Hey everyone,

Every Crooked Path is a work of fiction, and yet, in a very real sense, it also tells the truth about our world today. While the characters and situations in this story are made up, the nature of the crimes is not.

As a parent, I found this book particularly difficult to write, since it involved research into cybercrimes against children. However, because of the impact of this issue on modern culture, I felt it was an important story for me to tell—perhaps my most important one so far.

Finding out what’s really out there lurking online was a wake-up call to me. Rather than describe any exploitative images in this book, I chose to show the reactions of the characters to seeing them. I’ll trust your imagination to fill in the rest.

During my research, I came across an organization called the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. It’s dedicated to rescuing children and catching those who target them. NCMEC is a nonprofit organization that depends on private donations, so please consider supporting their work. For more information, go to www.missingkids.com.

Together we can make a difference in protecting the next generation from those who would steal their innocence from them.

I think you’ll enjoy Every Crooked Path. It’s a thrilling ride, a redemptive story, and shows the power of good over evil. Let me know what you think.

—Steven James

Troubleshooting Your Novel

Troubleshooting Your Novel  

a full-day writing seminar

with the critically-acclaimed author of the

Patrick Bowers thriller series,

Steven James 

Also featuring New York Times bestselling author, Eric Wilson; award-winning author and freelance editor, Jodie Renner; and literary agent with the Wheelhouse Literary Group, Jonathan Clements 

  

Saturday, January 17, 2015

8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Radisson Airport Hotel

Nashville, TN

This one-day conference will be filled with practical insights,

dozens of ways to fix plot flaws, time-tested writing secrets,

and easy-to-implement ideas that will help you improve your novel right now, no matter how far along you are in writing it. From the broad aspects of building the framework of your novel to the fine brush-strokes of line-by-line editing, this day will transform your writing forever.

Visit troubleshootingyournovel.com to register.

How long does the first draft of a manuscript typically take you to get onto paper? With thinking, research, and writing how long does it usually take for you to finish your manuscript?

This question comes up quite often in one form or another. I can’t tell you how many times at a writers conference someone has asked me how long it takes me to write a book, or finish a first draft, or how many words I write each day.

I know that part of it is natural curiosity, but there’s also that practical side of things—If he can write 2,000 words a day, how many should I be able to write?

I have friends who actually write precisely a thousand words a day. They can tell you that their book will be done in 100 days and will be 100,000 words long, just like that. Boom. It’s crazy.

Honestly, I just don’t understand that. First of all, I’m not sure how you would even know the length of the book until it’s finished. Secondly, that’s not at all how I’m wired.

Ideas don’t start on a certain date and they don’t have an expiration date. Making a career as a novelist means that, in the real world, you’ll be working on a new project while one of your previous works is being edited, proofread, etc.

So, in essence, there are always two or more pots on the stove and your life is often made up of moving them around to keep the most important one at the moment boiling.

I’m always coming up with ideas that don’t quite fit into the current project I’m working on. I set them aside, let them percolate, and then pull them out when I’m ready to move on to another book.

Obviously, novels vary greatly in length, complexity, number of point-of-view characters, and so on, so the amount of time it takes to write one will vary as well. Most of my Patrick Bowers novels are between 105,000 and 140,000 words. My young adult thrillers, Blur and Fury, are both less than 80,000 words.

I’ve managed to write some of my novels in less than six months, others have taken nearly a year and a half—but remember, that’s writing nearly every day of the year. It’s my day job. It’s what I do to pay the bills.

Recently, there have been several self-published books about writing extraordinarily fast (for example: 2,000 to 10,000, in which the author purports to be able to write 10,000 words in a day. No. I’m not kidding. Nor am I endorsing the book by mentioning it. Quite the opposite, frankly.)

It’s simply not possible for the vast majority of authors to write that fast and write well, and it does a serious disservice to people to imply that they can learn to do it.

Yes, there will always be prodigies who can pull off amazing feats, but on my best, most productive days of writing, I average maybe 120 words an hour, and that’s after doing this for more than a decade, utilizing every trick and time-saving secret I can think of.

Can some people pull off amazing quality and breathtaking quantity? Yes. But most of us have to choose between the two. Even though it ends up taking me about a month of work for every hour it takes a reader to go through my books, it’s just who I am. I’ll never be able to pump out books every couple months.

And I guess, now that I think about it, I’m glad I don’t even try.

Do You Use Beta Readers (extra pairs of eyes on your manuscript)?

My question for you is regarding 'beta readers.' I have found that as your story evolves as you write organically, minor things may change, and there may be inconsistencies that can be overlooked. Example, John Smith is a vegan. Later in the story, after several rewrites, he takes his wife out for BBQ dinner because it is pivotal to the newly written scene. While minor within the crux of the story, to the reader it would seem like a billboard (with them asking, how did the author miss this?).

So do you use beta readers? If so, how many are in your pool? And do you take their advice? Seems that everyone has an opinion of how they would have written the story. But I feel if I completely entertain their ideas, it is no longer my story.

This question brings several issues to mind for me—internal consistency, self-editing, and working with the advice of beta readers and editors.

First, you’re absolutely right that snags such as the one you listed regarding the vegan who ends up taking his wife out for BBQ would jar readers and knock them out of the story. As I edit scenes and shape new ones, I often find myself going back to make sure that I’ve tackled those kinds of glitches.

Still, mistakes can creep in. I remember one character who appeared in several of my Patrick Bowers novels being in his mid-seventies in one book and then about a decade younger in the next book. Oops. Since it was a mistake that spanned two books it was easier to miss. But still, astute readers might have noticed it if they read the books within a close time frame.

Second, self-editing. The first and most important eyes you will have on your manuscript are your own. Catching those minor glitches and mistakes is ultimately your job, no matter how many editors and readers you may have. To make sure I’ve caught those, I need to read through the whole book, usually in one day to make sure all of it is fresh in my mind.

With my latest suspense novel BLUR, I noticed that one character was listed as a wide receiver, and then later as a tight end. No readers or editors caught this and it was only on my final pass through the book that I noticed it. Don’t rely on anyone else to fact check. Readers will always blame you, and rightly so, if they find mistakes.

Finally, readers and editors. I do my best to take their comments and queries to heart, but I don’t make all the changes they suggest. Often they don’t realize that you’ve thought about the same idea months ago and discarded it because of the context or the movement of the story.

I usually give them a list of specific things I’d like them to look for in the book. For example, I give one copy to someone in law enforcement and have him look at the cop lingo, things like that. I usually choose someone to look at story flow, another at grammar, and so on.

This is your baby and, just like having a baby of your own, you’ll get lots of advice about how to raise it. In the end, you have to take all of it with a grain of salt and raise your child your way.

See You Next Year

Just a note to tell you that I need to put the Ask the Author posts on hold for a few months. It’s crunch time for my next book, Checkmate, so I’m going to concentrate on it for now and get back to blogging early next year.

To keep you enlightened until I return, here are several books on writing I recommend:

·      On Writing by Stephen King

·      Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham

·      Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

And my own writing book, Story Trumps Structure, will be released next spring.

I wish you all the best in your writing endeavors.

When writing a thriller/mystery, where the killer’s identity is kept from the reader until the end, do you feel the killer should be included in “X” amount of scenes, so your readers don’t feel cheated? For example: building clues toward several different people throughout a story, and then pulling the killer from “left-field,” who up until this point hasn’t really been involved in too many scenes. In your experience, do readers feel cheated, or do they like the twist of the unknown?

First of all, as far as including an unidentified or unknown killer throughout the book, keeping him (or her) on the fringes and then revealing at the end that he was responsible for the crimes—but doing so in a way that is both surprising and satisfying to readers—is very difficult, but if you can pull it off, it’s also very satisfying.

There’s no rule-of-thumb specifically for how many scenes you will want to include him, but it tends to make it more satisfying to readers if he is present throughout the book. I try to introduce him in the story as early as possible, and then have him reappear several times so that when the reveal comes it isn’t out of left-field.

You must always satisfy the reader by giving him more than he expects. Never let them feel cheated. In one of the paradoxes of fiction (and this is especially true with mysteries and thrillers), readers want to predict how the story will end, but they want to be wrong—yet still satisfied.

To make the twist work, it must be inevitable (the only possible conclusion when it appears at the end of the story), unexpected (so that no one sees it coming), and a revelation that adds meaning to what precedes it in the story.

I reread my stories as I’m working on them, usually printing out the novel once a week or so and glancing it through from the first page, so that I can grab hold of the context and try to experience it as the reader does—asking myself what the reader is hoping for, expecting, and wondering about. Then, I put my motto into play and try to always give readers what they want or something better.

There are several types of twists, and one of them is as you describe—giving clues that point toward the guilt of several people. This creates uncertainty in the mind of the reader. Another type of twist is to make all the clues point toward one person so that readers will be sure it is him. In this case, you are striving for certainty in the mind of the reader. Both types of twists can be satisfying, as long as the logic of the story supports that ending.

How much rope do you give yourself when diving into the minds of killers, cops, and bystanders who have no set religious affiliation?

I think it’s vital to be honest in the way we portray our characters, whatever their religious views might be. I’m a Christian and inevitably approach writing from that point-of-view. I believe that there is one good and gracious God who’s both loving and just, that good and evil exist in our world, that our lives are beautiful but marred by pain, that hope and redemption are ultimately available only through faith in Jesus Christ.

These beliefs about the world—that our lives and choices matter to God, that evil is real, that justice and love will prevail, that redemption is available—affect the stories that I tell and the way that I tell them. If I were to tell a story that glamorized evil or celebrated the things that God abhors, I wouldn’t be writing in a way that is congruent with my convictions. My stories are by no means sermons, but you’ll see themes related to these issues of justice and evil, of hope and love and accountability woven through almost all of the stories I write.

Whenever I’m writing from the perspective of someone who doesn’t believe the same things as I do, I strive to be as honest as I can in portraying that character’s views and beliefs.

But how much rope do I give myself when the character I’m writing about (say for example, a serial killer) has different views of justice, of sin, or accountability to our Creator? Well, I do my best to step into that character’s head and write what he or she would naturally think. And, yes, sometimes it’s frightening. In a few cases, it’s been terrifying.

When I was writing Opening Moves, the villain named Joshua (don’t worry, that’s not a plot spoiler), really startled me in how he viewed people and how alluring it was to him to cause pain in their lives. I had nightmares writing a few of the scenes in this book. I suppose that’s one of the drawbacks of entering into your writing on such an emotional level—it can’t help but affect your emotions. But honestly, I don’t know any other way to write.

When you write a suspense novel, how do you develop your story without moving too quickly, yet also not moving so slowly that readers lose interest?

Building suspense is really a process of making and then keeping promises.

Suspense isn’t so much about “making things happen” as it is about promising that they will. It’s more about creating worry, apprehension, and anticipation than it is about adding more action. When readers are bored with a book or when they complain that “nothing’s happening,” they don’t usually mean that nothing is occurring but rather that things aren’t escalating. We solve this problem not by adding more action but by making more promises.

In a mystery you might have someone beheaded before the book begins and the detective (or team of detectives) must work to solve the crime. In a horror story you might show the beheading in all of its grisly detail. In suspense, readers learn that someone is going to be beheaded and the protagonist must try to stop the crime before it occurs. See the difference? The first (mystery) appeals more to intellect—it’s a puzzle that needs to be solved. The second (horror) deals with a more raw, visceral gut-wrenching reaction. We’re not kept in suspense, we see the horrific detail. It’s almost like we’re afraid to look because of what we are being shown.

Suspense, however, deals more with the emotions. It appeals to the concern of the reader for the wellbeing of the character/s. So instead of being afraid to look, readers are afraid to look away because they’re afraid they might miss what is going on.

When readers care about a character and that character is put in peril, suspense is born.

Now, how do we make sure that we don’t lose the interest of readers? How do we make sure that we don’t move too slowly? I have a maxim that directs all of my writing endeavors—always give readers what they want or something better.

So, as I work on my story, I make promises of things that will go wrong (a killer might threaten or abduct someone; terrorists might develop a weapon, hack into a computer, leave a ticking bomb, etc…) then, as I write, I continually ask what the readers want, and I give it to them—or try to surprise them with something better than they ever imagined.

The keys to pacing include making and keeping promises when readers expect them, relentlessly escalating the tension of the story, raising the stakes, and balancing the amount of exposition so that it occurs after climactic scenes when readers wants a break and need a chance to reorient themselves for the next scene.