Crime Fiction Dossier

The Pelican Brief Conceit

I originally posted this on Facebook, but thought I'd share it with you folks that hate Zuckerberg's monster.
 

There's a certain plotting device used in a lot of suspense novels that I find particularly annoying. I call it the "Pelican Brief conceit," since the Grisham novel used it rather notoriously.

It works like this: The plots follows the protagonist as s/he moves through the story. As with most suspense novels, the book uses a fairly close third person POV. We see what the protagonist sees and his reaction to it. We watch what he does. We even know some/most of his thoughts.

Until, that is, we come to the crucial moment when a great secret is revealed. Except it's not revealed to us (the readers). The protagonist reads the document, sees the murderer, or overhears the conversation, so HE knows. But it's like the cable went out (conveniently) for just that moment. The plot continues, again told from a close third person POV, as if nothing strange ever happened. But the author won't tell us what the character learned until much later in the book, when it can be revealed as part of the story's climax.

I find this annoying. For one thing, it places the author's mechanics front and center. It makes it obvious that we're reading a manufactured story, learning only what the writer wants us to know and when he wants us to know it. For another, it makes no narrative sense. The story follows the protagonist as a neutral, disembodied narrator – except when he's learning something important. At that point, the narrator turns as coy as a blushing maiden flirting with an older man.

This is a cheap way to gin up suspense. It's not playing fair with the reader to show us everything the character does and sees and hears, but hide from us some crucial secret. Don't tell us the mundane stuff if you're not going to tell us the important stuff. Either we should know what the character knows, or the story should be constructed so that we don't know anything (or what we know is false). That's a different kind of book, though.

What do you think? Have you ever noticed this? Or am I too nit-picky?

Several people commented on the original post, if you'd like to see their remarks.

Amazon.com & The Crime Fiction Academy Make Crime Fiction Notoriety Accessible for Creative New Yorkers

I thought this might be of interest to some of you. I've heard good stuff about their classes, and the line-up of teachers is outstanding.

The Center for Fiction is pleased to announce that their one-of-a-kind writing program, The Crime Fiction Academy (CFA), is one of the most recent recipients of an Amazon Grant. The grant program, offered byAmazon.com, provides funding for exceptional nonprofit author and publisher groups that, “foster the creation, discussion, and publication of books.” The $25,000 grant will allow the CFA to offer significant scholarships of 50% or more to incoming Fall 2012 students.

The Crime Fiction Academy launched in February 2012 as the first ongoing program dedicated exclusively to crime writing in the United States. Each student enrolled in CFA attends a 12-week Writing Workshop, a once a month Master Class, a Crime Fiction Reading seminar, as well as up-close-and-personal discussions with leading agents and editors in the field including Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Thomas H. Cook, Linda Fairstein, Susan Isaacs, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Laura Lippman, Val McDermid, Joyce Carol Oates, Jason Pinter, S.J. Rozan and Karin Slaughter.  Students also receive 24-hour access to the Center for Fiction’s Writing Studio and free admission to all Center for Fiction events.

Admissions for the Fall 2012 session are rolling and classes begin October 1, 2012. Students can apply directly through the Center for Fiction’s website and grant scholarships will be awarded on as case-by-case basis. Tuition may be paid in person at the Center, online, over the phone, or by mailed check.

Tips for Ebook Authors

I shared these tips recently on Twitter. I wrote them down as they came to me, based on the mistakes that I'm seeing people make. Please feel free to share your own tips in the comments section.

• Make sure your cover art is colorful and eye-catching, with big text. It needs to be readable as a thumbnail.
• Your product description should be interesting, punchy & error-free. Tell enough about the story to attract the reader.
• Don't price your book too high. Somewhere between $.99 and $2.99 is probably best. (You can charge more if you're an established author with a following. But if you're not, you can't.)
• Make sure your title is fairly short, appropriate to the book and spelled correctly.
• Find smart people who review ebooks like yours and ask politely if they want a free copy to review.
• There's a fine line between effective self-promotion and being an ass. Find it.
• It might go without saying that your book should be awesome. But I'm going to say it anyway. Your book should be awesome!
• Your spouse is a wonderful person -- but s/he's not a copy editor. Find a copy editor.
• If you can't afford a professional editor, at least get a couple smart writers to read your manuscript. If they're professional/published writers, so much the better.

Social Media Etiquette for Writers

The following is some of the annoying behavior I have observed by authors on various social media platforms. Maybe other people aren't bothered -- but I'm not known for being especially sensitive. So if you're getting on my nerves, chances are that you're alienating other potential readers as well.

• Don't post an ad for your book on someone else's Facebook wall. Yes, posting a link to Amazon and writing "My book is now available for Kindle" is an ad. Post that on YOUR wall.
• Don't add someone to your group without their permission. If you do this, I'm liable to immediately block you.
• Don't accept a friend request and then immediately post "Like me on my fan page" to your new "friend's" wall. This is obnoxious behavior that will also get you blocked.
• As far as that goes, I'm not sure you should ever ask someone to "like" you on your fan page. But if you must, don't do so more than once. Under no circumstances should you ever send multiple messages to the same person asking them to "like" you.
• Along similar lines, don't send people more than one message telling them your book is now available. One message is fine. Anything more than that is annoying.
• Don't post a comment in someone else's discussion saying, "Congrats on your new book! My new book is just out, too. You can buy it from Amazon."
• Don't retweet every positive message you get. If it's someone notable (i.e., with a ton of followers or name-recognition), fine. Retweet it proudly. But for the others, just write back and say thank you. It's classier.
• Don't constantly tweet or post that your book is now available or your book can be bought here, etc. You don't want to be silent about it either. But it shouldn't be five posts in a row every morning.
• By all means, tweet your positive reviews. Maybe even do it twice if you spread it over a couple of days. But not more than that.

I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones that bugged me the most. What are some of your social media pet peeves? And what are some strategies you've found that work without annoying people?

ThrillerFest Panel: David Morrell on Point of View

I attended a CraftFest panel yesterday, as part of the warm up for ThrillerFest. Thriller writer David Morrell talked about point of view, that element of the craft that has bedeviled so many writers.

David Morrell has been in the business for 37 years, so he knows a thing or two about writing. You probably know who he is. If not, go read about him on his website. (I will briefly note that in addition to be an enormously successful writer of thrillers, David was also a professor of American Literature at the University of Iowa for many years.)

What follows are David's thoughts, which I hastily scribbled down. I only captured the basic details of what he said and not much of the flavor. (He accompanied his discussion with many examples drawn from literature, including an impressive number of memorized quotes.) POV seems like a basic aspect of writing, but it's amazing how many authors still get it wrong.

Point of View

The decision of which POV to use when writing a novel is one of the most important a writer can make. POV is one of the fundamental tools of writing and must be chosen wisely. Regardless of which POV you choose, you should do so deliberately, knowing why you chose it and what you're doing with it. The wrong choice of POV can doom a project.

First Person:

• Written from the POV of the narrator, in the "I" form.
• When used properly, the first person is "a glory." But alas, it is usually not used properly.
• First-person is especially popular with new writers, because it seems so easy -- you just write like you're talking, right? Wrong. That's the pitfall. If you write like you talk, like you're telling a story orally, your writing will probably fail.
• The first person makes it easy for writers to fall into common mistakes:
  • it's wordy and rambling (just like the stories we tell orally)
  • it's too easy to tell, not show
  • it tends to rely almost exclusively on the sense of sight, leading to writing that is flat and one-dimensional
  • Morrell notes: It is not the writer's job to make the reader see what is going on, but to make the reader feel what is going on.
  • It's usually logically inconsistent -- Why is this narrator taking the time to sit down and pen a 300-page account of his/her life. Does that make sense?
• Some of Morrell's favorite books (Farewell to Arms, Rogue Male, Gatsby) are in the first person, but if you're going to do it, you'd better have a damn good reason and you'd better know what you're doing.
• To paraphrase Henry James, it's a "trap for the unwary."
• However, if you can pull it off, it can be brilliant.

Third Person Omniscient

• The all-knowing voice, a story told from a god-like perspective.
• Classic example: Dickens' Tale of Two Cities ("It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.")
• A style of storytelling that takes a historical perspective -- this is what happened, this is what people thought and felt and did.
• This was the standard form for much of the 19th century.
• It tends to lead to a story that is slow; not immediate. The story is told rather than being dramatized. Thus it can be hard for the modern reader to appreciate.
• Today, it is old-fashioned and seldom used except in parody.

Second Person

• The "you" tense. (E.g., "You walk down the street, not knowing what you're going to find around the corner.")
• Largely experimental and only used for a very specific kind of story.
• Used by McInerney in Bright Lights, Big City to show the character's drug-addled state.

Third Person Limited

• Told through one character's viewpoint, seeing just what that character sees and thinking just what s/he thinks.
• Can switch POV away from that character, but the story should only be told through one character's viewpoint at a time.
• The POV usually breaks between chapters, but can be done within chapters. However, the writer should give the reader a visual indication that POV is being changed -- just skip down a few lines or give some other form of break.
• 3rd person ltd is the most often used POV and the one that, by default, is the best choice for most stories.
• [I'm sure David had more to say on this topic, but he ran out of time.]

Bottom line: In Morrell's judgment, most first-person novels could be improved by a shift to the third person. First person is very hard to do -- harder than third person limited -- and should only be done with great care by the writer, and only when the story demands it. Otherwise, especially for new writers, they're probably better off going with third person.

For more of David Morrell's thoughts on writing, check out his excellent book The Successful Novelist.

Here me speak: A Critic Perspective, Picks, Pans, and Pitfalls

I'll be giving a talk on April 3 to The Writer's Center as part of their "Leesburg First Friday" program, held in Leesburg, VA. The title of the talk is A Critic Perspective, Picks, Pans, and Pitfalls (yes, I'm aware that isn't particularly grammatical, but it wasn't my title). It'll go from 7:30pm to 9:30pm.

Here's the description:

Join us for a discussion of the state of book reviewing today, and find out how it works on a practical level. Learn to avoid the common writing problems critics often see, and discover how authors can increase their chances of getting books reviewed. Hint: It does not involve bribery with wine or chocolate.

If that doesn't sound riveting...Well, I can't help you.

I'm open to suggestions (preferably non-profane ones), so if you have any thoughts on what would make good discussion points for this talk, please send them along.

Advice for aspiring writers

I wrote this as a comment on another website and decided to share it here as well. This is common sense stuff, but it bears repeating.

You've finished your first novel -- congratulations! Now your work is really going to begin. Finding a good agent or publisher is a challenge, so you have to be both smart and persistent. (And lucky wouldn't hurt either.)

Do your research. Find out everything you can about someone before you do business with them. Ask questions. Who else does the agent represent? Who else does the publisher publish? Are their books available at bookstores? Do they get reviewed?

These days, anyone with a credit card can call themselves a publishers. Most of them are nothing but con men.

Always remember: publishers pay you -- not the other way around. If anyone (editor, agent, publisher) asks you for money, run in the opposite direction.

This is a tough business and getting tougher all the time, which means the opportunities for the crooks will only increase. Don't let yourself be taken advantage of.

Caveat emptor

Readers of blogs are consumers of information. There are blogs on virtually every subject known to man -- and plenty that you wouldn't want to know about. A few of them are interesting and/or useful, most of them are filled with nonsense. Included among that nonsense is a lot of bad advice, especially with regards to writing and publishing.

So here's a friendly reminder; a little something to keep in mind when wasting time on the blogosphere:

• If a person offers you advice on how to get published, find out if that person is published. If not, does he offer some other legitimate credentials? (E.g., he's an agent or editor.) If not, you might want to look at his advice with a skeptical eye.
• If a person offers you advice on how to have success in your writing career, try to find out how much success they've had in their writing career. How many books have they published? Who published them? Are they still in print? Have they made any of the bestseller lists? Have they gotten significant reviews? Have they won any awards? If you've never heard of the writer, never heard of their books, perhaps their strategies are not as effective as they reckon.
• If a person offers you advice on how to become a bestselling writer, first determine if that advice has worked for him. If he's not a bestselling writer, perhaps it's because his advice doesn't work.
• If a person offers you advice on how to become a better writer, read some of that person's writing. Is it any good? If not, reconsider how much credence you want to give that advice.
• If a person offers you advice on how to break into Hollywood, find out if that person has broken into Hollywood.
• If a person recommends publisher XYZ or literary agency ABC, do some research. Find out who those companies publish or represent. If you've never heard of any of their books or authors, ask yourself if these are the right people for you to be in business with.
• If a person recommends you pay them or anyone else for publishing, representation, editorial services, a review, reading your manuscript, or anything else, be very, very wary. Chances are better than good that you're being conned.
• Yes, that's right: even those very nice people who promise to make your every dream come true. Them too.

A person does not necessarily have to have done something in order to provide sound, useful information on the subject. However, before you go taking advice from some random person on the internet, it would behoove you to discover if that person has a legitimate basis from which to offer that advice. If they don't, you're probably better off clicking onward and finding something else to occupy your time.

(Note: I'm writing this with masculine pronouns because the first time through I tried using a lot of he/shes, etc. and it just looked clunky. So feel free to substitute feminine pronouns where appropriate.)

ThrillerFest Panel: Shaken Not Stirred: Plots with a Twist

These are the last of my notes from a ThrillerFest panel. The participants discussed spy fiction (in a very general sense) and then branched out from there to talk about writing and other things. Sitting on the panel were Joseph Finder, Barry Eisler, Gayle Lynds, Raymond Benson, Grand Blackwood and moderator Leslie Silbert.

(Note: I didn't take any notes on the discussion of spy fiction. What I wrote down was mostly writing craft stuff, which is what I'm including here.)

Barry Eisler (on the subject of violence): He writes about characters who excel at violence -- but people who excel at violence have troubled lives. They're not normal people and they're incapable of leading normal lives. So someone like John Rain, who is so adept in one area (i.e., violence), is basically inept when it comes to such basic things as sustaining a relationship with another person. Violence takes its toll on people like him and it's interesting to show that in fiction.

Gayle Lynds (on writing larger-than-life characters): Give the heroes flaws so that they don't become superheroes, and give the villains good qualities so that the reader can understand their motivations, if not actually empathize with them. The key is the make the characters three-dimensional. They can't just be cardboard cut-outs or the audience is going to lose interest. You should work just as hard at developing your villains as you do your heroes. Your protagonist must have a worthy antagonist in order to get the most out of your story.

Joseph Finder (on the kind of characters he likes to write): An everyman character who gets caught up in events that spiral out of control and take over his life. Finder likes to see how his character -- who's basically an ordinary guy -- reacts; how he behaves in that situation. Thriller readers want to read about experts; people who know what they're doing, who have extraordinary abilities -- but who are still ordinary people. So the trick is to make your hero(ine) exciting while not making them unbelievable.

Gayle Lynds: We often see stories that are "ripped from today's headlines." But what's most interesting is to take those stories and then put a fresh twist on them. If people are reading a story in the newspaper, chances are they're already familiar with it, if not tired of it. So why would they want to read it in a novel? So use that idea as a launching point to create something new and different of your own.

Barry Eisler: Your protagonist might do bad things, but by peeking into their heads -- knowing their goals and motivations -- the reader can understand their behavior. This makes the character realer and more accessible. The same can also be true of the antagonist. The reader needs to understand why the villain is doing what he's doing in order to make him an intriguing adversary.

Joseph Finder: The old saying is that "truth is stranger than fiction" -- but fiction had better be more exciting. Thrillers focus on the most exciting characters, in the most exciting circumstances, doing the most exciting things.

Grant Blackwood: The reader needs to understand the antagonist's motivation. By understanding the actions of the villains, by getting a peek behind the curtain, the reader's interest in the story will increase, as will the dramatic tension.

Joseph Finder: The "ticking bomb" makes for a great plot device -- a great MacGuffin as Hitchcock used to say. But in order for the reader to care about that scenario, the story must have compelling characters. The characters are what matter most of all. The fact that a bomb is going to explode in New York City isn't very exciting unless the hero(ine) knows it's going to happen. It's by seeing the scenario through their eyes that the reader becomes invested in the story.

Panel Question: What one thing does a thriller need?

Barry Eisler: Thrills.
Joseph Finder: A character you care about.
Gayle Lynds: Structure.
Barry Eisler: And sex.
Grant Blackwood: Larger than life characters.
Raymond Benson: Pace; forward momentum.

CraftFest Talk: The Six Biggest Mistakes Even Bestselling Writers Make

I'm attending CraftFest, part of the ThrillerFest conference put on by ITW this weekend in New York. This morning I sat in on a talk given by bestselling thriller writer Joseph Finder, the topic of which was "The Six Biggest Mistakes Even Bestselling Writers Make."

It's been a long time since I was in school, so my note-taking skills have atrophied...But here's what Finder discussed.

MISTAKE #1: The Passive Hero

• Too many thrillers have heroes who don't act; they remain passive while events take place around them.
• The hero must advance the plot; s/he must take action.
• The hero can't simply investigate what's going on -- he must do something about it.

MISTAKE #2: The Long Setup

• The story takes too long to get moving.
• Authors shouldn't just dump story on the reader; they should reveal it through action.
• Too many books start with a good opening, but then slow down to a crawl.
• One way to avoid this is to start the story as late as possible. If necessary, you can then go back and fill in details later on.

MISTAKE #3: The Weak Second Act

• Too many books bog down in the middle, degenerating into repetitive conflict and simply regurgitating the same plot points over and over. The characters aren't progressing and changing.
• The conflict of a plot must progress and escalate; the plot points must change and vary throughout the narrative.
• This escalation of conflict, as well as variance of conflict, will not only keep the reader's interest, but help to develop and reveal character as well.
• The introduction of subplots will also help keep the second act moving.
• Whenever things start to get dull, remember: REVERSE, REVEAL, SURPRISE.
• Every scene must advance the plot.

MISTAKE #4: Predictability

• Authors should never underestimate their readers, most of whom have read a lot of books and seen even more movies and TV shows.
• Readers know the tropes and cliches of the genre. If the story is predictable, they'll see where it's going a long way off and get bored.
• The key is to surprise them. Veer off from the expected course.
• If the obvious development is to take the plot in a certain direction, consider taking it in a different direction instead.
• One way to avoid this trap is not to over-outline. Be spontaneous in your writing. Allow the characters and the plot to surprise you.

MISTAKE #5: The Lousy Ending

• Too many books send the reader off on a sour note by finishing with a lousy ending.
• A great ending is second only to a great beginning in importance.
• The ending should not consist of explaining everything that happened before or tying up all the loose ends.
• You should explain as little as possible; let the reader figure out the smaller details on his/her own.
• Great endings off have symmetry to the beginning.
• Twists can be good, but they must be earned. They must be set up earlier in the book and prepared for.
• When you finish the book, get out of there ASAP. Don't draw things out.

MISTAKE #6: Showing Off

• Too many writers make the mistake of: "I've done the research; I'm going to cram it all in there."
• You should tell the reader the minimum they need in order to understand the plot; just the tip of the iceberg.
• Pare it down, leaving only the juiciest nuggets behind.
• Too much info will only slow down the story.

BONUS MISTAKE #1: Overly Explicit Dialogue

• People don't narrate a story when they speak; they don't dump details and information.
• People speak elliptically. Watch out for expository dialogue.

BONUS MISTAKE #2: All Plot, No People

• The story won't matter if we don't care about the characters.
• On its own, the plot is abstract; it requires the characters to make it real and make it matter to the reader.
• Also, the stakes of the plot must matter to the characters in order for us to care as readers.

BONUS MISTAKE #3: Action Is Boring

• Unlike in film where action scenes can be exciting, in books they too often are boring.
• What is interesting to the reader is how the characters react to the action and how they interact with each other.
• There should also be variety in your scenes; don't follow an action scene with another action scene and another action scene. Vary the pace, vary the types of scenes, slow down and speed up in order to give the reader a break and keep them interested.

BONUS MISTAKE #4: Backstory Dump

• Don't make the mistake of dumping the characters' backstory on the reader all at once. It will bring your plot to a halt and bore the reader.
• Reveal the backstory slowly, in pieces, as necessary.
• Drop references in here and there; include mentions in dialogue; intersperse little details throughout the plot.
• There is always a trade-off of CHARACTER vs. PACE.
• It's importance to find the balance of revealing enough about the characters in order to make them interesting and make the reader care about them, versus the need to keep the plot moving.

It was a very interesting talk. I hope you find this shorthand version useful.