I’ve heard writers described as “pantsers” (writers who write “by the seat of their pants,” not knowing where the book will go as they’re writing) and “outliners” (someone who dutifully outlines before they begin; Jeffrey Deaver once gave a speech I attended during which he said he spends 8 months writing the outline, 3 months writing the novel).

Two weeks ago, SJ Rozan visited my classes after we read her story “Going Home” and offered another view: She said she works in a circular motion –– writing and pushing the story forward, then going back and rereading, before moving forward again. The image she drew for the students was this:

 

I thought it was a great description of the way lots of us write –– forward progress, then circling back, and moving forward again. I usually begin with character sketches and maybe a paragraph describing the plot, something like the description on the back of the book. Then I start writing. When the story lags or I don’t know where to go next (typically, that’s one and the same), I go back 50 or 100 pages (or even to the beginning –– desperate times call for early mornings of rereading).

There are a few benefits to this circular writing style. It allows me to edit as I go. It also speaks to how some of us plot. When the book stalls, it’s usually because I missed something in the writing. That sounds absurd (the book doesn’t write itself by any means), but I have found when I go back and reread that I discover opportunities to clarify the plot for the reader (and myself).

So if you’re not a “pantser” or an “outliner” maybe you’re a circler. 

Juggling

I have a short entry this week because the discussion seems pretty straightforward.

I’m always amazed at my friends who juggle different writing projects at once. These writers work on a novel and a story or script simultaneously. They seem to have the ability to juggle the characters, plots, and settings.

This topic came up recently in a conversation I had with SJ Rozan, who spoke about working on a story while writing a novel. I listened closely because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to write more stories while trying to finish a novel every year or 18 months. SJ was telling me how she hits pause on a novel when she reaches a difficult spot, writes a short story (in a week or two), then returns to the novel with fresh eyes.

This makes sense to me, and it’s something I plan to try. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on the topic of juggling projects.

Guest Blogger: SJ Rozan

(Hi! This is Rick here, deputized by John Corrigan to introduce his guest.) We are honored to welcome our guest blogger this weekend, the inimitable SJ Rozan. She’s a native New Yorker who is the author of 16 novels and 70+ short stories. SJ has won Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity Awards, as well as the Japanese Maltese Falcon. Paper Son is her latest book, just out. So grab a copy now! We guarantee you will not be disappointed.

What I Learned Writing Paper Son

I learned you can’t set foot in Mississippi without gaining five pounds.

While that may not be the most important lesson, it’s absolutely true. Cheese grits, pulled pork, blackened redfish with rice — damn, these people can eat. And drink: bourbon, beer, and moonshine. And sweet tea. Which is where I draw the line.

Southern hospitality is a real thing. The Deep South’s disastrous history of race relations — in many ways the actual subject of Paper Son — means that local folks aren't always welcome in one another’s homes. But a stranger, once introduced and vouched for, gets the red carpet rolled out, in many and varied communities. All of whom, I repeat, eat like crazy.

As anywhere, local manners and customs are unseen by the locals but must be carefully observed and parsed by outsiders. An example: In the South, when you pass people on the street, you meet their eyes and ask, “How’re you doing?” People you know, total strangers, doesn't matter. A reply's not expected if you don’t know one another — you just ask and get asked and walk on — but it’s considered rude not to ask. If you do know one another, you’re expected to actually answer, to stop and exchange a few words. We don’t do that up north. Here, looking a stranger in the eye as you pass is, while not quite a challenge, is odd enough to provoke a “Do I know you?” or What’s she looking at? Do I have scrambled eggs on my chin again?

And this is the point, the challenge, and the joy of setting a book in a place I don’t know well. It’s true up north, too — the local manners and customs of New York City are different from those of Boston (and Staten Island’s from those of Greenwich Village) but the differences in the US are broadest, I think, from south to north. Just as they're broad from New York to Hong Kong, as I found researching Reflecting the Sky, and from present to past with The Shanghai Moon. (The past is, after all, a different country.)

The joy is in getting out of my comfort zone, where I pretty much know what to expect in terms of people's attitudes, behaviors, and speech patterns, to a place where I have to consciously study those things to make my characters real. A lot of this kind of research involves just plain talking to people, or listening while they talk to each other. It’s watching them walk down the street (French women have a particular walk) or discuss something (Italians sound, half the time, as though they’re having a fight). It’s taking note of what time they eat dinner, go to bed, open their stores in the morning. This, along with the smells and quality of light, the kinds of birds that chirp at dawn in the different kinds of trees, the kinds of cars people drive and where they park them, are the small, critical details that, for me, make a place and the people in it come to life. Which is what I love about writing.

STARTING OVER by Guest Blogger Tom Savage

Hi, folks. I was delighted when John Corrigan invited me to submit a guest post here, and I wondered which aspect of the writing life I should address. I’ve chosen a subject that isn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s a reality for many of us.
I’m talking about starting over. I don’t mean abandoning or rewriting a story or a novel; I mean hitting the Restart button on your writing career. It may have happened to you, and it’s definitely happened to me. Twice. Here’s my cautionary tale:

I wrote my first novel, Precipice, in 1990-91, and went shopping for an agent. After 20+ rejections, I found one. He sent the manuscript around to all the big houses. There was an auction, and the highest bidder gave me a two-book deal. Precipice was published in 1994. My second novel, Valentine, was sold to the movies, and they actually made the movie! I wrote two books in a detective series for another big house, and I eventually wrote two more thrillers for a third big house. That’s six books for three big houses in six years, plus one movie.

Then, in 2000, I walked away from it all. Why? Your clue is in the three publishing houses. Every time I got momentum going somewhere, my editor either got fired or ran away to another house. Two of my novels had one editor at the beginning and a different one by the time they were published. The new editors weren’t interested in me. My books faded and fizzled. So, I stopped.

I didn’t stop writing, mind you, but I stopped publishing. I parted ways with the agent and went back to my day job as a bookseller at Murder Ink®. I wrote several manuscripts that stayed in my computer, unseen and unread, until 2008. That’s when my friend SJ Rozan asked me to join her writing group. I started reading those manuscripts aloud to a gang of fellow writers who convinced me to go out into the marketplace again.

I found a new agent, and she found me a publisher—a new, ebook-only imprint of Penguin Random House called Alibi. My first novel in fifteen years, A Penny for the Hangman, was published in 2015. I started a new series about an actress named Nora Baron who becomes a field agent for the CIA, and Alibi published three Nora Baron titles over the next three years. Of course, my acquiring editor was fired in 2017, so I ended up with a new editor who wasn’t interested in me. Sound familiar?

Two months ago, I didn’t just lose the new editor—I lost the whole publisher! Yep, Penguin Random House did a clean sweep, firing dozens of editors (including mine) and shutting down several imprints (including Alibi). They’ll publish the fourth Nora Baron thriller, The Devil and the Deep Blue Spy, next month, but that’s the end. I’m back to square one.

This time, I’m not walking away. I’ll have to write new books and find new publishers. I’ll have to start all over again, but I’ll do it—I’ve had practice. And that’s the moral of this tale: We can always start over. All we need is the need to tell our stories.

Tom Savage is the author of 12 novels and numerous short stories. He's served as a director on the national board of Mystery Writers of America and on the Best Novel committee for MWA’s Edgar awards (three times) and International Association of Crime Writers' Hammett Prize (two times). He's a founding member of MWA-NY’s Mentor Program, advising and encouraging new mystery writers. He lives in New York City, where he worked for many years at Murder Ink®, the world's first mystery bookstore.  You can learn more about him at his website and his Facebook page. 

The Arc

I’ve been thinking about the arc of a character a lot lately. About the ways my characters will seek and find redemption. About how the storyline wraps up.

In short, about endings.

That’s because I’m getting ready to begin. Again.

My wonderful agents Julia Lord and Ginger Curwen are submitting a novel I finished a while ago, and my downtime is about over. (I’ve spent the past few months playing around with a TV pitch and pilot for the finished book; sort of like learning to drive by jumping onto the Autobahn.) But now the little voice is calling again . . . Where have you been? . . . And a character has appeared. So it’s time to start telling a new story.

But I’m also trying to be more efficient with my time. I’m not certain I can do it. My process –– from idea to finished manuscript –– is messy. And I don’t mean tracking-a-little-dirt-on-the-carpet messy. I mean a 7-year-old’s-playroom messy. SJ Rozan describes her writing process as driving at night: She sees the story only to the end of the headlights and writes that far each day. I usually feel like I’ve got one headlight out, and the other is covered in fog.

So now that a character has appeared, one that interests me, I’m thinking about the story arc and the ways my protagonists will change and grow. Because of my “process,” the word “outline” frightens me, although I try. I usually create detailed character sketches, fleshing out motivations. But this time, I’m thinking about endings before I consider beginnings. Where do I want the husband and wife team to end up? What do I want them to learn from this character? What struggles should they face?

Maybe I’m really talking about outlining here. After all, isn’t the character’s arc the backbone of the story? Doesn’t is constitute the plot. Hell, maybe I’m an outliner after all.

Challenges facing the contemporary crime-fiction writer, cont….

Rick’s excellent Sept. 18 post “Is it getting harder to write contemporary crime fiction?” has me thinking. He astutely examines the works of Rex Stout and Michael Connelly and wonders if one’s need to keep up with technological advancements dooms writers entering the genre.

Good question.

Part of why I love Robert B. Parker novels so thoroughly is that –– viewed through the lens of which Rick writes –– they are simple. Spenser knows himself, and he knows human nature. And, thus, he solves the crime. “It’s a way to live,” Spenser tells us in Ceremony. “The rest is just confusion.” Sounds like Hamlet, when he utters those wonderful words: To thine own self be true . . .Know yourself well enough, and you can know the world around you. Wonderful. Poignant.

But outdated?

Say it ain’t so.

After all, it’s Connelly himself, in his essay titled “The Mystery of Mystery Writing” (the Walden Book Report, September, 1998) who states:

“The mystery has evolved in recent decades to be as much an investigation of the investigator as an inquiry of the crime at hand. Investigators now look inward for the solutions and means of restoring order. In the content of their own character they find the clues. I think this only bodes well for the mystery novel. It is what keeps me interested in writing them.”

Sounds like a Parker fan to me. I’m not questioning Rick’s assertion here. The passage above is dated 1998, after all. I agree that –– given the authenticity of TV’s cop shows and streaming networks’ crime thrillers –– the writer is better off cursed with writer’s block than to be inaccurate. There is no longer room to fudge details. But we aren’t doomed. The package might have changed. It’s a little shinier, a little spiffier, more precise, and procedurally more authentic.

But the heart of the story –– that heart that Wolfe Nero and Spenser and Kinsey Millhone and even Poe’s Dupin gave us –– remain at the core of why we write, readers read, and even our Netflix binge-watching next generation love this genre: at the heart of the story is the character.

The genre has changed and grown and now demands a level of authenticity of which Poe could never have dreamed. That’s a challenge, but it’s also a sign of evolution.

There’s another challenge we face that concerns me more: The way young readers now experience, learn, and consume narratives will pose the largest challenge to one who wishes to write crime fiction full time.

As many of you know, I work and teach at a New England boarding school. (I’m probably the genre’s only dorm parent to 60 teens.) So I know the habits of the teenage species well. And, frankly, I’m worried about our futures. Speaking to SJ Rozan this week, I mentioned that any writer I know who writes full time right now has their hand in some form of script work, as if TV/film work pays for them to write novels. Maybe that’s the new business model.

Or maybe Shakespeare was just further ahead of his time than I realize. Perhaps the Globe Theatre was supporting his poetry enterprise.

Word-of-Mouth Sales?

This week, I ran out and got Alex Marwood’s THE DARKEST SECRET. I’ve started reading and am enjoying it. I heard about it via word of mouth.

Well, kind of.

You see, I saw the following tweet by Stephen King: Rereading THE DARKEST SECRET, by Alex Marwood. If there has been a better mystery-suspense story written in this decade, I can’t think of it. Maybe THE PAYING GUESTS, by Sarah Waters. Both transcend the genre.

The book is living up to Mr. King’s praise. All of which has me wondering about the role of social media on book sales. How many times have I bought a book because a friend recommended it? Often times, this comes in the form of an author friend: Reed Farrell Coleman suggested Megan Abbott; SJ Rozan suggested Naomi Hirahara.

Maybe this is all a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same. People have, after all, been swapping and recommending books forever. Goodreads has 65 million members and was born of this long-standing tradition.

Yet Goodreads, even with its seemingly large membership, is designed for –– and serves –– book lovers. But does success on Goodreads (strong reviews, etc) lead to sales? The data indicates this can be hit or miss, while NPR radio mentions and reviews in large-scale mainstream publications will produce noticeable results. One interesting item: 84% of Twitter users say they use the platform to look for deals, especially during the holidays.

So where does Stephen King’s twitter praise rank? Certainly, he’s not your typical word-of-mouth promoter. (I follow him mostly because his Donald Trump tweets make me laugh. And think.) I have no way of knowing how many sales it generated for Alex Marwood, but she was sure to tweet back.

Oh, thanks so much!

So I’m assuming King’s praise didn’t hurt.

Plotting

Lately, I've been thinking about story structure – how it takes shape, and how to best achieve an effective plot.

This stems from two recent visits (and conversations) with Edgar-winner SJ Rozan and screenwriter and show-runner (Dexter) Clyde Phillips. These writers have very different takes on plotting and structure, and my discussions with each was fascinating.

SJ says plotting, for her, is like driving cross country at night: she writes to the edge of her headlights, knowing only that much of her story in advance. Clyde, accustomed to working out his plots on a storyboard before writing a TV script, has a novel-crafting process similar to the way he plots his TV shows: he outlines books meticulously (upwards of 70 pages for a 350-page thriller).

For me, a writer whose process falls somewhere between the two mentioned above, I find it fascinating to talk to SJ and Clyde because I can see – upon reading each writer's work – how their process plays out. Clyde's novel Unthinkable is airtight and sparse, and the end is absolutely wonderful – you will never see it coming. SJ's novel Winter and Night is every bit as satisfying but completely different – full of rich details and descriptions. I would recommend both books. And you will see each writer's process as you read.

As we all know, there are no rules to writing, no one best way to do it. When it comes to plotting, you find your way (literally and figuratively) as you go. Below, is a writing activity I've used to teach some elements of plotting. If you try it, let me know by e-mailing me. I'd love to read what you come up with

What’s My Back-Story? A Plotline Activity

Must every story be told in a linear narrative style? No way. Readers want a scene that allows them to figure out the story on their own. So how do we tell stories cinematically? By using scenes to convey the story-line. This allows the writer to use flashback sequences while starting in the middle of the action and continuously pushing the story forward.

Read the following plot-line and determine which numbers (there are several, after all) at which you could begin. How will you include the information that came before your starting point? Must you include all of it?

Write a first- or third-person opening scene (narration and dialogue) beginning at one point on the line and dropping in the necessary previous material as the scene moves forward.

1. Mary Howard grew up in Readfield, Maine, the daughter of a doctor.
2. She went to UMaine at Orono, where she studied history, graduating with a 3.5 GPA, and met Steven Smith, a political science major, whom she married following graduation.
3. After graduation and one year of marriage, Mary dutifully helps Steven launch his political career.
4. Mary, now in her mid-30s, helps Steven becomes a Maine State Legislator and raises their three kids.
5. Unbeknownst to Mary, Steven begins an affair with a fellow Maine State Legislator.
6. Mary gets a phone call from an intern in Steven’s office, who tells her of the affair.
7. Mary confronts Steven. This takes every ounce of courage she has. In 15 years of marriage, she has morphed from the confident, bubbly Mary Howard, to the housewife of powerful Maine State Legislator Steven Smith. As his career has taken off, her identity somehow got lost.
8. Mary listens as Steven tells her the affair is just “a sideline” that “this is how some political marriages are.”
9. Mary packs her bags, grabs her kids (now ages 11, 9, and 7), and walks outside, determined to start a new life.
10. She drives to Santa Fe, New Mexico, a place she’s only seen on TV.
11. In Santa Fe, she enrolls the kids in school, gets a job in a bookstore, and hires attorney Phil Rogers, who is 35 and single.
12. Mary doesn’t know what to do when Rogers asks her to dinner six months after she’s been in Santa Fe and following what was a surprisingly easy out-of-court settlement with Steven. She wonders what message a date would send to her kids. Would her acceptance tell them that they are all starting over? That it’s okay to move on? Or would they think she’s callous?

Finishing Strong

The end is in sight. My work-in-progress, Fallen Sparrow, is (fingers crossed) three-fourths completed. I've read and re-read and re-read again, making sure I haven't missed any plot threads, and even outlined the final hundred pages. Now I have to write them and hope to deliver the manuscript by June.

It's a good feeling to be close to the end. It's an even better feeling to know the ending.

Don't chuckle. I say this because you know as well as I do that the ending is the most important part of the novel. I can hook you in the first twenty pages and get you to read to the end, but if you're not satisfied by my conclusion I've wasted your time and mine. We've all finished reading books, sat back, and shook our heads at the (in the reader's opinion) wrong ending. Take The Great Gatsby. What other possible ending could that book have? The conclusion is entirely fitting, albeit sad for many of my students.

I love endings that turn and twist, offering the unexpected. I just finished Chandler's classic The Long Goodbye. The climax occurs a hundred pages before the book's ending. This novel, though, never lets you go, and the final page stuns you. (I had to reread it.) Same with The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley and SJ Rozan's Winter and Night. I'm hoping (as I always do) that readers will be left guessing until the end of my work-in-progress.

I don't usually start a book with a scene-by-scene outline, but, rather, with five to ten pages of detailed notes. Mostly, these are character sketches that serve to make sure I understand each character's motivation. Motivation, after all, is the driving force behind any plot twist. But as I near the end, I usually stop to reread the entire book. And then I outline the plot from there to the conclusion. Often this outline forces me to go back and add or delete scenes. (This time I added three.) I spent three days (4 to 6 a.m.) on this. It seemed like a long time when I was working on the outline. But, three mornings or not, it will (I hope) prove to be time well spent.

If, that is, I can keep you guessing until the final page.