Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: What Does Your Character Want?

August 9, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The most compelling characters are those who want something desperately and who will do anything to get it, which is why Scarlett O’Hara is such a perennially popular character. Frankly, my dear, I find her a bit over the top—selfish and greedy and way too egocentric. Still, her wanting does make for a compelling character.

At its most basic, a story is about want. The main character wants something, and someone or something is preventing her from getting it. The want can be as simple as a good night’s sleep, as personal as a lover, or as complicated as world peace. In the end, the character gets what she wants or she doesn’t get it. Sometimes she gets what she needs, which is just as satisfying for the reader because such an ending gives a story a sense of rightness, of poetic justice.

BOB STARK, the point-of-view character of More Deaths Than One, wants serenity, though what he gets are nightmares, both the sleeping and the waking kind. Debilitated by headaches, he doesn’t have the energy to discover the truth, but Kerry, a young woman he meets in a coffee shop, goads him into it. When Kerry is threatened, though, he becomes what he needs to be to keep her safe.

A Spark of Heavenly Fire has four point-of-view characters, all of whom want something.

All KATE CUMMINGS wants is a good night’s sleep.

Her husband, a semi-invalid, committed suicide thirteen months ago. Many times during the years of his illness she could have treated him a little better than she did, and she is haunted by her own mean spirit.

wantThen the red death descends on Colorado, the entire state is quarantined, and martial law is declared. As a patient’s advocate and an insomniac, forty-two-year-old Kate sees more than her share of the horror. People with bright red eyes spewing blood, then falling down—dead. Tanks and trigger-happy troops patrolling the streets. Men in biohazard suits throwing bodies into the back of delivery vans.

Now she wants not to be afraid.

All JEREMY KING wants is to leave Colorado.

He has everything. Two Oscars for best actor. A vast Montana ranch. Wife, son, daughter. He also looks better now, at fifty-eight, than he did when he was young.

Having grown up poor in Grand Junction, he hates Colorado, and only came to Denver to finish a film. As soon as the director yells cut, he’s in his rented Lexus on his way to the private airfield where his jet is supposed to be ready for take-off. It isn’t. Instead, armed National Guardsmen inform him that airspace is restricted. Furious that he’s being treated like one of the peasants, he decides to drive home, but the mountain highway is clogged with a thousand cars going nowhere. He returns to Denver, determined to leave Colorado if it’s the last thing he ever does.

All GREG PULLMAN wants is to know the truth.

Since childhood he’s been consumed with the need to know why creatures act the way they do. It is no different with the red death.

After discovering that the disease is a bio-engineered organism, he tries to find out who would develop such a thing, and why. He learns that despite the ban on bio-warfare experimentation, all over the world deadly organisms are being produced and stockpiled. Bubonic plague. West Nile fever. Green monkey virus. Combinations such as smallpox with Ebola and encephalitis.

Burdened by the awful truth, he turns to his friend Kate for comfort, and finds he wants her, though he is engaged to Pippi O’Brien.

All PIPPI O’BRIEN wants is . . . well, she doesn’t know what she wants.

After college, she wanted a job at a New York television station, but accepted a position as weathergirl in Denver. Now, at thirty, she wants to marry handsome Greg Pullman, but when he takes the hint and proposes, she says she’ll think about it. A few days later, deciding she does love him after all, she says yes. While waiting in a bar for him that very evening, she meets Jeremy King. Feeling the full force of his personality, she leaves with him, forgetting about Greg. Now she has a new dream: lovely consort to the charismatic King.

She is signing autographs with Jeremy on a downtown street when UN soldiers arrive, level their weapons at the assembled fans, and order everyone to drop to the ground. Fighting back the urge to scream, she obeys. Those who don’t obey are immediately gunned down.

Now all she wants is to accompany Jeremy on his quest to escape from Colorado.

So, that’s what the characters of More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire want. What do your characters want? What do they need? And in the end, do they get what they want, or do they get what they need?

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100th book released by Second Wind.

“As someone who constantly evaluates novels for publication, I was astonished at the breadth and clarity of the wonderful advice contained in this handbook. It addresses concerns as grand as plot development and as simple but essential as formatting your submission. It offers crucial advice on literary topics ranging from character development to the description of action. Virtually every subject that is of great concern to publishers — and therefore to authors — is covered in this clear, humorous and enormously useful guide.” –Mike Simpson, Chief Editor of Second Wind Publishing

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in How to, writing. Tags: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Names Matter

August 8, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Scarlett O’Hara was originally called Pansy. If Margaret Mitchell had kept that name, would her epic novel ever have become so popular? A character with the name of Pansy could be sweet and biddable with rare moments of stubbornness, but since “Pansy” lacks the harsh consonants of “Scarlett,” the name doesn’t sound as if it belongs to an iron-willed character who could catch and keep the attention of such a worldly man as Rhett Butler.

ThUncertaintyough Scarlett fits the name of the character in Gone with the Wind, it could not be the name of a medieval heroine. In those days, the most popular name was Mary, with Elizabeth coming in a distant second. I suppose if Gone with the Wind were written in the 1980s, Scarlett’s name would have been Heather. Odd to think that in another forty years, youth will scorn that name as being old-fashioned, fit only for elderly women, like the name Effie is today.

I had fun naming my aged gangsters in Daughter Am I. In keeping with the times of their youth—bootlegger times, that is—I gave them nicknames that matched their characters. I called my wise old conman “Teach,” my dapper little forger “Kid Rags,” my ex-wrestler “Crunchy.”

And then there’s my hero, poor Mary. She starts out so young and innocent, and ends up on a road trip with six feisty old gangsters and one ex-nightclub dancer. I had not intended for her to keep the name Mary. It’s so not the name of a heroine of today! Nor is my Mary a medieval maiden. I named the character Mary Stuart after Mary Stuart Masterson in the film Bed of Roses because both Marys were strong but vulnerable when it came to love, both were very smart yet a bit naive. I never did change my Mary’s name. By the time I finished the book, the character and the name were inextricably entwined. At least it’s fairly innocuous. Like Margaret Mitchell, I could have named my heroine Pansy. Ouch.

***

This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100th book released by Second Wind.

“As someone who constantly evaluates novels for publication, I was astonished at the breadth and clarity of the wonderful advice contained in this handbook. It addresses concerns as grand as plot development and as simple but essential as formatting your submission. It offers crucial advice on literary topics ranging from character development to the description of action. Virtually every subject that is of great concern to publishers — and therefore to authors — is covered in this clear, humorous and enormously useful guide.” –Mike Simpson, Chief Editor of Second Wind Publishing

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Gender

August 7, 2013 — Pat Bertram

To create a character, we begin with gender. If your character is of the opposite gender than yours, make sure you know how the other half thinks, feels, and speaks, otherwise your character might seem more of a caricature than a real person.

There are basic differences between the genders. For example, women have better peripheral vision, so while both men and women ogle each other with the same frequency, men are caught gazing more often than women are.

Brain scans show that women have between fourteen and sixteen areas that evaluate others’ behavior, while men have only four to six. Because of this, women are better at juggling several unrelated topics in a single conversation. They also genderuse five vocal tones to make their points. Since men can only identify three of those tones, they often miss what women are trying to say. So men accuse women of not being direct and women accuse men of not listening.

Women ask questions to show interest in the person; men ask questions to gain information. Women find that talking about a problem provides relief; men feel that talking about a problem is dwelling on the negative. Women think that continuing to discuss the problem demonstrates support; men want to make a decision and forget it. Women provide peripheral details because they want to be understood; men just want them to make their point. Women think that talking about a relationship brings people closer; men generally think it’s useless.

There is a wide spectrum of both male and female behavior, though, so you can write a character however you wish as long as you can make it work.

You make it work by ensuring there is a reason—a motivation—for your characters behavior. We learn much about characters from their actions, but what the character does is not the defining element. The defining element is why the character does what he does. Characters can do anything, though the actions must be psychologically true and consistent. A character who is cowardly but does not hesitant to rescue someone from danger without any reference to fear or a believable reason for the action is not a well-written character.

When it comes to storytelling, character is all. The characters and plot (what the characters do and why) should be so intertwined that we never see them as separate.

***

This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100th book released by Second Wind.

“As someone who constantly evaluates novels for publication, I was astonished at the breadth and clarity of the wonderful advice contained in this handbook. It addresses concerns as grand as plot development and as simple but essential as formatting your submission. It offers crucial advice on literary topics ranging from character development to the description of action. Virtually every subject that is of great concern to publishers — and therefore to authors — is covered in this clear, humorous and enormously useful guide.” –Mike Simpson, Chief Editor of Second Wind Publishing

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Resist the Urge to Explain

August 6, 2013 — Pat Bertram

People often tell me they feel they know my characters, as if my story people were a part of their lives, which is always wonderful to hear. It means I did my job. And it means the readers did their job. Incredible but credible characters are a combined effort. Characters are conceived in the author’s imagination, but they come alive in readers’ imaginations.

A character’s story begins with a gleam in her parents’ eye and ends with her death. The story we telistenll is but a fraction of that life, and where we choose to begin and where we, the writer, choose to end defines the story. If we begin with a crime and end with a resolution of that crime, we have a mystery. If we begin with a girl meeting a boy or a woman meeting a man and end with happily ever after, we have a romance. If we chronicle the rise and fall of the character’s fortunes, we could have a tragedy, a family drama or any number of stories.

The illusion of a well-told story is such that, whatever the genre, by the end of the book readers know the character as well as they know themselves and their friends. Readers know, or think they know, everything in the character’s life that brought her to crisis and how everything in the character’s life will work out after the story problem is resolved. By giving readers the essence of the character, we give them the means to continue the character’s story long after the book has come to an end.

How do we work this sleight of hand? By showing the character in action and in relationships. By defining the character through decisions in moments of crisis.

In the prologue of Light Bringer, Helen comes home from working a double shift at the hospital to find a baby on her doorstep. She shows her nurturing characteristics by taking care of the child, Rena. She shows the beginning of a metamorphosis from staid nurse to loving mother by putting off calling the authorities so she can enjoy the child bit longer. But what really defines her is how she acts in a moment of crisis. Rena, a magical child, or at least a precocious one, tells Helen they have to leave, that her invisible playmate says “they” are after Rena and when they find her, they will kill Helen. Helen doesn’t hesitate. She packs up her car and her life and escapes with the baby.

Helen’s decision defines not only her own character, but also the character of the baby, the character of the invisible playmate, and perhaps even the story itself. It is through such defining moments that we can create a character so real readers believe they know more about the character than was ever actually written.

In older novels, especially the classics, authors wrote page after page of character description, telling us who their characters are. Those authors dissected their characters’ motivations, told us their every thought, explained every feeling. Today’s readers, myself included, have no patience for such long drawn-out static passages. We want to get right into the heart of the story. We want to learn who the character is by what she does, who she knows, and how she acts and reacts.

Showing, not telling, is a basic axiom of writing for today’s market, but it is often hard to resist the urge to explain since you know far more about your characters than you can or should put in your novel. Still, by restraining yourself and letting readers be part of the creation process, letting them find their own explanations for what your characters do, you give them a stake in the characters and the story. And so your characters come alive.

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100th book released by Second Wind.

“As someone who constantly evaluates novels for publication, I was astonished at the breadth and clarity of the wonderful advice contained in this handbook. It addresses concerns as grand as plot development and as simple but essential as formatting your submission. It offers crucial advice on literary topics ranging from character development to the description of action. Virtually every subject that is of great concern to publishers — and therefore to authors — is covered in this clear, humorous and enormously useful guide.” –Mike Simpson, Chief Editor of Second Wind Publishing

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 7 Comments »

How To Describe a Person Who is Drowning

June 14, 2013 — Pat Bertram

In almost all movies I have ever seen or books I have ever read where a person is supposedly drowning, there is lots of thrashing around, calling and waving for help, and other panicky behavior, but the truth is completely different from what we’d expect.

In the Fall 2006 issue of On Scene: The Journal of U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue, Aviation Survival Technician First Class Mario Vittone and Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D explain how to recognize the instinctive drowning response:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary, or overlaid, function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs. 2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The moutpuget soundhs of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.

3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.

4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

Yikes. Makes me glad I’m not a lifeguard or someone who writes books with drowning victims since it would be hard to recognize such stillness as someone in distress. (Makes me even gladder I have a healthy fear of deep water.) Still, if I ever had to write about someone who is drowning, I know how to do write the scene. Hmmm. Maybe a short story someday. After all, I’ve already done the research! Or rather, Francesco Pia did.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in How to, life, writing. Tags: , , , . 9 Comments »

What to Do When You’ve Finished Writing Your Book

June 7, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Someone asked me what to do once they have completed their book and gone over it and fixed everything that needed to be fixed.

The first thing you do is celebrate. You’ve accomplished something wonderful!

After that, what I suggest (and what I do) is let the book lie fallow for six weeks or so, then go over it one more time, looking at every single sentence, every bit of dialogue, checking to make sure each is important to the story and are the very best sentences possible. This is especially important with dialogue. In real life, we often can’t think of the perfect thing to say until the opportunity is long past, but ochampagneur characters don’t have to be so tongue-tied. We have hours — days — to come up with the perfect response for them to make.

Since you’ve spent so much time on the book, you know what you are trying to prove. For example, in a mystery, you are often trying to prove that someone is a killer, has a good motive, but deserves to get caught by your hero; in a romance, that the two main characters belong together. Go through the book and remove all stray commentary and side stories that do not show who your characters are and do not help prove whatever it is you are trying to prove.

If you are a first-time novelist, get rid of your first chapter. When people start out writing a book, they tell much about the characters at the beginning under the assumption that readers need all that information to understand the story. They don’t. I bet you will find that everything in the first chapter shows up later in the story when it’s important for the reader to have that particular bit. If not, you can always add a sentence or two at the proper moment. By deleting that first, probably redundant chapter, it puts readers right smack dab in the middle of the action and makes them a part of the story.

Next, even if you aren’t a first-time novelist, go through the book and get rid of your weakest scene. This will make your story tighter and more powerful.

Then read the story aloud, paying attention flow, bad grammar, typos, anything that makes you (or the person you are reading to if you managed to corner someone) pause or that pulls you out of the story. Make those changes.

Now you are ready to decide what you want to do. Self-publish? Find an agent? Submit to small independent presses? If you want to self-publish, sorry, I can’t help. I don’t have any interest in such matters, and so never bothered to figure out how to do it.

If you want to try for an agent or a publisher, learn how to write query letters. That’s your basic tool for getting them interested in your work. Then search for agents and publishers and pay attention to their requirements. Don’t send more (or less) than they ask. Preditors and Editors is a good place to start, as is Association of Authors’ Representatives.

When your book is published, however it happens, I bet you think you can finally relax now that the hard part is behind you. Wrong! Now the even harder part of promotion begins.

Best of luck, whatever you decide to do.

See also:

Grammar Guide for Self-Editing
Self-Editing — The List From Hell
How to Write a Query Letter
What Works When It Comes to Book Promotion?

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in fiction, How to, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

What to do When Grief Support Group Members Never Leave

June 5, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Two years ago, I Got Kicked Out Of My Grief Support Group. It’s been bugging me lately, thinking about how traumatic that whole situation was (the facilitator even told me if I ever came back, he’d call the cops. Sheesh.). But today I finally got my say. Not to him, of course — he’s long out of my life — but to another facilitator who found my blog and wanted to know if I had any Canadian Geesesuggestion about how to deal with a group when it turns social, when the members hang around for two to three years without moving beyond the group.

This is my response to her:

I am so glad you asked! I’ve had a lot of time to think about that group, how good it was for me and how badly it ended, and what an idiot that facilitator was. Truth be told, he was a preacher and not a grief counselor, and he had no experience with support groups, which makes the whole situation even more upsetting. He had no business running the group.

It was a small group. At the most, there were fourteen people, but generally only six to ten. Two old ladies who had been coming to the group for three years had no friends or resources and they came to be around people once a week. One of those women suffered a significant loss each of those three years, and so had every right to still come, regardless of the reason. The other old woman was gradually losing her hearing, her sight, her autonomy, all of which needed to be grieved. The rest of us ranged from one month to fourteen months into our grief. Yes, we bonded, and occasionally we went out to lunch together, but we weren’t a social group. We were there for one reason only. To find support with our own kind. There was no one else to talk to about our problems with grief.

I especially bonded with one of the newest widows who had lost her husband a year after I lost mine. Her experiences mirrored mine, and I knew what she was going through. I could see it in her thousand-yard stare. She would look to me for answers to her questions because she knew I had been there and could understand. The facilitator hated this. He’d read a couple of articles about the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, and tried to fit everything anyone said into that grief model, even though it wasn’t at all what this woman was experiencing. He hated that I had a different perspective than he did. (He was still married, often talked about how supportive his wife was, and didn’t have a clue that one of the things we were grieving was that lack of such support.) And he hated that I printed out my blogs that showed the new woman what I had been going through. As I said, he was ignorant of support groups and didn’t understand that it was the nature of a group for the “older” members to help the newer ones, to be co-moderators in a way. And seeing how the newly bereft are dealing with their grief helps the older ones see how far they have come. This is why it’s important to have everyone in all stages of grief to be in the same group rather than to separate them out into special groups.

If most of the people in your group have been there for two to three years, you do have a problem. If you have no new members, you can do what my group did — cancel it for three to four weeks while everyone searches their conscience to see if they still needed the group. If it is not feasible to cancel the group for a while because of newly bereft members, it would be better to talk to each person individually, asking how they are dealing with their stage of grief, ask them what they want from the group and how you can help them move beyond the group.

Or you can cancel the group for three to four weeks, but still continue with the newest members during that time, saying you need to give the newly bereft special attention. (The people who have been around a long time should respect that — they themselves had once been so bereft.)

The newly bereft should never be penalized by long-term members. Those first weeks and months are so horribly painful that sometimes the only way to survive is through the support of a group. They are the ones who need special consideration.

Other things you can try:

When new people come to the group, focus on the new people. Have each group member introduce themselves to the new person, tell them who they lost and how, and how long ago it’s been. Then have the new member tell his or her story. Focus on the new member. Let the new member talk as long as s/he wants while the others keep their mouths shut. They all had their opportunity to tell their stories.

Make the group more focused. Set up a specific question, and have people answer only that question, starting with the newly bereft. Making sure the newest people get their say first in case there is not enough time for everyone to talk. (You can get some sort of “cards” with topics and choose a separate topic each time.)

Set up the group like a grief-orientation class. When I first started with the group, it was set up as a ten-week class, each class focusing on a different aspect of grief. When one set of classes was finished, the series began again. Gradually, the older members get bored with the repetition and leave the group.

Have the members only address the moderator or the person who is telling their story, not each other.

Make sure only one person talks at a time. If any of the long-time members have side conversations, ask them to take the conversation outside.

Do not allow any conversation that is not strictly grief oriented. Do not let anyone but new members (who desperately need to talk) to monopolize the group.

If it sounds harsh to focus on new members and pretty much ignore the members that have been there for two to three years, keep in mind that at these later stages of grief, vocalizing isn’t as important as it is at the beginning. In the group I was in, most of us who had been there a while had no real need to talk about our grief. It had all been said. But we did need the comfort of being with our own kind. (And in my case, I needed the comfort of passing on what we had learned so that all my pain didn’t go to waste.)

Many in the later stages find just as much comfort by listening. And if they don’t, if they only want to talk (or talk among themselves), then they don’t belong in the group.

To give you the short answer to your question: drastically restructure the group.

I hoped this helped.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in grief, How to, life, relationships. Tags: , , . 10 Comments »

Any Pinterest Users Out There?

May 3, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Pinterest is supposed to be one of the hottest socialnetworking sites, but what exactly is the point? I know you use it like a bulletin board to pin photos and such that interest you, sort of lke a scrapbook, but then what?

And what if you don’t see things you like? That’s my problem — I don’t like “things.”

I get that it’s a fun site for most people, gives them something to play around with or dream about, but then what?

If you’re an author, how does that help you connect to readers? Or doesn’t it?

An author needs to be mindful of his or her “brand.” How does Pinterest help with branding?

Do you use Pinterst? What do you use it for? Do you find it fun, annoying, fascinating?

(This photo is from Second Wind Publishing’s Pins.)

Wild_Rose_-_saying

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in culture, How to, internet. Tags: , , . 13 Comments »

What is Wrong With Using a Prologue?

April 16, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Most agents, editors, and publishers frown on prologues because they claim that readers skip them.

Perhaps that’s true. I myself am not a fan of prologues. Some writers have the appalling habit of using a prologue as an information dump, telling readers things they think they need to know rather than presenting the material a bit at a time when it is needed. Some writers have the even more appalling habit of augmenting a poor beginning with a prologue that is not really a prologue but more of an interlogue, an excerpt taken from the middle of the book, copied and pasted into a prologue. While this excerpt might create suspense and keep us reading through a less than stellar beginning, it is not necessary to the story since the material is a duplication, and we feel cheated when we reread it during the course of the book.

I don’t even have much use for true prologues, which present events that happen before the story begins. The main rule in writing is “everything in service to the story.” If a prologue does not advance the story, if it is not as exciting as the rest of the book, then it should be removed and any essential information presented during the course of the story.

Sometimes, however, a prologue is necessary, especially if important events take place years before the main story. Occasionally, lbmugto get past the stigma of a prologue, authors will label the pre-story chapter “Chapter One.” To call a prologue “Chapter One” does not make it any less of a prologue, and it confuses readers, who think they are reading one story and find out they are reading another.

Despite the cautions about prologues, I used one in Light Bringer. It is a true prologue in that the events take place thirty-five years before the present day action, but I do something that is frowned on even by those who see nothing wrong with prologues: I introduce a character who does not appear in the body of the work, only mentioned in dialogue.

When I rewrote Light Bringer before submitting it to Second Wind Publishing, I considered getting rid of the prologue but I kept it for three reasons: I wanted readers to experience for themselves the events that precipitated the story, it was the way I originally conceived it, and I loved the image of tiny footprints in the snow. The prologue might seem like a darling, a word used by William Faulkner to describe the parts we love but that have no real function in the story, but without the prologue, the story loses some of its immediacy. Being told of a radiantly special baby being found on a doorstep is entirely different from experiencing it for ourselves through the eyes of the staid woman who found her.

And if readers skip my prologue? Well, there’s not much I can do about that. The truth is, there is there is nothing wrong with a prologue as long as it has a hook at the beginning, has conflict, and is written with immediacy as a scene, just as with any other chapter.

If you’d like to read the prologue, click here: Light Bringer by Pat Bertram

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Posted in books, fiction, How to, writing. Tags: , , , , . 21 Comments »

Fight Scenes and Motivations by David Lucas

April 7, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The internet truly is an egalitarian place. Where else would I be able to meet someone like David Alan Lucas, a writer, poet and martial artist who is an expert in the arts of physical and psychological combat?

David belongs to my Suspense/Thriller Writers’ group on Facebook, and he has been discussing fight techniques with the group. I asked if I could post part of his discourse, and he kindly said yes. Thank, you, David!

Fight Scenes and Motivations by David Lucas

This might be a bit of a ramble, but let’s talk about fight scenes. We all have our areas of expertise. Do you ever feel thrown out of a story or movie when “they” get it wrong? I know I do. I have closed those books and never picked it up again. If I go to a movie by myself, I will walk out of it. When I am with others, they can usually tell from my facial expression that I am biting my tongue. (I’m polite and don’t ruin it for them—there is always the after movie drive to talk about it.)

Besides being a writer, I am a fighter. I am a 3rd degree Black Belt in a Black Art (Black=War Art instead of a sport style). I have been in more hand to hand (or bare hand vs armed) fights than I even want to contemplate. Fight scenes are hard to write, even for me. But when someone gets it wrong I shake my head. But when they get it right, I want to jump up and dance (I almost did that when the 2009 Sherlock Holmes came out and they actually got into the Holmes’ head as he planned the fight before it began).

As a result of being a fighter and a writer, I have been writing about fight scenes and have given a few seminars. While I would imagine there is a book on how to write a fight scene, I haven’t seen it. So, I am going to tear apart the process as best as I can over the several months. Before I begin to outline it, let me be very clear: Writing is an art. Martial Arts is an art. There is no one way to do anything. Take from this what works for you, knowing that, like all writers and marital artists, we all walk our own path.

The first thing I do with writing a fight scene is to understand who is involved. When people fight in real life, everyone has a set of skills, a way they think, and a motive to be in the fight. Let’s work this backwards and start with motive. Why does your character want to fight?

Let’s face a few facts about fights. On film they can look exciting. But the truth is that in every fight (even among friends) there is a risk—even if it by accident—that you can lose your life. Let me use a real life example.

fightHave you ever been there when someone yells, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” People gather around cheering it on. They are stupid. No I am not holding back punches. Here is the true story that happened in one such case and why I called them stupid. One of the fighters in such a case—it was at a bar—took a glass bottle and broke it. He swung wildly at his opponent. His wild swings cut the throat of a guy I knew in the crowd who had stupidly thought he was going to see a fight. His funeral was a few days later.

All fights are dangerous—being in one, seeing one, etc. It doesn’t matter if it is in a ring where people are trying to be sure that no one is harmed in the long run or on a battlefield somewhere—and they are painful. What were the two drunks I talked about above fighting over and what had been worth so much for someone to die?

Someone can be beaten to a proverbial pulp or lose their lives over trivial issues–like a pair of shoes, a spilled drink, or (as a guy I once knew discovered) looking at someone’s girlfriend the wrong way. In St. Louis, Missouri a game among teens has developed where they go up to complete strangers and try to knock them out. Fights can start over imagined slights, being drunk, forced to protect yourself or a loved one, property and so forth.

Why is your character willing to fight?

Before you decide to turn your character into a super hero or the next Jet Li, let me break down the motivation a bit. There was a story my Master Instructor once told me that I have never forgotten.

A man, who was studying Martial Arts and had grown so confident that he felt like he was bullet proof, was once asked what he would be willing to fight for. He was asked, “If ten men were leaning on your car and causing trouble, would you fight them?”

He replied with confidence, “Of course I would beat the . . .” You can fill in the words.

His instructor then asked, “What if they all had chains and baseball bats and you were unarmed?”

The student thought about it and agreed he would not fight them.

The instructor then asked one final question, “Take these same men, armed the same way, and now they are raping your wife. Would you fight them?”

His answer changed.

The circumstances in real life and in our fiction writing are what will determine if someone will be willing to risk their lives in a fight. What are you willing to fight for and lose your life over? If you answer that quickly, I personally ask–plead with you–to think about it a little more. What is your character willing to fight for? What is their line in the sand?

How do they fight? More importantly, how do they think about fighting?

If you have questions about writing fight scenes or about how various characters might act in a fight, please feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer your question. Your question’s response may even lead to a blog entry in my blog relaunch on The Writer’s Lens.

David Lucas’s blogs: http://davidalanlucas.blogspot.com/ and http://www.thewriterslens.com/

David Lucas’s website: http://www.davidalanlucas.com/

David Lucas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Owlkenpowriter

Posted in culture, How to, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »
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