How to rite Killer Fiction (21 page)

Fixing Problem Scenes

The first thing to look at when revising a scene is whether or not the viewpoint character has a clear scene goal. If not, that's the first thing to fix. If so, then what else could be wrong? A few scene problems and their solutions:

Talking Heads

Can we get those heads attached to actual bodies? Could those bodies move or at least twist their wedding bands or crack their knuckles or do something besides drink designer coffee? Props are a big help here; what can they hold in their hands? What physical action could they be doing as they talk?

Talking in a Vacuum
Dialogue is great. There's nothing better than letting your characters express themselves in their own voices. But you're writing a novel, not a screenplay, so those voices are attached to bodies and those bodies are in a physical location. Show me. Take me there. Take all five senses with you and let the characters experience the place so that I the reader can experience it, too. That's why I'm reading a novel instead of a screenplay.

Exposition City

Getting necessary background information into the hands of your reader is a challenge. Most writers know they don't want five densely written, information-packed paragraphs just plopped down in the middle of chapter two, so they write a nice snappy scene during which Sam and Joe discuss the exposition even though the plotline calls for them both to know all this stuff and therefore they have no really good reason to talk about it. Try very hard to let the necessary information seep into the story as needed. It's amazing how little we actually have to know in order to be hooked, and it's amazing how much more fun it is to slip exposition into the story through secrets and lies than laying it all out in one place.

Over-the-Top Emotions
To many beginning writers, louder is better. People in early scenes shout and sob, scream and cry their way through the action like scenery-chewing actors even though there isn't that much for them to yell about

yet. Let the emotions, like the actions, build by showing simmering resentments underlying the shouting matches that ideally belong in Arc Three. Anger alone does not a conflict make.

Lots of Talk, No Action
We need some sort of decision or resolution at the end of a scene. We may all attend meetings at work where much is discussed and nothing is ever decided, but that shouldn't happen in a work of fiction. We can't table the discussion for another meeting; we need movement
now
and the scene must end in such a way that further action is inevitable. Don't make a phone appointment to see a witness, get in the car and go there. Now.

The Incredible Jumping Conflict
Our hero confronts his girlfriend, who also happens to be his boss as well as his main suspect in the death of their co-worker. Too many conflicts in one scene leave the reader wondering which one is really important right now. When a scene has several characters in it, try to focus on two main ones and let the others take a subordinate role for the moment. We need one scene goal and one resolution of that goal per scene, no more.

Trailing Off into Nothingness
"And then I went home and opened a can of soup for dinner and did my laundry and settled in to watch a little television." So what? If the scene ended back at the Fat Man's penthouse, then
stop.
Give the scene a beginning, middle, and snappy end that doesn't just trail off because, God forbid, the reader should miss a fascinating account of what the detective ate for dinner. Now, if eating that lonely dinner gives the detective time to reflect upon what he's learned and what he's going to do next, then we have a reaction and that's worth something, but if all it is is soup, it goes.

Failing to Link Back to Main Plotline or Subplot
My great insight into how to end chapters came from Dick Francis's
Reflex.
It's a nice complex read with five plotlines, one major and several minor but all interconnected. What Francis did was to end every chapter on a note that harked back to one of these plotlines, leading to last lines like "I wondered what I'd do with the rest of my life when my racing days were over." We were never far from the main thrust of the story and what it all meant to our hero. Writers who leave subplots dangling without bringing them back home run the risk of losing readers who wonder what they're reading this stuff for.

Cliffhangers

Here's where the distinction between scenes and chapters comes in handy. It's okay to end a chapter in the middle of a scene. It's also okay to combine several scenes into one chapter.

This gives a writer extraordinary flexibility. You can start a scene in chapter five and break just at the point where one character pulls a gun on another, or where our detective finds a body, or where our suspense hero discovers that the man she thought was her father adopted her.

Cut to chapter six, even though our character is exactly where we left her in chapter five.

Why do this? Why not just keep writing and forget about the chapter break?

Because one of the things a writer loves most is forcing the reader to read more than she intended to. "Can I
please
just finish this chapter?" I used to beg my mother when she wanted my help in the kitchen, and you can believe that any chapter that closed with a cliffhanger earned a few sneaky peeks into the next chapter in spite of my promise. That's part of what makes suspense, that sense of absolutely having to know what happens next, and ending the chapter in mid-scene just as the exciting part comes is an important trick of the trade.

It shouldn't be overused. Cutting in mid-scene for the discovery of one body is great; when it happens the third time, the reader is likely to yawn instead of gasp. Too much artificial drama kills the real drama that ought to come from character, situation, and setting.

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch," is a device writers working in multiple viewpoint can use to add to the cliffhanger suspense. Now not only is the reader left hanging while one character is in danger, but the writer switches the scene to another part of the story, another viewpoint character, so that we have to wait even longer to find out whether or not Pauline will be run over by that train whose tracks she's tied to. And if the writer's really on top of her game, she won't leave the ranch until something else dramatic happens there, and then she'll leave that story at the most exciting point.

Narrative—The Alternative to Scene_

What about those parts of the story that aren't written in scene form? How can the writer use narrative without lapsing into "telling" instead of "showing"?

Very few writers choose a totally scene-oriented style. One who does is Gregory Mcdonald, the author of the
Fletch
series. Try picking up one of his fast-paced books to get a sense of what a novel without narrative looks like, and you'll see that while it's fun to read, it's also something you wouldn't want all novels to look like. Narrative has its place.

Two questions about narrative: When should you use it and how do you put spin on the narrative ball?

Uses of Narrative

• To set the scene or establish location. Emma Lathen, who wrote wonderful Wall Street mysteries, always opened the books with deftly written "portraits" of the financial district that give the reader a context for the murder to come.

• To cover a lot of temporal ground in a short space of words. The scene takes place in real time, but the whole book can't unless it covers a three-hour stretch of time. One of my favorite "time-cruncher" narrative lines occurs in Grace Paley's short story, "Ruthie and Edie." One segment of the story takes place in the Bronx when the girls are children; the next segment begins, "Fifty years later, they sat in Faith's kitchen..." Fifty years—gone in a puff of smoke, in three words from the hidden narrator.

• To create the reaction section after a scene, during which the character reflects on the scene and chooses the next action. While it's possible to show a character's inner thoughts while the scene is going on, once the character is alone, we're not quite in scene any longer. We're summing up what he's thinking, what he's doing, and what he plans to do next, and that's narrative.

Putting Spin on the Narrative Ball

• Narrative doesn't mean just telling the reader what's happened. "And then he went home and ate his soup" is boring narrative. "He stared at the soup, which lay cold and congealed in the bowl. He'd come a long way from the days when he ate in four-star restaurants, handed twenties to parking lot attendants, squired beautiful women who wore dresses that sparkled in the candlelight. His whole life had come down to this: cold soup by the light of a black-and-white television set." He's still eating the same old soup, but now the soup
means something.
Making it mean something is what the art of narrative is all about.

• Using language is part of beefing up the narrative. Bring out the vocabulary. Never let a wimpy verb creep in, or a generic noun. Cut and trim to the point where every single observation is a "closely observed detail" (in the words of John Gardner) that furthers the reader's understanding of the overarching emotional situation.

• Emotion is the key. Whose emotion? Sometimes it's the character through whose sensibilities that particular narrative is filtered. Sometimes it's the emotion a hidden narrator brings to the tale. (The "voice" Emma Lathen used to describe Wall Street was one of an anthropologist with a wry sense of humor describing particularly outlandish tribal customs.)

I know what you're thinking—"I'm supposed to create full-bodied scenes with deep character development, realistic dialogue, and dead-on description. Then I'm supposed to write narrative connectors that sparkle with wit and contain closely observed details. At the same time, I'm moving my plot toward its plot point, I'm planting and concealing clues, I'm keeping secrets and creating suspense, and I'm hurtling toward a take-no-prisoners ending."

Sounds like work, doesn't it?

The good news is that you don't have to do it all in a single draft. You can plan the writing you're going to do and you can revise once you're finished. But no matter how you approach the craft of writing, you will at some point have to examine your sentences, word byword, to make sure they're doing the job you want done. Editing at the sentence level can make the difference between getting published and being seen as an amateur without a sophisticated, developed style.

Style_

Novels, whether mystery or suspense, are made up of arcs. Arcs are made up of chapters, which are made up of scenes. Scenes in turn are comprised of paragraphs and sentences.

Sentences are composed of words; the choice of the right words in the best arrangement is what we call
style.

Parts of Speech and How They Create Style

Verbs

Verbs are the lifeblood of fiction. People do things, and the way they do them says a great deal about who they are. So give the reader as clear a picture as possible by using verbs that really say something. Let your characters strut instead of just walking, let sounds crackle and pound, let waves and vehicles crash and thud and shudder.

Get the "hads" out of your prose. Too many beginning writers clutter their sentences with weak verbs and unnecessary past tenses. "I walked down the street" is fine; "I had walked" is seldom needed. Let your characters do what they're going to do; don't let them "begin" to do it.