writing

Rising Tension and Chapter Endings

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A technique enjoyed by thriller writers is to end each chapter with tension—the kind that makes readers want to turn the page. Along with short chapters, this maintains drama. I get that as a writer, but I also enjoy sudden events. Life is a mix of calm, solitude, relationships, drama, and sudden events or surprises. I would like to think that this reflects in my writing. Here’s some examples of chapter endings from my new book as examples of the different levels of tension. The context is onboard a submarine, under the Arctic.

Jerry replied in a hushed tone. “If you enter this dark, cold world without a proper ceremony, the King of Ice will pour his wrath on you all. Get to your quarters and into your swimsuits. Be back here by 1700 hours. That gives you twenty minutes. Now go.”

and

Everyone nearby watched, fascinated as Kim’s steady hand scanned back and forth on the large amplifier dial, calibrating the ambient noise, temperature, and depth. She cross-checked the kinematic parameters—speed, direction, and even the supersonic sound waves. The computer was busy, looking for a match in Hammerhead’s extensive database.

Kim was honing in on the rogue visitor. Just a few more adjustments and a result jumped onto her screen.

“Got ya,” she bounced in delight, ripping off her headphones.

and

“Three-five-zero feet and closing.”

“Damn.”

Sailors perspired and clenched their fists. Movements around the Control Room slowed.

Bus Driver whispered the numbers, “Three-three-zero feet, three-zero-zero feet, two-seven-five—hell, we’re going to collide.”

Hawkeye froze, waiting for the sound of metal on metal or, worse, the sound of water flooding the room.

 

 

 

 

A Writing Group

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Robert Putman (paraphrased) made a staggering statement: ‘As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no writing group but you decide to join one, you cut your risk of giving up over the next year in half.’ 

Let’s refocus the statement. Who is your champion—who spurs you on and keeps you focused? Why gives you encouragement in your writing, and feedback to improve? Where do you turn when you have received a reject and who do you rejoice with when you get asked for a full? That’s right, you need to be connected to a group, or someone who cares.

I’m fortunate; I have a loving wife who has never given up on my writing, even when I send her another revised chapter; and I am thankful for a friend who gives me fast feedback; and an editor who polishes my writing as much as the shoe-shine guy in Lisbon who rubbed my shoes so much I thought a genie might pop out.

A Professional Editor?

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What value do I place on a professional editor? HEAPS!

I value any feedback from readers, but place high value on corrects and suggestions from a professional editor—one who is connected with publishing and knows what to look for in a ‘good read.’ I have used the same editor for my partial reviews, synopsis and query letter and her ideas on my plot and characters has given me insights that I missed. The edits have also allowed me to correct weaknesses quickly and the end result is a far more polished manuscript. I don’t always agree with the suggested corrections, but use them to improve the areas noted. Above all, having a professional (paid) editor gives me encouragement as a writer and, I must confess that without her, I would have given up long ago. Here are a couple of feedback examples:

What Makes a Good Thriller

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One definition: A thriller is a fast-paced novel full of conflict, tension, suspense, unexpected twists, and high stakes. Every single scene and element in a thriller is meant to propel the action forward, test the characters, and take the readers on a roller coaster ride that will leave them on the edge of their seats. I was visiting technology schools in California a few years ago and my companion and I rushed off to enjoy a roller coaster ride, straight after breakfast. By the time I had been thrown around and tossed up and down, I felt physically sick. It might have been the big breakfast! This raises an interesting thought—how much of a wild ride do good thrillers have to have? For some, the pace is never too fast; for others, a more measured rise in tension is preferred. I think I’m in between. I like twists and turns, yet also building tension. And, I am over plots that are too far fetched. For me, the action must be real, or plausible. The bottom line is that a thriller needs to have thrills, no matter what the ride is like.

Just Start Writing

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” When I get an idea I just start writing,” says Ascension author Nicholas Binge. “I’m such a discovery writer, I have no idea where I’m going with it.”

Nicholas loves the spontaneous approach to writing (with a few standard “touch points”) and I work the same way. Other writers plan their plot from the get-go, but I wonder if there writing is, as a result, formula driven? Each to their own I guess. You can watch this fascinating insight into the breakthrough deals that launched Nicholas onto the world stage here.

 

The End

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The end of a novel is simply the most difficult to do well; a finish line reached by the athletic culmination of words racing forward from the opening line. I found that my writing slowed at the end, like an exhausted athlete who is filled with elation and emotion as he collapses over the tape, triumphant. I hope my readers share the same emotion.

‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’ writes F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. I like this because it is profound and emotive; a final comment about chasing the American dream.

 

What I Learned from Writing my First Novel

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First, let’s back up. My writing took rough shape when I won a writing contest at age 12, It was a short story about my cat, called Mog and it won me a year’s pass to our local movie theatre and a little publicity in our local paper. I don’t remember all the details, but the movie pass was wonderful, and opened my eyes to cinema, stories and characters. My next claim to fame was a high school textbook, co-authored and well received with several reprints. I wrote my first novel – 3 WISE MEN – following an idea about the power of perfume and the details fell into place after a trip my wife and I took to Europe. I self published and was able to revise and improve over several months. So, what did I learn from writing this first novel:

Start you second novel as soon as possible as it will always be better

I guess I need to qualify what “better” means. It can be summed up this way; a second novel will most likely have more nuanced themes and a more interesting/complex plot with improved conflict, characters with depth, and be a more fulfilling story for your readers. I can remember being quite angry at the thought that “your first book is always your worst’ but, in some ways, it is. In my case, I made several re-writes of 3 WISE MEN that improved it. However, even after several great reviews, I agree that first books are lacking the quality of subsequent ones. My second manuscript was built on the lessons of the first and, by this stage, I had a greater sense of my personal writing style. Yes, my first novel was not bad at all (based on reader feedback), but my second has a quality that I know is better, even before an editor gets his or her scissors to it.

Getting Started

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Martin Amis describes how he starts a novel and, in many ways, this gels with me too.

“The common conception of how novels get written seems to me to be an exact description of writer’s block. In the common view, the writer is at this stage so desperate that he’s sitting around with a list of characters, a list of themes, and a framework for his plot, and ostensibly trying to mesh the three elements. In fact, it’s never like that. What happens is what Nabokov described as a throb. A throb or a glimmer, an act of recognition on the writer’s part. At this stage the writer thinks, Here is something I can write a novel about. In the absence of that recognition I don’t know what one would do. It may be that nothing about this idea—or glimmer, or throb—appeals to you other than the fact that it’s your destiny, that it’s your next book. You may even be secretly appalled or awed or turned off by the idea, but it goes beyond that. You’re just reassured that there is another novel for you to write. The idea can be incredibly thin—a situation, a character in a certain place at a certain time. With Money, for example, I had an idea of a big fat guy in New York, trying to make a film. That was all. Sometimes a novel can come pretty consecutively and it’s rather like a journey in that you get going and the plot, such as it is, unfolds and you follow your nose. You have to decide between identical-seeming dirt roads, both of which look completely hopeless, but you nevertheless have to choose which one to follow.” [from The Paris Review]

A Towering Writer Dies at 73 and Leaves a Shelf of Books

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Martin Amis passes away, aged 73. A poignant moment and one that causes some reflection. After all, I am the same age :-). Martin grew up with well-established writers in both his parents; I was fortunate to have a father who loved writing, taught creative writing, and had his short stories published. Anyway, back to Martin.

In the prelude to his new autobiographical novel, “Inside Story,” acclaimed writer Martin Amis shares an anecdote about speaking at an assembly at his daughter’s school. When he asked the adolescent audience how many of them wanted to become writers, he said nearly two thirds of the room raised their hands.

Amis wasn’t surprised at all by this. Amis believes a desire to write is innate in almost all of us, especially at that young age.

“I think that the urge to write is almost universal,” he said. “I think it is something that naturally coincides with adolescence. This desire you have to commune with yourself, and to take notes, and to write poems, that comes upon us when we become articulate in this new sense when we’re adolescent.”

The subtitle of Amis’ book is “How To Write” and he’s turned the structure of “Inside Story” into something akin to a literary mixtape.

When asked why he decided to go about putting the book together this way, Amis offers another lesson by gently admonishing that “why” is the wrong question to ask a writer. “‘Why?’ did you decide is usually the wrong verb, because in writing you make dozens of little decisions every page, but the big decisions are subconscious. They emerge with the force of instinct and not from the front of the brain, but from the back,” Amis said.

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