Is it better to start a novel with a fast pace and suspense or a slower pace with more background information?

The answer to this question might seem obvious at first—well, you want the story to start in an exciting and gripping way, I mean, otherwise won’t people get bored? You need to hook your readers’ attention, right?

Once I was at a writers conference and a woman gave me her manuscript to look at. The opening was an exciting car chase that really grabbed my attention. It ended with a car crash, and I said, “So this is an action story?” But she shook her head. “It’s a romance. After she gets to the hospital she falls in love with her doctor.”

Now, in a sense when you set out to write a book you’re making a contract with your readers that you are going to entertain them, that you’re going to fulfill or exceed their expectations, and that you’re not going to cheat. I told the woman, “Well if that’s the case, then you just broke your promise because the beginning of the book promises me that it’s going to be action-packed.” She looked exasperated. “My writers critique group told me I needed to have a more exciting hook.”

Many aspiring writers (and even accomplished ones, unfortunately) listen to this advice about a great hook and they start their stories with an exciting opening, but then they have to slow the story down to a snail’s pace to fill readers in on what’s going on and why.

On the other hand, you don’t want to start at a slow pace and dump background information on your reader. So, here are a couple of principles that I keep in mind when I’m shaping the openings to my stories.

(1) The length of the hook is determined by the length of the book. This means that if I’m writing a 500 page novel I don’t need to be clever in the first line or two. Readers will understand that there’s a lot of story to tell and they will give me some space to set up the story. I try not to rush the opening, but set it up to serve the story as a whole.

(2) The opening must not just grab readers’ attention, but must also introduce them to a character they care about, help them picture the story world, and introduce the mood, voice, pace and genre of the story.

(3) Escalation is just as important to a story as the opening scene, or hook, is. If I start a story in an exciting way and then drop way back to fill in the background information, I’ve brought the story’s pace to a grinding halt. I can’t do this if I want to keep readers flipping pages. So, however I start the story, I need to orient the readers to the story at a place where I can quickly escalate the story and propel it forward toward its eventual climax.

So, writing an effective story opening has many facets and if any of them are dropped out, the story will suffer. Grab the attention of the readers, help them see what’s happening, introduce a character we can identify with or aspire to be like, give us a feel for the mood, set the readers expectations in the right place for the story arc you’re working with, and then get on with it. Don’t stall out giving too much background info. Press forward, fulfill your promises, and leave your readers hungry for more.

When did you decide to become an author? Was it something that just hit you one day during a college lecture, or was it the lifestyle that you’ve always dreamed of? I guess another question might be how you’ve kept the passion for the pen burning from whenever you decided to become an author?

Every writer that I know has ended up in this career by a different route—one was a journalist, another a pastor, another a cop, and the list goes on. Some people aspire to be novelists, and then they end up doing that right out of college (or instead of going to college).

For me, my love of stories began when my uncle told my brother, my sister and I stories when we were kids. I became a fanatical reader of mystery and fantasy stories—mostly short stories, since I’ve never really had a very long attention span.

I never imagined that I could make a career out of writing and telling stories, but when I was in college I told stories to the campers at the YMCA camps I worked at, and then started traveling around to elementary schools and libraries telling stories to the children. I still have a journal entry from my sophomore year of college when I wrote that I would never be fulfilled unless I was a storyteller. Actually, I was moving when I stumbled across that entry so many years later and realized that I had this desire planted in my heart even before it looked like I would ever be able to make a career out of doing it.

When I graduated with an MA in Storytelling in 1997, I started to travel nationally performing stories, teaching storytelling, and speaking at conferences and special events. However, I had young girls at home at the time and I didn’t want to be gone while they were growing up, so I started to write my stories down so that I could still tell stories but publish them instead of verbalize them. In time I began to write longer and longer stories, and today I’ve landed on being a novelist.

As far as keeping the fire burning, truthfully, I feel like I was always meant to be a storyteller, and I never get tired of it. Yes, there are long days and editing can be wearisome and writing is mentally draining work—all of that is true—but writing also energizes me.

Back in the 90s before pursuing my career as a writer and storyteller, I worked for four years at a summer camp. I was in a creative job, working outside with children, active, rock climbing, swimming, etc—all things I love. However, I wasn’t happy. When I was leading the ropes course or leading a climbing trip, I would find myself thinking how cool it would be to be writing about the experience. But when I’m writing, I never wish I were doing something else. I think that when we end up pursuing the passion that God planted in our hearts, we’ll know it. So, ask yourself: What doesn’t seem like a means to an end, but an end in itself? It’s a good clue as to what you were shaped to do with your life.

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.

Do you have any advantages or disadvantages about self-publishing that you can share?

I can tell this is a topic that is on people’s minds. This question is representative of a number of ones I’ve received relating to the quickly changing publishing world—specifically the advantages/disadvantages of self-publishing.

Ebook sales have risen astronomically in the last two years so that now they’re surpassing the sales of print books in many (if not most) categories. Self-publishing is becoming easier than ever before and doesn’t carry the stigma that it used to.

Since I’ve worked with traditional publishers (ones that pay you money up front to write your book) on all of my books, I’m not an expert on all the ins and outs of self-publishing. But I can give you a few observations.

Self-published books are usually more poorly written. In traditional publishing there are gatekeepers who weed out poor writing—agents, editors, publication boards and so on. Then, once the book is accepted, it is copyedited and proofread, typically by two or three people, before it is bound and published. That’s not to say that all traditionally published books (or ebooks) are better written than self-published books, but honestly, most are. Which brings us to #2:

If you self-publish your book, nearly all bookstores will refuse to carry it. They know about the gatekeepers, and they are going to go with them. It’s just the way it is, and it’s probably not going to change any time soon.

You will write fewer books if you self-publish. Books sell when they are marketed. That means that if you self-publish a book and you want it to be successful, you’ll have to spend a lot of time, money, and resources marketing it rather than working on your next book. If that’s something you want to do, you might find success self-publishing.

The odds are still stacked against you. You’ll hear stories about someone who self-published a book and it sold 500,000 copies, but for every book that does that there are hundreds of thousands that sell only a few hundred or a few thousand copies. Over 95% of all books published sell fewer than 10,000 copies and that is even more true of self-published books.

Last winter, to test the waters, I self-published an exclusive e-short story on Amazon called “Second Thoughts.” In nine months I’ve made about $400 on the story. Not much. And that’s from someone who already has nearly three dozen books published.

Frankly, I could care less if someone read my book off a sheet of paper or a computer screen or a chalkboard or a sidewalk, as long as I can make a living doing what I do.

Ebooks are here to stay, but so are print books.

I don’t think that the tipping point has come yet where self-publishing makes more sense than going with a traditional publisher.

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 creating your characters, do you have a system to organize them, keep their characteristics consistent, make back-stories, etc?

Many authors and writing instructors exhort writers to create long back-stories about their characters. Books and websites offer complex worksheets for this that the aspiring author is supposed to fill out for each character. The templates often include nicknames, favorite sayings, pet peeves, school history, parents names, first pet or job or kiss or . . . well, you get the idea. It goes on and on.

As you can probably tell, I’m not a fan of this system. Here’s why:

(1) If you spend all the time coming up with this material, you’ll be tempted to use it, and more often than not, this is a mistake. Only include information that’s essential for the reader to know about each character. When you unload background information on readers, you’re making a promise that the information is important somehow. If it’s not, you’ve broken your promise to the them.

(2) I don’t know where my best friend went to high school, or the name of his first girlfriend, or where he lived when he was a kid, or any of those things. But I know what he’s passionate about, what makes him angry, what he is willing to sacrifice his time for. A character with an attitude is much more interesting than a character with a history.

After seven novels and hundreds of characters in my stories, I’ve finally jotted down a few essential facts, quirks, and interests of the central characters, but this has grown out of the stories and is intended to keep dates, ages, etc. consistent.

The system I use is simply reviewing the story from the beginning and keeping in mind the information about the characters as I move the story forward. With most stories this isn’t too difficult, but toward the end if you have several dozen characters, you might want to jot down a few things about each one. I don’t think you need much of a system, just a simple way to keep them straight.

How much time does the process take between the first ideas for a story and writing the first word of the actual novel on paper? How much time do you spend working on the idea before you start writing the book?

Artist Robert Motherwell once said, “When I'm thinking I'm working.”

Honestly, that’s the way it is for me. I have a hard time mentally shutting off my projects. I carry a notepad of some type (paper or computerized) with me nearly everywhere I go, and I jot ideas down as they come to me. It’s both a curse and a blessing. I couldn’t do what I do without the ideas, but sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have any more until I can use up the ones that are already overwhelming me.

Every idea is the genesis for another story or another scene. It’s really not possible to say when those seeds of stories actually become stories themselves. Every idea that I write down is, in essence, a work in progress.

I should note that not every idea is a good one. It’s important that writers acknowledge that and realize that most of the ideas they come up with will never be used. One of my biggest problems is differentiating between the ideas that are workable and the ones that really aren’t worth pursuing.

Every idea is a doorway and they all lead to something—usually more doorways. But sometimes you’ll find a doorway that opens to a room that becomes part of your eventual story. Every idea is, at the very least, a doorway to the next.

Giving Birth

I have three daughters, and although I was there when they were born, I obviously didn’t experience what it was like to actually give birth. This much I do know from being there and sharing the moment with my wife: there’s a mixture of pain and joy, of both letting go and receiving in giving birth.

Those are some of the same feelings I have today as Opening Moves, the latest of my Patrick Bowers thrillers, is officially released.

There was certainly some degree of pain in the process of bringing this book to life—long hours, frustration over scenes that weren’t working right, the difficult process of trying to wrench just the right word out of the air to make the story the best I had to offer.

And there is joy, too. Joy in seeing the book, fully formed, arrive on bookshelves.

I can feel a sense of release, of letting go, of bringing something I care deeply about into the world and setting it free from my mind, and a sense of receiving back satisfaction and feedback from my readers.

So for me, this is a memorable day, a unique and special day.

If you like gritty crime novels and haven’t ordered a copy of Opening Moves yet, I hope you will. And I hope you’ll enjoy it, the latest child of my imagination.