Lazy, Frustrated Action

Working on the new effort (BURIED), I notice one of the problems I had in the first draft of the last effort. As always, it got me thinking...

1st Principle of Action: Humans are lazy creatures. We don't want to work harder than we have to, even in pursuit of our heart's desires.

Or, in the words of the Red Dragon from BONE, "Never play an Ace when a two will do."

Every single character in your story, no matter their goal, will start by doing the least action to get the job done, as perceived by that character. To pump a guy for information, a barmaid might flirt. An affable detective might tell a disarming story about his wife's cooking while a hard-ass cop might start with 'you want to go to jail'. Marv from SIN CITY starts interrogating a hitman with a stab wound in the gut and the promise that death will be swift. For each of these, this is the quickest, simplest way to get the information they want. (In Marv's case, what's the point slapping a tough guy around for hours and making promises you both know aren't true?)

2nd Principle of Action: These actions will be frustrated. At least, they will unless you want the shortest, boringest (yes, boringest-- it's cromulent) story ever told. 'I tried something aand it worked' simply isn't a story.

Girl likes Boy. Girl casts shy glance at Boy in halls at school. Boy stops, asks Girl out. They date. The END.

Even The Little Engine That Could had more conflict and interest than that. Those first actions cannot succeed. If Boy walks past like Girl doesn't exist, she's going to have to do something else. You've got something started.

3rd Principle of Action: Action escalates. Both 12-steppers and business-seminar types agree, repeating unsuccessful actions is the very definition of insanity. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but it sure will kill your story dead.

Your characters want their goals, and they want them badly. Badly enough to do whatever it takes to reach them. In real life, we may take a few hesitant passes at shallow goals and quit. Those aren't the days you tell the grandkids about. 'Let me tell you about the time I joined a gym and went for three weeks' doesn't pack nearly the punch of 'Let me tell you about the time I avenged the death of the only person who was ever kind to me,' or even 'I remember when I was your age, I was crazy about this boy...'

As each action is frustrated, your character will make a harder, more difficult effort (as perceived by that character) to reach that goal. In comedy, those actions lead to farce. In action, to bigger and rougher fights. In drama, to difficult choices. And, of course, there's no reason a story can't be any combination of these, even all three.

But I digress. The point is, your character (heroes as well as villains) will keep plugging.

Boy ignores Girl's shy glances. She tells a friend, hoping to do that my-friend-likes-you thing. The friend likes him too and lies about Boy's rejection. Girl follows Boy, trying to figure out how to MAKE Boy like her. This creeps Boy out.

Will Girl get a makeover? Dive deep into Boy's favorite hobby so they have a common interest? Drink too much and make an ass of herself at a party? I don't know, not my story. But you can bet whatever she does, it'll top the last thing.

4th Principle of Action: In the immortal words of Less Than Jake, It Gets Worse Before It's All Over.

Your poor bastards are going to be stumped, stymied, blocked at every turn. Their best efforts sweep them farther and farther from their heartfelt desires. The poor, shy Girl gets teased for being creepy. Her lying-ass friend spreads cruel rumors. Boy thinks she's a stalker. Faced with rumors of stalking and possible Columbine-behavior, (how big of a bitch IS that friend, anyway?) school counselors get involved, and Girl is suspended.

How is she going to get Boy? I don't know, but you can bet she's going to have to dig deep, and do something she never would have though possible at the story's start.

It's going to be a time to tell the grandkids about...

Day 9: The Full-Throttle Daily Wordcount-O-Meter stands at 10,500 words.

On track and, actually, not working too hard. We'll see how I feel in Act II...

Conflict and the PPK

Not that kind of PPK. Sure got your attention, though, didn't it?

I seem to be growing heavy with book once again, so my thoughts seem to be turning more and more to craft. And the ways craft goes wrong.

Conflict is the heart of story. It's the heart of life. From cradle to grave, we fight. We compete for attention, for resources, for love. We fight to be better people. Even given everything we could ever possibly want, we quest for the next challenge.

Small wonder that every moment in your story should contain conflict.

Every. Moment.

The only reason to have two characters in a scene together is if they want different things. Enemies, sure. Detectives and suspects or star-crossed lovers, of course. But even best friends, if they're going to share a scene together, will have goals at odds with each other.

Since I'm reading them at the moment, take Travis McGee. He and his best friend Meyer share one of the most memorable friendships in literature. But notice how often Travis is motivated by anger at the preditors and Meyer is hanging along because he's concerned about his friend. In most of their conversations, Travis's goal is get Meyer to help think up a way to get the bastards. Meyer's goal is keep Travis from going off the deep end or help my broken friend to heal.

Early on, McGee's main buddy is the Alabama Tiger. They're close enough for the Tiger to lend Travis a speedboat in The Deep Blue Good-by, yet the Tiger never once shows up on the page. Why? No conflict. As drawn, the Alabama Tiger's needs are simple: booze and women. He has both on his boat, hence no need to leave. And no way to meaningfully interact with the tormented, hedonistic half-hearted Puritan, that reluctant hero Travis McGee.

Or consider Itchy and Scratchy. Remember when Marge got to make them 'just get along'?
EXT./DAY, a front porch.
Itchy and Scratchy rock together on the porch, a pitcher of lemonade on a table between them.

SCRATCHY: Lemonade, Itchy?
ITCHY: Thanks, Scratchy.

THE END

Any conflict-free moment in your book is just PPK: a Pointless Pace Killer. Dead weight. It doesn't matter how prettily it's written, a moment without conflict isn't worth the paper to print it.

This doesn't just count for moments between characters. This is also the *real* reason that we don't spend pages watching characters brush their teeth, pee, balance their checkbooks, etc.

No. Conflict.

Two apparent exceptions actually serve to prove the rule.

Lonely Tension: this lovely heroine is all alone on those slippery stone steps. Even though I painted this, I don't know where she's going, or why, or what she'll find when she gets there. The point is, her lonely midnight walk is fraught with tension. Like any burglar prowling a night-dark hall, or a lonely and bored housewife eyeing the sherry, the tension between the apparent quiet and the understood threat is a form of conflict.

Sequel: Lots of writers set their heroes alone with some stage business to get through the stages of sequel. A character may flyfish in an icy river, or sweat on a treadmill or do repairs on a houseboat as stage-business for sequel. But remember, sequel is emotions and thoughts, options and a choice. It's about frustrated desire and a fresh plan of attack. And that's a product of inner conflict.

***

SQT raised a good point in the comments: what about moments of apparently idle comaraderie? She cited John Sanford's detective novels, but other such scenes abound in literature-- the protagonist just sort of hanging out, shooting the shit with a buddy or two. What gives?

Three possible reasons come to mind:

1) Act II Bump: One way to keep that Big Middle of the tale from going all soggy is to introduce a bit of random color as distraction: a vivid but pointless character (think Mike Yamagita from FARGO), an exciting activity (Freefall in Crimson features a hot-air balloon ride) or mysterious encounter (Dean Koontz loves to use slightly unearthly animals) or a good story (Andrew Vachss uses examples either humorous or harrowing). My first guess is, if you look at the place Sanford's funny stories appear, they'll come right when the second act needs a little bump.

2) Pointful Pace Killer: Every now and then, a storyteller will have a *reason* to kill the pace of their story. That random color in Act II might be one example of this, though I feel that use of color should still serve the general tone of the story. Otherwise, you may have a plot hole that needs patching, or a 'natural' break in the pace that needs glossing over.

For instance, your sleuth's quest for the truth is faltering, but a big break falls in her lap. To keep the break in logical progression from being too jarring, you throw a little misdirection at the reader. Disney does this all the time with their song-and-dance numbers, and therein lies the danger: those numbers are boooooring.

3) Indulgence: Then, as now, some writers got away with any darned shortcomings they cared to. Everyone makes money, but once editors fear to alter, it's the stories that suffer.

Those Little Nippers

Turns out that gentle stoner whose original role was mostly the laying of pipe is a real passive-aggressive, backstabbing bastard.

And a Supporting Actress whose role I didn't (and still don't) quite understand has a lot more sand to her than I'd first thought. I'm starting to see how a gal like that might figure in the villains' denouement.

Oh, and my sweet-natured Innocent Victim? She might be a bit of a liar, and a thief.

At least, at long last, my Hero is finally alone among the villains, isolated and without solace on an estate that makes Thornfield or Manderlay seem like beachside holiday homes. The two Villains have different reasons for wanting him there, and Kane has his own reasons for going.

Yesterday was a day of surprises!

Official Semi-Daily Wordcount-o-Meter:

27,073 words

Will I make my unoffical Dec. 2nd deadline?

Let us hope....

aaaaaaaaand...... ACTION! 2

Action Technique #2:

Break It Down Now: Probably the most common way of showing action in fiction. Also the easiest to screw up.

The basic idea is simple. As the action heats up, our description of it slows down. We break everything into individual steps, stacking them one on top of the other. The reader (hopefully) gets a clear idea of what's going on. The writer gets to spend time getting deep into the most exciting parts of the book.

I think this technique is so popular because it intuitively mimics the effects of adrenalin on the human nervous system. Our time sense distorts. Memory scrambles. Perception sharpens.

"You shouldn't be here," Bob said.
"I know."
Sylvia took a half step closer. Bob felt the heat of her breath curl in the hollow of his throat.
Neither touched. The moment stretched, widened, spun out of control.
They fell together, growling. His hands were strong and knowing. Her tongue was hot and quick, her teeth sharp.

Lee Child may well be the current king of this method. He's certainly a damn sight better than I am. (I tend to be real sparing with this method, so it's not my strong suit.) Pick up any of Child's books, and you'll see the simple act of racking a slide and pulling a trigger, or of throwing a punch, pared down to tiny fractions of a second. Often with long lectures on physics!

Thing is, when *he* does it, it works. :-)

When it doesn't work, it falls flat. Your big action scene lies dead on the floor.

So, how do we make it work?

1. Choose the *right* details. This is the heart of storytelling talent, and it may be the one thing no one can tell you. Best advice I can give is to stay tight in your POV character's head and, no matter how tempting, do not use a detail your character would not notice.

2. Make conscious decisions about sentence length. Short sentences tighten tension. Long ones reales it. Even within an action scene, you need to tighten and release. See As Above, So Below for more on structure.

3. Forget what you know. This is the single biggest falldown I see, especially in fight scenes. Plenty of us out there have done some karate, swordfighting, shooting, etc. Expertise is good, and we all like a feeling of authentic detail when we read.

But. How often have you read an action scene where the 'expertise' gets in the way? I see it too often: Swordfights and fistfights that sound like they were taken out of manuals. Gunfights that read like advertisements for Smith & Wesson. Love scenes that make one think of Tab A and Slot B, barbeque assembly instructions.

Bad enough if your place/time exposition reeks of 'look at all my research!', but heaven help your story if you do this with your action!

Remember, your readers want the emotional experience of action. Make sure every word gives them that experience.

Official Daily Wordcount-o-Meter:

9459 words, every one a struggle

Latest Methods

Official Word-o-Meter Day 4 Word Count: 6621 words



As readers of this blog may remember, I was, for a considerable portion of this current WIP, reduced to writing with a quill pen.

Yup. Dip. Scritch scritch scritch. Dip. Scritch, scritchscritch. etc.

Well, the quills are back in the art supplies now were they belong. That drawing in the top right corner was done with a quill. But writing with one? Let's just say, some things are obsolete for a reason...

These days, my method has changed a bit. So far, it's working for me. Finding out it worked 3000 words' worth was a surprise,but a happy one.

My newest method:

I keep a pen and paper with me and 'sketch' out scenes. Quick notes, in present tense to keep me from taking it too seriously and 'binding up' on word choice and language. Sometimes, I hear dialogue, or that telling detail of imagery swims right up. I jot 'em down. Otherwise, I just kind of loosely walk the characters through their conflicts and challenges.

Mostly, I do this at night. But I keep the tools with me, just in case. Yesterday, I sketched out a fine scene while the Tiny Dynamo shopped for shoes. I'd been thinking about it while we were at the supermarket. Basically, no scrap of time goes to waste.

When it's 'writing time', I sit down with the laptop in my, well, lap and my sketched notes in front of me. Now, I'm listening to imagery and language and what, exactly, is going on in the scene.

This: Kane up early. Not too rested after uncomfortable top bunk:

lights on & off

snoring, loud & wet

vomit smells

1 person sick again

He picks up some overpriced food & walks up into the hills.

Back of the mountain, hawks circle.

Becomes:

Kane was up with the dawn. Hostel dorm beds were the same the world over. Thin mattress and squeaking bedsprings, other backpackers turning lights on and off or stumbling drunken in the dark. Between the loud wet snoring and the faint smells of vomit from the bunk below him, Kane’s sleep was fitful.
Finally, he quit trying. Kane climbed down from his bunk, took his pack out of its locker and dressed in the dark. At a small market on Frankton Road, he paid too much for apples and cheese, nuts and french bread and a bottle of water. The mountain air was still watery and gray when Kane walked into the hills.

Midmorning, Kane stopped. He took his rest on a flat rock, warm in the sun and sheltered from the wind. The cheese was sharp and strong, the apples crisp and tart. Overhead, hawks circled, riding the thermals, hunting.

After a time, Kane moved deeper into the autumn forest. Leaves were turning all around him: yellow and gold and orange and brown and splashes of deep brilliant red. He hit a path and followed it. Bright leaves and dappled trunks gave way to stunted alpine scrub and harsh cold sunlight.

Faint scallops were visible in the grass. Deer, passing through. Past the ridgeline, the tracks descended into the forest shadows.

Kane felt at peace.

Now, careful readers might notice this scene breaks one of my own main rules: there's no conflict. Fair cop, guv. Guilty as charged. But I feel this scene is necessary for three reasons:

1. Pacing: We need a little rest between to high-tension plot points.

2. Characterization: Kane's a solitary man. One of the best quick and dirty shortcuts to charcterization is to put your character in a fitting environment and say 'he's like this place'.

3. Foreshadowing: I'm not sure how this story ends, but I do know that Kane needs to be comfortable outdoors, and a decent tracker, too.

And, this is the first draft. Before this thing is done, I may well have a scene that does all three of these things *and* throws in some conflict too!

The Beat Goes On

The beat, the beat. The elusive beat.

Usually, the 'beat' I write to is the rhythm of the language (eg. my punctuation choices above), but the beat I'm trying hardest to listen to is the heartbeat of the story.

Screenwriters use the term 'beat' a lot, probably because movies unfold in real time. McKee has a very structured idea of which beats are important to the unfolding story. Probably because movies cost heaps per minute, so every unnecessary minute is clipped trimmed, folded into another scene or otherwise elided.

His idea: the heart of a story is forcing your protagonist into a tight place where she will be forced beyond her limits. The structure is one of pushing your hero, watching him react. The reaction will often make things worse, so that the next push will be harder. And again, harder still. Hopefully, at the climax all looks hopeless for our heroine, until she saves the day.

It's not a bad idea, and works as well for The Manchurian Candidate as it does for Bridget Jones.

Think High Noon:

Will Kane is happy, contented, the toast of the town. He and his new bride are looking forward to spending his retirement together. *yawn* But wait...

Word reaches Kane that Frank Miller and his boys are coming. Kane's conscience won't let him leave town. One by one, the townspeople prove to be unreliable cowards. There'll be no posse. No deputies. Kane, married that morning, is facing certain death.

Every act of cowardice that leaves Kane more isolated and alone is a major beat in the story. The minor beats are found in the back and forth that lead to those cowardly betrayals.

In my first draft, I'm watching my characters act and react, tracking those major beats to the story's end. In my second draft, I'll take these beats of conflict right down to the dialogue. I want *every* interaction to uphold the story in some way.

In a way, it goes back to Conflict vs. Complication. Every story has a central question at its heart: Will Frodo destroy the ring? Will Bridget finally choose Mister Right over Mister Wrong? Can newlywed and newly retired sheriff Will Kane stop the outlaws coming in on the noon train?

Resolving that question is our conflict. Everything else is complication with Two Important Caveats:

1) It may be necessary to set the conflict up. The first big chunk of Rocky is about what a crappy life the poor palooka has. It's necessary to understanding the stakes of his fight with Apollo. Just about all of High Noon is setup. We need to see just how alone Will Kane really is.

2) Subplots. These should have their own conflicts, beats and climaxes, spaced around the story to allow the writer to control the tension.

Aragorn's heritage and lovelife, Gandalf's death and rebirth, the dark spiral of Saruman's soul are all subplots that help mask the large amount of walking involved in Frodo's effort to nuke Sauron. Rocky's relationships with Talia Shire and Burgess Meredith (who I always expect to wave an umbrella and quack) keep us involved in that sorry man's life until his One Big Break comes his way.

To keep my own subplots from being pointless complications (or pointless, parallel stories) I try wherever possible to tie them back into the main plot. It can be thematic (for instance, all characters face a simliar decision, and in the subplots we get to see how different reactions play out). It can functional (there's a running conflict in Lee Child's ONE SHOT between Jack Reacher and his wildly inappropriate boat shoes. They're a constant hinderance, up until the final climax.). If they really are just complications, well, out they come...

In High Noon, two important subplots involve Amy (Kane's bride) and Helen Ramirez (his former lover). Both women love Kane, neither want him dead. They make different decisions about what sticking it out (thematic). Amy's decision is vital to Kane's survival (functional).

By the way, The Tiny Dynamo and I watched Dangerous Liaisons last night. Best damn education out there for beats of conflict in EVERY scene, for subplots that unite a theme and weave in and out of the central conflict. I'd forgotten how brilliant it was...

Armed Conflict

I have a long and conflicted history with firearms. Mostly, I try not to think about it. Sometimes, it even works.

A while back, Barry Eisler did a couple of excellent posts on the sticky issue of guns in our societies. Barry is one scary-smart individual. No surprise his posts were so thought-provoking. I meant to blog a bit on the subject but never quite got around to it.

Then Marcus Sakey opened that can of worms again. Also a great post, by the way.

I totally agree with Marcus's thought. Holding a gun is cool. Firing it, even better. Problem comes from being at the other end of the barrel.

I was afraid a lot as a kid. We all were. It was like a mass mental illness, so many of us so isolated by our own fear of each other.

Growing up, the temptation to carry a gun was always there. Small calibre weapons with don't-ask histories were dirt cheap. And nobody much wanted to fuck with the kids who carried them.

But for me, back then, guns were a sucker bet. Carrying a gun meant arrest. It meant those gladiator schools they called juvenile halls, or worse. Using it might have led to the words 'tried as an adult.' I wasn't willing to gamble the possiblity of a future so that I could feel safe.

I was able to move to New Zealand because I had a college degree and no arrest record. Neither would've been the case if I'd taken up the gun then.

Later in life, as a tattooist, I found myself working around cash and lowlifes. Some nights, it was the law of the jungle in the studio. When I started carrying my .38, I quit having to throw people down flights of stairs. I was grateful for my gun, and I hated it, at the same time.

Sarah Paretsky, in her comment on Marcus's post, thought that carrying a gun might make people look for a chance to use it. I can only say that was never the case with me. I resented the way the gun took away the middle ground in a conflict. I couldn't risk a fistfight with a gun on my hip, couldn't risk anything that might lead to one. I was grateful for the trouble it kept me out of. I hated the fact that my only option was to kill.

One night a young girl, a street kid without much sense, tried to rob me at knifepoint. It was the first and only time I pointed my weapon at another human being. She left without my money, but I hated us both for creating that situation.

Now, I live in New Zealand. As Barry says about his time in Japan, there's no temptation to own or carry a gun here.

Nobody carries guns here, not even the cops. The higher class of criminal have them, of course, but pistols are like hens' teeth around here. With mandatory gun safes for firearm owners, there's no flood of illegal weapons from home burglaries. It feels safer.

The big question is, if I returned to the US, would I want to carry again?

That, I don't know...

Conflicted, or just Complicated

Linnea Sinclair had a good post about Conflict versus Complication up on Kristen Nelson's blog.

Because I write by the seat of my pants, letting the characters do the exploring and staying the heck out of their way, my first drafts are poster children for this. Very complicated poster children.

For instance, right now the neighbor's dog barks at the hero every time he walks past. The dog's had two paragraphs so far, on the two different times the hero's returned home. Since I try to write with the throttle open and the pedal down, I just stayed out of the way and let that dog bark.

I have an idea that maybe one day, the hero will come home and no dog will bark. The silence will alert him to danger. Or maybe a villain will kick the barking dog and betray his or her true nature.

Or I'll get to the end of the book without the dog ever coming in handy again. That'll get edited out.

In the end, I'm aiming for lean, hard stories. I can't afford an ounce of 'fat', by which I mean anything that doesn't tell the story better.

Linnea also said something awesome right at the start of her post. She mentioned how you can't seperate one element of a story from the others. I get the feeling that'll be my next post...

Constant Conflict

So I'm writing along, a variation on stranger-comes-to-town. I've got these six characters, each with his or her own agenda and all on a collision course. There's been one terrible crime 'out front' where we all see it, and others happening in the background, where even I'm not entirely sure. Before long, there'll be blood on the walls...

One reason I write 'full throttle' is that I really, really want to find out what's going to happen. What sorta sucks about writing is that I HAVE TO write my way, one word at a freakin time, up to the end.

Yesterday I wrote a phone call. Yup, a phone call.

My hero on this one's a bit of a drifter, so there's not a lot of point in him carrying a cell phone. He needed to reach out to another character, and it seemed worthwhile to show that he needs a landline. I know, I'm yawning already.

But I followed my golden rule:

Nothing, nothing without conflict.

My hero went in to the bar where he's working. I put the relief tender (ten words in a previous chapter) behind the bar, still on from the night before because the morning guy never showed. The low-key stoner stuck on a double shift wanted the hero to clock in. The hero wanted to use the phone and get the hell out.

The character he was calling saw the work number on her cell. She's pretending to be sick to keep from covering that shift too. I got a nice bit of three-way conflict out of that one phone call.

Somehow, I doubt that call will end up in the final draft. But I did learn a couple things about my characters by watching them handle this situation, and writing it got me through to the next scene. I also got to add in the extra layer of tension when the relief tender mentions that the cops are asking about what happened behind the bar last night...

Now, the hero and his coworker are having lunch. They've got conflict on several levels:

Overt: She has information he wants. She doesn't want to give it to him.

Covert: She's making like she has his best interests at heart. He's not sure he trusts her.

And deeper: She wants something bigger from him, and it makes him wary. I'm not even sure that she's being honest about what she wants.

And further: There's a three way love triangle going on as well. That way, just the fact of these two being alone together is a move against the woman who isn't there. And the two women hate, hate, HATE each other, for reasons I can only suspect.

One thing about this story: my characters aren't telling me much. My heroes usually don't. Male or female, I gravitate to quiet, tough characters who don't see a lot of point talking about their pasts. They're action-oriented for a reason, and that's as it should be.

This time though, everyone around the hero is dodgy. They tell me their motivations, and I don't believe them. Where the hero just isn't talking, these people are actively hiding and lying.

Just like the eventual readers, I have to look at what they're doing to see them with any honesty at all. It's maddening, intriguing, and kind of fun!

In other news, Butler Dynamo continues to help. Here he can be seen turning his hand to literary criticism...

I thought the book was more interesting than that!

Hubba Hubba

Barry Eisler did an interview at Lustbites. I liked his take on sex in fiction.

Unlike Barry, I tend toward 'panning away to the fireplace' myself. But he makes a great point about how and when the sex serves the story.

If what's important is *that* they had sex, by all means fade out and skip the mechanics. But if the *way* they have sex explores character, furthers or resolves conflict and/or advances the story, then we owe it to the reader to stay with the action.

I've never thought about story sex that way, but it's right in line with my own approach to violence in my fiction. Something new to think about...

Back out of the Blocks

53,500 words (pedal to the metal once again...)

Dylan and I've been friends for years now. When my last book stalled last year (seemed like forever but actually a couple-three weeks or so), he was surprised to find out I get writer's block the same as anybody. I just try to nip it in the bud.

This one wasn't the Inner Critic. I wasn't worried my words weren't good enough, though if I'd let the situation continue, I might have started.

It wasn't What-Happens-Next. I've got a good sense now of where I'm going, even if I don't know how I'll get there.

Problem was, I was trying to write forward while my mind was writing back. That is, I sat there asking for the rest of the current scene, and what started playing was an earlier scene I knew I would need but hadn't written yet.

So last night I sat down and made a start. Fifteen hundred words and a couple of hours later, I had my earlier scene and a lot of surprising revelations that streamlined the plot and made stuff I didn't understand make sense.

Now I've got to sit down and do it all over again today...

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!!

Conflict & Lying Pipe

status: 11,600 and climbing

In the last post I mentioned in passing that every scene I write has conflict at its heart. I didn't invent this guideline, just found it somewhere and like any good magpie, added it to my box of tricks.

"Laying pipe" is a TV writer term for putting unrealistic dialogue in a character's mouth to get the exposition out there. You know: "Wow, I can't believe we're going to be selling lemonade at the State Fair." Like the guy standing at the booth didn't know how he got there.

It's not that Fred and Daphne need Velma to tell them where they're going (Fred's doing the driving, after all); it's that Velma needs to tell us.

TV can maybe be forgiven for laying pipe. They've got 22 or 48 minutes to tell a story, and the less time wasted getting the setting down the better. Pipe-laying is an artificial mannerism that TV audiences have learned to overlook. In its way, a half hour or hour of TV is as strictly mannered a performance as Kabuki or opera.

Or professional wrestling or Springer.

(Do they still do Springer in the US? It's been so long since I've lived there that Clinton was president at the time!)

Anyway, TV writers, pipe away. Have at it. We novelists aren't so lucky. Or so cursed.

A novel is free of those weird time constraints. We can let a story develop more organically. That's a strength that can also be a weakness.

One pitfall I have to watch out for in my work is the rambling. I write by the seat of my pants and explore the characters as I go. It's tempting to do pages and pages of two guys in a car talking about stuff, that sort of thing. It goes quick and easy, and I can point to a big old word count and pretend I'm doing great.

Thing is, it's not progress. These guys have talked in the car for six pages and the story's gone NOWHERE.

Cut, cut, cut.

Here's the other big pitfall for me: Put those same two guys back in the car, still shooting the shit, but now they're also dropping little bits of information, telling the reader what's what. The dialogue flows along, and the story's moving, right? I mean, there they are, telling us all this useful stuff.

Problem is, it creaks. These days we call it ASYKB (short for As-you-know-Bob), and the device is so old it needed oiling back in Grandpa's day (and one of my Grandfathers was born in the 1880's, about the last time this was acceptable). Back when he was a baby it was still the norm for two servants to appear at the start of the story and lay pipe all over the place as part of a 'conversation'.

I won't say I never do it, but every time I do, it's a failure. The key to success?

Conflict.

Every scene where a character appears - major or minor - that character wants something they're not immediately able to get. It can be big or small, but it needs a goal and an obstacle, preferably another character with a cross-purpose.

For instance, last night Sarah, my hero, needed to find out that the villain had robbed an armored car (There are fuck-all firearms here in New Zealand, except in the hands of farmers and criminals. The dramatic possibilities abound).

I could have had Sarah show up and look siliently at the scene, a little internal monologue dropping the facts on us, and out. Dead boring. even if she stands in some rain or fog or something.

I could have had her ask a uniform on the scene. He could give her the facts, ma'am.

Meh.

What I did was have another detective (Mark) catch the call for the armored car and bring Sarah in when the connection was made to her case. This other detective is a muscly ex-jock with a bit of a Short Man Complex. He acts cocky to get the world to overlook his height.

Sarah's five inches taller with a higher close-rate. Mark's desire to be the big man has an obstacle in its way, and will have every time these two meet. He can't just give up and be humble around Sarah, so he's always looking for ways to one-up her.

Sarah's a woman in a man's world, and a misfit anywhere. If she gives these boys an inch, they'll walk all over her. She demands, and gets, respect. No way Sarah's going to let Mark act like something he's not.

These two like each other, but that tension is there in every encounter. And their gamesmanship makes it easy to drop in a few facts abot an armored car robbery without anyone yawning.

At least, it will when it's gone through a couple of edits. At this stage in the game, I'm just spewing the scenes out as fast as I can type them. Later, I'll go back and look at what I've done, pick out themes and symbols, decide what to amplify and what to drop. Right now, I need to turn off all of my inner critics and just GO!!!

Character Genesis - Tommy Knowles

Status: broke the 10,000 mark last night.

I thought my whole character/plot thing might be easier to understand if I gave an example.

Tommy is the primary bad guy in POISON DOOR. He's one nasty, warped, twisted piece of work, but he didn't start out that way.

Originally, PD was going to be a noir study of two bent cops trying to break loose from the drug lord who'd come to own their souls. Except that one of my cops just... (Shatner voice) simply... refused... to stay... BENT. Which, as they say, is another story.

Point being, Tommy was in there from the beginning.

He was always a drug lord involved in a turf war, always proud of having his hooks in two of New Zealand's finest, and always British.

And he had to be an asshole. A hero's only as big as the villain he faces (which is why Superman vs. a purse snatcher is dull as dishwater), and I needed Tommy to be really, really nasty. Not superhuman, just foul. My hero is Sarah Crane, a pretty dark piece of work herself and someone who could just as easily show up as a villain in a different story. Part of Tommy's job is making us glad she's on our side. Nuff said.

Tommy started out very slick and polished. A Mephistopholean puppet master.

Cardboard. Yawn.

But through conflict, his character deepened. Every scene I write puts the viewpoint character in conflict. Even (especially) if the point is to show a bit of that character's personality, it's going to come out by giving them an objective and putting something or someone in its way. I'll write more about that tomorrow or the next day.

I realized that what Tommy wanted was safety. Everything he did, from his Big Plan to his smallest action, was an attempt to feel untouchable, to feel safe. He was an orphan, a street kid (one of several in this book). Crime was a way to make himself part of the scary guys on the street, the ones no one wanted to fuck with.

Except of course that those guys are like sharks. They'll feed on each other the minute they smell blood in the water. A footsoldier's life was worthless. Tommy's only way out was up.

So he rose. Every move was savage and treacherous, and to keep the ones underneath him from doing the same to him, Tommy had to keep them terrified.

Tommy started to get interesting.

His expensive suits and toys were a sham. Like his savagery, they were a way of trying to fool the world, to draw attention from the frightened little kid nobody wanted.

And with no one he could fully trust, with his one big chance to maybe this time finally grow so big his enemies will never get him, Tommy did something wildly important to the book, something that threw my feeble outline out the window.

He decided he had to stay awake.