff. We’ve said this here at TKZ a million times but here it comes again: Find someone you can trust to tell you the truth. Listen to them. Then go back to work.

When you’ve finished — and I mean really finished, like your seventh or twelfth draft, and you’ve turned it into a beautiful manuscript with the best grammar and formatting you can manage — send that baby out into the world. Playing the piano alone in your little room is what amateurs do. Writing just for yourself is pointless. You’re a pro. You need an audience. They’re out there. Go find them.

I’ll let the therapists have the last word here. Because I think the “treatment” they suggest for stage fright is good for us writers.

  • Stand in a relaxed but confident pose. (You the writer need to relax, then face that blank page every day with faith and conviction)
  • Make eye contact with the friendliest faces in the audience. (Find a great beta reader!)
  • Maintain momentum rather than dwelling on mistakes. (Don’t keep rewriting the same chapters. Move forward through your plot and go back only if you really need to correct something that is making forward momentum impossible. And remember that REWRITING is where the hard work is done)
  • Focus on the act of performing rather than the audience’s reaction. (Try to remember why you got into this weird business in the first place — the joy of putting words to paper and making readers feel something.)
  • Visualize success. (Your slot on the bestseller list? Your book cover-out at Barnes & Noble? Hordes waiting for you to sign your book? Okay, how about your finished book, with a good cover, finally up for sale on Amazon?)

And remember: As Stevie Nicks says, a little rational fear is a good thing. It keeps you on your toes. Just don’t let it define you. Or ruin your game.

Postscript: Yesterday, the second day of the Friendly Pickleballers Charity Tourament, my partner Keith and I won our game, 11-4. Things are looking up. I’m visualizing a trophy. Stay frosty out there, friends in the heat zones.

 

The Rhetorical Triangle for Writers

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rhetorical triangle for writers Photo of a cute donkeyThe rhetorical triangle is a concept that rhetoricians developed from the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s idea that effective persuasive arguments contain three essential elements: logos, ethos, and pathos.

Its purpose? To inform, persuade, entertain — whatever the author wants the audience to believe, know, feel, or do.

All forms of communication use the tools of rhetoric to some degree. Though the rhetorical triangle sounds like it’s geared toward nonfiction writing, novelists can use it as a literary devise.

Logos

Logos establish reliability. We want readers to believe our main character. By using factual information and logic, we’re building connections in the reader’s mind.

An example of logos:

Facts: Mr. Duke owns a tea shop. He talks about his passion for tea.
Logic: Mr. Duke has liquid in a teacup. Because of his passion for tea and the fact that he owns the tea shop…
Conclusion: The liquid in his teacup must be tea.

Are we jumping to conclusions too soon? Maybe. Is any other information available? Does Mr. Duke slur his words? Then maybe there’s alcohol in that teacup. Or he has a medical issue. Given the social constructs and the available information, the reader concludes he’s drinking tea.

Logos do get more complicated, but it always retains these basic parts. And we, as writers, need to recognize the order in which readers draw conclusions. By doing so, we can manipulate the narrative to suit our needs.

Ethos

Ethos boils down to one burning question: Can the reader trust you? If you write nonfiction, citations from reliable sources help build trust. Or you consistently share reliable information, leading your audience to trust what you say is true.

In fiction, ethos may simmer in the background, invisible to the reader. The MC shows the audience they are trustworthy through actions, reactions, and the choices they make.

Pathos

Pathos is the emotional pull. Authors use pathos to evoke certain feelings from the reader. For our purposes, pathos is a literary device rather than a rhetorical one. Pathos establish tone or mood or make the reader feel sympathetic toward a character. By using pathos, we can trigger readers to feel happy, sad, angry, passionate, inspired, or miserable through word choices and plot development.

Pathos is a Greek word meaning “suffering” that has long been used to relay feelings of sadness or strong emotion. Adopted into the English language in the 16th century to describe a quality that stirs emotions, it’s often produced by real-life tragedy or moving language.

Pathos became the foundation for many other English words.

  • Empathy — the ability to understand and feel the emotions of others
  • Pathology — the study of disease, which can cause suffering
  • Pathetic — something that causes others to feel pity
  • Sympathy — the shared feeling of sadness
  • Sociopath — causing harm to society
  • Psychopath — suffering in the mind

Pathos is the basis for the art of persuasion.

Ever watch commercials for pet adoptions? The sad puppy dog eyes plead for a forever home. They rip your heart out, right? That’s pathos at work.

Most readers want to feel something when they crack open a novel. An emotion pull connects the reader to the characters, immerses them in story, and keeps them flipping pages. Pathos also explains why some stories are unforgettable — because we lived it with the characters! We feared for their safety. We cried over their heartbreaks. We cheered over their victories. The characters became our friends, maybe even family, and we miss them as soon as we close the cover.

Since it’s easier to spot pathos in music lyrics…

God Bless the USA by Lee Greenwood: “And I won’t forget the men who died who gave that right to me…”

Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor: “It’s been so lonely without you here, like a bird without a song.” Or “All the flowers that you planted in the backyard, Mama, all died when you left.”

To start your week off on the right foot, I’ll embed Happy by Pharrell Williams. An obvious pathos is: “Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth.”

Anyone who can sit still during this song might be dead inside. 😉

Did you spot other pathos in the video? Have you heard of the rhetorical triangle? What other ways might we use logos, ethos, and pathos?

Know the Rules Before You Break Them

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

We’ve had some robust discussions over the years on this matter of “rules” for writers. That word always seems to raise hackles (hackles, n., the erectile hairs along the back of a dog or other animal that rise when it is angry or alarmed).

There are two standard rejoinders when someone mentions “rules” for writing fiction.

First, somebody will inevitably quote Somerset Maugham’s dictum: “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” (There, I did it for you.)

The second reaction is more direct: “There are no rules!” (Always with the exclamation point.)

Now, while I don’t recoil at the word rules, my preferred nomenclature is fundamentals. What makes something a fundamental? It works. Fundamentals keep the writer—especially the novice—from obvious errors that frustrate the basic relationship between writer and reader.

“Your mother was a hamster…”

But slip in the word rules and a chorus will rise, with variations on the theme: “Shackle us no shackles! A pox on your rules! And your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

I believe the root of this objection is really a tacit recognition that rules have exceptions. But you’ve got to know a rule before you understand the alternatives. You’ve got to learn the scales before you start playing jazz. You’ve got to master the two-handed chest pass before you start with the no-look, behind-the-back dish. (“Pistol” Pete Maravich and Earvin “Magic” Johnson practiced the fundamentals for countless hours before they became magicians on the court.)

As Alice K. Turner, for many years the fiction editor at Playboy, put it: “If you’re good enough, like Picasso, you can put noses and breasts wherever you like. But first you have to know where they belong.”

The above was throat clearing. Now on to today’s post!

CATO and Its Exceptions

Let’s discuss the character alone, thinking, opening (CATO).

You want readers to connect to your story from the jump, right? I mean, what’s the alternative?

Long experience tells me that the fastest way readers are pulled into a story is when they see a character in motion responding to a disturbance. This is a fundamental for a simple reason: it works every time.

The CATO, on the other hand, is too often slow and uninvolving. The writer thinks that jumping immediately into the inner sanctum of a character’s mind will create for the reader the same emotional bond the writer has with the character. But that’s because the writer has lived and breathed with that character, and knows how the character acts and reacts. Readers don’t know those things yet. They need to see action before they care about thoughts.

That’s why writers are well advised, as a general rule guideline, to avoid the CATO.

Unless…they know how to bring something more to it.

In a TKZ Words of Wisdom we revisited a post by our own Kris (P. J. Parrish) on the subject of openings. This quote struck me:

But I’m tired of hooks. I’m thinking that the importance of a great opening goes beyond its ability to keep the reader just turning the pages. A great opening is a book’s soul in miniature. Within those first few paragraphs — sometimes buried, sometimes artfully disguised, sometimes signposted — are all the seeds of theme, style and most powerfully, the very voice of the writer herself.

Note two things here. First, Kris knows what a hook is. She knows the “rule.” Second, she gives a solid reason for breaking it and mentions, in my view, the most important element—voice.

Let’s look at an example from a surprising source, one Mickey Spillane, in his classic, One Lonely Night.

Mike Hammer novels usually start off like a blast from a .45, in the middle of hot action. But in his fourth Hammer, Spillane breaks his rule because a) he knows exactly why he’s doing it; and b) he could flat-out write. Here’s the opening graph:

Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance.

The mood, the setting, the word choices, the weather (another broken “rule”). The style is immediate and compelling. For the next four pages we have Mike Hammer walking across the George Washington Bridge, thinking.

But what a think it is! It is packed with emotional turmoil that grips and thrashes nothing less than his immortal soul.

He’s thinking about the complete dressing down he got from a judge earlier that day. Hammer was brought in because he’d killed a man, but in self-defense. That didn’t matter to the judge who knew Hammer’s record as a killer of bad guys. Before he lets Hammer out, the judge makes it clear to Hammer and the courtroom that the PI “had no earthly reason for existing in a decent, normal society.”

He had looked at me with a loathing louder than words, lashing me with his eyes in front of a courtroom filled with people, every empty second another stroke of a steel-tipped whip. His voice, when it did come, was edged with a gentle bitterness that was given only to the righteous.

But it didn’t stay righteous long. It changed into disgusted hatred because I was a licensed investigator.

Now, Spillane being Spillane, he knows he can’t stay inside Hammer for a whole chapter. Of course he gets to the action—and man, what action it is!

A girl is running across the bridge, abject fear in her eyes. Someone is after her. Hammer tells her, “Just take it easy a minute, nobody’s going to hurt you.”

A man emerges from the shadows. He’s got his hands in his coat pockets, but clearly has a gun, his “lips twisted into a smile of mingled satisfaction and conceit.” The guy doesn’t realize Hammer carries a .45.

I blew the expression clean off his face.

The action doesn’t end there. The girl screams “as if I were a monster that had come up out of the pit!”

She jumps on the rail and Hammer tries to grab her, but “she tumbled headlong into the white void below the bridge.”

And Hammer is left there with the dead guy’s body, thinking:

I did it again. I killed somebody else! Now I could stand in the courtroom in front of the man with the white hair and the voice of the Avenging Angel and let him drag my soul out where everybody could see it and slap it with another coat of black paint.

He proceeds to search the dead man.

If his ghost could laugh I’d make it real funny for him. It would be so funny that his ghost would be the laughingstock of hell and when mine got there it’d have something to laugh at too.

Finished with the body:

I grabbed and arm and a leg and heaved him over the rail, and when I heard the faint splash many seconds later my mouth split into a grin.

Wow, talk about action. Talk about Spillane’s famous adage The first chapter sells that book. The last chapter sells the next book.

Spillane ends the chapter by connecting back up with the beginning:

I reached the streets of the city and turned back for another look at the steel forest that climbed into the sky. No, nobody ever walked across the bridge on a night like this.

Hardly nobody.

That’s style. That’s voice. That’s how you break a rule. And you can do the same, if you nurture your own voice…and if you first know where to put noses and breasts.

Discuss!

Note: If you want to know how to find and nurture your unique voice, this will help.

In The Country

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I’m up against a looming deadline and am living on coffee and burritos, so today’s post is a cheat because it originally appeared on the online version of Stand Magazine in a different form.

My works are always set in small-town Texas. Though I live near the DFW metroplex, I’m no fan of cities, and only a couple of chapters in a twelve-year career as a novelist have occurred in those canyons of concrete and steel.

Maybe that’s because my roots run deep in rural Northeast Texas, and it all stems from deep ancestral family anchors and my maternal grandfather who was a farmer and constable in Lamar County from the 1940s through the mid-1980s. I mine these stories and memories from long ago, because he made a statement when I was ten that I’ve never forgotten.

We were in his old farm truck, heading toward one of the two general stores in Chicota to pick up a loaf of Ideal bread, and Dr Peppers. In warm weather, he drove with his left elbow hanging out the open window. Always in faded blue overalls, light blue shirt washed so often it was soft as a baby’s bottom, and wearing his ever-present LBJ hat, he threw a glance at an unpainted farmhouse sagging under the weight of past years.

“Another one of my old uncles lived there when I was a kid. It won’t be standing much longer. He was in the pen once, but got out and married and then that ol’ gal up and run off on him and he just withered away.”

He considered his statement for a moment. “You know, son, small towns are like ponds. Up on the surface there’s not much to see, but underneath, there’s a world of life and death going on.”

Those two sentences stuck, and have been the basis for much of my mystery and thriller writing career.

Back in the 1960s where my Red River series is set, there were few secrets in our community. Throw in the fact that we were all related in some way, news traveled fast over party lines. It just occurred to me that I had nearly a hundred relatives living close to both sets of grandparents in a two-mile square, including third and fourth cousins with a couple of double-cousins thrown in for good measure.

In the country there’s always someone watching out the window, and despite today’s social media platforms, the ol’ grapevine still exists and the uninformed are surprised to find that folks living in rural areas have very little privacy in a general sense.

Small town folks know all about each other, and what they’ve done, good or bad, just as my running buddy John Gilstrap postulated in a post earlier this month.

For example, when I was a kid here was one instance when a strange Cadillac pulled up to a relative’s farmhouse looking for directions (decades before GPS) and soon the community buzzed that “someone” was visiting the Widow Davis.

It took a while for that bit of excitement to run its course, and Widow Davis in her late eighties was tickled pink to find out people were talking about her interest in something other than watching the daily stories (soap operas) on the one channel she received on her portable black and white television.

I guess the main reason I still visit these small towns in print, or in person, is because it reminds me of a simpler time. In fact, I based a novel on a 1960s mafia hitman from Las Vegas who wanted to escape his criminal life and start anew with his new girlfriend in the fictional Northeast Texas community of Center Springs.

But you can’t hide in a small town, and especially a smaller rural community. People know the minute you get there, and the ensuing plot of that novel rests firmly upon that misconception.

After another novel came out, one of my oldest aunts called me from her assisted living quarters, mad as an old wet hen. She launched into me the moment I answered. “Reavis Zane, I have a crow to pick with you!”

Where I come from, you’re in serious trouble when an older female relative begins a conversation with your first and middle names. I immediately felt like an adolescent boy again. “Aunt Irene, I’m sorry I haven’t called you in a while…”

“It’s not that. I’m talking about that new book of yours that I just read. Young man, you shouldn’t be telling family secrets!”

“I haven’t…”

“You did! You wrote about Leroy and Lizzie running off together and leaving their husband and wife.”

“No, I made that whole thing up. Those are fictional characters and… wait, what? I didn’t know that. Uncle Leroy and Aunt Lizzie were married to someone else before? Who were they married to?”

She grew quiet on the other end of the line and then snapped at me. “Well, those are family secrets and I’m not gonna talk about that!”

And she hung up on me.

Thinking back, a large number of successful authors set their plots in small towns and pastoral communities. Maybe that’s what I look for, a sense of quiet desperation, limited numbers of characters, and the skeletons that seem to accumulate in all our closets.

So if you move to a small town to escape the busy city and some crime real or imagined, visualize a pool, which is where livestock gets water in Northeast Texas, (it’s a pond in East Texas, and a tank in central and west parts of the Lone Star State). Whatever you call it, remember the surface is peaceful and calm as dragonflies circle and birds flit over.

But underneath, where you can’t see, there’s a world of life and death going on, and you’ll likely be shocked at what you find under there.

The Great Canadian Bank Bombery

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Kenora is a small town of about 15,000 on the Lake of the Woods at the west edge of Ontario, a prominent province in Canada. Normally, Canadian towns are pretty quiet and orderly but on May 10, 1973, a masked gunman robbed a Kenora bank and then blew himself to smithereens with a bomb strapped to his chest. I call it a bombery.

You’d think this was something on a movie set, but it’s a true crime story with no ending. The bombed robber has never been identified. That’s beside having a full set of fingerprints, some twisted teeth, and a beautiful DNA profile available. Briefly, here’s what happened.

At opening time, the robber entered the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on Kenora’s main drag. He wore a black balaclava and was armed with a pistol, a rifle, and packing a homemade bomb built with six dynamite sticks. The detonator was a clothespin device which he could operate through his mouth.

Instead of just “grab the money and run”, the robber made a huge spectacle He took the bank employees hostage and began negotiation with the police. This resulted in a plainclothes officer exchanging himself for the hostages. The robber demanded a get-away truck be supplied and for the vault to be opened. About $100,000 in bills were stuffed into three duffle bags the robber brought with him.

This ordeal lasted two hours. During that time, word quickly spread, and a large crowd assembled outside the bank with the police holding them back. The media arrived, and the outside scene was reported live on radio and filmed for TV.

When the robber and the officer came out of the bank, a police sharpshooter shot him— the bad guy, not the cop. He went down and the bomb went off, with blood and body bits and bills flying everywhere. It was chaos. The officer was injured—no doubt saved from death by being shielded with the money-filled bags strung on his back. Remarkably, most of the $100,000 was recovered and not scooped by frenzied folks.

To this day, no one knows the robber’s identity. His description was a while male about 45-years-old, 5’6” to 5’8”, and around 160 lbs. Despite his fingerprints being circulated through Interpol, dental records checked, and when DNA came along in the 1990s – there was no lead. Today, his body lies in a Kenora graveyard, and the case of the Great Canadian Bombery is closed.

Now, this case hits home for me. I grew up near Kenora and was in a Grade 12 class when it happened. My girl-friend-at-the-time (now known as she-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned)—her mother’s car was parked outside that bank. Rosie’s Impala got splattered with the blood and the bits and the bills.

Watch the explosion on film as it happened.

Listen to the live radio broadcast.

Kill Zoners — Have you ever experienced a close-to-home crazy crime? Do you know anyone who has? Or can you think of a crime that can top this? Tell us about it in the comments.

Using Books2Read as a Marketing Tool

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Using Books2Read as a Marketing Tool
Terry Odell

Marketing. I think most of us dread it. Unless you’re in the high echelons of traditional publishing, you’re going to have to do at least some of it yourself. It’s way way way down on my “things I like to do” list, but I’ve found a few things that make the chore less daunting.

Note: this is what I’ve found effective for me. YMMV.

Our goal, if we’re trying to sell books, is to get people to buy them, and for that, they have to go where the books are sold. I prefer to have my eggs in more than one basket, so I sell wide to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Nook, Kobo, Apple, and Smashwords. To be frank, I’m stubborn and I’m irked to no end when the only link available sends me to Amazon. I buy my books from Barnes & Noble.

For those of us who put our work out there in several formats: digital, paperback, and hardcover, sending prospective readers to the right place can be a challenge.   And then there’s audio, which adds even more sales channels to the mix. If you’re posting on social media and you want to direct readers to your books, how many links to you have to include? It can be a lot.

That’s a lot of places to have to point people to, so I’ve been using Books2Read to help make things a little easier. It’s not only for indies. Reavis Wortham’s publisher used it to promote one of his books just last week. (Effectively, as I bought it.)

Books2Read, which is connected to Draft2Digital, offers a simplified approach. Their Universal Book Links (UBLs)  allow you to use a single link for each of your books. Clicking the link sends readers to a book page with the option to choose the format they prefer and the sales channel from one page. It requires a second click, but readers can choose a default store and go right there, eliminating that step.

You can even create a custom name for your UBL, which makes it easier to remember if you’re adding your links to marketing materials. They all start with the expected https://books2read.com, but you can extend that. Example: my newest release, Deadly Relations, can be found at https://books2read.com/DeadlyRelations. If you follow that link, you can see what these book pages offer (and it saves me from having to create a screenshot to post here).

This second click also has the added bonus of letting you use these links in your “More by the Author” pages. Amazon kicks out links to stores other than its own, but Books2Read isn’t a store link, so you don’t have to create different pages for different channels. (And if you use Draft2Digital for formatting, they’ll do all that for you. You don’t have to sell via D2D if you don’t want to. They’re fine with letting you upload your files, and they’ll covert it to epub which you can then upload anywhere else you want—including Amazon.)

You can have an author page at Books2Read which organizes your books by series (here’s mine), but sometimes you want to call attention to one series, which is where this few minutes of extra effort comes into play. This can be particularly helpful if you write more than one series or books in more than one genre.

Recently, I stumbled across another tool Books2Read offers. Let’s say you’ve written 25 books. That’s a lot of links, even for “one stop shopping.” Now, you can create a separate link for each of your series. B2R calls these “Reading Lists” and when I first saw it, I didn’t pay much attention, because I wasn’t interested in creating lists of books I’d recommend to others, which is how my brain interpreted Reading Lists. However, it’s a tool to create a carousel of your own series’ books. It takes a couple of minutes to set one up, even for a non-techie like me. B2R has already done the heavy lifting.

If you go to your B2R dashboard, there’s a dropdown for “Link Tools” in the upper right that includes “Reading List”. (Click the images to enlarge)

Click on it, and you’ll get to the series page Books2Read’s bots have already created.

From there, it’s a matter of filling in some blanks and adding any books they haven’t put into the series yet. You’ll note you can give a custom name to these URLs, too.(Note: In this screen, click on Advanced Options and check the box at the bottom to make your link public, assuming you want to be able to send people  there.)

If I’m promoting my Mapleton series, for example it’s so much easier to send readers here rather than separate links for each book, each format, each sales channel.

You’re free to create your own list carousels. Heck, if you wanted to, you could create one based on cover color. Or books with animals. Or books set in the same place. That might be going a bit far, but you’re in charge.

And, yes, if you’re doing things right, first and foremost, all this information should be available on your website. But sometimes, these shortcuts are helpful to readers, and that’s who we’re here for, right?

Any marketing tips to share, TKZers?

Readers, do you like being able to see books, series, etc., in one place? Have you ever visited Books2Read?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Spoiler Alert!

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openclickartvectors pixabay

By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Today I’m seeking advice from authors who write series fiction as well as people who enjoy reading series books.

Here’s the situation: I have an idea for the ninth book in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series, but this new plot would reveal several surprise twists from prior books. These are major league spoilers.

Ideally, readers begin a series with #1 and read the books in order. They watch continuing characters grow and change with each succeeding book.

But as authors we can’t count on the series being read in order and must keep that in mind as we write.

Here’s some conventional wisdom about series writing:

  • Treat each book as a standalone.
  • If there are references to events that happen in earlier books, skirt around them to avoid giving away surprises.
  • Include only enough backstory from earlier books so the reader isn’t confused.
  • No spoilers.

Series contain one unavoidable spoiler: in each book, the lead character grapples with danger that is sure to kill them. But there are more books in the series so the lead must survive. As long as you keep readers up past their bedtime, they don’t mind that spoiler.   

With a series, relationship arcs develop over multiple books.

In book #1, let’s say two characters dislike each other but must work together to overcome obstacles.

In book #2, their relationship has changed after being in the trenches together. Changes might be:

  • They’re now allies and friends.
  • One emerges as the lead while the other becomes the subordinate.
  • Characters alternate positions. A secondary character in one book becomes the lead in another.
  • They continue to clash with each other in a running conflict.
  • They become lovers.

In book #3, the plot pushes them closer together with more shared adventures and lessons learned. The relationship grows deeper. More variations are possible:

  • One is killed off, leading to new problems for the survivor.
  • They are no longer personally connected but must still interact (e.g. on the job, as family members, sharing a child, etc.).
  • One finds a new interest, which leads to conflict with the other.

And so on, and so on.

Like real life, interpersonal relationships in fiction are complicated by death, distance, illness, injury, divorce, children, new romances, blended families, and more.

A while back, I received an email from a someone who had read the first book in my series, Instrument of the Devil. In that story, Tawny Lindholm is the lead character who’s targeted by a terrorist. Soon she’s in insurmountable legal trouble and facing prison. In the last quarter of the book, a brilliant, arrogant attorney named Tillman Rosenbaum shows up to represent her. She desperately needs his help but can’t stand him.

Initially, Tillman was supposed to be a walk-on character, a one-off. However, he was so much fun to write that I couldn’t get rid of him. He demanded the role of male lead and I had no choice but to give it to him.

At the end of IOTD, Tillman gets Tawny out of legal trouble but she’s broke and desperate. He offers her a job which, despite her dislike for him, she reluctantly accepts.

In book #2, Stalking Midas, Tawny constantly worries Tillman is going to fire her because the job is over her head. She gradually learns reasons behind her boss’s harsh facade and recognizes why he’s so cynical. Tillman, who doesn’t trust anyone, discovers Tawny can be trusted and she becomes indispensable.

Spoiler alert: by the end, they break their own two cardinal rules:

  1. Don’t dip your pen in the company inkwell.
  2. Don’t sleep with the guy who signs your paycheck.

“What??? Really???”
Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash

Despite ups and downs, their relationship grows. Responding to the email from the new reader, I mentioned in passing that their wedding occurs in book #5. The incredulous reader wrote back, “Tawny marries Tillman????”

Oops. Let that cat out of the bag. Fortunately, the reader continued with the series.

Here’s my dilemma today: the potential plot for book #9 would require revealing crimes and the killer’s identity from book #3, Eyes in the Sky.

At this point, I haven’t written one word of #9. The new plot vaguely swirls in my imagination but it’s far from pinned down.

That’s why I figured now was a good time to ask for help from the intelligent, thoughtful community at TKZ.

If you write series fiction, have you ever given away spoilers from earlier books?

Do you think that helps or hinders the series?

Did you receive feedback from readers about spilling secrets? What did they think?

Did it affect their reaction to subsequent books in the series?

Were they disappointed? 

If you’re a reader of series fiction, how important is it to you to be surprised?

Do you read series out of order?

Did spoilers from earlier books diminish your reading experience of a new one?

I’m interested in your thoughts, pro and con. Thanks for being my focus group!

~~~

 

Spoiler alert: the two main characters in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series survive at the end of each book…so far!

Amazon sales link

 

That Deserted Island

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“It is never too late to be wise.”– Daniel Defoe

* * *

I recently read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe for the first time. I don’t know how I missed it during my educational training, but I did.

Robinson Crusoe is one of those books that has left indelible fingerprints (or footprints) on our collective language. When we think of a deserted island, Crusoe comes to mind, and the term “Man Friday” or “Girl Friday” is commonly used to refer to an efficient assistant. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that one of our books would have that kind of impact several hundred years after its publication?)

Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 and is considered by some to be the first modern novel in English. You wouldn’t think a book about a lone individual stranded on a deserted island for decades could be interesting, but I understand it was enormously popular during Defoe’s lifetime and has become one of the most widely published books in history.

Although the book’s sociological aspects might concern some in the 21st century, I found it to be a lens onto another time that I don’t know much about, and that made it particularly interesting. It was also a deeper and richer story than I had anticipated, with themes of self-reliance and redemption.

One scene, in particular, captures the imagination: the footprint scene. An article about Daniel Defoe on americanliterature.com  claims Robert Louis Stevenson felt the footprint scene was one of the four greatest in English literature. I don’t know if Defoe intended it, but it seemed to me to be a metaphor for life. Just when you think you understand the lay of the land, some small thing appears that shakes the foundation of your security, and everything changes.

* * *

I had always imagined Daniel Defoe to be a kind of rough and ready type. How else could he write a novel about a man stranded on a deserted island who invents all kinds of novel (pun intended) ways to stay alive? But reading about Defoe’s life and looking at images on the web, I see Defoe as a proper English gentleman, complete with cravat and full powdered wig.

But what a time he lived in! Born in 1660, he was a child during the great plague in Europe that claimed over 70,000 lives. He lived during the lifetime of Sir Isaac Newton and some of the great explorers. It must have seemed like an era of unlimited possibilities.

Defoe wrote more than 500 books, articles, and stories. Interestingly, he was 59 years old when Robinson Crusoe was published, and his other famous work Moll Flanders followed that one.

* * *

All of this thinking about being stranded on a deserted island put me in mind of a question we hear occasionally. Here’s a variation of the setup:

Suppose you were stranded on a deserted island for a week with no phone, internet, or other means of access to the outside world. You can pick one person to be on the island with you. Let’s say the other person has to be an author who is no longer alive.

Here are a few questions I’d ask Mr. Defoe:

Why did you decide to write Robinson Crusoe?

Why did you leave Crusoe on the island for 28 years? Wouldn’t a few years have been enough?

Were you surprised at the popularity of your novel?

How much were you paid for your book?

How did you know so much about surviving on a deserted island?

How did you come up with the idea of the single footprint?

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

* * *

So TKZers: If you were stranded on a deserted island for a week with no internet, no phone, or other means of communication with the outside world, what author from the past would you want to spend that week with? Why would you choose that person? What questions would you ask?

Hide Exposition Inside Confrontation

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I left a comment on the first-page Kris critiqued last Tuesday. I suggested the author eschew backstory and exposition, except what was put into confrontational (as opposed to expositional) dialogue. Kris asked if I might expand on that.

Patricia Medina and Bruce Bennett in “The Case of the Lucky Loser.”

First, let’s define terms. Exposition is information, stuff a reader needs to know in order to fully understand what’s going on in a scene and, indeed, the whole book. The key word here is needs. A common mistake, especially in opening pages, is too much exposition in the narrative. That was the problem with the manuscript Kris critiqued. It had a couple of long paragraphs of pure information (an “info dump”). The author thought them necessary for readers to understand what was going on. Not so. Readers will wait a long time for full exposition if they’re caught up in a tense scene. My standard advice is Act first, explain later.

Yet sometimes a bit of backstory or exposition is called for, and the best way to deliver that info is through dialogue. But it has to be confrontational and sound like it’s really two characters saying what they would say in that situation.

Let me demonstrate with an example. In many TV dramas of the 50s and 60s, the set-up was sometimes larded with dialogue that sounded forced, that was there just to give the audience information. Here’s a bit from the old Perry Mason series starring Raymond Burr. In “The Case of the Lucky Loser” we open with a man and woman in a train compartment:

HARRIET: I still wish I were going to Mexico with you instead of staying here in Los Angeles.

LAWRENCE: This trip’s going to be too dangerous, Harriet. It’s some of the most rugged terrain in the Sierra Madre mountains. It’s no place for a woman, especially my wife. It’s almost no place for an amateur archaeologist, either. Thanks for coming with me as far as Cole Grove Station.

Yeesh! What’s wrong with that is called “the false triangle.” The dialogue should sound like two characters talking to each other, like this:

But when the author tries to “cleverly” send the reader information, the transaction looks like this:

The solution is simple: Make the dialogue confrontational. That doesn’t mean it has to be a big argument, though that always works. Just insert enough opposition so there’s some tension. The Perry Mason example could go like this:

“Let me come with you,” Harriet said.

“That part of Mexico’s too dangerous,” Lawrence said.

“It’s dangerous in L.A., too, unless you haven’t noticed.”

Lawrence laughed and stroked her hair. “The Sierra Madres are no place for—”

“If you say a woman again I swear I’ll file for divorce.”

“Honey—”

“You’re an insurance salesman, not an archaeologist! The only rocks you should be looking at are in your head.”

“Now, now.” Lawrence looked out the window. “We’re coming into Cole Grove Station.”

“Don’t make me get off,” Harriet said.

“See you in two weeks,” Lawrence said.

Find any dialogue in your manuscript where you’ve slipped into the “false triangle.” Transform that conversation into confrontation. Then look for places where you’ve dropped a paragraph or more of raw exposition. Cut out any information that can wait until later, and see if you can put what’s left into a conversation between two characters.

Say, why don’t we try it now? Here’s a bit of expositional dialogue. Show us in the comments what you can do to make it confrontational:

There was a knock at the door. Molly opened it.

“Well hello, Frank,” Molly said. “What brings my favorite accountant all the way out here to Mockingbird Lane?”

“Hi, Molly,” Frank said. “I wonder if we might have a chat about your tax return for last year, when you got that $35,000 advance on your first novel, When the Wind Whips, from Simon & Schuster. Who says an author has to be in her twenties or thirties to start a career, eh? May I come in?”

“Sure,” Molly said, opening the door for him.

“You could have called,” Molly said. “I would have been happy to drive my Tesla to your office where my friend, Linda, is your receptionist.”

“That’s all right,” Frank said. “I need to take off a few pounds as you can see, so the walk did me good.”

Have fun!