Dan Alatorre's Blog, page 12

Writing Rule #1: Tension Drives Stories

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[image error]I’ve been watching a TV show/miniseries about the Unabomber, and it’s basically told from the point of view of the FBI agent who ultimately got enough information together to capture Ted Kaczynski.

As I was watching the third weekly episode, I realized that it was very compelling drama – and I wondered why.

Half of my brain loves just enjoying the show and the other half of my brain – or less, I guess – breaks it down and analyzes it.

 

WHY is it good drama?

 

Why am I tuning in week after week?

Why do I like a certain character or dislike a certain character?

 

The guy from Sex And The City plays a boss pretty high up in the FBI. Below him but above our agent hero is a Jerk Boss.

 

We really dislike the Jerk Boss because he’s a jerk – but what does he do that makes him a jerk?

 

Jerk Boss is always frowning. Always negative body language, and he does not believe in Hero Agent’s work. In fact, Jerk Boss basically says what Hero Agent is doing is a waste of time and feels they should be spending their resources in other areas (Which they are, too. I don’t mean to imply otherwise. The FBI was chasing down all sort of leads.)

 

So it’s especially victorious when the Jerk Boss and his theories turn out to be dead ends and he’s the one who’s been wasting time.

 

The Sex And The City Boss pretty much also doesn’t believe in what the Hero Agent is doing, but Sex And The City Boss is not a jerk. And it’s because he’s almost as strict but he’s not as personally demeaning. And usually he appears much more rational in his thought process. Jerk Boss automatically says no. The Sex And The City Boss is more thoughtful before he says no. But ultimately it is a long series of no’s for Hero Agent.

 

Occasionally the Sex And The City Boss will think about or consider what the Hero Agent has to say. So it’s like chipping away at an iceberg with the Sex And The City Boss. Whereas with the Jerk Boss it’s just a brick wall. He’s not changing and he doesn’t care what you have to say.

 

All that’s fine except for one thing.
We know the Hero Agent was right!

 

And that is why it’s compelling drama.

 

See, in stories like Gladiator, we immediately saw a hero who was unjustly victimized by the new emperor. The gladiator gets sold off into slavery, his wife and child murdered, his home burned – because he told the truth.

 

In Bambi, this beautiful new baby deer is learning all these things and his mother gets killed.

 

You can find it time and time again, but it’s

an unjust thing happening to the hero or the main character and it tends to make us root for them. The more unjust, the more we root.

And if we can drag out that unjustness, and make it last, oh, three to six episodes, people will be shouting at their Tv sets. Leave him alone! He’s right, Jerk Boss, you fat cow!

 

Grr. Jerk Boss is such a . . . jerk.

 

Anyway, in this instance, with the Unabomber show, and like in Titanic and other stories where we already know the ending, it’s the simple fact that you know he was right that frustrates you. He didn’t know he was right. He just believed in himself. Everybody kept saying he was wrong and he kept sticking to his guns and working hard.

 

On the other hand, WE know he’s right. We know his research ultimately leads to the capture of Ted Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber.

 

So as we watch Hero Agent run into dead ends and frustrating brick walls and damned Jerk Boss who should just die, we marvel at his resolve and determination.

We pull for him as he just keeps chipping away at the iceberg.

 

And ultimately, although we are only three shows in to a six-episode miniseries, Hero Agent wins because Kaczynski gets caught and they even show us that. (They show Kaczynski and the Hero Agent talking while Kaczynski is in jail.) So they jump back-and-forth in time a little bit,

and that’s neat to see but it also is a constant reminder of:
the hero was right,
the hero was right,
THE HERO WAS RIIIIIGGGHHHTTT!!!
Die, Jerk Boss!! DIE! DIE!

 

Uh…

Where was I?

Oh, Hero Agent. See, he didn’t know he was right most of the time. He believed it, but he didn’t know it. And he had a lot of high-powered people above him telling him to stop. Sometimes in embarrassing ways.

 

(In reality I marvel at the fact that even though this is a dramatic representation, there were a lot of different ways this could have gone and they would not have caught the Unabomber. And I marvel that this guy was such a champ to hang in there and pursue his belief, probably just as vigilantly as other agents who were pursuing dead ends or things that turned out to be dead ends. So that’s a big thumbs up to just good old fashioned police work and hard work and determination.)

 

But as far as storytelling goes, you can complain maybe they’re over playing their hand with the Jerk Boss and some other elements, but

the reason I’m pretty much glued to the set is because of the drama, and
the drama comes from the hero having to constantly overcome challenges.

 

Sound familiar?

 

He has challenges everywhere. Inside himself. With his coworkers. With his bosses. With his wife. With his children. And of course, with the bad guy.

 

That tension drives this story. Make sure it drives yours.

 

Whether it’s a manhunt or a romance or whatever, overcoming the challenges are what make us keep turning the pages.

[image error] Dan Alatorre has had a string of bestsellers and is read in over 112 countries around the world.

To get free books and updates on his newest novels, join his Readers Club HERE.

Happy Thanksgiving! Terminal Sequence is at 19,327

Oh, yeah.

I earned me some turkey.

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16,665! BOOYAH!

[image error]I AM ON FIRE!
I just finished writing a scene/chapter that was about 3200 words long, AND I LOVE IT!!!

It’s fun to be excited about writing a book. Even if I have a cold that’s filled the wastepaper basket by my desk with used tissues.

I’m being incredibly prolific, even for me. I’m not sure why.
Well… yes I am.

I was kicking around the idea for this book for, oh, I don’t know – maybe three weeks? Almost since I finished book 2 in the series. (I wasn’t thinking about book 3 while I was writing book 2 because that gets weird. You won’t let yourself do some stuff because you’ll be like, oh, that could be in book 3.) Instead…

I made book 2 as packed full of good stuff as possible and THEN, when it was finished, I looked at book 3.
For like three weeks.
Three loooonngg weeks.

I was like, okay, WHAT will book 3 be about???

What’s the burning question that we need to know?

I had one thought – which I can’t tell you because it’s a really big reveal for the book, but I knew that just that one thing wasn’t enough for a whole book.

So I would make notes about ideas, stare at them in disgust, and get on my treadmill (or as I call it, my idea generator).

NOTHING gets the ideas flowing like working out on a treadmill. I’m not sure why; maybe because I don’t really want to do it. I mean, I do, but workouts are work.

Anyway, I was working out and I said, okay, we have ONE idea. What else?

Monday: maybe this and this.

Tuesday: wow, those ideas from yesterday sucked.

It went on like that for a while, and I said, well, there’s no rush for Book 3. I’ve done well with deadlines, and I’d like to be productive over the holidays, but maybe it’s just not gonna happen right now.

And as you know, if you wait for inspiration, you’re a waiter, not a writer.
That kinda bothered me. As it’s supposed to.

[image error]But I tempered that with the advice from Jim Patterson (if you spend a hundred bucks on a guy’s master class, you get to call them Jim): it’s better to spend a few extra days outlining than to start writing and then get stuck.

I agree. But I worried that a few extra days was turning into a few weeks.

Nevertheless, I’m a good writer. I’ll make it happen. And I stayed after the outline. I stayed after ideas.

Then one day last week, it struck. I was on the treadmill and I as like, oh, what if THIS happened!
Then, I was like, and this! And this!

Each day, when I went to work out, the ideas came crashing forth!

But I did the right thing.

I gathered them up and I created an outline.

Now, my outline isn’t the cleanest piece of writing you’ll ever see. This one’s actually quite sloppy. But I emailed five bullet points to my editor, and she replied saying, “I can’t tell much from this but I’m glad you’r excited.”

Good point. it needed fleshing out, if for no other reason than I’d need to remember stuff later on down the road.

So I started explaining the basic plot and the subplots to her, but not in their actual order, just in clumps of paragraphs that said things like, the X character will meet Y character, and they will do ABC.

Then she got excited. She pointed out which story lines really interested her. Those story lines really interested me, too!
(Why write it if they don’t?)

Point is, it – the story – was happening.

When I had those clumps or paragraphs, I had the “go to” info for my story.  Now, it was just a matter of arranging it into the order it would have to happen.

Easy peasy.
But I didn’t do it.
Because I started writing.

I didn’t break the rule. I outlined. But I always give myself the leeway to change the story as I go, and with my clumps I was ready to begin. I knew how the story would start, how it would end (it’s a terrific ending) and all the stuff in the middle – I just didn’t decide yet what order all that middle stuff would happen in.

Long story short, I was excited about the plot, the ending, and all the subplots, so I started writing. 6 days and 16k later, I’m going strong – because an outline gives you an amazing set of writing prompts every day – and

if a story prompt doesn’t fire you up, ask if you can boil it down or better yet, if it doesn’t interest you, why write it?

If any of you have read this far and would like to opine on what order the opening chapters ought to be in, contact me and ask for the book to date. It’s 8 chapters and 16k, but it can probably begin in any order. YOUR input could shape the start of the story!

Okay, time to take a short break and then get back to the story!

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13,500 Words. I’m Slacking!

[image error]I had to rewrite about 2,000 words of my latest medical thriller today.
I had this great scene, and I said, this happens, then this, then THIS… what  great plot twist! What a cool surprise!
Readers will love that!

Then I realized I had people speaking Ukrainian when they were supposed to be in London.

Oops.

AAAND I remembered all that cool stuff needed to happen partially out of view of the reader, otherwise – no surprise!

Hmm.
So – rewrite!

Then I added another however many words to finish the chapter on a cliffhanger, and we are right back to it!

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Now, I’m fighting a head cold, so I could pack it in for the day after write this, or I could write until 11pm, but the smart thing says, since I have tomorrow off, to hit the hay early and get up early and write then.

I feel bad that I didn’t add another 2k to the story today…

but if this thing was to end up at 60k (ha, who are we kidding? a book as short as that – from me?) then I’d be almost 25% of the way through and could conceivably finish in 3 times longer than I’ve spent already, or roughly… let’s see… Nov 22 at 9am until Nov 26 at 8pm, so roughly… 5 working days? So, three times that would be about two and a half more weeks? FOR A COMPLETED NOVEL?

Ha, gang, even I wouldn’t set that as a goal.
Or would I???

No, Ima write this sucker the way I want, and then edit it down to the bare bones, so I’m estimating 85k because at 13k we haven’t even scratched the surface! But you never know! It will be done when it’s done, and it will encompass the story I want to told. That’s all I can tell you right now.

But we’re 13.5k into however long it’s gonna be, and we have about 4 solid writing days plus part of Thanksgiving Day to write before the real world creeps in again, then the Christmas holidays come, which, for my kid’s school is 3 weeks long, so it’s entirely possible we bring this in at 105k in mid-January.

I’ll keep you posted.

Wanna read Book 1 of The Gamma Sequence series right now? Contact Me!

Terminal sequence = 12 K as of yesterday

Just thought you might wanna know.

I’m also suffering from a ridiculous head cold that seems determined to take over my nose and throat. Not my lungs. The lungs are fine. But everything else, forget it.

Undeterred, I soldier on.

I hate to brag or make estimates. Actually I don’t hate to do either… But it’s entirely possible I get this thing done before New Year’s, as planned! 

Terminal Sequence now at 7,596 words!

[image error]The new book is now at a whopping 7,596 words after two days!
I gotta admit, having logged almost 5500 yesterday, only doing another 2k seemed a little… meek.

But I wrote out an impromptu 1500 word “fat” outline, fleshing out the major plot points and laying out the subplots. Then I emailed it to my editor for input on which topics to emphasize…

to make Terminal Sequence a really gripping medical thriller.

I think we have a winning combination.

Thusly encouraged, the words are now flying onto the page.

I’m loving this book! I still think I can get it done before midnight on New Years’s Eve, too. Wish me luck!

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Wanna see what the fuss is all about? Contact Me and I’ll see about hooking you up with a free e-copy of The Gamma Sequence and/or Rogue Elements. Restrictions apply; limited quantities; other legal-sounding phrases; blah, blah, blah.

#Bookreview – The Gamma Sequence by Dan Alatorre

Gamma Gets Praise From Robbie!

Roberta Writes

What Amazon says

Geneticist Lanaya Kim must do what authorities haven’t – tie together the “accidental” deaths of several prominent scientists around the country to show they were actually murdered. Over the past two years, geneticists have died in what appear to be accidents, but Lanaya knows otherwise. If she tells her secrets to the authorities, she risks becoming a suspect or revealing herself to the killer and becoming an open target. Hiring private investigator Hamilton DeShear may help her expose the truth, but time is running out. The murders are happening faster, and Lanaya’s name may be next on the killer’s list. But when Lanaya and DeShear start probing, what they discover is far more horrifying than anyone could ever have imagined.

My review

Hamilton “Hank” Deshear is just a regular guy who, due to some unexpected life curveballs, has ended up losing his job in the police force…

View original post 444 more words

I started writing a new book today

[image error] The 3rd book in the much acclaimed The Gamma Sequence series was started today, at about 9am.

 

TERMINAL SEQUENCE

I wrote 3 chapters and over 5500 words. Not bad, eh? I bet I get over 10k for the weekend, or about 1/6th to 1/8th of the whole book! That would be cool…

Wanna read it?
YOU CAN’T!

Not yet anyway, but I’ll show you the cover:

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Not bad eh? Here’s the whole series’ covers so far. (We redid them recently.)

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I know, good looking set!

If you want to check out chapters as I write them – or, as I write them but also after my editor goes over them – send me a note and I’ll consider it.

The plan is to have the book written by New Year’s Eve at midnight.

Think I can do it?

Rogue Elements Cover Voting

I decided to give my medical thriller series a makeover, so we retired the original covers and hired an artist to make professional ones. They will be appearing on the books very soon.

Here’s The Gamma Sequence cover, new (L) and old (R):

 

Then, of course, we had to follow that look for the series, so we created a few versions of a new cover for Rogue Elements, and asked people to vote on them.

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Each has its own appeal, and one fits better than the others with the story, but the cover has to get you to open the book; you get the story after that – a bit of a dilemma.

Anyway, cover C was voted most popular!

A got 30% of the votes
B got 8% of the votes
C got 62% of the votes

 

That’s a cover landslide.
So THIS will be the new cover of Rogue Elements:

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Mysterious, right? I like it.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the voting. We asked over three thousand people for their input, but after about 50 votes it was clear who the winner was, and that didn’t change.

Didn’t get to vote? Join my Readers Club and never miss out on any exciting action! It’s free and you might get some free books, too.

Here’s the NEW covers for the first two books in The Gamma Sequence series

and I’m busy writing the third and final one, TERMINAL SEQUENCE.

I’ll have voting for that soon.

 

 

Great, Great, GREAT Writing Tips (That I Stole From Alycea K. Snyder)

[image error]Alycea Snyder is a board member of the Tampa Writers Alliance and a fellow author.
I watched her presentation on writing last night.
Here are a few things to consider.

First of all, Alycea is an avid reader.
She’s very smart.

When it comes to the writing process a lot of you are struggling with, she “gets it.”

Alycea does what I call “investing” in the learning process, not just by reading a lot but by being a critical thinker when she reads, studying why the successful authors are successful (especially new, breakout authors in a genre), and drilling down on that. For example, she goes to Barnes and Noble and looks at a display table. It has the two NYTBSA books, surrounded by the newbies that “you’ll also like.” Then she reads the back cover matter to see what’s up there – why they fit, how they are unique, etc.

Genius.
Who are the new breakout authors of the last 12 months or so and what are they doing? She studies that.

She also invests in things like the online Masterclass, where she has taken master classes from Neil Gaiman and R. L. Stein, etc.

[image error]Author Alycea K. Snyder

One of the (several, great) things she mentioned in her presentation was when we want to (paraphrasing) keep the story moving. a lot of times we increase the stakes or add tension. Different genres do that in different ways, but for somebody who’s writing a mystery, that might be making the challenge or hurdle bigger and bigger and bigger. She noted we could go back and make the character more internally flawed so that they are overcoming their own internal problems, which is equally tense. She had a great, short, list of ideas on how to do that. On is as follows.

EXAMPLE: Gone Girl. (The book, not the movie.)

Alycea gave the example of Gone Girl and said how the author built the husband character to be the exact type of person who nobody would believe, and that he would get in his own way due to his internal flaws, causing himself all kinds of problems.

(This is not unlike having my detective in The Gamma Sequence 2: Rogue Elements fighting the sudden onslaught of a debilitating disease as he tries to find out who killed his friend. Great minds…)

But I thought it was a great idea to increase the stakes on a micro level instead of a macro level!

She asked us if we could specifically identify who are reader is: Age, sex, education, income level, what it is they read, who their favorite authors are, who they follow on Instagram…

Who else they read
Do they follow on Instagram

Hmm. I know a lot about my readers, but I didn’t know that. But I can ask! I tend to think mine aren’t on Instagram; should I be? I mean, I am but I NEVER use it. Hmm.

DIFFERENTIATE YOUR BOOK

She suggested when we construct our book, we stay within the norms (again, paraphrasing) but we also differentiate ourselves somehow. What is unique about us? We don’t necessarily have the ability to be the leader in the market nor do we want to be the bargain basement, but we’re going to be somewhere in between – and when we are, follow the norms but differentiate somehow. (I’m not doing that segment justice; you’ll have to go see her presentation yourself for more on that. Maybe she’ll do a guest blog post.)

Everything stalls at 80% (AND)

She said that everything stalls at 80%. book writing, projects, manufacturing… That sounds familiar. I see it with writer types all the time.
AND… Have a DEADLINE

Again, genius.

Have a deadline. That seems like that would be a huge motivator to certain friends of mine. All of them, in fact. But the proof is, how was I able to write an 80,000 word medical thriller in six weeks? Because I had to. Magically, we get things done when there’s deadline.

 

She suggested finding specific beta readers who will give proper feedback and that on are Facebook there are groups of beta readers you can fine; there are also online beta groups you can find. That’s something to look into.

 

Do First – before starting your novel.

Write back cover copy description – could you even? What a smart idea. it will keep you focused.
Find comparables
Plot key scenes
Plot key decisions
Refine main character
Iterate

And:
Set a deadline for the book to be completed.

I’m not sure she emphasized the deadline thing as much as I am, but it’s a huge point.

I firmly believe if we write the back cover first and set a deadline, we’d write better books, and complete them faster.

Those two things, plus an outline, are probably the biggest things I see myself doing for every book going forward.

Want more? Here’s her blog, and if you are in the Tampa area on Wednesday nights, you can usually find her at the Tampa Writers Alliance meeting.