5 Creative Flaws

I have only been writing for a couple of years, and probably still not qualified to talk about how to write a book, but what I have done is tried to soak up everything out there to do with moving from the first letter on the page to The End. I know I still have a lot to learn in this journey, but what I am doing is giving little snippets of what I have picked up along the way. I hope in some way it helps you in your journey from idea to publication.

There are a million ways to cripple a story.  Here are five of them.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being inexperienced (we’ve all been there).  Unless it shows up in your story in a way that detracts from it.

Or kills it.

Pop quiz: which is the more unforgiving audience: agents, editors, or readers?

Used to be that the only answers that mattered were the first two, because you’d never get your work in front of the latter if your story was guilty of and of these five deal killers. They were grounds for rejection.

Nowadays, though, you can skip the grouchy agents and rejection-happy acquisitions editors and go digitally direct to the marketplace. Moreover, if for a moment you think that this brave new world lowers the craft bar, that digital readers won’t care about the small stuff in the same way that agents and editors do, think again.

This is actually good news.

Because when you finally conquer these five demons, you’ll stand out as a professional storyteller worthy of publication – even if you’re self-publishing – amidst a sea of competition that, quite frankly, isn’t. Without word-of-mouth buzz, your digital story is going nowhere beyond your circle of loyal family and friends.  And with these five flaws crippling your pages, a wider readership isn’t likely.

Not just because of the technical impropriety of it. But because the writer who doesn’t recognize the folly of these things isn’t likely to spin a story that competes with those of writers who do.

Here they are, in no particular order of toxicity.

1. Proper Names Within Dialogue

Which equates to bad dialogue.

Listen closely to conversations in your life.  Count the number of times somebody uses your name in those audible exchanges.  Better yet, how often you use the name of the person you are talking to, either face to face or on the phone.

It’ll be a low number.   It is likely to be zero.

And yet, some writers seem to think this sounds cool when written into dialogue.  To wit:

Hey, Bob, good to see you.

You too, Joe.  Been well?

Bob, you have no idea.

Well Joe, times are tough.

Tell me about it, Bob.  I hear you, man.

Only a bit of an exaggeration here.  I see this all the time in the manuscripts I’m hired to critique and coach.  If it only happened once it might fly under the radar – because it does happen, once in a blue moon, in real life, and it sounds odd then, too – but usually when it appears it pops up throughout the entire manuscript like a skin rash.

Rule of thumb: never do this in your dialogue.  Never.

With experience comes an ear for dialogue.  But you can shorten that learning curve dramatically by simply axing out the use of proper names.

Unless someone is calling on the phone and opens with, “Is Mary there?”, don’t make this mistake.

2. Chit-Chat

William Goldman, the senior statesman of screenwriting who is also an accomplished novelist, advises us to begin our scenes at the last possible moment.

This is huge. Some of the best advice ever, even for novelists.  Because implicit within its genius is the assumption – the prerequisite – that the writer completely knows the mission of each and every scene.

Read that again, it can change your entire storytelling experience.

Skip the pleasantries when two people meet.  Avoid the weather talk.  The how-have-you-beens.  Instead, opt for something like this:

After a few minutes of catching up Laura popped the question she’d come for.

“Are you having an affair with my husband?” she asked.

The first of those two lines can replace many paragraphs of useless chit-chat.  Even when said chit-chat demonstrates characterization, without expositional value it’s a useless distraction that eats away at pace.  And pace is always important.

Characterization when it counts trumps characterization when it doesn’t, every time.

I’ve read pages upon pages of chit-chat before a scene finally kicks in.  I’ve seen entire scenes full of it without the scene ever arriving at a point. And I have to remind myself that I’m getting paid to read it.

But never in the story of an accomplished pro.

It’s a judgment call, and with experience comes an evolved sense of pace and reader tolerance.

3. Too Much Description of Food

This is more common than you can imagine among newer writers.  Meals are described with exquisite detail.  Course after course, drenched with spicy, worshipful adjectives.

Delicious. Steaming hot.  Slathered in a sweet sauce.

The only justification for doing this is when the meal is laced with arsenic.  Because – and I’m serious about that analogy – because in such a case it would relate to the story.

If it doesn’t relate, skip it.

Nobody cares what your hero has for breakfast.  It’s not important to know the menu of a meal prepared with love.

Ever.  Unless, like I said, the meal matters.  Which it hardly ever does.

4. Overwritten Sequential Time Fillers

Your hero has had a tough day at work.  She comes home to shower and have a glass of wine before driving to the rendezvous point for her blind date that evening, which she’d been unable to stop thinking about all day.

As a writer, you now face a decision: cut to the date, or take us home with her for the shower and the wine and some lengthy pondering of her lonely life.  Or better yet, cut straight to the date and cover any prior ground (her bad day at work, the shower and wine) with a short introductory sentence.

Inexperienced writers tend to take us home with her.  Have us take a shower with her and ooh and ahh about how good the hot water feels.  About the taste of the wine, a hint of cherry, a nice finish.

The more experienced writer cuts straight to the date.

This pitfall is similar to the chit-chat and food and transitional red flags described elsewhere in this article.  The same standard applies: if it doesn’t deliver salient expositional information, if it doesn’t matter, if it just moves the character forward in time (as if the writer is obliged to show us each and every moment and hour of the hero’s day, which isn’t true), then skip it.

Know what matters, what counts, and why.  Then, like a chess piece, move the scenes from one square to the next.  Every time you hit the pause button to take a shower or reflect on the drive home, you’re killing your story’s pacing.

Mission-driven scene writing is the Holy Grail of long form storytelling. It is the context for almost every problem and solution you’ll face.

5. Invisible Scene Transitions

Less is more.  It really is.  Unless we’re talking foreplay, but that’s another blog.

This principle leads us to the best transitional device known to the modern storyteller.  The very best way to get from one scene to the next is… to do nothing.

Literally.

Two words: white space.

Just end a scene cleanly, then skip a couple of lines and jump into the next scene.  Which happens when either time or place or point of view changes.

Read that again, too.  It’s basic and critical.

If you’re jumping to a new chapter this takes care of itself.  But chapters are legitimately able to house an untold number of scenes, and if you want to make sure the reader is as aware of the transitions with them as you are, skip a line or two when time or place of POV changes.

Otherwise, your transition might look like this:

The meeting dragged on for several hours, complete with boring PowerPoint presentations and the lengthy pontifications of the CEO, who had never been on a sales call in her life.  Tomorrow would be no exception. The sales call began at noon, with a rubber chicken catered lunch already on the table.  The client posse arrived together, as if they’d marshalled in the parking lot to finalize strategy and send off any last minute texts.

It’s not wrong, per se, it’s just that the transition from scene to scene (note, it’s now tomorrow, a different time and place) is not as clear and efficient as it could be.  A reader who skims is likely to miss it.

Now look at it this way.  A simple thing, with an empowering result:

The meeting went on for several hours, complete with boring Powerpoint presentations and the lengthy pontifications of the CEO, who had never been on a sales call in her life. Tomorrow would be no exception.

The sales call began at noon, with a rubber chicken catered lunch already on the table.  The client posse arrived together, as if they’d marshalled in the parking lot to finalize strategy and send off any last minute texts.

Such simplicity.  The power of the skipped line of white space is amazing.

These mid-chapter scenes – especially necessary transitional ones – can be as short as you want.  One paragraph exposition that gets us from one point to the next are wonderful, especially if they replace two-page space fillers that seek to accomplish the exact same thing.  The need to pad these scenes is the paradigm of the beginner… which, after being duly warned, you no longer are.

Such is the case with all five of these rookie mistakes.  Your radar for them is the most important part of your review and edit process.

And if you can’t wrap your head around it, I’m betting your significant manuscript-reader other can.  Because they’re readers, and readers are the victims when these things hit the page.

Until next time, peace, out.

WHAT REALLY DRIVES YOUR CHARACTERS-THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY

As in real life our characters move through their worlds driven by various motivations, be it, love, anger, greed et al. Having a basic understanding of Psychology helps us round out our characters making them more believable to readers.

    There are a lot of Character Outline guides out there, but it's easy to focus on the superficial with them, particularly since most of them focus on the kind of information you'd find in a decent dating profile: looks, nationality, age, career, salary, religion, languages spoken, and turn ons and turn offs.

Which is not to say you can't learn a lot about your character from such guides, only that I'm not sure they dig deep enough into character psychology with their vague references to "temperament," "likes and dislikes," "fears," and "strengths."

    To really appreciate any person, you have to realize that they're going to be driven—at least in part—by things they're either not 100% aware of...probably because they don't want to see their own terrible flaws and weaknesses. But that doesn't mean that you, as the author, shouldn't know!

   

The Psychological Profile

Try identifying the following for each of your major characters:

1. Primary Goal

Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that human beings are a "wanting animal." As soon as one want or need is fulfilled, we move on to wanting something else. So what does your character want more than anything?  What is his character's overarching goal?   What is the purpose that not only gets him out of bed each morning, but also drives him or her throughout the story?

a. Obstacles to that Goal

Who or what stands in your character's way?  Note that your character may face more than one obstacle, and that other characters' wants or needs may be in direct conflict, creating a battle of wills.

b. What s/he'll give up or sacrifice to achieve that Goal

When someone really wants something, she's willing to make sacrifices.  She may not know what those sacrifices are until push comes to shove, but she will make them. When a goal is just out of reach, it's tempting to give up just a bit more than one should. And if that goal stays just out of reach, your character may find herself on a slippery moral slope, inching across a line she never thought she'd cross. 

Sacrifices should be things that cause some conflict because they're given up only when the character really has to make a choice between what must truly be a consuming Goal and the rest of his or her life. It's important that you don't just think about physical things. Also consider values and morals. What has your character promised herself she'd never do?  And how can you push her past that promise by dangling the Goal in front of her?

    An example of a character who goes too far in his pursuit of a Goal is Farscape's John Crichton. Astronaut Crichton is launched into a distant corner of the universe by a wormhole, and he spends much of the series trying to find another wormhole that will get him home. He becomes a man truly obsessed, and more than once it becomes clear that he will do just about anything—including put his friends' lives in terrible danger—to conquer wormholes.  He is, of course, pursued by a villain who wants the same thing, which makes Crichton's quest even more dangerous. If Crichton acquires wormhole technology and his nemesis gains that technology through him, said nemesis will use that knowledge to destroy the Earth.

2. Fatal Flaws 

Every great hero has at least one Achilles heel. What is your character's?

These flaws may be things the character tries to hide or disguise behind more noble qualities. For example, a character who's afraid to express who he really is and what he really wants may see himself (or typically be seen by others) as modest. A character who's terrified of being hurt again may hide behind intellectuality and assertions that he doesn't need relationships.

Your character is most likely to recognize his fatal flaws in those cold dark hours of the night when he's worn down, exhausted, and out of options. What is it he really wants in those moments? Those wants are his weakest point, and if your villain recognizes them, she might do your hero a great deal of damage.

3. Strengths

Be sure to focus on personality characteristics!  Is your character a charismatic leader? Does she persist in the face of great difficulty? Does her determination help her push through obstacles that might break a weaker character?  

Don't forget to look at each of these things for your villain as well, including strengths. I strongly believe that the best villains have admirable qualities, but have simply fallen prey to their own flaws and wants.  In some cases they may have lost their moral compass, but in others they may be as justified in their wants as your hero or heroine. So don't forget to give your villain strengths as well.

4. Fears

What is your character most afraid of? A loss of control? Or just losing the battle against the villain? How can you force him/her to face that fear in the story?

People do incredible things in the name of fear.  I am particularly taken with the story of Snow White, especially in an age of Photoshopping and Botox. Do you remember what drives the villainous queen? She has always been the most beautiful woman in all the land, until one day the magical mirror says that Snow White has become even more beautiful than her. Perhaps this is simply Snow White blossoming into a lovely young woman, but I suspect ageing plays a part in the queen's downfall. And the queen is willing to do anything—including murder—to regain her status.

Although Snow White seems blissfully unaware of her own goodness and beauty, at some point she too will age, and people will begin to treat her differently. What might she do to stay young and beautiful and keep everyone's attention on her?  You might think she would avoid the kind of evil to which the queen falls prey, but real life suggests that people often become what they hate most, perhaps because of that hatred.

5. Terrible Secret/s

What is your character hiding from everyone else?  Is Snow White secretly reveling in her power over the dwarves and the prince, for example?  Or perhaps your intellectual hero, who always stands independent and alone, secretly craves a partner.  Or maybe he's miserable and disillusioned in his leadership role, but has to stay strong because there is no one to take his place.  Maybe he was once close to the villain, and in spite of himself he still secretly loves/admires him/ her.

Pulling It All Together

There's a good chance that what you write in the different categories will be related. For example, your character's greatest fear may be tied to his/ her Terrible Secret. And she/he may be willing to give up just about anything to protect that secret.

   Hope this helps some-way in developing your babies, until next time, peace out.

SERIAL VIGILANTES

My love of what some people would call trashy fiction, more popularly called Pulp Fiction began many years ago when I was a teenager, I bought a copy of The Destroyer series no 33 Voodoo Die, from then on I was hooked. 

So I suppose this has an effect on what I write, not going to apologise for that.
The title of this blog post, Serial Vigilantes was used in “A Real Rain” episode of Criminal Minds to describe a killer who is targeting people who have escaped justice. This term highlights the fact that these characters are vigilantes, taking the law into their own hands, as well as the fact that their activities are organized in a serial fashion.
 
The serial vigilante is a crusader for moral order. This comes from a sudden realization, typically an act of violence, that society is not doing its job and protecting people.
So I thought I would do a couple of postings featuring some well known, and not so well known serial vigilantes, hope you enjoy.

The typical serial vigilante character has served in Vietnam and learnt the skills used in his crusade. This can be seen in the history of the Executioner, the Destroyer, the Penetrator and Able Team, to name a few. Others gained this training in different ways. The Butcher was a high-ranking member of the Mafia who turned against it as an act of redemption for the evil he had committed. Dagger was a war correspondent, and Carl Lyons of Able Team was a police officer. Others, like The Death Merchant, offer no explanation as to how they gained their skills.

Kettredge and Krause (1978) point out that the serial vigilante’s crusade is sparked by an incident, which alters their perception of society. It may be something that happened to loved ones: The Executioner’s father killed his family after discovering that his daughter was prostituting herself to help pay off his debt to Mafia loan sharks; The Satan Sleuth’s wife was killed by Devil worshippers; Robert Briganti became The Assassin when his family was killed after he refused to help the Mafia; Dagger’s fiancée was killed after he exposed a conspiracy.

Others will have the incident happen to them: the Penetrator was bashed and left for dead after tracking down some black marketers; the Destroyer was framed and went through a fake execution.

The incident does not need to physical. Nile Barrabas, leader of The Soldiers of Barrabas, was court marshaled and dishonorably discharged for crimes he did not commit.

 THE VIGILANTES

ABLE TEAM

Fifty-one books by “Dick Stivers”

To get the full history of this spinoff of The Executioner we have to go back to the Executioner #2: Death Squad. In that novel, Bolan decides to use some of his fellow Vietnam veterans in his war on the Mafia, his Death Squad. In the final assault everyone except Mack, Rosario “Pol” Blancanales and Herman “Gadgets” Schwartz were killed. The idea was to confirm to Mack that this had to be his personal crusade. Also introduced in that book was an LA cop by the name of Carl Lyons who was after the Executioner, but by the end of the book he became Bolan’s ally.

These three characters appeared sporadically throughout the series as Pendleton continued writing. Pol and Gadgets set up a detective firm, Able Investigations, with Pol’s sister Toni.

Then Pendleton sold the Executioner to Gold Eagle. Mack Bolan had been pardoned and given the new identity of John Phoenix, the base Stony Man Farm and a new war on terrorism. Pol, Gadgets and Lyons became Able Team, Mack’s force to fight terrorism on American soil, although the team operated in other countries.

Carl “Ironman” Lyons was the team leader, Gadgets was responsible for the electronic equipment, and Pol, which is short for Politician, was the negotiator for the group. Over the series Able Team was aided by other warriors but these three remained the core.

Behind the Scenes

Initially, the series was written under the byline Don Pendleton and Dick Stivers, highlighting the series’ connection to the Executioner series. The non-existent Stivers was given the biography that he was a volunteer for Vietnam but was too young to see any action. His first taste of battle came during a mugging in Los Angeles. A traveler and adventurer, Stivers travels the world tackling crime. In truth Stivers did not exist and the books were written by several writers using the house name. These writers include:

• Norman Winski, also the author of the novelization of The Sword and the Sorcerer, the Hitman series and several works on astrology. Winski was also a member of the Chicago Beat scene and Charles Bukowski (Barfly) was godfather to his son.

• Ron Renauld, who wrote five A-Team novelizations as Charles Heath and wrote book 7 under his own name. He has also written for the Executioner.

• Nicholas Cain — a former military police officer. Cain wrote the semi-autobiographical Saigon Commandoes series. Under the pen name Jonathon Cain, he wrote the Little Saigon series about a former MP turned LA police officer working in the Vietnamese community. As Sgt. Nik Uhernik, he wrote the War Dogs series; Uhernik also appears as a character in the Saigon Commandoes series.

• Steve Mertz, who, along with Mike Newton, got his start working with Don Pendleton on the Executioner for Pinnacle Books, later ghostwriting a number of Executioner novels for Gold Eagle books and plotting the MIA Hunter series for Jove books.

THE ASSASSIN (ROBERT BRIGANTI)

Three books by Peter McCurtin

Robert Briganti was born in New Orleans in 1935, the descendant of Tommo Briganti who arrived in America from Naples in 1892. At age sixteen Robert joined the Carnival and left New Orleans and become one of the best sharpshooters on the circuit, and he toured America for years, gaining friends and contacts. With the death of his mentor, Briganti joined the Marston Arms company, selling surplus arms throughout South America and gaining an expertise in nearly all weapons. After marrying, Briganti retired from Marston and opened a sporting goods store and had a son Michael in 1963.

In 1972, Briganti was approached by mobster Joe Coraldi to get him weapons for his current gang war and Briganti refused him. So the mobsters ordered that Briganti be killed; the attack killed Briganti’s wife and son but left Briganti alive. After getting out of hospital, Briganti began his war against the Mafia, starting with Coraldi. Next, The Assassin took out a Mafia summit held in New Orleans and finally wiped out the Boston Mafia family after they tried to kill him. Briganti sends tapes recounting his exploits to the authorities and these tapes form the basis for his three books.

Behind the Scenes

 Peter McCurtin was an editor for Belmont Towers books before becoming an author.

McCurtin, under his own name, was the author of several western series such as Carmody and Sundance as well as the Soldier of Fortune/Death Dealer series; under various pen names he contributed to theSexecutioner and Marksman series. McCurtin also novelized the movie The Exterminator as well as several exposés on organized crime, such as Mafioso, The Syndicate and Omerta.

BLACK SAMURAI (ROBERT SAND)

Eight books by Marc Olden

Robert Sand was an African-American soldier serving in Vietnam and while on leave in Japan came to the rescue of an old man being harassed by a group of racist soldiers.

During the skirmish Sand was shot in the belly. The old man took Sand home and tended to his wounds and revealed that he was a Samurai Master and in gratitude for his help wanted to train Sand in the ways of the samurai. Seven years later, Sand had become the best pupil of the master, when a group of mercenaries attack the master’s dojo, killing everyone except Sand.

 The Black Samurai tracked down the men who killed his master and brother samurai, discovering a group of disgruntled soldiers intent on taking revenge on America for turning its back on them.

During his quest, Sand is contacted by a former United States president named Clarke. In many respects, Clarke bears a number of similarities to former President Lyn-don Baines Johnson, including the fact that they both come from Texas.

Clarke offers to finance Sand’s quest and gives him information on situations that suit Sand’s unique talents, ranging from stopping a nuclear attack on New York, destroying a conspiracy, and fighting cults, slavery rings, right-wing takeovers of America and terrorist attacks.

Behind the Scenes

Marc Olden was born in Baltimore, Maryland, before his family moved to New York in the 1940s. He attended Queen’s College and graduated with a degree in Creative Writing and Journalism. Initially working as a Broadway and entertainment publicist, he retired from that field to become a full-time writer.

One of his earliest nonfiction works, Cocaine, brought Olden into contact with a number of law enforcement personnel, which he used as the basis for his first series, Narc, about an undercover narcotics officer.

Olden was a lifelong student of the martial arts and the Orient and several of his thriller novels, such asKasieng, Giri and Oni, explore the theme of Eastern culture.

Olden passed away in 2003.

BUTLER

Twelve books by Philip Kirk

Butler (no first name is ever given) is a former CIA agent, fired for being too critical of the Agency. He discovered that rather than being part of the solution to the world’s problems, the CIA was part of the problem, being part of the military industrial complex and the secret society dedicated to taking over the world known as Hydra. Hydra is The Butcher responsible for the assassination and removal of world leaders, including the assassination of President Kennedy.

Butler is not alone in his battle against Hydra as he is quickly recruited by the Bancroft Institute. The institute is known around the world as a leader in scientific research but its true mission is protecting the world against hydra

Butler is the Bancroft Institute’s top agent, called on to tackle the hardest jobs, such as stopping assassination attempts, stealing military secrets, preventing the release of deadly viruses, stopping rogue satellites and ending other threats to world security and freedom.

One of the more unusual aspects with Butler is his relationships with women. Like many other secret agents and serial vigilantes, he has a number of sexual encounters with women but while the sex is fantastic, the women all seem to turn on him and accuse him of forcing them. In one instance Butler was forced to perform at gunpoint and the woman, a fellow agent of the Bancroft Institute, still accused him of rape.

Behind the Scenes

Leonard Levinson born in 1935 served the US Army from 1954 to 1957. Under a number of pseudonyms and house names, he has contributed to a number of series, including Bronson, Kung Fu (Mace), The Sharpshooter and The Sexecutioner.

Thats it for now, I will post some more soon. Till next time peace.