Character as a Seasoning

Developing strong, memorable characters who have an impact on readers is an aspiration for every novelist.

For a new suspense novelist, getting there can be a trick.

If my name were Stephen King or Dean Koontz or Mary Higgins Clark, I could lay some characterization down in the beginning pages of my novel. My manuscript would be one of those that agents and editors would grab off the pile and have all of their calls held while they gave it their undivided attention. For as long as it took.

And they would love every word.

But the name Peg Brantley doesn't have the same effect. I don't have the luxury to let readers get a sense of my terrific characters before something gripping happens.

In suspense, by a new author, the grip is more likely to seal the deal than the gripper.

It's important in every genre to thoroughly know your characters. In suspense, because I don't have the luxury of 'growing' them, it's even more important that they be fully realized characters from before the beginning. I know more about my guys than will ever make the final cut.

Find the secret strength in your main character, and it won't matter whether you are working with a hero or an anti-hero. Your readers will bond with both.

~DONALD MAASS, THE FIRE IN FICTION

And something else to consider: Take your character's greatest weakness and tie it inexorably to the plot.

The trick for a suspense novelist, is to sprinkle in characterization when no one is looking.

CR: I'm about 1/2 way through the T.L. Hines. Sometimes woo-woo is fun. And he is definitely keeping me guessing. The book is called The Dead Whisper On.

It's all better with friends.

Word Scurge—Dirge?

Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

~ SAMUEL JOHNSON

Wordy-Gurdy.

Not so sturdy.

How does your rewrite go?

I'm cutting more than I'm adding. I switched my prologue to a scene either in the first or second chapter, and have cut my first two scenes and replaced with later scenes from the beginning of chapter two and a new one written. Plus, the two I've cut (well, one of them anyway), contain value, and I'd like to see if there's a relevant place before I relegate them to "outta here", and well . . . it's getting confusing.

I'd anticipating axing blah scenes and truthfully, I was ready. Just not so soon. Oy.

I'm an organized, tidy person. Really. But at this moment I have four piles on my desk and five piles on the floor by my desk. That's not counting the printed material sitting in my printer tray which will form a brand new pile.

I had the French doors open earlier because that's my habit when the temperature is fabulous (we're having an unusually cool summer in Colorado) and totally lucked out that a brisk breeze didn't find its way in.

My fear has been released and replaced with mad-cap/mad-dash craziness. Which is kind of creative. At least at the moment.

CR: The Dead Whisper On by T.L. Hines

It's all better with friends.

The Art of Being Vulnerable

Anyone who creates something and allows another human being to experience it places themselves in a position of vulnerability.

For writers, it's part of the process of developing a thick skin. We seek honesty, not vacuous platitudes. If someone loves what we've created (and don't we live for that?) we want it to come from a position of knowledge of craft and the hard-knocks of personal experience. Only then does it count.

But today I discovered I can get de-conditioned to putting myself 'out there.' It's been long enough since I've submitted to my critique partners that my tummy did a little extra gurgling and I searched for reasons to delay.

I went from the need to find little things my tidy grandkids left behind after their weekend with us, to gardening, to dinner plans, to the great debate on whether or not I needed to apply mascara today (I didn't). I ended with the predicament of transitioning my proposed submission from Scrivener to Word. Not that it wasn't malleable. It just wasn't a flawless export. I mean, really. A few more hours and I think I could have figure it out.

CR: The Dead Whisper On by T.L. Hines

It's all better with friends.

Rewrite Rash

Someone asked me the other day if this was the first time I'd faced rewrites.

It's not. It's just the first time they matter. A few rashy hives are to be expected.

Most novelists don't churn out publishable material their first time out of the gates. There's a learning curve that requires dedication, persistence, hope, faith, blinders, and even moments of blindness. In fact, intense hard-headedness served me well—both in terms of utter stubbornness, and believing I understood varying concepts. When it became clear that in fact, I understood nothing, the door opened to learning. And has stayed open ever since.

I have previous efforts where I inflicted more pain than grace on the page. Those stories, and many of the characters, were my sacrificial lambs.

This one could actually become a book.

The rewrite process has begun. It feels a little intense right now, but in a good way. To me, the hard work is finished. The story has been formed. Now I get to make it captivating.

CR: The Dead Whisper On by T.L. Hines.

It's all better with friends.

Post-Partum SFD Paralysis

"When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth."

~Kurt Vonnegut

I'm looking at a toppling pile of notebooks and papers and books, to which I'm refusing to add anything else. Unless I'm willing to accept the consequence of insanity. Which I don't have time for.

The pile is dedicated to information related to rewrites.

My psyche is dedicated, at the moment, to self-destruction.

At the time I began amassing this amess, or amessing this amass, I told myself, "Not now. Right now, you need to write your SFD ('Shitty First Draft' ala Anne Lamott). Time to learn all about this later."

What a dope.

No longer stricken with post-partum SFD paralysis, here's where I'm heading:

• I've determined that whatever I decide, the first step will be daunting. Get over it.

• Like trying to eat the elephant in the room, I will handle the task one bite at a time. (Who in the world is responsible for morphing the idea of an elephant in the room into something I would like to eat? They should be shot. Then eaten.)

• I'm smart enough to learn forever. I'm not smart enough to get it all figured out this afternoon.

• Figuring out a system that worked for me to write an SFD took some trial and error, and so will figuring out a system to rewrite. I will heed what those who've gone before me advise, but ultimately it will become a personal blend of what works and what doesn't.

And so . . . there's no time like the present.

CR: About to finish Relentless by Dean Koontz. It's about an author running for his life and a lunatic book critic stalker. Don't you wonder where he got the idea?

It's all better with friends.

I've Birthed a Book!

"I hope that this time I will be able to hold all the threads together, that the characters will evoke a sense of reality, that what I've written will elucidate a theme, that an occasional paragraph will sing, that I can, in a phrase I learned in England, 'bring it off.' This, I believe, is the constant ambition of the writer and his constant prayer."

~ JAMES A. MICHENER

I finished my SFD about 6:30 last night. After pacing (and yeah, flexing a little), I finished printing it out about 9:30.

Now what? My last two attempts are stuck in the proverbial bottomless drawer.

This one is different.

I have about twelve gazillion craft books and workshop notes on editing. Too much data.

The next few days are going to be focused on researching this next giant step. That delay will help with the "settling/stewing" thing I've heard about so often.

Nothing like accomplishing something by doing nothing.

CR: Relentless by Dean Koontz.

Will be crawling through Margie Lawson's Deep Editing system, Chris Roerden's Don't Murder Your Mystery, Browne and King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass, with Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird standing by to make me feel better.

It's all better with friends.

RELENTLESSLY KOONTZ

I'm reading a new novel by one of my favorite authors, Dean Koontz.

Relentless is written in first person. It starts off with backstory, then a mention of his guardian angel that had been with him since he was six, and how Ralph (the angel) suddenly went on sabbatical when he was thirty-four. Hint, hint.

More backstory.

A reference to what his family would come to call the situation they found themselves in (in his thirty-fourth year), and the fact they never expected Evil to "suddenly, intently turn its attention on our happy household or that this evil would be drawn to us by a book I had written."

Think the opening of Magnum, P.I. where Tom Selleck (who I could watch for days and days and days) does the voiceover for the upcoming episode.

Although well written, and interesting, Koontz pretty much throws everything I've learned about backstory and lousy foreshadowing out the window.

And yet the book has me totally entranced.

Why?

Because I trust Dean Koontz.

A new author I'd never read before? I might stick it out a bit more because the writing is good (other than what I've mentioned), but my red flag would be high and my drop-kick-it-to-the-wall boots would be primed.

Trust. It counts for a lot, doesn't it?

Huh. I guess I have a relationship with Dean. Of sorts. Kind of like my relationship with Tom Selleck.

By the way, if you want to read an excellent book where next to no backstory is used, except for out of the mouths of the characters in dialogue, you'll have to pick up a copy of The Good Guy. Written by . . . Dean Koontz.

You know what I'm reading.

It's all better with friends.