Want To Know Who The Bad Guy Is?

    “Like I said, I didn’t think you had,” Grant said. “But I’m going to ask you the same question I asked the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund: can you recall ever kicking anyone out of your group for espousing violence?”
    There was another pause. “Who did you talk to at the Sierra Club?”
    “Tom Richardson.”
    “Hmm.... Did he say he knew anyone like that?”
    “He said maybe, but he would have to check into it. Why?”
    “I’m surprised he didn’t mention Samuel Raimes.”
    “Well, he didn’t. Who’s Samuel Raimes?” Grant wrote the name on his pad.
    “I’m not saying he’s involved in this,” Cranston said. “I haven’t heard anything about him for, oh, eight or nine years. For all I know he could be in prison by now.”
    “Tell me about him.” Grant was all ears; he finally had a name, someone to run down.
    “I did some computer work for the Sierra Club years ago and had to attend a few board meetings. They talked about Raimes in one of the meetings.”
    “What’d they say?”
    “That he was tired of waiting for the judges and politicians to do something about the... Let’s see... Something to do with salmon.” Cranston went quiet for a few moments while he thought. “I remember now. He was upset about the salmon counts in the Tuolumne River. They were dropping and he didn’t feel enough was being done about it. That’s true, by the way. The Chinook salmon are nearly extinct in some rivers.”
    Grant said, “I’ve heard that.”
    “He wanted the Tuolumne River and the Delta returned to their natural state, which, unfortunately, will never happen. But I don’t remember them saying he wanted to blow up anything or kill someone. They just said he was crazy.”

In a "who done it," there are two ways to reveal who the bad guy is: you can keep it a secret until the end, or nearly the end, or you can tell the reader early on. Both methods have merit.

Making the reader wait until the end of the story allows you to build suspense, perhaps more so than tipping your hand early on. 

The most common way to handle the identity of a bad guy is to make it one of the characters the reader is familiar with, but was completely unaware it was him or her. It could be the jealous aunt, or, yes, even the butler. It should be a big shock the reader didn't see coming. When watching films on TV or DVD, it's always fun to stop the show and guess "who done it." A clever author will have most guessing wrong.

I've written that I read a lot of John Sandford books (all of them, in fact). Sandford occasionally keeps the identity of the bad guy(s) hidden while still letting the reader know something about him or her. He'll give the bad guy a nickname, such as something the press might be calling him. In his first novel, the bad guy was called "Maddog." The reader didn't know the Maddog's true identity until about halfway through the story, but that didn't stop Sandford from telling you a lot about him.

In THE MIGHTY T, I let the reader know who the bad guy is in the first chapter; I even let the cops know who he is early on. It's still fun to watch them go about trying to catch him because he's always a step ahead, the characters are interesting, the dialogue is good, and there's enough action to keep your attention even though you already know "who done it."

If the story is well-written, I enjoy both ploys. How about you?

Scrivener Screen Shots

Scooter asked for a graphic of my Scrivener screen. Here it is.

On the left you can see I've organized each chapter into scenes. You can also see a folder for characters, places, and research. Everything can be linked into the Scrivener document, even web sites, PDFs, and documents or pictures on your computer.

Upper right is the scene synopsis. This shows up as a card when you click on the Card View organizer in the middle top of the screen. Document notes are on the right. This is where I write notes about what might be needed in a rewrite like more description and the day and time, if it's important.

You'll notice in the upper left corner I have a document titled "Opening Scene" and under it "Alt-Bull Jumped". This is text deleted from the scene but saved because I thought there might be a chance I would want to put it back in. It won't be complied in the document or included in word counts because I've unchecked the "Include In Compile" box on the right, in the General Meta-Data area. The graphic you see is an actual scene so it's labeled "Scene", "First Draft", and the "Include in Compile" box is checked.

Hope this helps.

Scrivener for Windows Update

I wrote about some tools I've found for writing, for both the PC and the iPad, in a previous post. This post is a brief update on the writing program Scrivener.

I'd like to get a MacBook Pro, but it's not in the budget. Scrivener is in version 2.0 (I believe) for the Mac but is still in beta for Windows. The current beta version is .26. The finished product is set to be released in August, if they stay on schedule. I believe it's only $35. I've had no problems with the beta but many features are still missing.

Scrivener is a feature-laden program; there's a steep learning curve if you want to use it all. I was drawn to it because it lets you organize your work into chapters and/or scenes.

I wrote both my novels in Word 97, with each chapter as a separate document. That worked well for about the first half of the book, but when I wrote the last half I had a hard time remembering some character names and who did what to whom. To dig the info out I had to first remember which chapter it was in so I could open the correct document and run searches until I found what I was looking for. Sometimes I found it quickly, sometimes it took a while.

After the first draft was written I combined all the chapter documents into one big file. That worked better for searches but was a large cumbersome file to handle.

I've been writing my next Grant Starr novel scene-by-scene, with each scene in a separate tab in Scrivener. It's been so much easier to go back and find something or someone. In addition, Scrivener has easy-to-use summary features. There's a box on the right side of the screen—when you're not in full-screen writing mode, which I usually am—where you can jot down notes about what happens in the scene. You can also organize chapters and scenes with file cards and a character-based flow chart.

Another thing I've done differently is write scenes out of chronological order. I'd stick with one character and write what they do, say, throughout the week. Then I'd go back and break that document up so it fits chronologically. It's helped with character consistency because I could focus on what one person was doing. I didn't do this with my first two books; they were written straight through from scene one to the final scene.

The problem with jumping around in time is it's easy to lose the continuity of the work. Because you're jumping around in time, it's difficult at times to picture the plot chronologically. The fix is to edit the scenes and chapters as one continuous document, which Scrivener lets you do. It's not as smooth as editing one document in Word, but it still allows you to keep your story organized into scenes and chapters, if you choose to do so.

I place my Scrivener file in my DropBox directory so it's automatically backed up on the "cloud" and it's backed up via my portable hard drive. Scrivener also lets you make a zipped back up file at any time.

I do a lot of writing on my iPad, with either OmnWriter or iA Writer. Both programs save files in simple .txt file formats so they're easy to import into Scrivener. If you want to edit part of a Scrivener file, you have to export it to a .txt file, then place it in the DropBox directory. Once done, you can access the file from your iPad. iWriter links directly with DropBox through their menu.

I plan on buying Scrivener when it becomes available. If and when I get a Mac, I'll have to buy the Mac version. I won't mind because I'll finally have a Mac and it's only $35 (maybe $45, I forget).

A Monster With Personality

Creature from "Aliens"

This was good: the prey’s psychic output had increased ten-fold, exciting the creature. It fed on the rich emotions.

Were it not for the new program, its new adaptation, the creature’s instincts would demand that it now devour its prey and flee. Instead, the program instructed it to do something it never would have otherwise thought to do: reveal itself to the prey. It was not by accident that its species had survived for a million years; they were masters in the art of stealth. Their enemies could not destroy what they did not know existed or could not see. Revealing itself went against this most basic of instincts.

But it promised great potential psychic rewards.

It rose out of the water, revealing its ancient face to the prey. The reward the new programming had promised was realized, in greater abundance than imagined; it gorged itself on the prey’s fear.

It opened its mouth and bared its teeth, to see how the prey would respond. It was again rewarded.

Burke almost died of fear when a large black, thing, rose up from the canal. It floated with him for a few seconds, then opened its eyes; three yellow slashes in its forehead blinked, and he screamed louder than he ever thought he could scream.

He slapped and kicked at the water, trying to distance himself from the thing. Fear galvanized him, flooding his body with adrenaline. His mind momentarily shut down the pain pathway in his spinal cord so he wouldn’t feel the throbbing leg; he couldn’t afford the distraction.

He bumped up against the canal wall and flung his arms behind him, trying to crabwalk up the wall. His hands slipped. Panic threatened to consume him and he searched frantically for a possible solution, some way to survive, to get away from this impossible thing.

The creature opened its mouth, revealing eight-inch-long silvery teeth that flashed and sparkled in the moonlight; jagged and wicked: he understood how he had lost his leg, and he knew he would not be leaving the canal alive.

His mind slipped toward insanity.

If you read or write horror fiction, do you think the monsters (aliens, creatures, gnomes, etc.) should have a personality? Or should they just be a big mean monster?

In my horror novel, CANALS, the canal monster makes its appearance early in the book. Its physical characteristics are revealed bit-by-bit, as is its personality. It thinks, calculates, and makes adjustments in its feeding pattern as it adapts to its prey. It even has a gender (which I won't reveal). The reader learns later in the book the monster is one of a species that was once abundant on the...

In some books and films, monsters are just monsters. They show up out of nowhere to kill or eat people. Their "motivation" is usually filling their stomachs or plain savagery. Most don't have offspring they're trying to protect or feed and aren't part of any community. They're just monsters.

In the movie ALIEN, and subsequent follow-ups, the monster had a personality and a goal: the perpetuation of its species. It corralled the humans into its nest to use as incubators for its young. One wonders how it survived before the planet was colonized.

What kind of monsters do you prefer, if you like stories with monsters? Do you like the simple, straightforward monster with no personality? Or do you prefer a monster that's a little more complex?

Character Description: How Much Do You Want?

Inside, a man sat behind a laminated wood desk tapping away on a computer keyboard with thick, stubby fingers, his eyes glued to the flat panel screen. The walls of the office were covered with framed photographs of canals and dams from different eras. A descriptive title under the frame of one read “Fresno Scrapers.” It showed mustached-men posing by a horse-drawn contraption with a long metal blade while standing in a wide, shallow dirt trench he assumed was an early canal. There were pictures of big dams, little dams, dirt canals, and cement-lined canals. Lawless couldn’t see anything personal on the walls or desk.

McFrazier glanced up and jumped when he saw Lawless.

“Sorry. Didn’t see you come in.”

He stood and reached over the desk to shake hands. Ralph McFrazier was a stout, hairy man with thick arms and wide shoulders, dressed for summer in an open-collar short-sleeved white cotton shirt and lightweight cotton pants. Lawless imagined something ugly but comfortable on his feet, like Clark’s; he didn’t look like a loafer man. He had a full beard, heavy eyebrows, and bristly hair on top of his head. Thick, dark curly hair covered his forearms and the back of his fingers, tickling Lawless. More dark hair burst out of his shirt at his throat, reminding Lawless of the way a plant will curl and twist to get more of itself into the sunlight.

“Ralph McFrazier,” he said as they shook hands. His voice was gruff, and Lawless thought he might be smiling but it was difficult to tell through the hair.

“Detective Daniel Lawless. Nice to meet you, Mr. McFrazier.” Lawless expected to have his hand crushed, but McFrazier’s grip was soft, almost effeminate.

“Call me Ralph. Mr. McFrazier was my father. Sit down.” He waved a furry arm at a worn chair behind Lawless and sat back down. He talked in short bursts, like a machine gun.

“I’d like to talk to you about Jose Sanchez,” Lawless said, pulling out his notepad. 

“Yes. Terrible thing. What happened?”

“We’re not sure yet. The coroner’s doing the autopsy today. We hope to know more.” 

“No clue yet?”

“Afraid not.” Lawless found himself talking like McFrazier, and didn’t like it. “I understand he worked for you.”

“Somewhere down the line. His direct supervisor is Jake Franklin. He can tell you more.” 

Something beeped: McFrazier glanced at his computer screen and hit a key. The beeping stopped.
“Can you tell me what he was doing out there so early?”

“Can’t tell for sure. Probably checking a gate.” 

“Gate? What kind of gate?”

“Irrigation gate. Lets the water out. They get stuck. The farmers complain.” McFrazier turned his palms up, shrugged, and rolled his eyes.

“What tools does he use?”

“Wrench. Drill. Small stuff.”

“Does he use a chainsaw, anything like that?”

McFrazier frowned. “No. He doesn’t work on trees.” He looked at his watch, barely visible through his arm hair, and said, “Lunch time. Got an appointment. See Franklin. He can tell you more.”

He stood and stuck out his hand again, indicating their talk was over.

Since you’re a reader, let me ask you something: do you like characters whose physical descriptions are laid out for you in the text, or do you like to fill in those details yourself? Or is your preference somewhere in between?

I’ve read all of Johnathon Kellerman’s “Alex Delaware” novels. He likes to describe his main characters’ physical attributes in detail, especially the clothes they wear. He names designers, styles, and brands I’m not familiar with so it doesn’t help me picture the character at all. They’re extra words to me, and frankly, they make me feel a little naive. Like I should know the names of popular designers.

One of my favorite authors, John Sandford, uses a lighter hand when describing his characters. He might spend one paragraph, maybe two sentences.

My wife reads nothing but romance and romance-mystery. It’s tough to get her to read anything but Nora Roberts. She likes some physical description; color of eyes and hair, full or thin lips, height, fit or flabby, etc. She likes to be given mind pictures instead of making them up herself.

I think physical description is very important to the romance genre, and maybe to most genre fiction. And there are lessons to be learned here.

Like John Locke, John Sandford has written that he knows his reader demographic well: mostly women read their books so they write their main male character in a way women find attractive. 

I’ve not read any of Locke’s books but this is what he’s written about his MC Donovan Creed: 

“With my character, Creed, I want to give you a guy who is hard to like, then force you to like him. Women make up 75 to 80% of my audience, and those in my target group get the fact that what Creed really needs in his life is the right woman. My readers are the right woman for a guy like Creed, and when they see him saying something dumb, or making a bad decision, they shake their heads and laugh—because every one of my female readers is smarter than Creed when it comes to relationships, and they know it. They think he’s rough, but worth saving.”

Sandford wrote Lucas to be appealing to women: big and tough, rich with a fancy car, likes women—a lot, has a dark dangerous side (the bad boy), dresses well, etc.

The description of Ralph McFrazier, a minor character in CANALS, at the beginning of this post was too long and largely unnecessary. This is his only scene; why spend so many words describing him? I think I did a better job with the MC in CANALS, Daniel Lawless, giving out snippets of description interwoven through the beginning of the book. 

In the future, while writing genre fiction, I think I’ll describe people with a light hand, maybe try and “show” looks through dialog or action instead of narrative: “After Amber’s eyes adjusted, she saw Grant in the booth. Male heads turned and interested eyes tracked her as she walked through the bar.”