How Technology is Changing the Face of Literature

by J.T. Ellison

I read this article in the New York Times a few weeks ago. After I finished giggling, I decided I needed to do a piece on this, because it’s the bane of my existence. I hate having to turn to cell phones to relay information, but it’s become a reality that I can’t seem to get around.

I remember our Rob doing a blog post on his old site about how one of his mentors says you never want to have your characters communicating by phone. I’m sure Rob can chime in here with the exact reference, but that advice has stayed with me for the past few years. I take it to heart. You always want your characters to have face to face interactions, especially in a crime novel. I mean really, is Taylor supposed to call a suspect and ask him if he did the crime, all the while judging his reactions by the amount of heavy breathing and stuttering that ensues? No. Of course not.

But technology has made its way into our modern discourse. It’s getting to the point that you must work around the pervasive nature of technology – of cell phones and MacAirs and Eees and instant messaging and texting and twittering and facebooking.

Here’s the reality – cops do use cell phones. I don’t know the rules on usage, whether it’s SOP (standard operating procedure) to do so, but they do. I’ve been there, and witnessed it. They use radios as well, but if they need to reach someone immediately or send a private message, they’ll dial it up. They also have computers in their patrol cars so they can run instant information, be advised of warrants – if you haven’t been in a modern patrol car, you should head down to your local police department and ask for a tour. It like Knight Rider out there.

Simply put, technology, and cell phones in particular, have changed the way we write about crime.

How many people can get kidnapped and put in the trunk of a car anymore? How many get stranded at the side of the road? How many miss their flights and don’t call their friends and spouses so they aren’t waiting at the airport for hours? How many divorce proceeding are based on snooping through cell phone records?

Our cell phones have become an extension of our bodies, a third hand (or second head) that few of us can do without. So the hypothesis is it’s impossible for a modern novel to be considered at all realistic if there aren’t nods to the mod cons. Is this true?

To an extent, yes. But when you’re writing a story, you do need to keep that earlier advice in mind – face to face is always better.

In my upcoming book, I took all of this into account. I wanted to kidnap a girl who was stranded on the side of the road. The scene worked great – she ran out of gas on a semi-deserted stretch of Highway 96; a young, trusting soul who has no reason to believe that the good Samaritan who’s stopped to help is going to betray her. One little problem. What girl in this day and age doesn’t have her cell flipped open to text and call her friends 24/7?

There was a simple solution – the character comes across as a little flighty, but admits she forgot to charge her phone the night before and has no juice. Problem solved, and it actually goes a long way toward describing the character and her ultimate gullibility. She did run out of gas, remember, so she’s not the most responsible type. Forgetting to charge the phone works.

Cell phones can and do get all kinds of mileage in a novel. Phones not on, not charged, fitted with GPS, reworked by Q, satellite phones, encrypted phones. One little problem: We’re teetering on the brink of dating ourselves, because in ten years, the cell phone will be obsolete and everyone reading the book will know immediately that the story was written pre-2012 (or whenever it is that they become obsolete.) And don’t think it won’t happen – look at how far they’ve come in just a few years. Our cells are going to be making us breakfast here before long.

The same issue arose out of 9/11: Every book about New York that was written prior has the twin towers, and all post 9/11 book don’t. The same with movies – I know I still get choked up anytime I see the pre 9/11 skyline. You have to think carefully about when your book is set to make sure these major changes are addressed. And some of us can anticipate the changes before they come, making those books the ultimate cutting edge accessory.

Coda phones became answering machines became voice mail became visual voice mail. Our satellite television has caller ID. Pretty damn soon we’ll have holographic images of people “calling” us that pop up in our living rooms, and then our bedside tables, and then our retinas. Technology moves fast, cutting edge leaps are made every day. For all the books about eco-terrorism now, the nano-tech books are start taking over.

As authors, we’ve always embraced change, adapted to the new and different with relative grace, luddites among us excepted. Many of us are developing the ideas in our novels that will become tomorrow’s technology. Science fiction writers have always been light years ahead with their fanciful ideas (of course, airplanes were a fanciful idea 100 years ago…) Crime fiction is a close second, with all of our spy novels and satellite intercepts and wireless wiretaps.

It’s a brave new world out there.

So what about you? Does it throw you out of the story when you read about a detective making a cell phone call? Do you think there’s a better way? And what’s your prediction for the next wave of technology driven story lines???

Wine of the Week: I hope I’m tromping through their vineyard as you read this: Seghesio Old Vine Zinfandel. I know I’ve recommended it before, but it’s well worth the second mention.

(My apologies for being absent this week. Hubby and I are celebrating my birthday in Sonoma and Napa, California, and I left my laptop at home so I can get a real, live break. We’ve been touring the vineyards, sampling the wines, and I’m hoping to come back with a plethora of new wine suggestions for you. Congrats in advance to all the Edgar winners, and I’ll see you next week with a wine-soaked tourism heavy blog.)

Being Human

by Zoë Sharp

This isn’t the blog I was intending to write this week. (And no, I wasn’t even going to mention Susan Boyle … Oh, drat …) But, something popped up during the current rewrites. Which are, incidentally, proceeding at the kind of pace that can usually be measured in terms of continental drift.

I have just reached a point in the story where my main protagonist, Charlie Fox, has arrived to see the wife of a client, and discovers the woman was badly injured in a helicopter accident some years previously. At this point, I don’t think there’s any particular reason for this woman to be partially incapacitated, apart from an unwillingness to travel, which has necessitated Charlie going to her. I could have explained this in some other way – that she’s simply too busy running her oil exploration business, for example, or that she has a fear of flying. But when the character came into my head, this back story arrived ready attached.

And now it bothers me slightly. I’m the kind of writer who likes things to have a purpose. In my head, I think of the main strands of a story as different coloured threads, all plaited together, twisting and turning in on one another into a tight mass, so the end result seems stronger than the sum of its parts. The more I can weave those strands back in on themselves, the tighter and stronger the story feels to become.

Of course, you can take this too far, and TV crime shows often do. Whenever you see an extraneous character – the relative of a victim, for instance – who has screen time beyond simply sobbing into the hero’s shoulder as the mortuary sheet’s turned back, you just know they must have had some hand in the crime.

So, this is why I have this niggling doubt about changing this particular character’s back story. Part of me feels it should have some vital significance, while another part of me thinks that, sometimes, you can get away with introducing an accidental injury that really is just accidental, otherwise, every twitch telegraphs to the reader that Something Important is about to happen. I remember years ago reading a book where the main character comes down with a horrible head cold about halfway through – and it plays a vital role in the plot. Every time that character sneezed in subsequent books, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In real life, people do sleep through their alarms, misread directions, or get stuck in traffic. In a crime thriller, such a mundane occurrence usually results in the discovery of a still-warm corpse your hero wasn’t quite in time to save.

In real life, people are sloppy, incompetent or simply mistaken. In a crime thriller, that would often signal a large-scale conspiracy or part of a sinister cover-up.

In real life, accidents do happen – often more than once to the same person. My brother-in-law, for instance, used to work on the North Sea oil rigs. He’s been in two helicopter crashes, ditching within sight of the beach. (And very annoyed he was, too, at having to wade ashore.) In a crime thriller, we’re back to cover-ups and conspiracies again, or attempted murder at the very least.

OK, more examples:

A friend of mine who is a retired Scene Of Crime Officer (SOCO was what CSIs used to be called over here, before they trendied up their image) told me that, although the book says you meticulously bag and label every piece of evidence removed from a crime scene, human nature often takes over. He recalled being sent to a scene where there was an abundance of evidence – I think it was may have been from a drug factory. When it got near the end of shift, the evidence was simply loaded into carrier bags and slung into the boot of a car to be taken back to the station and bagged and labelled correctly at leisure.

He gave me to understand that this kind of thing happened regularly and did not compromise the subsequent case when it went to court. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But if you put something like that in a plot, it would have to signify some vital twist. The drug baron would no doubt get off and swear revenge on the officers involved. Or the SOCO would be fired from his job to sink into an alcoholic haze, from which he would be rescued by the prospect of working One Last Case as a means of redemption.

Another example. When my Other Half’s appendix went bang, we duly trotted him into hospital and, after they’d found him a bed, began the usual taking of bloods. For this, a German medical student arrived and announced that he was going to ‘attempt’ to get a line into Andy. This did not inspire confidence, but then, neither did his ineffectual multiple stabbing technique.

Now, we know Andy has good veins, because they strike oil immediately whenever we go to blood doning sessions, but maybe that has something to do with the fact they use a needle about the same size as the insert of a biro and it’s kinda hard to miss.

So, then a junior doctor appeared (think Doogie Howser’s younger brother) and managed at the first try what the medical student had failed to achieve. I would have been impressed … had he bothered to put on a pair of gloves before he did it. Or if, having successfully punctured my Beloved’s vein, he realised he hadn’t uncapped the syringe he was trying to attach to the needle. Cue blood everywhere, into which the young doctor’s tie seemed to be wafting about precariously …

I was very restrained. After all, it’s never a good idea to annoy people who are sticking sharp objects into a member of your family. I managed, through gritted teeth, to politely inquire if it was standard practice not to wear gloves in the NHS any more. “I can’t really feel what I’m doing if I wear gloves,” the doctor replied.

Well, you’re a doctor, dammit. Acquire the skill!

Again, if I put this into a book, it might strike the wrong note in what would otherwise be a tense sitting-mournfully-by-the-bedside hospital scene.

The final example is another crime scene story. A particular rural UK force was quite excited to discover small particles at a crime scene that matched those found at another, apparently completely unrelated scene. Because, as we all know, serial murders are a lot more of a rare occurrence in real life than they are in the pages of fiction.

A major enquiry was in the offing … right up until a slightly embarrassed CSI owned up to the fact that, having analysed the mystery particles, they turned out to be flakes of paint from the tripod he’d used to position his camera over the body …

If my writing was of a more comic tone, then this is exactly the sort of thing that would fit right in. But can you get away with such moments of real-life light relief in a more serious novel?

So, have you come across any real-life stories like these, and would you put them in a novel or would you fear that nobody would believe them?

Alternatively, have you put real stories into a book, and been accused of going too far in your sense of invention?

This week’s Word of the Week is shambles, a noun meaning to be in a state of complete disarray. It comes from the Old English word ‘sceamul’ (pronounced ‘shamell’) which means ‘stool’ or ‘table’ as in a butcher’s workbench. During the medieval period, most English towns had certain streets occupied by a single trade, and the butchers’ street was known as the ‘shambles’, a street name still found in some old towns like York. Street butchers were supplied by the slaughterhouses and such was the mess of blood and animal parts by the butchers’ workbenches that the word ‘shambles’ became a metaphor for general mess and chaos.

 

Print the Legend

by J.D. Rhoades

I know what you’re probably going to start thinking very soon as you read this: “Dear God, not another Susan Boyle post.” Well, yes, it is,  but hear me out anyway, because the twists the story’s taken lately have gotten me thinking about fact vs. fiction and where the line between the two starts to blur.

Boyle, the plain-Jane chanteuse who went on “Britain’s Got Talent” and silenced the snickering crowd and skeptical judges with her big rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, became an overnight sensation, thanks to YouTube.  Umpty-million website hits, interviews everywhere, etc.

So it’s inevitable, I suppose,  that there’d be a backlash. Most of the kvetching appears to be based on the assumption that the judges, especially producer Simon Cowell, actually did know all along what they had in Boyle and that the whole “oh, my she certainly surprised us” act was a sham. “[T]he notion that Cowell was unaware of Boyle’s existence, let alone discordant looks and talent level, before she ever took the stage, is flatly ridiculous,” sniffed The New York Post’s Maureen Callahan.  Movieline’s Kyle Buchanan was even more scathing, accusing the show’s producers of “trotting Susan out and editing her as though she is an innocent naif who just walked on stage and hasn’t already survived at least ten audition rounds in front of the show’s creator/producers, one of whom is the head judge, Simon Cowell.”

Cowell denies knowing what was going to happen beforehand. But he’s reputed to be a bit of a control freak, and he is the show’s producer. And let’s face it, whatever else you may think of Cowell, he’s a master showman. So yeah, it’s believable that he knew how the audience was going to perceive Boyle, he knew she’d blow them away, and the whole “ugly duckling” thing was set up from the get-go. But as I read those snarky pieces, what came most to my mind is, “so what?” I mean, whether it was staged or not, it’s a great story. Maybe I don’t mind so much because I write fiction.  But I’m reminded of the words of Maxwell Scott at the end of the great Jimmy Stewart film   THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE:  “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

When I was in college, there was this guy who hung around a lot with my roommates and I.  Let’s call him Henry. Henry was…well, “liar” is such a harsh word to describe what Henry did. Let’s just call him a fabulist. Henry had an amazing wealth of stories about the experiences he’d had: he’d test-driven high-end imported sports cars for a living; he’d played drums at a recording session for guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen (the record was hung up in litigation, alas, and would probably never be released); he was learning to fly helicopters and had a job waiting for him as soon as he got his rotary-wing license, spotting for the tuna fleet. I mean, it was amazing the stuff that would come out of his mouth. One time when he wasn’t around, we discussed it and decided that for Henry to have gone everywhere he said he’d gone and done everything he said he’d done, he would have had to be between 150 and 200 years old.

Here’s the thing, though: no one believed a word of it, but no one called “bullshit”. Partially because Henry never lied maliciously or for any kind of personal gain other than, I suppose, a certain amount of self-aggrandizement. But it was also because the guy was a natural born storyteller. He was funny, charismatic, and entertaining as hell. It was all bullshit, but who cared? It was fun to listen to a guy who never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

But you tell me. Do I have this all wrong? Are you offended by the prospect that the whole ugly duckling schtick was just that–schtick? Or does it matter, because either way, it’s a great story? Does it make a difference that we’re talking about a silly reality TV show, that is to say, would you be more upset if this was something of life or death import?

Make My Day

By Louise Ure

 

Oh, yeah. She made my day. Marilyn Stasio reviewed my books in last Sunday’s New York Times!

Books, I said. Plural.

She not only said nice things about Liars Anonymous, she also summarized and blessed Forcing Amaryllis and The Fault Tree as well.

Picture Louise preening and scuffling her shoes in humility here. I’ve never been reviewed in the New York Times before. And this time it’s a trifecta. All three books.

Here’s what Ms. Stasio wrote:

“It takes a strong woman to admit she did wrong — and then go after the man who put her in that awkward position. Louise Ure took up the theme in her first novel, “Forcing Amaryllis,” in which a trial consultant with a heightened sense of responsibility for her younger sister resolves to kill the man who raped the girl. The guilt that the auto-mechanic heroine of her second novel, “The Fault Tree,” feels for failing to go to the aid of an old woman under attack by home invaders compels her to go after the killers herself — even though she’s blind. The sense of guilt is even more pronounced in “Liars Anonymous,” which makes sense because Ure’s narrator, Jessie Dancing, killed a man and got away with it. But even though she beat the rap, she bears the scars, and when the sounds of a murder in progress come through at the emergency call center where she works, Jessie finds a way to make restitution. Unrestrained by the housekeeping duties of a mystery series, Ure uses the freedom to push her themes to their limits. All three of her tough-minded novels take place in Tucson, which seems to produce plenty of strong women with blood in their eye.”

So, not only does she say nice things, but she also gives me a unifying theme for all three (it’s news to me, but hey, who am I to quibble with the likes of La Stasio?).

And then she goes on to give me the perfect response when someone asks why I write stand alones.

“Unrestrained by the housekeeping duties of a mystery series …” (Sing it, sister!) “Ure uses the freedom to push her themes to their limits” (Amen to that! Here’s to freedom and pushing and … yeah, what she said!).

And all this time I thought it was because no one had ever asked me for a repeat performance by one of my heroines.

In truth, I love writing stand alones. Creating that whole new world out of thin air, and not carrying the baggage from any previous books along for the ride.

My series-writing brethren – although they start each book with a relatively stable voice and cast of characters already on board – are challenged to make each book distinct and fresh and new.

Stand alone writers don’t have that problem. But we do face another, perhaps more daunting, task. How to bring readers along from one book to another when there’s no familiar face there at all.

I think the answer lies in voice. They’ve met Calla Gentry, with her guilt and regret about not helping her sister in time. They’ve met Cadence Moran, a woman stronger and more determined than I’ll ever be. And now I want to introduce them to Jessie Dancing – liar, killer and friend.

Hopefully they’ll come to understand each of these women, not through the repetition of a series, but because they’re friends of mine.

 

P.S. I’m on a plane to New York today, ‘Rati, so I’ll be out of touch for a few hours, but will check in again late in the day.

P.P.S. And did I mention how cool it was to meet and spend time with our ‘Rati pal Tom Barclay and his wife at the Mystery Bookstore party last Friday in L.A.? Thank you, Tom. That was a treat!

The fingernail

by Pari

 

It’s strange what’ll break down a person’s defenses.

The fingernail got me. That scrap of keratin, the bright pink acrylic polish in two half moons that — to my eyes — formed the top of a heart. The nail, magnified several times, flecked with specs of dirt from a young identified woman’s last resting place.

The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) released the picture last Friday with the hope that someone, somewhere, will recognize the artwork and help them put a name to the victim. Last Friday was also the day that APD announced it’d no longer be digging at what is now known as the country’s largest crime scene area. Close to one hundred acres, eleven bodies and a fetus, dirt and dust and rocks all on the west side of our city — a burial ground of horrific magnitude — a barren monument to the kind of sorrow parents should never, ever have to know.

The “West Mesa Mystery,” as it has now been packaged by the media, began to unfold in mid Feburary this year when a jogger found human bones in the middle of a large tract of land surrounded by newer subdivisions. There’s a lot of this kind of unused space in Albuquerque, a fast-growing city with a marvelous climate and an amazingly steady/low unemployment rate (compared with the rest of the country).

Soon the bones of one person became two, three, four . . .

Of the seven young women identified so far, all had had difficult lives, had taken bad turns into drug use and prostitution. In the early days of the investigation, debates raged. People were angry that the victims’ lives had been negatively characterized and profiled. The police countered with the fact that they needed to find common links between the dead, a way to understand why all of them had been dumped in those crude graves around 2004-2005.

And the police needed to identify the remaining four victims.

Hundreds of parents from around the country had contacted APD, desperate to know if those bones could be one of their missing children — gone around the same time period, maybe sending a postcard from Albuquerque . . .

Though I’m a writer and a mother, I cannot and don’t want to imagine their pain, the emptiness of not knowing.

I don’t want to and cannot imagine the utter life-shattering moment when someone calls to say that it’s your daughter’s bones crime scene workers have uncovered under the hot New Mexico sun.

So I did what most people do. I let myself watch the news about the women — there’s been something almost every night since the discovery — without permitting myself to think too much of the suffering and misery that went along with the stories.

It was easy to do in a way. Though the interviews with parents were sad, they were other people’s pain. All the pictures of the identified victims showed the women when they’d been happy and alive. It was easy . . . convenient  . . . to be detached.

It was the same thing that happens with other mindboggling tragedies: Darfur, the Holocaust . . .

Then came the fingernail.
That small piece of decorated protein.

And all my rationalizations and comfortable distancing crashed down.

I look at my children differently now, at the promise of their youth and want to scream, “None of those West Mesa victims deserved their heartbreaking brevity! None!”

To think that an entire life, a young woman’s whole identity, comes down to one fingernail.

It saddens me to my very core.

___________________________

If you want to know more about the West Mesa Mystery, America’s Most Wanted did a good job last Saturday night (April 25).

And, for heaven’s sake, if you — or anyone you know — has any information, please call the APD hotline at 1-877-765-8273; the line is staffed 24/7.

Is Marketability More Important Than the Story?

Two weeks ago I participated in Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford’s “agent for a day” contest. I contributed the query letter I used for THE COPYCAT KILLER, my fifth completed manuscript that became my debut novel THE PREY. The contest was simple: read fifty query letters and request only five. Amidst the fifty were three published novels, mine plus two in production.

If you’re interested in the contest, you can go to Nathan’s site, my blog to read my reaction to the rejections of my query, or Murder She Writes where I reflected a bit more. I don’t want this blog to be about the contest, but since it’s Sunday and you might have some reading time, it is interesting to review the contest, especially Nathan’s post on the results and his subsequent post on concepts.

One of the comments on my blog has bugged me since I read it. Both Nathan and I had blogged that ultimately, selling was all about the writing–not whether the query letter followed all the “rules” or whether the premise wasn’t “unique.” (Seriously, it’s all been done before–and long before printing presses were invented.)

But Adam said:

A lot of people like to say this but it just isn’t as true as we’d like it to be. Marketability is more important than writing. I got a slew feedback from agents and editors that was of the “great book, very well written but I don’t know how to sell this,” variety.

On the other side of that coin, a good friend of mine has had several books published at a major house and he readily admits they aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. He had no trouble selling them though because they fit a certain market. Those books are so bad that we routinely mock them in conversation and he loves it…he also loves paying the bills with the money they make.

In short, if it’ll sell, the writing need only be mediocre. Sad but true.

I’m not picking on Adam–I don’t know him from, well, Adam . . . and he didn’t leave his email. His comment is certainly valid and based on his experience. Yet it annoyed me. Immensely.

What successful published author is going to go around and mock his readers? Because, ultimately, that’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s not that the books are “so bad,” it’s that people are willing to pay money for these allegedly “bad books.” To me, this is the epitome of elitism: “The masses don’t know what’s good” or “they’re ignorant.” 

“The masses” make the world go ’round. Commercial fiction sells because it’s entertaining. Authors with a mass fan base give their readers what they want, which is the emotional or physical feeling the reader gets from reading that author’s stories. The story is only the vehicle; readers want the feeling of the story.

Is it the puzzle of the mystery, or the feeling of being intelligent or observant we have while trying to solve the mystery with the protagonist? Is it the sex in a romance or the emotional warmth of knowing two people who love each other will live happily ever after? Is it the stakes in a thriller, or the physical reaction to a fast-paced dangerous situation? 

If a novelist is churning out books that “aren’t worth the paper they are written on” then they’re not going to sell en masse. They apparently “fit a certain market.” Obviously, a market that craves bad books.

Oh, to make a living writing bad books. That would be easy. /sarcasm.

I’m not so naive to think that every book published by a major house is outstanding and worthy of awards and NYT status. And honestly, I’m sure all of us have read a NYT bestselling book and thought, hmm, why? And then there’s the books we love that never seem to go anywhere, and we think, for the love of God, why isn’t this a #1 NYT bestseller? Is everyone an idiot?

The first time I had that “Why isn’t this a NYT bestselling author” was when I read PSYCHOPATH by Dr. Keith Ablow. You might think the name sounds familiar–he did write a #1 NYT bestselling book called INSIDE THE MIND OF SCOTT PETERSON. It was a good book. Rather simple and direct, but illuminating. But Dr. Ablow published six thrillers with St. Martins and never hit a list. They are among the best books of the genre, and he’s not writing them anymore. Probably because he’s making plenty of money in the NF world. The books are very dark and edgy, the protagonist–Dr. Frank Clevenger, a forensic psychiatrist like his creator–is certainly flawed, but they’re captivating stories.

What if we shouldn’t say, “It’s all about the writing;” and instead say, “It’s all about the story?”

Are you more willing to forgive an author who writes simply but tells a terrific story, or an author who writes beautifully but the story is mediocre?

This leads me to Adam’s key point:

In short, if it’ll sell, the writing need only be mediocre. Sad but true.

 

I’d like to know what “mediocre” means. Because if something is selling like hotcakes, I doubt it’s mediocre. There’s SOMETHING about the book that resonates with readers. And if it truly is mediocre, maybe the author is selling based on past performance–we all know this happens to some authors. They get burned out and start writing retreads. But I think I speak for most authors when I say we are always trying to write a better book than the one that came before. For me, this is my greatest struggle. I have been late turning in my last two books because of a great fear that my writing is subpar. You’d think that after writing eleven books that number twelve would be a breeze. Not! If anything, it’s harder than all the books that came before. (Okay, that’s not quite true. Number eleven, FATAL SECRETS, was the hardest book I ever wrote. It gave me fits. I wondered if my readers would allow me a dud. If my career was over. I just found out it got a top pick in RT Book Reviews. Which goes to show that authors absolutely can NOT judge their own writing.)

I think, perhaps, that Adam and his published friend have a love-hate affair with commercial fiction. Because, let’s face it, the money is primarily in commercial fiction. Read: stories for the masses. These are stories that resonate with readers because they tackle universal themes; they may be adequately written or beautiful written, but they are 1) accessible to the average reader and 2) they tell a universal story well.

Telling a story well doesn’t necessarily mean the writing is exceptional.

I recently read an email where someone had in their signature attributed to a best selling author (and I can’t remember who–but this is not my quote) “It’s hard to write a book that’s easy to read.” That sums up commercial fiction. I’ve never been offended when readers tell me my books are “easy” or “a quick read.” People are busy; I want to satisfy their human need to be entertained. And most of the time, we don’t want to work to be entertained.

I don’t want my readers to pull out a dictionary and look up words. I don’t want them to be confused or have to re-read sentences that are beautifully, but archaically, structured. For me, it’s not about the words, they’re almost the necessary evil of a story well-told. Because in the best of commercial fiction, the words themselves almost disappear.

But there are people out there who think that anything “easy” is therefore “inferior” or “bad.” Books that are fun and accessible are thus “mediocre writing.”

And sometimes that’s true. But ultimately, it’s about the STORY.

There was a brouhaha a few months ago about Stephen King saying that Stephanie Meyer was a poor writer. But he acknowledged that she was a good storyteller writing for a specific audience. I’m sure some people focused on the “she’s not a very good writer” part of the story and missed the “people are attracted to the stories” part. He commented that Dean Koontz could “write like hell” and sometimes is “just awful.” King has been self-critical of many of his own books and I, a diehard King fan, never made it through a couple of them. But King is all about the story–and most of the time, he tells it better than anyone.

Publishers want to make money. It’s business. This is something I tell myself every time I go into negotiations. It’s not personal, it’s business. Publishers want to make a profit, and publishing itself has a low-profit margin. So yes, marketability is important. Crucial. Publishers need to know where the book fits into the realm of sales. That’s why they love genre so much. It’s a romance! It’s a mystery! It’s a fantasy! They know the audience, they know how to design the cover to appeal to that audience (well, we hope they do–sometimes they, too get it wrong), and they know how to sell-in to the buyers. They’ll say, “This debut author will appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich” or in my case, my publisher put, “Julie Garwood meets Thomas Harris.” Sales needs to sell the book, and thus marketability–the value the book has to a defined readership–IS important.

But is it MORE important than the story?

I doubt it. The story has to resonate in some way for readers to pick up the next book and the next book. The story has to deliver on the story promise.

If it’s a romance, it has to have a happily ever after.

If it’s a mystery, the crime has to be solved.

If it’s horror, it has to be scary.

If it’s comedy, it has to be funny.

Marketability is important otherwise publishers don’t know where to plug in the book. Fair? No. Reality? Generally. It’s much harder as a female author to sell as a straight thriller writer than to sell as a romantic suspense writer, which is why many women choose to adopt gender-neutral names if they’re not writing romance.

It kind of sucks, really, but it’s not so much the publishers as the readers.

When I worked in the California State Legislature, it was common knowledge that if you were going to have a major tax policy or economy statement, you had a man present it. If you were going to have a major education initiative or statement, a woman had better be the speaker. This was based on extensive polling that showed that voters had a more positive impression of an economic plan if it was “male” and a more positive impression of an education plan if it was “female.”

I suppose one could argue that the industry is continuing the bias by feeding the bias. But when it comes down to it, it’s not the industry as much as deep-seated values that are neither right nor wrong. So politicians, and publishers, and every other successful enterprise will look at who the consumer is and target their idea or product to that “type” of person.

So yes, marketability is important. But if you don’t have a good story–however it is told–you have nothing to market.

What are Act Breaks, Turning Points, Act Climaxes, Plot Points? (Examples)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I’m at Romantic Times this weekend, and in between performing in Heather Graham’s Vampire show, and hot tubs with Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, I’m teaching that Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop. One of the things we did was take several movies in a row and identify the Act Climaxes (plot points, turning points, act breaks, curtain scenes, whatever you want to call them) of each, and I thought I’dpost that here todayso we can look at what all happens at those crucial junctures.

First, a quick review of what each Act Climax does:

Remember, in general, the climax of an act is very, very, very often a SETPIECE SCENE – there’s a dazzling, thematic location, an action or suspense sequence, an intricate set, a crowd scene, even a musical number (as in The Wizard of Oz and, more surprisingly, Jaws.).

Also an act climax is often more a climacticsequencethan a single scene, which is why it sometimes feels hard to pinpoint the exact climax. And sometimes it’s just subjective! These are guidelines, not laws. When you do these analyses, the important thing for your own writing is to identify what you feel the climaxes are and why you think those are pivotal scenes.

Now specifically:

AC T ONE CLIMAX

– (30 minutes into a 2 hour movie, 100 pages into a 400 page book. Adjust proportions according to length of book.)

– We have all the information we need to get and have met all the characters we need to know to understand what the story is going to be about.

– The Central Question is set up – and often is set up by the action of the act climax itself.

– Often propels the hero/ine Across the Threshold and Into The Special World. (Look for a location change, a journey begun).

– May start a TICKING CLOCK (this is early, but it can happen here)

MIDPOINT CLIMAX

– (60 minutes into a 2 hour movie, 200 pages into a 400 page book)

– Is a major shift in the dynamics of the story. Something huge will be revealed; something goes disastrously wrong; s omeone close to the hero/ine dies, intensifying her or his commitment.

– Can also be a huge defeat, which requires a recalculation and a new plan of attack.

– Completely changes the game

– Locks the hero/ine into a situation or action

– Is a point of no return.

– Can be a “now it’s personal” loss

– Can be sex at 60 – the lovers finally get together, only to open up a whole new world of problems

– May start a TICKING CLOCK.

– The Midpoint is not necessarily just one scene – it can be a pro gression of scenes and revelations that include a climactic scene, a complete change of location, a major revelation, a major reversal – all or any combination of the above.

ACT TWO CLIMAX

– (90 minutes into a 2 hour film, 300 pages into a 400 page book)

– Often can be a final revelation before the end game: the knowledge of who the opponent really is.

– Often comes immediately after the “All is Lost” or “Long Dark Night of the Soul” scene – or may itself BE the “All is Lost” scene.

– Answers the Central Question

– Propels us into the final battle.

– May start a TICKING CLOCK

ACT THREE CLIMAX

– (near the very end of the story).

– Is the final battle.

– Hero/ine is forced to confront his or her greatest nightmare.

– Takes place in a thematic Location – often a visual and literal representation of the Hero/ine’s Greatest Nightmare

– We see the protagonist’s character change

– We may see the antagonist’s character change (if any)

– We may see ally/allies’ character changes and/or gaining of desire

– There is possibly a huge final reversal or reveal (twist), or even a whole series of payoffs that you’ve been saving (as in BACK TO THE FUTURE and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE)

———— ———————————————–

Okay, for examples, I’m starting today with two of my all-time favorite films, JAWS and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Please feel free to argue my points!

And note all times are APPROXIMATE – I’m a Pisces.

JAWS:

ACT ONE CLIMAX:

JAWS is a 2 hour, 4 minute movie and I would say the first act climax is that big crowd scene 30 minutes in when every greedy fisherman on the East Coast is out there on the water trying to hunt the shark down for the bounty. One team catches a tiger shark and everyone celebrates in relief. Hooper says it’s too little to be the killer shark and wants to cut it open to see if there are body parts inside, but the Mayor refuses. We know that this isn’t the right shark, and we see that Sheriff Brody feels that way as well, but he’s to rn – he wants it to be the right shark so this nightmare will be over. But the real, emotional climax of the act is at the very end of the sequence when Mrs. Kitner strides up to Brody and slaps him, saying that if he’d closed the beaches her son would still be alive. This is the accusation – and truth – that compels Brody to take action in the second act. (34 minutes)

It’s a devastating scene – just as devastating as a shark attack, and a crucial turning point in the story, which is why I’d call it the act climax. Brody is going to have to take action himself instead of rely on the city fathers (in fact, the city fathers have just turned into his opponents).

MIPOINT:

The midpoint climax occurs in a highly suspenseful sequence in which the city officials have refused to shut down the beaches, so Sheriff Brody is out there on the beach keeping watch (as if that’s going to prevent a shark attack!), the Coast Guard is patrolling the ocean – and, almost as if it’s aware of the whole plan, the shark swims into an unguarded harbor, where it attacks a man and for a horrifying moment we think that it has also killed Brody’s son (really it’s only frightened him into near paralysis). It’s a huge climax and adrenaline rush. (This is about 60 minutes and 30 seconds in). Brody’s family has been threatened (“Now it’s PERSONAL”). And as he looks out to s ea, we and he realize that no one’s going to do this for him – he’s going to have to go out there on the water, his greatest fear, and hunt this shark down himself.

ACT TWO CLIMAX

As in the first act climax, here Spielberg goes for a CHARACTER sequence, an EMOTIONAL climax rather than an action one. About 83 minutes into the movie, the three men, Brody, Quint and Hooper, who have been at each other’s throats since they got onto the boat, sit inside the boat’s cabin and drink, and Quint and Hooper start comparing scars – classic male bonding, funny, touching, cathartic. In this midst of this the tone changes completely as Quint reveals his back story, which accounts for his shark obsession: he was on a submarine that got hit during WW II, and most of the men were killed by sharks before they could be rescued. It’s a horrific moment, a complete dramatization of what our FEAR is for these men. And then, improbably, the three guys start to sing, “Show me the way to go home.” (I told you – a musical number!) It’s a wonderful, comic, endearing uplifting, exhilarating moment – and in the middle of it we hear pounding – the shark attacking, hammering the boat. And the men scramble into acti
on, to face the long final confrontation of ACT THREE. (92 minutes in).

ACT THREE CLIMAX –

The whole third act of JAWS is the final battle, and it’s relentless, with Qu int wrecking the radio to prevent help coming, the shark battering a hole in the ship so it begins to sink under them, the horrific death of Quint. The climax of course is water-phobic Brody finding his greatest nightmare coming alive around him: he must face the shark on his own on a sinking ship – he’s barely clinging on to the mast – and blowing it up with the oxygen tank. The survival of Hooper is another emotional climax. (2 hrs. 4 minutes).

The interesting thing to note about JAWS is that despite the fact that it’s an action movie (or arguably, action/horror), every climax is really an EMOTIONAL one, involvin g deep character. I’d say that has a lot to do with why this film is such an enduring classic. . It’s also interesting to consider that in an action movie an emotional moment might always stand out more than yet another action scene, simply by virtue of contrast.

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SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

ACT ONE CLIMAX

I’d say it’s a two-parter: The lead-in is the climax of Clarice’s second scene in the prison with Lecter. She’s followed his first clue and discovered the head of Lecter’s former patient, Raspai l, in the storage unit. Lecter says he believes Raspail was Buffalo Bill’s first victim. Clarice realizes, “You know who he is, don’t you?” Lecter says he’ll help her catch Bill, but for a price: He wants a view. And he says she’d better hurry – Bill is hunting right now.

And on that line we cut to Catherine Martin, and we see her knocked out and kidnapped by Bill.

So here we have an excruciating SUSPENSE SCENE (Catherine’s kidnapping); a huge REVELATION: Lecter knows Bill’s identity and is willing to help Clarice get him; we have a massive escalation in STAKES: a new victim is kidnapped; there is a TICKING CLOCK that starts: we know Bill holds his victim for three days before he kills them, and the CENTRAL QUESTION has been set up: Will Clarice be able to get Buffalo Bill’s identity out of Lecter before Bill kills Catherine Martin? (34 minutes in).

MIDPOINT:

The midpoint is the famous “Quid Pro Quo” scene between Clarice and Lecter, in which she bargains personal information to get Lecter’s ins ights into the case. This is a stunning, psychological game of cat-and-mouse between the two: there’s no action involved; it’s all in the writing and the acting. Clarice is on a time clock, here, because Catherine Martin has been kidnapped and Clarice knows they have less than three days now before Buffalo Bill kills her. Clarice goes in at first to offer Lecter what she knows he desires most (because he has STATED his desire, clearly and early on) – a transfer to a Federal prison, away from Dr. Chilton and with a view. Clarice has a file with that offer from Senator Martin – she says – but in reality the offer is a total fake. We don’t know this at the time, but it has been cleverly PLANTED that it’s impossible to fool Lecter (Crawford sends Clarice in to the first interview without telling her what the real purpose is so that Lecter won’t be able to read her). But Clarice has learned and grown enough to fool Lecter – and there’s a great payoff when Lecter later acknowledges that fact.

The deal is not enough for Lecter, though – he demands that Clarice do exactly what her boss, Crawford, has warned her never to do: he wants her to swap personal information for clues – a classic deal-with-the-devil game.

After Clarice confesses painful secrets, Lecter gives her the clue she’s been digging for – he tells her to search for Buffalo Bill through the sex reassignment clinics. And as is so often the case, there is a second climax within the midpoint – the film cuts to the killer in his basement, standing over the pit making a terrified Catherine put lotion on her skin… and as she pleads with him, she sees bloody handprints on the walls of the pit and begins to scream… and just as you think things can’t get any worse, Bill pulls out his T–shirt to make breasts and starts to scream with her. It’s a horrifying curtain and drives home the stakes. (about 55 minutes in)

ACT TWO CLIMAX –

The act two climax here is an entire, excruciating action/suspense/horror sequence: Lecter’s escape from the Tennessee prison, which really needs no description! It’s a stunning TWIST in the action. But it’s worth noting that the heroine is completely absent from this climax. The effect on her is profound, though: She was counting on Lecter to help her catch Buffalo Bill. Now that is not going to happen (the Central Question of the story is thus answered: No.) – it’s a complete REVERSAL and huge DEFEAT (all is lost). Clarice is going to have to rise from the ashes of that defeat to find Bill on her own and save Catherine.

The sequence begins about 1 hour and 12 minutes in and ends 10 minutes later, at 1 hr. 22 minutes.

ACT THREE CLIMAX –

… of course is the long and again, excruciating horror/suspense sequence of Clarice in Buffalo Bill0s basement, on her own stalking and being stalked by a psychotic killer while Catherine, the lamb, is screaming in the pit. This is one of the best examples I know of the heroine’s greatest nightmare coming alive around her in the final battle, and it is immensely cathartic that she wins.

Note that the climaxes in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS are very true to the genre, with elements of suspense, action, thriller and horror. Every single climax delivers on the particular promise of the genre – the scares and adrenaline thrills, but also the psychological game playing.

Okay, so any examples for me today? Or any stories you’re having trouble identifying the climaxes of that we can help with?

– Alex

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Previous articles on story structure: (all also linked at right hand side of blog under WRITING ARTICLES).

Story Structure 101 – The Index Card Method

Screenwriting – The Craft

What’s Your Premise?

What is High Concept?

Why the Three Act Structure?

Elements of Act One

Elements of Act Two

Elements of Act Two, Part 2

Elements of Act Three, Part 1

Elements of Act Three, Part 2

What Makes a Great Climax?

Visual Storytelling Part 1

Visual Storytelling Part 2

Creating Suspense

Creating Suspense, Part 2

Fairy Tale Structure and the List

Meta Structure

What Makes a Great Villain?

Villains: The Forces of Antagonism

World Building

by J.T. Ellison

I was at the bank the other day, which is always a trip, because our bank branch is staffed with characters. There’s the comedian chick, the brooding manager, the upbeat and chipper trainee, and the artist. The artist and I get on well, because he’s a writer. He’s done songs, he’s done poems. But lately, he’s been working on a movie script.

You don’t expect to get enlightened at the bank. If anything, that’s about the last place I’d ever go. But the artist dropped a bomb on me, just a simple term that he used to describe what he was responsible for with the script he’s co-writing.

He’s the world builder.

Now I’m sure all you screenwriters just rolled your eyes and said DUH! but I’ve never done any screenwriting, nor worked in Hollywood, and this termed concept of world building was a new one to me.

Of course, I understand that I already have an intrinsic grasp of world building. I do it every time I sit down, open my laptop and create. Each story, each character, each setting, all goes into the world I’m building. I’m the God of my own land, the High Priestess of the Page.

I make the rules.

Oh, heady day!

Science fiction and fantasy writers do a bang up job of world building. Hobbits become heroes, dragons befriend young slayers, vampires turn vegetarian. Trees can speak and witches float around in soap bubbles. Lions rise from the dead and the labyrinth of our subconscious fears are realized. Good and evil have Janus faces, and nothing is as it seems.

In these alternate realities, there are fairy godmothers, guardian angels, and every possible incarnation of death. In Stephanie Meyer’s TWILIGHT series, the books work not because of the vampires, but because of the underlying story – a teenage girl who is uprooted and ends up in a faraway land where normal rules don’t apply. This transportation into a new world allows for a willing suspension of disbelief – that’s the trick. That’s the key.

It’s the driving force behind our culture’s creativity.

If you build it, they will come.

Historical romances sweep us into a land unknown. As a little girl, I remember getting lost in Karleen Koen’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, only to emerge on the other end with a fascination for all things historical. Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER series is completely transcendent. I am there. I am present. I am so entranced that I can see and smell everything the characters do. I’m not reading a book, or a story, I’m plowing through an alternate universe.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books did that for me also. I still lament that I wasn’t able to attend Hogwarts, with all its bizarre idiosyncrasies and history.

Imagination in the hands of a competent world builder is something to be treasured, read and watched over and over again, striking a resonate chord with all who fall under its spell. It’s just plain bliss.

The mythology behind these grandiose otherworlds are evident. They all have one thing in common: A hero, called to a journey. I’ve been reading Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler, (I’ve got a post coming on why I’m mad at Vogler…) and the whole concept of mythos and world building are foremost in my mind as I sit down to write a new Taylor Jackson novel. How am I going to bring Taylor’s world alive for you? What parts of Nashville have I missed in past novels that will give a real flavor to her world? It’s more than character, it’s using setting to define your story. I’ve always said Nashville is a character in my books. I want to show the essence of the city, the piquancy that comprises its hodgepodge cosmopolitan nature.

But I run smack into a brick wall rather quickly. My world? Already built. I’m using real places, real people, real streets and sights and smells. I can’t deviate from what we know this town to be without causing a fervor – and that’s rather limiting.

I started a standalone a few years ago, between my non-published novel and All the Pretty Girls. It’s about a female assassin named Cassiopeia with a chip implanted in her head that can be turned off and on, activating and deactivating her for duty. Sound familiar? Yes, Joss Whedon just released a television show, DOLLHOUSE, with a similar premise. I haven’t watched it because I don’t want to be influenced, because I’m still writing this book. From what I’ve heard, the brain chip is the extent of our similarities, so I’m not worried about finding a market for it once it’s done.

But it’s fun to write, because it expands reality a bit. I’m hoping this book allows me a chance to build a world outside of the careful construct of Nashville. It will take place all over the world, and I have the opportunity to make that world whatever I want it to be. Look at Michael Chabon’s THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION. Sitka, Alaska becomes a world unto itself, with its own rules, its own idiosyncrasies. The characters live inside the construct Michael has laid out, and it works because we’re in the hands of a master manipulator, a writer who knows exactly how to twist the world to his own image.

But even the most humble story, if done well, can transport us into another’s life, into their world. We see through the characters eyes, feel their disappointments and frustrations. Whether the setting is as massive as Narnia or as small as a trailer park, if the author has done their job, we can lose ourselves in another world, at least for a time.

So let’s hear it, ‘Rati faithful. Who are you favorite world builders?

Wine of the Week: Sebecka Cabernet Pinotage An absolutely luscious South African wine with the cutest cork (yes, I said cutest cork) It’s cheetah print!

 PS: I have a guest blog up on Criminal Brief today! Come over and show their crew some love too!

Post Draft Analysis

In honor of this weekend’s NFL draft, I thought I’d do a post draft analysis. Now, of course, if this was a post about the NFL draft, it would be a pre-draft analysis. But it’s not about the NFL. What I thought might be interesting…well, at least to me…is to take a look back at the draft of my fourth Quinn novel, finished on Tuesday, from a technical standpoint.

First, a big sigh of relief, and an internal, “Oh, yeah!”

Now let’s start with some loose stats:

Book proposal written: July, 2008
Book started: approximately September 22, 2008
Book research trip to London and Paris: October 20 – 30, 2008
Hit 100 pages: approximately December 19 (I had a lot of distractions during the fall so didn’t write nearly as much as I had planned)
Hit 200 pages: approximately January 16
Hit 300 pages: approximately February 27
Spent most of March doing tweaking and rewriting
Hit 400 pages: approximately March 30
Finished Rough draft: April 7
Rewrite: April 7 – 21
Off to agent: April 21
Off to editor: Probably April 24
Plus or Minus on Deadline: 1 week early (deadline May 1)

Initial analysis:

Not happy with the amount of calendar time this book took, especially since I’m supposed to be doing this fulltime now. There were several reasons why: research trip, laser eye surgery, the holidays, and just the general distractions of starting your life as a fulltime novelist. What I am happy with is that around mid January, I buckled down and began spending large amounts of time each day at my computer. Probably 80% of the book was written after New Years.

Moving Forward:

Don’t waste so much time, and plan things so that I don’t have things like research trips coming in the middle of writing the book. Since my goal is to write as much as I can every year, doing this will help me create more time to write more than just the Quinn books.

So, based on this, here’s my plan for Quinn 5:

Write Proposal: Next week (April, 2009)
Research Trip: In the next two to three months
Start seriously writing: September
Rough Draft Completed: Christmas
Submit Draft Completed: January, 2010
Plus or Minus on Deadline: 3 to 3 ½ months early (deadline May 1)

Worst case I want to be done with it by sometime next February. None of this should be a problem as long as I put my mind to it. And what this does is free me to work on other things also.

So, by analyzing my performance and making adjustments, I should be able to create holes to work on other things this summer (though summer is going to be pretty busy, see below) and then late winter next year.

Here’s what the next four months look like:
L.A. Times Festival of Books (This coming weekend!)
That research trip
Thrillerfest
A couple of weeks up at my parents with my kids
The release of THE DECEIVED in paperback (June 23rd)
The release of THE UNWANTED in the UK (July 2nd)
The release of SHADOW OF BETRAYAL in the US (July 7th)
(No, that’s not two different books, SHADOW and UNWANTED are the same, just different titles…maybe I’ll discuss that next time.)
Book tour for SHADOW OF BETRAYAL on the west coast (details here: my Book Tour info )
AND work on one of those non-Quinn projects

I know this all seems kind of clinical, but I thought it would be interesting to take a look. By writing it, it’s actually helped me focus more on what needs to be done. So thanks for hanging in there as I did that!

So what do you think? Am I crazy? Did this help you? What’s your writing plan?

SWEEPSTAKES!!! I’m giving away 2 ARCs of SHADOW OF BETRAYAL a month starting this month through June. Details for entering are here: SOB Sweepstakes

And here’s this week’s inspiration. Imagine the amount of time and planning that went into this!

It’s Your Turn

by Rob Gregory Browne

Okay.  Believe it or not, I was going to talk about Susan Boyle today.  I was going to go on a long rant about how people who do not look like movie stars tend to get less respect in this world, and how some of that seems to be spilling over into the publishing industry.

But since both Toni and Tess have already touched on Ms. Boyle, it makes little sense for me to contribute another post to the subject.

On top of that, as I write this I am sitting in a hotel room in Orlando after a long plane ride, only three hours sleep, and getting my brain to work beyond “Nuhhhhhhhh” is extremely difficult.

So guess what?  I’m going to let YOU do the work this time.  Yes, that’s right.  After trying desperately to come up with a non-Susan Boyle subject to talk about (damn you, Toni and Tess), I started flying around the Internet (with my special cyber wings) and stumbled across an interesting website called StoryCorps.  It’s a place that generates questions to help stir conversation.

So that’s what I’m hoping to do here.  Stir some conversation.  And I don’t want to see little namby-pamby responses.  Feel free to express yourself.  Go wild.  But do answer the questions.

And if I can steal away from the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention tomorrow, I’ll answer them myself.

So have at it.  It’s your turn:

1.  In the spirit of the Romantic Times conference:  When did you first fall in love?

2.  What was the saddest moment of your life?

3.  How is your life different than what you imagined?

4.  What is your earliest memory?

I look forward to reading your answers.