Edge of Our Seats?

44,000 words (stitched-up corpse on the slab and thunderstorms a-brewin)

So last post I forgot to actually hyperlink the Ten Rules for Suspense Fiction. No idea why, none at all.

Seems to me, with a little bit of flexibility about the stakes, those 'rules' come in handy for all sorts of fiction. Any story where the author wants to ratchet up the tension. Which is most anywhere.

Sure, thrillers are easy that way: the tension is built into the stakes. Can Hiro Protagonist and Y.T. stop an ancient Sumerian virus from destroying all computers (Snow Crash)? Can Frodo and Sam destroy the One Ring before it destroys the world (LotR)?

But that sense of challenge, tension, escalating stakes and shortening timelines pop up all over the show. In Tom Joad's struggles to help his family survive (The Grapes of Wrath). In Little Nell's conflicts with Quilp and her grandfather's gambling problem (The Old Curiosity Shop). In the romantic misadventures of the sisters Dashwood (Sense and Sensiblity).

The real important thing there is the reader's ability to buy into the stakes. I've read all of the above at least two or three times, sometimes with varying reactions. Much as I love them, if I'm in the wrong mood, I can't even buy into a favorite work.

For instance, I've found myself asking, "So what if the Dashwoods have to (gasp) get jobs?" or, "I bet Samwise would be a fine dictator if he kept the ring. Why not?"

Food for thought, anyway...

While I'm at it, here's Ed Gorman interviewing the master of suspense himself. Ladies and gentlemen, Miiiiiiisterrrrr JOHN D. MacDONALD!!

Where'm I at?

42,000 words (and happy as Larry)

I'm very much a character-driven writer. Or maybe a better word is situation-driven, since the charcters don't get much input until the defining situation gets rolling. Think North by Northwest: without the goddawful situation he finds himself in, Cary Grant would probably spend all his time being witty at parties.

Anyway, the characters know what they're doing at this point. Some of them hate each other, some love each other, and others are still trying to figure out what they think. Fair enough. At this point, knocking down a thousand or so words a day is cake. Where it gets a little wierd is now that most (And I do only mean most) of the flailing is over, these folks are doing some pretty unsuspected things.

For instance, I had two characters working on one problem in the background for two days (that's story time: probably a month out here on this side of the keyboard). Last night one of the characters found a solution that was simple, elegant, and in all truth she probably would've thought of almost immediately.

Crisis? Disaster? Stop everything and go back to figure out how the hell the story will hang together now that I know this?

Nope. I'm just getting on with it.

By the time I get to the second draft that solution may end up making me rewrite a big swathe of the book. Or it may end up collapsing a few other scenes. Or that problem may have to come out entirely to give some other part of the action more room to breathe. The truth is, at this point I don't really know what's important. By the end I'll know what was a keeper and what wasn't. This stage is about discovery, style and storytelling.

It's a lot of fun. The story's here, trying to tell itself to me. And that's not always the case. I've heaps of fragments that got right under my skin until I started work on them, then turned out not to have the legs to go the distance.

Oh, and for a close, here's the Ten Rules of Thriller Writing. It occurs to me that they can be used to make just about any fiction more gripping, whether literary, romance, or a cozy mystery.

As they say in 12 Step groups, take what you like and leave the rest.