On writing... collecting ideas

HALLIE: "The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing" (2nd Edition) comes out this month from Writers Digest Books, and I'd consider it a good addition to my library even if my piece on "Clues, Red Herrings, & Misdirection" were not in it. I can't believe the company I'm in. Here are just a few of the nuggets I found trawling through the essays.

On plot: "All good plots come from well-orchestrated characters pitted against one another in a conflict of wills." -- James N. Frey

On the three-act structure: "The three-act form is there because it works." -- Ridley Pearson

On setting: "In the end, the only compelling reason to pay more attention to place, to exterior setting, is the belief, the faith that place and its people are intertwined, that place is character, and that to know the rhythms, the textures, the feel of the place is to know more deeply and truly its people." -- Richard Russo

On character: "My method of character building is from the inside out--not necessarily the color of eyes and hair, the height and weight but rather how does a person sleep at night? What does he fear? Does he run from lightning of rush toward it?" -- Alice Hoffman

On writing commercial fiction: "Frankly, I don't care what genre a reader thinks my book is, as long as it gets him to pick it up." -- Jodi Picoult

This week we'll hear from some of the contributors to the anthology, including Elizabeth Sims (Tuesday on writing suspense), James Scott Bell (Wednesday on dialogue), Jane Friedman (Thursday on the changing role of literary agents), and me (Friday on clues and red herrings). Bob Daniher, who is celebrating having his very first short story published in the October issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, will be our Saturday guest!

Today we'll tell you what we think. What writing advice do you have for aspiring novelists?

ROBERTA: Boy, those are terrific quotes Hallie--you are right, great company! To go along with what Alice Hoffman and James Frey said, spend time understanding your character's stake in the story (the mystery, in my case.) And how does your protagonist change over the course of the book?

More practically, treat your writing time with discipline--believe me, the book won't write itself. And get tons of help--if you didn't study writing, why expect you could just pick it up on your own?

HANK: Ask yourself: In this situation, what would *really* happen? What would people *really* do, or say or think? Why? And what would happen as a result of that? "It's all about 'because,'" Sue Grafton says.

RHYS: My primary piece of advice to aspiring novelists is WRITE. Don't say "I plan to write a novel some day." Writing is a craft. You only get better at it by putting words on paper, just as a potter improves by throwing pots. My second piece of advice is READ. We learn so much by observing the craft of the masters.

And on a more practical scale--draw a character arc for your protagonist and one for your villain. Where they intersect is your story.

JAN: If you want to find out who your characters really are, don't waste time with the pre-novel bio. Instead put them in really tough situations and see what they do. Then you'll get at deep character instead of hair color and college degree.

And I'll echo Roberta. If writing is important to you, do it before any other obligations can get in the way.

ROSEMARY: As the newest kid on this particular block I'm tempted to just say "What they said." If I have anything to add it would be this - you weren't great the first time you picked up a tennis racket or paint brush, don't expect your early efforts at writing to be fabulous. If you're paying attention and you really want to get better, you will. Even Federer practices his serve. (And takes advice.)

HALLIE: So Jungle Red readers and writers... what's the best (or worst!) advice you've ever given or gotten?

This is a Work of Fiction

fic*tion (fik'shun) n. - an imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
-American Heritage College Dictionary


RO: I am about to write an Author's note for my second mystery novel, The Big Dirt Nap. I didn't do it for the first because it didn't seem necessary. After all, I was writing fiction. Did I really need to explain that these characters didn't exist? This town didn't exist? Apparently so.


My editor thinks I need to explain that there is really no native American tribe called the Quepochas, a fictional group that is referenced in the book. While I think this is amusing, she's probably right. One online reviewer complained that my debut novel, Pushing Up Daisies, wasn't accurate because there was no UConn campus where I had one in the book. It didn't seem to bother her that there was no TOWN, no diner and no people there, only that there was no campus. Go figure.


Is it that readers nowadays assume everything is ripped from the headlines, and they are looking for what they believe to be mistakes? Have the lines between fiction and non-fiction become so blurred that people can't tell one from the other?What the hell..I should probably just call it a memoir. Then no one would expect it to be accurate.


Author's NoteThe Big Dirt Nap is a work of fiction. While there is a state of Connecticut and a University of Connecticut, pretty much everything else in the book just exists between my ears. Any other descriptions, laws, people, places or events that are accurate are purely accidental.



ROBERTA: Interesting Ro! There is an automatic disclaimer on the copyright page of all my books, mostly there to protect the publisher from lawsuits I imagine. Do you think some angry fan would assault you (legally) for making up an Indian tribe? I do kind of like the idea of an author's note providing info for READERS, not just for protection. I would put it at the back of the book if you had a choice. And by the way, do you prefer acknowledgments at the front or the back? And how many other obsessive people even look at those pages? (Aside from the aspiring writers who are instructed to look there for agent mentions as a matter of course...and that's not bad advice.)


HANK: I think it's kind of--funny, actually. Maybe it's because you made up such a believable and clever name for the tribe. But I agree--if it's fiction, it's um, made up.

And yes, Roberta, I always read those pages. It's a kind of--six degreees of separation game. I love to see if I know who they know. Or whether the info is illuminating or revealing in any way. Front of the book or back? Hmmm. Put them in the front and there's the problem of: I'd like to thank Dr. Joe Shmo for all his help in learing about how to recognize fake fingerprints.... So much for THAT plot!

In Prime Time and Face Time, I kind of tweaked the geography of Swampscott, Massachusetts and the highway to the Cape. And I just said so in the author's page. And I make up the names of streets in Boston if bad things happen. In DRIVE TIME, I have to make up names of cars! And so far, I've created a problem car called a Calera. Would you pronounce that Ka-LEHR-a?

HALLIE: Interesting, isn't it, how we write those disclaimers--and yet most characters and situations in a novel (or in MY novels, at any rate) are sparked by something real. In my new book, there's a character who vacuums her front walk...I had a neighbor who did that. And there's a Victorian ark of a house on which my husband and I were (fortunately) overbid; the people who bought it found a hidden room. That house, with its leather wallpaper and stained glass, is in "Never Tell a Lie."
I love reading acknowledgments, too. Aren't they kind of a Rorschach? I'm always curious to discover whether writing the book took "a village" as mine do. And what does it mean, I wonder, when there are NO acknowledgments?


RO: Ugh, there was a typo in my acks. After going over my manuscript so carefully, apparently no one looked at the acks, which by the way were PERFECT when I sent them in.

PS.....Don't forget to come back for Wednesday's post when our guest blogger will be Jane Cleland, president of MWA/NY Chapter and author of the Agatha-nominated Josie Prescott series.

On Revelations

Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and life.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Would you? Or wouldn't you?

When I first read Barbars Walters' revelation, in her new memoir Audition, that she'd had a fling with then-Senator and then-married Edward Brooke back in the, what, 70's? I thought, gee. Why would you tell that?

Last night, I was intereviewed for a tv show,and as the host and I were chatting pre-interview, she asked me what I thought about it. Well, I adore Barbara Walters. Any woman who works in television, as I do, has got to bow down and applaud (if that's possible at the same time) one of the real pioneers in the field. No question, without Barbara, there's no Hank on TV.

So I start from the position of "she knows what she's doing." And I'm grateful.

Still. I was thinking about Senator Brooke's (now-deceased) first wife, and how the book would make her family feel. And what about Senator Brooke himself? The essence of a clandestine affair is that it's secret--for reasons of, well, all that. So why, I wondered, would she decide to reveal it?

Well, to sell books, the interviewer said. And that's certainly happening. Then she said to me--how far would you go to sell boooks? What would you tell? Then she smiled, twinkling, and said: I'm going to ask you that in the interview.

I'm usually pretty cool doing interviews, but I've got to tell you, I backed way off of that one. No! I said. Please don't.

And she didn't. But it got me thinking, and now, I think I've changed my mind.

We all know (cf James Frey and that not-gang woman) that if youre writing a memoir, you can't make things up. And I wonder if it's just as true that you also can't leave things out. Leaving something out means you're not a realiable memoirist, right? If you leave out the affair with the Senator, what else have you decided wasn't for public consumption? And if you've leavin' stuff out, why do I want to read your book?

Barbara Walters is a good journalist, agreed? And she knows how to tell a story. So all in all, I think I'm deciding she made the right decision. Um, for her.

What do you think?