KN Magazine: Articles
Dying for Dinner: Radish, Beet, Carrot Salad and Mulled Chicken
Dying For Dinner
Caught a second viewing of “Fed Up”, a documentary about the obesity epidemic, food, exercise, and the food industry. It will make your jaw drop and rethink the way you eat. Sugar is in all processed foods, and it’s killing us as a nation. Michael Pollen, journalist, professor, and author of such books as the The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
To Die for Roasted Radish, Beet, and Carrot Salad with Fresh Orange and Curried Pecans
By Molly McRae
Like any good mystery, this is a recipe that started with “what if?” My family loves roasted vegetables – root vegetables in particular. One day when we had radishes, beets, carrots, and half a red onion, we ended up with this salad. It’s another creation that I’ve turned over to café-owner Mel in the Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries.
Preheat oven to 450º F.
Ingredients for roasted vegetables:
1 bunch red radishes cut into wedges ½ -inch at wide end
4 beets (tangerine to orange in size), peeled and cut into ½ -inch dice
2 carrots, peeled and cut into ¼ - to ½ -inch slices
½ a red onion, sliced into ¼ - to ½ -inch rings, then rings into quarters
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. fresh thyme
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
Ingredients for curried pecans:
⅓ c. pecan halves
½ to 1 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. olive oil
¼ tsp. salt
Fresh ingredients to finish the salad:
3 to 4 c. mixed greens (spinach, romaine, etc.)
1 seedless orange, segments cut into bite-size pieces
- Toss prepared radishes, beets, carrots, and onion with olive oil. Spread on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle with thyme, salt, and pepper. Roast for about 20 minutes, turning once or twice, cooking until the vegetables are tender and the edges are beginning to caramelize. Roasted vegetables are good – caramelized vegetables are superb.
- When you think the vegetables are 3-5 minutes away from being perfect, stir in the balsamic vinegar and finish roasting.
- Let cool while you prepare the pecans, the greens, and the orange.
- Heat olive oil in small skillet over medium heat. Add pecans, curry powder, and salt. Stir until pecans begin to brown. Remove from heat.
- Put greens in a large salad bowl. Add the roasted vegetables. Top with the orange and the pecans.
The salad doesn’t really need a dressing, but oil and vinegar, Italian and Asiago peppercorn is great.
Mulled Chicken & Brown Rice (serves 6)
By Jamie Mason
I have never included details of food in my writing except once in a ranting essay against picnics, but I do like tasty things that are easy so that my family doesn't feel abandoned when I'm eyeball deep in the writing process. So, here's an easy and killer main dish that cooks for a long time so you can tap out another few thousand words while dinner is made.
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 cup uncooked brown rice
1/2 to 2/3 cup raisins (I prefer the baking raisins if I can find them)
2-1/2 cups boiling water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 can of condensed cream of chicken soup
Slivered almonds
Heat oven to 350.
Add the raisins to the 2 1/2 cups water while it's heated to boiling, because it fattens them up, and then mix in the can of soup and the spices.
Combine all ingredients except the almonds in an ungreased 2-quart casserole.
Cook, uncovered, for 1 1/2 hours.
Stir, cover with foil, and bake for an additional 25 minutes.
Sprinkle with almonds and serve!
The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries from NAL/Penguin. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine since 1990 and she is a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. After twenty years in upper east Tennessee – the setting for her stories, short and long – Molly and her family live in Champaign, Illinois. You can find out more about Molly at www.mollymacrae.com or connect with her on Facebook or Pinterest. And you can find her blogging on the first Monday of each month at www.amyalessio.com and on the 23rd of each month at www.killercharacters.com.
Jamie Mason was born in Oklahoma City, but grew up in Washington, DC. She’s most often reading and writing, but in the life left over, she enjoys films, Formula 1 racing, football, traveling, and, conversely, staying at home. Jamie lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains of western North Carolina. Her first novel, Three Graves Full, was released by Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books in February of 2013. Her latest, Monday's Lie, also from Gallery, hit shelves in February of 2015.
These recipes are so good they should be a crime. If you concoct either of these great recipes, let us know what you think and send us a picture. We may include it here with a link to your website.
What are you cooking? Submit your favorite recipes. They can be based on your favorite literary character, your Aunt Clara’s, or some amalgamation of ingredients you’ve discovered that makes life worth living (nothing with arsenic seasoning, please). Make sure to include your contact information and explanation of the origin of the recipe. Send your submissions (to which you avow in a court of law that you have all rights to and are granting the nonexclusive rights to Killer Nashville to use in any form and at any time) with subject line “Dying For Dinner” to contact@KillerNashville.com.
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
May Photo Prompt Contest Winner
"Man Number Four" by Jaime Villarreal
I begged her not to let him move in with us. She said I was too young to understand anything. There was something wrong with that man’s smile—it wasn’t real. His eyes held dark secrets. How could she not see that? He never cared about her. He just needed a place to stay, someone to cook for him, someone to do his laundry. These apartments aren’t cheap—he knew that. He promised to help mom with rent, but that never happened. He’s been with us for three months and hasn’t even looked for work. This is her fourth relationship since dad died. I’m young, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that someone’s a creep. Mom has a knack for falling in love with creeps. That’s probably why they call them creeps, because they somehow find a way to creep in. Several minutes ago, I caught him with the woman next door. He doesn’t know I recorded them. He just knows that I saw him cheating. If you look up and squint your eyes, you’ll see my mom’s boyfriend looking down at me. I’d point him out if I could, but I can’t feel my limbs: my toes, my fingers, nothing. I can’t even turn my neck. In fact, I can’t even blink my eyes. I’m not sure if I’m still alive. He thinks mom will never know what happened. I sent the video to her phone just before he pushed me. I saved her from man number four.
It’s No Mystery: Writing Mysteries for Kids Is the Best Job in the World / Robin Newman
Writing for children can be complicated. There’s so much to keep in mind like using vocabulary that’s age-appropriate and providing bite-sized clues, all while telling a good story. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, author Robin Newman shares her love of writing children’s stories, and some helpful hints as you write yours.
Happy Reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
It’s No Mystery: Writing Mysteries for Kids Is the Best Job in the World
By Robin Newman
I wish I could say that I was an avid reader and writer as a child. But to tell the truth, I didn’t become a reader until I was in high school, and it wasn’t until law school that I realized that I enjoyed writing.
Growing up in the 1970s, many of my peers and I were TV junkies. Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Hong Kong Phooey, Bugs Bunny, Fat Albert, The Jetsons, Road Runner, and School House Rock played an intrinsic part of my childhood. I also grew up watching, and may have possibly read some of, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Later, as an adult, I was hooked on television detective shows like Dragnet, Law and Order, Murder, She Wrote, Cagney and Lacey, and Barney Miller. All of these shows were perfect fodder for a budding writer of children’s mysteries.
Television, in particular, has created expectations for readers of mysteries. So, it’s no mystery that when I started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, my critique group told me that I should follow the formula and language used in detective shows. “Give us the facts, and just the facts…”
When writing a mystery for young children, there are a few things that one should consider, aside from the usual suspects of plot, character, and setting.
Age matters. Who is reading the story? The parent or the child? Will the reader get the joke? These are things that you need to think about when writing for a young audience.
Word counts. Is your story going to be a picture book, early reader, transitional reader, or chapter book? Picture books generally fall within the realm of 500 or fewer words. It’s extremely hard to write a detective story in fewer than 500 words.
When I started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, it was a picture book. But my word counts were off the charts, around 1200-1600 words, and I knew an editor would hyperventilate if he or she saw my manuscript. Upon excellent advice, I changed the book to an early chapter book, and the story flowed much better.
Short and sweet. Try to keep your sentences short. There’s a lot going on in a mystery, and you need to keep your readers focused on tracking the clues that will help them find the culprit.
Vocabulary. Detective and mystery vocabulary is pretty sophisticated for emergent readers. Terms like alibi, suspect, witness, clues, investigation, etc., need to come across clearly in the text. For example, in this one scene of The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, Detective Wilcox is interrogating the suspect, Fowler the Owl:
“Hoo-hoo,” said Fowler, peeking her head out of her hole. “What brings you two tasty treats to my tree?”
“Investigating a case,” I said, holding up my badge. “Detective Wilcox and Captain Griswold, MFIs. Where were you between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning?”
“I was chasing a field mouse.”
“Do you have any witnesses?” If someone had seen her, she’d have an alibi.
“There was one, but I ate him.”
Easy clues and repetition. Make sure you leave a crumb trail of easy clues for your junior detectives to find. Having one character repeat or slightly modify what another character has said is an opportunity to emphasize a clue and slow down the reader to take note of an important fact.
“But she sure was acting like a funny bunny.”
“Funny ha ha or funny odd?” I asked.
“She didn’t say a word—not even a peep when I asked if she wanted a nice hot cup of slop! And she was still wearing her pajamas…”
Have fun! Don’t forget to add lots of fun puns and jokes. Kindergartners, first and second graders LOVE puns and bad jokes. This is the age of knock-knock jokes.
It’s no mystery: writing for kids is the best job in the world. I suspect that if you give it a try, you will love it too!
Raised in New York and Paris, Robin is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the City University of New York School of Law. She's been a practicing attorney and legal editor, but she prefers to write about witches, mice, pigs, and peacocks. She is the author of The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, A Wilcox & Griswold Mystery, illustrated by Deborah Zemke (Creston Books, Spring 2015), about two hardboiled mouse detectives working their beat from a shoebox at the back of Farmer Ed’s barn. They are MFIs, Missing Food Investigators, and on their seminal case, they’re on the hunt for Miss Rabbit’s missing carrot cake. (Note: The names of the animals have been changed to protect the good guys.) Visit her website at https://robinnewmanbooks.wordpress.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
It’s No Mystery: Writing Mysteries for Kids Is the Best Job in the World / Robin Newman
Writing for children can be complicated. There’s so much to keep in mind like using vocabulary that’s age-appropriate and providing bite-sized clues, all while telling a good story. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, author Robin Newman shares her love of writing children’s stories, and some helpful hints as you write yours.Happy Reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
It’s No Mystery: Writing Mysteries for Kids Is the Best Job in the World
By Robin Newman
I wish I could say that I was an avid reader and writer as a child. But to tell the truth, I didn’t become a reader until I was in high school, and it wasn’t until law school that I realized that I enjoyed writing.
Growing up in the 1970s, many of my peers and I were TV junkies. Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Hong Kong Phooey, Bugs Bunny, Fat Albert, The Jetsons, Road Runner, and School House Rock played an intrinsic part of my childhood. I also grew up watching, and may have possibly read some of, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Later, as an adult, I was hooked on television detective shows like Dragnet, Law and Order, Murder, She Wrote, Cagney and Lacey, and Barney Miller. All of these shows were perfect fodder for a budding writer of children’s mysteries.
Television, in particular, has created expectations for readers of mysteries. So, it’s no mystery that when I started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake
When writing a mystery for young children, there are a few things that one should consider, aside from the usual suspects of plot, character, and setting.
Age matters. Who is reading the story? The parent or the child? Will the reader get the joke? These are things that you need to think about when writing for a young audience.
Word counts. Is your story going to be a picture book, early reader, transitional reader, or chapter book? Picture books generally fall within the realm of 500 or fewer words. It’s extremely hard to write a detective story in fewer than 500 words.
When I started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, it was a picture book. But my word counts were off the charts, around 1200-1600 words, and I knew an editor would hyperventilate if he or she saw my manuscript. Upon excellent advice, I changed the book to an early chapter book, and the story flowed much better.
Short and sweet. Try to keep your sentences short. There’s a lot going on in a mystery, and you need to keep your readers focused on tracking the clues that will help them find the culprit.
Vocabulary. Detective and mystery vocabulary is pretty sophisticated for emergent readers. Terms like alibi, suspect, witness, clues, investigation, etc., need to come across clearly in the text. For example, in this one scene of The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, Detective Wilcox is interrogating the suspect, Fowler the Owl:
“Hoo-hoo,” said Fowler, peeking her head out of her hole. “What brings you two tasty treats to my tree?”
“Investigating a case,” I said, holding up my badge. “Detective Wilcox and Captain Griswold, MFIs. Where were you between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning?”
“I was chasing a field mouse.”
“Do you have any witnesses?” If someone had seen her, she’d have an alibi.
“There was one, but I ate him.”
Easy clues and repetition. Make sure you leave a crumb trail of easy clues for your junior detectives to find. Having one character repeat or slightly modify what another character has said is an opportunity to emphasize a clue and slow down the reader to take note of an important fact.
“But she sure was acting like a funny bunny.”
“Funny ha ha or funny odd?” I asked.
“She didn’t say a word—not even a peep when I asked if she wanted a nice hot cup of slop! And she was still wearing her pajamas…”
Have fun! Don’t forget to add lots of fun puns and jokes. Kindergartners, first and second graders LOVE puns and bad jokes. This is the age of knock-knock jokes.
It’s no mystery: writing for kids is the best job in the world. I suspect that if you give it a try, you will love it too!
Raised in New York and Paris, Robin is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the City University of New York School of Law. She's been a practicing attorney and legal editor, but she prefers to write about witches, mice, pigs, and peacocks. She is the author of The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, A Wilcox & Griswold Mystery, illustrated by Deborah Zemke (Creston Books, Spring 2015), about two hardboiled mouse detectives working their beat from a shoebox at the back of Farmer Ed’s barn. They are MFIs, Missing Food Investigators, and on their seminal case, they’re on the hunt for Miss Rabbit’s missing carrot cake. (Note: The names of the animals have been changed to protect the good guys.) Visit her website at https://robinnewmanbooks.wordpress.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
It’s No Mystery: Writing Mysteries for Kids Is the Best Job in the World / Robin Newman
Writing for children can be complicated. There’s so much to keep in mind like using vocabulary that’s age-appropriate and providing bite-sized clues, all while telling a good story. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, author Robin Newman shares her love of writing children’s stories, and some helpful hints as you write yours.Happy Reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
It’s No Mystery: Writing Mysteries for Kids Is the Best Job in the World
By Robin Newman
I wish I could say that I was an avid reader and writer as a child. But to tell the truth, I didn’t become a reader until I was in high school, and it wasn’t until law school that I realized that I enjoyed writing.
Growing up in the 1970s, many of my peers and I were TV junkies. Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Hong Kong Phooey, Bugs Bunny, Fat Albert, The Jetsons, Road Runner, and School House Rock played an intrinsic part of my childhood. I also grew up watching, and may have possibly read some of, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Later, as an adult, I was hooked on television detective shows like Dragnet, Law and Order, Murder, She Wrote, Cagney and Lacey, and Barney Miller. All of these shows were perfect fodder for a budding writer of children’s mysteries.
Television, in particular, has created expectations for readers of mysteries. So, it’s no mystery that when I started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake
When writing a mystery for young children, there are a few things that one should consider, aside from the usual suspects of plot, character, and setting.
Age matters. Who is reading the story? The parent or the child? Will the reader get the joke? These are things that you need to think about when writing for a young audience.
Word counts. Is your story going to be a picture book, early reader, transitional reader, or chapter book? Picture books generally fall within the realm of 500 or fewer words. It’s extremely hard to write a detective story in fewer than 500 words.
When I started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, it was a picture book. But my word counts were off the charts, around 1200-1600 words, and I knew an editor would hyperventilate if he or she saw my manuscript. Upon excellent advice, I changed the book to an early chapter book, and the story flowed much better.
Short and sweet. Try to keep your sentences short. There’s a lot going on in a mystery, and you need to keep your readers focused on tracking the clues that will help them find the culprit.
Vocabulary. Detective and mystery vocabulary is pretty sophisticated for emergent readers. Terms like alibi, suspect, witness, clues, investigation, etc., need to come across clearly in the text. For example, in this one scene of The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, Detective Wilcox is interrogating the suspect, Fowler the Owl:
“Hoo-hoo,” said Fowler, peeking her head out of her hole. “What brings you two tasty treats to my tree?”
“Investigating a case,” I said, holding up my badge. “Detective Wilcox and Captain Griswold, MFIs. Where were you between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning?”
“I was chasing a field mouse.”
“Do you have any witnesses?” If someone had seen her, she’d have an alibi.
“There was one, but I ate him.”
Easy clues and repetition. Make sure you leave a crumb trail of easy clues for your junior detectives to find. Having one character repeat or slightly modify what another character has said is an opportunity to emphasize a clue and slow down the reader to take note of an important fact.
“But she sure was acting like a funny bunny.”
“Funny ha ha or funny odd?” I asked.
“She didn’t say a word—not even a peep when I asked if she wanted a nice hot cup of slop! And she was still wearing her pajamas…”
Have fun! Don’t forget to add lots of fun puns and jokes. Kindergartners, first and second graders LOVE puns and bad jokes. This is the age of knock-knock jokes.
It’s no mystery: writing for kids is the best job in the world. I suspect that if you give it a try, you will love it too!
Raised in New York and Paris, Robin is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the City University of New York School of Law. She's been a practicing attorney and legal editor, but she prefers to write about witches, mice, pigs, and peacocks. She is the author of The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, A Wilcox & Griswold Mystery, illustrated by Deborah Zemke (Creston Books, Spring 2015), about two hardboiled mouse detectives working their beat from a shoebox at the back of Farmer Ed’s barn. They are MFIs, Missing Food Investigators, and on their seminal case, they’re on the hunt for Miss Rabbit’s missing carrot cake. (Note: The names of the animals have been changed to protect the good guys.) Visit her website at https://robinnewmanbooks.wordpress.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
How to Host a Killer Book Event / Jenny Milchman
I’m old and I’ve read and seen a lot. Rarely do I read something that makes me shift back in my chair and go, “Wow!” This blog does it for me.
Author Jenny Milchman is the touring James Brown. (She took her kids out of school?) She’s accredited with the longest book tour ever. (Rented out her house ‘cos she was going to be gone 11 months!) This woman has to keep Starbucks in business.
You learn a lot on the road. Most authors keep it to themselves. Jenny shares. You may not want to load the kids in a mini-van and drive across the continent, but everything Jenny shares can be used to advantage at the bookstore in your own hometown. What a dynamo. If you want to build an audience (different from selling a book), this blog is a must-read. I’ve seen these techniques work first hand. They will make a major difference in your mind-shift, maybe even career altering.
Read, enjoy, and share you own experiences. We would love to hear them.
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Host a Killer Book Event
By Jenny Milchman
First, I’m going to give y’all (this is Killer Nashville so I feel safe saying that) my bona fides for writing this post. Then, I’m going to cull ten bullet points for what will make your event the best ever. (I love bullet points! They make everything so simple and easy to digest. I wish chocolate cake came in bullet points. No, I don’t).
But, I digress. On to those credentials.
So, after my first novel — which was really my eighth, but that’s a different blog post —came out following a thirteen-year journey to publication, my husband and I did the following:
We rented out our house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, withdrew the kids from school to “car school” them on the road, and put 35,000 miles on that new car. Over a period of seven months, we toured the bookstores, libraries, book clubs and other literary pockets of this country. Then, when my second novel came out the next year, we did it all over again.
Of the past 24 months, I have spent 11 on the road, doing over 300 events.
I’ve seen everything from the one person who showed up at a bookstore in Goshen, Indiana, and didn’t buy a book (but for a very good reason) to nearly 300 foot-stomping attendees in Oxford, Miss., where I appeared at Square Books’ ever-popular Thacker Mountain Radio event. And a great deal in between.
Without further ado, here is what I’ve learned:
Do keep a contacts list. When you’re engaged in social media, find out where people live. (Nicely, not like a stalker). You’ll be amazed how many will want to come out to see you in person.
Do make things personal. Don’t send invitations to a Georgia event to everyone on your mailing list. Figure out who lives closest to Atlanta, or Savannah, or Macon. Blasts get deleted; personal notes are read.
Having said that, a Tweet and FB status update—“I am here” with a photo and place/time/date should become part of your day- or week-before routine.
Do consider creative ideas for format. You don’t have to get up there and read for twenty minutes. Instead, tell the story-behind-the-book, or the story of your publication journey. If your book has a ready tie-in, do something related (like dress up to fit the historic period or serve cookies to reflect a recipe in your book or teach a craft the sleuth uses to solve the case). Hold a writers workshop; be a guest author at the store’s book club. Pair with another author and interview each other. Bring in your dog or cat (because people love dogs and cats, of course). Your imagination is the only limit here—let it fly as free as it did when you wrote your book.
Do know that attendees love the Q&A portion of an event. Leave lots of time!
Do bring a gift for your host. Something sweet to eat, a little gift bag filled with swag related to your book (lip balm, pens, pads, matches, pouches of hot cocoa, chocolate, mini anything, tissues—again, let your imagination roam).
Do consider holding a raffle for attendees. Their receipt for your book is their ticket. Prizes could be a gift card to the bookstore, something tied to your book (Jodi Picoult gave away stuffed wolves when “Lone Wolf” came out), a book club basket of books by your author friends, or a writer’s wish list consisting of coaching or critique.
Do serve light refreshments if possible. Nothing makes it a party like wine or cheese, baked goods and one of those boxes of coffee, or even just popcorn.
Do understand this paradox. Book events are not about selling books. May you become the biggest blockbuster author in the world and sell 1,000 books at every event. You will still only begin to cover the costs of the tour. Events don’t really make dollars and cents—but they do make dollars and sense. There will be moments when your one attendee turns out to be the book reviewer for the Miami Herald. And other kinds of moments, too. That attendee I had in Goshen, IN who didn’t buy a book? It was because he already had three copies. One to read, one to loan, and one to keep “pristine.”
Do be professional. Things can go wrong, and will. I went to Arkansas with my first novel, and the venue had forgotten about my event. Never mind—we went over my calendar, saw that I was actually passing through at such and such date and could come back. When I arrived that time, the place was closed. I promise things will go easier for you than that! But when they don’t, wear a smile, don’t be a diva (or divo?) and know that getting to hang out with a bookseller who then reads your book and becomes a fan for life can be every bit as joyous as walking into a packed room.
For the past three years, Jenny Milchman has gone on what Shelf Awareness called “the world’s longest book tour”. She is the author of three acclaimed and award-winning thrillers: Cover of Snow, Ruin Falls, and the just released As Night Falls. Visit her website at http://www.jennymilchman.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Clay Janeway, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
How to Host a Killer Book Event / Jenny Milchman
I’m old and I’ve read and seen a lot. Rarely do I read something that makes me shift back in my chair and go, “Wow!” This blog does it for me.Author Jenny Milchman is the touring James Brown. (She took her kids out of school?) She’s accredited with the longest book tour ever. (Rented out her house ‘cos she was going to be gone 11 months!) This woman has to keep Starbucks in business.You learn a lot on the road. Most authors keep it to themselves. Jenny shares. You may not want to load the kids in a mini-van and drive across the continent, but everything Jenny shares can be used to advantage at the bookstore in your own hometown. What a dynamo. If you want to build an audience (different from selling a book), this blog is a must-read. I’ve seen these techniques work first hand. They will make a major difference in your mind-shift, maybe even career altering.Read, enjoy, and share you own experiences. We would love to hear them. Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Host a Killer Book Event
By Jenny Milchman
First, I’m going to give y’all (this is Killer Nashville so I feel safe saying that) my bona fides for writing this post. Then, I’m going to cull ten bullet points for what will make your event the best ever. (I love bullet points! They make everything so simple and easy to digest. I wish chocolate cake came in bullet points. No, I don’t).
But, I digress. On to those credentials.
So, after my first novel — which was really my eighth, but that’s a different blog post —came out following a thirteen-year journey to publication, my husband and I did the following:
We rented out our house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, withdrew the kids from school to “car school” them on the road, and put 35,000 miles on that new car. Over a period of seven months, we toured the bookstores, libraries, book clubs and other literary pockets of this country. Then, when my second novel came out the next year, we did it all over again.
Of the past 24 months, I have spent 11 on the road, doing over 300 events.
I’ve seen everything from the one person who showed up at a bookstore in Goshen, Indiana, and didn’t buy a book (but for a very good reason) to nearly 300 foot-stomping attendees in Oxford, Miss., where I appeared at Square Books’ ever-popular Thacker Mountain Radio event. And a great deal in between.
Without further ado, here is what I’ve learned:
- Do keep a contacts list. When you’re engaged in social media, find out where people live. (Nicely, not like a stalker). You’ll be amazed how many will want to come out to see you in person.
- Do make things personal. Don’t send invitations to a Georgia event to everyone on your mailing list. Figure out who lives closest to Atlanta, or Savannah, or Macon. Blasts get deleted; personal notes are read.
- Having said that, a Tweet and FB status update—“I am here” with a photo and place/time/date should become part of your day- or week-before routine.
- Do consider creative ideas for format. You don’t have to get up there and read for twenty minutes. Instead, tell the story-behind-the-book, or the story of your publication journey. If your book has a ready tie-in, do something related (like dress up to fit the historic period or serve cookies to reflect a recipe in your book or teach a craft the sleuth uses to solve the case). Hold a writers workshop; be a guest author at the store’s book club. Pair with another author and interview each other. Bring in your dog or cat (because people love dogs and cats, of course). Your imagination is the only limit here—let it fly as free as it did when you wrote your book.
- Do know that attendees love the Q&A portion of an event. Leave lots of time!
- Do bring a gift for your host. Something sweet to eat, a little gift bag filled with swag related to your book (lip balm, pens, pads, matches, pouches of hot cocoa, chocolate, mini anything, tissues—again, let your imagination roam).
- Do consider holding a raffle for attendees. Their receipt for your book is their ticket. Prizes could be a gift card to the bookstore, something tied to your book (Jodi Picoult gave away stuffed wolves when “Lone Wolf” came out), a book club basket of books by your author friends, or a writer’s wish list consisting of coaching or critique.
- Do serve light refreshments if possible. Nothing makes it a party like wine or cheese, baked goods and one of those boxes of coffee, or even just popcorn.
- Do understand this paradox. Book events are not about selling books. May you become the biggest blockbuster author in the world and sell 1,000 books at every event. You will still only begin to cover the costs of the tour. Events don’t really make dollars and cents—but they do make dollars and sense. There will be moments when your one attendee turns out to be the book reviewer for the Miami Herald. And other kinds of moments, too. That attendee I had in Goshen, IN who didn’t buy a book? It was because he already had three copies. One to read, one to loan, and one to keep “pristine.”
- Do be professional. Things can go wrong, and will. I went to Arkansas with my first novel, and the venue had forgotten about my event. Never mind—we went over my calendar, saw that I was actually passing through at such and such date and could come back. When I arrived that time, the place was closed. I promise things will go easier for you than that! But when they don’t, wear a smile, don’t be a diva (or divo?) and know that getting to hang out with a bookseller who then reads your book and becomes a fan for life can be every bit as joyous as walking into a packed room.
For the past three years, Jenny Milchman has gone on what Shelf Awareness called “the world’s longest book tour”. She is the author of three acclaimed and award-winning thrillers: Cover of Snow
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Clay Janeway, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
How to Host a Killer Book Event / Jenny Milchman
I’m old and I’ve read and seen a lot. Rarely do I read something that makes me shift back in my chair and go, “Wow!” This blog does it for me.Author Jenny Milchman is the touring James Brown. (She took her kids out of school?) She’s accredited with the longest book tour ever. (Rented out her house ‘cos she was going to be gone 11 months!) This woman has to keep Starbucks in business.You learn a lot on the road. Most authors keep it to themselves. Jenny shares. You may not want to load the kids in a mini-van and drive across the continent, but everything Jenny shares can be used to advantage at the bookstore in your own hometown. What a dynamo. If you want to build an audience (different from selling a book), this blog is a must-read. I’ve seen these techniques work first hand. They will make a major difference in your mind-shift, maybe even career altering.Read, enjoy, and share you own experiences. We would love to hear them. Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Host a Killer Book Event
By Jenny Milchman
First, I’m going to give y’all (this is Killer Nashville so I feel safe saying that) my bona fides for writing this post. Then, I’m going to cull ten bullet points for what will make your event the best ever. (I love bullet points! They make everything so simple and easy to digest. I wish chocolate cake came in bullet points. No, I don’t).
But, I digress. On to those credentials.
So, after my first novel — which was really my eighth, but that’s a different blog post —came out following a thirteen-year journey to publication, my husband and I did the following:
We rented out our house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, withdrew the kids from school to “car school” them on the road, and put 35,000 miles on that new car. Over a period of seven months, we toured the bookstores, libraries, book clubs and other literary pockets of this country. Then, when my second novel came out the next year, we did it all over again.
Of the past 24 months, I have spent 11 on the road, doing over 300 events.
I’ve seen everything from the one person who showed up at a bookstore in Goshen, Indiana, and didn’t buy a book (but for a very good reason) to nearly 300 foot-stomping attendees in Oxford, Miss., where I appeared at Square Books’ ever-popular Thacker Mountain Radio event. And a great deal in between.
Without further ado, here is what I’ve learned:
- Do keep a contacts list. When you’re engaged in social media, find out where people live. (Nicely, not like a stalker). You’ll be amazed how many will want to come out to see you in person.
- Do make things personal. Don’t send invitations to a Georgia event to everyone on your mailing list. Figure out who lives closest to Atlanta, or Savannah, or Macon. Blasts get deleted; personal notes are read.
- Having said that, a Tweet and FB status update—“I am here” with a photo and place/time/date should become part of your day- or week-before routine.
- Do consider creative ideas for format. You don’t have to get up there and read for twenty minutes. Instead, tell the story-behind-the-book, or the story of your publication journey. If your book has a ready tie-in, do something related (like dress up to fit the historic period or serve cookies to reflect a recipe in your book or teach a craft the sleuth uses to solve the case). Hold a writers workshop; be a guest author at the store’s book club. Pair with another author and interview each other. Bring in your dog or cat (because people love dogs and cats, of course). Your imagination is the only limit here—let it fly as free as it did when you wrote your book.
- Do know that attendees love the Q&A portion of an event. Leave lots of time!
- Do bring a gift for your host. Something sweet to eat, a little gift bag filled with swag related to your book (lip balm, pens, pads, matches, pouches of hot cocoa, chocolate, mini anything, tissues—again, let your imagination roam).
- Do consider holding a raffle for attendees. Their receipt for your book is their ticket. Prizes could be a gift card to the bookstore, something tied to your book (Jodi Picoult gave away stuffed wolves when “Lone Wolf” came out), a book club basket of books by your author friends, or a writer’s wish list consisting of coaching or critique.
- Do serve light refreshments if possible. Nothing makes it a party like wine or cheese, baked goods and one of those boxes of coffee, or even just popcorn.
- Do understand this paradox. Book events are not about selling books. May you become the biggest blockbuster author in the world and sell 1,000 books at every event. You will still only begin to cover the costs of the tour. Events don’t really make dollars and cents—but they do make dollars and sense. There will be moments when your one attendee turns out to be the book reviewer for the Miami Herald. And other kinds of moments, too. That attendee I had in Goshen, IN who didn’t buy a book? It was because he already had three copies. One to read, one to loan, and one to keep “pristine.”
- Do be professional. Things can go wrong, and will. I went to Arkansas with my first novel, and the venue had forgotten about my event. Never mind—we went over my calendar, saw that I was actually passing through at such and such date and could come back. When I arrived that time, the place was closed. I promise things will go easier for you than that! But when they don’t, wear a smile, don’t be a diva (or divo?) and know that getting to hang out with a bookseller who then reads your book and becomes a fan for life can be every bit as joyous as walking into a packed room.
For the past three years, Jenny Milchman has gone on what Shelf Awareness called “the world’s longest book tour”. She is the author of three acclaimed and award-winning thrillers: Cover of Snow
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Clay Janeway, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Unlocking the Mystery / Blake Fontenay
What makes a mystery? Unanswered questions, of course. But aren’t there unanswered questions in other genres. Author and Killer Nashville Guest Blogger offers his take on what unanswered questions separate mysteries from all other genres.
Enjoy! And read like someone is burning the books…because somewhere in the world, they are.
Until next week!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Unlocking the Mystery
By Blake Fontenay
What makes a mystery novel mysterious?
The answer seems obvious. A mystery is a story in which major plot points are unknown to the protagonists — and readers as well. In a murder mystery, the main question to be answered usually is: Whodunnit? And quite often, why and how the murder was committed as well.
Now, there are some authors who give readers the answers to these questions fairly early in the story. Through an omniscient viewpoint, the reader learns who the good guys and the bad guys are — and the tension in the story comes from knowing that the good guys and bad guys will eventually clash.
To me, that kind of story doesn’t really qualify as a mystery. It might be classified as a thriller, provided the author does a good job of building and holding tension.
I consider my most recent novel, Scouts' Honor, to be more of a thriller than a mystery. The book has unanswered questions — about the good guys’ mysterious advisor, about the true scope of the bad guys’ nefarious plans — but at its core, it’s a story about a group of Boy Scouts trying to survive in the wilderness while they’re being hunted by terrorists.
By contrast, I consider my first book, The Politics of Barbecue to be more of a mystery because the key to the story was finding out why the mayor of Memphis was so dead set on building a Barbecue Hall of Fame in his city.
I suppose an argument can be made that any work of fiction will have unanswered questions. In the romance novel, for example, the unanswered question might be whether the lonely widow will choose the socially inept pool maintenance worker with a heart of gold or the slick stockbroker who’s kind of a jerk.
Virtually all stories have some unanswered questions. In a mystery, however, I think those unanswered questions take on greater importance than they do in other genres. Yes, it’s important for a mystery writer to have interesting characters who grow and change throughout the story. It’s important to have a compelling setting for the story. And it’s also great if a writer can educate his or her readers on one or more issues of social importance.
But for me, those unanswered questions — and how they ultimately are answered — are what make mystery novels special, provided the writer follows certain rules.
It’s important for a writer to play fair with readers. That means there have to be enough clues provided throughout the story to give readers the opportunity to figure out the answers to those questions before they are revealed in the story.
There’s nothing wrong with a writer creating some misdirection — clues that are intended to throw readers off a little bit. However, I find it very frustrating when all the clues point one direction and the answers to the story’s central questions aren’t related to any of those clues.
The element of surprise in a story is great. The element of surprise when it’s completely unsupported by anything that has preceded it in the story is not so great. I think the best mystery novels are the ones where the right clues are there, but they are so subtle that they only make sense in hindsight. My favorite mystery novels are the ones where, at the end, I’m asking myself: “Why didn’t I see that coming?”
I’m also a big fan of having multiple unanswered questions in the same story, some concerning major plot points and some concerning relatively minor issues. As a writer, this provides a measure of insurance. Say the writer’s clues to one of the unanswered questions aren’t subtle enough and readers are able to solve that part of the mystery. If there are other questions that remain unanswered, that’s an incentive for readers to keep reading. If there’s only that one unanswered question and the reader figures it out halfway through the book, he or she is likely to feel disappointed at the story’s end.
In my own writing, I try to tell stories from many different points of view, although I’ve been told by writing coaches that this is a no-no. I’ve heard from people whose opinions I respect that limiting storytelling to one or two or three points of view is generally preferred. I don’t necessarily agree with that for all types of stories, but I can see the merit in a well-crafted mystery.
In a mystery, I’m fine with knowing only what the main protagonist knows. That makes the story a journey of discovery for both of us. He or she gets the same clues I get, at the same points in the story. With any luck, we’ll come to the same conclusions about the unanswered questions at the same time.
If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that I read too many Encyclopedia Brown books as a kid, then I would disagree with you. Because you can never read too many Encyclopedia Brown books.
Maybe the points I’ve asserted in this post will seem too formulaic or conventional to some. But I know what I like. And I know what kind of stories I’m going to buy.
Blake Fontenay spent more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for metropolitan daily newspapers – including the Sacramento Bee, Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), Orlando Sentinel, and Commercial Appeal (Memphis). He won several awards for editorial writing while at the Commercial Appeal. Since leaving the newspaper business, he has worked as the communications director for Tennessee’s Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is currently the coordinator for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. His debut novel, The Politics of Barbecue, was published by John F. Blair Publisher in September, 2012. The Politics of Barbecue won the Independent Publishers Book Awards gold medal for fiction in the South region in 2013. He and his wife, Lynn, live in Old Hickory, Tennessee, in a neighborhood filled with other artists. His second novel Scouts' Honor is available online at www.secondwindpublishing.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Unlocking the Mystery / Blake Fontenay
What makes a mystery? Unanswered questions, of course. But aren’t there unanswered questions in other genres. Author and Killer Nashville Guest Blogger offers his take on what unanswered questions separate mysteries from all other genres.Enjoy! And read like someone is burning the books…because somewhere in the world, they are.Until next week!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Unlocking the Mystery
By Blake Fontenay
What makes a mystery novel mysterious?
The answer seems obvious. A mystery is a story in which major plot points are unknown to the protagonists — and readers as well. In a murder mystery, the main question to be answered usually is: Whodunnit? And quite often, why and how the murder was committed as well.
Now, there are some authors who give readers the answers to these questions fairly early in the story. Through an omniscient viewpoint, the reader learns who the good guys and the bad guys are — and the tension in the story comes from knowing that the good guys and bad guys will eventually clash.
To me, that kind of story doesn’t really qualify as a mystery. It might be classified as a thriller, provided the author does a good job of building and holding tension.
I consider my most recent novel, Scouts' Honor
By contrast, I consider my first book, The Politics of Barbecue
I suppose an argument can be made that any work of fiction will have unanswered questions. In the romance novel, for example, the unanswered question might be whether the lonely widow will choose the socially inept pool maintenance worker with a heart of gold or the slick stockbroker who’s kind of a jerk.
Virtually all stories have some unanswered questions. In a mystery, however, I think those unanswered questions take on greater importance than they do in other genres. Yes, it’s important for a mystery writer to have interesting characters who grow and change throughout the story. It’s important to have a compelling setting for the story. And it’s also great if a writer can educate his or her readers on one or more issues of social importance.
But for me, those unanswered questions — and how they ultimately are answered — are what make mystery novels special, provided the writer follows certain rules.
It’s important for a writer to play fair with readers. That means there have to be enough clues provided throughout the story to give readers the opportunity to figure out the answers to those questions before they are revealed in the story.
There’s nothing wrong with a writer creating some misdirection — clues that are intended to throw readers off a little bit. However, I find it very frustrating when all the clues point one direction and the answers to the story’s central questions aren’t related to any of those clues.
The element of surprise in a story is great. The element of surprise when it’s completely unsupported by anything that has preceded it in the story is not so great. I think the best mystery novels are the ones where the right clues are there, but they are so subtle that they only make sense in hindsight. My favorite mystery novels are the ones where, at the end, I’m asking myself: “Why didn’t I see that coming?”
I’m also a big fan of having multiple unanswered questions in the same story, some concerning major plot points and some concerning relatively minor issues. As a writer, this provides a measure of insurance. Say the writer’s clues to one of the unanswered questions aren’t subtle enough and readers are able to solve that part of the mystery. If there are other questions that remain unanswered, that’s an incentive for readers to keep reading. If there’s only that one unanswered question and the reader figures it out halfway through the book, he or she is likely to feel disappointed at the story’s end.
In my own writing, I try to tell stories from many different points of view, although I’ve been told by writing coaches that this is a no-no. I’ve heard from people whose opinions I respect that limiting storytelling to one or two or three points of view is generally preferred. I don’t necessarily agree with that for all types of stories, but I can see the merit in a well-crafted mystery.
In a mystery, I’m fine with knowing only what the main protagonist knows. That makes the story a journey of discovery for both of us. He or she gets the same clues I get, at the same points in the story. With any luck, we’ll come to the same conclusions about the unanswered questions at the same time.
If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that I read too many Encyclopedia Brown books as a kid, then I would disagree with you. Because you can never read too many Encyclopedia Brown books.
Maybe the points I’ve asserted in this post will seem too formulaic or conventional to some. But I know what I like. And I know what kind of stories I’m going to buy.
Blake Fontenay spent more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for metropolitan daily newspapers – including the Sacramento Bee, Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), Orlando Sentinel, and Commercial Appeal (Memphis). He won several awards for editorial writing while at the Commercial Appeal. Since leaving the newspaper business, he has worked as the communications director for Tennessee’s Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is currently the coordinator for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. His debut novel, The Politics of Barbecue
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Unlocking the Mystery / Blake Fontenay
What makes a mystery? Unanswered questions, of course. But aren’t there unanswered questions in other genres. Author and Killer Nashville Guest Blogger offers his take on what unanswered questions separate mysteries from all other genres.Enjoy! And read like someone is burning the books…because somewhere in the world, they are.Until next week!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Unlocking the Mystery
By Blake Fontenay
What makes a mystery novel mysterious?
The answer seems obvious. A mystery is a story in which major plot points are unknown to the protagonists — and readers as well. In a murder mystery, the main question to be answered usually is: Whodunnit? And quite often, why and how the murder was committed as well.
Now, there are some authors who give readers the answers to these questions fairly early in the story. Through an omniscient viewpoint, the reader learns who the good guys and the bad guys are — and the tension in the story comes from knowing that the good guys and bad guys will eventually clash.
To me, that kind of story doesn’t really qualify as a mystery. It might be classified as a thriller, provided the author does a good job of building and holding tension.
I consider my most recent novel, Scouts' Honor
By contrast, I consider my first book, The Politics of Barbecue
I suppose an argument can be made that any work of fiction will have unanswered questions. In the romance novel, for example, the unanswered question might be whether the lonely widow will choose the socially inept pool maintenance worker with a heart of gold or the slick stockbroker who’s kind of a jerk.
Virtually all stories have some unanswered questions. In a mystery, however, I think those unanswered questions take on greater importance than they do in other genres. Yes, it’s important for a mystery writer to have interesting characters who grow and change throughout the story. It’s important to have a compelling setting for the story. And it’s also great if a writer can educate his or her readers on one or more issues of social importance.
But for me, those unanswered questions — and how they ultimately are answered — are what make mystery novels special, provided the writer follows certain rules.
It’s important for a writer to play fair with readers. That means there have to be enough clues provided throughout the story to give readers the opportunity to figure out the answers to those questions before they are revealed in the story.
There’s nothing wrong with a writer creating some misdirection — clues that are intended to throw readers off a little bit. However, I find it very frustrating when all the clues point one direction and the answers to the story’s central questions aren’t related to any of those clues.
The element of surprise in a story is great. The element of surprise when it’s completely unsupported by anything that has preceded it in the story is not so great. I think the best mystery novels are the ones where the right clues are there, but they are so subtle that they only make sense in hindsight. My favorite mystery novels are the ones where, at the end, I’m asking myself: “Why didn’t I see that coming?”
I’m also a big fan of having multiple unanswered questions in the same story, some concerning major plot points and some concerning relatively minor issues. As a writer, this provides a measure of insurance. Say the writer’s clues to one of the unanswered questions aren’t subtle enough and readers are able to solve that part of the mystery. If there are other questions that remain unanswered, that’s an incentive for readers to keep reading. If there’s only that one unanswered question and the reader figures it out halfway through the book, he or she is likely to feel disappointed at the story’s end.
In my own writing, I try to tell stories from many different points of view, although I’ve been told by writing coaches that this is a no-no. I’ve heard from people whose opinions I respect that limiting storytelling to one or two or three points of view is generally preferred. I don’t necessarily agree with that for all types of stories, but I can see the merit in a well-crafted mystery.
In a mystery, I’m fine with knowing only what the main protagonist knows. That makes the story a journey of discovery for both of us. He or she gets the same clues I get, at the same points in the story. With any luck, we’ll come to the same conclusions about the unanswered questions at the same time.
If you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that I read too many Encyclopedia Brown books as a kid, then I would disagree with you. Because you can never read too many Encyclopedia Brown books.
Maybe the points I’ve asserted in this post will seem too formulaic or conventional to some. But I know what I like. And I know what kind of stories I’m going to buy.
Blake Fontenay spent more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for metropolitan daily newspapers – including the Sacramento Bee, Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), Orlando Sentinel, and Commercial Appeal (Memphis). He won several awards for editorial writing while at the Commercial Appeal. Since leaving the newspaper business, he has worked as the communications director for Tennessee’s Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is currently the coordinator for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. His debut novel, The Politics of Barbecue
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
What Makes a Thriller Paranoid? / Don Winston
In a traditional thriller, there’s a good guy and bad guy, and they both know about each other early on, even if they don’t yet know each other’s identity. In a paranoid thriller, the good guy doesn’t know if there’s a bad guy or not. In fact, the good guy doesn’t even realize he’s IN a thriller. Author Don Winston explains the differences in this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog.
Until next time, read like someone is burning the books…because — paranoid as I am — somewhere in the world, they are.
Happy Reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
What Makes a Thriller Paranoid?
By Don Winston
As part of the promotional tour for my novels, I’m often asked, “What is a paranoid thriller?” It’s a logical question, as it’s the subtitle of my first book and a recurring theme in all my work. There’s a slight yet profound difference between a traditional thriller and its paranoid cousin, so I decided to think about it more and explain. Not only for others, but for myself, as well.
In a traditional thriller, there’s a good guy and bad guy, and they both know about each other early on, even if they don’t yet know each other’s identity. There’s a murder, or a tip from the CIA, or even a ghost knocking around, making the good guy’s life hell. So the good guy channels his energy and ingenuity to get rid of the villain, growing as a person in the process. That’s essentially the hero’s journey Joseph Campbell made such a wonderful contribution mining and explaining.
Almost every thriller or action story fits into that mold, from Stephen King to Tom Clancy to Agatha Christie. By the end, typically the good guy has captured or killed the bad guy, and order is restored to his world. Until the bad guy rebounds or a new one surfaces for the sequel, jumpstarting the nasty cycle all over. It’s what kept Harry Potter so busy in high school.
In a paranoid thriller, however, the good guy — usually an Average Joe — doesn’t know if there’s a bad guy or not. In fact, the good guy doesn’t even realize he’s IN a thriller. Childlike, he (or she) innocently pursues his life and dreams, with the increasing and unnerving and ultimately horrifying suspicion that someone means him great harm. Hence, the paranoia. As mystery expert Otto Penzler puts it in his foreword to Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying: “They are essentially decent people caught up in a world not of their creation –– aliens in a terrifying environment without a map or compass...this terror is dramatically magnified when it involves people who did nothing deliberately to find themselves in positions of jeopardy.”
Alfred Hitchcock, Cornell Woolrich, and, more recently, Ira Levin were all masters of this genre. It’s a rare one, but pierces deep when done well. Think The Man Who Knew Too Much, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and, most pointedly, Rosemary’s Baby.
Often in a paranoid thriller, the good guy is his own bad guy. The escape hatch is typically wide open for a big chunk of the story; if only he’d walk through it, he’d be free and safe. We the audience know this, and scream for him to run, but he doesn’t. This is also known as “dramatic irony” –– a situation understood by the reader or audience but not grasped by the characters. This can drive the reader mad, in a fun way. It’s what makes the story tick and terrify and, hopefully, keeps the pages turning.
At some point, usually late in the story and following a cascading series of very unfortunate events, the good guy snaps out of his denial and realizes his world is on fire. So insistent he’s been going on living a normal, happy life, he’s paid attention to all the wrong things, and now he’s surrounded by extremely malevolent forces, closing in fast. By this point, however, the escape hatch is closed, and he’s trapped, cornered, sucked down into the whirlpool without a paddle, whatever metaphor you like. He’s in big trouble.
Denial is the lynchpin of the paranoid thriller, and it usually costs the hero dearly.
As if that weren’t trouble enough, as the story unfolds and the noose tightens, the good guy’s final horror is that what he fears is happening is not nearly as ghastly as what is really happening. In his optimistic hope for the best, he grossly underestimates the evil that engulfs him. That gives the paranoid thriller its ultimate nightmarish charge.
In a paranoid thriller, the good guy doesn’t go looking for trouble. It finds him, sneaks up, and surrounds him. His last-gasp attempt to free himself is what hurls us toward the climax.
It’s a messy business, this paranoid thriller stuff. But when plotted right, when the clues drop correctly and the danger crests on cue, the horror overwhelms and gives us a visceral battle of good and evil.
This is what I’ve tried to accomplish with S'wanee, The Union Club, and my brand new thriller: The Gristmill Playhouse: A Nightmare in Three Acts. Whether or not I’ve succeeded is up to the reader. I hope you’ll check them out and let me know what you think.
Happy reading! And remember: Only the paranoid will survive…
Don Winston grew up in Nashville and graduated from Princeton University. After a stint at Ralph Lauren headquarters in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to work in entertainment as an actor, writer, and producer. S'wanee: A Paranoid Thriller was his debut novel and hit #3 in Kindle Suspense Fiction, followed by his second novel The Union Club: A Subversive Thriller. His new thriller The Gristmill Playhouse: A Nightmare in Three Acts will be released spring 2015. He lives in Hollywood. Visit his website at http://www.donwinston.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
What Makes a Thriller Paranoid? / Don Winston
In a traditional thriller, there’s a good guy and bad guy, and they both know about each other early on, even if they don’t yet know each other’s identity. In a paranoid thriller, the good guy doesn’t know if there’s a bad guy or not. In fact, the good guy doesn’t even realize he’s IN a thriller. Author Don Winston explains the differences in this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog.Until next time, read like someone is burning the books…because — paranoid as I am — somewhere in the world, they are.Happy Reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
What Makes a Thriller Paranoid?
By Don Winston
As part of the promotional tour for my novels, I’m often asked, “What is a paranoid thriller?” It’s a logical question, as it’s the subtitle of my first book and a recurring theme in all my work. There’s a slight yet profound difference between a traditional thriller and its paranoid cousin, so I decided to think about it more and explain. Not only for others, but for myself, as well.
In a traditional thriller, there’s a good guy and bad guy, and they both know about each other early on, even if they don’t yet know each other’s identity. There’s a murder, or a tip from the CIA, or even a ghost knocking around, making the good guy’s life hell. So the good guy channels his energy and ingenuity to get rid of the villain, growing as a person in the process. That’s essentially the hero’s journey Joseph Campbell made such a wonderful contribution mining and explaining.
Almost every thriller or action story fits into that mold, from Stephen King to Tom Clancy to Agatha Christie. By the end, typically the good guy has captured or killed the bad guy, and order is restored to his world. Until the bad guy rebounds or a new one surfaces for the sequel, jumpstarting the nasty cycle all over. It’s what kept Harry Potter so busy in high school.
In a paranoid thriller, however, the good guy — usually an Average Joe — doesn’t know if there’s a bad guy or not. In fact, the good guy doesn’t even realize he’s IN a thriller. Childlike, he (or she) innocently pursues his life and dreams, with the increasing and unnerving and ultimately horrifying suspicion that someone means him great harm. Hence, the paranoia. As mystery expert Otto Penzler puts it in his foreword to Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying: “They are essentially decent people caught up in a world not of their creation –– aliens in a terrifying environment without a map or compass...this terror is dramatically magnified when it involves people who did nothing deliberately to find themselves in positions of jeopardy.”
Alfred Hitchcock, Cornell Woolrich, and, more recently, Ira Levin were all masters of this genre. It’s a rare one, but pierces deep when done well. Think The Man Who Knew Too Much, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and, most pointedly, Rosemary’s Baby.
Often in a paranoid thriller, the good guy is his own bad guy. The escape hatch is typically wide open for a big chunk of the story; if only he’d walk through it, he’d be free and safe. We the audience know this, and scream for him to run, but he doesn’t. This is also known as “dramatic irony” –– a situation understood by the reader or audience but not grasped by the characters. This can drive the reader mad, in a fun way. It’s what makes the story tick and terrify and, hopefully, keeps the pages turning.
At some point, usually late in the story and following a cascading series of very unfortunate events, the good guy snaps out of his denial and realizes his world is on fire. So insistent he’s been going on living a normal, happy life, he’s paid attention to all the wrong things, and now he’s surrounded by extremely malevolent forces, closing in fast. By this point, however, the escape hatch is closed, and he’s trapped, cornered, sucked down into the whirlpool without a paddle, whatever metaphor you like. He’s in big trouble.
Denial is the lynchpin of the paranoid thriller, and it usually costs the hero dearly.
As if that weren’t trouble enough, as the story unfolds and the noose tightens, the good guy’s final horror is that what he fears is happening is not nearly as ghastly as what is really happening. In his optimistic hope for the best, he grossly underestimates the evil that engulfs him. That gives the paranoid thriller its ultimate nightmarish charge.
In a paranoid thriller, the good guy doesn’t go looking for trouble. It finds him, sneaks up, and surrounds him. His last-gasp attempt to free himself is what hurls us toward the climax.
It’s a messy business, this paranoid thriller stuff. But when plotted right, when the clues drop correctly and the danger crests on cue, the horror overwhelms and gives us a visceral battle of good and evil.
This is what I’ve tried to accomplish with S'wanee
Happy reading! And remember: Only the paranoid will survive…
Don Winston grew up in Nashville and graduated from Princeton University. After a stint at Ralph Lauren headquarters in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to work in entertainment as an actor, writer, and producer. S'wanee: A Paranoid Thriller was his debut novel and hit #3 in Kindle Suspense Fiction, followed by his second novel The Union Club: A Subversive Thriller. His new thriller The Gristmill Playhouse: A Nightmare in Three Acts
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
What Makes a Thriller Paranoid? / Don Winston
In a traditional thriller, there’s a good guy and bad guy, and they both know about each other early on, even if they don’t yet know each other’s identity. In a paranoid thriller, the good guy doesn’t know if there’s a bad guy or not. In fact, the good guy doesn’t even realize he’s IN a thriller. Author Don Winston explains the differences in this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog.Until next time, read like someone is burning the books…because — paranoid as I am — somewhere in the world, they are.Happy Reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
What Makes a Thriller Paranoid?
By Don Winston
As part of the promotional tour for my novels, I’m often asked, “What is a paranoid thriller?” It’s a logical question, as it’s the subtitle of my first book and a recurring theme in all my work. There’s a slight yet profound difference between a traditional thriller and its paranoid cousin, so I decided to think about it more and explain. Not only for others, but for myself, as well.
In a traditional thriller, there’s a good guy and bad guy, and they both know about each other early on, even if they don’t yet know each other’s identity. There’s a murder, or a tip from the CIA, or even a ghost knocking around, making the good guy’s life hell. So the good guy channels his energy and ingenuity to get rid of the villain, growing as a person in the process. That’s essentially the hero’s journey Joseph Campbell made such a wonderful contribution mining and explaining.
Almost every thriller or action story fits into that mold, from Stephen King to Tom Clancy to Agatha Christie. By the end, typically the good guy has captured or killed the bad guy, and order is restored to his world. Until the bad guy rebounds or a new one surfaces for the sequel, jumpstarting the nasty cycle all over. It’s what kept Harry Potter so busy in high school.
In a paranoid thriller, however, the good guy — usually an Average Joe — doesn’t know if there’s a bad guy or not. In fact, the good guy doesn’t even realize he’s IN a thriller. Childlike, he (or she) innocently pursues his life and dreams, with the increasing and unnerving and ultimately horrifying suspicion that someone means him great harm. Hence, the paranoia. As mystery expert Otto Penzler puts it in his foreword to Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying: “They are essentially decent people caught up in a world not of their creation –– aliens in a terrifying environment without a map or compass...this terror is dramatically magnified when it involves people who did nothing deliberately to find themselves in positions of jeopardy.”
Alfred Hitchcock, Cornell Woolrich, and, more recently, Ira Levin were all masters of this genre. It’s a rare one, but pierces deep when done well. Think The Man Who Knew Too Much, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and, most pointedly, Rosemary’s Baby.
Often in a paranoid thriller, the good guy is his own bad guy. The escape hatch is typically wide open for a big chunk of the story; if only he’d walk through it, he’d be free and safe. We the audience know this, and scream for him to run, but he doesn’t. This is also known as “dramatic irony” –– a situation understood by the reader or audience but not grasped by the characters. This can drive the reader mad, in a fun way. It’s what makes the story tick and terrify and, hopefully, keeps the pages turning.
At some point, usually late in the story and following a cascading series of very unfortunate events, the good guy snaps out of his denial and realizes his world is on fire. So insistent he’s been going on living a normal, happy life, he’s paid attention to all the wrong things, and now he’s surrounded by extremely malevolent forces, closing in fast. By this point, however, the escape hatch is closed, and he’s trapped, cornered, sucked down into the whirlpool without a paddle, whatever metaphor you like. He’s in big trouble.
Denial is the lynchpin of the paranoid thriller, and it usually costs the hero dearly.
As if that weren’t trouble enough, as the story unfolds and the noose tightens, the good guy’s final horror is that what he fears is happening is not nearly as ghastly as what is really happening. In his optimistic hope for the best, he grossly underestimates the evil that engulfs him. That gives the paranoid thriller its ultimate nightmarish charge.
In a paranoid thriller, the good guy doesn’t go looking for trouble. It finds him, sneaks up, and surrounds him. His last-gasp attempt to free himself is what hurls us toward the climax.
It’s a messy business, this paranoid thriller stuff. But when plotted right, when the clues drop correctly and the danger crests on cue, the horror overwhelms and gives us a visceral battle of good and evil.
This is what I’ve tried to accomplish with S'wanee
Happy reading! And remember: Only the paranoid will survive…
Don Winston grew up in Nashville and graduated from Princeton University. After a stint at Ralph Lauren headquarters in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to work in entertainment as an actor, writer, and producer. S'wanee: A Paranoid Thriller was his debut novel and hit #3 in Kindle Suspense Fiction, followed by his second novel The Union Club: A Subversive Thriller. His new thriller The Gristmill Playhouse: A Nightmare in Three Acts
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It / Jodie Renner
There are two steps to writing the killer story. One is letting it flow. The other is assessing it critically. I’ve found many writers stop at the end of the first step. So what does a writer do if she wants to make sure each scene in a written story does what it was intended to do? Lucky for us, we don’t have to look any further than author/editor Jodie Renner’s checklist on post-writing evaluation. It’s a prompt and reminder you can even print and keep beside your keyboard.
Have your own checklist? Contact us and let us know your writing process.
Write, polish, repeat. For me, that’s the secret and Jodie helps us hit that one straight on.
Happy Reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It
By Jodie Renner
Once you’ve got the first draft of your short story or novel down, it’s time to go back and reassess each scene to make sure the characters are engaging and the scene is as compelling as it can be.
Besides advancing the storyline, every scene should:
Reveal and deepen characters and their relationships;
Show setting details;
Provide any necessary background info (in a natural way, organic to the story);
Add tension and conflict;
Hint at dangers and intrigue to come;
Enhance the overall tone and mood of your story.
Remember that every scene needs conflict and a change.
To bring your characters and story to life, heighten reader engagement, and pick up the pace, try to make your scenes do double or even triple duty – but subtly is almost always best.
For example, a scene with dialogue should have several layers, including:
The words being spoken;
The character’s real thoughts, opinions, emotions, and intentions;
The other speaker’s tone, word choice, attitude, body language, and facial expressions;
The outward actions, reactions, and attitudes of both.
Here are eight key ways you can intensify your writing and enhance the experience for readers:
1) When introducing characters, remember to show, rather than tell.
Reveal characters’ personalities, motives, goals, fears, and modus operandi not by telling the readers about them or their background, but by their actions, reactions, words, body language, facial expressions, tone, and attitude. Additionally, for a viewpoint character, show their thoughts, emotions, inner reactions, and physical sensations. Show characters’ reactions to each other, then let the readers draw their own conclusions about the players and their true intentions.
2)Use attitude when describing setting and characters.
Enhance your descriptions of the setting and other characters by filtering them through the observations, opinions, mood, attitude, and reactions of the viewpoint (observing) character for the scene. That way we’re not only witness to the most significant aspects of the surroundings and other characters, we also learn more about the POV character’s personality, tastes, preferences, and goals, and his agenda for the scene.
3) Show character sensations and reactions.
Bring the scene and character alive by showing us not only what the character is seeing, but also what she’s hearing, smelling, touching (and physical sensations like heat and cold), and even, where appropriate, tasting. Also, show sexual tension between love interests by revealing heightened sensory perceptions and physical reactions.
4) Reveal contradictory feelings.
To heighten tension and reader engagement, be sure to show the inner reactions and often-conflicted feelings of your point-of-view character. If your story isn’t in first person, use close third-person POV to show inner conflict, fears, objections, and doubts, and to illustrate how their true feelings contrast with their words and outward reactions. Increase conflict and tension between characters by showing opposing goals and values through dialogue, body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.
5) Show subtext during dialogue.
A couple might be discussing something trivial or arguing about something minor, when inside, one or both are angry or resentful about deeper problems. You can hint at their real feelings by showing inner thought-reactions like As if, or Give me a break, or You wish, or In your dreams, or Yeah? Since when? Or use body language such as running hands through hair, brows furrowed, teeth clenching, or hands forming a fist, or inner sensations, such as tightening of the stomach, shortness of breath, or cold skin.
6) Make dialogue do double duty.
Dialogue should not only convey information, but also reveal character and personality and advance the storyline. Dialogue action tags like “He rubbed his eyes,” or “She paced the floor,” which can replace “he said” and “she said,” tell us both who’s speaking and what they’re doing, as well as often providing info on how they’re feeling and reacting. For example:
Chris stood up and ran his hand through his hair. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Jesse set his coffee down, determined to stay calm. “Hey, man, relax. I told you about it last week. Don’t you remember?”
7) Drop hints, but hold back information to foreshadow and add intrigue.
Introduce suspense or heighten anticipation through the use of hints and innuendos or snippets/fragments of critical information. These are especially effective when alluding briefly to your protagonist’s secrets, shames, regrets, or troubled childhood. Show brief flashbacks to reveal character secrets, regrets, and fears, little by little.
8) Stay out of the story.
Don’t interrupt the story as the author to explain, describe, clarify, reveal, or emphasize points to the readers. That’s heavy-handed, clunky, and intrusive. Stay behind the scenes and let the characters live the story. Keep even the narration in the POV character’s voice, rather than a neutral, authorial voice.
For more details on all of these points, with examples, see my books, Fire up Your Fiction and Captivate Your Readers.
Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series “Fire up Your Fiction: An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Stories”, “Writing a Killer Thriller: An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction”, and “Captivate Your Readers: An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction”. She has also published two clickable timesaving e-resources to date: “Quick Clicks: Spelling List” and “Quick Clicks: Word Usage”. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, at The Kill Zone blog alternate Mondays, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It / Jodie Renner
There are two steps to writing the killer story. One is letting it flow. The other is assessing it critically. I’ve found many writers stop at the end of the first step. So what does a writer do if she wants to make sure each scene in a written story does what it was intended to do? Lucky for us, we don’t have to look any further than author/editor Jodie Renner’s checklist on post-writing evaluation. It’s a prompt and reminder you can even print and keep beside your keyboard.Have your own checklist? Contact us and let us know your writing process.Write, polish, repeat. For me, that’s the secret and Jodie helps us hit that one straight on.Happy Reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It
By Jodie Renner
Once you’ve got the first draft of your short story or novel down, it’s time to go back and reassess each scene to make sure the characters are engaging and the scene is as compelling as it can be.
Besides advancing the storyline, every scene should:
- Reveal and deepen characters and their relationships;
- Show setting details;
- Provide any necessary background info (in a natural way, organic to the story);
- Add tension and conflict;
- Hint at dangers and intrigue to come;
- Enhance the overall tone and mood of your story.
Remember that every scene needs conflict and a change.
To bring your characters and story to life, heighten reader engagement, and pick up the pace, try to make your scenes do double or even triple duty – but subtly is almost always best.
For example, a scene with dialogue should have several layers, including:
- The words being spoken;
- The character’s real thoughts, opinions, emotions, and intentions;
- The other speaker’s tone, word choice, attitude, body language, and facial expressions;
- The outward actions, reactions, and attitudes of both.
Here are eight key ways you can intensify your writing and enhance the experience for readers:
- When introducing characters, remember to show, rather than tell.
Reveal characters’ personalities, motives, goals, fears, and modus operandi not by telling the readers about them or their background, but by their actions, reactions, words, body language, facial expressions, tone, and attitude. Additionally, for a viewpoint character, show their thoughts, emotions, inner reactions, and physical sensations. Show characters’ reactions to each other, then let the readers draw their own conclusions about the players and their true intentions.
- Use attitude when describing setting and characters.
Enhance your descriptions of the setting and other characters by filtering them through the observations, opinions, mood, attitude, and reactions of the viewpoint (observing) character for the scene. That way we’re not only witness to the most significant aspects of the surroundings and other characters, we also learn more about the POV character’s personality, tastes, preferences, and goals, and his agenda for the scene.
- Show character sensations and reactions.
Bring the scene and character alive by showing us not only what the character is seeing, but also what she’s hearing, smelling, touching (and physical sensations like heat and cold), and even, where appropriate, tasting. Also, show sexual tension between love interests by revealing heightened sensory perceptions and physical reactions.
-
Reveal contradictory feelings.
To heighten tension and reader engagement, be sure to show the inner reactions and often-conflicted feelings of your point-of-view character. If your story isn’t in first person, use close third-person POV to show inner conflict, fears, objections, and doubts, and to illustrate how their true feelings contrast with their words and outward reactions. Increase conflict and tension between characters by showing opposing goals and values through dialogue, body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.
- Show subtext during dialogue.
A couple might be discussing something trivial or arguing about something minor, when inside, one or both are angry or resentful about deeper problems. You can hint at their real feelings by showing inner thought-reactions like As if, or Give me a break, or You wish, or In your dreams, or Yeah? Since when? Or use body language such as running hands through hair, brows furrowed, teeth clenching, or hands forming a fist, or inner sensations, such as tightening of the stomach, shortness of breath, or cold skin.
- Make dialogue do double duty.
Dialogue should not only convey information, but also reveal character and personality and advance the storyline. Dialogue action tags like “He rubbed his eyes,” or “She paced the floor,” which can replace “he said” and “she said,” tell us both who’s speaking and what they’re doing, as well as often providing info on how they’re feeling and reacting. For example:
Chris stood up and ran his hand through his hair. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Jesse set his coffee down, determined to stay calm. “Hey, man, relax. I told you about it last week. Don’t you remember?”
- Drop hints, but hold back information to foreshadow and add intrigue.
Introduce suspense or heighten anticipation through the use of hints and innuendos or snippets/fragments of critical information. These are especially effective when alluding briefly to your protagonist’s secrets, shames, regrets, or troubled childhood. Show brief flashbacks to reveal character secrets, regrets, and fears, little by little.
- Stay out of the story.
Don’t interrupt the story as the author to explain, describe, clarify, reveal, or emphasize points to the readers. That’s heavy-handed, clunky, and intrusive. Stay behind the scenes and let the characters live the story. Keep even the narration in the POV character’s voice, rather than a neutral, authorial voice.
For more details on all of these points, with examples, see my books, Fire up Your Fiction and Captivate Your Readers.
Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series “Fire up Your Fiction: An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Stories
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It / Jodie Renner
There are two steps to writing the killer story. One is letting it flow. The other is assessing it critically. I’ve found many writers stop at the end of the first step. So what does a writer do if she wants to make sure each scene in a written story does what it was intended to do? Lucky for us, we don’t have to look any further than author/editor Jodie Renner’s checklist on post-writing evaluation. It’s a prompt and reminder you can even print and keep beside your keyboard.Have your own checklist? Contact us and let us know your writing process.Write, polish, repeat. For me, that’s the secret and Jodie helps us hit that one straight on.Happy Reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
A Checklist to Evaluate Your Story After You’ve Written It
By Jodie Renner
Once you’ve got the first draft of your short story or novel down, it’s time to go back and reassess each scene to make sure the characters are engaging and the scene is as compelling as it can be.
Besides advancing the storyline, every scene should:
- Reveal and deepen characters and their relationships;
- Show setting details;
- Provide any necessary background info (in a natural way, organic to the story);
- Add tension and conflict;
- Hint at dangers and intrigue to come;
- Enhance the overall tone and mood of your story.
Remember that every scene needs conflict and a change.
To bring your characters and story to life, heighten reader engagement, and pick up the pace, try to make your scenes do double or even triple duty – but subtly is almost always best.
For example, a scene with dialogue should have several layers, including:
- The words being spoken;
- The character’s real thoughts, opinions, emotions, and intentions;
- The other speaker’s tone, word choice, attitude, body language, and facial expressions;
- The outward actions, reactions, and attitudes of both.
Here are eight key ways you can intensify your writing and enhance the experience for readers:
- When introducing characters, remember to show, rather than tell.
Reveal characters’ personalities, motives, goals, fears, and modus operandi not by telling the readers about them or their background, but by their actions, reactions, words, body language, facial expressions, tone, and attitude. Additionally, for a viewpoint character, show their thoughts, emotions, inner reactions, and physical sensations. Show characters’ reactions to each other, then let the readers draw their own conclusions about the players and their true intentions.
- Use attitude when describing setting and characters.
Enhance your descriptions of the setting and other characters by filtering them through the observations, opinions, mood, attitude, and reactions of the viewpoint (observing) character for the scene. That way we’re not only witness to the most significant aspects of the surroundings and other characters, we also learn more about the POV character’s personality, tastes, preferences, and goals, and his agenda for the scene.
- Show character sensations and reactions.
Bring the scene and character alive by showing us not only what the character is seeing, but also what she’s hearing, smelling, touching (and physical sensations like heat and cold), and even, where appropriate, tasting. Also, show sexual tension between love interests by revealing heightened sensory perceptions and physical reactions.
-
Reveal contradictory feelings.
To heighten tension and reader engagement, be sure to show the inner reactions and often-conflicted feelings of your point-of-view character. If your story isn’t in first person, use close third-person POV to show inner conflict, fears, objections, and doubts, and to illustrate how their true feelings contrast with their words and outward reactions. Increase conflict and tension between characters by showing opposing goals and values through dialogue, body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.
- Show subtext during dialogue.
A couple might be discussing something trivial or arguing about something minor, when inside, one or both are angry or resentful about deeper problems. You can hint at their real feelings by showing inner thought-reactions like As if, or Give me a break, or You wish, or In your dreams, or Yeah? Since when? Or use body language such as running hands through hair, brows furrowed, teeth clenching, or hands forming a fist, or inner sensations, such as tightening of the stomach, shortness of breath, or cold skin.
- Make dialogue do double duty.
Dialogue should not only convey information, but also reveal character and personality and advance the storyline. Dialogue action tags like “He rubbed his eyes,” or “She paced the floor,” which can replace “he said” and “she said,” tell us both who’s speaking and what they’re doing, as well as often providing info on how they’re feeling and reacting. For example:
Chris stood up and ran his hand through his hair. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Jesse set his coffee down, determined to stay calm. “Hey, man, relax. I told you about it last week. Don’t you remember?”
- Drop hints, but hold back information to foreshadow and add intrigue.
Introduce suspense or heighten anticipation through the use of hints and innuendos or snippets/fragments of critical information. These are especially effective when alluding briefly to your protagonist’s secrets, shames, regrets, or troubled childhood. Show brief flashbacks to reveal character secrets, regrets, and fears, little by little.
- Stay out of the story.
Don’t interrupt the story as the author to explain, describe, clarify, reveal, or emphasize points to the readers. That’s heavy-handed, clunky, and intrusive. Stay behind the scenes and let the characters live the story. Keep even the narration in the POV character’s voice, rather than a neutral, authorial voice.
For more details on all of these points, with examples, see my books, Fire up Your Fiction and Captivate Your Readers.
Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series “Fire up Your Fiction: An Editor's Guide to Writing Compelling Stories
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
How to Read a Critique without Crying / Suzanne Webb Brunson
Criticism is meant to help you grow as a writer. But sometimes emotional attachment and fear can stand in the way. In this week’s blog, author Suzanne Webb Brunson gets to the heart of what it means to trust those giving the criticism, the best ways to deliver, and how to check that ego at the door.
Until next week, write with your heart, critique someone else as though they were you, and read like someone is burning the books!
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Read a Critique without Crying
By Suzanne Webb Brunson
A notable moment for me, a would-be author, occurred once at a writing seminar. A publishing professional asked students to write a scene. We all turned in our one-page submissions. I recognized my notebook paper as the group leader looked at it, she shook her head, and dropped it onto the desk behind her. She could have been suffering a migraine, but I was too busy thinking the worst, and working on my own death by humiliation. I learned nothing.
It was an innocuous moment that occurred at a time when I was beginning to feel some self-confidence. I am a former newspaper editor and reporter. I’ve written for everything from a daily newspaper to a church bulletin. I’ve had good experiences. This was one subjective moment.
Why would I throw my hand over my forehead and want to weep uncontrollably over a piece of paper? The worst thing you can say to a reporter-turned-author is that you are a hack. You can’t cut it. I had been praised by people I trusted, but let this one person defeat me with a casual gesture.
Was this a wasted opportunity, or the foreshadowing of my literary career? It took some thinking, some self-evaluation and I finally understood how personal it becomes when you share your thoughts and your writing style with strangers. I’d done it for years as a reporter, but now I was creating the story. Psychologically, there was a vast difference. I had to learn the basics and gained something else — a savvy critique group.
How do you give and receive a credible critique? Some people are diplomats who know how to give constructive criticism. They are tactful. Others are straightforward and candid. A three star sentence is high praise in my group.
A few basics evolved as we became more familiar. There are devices that work for us. We critique with Microsoft Word. The ‘Review’ section on the toolbar includes a yellow folder marked ‘new comment.’ That feature is golden. Those word balloons can break or bolster a person’s spirit. Others print the double-spaced submission and critique with a pencil.
We know that the The Chicago Manual of Style and The Elements of Style are essential. When the guideline basics are mastered, you write faster and concentrate on your storyline. You will learn how to point out errors or suggest improvements. You can proof a submission, but talk about the editorial content.
Recently, I began reading a huge piece of historical fiction about New York City. I’m puttering along, underlining, and stopped. The words written by this New York Times bestselling author were similar to what I put on that sheet of notebook paper. It was better than what I submitted, but I was on the right track. My experience, seeing similar words, cleared the fog.
While we know there are no new ideas, there are new ways to write. The recent lawsuit by the family of the late Marvin Gaye illustrates something we have talked about in critique. We tend to use the same phrases we read in someone else’s work. We try to go with the attitude that it is flattering and if not brazen copying, just move along.
Storylines can be similar to things we read a decade ago, but if it is your story, it’s not necessarily theft. It is a fine line and one of the things that should be addressed by a group. You write what you know, including what you read two weeks ago and critiqued. We follow fashion. We choose certain car models. Copying is the sincerest form of flattery, unless it costs someone $7.5 million in royalties. Is it plagiarism or is it first amendment writing? Write it better and clear the boards.
I have learned something new at every critique meeting. One person in eight sees one thing no one else finds. You can’t have too many eyes on your copy. Several members have told me repeatedly that they look at all the suggestions on their submission and then use what they think is best. Trust yourself. There is no one else like you. You are learning.
Look at all those setbacks as your future material. If you are fast and prolific, Godspeed. If you aren’t, take that cleansing breath. It is business, but your words are personal. They are yours alone, your gift. Close your eyes. Dream.
Then, play nice.
Suzanne Webb Brunson, a native of Maryland, has lived in New Jersey, Georgia and Tennessee, where she has learned about country stores, local politics, and strawberry festivals. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she earned a journalism degree from the University of Georgia. Widowed with two young children, she became a freelance writer for newspapers, magazines, and other news outlets. She is now writing short stories and a novel. These things she can control with the luxury of imagination. Her latest short stories will appear in a family anthology to be published this summer by Troy D. Smith of Cane Hollow Press. Her writing has also appeared in the anthology, "Gathering: Writers of Williamson County", and the online e-zine, Muscadine Lines, A Southern Journal. Visit her website at http://suzannewebbbrunson.homestead.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
How to Read a Critique without Crying / Suzanne Webb Brunson
Criticism is meant to help you grow as a writer. But sometimes emotional attachment and fear can stand in the way. In this week’s blog, author Suzanne Webb Brunson gets to the heart of what it means to trust those giving the criticism, the best ways to deliver, and how to check that ego at the door.Until next week, write with your heart, critique someone else as though they were you, and read like someone is burning the books!Happy reading!Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Read a Critique without Crying
By Suzanne Webb Brunson
A notable moment for me, a would-be author, occurred once at a writing seminar. A publishing professional asked students to write a scene. We all turned in our one-page submissions. I recognized my notebook paper as the group leader looked at it, she shook her head, and dropped it onto the desk behind her. She could have been suffering a migraine, but I was too busy thinking the worst, and working on my own death by humiliation. I learned nothing.
It was an innocuous moment that occurred at a time when I was beginning to feel some self-confidence. I am a former newspaper editor and reporter. I’ve written for everything from a daily newspaper to a church bulletin. I’ve had good experiences. This was one subjective moment.
Why would I throw my hand over my forehead and want to weep uncontrollably over a piece of paper? The worst thing you can say to a reporter-turned-author is that you are a hack. You can’t cut it. I had been praised by people I trusted, but let this one person defeat me with a casual gesture.
Was this a wasted opportunity, or the foreshadowing of my literary career? It took some thinking, some self-evaluation and I finally understood how personal it becomes when you share your thoughts and your writing style with strangers. I’d done it for years as a reporter, but now I was creating the story. Psychologically, there was a vast difference. I had to learn the basics and gained something else — a savvy critique group.
How do you give and receive a credible critique? Some people are diplomats who know how to give constructive criticism. They are tactful. Others are straightforward and candid. A three star sentence is high praise in my group.
A few basics evolved as we became more familiar. There are devices that work for us. We critique with Microsoft Word. The ‘Review’ section on the toolbar includes a yellow folder marked ‘new comment.’ That feature is golden. Those word balloons can break or bolster a person’s spirit. Others print the double-spaced submission and critique with a pencil.
We know that the The Chicago Manual of Style
Recently, I began reading a huge piece of historical fiction about New York City. I’m puttering along, underlining, and stopped. The words written by this New York Times bestselling author were similar to what I put on that sheet of notebook paper. It was better than what I submitted, but I was on the right track. My experience, seeing similar words, cleared the fog.
While we know there are no new ideas, there are new ways to write. The recent lawsuit by the family of the late Marvin Gaye illustrates something we have talked about in critique. We tend to use the same phrases we read in someone else’s work. We try to go with the attitude that it is flattering and if not brazen copying, just move along.
Storylines can be similar to things we read a decade ago, but if it is your story, it’s not necessarily theft. It is a fine line and one of the things that should be addressed by a group. You write what you know, including what you read two weeks ago and critiqued. We follow fashion. We choose certain car models. Copying is the sincerest form of flattery, unless it costs someone $7.5 million in royalties. Is it plagiarism or is it first amendment writing? Write it better and clear the boards.
I have learned something new at every critique meeting. One person in eight sees one thing no one else finds. You can’t have too many eyes on your copy. Several members have told me repeatedly that they look at all the suggestions on their submission and then use what they think is best. Trust yourself. There is no one else like you. You are learning.
Look at all those setbacks as your future material. If you are fast and prolific, Godspeed. If you aren’t, take that cleansing breath. It is business, but your words are personal. They are yours alone, your gift. Close your eyes. Dream.
Then, play nice.
Suzanne Webb Brunson, a native of Maryland, has lived in New Jersey, Georgia and Tennessee, where she has learned about country stores, local politics, and strawberry festivals. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she earned a journalism degree from the University of Georgia. Widowed with two young children, she became a freelance writer for newspapers, magazines, and other news outlets. She is now writing short stories and a novel. These things she can control with the luxury of imagination. Her latest short stories will appear in a family anthology to be published this summer by Troy D. Smith of Cane Hollow Press. Her writing has also appeared in the anthology, "Gathering: Writers of Williamson County"
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
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