Wednesday's Writer's Tip - On Villains #amwriting

Not all stories have true villains but some have characters who for some reason oppose the hero or heroine or both. There are several things the writer needs to watch their stories for that might change the story. These are gleaned from How To Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork.

The first one is my favorite and that is making the bad guy more interesting than the hero or heroine. Doesn't mean this character is likeable or even wonderful but he or she becomes the one who sparks the reader's interest. In a mystery, for the writer to spotlight the villain means the reader will stop rooting for the hero or the heroine. This can also spoil the ending. There have been times when as a reader I've known the bad guy the instant he appears on the scene and this makes me want to put the book aside. One book I recently read there were 200 pages after I knew who the murderer was and I also wanted to know why the main characters didn't know.

Some of the advice I found was interesting. Give all your characters a flaw and this can misdirect the reader's view.Let the bad guy remain in the background. Concentrate on the hero or heroine, or what needs to be solved and forget about wondering who did the crime. Give the hero and heroine lots of problems to solve. If a murder, or some other crime, give the victim a good sign.

Do these ideas flow to other genres than mystery. They can, if you have the opposer to the hero or heroine's gain of their goal as a seeming minor character in the story. I hope I have learned how to do this and will continue to work on adding a bit of uncertainty to my stories.

Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Patterns in Action

Action doesn't mean just fights and car chases and other scenes with physical action being the focus. Action is what moves the story forward. Action isn't just a series of scenes that are connected. When I first began writing I thought I knew what I was doing. After many wonderful rejections where the editors kindly wrote about one thing I was doing wrong. I remember one that I read. "If you start with a bomb or a riot where the hero and heroine are threatened with death, what are you going to write next that pulls the reader along." This hit me that action is a progression. No matter what kind of story you're writing each action in the story must lead to the next one and must increase the stakes for the characters.

Action builds tension and gains momentum in a story. This requires pacing. A fellow writer once read my sort of 'Medical suspense" Obsessions and remarked on a look we both belonged to. "Janet is a master at pacing." This totally surprised me because I wasn't sure what he meant. I did a whole lot of study about what pacing meant. This story starts with the unnamed villain watching the hospital parking lot and failing to achieve his goal. Not much later, the heroine discovers the body of a nat so nice fellow worker in the "orthopedic" storage room. This is the triggering situation and the deaths begin. Each one comes closer to the heroine and so the tension builds. Especially when the heroine receives gifts left my an unnamed admirer. These gifts are the typical ones one mught see in a courtship. This added another layer of tension, yet these scenes weren't physically active.

So as you write each scene think about what the scene contributes to the building finale of the story. If a scene doesn't really add to the tension, take it out or change it until you can feel the tentsion rising. Sort of like Slowly he walked and so forth. Build a pattern and make sure each scene advances not only the story but also the tension. Don't give away too much too soon and don't delay too long. Actions show the pattern of cause and effect.

Wednesday's Writing Tip - Strategy - Patterns

Because I've been reading in different genres for years I've noticed there are patterns in each genre and there are patterns that are broken. Most times this works but sometimes the broken pattern fails. I've also come to the conclusion that there are only two plots with many variations. There is the plot that ends in happiness and the one that ends in an unhappy ending. Now there are many variations of these two general plots. But that's not what I'm talking about here. It's about patterns in prose.

Once a writer knows what the pattern consists of there are many ways to make this work, One is giving the reader what he expects but this means a lack of originality. We've all read stories and said I've read this before. It's the little twists and turns that keep a reader wanting more, though there are many readers who enjoy the familiar. A writer has to know how to twist the familiar just a bit.

A writer could give the reader what they don't expect. Might work and might not. The story could come out confusing the reader. No writer wants to do this. The problem here is that the story could become outrageous and one that confuses the reader.

What the writer wants to do is hit a happy medium bu giving the reader a familiar story but not the way they expect the story to take. Combining both methods.

To do this the end goal should be kept in mind but shouldn't be the only part of the story to engage the reader. Be aware of the different patterns of prose when you're writing and use what you know to make your story unique. Make sure to tie up all loose ends. Nothing can irritate a reader more than to finish the story and wonder what happened to character X, even though he's only a minor character. Don't leave them wondering why the gun or knife you showed in the opening scene wasn't used.

Wednesday's Writing Tip - Strategy, Enticing the reader with plot

Enticing readers to read the stories you've penned is an important strategy. Part of the way of doing this is to pose questions that when answered lead to another question always pointing to the end. Will the hero or heroine reach the first step toward obtaining their goal. This leads to the second step and to the third, Maybe even more. If they fail to reach one of these steps is there a reason, or has the goal changed a bit. Like people in real life, sometimes the initial goal isn't the real one. As this changes the reader is lured on to find the answer to the question.

The writer has the advantage here since he or she knows what the real object to the story is. Clues need to be fed into the story. There's nothing more infuriating than to read a story and find out the end has nothing that was promised in the beginning because there were no hints to what the real ending of the story. But the writer can't make the trail too easy to follow. I know I've read books where I knew what would happen before the story ended. In romances the given is the hero and heroine will connect and live happily ever after. One of my stories this isn't the case. While the hero and the heroine remain in love they aren't going to co-exist in the same place. Most of the readers found the clues that I sprinkled in showing this was to be the end. One reader missed a clue or two and was disappointed. So keeping the reader a bit off-balance is good. They will want to know what happens next.

Next week I'll post a bit more on this. Hopefully you will develop a strategy that will lead your readers onward to the end and to saying "of course that's the way the story should end.