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The Best Way to Create Suspense Is…

Posted on October 27, 2015 by

by Keith Pyeatt

Suspense is an emotion. It’s that feeling when you don’t know what’s going to happen next…but you want to. Using that definition, it’s easy to see why creating suspense is an effective way to keep readers turning pages.

I write in the broad category of suspense/thriller, and I was already scheduled to write this article when the print galleys for my novel Dark Knowledge arrived. While I searched for typos, I also noted the different ways I generated suspense so I could share some of my favorite methods with you.

1. Use setting to enhance or create suspense. I mention setting first because I used it to build suspense right from the opening paragraphs of Dark Knowledge. My mentally challenged protagonist, Wesley, enters a world inside his mind that’s shrouded in fog, radiates a “bad color” that terrifies him, and proves it can hurt him. The mind-world became a steady source of suspense because I kept it mysterious, dangerous, and full of paranormal surprises, but suspenseful settings certainly don’t need to be supernatural ones. A boat on rough seas, a job interview, or a packed department store during a bridal sale can all add tension and suspense, especially if there’s a pregnant passenger on the boat, the interviewee needs the job to feed his family, and there’s a good reason why the bride-to-be needs a certain gown.

2. Withholding information from readers can generate suspense, but be careful not to be too obvious and cheesy about it (like I was with the title of this article) or the reader will feel manipulated. Withheld information works best when it’s natural. For example, the point of view (POV) characters introduced so far don’t know the information, so they can’t relay it to the reader. This method is a clear favorite of mine, and it works well because I normally have multiple POV characters in my novels, which helps me control when information is presented.

3. Withholding information from the protagonist is another great way to create suspense, especially in novels with multiple POV characters. Let that antagonist reveal his dastardly plans to the readers. Doing so creates the classic “Don’t go in there!” response when readers know the bad guy is waiting behind the door with a knife but the hero doesn’t. Note that this type of suspense pretty much defines the difference between suspense and mystery novels. In a mystery, we know Professor Plum was killed from the beginning pages, but we don’t know who bludgeoned him to death with a candlestick until the end. The fun is trying to figure out who did it and why. In a suspense/thriller, the professor is alive, but the readers know Miss Scarlet’s plans and motivations to kill him. The suspense is whether the hero will discover the plan and be able to stop Professor Plum from meeting his death in the library.

4. Impose a time restraint. Whether the bank will repossess Grandma’s iron lung if money isn’t raised in time or the wormhole that leads to present day Earth is about to close, a hero’s race against a ticking clock adds urgency and suspense.

5. Complicate things. For an added shot of suspense, start the ticking clock mentioned above, and just when it looks like your hero might actually succeed in time, drop a delay or complication on her. Now will she make it? Yes? Drop another complication on her.

6. Be unpredictable. Readers are smart, and once they get used to the flow of a story, they may start thinking they know where it’s going. Add an unexpected twist, and now they’re in suspense about how this new development, revelation, or character will change the course. The only way to know is to keep reading.

7. Mind games are another of my favorite ploys, which is probably why my paranormal thrillers can also be classified as psychological thrillers. I love a good dilemma, and there’s a whopper of one in Dark Knowledge that stands out as a suspenseful element. Wesley doesn’t know whether to sacrifice his life to save his soul or if he needs to sacrifice his soul to protect mankind from evil. With a big dilemma like that, readers get a whole new element of suspense. In addition to wondering “can he succeed?” and “can he succeed in time?” they wonder along with the character which course of action leads to success. Smaller dilemmas add suspense too, so experiment with them. Create a reason your protagonist can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t do something, then make sure he must do it to get what he needs. Or give him options, but make sure every option has a serious downside.

8. Create a convergence where separate lines of action meet, combine their energies, and shoot the story forward. In Dark Knowledge, there’s a point where three scenes, each written from a different character’s POV, bring story-lines together as the characters charge into the mind-world for the climactic battle. Different motivations drive each character to the same point, and the convergence supercharges the tension and suspense.

9. Make the hero act alone or at a disadvantage. There’s strength in numbers, so isolate your character when he needs help the most. Wesley has friends who would do anything for him, so I…Well, I’m not telling, but isolating the main character is a technique I frequently use to beef up suspense. A variation of isolation is to impose a disadvantage on your hero at a critical time. Maybe your urban fantasy heroine left her sword on all night and discovers it’s out of juice just as a shape-shifting monkey demon attacks. Now how’s she going to fight it?

10. Make the reader care about the characters. Sure, determined government hit men in helicopters chasing a desperate man through an active minefield is high action and may grab a reader’s attention, but the suspense you need to hold interest comes from giving the readers reasons to care what happens to the desperate man. Let readers into your hero’s head. Better yet, into his heart. Flesh out your antagonists and other major characters so readers care what happens to them, too.

Remember, suspense is an emotion.

Keith Pyeatt served as an officer of SouthWest Writers for three years and received the SWW Parris Award in 2009. He writes paranormal thrillers that he calls “Horror with Heart.” He now lives in Tucson, Arizona, and he recently released his fourth novel, Daeva. Other published novels are Struck, Dark Knowledge, and Above Haldis Notch. Find out more about Keith by visiting his website at KeithPyeatt.com or his blog at Keithpyeatt.blogspot.com.

This article was originally published in the November 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

A Soupçon of Arrogance

Posted on October 22, 2015 by

by Olive Balla

This past week I was whining to a friend about the query-and-wait-query-again-wait-again process. I complained that at my age, the length of time involved in that whole thing is a real issue. According to my high school website, classmates are dropping like flies, and I’d like to leave something for my progeny to remember me by, blah, blah, blah. My friend commiserated with me, as good friends will. And then she said something that took me by surprise. She said, “You’ve heard all your life what a good writer you are. Is it possible that a tiny bit of entitled arrogance has plugged the pipes of your learning curve?”

Arrogant? Moi? But a no-holds-barred introspection revealed a sad smidgen of truth in my friend’s words. I do indeed carry around my own ash-filled urn of what I call Unfulfilled Expectations (UE). And I’m fairly certain that I’m not the only writer suffering from this condition.

Here’s how UE works:

Beginning when you were about the age of ten, your friends asked you to tell ghost stories at all the sleepovers. Your extemporaneous flights of fantasy wowed them, and catapulted you to the top of the “A List” for elementary school parties.

Ditto middle school.

When you got to high school, your English teachers consistently wrote “Excellent” at the top of your reports. One even gushed over your artistic imagery and suggested you sign up for the journalism class.

When you got to college, at least one professor commented on the superior quality of your essays. Perhaps he even suggested you take some classes in creative writing.

Over the subsequent years, friends and family members said you were destined to make a name for yourself. Some even jokingly admonished you to remember your roots once you become rich and famous (Except for your Dad, who told you to get a real job).

You did get a real job, but you continued to write on the side, biding your time, savoring the taste of certain, eventual success.

By the time you reached adulthood, you had been sautéing in the honeyed warmth of kudos and gold stars for a couple of decades. Timing seemed to be right, and you came up with a great idea for a novel.

The completion of that first novel was hailed by friends and family as a ground-breaking event. Accolades flew like dust in Oklahoma. You smugly submitted a query to a few agents.

Your first salvo of rejections dented your kudos-softened exterior. But you were pleased to learn that even Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel was rejected by big-name publishers before being reluctantly picked up. You decided to persevere.

With the passing of a couple of years, and after a few more rejections, you began to question your desire to write. Your dad said perhaps you should stick with your day job. What used to be the glistening promise of authorial success became lodged in your throat as a bitter I-can’t-believe-no-one-recognizes-my-talent pill.

But cheer up. That doesn’t have to be the way your struggle for publication ends. It does appear, however, that the question might not be whether or not you want to become a published author, but how badly you want it.

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner, one of my favorite bloggers, suggests there are hoards of gifted writers who can’t be bothered to learn writing basics, or about the world of publication. These are writers who are unwilling to spend the time and energy necessary to make it in today’s market. I suspect their numbers include scores of those who as elementary students were given gold stars for no particular reason, thereby learning that success comes with minimal effort.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with self-awareness, or with recognizing one’s potential. Real self-confidence is a good thing. It provides an inner strength that carries us through the invariable tough times life brings.

But as my still-best-friend hinted, the other side of that coin may be a sense of entitlement that serves as a crutch, as an excuse to avoid the hard work required to make the most of those talents. The problem with arrogance is that it makes us lazy.

Those of us who are determined to get published must be willing to do the things required to make it happen. We must go back to the beginning. We must not only learn the craft from the basics up, but we must learn all we can about The Industry. And, of course, we must never give up.

Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the April 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Lessons from the Life of Tony Hillerman

Posted on October 20, 2015 by

by Sherri Burr

Tony Hillerman, the author who exposed the Navajo way to millions of people, passed away on October 26, 2008. After moving to New Mexico in 1988, I mentioned to a University of New Mexico colleague that I was looking for a writer to speak to my class the following spring. She recommended I read The Ghostway and The Dark Wind. I became a fan and wrote Tony.

For a humble person who reveled in his Oklahoma farm boy roots, spending time with lawyers and lawyer-wannabes was not Tony’s idea of fun. But he was also a teacher at heart and always willing to share, even with not-so-modest attorney types.

After publishing three books in 2004, I was invited to join First Fridays, a group that Tony and several of his writing pals started in the 1960s to share knowledge about the publishing industry. One morning a couple of years ago, I received an email seeking someone to drive Tony, now in his 80s, to the next meeting. I immediately volunteered.

Driving Tony Hillerman was a gift. Even as he struggled with health infirmities, he quipped, “Don’t get old.” Here are a few other tips from a great writing mind:

Tip 1: Take Time to Observe the Clouds
“Look at those clouds,” Tony said as we walked to my car. “Don’t they remind you of a flock of geese?” Other times, he would notice horses in stalls or dogs wandering the roads. His books are filled with elegantly described settings. I realized that he could write so vividly about New Mexico and Arizona because he was constantly observing the environment.

Tip 2: Be Generous with Your Writing Earnings
On one occasion, we pulled up at a stop sign as a panhandler approached with a sign. Tony took out his wallet and handed the man $10. Wow, I thought, how generous. At that First Friday meeting, Tony said he had recently opened a letter and a $100 bill fell out. The woman wrote of having borrowed his books from the library all these years and realized that he was probably missing some royalties. Lesson learned: generosity is returned many fold.

Tip 3: Keep at It
Tony’s debut novel The Blessing Way received 101 rejection slips before being picked up by Harper & Row in 1980. Along the way, agents wanted him to change the location of his books from the Navajo reservation to Santa Fe and to alter Joe Leaphorn’s identity. He stuck to the truth of his stories, and you should, too. After bemoaning the dozen rejections one of my manuscripts received, I realize I have to send it out 89 more times.

Keep the faith and keep writing. Tony did and we are grateful that he lived.

Sherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.

This article was originally published in the January 2009 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Shirley Raye Redmond

Posted on October 15, 2015 by

Shirley Raye Redmond is an award-winning author of dozens of nonfiction children’s books, several historical romance novels, and over 450 articles. Two of her children’s titles have sold more than 200,000 copies each. Her newest release, Viper’s Nest, is a romantic suspense novel set in Jacksonville, Illinois. She is also a conference speaker and has taught courses at many venues across the U.S. including the University of New Mexico–Los Alamos campus and the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference. You can read Shirley Raye’s contributions to the Stitches Thru Time blog, and visit her at her website, on Facebook, and WriteChildrensBook.com.

What is the elevator pitch for your newest novel, Viper’s Nest?
A handsome history professor and his widowed research assistant find themselves in danger when they explore an old insane asylum slated for demolition, unearthing a scandal someone is willing to kill for to keep secret.

Tell us about your main protagonists and how they differ from those in your other novels.
Most of my other novels are historicals, so Wren and Allan differ mainly because they are contemporary characters. It was a relief to work with personalities living in the present day. I didn’t have to concern myself with accidentally using anachronistic language, for instance. Also, Wren is a widow with a young daughter. This made for some interesting motivational considerations as I wrote the story.

Why did you decide to use the particular setting you chose?
I actually had a private tour of the Jacksonville Insane Asylum many years ago before it was torn down. The history of the place intrigued me, as well as the logistics of its once-bustling kitchen with small underground railroad cars used to transport meals throughout the institution via tunnels. Also, Mrs. Lincoln was a patient there for a while following the death of President Lincoln. The old place oozed dramatic possibilities.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
Originally, I wrote about my tour of the asylum for an SWW nonfiction contest many years ago. The article about humanitarian Dorothea Dix took second place. I later submitted the same article to a Writer’s Digest contest, and it earned an honorable mention. Both judges encouraged me to “do something” with all the historical information I’d collected. Trying to transform an article into the basis of a suspense novel was a real challenge.

This seems to be a departure from your previous fiction projects of “sweet” romance and inspirational historical novels. Why did you choose to go in this new direction?
There is a romance entwined in the plot of this book, too. Actually, my very first novel for grown-up readers was a romantic suspense, Stone of the Sun, with a lot of historical detail about Cortez and his Aztec mistress. In a way, Viper’s Nest is the same sort of novel—romantic suspense with all the historical trimmings—even Nazis, everyone’s favorite villains.

You also write nonfiction books for children. Explain why your latest children’s title Fairies! A True Story (Random House) was one of those “think outside the box” moments that really paid off, and why you love talking about this book.
Fairies! A True Story is my fourth nonfiction Random House title. I was browsing in Page One bookstore some years ago and noticed their pirates and fairies sections—hot topics for kids’ books at the time, and I wanted to do something along those lines, too. My editor warned me that the market was glutted with books on those subjects. So instead of trying to write a whimsical tale to rival the Tinkerbelle ones, I started doing research on fairies and fairy sightings. I was surprised how much information there was out there—too much to cover in one short children’s book. When I bought a used copy of Jerome Clark’s book Unexplained and read about the Cottingley fairy photographs, I knew I had something I could sink my teeth into. That was the “think outside the box” moment for me: instead of writing about fairies in a fictional way, I would report on an actual event and write a nonfiction books about fairies. The Frances and Elsie fairy story is fascinating because it could only have taken place when the technology of photography was fairly new. I was delighted when Random House bought the rights to one of the actual Cottingley fairy photographs to use at the back of the book.

What would you say to someone who says writing for children is easy?
Many people have mistakenly suggested that writing for children must be easier than writing for adults. That’s not always true. For instance, Random House is extremely dedicated to facts and truth for young readers. I had to document every fact, every bit of information in the fairy book for my editor, who then had the material vetted by an expert in a related field. Also, the clothing and artistic depictions in the illustrations had to be as accurate as possible. For instance, the illustration of the camera used by Frances and Elsie when taking the Cottingley photos is based on an old photograph of the actual camera they used. It can be a challenge to come up with text and illustrations that are both accurate and appealing for young readers while still creating a mythical mood or playful tone. When writing a novel like Viper’s Nest, the historical information can be tweaked here and there and editors usually don’t get their knickers in a twist over it.

What first inspired you to become a writer?
As soon as I read Little Women when I was in the 6th or 7th grade, I knew I wanted to be a writer like Jo March. When I sold my first newspaper articles to the Pacific Stars and Stripes and The Morning Star (I was a teenager on Okinawa at the time), I knew I was a writer. There was no turning back for me from then on.

What would you do differently if you were starting your publishing career today?
I would attend more writing conferences and take more courses in marketing. I started out as a journalism major and later earned my M.A. in Literature. I did take one marketing elective ages ago. Everything I learned in that class is still useful for me today. But as a lit major I never even learned how to write a synopsis or book proposal or query letter. Thank goodness for SWW conferences and workshops! That’s where I learned those valuable skills.

Of the 32 books you’ve written, which one did you enjoy writing the most?
I have a sentimental attachment to Stone of the Sun, which was my first novel. It opened many doors for me, including write-for-hire projects. But writing and researching Patriots in Petticoats, Heroines of the American Revolution (Random House) was probably my favorite writing project. I wanted to include lesser known girls and women, such as Kerenhappuch Turner and Dicey Langston. These women were from the southern colonies—one tends to think of Betsy Ross and Abigail Adams and others from Pennsylvania and New England as our only colonial heroines. I visited out-of-the-way battlefields and small historical societies and enjoyed lots of little adventures along the way. I have received many delightful letters from girls writing social studies reports about one of the obscure heroines I mention in the book and was so pleased when the Bank Street College of Education in New York named the title as one of the best children’s books of 2005.

What can fiction writers learn from nonfiction writers?
As a journalism major, I was taught to get to the who, what, when, where and why quickly and succinctly—in the first paragraph, if possible. Some fiction writers forget to answer those questions within their stories. Frequently, I have found myself wondering what happened to a secondary character that appeared in the first half of the book but simply disappears in the latter half, and what about that missing locket alluded to in the third chapter? Keeping the 5 Ws in mind when writing and revising would be helpful for fiction writers, I think.

Also, nonfiction writers are taught to write magazine articles with enticing lead paragraphs that lure busy editors. I have tried to use intriguing opening lines in each of my novels, too. Stone of the Sun begins with, “She’d witnessed a murder—or so she’d been told—and nothing would ever be the same again.” My Regency novel Prudence Pursued opens with, “You should not wear that to the pox party,” Prudence Pentyre said, indicating her younger cousin’s dress of light green Italian silk. “I recommend something with short sleeves which allows you to expose your forearm to the lancet.”

What advice do you have for writers who are still striving for publication?
Set both weekly and monthly goals/deadlines for yourself. Write them down and work diligently toward achieving them. Buy an appointment book and schedule time for writing, rewriting and research. Your “great expectations” will be easier to achieve when you have established in writing what they are.

KLWagoner150_2 KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.

Are You Ready to Write a Novel in November?

Posted on October 13, 2015 by

by Bentley Clark

Every November, in addition to working my day job, shopping for the holidays and baking pies, cookies and other autumn goodies, I write a novel.

A fool’s errand? Perhaps, but I am only one fool amongst many. In November 2014, over 325,000 writers around the globe participated in National Novel Writing Month—NaNoWriMo to initiates. Over 58,000 participants successfully completed a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Now in its 17th year, NaNoWriMo offers writers of all genres of fiction the opportunity—and excuse—to write their contribution to the canon of great world literature. Or, at least, to write what Anne Lamott affectionately calls the “sh*tty first draft.”

For a successful NaNoWriMo experience, I have found the following to be indispensable:

Internet Access
Fifty thousand words in 30 days is a daunting task, so it is important to find a community of writers who are facing the same victories and setbacks. The NaNoWriMo community is an incomparable support system. NaNoWriMo.org is a gateway to boundless encouragement, to connecting with NaNo Buddies and to exploring forums with topics ranging from “Backing up your work: How do you do it?” to “Are elephants capable of taking over the world?” Internet access can also be useful for wasting valuable writing time researching specific elements and the varied nuances of elephant coups d’etat.

Writing Time
If I manage to find 3 hours in the day to write and I average about 556 words per hour, I’m golden and will cross the finish line by 11:59:59 pm on November 30. Manageable goals are the key to NaNoWriMo success. Typically, getting 556 words on the page in an hour is nigh impossible as we writers pull our hair out for hours to find the right 556 words. Fifty thousand words is the goal of NaNoWriMo, not necessarily good fiction. In fact, travesties of good writing are encouraged: words can be misspelled, poorly chosen, grammatically incorrect or sheer nonsense, so long as they total 50,000. Many WriMos find that in November, sentence structure goes out the window, pronouns become optional and characters get three or four middle names, all in the name of word count.

Mardi Gras Beads
Writing a novel is serious work for eleven months of the year. Not in November. To stave off the tendency to take novel writing too seriously and to remind himself to enjoy the insanity, NaNoWriMo founder, Chris Baty, dons a costume Viking hat while he writes. I drape myself in cheap Mardi Gras beads. A friend of mine wears a Halloween witch’s hat. In addition to adding a bit of levity to the task at hand, costume pieces can remind well-meaning family and friends that you are committed to your goal and that they should interrupt you only when they are bringing you Nutella and banana sandwiches or when the dog has caught on fire.

Notebook
It is no secret that notebooks are an essential tool for every writer. In addition to allowing you to jot down ideas and snippets of others’ conversation—in order to pad your word count—it can be interesting to document your emotional journey through November. There are days when 1,667 words fly from your fingers as though channeled from a higher power and there are days when putting together a single sentence seems impossible. November can have tremendous emotional peaks and valleys, all worth documenting.

In order to write a novel, you must silence your Inner Editor. Even more so in November. So, I also like to use my notebook to doodle portraits of my Inner Editor. Then I doodle a giant bear clad in clown regalia mauling him beyond recognition.

Stamina, Endurance and Resolve
It may be one of the shorter months of the year, but if you plan to write a novel in November, you must prepare yourself like a marathon runner. You must steel yourself mentally for the enormity of the task. You must recognize that there will be waxes and wanes of energy and enthusiasm. And you must learn to not look back because the goal is to cross the finish line, regardless of your state upon crossing it. And, most of all, you must have fun!

(Note: If this article was a piece of fiction and was written in November, I’d be 1.4% of the way there.)

To participate, sign up at www.nanowrimo.org.

BentleyClark125 Bentley Clark drinks far too much tea, cooks far too much food, watches far too many movies, owns far too many books, loves PBS beyond reason, and enjoys sleeping more than she’d like to admit.

This article was originally published in the October 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

The Hollywood Touch: Screenwriting Tricks for Novelists

Posted on October 8, 2015 by

by Chris Eboch

Authors dream of having their books made into movies. But even if your story never hits the big screen, you can make your work better by thinking like a scriptwriter. Apply these screenwriting tricks to writing your novel and breathe new life into your work.

Open Big

My brother, Doug Eboch, wrote the original screenplay for Sweet Home Alabama. He gave me this advice on a novel manuscript: “You need a big opening scene. Think of visuals, color and movement—maybe a big party.”

Begin your novel with action, not background, to grab the reader’s attention. “Start with something big and memorable,” says David Steinberg, who wrote the screenplay for Slackers and co-wrote American Pie 2. “And big isn’t as important as memorable. It doesn’t have to be a big explosion, but start off with something exciting, different, weird—something that makes the reader want to keep going.”

Don Hewitt, who co-wrote the English-language screenplay for the Japanese animated film Spirited Away, agrees. But, he warns, don’t just make up any big scene for the sake of drama. “Start with an event that affects the character,” he says. Ideally, this event is a moment of change, where the character starts on a new path.

Establishing the protagonist’s role in the story is one of the most important functions of an opening, whether in films or novels. Let the reader know the character’s goals. “What does he want? What does he really need?” asks Steinberg. “What’s his external goal? And what’s his internal goal—what’s this person’s flaw, and how is he going to be a better person by the end?”

In addition, Doug says, “An opening scene should establish the genre. For comedy, I try to make a really funny opening.” If the opening is exciting, funny, sad or scary, the audience expects the entire movie—or book—to be the same. If the opening is boring, the reader assumes the rest is, too.

Scene by Scene

Set high expectations, then satisfy them. Consider each scene in your novel. How can you make it bigger, more dramatic? “Imagine the worst thing that could happen,” Hewitt says, “and force the issue.”

Doug stresses the effectiveness of “set pieces—the big, funny moment in a comedy, the big action scene in an action movie. The ‘wow’ moments that audiences remember later. Novelists can give readers those scenes they’ll remember when they put the book down.”

Yet even in big scenes, you must balance action and dialogue. Any long conversation where nothing happens is going to be boring. Steinberg says, “Movies are about people doing things, not about people talking about doing things.”

Even in comedies, he says, dialogue must be relevant to the plot. “Dialogue is funny because of the situation, not because it’s inherently funny.” The same goes for novels, too.

Long action scenes can be equally dull. “When you look at the page, it shouldn’t be blocky with action,” says Paul Guay, who co-wrote screenplays for Liar, Liar, The Little Rascals and Heartbreakers.

Adds Hewitt: “Try to be as economical as you can with the action, and as precise as you can. Break it up with specific dialogue to strengthen it.”

Get to the Point

Above all, screenwriters know the value of editing. Studios expect scripts to be within a certain length, generally 90 to 120 pages. Although some movies today run longer than that, any writer who turns in a 300-page script looks like an amateur.

“You should always be moving on to the next story point,” Guay says, “so you have almost no time to indulge in character flourishes or slow moments. If something is off-topic it has to go. Screenwriting teaches you to be ruthless.”

Doug says, “I’ll go back through every line and look for lazy writing, dialogue or description that doesn’t advance the character or plot, and see if there’s a better way to do that.”

As for description, keep it short. “A little detail is good in the beginning,” Steinberg claims, “but readers don’t care what things look like on page three, let alone on page fifty. Use description sparingly, and only if it’s really relevant.”

Novelists who focus on action over description are closer to making their books page-turners. However, novelists don’t have the luxury of visual aids, as screenwriters do. Just use short descriptions to advance the plot, not distract from it.

Novelists can learn from the movie world. Open big, increase the drama in each scene, balance action and dialogue, and edit ruthlessly. You’ll have a stronger story. And who knows? It may even increase the chances of your book being made into a movie.

Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published in the July 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Dialogue Compression: The Key to Realistic Dialogue

Posted on October 6, 2015 by

by Kirt Hickman

Realistic dialogue is one of the most important things to achieve in your writing. It’s also one of the most difficult. When people talk, they ramble, they pause, they repeat themselves—they say all sorts of unnecessary things. Written dialogue that includes all this stuff will be cumbersome. Your reader won’t have the patience for it. The objective of dialogue is to make it more efficient than normal speech yet still have it sound realistic. This is what makes dialogue a challenge.

The single most effective thing you can do to make your dialogue realistic is to compress it.

Wordiness

Cut any line of dialogue down to as few words as possible. Consider the following passage, excerpted from a critique submission with the author’s permission. The viewpoint character observes this exchange between a young woman in a tavern and a druid who has just walked in.

One of the girls suddenly stood and waved at the shrouded figure. “Hey, Cuddles, it’s Nancin! What are you doing here? Hey, this might just turn out to be some fun after all. We have to get together later on and catch up on old times. I haven’t seen you since that party at Sister Hillary’s Nunnery and Bawdy House back in ’65. Come on up to my room when we get through with this rah-rah what-ever-it-is that’s going on here and we’ll crack a bottle or three and talk about old times – and more. Hot Damn, Cuddles is back, WHEEE!!!”“Silence Woman! Hold your tongue. There is serious business afoot—and many unanswered questions. We will surely talk, later, and in private . . .”“Okay. I can wait for you to finish playing those ‘serious business’ games that you little boys insist on playing. Just don’t forget that you and I have more important things to do.” The soft purr of the reply held the promise of interesting times ahead.This passage can and should be greatly compressed. In the first paragraph, Nancin rambles for far too long. The druid, a man of some renown, would probably be embarrassed by Nancin’s outburst. He would likely stop her. The rest, I’d compress as much as possible without sacrificing the essential voice of each character:

One of the girls stood and waved at the shrouded figure. “Hey, Cuddles. What are you doing here? This might just turn out to be some fun after all —”“Silence, woman,” the druid said. “We’ll talk later.”“Okay,” came the soft purr of her reply. “Just don’t forget that you and I have more important things to do.”Decide for yourself which passage is more engaging.

Compression can make dialogue more crisp and realistic even in less extreme cases, as in this example from my science fiction novel, Worlds Asunder.

“Randy performed the preflight checks according to protocol.”“Randy did the preflight checks correctly.”Meaningless Words

Eliminate expressions that don’t carry meaning, such as:

“Well,” “Hey!” “Um,” “Aw, geez.” “Oh my gosh.” “Right?”Phrases like these make dialogue sound rambling and unimportant. They reduce tension. These types of expressions can be useful in making each character’s speech distinctive, but use only one per character and use it sparingly.

Sentence Fragments

Consider the following dialogue exchange:

“Have you had lunch?”“No, not yet.”“Do you want to go to Stufy’s?”“That sounds good.”People don’t generally speak in complete, grammatically correct sentences. Look for opportunities to use sentence fragments to emulate real speech patterns:

“Had lunch?”“Not yet.”“Stufy’s?”“Sounds good.”It not only makes your dialogue more natural, it makes it more crisp. It quickens the pace.

Contractions

Use contractions wherever possible. Otherwise your dialogue will sound clunky and mechanical:

“We will need results on this one,” Snider told Chase. “And we will need them fast.”Contractions make dialogue more natural:

“We’ll need results on this one,” Snider told Chase. “And we’ll need them fast.”Use these tips to compress your dialogue, to make it realistic, taut, and engaging.

Kirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the April 2009 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

About Character and Setting Development

Posted on October 1, 2015 by

By E.H. Hackney

Most books on writing advise us to construct complete, detailed descriptions of our major characters before we begin writing. This is worthwhile, but I believe it is easy to overdo. Yes, I put together character sketches in advance. The protagonist in my fantasy novel is a wizard and a dwarf, and I definitely needed to know that in advance. But my beginning character descriptions are not extensive. If I go into too much detail, they are often wrong and must be rewritten or, worse yet, they constrain my character and limit his behavior.

Consider a friend who wants to introduce you to someone, say a potential employee or even a blind date. They might start with a description of him—height, hair, eye color, build, where he is from. Do you know him? No. Well, suppose they expand on his resume—include his education, experience, what he does for a living. You still don’t know him. Your friend might even add that he is a great dancer and makes all of his own clothes. You know something about him but you still don’t know him.

It’s not until you meet the person and see how she walks and moves and uses her hands that you begin to get a sense of her. Do her eyes meet yours or keep sliding off to the side or to the floor? Does she continue to look around the room to find someone more interesting—or to see who is looking at her? Can she tell a joke? Can she get a joke? How does she treat the server? Now you begin to know the person.

The same is true with your characters. You can go into an extensive description but you, and your reader, don’t begin to know a character until you see him in action and relating to others and the setting. If you want to really see what your character is like, give him something to do. Better yet, give him some crap to deal with. Let us see the worn tips of his shoes kicking out from under the tattered hem of his wizard’s robe with each short, quick stride as he rushes to a house call. Then your readers, and you, will begin to know your character.

The same holds for setting. It has been argued, after all, that settings are really characters. You can build a detailed description of a region, or town, or living room, but you don’t really know it until you are there.

In a previous life I interviewed for a job in Seattle, Washington. I did some research beforehand, of course. I knew something of the economy, climate and geography. I had heard all of the stories about the “constant” rain. But it wasn’t until I saw snow-capped Mt. Rainier reflected in Lake Washington that I knew I wanted to live there. And even after living there for years I was still discovering more of its temperament and personality.

So let your readers explore settings through your character’s eyes. They will discover the nature and disposition of the wharf as your character strides there to meet a friend for an ale or to treat an injured prostitute. Through your character they will hear the creak of the hulls rubbing their fenders against the dock, see the skeleton of the ship’s rigging through the fog, hear the call of gulls and the laughs and arguments coming from the taverns, taste the salt in the damp air and smell the tangy scent of tar and rotting fish.

Why is this so? Because I don’t want to expound my story from a lectern. I want to be, at most, a guide as the reader and I explore the tale together. Because writing fiction is not a process of invention but a venture of discovery.

E. H. “Hack” Hackney is a retired engineer turned fantasy writer who lives on the east slopes of the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. His articles and essays have appeared in East Mountain Living magazine, Albuquerque the Magazine, East Mountain Telegraph, The Independent, and SouthWest Sage. He published his first novel By the Blood, Book One: Revelation in 2013 under the pen name Geoffrey Ganges. You can find Hack on his websites at EHHackney.com and GeoffreyGanges.com, and on Twitter at @ehhackney and Facebook at E. H. Hackney, writer.

This article was originally published in the May 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Image “Cracked Diamond” courtesy of George Hodan / PublicDomainPictures.net

The Genius of Alfred Hitchcock (and what writers can learn from him)

Posted on September 29, 2015 by

by Lorena Hughes

The other day an old college friend of mine invited me to the Hitchcock Film Festival in a downtown theater I thought had closed years ago. This art-deco building (circa 1927) has been presenting some of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous films every Friday night for the last two months.

The movie we watched was Rope (1948) with James Stewart. It’s already been three weeks since I saw it and I’m still thinking about it. Funny because that same weekend I watched Gravity—an expensive display of special effects that Hitchcock could have only dreamed about—and a story that values life above all (almost the exact opposite of Hitchcock’s film). Yet, the movie that keeps popping into my head is Rope, one of Hitchcock’s lesser-known films and produced over 65 years ago. Perhaps if I explain more, you’ll understand why this film impacted me.

Rope was inspired by a famous murder trial from the 1920s. Two affluent college students decide to kill one of their classmates for the simple thrill of killing. As followers of Nietzsche’s philosophy, they believe themselves to be intellectually superior to other mortals and, therefore, above the moral laws of “ordinary” men. They think they can plan and execute the perfect crime and, to make it more thrilling, they hide the corpse inside a chest of books and invite the victim’s friends and parents to a dinner party. In very Hitchcock fashion, they set the dinner buffet on top of the chest.

James Stewart plays the clever schoolmaster who inadvertently instilled this philosophy in the two murderers. Of course, one of the guys is terrified of getting caught, but the other one seems to almost want his former teacher to discover them so he can admire their “masterpiece” crime. The success of the film is in the juxtaposition of tension (anyone could open that chest since the hinge is broken), dark humor (not only in the party set up but also in the dialogue), the motive for the murder (I’ve never heard of something more original) and the Big Question of whether or not the guys will get caught.

But this film was fascinating in both content and form. The entire story develops in real time, in one single setting, and the cuts are nearly imperceptible—one continuous scene with very subtle transitions (Hitchcock focuses on a jacket or an ornament to make his cuts seamless.) It’s no surprise that the film was adapted from a play. In addition to this novelty, we have another element that struck me as original: the camera tells its own story.

Let me explain without ruining the film for those of you who’d like to watch it. Have you noticed how in children’s picture books sometimes there is the story the text tells you, but there are minor stories that you can only see in the illustrations? (this is where a very talented illustrator can thrive). Well, Hitchcock does something similar twice. While the characters are speaking, the camera is moving around them or is focused on another object, making the conversation inconsequential and the visual action what really matters. This is something I haven’t seen in contemporary film making. When dialogue is present in a film, it always supersedes anything that may be going on in a scene.

Because I have a tendency to write complex novels with abundant characters, I always admire writers and directors who can tell simple stories. The plot here is simple: will the guys be successful at hiding their crime?

So here are some of the lessons I learned (as a writer) from this film:

1. It’s okay to write a story that develops in a short amount of time (and how challenging that is!).

2. People can have the strangest motives for committing a murder (and the more original, the better).

3. Keeping the tension in a story is key.

4. Add humor whenever you can (even if it’s dark).

5. Plot twists and complicated storylines are not always required to write a gripping tale.

6. Build a complex backstory (even if you don’t mention all the details), and the story and characters will seem more realistic and believable.

7. For your ending, keep your audience guessing until the last possible moment.

8. Suppress the desire to make your main characters a) always sympathetic and b) always safe. Let them make mistakes.

And here are some of the lessons I learned (as a human):

1. Life is extremely fragile and can end in an instant.

2. There are a lot of crazy people out there.

3. Never befriend someone who admires Nietzsche!

And just for fun (and because I like lists), some of the trivia I learned about this film:

1. James Stewart was not happy with this role.

2. Hitchcock originally wanted Cary Grant for Stewart’s role, but he declined.

3. The real-life case which inspired this film, Leopold and Loeb, was never discussed or acknowledged by Hitchcock to any of his writers or cast members.

4. The attorney who defended Leopold and Loeb, Clarence Darrow, delivered one of the most famous speeches there is against capital punishment—and saved their lives. Both got sentenced to life in prison (plus 99 years each for kidnaping).

5. According to several online reviewers and the scriptwriter himself, there is a homosexual undertone in the film between the main characters (Leopold and Loeb were allegedly a couple). This may have been the reason why the film didn’t do so well in the box office and why Stewart was not entirely happy with it.

6. This film is said to have been a reaction to WWII and Hitler’s belief in the superiority of one race (man) over another.

Are you a Hitchcock fan? Do you think there’s a contemporary director who compares with him?

LorenaHughes2 Lorena Hughes was born and raised in Ecuador. At age eighteen, she moved to the US to go to college and earned a degree in Fine Arts and Mass Communication & Journalism. She has worked in advertising, graphic design and illustration, but her biggest passion is storytelling. Her historical novel set in South America, The Black Letter, took first place in the 2011 Southwest Writers International Writing Contest (Historical Fiction category), an Honorable Mention at the 2012 Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and was a quarter-finalist for the 2014 Amazon Breakout Novel Award (ABNA). She is represented by Liza Fleissig of the Liza Royce Agency and is a freelance writer for What’s Up Weekly. You can find her on Twitter at twitter.com/SisterLorena.

This article was originally published on The Writing Sisterhood blog and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Gale O’Brien

Posted on September 24, 2015 by

Gale O’Brien is a cancer survivor, motivational speaker, wellness advocate, and the award-winning author of Transformation: Creating an Exceptional Life in the Face of Cancer, available in both English and Spanish. She is also a Certified Professional Life Coach who empowers others to pursue a passionate, exceptional life after a serious illness or profound life event. Visit Gale at GaleObrien.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Transformation?
Transformation: Creating an Exceptional Life in the Face of Cancer is an honest, revealing, no holds barred description of my transformational journey to survival and how I finally gave myself permission to start living life fully engaged.

Tell us what inspired you to write it.
In talking with many cancer survivors, I discovered that some of them have no drive, ambition, or direction. They simply exist from one medical appointment to the next. They have allowed their cancer diagnosis to dominate their daily life and, in doing so, I believe they may be setting themselves up for reoccurrence. This is not an exceptional life to live. This is a doomed existence. I was inspired to write this book to encourage survivors to look outside the normal context of life and to create an openness toward what could lie ahead in their life after cancer. I wanted to encourage patients, survivors, caregivers and anyone encountering a serious illness to view disease as a phase to pass through with the hope of knowing that an exceptional life is waiting ahead.

In planning the book, what was the first hurdle you came across?
Deciding whether my book would be unique and necessary. I had to make sure that the book I was planning to write was not only unique compared to the other books on cancer recovery, but also necessary before adding one more title to the staggering number of books in print.

What was the most rewarding aspect of writing Transformation?
When I was writing the book, I was totally immersed and living it in my head. When my book was finally published, it felt like I was being let out of a cell, so to speak. I felt alive again! Writing a book is an achievement. The most rewarding part is the number of readers who have responded positively and thanked me for writing the book.

Is there a book that has transformed your own life?
On Becoming Fearless…in Love, Work, and Life by Arianna Huffington. Ms. Huffington wrote a quote that has stayed with me long after reading her book:

“When we know who we are, we can overcome our fears and insecurities. We surpass our smaller selves who suffer the slings and arrows of our conditioned reality, and we move to the unconditional truth of our larger selves. The answers to the questions of what to say, what to do, whom to let in, and whom to keep out become a clear and simple matter of listening to our hearts. That inner voice helps us align with our purpose, because each of us has a purpose, even if we judge it to be insignificant. The voice is there. We just need to listen to it. When we do that, we live in fearlessness.”

What do you want to be known for as an author?
Not just a purveyor of information and advice, no matter how useful those may be, but a writer. Someone who cares about, and crafts, words to bring people into the story; to take the reader on a journey. Personally, I want to be known for living my life in fearlessness. To have inspired a generation of cancer survivors to look beyond their diagnosis and to create an exceptional life afterwards.

Which have you found to be the most challenging, writing or marketing?
Marketing has been more of a challenge. Learning to overcome my fears that the book might bore people; that the book might not sell; that I might freeze during an author event and forget what I was going to say to the audience. People underestimate the amount of continuous marketing that must be done in order to turn one’s book into a blockbuster. As authors, we must shamelessly promote our book at every opportunity that presents itself.

What are you working on now?
I’m currently writing an online course for cancer survivors available October 2015.

Do you have advice for discouraged writers?
Learn to reject rejection. Get used to the idea that there is going to be a lot of rejection along the way. The secret is to never give up. If one person tells you no, ask someone else. Someone, somewhere, sometime will say yes. Move on to the next person. Someone is waiting to say yes.