Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 228

I hadn’t heard anyone complain about writer’s block in a ...

I hadn’t heard anyone complain about writer’s block in a while, and then recently someone asked how I overcame it. I am not prone to writer's block, so it was a hard question to answer. After thinking about it, though,  I realized that at times I do feel blocked, but that I learned long ago what to do when I can’t seem to get into a writing rhythm. I find a muse.


My original muse, who still spurs me to write the best prose I can, will be a surprise to many, who know that I write crime fiction. But I try to write good quality fiction—like my muse. He wrote about the south, and he wrote about crime—true crime. In fact, he wrote one of the most famous true crime books ever written—In Cold Blood.
But his writing that always inspired me was not his crime novels but his short stories. For some reason I could read just a few lines of Truman Capote’s prose, and my writer brain would light up.
         In the past few months I’ve been working on a book that is outside my usual genre, a thriller. I was having trouble not only with the action, but also with understanding the protagonist. I couldn’t quite figure out what the reader needed to know about him in order to care about him. It was time to find a muse. I picked up one thriller after another, thinking that if I understood how other thriller writers hooked me I might learn what I needed to know. And one after another I tossed them aside. Each had some kind of problem-- too wordy, no character development, improbable action, too self-conscious. And then I picked up The Tourist, by Olen Steinhauer. I had never heard of this writer, but as soon as I started reading The Tourist I knew instantly I had found a writer who would work for me. His story was convoluted but when he rambled too far afield, he went back and subtly reiterated the salient points. His characters were well differentiated and strongly defined. The story was intriguing and not too over-the-top. Best of all, he made me want to get to work.
         So I found my thriller muse. I don’t mean that I will copy him or try to write like him. But when I read his work, I tend to find myself itching to write. For some reason his writing rhythm spurs me to what I need to do to bring my characters and plot to life.

What I wish I had suggested to the person who asked the question about writers block is, “Get yourself a muse.” It doesn’t have to be a writer. It can be music or movies. It can be something in nature, or an animal you love. It can be a friend, or a particular piece of art. But when you see it, you’ll know it. You’ll have a little jolt that makes you feel like you need to get to work. The trick is to recognize it when it happens and to embrace it. And remember it, so that when you suddenly feel empty and unable to put words onto the page, you know where to go.

The Right Advice (at the Right Time)

Writers are constantly bombarded with advice, everything from work habits that are supposed to help you find an agent (or not), get published (one way or another), get blurbs, promote your books, find reviewers, sell more books to personal habits that will help you avoid being overwhelmed, work harder and better, and use resources better, faster, more deeply. We are analyzed as introverts and extroverts and “in-between verts” and advised how to make the most of those traits. We are told what books are hot, which are not and how to take advantage of that.
We are advised which workshops and conferences will give the most bang for the buck, which social media will get our names out in the public—or whether it is worthwhile at all, whether readings at bookstores are worth your time, how to conduct readings to best effect, and what to do if no one shows up at your events.
The advice can be bewildering and sometimes seem at cross-purposes. It can make you feel like you’re never going to be able to do enough. It can make you doubt your abilities and your dedication. It can make you crazy.
So I’m going to give you some advice: Read all the advice you want, but  take to heart only the advice that is right for you at this particular time. At first every single tip you read may seem relevant. You are clutching at straws, hoping for that one little tip that will suddenly move you from unpublished to published; from sadly-published to best selling author. Advice that will help you not care if things aren’t going your way or that will make things go your way.
But some advice is better for you in your situation at this moment than others. The advice for how to promote your books is not useful if you don’t have a book out yet, and it’s a waste of your time to dwell on those tips. I’ve had writers who are unpublished ask me what I think is the best way to get a book reviewed in the newspaper. At some point this information might be useful, but it’s a waste of time and precious energy to worry about it until you need it.
I don’t mean you shouldn’t plan in advance—I just mean not too far in advance. At one point, before I found a publisher I began to collect everything I could about the best way to self-publish. I never used the information, but it wasn’t a waste of time because I was approaching the crossroads: I had two novels written and no publisher—and I wanted to be published. But to collect this information before you even have a novel completed is a waste of time.  And I don’t mean to ignore the advice. Start a file where you can keep information that you hope to use in the future.

But focus on the advice that’s useful to you right now!

The Imperfect Past Perfect

I’m reading a wonderful novel at the moment, which I will not name because I’m going to complain about one aspect of it that drives me crazy: Overuse of the past perfect.
Some of you are going to be mumbling, “I don’t know what past perfect is, really.”  Past perfect doesn’t mean that something the past had no flaws. It means that the event happened farther back than the immediate past:
Past:  We ran six miles every day for two years.
Past Perfect: We had run six miles every day for two years.
The past perfect implies “in those days.”
Let’s go farther.
“We ran six miles every day for two years. It was glorious. When we moved to the city, we found it hard to keep that up, so we joined a gym.”  Completed thought.
“We had run six miles every day for two years. It hadbeen glorious. When we had moved to the city we had found it hard to that up, so we had joined a gym.”


The problem is that in the past perfect the use of the word “had” can get repetitive. (Note the example above “had” in italics). It isn’t necessary to repeat it again and again. The first use of the word “had” establishes that this is something that happened a while back. Then you can use it sparingly:
“We had run six miles every day for two years before we had to move. It was glorious. When we moved to the city we found it hard to keep that up so we joined a gym.”
Does that last sentence lose its meaning by dropping three of its use of the word “had?” No. It just makes the reading smoother.

In the book I’m reading, there is a page or more in which the protagonist is remembering the past. And the author never drops the word “had.” It gets numbing. Not only did the author write it, but the editor did not correct it.
It isn’t that the usage is incorrect; it’s that the usage is cumbersome. Here’s what Chris Roerden says in Don’t Sabotage Your Submission: 
“Steer clear of cumbersome…The one-time use of the past perfect tense is usually sufficient to signal a transition to the more distant past…After that the simple past tense is fine. It makes the long-ago action more immediate and less wordy.”
Or from Elizabeth’s Lyon’s Manuscript Makeover, “In flashbacks, drop “had” once the past is established.”
I’m curious to know what grammatical quirks annoy others. Especially those that a good editor should catch and correct.

Circling the Computer

I was on an interesting panel at California Crime Writers Conference last weekend. The topic was “The F word.” No, not that word. The word was “fear.” Turns out I’m not a fearful person with regard to writing, although I always have a few days of dread when I turn in a manuscript (what if my editor says, “Uh oh, this one doesn’t cut it.”).
The part that I found interesting is that a lot of people seem to feel embarrassed by procrastination. I listened as several people described their delaying tactics: making sure the kitchen is clean, checking emails, reading an article, doing a little social media, etc. Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, then you are unusual or perhaps telling a little fib.






I suggested that instead of procrastination, those activities could be dubbed “preparation.” Dennis Polumbo, who moderated the panel, said it would come under the heading of “process.” And one member of the audience delighted everyone by saying that her family teases her when they see her doing those little dances. They say, “Mom is circling the computer.” I told her I planned to steal the phrase (note the title above).
I have two different modes of processing my writing. The first is to get up at 6 AM, grab a cup of tea, and start writing. This is usually a first draft method. It works well for me, but only because I’m an early morning person. The second mode is to read the paper, do the Sudoku and Ken-ken, work out, eat breakfast, and finally start working about 10 AM. The first method is draconian and doesn’t allow for much in the way of preparation, and that’s deliberate. When I read The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron, I did the morning pages and found that my ideas flowed faster and more freely when I went straight to the page. When I work on first draft, I like having no thoughts between me and the page.
The second works better after I have the first draft done. It gives me a chance to prepare for promotional work, to diddle around, and to keep my world running. In the first method, everything in my household tends to fall to pieces—where are the clean sox? When was the last time the dog had a bath? Why haven’t I written thank you notes to the people who hosted me? The second method allows me to keep my life in some order.
The trick is that, even if you allow yourself procrastination under the guise of preparation, at some point you have to say, “Enough!” and face the pages. Everyone always says I am disciplined, but what I know is that if I dither away the day and don’t get my work done, I feel like a total grump at the end of the day. Just as I would feel embarrassed and sleazy if I neglected to brush my teeth or wash my face. These are essentials. Wearing pajamas all day? That’s okay. Not brushing your teeth? Mmmm, not so much. I don’t think of it as discipline so much as necessity. Preparation is wasted if you don’t put it to good use.

Always Learning

This coming weekend, I’m going to do one of my favorite activities—I’m attending a conference--the California Crime Writers Conference in Los Angeles. I’m excited because it’s a conference that’s only put on every other year and last time I went, I learned a tremendous amount. Many conferences are fan-oriented, and they’re wonderful. But this one is a working conference. This weekend I’ll see writers of every level of experience, from beginners to very accomplished and long-published ones.
What makes so many well-published writers spend the time and money to go to a working conference? There’s hardly a writer who can’t benefit from the opportunity to learn what’s new in the world of publishing, as well as to get a refresher in aspects of craft. But it’s also a chance to catch up with friends and become acquainted with other writers. It’s a chance to find out what the current trends are in crime fiction—are food cozies still hot? Is the trend to deeper characterization in thrillers still going strong? Are Scandinavian crime novels still all the rage? Find out who the new small publishers are, and what’s going on with the Big Five. Find out the current state of independent publishing.
When I finally got published, after many years of “close, but no champagne (who needs cigars?)” many people congratulated me on my perseverance. But perseverance was only part of the battle. The bigger part of the equation was that I kept learning, trying to get better. Instead of writing the same book again and again, with different characters, setting, and plot, I kept struggling to write a better book. And I kept up with trends so that I wouldn’t be writing a mystery of the kind that was popular ten or fifteen years ago, but that couldn’t find an audience with current readers.
For the writer trying to break into the business, there’s no better way to meet people who might help you by reading a few chapters and giving you advice or offering to introduce you to someone who can help. You may, as I did, meet a writer who is generous enough to give you a blurb for your first book, or who knows an up and coming agent looking for clients. You may meet an eager editor of a small press who is hungry for good product.
Not only are working conferences a great way to learn, but they are a lot of fun. These days I get to be on the same types of panels that wowed me back when I was struggling. I try really hard to make them as valuable as I found them to be. And you know what? I still get wowed. At every conference I attend I usually find some panel that sparks my creative juices and makes me glad I went. Or I meet an author I’ve always admired and get a chance to hang out with him or her. I’m looking forward to the weekend.

Details, Details, Details

Two passages:
“He sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. He’d have to go out sooner or later.”
“He sat at the stainless steel kitchen table, chosen by his ex-wife and left behind when she moved on, drinking the last of the espresso. He’d have to go out into the cold sooner or later.”
Which passage makes you think you can see the scene? Which one draws you to read on? If I’m not badly mistaken, it’s the second. The old adage is that “the devil is in the details.” But the angel is also in the details. In other words, it’s all about the details.
I’m working on a thriller with a pretty good premise. At 2,000 words a day, it’s humming along. But I hate it. Everyone within earshot has heard me whining about it. If you haven’t heard me, it’s because you haven’t been listening.
The thing is, this is a first draft—what I’m calling a “plot” first draft. It’s one scene after another of who is doing what to whom. Most of the “where” is vague. “Somewhere in Los Angeles.” Somewhere” in Kabul. A few of the characters have made themselves known, but I haven’t bothered to describe them or to describe much of the “place,” where the action is happening. I sometimes mention a polished marble floor here, or a desk there, or a quick glimpse out a window. But that’s about it. And I know that’s why I’m not enjoying the book—because I’m leaving out the details.
In the two passages above, by the end of the first one, you have no idea what “he” looks like or what his “place” is in life. All you know is that he has a table, he drinks coffee, and he has to go out before long. At the end of the second one, you know he’s divorced, and he’s down to his last cappuccino. You also know that he has, or has had, money—to buy the steel table, the cappuccino machine. You know that he let his wife choose the table—does that mean he doesn’t care about furniture? Or that his wife was strong-willed? Or that she was a decorator? You know it’s cold outside and that he hasn’t been out for a while, which may give you some indication of the mood of the story.
I’ve read some manuscripts and even some published books that suffer from the issues that the first passage has. Not that every piece of furniture in a room has to be described, or that every detail of a person’s face has to be described, or that the number of steps leading up to a house has to included. What does have to be included is the “telling” details—the details that indicate something about the character in the scene. So if the point of view character is tied to chair in a strange room, yes he’ll likely look at every single item visible in the room, and we’ll want to know that. If the protagonist is looking at a loved one for the last time, the reader will want to see every detail of that loved person’s face. If your protagonist is walking up to a house he doesn’t want to enter, he might very well count every step.
My point is that it’s the details that make a story worth reading—details that matter. When the details aren’t there, it’s the devil. When they are, it’s the angel.

Trying a New Process

When the question “pantser or plotter” comes up, I always say “hybrid.” For the uninitiated “pantser” means flying by the seat of your pants. In other words, the writer starts writing and goes along for the ride, letting the plot unfold on the page. Plotters plot. Some of them make general notes on the direction of the story they want to tell and others write detailed outlines. I’ve heard of writers putting together forty page outlines.
Pantsers say they would be bored to tears if they already knew what was going to happen. Plotters say they will get lost in the weeds if they don’t know what is going to happen.
My hybrid process in my Samuel Craddock series is to start out with a general idea of what precipitated events, and a knowledge of who did the crime. Then I start writing to discover how the story will unfold. At about 20-30,000 words I usually grind to a halt, not sure what will happen next. At that point I write a loose outline of how to get from that point to the end. It isn’t a detailed outline, and things can change, but it gives me a direction.
In the book I’m working on now, that has changed. I’m writing a thriller, and for some reason the mere idea of an outline makes me feel constrained. I want to discover the action as if I am reading the book. I know the end, know who the bad guys are, and know the plot. What I don’t know is how everybody behaves as we move through the book.
Doing this I find meeting my daily goal of 2,000 words really, really hard. Why? Because I have no idea what direction the characters will take. I am discovering who they are as I go along, and in the process am discovering what they are likely to do. I have had a few great surprises, but mostly I find myself slogging along, watching over their shoulder as they show me what they are up to. I find myself favoring some characters over others. I’m doing multiple points of view, and I have to balance whose “turn” it is to be on stage. I have to balance the timeline, making sure I don’t have someone move forward faster than the main action.
The result is that I have chunks of prose that I know will have to go. In some places I mark time, waiting for someone to make a move. At the end of some days I feel like I don’t have any idea what I wrote. Other times I feel pretty good about things—someone explodes onto the scene and shows me what they’ve got.

At close to 60,000 words, I suddenly realized that I have the arc of the book set. Suddenly the converging story lines are all at a critical moment and I know that from here on out, they will start moving together to work toward the end. I don’t know exactly how this happened, but it’s an adventure I’m willing to go with.

Why now?

Grok
The zipless fuck
Gary Gilmore
Hannibal Lecter
Jurassic Park
Keyser Soze
Jason Bourne
The Da Vinci Code
Sooki Stackhouse
The Martian

Everyone of these names evokes an image of a book that suddenly, inexplicably took off and sold millions of copies, stunning the book world, both publishers  and readers. The last entry, The Martian, is what spurred this post. It’s the newest phenomenon, a book that had plodded along for a while entertaining its readers—and suddenly exploded in sales. Its writer, Andy Weir, slogged along in obscurity for a time, and is now looking at book and movie contracts. And I, for one, couldn’t be more delighted.
In an interview I read Mr. Weir suggested that the success of the book was due to its man against nature theme. He said everyone roots for the man, and no one roots for nature. But I have another idea. I think the popularity of the book stems from a combination of the main character’s irrepressibly cheerful nature while he battles seemingly insurmountable odds, and the loyalty of the people involved in a dangerous project.
What does readers’ affection for Whatley, the main character of The Martian have to do with the other names on the list I wrote above? Some of them are despicable characters who invoke fear and hatred. No one is rooting for Hannibal Lecter to succeed. Gary Gilmore was a blatant killer, so no love lost there. Some of the books I’ve mentioned are badly written or formulaic. So why when they were introduced did people snap them up?
I took a course that talked about the “high concept” novel. This is a novel that for whatever reason, when people hear about it, they feel as if they were just waiting for it to come along. A movie version of this was Star Wars. There had been numerous sci-fi films that did modestly well at the box office, so what was it about Star Wars that the first time I (and many others) saw an ad for it my heart leaped and I said aloud to whomever I was with, “I have to see this movie.” And see it I did, right away, standing in line for hours along with everyone else. We did it because it was an idea whose time was “now.”
Why would anyone care that it was “time” for Hannibal Lecter to come along? Did he appeal to some dark side in the American psyche that needed expression? It’s pretty apparent that Erica Jong’s novel in which she put words to the “zipless fuck” was an idea whose time had come. Women were ready to read about a heroine who wasn’t’ afraid of her sexuality. Jason Bourne exemplified people’s suspicion about the dark side of our country’s security forces. The book Norman Mailer about Gary Gilmore spoke to questions about the nature of killers, and the death penalty. The Da Vinci Code addressed questions of murky religious fanaticism.
And The Martian? Why now? The space program is moribund, the public’s appetite for wildly expensive pie-in-the-sky government projects pretty much dead. Or is it? We’ve fought what seems like endless wars in the Middle East, we’re horrified and fascinated with extreme religious fanaticism, both Christian and Muslim. We’re weary of the constant drumbeat of vicious propaganda on polar ends of the political spectrum….is it any wonder that the story of a man in an elemental struggle for survival that requires his wits is so appealing? When everyday we hear vitriol from any number of angry politicians and their fanatic followers, is it any wonder that we find relief in a character who is irrepressibly cheerful—whose superiors have noted that he always seems to be optimistic?
I didn’t intend for this to be a long-winded examination of the phenomenon of the high concept novel—that would take way too much space. I wanted to suggest that when people crave something hat puts a voice to a strong feeling, if they find it in a book, they’ll latch onto it.

Traveling and Writing

I’m on the road….again. This time I’ll be on the east coast for almost two weeks, attending lots of book events. A very exciting, fun-filled time. I’ll be staying with friends that I never get to see enough of, and who have scored book club, library, and bookstore readings for me—not to mention a special western themed dinner. I want to spend every minute enjoying the company of friends and being “on” at these wonderful gigs.
BUT. That’s two weeks out of my writing time—time I need to move forward on my current work in progress. So how do I handle this?
Last year I went to Africa for five weeks. I decided there was no way I could forego writing for that length of time. But I also knew I didn’t want to drive myself crazy with a writing schedule that would make me feel guilty every day that I didn’t meet it. In the end I decided that I would aim for a modest 500 words a day, and try to do that at least five days a week. And it worked! While everyone else was napping or reading in the afternoon break, I took out my tiny little ipad mini with its tiny little keyboard, and I tapped away. Luckily, I don’t nap in the afternoon, so I didn’t miss it. But you can be sure that when we were escorted to our cabins at what seemed like a ridiculously early hour, I fell into bed and slept soundly.
My writing mentor and pal Sophie Littlefield once said that she had learned to write on the plane and in her hotel room when she was on book tour. That’s what I do. I’m writing this as my friend Karen is and getting dressed for the day. Of course it’s easier for me because I don’t have household chores to do. But instead of reading, or messing around on Facebook, I’m writing my blog. Yesterday on the plane I wrote 1500 words, despite the best efforts of the woman in the seat in front of me (may she get a bad case of laryngitis) who screeched at her seatmate for the entire five-hour flight. Thank goodness for the lovely man next to me who was working as feverishly as I was (hmmm, maybe he was writing a novel).
Luckily on the east coast I’m up a couple of hours after everyone else has retired for the night, so I can always sneak in a little writing time then.
Writing: it’s what writers do. What I’ve learned is that I can take off a day now and then, but if I take off too many days in a row I lose momentum and lose the thread of the story. Not to mention that I start to get that itchy feeling that something isn’t quite right. Are we a crazy bunch, or what?

Parenting your manuscript

In the many years when I was struggling to find a publisher, I often heard the mantra “you have to believe in your work.” And it’s true—it’s important that a writer take pride in her work like a parent takes pride in a child. A new parent is pretty sure that her child is the best, brightest, strongest, and most appealing in every way.
But at some point good parents recognize that a child may need a little work. He’s a teenaged slob. She’s mean. He’s unable to look people in the eye. She giggles too much.
Like a child, a manuscript may need a little work. So how does a writer remain self-confident while not being so self-confident that he is blind to the need of his manuscript to for judicious editing?
With a second set of eyes, that’s how. We’ve all known parents who refused to see the tiniest flaw in their precious darlings. There are numerous opportunities to get the information that little Billy or Lucy needs a little guidance, but some parents ignore it—to the detriment of their perfect monsters.
The same is true for an author. There are plenty of opportunities to find out if the manuscript measures up. Writer’s groups, beta readers, workshops, and paid editors can give an author the feedback he or she needs. The job of the author is not just to find way to get the feedback, but to use it constructively.
“Constructively” is the operative word. When you get feedback there are several ways to receive it:
1)   Believe all of it and twist yourself into a pretzel trying to incorporate each and every comment. Do this, and you’ll end up not only with a hot mess, but also deflated confidence. In fact, it’s a mark of low confidence to not be selective in using the edits that are suggested to you.2)   Believe none of it. What a disappointment for a reader to put in the time and effort to give honest feedback, only to have the author dismiss every suggestion out of hand. This is self-deception at its worst.3)   Weigh carefully the advice and figure out how it fits into the feel of the story. This isn’t something that happens overnight. When you first turn your manuscript over to people to critique, the first response you often have is #1 or #2 above-that is, “my manuscript is total crap and I’ve got to start over,” or “what idiots; the readers didn’t ‘get’ my brilliant manuscript.” It’s important to give the critique time to percolate and then remind yourself of what your goal was…and then figure out what changes will work best. Don’t just look at which opinions are in the majority and blindly follow them; instead, weigh them against what you want to accomplish.

The self-confident, "good" author knows that there’s always room for improvement and will invite it and use it wisely.