Tag Archives: James Scott Bell

Progress and Practice

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Progress and practice are essential to both improving our writing and succeeding in the sense of completing work and putting it out into the world, be it as a submission to an agent or publisher, or an indie-published work. But how do you break down the elements of progress and measure it? How do you restart your practice of writing when you’ve stalled out?

Today’s Words of Wisdom has you covered with excerpts of posts by Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Debbie Burke and James Scott Bell. The original posts are of course date-linked at the bottom of their respective excerpts.

A few weeks ago I spotted an article in the New York Times entitled ‘Micro-Progress and the Magic of Just Getting Started’ (you can read it here) and realized it was tailor made for us writers (especially after I’d seen a number of posts on my writing groups about writers writers feeling overwhelmed about their projects).

The idea of ‘micro-progress’ is simple: For any task you have to complete, break it down to the smallest possible units of progress and attack them one at a time.

In many ways, it’s an obvious concept. But what caught my eye, was the fact that studies had shown that micro-progress (or establishing micro-goals) can actually trick the brain into increasing dopamine levels, providing satisfaction and happiness. Sounds like the perfect plan for anyone facing the daunting prospect of completing a novel:)

Online I was seeing posts from people who felt overwhelmed by revisions, who were despairing that their novel had run aground mid way through, or who were experiencing chronic writer’s block and desperate for advice. In all of these situations, focusing on ‘micro-progress’ seemed a useful place to start.

The concept of ‘micro-progress’ has also helped me. I currently have a number of projects out on submission and a couple of ones with my agent – so it was time to start a new WIP. I faced a dilemma though – I had the first 50 pages of a YA novel that I’ve been noodling over (actually driving myself insane over is probably more apt) and yet I was concerned it still wasn’t quite ‘there yet’. I struggled with whether I really knew what the book was about (despite a synopsis and outline, mind you). So I decided it was best to put it aside and start a completely new project – yet at the back of my mind I still couldn’t quite let the old project completely die. Enter ‘Micro-Progress’!

I decided to use the advice in the NYT article and tackle both projects but with a different mindset. For the brand new WIP I’d sit down and get started in the usual way. I have the synopsis and outline so it was time to face the blank page and get writing. I’d focus on this everyday except Friday – when I’d allow myself to tackle the old project but with a ‘micro-progress’ approach. I’d just take it scene by scene in Scrivener and see what happened – without placing too much pressure on myself. The regular WIP could progress in the usual fashion – but for this one I’d be happy setting smaller, more manageable goals to see how it would all come together. In this way a ‘micro-progress’ mindset helped overcome my confidence issues as well my concerns about abandoning the project all together.

A ‘micro-progress’ mindset could be helpful in almost all our writing as it focuses on the smaller more manageable steps that can be taken. The evidence also seems to demonstrate that this approach can stimulate our brains, enabling us to continue, progress and feel a sense of achievement and satisfaction – rather than becoming overwhelmed by the totality of the task ahead. But I guess the key question is – TKZers – what do you think about ‘micro-progress’?

Clare Langley-Hawthorne—February 26, 2018

By now, you’re wondering if I’ll ever get to the point of this post.

This is it.

Writing has never been a profession that delivers immediate gratification.

Measuring one’s writing progress is tough to quantify. In a regular job, a paycheck every week or two proves the worker’s worth and skills.

In writing, months and years may go by without a “paycheck.”

Even when your career reaches a point where you receive advances and royalties, the income probably won’t support you in the style you’d like to become accustomed to.

If you can’t measure your writing progress in a tangible monetary way, how do you know if you’re improving?

Your best yardstick is yourself.

Look back at what you wrote six months ago, a year, five years, or 20 years ago. Have your skills improved? Have you learned new craft techniques?

Did a class or workshop change the way you create characters, or handle action scenes, or infuse emotion into your stories? Has your pacing improved? Did you head-hop in the past but now you’ve finally mastered point of view (POV)?

Do readers and other writers notice improvement in your work?

Do you waste less time floundering around trying to find a story? Do you have more focus and better concentration when you write? Do you feel more confident about showing your writing to others?

Do you have goals? Have you achieved some of them? Then do you set higher goals?

Writing is a ladder without end. No one knows everything about writing. We all need to work continuously to improve our craft, master more complicated skills, and produce more words.

Debbie Burke—May 23, 2023

My keyboard was getting cold. So I had to go back and re-establish some disciplines. Here they are:

  1. Plan the next day’s writing the night before

At night, when I’m always too spent to produce more, I take just a few minutes to think about what I’ll write tomorrow. Hemingway famously said he’d leave off writing midsentence, so he could take off running the next day.

So I think about the scene I’m going to write next. I give it some structure brainstorming: Objective, Obstacles, Outcome.

Then I’ll write one sentence. Just one. And that’s where I start when morning comes. Which brings me to tip #2:

  1. Sleep

We all know that good, restorative sleep makes a big difference in our daily lives. We also know sleep problems are rife, especially in the anxiety-inducing world we live in.

That’s why there’s a boom in sleep products. The most common ingredient is melatonin. I like to manage my melatonin naturally. I try to get ten to fifteen minutes of sunlight between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. (good for Vitamin D, too). I also try to keep off the blue light of phone and computer and TV screens before bed. If I do some computer or watch some TV, I wear yellow-tint glasses. This renders color movies or shows a bit, well, yellowish. But I can live—and sleep—with that.

Now here’s JSB’s secret tip for a good night’s sleep: Quercetin. I pop an 800mg tab half an hour before I hit the pillow. I no longer wake up in the middle of the night.

And here is an added benefit: Quercetin is an ionophore. That means it’s a molecule that helps your cells absorb good things, like zinc. Another ionophore is hydroxychloroquine. Remember the suppression of HCQ at the beginning of Covid? Don’t get me started on the political and medical malpractice of that. HCQ, like quercetien, helps the cells absorb zinc which, along with D, is the Praetorian Guard of the immune system.

Thus the adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Apples are a great source of quercetin. That’s why all those apple-egg-meat eating farmers never got sick.

  1. Write first thing in the morning

Well, second thing. First thing is make the coffee. Mrs. B and I spend devotional time together, so I get up earlier and knock out a Nifty 250 (or 350 if I’m going good) before she joins me in the living room. I sometimes do this on my laptop. I used to do it on my beloved AlphaSmart. But Alphie is showing his age lately, so I invested in a very cool Macally wireless keyboard that has a slot for your phone or tablet. I write my words in Google Docs.

Getting a 250 or 350 jump on the day makes hitting the quota so much easier.

I’ll sometimes do some morning pages to get the engine started. This often results in a new idea for a story. [Note: I don’t count morning pages in my quota, unless I end up using some of them in a project.]

James Scott Bell—October 15, 2023

***

  1. Have you tried breaking down a task into the smallest possible unit as Clare described? Any advice to add on doing so?
  2. How do you measure your progress as a writer?
  3. If you’ve ever stopped writing or been stalled out, how have you restarted your practice of writing?

Series Words of Wisdom

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A great mystery or thriller series can have lasting popularity. But how do you create a one that will go the distance with readers?

Today’s Words of Wisdom has you covered. James Scott Bell provides five qualities in the best series characters. John Gilstrap discusses planting fodder for a future series in that first book even as each book can stand on its own. Finally, Sue Coletta assembles advice from several other Kill Zone authors on building series.

All three posts are well worth reading in full, and as always are date-linked at the end of their respect excerpts.

I see five qualities in the best series characters. If you can pack these in from the start, your task is half done. Here they are:

  1. A point of uniqueness, a quirk or style that sets them apart from everybody else

What is unique about Sherlock Holmes? He’s moody and excitable. Among the very staid English, that was different.

Jack Reacher? Come on. The guy doesn’t own a phone or clothes. He travels around with only a toothbrush. Funny how every place he goes he runs into massive trouble and very bad people.

  1. A skill at which they are really, really good

Katniss Everdeen is killer with the bow and arrow.

Harry Potter is one of the great wizards (though he has a lot to learn).

  1. A bit of the rebel

The series hero should rub up against authority, even if it’s in a quiet way, like Miss Marple muttering “Oh, dear” at the local constabulary. Hercule Poirot is a needle in the side of Inspector Japp.

  1. A vulnerable spot or character flaw

Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian has a vicious temper that sometimes gets the better of him.

Sherlock Holmes has a drug habit.

Stephanie Plum keeps bouncing between two lovers, who complicate her life.

  1. A likable quality

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe has some of the greatest quips in the history of crime fiction. We like them because Marlowe is also vulnerable—to getting beat up, drugged, or otherwise manhandled by forces larger than himself (like Moose Malloy).

Wit is one of the great likability factors.

Another is caring for others besides oneself. Stephanie Plum has a crazy family to care for, not to mention her sometime partner Lula.

James Scott Bell—August 13, 2017

A series is more episodic.

My Jonathan Grave thriller series is not a continuing story, but is rather a collection of stand-alone stories that involve recurring main characters.  Jonathan Grave’s character arc over the course of eleven books now is very long and slow, while the arcs of the characters he interacts with are completely developed within each book.  There are Easter eggs for readers who have read all the books in order, but I am careful to make each episode as fulfilling for a reader who picks up  Book Ten as their first exposure to the series as it is for a reader who’s been with me from the beginning.

Writers like the always-fabulous Donna Andrews write series that are driven as much by place as by characters.  The people in her fictional town of Caerphilly, Virginia, are a hoot, even though an extraordinary number of people are murdered there.

Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme solves a new crime by the end of every book.  While Rhyme’s medical progress as a quadriplegic is continually evolving from book to book, as is his relationship with Amelia, a new reader is well-grounded in any story, without benefit of having read the previous ones.

A stand-alone, well, stands alone.

When I finished Nathan’s Run, the story was over.  There was no place I could feasibly have taken Nathan or the other characters to tell a new story.  That was the case with each of the following three novels and, of course, with my nonfiction book.  I think the primary characteristic of a stand-alone is that “The End” means the end.  The character and story arcs have all been driven to ground.

A series takes planning.

When I was writing No Mercy, the first book in the Grave series, I knew in my heart that I had finally landed on a character who could support a series.  What I didn’t know was whether or not a publisher would buy it, and if they did, whether they’d support the idea of developing the one story into many.  Still, I made a conscious effort to plant as much fodder as I could for potential use in future stories.  For example:

  1. Jonathan is a former Delta Force operator, leaving the potential for stories dealing with his days in the Unit.
  2. His hostage rescue activities are a covert part of a legitimate private investigation firm that does work for some of the largest corporate names in the world.  This sets up potential stories set in the world of more common private investigators.
  3. Jonathan is the primary benefactor for Resurrection House, a school for the children of incarcerated parents.  When every student has parents with lots of enemies, there’s lots of potential for future stories.
  4. His home, Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, is the town where he grew up.  This puts him in the midst of people who already know the darkest secrets of his childhood and accept him for who he is.  Or they don’t.  This sets up the potential for small  town conflicts.

John Gilstrap—November 21, 2018

From Jordan Dane:

  1. Create a large enough world to sustain a series if it gains traction by planting plot seeds and/or character spinoffs in each individual novel. With the right planted seeds, future stories can be mined for plots during the series story arcs. An example of this is Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole PI series where his main character Cole is plagued by his past and his estranged father until THE FORGOTTEN MAN, a stellar novel in the middle of the series that finally provided answers to the mystery.

Crais often plants seeds that he later cultivates in later books. It takes organization & discipline to create these mysteries and track the seeds to save for later.

  1. Endings of each novel in a continuing series are important to readers if your book release schedule has long lags in time. A major cliffhanger can be frustrating for readers to discover at the end of a book before they realize the next novel won’t be released for 6 months to a year.

If your planned series isn’t limited to a certain number of stories (ie Hunger Games – 3 novels) where the overall story arc will be defined, an author might consider writing series novels that read as standalones with a tantalizing foreshadowing of the next story to hook readers. Creating an intriguing mystery to come will pique reader’s interest, rather than frustrate them with a huge cliffhanger they may have to wait a year to read.

See these tips in action in Jordan’s Mercer’s War Series.

From James Scott Bell:

  • Give your series character one moral quest that he or she is passionate about, to the point where it feels like life and death. For example, my Mike Romeo series is about the quest for TRUTH. This is the driving force for all he does. It gives both character and plot their meaning. A quest like this will carry from book to book.
  • Give your series character at least one special skill and one special quirk. Sherlock Holmes is a skilled stick fighter (which comes in handy). But he also shoots up cocaine to keep his mind active. Mike Romeo has cage fighting skills. He also likes to quote literature and philosophy before taking out a thug.

From Joe Hartlaub:

Sue, I love Jordan’s suggestions, particularly #2, about the works being standalones with a foreshadowing of what is to come. Who among us read Stephen King’s Dark Tower trilogy and got to the end of The Dark Tower III; The Waste Land to find the cast aboard a sentient, suicidal choo-choo heading toward oblivion? That was all well and good until we all had to wait six friggin’ years to find out what happened next in Wizards and Glass. 

  • I have one suggestion, which I call the Pop Tart model. Pop Tarts started with a basic formula; they were rectangular, were small enough to fit into a toaster, large enough to pull out, used the same pastry as a base, and started with a set of fillings and slowly added more and different ones over the years. So too, the series.
  • Design a character with a skill set consisting of two or three reliable elements, decide whether you are going to make them a world-beater (Jason Bourne), a close-to-homer (Dave Robicheaux), or something in between (Jack Reacher), and bring in a couple of supporting characters who can serve as necessary foils (Hawk and Susan from the Spenser novels) who can always be repaired or replaced as necessary. Your readers will know what to expect from book to book but will be surprised by how you utilize familiar elements.

From Laura Benedict:

The best series do a good job of relationship-building, along with world-building.

  • Give your main character …
  1. someone to love and fight for,
  2. someone to regret knowing,
  3. someone to respect,
  4. someone to fear.
  • Be careful about harming your secondary characters because readers get attached. If you’re going to let a beloved character go—even a villain—make the loss mean something.

See these tips in action in The Stranger Inside.

Sue Coletta—January 14, 2019

***

  1. What do you think of Jim’s five character qualities for series characters, as a writer or a reader? Any additions?
  2. When it comes to series, again as either a writer or a reader, what do you think of the easter eggs and ongoing “fodder” John mentioned?
  3. What do you think of the advice Sue shared? Anything especially resonate with you?

Voice Revisited

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Voice Revisited
Terry Odell

Travel gods willing, I’ll be in the air much of the day, on my way to Hubster’s Bucket List trip of a Mississippi River cruise on a paddlewheeler with a few extra days in New Orleans to enjoy the sights–and the food. I’ll respond to comments when I can.

In my last post, Dr. Doug Lyle spoke about voice being the most important thing that sells your next book, so I’m revisiting a post I did on the subject of voice back in 2021, with some additions and other modifications. (There’s a free short story read in this version.)

I’m looking at two aspects of voice: Character and Author.

Part A. Character Voices, or “Give Them Their Own.”

I recall reading my first book by a best-selling author. A male character discovered a young girl, about 5 years old, who had been left to die in the woods. He brings her to his cabin and finds she cannot or will not speak. I was impressed with the way the character spoke to the child—it seemed exactly how someone should deal with that situation. However, as more characters entered the story, I discovered that he spoke that way to all of them. Not only that, almost every character in the book spoke with that same “Talking to a Child” voice. Obviously, it doesn’t bother the millions who buy her books, but it bugged the heck out of me. And it’s consistent with all her books in that series. It wasn’t just a one-time deal.

It’s important in a book that characters not only sound like themselves, but don’t sound like each other. That means knowing their history, their age, education, as well as occupation, nationality—the list goes on. Ideally, a reader should be able to know who’s speaking from the dialogue on the page without beats, tags, or narrative.

Cowboys don’t talk like artists, who don’t talk like sailors, who don’t talk like politicians. And men don’t talk like women. They’re hard-wired differently. I’m a woman, and in my first drafts the dialogue will lean in that direction. After I’ve written my male characters’ dialogue, I go back and cut it down by at least 25%.

A few tips to make your characters sound like themselves.

Don’t rely on the “clever.” Dialect is a pitfall—more like the Grand Canyon. If you’re relying on phonetic spelling to show dialect, you’ll stop your readers cold. Nobody wants to stop to sound out words. You can show dialects or accents with one or two word choices, or better yet, have another character notice. “She heard the Texas in his voice” will let the reader know.

Give your characters a few simple “go to” words or phrases. For me, this is often deciding what words my character will use when he or she swears (since I write a lot of cops and covert ops teams, swearing is a given). Then, make sure he or she is the only person who uses that word or phrase.

Keep the narrative “in character” as well. This especially includes internal monologue, and even extends to narrative. Keep your metaphors and similes in character. If your character’s a mechanic, he’s not likely to think of things in terms of ballet metaphors.

What your character says and does reveals a lot to your readers. Workshops I’ve attended have given out the standard character worksheets (which have me screaming and running for the hills), but it’s the “other” questions that reveal your character. What’s in her purse? What’s in his garbage? What does he/she order at Starbucks? Would he/she even be caught dead in a Starbucks? James Scott Bell’s workshops include excellent examples.

How do you keep your characters distinct? How do you get to know them? Do you need to know a lot before you start, or are you (like I am) someone who learns about them as you go?

Which brings me to Part B: Authorial Voice, or “Stay the Hell off the Page.”

After  a presentation I gave for a local book club, one member said she’d read one of my books. Her comment was, “You write the same way you talk.” And, after I sent a chapter to my critique partners, one said, “This sounds very Terry.” That, I think, sums up “voice.”

Any author starting out tries to write what she thinks a writer should sound like. She might work hard to make her characters sound unique, and true to their backgrounds, but all the other stuff—the narrative parts where the character isn’t speaking—sounds stilted. It sounds “writerly.”

But what the characters say isn’t quite the same as “Authorial Voice.” Think of all the renditions of the national anthem performed at sporting events. The words are the same, the notes are the same, but each singer performs it in their unique voice.

The author’s voice is all the other words, the way the sentences are put together, how the paragraphs break. Can anyone confuse Harlan Coben with Lee Child? Janet Evanovich with Michael Connelly? Even Nora Roberts has a distinctive voice that is recognizable whether she’s writing a romance as Roberts, or one of her “In Death” futuristics as JD Robb. There are those who say the authorial voice is the writer’s style.

When I was a fledgling writer, I experimented. One such experiment was a short story in a voice that seems very different from the way I write now. Perhaps it was because I’d been reading a book my cousin recommended, which was not what I usually read. At any rate, it’s a very short story, and was almost my first paid writing gig. Alas, the magazine folded before the offered contract was issued. When I wrote it, it was more of an exercise in POV; first his, then hers. It’s called “Words” and you can download it for free here. For those of you locked into your Kindles, you can find it here. (Amazon is cranky about freebies.) I’d be curious to know if anyone sees my current voice with the one in this short short.

Your authorial voice will develop over time and (one hopes) will become recognizable. It’s important to learn the ‘rules’ of writing before trying to be distinctive. In the art world, we recognize artists by their style. The Star Spangled Banner opens countless events, yet even though the notes are the same, they presentations vary. Immensely.

Before artists of any format—music, poetry, prose, acting, create their own recognizable style, they learn the basics. Before your voice will develop, you have to write. And write. And write some more.

Try looking at your manuscript, or the book you’re reading. Find a passage that’s filled with narrative. How do you, or the author in question deal with it? Is it in the same vein as the dialogue, or do you get jolted out of the story because all of a sudden there’s an outsider taking over? If it’s a funny book, the narrative needs to reflect that sense of humor. If it’s serious, the author shouldn’t be cracking wise in narrative. If your character speaks in short, choppy sentences, then he’s likely to think that way, too. Again, the narrative should continue in that same style.

You want your voice to be recognized, but not intrude on the story. If you want the reader caught up in the story and the characters, you, the author have no business being on the page. Every word on the page should seem to come from the characters, whether it’s dialogue or narrative. You’re the conduit for the story and the characters. You’re there so they shine, not the reverse.

It takes practice—and courage, because you have to put “you” on the page, and not the “writer.” But when you finish, you should have your own special work. You won’t be a cookie-cutter clone. Rule of thumb—if it sounds “writerly”, cut it. When the words flow from the fingertips, that’s probably your own voice coming through. Let it sing.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Danger Abroad

When breaking family ties is the only option.

Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle.

Blackthorne, Inc. taps Security and Investigations staffer, Logan Bolt, to track down Madison Westfield. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.

Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together put them in more danger? Can a budding relationship survive the dangers they encounter?
Available now.

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

Character Based Transitions

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Character Based Transitions
Terry Odell

dog in the snow with Happy Holidays textAs this is my last post here before TKZ takes its annual holiday break, I’d like to wish everyone my best wishes for a happy holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. And if you don’t celebrate any holidays in December, I wish you a happy month.

Travel played a big part in my 2024, with two big international trips—one to New Zealand, and another to the Faroe Islands. I’m currently working on a book set against some of the places we saw in the Faroes. I’ve mentioned it before. Writing a book set in a place you’ve been turns in into a research trip. Read tax write off.

My Danube Christmas Market book, Double Intrigue, is a stand alone, but when it came to figuring out the bones of a story focused in the Faroes, it seemed more suited to another Blackthorne, Inc. book. Keeping within that series genre, it would have to be a romantic suspense. And, like in Cruising Undercover, it wasn’t going to be a covert ops book, but rather the protagonist would be working in Blackthorne’s Security and Investigations department. I’m too burned out on war and violence to write about it. And, because “romantic suspense” would be in the subtitle, I was going to need a second protagonist in order to meet the expectations of romance readers.

Have I ever mentioned the challenges of writing a romantic suspense? It’s really three books in one. There’s the ‘suspense/mystery’ story, as well as the romance story, which requires character arcs for both the hero and heroine. (Or hero/hero or heroine/heroine, but I haven’t written one of those yet.)

hands of runners handing off a relay race batonMy normal style is to alternate chapters between my POV characters. Which brings me to transitions.

JSB recently wrote that he used a jump cut and Drop Caps to alert the reader to a new scene. I’m old school and use chapters. I used to include both POV scenes in my chapters, but my editor told me that since readers want short chapters these days, to make each POV scene its own chapter.

I recently read a book by a Big Name Author who told the story from the points of view of two protagonists. Not a romance by any stretch. The two characters were working toward a common goal, often going their separate ways. It was a great book, don’t get me wrong, but the author never made it clear (to me, anyway) at the start of each chapter, who the POV character was. It created ‘out of the story’ moments. Now, if I’d been a more astute reader, I might have realized that one protagonist was written in 1st person, and the other was written in third, but that took a lot of time to figure out.

My approach when I’m writing is to make darn sure that every chapter starts out with showing who/where/when/and a POV “flag” to ground my readers. Troubling as it may be to authors, readers might have put the book down, gone to work, come home to a family crisis, or any other interruption and they might not get back to the book for several days. Or, they’re like me, and they just plain forget.

In the current wip, not only do I have 2 POV characters, but they don’t get together on the page until Chapter 14. Until then, they’re in different countries, and their timelines aren’t the same. Not because of time zone issues. One’s several weeks ahead of the other.

I ended up writing each character’s chapters separately, and then weaving them together. Sort of like JSB’s Shadow Stories, because I needed to know what each of them was doing in their own timeline even though they hadn’t met yet, but these stories were on the page, not in my notes. That wasn’t my normal process, and created its own challenges when it came time to weave them together.

If you’re alternating POV characters, and they’re not together, the last sentence of the previous paragraph might not lead into the first one of the next.

Every chapter needs to ground the reader. Who’s the POV character? Where are they? When is it? What are they doing?

I prefer to get this information right up front. Definitely within the first few paragraphs.

The “who” I want in the first paragraph if at all possible.

Things to consider:

  • Use the character’s name.
  • Show them doing something.
  • Show a thought or something only they would know—the POV “flag”.

The vibration of Logan Bolt’s cell phone gave him a welcome excuse for a break from his run.

We have his name: Logan Bolt. He’s running. He’s glad for the interruption, and only he knows this. (flag”)

Or this:

Maddie busied herself with kitchen tasks, trying not to think that Logan might not have been completely honest.

We know the POV character is Maddie. She’s working in the kitchen. Only she will know what she’s thinking. (”flag”)

Doesn’t take much, but you’re grounding your reader.

I did a post a while back dedicated solely to different kinds of transitions, so if you want more, you can find it here.

How do you handle transitions? Tips and Peeves welcome.

And again, Happy Holidays. See you in January.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Double Intrigue
When your dream assignment turns into more than you bargained for
Cover of Double Intrigue, an International Romantic Suspense by Terry Odell Shalah Kennedy has dreams of becoming a senior travel advisor—one who actually gets to travel. Her big break comes when the agency’s “Golden Girl” is hospitalized and Shalah is sent on a Danube River cruise in her place. She’s the only advisor in the agency with a knowledge of photography, and she’s determined to get stunning images for the agency’s website.
Aleksy Jakes wants out. He’s been working for an unscrupulous taskmaster in Prague, and he’s had enough. When he spots one of his coworkers in a Prague hotel restaurant, he’s shocked to discover she’s not who he thought she was.
As Shalah and Aleksy cruise along the Danube, the simple excursion soon becomes an adventure neither of them imagined.

Like bang for your buck? I have a new Mapleton Bundle. Books 4, 5, and 6 for one low price.

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

A Very Special Person Named First

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A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way. —Allen Klein

 * * *

My first two novels were written in third person. Each scene had one POV character and the verb tense was consistent throughout the scene.

But when I began my third novel, Time After Tyme, I decided to try something new. I gave one character a first-person POV in her scenes. The rest of the scenes were in third person. I discovered the power of first person in that novel, and I fell in love with it.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” –Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird

* * *

I enjoyed writing first person so much that my fourth novel, Lacey’s Star, and the fifth (a yet-to-be-published middle grade effort), are written in first person from the main character’s POV. To me, first person is especially effective because the narration is a conversation (albeit one-sided) between the narrator and the reader. The narrator relays the story in his/her own words.

But there’s something else that’s special about first person that I think connects the reader to the story in a unique way. It’s a topic that I don’t recall having been discussed here on TKZ, so I’d like to raise it now. It has to do with verb tense.

* * *

Example 1 from the classic by J.D. Salinger.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

“They kicked me out. I wasn’t supposed to come back after Christmas vacation, on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself—especially around midterms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer—but I didn’t do it. So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pencey. It has a very good academic rating, Pencey. It really does.”

Did you see how the author switched from past tense to present so the character can move from telling the events of the story to offering a personal opinion? It’s as if the character wants to share a little detail with the reader, so he turns directly to the audience and hands out some extra information. This ability to offer side comments in the character’s voice seems to me to be unique in first person, and it shows an aspect of the character that may not work if the author stays with past tense.

When I was working on my first-person novels, I didn’t realize I was using exactly this technique, but someone with editing experience reviewed some of my work and told me the tense had to agree all the way through each scene. I didn’t see it that way, so I went looking for examples that used the first-person past / present approach. In addition to The Catcher in the Rye, I found lots of other examples, and they convinced my friend this was a valid approach.

Example 2 from a highly-regarded Middle Grade novel.

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

“Once upon a time, it was hot and I was sweaty. It was about five months before my thirteenth birthday, give or take. We were someplace in Oregon. Honestly, I don’t even remember the name of the town, but I know it was on the dry, hot side of the state, away from the ocean.”

Example 3 where John D. MacDonald gives his main character, Travis McGee, so many opinions to share in present tense that I had a hard time deciding which one to pick.

The Deep Blue Good-By by John D. MacDonald

“The next morning, after making laundry arrangements, I untethered my bike and pedaled to the garage where I keep Miss Agnes sheltered from brine and sun. She needs tender loving care in her declining years. I believe she is the only Rolls Royce in America which has been converted into a pickup truck.”

Example 4 from an American classic.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

“After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn’t care no more about him, because I don’t take no stock in dead people.”

And finally, Example 5 from our own JSB.

Romeo’s Justice by James Scott Bell

“Which is why I owed her that blasted thing called honesty. I never want Sophie to have any illusions about this piece of work called Romeo.”

So, there you have it. Examples of past and present tense, each within one paragraph, and all from masters of writing. Novl.org has a nice summation:

“We use tenses every day naturally as part of speech. While consistency is key when maintaining narrative voice, it’s important to remember that you can play around with tense for interesting narrative effect. Whatever you do, just make sure you choose the option that best serves your story.”

“Whatever you do, just make sure you choose the option that best serves your story.” I like that.

* * *

So TKZers: Do you write in first person? Have you noticed the use of both past and present tense in first person narratives? Will the two tenses work in third person? Any reflections on the examples above? 

* * *

Private pilot Cassie Deakin offers a first-person opinion right from the get-go in Lacey’s Star:
“I do not like handsome men… Like the one sitting in the passenger seat of my Cessna 172 while I did the run-up prior to takeoff. Frank White.” 

Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

Tropes to the Left of Me

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Tropes to the Left of Me …
Terry Odell

old fashioned key being inserted into a keyhole with white light shining behind it.Kris’s recent post about retiring the Defective Detective followed close on the heels by JSB’s got me thinking. My post is blatantly “borrowed” (and unedited) from tvtropes.org, which is a rabbit warren of fun things to think about. Take a look sometime when you’re not busy.  I did a post about “generic” television tropes (more like cliches) a while back, but this list today is mystery-related..

Whether or not all of these qualify as “tropes” isn’t an issue. Maybe they’re really “plot devices.” Or “reader expectations.” Whatever you call them, they make frequent appearances in mystery tv shows. Here you go:

Absence of Evidence: When the absence of something is a clue.

The Alibi: Someone can prove they were physically incapable of committing the crime.

Amnesiac Hero: When the protagonist has amnesia.

Anachronistic Clue: Something which can’t come from the time period it supposedly came from, which is a sign something is amiss.

Anonymous Killer Narrator: When the serial killer is the narrator of the mystery story.

Anti-Climactic Unmasking: Someone rips off someone else’s face-concealing costume (such as a mask, visor, etc), expecting someone extraordinary, but they get someone ordinary.

Believer Fakes Evidence: A believer plants fake evidence to make others believe in the phenomena of their choice.

Beneath Notice: Disguising oneself as a very plain, regular person.

Beneath Suspicion: When the culprit was never suspected because no one thought it could have been them.

Blood-Stained Letter: A letter or note that has blood on the paper.

Bluffing the Murderer: Someone is pretty sure who committed the crime, so they trick the criminal into revealing themselves.

Bookmark Clue: An important clue is discovered because someone used it as a bookmark.

The Butler Did It: A butler turns out to be the one who committed the crime.

Cast as a Mask: A character and their disguised self are played by separate actors.

Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome: Bad guys hold onto evidence for no good reason.

Clock Discrepancy: Something seems to have happened at a certain time, but then it turns out it didn’t, for instance because the clock had stopped.

Closed Circle: A plot where the characters can’t leave until it’s over.

Clueless Mystery: A mystery story where the reader/viewer can’t follow along.

Condensation Clue: A hidden message written with one’s finger onto a mirror or window.

Confess in Confidence: The criminal confesses to someone whose job requires confidentiality, such as a clergy member, doctor, or lawyer.

Consulting a Convicted Killer: There’s a dangerous criminal at large, but luckily the investigators can talk to another, incarcerated criminal.

Conviction by Contradiction: A whodunnit mystery is solved by finding a hole in the perp’s story, like a logic puzzle.

Corpse Temperature Tampering: Interfering with natural cooling of a dead body to obfuscate time of death.

Costumes Change Your Size: A disguised figure’s size is somehow different from that of the person underneath. A standard trope for “Scooby-Doo” Hoax mysteries.

Cozy Mystery: A mystery story where there is no graphic violence, sex, or profanity, the murder victims were bad people, the detective is usually a woman with a down-to-earth hobby, the setting is a small community, and the story in general has a lighthearted vibe despite usually dealing with a murder.

Creepy Red Herring: A blatantly creepy suspect is innocent.

Curtain Camouflage: Hiding behind a curtain.

Cut Himself Shaving: A character was attacked, but lies that the injuries are for a mundane reason, such as falling downstairs.

Dame with a Case: Beautiful but untrustworthy woman who hires the Hard Boiled Detective.

Death in the Clouds: A mystery story involving a murder on a plane.

Detectives Follow Footprints: Looking for evidence can solve the case.

Did Not Die That Way: Someone lies about the cause of someone else’s death.

Disability Alibi: A suspect is determined innocent because they have a disability of some sort that makes it impossible for them to have done the crime.

The Dog Was the Mastermind: The villain turns out to be a seemingly harmless and irrelevant character.

Dramatic Curtain Toss: Someone dramatically removes a curtain/tarp/veil, revealing something important.

Driving Question: When the whole story revolves around solving some sort of mystery.

Eagle-Eye Detection: A detective whose main skill is being really observant.

The End… Or Is It?: The story ends with a reveal (or at least an implication) that danger is still present.

“Eureka!” Moment: A character has an epiphany from seeing or hearing something unrelated that reminds them of the answer (e.g. seeing a dog, then realizing the killer was the owner of the hot dog stand.)

Everybody Did It: All the suspects were responsible for the crime in some way.

Everyone Is a Suspect: When the killer in a murder mystery could have been anybody.

Evidence Dungeon: The villain has a lair where lots of incriminating evidence is.

Evidence Scavenger Hunt: A scene about protagonists searching for clues.

Evil Plan: A plan that a villain has.

Exposition Victim: Upon finding out who the killer is, the character speaks to them instead of fighting or running away.

Fair-Play Whodunnit: The opposite of a Clueless Mystery—a mystery story where the reader/viewer can follow along.

Fake Alibi: A suspect claims to have an alibi, witnesses confirm, yet the suspect is actually guilty.

Fake Mystery: The mystery plot turns out to have been staged to prank the detectives.

Fantastic Noir: Mystery and magic mix on the mean streets.

Finger-Licking Poison: Someone was poisoned by licking something covered in poison.

Fingertip Drug Analysis: Testing if a powder or liquid is drugs by sniffing or tasting it.

The Game Never Stopped: Characters take part in a game involving a simulated death, then someone actually dies… or so it seems. As it turns out, the game hasn’t ended yet.

Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty: A suspect isn’t proven innocent until the true culprit is exposed.

Hide the Evidence: Hiding the evidence of something wrong or embarrassing is a major plot point.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Something is being searched for, and it turns out it was there the whole time but blended into the surroundings.

Hidden Agenda Hero: The hero’s motivation is never revealed.

Hidden Villain: The villain’s identity is not revealed until much later.

I Never Said It Was Poison: A character accidentally gives themselves away by revealing information that their knowledge of proves they are guilty.

Insists on Being Suspected: The detective counts themselves as a suspect.

Intrepid Reporter: A journalist who actively searches for stories.

Let Off by the Detective: The detective knows who did it, but sympathizes with their motive (or feels they’ve been punished enough) and so doesn’t say so.

Lights Off, Somebody Dies: The lights go out, then when they turn back on, someone has been murdered.

Locked Room Mystery: A crime that seems to have been impossible at first glance (for instance, a murder victim in a locked room.)

Lotsa People Try to Dun It: It turns out that all the suspects tried to kill the victim.

The Main Characters Do Everything: It’s always the protagonists who find the important evidence.

The Meddling Kids Are Useless: The protagonists did all the cool stuff, but ultimately it was some other person, such as the police, who solved the problem.

Mistaken for Evidence: Something looks like a specific, suspicious item but it’s something different.

Mockspiracy: A conspiracy theory which turns out not to be true.

Mockstery Tale: A story that starts out with a mystery, but the mystery turns out to be fake or unsolvable, so the plot goes somewhere different.

Motive = Conclusive Evidence: A motive is treated as incriminating evidence.

Mysterious Stranger: A recurring character who isn’t known by the others, and who’s deliberately set up as enigmatic.

Mystery Episode: An episode in a serial work dedicated to solving a mystery.

Mystery Magnet: Someone who coincidentally seems to attract mysteries.

Mystery of the Week: The protagonists solve a mystery in every episode.

Needle in a Stack of Needles: An object hidden in a bunch of similar objects.

Never a Runaway: Someone who is said to have run away actually befell some other crime.

Never One Murder: Murder mysteries never have just one victim.

Never Suicide: It looks like somebody killed themselves, but it turns out to be murder instead.

Never the Obvious Suspect: Somebody seems to have been the culprit due to having obvious motive and ability to have done it, but it was somebody else who was the real culprit.

No One Sees the Boss: No one, not even his underlings, knows the Big Bad’s identity.

Notable Non Sequitur: In a detective story, every out-of-place line turns out to be important.

Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon: An actor accidentally kills another actor due to a prop weapon being switched for a real one.

Obfuscating Postmortem Wounds: A killer inflicts additional wounds on a corpse to mask the true cause of death.

Old, Dark House: One or more murders happens in an old, poorly-lit house.

Only One Plausible Suspect: A whodunnit where the identity of the culprit is obvious to the viewers.

Ontological Mystery: A story where the characters are locked somewhere and must find out how they got there, why, how to escape, and who (if anyone) is the cause of the situation.

Orgy of Evidence: A criminal plants fake clues, but gives themselves away by the sheer number of fake clues.

Perfect Poison: Killing someone with poison is unrealistically quick and easy.

Placebo Eureka Moment: A character figures out a mystery on their own, but thanks someone near them anyway.

Precrime Arrest: Someone gets arrested for a crime they haven’t even committed yet.

Proof Dare: The criminal dares the detective to prove their guilt.

Propping Up Their Patsy: A culprit proclaims the innocence of another suspect to conceal their own culpability or further their own agenda.

Public Secret Message: Sending a coded message to everyone because only the intended target of the message will understand the code.

Put on a Prison Bus: The culprit is often defeated at the end by being arrested.

Puzzle Thriller: A mystery story where the mystery is “how does it all work?”.

Recorded Audio Alibi: Someone uses a recording of themselves to establish an alibi.

Red Herring: Something seems like a clue, but it misleads the audience.

Reverse Whodunnit: We know who committed the crime, but we don’t know how the detective will solve the case.

Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Somebody finds something that gets their attention in a video, so they rewind and replay it over and over.

A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Somebody describes a frustrating mystery as three mysteries in one.

Ripped from the Headlines: A crime story based on a real crime.

Saying Too Much: Someone accidentally says something that reveals plot-sensitive info.

Scary Minority Suspect: An immoral-seeming Token Minority character is portrayed as the obvious suspect of a crime.

“Scooby-Doo” Hoax: The perpetrator disguises the crime as a paranormal or supernatural event.

Secret Identity Apathy: The villains do not care about the true identity of the hero who’s always thwarting them.

Serial Killings, Specific Target: A murderer covers up the murder by killing other people with similar traits as the initial victim.

Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: A character has glowing eyes peeking out from a shadowed, usually covered face.

Shell Game: Two or more identical things are shown, one is significant, and we initially know which it is until the objects get mixed.

Sherlock Can Read: Someone thinks someone else used great detective work when they didn’t.

Sherlock Scan: A detective comes to a conclusion about someone they just met from looking at them.

The Seven Mysteries: Mysteries come in sevens.

Signature Item Clue: A distinctive item means that someone must have put it there and that’s a clue.

Spot the Impostor: Someone is seen with their impersonator and their friends have to determine who is the real deal and who is the disguised phony.

The Stakeout: One or more people setting up camp somewhere and watch a location in secret to search for information.

Stranger Behind the Mask: The answer to the mystery is something or someone we’ve never heard of.

The Summation: When the detective does a speech about how they solved the mystery.

Summation Gathering: During the Summation in a murder mystery, all the suspects, including the killer, are present.

Suspect Is Hatless: Someone reports a crime while giving a description of the culprit that is too vague and generic to narrow down who the person responsible could be.

Suspicious Missed Messages: Someone won’t answer their phone? Better find out why!

Ten Little Murder Victims: A group of people ends up somewhere, one of them turns out to be a killer, and they must find out which one before they kill everybody.

That Mysterious Thing: Characters refer to something in ambiguous terms so the audience won’t know what it is.

Thriller on the Express: A crime story set on a train.

Twist Ending: The plot leads one way, but then something happens at the end which changes everything.

Two Dun It: There were two culprits all along.

The Unsolved Mystery: A mystery story without a resolution.

Varying Competency Alibi: A character is proven innocent when they’re shown to be too competent or incompetent to do.

Weather Report Opening: The story opens with a description of the weather.

Wheel Program: A number of TV shows are run in the same slot under one title.

Who Dunnit To Me: Someone survives a murder attempt or comes back from the dead after being killed and tries to find out who it was who killed them or tried to kill them.

Who Murdered the Asshole: An unsympathetic person has been killed, but it is difficult to determine who’s responsible because pretty much everyone who knew the victim hated them.

World of Mysteries: A setting with heaps of mysteries in it.

Writing Indentation Clue: Reading the indentations of notes written on a separate piece of paper.

You Meddling Kids: The villain claims they would have gotten away with whatever they planned on doing, if not for the protagonists.

You Wake Up in a Room: A character wakes up in an unfamiliar location.

You Wake Up on a Beach: A story that starts with a protagonist waking up on a beach.

All right, TKZers. Which have you used? Which would you avoid?

How can he solve crimes if he’s not allowed to investigate?

Gordon Hepler, Mapleton’s Chief of Police, has his hands full. A murder, followed by several assaults. Are they related to the expansion of the community center? Or could it be the upcoming election? Gordon and mayor wannabe Nelson Manning have never seen eye to eye. Gordon’s frustrations build as the crimes cover numerous jurisdictions, effectively tying his hands.
Available for preorder now.

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

How To Use White Space

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When I was first learning the craft, I studied many novels, searching for how the author drew me in, held me in suspense, and propelled me to turn the page. Still do. 😉 One of the things I noticed was their use of white space — the blank field around the words and paragraphs.

White space can help create drama, emotion, or add a quiet pause before the storm hits. With so many “rules” or guidelines, sometimes white space can get overlooked. Yet it’s a powerful tool when used with intent.

Let’s look at a few examples. The first two are from our own James Scott Bell.

Last Call from JSB:

“Yo,” she said. “Go back to your table, okay?”

He stiffened and his smile melted into his beard. “Real friendly.” He shook his head as he went back to his table. He turned his laptop around then sat with his back to her.

Just like the rest of the world.

Long Lost from JSB:

With the wind blowing outside, Stevie fell into a calm sleep. Deep like the desert night.

He woke up with a rough hand over his mouth. Pressing him down. Maybe it was Robert playing a game. But it wasn’t. It was something big.

A monster.

 

The eye is drawn to the last line in both examples. They’re sharp and dramatic when sectioned by white space.

In the Eyes of the Dead by Jordan Dane:

I wanted to fight it, but I couldn’t. The hopelessness of becoming a victim rushed over me like a floodgate opening. I nearly choked on the magnitude of it. Images of my ordeal bombarded me. I caught glimpses of another face. It all happened too fast, I wasn’t sure I could retain what I’d seen.

Just like last time.

Again, Jordan could’ve set the last line in the same paragraph, but it would lose its punch there.

We can also use white space to break up dialogue.

Here’s an example from Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman:

“Then you know that if I was a witch, I could turn myself into something else. Into a burrowing owl. I could fly out the smoke hole and go away into the night.”

Silence.

“But I am not a witch. I am just a man. I am a singer. A yataalii. I have learned the ways to cure. Some of them. I know the songs to protect you against a witching. But I am not a witch.”

See how “silence” added to the drama? Had he put all the dialogue into one paragraph, it wouldn’t be as effective, even with an intriguing conversation.

The Killing Song by PJ Parish:

The cold nub that had formed in my gut was growing. I was never one to trust vague feelings. I was a reporter and trained to believe only what I could see, what I could prove.

But the feeling rising up and putting a choke hold on my heart now was real.

Mandy was gone.

That last line smacks you in the face — because it’s separated by white space.

Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes by Karin Slaughter:

The line finally moved, and Julia went into the first stall. She felt her pager vibrate as she started to unbutton her jeans. She didn’t scroll the number right away. She sat down on the toilet. She looked up at the ceiling. She looked at the posters taped to the back of the stall door. She finally looked down at the pager. She pressed the button to scroll the number.

222.

Her heart broke into a million pieces.

222.

Julia looked up, trying to keep her tears from falling. She sniffed. She counted to a slow one hundred. She looked down again, because maybe she was wrong.

222.

 

The repetition also draws you in. If the author were to continue too long, the rhythm would lose its value. When done with intent, it’s dramatic and effective.

The last example is from my new thriller, Savage Mayhem (releases once my designer completes my cover).

A hair-raising screech stopped me mid-stride, my heartbeat quickened to a fast pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Quaking aspen leaves trembled as we passed. Night owls slalomed through the trees, oarlike wings emitting a whoosh with each stroke. To my left, sticks crunched under heavy paws. Or hooves.

Bear?

Moose?

Wolf?

Here, I used white space for a dramatic pause and to draw attention to each individual threat. Which allows the reader to wonder. I also used Onomatopoeia words to deepen the scene.

White space can help fix long, rambling passages of text, pacing issues, and story rhythm. It’s a tool we should never overlook. Use the precious real estate to your advantage.

With the exception of mine (this is NOT a shameless plug), I recommend all these books. They’re fabulous.

Have you read any of them? Did you notice the white space while reading? Do you pay attention to white space in your writing?

Beginnings

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Beginnings
Terry Odell

Book beginnings are tough, as evidenced by the interest in The Kill Zone’s First Page Critiques. A blog post I’d read recently talked about having about 250 words to ‘hook’ a reader. That’s not even a full page.

And, it seems, no matter how many books we’ve written, how many times we’ve stared at that cursor on the screen under the words “Chapter One”, it doesn’t get easier.

I know this is a frequent topic her at the Zone, but it hit home (again) as both myself and my critique partner were starting new projects. And, we both were falling into the same old quicksand. She’s more of a planner than I am, and she was starting a new series, so her head was filled with ideas, many of which would fall into the “tell us this later” category. Her first chapter was full of them.

I was going back to my Mapleton Mystery series, so I know most of my main characters. But there were things from the last book that readers might need to know, threads that were left open. Not dangling, not hanging onto cliffs, just springboards to explore in a future book. If you’re interested, I posted an article about endings on my personal blog Monday.

Even “knowing the rules”, when I shared my first draft of page 1 of a new book, a draft I’d set aside to deal with final edits and formatting of Cruising Undercover, an author friend pointed out that my first paragraph was … exposition. In my mind, there was a conflict there, a problem, but there I went, letting my protagonist think about it.

Open with Dialogue. Dialogue is Action.

How many times have I “heard” James Scott Bell and others here pound that advice into us? More than I can count, yet, even knowing this, understanding this, I was so eager to describe the problem so that’s what I did.

This was my opening draft paragraph:

Gordon Hepler held his breath as Angie, his wife, stepped into the house he’d hoped she’d approve of. Not that he didn’t love her—to the moon and back—but her tiny apartment above the Daily Bread diner she ran was … tiny. She’d agreed to consider moving, but so far, she’d found fault with every house they’d looked at. This one—fingers crossed—would meet her criteria. Except for one minor wrinkle, it was perfect.

There was a line of dialogue immediately after this paragraph, but no, I hadn’t opened with it, not to mention loading the paragraph with back story.

Back to that blog post. The author suggested 7 points that should hook readers, and that authors should strive for 4 of them in their first 250 words. Rather than repeat what the contributors to TKZ say in their First Page Critiques, I’m going to open the floor to discussion. Do you agree with these 7 hooks?

  1. Plunge into the action
  2. Communicate a theme
  3. Raise a question that needs answering
  4. Hook the reader’s emotions
  5. Communicate the stakes
  6. Establish tone/voice
  7. Introduce the main character (if possible, by name)

Do you think squeezing 4 of them into half a page is effective? Obviously several can be combined (avoid the laundry list!), but 250 words isn’t much real estate to deal with.

And if you want to read the full article, which contains examples, it’s here.

Floor’s yours.

Cruising Undercover by Terry OdellNow Available for Pre-Order: Cruising Undercover.

Not accepting the assignment could cost him his job. Accepting it could cost him his life.

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

Surgery for the Manuscript

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Surgery for the Manuscript
Terry Odell

I hit “The End” on the current WIP, which is really “The Beginning.” James Scott Bell talked about getting rid of mosquitos in his recent post. To continue with his analogy (it was an analogy, wasn’t it?) Sometimes you’re getting rid of angry wasps, and sometimes it’s annoying gnats.

I prefer thinking in surgical terms when I tackle my draft. First, the major medical. The current manuscript came in longer than I wanted. Although I firmly believe that a story should be as long as it needs to be, the operative word is needs, and I check to make sure that every scene pulls its weight and advances the story. I confess that as a non-plotter, I often find things that never got followed up on, or were just fun scenes to write. If they don’t connect to the overall story, they get cut.

  • Purely practical note. At Amazon, for books priced for the 70% royalty option, there’s a “delivery fee” for ebooks based on file size. Longer books, bigger cut for them. Example: for my three-book box sets, they slice from 25 to 27 cents per book. They take about a dime from my “normal” length books. For those who go wide, B&N, Kobo, and Smashwords don’t have these fees. D2D keeps about 10% regardless of book length.
  • In print, the cost to produce the book via KDP is based on page count. More pages, bigger cut. I don’t sell enough print books to check out the other distributors, so I can’t speak for them.
  • If you’re going to produce the book in audio and pay a narrator, the longer the book, the greater the cost.

These, to me, justify excising ugly fat. If you want more advice from the real experts, Ruth Harris has an excellent summary. Check this out.

Back to cutting plot threads. Should be easy, right? Patient has appendicitis, you cut out the appendix. In the manuscript, you find the threads that don’t need to be there and remove them.

Trouble is, threads don’t exist in nice, tidy packages. There will be places where you’ve foreshadowed, places where you’ve followed up, and places where you’ve made a reference, almost in passing, to something that happened in that now defunct thread.

Example: One thread I’d decided wasn’t necessary (even though it created conflict and tension) related to the character finding an earring in the pasture. How did it get there? Who dropped it? Could it belong to the cattle rustler? I set things up by having my hero spot similar earrings on the heroine and asking where she got them which led down a path I decided was no longer needed. I had enough other mystery threads to be solved. The entire scene had to be revised. (And it was at a restaurant, JSB.) If that patient’s appendix burst, the surgeon wants to remove all traces of infection. In the manuscript, I have to make sure I’ve removed all references to this “earring thread.” It showed up in several more chapters, and cutting them leads to more problems.

A tip: Watch your transitions. It’s more than likely the scene before the one you cut led into it. That will have to be adjusted. Likewise the one after it. If you ended the scene with a page-turning cliff hanger, that cliffhanger now sends readers into an abyss with no bottom.

Another example came from removing a simple piece of stage business. My characters love coffee, and they were often (too often?) brewing, pouring, sipping. In the scene in question, the characters were dealing with a suspicious package purportedly delivered by FedEx, and the heroine offered to make coffee while they worked. Yet another coffee-making scene. Didn’t add enough to justify the extra words, so I deleted it:

“There’s time for coffee. Want some?”
Figuring the simple task might take her mind off what she was dealing with, he said yes.
As she went through the process of water, filter, and grounds, he mulled over what had gone on.

But now, since they had coffee, there were more references throughout the scene (and more) that had to go: carrying the mugs upstairs, bringing them down and washing them, leaving the half-empty pot for the house-sitter and … having the hero taste like coffee when they kissed. The kiss was important, but he couldn’t taste like coffee anymore. None of these references went on for more than a sentence—a paragraph at most. Often they were simply action beats. But if you want the patient to recover, you have to make sure there are no sponges or instruments left behind when you close him up.

Deleting a paragraph can create a dominoes effect. Watch what happens right before and after, and smooth out the edges. Critique partners, beta readers, and editors are helpful here, because they haven’t read the manuscript seventy-eleven times.

Moving on to the gnats, or doing the minor and microsurgery.

Words that don’t add anything to the story need to go. They might even add distance, keeping a layer you don’t want between your readers and the characters. Or, there might be awkward bits.

I’ve talked about using SmartEdit before. It’s great for finding those pesky adverbs, repeated words and phrases, and another source of extra words: redundancies.

As with any automated program, you have to review every “suggestion” it makes. These programs don’t write genre fiction. SmartEdit suggests possible redundancies. I’ve run chapters and scenes through Grammarly as well, and find the same problem. Many of their suggestions don’t apply in context. However, they deserve a second look. Fortunately both programs show you where each “offense” occurs, so you can move through the manuscript quickly. Some examples:

  • Outside of
  • Whether or not
  • Start off
  • Ask a question
  • Started out
  • Advance warning
  • Off of
  • Open up
  • Shut down
  • Temper tantrum
  • Major breakthrough
  • Basic essentials
  • Stand up
  • Fall down
  • Advance notice
  • Burning embers
  • Shrug a shoulder

I remember my high school Latin teacher complaining about advertising wording. “From its earliest beginnings to its final completion.” Or “Free gift.” He also said “up” is an overused word, which I talked about in an earlier post. I’ll never forget class clown Leon saying, “So what’s the bank robber supposed to say? This is a stick?”

Then there are the clunkers. Sometimes the eye catches them, but having Word (or your program of choice) read the book aloud to you will help you find them.

Example from the current wip: A woman was busy decorating a wooden wall hanging made from pieces of weathered wood.

Duh. Do I need to use the word wood twice? Wouldn’t the same information get across more efficiently as A woman was busy decorating a wall hanging made from weathered wood.  Do I even need “was busy”? Can it be A woman decorated a wall hanging made from weathered wood?

Listening calls attention to repeated words. Plus, you can hear words that aren’t really repeats, but echoes, such as this passage I discovered:

His mouth dropped. “You’re saying you’re going to wash my clothes?”
She sighed. “Apparently.”
It took several heartbeats for his mouth to close….

Did you spot the ‘clunker’? If not, read it out loud.

OK, TKZers: What are your tips for performing surgery on your manuscript?

Trusting Uncertainty by Terry OdellAvailable Now Trusting Uncertainty, Book 10 in the Blackthorne, Inc. series.
You can’t go back and fix the past. Moving on means moving forward.

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

 

What if You Were the Main Character

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What if…?

What if you decided you wanted to write a novel that would join the “50 most influential books ever written?” You wanted your book to be studied in literature classes 100 years from now. You had a concept and premise that would address a problem and make this world a better place. And you felt you had it within you to pull off such a feat.

And what if you wanted that novel to address social injustice or something just as controversial. I included the Literature and Society sections from the “50 most” list for examples of such books.

Literature

From creating characters and stories that have become foundational elements in cultures around the world to upsetting undesirable standards and inspiring the imagination of many, these works of literature have touched the world in significant ways. These are the most influential books in literature.

  1. The Canterbury Talesby Geoffrey Chaucer.
  2. Divine Comedyby Dante Alighieri.
  3. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
  4. Moby Dickby Herman Melville.
  5. 1984by George Orwell.
  6. Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley.
  7. The Iliad and The Odysseyby Homer.
  8. Don Quixoteby Miguel de Cervantes.
  9. In Search of Lost Timeby Marcel Proust.
  10. Madame Bovaryby Gustave Flaubert.
  11. Arabian Nightstranslated by Andrew Lang.
  12. One Hundred Years of Solitudeby Gabriel García Márquez.
  13. War and Peaceby Leo Tolstoy.
  14. The Tale of Genjiby Murasaki Shikibu.
  15. Uncle Tom’s Cabinby Harriett Beecher Stowe.
  16. Crime and Punishmentby Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
  17. Things Fall Apartby Chinua Achebe.
  18. Faustby Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
  19. Belovedby Toni Morrison.
  20. The Lord of the Ringsby J.R.R. Tolkien.

Society

These are the most influential books in terms of impacting society, texts that helped changed people’s views on racism, feminism, consumption, and language.

  1. The Diary of a Young Girlby Anne Frank
  2. The Vindication of the Rights of Womenby Mary Wollstonecraft
  3. The Second Sexby Simone de Beauvoir
  4. A Room of One’s Ownby Virginia Woolf
  5. Waldenby Henry David Thoreau.
  6. A Dictionary of the English Languageby Samuel Johnson
  7. Critique of Pure Reasonby Immanuel Kant.
  8. The Jungleby Upton Sinclair.
  1. What other titles would you add to this list?

And what if there would be consequences for writing such a controversial novel? Stakes (JSB, Plot and Structure): such as harm – physical, professional, psychological – even death. Do you still want to write that book? Have you thought carefully about the possible consequences?

So, what if you decided to protect yourself by inserting a buffer or a decoy – a main character who was on a quest to write such an influential novel, thus adding another layer to the story, and taking some of the heat off yourself?

What if, even though that main character was really you, you knew you must put your MC through the ringer.

  1. How far would you take your MC (you), or how close to physical death would you put yourself? Could you handle torturing and nearly killing yourself?

Commando squads showing up during the night to haul you off, never to be seen again? Or being ruined professionally where you could never find a publisher? Or being driven mad with the whole quest where you would finish the book as a deranged writer?

And, before you write your answer, we are talking “social disasters” outside your own country, not your own country’s political battles. No politics, please!

Okay, so how close to death would you take your MC (yourself)?

  1. Upping the ante

Now, finally, let’s up the ante. Or as Donald Maass says (in his books and classes), pick the worst possible scenario, now make it three times as bad. Let’s take that writer, the MC, you, out of the equation. You no longer have the MC to hide behind. You are writing that great influential, transformational novel yourself, without a decoy or a safety net; you face the stakes of death, in reality, not in the story. Do you still want to write it?

So, now, how badly do you want to write that story? What stakes would you be willing to face? What sacrifices would you be willing to make? Do you have it within you to make the ultimate sacrifice?

  1. Gaming the game

And knowing that some of you are already figuring out a way to publish without pain, what tricks have you devised to deceive? I’ll steal the easy ones: publish posthumously, hide behind a pen name, ghost write for someone else who is willing to take the heat. What others?

  1. Do you still want to be the Main Character?