logic flaws

I once made a near-perfect score on the logic portion of my GRE exam when applying to grad school.

(I will now wait for those of you who know me well to wipe off your monitors from the spit-take you just had. Really sorry about that.) (And sadly, they did not count the logic part toward my actual GRE total. They counted the math part. For an English major. That is just mean.)

I am also the person who, at eight months pregnant, got incredibly fed up with a table which was in the way in the kitchen–I had more thigh-high bruises from banging into the corners than I could count–so I decided that, logically, the damned thing wouldn’t be in the way if I could just shove it under the counter where the cast-iron sink stood. Except it wouldn’t quite fit. It was slightly taller than the bottom of the sink basin I wanted to shove it underneath, so clearly, the legs just needed to be shortened a little bit. This was the point that logic should have dictated that I wait until my contractor husband came home, someone who actually knew how to measure things and, um, how math works, but no, no, I did not. I went outside and got the only saw I could find (my husband, being a brilliant man, had hidden all of the electric tools). It was a hand-saw, the kind you use to lop off old tree limbs and not the most accurate of blades. And then I decided that I could eyeball a mere inch, because how hard could that be? (Did I mention the eight months pregnant?) Whereupon, I started sawing an "inch" off the bottom of the legs… only to discover that they were lopsided and it didn’t quite fit underneath the sink… wherein I lopped off another "inch" and made the whole thing slant to the side, so everything rolled into the corners of the drawers… wherein I thought "one more inch will do the trick" and by this time, I had blisters on my hands from that damned saw, but did I stop? No, I did not. I sawed and sawed and sawed and spent twenty thousand years sawing on those damned table legs and then I realized it was still lopsided and then I was pretty pissed off and later, when my husband came home from work, he took one look at the legless table sitting on the floor underneath the kitchen sink and the pile of leg-bits and sawdust and broken saw in the middle of the kitchen floor and wisely decided to take me out for dinner.

I have incredible duh moments, probably like most anyone. I can get absorbed in what I’m doing and completely forget the overall picture of what ought to be done. But as a writer, I have to guard against poor logic creeping into my fiction. (Story logic cause/effect.) On the other hand, I love solving problems, which is probably why I’m so drawn to the mystery and thriller world.

Now, my writing method falls somewhere between being a plotter and a pantser. (A plantser?) I will start work with a general sort of idea–I know where the story starts and I know where it ends. There are specific concrete emotional beats I know are important to the story, and these beats–exploring those moments–are what generally make me want to write that particular story at that particular time.

Next, I’ll break the story down into major movements (first act turning point, mid-point, third act turning point, climax). These major movements are based on what the characters want–the protagonist and antagonist(s). Reversals, betrayals. I look at the pattern of escalation–is everything getting worse, is the tension increasing? If something incredibly bad happens after the act one turning point, can the choices the protagonist makes next lead to something worse? If not, the tension is off, muted, lessened, and that often leads to the desire to toss something in there while in the middle of writing that section, because instinctively, I’ll feel that it’s off and will want to fix it. Beware of the artificial fix, because they usually introduce logic problems.

This is the point where I’ll start the inner bullshitometer to watch for story fallacies and poor logic:

Have I cheated? If I am in the POV of the antagonist, am I being true to what he’d really be thinking in that moment, or have I obfuscated his thinking just to make him look innocent? Whenever I am reading and am in the POV of a character who later turns out to be the bad guy and there was nary a hint of it, I feel incredibly frustrated. And cheated–because that character’s not really thinking what they’d be thinking at that moment if they know they’re guilty. I can understand them not saying it out loud, but inside? They’d know. They might not be all "hee hee I am ze bad guy, woohoo" (that’s technical jargon I am dazzling with here today), but they’d be thinking something. Their point of view would be refracted through their choices, through their duplicity and intent to cover up. [The only exception to this is the unreliable narrator, who is telling the story. This is generally successful when we are not in that narrator’s interior point of view.]

Are there coincidences? Life has tons of coincidences. Fiction, not so much. I think, if you’re lucky, you can pull off one coincidence per book, but if that coincidence occurs just at the darkest moment when the protagonist happens to need that one piece of information in order to live and save the day, I’m going to be annoyed, as a reader.

Time frame? Am I telling the story in a logical sequence? Note: you don’t have to tell the story in the order that it occurred. But if you’re going to break the sequence of events and rearrange them, there needs to be a reason why, other than, "Oh, yeah, they need to know this that happened sixteen years ago so they’ll understand that part over here." The forward momentum of a story stops every time there is a flashback to fill in–the tension pauses. Successful flashbacks introduce another layer of conflict in the here and now as well as show a conflict in that moment. [I’m a fan of breaking time frames, by the way, but the reader has to be able to follow the fracture and not feel entirely lost. There has to be enough of a thread of story logic for them to hold onto what they need to keep that forward momentum going, to keep trusting the author to get them to the end and it all make sense.]

Could it have happened that way? By the end of the book, I’ll have layered in characters and motives and reversals and it is very easy to get lost in the details. If you’re one of those people who plot every single moment ahead of time, congratulations (I kinda hate you, though). You probably don’t have to worry about this step. But if you’re a plantser / pantser, then you probably need to go back to the central question of the mystery and make sure the solution could actually happen the way you’ve described it. One of my all time favorite thriller writers had a stand alone where the end could not have happened the way he described it. At all. Told from the protagonist POV, the murder situation was described very differently at the end of the book by the protagonist than he’d described it at the beginning, and he wasn’t being an unreliable narrator–it just couldn’t have happened the original way and the writer adjusted. I was so invested in his characters that I wanted to smack him with the book. He’s gone on to break records selling and I’ve kept buying his books, so clearly, he’s not hurting any from annoying me, but I didn’t trust him as much. And that, really, is the risk here: unless you have incredible sales momentum behind a bestselling name, if you introduce something completely illogical, the readers aren’t going to trust you as much next time. That can make the difference between selling… and selling well.

Did the protagonist solve his/her own problem? Personally, I think it’s okay if the protagonist builds a team around them and utilizes the team’s experience / knowledge / dynamics to help them solve the problem, but if the final answer really does come from someone else and the protagonist is just along for the ride, then it doesn’t feel as much like the protagonist’s story. It feels weak. If someone we don’t know very well, some minor character, swoops in to save the day, I’m gonna quit buying that writer’s books, especially if the character is supposed to be smart.

Is the problem big enough for a story? This one of those "execution" questions–it can work if written well. If the story can be solved simply by the protagonist and antagonist getting over petty differences or sitting down and having a heart-to-heart talk, there might not be enough of a problem there to sustain a whole book. There has to be a fundamental reason why they won’t talk or can’t talk, (they are spies for opposing forces, for example). If they go through a tremendous amount of hell in the book and the solution is, "Oh, well, we’ll just sit down now and talk," then it’s going to feel like I’ve been mislead as to the logic of the problem. [This is one of those issues that could probably have a blog all by itself.]

Does the logic of the story follow the logic of the world the writer has created? This is one of those rules-of-the-world issues. The Bobbie Faye world is filled with bigger-than-life hyperbolic action. Insane stuff, and I set that up right at the top of book one when her trailer floods… and falls on its side like a dying elephant. The story action has promised the reader that in this world, it’s no-holds-barred, but that it makes sense within the world created. If the solution / climax of the story depends on that kind of action, then the logic for that action needs to be built in earlier. If the world is anything different at all from what we see and hear daily, then the writer needs to set up those rules early on and adhere to them at the end. Not only adhere to them, but they need to be important to the resolution.

It’s easy to miss these potential logic/story problems in one’s own writing. It’s very easy to get so absorbed in the details ("one more inch!") that one forgets the overall point (to use the damned table). It’s really easy to have a gun on page 232 when in fact the antagonist had tossed it in the river on page 134, and the writer forgets that in the rough draft. Tracing the route of the solution, though, can help catch these little things. Solving the bigger ones, though, is what makes writing a challenge–and fun.

So what logic errors or concerns have I missed on this list? I know there are more… (or, hey, tell me what dumb thing you’ve done lately)

Brainstorming Rocks

Alex and half the rest of Murderati are in Baltimore at Bouchercon this weekend – we’ll all report back next week!

So please welcome today’s guest Blogger – T. Lynn Ocean

BRAINSTORMING ROCKS

Some people try to get inside the heads of others because it’s what they do for a living. Psychiatrists, character actors, and hostage negotiators are a few examples. Me? I enjoy getting inside someone else’s head for research. I’m not talking about the generic emailed interview or even a face-to-face Q&A over lunch. What I’m referring to is brainstorming. Think cerebral orgy. Brainstorming with intelligent people is one of the most fun activities you can do with clothes intact! Imagine a game of Truth or Dare combined with Balderdash.

A down-and-dirty brainstorming session is good for any type of problem-solving, but since this is a Murderati blog, let’s say that you’re in the process of creating a character. She’s an elementary school teacher. Her plan is to kill the owner of a nearby dry cleaners, but she wishes to stay out of jail afterward. This simple setup can be the core of an hour-long brainstorming session that starts like this: If you were the teacher, how would YOU do it?

You can brainstorm with your spouse, friends and even strangers. If you’ve gathered the right type of open-minded and fun people, you’ll most likely walk away with several ideas on how the teacher can murder the business owner. One of the ideas just might be fresh, fabulous, and a perfect fit for your plot. If you decide to give brainstorming a try, choose your topic, have a notepad handy, and follow THE RULES:

First, anything goes. Second, no criticism is allowed.

The ‘anything goes’ rule is just as it sounds. Maybe the teacher isn’t a teacher at all. Maybe she doesn’t have a degree and she faked her resume. Maybe she is really a former pest control technician. And maybe the dry cleaners is experimenting with a new environmentally friendly cleaning solvent. Maybe there is a giant pothole in the road and a hubcap from a passing pickup truck knocked a vial of the solvent into a nearby Bloody Mary, and it turns out that the solvent is toxic when mixed with tomato juice.

What does any of this have to do with your main plot? Maybe nothing. But then again… the nature of brainstorming is that one idea fuels another, and that idea fuels another, and so on. It doesn’t matter if somebody verbalizes a thought that is wacky, tacky or totally unrealistic because someone else will take that cerebral stimulation and run with it. You’ll be surprised at the morsels that can turn up in a brainstorming session.

As for rule number two, no criticism, that one is simple. There is nothing that will bring a creative sharing of ideas to a screeching halt more quickly than a negative person spouting, “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Or, “that would never happen.”

So the next time you’re working on a plot, planning a big event, or solving a problem at work—find some willing people, have a great time, and remember the rules.

Anything goes. No criticism allowed. Oh, yeah and one final thought. You might want to be careful where you have a brainstorming session, especially if you’re plotting ways to get away with murder.

Setting Goals

by J.T. Ellison

Since so many of our compatriots are in Baltimore, having a blast at Bouchercon, indulge me while I feel sorry for myself for a few minutes. There really is nothing worse than having to pull out of a conference unexpectedly, which is what happened to me this week. I learned my lesson at Left Coast Crime in Denver – if you aren’t 100%, doing the conference right is very, very hard. I’d just come off emergency surgery, was weak as a kitten and still feeling horrid, and I went and tried my damnedest to be "on." It didn’t work. The pictures show a pale-faced wraith with a half smile, and all I could think about was getting back to my room to lay down.

For the authors, it’s a show, and you’re the star. You need to be able
to be on, to focus on the readers, to give them a slice of your
personality. You’re selling yourself as much as you’re selling your books. So, word to the wise. If you can’t be author boy or author girl, don’t go. Nothing’s worse than feeling poorly at a conference.

Okay. I’m done with the whining.

I thought we poor, wayward souls left behind could do some goal setting today.

Are you a listmaker who loves to cross items off your list, or are you a catch as catch can, try to remember, tie a string around your finger type? It’s a true assessment of your personality, I think. There are those of us who like to be hyper-organized, and those who let the chips fall where they may.

Though I’m a "pantser" when it comes to writing my novels, I like to be organized. I like to make lists, to tick off my actions. It gives me a sense that I’m getting something accomplished. I used to carry a day runner and have daily lists, weekly list, and monthly lists. Now I’m more electronic, and have a online notepad that I write my lists on. It’s not as satisfying, actually, so I’m looking at going back to the old way.

So aside from the day-to-day and week-to-week lists, I’ve been thinking about making myself a goals list – where will I be in One Year, Five Years, Ten Years? Why? I woke this morning wondering where I was going to be in ten years. I received the cover art for my 4th novel yesterday. (It’s BRILLIANT!) I’m revising that book now and will start my research for the 5th next week. Which in all actuality is my 6.5th, since my first didn’t sell and I wrote a novella prior to that. 6 full length novels. 6. That’s 600,000 words. I feels like an accomplishment. And it’s also going pretty damn fast, considering I started writing in 2004.

Yes, there’s a lot of writers with many more published books, but there’s also many people who never finish the first. So I had a little moment of triumph, all alone in my living room, with the cat staring at me like I was nuts. She likes it when I sit quietly and whistle occasionally, not smack my head and mutter incoherently.

And thus, I woke wondering where I was going to be in ten years. I spent last week in Omaha, with one of my favorite people and authors, Alex Kava. With her manager Deb at her side, they took me to bookstore after bookstore, and I got to watch a NYT bestseller in action. It was, to say the least, humbling. We did three audience based events, all of which went very well. Alex is a known commodity in Omaha the way I’d like to be a known commodity in Nashville. She has roots there: family, friends, but most of all, fans. Tons of them. Of every different stripe. It was so cool to sit beside her and meet all of these people, who I must say were incredibly gracious to the southern interloper.

Alex just published her 8th book, a fantastic title called EXPOSED. All of her titles have been in hardcover, which gives her a major leg up on me. But it’s more than that. She is accessible, sly and witty. The fans love her to pieces. They love Maggie O’Dell. They love having a chance to meet her. When we spoke to the "Detective Novels and Society" class at the College of St. Mary’s, Alex’s alma mater, I was struck by the respect she commanded from the students. She is something I aspire to be, a solid writer with a large fan base and a sense of humor about the whole process.

So I guess the first thing to consider when setting a goal is an act of emulation. Find your Alex. Find an author who you think embodies your career path, someone who you respect, whose writing you enjoy, whose publishing house does it right. Then look at where you are. Are you unpublished, writing in a vacuum, not a member of any organizations, never been to a conference? Are you with a small press and want to get into a major house? Are you a short story writer who wants to become a novelist? What is your next step?

Looking back to my own path to publication, I set small, attainable, intermediary goals for myself so I didn’t get discouraged. And that’s vital. You can’t set a goal like this: It is October 2008. I will write the great American novel by October 2009, sell it for a seven-figure advance, get coop in every store, be a Barnes and Noble pick and win the Edgar award. That’s setting yourself up for failure.

Set attainable goals. I will write 1,000 words a day. (You do that, you’ll have a rough draft in 3 months.) I will join my local chapter of Sisters in Crime and meet some new people. I will buy a subscription to Publisher’s Marketplace and put up a website. I will blog weekly. I will read at least two books a week. I will stop saying what if and start doing. My glass will be half full, and I will see others in a more sympathetic light. I will query my manuscript.

And follow through. I did all of the things I just mentioned, and found myself with a novel, an agent and a blog gig.

So we’ve set the small goals to get you started. When do you set the big goals? When do you start thinking about the possibility of becoming a bestseller? When do you lay out where you want to be in ten years?

Well, I don’t have the answer to that. I’m afraid to worry about the future. I feel much better setting my goals for the year, and not worrying about the what ifs. One of my favorite saying is:

"Control the things you can control."

You can control how many words you write. You can control your pace, your research and your quality. You can be open to new experiences and read out of the genre. You can. Remember that always.

YOU CAN.

So with that in mind, what are your short-term goals for your career? Have you set any long-term goals?

Wine of the Week: 2005 Pascual Toso Cabernet Sauvignon

Conference, I Don’t Need No Stinking Conference!

By Brett Battles

Since today is the first day of Bouchercon 2008 (and that’s where I am, so if I don’t get back to your comments, please forgive me), I thought I’d share my experience with the first Bouchercon I attend. And for those readers and aspiring writers wondering if you should go to a conference, I’ll let you make your own judgment after you finish reading.

It was Chicago, 2005. My first novel had been bought by Ugly Town the previous February, and had been scheduled to come in October, a month after the conference. Only in August, Ugly Town ran into some business problems and had to suspend operations. This was the time between when Ugly Town shut down and two months later when Bantam Dell would buy my contract from them. So as you can imagine, it was a very unstable period for me. I thought I was going to have to go back to the beginning and start sending out queries again. Hell, I thought I was going to have to shelve THE CLEANER and write something new.

I had already signed up for Bouchercon at the suggestion of the Ugly Town guys, but was suddenly unsure if I should go. What was the point, I thought. Jim Pascoe talked me into it. He said go learn what I could, and to talk up my book. (At that time Ugly Town was still hoping to maybe – stress maybe – bring it out in the spring of ’06.) So, based on this, I decided to go.

I was nervous as hell. I only knew one person who was going to be there, Nathan Walpow. But he wasn’t going to be around that much, plus I hated the idea of relying on him to smooth my way through the conference. So I ended up keeping mosly to myself.

When I arrived, I didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t even sure how many people were going to be there. Because of work commitments, I didn’t arrive until after lunch on Thursday. (NOTE to those thinking about attending Bouchercon in the future: come in on Wednesday as things get rolling first thing on Thursday morning. I’d actually make this a blanket suggestion for all conferences to come in the day before, because you can hook up with a lot of people that evening when things are still manageable.)

Where was I?… Oh, so I come in Thursday afternoon and find the conference in full manic mode. There were people EVERYWHERE. And I mean TONS of people. I check in and get my conference materials (schedule, badge, etc.) and this big bag stuffed with books! BONUS! I had no idea I’d be getting so many free books. I immediately went up to my room, dropped off my stuff, looked at the schedule, and worked out a plan of panels I wanted to see.

My first panel is the panel I remember most. (I think it was my first panel…could have been a later one, but that’s what my memory’s telling me right now.) It’s not the topic I remember…have no idea what that was now. I do remember a large room with a standing room only crowd. And I remember the moderator. This big guy with a beard and glasses running around the room, cracking jokes and getting the crowd going. Of course it was Joe Konrath, but I had no idea who he was at that time. (If you’ve never seen Joe work a room, it is a site to behold.) I was mesmerized by the things he and the panel were talking about. I think Barry Eisler was on the panel. He was definitely on one of the first panels I saw because he also made an impression on me. (And if any of you have seen Barry speak, you know what I mean, he’s really good at talking to a crowd. )

From there I bounced from panel to panel, never taking a break. The evenings, though, were a different story for me. Since I didn’t know anyone I didn’t know what to do. I actually spent most of my evenings in my room reading. After seeing Barry speak, I picked up the first three Rain novels and read them all that weekend in Chicago. Somehow I found out that the bar was the place to hang out after hours. Well, the one time I went, the bar was almost empty. Must have been a night when everyone was out at some other event. Not sure. But soon I found myself back in my room , a Rain book in my lap.

I’m not sure if I miss any panel times all weekend. They were so energizing and inspiring to me, that later, when I was back in L.A., I wrote out a marketing plan for THE CLEANER and gave it to Ugly Town to get them excited again. (It worked, but in a whole unexpected way…the previously mentioned buying of my contract by Bantam.)

Anyway, at some point over the weekend I did drum up enough courage to introduce myself to Barry and Joe, just a quick in and out – “Hi, I’m Brett. Great to meet you.” And I did make it to one bar where some award was being handed out. Can’t remember which though.

But if my weekend ended there, with all I’d learned while watching the panels, it would already have been approaching priceless. Yet, though I wouldn’t know it for another six months, there was more to come.

On Sunday vans shuttled people from the hotel to the airport. I think there were probably about seven other people in the van I got on. One was a recently hired editor at (I think) Romantic Times magazine. She struck up a conversation with the woman next to her. The woman, it turned out, was an agent. As we neared the airport, I finally thought to myself “What the hell,” then said to the agent, “I’m an unrepresented author with a book coming out.” We talked for a few minutes. I still wasn’t sure what was going on with Ugly Town so I wasn’t pushing her. After we all got out, I said goodbye to the woman and entered the airport.

As I sat eating…something I can’t recall…at the cafeteria in O’Hare Airport, I suddenly realized someone had stopped in front of me, and was looking at me. It was the agent I’d met on the van. She said something like, “I wanted to give you my card. Let me know when you’re looking for representation.” I took her card and said I would. I was a little stunned, but very happy.

And guess what? Six months later I did need representation. And when I emailed her with the reminder that we had shared the van ride in Chicago, she called me back immediately and said she remembered. I explained what was going on with me, and asked if she would be interested in representing me. She had me email her my book, and the next day she called me back and I had an agent. Which is kind of ironic since for the three books I’d written at that time (two unpublished and remaining so, so don’t even ask), I’d sent out nearly a hundred queries on each. Ultimately being rejected every time.

So are conferences worth it? In my case, hell yes. I can’t promise you you’ll find an agent. But I can promise you’ll get a much better picture of the industry, and, depending on how hard you try, will make some connections that could serve you well later.

So that’s my conference story. Feel free to share yours in the comments!

Song of the Day: MURDER INCORPORATED by Bruce Springsteen

Lowering the Bar

by Rob Gregory Browne

WARNING: I’m about to mention politics here, but I do so only to illustrate a point, and am not endorsing or denouncing any particular political philosophy, candidate or party. I will also be mentioning a couple of movies that people around the world love, so hopefully you won’t get upset in that regard, either.

I’ve been scratching my head a lot lately. For several years now, in fact.

But the build-up to last Thursday’s Vice Presidential debate really brought something home for me. I noticed in news story after news story that the party representing one of the candidates seemed to be going out of its way to lower our expectations about the candidate’s upcoming performance. Thanks to a spate of less than stellar media events, it seemed that if she could prove that she could walk and chew gum at the same time, she would succeed in proving that she was somehow worthy of office.

It seems to me that this expectations game is not very healthy. It is indicative, I think, of how far we’ve come in lowering the bar — not just for political candidates, but for nearly every aspect of our lives in this country. We have become a society that celebrates mediocrity. The more you skew toward the middle-to-lower end of the spectrum, the better your chances at success in the marketplace. The decline has been steady but sure, and I think the quality of our lives has deteriorated because of it.

There are several exceptions to this, of course. There always will be, thank God. But lately, those exceptions, I think, are fewer and farther between, and dim in comparison to the exceptions of the past.

I grew up during the seventies. Spent my teen years going to the movies and seeing masterpieces of the era like The Godfather II, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and Five Easy Pieces, to name just a few. It seemed that during those years, there were many, many examples of fine filmmaking from some of our greatest writers and directors.

Then, along came Star Wars.

When I saw the trailer for the movie, I was, like everyone else, very excited. The special effects were so amazing that I thought, wow, this is going to be one helluva movie. On opening day, I waited in line for close to an hour. And when the movie started, I was thrilled. Saw things I’d never seen before. Just the sight of that Death Star alone was mesmerizing.

But something was wrong. The story itself was really nothing special. The acting, for the most part, was decent but not spectacular. The direction was pedestrian. And some of the dialog was downright laughable.

It was a fun movie, no question about it, but nothing special. And I walked out of the theater somewhat disappointed, thinking it would never recoup its cost.

Yet, to my surprise, within weeks, Star Wars had turned into a phenomenon and is now revered as something of a masterpiece. Many people who grew up without seeing the true masterpieces of the cinema, seem to think that Star Wars is some kind of benchmark that filmmakers — of popcorn fiction, at least — should strive for.

But no matter how much you may love the movie, let’s face it: Star Wars is a decent entertainment but not a great one. It borrows too heavily from better work — particularly Japanese films — and shows little innovation other than the spectacular (at the time) special effects.

In my opinion, Star Wars almost single-handedly lowered the bar for movies. After its surprise success (along with the much better Jaws), we saw Hollywood fall victim to a blockbuster mentality that produced a bunch of big budget "high concept" epics that were all fluff and no substance. A mentality that continues to plague Hollywood even now.

This year, The Dark Knight is being hailed as a dark masterpiece. But in comparison to what? The Fantastic Four? As much fun and as well-executed as The Dark Knight is — and believe me, I enjoyed it — it is not an exercise in cinematic subtlety and is nowhere near the artistic revelation that people say it is.

But then, in comparison to everything else around it, maybe it is. Again, that lowering of the bar, our lowered expectations about what’s coming out of Hollywood these days, makes The Dark Knight’s intelligent — if obvious –storytelling a rarity.

If we look at music, who are the big acts of today? I’m not even sure anymore, because I lost interest in the mainstream music scene several years ago with the advent of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. The corporate music industry has become all gloss and no substance. Even stuff we considered fluff back in my day is true artistry in comparison.

When Mylie Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers and American Idol contestants are the best we have to offer the world, I think we’re in serious trouble. I don’t see any Mick Jaggers anymore. Or Lennon/McCartneys. I don’t see any innovation of any kind. All I see are a bunch of posers who somehow have managed to strike a chord, perhaps only because we’re so hungry for something slightly better than average that we welcome these posers with open arms.

Again, there are exceptions — even among American Idol contestants — but for the most part, the mainstream music industry, like the movies, is mired in mediocrity.

The book industry seems to have fared better in this regard, although I’m sure we can all point to novelists we consider less than stellar who are hugely successful. I personally have opened several books that did not compel me to read past the first paragraph or so and some that were, by any measuring stick, just plain bad. And while I’d love to put my own work in the above-average category, I make no such claims and will leave that to others to judge.

But I have to wonder if the successful books of today are as good as the successful books of a decade ago. Or several decades ago.

I suppose you could argue that this all comes down to a matter of taste, that one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure, but what if this gradual lowering of the bar has affected that taste? If we are bombarded day in and day out by below average fare, it seems we have no choice but to find something in the mess that we can actually tolerate and, as a result, we celebrate it as if it’s the second coming.

In keeping with my statement that I think this has affected several aspects of our lives, why don’t we talk about food? The McDonaldization of the world has certainly made me wonder about what we put in our stomachs. I mean, anyone who has eaten a homemade burger with all the trimmings knows full well that the fast food version is, at best, a piss-poor substitute. Yet we flock to these food chains like lemmings.

Despite all the advancements in medicine, the quality of our health care experience has declined. There was a time when you could spend a few minutes talking to your friendly general practitioner and he or she actually knew who you were. Might even call you by your first name.

Now it seems that we’re nothing more than cattle being herded in and out of the doctor’s office (if you can get an appointment), given a quick diagnosis that often requires another visit or a second opinion because the doctor didn’t give us enough quality time to actually get it right the first time around.

And then, of course, there’s the news. The days of the thoughtful and balanced news anchoring of, say, Walter Cronkite and the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein has been replaced by howling partisan hacks who spew nothing but talking points, purveyors of propaganda rather than substance. These people don’t just wallow in shallow mediocrity, they celebrate it. And the now defunct Fairness Doctrine is nothing more than a quaint term they once heard in high school.

If I sound frustrated, I am. All the things I’ve talked about here used to be magic to me. But the magic is long gone.

I’m sure to some of you, I sound like an elitist, or the grumpy old fart who is caught up in the past, when everything was "better." And maybe that’s true.

But while I love the advancements in technology that make our lives easier and, in many ways, more interesting, I’ve found that despite the fact that we have many more choices when it comes to entertainment, food and political discourse, the quality of those choices is merely a shadow of what it was in the past, and we’re now forced to settle for less.

Call me old. Call me a cynical curmudgeon. But that’s just the way I see it.

—-

By the way, I’m on a plane headed to Baltimore right now and hope to see you at Bouchercon. I’ll be on a panel about Criminal Masterminds on Thursday afternoon. Hope you’ll stop by to hear me complain…. 🙂

Can a bad review end your career?

by Tess Gerritsen

Yes.

I realize that’s a pretty blunt answer, and many of you will disagree with me on this. Nobody reads reviews anyway, you’ll argue. Bad reviews come with the territory, and authors survive them all the time. Or you’ll observe (accurately) that I’m famously hypersensitive to lousy reviews and I endow them with more power than they really have.

So let me explain why I think one bad review can, indeed, end your career as a published author.

There’s one time in particular when an author is particularly vulnerable to the effects of a devastating review, and that’s when you are a debut author. An editor who takes on a first-time novelist is taking a risk on someone who’s untried in the marketplace. The editor hopes, of course, that the debut novel will be wildly successful, or at a minimum, earn back its advance And to increase the chances of its success, this editor will talk up the book to the sales force. As the pub date approaches, she hopes that in-house enthusiasm for the book builds, because that enthusiasm gets transferred to booksellers, who will be convinced to increase their orders. Hefty orders mean more exposure, better displays, and of course better sales. Imagine you are that debut author, and your novel “FIRST TIME OUT” has been bought with a generous advance. Imagine that the publishing house is telling you this is going to be an important book. Imagine that they have decided to give it a big push, with major ads and an author tour.

Then imagine that your first review appears in Publishers Weekly, and they pronounce it a disaster. They call your publisher a house of idiots for buying it.

Now your editor looks like a dope. The enthusiasm at your publishing house suddenly deflates like a popped balloon. Everyone there feels a bit embarrassed, not just for you, but for themselves. The big bookstore orders don’t come in. Costco and Walmart take a pass on it. Even before your book goes on sale, it already feels like a big failure and an expensive mistake.

Those promised ads never materialize. And even though they do send you on book tour, every time you meet a bookseller, you just know they’re looking at you and thinking, “oh, so you’re the author whom PW called illiterate.” And you feel like such a loser.

That scenario is just what I faced when my first hardcover, HARVEST, was published. About a week before the book was released, a review appeared in PW. If you want to see how bad it was, check it out over on Amazon or BN.com. According to PW, HARVEST was so awful, it would be appreciated only by “readers who move their lips”. I vividly recall the depressing phone conversation I had with my agent after that review came out. And one thing she said stuck in my mind: “we’re lucky this review came in so late. The bookstores have already placed their orders.”

But what if the review had come in two months earlier? What if Costco and Target and all the myriad other book merchants had taken a pass on HARVEST? I’m almost certain that HARVEST never would have hit the New York Times bestseller list (which it did, at #13.) And even though many good reviews followed, the damage would already have been done. The book would have died, and orders for the next book (LIFE SUPPORT) would have been even worse. And that could have been the end of my career as a thriller novelist.

Debut authors in particular are exquisitely vulnerable to bad reviews. But what about the seasoned veteran, the writer who’s already established himself as a bestseller? Bad reviews don’t affect our careers, right?

Wrong. They can. But for entirely different reasons.

I recall hearing about the time Stephen King got a PW review that was so brutal, so nasty, that it almost made him stop writing entirely. Lucky for his readers, he got over the hurt and resumed writing, but I understand why he might contemplate calling it quits on his own career.

Because I had the same experience just last year.

After writing six books in the Jane Rizzoli series, I wanted to devote myself to a project that I truly, deeply, cared about. THE BONE GARDEN was an historical novel about childbed fever, the dawn of microbial theory, and the contributions of a real-life medical hero named Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. I had dreamed of writing this book for years. I spent months researching medical history, grave robbers, and the state of medical education in the 1830’s. I read reams of old Boston newspapers, immersed myself in the contemporary fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and pored over old surgical textbooks. I thought the book was one of my best ever, and I waited for the first reviews to come in, hoping that the critics would agree.

The review that came in from Booklist was one of the worst in my entire 21-year career. The reviewer ridiculed the book and called my writing incompetent. And in the weirdest criticism of all, he said he saw no reason for Oliver Wendell Holmes to even be in the book, because he had no role there. He missed entirely the theme of childbed fever and medical history — the very reason I wrote the book.

Although many good reviews followed, the damage was done. I had to finish writing the next book in order to satisfy my contract, but looking back now, I don’t know how I managed to do it. I wrote in a cloud of depression. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t see the point of continuing in a job that just invited brutal and very public humiliation. I thought about how much easier my life would be if I just quit.

That’s right, quit.

Practically speaking, I could have managed it. I’m thrifty by nature, I abhor shopping, and I’ve saved up enough money over the years to retire right now. I imagined liberating myself from the yearly cycle of sales anxiety and nasty reviews. I imagined writing only for myself — stories that I’d put in a drawer, never to be seen until after I’m dead and buried. I imagined the relief of never having to hear another critic sneer that my books stink.

It took me over a year to finally get back my equilibrium. The good reviews for THE KEEPSAKE has helped. So has the passage of time. But I was close, so very close, to just closing up shop and saying “I’m done. I’m retiring.”

All because of a bad review.

I know that it’s a wimpy excuse — “I’m quitting because my feelings were hurt by a mean reviewer.” But the process of writing relies so much on our state of mind. On how confident we feel, how excited we are about a story, and how sure we are that people will like the result. When you’re depressed, you can’t write. When you feel like a failure, you can’t write. And when you are already preemptively cringing from the next public humiliation, the writing suffers.

Sometimes it never recovers.

Poetry in motion

by Pari

I’m a sucker for a good metaphor.

When prose rises to lyricism, my heart dances.

My love affair with the odd juxtaposition began when I was seven and wrote my first four-stanza piece. Here’s the "chorus":

Oh sea, oh sea
the great red sea,
my love, my dove,
the great red sea . . .

Pretty funny for a kid who lived in New Mexico. I have no idea what it meant, but it sure sounded good.

In middle and high school, I remember long hours sitting with a friend in the library and reading e e cummings to each other. In college, I graduated to Wallace Stevens, Theodore Roethke, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams.

Here’s something most people don’t know about me: I’ve always wanted to go to the National Poetry Slam. I’d love to compete — if only I wrote true poetry and could be cool enough to pull it off in performance. (Where did I put that beret?)

Last weekend, I had a marvelous time at the Wrangling with Writing conference in Tucson, AZ. I hope to write about it in a future post. But for right now, I wanted to introduce Murderati readers to Taylor Mali. He was the keynote speaker at the con and it was one of the high points of a great, great experience. I’m including two of his poems here.

The first is called The The Impotence of Proofreading. It’s a brilliant take-off on a subject close to every writer’s heart. Warning: there’s a fair amount of "adult language" herein — so don’t listen to it at high volume at work. (BTW: The man sitting on stage with him is Billy Collins, a former poet laureate of the U.S.)

This next one is What Teachers Make (which should be an anthem for all teachers everywhere . . . including those of us who like to teach aspects of writing or the writer’s life)

Well, if that doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.

For today’s discussion, tell us about the poets you love — include readings or excerpts if you can find them.
Tell us about mystery writers whose works bring the kind of satifaction we can find in good poetry.

I can’t wait to see your responses . . .

************************************************************************************
I’ll be at Bouchercon briefly this year — from Friday afternoon until the middle of the luncheon on Sunday when I have to scoot off to the airport. My panel is Sunday at 10 am:

"A TOWN CALLED MALICE (The Jam)
with Ann Cleeves (m), Martin Edwards, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett, Carolyn Wall . . . and yours truly.

I hope to see some of you there.

Fear of Speeches

By Allison Brennan

I love public speaking. I’ve done it many times, not only as an author, but during my previous life in public policy.

But I’m scared to death of having to write a speech. The only thing I can attribute this fear to is my dislike of plotting.

I don’t plot. I don’t plot my books, I don’t plot out my life. I have a vague sense of my career goals just like I have a vague sense of what’s going to happen in my stories. Why plan it all out? As Stephen King says in his book ON WRITING, “Why be such a control freak?”

While I can appreciate and learn from Alex Sokoloff’s fabulous and informative presentations on story structure-and I really love reading craft-related writing books-when if comes to my own writing, I can’t shape it into a structure beforehand. The story comes out one word at a time, and I learn about my characters and what’s happening in the plot pretty much as I write.

Most writers are rather middle-of-the-road when it comes to plotting. They have a rough outline, maybe a few key plot points, perhaps a couple paragraphs about the main characters. They might not have a clear roadmap, but they know the general direction they’re headed and have all the major intersections and turns identified.

Extreme plotters need to start with a detailed outline. They can’t even get behind the wheel unless they know where they’re going, how they are going to get there, and every gas station, restaurant, and hotel on the way. They often have spreadsheets, a detailed scene-by-scene written outline, and sometimes even character charts. They’ll know not only where they are going, but where they’ve been. They can’t even type CHAPTER ONE until that map is complete, and they keep their GPS open and functioning all the time.

I jump into the car, turn the ignition and start driving. Sometimes I go too slow and push myself to speed up; other times I’m in a race for the finish line and have to force myself to slow down. Sometimes I go down the wrong road and have to make a 180; sometimes I go down the wrong side street and find myself in a dark alley with no way out – but then there’s a Dumpster and I jump on it. Pull myself up on a ledge, throw myself onto the fire escape, climb up, leap into an open window and I have no idea where I’m headed, but the journey is more fun than terrifying. (Though there’s a lot of fear as well.)

When I present a writing workshop, I never go in over-prepared. In fact, I rarely go in with more than a couple of bullet points. Every time I give a workshop, it’s completely different-even if it’s the same material I’ve discussed before. That keeps it fun and interesting for me.

Workshops are interactive. They’re personal. I can read expressions in the audience, their body language, figure out whether I’m failing dismally or they’re interested. I ask questions of the audience, try to gauge what they want, play off their questions to me. I’m spontaneous and go off on wild tangents with stories that somewhat relate to the subject. But in the end, they seem to go pretty well-so for me, it works. And they came to my workshop because they wanted to be there. It’s not like I chained them to their chair, right?

But a year ago, I committed to something I’ve never done before. I’m giving the closing speech at the Emerald City Writers Conference in Seattle on Sunday. Speech. Speech implies a plan, words written done on paper that I will read or memorize and quote. Right? This isn’t a toast at a wedding where everyone taps on their champagne glasses and shouts, “Speech! Speech!” and expect you to be spontaneous. This is more like being the pastor and reading correctly from the book otherwise the couple might not actually be married during the reception . . .

I wasn’t worried about this until recently. In fact, I had no intention of writing an actual speech. I figured sure, I needed more than five bullet points–maybe ten–and a couple writing quotes that I can extrapolate on and relate to the writing life. I said as much to my friend Margie Lawson, a fantastic speaker and terrific teacher.

She looked at me and said, “You need a theme.”

I stared blankly. “Theme? What’s a theme? I don’t have themes.”

She laughed. She thought I was joking. “Sure you do. All your books have themes. A speech is no different.”

My books have themes? Really? “They do?”

“Of course they do.” Her smile faltered. I knew that she’d read at least some of my books because she’s used them in her writing classes. So if she thought I had a theme, wow. She probably knew what a theme was. She probably knew what my theme was.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines theme as: 1 a: a subject or topic of discourse or of artistic representation

Well. Duh. Who needs a word for it? Of course I have a theme. Once I get to the end of the book, I know what it is. Sort of. If put on the spot. With a knife to my throat. Sure. I got it.

To me, theme is like branding. I have no idea what my “brand” is. I’ve taken FOUR online or workshop classes about branding and still have no idea how to define my brand. When told one instructor that my brand was dark romantic thrillers, she informed me that was my genre, not my brand.

Getting back to Margie . . . so I need a theme. She gave me one (thank you!) She said because I was the closing speaker, I should be motivational, to rally the troops so-to-speak, to send them forth into the world to write!

Great! I had a theme, I was done. I could motivate. I motivate my kids to clean their rooms.

“Clean your room and we’ll go out for ice cream.”

“Naw.”

“Clean your room or no video games (or cell phone or television or computer, depending on the kid) for a week.”

The room gets clean. I know how to motivate!

But that wasn’t enough for Margie.

“You have to write a speech.”

“That sounds like plotting.”

“It’s not plotting. It’s writing a speech.”

“I don’t plot.”

“It’s a speech.”

A close version of this conversation took place in June. I’ve been stressed ever since.

Except for a short time during the RWA conference. I gave a speech to the Kiss of Death chapter (those of us writing romantic suspense.) It was a speech. I had five bullet points, no written or practiced speech. It went well, I’ve been told. (Unless they were being kind because I know 1001 ways to kill people. But I’ve never done it personally.)

Then I heard the incomparable Victoria Alexander speak at the luncheon and I knew I could never do that. She was funny, poignant, poised, perfect.

On the Levy bus tour I shared my fear with my good friend Roxanne St. Claire (at least, she was my good friend until she said . . . )

“You have to write a speech.”

“Define write.”

“What’s your theme?”

Aw! That I knew. Margie had given it to me in Colorado. “To motivate.”

She looked at me strangely. That was a theme, I assured her. Something positive and uplifting.

“Okay,” she said. “Write your motivational speech. Edit it. Read it out loud over and over and over until you know it so well you don’t even need to look at it. You’ll be great. Just practice, time it, and then print it out in large font in case you need to look down for a moment to figure out where you are. But you’ll know it so well you won’t even need to look down, as long as you practice.”

“I don’t have the time.” I wasn’t joking.

“I promise you’ll do great if you follow this formula. You’ll do as good as Victoria Alexander. Trust me. She wrote that speech and practiced it.”

And I knew that was true, because I talked to friends of hers who told me they listened to her read the speech over the phone the night before she gave it.

I began to stress again. Not a little tickle of doubt, but brain-numbing panic.

I started my June 09 book last week. It’s been slow going-I wrote and deleted the first chapter four times, but I think I have it down. At least, the opening paragraphs are strong and I’m finally starting in the right place. But I know that part of the reason I’ve been struggling is because I’m scared about the speech I haven’t written.

I need to write it.

I don’t want to write it.

I want to wing it.

Two people I like and trust told me I can’t wing it.

Ironically, I’m not scared of speaking. I stood up at Thrillerfest in July and winged my way through the Awards Ceremony with only the names of my judges that I had torn off a printed email. But I’m scared of writing a speech.

So I’ve decided to do something in between winging and rehearsing. It’s the only way I can keep my sanity, and finish my book by deadline. I spent yesterday pouring over my favorite craft books and pulling out quotes that are motivational and uplifting. I printed out all my motivational lectures from online workshops I’ve given over the last couple of years. I put everything into a folder, stuck it in my laptop case, and am forgetting about it. When I’m on the plane Friday afternoon, I’ll take everything out and (shiver) write talking points. I think I even have a theme, something a bit more focused than “to motivate.” I’m going to talk about fear. I think. At least, that’s the direction the quotes I’m pulling are sending me.

Might have something to do with the fact that I’m scared myself, but I’m still going to Seattle and speaking in front of 250 people.

Because that’s what professionals do. We acknowledge the fear, toss back a shot of tequila (or smoke or pray or all of the above), and perform.

How do you handle your fears?

Story Structure – Act Two, Part Two

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Okay, back to story structure this week. Come on, you know you want to.

As we were talking about in our discussion of the Elements of Act Two, the first half of the second act – that’s 30 pages in a script, or about 100 pages (p. 100 to p. 200) in a 400 page book, is leading up to the MIDPOINT. The Midpoint is one of the most important scenes or sequences in any book or film – a major shift in the dynamics of the story. Something huge will be revealed; something goes disastrously wrong; someone close to the hero/ine dies, intensifying her or his commitment (What I call the “Now it’s personal” scene… imagine Clint Eastwood or Bruce Willis growling the line). Often the whole emotional dynamic between characters changes with what Hollywood calls, “Sex at Sixty” (that’s 60 pages, not sixty years.)

It’s also sometimes called the “Point of No Return”, in which the hero/ine commits irrevocably to the action (this may have been the German dramaturg Freytag’s assertion – I’ll have to research it further).

Often a TICKING CLOCK is introduced at the Midpoint, as we discussed in Building Suspense. A clock is a great way to speed up the action and increase the urgency of your story.

The midpoint can also be a huge defeat, which requires a recalculation and a new plan of attack.

And the Midpoint will often be one of the most memorable visual SETPIECES of the story, just to further drive its importance home. It’s a game-changer, and it locks the hero/ine even more inevitably into the story.

The Midpoint is not necessarily just one scene – it can be a progression 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. For example, in JAWS, the Midpoint climax occurs in a highly suspenseful sequence in which the city officials have refused to shut 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, but it’s not over yet. Because now the Mayor writes the check to hire Quint to hunt down the shark, and since Brody’s family has been threatened (“Now it’s PERSONAL”), he decides to go out with Quint and Hooper on the boat – and there’s also a huge change in location as we see that little boat headed out to the open sea.

Another interesting and tonally very different Midpoint happens in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. I’m sure some people would dispute me on this one (and people argue about the exact Midpoint of movies all the time), but I would say the midpoint is the scene that occurs exactly 60 minutes into the film, in which, having determined that the Nazis are digging in the wrong place in the archeological site, Indy goes down into that chamber with the pendant and a staff of the proper height, and uses the crystal in the pendant to pinpoint the exact location of the Ark.

This scene is quiet, and involves only one person, but it’s mystically powerful – note the use of light and the religious quality of the music… and Indy is decked out in robes almost like, well, Moses – staff and all. Indy stands like God over the miniature of the temple city, and the beam of light comes through the crystal like light from heaven. It’s all a foreshadowing of the final climax, in which God intervenes much in the same way. Very effective, with lots of subliminal manipulation going on. And of course, at the end of the scene, Indy has the information he needs to retrieve the Ark. I would also point out that the midpoint is often some kind of mirror image of the final climax – it’s an interesting device to use, and you may find yourself using it without even being aware of it.

Another very different kind of midpoint occurs in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: the “Quid Pro Quo” scene between Clarice and Lecter, in which she bargains personal information to get Lecter’s insights into the case. Clarice is on a time clock, here, because Catherine Martin has been kidnapped and Clarice knows they have only three days 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 – 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 – it’s a horrifying curtain and drives home the stakes.

It really pays to start taking note of the Midpoints of films and books. If you find that your story is sagging in the middle, the first thing you should look at is your Midpoint scene.

I know this and I still sometimes forget it. When I turned in my latest book, THE UNSEEN, I knew that I was missing something in the middle, even though there was a very clear change in location and focus at the Midpoint: it’s the point at which my characters actually move into the supposedly haunted house and begin their experiment.

But there was still something missing in the scene right before, the close of the first half, and my editor had the same feeling, without really knowing what was needed, although it had something to do with the motivation of the heroine – the reason she would put herself in that kind of danger. So I looked at the scene before the characters moved in to the house, and lo and behold – what I was missing was “Sex at Sixty”. It’s my heroine’s desire for one of the other characters that makes her commit to the investigation, and I wasn’t making that desire line clear enough. So now although they don’t actually have sex yet, there’s definitely sex in the air, and it’s very clear that that desire is driving her.

The Midpoint launches ESCALATING ACTION/OBSESSIVE DRIVE

In the second half of the second act the actions your hero/ine takes toward his or her goal will become larger and increasingly obsessive. Small actions have not cut it, so it’s time for desperate measures.

These escalating actions will often lead to HARD CHOICES and CROSSING THE LINE: the hero/ine very often starts doing things that are against character, self-destructive or downright immoral. When Catherine is kidnapped, Clarice is warned by her roommate that if she doesn’t study for and take her FBI exams, she’ll be kicked out of the program. Of course Clarice puts Catherine’s well-being above her own, but it’s a great way to back her into a corner and force hard choices. Often the hero/ine will lose support from key allies when s/he begins to cross the line.

Naturally the antagonist’s actions are escalating as well.

This third quarter also almost always contains a scene or sequence which since the ancient Greeks has been called THE LONG DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL. In THE WIZARD OF OZ it’s when Dorothy is locked in the witch’s tower with that huge red hourglass and all looks lost. The hero/ine metaphorically dies in this scene – yet like the phoenix, rising from the ashes, the hero/ine also formulates one last desperate plan, or figures out the missing piece of the puzzle, and comes out of the long dark night even more determined to win.

This scene is usually very near the climax of the second act, because it’s such a boost of energy to go from losing everything to gaining that key piece of knowledge that will power the hero/ine through the final confrontation to the end.

Now, remember, in standard film structure, the second half of Act Two is two sequences long – two fifteen minute sequences, each with a beginning, middle and climax. A book will perhaps have three or four or five sequences in this 100 page section. But if you concentrate on escalating obsessive actions by the hero/ine and antagonist, and then an abject failure, out of which a new revelation and plan occurs, you pretty much have the whole section mapped out to the ACT TWO CLIMAX

As I’ve discussed before, the Act Two Climax (page 90 of a script, page 300 or so of a novel) often answers the Central Question set up at the end of Act One, and often the answer is “No”. No, Lecter is not going to help Clarice catch Buffalo Bill and save Catherine – Clarice is going to have to do it herself. No, Quint will not kill the shark; the shark kills him instead and Sheriff Brody is going to have to face the shark alone.

The second act climax will often be a final revelation before the end game: the knowledge of who the opponent really is (as in THE FUGITIVE, when Dr. Richard Kimble realizes that his friend Chuck has set him up and that leads to the final confrontation and fight/chase. THE FUGITIVE has a nice, satisfying structure because at the same time that Kimble is realizing who his real enemy is, US Marshal Gerard (the Tommy Lee Jones character), who has been chasing Kimble for the entire film, also becomes convinced of Kimble’s true nature – that he’s innocent.

It’s a very common storytelling device that the hero/ine’s main ally is revealed to be an enemy, or THE main enemy, and it also often happens that the hero/ine’s enemy is revealed to be more of a friend than we ever suspected (a classic example of this is Captain Renault in CASABLANCA, who not only covers for Rick’s murder of the Nazi Strasser, but junks his post to go fight the Nazis with Rick).

The second act climax is another place that you might start a ticking clock – such as in ALIEN, when Ripley sets the ship to blow up in ten minutes and has to evade the alien and get to the shuttle by then – as if being chased by an acid-bleeding monster weren’t stressful enough!

And the third act is basically the FINAL BATTLE and RESOLUTION. It can often be one continuous sequence – the chase and confrontation, or confrontation and chase. There may be a final preparation for battle, or it might be done on the fly.

But we’ll talk about the third act and climax in a separate post.

What I’m really interested in today is hearing examples of great midpoints.

For previous articles on story structure:

What’s your Premise?

Story Structure 101 – The Index Card Method

Elements of Act One

Elements of Act Two

Creating Suspense

A Virtual Montparnasse (Part Three)

by JT Ellison (with Neil Nyren)

(I’m thrilled and honored to have our dear friend and legendary editor Neil Nyren back on Murderati to talk about how our newfound connectivity alters the editorial process. For those of you just tuning in, "A Virtual Montparnasse" is an occasion series examining how the Internet has affected the art and literary communities. Part One is here, and Part Two here.Without further ado, I give you Neil Nyren!)

_____________________________________

J.T.’s asked me
to comment on how the “Virtual Montparnasse” has affected the editorial
process, and I’m happy to contribute. It’s affected publishing in a lot more
ways than that, of course, but I’ll leave marketing and such for others – it’s
the editor/writer relationship we’re talking about here.

But first, a
confession:

Until the summer
of 1998, I’d barely even touched a computer. We had very few PCs in our
offices, and most of my communication was done by phone and by typewriter. I
shall pause while those of you who are under 25 try to wrap your heads around
that notion. Just a few weeks ago, my assistant was going through some older
files and announced to me, “Carbon copies! They were filled with carbon
copies!” as if announcing some mythological beast she’d thought existed only in
storybooks.

Yes, I told her,
but thanks to young Franklin’s
recent experiments with kite-flying, we did have electricity, however.

Anyway, about
that time, Putnam Berkley combined forces with Viking Penguin, and we all moved
in together. When I arrived at my new office early that Monday morning, there,
gleaming on my desk, was a new computer, and I said, “Well, guess I’ll have to
learn how to use the darn thing, then.”

The first real
test came pretty quickly. One of my authors was based in Brussels,
but his work took him everywhere – he was just as likely to be in Moscow or London on any given day. He was writing a book on the new Germany, and his deadlines were tight,
and so we started swapping chapters online. He’d email me a draft, I’d read it
and give him notes, and then no matter where he was or what time zone he was
in, he did the revisions according to whatever fit his daily schedule, and sent
them back. We did the whole book that way, and I very much doubt we could have brought
it off in time if we had done it any other way.

It was a
revelation. Even now, ten years later, it’s still a revelation, although by now
I’m sure it seems commonplace to all of you reading this on Murderati. I have
authors all around the country and in various spots around the globe, and they
are all instantly accessible. It’s not just editing. If I want someone to see a
jacket design, I no longer have to prepare a comp and overnight it to his house
– I just send him a jpeg. Jacket copy, catalogue copy, queries – off they go,
and back come answers. Photographs – I can eyeball them online, confer with the
author about what works best, and then download them for production. Some
queries I never even have to send to the author, because if I’m unsure of a
fact or a name as I go through the manuscript, a quick trip to Google or
Wikipedia is likely to give me the answer.

And it’s not just
the work relationship that’s improved, it’s the social one as well. We dash off
notes to each other all the time. With one author, I gossip about books and
music. With another, it’s politics. With a third, it’s our mutual obsession
with the Red Sox. J.T. wanted to know if spending so much time interacting
online rather than face to face helped or hurt the editor/author relationship,
and I can say for a fact that we communicate way more now than we ever did
before. After all, with most authors there’s not a lot of face to face anyway. Texas? California? Florida? Outside of occasional trips,
they’re there and we’re here.

I could go on
about other ways our lives have changed, too. Submissions? The vast majority of
them are emailed now, cutting time and expense all around. Some publishers are
experimenting with E-readers for their editors, so that instead of printing out
those attachments, they can simply download them and skip the mass of paper.
The same is being done for sales reps – every one of Putnam’s reps has an
E-reader now, which means that they don’t have to receive the mountains of
manuscripts which tottered in piles around their houses. Now, there’s a site
where everything’s posted and they can download whatever they want and read it
no matter where they might be. Writers’ conferences? The question I always hear
the most at conferences is about how to find the right agent, and I always say,
“Homework.” Now that homework is easier to do than ever. Besides such sites as
Publishers Marketplace, AgentQuery, and the like, every agent in creation has
his or her own website where you can find out about their preferences, authors,
deals, ways of doing business. Really, people, there’s no excuse for
cluelessness anymore.

I’m going to stop
there (though I haven’t even gotten to the subject of Electronic Workflow yet).
Suffice it to say that my life, the life of my assistant (“Carbon copies!”),
and, I suspect, the life of each one of my authors has gotten a lot easier
since that summer of 1998 — at least in that regard. You still have to write
the damn books, though. Sorry. Can’t do anything about that.

Neil S.
Nyren is senior vice president, publisher and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s
Sons. He came to Putnam in
1984 from Atheneum, where he was Executive Editor. Before that he held
editorial positions at Random House and Arbor House. Some of his authors
include Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Jack Higgins,
W.E.B. Griffin, John Sandford, Dave Barry, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Alex
Berenson, Randy Wayne White, Carol O’Connell, James O. Born, Patricia Cornwell
and Frederick Forsyth; nonfiction by Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, John McEnroe,
Linda Ellerbee, Jeff Greenfield, Charles Kuralt, Secretary of State James Baker
III, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Sara Nelson, and Generals Fred Franks, Chuck Horner,
Carl Stiner, Tony Zinni and Wendy Merrill.

Neil has also been interview on Murderati twice. Click here for his latest interview, and here for the first.