What do you mean by that?

          Recently an old friend and I met for a light breakfast early one morning in a local restaurant.  When we sat down with our hot mugs, he told me, “My wife said everything will be fine as long as we don’t have coffee until ten o’clock.”

          I said, “But we’re having coffee now.”

          He said, “What are you talking about?”

          “You just said she doesn’t want you having coffee until sometime after ten o’clock.  I thought you maybe shouldn’t have caffeine right after taking some medicine or other.”

          “No.  I said she doesn’t want us hanging around here arguing politics from now until mid-morning.  She’s got chores for me to do.  Anyway, that’s what I meant.”

          Have you ever tried to assemble a rather complicated new purchase with only an instruction pamphlet written in some obscure dialect faintly resembling English by somebody who obviously doesn’t know a Phillips screwdriver from a swizzle stick?  “Next put big end careful forward into side part (if having model A maybe B but not model C-2) and fasten two three small clip very strongest, please.”  For their own safety, it’s a good thing such writers remain anonymous.

          Or have you ever tried to immerse yourself in a novel only to find it necessary to repeatedly leaf back a number of pages to get straight what the devil is supposed to be going on?  Was it Tom or Harry who shot the gardener imposter back in 1912 for treading on the petunias?  Is it Maude or Mary who’s pregnant?  And who’s the daddy?  Just how many friends and relatives can Jason possibly have, and which one of them is the rich personal-injury lawyer again?  Did it mention somewhere back there who is having the affair with the mayor, or is that supposed to be a plot secret?  Did I really pay fifteen bucks plus tax for this book?

       

          I began the back-cover blurb for one of my books thusly: “In 1858, soldiers came with bayonets to . . . “  I was only trying to establish the background for a story that takes place entirely in current times.  But of course I witnessed the inevitable occurring during several book signings.  A passing potential buyer looking for a contemporary thriller would pause, glance at that beginning phrase, and understandably assume the book to be an historical novel.  And I’d find myself hastily trying to explain away what, after all, had been my own glaring mistake.

          The first obligation for any writer of anything is clarity.  It’s not always easy.  We know what we mean to say and can’t imagine a reader taking it any other way.  But a good rule to follow is if a phrase or sentence can remotely be interpreted in more than one way, you can safely wager it will be.  (We even require an expensive be-robed Supreme Court, for example, to clarify for us whether legal issues are or are not constitutional.)  

          Rearrange or reconstruct any suspect sentence or phrase until it’s clear. 

          It’s never the fault of the reader when misinterpretation occurs.  And it can cost the writer dearly.

Phil

Remembering

Major conflicts involving American warriors:

War                                                                                       Americans Killed

American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)                          25,000 (low estimate)

American Civil War (1861-1865)                                        625,000 (420 deaths per day)

War of 1812 (1812-1815)                                                     15,000

Mexican-American War  (1846-1848)                                  13,283

World War I  (1917-1918)                                                  116,516 (279 deaths per day)

World War II  (1941-1945)                                                  405,399 (297 deaths per day)

Korean War (1950-1953)                                                       36,516 (45 deaths per day)

Vietnam War (1961-1975)                                                     58, 209 (11 deaths per day)

War on Terror (2001-present) Iraq and Afghanistan               6,717

Total American warriors killed in all conflicts, major and minor

                                (1775-present, 49  total internal and external conflicts)    1,321,612

Total American warriors wounded                                                                       1,531,036

Total American warriors missing                                                                              38,159

And today we still enjoy privileged lives in a free country.

Phil

“I have a great idea.”

          On several occasions I’ve been approached by a well-meaning person with a verbal proposal (and once a written one sent by registered mail, preceded by an introductory e-mail) that goes something like this:

          “I’m a fan of your suspense novels.  For years I’ve had this great idea for a novel plot, and I’m going to trust you by revealing it for the first time.  I figure you can whip out the actual book in a month or so and then we’ll split the money for it.  What do you say?”

          What I do is stop the person right there, as graciously as possible.  (In the case of the registered-mail missive, I returned the package unopened, along with an appreciative and apologetic cover letter.)

          Because here’s what can happen:  The inspired reader explains a treasured secret plot idea.  The author politely declines.  A year or so later the same reader picks up a book by the same author, recognizes some elements of his or her plot idea, becomes incensed, and threatens to sue the author’s shorts off for stealing the idea.

          Aside from such well-meaning readers having no concept of how much work it actually takes to produce, say, a hundred-thousand-word novel of any quality (my first salable novel, GUNS, required eighteen months to research and write), there are, in fact, only a few basic plot structures (some have said as few as seven), and we see them over and over in endless variations.  Consider just how many romance plots there can be (the simplest being male and female meet, fall in love, are separated for some reason, but get back together in the end), or how many lone-hero plots there are, or how many kidnap plots, or treasure-quest plots.  There just are not all that many basic plots from which to choose.  And all the best ones are based, in turn, on one or some combination of only three basic conflicts. (See my earlier posting on conflict.)

          So, no matter what ingenious plot a reader thinks is unique, it is really only another variation of some existing plot line, and it’s inevitable the reader will recognize elements of her or his cherished idea in the published works of authors.

          Actually, it would be more accurate to say the inspired reader almost certainly, and probably unconsciously, stole his or her plot idea from one or some blend of the authors she or he has read.

          Maybe next time I get such a proposal I’ll sue the shorts off that reader.

          For the best analysis of plot structures I’ve found, see the book 20 Master Plots by Ron Tobias.

Phil

 

Tense situations

          Astronomers talk and write about cosmic stuff in the present tense: “The aging star RS Puppis pulsates with a period of 41.4 days, at its peak radiating as much light as 15,000 suns.”   “The Iris Nebula in the constellation Cepheus the King is intensely blue.”   “Polaris (actually not a single star but two close star buddies) lies nearest to the earth’s extended northward axis, so it does not appear to move as earth rotates, and thus serves us nicely as the North Star for navigating.”

          

         But the truth is, none of that is necessarily true any longer.  We can’t ever experience views of any object or happening outside earth’s atmosphere in the present tense.  Light travels at a strictly-enforced speed limit of 186,000 miles per second, so we see even our moon, the nearest celestial object, always as it was more than a second ago.  We can never see it as it is this instant.   It takes sunlight about eight minutes to reach us, meaning if the sun explodes this present second it will be eight minutes from now before we’ll see it happen and head out to the supermarket to stock up on bread and milk.  The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is over four light years away (24 trillion miles, or 24 thousand billion miles), so the light we see from it right now left there over four years ago.  Other stars and whole galaxies are thousands, millions, and billions of light years distant.  So some of those stars almost certainly are mere ghosts of their former selves; they may have burned out or exploded long ago, even before our earth was formed, and the light they beamed out while they were alive is only just reaching us now.  They sure appear to be still out there, though.  But anytime we look into the far sky, we’re experiencing the past tense on a grand scale.

          Barstool jokes also are often erroneously told in the present tense:  “Horse walks into a bar, takes a booth.  Sexy waitress comes over and says, ‘Aw, why the long face?’ ”

          

          And some authors of both fiction and nonfiction insist on writing in the present tense.  Probably because they think it lends an aura of immediacy to their work, or it just makes them stand out as different.

          

          But how do our teachers, preachers, newscasters, friends, and family members relate their tales to us?  Nearly always in the past tense, right?  For example: “Let me tell you what happened yesterday.  I was walking my  thirteen poodles along Hydrant Street when I met a therapist I haven’t seen in ten years, and . . .”  Or, “This is Candy Capdteeth reporting to you here on-scene for the Manglefacts News Network.  Residents of this idyllic island nation were stunned and devastated when their sacred volcano at the island’s heart erupted yesterday, spewing old offerings and . . . “

          

          The past tense is overwhelmingly familiar, and what’s familiar makes for easy, comfortable, engaging reading, which is the main reason I always choose to write even the most tense scenes in the past tense. 

          

          A simple secondary reason is my reader knows (at least subconsciously) nothing in my writing can possibly be happening while she or he is reading it, any more than we can look out and witness what is currently happening in the universe.

Phil

        

Blogging into the void

          For much of my life I've written on sheer speculation.  Doggedly cranking out articles and short stories as a sideline to my regular day jobs and mailing them around the circuit, hoping some would be accepted, and quite a few have been, even by several top magazines.  But it’s always been an inefficient and frustrating and time-consuming process, accumulating vastly more rejections than acceptances. 

          I’m working on a fourth novel in my thriller series, once again only on the thin hope the finished book will attract a flicker of interest from an agent and then win over a publisher with more resources and far wider distribution than the small publisher that bought the first three books in the series could manage.  (I do have a tenuous agent contact gleaned from a Nashville writer’s conference last year. )  People seem to like my fiction and that’s gratifying, but my new book will have to somehow fight its way to the surface of the absolute avalanche of books now available to have any chance of reaching a significant number of readers.

          I began this blog in the hope of stimulating discussions about writing, and perhaps helping a few talented but struggling writers out there, maybe saving them from many learning pains I've gone through for decades.  It’s also a way to pass on a little of the generous help and support I've received from many kind people over the years.  And of course it’s one more way to promote my books.

          But once again I’m working on sheer speculation.  I’m blogging into the great void.

          So.  A simple plea.

          If you’re  enjoying this blog and perhaps gleaning useful tips on writing from it, would you please take a minute or two and let others know about it?

Phil

Third is always my first choice              First person viewpoint (I did this.  I experienced that.) appears to be an appealing choice for a suspense writer.  It’s familiar and intimate because it’s the way we all tell each other our ordinary personal stories every day.  It seems to be an easy way to grab reader attention and hold it.              But there are major inherent drawbacks.               Telling a story from the protagonist’s point of view is severely limiting.  The protagonist can’t know, for example, what the villain is up to or what any other character in the story is privately thinking or doing.              To overcome that problem, a popular technique among writers of late is to switch the point of view back and forth, chapter to chapter, from first person whenever the protagonist is on stage to third person when other characters are on.  But that introduces an even thornier problem, because every point of view shift can’t help but jar the reader, no matter how skillfully done.  At every such shift the writer must work to once again draw the reader back into the story while the writer backs out of the story, where we writers  always belong.              First person risks making the protagonist appear egotistical.  We’ve all heard people dominating conversations, going on and on about themselves, bragging about their personal prowess and their great accomplishments.  It’s distasteful.              First person is also highly improbable.  Which of us can remember in detail everything we did on a given day a week or a month ago?  Try it yourself.  What did you have for lunch three days ago?  What exactly did people say to you and what did you say to them?  Tough to do, isn’t it?  Yet first person narration asks the reader to believe a protagonist can do just that, remember everything that happened in a story over sometimes long spans of time with precise detail down to what was for lunch or what people said verbatim.  It’s unlikely at best.              Also, we faintly distrust personal narratives, knowing instinctively that people tend to embellish and exaggerate and bend the truth just a wee bit, because don’t we sometimes do that ourselves?  This is a subtlety, yet it’s there in the back of a reader’s mind.              But the most serious damage first person does is to diminish the overall aura of suspense we writers strive so hard to create.  If a protagonist is talking to the reader, she or he obviously has survived to tell the tale, so the story ordeal can not have been all that serious, and the reader is aware of this on some level.  (Everybody knows the last line of the story cannot possibly be, “And then I died.”)              So what can you gain from using third person viewpoint (He did this.  She experienced that.) instead of first person throughout a work of suspense fiction?              Third person automatically carries the weight of truth, of authority, because it’s the way parents and teachers and preachers and newscasters and writers have long presented factual information and stories of all kinds to us.  It is immediately more believable, and sticking to it avoids jarring the reader.                     We can use the third person voice to heap praise on our protagonist, either in straight narration or through our other characters, with no risk of displaying egotism.               We can effectively use cutaways in third person to build suspense, moving easily from looking over the protagonist’s shoulder on this side of town to probing the innermost dark recesses of the villain’s mind on the other side of town.  As the story builds we can shorten the cutaways, along with our other tricks, to heighten the suspense.  And it’s always a thrill for the reader to know something dangerous the protagonist does not, such as an armed killer approaching our unsuspecting hero from out of the night behind him.              Any time we want to get right inside a character’s mind, we can simply use italics, like this:                            Jack spun to see a tall figure in the alleyway shadows.  A figure raising an arm.  A glint of moonlight on steel.               Dammit, my gun’s in the car, was all Jack had time to think.  He . . .              That’s every bit as intimate and dramatic as relating such a scene in first person would be, and it carries the added suspenseful benefit of serious uncertainty.  We want the reader to be thinking, Will Jack survive this encounter?              With a touch of skill, third person will accomplish anything first person can, and considerably more besides.               Third person is my first choice of viewpoint every time. Phil

The magic number (or, There are no two-sided triangles)

          What’s the most magical number of all?

          It’s the humble number three.  No contest.

          Let’s think about it.  Get ready, get set, and go:  How many strikes are there in baseball?  How many judges in a tribunal or governors in a triumverate?  How many sides or angles or lustful lovers in a triangle?  How many Olympic medalist winners in each sport category?  How many branches in American government?  How many prongs on a trident?  Wheels on a tricycle?  Claws on a tridactyl?  Dimensions in an IMAX Schwarzeneggar bust-’em-up flick?  Top-placing horses in a trifecta?  Divine entities in Christianity?  Shiny leaves on poison ivy?  Fingers on Disney cartoon characters like Micky and Minnie and Daffy?  Swordsmen in the Musketeers?  Oxygen atoms in trioxide or sulphur atoms in trisulfide?  Legs on a tripod?  Lines in a poetic triplet?  Panels in an ancient triptych?  Banks of perspiring rowers on a Roman trireme?  Feet on a trivet?  Hulls on a trimaran?  Vocalists in a trio singing notes in a musical triad?  Horns on a triceratops?  Novels in a trilogy like my John Hardin tales?  Chlorine atoms in a molecule of trichlorophenoxyacetic acid? 

          How many colors make up the flags of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Senegal, Taiwan, Thailand, Mali, Panama, Lithuania, Norway, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and many others?

          In crime solving,  cops size up suspects according to motive, means, and opportunity.

          Every story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

* * *

          What is the mysterious magic in this lowly number three, and how can we put it to work in our writing to help us win fame, fortune, and immortality?

          Well, three is often practically and optimally functional, of course.  Three compass bearings  from different locations work perfectly to triangulate a position.  Three points are the minimum to provide solid support for something like a tripod or a trivet or a kiddie trike.  To reach majority decisions with no possibility of a deadlock, three officials or judges or governors is the minimum number required.

          But I think there’s another and much simpler reason for three’s popularity.  And that is, two is just too few and four is just one too many.  Two strikes in baseball would seem not to give a batter a fair chance or the pitcher a decent challenge, but four strikes would somehow be more than any player worth his spikes deserves. 

          In an uncountable number of fictional stories, the protagonist tries twice to vanquish the foe or climb the cliff or subdue the repulsive alien creatures, only to fail.  Trying merely once before achieving success would just be too easy.  Having to try more than twice before succeeding could begin to look a little foolish or inept.  Only on the third attempt does—and somehow should—the hero or heroine win through.

          And that’s an effective secret formula that might as well serve you and me in our writing, too, because the magic of three has not even begun to wear out.

          It likely never will.

Phil