Tag Archives: Writing

Horror and mayhem are all about the villain. Your murderer has to be as real as and smarter than your hero, whether your hero is a street smart cop, a yoga teacher framed for the killing or a busy body old lady. And really, why would anyone invite Ms. Jane Marple (Agatha Christie’s heroine) or Jessica Fletcher (Murder She Wrote) to a party? People are falling down dead all around them. All the time.

But I digress.

The challenge in writing a murderer is to push past your own personal revulsion at what the character does and see why he does it.

Why do we love Professor James Moriarty as much as Sherlock Holmes?

Because Moriarty is a whole and terribly wounded person. He has wants, needs and his own (internal) code of conduct. He is at least as clever as, if not more clever than, Sherlock. Moriarty is who Sherlock could have been if he’d been nudged down a different path.

My current work in progress is an urban fantasy thriller. So how did I create a murderer? I did what any writer would do. Research.

I’m probably on the NSA’s watch list based on the serial killer searches I ran from my computer. I read lots of thrillers, murder mysteries, and true crime novels. I took notes. I read craft books including James N. Frey’s How to Write a Damned Good Mystery: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide from Inspiration to Finished Manuscript. I highly recommend Frey’s book to anyone writing in this genre.

My research confirmed a lot of what I suspected. What makes a good murderer? According to Frey:

“1. Our murderer will be evil.” Frey defines this as someone who is acting out of his or her best interests. I’ll add that this drive toward self-satisfaction will be overwhelming. Our killer doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he gets his selfish desires.

“2. Our murder will not appear to be evil.” Sadly, real life bears this principle out. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Aileen Wuornos all looked respectable. Bundy worked a crisis hotline. The idea of evil lurking just under the skin is central to horror stories. Also, if the bad guy is the obvious suspect you fail to create the tension needed to maintain a horror, mystery or thriller.

“3. Our murderer will be clever and resourceful.” Sherlock would not spend his life trying to catch Moriarty if he wasn’t clever or resourceful. The near miss, the hero arriving moments too late, creates tension and makes the chase all that more thrilling. We read thrillers and murder mysteries for the chase and inevitable capture.

“4. Our murderer is wounded.” A deep psychological wound drives our murderer. After all, he’s taken a step (or several dozen) past the line. He’s gone from thinking of ending someone’s life to actually doing it. Like Jack the Ripper, he may take his crime beyond mere murder and mutilate his victims. He’s shattered the veneer of civilization we all live with, and something outside the normal has made him do it. He (often) justifies killing because of this emotional wound. This is probably the step that most “failed” (defined as stories that didn’t capture my attention) stories miss. Without this driving force shaping your murderer he will feel like a two-dimensional character or a cliché.

“5. Our murderer is afraid.” Even with the thrill of the kill the murderer must worry about apprehension. His fear mixes with an intensifies his other emotions. Your character needs to feel fear whether fear of discovery, losing what he’s built or something else. Fear is a defining human trait. We all fear something. Often many somethings. Fear of failure. Fear of being not good enough. Fear of being discovered as a “fraud.” Without fear a character is a sketch.

Lots of craft books spend time on getting you to flesh out your characters. Your killer should be the most fully realized. You need to know his history and all his actions even though most will never make it into the story – only the results. The psychology of a killer is in many ways more important than his physiology. Merely hitting the high points of psychopathy – like most serial killers in their youth have tortured or killed animals – isn’t enough. Merely hating women isn’t enough. Something in the killer’s path has pushed him over the line from malcontent to murderer.

Did he accidentally kill someone in a fit of temper and “get away” with it but now he has to kill again to protect the life he’s built since (the example Frey uses in his book)? Did he like the thrill? What is he afraid of?

Simply put, if you don’t know how your killer got to the point we find him in this story he’s not going to be very compelling.

Frey spends about 20 pages on developing your murderer and becoming intimate with him. Obviously, I can’t do justice to Frey’s advice in the space of a blog post. But let me leave you with this:

Murderers are three-dimensional characters. They are clever, not just lucky. They are “evil” in the sense that their desires are the most important thing in the world to them. They are highly damaged people. Unless you know what drives your killer (his wound) you can’t know how he kills and won’t keep your reader engaged.

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Now What?

January 9, 2014

fictorians

Business Guest Posts The Writing Life 2 Comments

A guest post by Sam Knight.

Another day another dollar. Another year, another… Hmmm. A dollar. Yeesh! That’s about what it feels like. When did writing turn into a job? I didn’t sign up for this. Did I? I mean, I guess I did. I didn’t mean to. It was supposed to be fun.

Last year, I attended enough conventions that I actually lost count. Not like I went to a hundred or anything like that. I averaged a little over a convention a month—as a speaking guest, not an attendee or a vendor (although I was also an attendee and a vendor at most of them, too). There is a big difference in the drain on your personal energy. As much as going to conventions and meeting other writers and making new fans revitalizes me, staying in hotels, traveling, and being “always on” wears me out.

By the end of the con season, I actually skipped a couple of conventions. That really surprised me. The conventions were a major part of my personal goals for 2013. Heck, I even got to be on panels at both Denver and Salt Lake City Comic Cons! That was a personal goal I thought would take a lot longer to reach.

But it cost me. It drained me. I still have a family who wants me at home, kids I need to make arrangements for when I’m going to be gone, and money that hates me and runs away at the slightest hint I may have woken up.

I made most of my money by going to conventions and selling my books in 2013. Conversely, going to conventions was also my biggest expense. There is a tradeoff there, a give and take. But there was a hidden take I wasn’t seeing.

My word count, my writing production, suffered horribly. I can’t write while driving or speaking at conventions. I have met a couple of people who can, but I’m not one of them. The best I can hope for is a few flash fictions over coffee, or maybe a half of a short story.

But that is where the money really is—in my word count. The more I write, the more stuff I have to sell, and the more I sell… well, you get the point.

And I do need money to keep doing this. I am not independently wealthy, so I can’t afford to have this be the most expensive hobby ever. Even when my hotel and my vending booth are paid for by a convention, I still have expenses. And bills. And kids.

So that is what I am setting my goal for in 2014. Making money—by writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I intend to be perfectly reasonable about it. I have no delusions that I will sell a bazillion copies of anything. But I have also realized that I can’t keep pitching the same things I’ve already sold. I need more. I need a back catalogue. I need new fans to realize I have ten more things they want to buy. I need to write!

But then, I’ve been there before.

When I first started out, that’s what I did. I wrote. All the time. All by myself. And I felt like I needed to get out and meet people, go to conventions, meet other authors. And I did. Maybe too much. It kind of wore me out.

So for 2014, I plan on attending conventions, but maybe not quite as many. I plan on meeting other writers and getting together with those I already know, to revitalize my writing energy, but I will be more selective about where and when and how. And I am upping my writing game. I am going to find a way to get more work out there into the world.

When all is said and done, my goal in 2014 is to find balance. I want to find the sweet spot where I can write until I’m ready to take a break, yet still be able to take the break because I don’t have three things due already. I want to go to conventions, yet still feel giddy about going. I want to be able to run things like a small business, yet still think of myself as a writer. I want to stop thinking “Ach! When did this become a job! It was supposed to be fun,” and start thinking “This is a job? How fun!”

Guest Writer Bio:

Sam Knight refuses to be pinned down into a genre. If the idea grabs him, he writes it. Once upon a time, he was known to quote books the way some people quote movies, but now he claims having a family has made him forgetful, as a survival adaptation. He can be found at www.samknight.com and contacted at sam@samknight.com.

Mean Salvation

December 12, 2013

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Character Conflict Craft & Skills 3 Comments

Every new author’s challenge is to learn to tell a story well and to do so with a passionate heart. There are reams of advice on the internet, in how-to-write books, from writers groups and at conventions, workshops and seminars. Knowing basic plot structure is quick to learn but how does one navigate character depth and writing with a passionate heart?

When I was starting out, I went to my first writers group meeting with a completed 100,000 word novel. Someone offered to read it for me. I was ecstatic. The reader had some valuable insights: 1) don’t let your characters be stupid. It sounds harsh but it wasn’t. Given the incident she was referring to it made perfect sense and it was an easy fix; 2) characters need to be consistent and logical; and 3) you must be mean, even cruel to your characters.

Permission to be mean??? I was both ecstatic and mortified. How could I embrace this? I don’t like conflict. Reading fairy tales as a kid, I was so relieved when the happy endings came – I wanted the conflict to be over so I could relish those sweet but short utopias. Yet, those words of permission filled me with relief – I no longer had to be nice, the peacemaker, making everyone happy somehow through their struggle. I was never so nice to my characters that they were wimpy and the story was without conflict but I hadn’t gone far enough.

Permission to be mean was permission to delve deep into a character’s psyche, to understand their deepest fears, anxieties and painful back story. It was about not feeling guilty because the characters I loved had to experience trouble and pain.

Understanding that it was my responsibility to look into a character’s deepest fears and to throw them into the pits of emotional hell and physical danger made me a better writer. When I now read the how-to books and columns, I understand they are challenging us to search for those emotional pits of hell within ourselves, to be honest enough so we can make our characters sweat through them. For example, this spring I took a one day workshop with Donald Maass based on his book Writing 21^st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling. That workshop was like being in therapy. We were asked questions similar to ‘What is the most painful secret you have? Where can you make your character feel what you are feeling right now?’

It’s a mean salvation for a writer – as we dig deeper and challenge our characters and are mean to them emotionally and physically, we are challenging our inner selves and are digging deeper into our own psyches.

The advice I was given when I started out makes sense now – if I dig deep within myself to understand emotional truth, dig deep within my character (my character isn’t me and her emotional truth isn’t necessarily mine), if I dig deep into the emotional realities of life (and they can be cruel), if I let my characters experience what they need, then I will be true (and logical) to my characters and my readers will experience a satisfying emotional journey. The added bonus was that I could now more easily ramp up conflict and tension.

Mean salvation – that’s the best way I can describe that first advice. We all live it, we write it and in our hearts, we know it. My favorite books make me live through those dark, awkward and painful moments with a character and in the end I embrace their journey although not all endings are sweet. Their catharsis is my catharsis. Their pain is my pain. Their salvation is my salvation.

It’s not like the song lyrics “you’ve got to be cruel to be kind” it’s that we’ve got to be cruel to be real, to dig down deep and face what makes us and our characters emotionally real. It’s mean salvation.

The Tools You Use Can Change Everything

December 11, 2013

clancy

Clancy Metzger Motivation Writing Tools 1 Comment

Years ago when I was still in the I-Want-To-Be-A-Writer-But-I’m-Not-Writing-Yet phase, I had a crappy desktop computer. It was old, it was big, it was slow and to use it, I had to sit in a less than comfortable chair at a less than comfortable desk. I didn’t write much. Then I met someone and we began collaborating on a book together. I was inspired and writing – at last. It was not ideal and while I was at least following my dream to be a writer, it was still a struggle. The tools I had available were slowing me down.

Not too far into the process, I was visiting with my dad who lived in another state and I rarely got to see. In talking about how I was doing, I mentioned my struggle with my computer. My dad was always a techie, even when tech was barely available. He told me I should have a laptop computer. I scoffed – first, because I was not very tech savvy at the time and second, because I had no money to buy a laptop. Heck, the crappy desktop I had was a hand-me-down. So, I kept plugging away at the story I was writing and doing the best with what I had.

A few weeks later, I received a way-early Christmas present. Two large boxes arrived on my doorstep that contained a brand new laptop with all the bells and whistles and a new printer to go with it. Just remembering that day is making me cry as I type this.

My dad had invested in my dream. In my future – as a writer. He believed in me and gave me the tools to go for it. No excuses. That was such an amazing gift. I finished that book on that laptop in a big comfortable chair in my bedroom and a character was added to it that was inspired by my dad.

Since then, I’ve received many gifts of faith and support in my writing, but that first gift from my dad gave me the confidence and responsibility to believe in myself. Investments in my dream since have included attending the Superstars Writing Seminar and recently getting a newer laptop, though I’ll never part with the one my dad gave me. My dad died several years ago, but not before he got to read that first book I ever wrote.

Your tools are important and can make all the difference in the world, but then so can one person’s belief in you.