KN Magazine: Articles
I've Got A Secret / Sandy Ward Bell
A mysterious subplot is always intriguing, regardless of the genre, says author Sandy Ward Bell. In this week’s Killer Nashville blog, Sandy explains that creating obstacles for your characters is one thing, but developing underlying secret subplots can make a novel a page-turner.
Cheerio!
Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
I’ve Got a Secret
By Sandy Ward Bell
Whether you write romance or young adult or literary fiction, adding a bit of mystery to your story will improve your work. A mystery helps to move a story forward. Creating obstacles is one thing, but developing an underlying secret as a subplot can make your book a page-turner.
A budding romance is fun, but what if the protagonist’s best friend receives a ransom note for someone they don’t know? Now the love story will include an adventure. It comes down to questions without answers and our job as writers is to make those questions so fascinating the reader will fly through to the end to get the answers. Sometimes “will she get her man” is not enough.
When I took on the challenge of writing a modern version of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, I wanted to stay true to her vision and respectful to her characters, knowing the best way to do that was to not deviate from her main themes. With that figured out, the next objective was to make my story as humorous and compelling as Austen’s. While I couldn’t use the delicate beauty of old English and the culture of ancient British estates, I could create a few extra characters with secrets that influenced the protagonist.
In Mansfield Park, Fanny Price doesn’t spend a lot of time with her father. So in Parked at the Mansfields’, I made the father of my main character, Franny Price (note the renaming), disappear without a clue. By giving my protagonist new challenges, it was easier to modernize the story as well as expand on character development. To surprise Austen fans (who know her stories by heart), I added a mystery: there is a key attached to a family secret and Aunt Wilma is going mad trying to find it, while Franny searches for her father. That was my way of twisting the story enough to make it an entertaining ride and strengthen the plot.
If you are having difficulty finding that perfect twist for your book, look first to your characters. Let’s imagine you already wrote an important scene with your protagonist and a co-worker eating at a restaurant while discussing their problems. But, did you, as the writer, notice a guy at the next table recording their conversation with his phone? Now you can imagine it, and add to the story that your co-worker is a tech-geek, and the intruder is his nemesis. Simply exaggerate a characteristic or profession and let your creative mind do the rest.
Go to your settings, if you are still stumped. Your main character is at a lake, surrounded by tall trees, contemplating if he should give his girl the engagement ring. But wait, there is a creepy sound coming from within the dark forest. He stands to investigate and a splash in the water causes him to jump. The unknown creature living in the lake will help him make his decision.
Another way to find a hidden mystery in your story is to ask why. Why does the protagonist drive a red car? Is it because that is the same kind of car his dead mother drove? Why does your main character like antiques? Is it because she’s looking for her childhood bookshelf that has a concealed compartment? Why does the Uncle always kiss the mailbox after retrieving his magazine subscriptions? Is it a sort of Morse code he uses to communicate with his neighbor? Never underestimate the power of “why.”
A mysterious subplot is always intriguing, regardless of the genre. And you’ll have fun as a writer, too, tweaking your characters and storyline to offer readers a tale both enjoyable and unexpected.
Sandy Ward Bell grew up in upstate New York and had a successful career as a radio announcer and promotion director. After becoming a wife and mother, the art of storytelling became her new passion with the motto, “You can never be in too many book clubs.” Writing fiction became a natural next step. Her first novel, In Zoey’s Head, reflects her experience with the media and pop culture. Her second book, Parked at the Mansfields’, highlights her appreciation for Jane Austen’s timeless story. Throughout the years, she’s called Georgia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania home. Currently she lives in the Nashville, Tennessee area with her husband and a Westie. Visit sandywardbell.com for more updates on current and new work in progress.
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
I've Got A Secret / Sandy Ward Bell
A mysterious subplot is always intriguing, regardless of the genre, says author Sandy Ward Bell. In this week’s Killer Nashville blog, Sandy explains that creating obstacles for your characters is one thing, but developing underlying secret subplots can make a novel a page-turner.Cheerio!
Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
I’ve Got a SecretBy Sandy Ward BellWhether you write romance or young adult or literary fiction, adding a bit of mystery to your story will improve your work. A mystery helps to move a story forward. Creating obstacles is one thing, but developing an underlying secret as a subplot can make your book a page-turner.A budding romance is fun, but what if the protagonist’s best friend receives a ransom note for someone they don’t know? Now the love story will include an adventure. It comes down to questions without answers and our job as writers is to make those questions so fascinating the reader will fly through to the end to get the answers. Sometimes “will she get her man” is not enough.When I took on the challenge of writing a modern version of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, I wanted to stay true to her vision and respectful to her characters, knowing the best way to do that was to not deviate from her main themes. With that figured out, the next objective was to make my story as humorous and compelling as Austen’s. While I couldn’t use the delicate beauty of old English and the culture of ancient British estates, I could create a few extra characters with secrets that influenced the protagonist.In Mansfield Park, Fanny Price doesn’t spend a lot of time with her father. So in Parked at the Mansfields’, I made the father of my main character, Franny Price (note the renaming), disappear without a clue. By giving my protagonist new challenges, it was easier to modernize the story as well as expand on character development. To surprise Austen fans (who know her stories by heart), I added a mystery: there is a key attached to a family secret and Aunt Wilma is going mad trying to find it, while Franny searches for her father. That was my way of twisting the story enough to make it an entertaining ride and strengthen the plot.
If you are having difficulty finding that perfect twist for your book, look first to your characters. Let’s imagine you already wrote an important scene with your protagonist and a co-worker eating at a restaurant while discussing their problems. But, did you, as the writer, notice a guy at the next table recording their conversation with his phone? Now you can imagine it, and add to the story that your co-worker is a tech-geek, and the intruder is his nemesis. Simply exaggerate a characteristic or profession and let your creative mind do the rest.Go to your settings, if you are still stumped. Your main character is at a lake, surrounded by tall trees, contemplating if he should give his girl the engagement ring. But wait, there is a creepy sound coming from within the dark forest. He stands to investigate and a splash in the water causes him to jump. The unknown creature living in the lake will help him make his decision.Another way to find a hidden mystery in your story is to ask why. Why does the protagonist drive a red car? Is it because that is the same kind of car his dead mother drove? Why does your main character like antiques? Is it because she’s looking for her childhood bookshelf that has a concealed compartment? Why does the Uncle always kiss the mailbox after retrieving his magazine subscriptions? Is it a sort of Morse code he uses to communicate with his neighbor? Never underestimate the power of “why.”A mysterious subplot is always intriguing, regardless of the genre. And you’ll have fun as a writer, too, tweaking your characters and storyline to offer readers a tale both enjoyable and unexpected.
Sandy Ward Bell grew up in upstate New York and had a successful career as a radio announcer and promotion director. After becoming a wife and mother, the art of storytelling became her new passion with the motto, “You can never be in too many book clubs.” Writing fiction became a natural next step. Her first novel, In Zoey's Head, reflects her experience with the media and pop culture. Her second book, Parked at the Mansfields’, highlights her appreciation for Jane Austen’s timeless story. Throughout the years, she’s called Georgia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania home. Currently she lives in the Nashville, Tennessee area with her husband and a Westie. Visit sandywardbell.com for more updates on current and new work in progress.
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
I've Got A Secret / Sandy Ward Bell
A mysterious subplot is always intriguing, regardless of the genre, says author Sandy Ward Bell. In this week’s Killer Nashville blog, Sandy explains that creating obstacles for your characters is one thing, but developing underlying secret subplots can make a novel a page-turner.Cheerio!
Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
I’ve Got a SecretBy Sandy Ward BellWhether you write romance or young adult or literary fiction, adding a bit of mystery to your story will improve your work. A mystery helps to move a story forward. Creating obstacles is one thing, but developing an underlying secret as a subplot can make your book a page-turner.A budding romance is fun, but what if the protagonist’s best friend receives a ransom note for someone they don’t know? Now the love story will include an adventure. It comes down to questions without answers and our job as writers is to make those questions so fascinating the reader will fly through to the end to get the answers. Sometimes “will she get her man” is not enough.When I took on the challenge of writing a modern version of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, I wanted to stay true to her vision and respectful to her characters, knowing the best way to do that was to not deviate from her main themes. With that figured out, the next objective was to make my story as humorous and compelling as Austen’s. While I couldn’t use the delicate beauty of old English and the culture of ancient British estates, I could create a few extra characters with secrets that influenced the protagonist.In Mansfield Park, Fanny Price doesn’t spend a lot of time with her father. So in Parked at the Mansfields’, I made the father of my main character, Franny Price (note the renaming), disappear without a clue. By giving my protagonist new challenges, it was easier to modernize the story as well as expand on character development. To surprise Austen fans (who know her stories by heart), I added a mystery: there is a key attached to a family secret and Aunt Wilma is going mad trying to find it, while Franny searches for her father. That was my way of twisting the story enough to make it an entertaining ride and strengthen the plot.
If you are having difficulty finding that perfect twist for your book, look first to your characters. Let’s imagine you already wrote an important scene with your protagonist and a co-worker eating at a restaurant while discussing their problems. But, did you, as the writer, notice a guy at the next table recording their conversation with his phone? Now you can imagine it, and add to the story that your co-worker is a tech-geek, and the intruder is his nemesis. Simply exaggerate a characteristic or profession and let your creative mind do the rest.Go to your settings, if you are still stumped. Your main character is at a lake, surrounded by tall trees, contemplating if he should give his girl the engagement ring. But wait, there is a creepy sound coming from within the dark forest. He stands to investigate and a splash in the water causes him to jump. The unknown creature living in the lake will help him make his decision.Another way to find a hidden mystery in your story is to ask why. Why does the protagonist drive a red car? Is it because that is the same kind of car his dead mother drove? Why does your main character like antiques? Is it because she’s looking for her childhood bookshelf that has a concealed compartment? Why does the Uncle always kiss the mailbox after retrieving his magazine subscriptions? Is it a sort of Morse code he uses to communicate with his neighbor? Never underestimate the power of “why.”A mysterious subplot is always intriguing, regardless of the genre. And you’ll have fun as a writer, too, tweaking your characters and storyline to offer readers a tale both enjoyable and unexpected.
Sandy Ward Bell grew up in upstate New York and had a successful career as a radio announcer and promotion director. After becoming a wife and mother, the art of storytelling became her new passion with the motto, “You can never be in too many book clubs.” Writing fiction became a natural next step. Her first novel, In Zoey's Head, reflects her experience with the media and pop culture. Her second book, Parked at the Mansfields’, highlights her appreciation for Jane Austen’s timeless story. Throughout the years, she’s called Georgia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania home. Currently she lives in the Nashville, Tennessee area with her husband and a Westie. Visit sandywardbell.com for more updates on current and new work in progress.
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
On Short Fiction and Evil Masterminds / Author Robert Mangeot
Writing short fiction demands a different kind of mental training. While novels can luxuriate with expansive plots and subplots, short fiction requires jabs and punches. In this week’s Killer Nashville Guest Blog, author Robert Mangeot cleverly tells us how he went from short story unpublished to well-published. And how you can do the same. You simply have to let the masterminds do their job.
Happy Reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
On Short Fiction and Evil Masterminds
By Robert Mangeot
Inside us crime writer folk lurks an evil mastermind. Sure, some days the evil one may seem quiet, but always deep in our imaginations is a dimly lit chamber, walls blanketed in maps with dragons stalking the margins, a desk piled with jumbled notebooks, a shrouded figure clacking away in mad flourishes at the computer keyboard. Your inner mastermind is planning, planning, planning.
As crime writer folk, it’s likely you consider having your creative dark side pointed out as a compliment. And you should. If short fiction interests you, then unleashing that evil dude or dudette might be your call to adventure.
Flash to me outside a Manhattan bookshop, a gunmetal sky over SoHo, and an April mist slicking the rush hour streets: a perfect night for spying. You read that right. Espionage. Except I had only written a short story about spies, and the honor of it landing in the MWA anthology Ice Cold—which was launched that rain-slicked night at The Mysterious Bookshop—was borne of fruitful collaboration with my inner mastermind.
Killer stories require more than lightning bolts of inspiration. In crime writer-ese, a great short story is like a heist: intricate timetable, tricky execution, ticking clock. The story mastermind must identify and adapt to each and every obstacle in order to pull off the job.
Flashback to 2010. Flush with creativity, I had locked myself away to crank out stories. They stunk, every blessed one of them. I know that now, but in those heady days I fired off submissions, certain of a breakthrough.
Not so much.
Fast-forward through a trial-and-error montage of research, critique and useful rejection, add any Eighties arena pop soundtrack at your discretion. What kept me going was my stretch goal—selling a story to a dream market like MWA or Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Trust me, back then when I said stretch, it meant hyperextension. Whether or not I would ever get the dream acceptance letter, who knew? The important thing was the reach.
Fast-forward again through more rewrite and rejection to enlightenment. Finally I understood my stories, like heists without a getaway plan, they were never coming together. Characters, setting, plot, everything had to be crafted to bring out a connected whole. Poe—now there was an evil mastermind—called this “unity of effect.”
For that I learned to call on my mastermind, which means I also learned to pay as much attention to how I’m writing as to what I’m writing. After all, one story is just one story. My creative process is how I’ll write more and better. And so I’ve developed brainstorming rituals that summon the mastermind. He arrives feisty, demanding sharper ideas and I rewrite again and again and again. He forces me to slash away at the labor-of-love early drafts and darling sentences. The evil mastermind is editing, editing, editing.
Some key lessons from the inner mastermind about killer short fiction; he is five-fold:
The Brain: Amp up the premise until it is distinctively your own. Premises are infinite. Take risks. Have fun with voices, characters, and ideas. The price of a short story idea falling apart is pretty much zero, and if it improves your writing, I’d call that a success.
The Grease Man: Like tumblers falling in a picked lock, work every element into the connected whole. Subplots are for novels, asides for Shakespeare. Keep a short story slick and elegant.
The Insider: Do the research. Amazing next-level inspiration comes from having the context and interrelationships nailed. Also, before ever submitting somewhere, read several issues first. Know the target market cold, its submission requirements and editorial preferences. This is make-or-break with pro markets. No heist goes off without first casing the joint, right?
The Muscle: Short stories are all about compressed vibrancy. Find the compelling narrative voice that does the heavy lifting, especially with mood and characterization. Edit, edit, edit until the deeper story emerges and the words crackle.
The Getaway Driver: Start the story late, well after a novel version would open. Move quick, hit hard and get out fast, with a thematic roar that echoes long after the last word is read.
Simple, right? We crime writer folk understand simple doesn’t mean easy. But for me, that journey is becoming an adventure. The short story is dead? Feels pretty alive to me.
You know what else is alive? Your mastermind. Alive and hard at work somewhere in there, planning, planning, planning your story of the century.
If you would like to read more about Robert Mangeot’s books please click here.
Robert Mangeot lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife, pair of cats, and a bossy Pomeranian writing partner. His short fiction has won multiple writing contests and appears in various journals and anthologies, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War. He serves as the Vice-President of Sisters In Crime, Middle Tennessee chapter. Visit his website at robertmangeot.com
(Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com)
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