In keeping with your contract of entertaining the reader: How best do I design scenes? What should every scene consist of in your opinion? Can you have a scene that simply shows more character development, or simply hints/builds towards things to come later in the story? Does every scene have to have conflict? Since this is my first draft, should I simply write the story out and go back and add/drop scenes as needed?

People often ask me what a scene is, what a scene includes, how long a scene should be, and if scenes are included simply to reveal character traits. Since all of these are related topics, I decided to tackle them together. Let’s see how much we can cover in this one blog post.

First of all, a scene is the account of a character, rooted in time and space, working toward an objective that he wishes to accomplish.

The scene begins when a decision on his own, or an obligation thrust on him by another, places him in this situation where he must accomplish a certain task. It might be buying a bag of Cheetos or negotiating to get a good deal on a new car, or seducing a lover, or saving a child who fell into the lake. There is a task that is related to a goal. The scene shows what happens when the character attempts to accomplish this task or reach this goal.

Scenes are made stronger when there is tension, conflict, unmet desire. Look for that; bring it out.

Regardless of which draft you're in, you will want to work your scenes around objectives—on the part of the characters. I’m not a fan of bland scenes in which nothing is sought or altered, but the actions are just there “to show characterization.” This might be a scene of internal reflection or dialogue or exposition in which nothing is sought and the reader is left in the dark about what the characters really want.

The best way to show characterization is when a character is accepting to overcome something or rise to an occasion, so the scenes that best reveal characterization are those that do more than show action, they show action with intention.

Identify the goal. Let the characters seek it, fail to get it, process what just happened, and then make a decision that leads them on to the next scene.

Seek. Fail. Process. Proceed. This is what well-crafted scenes will do for you. This is the pathway your character will move through, scene by escalating scene, toward the climax.

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.

Q & A's about Organic Writing (Post 2)

Here is the second Q & A excerpt from my recently released book STORY TRUMPS STRUCTURE.

Q- “What do you do if you get writer’s block?”

A - I reread the story in context, keep the promises I’ve made—or make more, and ask the narrative questions (which we examine in Story Trumps Structure). Since you’re always analyzing the direction and content of your story when you write organically, you’ll find that you don’t run out of ideas very often. It makes it a lot easier for those of us who make a living doing this.

Q - “But without an outline how do you know when to end your story?”

A - Stories are over when the change in the life of the character has occurred, the questions readers want answered are answered, and the promises you’ve made have been kept. At that point, readers expect no more from the story, and the next logical step would only be the introduction of a new internal, external or interpersonal struggle for the protagonist—in other words, the beginning of a new story.

It might take one act or it might take a dozen, depending on the length of the story, the number of characters and the complexity of the conflict, but when the discovery is made, when the resolution is reached and you’ve fulfilled your promises, the story is over.

Q - “What if you’re writing a complex story? How do you keep everything straight if you don’t outline?”

A - Read the context. Some stories are too complex to outline. My novels often involve dozens of characters, multiple plots and subplots, half a dozen point-of-view characters and single-, double- or triple-twist endings. Even now that the books are written, if someone asked me to outline one of them I can’t imagine how hard that would be.

Make it easier on yourself and write organically. Read the context, jot down notes on the characters if you need to, and keep in mind what readers have in mind. Remember, they’re not going to have character biographies, outlines, and so on in front of them to help keep everything straight as they read your story, so, if you’re trying to write one for them that doesn’t include those things, why would you begin writing the story in such a way that you need them?

Q - “But how can you add a twist if you don’t outline?”

A - When you understand the dynamics of good storytelling, you can’t help but add a twist when you write organically.

The twist will reveal itself to you if you look for it long enough and in the right place by opening your eyes and asking the right questions.

Readers today are narratively astute. Respect them. Assume they’re at least as smart as you are. If you’re not surprised by the direction the story takes as you work on it, many of them won’t be surprised either.

What is the key to emotionally captivating characters?

Emotion is evoked through empathy (feeling the emotions along with the character) and sympathy (feeling emotions for a character). We vicariously feel emotions when we identify with the deep questions that the character is asking of themselves or the world. You need to find a connection point between your character and readers’ lives.

My friend author Robert Dugoni says characters should be empathetic or sympathetic, but not pathetic. So, strive to give your character a deep struggle but not one that’s melodramatic or overplayed.

We might find it hard to identify with losing a limb, but all of us know what it’s like to feel helpless, to understand what it means to have to overcome hardship.

I suggest giving your character an emotional wound we all share, a question we all ask, or a struggle we all find ourselves engaged in. For example, the loss of a loved one, or the question about whether their choices (and lives) ultimately matter, and the struggle to find meaning or forgiveness.

Well-rounded characters also have:

• A variety of status relationships (high and low) with other characters.
• A quirk, foible, special skill or emblem that makes them unique.
• Deep desires that give them intention in each scene—an intention that readers will care about.

We want readers to worry about the character, so ask what the stakes are. For example, what’s at stake for the guy to overcome the loss of his arm? Or what’s at stake for the mom to deal with the loss of a child.

Trust your gut. If it’s telling you that your character is too cliché, then work at making him more distinctive and give him a universal quest—to love and be loved, to find freedom or happiness or acceptance or adventure. Readers can relate to those goals and make them more emotionally involved.

I have two stories in the same story world, 3000 years apart. One is done and needs revising (chronologically first), and one has been rewritten several times but I plan to start from scratch this time (story is much more definable and developed). Would you have any immediate suggestions on which to tackle first?

Two issues pop to mind for me: openings and context.

You mention that the two stories are in the same story world; I’m not sure if that means they appear in the same novel, or if you’re talking about two separate books.

In either case, without being familiar with the context of your stories, it’s not possible to decide which one needs your more immediate attention. Remember that stories need escalation of conflict and tension, so, if one of the stories builds up to a more intense climax, that one should come last, chronologically. You always want to save the best for last, the plot must always thicken, never thin.

I’m not sure if Tolstoy actually said this, but there’s a story in writing circles that he once said, “The first thing they read is the last thing you write.” Here’s the point: You’ll only know how a story needs to begin when you know how it ends. If it ends with a person deciding to move from Cincinnati to LA, you know that, at the beginning, this has to be their struggle. So, when you get done, you would go back and recast the beginning so that it is tied in inextricably to the end of the story.

Too many writers spend inordinate amounts of time on their openings, their hooks and so on. They go to “first page critiques” sessions with other writers and bring their work to their local writers groups and keep polishing something that they might not even use in the end. Instead, it’s vital that we work through our stories, flesh them out, see where they lead, and then, once we know where they’re going, head back to the beginning and start them off aiming in that direction.

Whichever story you decide to develop first, let it inform your work on the other story—whether that involves making promises and foreshadowing (if you write the one that comes 3000 years before the other), or if it means fulfilling your promises (if you write the later story first).

Finally, I would suggest that you follow your passion. You might be more excited about one or the other. I’d go with that one. Let that give you momentum and fuel for the long hours of writing you will undoubtedly need.

When you were first starting out, did you ever have any self-doubt in your writing ability? If you did, how did you deal with it?

I’m not sure if the self-doubts that have lurked around the edges of my consciousness since the very beginning of my career will ever fully disappear. Despite how many books I write, I still approach every project with a trembling hand.
Will it be any good?
Will people like it?
Will I ever actually finish it?
Will it be better than the last one?
Over the years I’ve written more than three dozen books and hundreds of articles, but still I don’t have the confidence in my ability that you’d think would come naturally at this point.
Maybe that’s encouraging to aspiring writers, and maybe it’s disheartening. Depends on how you look at it—on the one hand, the apprehension might never go away, but on the other hand, you won’t be alone in feeling that way.
However, there’s a paradox to all of this. Intermingled in with all that hesitancy there has to be a certain sense of confidence in the process, or we wouldn’t know where to begin each day. And also, there has to be a certain degree of ego.
After all, every writing project is in a certain sense an exercise in egotism. When I write a novel that will take someone ten hours to read, and I encourage that person to buy it, I’m basically telling her that there’s no better way for her to spend ten hours of her all-too-short time on this planet than reading my story. If there was something better, I wouldn’t feel right trying to get her to read my story than to do that other thing.
If that’s not egotism, I’m not sure what is.
The truth is, if you like long hours in solitude, emotional turmoil, constant self-criticism and bouts of heart-wrenching disappointment, you’ll make a good writer. And if you can actually tell an engaging story, you might just make a great one.

Unmet Desire: The Core of Every Good Story

This is from my recent post at RomCon.com

Unmet desire.

It’s not just the secret to writing a good romance story; it’s also the key to writing a thrilling suspense novel—which is where I’ve found my home over the last couple years.

At its core, every story is about a character who wants something but can’t get it. As soon as she gets it, the story is over. My specialty is penning crime and psychological suspense novels (although each of them has a strong romantic element as well!). Both romance and suspense stories deal with this unmet desire, and when they meet in the same novel, it can be very satisfying.

Since I believe so strongly in this idea of struggles and unmet desire propelling the story forward, when I craft my stories I’m always asking myself what the character wants rather than what the character should do. The action of the story grows out of the desires of the characters, not the other way around.
Very often when writing instructors talk about stories, they refer to stories as being “character-driven” or “plot-driven.” I know what they’re trying to say, but I don’t believe any story is driven forward by character or by plot—and no, I don’t think that stories are both plot- and character-driven.

They’re neither.

For example, if I spend five pages describing what a character is like without ever telling you (or showing you) what that person wants, you’ll eventually start to think, “Who cares? Get on with the story!” In the same way, if I write one chase scene, then another chase scene, then another chase scene, but don’t make it clear what’s at stake, the story won’t be propelled forward; it’ll get boring.

But if stories aren’t driven by character or plot, what drives them forward?

Tension.

Always tension.

And tension comes from a character pursuing the object of her desire, not getting it at first, and then finding new ways to pursue it even as the clock ticks and the stakes continue to rise.

In a romance story, when that long-awaited romance begins, when the characters get the loving relationship they so badly want, the story is essentially over. So in a very real way, romance stories are not about romance, they are about romantic tension. (But I suppose that would be a rather awkward way of referring to them. I’ll give you that.)

And this place of tension is such a good place for romance and suspense to meet, where the two genres that can so easily and inextricably intertwine. When a character that we care about is in peril, we feel apprehension. That peril can be a threat to her life (as often happens in a suspense story) or to her personal, emotional well-being (as in a romance story).

All of this came into play and presented me with an unusual dilemma when I wrote my latest suspense novel Opening Moves. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the novel, it’s a prequel to the series that already features the thrillers The Pawn, The Rook, The Knight, The Bishop and The Queen. All of the books focus on FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers and his unique 21st century way of analyzing crimes and tracking down serial offenders (killers, arsonists, rapists, and so on).

Remember how I mentioned a moment ago that when the romance begins, the story is over? Well, at the end of The Queen, Patrick proposes to his love interest, an FBI profiler named Lien-hua Jiang. I hate to give anything away, so I’ll just say that her response, after five books of Patrick being interested in her, sets up the entire storyline for The King, which comes out next year.

So what could I do with Opening Moves that wouldn’t be anticlimactic? If readers already know the resolution of the main romantic subplot of the series, what romantic element could I include in Opening Moves that would still satisfy them—when the events of the story happen ten years before he ever met Lien-hua?

As I wrestled with that, I went back to the question I referred to earlier—asking myself what the character wants. I needed a new love interest, but also one that would create enough tension to carry the story as well as set up the relationships he would have later in the series.

I ended up with a story that bristles with suspense, but that also leads Patrick into his first serious relationship in the series. It’s all about desire, and when characters pursue what they desire most, great stories of all genres, are born.

The Patrick Bowers series has a beautiful combination of action, thrill, and compelling story. How do you find this balance? What advice can you give to writers who struggle keeping their story moving without getting to the end result too quickly?

First of all, thanks for the kind words about the series. I really appreciate them. Glad you enjoy the series.

So, you ask a good question: how do we maintain a balance between action and suspense while keeping the story moving and not ending it prematurely?

Stories are built on promises. These can come in many forms: comedic, dramatic, horrific, etc. For example, if we start a story showing a woman in an ideal marriage with a husband who loves her and she’s satisfied and at peace, we’ve made a promise to readers: something is going to go wrong and disrupt her idyllic life. Perhaps her husband will die, or succumb to his old addiction to alcohol, or leave her, or have an affair. Something will throw things out of balance. If you drag it on too long before keeping the promise you’ve made, readers will get bored and annoyed.  

You can make a promise by showing how blissful things are, or how unbalanced they are to begin with. So, we could have the daughter of a congressman get abducted—it’s a promise that the authorities will be in a race against time to save her.

One of the keys to storytelling is making promises that matter and then keeping them when the readers expect them to be kept. Suspense is really the drawing out of a promise of peril to a character whom we care about. It’s that apprehension we feel about impending danger. Action is what happens during the fulfillment of that promise. The action escalates to a climactic moment that drives the story forward into the next scene. Remember that in the interludes between scenes you will either need to keep a promise or make one.

A story ends when there’s no logical place for it to go based on the promises that have preceded that moment in the tale. If we make promises and don’t keep them, it’s likely that readers will feel frustrated at the end of the story. If we drag out a story after all the promises have been kept, readers will get bored.

So, as you analyze your story, ask yourself about those promises—have you made big enough ones on which to build a story? Have you kept the promises in ways that surprise readers and still please them? Have you done so at a time and in a way that will make readers clamor for your next book? You’ll need to stop and ask these questions throughout your writing process, but if you do, in the end you’ll have a well balanced story.

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.

Steve, as a writer do you feel as if you're taking part in the real world struggle of light vs. dark, or are you mirroring these struggles?

I like this question because it touches on more than just the craft of fiction and addresses the role of fiction in the world.

As I was thinking about the issues related to this question, I remembered that Jesus had addressed it himself when he told Nicodemus, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God” (John 3:19-21).

So, if it’s true that light and darkness are struggling against each other in our world—which is to say, within our own hearts—then the role of artists, I believe, is to enter that struggle, wake people up to it, and, hopefully, lead them to see glimpses of the light emerging through the dark corners of their own hearts.

I believe that telling the truth about the world is one of the core roles of an artist. So, yes. I do feel like I’m entering the struggle, or at least inviting people to observe it more honestly, when I write my books.

My crime fiction gives me a natural venue for exploring good and evil, but recently I wrote a book that explored them from a nonfiction perspective.

In Flirting with the Forbidden: Finding Grace in a World of Temptation, I tried to climb into the minds of some of the most famous (and obscure) characters in the Bible, and then tell the story through their eyes. The project gave me a new perspective on temptation (being lured into the darkness) and grace (finding the Light).

If you’re interested in a different way of addressing the themes of light and darkness, check out Flirting with the Forbidden. It’s very different from my novels, but I think the narratives will open your eyes in a new way to the depth of the struggle in each of our hearts.