Your readers are of vital importance to your career as a writer. They’re the ones who shell out money to read your writing. If you can’t entertain them and keep them interested, you’ll have a hard time making a career out of writing. There are certain fundamentals of storytelling that you ignore at your peril. This section is designed to help you know better what works for the broad spectrum of readers.
One of the great bon mots in popular cultural history occurred during the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony. David Niven was at the podium when a streaker (an inexplicable fad at the time) sped across the stage.
The unflappable Niven calmly waited for the laughter to die down, and then remarked in his impeccable English accent, “Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”
Thankfully, the streaking fad is kaput. But there are other places where shortcomings are wont to appear.
Some time ago veteran editor Alan Rinzler posted on Writer Unboxed about “issues” writers today are facing. While the post itself was solid, I was more intrigued by one of his comments. Rinzler was asked a question in the comments by none other than super agent Donald Maass. Don wanted to know what the number one shortcoming Rinzler, as a developmental editor, saw in manuscripts. Rinzler posted the following:
I see disorganized stories of excessive complexity… intrusive narrative voices that come between the reader and the story by inserting ongoing commentary, explanation, and interpretation … a failure to research and do the homework necessary to come up with something truly original and not reinvent the wheel … two-dimensional stereotype characterization … dialogue that all sounds like the same person.
I like this list. Let's take a look at each item.
I once picked up a bit of screenwriting wisdom that applies here. The best movies (and novels) consist of simple plots about complex characters. That is, while the plot may contain mystery and twists (as it should), it is, at its core, a basic story with understandable motives. The real meat and originality comes from putting truly complex characters into those stories. The secret to originality can be found in the limitless interior landscape of human beings.
Learning how to handle exposition—and especially when to leave it out—is one of the most important and early craft challenges. So get to it. My book Revision & Self-Editing for Publication has a whole section on this, but here’s one tip: Place exposition seamlessly into confrontational dialogue. Instead of this:
Frank never wanted to have a baby. Not until he was a success as a writer. But Marilyn thought his quest was foolish. After all, it had been five years since he left his job at AIG. Marilyn dearly wanted him to try to get his job back.
Write the confrontation as dialogue:
“You never wanted a baby, Frank.”
“Shut up about that.”
“All because of your stupid writing obsession!”
“I'm not obsessed!”
“Oh really? What do you call five years of typing and no money to show for it?”
“Practice!”
“Well, practice time is over. Tomorrow you’re going to beg AIG to take you back.”
Rinzler is talking about the concept stage here, which is foundational. Hard work on fresh concepts will pay off. And remember, freshness isn’t just a matter of something “unfamiliar.” All plot situations have been done. It's how you dress them up and freshen them that make the difference. Remember Die Hard? After it became a hit, we had Die Hard on a ship (Under Siege) and on a mountain (Cliffhanger) and so on. Take a standard romantic comedy about a writer struggling with writer's block and set it in Elizabethan England and you get Shakespeare in Love. Heck, take an old dystopian cult plot like Deathrace 2000, put it amongst kids and, bingo, you’ve got The Hunger Games.
We all know that flat characters are a drag on an otherwise nice plot idea. Such a waste! As Lajos Egri put it in his classic, Creative Writing: “Living, vibrating human beings are still the secret and magic formula of great and enduring writing.”
In chapter three I’ll give you some tips on fleshing out your characters. For now, be on the lookout for stereotypical characters in your manuscript. It helps to have a beta reader look for the same thing.
In my workshops I always say the fastest way to improve a manuscript is via dialogue. It's also the fastest way to get an agent or editor to reject you, or readers to give you a yawn. Good, crisp dialogue that’s differentiated via character pops. It gives readers confidence that they're dealing with someone who knows the craft.
The place to start, then, is by making sure every character in your cast is unique. I use a “voice journal” for each, a free-form document of the character simply yakking at me. This helps me develop all of my characters until I truly “hear” each one in a singular fashion.
Target these five vital areas in your novel so you don’t have to worry about them becoming a problem. The streaking guy at the Oscars couldn't do anything about his own vital area, but you as a writer can make sure your vital areas are in good form.
A number of years ago a genre author of some repute decided to write a “big, important” novel. The publisher got behind him with a campaign, copious blurbs from name authors, and all the trimmings. The subject matter was “ripped from the headlines.” The publisher was sure it would be not only a bestseller but a megahit. The writer was certain to move into that rarified air of the best-selling-plus-respected author. Movie rights would surely follow, maybe with Clint Eastwood chosen to direct.
But the book sank like a Mafia stoolie in cement shoes.
Despite all the best efforts of the publisher, writer, and publicity department, readers simply did not buy. Word of mouth failed to issue a positive vibe.
I have two things to say about this.
First, I heartily salute this author for making the attempt to do more with his fiction. Writers need to stretch, grow, and challenge themselves. That always brings the risk of failure. And as The Rock once said about trying comedy acting, “I would rather fail being aggressive than being passive.”
Second, with this book, the author seemed to throw out all the fundamentals of plot and structure, as if that was unnecessary for an important novel. As I read the book (it was tough to get past page ten), I kept thinking Why is he doing this? Why would he make readers slog through so much tedium? Where was the editor?
The first two pages are especially dreadful. Purple prose, no close point-of-view character, nothing to bond reader with story—it was an attempt to impress by language alone, and it just wasn't good enough to do that.
Too many characters are introduced too soon—and they’re introduced in an omniscient narrative voice. I kept wondering Who am I supposed to care about? It wasn't until page twenty-one that he gives us a single, close POV. I was relieved, and thought This is where the book should have started.
But then the next chapter introduces a completely different POV. And the chapter after that introduced yet another POV. And, yes, the same for the next chapter. This is extremely hard to pull off. The readers have to care about each character or it seems like a waste of our time.
But the caring does not happen because these chapters consist of long slogs of narrative summary. Big chunks of backstory bring the already minimal forward motion to a complete standstill.
And all through these chapters, more prose that seemed designed to impress rather than tell a doggone story.
This is why the novel failed, even with all the blurbs and publicity and push, which brings us to a few lessons:
No matter how much marketing you do, or how much publicity and ad buys you're able to garner, readers alone will decide if the book is going to sell. Word of mouth is the great determinant of sales success. If you are writing to impress critics, you may get one or two nods. But won't get your advance repaid or bank account filled.
Some writers are fond of saying, “There are no rules!” What they mean is that a writer should be free to go where he pleases without feeling hemmed in—and that's certainly true. But you know what? Here’s a “rule” you should follow: Establish a POV character readers care about from the beginning. If I was browsing in a bookstore and cracked open the previously described book and read the first couple of pages, I would never have plunked down $24.99 for it. Or $10.99. Or even $3.99. I might have taken it home from the remainder shelf for $2.99. That's called consumer behavior. (I actually bought the book for under a buck at a used bookstore.)
Likewise, the “rule” that you ought to be unfolding a story in three acts––because that's how we are wired or trained to receive drama––should be ignored at your peril. This book dragged so much in the first third that I just gave up. (I have since tried twice more to get into this novel.)
How about the “rule” that you should have conflict, tension, and present-moment action in every scene? The long bouts of narrative summary in this book violated the über-rule of fiction: Don't bore the reader.
Or the “rule” that style should serve story, and not the other way around.
Maybe before a writer embraces the “there are no rules” idea, he ought to at least see what the craft teaches about time-tested methods and techniques. I bet the publisher––and hopefully, the author of my example—wish they had done so before publishing this book.
The author has since moved back to more familiar genre grounds. I suspect he's better for at least having attempted to write something beyond his comfort zone. Leonard Bishop, the author of Dare to Be a Great Writer (Writer's Digest Books), said, “If you boldly risk writing a novel that might be acclaimed as great, and fail, you could succeed in writing a book that is splendid.” In this case, the book was not splendid, but if the writer learns from his bold risk and craft failure, he himself may write many more superb books in his career. And thus, this whole episode will have been to his benefit, and that of his readers.
Kings Row was a huge bestseller in 1940 and was turned into a hit movie in 1942. The movie starred Robert Cummings and, in his finest role, Ronald Reagan. The supporting cast is equally impressive: Claude Rains, Ann Sheridan, Charles Coburn, and the unforgettable Maria Ouspenskaya.
After watching the movie I decided to read the book. It has an interesting pedigree. It was the author's first novel, and he was fifty-eight when it came out. Henry Bellamann was a musician, a composer, and an educator. He wrote Kings Row (which takes place around 1900) based, in part, on his own hometown. This caused quite a stir, as the citizens, who were still alive from those days, took offense to much of the content.
And what content! This sweeping saga concerns a boy, Parris Mitchell, who grows up in Kings Row and goes on to become one of the first practicing psychiatrists in America. His childhood friend is Drake McHugh. Parris is the sober-minded student. Drake is the wild ladies man. The narrative follows their formative years, their loves, their disasters.
Two very dark and sinister secrets dominate the proceedings. I won't spoil them for you here. I recommend you watch the movie ... and then know that one of the secrets is even darker in the novel. The studio ran up against the censors and thus had to soften it to some degree. I can see why much of the reading public was "shocked" by the novel.
Now, here's the interesting thing. The book is not exactly what I’d call well written. The prose is clunky, the dialogue sodden. Yet I couldn't stop reading, and by the time I was finished, I felt a sense of resonance that only a deeply affecting reading experience can bring.
My question to myself, then, was why, in spite of the deficiencies, did I feel this way?
Before I answer, let me mention another book that had much the same effect on me.
In the early years of the twentieth century, most critics would have named Theodore Dreiser as the great American novelist. He ushered in a new school of urban realism. Here was not a Mark Twain, writing lighthearted fare. Nor a Jack London, with his fast-moving action.
No, Dreiser was our "important," world-class novelist. But you hardly ever hear his name mentioned anymore. He's not taught, except on rare occasions, in college literature classes. This is sad, because Dreiser has much to teach us.
His greatest work is An American Tragedy (1925). You can also watch the movie version. A Place in the Sun (1951) is a terrific film starring Montgomery Clift and, at her most gorgeous, Elizabeth Taylor.
This novel is also clunky in its prose. In fact, the New York Times famously dubbed it "the worst written great book ever." Yet when I finished it, I found myself deeply moved.
Which brings up the same question I had about Kings Row. Why do I count each of these novels among my most memorable reading experiences, even though stylistically they fall short?
Here's my attempt at some answers.
Both these books take up the great themes of human existence. Love, evil, sin, fate. These books were not meant to be commercial throwaways. The authors worked years on them. Indeed it was ten years between Dreiser's The Genius and his magnum opus.
The main characters are thrust into situations that force them to confront all forms of death: physical, professional, psychological. Clyde Griffiths in An American Tragedy is obsessed with ambition and success, and then the lovely Sondra. Only problem: He's impregnated another woman who threatens to spill the beans unless he marries her.
Therein lies the tale.
Parris Mitchell of Kings Row is obsessed with human behavior, why people act the way they do, and how he can help them. But his explorations of the mind lead him to dark corners he never could have conceived of growing up. It's a loss of innocence and a confrontation with harsh reality.
Nothing seems "small" in these novels. The authors reach for the thematic skies.
I don't see why any novelist cannot treat a large theme in a book. Even in commercial fare, like a category romance. If you're writing about love, write it for all its worth.
Both Dreiser and Bellamann spend a huge portion of their narratives explaining exactly what is going on inside the main characters. We cannot help but identify with the emotional stakes and inner conflicts.
Dreiser is especially explicit when, in omniscient fashion, he describes how Clyde is thinking and feeling at key points. What it came down to was not the style, but Dreiser's uncanny ability to show us human behavior and thought in a way that truly makes us understand not just the character, but ourselves.
These days, the amount of interior time you spend depends on your genre and your own particular style. But take note: When you get readers inside a character’s head, they tend to bond with him more. And that makes for a greater reading experience.
And the emotional is balanced with the external. The action is not of the thriller variety, but nevertheless is huge. We're talking about murder, suicide, incest, lust, vengefulness, and, of course, the vagaries of romantic love.
Here is a lesson for character-driven writers. You love rendering the inner life of the characters, but if you don't find a balance between internal and external, the action can be less than compelling. The best literary writers give us action that matters.
Here's my theory about clunky fiction that does both those things. By the time you've traveled with the characters through the narrative, you become, by a wonderful alchemy, totally invested in their fate. Whether the story ends on an upbeat note (as in Kings Row) or a tragic one (as in An American Tragedy), you are going to be affected in the fashion all writers wish to achieve: The book is going to stay with you long after you finish it.
I do enjoy what Sol Stein calls "transient fiction." I read many books that entertain me wildly, but when they're over, they're over and I'm not tempted to read them again.
Yet I often think about An American Tragedy. And likewise Kings Row.
Without readers, a writer has no career.
There are other reasons people write, of course. For therapy. For fun. For their family. Out of boredom. Because they’re in prison. But most writers write to share their stories with the hope of some financial return.
When asked what kind of writing made the most money, Elmore Leonard replied, “Ransom notes.” Outside of that particular genre, professional writers swim in the free enterprise system, which usually involves two parties: seller and buyer.
The writer is the seller, the reader is the buyer. The product is a book. Or a story. And in order for this exchange to work, the buyer must like the product.
In order for this exchange to become a lucrative career, the buyer must love the product. There are five specific things a reader is looking for in fiction:
Agents and editors often tell fiction writers that a reader wants an “emotional experience” from a novel. They also say that readers want to be “entertained.”
True, but I don’t think those two things go far enough. What a reader really and truly longs for is to be entranced. I mean that quite literally. The best reading and movie-going experiences I’ve ever had have been those where I forgot I was reading or watching, and was just so caught up in the story it was like I was in a dream.
I think of my favorite shows as a kid, Gumby. Remember Gumby and Pokey? (If you want to keep your age a secret, don’t raise your hand.)
My favorite part of any episode was when Gumby and his horse jumped into a book, got sucked inside, and became part of the story world. I wanted to do that with The Hardy Boys: Jump in and help Frank and Joe solve the mystery.
The point is, when you read, you want to feel like Gumby—like you’re inside the story, experiencing it directly.
Hard to do, but who said great writing was easy? Maybe a vanity press or two, but that’s it.
When I teach workshops, I often use the metaphor of speed bumps. You drive along on a beautiful stretch of road, looking at the lovely scenery, and you “forget” that you’re driving. But if you hit a speed bump, you’re taken out of that experience for a moment. Too many of those moments and your drive becomes unpleasant.
One reason we study the craft is to learn to eliminate speed bumps, so the readers can forget they’re driving and just enjoy the ride.
In this, readers are like any other consumer. If they are going to invest discretionary funds in something, they want a good return on that investment. Their judgment is based on expectations and experience. If they have experienced a writer giving them wonderful reading over and over, they will pay a higher price for that writer’s next book.
If, on the other hand, a writer is new and untested, the reader wants a sampling at a low price, or even for free. Even then, however, they desire to be just as entertained as if they shelled out ten or twenty bucks for a Harlan Coben or a Debbie Macomber.
That’s a challenge all right, and it should be. But here’s the good news. If a reader gets something on the cheap and it enraptures them, you are on your way to a career, because of the next law.
Fans are the best thing to have. Fans generate word of mouth. Fans stay with you.
So your goal needs to be not just to meet reader expectations but to surpass them.
How?
By doing everything you can to get better, write better. To do what Red Smith (and not Ernest Hemingway) said. You just sit down at the keyboard, open a vein, and bleed.
That’s not just romanticized jargon. It’s what the best writers do, over and over again.
So what if you don’t reach that high standard with your book? No matter. Your book will be better for the trying, and you’ll be a better writer, and your next book will be better yet.
Jump on that train and stay on it.
Which in the “old days” meant maybe sending a fan letter and getting a note in return; or going to a book signing and getting a hardcover signed and saying a few words to the author.
Now we have tweets, Facebook, blogs, and e-mail—different ways for readers to feel connected to their favorite writers.
This is really what social media is about. It’s social, not marketing, media. Do it well and build a community. When you have something to offer, you will have earned the right to do so.
In fact, we all need stories. Stories are what keep a culture alive. Stories shape us—and the best ones shape us for the better, like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Long Goodbye. The former is literary, the latter is genre, but it’s elevated genre—it has something to say that’s deep, and in this era of fifty shades of dreck and dross, there’s a crying need for books that elevate the soul. This can be done in any genre, even horror (just ask Dean Koontz or Stephen King).
Obey these five laws! Readers will thank you with a fair exchange of funds.
The word lust in our language is usually limited to the sexual arena. But it was not always so. The Greek philosophers used the term epithumia to indicate an intense desire that can be directed toward good or ill. Whatever the end, the desire is more than intellectual curiosity. It’s a feeling of I really must have this!
Which is precisely the feeling you want to induce in readers so they will buy your book. It’s not enough to make it look “interesting.” You’ve got to hit them with something that raises their epithumia so the blood starts pumping the “buy” message to their head.
At least three essential factors go into raising desire levels in potential customers. They are excitement, killer copy, and grabber sample.
If you are not jazzed about your own book as you write it, it’s going to be that much more difficult to excite a reader. So the first order of business is to make sure you are pumped about your own project.
Writing a book is like a marriage. Your first idea and how charged you are about it is falling in love. Once in, you’re married to it, and we all know marriage has its ups and downs. You’re not always going to be starry-eyed and ready to sing “In Your Eyes” at the drop of the hat. So you struggle a bit, but you’re still dedicated to the marriage. (Editing, of course, is marriage counseling.)
Try not to write any scene until something about it excites you. I brainstorm for the unexpected––in action, dialogue, setting, or new characters. Then I start writing.
Your book description is the next lust inducer. It’s like that perfect outfit that accentuates the positive, if you know what I mean. It’s Betty Grable’s legs. (What would be the analogue for the ladies? Fabio in an open shirt?)
Ahem.
A book’s description copy (sometimes called “cover copy,” sometimes a “blurb,” though I usually reserve that term for someone’s endorsement) is the writing that sums up the book in a few lines, increasing the reader’s desire to buy. It is crucially important. There are people who have marketing degrees who specialize in this kind of writing.
But you can learn to do it. My formula is three sentences and a tagline.
Sentence 1: Character name, vocation, initial situation
Dorothy Gale is a farm girl who dreams of getting out of Kansas to a land far, far away, where she and her dog will be safe from the town busybody Miss Gulch.
Sentence 2: “When” + Doorway of No Return
Note: The Doorway of No Return is my term for the initial turning point that thrusts the Lead into Act II. It’s where your Lead is pushed, via an event or strong emotion, into the heart of the story. Afterward, they can never go back to their ordinary world.
When a twister hits the farm, Dorothy is carried away to a land of strange creatures and a wicked witch who wants to kill her.
Sentence 3: “Now” + The Death Stakes
Note: Death can be physical, professional, or psychological (see “A Key to Creating Conflict in Fiction,” chapter four).
Now, with the help of three unlikely friends, Dorothy must find a way to destroy the wicked witch so the great wizard will send her back home.
You may have heard the term “elevator pitch.” That’s what this is: a short plot outline you can spout on a short elevator ride. You can now expand or revise each sentence as you see fit. Just remember this is the “sizzle” and not the “steak.” Don’t try to pack everything about your plot into the copy. You want just enough to whet the appetite of the busy browser.
Sometimes wrongly called a “logline” (that’s a screenwriting term for how scripts are “logged” with a sentence describing the plot), the tagline is more of a teaser. It’s what you see on movie posters. You’ll recognize some famous taglines:
In space, no one can hear you scream.
—Alien
Don’t go in the water.
—Jaws
Earth. It was fun while it lasted.
—Armageddon
His story will touch you, even though he can’t.
—Edward Scissorhands
Reality is a thing of the past.
—The Matrix
Coming up with a great tagline is fun, but it takes some work. The best way to go at it is to write a bunch of them. Then choose the best ones and refine, rewrite, refine again. Get some help from friends. Brainstorm. Test your favorites on a few people.
These two exercises are a great thing to do before you ever write a word of your novel. Because if you can’t nail this much about your idea, and pack it with epithumia, it’s a pretty fair bet you need to shore up the foundation for the long building project ahead.
Here’s the tagline and copy I did for my thriller Don’t Leave Me:
When they came for him it was time to run. When they came for his brother it was time to fight.
Chuck Samson needs to heal. A former Navy chaplain who served with a Marine unit in Afghanistan, he’s come home to take care of his adult, autistic brother, Stan. But the trauma of Chuck’s capture and torture threatens to overtake him. Only the fifth graders he teaches give him reason to hope for the future.
But when an unseen enemy takes aim at Chuck, he finds himself running for his life. And from the cops, who think he's a murderer. A secret buried deep in Chuck’s damaged soul may be the one thing that can save him. But can he unearth it?
Now, needing to protect his only brother from becoming collateral damage, Chuck Samson must face the dark fears embedded in his mind and find a way to save Stan . . . or die trying.
The final touch in our lust generator is a great opening. That’s the free sample readers will see online, or on the first few pages when browsing in a bookstore (remember those days?).
I advise that any novel begin with a disturbance, and an actual scene. In these days of short attention spans you simply must ...
Squirrel!
See how easy it is to get distracted?
What you want is a character whose ordinary world is being disturbed in some way. It doesn’t have to be something big, like gunshots or a car chase. It just has to be something unusual that tells the reader there’s something troubling or mysterious going on.
Like in James M. Cain’s classic, The Postman Always Rings Twice:
They threw me off the hay truck about noon.
Or in Harlan Coben’s Promise Me:
The missing girl—there had been unceasing news reports, always flashing to that achingly ordinary school portrait of the vanished teen, you know the one, with the rainbow–swirl background, the girl's hair too straight, her smile too self–conscious, then a quick cut to the worried parents on the front lawn, microphones surrounding them, Mom silently tearful, Dad reading a statement with quivering lip—that girl, that missing girl, had just walked past Edna Skylar.
May I suggest you visit my blog, Kill Zone (www.killzoneblog.com) and type “First Page” in the search box. You’ll see all the critiques we’ve done over the years. I’m telling you, spend a week studying these and you’ll be a sample monster, a grabber virtuoso, a hook hotshot.
Some time ago I was on a plane coming back from New York. Sitting in the window seat was a woman of about sixty. As soon as we were in the air, she took a paperback out of her purse and started to read.
Since one out of every three paperbacks in the world is a book by James Patterson, it was no surprise when I saw his name on the cover.
I took out my Kindle and started reading the complete works of Charles Dickens.
After half an hour or so, I heard a ripping noise. I glanced over and saw the woman tearing off a good chunk of pages from Mr. Patterson's book. She folded these and stuck them in the seat pocket.
And went back to reading.
I said nothing, returning to the travails of Little Dorrit.
Another half hour or so went by, and the woman did the same thing with the next section of the book. I held my Kindle in a protective position.
Time went on, and eventually what I guessed to be about half the book was torn asunder. At some point a flight attendant came down the aisle with a trash bag. The woman gestured to the attendant and placed the pages that had formerly been part of a bound paperback into the bag.
I couldn't resist. “That must be a trashy novel,” I said.
She looked at me quizzically, which is a look I’m used to.
“I've never seen someone do that before,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, “before I go on a trip I pick up a few paperbacks at a garage sale. I don't want to carry them around after I'm finished. And if I'm in the middle of a book I don't want to carry the whole book. I read and tear off pages so I'm left with a smaller book to put in my purse.”
“Mr. Patterson might feel ripped off,” I said.
She stared.
“Are you enjoying the book?” I said.
“It keeps me occupied,” she said.
And isn’t that why most people read fiction? To be occupied, transported, distracted, entertained? To have a few hours when they’re not worried about jobs, relationships, politics, crime, money, or the kids’ report cards?
Thus the term escapist. And that is not a bad thing. In fact, it may be essential for survival. Unless we can shut down for a while and let our brains be entertained, we are doomed to walk through the dense fog of existence without so much as a candle.
Of course, there is room for what some call “difficult” fiction, the kind of fiction that tests readers, that requires a certain amount of aerobics of the brain. Every year one or two literary novels break out into huge sales. Others may barely make a dent in the market, but win literary prizes. Publishers and authors would love it if literary fiction in general were more popular. But publishers need to make money. They do it primarily with A-list authors who entertain.
Again, not a bad thing.
“In a world that encompasses so much pain and fear and cruelty, it is noble to provide a few hours of escape, moments of delight and forgetfulness.”
—Dean Koontz, How to Write Best Selling Fiction (Writer’s Digest Books, 1981)
So what are the elements of entertaining fiction? Here is what I look for—and try to write myself:
What would you add? Create your own checklist and keep it close!
During the summer after my first year of law school, I clerked for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. Seeing how a case was put together and a trial prepared was a great experience. Even better was sitting in the courtroom at the counsel table, watching real-world defendants, police officers, defense counsel, and prosecutors duke it out in front of a jury.
Rough justice, but most of the time juries got it right.
One case I remember well was a man charged with the attempted murder of his wife. This was a middle-class couple in their forties, who would have seemed, at first glance, to be the very picture of domestic tranquility. Turned out it was a second marriage for both, with no children involved.
The man had taken a .45 caliber handgun and shot his wife once. She survived. The man claimed he had suffered a blackout during which he could not remember getting the gun or firing it. “Diminished capacity” (as it was known in those days) took away the mental requirement of premeditation, and thus it could not be attempted murder.
Or so the defense lawyer argued.
He was quite a piece of work, this lawyer, a small fireplug of a man. I remember he came to court for the first day of trial with bloody dots all over his neck. My surmise is that he wanted to look good for the jury and had shaved with a new razor. Oops.
And then there were his shenanigans, which were right out of a bad Perry Mason episode. Cross-examining the wife, he asked if she had slashed some of her husband’s clothes with a knife. She denied it. With a dramatic flourish, he reached under the table for a shopping bag and withdrew a tattered shirt. “What about this!”
The deputy D.A. objected. Before the judge could rule, the lawyer pulled out some slacks and shouted, “And this!”
“Sustained,” the judge said.
“And this!” Some underwear.
“Sustained!”
I glanced over at the jury at this point and saw a few of them hiding smiles.
And speaking of the wife, she was of course the main witness for the prosecution. Problem: She came off as a cross between Margaret Dumont and Captain Bligh. Seriously, I am sure some of the jurors were starting to think not only “self-defense,” but “justifiable homicide.”
Then it was time for the defense lawyer to put on his case. The husband took the stand. Most defense lawyers will tell you it’s almost always a bad idea to let the defendant testify, but in this case there was nothing else. The only one who could testify about his mental state was the husband.
He talked about his wife’s continual emotional abuse, how she’d put him down in public and never say anything good about him. She'd laugh at him when they got home. She'd mock him until he couldn't stand it anymore. And then one night he snapped. He said he couldn’t remember anything about getting a gun. He couldn’t remember anything at all until after she'd been shot.
I was really into trial tactics and techniques, even as a law student. During a break, the D.D.A.—a very good prosecutor who went on to become a judge and is still on the bench—asked me how I would approach the cross-examination of this fellow.
I said, “His lawyer probably told him you’ll come at him with a lot of little questions. Why don’t you hit him right between the eyes? Ask him, ‘Why did you shoot your wife?’”
Now, as any experienced trial lawyer will tell you, asking a “Why” question on cross-examination is usually a bad idea. It opens the door for the witness to explain his answer, in his own words.
But in this case I felt the rule could be broken. First, it would capture the attention of the jury right off. Second, if the man answered with any sort of explanation, that explanation would prove he did know what he was doing (i.e., had the mental state for murder). Finally, if he denied knowing why he shot her, it would contradict everything he'd just testified to. He'd look like a liar, which is what the prosecutor and I thought he was.
I was therefore delighted when the deputy decided to use my opening question. The courtroom went stone-cold silent, and the man actually trembled on the witness stand. He didn't know what to say. The silence went on ... and on ... finally, he said, he didn't know why.
And with that answer, he was done for. The jury was out only for an hour or so before returning with a verdict of guilty.
Looking back, I was pretty brash to suggest this gambit to an experienced prosecutor. But I had been deeply immersed in the study of trial technique. Several years before law school, I devoured books by famous trial lawyers, which were in my dad’s library. I also read my dad's copy of Goldstein on Trial Technique. I even attended a seminar put on by Irving Younger, famous for teaching trial lawyers how to succeed in court.
So I was prepared to suggest to the D.D.A. that he break a rule in this instance, but I couldn’t have done it had I not known the rules in the first place.
Craft mastery in any subject is a matter of study, observation, and practice. As a writer, the better handle you have on the craft, the better prepared you'll be to break a rule when the time comes. You'll know why you're doing it and whether it’s worth the risk to break it.
Rate yourself on the strength of your writing in the following areas, ten being an almost impossible to imagine mastery:
Plotting | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Structure | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Characters | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Scenes | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Dialogue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Voice | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Theme | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
Now make a list of the areas, putting your weakest area first:
Develop a self-study program for item one. Buy one or two books that deal with the topic and study them. Gather some novels you've read that handle the area well. Reread those novels taking notes on the authors' techniques.
Write some practice scenes utilizing what you've learned. Apply the techniques to your own writing. Then repeat the procedure with item two and so on, down the list.