If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

 by JT Ellison

 

 

I had to make an executive decision about my writing this week. As I’ve discussed here before, I switched from Word to Scrivener, and tried writing my 6th book in it. Things went well up to a point, but in the end I caved and went back to Word.

Then I went to Pages. Then back to Scrivener. Then back to Pages. Then back to Word. When we started revisions, I needed to restructure a few things, and I cursed myself, because if I’d stuck with Scrivener, it would have been so easy to just drag and drop to reorder the scenes…

I spent days pulling my hair out because I couldn’t figure out the most effective tool to use for my writing.

In other words, I was royally screwing around with my process.

I got the book done on time, and all was well. But for book the 7th, I decided that come hell or high water, I was going to write the whole thing in Scrivener. I started the outline, populated the character lists, dropped in research, even started a book journal. Looking back over that journal, there is a consistent theme – this isn’t working. Oh, I couched it in all kinds of different terms – Taylor isn’t speaking to me, the story isn’t holding up, I’ve been swamped with THE IMMORTALS book release – but what it really says is Scrivener is messing with how you write, drop it and go back to Word. NOW.

We all have different ways up the mountain. One of the biggest mistakes new writers make is finding another method that sounds cool, trying it, and suddenly finding themselves blocked because something isn’t right, something isn’t working. I daresay that with seven novels under my belt, people wouldn’t categorize me as a new author, but sometimes I feel like just that, a newbie who’s trying to find her way.

 The joy of connecting with our fellow writers, with writing blogs and conferences and Tweets and books on writing etc., is finding out that everyone has a different way of doing things. I used to be intractable about my process. Open a Word Document. Put in the header. Start writing at Chapter One, and finish at Chapter Last. Plug away every day, 1,0000 words at a time, and poof, solid first draft in a few months. Then I started meeting other writers and hearing how they do it. I tried shaking things up. And boy, oh boy, was that a mistake.

When you’re thinking about your method, you aren’t writing.

And when you aren’t writing, you’re going to have serious problems. Because if you’re not writing, you just might be thinking about how to fix your method again. Cue roiling circle of hell.

I spent months telling myself that if I just tried harder with Scrivener, learned more about it, figured out all its little quirks that I’d be able to whip the manuscript into shape. Guess what? That’s not the case. There’s nothing I can do in Scrivener to make the software adapt itself to how my head tells a story. If I had only figured that out months ago instead of agonizing over the process, I’d be done with the book by now.

(Note: that’s the kind of thought process that starts its own roiling circle of hell in your head, whilst you beat yourself up for being stoopid. Stop that immediately. Pronounce Immediately with upper class British accent for maximum effectiveness – im-MEE-dgiat-ly)

The writing’s been on the wall for a while now, but I am loathe to admit defeat in any form, so I’ve been slogging away at it, hopeful that things will come together. Being mean to myself, taunting my fragile psyche with nastiness: Writers write. That’s what they do. Your equipment doesn’t matter, it’s just getting words on the page. You aren’t much of a writer if software is messing with your game. You suck. Etcetera.

But is that really true? Does the equipment matter? I know in golf it does. I was recently gifted with a heavenly driver, a Calloway Diablo Edge. This is a sweet club. It’s beautiful, like a newborn, all black and red and sexy. I paraded it in my bag proudly. But every time I hit the thing, it either sprayed off to the right or dropped well short of my usual spots. I tried all my tricks, but nothing worked. No matter what I did, I couldn’t hit it as far as I hit my current driver, a 460cc offset King Cobra 10 degree. Finally, I admitted defeat, went back to my Cobra and gave the club to my father, who promptly took it for a test drive, hit it straight as an arrow down the middle, with extra distance. What didn’t work for me worked perfectly for him.

But did that convince me? No. Physical prowess and mental acuity are two different things, right?

But then I took a large chunk of work to my critique group last week. As I was reading it aloud, multiple typos were springing up. Frustrating, and embarrassing – my group knows my weaknesses, but this level of mess isn’t normal. I’d read this all the material. I’d edited it. Yet I’d missed a ton of errors. Why? I was editing in Scrivener. Which doesn’t have the same kind of grammar and spell check system that Word has, which means my dyslexic typing skills were being hidden in the program. So now I had physical proof that the program was causing me double the effort, because I had to go back and fix all the stuff that Word would have automatically fixed for me. Grr.

I’ve also been having a terrible time keeping track of where I am in the story. Pacing is vital to a thriller, as is story structure and narrative flow. I wasn’t getting that in Scrivener, I was seeing the story as a whole broken into multitudes of scenes (I used Scriv to outline this one… another mistake. I get B.O.R.E.D. when I know what’s going to happen.) I figured that’s been my problem all along, this inability to get excited, when in fact it’s simply that I had no idea where I was in the story.

But the final straw came when Apple released Word 2011 for Mac. It is a glorious program, much more like what I used on my Vaio. I nearly cried when I saw the editing tools, and the beautiful floating screen that blocks all distractions, and the ease of reading two pages at once. I spent two hours moving everything out of Scrivener and back into Word, saw how many actual manuscript pages I have, knew where the transitions needed to go, and suddenly, I’m back working on a book like I should be.

Phew.

I bring all this up because NaNoWriMo starts Monday, and Scrivener for Windows is just releasing, and the Scrivener 2.0 is releasing for Mac. I’ll probably buy the upgrade, just to see. I don’t want to turn anyone off of Scrivener, I know a bunch of writers whom I greatly respect who couldn’t write without it, and it’s a terribly cool program. But I’ve finally realized that my brain doesn’t work in segments, and never will.

Now maybe I’ll be able to make my deadline.

Have you ever tried to force your square peg self into a round hole? What was the result?

Wine of the Week: Bodegas Montecillo Crianza

Please bear with me if I’m slow to respond this morning – darling husband is having his wisdom teeth out. Send ice cream! And lots of Percocet.

The Short Of It …

Zoë Sharp

Short stories are a whole different ball game to writing a novel. Most people start with shorts and work their way up. Maybe because I like to do things backwards, I wrote novels long before I tried my hand at anything shorter.

And when I did, it was entirely by chance, rather than choice. I happened to be at a Northern Chapter lunch for the Crime Writers’ Association. (‘Northern Chapter’ sounds a bit Hell’s Angel-like, I know, and the idea of all those distinguished authors turning up patched, on Harleys, plays havoc with my imagination.)

 

As we funnelled through the doors to take our seats for lunch, Martin Edwards, editor of the CWA short story anthologies, glanced across at me and said, “You ought to write me a short story for the next anthology.”

I was somewhat taken by surprise, enough to reply, “Erm – yes, OK.”

So, having verbally written the cheque, I then had to cash it by actually coming up with a story good enough for inclusion. This caused me a few sleepless nights, until I remembered something about a local Dangerous Sports’ Club, which had been prevented from indulging in their Sunday morning bridge swinging activities from a disused viaduct.

The reason for this was because the local farmer whose land they had to cross was a strict Methodist, and he strongly objected to all the cries of “Jeeesus CHRIST!” that were heard when people jumped off the bridge on the end of a bit of rope.

And from that came ‘A Bridge Too Far’, a Charlie Fox tale which subsequently appeared not only in GREEN FOR DANGER, but later also in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine as well.

 

 

Since then, I haven’t exactly been churning them out on the short story front. In fact, I’ve only written another eight. To my constant amazement, they’ve all been either published or accepted. One – ‘Tell Me’– was even longlisted for an award and turned into a short film, and another, ‘Served Cold’ was shortlisted for the CWA Short Story Dagger.

Despite my lack of prolificness (is that a word?) in this area, I do find short stories a liberating experience. They enable you to try out viewpoints or characters or styles that you wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to do. I’ve occasionally used them to try out an idea for a character, to see if it appeals enough to be the central protagonist of a longer work. I don’t know why I don’t do more of them.

Well, OK, yes I do know. Without a deadline, it takes me a long time to write a short story. Without a theme, or some kind of restriction, it takes me longer still. (Just ask poor JT, who’s been waiting for me to scribble the second part of a joint short story for months! Sorry, JT, I’m just crap, aren’t I?)

But, I’ve just had the pleasure of judging a short story competition, which gives you a whole different perspective on the enterprise. I was asked by Lancashire Libraries to come up with the opening line, which could then be written up as either a short story of up to 5000 words or as flash fiction for up to 500 words. The opening line was: 

‘I always swore, if ever I came back to Lancashire again, I’d kill him.’

The event was split into three areas, with me being given the entries for the North of the county, and fellow local crime writers Nick Oldham and Neil White taking South and East.

I’ve just finished going through my selection of entries, and have a clear standout to take to the judging meeting next month, where Nick, Neil and I will decide which of the three we’ve each chosen will be the winner.

Reading these stories made me analyse what it was about the short story or flash fiction format that appealed to me. And what didn’t.

I’ve always liked spare prose, which is why I find Robert B Parker’s work so compulsively readable. In a short story, by its nature, every word has to count, and the more you can say with as few words as possible, the better.

Because there’s little space for character development, a few well-rounded characters always seems a better choice than a big cast, particularly in flash fiction.

Short stories are a prime example, for me, of that TV maxim – get into a scene late, get out early. I’ve been constantly trying to do that in my novel writing. (I even threw out the first three chapters of one book because it took that long to reach the point in the story mentioned on the jacket. In which case, why waste three chapters getting there?)

And what about a twist in the tale?

 

 

OK, maybe not that kind of twisted tail, but you know what I mean. Does a short story need a twist ending – particularly one that you really don’t see coming? Jeffery Deaver is a master of this type of short story. I read through his anthology TWISTED a few years ago and pretty much decided that he’d got it nailed.

So, in judging the Lancashire Libraries competition, I was looking for good snappy writing, well-formed characters, convincing dialogue – which seemed to be the one area where a lot of entries were weakest – adherence to the theme/opening line in some form, and a beginning-middle-end structure with something surprising at the end of it.

I think I found one that fitted the bill. It remains to be seen if my fellow judges agree, or if their favourites can top my choice. That I find out at an evening event at County Hall in Preston on November 10th …

Meanwhile, what are your thoughts on short stories. Do you read them or not? Do you write them or not? Do you feel they need a twist, or a structure, or can they be more of a freeform thing? Do you have any thoughts on flash fiction?

This week’s Word of the Week is boustrophedon, which is an adjective or adverb to describe (of ancient writing) bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions, where the writing runs alternately from right to left and from left to right. It comes from the Greek boustrophedon turning like ploughing oxen, from bous ox, and strophe a turning.

The Games We Play

by Rob Gregory Browne

When I was a kid, our next door neighbors were our best friends.  The Ruckers had five kids, so I never went without someone to hang around with.  My buddy Cricket and I did everything together, and when school started and Cricket got too old to be hanging around with a pipsqueak like me, I started hanging out with his younger brothers Jack and David.

Our parents were best friends as well.  I remember many a night when Bob and Bonnie Rucker came over to play cards, or to take late night swims in our pool.  It wasn’t unusual to come home from school and find Bonnie and my mom having coffee at the dining table, gossiping about god knows what.

There was a lot of drinking and listening to music.  My parents used to get albums by the 101 Strings Orchestra and they’d put it on as background music as they played canasta with the Ruckers and laughed until their stomachs hurt.

After hearing one of my dad’s albums, Bob decided to go out and get a 101 Strings Orchestra record himself, and one night came over with The Soul of Spain. 

Unfortunately, when they played the thing, they all agreed that it was terrible.  Probably the worst album they’d ever heard.  Bob tried to give it to my parents, but they told him thanks but no thanks.

But Bob conveniently forgot the album that night and refused to take it back when my dad later tried to give it to him.

My dad being my dad, he decided Bob was going to get it back whether he wanted it or not.  So one afternoon, he sneaked over to Bob and Bonnie’s house, stuck the album in their stack of records, then went about his business.

Days passed, with no word from Bob.  Then one night, as my mom and dad were climbing into bed, they found the The Soul of Spain peeking out from under my dad’s pillow.

I have no idea how long this went on.  Weeks?  Months?  Years?  All I know is that album mysteriously appeared in various places around both houses, went back and forth more times than anyone remembers, was even sent through the mail at one point (addressed to “Jeff” Rucker) and became a running gag in a friendship that lasted nine years.

The last time anyone remembers seeing The Soul of Spain was when we took the pool cover off for the summer and found it laying at the bottom of the pool.

I don’t know why this memory sticks with me.  Probably because my parents and the Ruckers seemed to get so much pleasure out of playing this little game.

But, frankly, I’d forgotten all about it until about five years ago, when I found myself caught up in my own little running gag.

It started at Thrillerfest, Arizona.  The first and best Thrillerfest, I think many of us will agree.

I was standing outside a room as a bottleneck had formed at the doorway, people heading in for the next panel discussion.  There was a tall, attractive blonde trapped just inside the door, unable to get past the throng.  She looked pleadingly at me and said, “I’ll pay you a quarter if you’ll get these people to stop.”

So I threw my hands up and shouted “stop” at the wave of people approaching, allowing the blonde to slip through the doorway to freedom.

A couple hours later, I ran into her in another hallway. 

“Where’s my quarter?” I asked.

She looked at me.  “Seriously?”

“Hey, you promised payment,” I said.  So she gave me a frown, dug through her purse and handed me a quarter.

The next day I found her again—found out her name was Twist Phelan—and gave her her quarter back.  “I was just kidding,” I told her. 

Twist insisted I keep it, but I wouldn’t hear of it.  And I’ll be damned if I remember much of what happened with that quarter after that until we fast forward a bit, to either Bouchercon or LCC (I can’t remember which), when Twist not only gave me the quarter again, but this time she had painted it with acrylic paint.

The next conference (or two or three) I returned the quarter, but I added a small car, gluing the quarter into the driver’s seat.

When I got it back from her (at the next conference), there were now two quarters, plus a few plastic cows riding in the back seat.

Obviously, things had escalated, Twist and I trying to top each other.  But when she handed me the car with the cows, I was stumped.  How am I going to top this? I wondered.

Fortunately, my wife came up with a solution.  And because I was so busy writing, she was good enough to put the thing together for me as LCC 2010 approached. 

When I went down to L.A. for the conference, however, I realized that I had forgotten the “thing” (what do we call it at this point?) and had to drive all the way back home to get it.  (click on photo to enlarge)

Needless to say, Twist was a bit blown away by my wife’s efforts.  But not one to shrink from a challenge, she flagged me down at Bouchercon a couple weeks ago and presented me with her addition to the “thing” and, of course, she once again managed to take things a step farther.

Now we had two quarters, two cars, three cows, one of them dead and covered in blood, a crime scene, plus a tsunami full of sea creatures.

I can only imagine what it’ll look like in another five years.  But, trust me, I already have a new addition in mind—one aided and abetted by Mr. Brett Battles—and I think Twist is in for a nice surprise.

All of this, of course, brings back those memories from my childhood and that damn Soul of Spain album.

So the question of the day, I guess, is—have you ever or are you currently involved in a similar type of gag?  If so, tell us about it.  And, if not, how about sharing a memory of fun times from your childhood?

Rob out.

In Praise of Agents and Old Friends

By Louise Ure

Two weeks ago, I screwed up my courage, dyed my hair and took a taxi downtown to see old friends at Bouchercon. It was the first time I’d participated in any literary/mystery/author function since my husband was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer ten months ago.

It felt like traveling to a country I no longer had a valid visa for.

Old friends made that easier. A warm embrace from Andi Schecter, Tim Maleeny and Tony Broadbent calmed me. Time spent with Karen Olson, Gillian Roberts, Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller grounded me. A shared moment with Lee Child made me feel at home (although, if the stories about the body double he brought in from Australia are true, it may not have been Lee at all). The grace and calmness of Rae Helmsworth (and god, she’s looking good) put me at ease.

I am sorry not to have connected with other ‘Rati family and friends over the weekend.

But the most wonderful part of the visit, for me, was the glorious two hours I got to spend with my agents, Philip Spitzer and Lukas Ortiz.

As authors, we do not often enough sing the praises of our agents.

Philip Spitzer was the quarterback of my fantasy football team of agents when I first started submitting Forcing Amaryllis. I knew there was no chance of him accepting me; he was, after all Ken Bruen’s agent, and Michael Connelly’s and had earned the respect of every writer out there when they learned that he had continued to send out James Lee Burke’s manuscript “The Lost Get Back Boogie” for NINE years. After one hundred and eleven rejections. He was an agent who believed in his authors.

What could happen? I tossed that query letter in the mail like it was a coin in a wishing well.

When Philip called and said he wanted to represent me (“This book MUST be published!”) I thought it was a stunt by friends pretending to be him and I hung up.

He’s forgiven me for that and for multiple other sins over the years. This visit was no different. It was a grand time of catching up, listening, encouraging … and caring. This is a man you want by your side as a friend and an agent.

Lukas Ortiz is his partner at the Philip Spitzer Literary Agency. I hadn’t realized early on in the relationship what a key role he probably played in selecting Forcing Amaryllis. Lukas had close ties to friends in Tucson and the book’s setting spoke to him.

He’s soft spoken, quick to smile and has an incredible ability to remember absolutely everything about every one of their authors. Still a young man, he’s putting his little brother through university back home in Colombia and you can see his pride when he talks about him.

I asked them what book they had most recently fallen in love with and they described in lush and glowing terms a literary novel they had just sent out to an editor. They could not have been prouder of the book if they had written it themselves. And isn’t that the kind of representation you want in the halls of publishing?

Business has been a bit depressed, they said. Fewer sales and lower advances, but more opportunities in epublishing and movie rights. And they’re getting more submissions than ever before. (Makes sense, in this lousy economy with more people out of work, folks finally have the time to write that novel they always said they wanted to.)

By the end of our time together, I was almost feeling like an author again. And a very lucky one to be represented by these two fine men.

So tell me, ‘Rati friends, what wonderful panels/news/gossip/friends did you find at B’con? Or feel free to sing the praises of agents today.

 



 

The Anxieties of Final Edits

Remember that manuscript I was so happy to complete in early August?  It has already reached the copy-editing phase.  I honestly don’t know whether this editing cycle moved more quickly than years past or whether this is simply another indication that time moves faster as one ages.  Regardless, my little baby (named LONG GONE)  grew from barely hatched to escaping the nest in what felt like record time.

My husband would like me to view the briskness of the editing as evidence that this manuscript was my strongest draft yet.  Because I never turn down the opportunity to embrace a compliment, I’m choosing that version of the story.

I’m reading LONG GONE aloud to myself right now, word by word, with caution and scrutiny, trying to reach the highest level of polish.

So NOT how I look when I read aloud to myself. Who comes up with this stuff?

So far, my changes have been pretty minor.  Some random pages, for example: On page 32, I’ve changed “watching him” to “monitoring him,” and changed “watching his back” to “checking his back.”  (I apparently had the word “watch” bouncing around my synapses a bit too much the day I wrote that one.)  I also changed “wine” to “Chardonnay,” because I now know a very minor character well enough to say she’d drink Chardonnay. On page 229, I’ve changed “house” to “home.”  On 243, I changed “out to the country” to “up to the country.”

I’m pretty sure these aren’t the changes that will make the difference between a starred review and not, or a bestselling book or not, but they are changes I value even if no one else notices.  I also find comfort in their insignificance.  If I can read an entire novel aloud and find myself wanting only these tiny little amendments, then I can be proud knowing this is the very best book I’m capable of writing.

But… Oh, c’mon, you knew there’d be a but.

Some of the changes I’ve made aren’t that small.  Well, let me qualify that.  They are in fact small in that they aren’t big.  I haven’t suddenly decided that a character’s motives need to change or that a plot twist doesn’t actually work.  That kind of discovery would send me leaping from the nearest window.

But some of the changes I’ve made really NEEDED to be made.  I’m slightly halfway through the manuscript and have caught two — count ’em, TWO — typos. 

That’s right… typos, the literary version of bedbugs. 

Some might say that two typos in 250 manuscript pages ain’t bad.  But those two little errors have placed a lump solidly in the base of my stomach, because they really shouldn’t be there.  I try to write every page as well as I can the first time around.  Then at the beginning of each new writing day, I read what I wrote the previous day to make sure I’m happy with it.  When I reach the final chapter, I read the entire book on my own and make further changes.  Then my editor reads it.  Then I read it again, with her comments in mind.  Then I do another edit, which necessarily requires more reading.  And then the copy-editor gets a hold of it.

And so why are there still two typos (so far) in this fucking manuscript?

At a cold, cognitive level, I know the answer.  The human mind fills in gaps.  Read this sentence and count the number of F’s: “FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.”

How many did you count?  Three?  Four?  Nope.  Believe it or not, there are six letter F’s in that sentence. 

If you counted them all on the first try, you’re a genius.  And you should be my copy-editor.  But if you counted fewer, you, like most people, glossed over the f’s in the word “of,” which is used three times in that sentence.  We read for content.  We skip over those pesky articles and prepositions.  And so we make mistakes. 

At least I know it’s not me.  I find typos in books all the time.  A few years ago, a #1 bestselling thriller had a typo in the very first sentence.  (Gold star if anyone can name the book.  I won’t.) 

But despite the fact that typos are understandable and common, I won’t stop trying to stomp out every last one.  Finding one typo now will save me the scores of emails I’ll surely receive down the road, informing me I’m an idiot. (See this post for my thoughts about these kinds of emails.) 

And so here I sit in my office, reading each and every word aloud, with caution and scrutiny, because that — combined with the the layers of check within my writing process — is all I know how to do.  The fact that I’ve found two makes me terribly nervous.  If the layers of review missed two in the last version, how many did I miss this time? 

I love to learn from others, so if you have any tried and true tips for finding those pesky typos, please share them in the comments.  Bonus points if you’re willing to share any typo gems.  Here’s a doozie.  Earlier this  month a reporter for website tbd.com published the following correction based on a typo: “This blog post originally stated that one in three black men who have sex with me is HIV positive. In fact, the statistic applies to black men who have sex with men.”

(And if you find any typos in this post, which you surely will, feel free not to tell me.)

 

Entertainment

By Allison Brennan

I had a blog half-written about e-book royalties, but it’s going to have to wait because I’m too tired to be analytical this late Saturday night (early Sunday morning.) Why? Because I just returned from my first rock concert in ages.

Before I had kids, I went to a lot of concerts. I’m sure this is standard fare for most of us. For me, I love rock. LOVE it. But I’m still pretty traditional in my rock taste. In the 80s, I was a throwback to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who and a touch of harder rock like AC/DC and The Scorpions. In the 90s, I still liked the same bands, but add in U2 and The Eagles and The Steve Miller Band and Kansas. A little less hard. But current bands? Ugh. I couldn’t find anything new I really liked.

After kids? Getting out to concerts is difficult, to say the least. I think we’ve been to 2 or 3. I know Steve Miller was one, a long time ago.

The 2000s have seen a resurgence in real rock bands. When I said “real” I mean rockers who can actually play an instrument AND entertain. Saturday night I saw Nickelback with Three Days Grace.

To say the concert was fabulous is an understatement. And even though I’m over 40 and brought my two teenage daughters and my eldest’s boyfriend, I still enjoyed myself. One thing I noted immediately is that these bands drew in a wide range of ages. There were a lot of older teens, but just as many 30 and 40 somethings–so I felt right at home. (Unlike “Jingle Ball” a couple years ago which was all pre teens and teenagers and other than Katie Perry who can actually play the guitar and belt out a song, none of the performers were anything more than mediocre.)

Both bands have real talent for music, songwriting, and singing. But as we all know, talent is only one component of a successful artist. These bands both know how to entertain. They put on shows–Nickelback complete with pyrotechnics. But it wasn’t just the bells and whistles. Nickelback came out to a stage in the middle, away from the lights and gimmicks, and just sat on stools playing guitar and singing. That shows confidence. That they don’t need all the other stuff to play good music.

Some of the fun stuff was playing riffs from popular and timeless songs –such as Pink Floyd’s THE WALL and Journey and Bon Jovi, among others. It not only showed the bands roots and influences, but showed an appreciation of those who came before them.

Needless to say, I was impressed. I loved the entire concert (perhaps even more than my teenagers!) and would go again in a heartbeat. 

A talented band is certainly necessary to enjoy a concert, though there are some musicians who are more performers than artists (such as so many of the popular “pop” bands of today.) These type of performers couldn’t put the gimmicks aside and sit on a stool and play guitar and give the audience an amazing show. Because they are nothing outside of the bells and whistles; their talent is only in the performance itself.

One highlight was Daniel Adair, Nickelback’s drummer. Not only is he talented, but he is reminiscent of the best drummers of my favorite bands. While no one compares (IMO) to Jon Bonham, Adair was amazing to listen to, and his solo was truly remarkable. The drummer often is overlooked in bands, but a bad drummer is noticeable, and a good drummer makes every song better. Drummers are the backbone of rock.

Writers are different in that we don’t “perform”, but we do need to entertain. No one is going to pay to listen to us read from our books (at least not most of us!) but they do buy books because they want to have a few hours of enjoyment. Whether they take their pleasure from the thrill of a suspense, the puzzle of a mystery, or the heart of a romance, they want to close the book and think, “That was a good story.” 

There are a few other bands I would love to see in concert, and maybe I’ll have to track them down. The Howling Diablos are one, but I haven’t heard them playing outside of Michigan yet. They’re more bluesy, maybe I could see them in a club. And then there’s The Dropkick Murphys from Boston who my friend Carla Neggers saw before attending the 2009 Thrillerfest (and yes, I was jealous.) And maybe Eagles of Death Metal because they have such fun songs. But if Nickelback or Three Days Grace came back? I’ll be there.

What current band would you like to see? What band would you have loved to see? (For me? Hands down, Pink Floyd’s THE WALL. Though The Who would be a close second.)

For your enjoyment:

Nickelback performing Burn it to the Ground in 2009

 

 

 

Nickelback performing Animals in 2006

 

 

Daniel Adair’s drum solo in London last year:

 

Three Days Grace performing Riot in Detroit

 

 

Three Days Grace “Break” music video 

 

 

Nanowrimo – Make a list

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I’m sure many here are aware that November is Nanowrimo – National Novel Writing Month.
 
As explained at the official site here, and here and here, the goal of Nanowrimo is to bash through 50,000 words of a novel in a single month.

I could not be more supportive of this idea – it gives focus and a nice juicy competitive edge to an endeavor that can seem completely overwhelming when you’re facing it all on your own. Through peer pressure and the truly national – now international – focus on the event, Nanowrimo forces people to commit. It’s easy to get caught up in and carried along by the writing frenzy of tens of thousands – or maybe by now hundreds of thousands – of “Wrimos”. 

And I’ve met and heard of lots of debut novelists, like Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) Sara Gruen (Water For Elephants), and Lisa Daily (The Dreamgirl Academy) who started novels during Nanowrimo that went on to sell, sometimes sell big.

Nanowrimo works.

I’ve been doing a series of Nano prep posts on my blog, but today I’m going to give you the bottom line of everything I’m ever saying about writing.

Make a list.

I am pretty sure there is no story problem that cannot be solved by stopping the hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth, breathing a bit, and then sitting calmly down to make a list of examples of the way great storytellers (YOUR favorite storytellers)  have dealt with the particular problem that you are tearing your hair out and grinding your teeth over. 

I am talking about specific, personalized, Top Ten lists.

Can’t figure out a great opening?   List your Top Ten favorite or most striking opening images.  

Your villain isn’t villainous enough?   Make a Top Ten Villains list, and take some time to really break down why those bad boys, or girls, turn YOU on.   (More here….)

Your story isn’t hot enough?   Have some real fun and list your top ten steamiest sex scenes – and/or best kisses.  (Warning: try to have some loved one close at hand for later… better yet, make a night of it – rent the movies and… analyze… those particular scenes together.   Don’t you just love research?)

Not enough suspense?   List your top ten most thrilling suspense scenes (and this would be a great list for you to do anyway, because we’ll be delving further into suspense this week.)

Top Ten Character Introductions  (see here).  Top Ten Climaxes (story climaxes, I mean now).  Top Ten Heroes and Heroines.   Top Ten Inciting Incidents/Calls to Adventure.  Top Ten Crossing the Threshold/Into the Special World scenes.   Top Ten Image Systems (more posts on this coming.)

Are you starting to get how incredibly useful  – and fun – this can be?

Here’s a more in-depth example.

I recently read Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, the oh-so-it YA series – and for good reason.  Talk about a high concept premise!  Actually we’ll talk about that some other time.

But just one of the many, many things this book does well is develop a unique and memorable mentor character, that often crucial character archetype  – so-called for the original mentor, Mentor, in the Odyssey.  Of course that Mentor had a little more than human wisdom, as it was really the goddess Athena taking Mentor’s form who guided Odysseus and his son Telemachus at critical junctions in the story.   This is good dramatic history to know, as we often see the same god/desslike wisdom and nearly supernatural – or overtly supernatural – power in more modern versions of the mentor.

I’m a particular fan of the mentor story, so I thought I’d make a list and see why this character so appeals to me.

In fact, if you want to play along, just stop right here and try it – just take a minute to brainstorm ten great – or at least memorable – mentor characters. That is, great according to YOU.  Oh, all right, you can do five now, and get down to some juicier ones later.  You can even throw in some not so classic ones, for contrast.

My off-the-top-of-my-head list:

Hannibal Lecter (but you all knew that!)
Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid
Glinda the Good
Morpheus the Bad
Yoda
Obi Wan Kenobi
Their granddaddy – Merlin
Mary Poppins
The Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth
Johnny in Dirty Dancing
My new favorite, Haymitch in Hunger Games

And that’s already more than ten, but I’ll also throw in Baba Yaga, that most feared witch of Russian folktales, a pre-Lecter villainess who often served up great wisdom to her protégés… if she didn’t eat them first.  

And yes, yes, I know, Mr. Miyagi in the ORIGINAL Karate Kid.

It’s an interesting thing to look at mentors in terms of what they bring to the story structurally, as well as just as individual characters.  Of course everyone on my list is quirky, outrageous or frankly off the charts (except Johnny, but it’s that dance thing…).  And yes, a couple of my choices reflect that I am partial to the hot mentor type.   But I also love some of them for how they enhance the stories structurally. 

In The Hunger Games, Haymitch is a past (distant past) winner of the games who is supposed to guide the two sacrifices from his province to victory in the Games (think Survivor meets The Lottery meets Lord of the Flies).  We meet Haymitch as he falls off a stage, stumbling drunk.   In fact, he vomits all over himself on national TV.  He has a reputation as a complete buffoon.   Not a great omen for his protégés, right?   But doesn’t that up the suspense incredibly?   How are Our Heroes Katniss and Peeta supposed to survive the Games with only this loser to rely on?

But – SPOILERS –

Katniss and Peeta do their damndest to get the most information they can out of Haymitch, and the relationship begins to develop, first as Haymitch realizes he might have a couple of survivors on his hands, and then with Katniss learning at key points that she can actually rely on Haymitch’s sponsorship and guidance – they develop an almost psychic bond, and Katniss comes to understand through her own growing success in the games exactly what would have turned Haymitch into an alcoholic: she can see herself going down exactly the same road if she survives/wins.   In the end, Haymitch is the first one she runs to embrace, showing how deep the relationship has become.

(Unfortunately I can’t see this coming as such a surprise in the movie version with the rumored – or is that desired? – casting of Alan Rickman.  The minute we see Alan Rickman we know there’s more to a character than meet the eye.  I will never in my life argue the casting of Alan Rickman in anything, but it really would be a big tipoff, there.)

The Harry Potter series is a wonderful example of how can give your story a fairy tale mysticism
and resonance by creating three mentors (also sometimes called supernatural allies) in the pattern of the three witches or three fairy godmothers – one of the world’s most powerful and enduring archetypes.  In the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid are fantastically unique characters on their own, but as a trinity, they are mythic.   Of course, the classic A Wrinkle In Time (novel) does the same with Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which – direct descendants of the three Fates, Moerae, Norns – all themselves derivative of the Triple Goddess.

And speaking of fairy godmothers… helpful as she is in a pinch, Glinda is less a mentor to Dorothy than an anima figure, a personification of the pure strength and goodness of Dorothy’s feminine Self.   For all Billie Burke’s campiness, it’s still one of the most powerfully transcendent images of the feminine ever put on film.   And please – give me a mentor who bestows ruby slippers!

Yoda, of course, and Ben Kenobi, also bring depth to the mentor roles by their utter contrast in characters and similarity in strength and spiritual power.   And of course the feisty Zen charm of Yoda, the utter surprise of this tiny indomitable creature when he harrumphed his way onto the world stage, earned him a place on the Top Ten Mentors Of All Time list.

Both of these are direct descendents of Merlin, as are Dumbledore and Gandalf.   I especially love T.H. White’s depiction of that classic wizard/mentor in The Once and Future King.

Hannibal Lecter, as I’ve discussed here before, is a delicious (sorry) take on the mentor character – a cannibalistic sociopath who turns out to be a damn fine teacher.

Besides being a delight for the pure badass sexual charge of Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, The Matrix is a great film to look at for a structure you often find in a mentor story: the mentor drives the action for a good long time, and when the protégé, in this case Neo, finally takes over the story to save his own mentor, we feel that action as a huge and exhilarating character growth. 

In Pan’s Labyrinth, the Faun is a unique take on a mentor not just for that amazing creature created by the filmmakers, but also because we really don’t know if the young heroine should be trusting this bizarre and erratic being who is her guide into the underworld.   This unease creates a lot of suspense and dread in this very emotional film.

While not as fantastical as the others on my list, Johnny from Dirty Dancing is a memorable mentor because he really is a great teacher, from a dancer’s perspective, and personally I particularly like the mentor/lover combination, the forbidden quality of that dynamic.   That kind of story generally has a bittersweet end, and Dirty Dancing delivers the poignancy.   Back to Merlin, again – I love his own backstory (or front story, as he lives life backward…) with Nimue, a protégé/lover/destroyer to him.

Mary Poppins is also a Mysterious Stranger character – the mentor who pops in to fix a situation (in this case a family), and pops out again.   Everybody’s ideal of a teacher, who literally opens magical doors.   As much as I love the druggie movie, the PL Travers books are must-reads for the sheer prickliness of Mary P.  – Julie Andrews she is not, but the adventures are all the more fantastical and bizarre.

Now, remember – not all stories have mentors, it’s not a requirement of a great story.  I should also note that often instead of a mentor you will see another classic character: The Expert From Afar.  Both Hooper and Quint in Jaws fall into this category, in my opinion (as well as being Sheriff Brody’s chief Allies).  They’re great characters, but they don’t take on the deeply personal and often spiritual dimension of teacher that a true mentor character tends to have.

The Expert From Afar, done badly, can take a turn into “Morris The Explainer” – a character (to compound the cliché, this is often a professor) who appears in one scene to take an exposition dump (okay, REALLY sorry, but if you think of it that way it might discourage you from ever doing it…) and promptly disappears into oblivion. 

I really should do a list of bad examples for contrast, but maybe you all can just take care of that for me in the comments (she says hopefully…)

And there’s another character that shows up sometimes that I guess I’ll call the Oracle, or Sibyl – like the Oracle in the Matrix, or the little Indian woman who tells Jamal to “Win it for India” before the last round of the game in Slumdog Millionaire, or the three witches with their fateful prophecies in Macbeth.   This is not to my mind the same as a mentor, who takes on the protégé as a much longer commitment (although I think the Oracle comes back to do something more like that in the Matrix sequels, but I wouldn’t swear to it…).   But it’s a variation that can have a lot of dramatic power, done well.

So how about it?   Give us a few examples and why you love your favorites.   Or tell us about one of your own mentor characters, and how they came to be.

– Alex

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I am teaching an online story structure workshop throughout the month of November, through RWA’s PASIC.

These workshops are an outrageous deal: $20 for PASIC members, $30 for non-members.

Click here to register.  More detailed information



HUNKERING DOWN

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

It happens too easily, doesn’t it?  This loss of time. 

Where did it go?  I look back, month to month, and identify the actions that kept me from writing.

It must have been a year ago that I turned in my final draft of BEAT.  The first thing I did next was work on the proposal for my next book.  I spent about two months on an idea set in the Los Angeles Harbor.  Did a ton of research, digging into the lives and cultures of the people living in San Pedro.  I took a four-hour tour of a container ship, led by the ship’s captain.  I did tours of the harbor on a fireboat.  I studied and prepared and learned what I could about my characters’ lives.

I wrote the proposal and I sent it to my agent and he nixed it.  Didn’t feel it would sell.  I began again.

I put my head into a cool idea about grifters.  Ensemble crime piece with twisted characters and a fresh story.  I wrote the proposal and sent it to my agent and…he nixed it.  He suggested that I write an international thriller—possibly for Hayden Glass.  I came up with another idea and wrote two proposals using the same storyline:  one was a standalone and one was a Glass book.  I wrote two twenty-page proposals and sent the Hayden one to my editor.

While I was waiting on his answer, my editor suggested I write a “Hayden” short story – something we could give away for free on Kindle and other e-book venues.  Something to introduce new readers to the world of Hayden Glass.

It took two months to write “Crossing the Line,” a short story prequel to Boulevard.  It documents the moment a younger Hayden Glass, just one year into the LAPD (two weeks into the Vice unit), picks up a prostitute, fully intending to arrest her, and instead “crosses the line.”  It’s the first time his addiction appears on the scene.  The story should show up any day now, and I intend to post a pdf file of it for download from my website.

After finishing the short story I waited for word on my book proposal, busying myself by marketing Boulevard, prepping and attending conferences like Thrillerfest, doing library gigs, working the day job, spending time with my family, dealing with the impending short sale of my house.  There were plenty of things to keep me from writing a novel. 

Ultimately, my editor suggested that I write a standalone, and my agent agreed.  But a book deal didn’t emerge and I was instructed to write the standalone without a contract.

Once I determined what I was going to write, once I had my agent on board (after all, he’s the one charged with selling the thing, it’s a whole lot easier if he’s passionate about the story from the start) I settled in to do the research.

I spent a couple months interviewing professionals and reading books about the FBI.  I somehow managed to finagle a trip to Europe for a little “boots on the ground” action.  I set a hard-and-fast deadline to begin writing the novel, a date that should have given me plenty of time to prepare. 

That date is November 1.

I haven’t finished my research.  I haven’t even finished typing my handwritten notes from Europe into my computer.

Meanwhile, the launch of BEAT has required that I spend weeks doing interviews and writing blogs.  I’ve thrown myself into the marketing, doing everything possible to give BEAT a chance.  And then came Bouchercon and my SF launch and all the signings and touring leading up to the conference.  And there are signings and touring still to come.

That elusive “start” date feels like it’s slipping away.  My wife and I have to move the crap that has accumulated in our house over the past five years and move it to a small apartment in less than three weeks.  We have yet to define what is garbage, Goodwill, recycle, storage or apartment-stuff.  This could take all of my time, further derailing my plans to have a book out quickly.  As it is it’ll take eight months to write the book, using weeknights after work and full weekend days, and then I’ve got to sell it, execute an editor’s notes, then wait ten months to see it released.

Tonight my wife told me not to let anything get in the way of my writing.  She said that she would somehow deal with everything else.  I’m responsible for keeping my day job and writing the next book and that is all.

I think I’ve done enough marketing.  I’m not sure how much it helps anyway.  And I think I’ve done enough waiting for others to tell me what to do next.

You know, Brett Battles told me this would happen.  He said it would sneak up on me, that I should write the next book without waiting for permission. 

And Bob Crais told me not to get lost in the machine, but to “write the next book, always write the next book.”

I know how I get when I write.  Everything else falls to the wayside.  Writing is all-consuming.  That means I’ll have no time for anything else.  I’ve been afraid to jump in, afraid that the house will fall apart, that I won’t spend time with my family, that the world around me will crash and burn.  I’m going to have to trust that my wife can do what needs to be done.  Homeschool the kids, manage the bills, pack up the house and move a family of four and a dog and a fish.

November 1st.  Chapter One.  First sentence.  Time to write.

OBSTACLES

By Brett Battles

We’re all perpetrators. We find reasons not to do the things we really should be doing…going out with friends, cleaning out the garage, learning to cook that meal we always told ourselves we wanted to learn.

It’s amazing the things we can talk ourselves out of. “I’ll do it tomorrow.” “I’m just not in the mood.” “There’s that other ‘thing’ I want to do first.”

We can be especially good at this when it comes to writing. “I need to mental be in the right frame of mind.” “I only have an hour or two to write, so it’s not even worth it.” “I’ve got writer’s block.”

I’m here to tell you, if you want to write books, those are all just excuse. Sure, there are going to be days you just can’t write because life gets in the way. But if you’re making excuses, it’s not life getting in your way, it’s you.

I knew when I was in fifth grade that I wanted to be a novelist. I didn’t know all the parameters of being one at the time – the work I would have to put in, the amount of time it would actually take to write a full book – but I knew I wanted to write stories. The dream obviously stayed with me, and I wrote a lot over the following years. What might be surprising is that I didn’t complete a full novel until just after I was thirty-two. Why? Because there were years I didn’t really put the effort in. I was busy living (something all novelists need to do in some way or another), and was not serious about being a novelist. Even when I finished that book, I wasn’t ready.

For seven years after that, I wrote very little. Then, when I turned thirty-nine I told myself if I really wanted to fulfill the dream of that ten year old me, I needed to buckle down and do it.

The biggest obstacle was finding time to write. I had a fulltime job, after all, and that pretty much ate up most of the day. But if I just gave up because of that, it would be because I was making excuses again, something I had done for years. So I had to find a way to work writing into my day, or just admit I was giving up.

My solution? I adjusted my habits and got up early, allocating two hours every morning to write before I went work. I also decided any time I had free time in the evenings or the weekends, I’d write. That’s how I wrote two novels that I haven’t published, and also three that I have. THE CLEANER was written this way.

I could have easily said it’s not worth it after one of the unpublished novels failed to sell, and given up. But I kept going. A) because I was still holding tight to the dream, and B) well…because I’m a writer, and writers write.

Sleeping would have been great. I could have stayed up later, done things with friends, had a life. But I was (and still am) a writer. And that meant, as I’ve already said, I had to write. Still, just because I did didn’t guarantee I’d achieve the goal of being published, but I definitely wouldn’t achieve it if I didn’t write anything.

If I may repeat myself, if I was going to be a writer, I had to write. This could apply to anything. If I was going to be a ball player, I would have to practice. If I was going to be a scientist, I would have to study. If I was going to be a professional photographer, I would have to take photographs…a whole hell of a lot of them.

Now maybe you might not be able to get up early, or even carve out a couple hours somewhere else in your day, but you can find an hour, or a half-hour or even fifteen-minutes…somewhere in your life is a block of time you can set aside. But setting aside the time is just the start. You need to use it, too. No excuses.

Excuses will get you a free afternoon. Working on what you love could get you a lifetime of satisfaction.

Here’s something you should check out. An example of improvising, and not letting obstacles get in your way. I love this!

 

 

So what excuses do you give yourself? How do you move beyond them?

 

Fun Is Good, Part II: The Audacity Factor (or Oh, No, He Did NOT Just Do That!)

 by J.D. Rhoades

L’audace, l’audace, encore l’audace, et toujours l’audace!

-George S. Patton, supposedly quoting Frederick the Great

This is the second in my series of posts on what gives books that  all-important yet elusive element of fun. As we remember from my last post on  the Bad-ass Factor, any  moment that makes you want to leap up, pump your fist in the air and holler ‘Hell YEAH!” increases the fun factor exponentially. But  so can moments that make you say to yourself  “Oh, no. She’s not really going to do that”,  or moments in which the reader goes,  “No WAY is he going to pull this off.”  Sometimes the Audacity Factor–the sheer outrageousness of the topic or of the way it’s carried out–can add fun to a book.

Take for example, one I’m reading right now, EMPIRE OF IVORY by Naomi Novik. It’s one of her Temeraire series of fantasy novels. They’re basically Patrick O’Brian-esque Napoleonic Era naval adventures–but with flying, talking dragons taking on the French hordes instead of sailing ships. If that made you involuntarily laugh out loud in disbelief at the imaginativeness  of the concept, you’re not the only one.  

Another example is Victor Gischler’s GO-GO GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE. Hell, the title alone makes you think “we are in for one wild ride.”  And you’re right. How can you not love a book in which a post-apocalyptic American civilization rises from the ashes, based around a chain of strip clubs owned by a guy named Joey Armageddon? After all, once  the inevitable destruction of society and the following Dark Age is over, a fellow could really use a cold beer and a lap dance.

On a more literary note, Michael Chabon’s THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION sets us down in an alternate world where the post-Holocaust Jewish state was established,  not in the Middle East, but in the Sitka peninsula of Alaska. Say what?

In Neal Stephenson’s SNOW CRASH, not only is the hero/protagonist named Hiro Protagonist, he starts the book as a pizza delivery guy–for the Mafia:

If the thirty-minute deadline expires, news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself–the Sicilian Colonel Sanders, the Andy Griffith of Bensonhurst, the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator’s nightmares, the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza, Incorporated–who will be on the phone to the customer within five minutes, apologizing profusely. The next day, Uncle Enzo will land on the customer’s yard in a jet helicopter and apologize some more and give him a free trip to Italy–all he has to do is sign a bunch of releases that make him a public figure and spokesperson for CosaNostra Pizza and basically end his private life as he knows it. He will come away from the whole thing feeling that, somehow, he owes the Mafia a favor.

The Deliverator does not know for sure what happens to the driver in such cases, but he has heard some rumors.

After that, things start to get weird.

There’s a lot of overlap, you’ll note, between this factor and the idea of High Concept that Our Alex talks about here.  Outrageous High Concept can often equal serious fun.

All of the above books are gripping, page-turning, and thought provoking. They’re also a hell of a lot of fun to read. Why?

One thing that makes audacious concepts  fun is the same thing that makes watching an acrobat or a high wire artist fun: you wonder if they’re going to pull it off or if they’re going to crash to the floor before your very eyes.

So how do you pull it off? Well, there are a few things you need to do: 

First, be matter-of-fact. Your readers may find the world you build outrageous or strange, but to your characters,  it’s their everyday life (unless you’re doing a Wizard of Oz type tale, where your protagonist is dropped into another world). They’re not going to spend a lot of time examining or thinking about their surroundings, so neither should you by lapsing into long passages of description or having them think about “how wonderful it is that we have flying dragons.”

Which leads to our second point: move fast. Get right into the story, and don’t give the reader a lot of time tho think “Flying Dragons? How the hell does THAT work?”

This leads to something akin to the high wire act mentioned above: you’ve got to be able to put in enough backstory to let the reader know what’s going on, without stopping the narrative dead in its tracks with the dreaded “As you know…” Chabon, for example,  doesn’t have a character say, “As you know, Meyer, the State of Israel was founded in 1948, but was destroyed after only three months, so we ended up here…” He gets to the story, and you have to figure out what’s going on. In some unimportant respects, you never do; in THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION, casual mentions of things like “the Cuban War” and “The Third Russian Republic” are never explained; they’e part of the background noise every real society has.

But most importantly, you have to have a story to tell. YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION is more than just an audacious concept, it’s an engrossing neo-noir  murder mystery. GO-GO GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE is more than just laugh-out-loud outrageous, it’s a cracking good adventure tale. In order for a story to be outrageous and fun, it has to first be a story. If you don’t have that, you have something like John Boorman’s movie ZARDOZ, which has outragous concept to spare, as well as Sean Connery running around in a red leather jockstrap and a ponytail talking to a flying stone head, but it ends up being nearly incomprehensible, unless you’re really really stoned.

 

Don’t let this happen to you….

So tell us, readers and writers…what are some of your favorite fun, audacious concepts? Which ones does the author manage to pull off, and if you dare, which ones veer into ZARDOZ territory?