Creating The Perfect Sleuth

As I mentioned last time (Creating The Perfect Murderer) I'm interested in writing a particular kind of murder mystery, one that is unabashedly intended as entertainment.

With that in mind, what is the single most important thing about the hero? That his actions should entertain the reader. Ideally, the reader should be so closely identified with the sleuth that he/she feels vicariously heroic because of our sleuth's actions.

So, what traits should our hero possess?

1. The hero/sleuth should be dramatic.

Think about the character of Sherlock Holmes as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch on Sherlock. One of my favorite episodes is A Scandal in Belgravia (season two, episode one) when Sherlock is summoned to the palace wearing nothing but a bed sheet because he refused to put clothes on.

That's dramatic.

His refusal to do something simple like getting dressed also beautifully illustrates his stubborn refusal to do anything he doesn't want to and so makes his eventual manipulation by The Lady all the more striking (pun intended).

2. The hero/sleuth should be interesting

This is, as they say, a 'no-brainer' and yet, sometimes, one can lose sight of it.

One thing that makes a character interesting is possessing contradictory character traits. For instance, Sherlock Holmes doesn't care about people, they're all morons as far as he's concerned, and yet he cares passionately for his friends. So much so that he would give his life for theirs.

3. He should live a life the reader will want to learn about

Again, this is pretty basic stuff, but how many of us have started a story off with a character waking up in their bed, looking out their window at the same old scenery and starting their same old, boring, day?

What? Just me? (blush) Okay, moving on ...

Maybe living an interesting life means the hero lives in a Park Avenue loft, or maybe it means he lives in a seedy tenement with a one-eyed cat who can tell when someone is lying.

I think the key is that the hero's life isn't ordinary. Something about it is striking, unexpected.

Whatever your setting, remember, if it doesn't interest you what are the chances it's going to interest a reader?

4. The hero/sleuth is courageous.

One thing that struck me about the Monk mysteries was how the screenwriters succeeded in demonstrating Monk's courage. Keep in mind that this is a character who is scared of milk.

The key is, it takes courage to face your demons, whatever they are, and Monk regularly chose to face his demons to preserve the things he cared about, whether that was walking through a rat infested sewer or risking his reputation and his chance to get back on the police force.

Threat to life and limb. Though temporarily overcoming a debilitating fear of milk is admirable, even tormented characters such as Monk need to, eventually, face a threat to either their life or the life of someone they care deeply about.

Or not. Sweeping comments like the above are almost always false. I think that demonstrating courage has more to do with facing one's demons, facing one's fears, and that doesn't require the threat of physical death.

5. The hero/sleuth is skilled at what they do

Whatever that may be. Sherlock Holmes is a detective who solves those cases he finds interesting and he's good at it. If he wasn't he'd just be a guy who thought too highly of himself. That would be boring.

Monk: It's a gift and a curse. His physical quirks--multiple obsessions and a phenomenal memory--ruin his life but they also make him great at solving crimes. If he wasn't great at solving crimes he'd just be a bundle of neurosis and there's nothing interesting or exceptional about that.

Your sleuth doesn't have to be a detective. For instance, Miss Marple was a little old lady in a small English village who knew everyone, noticed everything, had a wonderful memory and charming manners. Her skill: she was very good at finding analogies between the actions of those around her and events in village life, analogies that laid bare the killers heart. As soon as Miss Marple got the analogy right, she solved the crime.

If Miss Marple didn't solve the crime then she'd be what nearly everyone thought her to be: a doddering old lady. As it was, she was the embodiment of Nemesis.

6. The hero/sleuth has a special talent

I've said something about this in the points above, but it's worth focusing on. The special ability can be anything,

- a photographic memory (Sherlock Holmes, Monk),
- a lifetime of experience combined with a keen intellect (Miss Marple),
- the ability to mentally recreate a crime scene and live it from the killers point of view (Will Graham),
- the ability to use logic and psychology (his 'grey cells') to solve the puzzle of the crime (Hercule Poirot),
 - the ability to tell if a person is lying (multiple),
- a cool whip and the ability to use it (Indiana Jones),

And so on. But it doesn't have to be a 'cool' ability, it doesn't even have to be particularly useful. It can be something trivial like being able to eat more hot dogs than anyone.

The hero needs to be better than anyone else at something. If this something makes them seem clever and resourceful, so much the better.

7. The hero/sleuth has a deep wound

Any fully developed character will have a deep wound, but this wound plays a special role in the case of a hero/protagonist.

Previously I've talked about the main arc of a story and the secondary arc, let's call this the A and B stories, respectively. The B story generally is about the hero's inner landscape, her feelings, her dreams, her problems, her insecurities while the A story has to do with an external goal or object of desire. In many stories the B arc concludes when the hero confronts her deep wound and either heals it or is destroyed by it.

This isn't going to be a tragedy so my hero will confront her deep wound and heal it.

Here's the cool bit: the hero's deep wound is healed because of her willingness to sacrifice herself. Similarly, the villain/murderer's wound will never heal because he will never sacrifice himself, his happiness, for others.

In healing her deep wound, the hero discovers the key to attaining her external goal and victoriously closes out the A story.

Or something like that. ;)

I think I'll stop there for today. In the next post I'll talk more about the quirky characteristics our sleuth could/should have. For instance, have you noticed that many popular sleuths have been named after guns, have never been married, have no children, do not live in the suburbs and do not drive an ordinary car?

Huh.

Question: Who is your favorite sleuth?

Other articles you might like:

- How Many Books Would You Have To Write To Quit Your Job?
- Advice For New Writers
- Donald Maass On Why Books Don't Sell
- 5 Rules For Writing A Murder Mystery: Keeping the Murderer Secret Until The End

Photo credit: "Universal Captain America" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How Many Books Would You Have To Write To Quit Your Job?

Ever wondered what the value of a book is?

Jeff Posey, project manager for Lucky Bat Books, tells us this in his post, What’s Your Novel Worth? NPV and Cash Flow. Not only that, he gives us the Excel spreadsheet he used so you can do it for yourself.

When Jeff talks about how much a novel is worth he's talking about its NPV or Net Percent Value. Here's what the NPV tells you:

... the NPV tells you the present monetary value of your intellectual asset if it generates the expected cash flow over the next forty years. It emphasizes the value of long-term steady flows of small amounts of cash, and also helps quantify the value of your time investment (you only have to write a novel once for it to earn income for forty years or more).

Clear as mud? Let's look at a few examples:

Example 1: The Casual Writer

Let's say you don't want to make your living from writing but you'd like to make enough to pay for the lattes you buy while you write.

You've published a novel and you plan on publishing another one every five years.

Number of books published: 1
Royalties per book per month: $15
Number of new books produced per year: 1/5
Money spent publishing each book: $0
Each new book boosts sales by: 15%

Estimated net monthly cash flow:

*- after 2 years: $3
- after 3 years: $10
- after 5 years: $34
- after 10 years: $174

Not bad. You might even be able to afford biscotti!

* These numbers are from Jeff's post, but when I ran them myself using his spreadsheet here's what came up:

*- after 2 years: $34
- after 3 years: $56
- after 5 years: $112
- after 10 years: $335

Example 2: The Professional Writer

You want your writing to be your main source of income.

Number of books published: 5
Royalties per book per month: $50
Number of new books produced per year: 2
Money spent publishing each book: $2,500
Each new book boosts sales by: 5%

Estimated net monthly cash flow:
- after 2 years: - $198
- after 3 years: - $70
- after 5 years: $780
- after 10 years: $8,224

Example 3: The Seasoned Writer

You've been doing this a while, your books sell well, and each new book helps the rest of your book sell even better.

Number of books published: 12
Royalties per book per month: $150
Number of new books produced per year: 3
Money spent publishing each book: $5,000
Each new book boosts sales by: 3%

Estimated net monthly cash flow:
- after 2 years: $1,753
- after 3 years: $3,710
- after 5 years: $10,371
- after 10 years: $50,414

Example: The Lone Gunman

I have a problem with using Jeff's calculations for real world concerns such as: When can I quit my job and make writing my full time profession?

Let's say you write one book, publish it, win the lottery, travel to Europe and forget all about writing. Here's what Jeff's spreadsheet told me.

Number of books published: 1
Royalties per book per month: $10
Number of new books produced per year:0
Money spent publishing each book: $0
Each new book boosts sales by: 0%

Estimated net monthly cash flow:
- after 2 years: $20
- after 3 years: $30
- after 5 years: $50
- after 10 years: $100

That seems wrong. If I only published one book and then, at least as far as my readers were concerned, disappeared off the face of the earth, I think it is much more plausible that, after 10 years, I'd be lucky if I sold $2 a month.

Yes, absolutely, if a writer keeps writing, keeps publishing, keeps blogging, then her backlist books are going to be much more visible and I could see sales staying strong even after 10 years. But whether they will increase, and whether they increase exponentially, is another question.

So, with this in mind let's redo Example 2. Instead of assuming a book will sell progressively more, let's assume that the sales will stay constant.

Example: The Part Time Writer

Number of books published: 5
Royalties per book per month: $50
Number of new books produced per year: 2
Money spent publishing each book: $2,500
Each new book boosts sales by: 0%

Year 1:
5 books for sale so $50 * 5 = $250 per month.
Net gain: $250 per month.

Year 2:
2 new books published ($2,500/12=208) * 2 = $416 per month
7 books for sale so $50 * 7 = $350 per month
Net gain: - $66 per month.

Year 3:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
9 books for sale so $50 * 9 = $450 per month
Net gain: $34 per month

Year 4:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
11 books for sale so $50 * 11 = $550 per month
Net gain: $134 per month

Year 5:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
13 books for sale so $50 * 13 = $650 per month
Net gain: $234 per month

Year 6:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
15 books for sale so $50 * 15 = $750 per month
Net gain: $334 per month

Year 7:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
17 books for sale so $50 * 17 = $850 per month
Net gain: $434 per month

Year 8:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
19 books for sale so $50 * 19 = $950 per month
Net gain: $534 per month

Year 9:
2 new books published = - $416 per month
21 books for sale so $50 * 21 = $1050 per month
Net gain: $634 per month

So, after 9 years, assuming her books keep selling, on average, $50 per month, this writer will earn about $1,000 per month.

But what if one has to pay (as many do) $2,000 a month for health insurance then $1,000 a month is a drop in the bucket.

How many books would a writer have to have on the market if they wanted to make $3,000 a month ($36,000 a year)

Let's approach this from the other end: How many books would a writer have to have on the market if he wanted to make $3,000 a month ($36,000 a year) and each book brought in $100 a month?

The answer: 30 books. Stretched out over 5 years that's 6 books a year or one new book every two months.

A highly motivated person could probably do that. Keep in mind, though, that once you have the books on sale they keep selling at the same rate so at the end of five years you can ease back a bit. Or not.

Word count

How many words per year would one have to write to produce 6, 80,000 word, books? Answer: 480,000 words.

If instead of writing an 80,000 word book one wrote, say, a 40,000 word novella, 6 books would only equal 240,000 words which is, I think, completely doable. 240,000 words is about 4,600 words a week or about 650 words a day.

Keep in mind that Kris Rusch writes as many as 1 million words a year! That means she writes, on average, 3,000 words a day and could complete approximately 24 40,000 word novellas in a year.

Also, keep in mind that books in a series can be bundled together and sold. To read more about this idea take a look at Dean Wesley Smith's post on the idea of a magic bakery.

If the thought of writing 24 novellas a year has left you a bit shaky, remind yourself that in my scenario you only need to write 4,600 words a week or about 650 words a day. Now get a nice hot cup of tea or coffee, give yourself a (short) pep talk, and start writing!

The bear knows you can do it. :-)

"Michelle, zoo manager/our tour guide" by BrianMoranHDR
under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
Click to enlarge.

By the way, there's more discussion of Jeff Posey's post over at Dean Wesley Smith's blog and at The Passive Voice Blog.

Other articles you might like:

- Advice For New Writers
- 25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes
- Book Design: What NOT To Do

Photo credit: "New Forest Foal" by StuartWebster under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Advice For New Writers

This is the best advice for new writers I've read:

Believe in yourself, because nobody else will, at least not in the beginning. Not at the level necessary to keep you going through rejections, bad advice, job loss, illness, grief and everything else life lobs at us. There is something about you as an individual that nobody else has. It takes work to articulate this, to show it off and to make it interesting to others. The world needs new voices, so believe in that if this is all you can do in the beginning. Keep music, quotes, movies, pictures, anything you can around you to remind you what you are working towards.

Here's some more:

 Read, absorb what you read, read more, question what you read. Read for fun, decide what pulls you in and try to make your reader’s experience with your work the same.

Read poetry and study the images, word choices, and any other aspects of the work that grab you. Poets are masters of making huge statements or painting vivid images with just a few words. This is an important skill.

Write often. Write daily. Write up your experiences in the most detailed way possible. Include all the senses, even what it feels like to have an intuition or worry.

Be honest.

Be specific.

Be detailed.

Those quotations are from Sarah Martinez's post, Practical Advice for Beginning Fiction Writers. I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Thanks to +Jack Remick for the link.

Question: What was the most valuable piece of writing advice you received?

Other articles you might like:

- Donald Maass On Why Books Don't Sell
- Creating The Perfect Ending
- 7 Basic Plot Types

Photo credit: "Kitten" by Kenichi Nobusue under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Donald Maass On Why Books Don't Sell

If you ever have the opportunity to hear Donald Maass speak I urge you to take it. Which isn't to say I agree with everything he says, but I've found that whatever he says is worth pondering.

(See: Donald Maass Talks About How To Make Your Readers CARE About Your Characters On The First Page and Donald Maass: Your Writing Matters, Dig Deep And Change The World)

Today Denise Covey asks: "Why do some books not sell?" She writes:

... there are lots of reasons a book sells or doesn't sell, but it is universally agreed (and Maass makes this point) that 'Great novels not only draw us in immediately but command our attention. They not only hold our interest but hold us rapt.'

Yes, generating narrative drive is the key. It's just doing it that's the problem. (grin)

(See: Using Pinch Points To Increase Narrative Drive)

Here are three things Donald Maass warns will prevent a reader from being pulled into a story:

Timid Voice - this DOES NOT command attention.

Untested Characters - Make sure your characters show spine, take courage, have high principles or face their deepest fears.

Overly Interior or Exterior Stories - Be the god of your story world. Interior stories need dramatic outward events. Dramatic outward events need to create a devastating interior impact.

I'll leave you with this promise:

Runaway success comes from great fiction, period. The publishing industry may help or hinder but cannot stop a powerful story from being powerful. -- Donald Maass

Other articles you might like: 

- Creating The Perfect Ending
- 7 Basic Plot Types
- Creating The Perfect Murderer

Photo link: "Its All About Pelicans!" by VinothChandar under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Creating The Perfect Ending

There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story. -- Frank Herbert

There's nothing quite as satisfying as a great ending. In her recent blog post Laura Dennis writes that the key to a great ending is making sure your readers are emotionally connected to characters, if they are they'll care what happens to them.

But how do we do this? How do we establish this emotional rapport?

Joanna Penn, in her wonderful article How To Write The Ending Of Your Novel, advises:

- Don’t use sappy extraneous contemplation. This is the big problem with the ending of Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol‘. The last chapter or two is just watching the sun rise and thinking about the experience. Boring and pointless.

- Some genres have an expected ending that you can’t mess with. If your genre is romance, they have to get together at the end. There’s no getting around this unless you want to change genres! You also need to keep some characters alive if you have a series of books planned.

Crista Rucker in her article, Keys to Great Endings, writes:

a. Inevitability

The first and most important key to a great ending is inevitability. When a reader finishes your novel, she should feel like there is no other possible ending that would fit the book. Writers such as China Mieville, with his critically acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station, seem to have mastered this concept. The ending to this novel is grim and sad, but if you sift through the scenes leading up to this climax, you see that there really is no other possible way the novel could have ended without destroying the themes and invalidating the scenes that built to the climax. Even in surprise or twist endings, which are currently very popular, it is fun for a reader to re-read the novel to see how each scene interlocks and weaves the pattern that will become the ending.

b. Every scene reflects how the novel will end

The point to remember in creating an inevitable ending is to plot your novel so that every scene reflects how the novel will end. Even scenes that belong to a subplot or exist merely for character development should provide a small insight as to why the ending occurred and why, given the characters, setting, and prior plot points, it is the only one that fits. The easiest way to do this would be to know the ending before you start to write or plot your novel, but this can also be done in the revising stage once the final outcome is known and all the scenes are written.

c. The characters' actions create the ending

Another key to great endings is to ensure that the characters' actions create the ending. The ending should come as the result of a choice that the main characters make. Every action and interaction, even down to every word of dialogue, whether your characters are talking about what to eat for breakfast or hashing out a plan to murder the villain, should foreshadow that final choice. This ties in with that sense of inevitability and is the prime method used in Mieville's novel to construct his ending. 

This morning I read Truman Capote's hauntingly beautiful short story, Miriam. I mention it here because I think it's a good example of Chrita Rucker's three points. The ending seemed inevitable, every scene seemed to lead to it and the character's actions created it. (Thanks to FC Malby for the link to Miriam.)

Question: What was your favorite ending?

Other articles you might like:

- 7 Basic Plot Types
- Creating The Perfect Murderer
- 25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes

Photo credit: "Rain, rain, go away..." by muha... under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

7 Basic Plot Types

Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing is one of my favorite blogs. Why? Because of articles like this: Writing Inspiration: The Seven Basic Plot Types.

In Plot Types Marissa explores the various plot types and gives examples. For instance:

The Quest:

This plot is self-explanatory. Think LORD OF THE RINGS, MISS RUMPHIUS, and THE LIGHTNING THIEF. In this type of story, a character sets off on a journey of some sort. She has a goal in mind and it is often difficult to reach. She must overcome obstacles and face strong opposition before she can emerge victorious.

Voyage and Return:

In this plot type, the protagonist has endured a quest, and must now return to her previous life. Whether she is returning from a distant land or a magical one, the contrast between life during the journey and the home she once knew reveals a deeper understanding she has attained. Examples would be the WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, and ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

Overcoming the Monster

Dum dum... dum dum... you can almost hear the music to Jaws. The protagonist will eventually face the almighty creature who seems impossible to beat. That creature may take the form of another living being, or an entity. Classics such as HANSEL AND GRETEL, LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, and FRANKENSTEIN fit this mold.

Read the rest here: The Seven Basic Plot Types.

Question: Which plot type was the last book you read?

Other articles you might like:

- Creating The Perfect Murderer
- 25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes
- Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction

Photo credit: "HorseShoe Bend [Whole]" by .Bala under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Creating The Perfect Murderer

I've always wanted to write a murder mystery. I read them all the time but I've never written one. I'm hoping to change that.

Over the next few days and weeks I'm going to publish a series of posts (not all at once, though!) about writing a murder mystery. I think that in order to really truly learn a subject one must teach it--I know that sounds strange, paradoxical even--but I think it's true.

In what follows I make certain broad statements, please take these with a grain of salt. I'm talking about the kind of murder mystery I'm interested in writing, which is also the kind I usually watch. If something I say doesn't seem right to you, please ignore it. Better yet, talk to me about it in the comments! :)

The bare bones of a murder mystery

Although there are a number of variations, this is the bare bones of a murder mystery: the murderer/villain kills someone. The murderer is then pursued by the hero/sleuth who will, before the end of the story, solve the mystery and bring the murderer to justice.

Secondary arc

In a murder mystery there is generally a main arc--the story of the hero solving the mystery and bringing the murderer to justice--and a secondary arc.

The secondary arc is often a story that has some intrinsic interest and that is interwoven with the main plot. For instance, in Scott Turow's excellent murder mystery Presumed Innocent, the murder investigation happens against the backdrop of an election for County PA.

The secondary arc often poses a problem for the hero, the solution of which he uses to ultimately solve his primary problem: how to bring the murderer to justice. For instance, this sometimes happens on the TV show Castle; the solution to the secondary arc/dilemma has to do with his family and it will provide the solution to the problem of the main arc.

Setting

The secondary arc is often tightly related to the setting. For instance, I mentioned Castle. In that show the secondary arc almost always involves Castle's interactions with his mother and daughter and much of that show takes place in his penthouse apartment where they live.

The key: Create a place where dramatic things are happening besides the mystery.

Main Arc

The story's main arc will be about a sleuth investigating and solving a murder and, ultimately, bringing the culprit to justice.

The first thing we need to do is figure out who our murderer is.

Why the murderer and not the sleuth? Because the murderer is the one who plans and executes the crime. A murder mystery is really all about the murderer, about why he/she committed the crime and about his/her identity.

Meeting the murderer

What is the murderer's ruling passion? What does he/she love? Everyone loves something above all else--often ourselves! What does our murderer love enough to kill for?

Let's make something up.

Chances are our murderer has killed more than once. The murderer could have committed the first murder for plausibly noble reasons; for example, to protect someone he cares about.

In Columbo, 'A Deadly State of Mind,' a psychiatrist kills his lover's husband while defending her from him. It was self-defense but the killer doesn't think the police will believe them so they make it look like the husband was killed by a burglar. When Columbo sees through that story the psychiatrist kills again, this time murdering his lover in cold blood in a vain attempt to cover his involvement in the crime and pin everything on her.

Motivation: self-interest

The main point is that the murderer acts out of his/her own self-interest. In the example, above, perhaps the first killing was done for someone else, but the second was cold and calculated.

The murderer doesn't appear evil

The murderer will not seem evil to those around him. Perhaps he will appear to be a good family man/woman, a member of the PTA, a respected business person, someone liked and looked up to by those around him.

Or not. Perhaps, as in Presumed Innocent, the murderer will be someone quiet, subdued, controlled. Still, though, they are generally the last person one would suspect.

The murderer will appear clever and resourceful

The murderer must appear clever and resourceful. After all, if the murderer isn't clever and resourceful then it's not going to be much of a mystery. The antagonist/villain/murderer has to seem to be at least as clever and resourceful as our sleuth.

Deep psychological wound

The murderer (this will be true of the hero as well) will have a deep psychological wound. For instance, perhaps the murderer has a deep fear of being alone, of being friendless, shunned. They would do anything to be popular. They are rabid for approval.

This point ties into the next one which is that ...

The murderer must be extreme

For instance, the deep psychological wound must be severe and potentially debilitating. This will help explain why he murders, his deep inner motivation.

Characteristics: Physical, mental, social

- Is the murderer male? Female?
- Tall? Thin?
- In good physical condition?
- Does he have physical injuries? Scars?
- What color is his hair?
- How old is he?
- What kind of a childhood did he have? Who raised him? What did his parents do for a living?
- Did he like school? What kind of grades did he get? Did he finish high school? Did he finish college?
- How does the murderer currently earn money?
- Does he have a violent temper?
- Does he find it easy to make romantic connections?
- What does the murderer find easy? There is one thing he is exceptionally good at. What is it?

That's a partial list. There are many wonderful character sheets on the Internet that can help with character development.

I will pick up this topic again and, next time, we'll talk about our sleuth/hero and start developing that character.

Happy writing!

#  #  #

For the past few days I've been reading through notes I made at (it looks like) a workshop on how to write mystery stories. Unfortunately I didn't write down where it was, when it was, and so on, but I'm going to share them with you anyway because they're too good/helpful not to.

Question: What do you think is the most important characteristic for a murderer/antagonist to have?

Other articles you might like:

- 25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes
- 4 Ways To Get An Audience To Love Your Story
- 3 Steps To Better Prose

Photo credit: "Untitled" by Mark Wooten under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

25 Tips For Writing Great Sex Scenes

Folks, this is the best post on writing sex scenes I've ever read: 25 Humpalicious Steps for Writing Your First Sex Scene, By Delilah S. Dawson (Author Of Wicked As She Wants).

As you might imagine from the title--"Humpalicious" was a dead give away--this post comes from the incomparable blog of Chuck Wendig.

Here are my favorite bits of advice:

4. Write the scene in one sitting

Just as with sex, it doesn't improve if you stop in the middle to go grocery shopping.

5. Don't self-edit

Don't re-read what you've written, don't look back. Delilah writes:

Do not look back while you’re writing it or think about how wretched it [the scene] is. Of course it’s wretched. It’s the literary equivalent of virgin sex.

6. Keep the same point of view

[W]riting sex is far more fluid ... if you limit yourself to one character’s thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Not only does this help the reader keep track of pronouns and hands, but can you imagine having sex if you had to hear every single thought the other person was having?

7. Read how other writers have written sex scenes

Yesterday I wrote about how to improve one's prose. That exercise would work here. Find a book that contains sexy scenes you think are well done. Pick one of them and copy it out--or at least two pages of it. Then, try to write a few paragraphs in the same voice, using the same setting.

Do this with, say, three of the scenes and then move on to another book.

Conveniently, most romance novels have (at least) three sex scenes. Delilah writes:

Most romance novels have a kissing or make-out scene that surprises both characters early on; one very detailed “first sex” scene somewhere between halfway and three-quarters of the way through; and then at least one other, “Oh, okay, we’re good at this; let’s hump HARDER scene” closer to the end. Your mileage/sexytimes meter may vary. But keep writing until it’s done.

Identify the book's three core 'sexy scenes', write each of them out, then try and match the author's voice.

14. Have a sequel after the sex scene

Jim Butcher has written an excellent post on sequels. Sex scenes are action scenes, so they need to be followed by a sequel. Delilah writes:

Your story needs a lull, an afterglow, a reaction to the sex just as honest as people have in real life. It doesn’t have to be all cupcakes and rainbows—maybe he storms off, maybe she runs for the shower, maybe they tell Muppet jokes while he offers her a Clorox wipe. But what happens immediately following the sex can be just as important as the sex. It may seem like a small thing, but falling asleep in a lover’s arms (or not) for the first time can be a big deal. Especially if he’s the kind of guy who has a hook for a hand.

15. Sex complicates relationships

After sex, the characters will glance away, avoid eye contact, doubt themselves, doubt each other, maybe rethink their involvement. Chances are, one of them feels more secure than the other. At the very least, even if they’re both happy, something in your story must push them apart, or they would just spend three months in bed, humping like rabbits.

19. Get the details right

"Have a clear idea what the characters are wearing before they start to get undressed" and then remove it in a sexy fashion.

So, um, NOT like real life.

21. Make the sex count

Delilah writes:

[Your sex scene] should move the story forward and somehow affect the characters emotionally. Maybe the hero learns to open up, maybe the heroine decides she wants to be more aggressive in her real life, maybe they’re just having what they think is a last fling before a giant orc battle. But it has to mean something, or else it’s just porn.

22. Get a second opinion

You need this. It's next to impossible to be objective about your own work and when it comes to writing good sex its doubly important--triply important--to get objective feedback you can trust. Did they think the scene was sexy?

23. Let it go.

This is true for any story, after you've done your best, after you've edited, given it to beta-readers--whatever your process is--let it go.

Dean Wesley Smith has written a lot about this, especially lately. Do the work send it out, let it go, and turn to the next project.

#  #  #

By the way, at first I was convinced that Chuck Wendig and Delilah Dawson were one and the same person because their writing styles are similar but then I looked at Delilah's site, did a Google search (or two), and came across this picture of Chuck sitting beside Delilah. Here's the post: a kick in the inspiration bone: Crossroads Writers Conference.

Click to enlarge

Other articles you might like:

- 4 Ways To Get An Audience To Love Your Story
- How To Create A Press Kit
- Book Design: What NOT To Do

Photo link: "Dancing With The Storms" by JD Hancock under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

4 Ways To Get An Audience To Love Your Story

At first I was going to call this post, "How to establish character identification," but that sounds about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Why do we want our readers to identify with our characters? For me it's because I want them to hang on every word the way kids around a campfire breathlessly listen to a well-told ghost story.

We establish that kind of dramatic tension by crafting characters readers care about.

Why do we keep turning the pages at 3 am when we've got an early meeting? Because we have to know what happened. Why do we care? Because we care what happens to the characters.

How To Establish Character Identification

1. Sympathy

As writers, we need to connect the reader's emotions to the story and one way to do this is to get them to sympathize with, to feel sorry for, a character.

How do we do this? Show your character experiencing a loss, a setback. An undeserved loss works especially well. For instance, a character might lose his job because of something that wasn't his fault. His wife might die in a car accident while she was shopping for his birthday present.

2. Empathy

When a reader feels empathy for a character she feels the emotions that character feels.

Here's the key. Over and over I've heard writers say: If you feel the emotion when you're writing the scene, the reader will feel it.

When writing these scenes:
- show don't tell
- use sensory detail from at least two senses.

3. Similarity of goals

Fundamentally, we all want the same sorts of things. I'm not talking about low level goals like cream for your coffee and no traffic on the way to work--though that would be awesome! I mean high level goals like the desire to be treated fairly and with respect.

If a character is denied one of these fundamental goals--some would call them fundamental rights--that's something a reader can identify with.

4. Inner conflict

Inner conflict occurs when a character has competing desires.

For instance, lets say that our hero is a upstanding lawman whose job is to catch the villain. Further, let's say you've done a glorious job illustrating how totally despicable the villain is.

Our hero is in love with Martha, someone who is as good as the villain is despicable. Or so he thinks. It turns out Martha is the villain. Perhaps the hero finds something, some clue, and everything falls together as he looks at it. Martha is in the room, she watches the play of emotions across our hero's face as everything comes together. The hero looks at Martha, the realization of her guilt in his eyes.

Or something. If that sort of scene is done right the play of conflicting desires will ooze with dramatic tension and the reader will be caught up in your fictional world/web.

Also, notice that not only does the hero achieve his goal--he discovers the identity of the villain--but we learn something about him. Is the hero the kind of person to let the villain go because he loves Martha? Or, like Sam Spade, will he refuse to "play the sap" for anybody? Either way, his character is revealed through his choice.

(Also see: How To Get Your Readers To Identify With Your Main Character for a slightly different take on this issue.)

#  #  #

Yesterday I mentioned that I've been going through boxes of my old notes and found some great material, that's were this came from as well.

Question: How do you get readers to identify with your characters? 

Other articles you might like:

- 3 Steps To Better Prose
- Book Design: What NOT To Do
- Cliffhangers

Photo link: "Wet Lorikeet" by aussiegall under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

3 Steps To Better Prose

How To Improve Your Prose In Three Months

A few years ago I attended a writing conference at which one of the lecturers made the following claim: If you follow these simple steps you'll markedly improve your prose writing in under three months.

At the time I thought it was too simple to work--just do these few steps every day and in 3 months (give or take) I'd be a better writer. Yeah. Right.

At the time I took the lecture I was skeptical, but now I'm not so sure. I think I might try this.

1. Go through your bookshelves and select a book that you think has terrific prose.

2. Select three pages of the book and copy them, word for word. 

This is only for your own edification so you can delete the pages after you're done. It is the act of typing/writing the words that is important.

Copying out the words will give you a feel for the writer's timing, their rhythm.

3. Write a few paragraphs that imitate the prose you've just copied.

For instance, if the text you chose to copy was a love scene, then you write a love scene. The setting you choose for your scene should be similar to the setting in the text you just copied.

Do this for three or four days picking 3 (or so) pages from different parts of the book. Then pick another book and do the same thing with that one.

After 3 or 4 months of this you will find it easier to write in your own voice and your prose will have improved.

#  #  #

The above is based on notes I took at a writing conference but unfortunately I didn't mark down the name of the conference or when I attended it, but it must have been some time ago. I hate not being able to give a reference but this information seemed too valuable not to share.

Question: Do you have any writing exercises you'd like to share?

Other articles you might like: 

- Book Design: What NOT To Do
- Cliffhangers
- New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words

Photo link: "Leap Day" by garlandcannon under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Book Design: What NOT To Do

Jane Friedman recently asked book design guru Joel Friedlander to talk about the dos and don'ts of book design: How Much Attention Should You Pay to Book Design? A Q&A With Joel Friedlander.

The most common mistakes in interior book design:

1. Not using full justification for their text, so that both the right and left margin square up and create a rectangle on the page

2. Not hyphenating the text, resulting in gaps and spaces on the page

3. Putting the odd-numbered pages on the left, when they should always be on the right

4. Leaving running heads on display pages like part or chapter openers

5. Margins that are either too small to allow the reader to easily hold the book, or that don’t take the printing and binding of the book into account

6. Publishing a book with no copyright page

How much should an author expect to pay an interior book designer? 

 

Joel writes:

For novels and other lightly formatted books, you can expect to pay between $200 and $1,500 for interior design. At the low end you’re likely to get a “template” design. At the higher end, expect to receive several custom designs prepared expressly for your book. You’ll also want the designer to take responsibility for producing the reproduction files for your printer, and make sure there’s an allowance for “author’s alterations,” because I’ve never seen a book yet that went all the way from manuscript to press without at least some changes being made.

Joel mentions that for cover designs the range is between $200 and $3,500.

Professional design can make all the difference, when folks are browsing the cover is all they see. I know I've started reading many books because of their stunning covers.

You can read more of Joel Friedlander's design tips on his site The Book Designer.

Question: Do you have a cover design, or interior design, tip to share?

Other articles you might like:

- Cliffhangers
- New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words
- Word Processing Apps For Writing On The Go

Photo credit: "paesaggio3" by francesco sgroi under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Cliffhangers

Today I'd like to talk about Cliffhangers.

I've been reading Dean Wesley Smith's mini-series about ghost writing a 70,000 word novel in 10 days. (And he's doing it! It's day 9 and he has less than 8,000 words to go.)

One thing Dean has talked about are cliffhangers. He doesn't outline--he's not saying writers shouldn't, just that it's not his style--but he does try and end chapters on cliffhangers.

That got me wondering, What exactly is a cliffhanger and what different kinds are there?

What Is A Cliffhanger?

Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction. A cliffhanger is hoped to ensure the audience will return to see how the characters resolve the dilemma. (Cliffhanger, Wikipedia)

TVTropes.org (a great but addictive website) adds that the cliffhanger can involve "some or all of the main characters" (Cliffhangers).

Basically, a cliffhanger is when a character your audience cares about is put in jeopardy and left there. At least for a short time. Perhaps you put the cliffhanger at the end of a scene, or the end of a chapter, or the end of an act. You can put it in anywhere there some sort of a pause, break, in the action. Then you have the obligation to resolve the cliffhanger when the story resumes.

I read once that in the early days of European theater, playwrights started using cliffhangers before a scene change so audience members would return! A cliffhanger is another way of making folks care about what happens next, care enough to, hopefully, turn the page.

What Makes A Great Cliffhanger?

As TV Tropes notes, a great cliffhanger will have you on the edge of your seat screaming, "What happens next?!" But how do we, as writers, craft that?

The following advice comes from Martin Ralya, in his wonderful article Key to a Good Cliffhanger. Although Martin was thinking of paper and pencil gaming when he wrote this, storytelling is storytelling. Martin writes:

The key to a good cliffhanger is ending your session on a pause in the action, not right in the thick of it.

That may seem counterintuitive at first, but it’s actually pretty easy to implement. Let’s tackle this tip with a classic example: a big battle.
A climactic battle might break down into five segments:

1. Opening skirmishes
2. Major wave of enemy attacks
3. Wave of attacks is repulsed
4. More skirmishing
5. Final showdown with the Big Bad

Assuming that the PCs [Player Characters] are heavily involved in segments 3 and 5 (the two most important parts of the battle), you should put your cliffhanger right before segment 5. (If you put it in 1, 2 or 4, that wouldn’t be a cliffhanger.)

Kinds Of Cliffhangers

There isn't just one kind of cliffhanger since there are many ways to put one's main characters in peril.

In her engaging article, Cliffhangers, Anne M. Leone writes:

My go-to resource on most plot-related things is the wonderfully organized and helpful Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell. Bell has created a list of nine different types of cliffhanger endings (or as he calls them, Read On Prompts):

Impending disaster
Dangerous emotions
Portent
Mysterious dialogue
Secret revealed
Major decision / vow
Announcement of a shattering event
Reversal / surprise
Question left in the air

Anne gives a lot of great examples of Cliffhangers from literature. Her article is definitely worth the read. TV Tropes mentions the Bolivian arm ending. This is probably a kind of impending disaster cliffhanger (the first one on James Bell's list), but I'll include it here anyway. If you have time, investigate some of the links in the quotation, lots of great information there.

Bolivian army ending

A Bolivian Army Ending occurs when the main characters face seemingly insurmountable odds which, for once, they fail to surmount, although their ultimate doom is sometimes left to the audience's imagination. The trope is named for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which ends with the two heroes surrounded by seemingly the entire Bolivian army (more likely just a company of riflemen) after escaping from the States. They could surrender, but instead they choose to come out all guns blazing. The film ends just as they do so, and we never see them die. ...

Nowadays, thanks to Conservation of Ninjutsu, there is a 99% chance that any character caught in a Bolivian Army Ending would survive if the incident took place earlier in the film. (Bolivian army ending)

A Conservation of Ninjutsu is a principle that states:

In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder. (Conservation of Ninjutsu)

But there's more:

... the Bolivian Army Cliffhanger, can be used in TV shows and other serial media to raise the audience's tension over which characters survive to the next season or installment. See Uncertain Doom for scenarios in which a character's fate is left hanging in the middle of a work, season or installment rather than at the end.

Can be considered a variation of a Downer Ending, although it's ambiguous enough to give the viewer/reader some hope. When the camera cuts to a different scene unrelated to the battle right before the work ends, this overlaps with Charge Into Combat Cut.

Examples Of Cliffhangers

For examples of cliffhangers, see the bottom of TV Tropes post on Cliffhangers. Here is a link to some examples of cliffhangers in film.

I don't use cliffhangers enough in my own work, that's something I need to do more research on. I'm going to spend some time going over these examples and thinking about the different sorts, categories, of cliffhangers one could use.

Question: Do you use cliffhangers in your own work? What is your favorite cliffhanger in literature, TV, film or the theater?

Other articles you might like:

- New Minimum Length For Ebooks On Amazon: 2500 Words
- Word Processing Apps For Writing On The Go
- Dean Wesley Smith, Harlan Ellison, The Internet, and Writing A Book In 10 Days

Photo link: "crisp way" by fRandi-Shooters under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.