Crime Fiction Dossier

Guyot on TV writing, Pt. 2

The second installment of Paul Guyot's series on TV writing, this one focused on the Network Pitch, is now up at Murderati.

As always when I read stuff like this, I'm amazed that anyone wants to be a writer.

Paul Guyot on How Television Shows Are Created

I've been meaning to link to this for a while, but kept forgetting. Paul Guyot, reluctant blogger and reformed television writer, has written the first part in a series on How Television Shows Are Created over at Murderati.

Guyot's blog essays are always worth reading and this one is particularly good. If you're interested in screenwriting, you'll definitely want to check this out. But even if you're not, it's still fascinating to read about the absurd world that is Hollywood.

10 Things An Author Shouldn't Do

Over on M.J. Rose's blog, I offer up my list of 10 Things An Author Shouldn't Do.

(As it turns out, there are only 8 of them... Must be part of the New Austerity.)

POV

Paul Guyot started a very interesting discussion on point-of-view over on Murderati. It's even got Laura Lippman and Lee Child, among other notables, chiming in.

I'm glad Paul wrote that up, because I was planning to post something about POV, but couldn't quite nail what I wanted to say. I think the discussion that's going on over there is insightful, and others have expressed many of the points I wanted to make.

My main thoughts on POV are that authors should keep it simple and be consistent. Figure out what POV you're writing from, and make sure you're doing it for a good reason. Don't change POV without a reason, and be clear when you're doing it.

Remember, your goal is to tell a good story in the clearest way possible. The more writers mess around with the POV, the more likely it is for the writing (the nuts and bolts) to show. When that happens, the story gets lost.

Writing how-to books

Following up on my previous post...The dialogue that Guyot started got me thinking.

I had a conversation about how-to writing books with Warren Murphy once. Despite the fact that he'd written hundreds of books, sold millions, and won (I think) 3 Edgar Awards, he still read writing books.

Warren said you could always find at least one thing in a how-to book that would teach you something -- and even if it were just one thing, that could be a valuable tool to add to your arsenal.

I think that's true. Writers are always learning. (The good ones, anyway. Lousy writers already know everything they need.) We learn from what we read (both fiction and non-fiction), we learn from what we observe, we learn from experimenting, from attending workshops and conferences, and from talking to other writers.

Writing is such a complicated, frustrating endeavor that no matter how good you are, there is always something more you can learn. An example: David Morrell, who knows as much about writing and literature as anyone, is constantly trying new things, experimenting with the form. (His 2005 novel, Creepers, unfolds over an eight-hour period, with virtually every minute accounted for.)

Morrell has written 25 or so novels, but he's still learning -- and he's still teaching, which is why I recommend people pick up his book Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing. It's very informative and engaging.

Other how-to books that I've enjoyed include Stephen King's On Writing (an essential read, I think), as well as Larry Block's writing books: Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, Spider, Spin Me a Web and Writing the Novel from Plot to Print (probably just read one of them).

(The two how-to books that I have heard crime writers speak well of the most often are Morrell's and King's.)

Something I would caution, however, is that it's easy to get caught up in reading writing books and never actually do any writing. So pick a few of the best, give 'em a look, and then get back to writing. As Guyot says, it's important to get a tune-up every now and again -- but it's crucial that you spend as much time as possible writing.

Another thing to be wary of: writers who give advice saying "This is how you write a blockbuster novel" -- but they've never written a blockbuster novel.

It doesn't mean they can't be good teachers, and it doesn't mean they don't know something. But you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. You have to scrutinize the advice that anyone gives you -- but you should especially scrutinize that given by someone without the credentials to back it up.

At least if Stephen King tells you something about writing (e.g., "the adverb is not your friend"), he has a pretty good shot at knowing what he's talking about.

On Writing

I was going to try to write something today, but instead I want to refer everyone over to Murderati to read Paul Guyot's excellent post about writers "visiting the mechanic."

He has some excellent advice.

What is a thriller?

Over on Sarah Weinman's blog, thriller reviewer Larry Gandle asked this excellent question, prompting much discussion. I've been meaning to tackle this subject for a while, so here goes.

I rarely have any trouble determining whether or not a book is a mystery or a thriller. The differences between the two are usually evident, although they can be difficult to explain in the abstract.

The reason I think that we tend to get confused is because people so often use the terms interchangeably. Many times, we are told that a book is a thriller, when really it's not.

That's the way it usually works, too, rather than the other way around. Many books are marketed as thrillers that really aren't, because thrillers sell better.

First off: what is a mystery?

In order to be a mystery novel, the story must have a mystery in it. And what's the purpose of having a mystery in a story? For someone to solve it, of course.

Since we're talking about crime novels, the mystery will involve a crime of some sort, which the investigator will attempt to solve. If those two elements are not present in the story, it's not a mystery. (Someone will probably come up with an exception, but I haven't been able to think of any.)

In terms of its format, a mystery novel will work like this: a crime will be introduced near the beginning of the book -- usually a murder, sometimes a theft or similar -- and the rest of the book will be about someone trying to solve that crime.

That "someone" -- the investigator -- can be either a professional or an amateur. S/he can be a detective, cop, private eye, reporter, antiques dealer, bed and breakfast proprietor or anything else.

Can a book be a mystery and also a thriller? Yes, sometimes it happens. A thriller can have a mystery at its core. A thriller can have a romance at its core. Which genre you classify the story as depends on the nature of the story being told, and how the author goes about telling it.

So...what is a thriller?

Thrillers are much looser in form, so it's harder to give as precise a description. You can draw the line at many places, but I think one of the main distinctions lies in motion and emotion.

The plots in thrillers move differently from the plots in mysteries. Mysteries are mono-paced, moving at a steady speed from start to finish. After all, the crime has already happened. The Vicar is lying dead in the chapel; he can't get any more dead.

Thrillers, on the other hand, have greater urgency, as the crime still lies off in the future. Thus, thrillers move more quickly than mysteries, and their pace generally accelerates as the story progresses. A good thriller moves like a roller coaster, with periods of relative calm interspersed with stretches of heightened suspense.

The emotions generated by thrillers are different as well. Mysteries tend to be more intellectual. They excite the mind with their tales of puzzles, investigation, procedure, deduction, analysis and problem solving.

Thrillers are more visceral. They attempt to manipulate our emotions. (Think of Hitchcock and his famous quote about playing the audience like a piano.) Thrillers generate excitement, anticipation, fear, apprehension -- in short, they thrill.

Thrillers come in many forms -- legal, medical, military, action, political, espionage, etc. -- but they all share the common elements of motion and emotion.

One final thing to keep in mind: there are ineffective thrillers. You can read a book and think, "There wasn't one damn thrill in that book -- how can it be a thriller?" In that case, I think it's the book's intentions that determine its classification, even if those intentions failed.

And the winner is...

Me!

Just over one year ago, Paul Guyot issued a foolhardy proposition, challenging me to a bet to see which one of us would finish his novel first.

On his now-defunct blog, Guyot wrote:

I'm officially calling out David J. Montgomery.

Over on his blog the Crime Fiction Dossier he has dared to insinuate that I created this blog to avoid writing. Ha! I say.

I am calling his review writing, goatee wearing, self-righteous butt out!

See, DJM has a little piece of unfinished work sitting in his desk drawer. And if this blog is merely procrastination in disguise, then what the heck are all his sites???

So...I offer an official challenge to Mr. Montgomery:

Starting right this second, whichever one of us is the first to complete a full first draft of our manuscript wins dinner (including wine) AT THE RESTAURANT OF WINNER'S CHOICE at whatever conference or convention is first up after the ms is finished.

The good news is, at long last, I have finished my novel! I actually finished the first draft a month or so back and I have be doing revisions since then.

As for Guyot... Well, let's just say, he hasn't been heard from since. He even shuttered his blog in an attempt to hide. But I'm on his butt like white on rice.

You owe me dinner, Mr. Hollywood!

What makes a good read?

SuperFan Rae Helmsworth posed an interesting question recently on Lee Child's message board:

What are the most important components to you of a good book? Characters? Pace? Plot? Setting? Believability? None of the above? All of the above?

An excellent question and one that I consider often when I'm assessing what I've read. Obviously there are many factors that go into making a book a good read, but I think we can focus on a few of them as being the most important.

The book has to have at least an adequate level of writing -- but you can usually assume that, if the book was published by a reputable publisher. (Occasionally you'll come across something that's abysmally written, but most books are at least competent.)

So beyond that, character is the thing for me. The book has to have a compelling protagonist, someone who makes you care about them and their life, for good or ill. Everything hangs on the characters because if you don't care about the people in the story, you won't want to read it. (It doesn't matter whether you love them or hate them -- you just have to care.)

Plot is probably the second thing -- and that depends a lot on character, too. You take a character, place them in a certain set of circumstances, and see what they do. That's how plot develops, especially when there is conflict involved (and there had better be conflict involved). Character and plot together form the basis for story, so if you can nail those two elements, I'm pretty much sold.

Setting obviously plays a part, but I think it's of lesser importance. When you read a book that uses its setting especially well, it's interesting and adds to the story. But when the setting isn't done quite as well, it generally won't ruin it. There's a lot more leeway here than with character. If plot and character are the meat of the book, setting is the seasoning. You have to really mess up the seasoning in order to make the food inedible.

The same thing goes for elements like pacing, dialogue, etc. They all contribute to the overall quality of the book, but they're secondary. If a book has dialogue that's a little off, or parts that drag, it can still be a good read as long as the story itself is compelling. On the other hand, nobody wants to read even superb dialogue coming out of the mouths of poorly-drawn, one-dimensional characters.

Great writing is nice -- it's always a joy to come across a nicely turned phrase or a particularly evocative description -- but it's not as important as you might think. I'd much rather read a well-told story than a well-written one. (And obviously I'd much rather read one that's both.) It doesn't matter how beautiful the prose is; if it's in service of a lousy story, it won't hold the reader's interest.

(On the other hand, it should be noted, the overall quality of the prose is one of the factors that can elevate a good read to a great one. It would be difficult to have a great book that has only okay writing -- although I can think of some writers who are such good storytellers that they've come close.)

Bottom line, when you're talking about genre fiction, the book has to be entertaining. These are stories we read to be entertained. Genre fiction can educate, illuminate, enlighten, and all the rest, but above all it must entertain. Otherwise, it fails.

Mayhem, guts and gore -- oh my!

David Hiltbrand, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and mystery novelist, wrote a thought-provoking article recently about the trend in pop culture towards more gratuitous expressions of violence and brutality. Sarah Weinman linked to the piece and touched off an interesting discussion about it, focusing on the literary world.

When it comes to television and film, relaxed standards have clearly, I think, allowed filmmakers to depict content on-screen that previously would not have been allowed. (Note that this is true regarding violence, but not sex.) Furthermore, advances in technical sophistication have made it possible to show things in a hyper-realistic manner that wouldn't have been possible even twenty years ago.

With regards to the themes involved, whether torture, mayhem, serial murder, etc., I don't think much has changed. And I believe this is true for books as well. If anything, there are some themes, especially those involving violence towards women and children, that might even be a little harder to deal with these days than before. (Mickey Spillane, for example, got away with some real nastiness towards women that probably wouldn't fly today with a mass audience.)

However, if the themes have remained largely the same, I do think that the descriptions of and attitudes towards those themes have changed. The language and imagery used in mainstream books is stronger than it once was. Previously, you might have found such material in an obscure pulp novel, but now we're seeing it in highly-promoted and publicized books that land on the bestseller lists.

Now, I'm the farthest thing from a prude. I don't think I've ever read anything in a book that shocked or grossed me out. So for my purposes, I don't particularly mind it. But I do get peeved when I see an author who appears just to be throwing that stuff in there for shock value. It might make for a nice marketing ploy -- "Look at the nice woman writing the awful things!" -- but it doesn't necessarily make for good storytelling.

Another thing I have a problem with is when novels take too much pleasure from dwelling on their blood and gore. When you start to feel the author lingering over such a scene with almost reverential (or sexual) glee, it definitely becomes a turn-off. (This is how many people felt about Thomas Harris' Hannibal.) I don't mind it because I'm offended. I mind it because it's bad writing. Such passages are not storytelling; they're voyeurism, cheap and lurid. And I'm no more interested in reading that than I am in peeping in someone's window.

As always, talented writers use their themes, images and language in service to the story. They don't do things simply in an effort to shock the reader. Even if the purpose of the story is to shock, a skilled writer will still ensure that what happens in the story is an organic and necessary part of the story. The content might be shocking, but the author will have earned that reaction, and the story will be stronger as a result, not diminished.

It's easy enough to write passages filled with murder, mayhem and mutilation, all dripping with blood, guts and ichor. But if it's not a logical outgrowth of the story, fitting in with the book's overall tone, style and theme, then what's the point? It's not going to shock; it's simply going to bore. Such a writer isn't worthy of outrage. Just throw the book away and move on to an author who cares about the story they're telling.