Up The Stakes

Want to keep your readers drooling for more? Then you need suspense and conflict. Doesn’t matter if you write thrillers or suspense, romance or fantasy, these two elements are the heart of your book. According to Debra Dixon, author of Goals, Motivations and Conflict, “Your book is only as good as your villain”. So let’s break it down. What can you do to up the stakes in your novel?

1.      Kick up the suspense. In this step, external conflict is king. This is where something physical prevents your character from achieving their goal(s). Author Avery Flynn says it best in her blog post, What Are You Looking At—Writing Conflict: “It’s the big, bad thing forcing the hero into action.” This is the guy who wants to stop your hero or make them pay, but is he really doing everything possible?  

Let’s say the bad guy has kidnapped the hero’s mother and won’t free her until the hero robs a bank for him. Only problem is, if caught, he’s going to prison and the hero’s family would suffer. If the hero doesn’t do what he’s told, things could get ugly. That’s suspenseful, but we’re missing out on some bigger opportunities by leaving it at that. So let’s see how you can make a bad situation worse.

What if the bad guy decides not to wait for the hero to make up his mind and decides to kill his mother anyway? The bad guy has won. The hero is distraught and now his mother’s death is on his hands. Now what is he going to do about it?

By making bad situations worse, we’re taking the suspense just a little bit further for the reader. These are the types of situations that will keep them turning the pages and since we’re writing fictions, you can make the impossible believable.

2.      Make it personal. Use internal conflict to make your readers care about your characters. They want to be personally invested, they want to root for the good guy. Develop those inner conflicts and emotional issues.

So when we have a bad guy holding the hero’s mother hostage, of course the hero will be distraught. But what if we change out his mother for his wife or son (or romantic interest in romance)? If your hero/heroine has a fear of heights, guess where they’re going to end up—on a cliff or a really tall building. By challenging your character to face their fears, you’re keeping the suspense continuous and upping the stakes.

3.      Keep it short. Use short sentences to make your reader not only see the suspense, but feel it as well. Let’s take the following passage as an example:

A set of knuckles connected with his jaw.

The punch to his face forced him back into the wall.

This last sentence reads almost passively, with a slow narrative feel to it. Now to “keep it short”, we’re going to change it to make us feel the suspense.

                        A set of knuckles connected with his jaw.

He slammed into the wall. Hard.

Not only have we cut five words while giving the same information, we’ve intensified them to deliver just the right amount of suspense and life.

4.      Give your characters a deadline. Consider Patrick Lee’s novel, Deep Sky. Lee’s main characters, Travis Chase and Paige Campbell, have only 24 hours to decipher a message to save the world. Doesn’t that alone make your character’s heart race? From this deadline, you can imagine just how many obstacles are going to work against them and how on edge your readers will be.

5.      Have bad guys worth rooting against. Not every novel has a bad guy. Situations are used as conflict too. However, if your conflict takes the form of a person or a group, consider Tami Cowden’s Villain Archetypes.

In order to make the ultimate villain, however, your bad guy needs to have believable motivations. Dennis Palumbo’s article, [title] in this month’s The March of Crime newsletter, explains readers are less likely to believe your bad guy is psychopathic “just because” than they will when they discover he’s been abused, his loved one was murdered or he wants power and money.
For suspense, use psychological aspects alongside the violence. Your antagonist can kill a lot of people, he can torture and maim, but psychological attacks have a lasting impression.

By integrating these five elements into your manuscript, you’ll keep readers drooling for more and leave a lasting impression with the heros and heroine who overcome such obstacles.

The High-Concept Pitch Line

A lot of thrillers deal with a "high-concept" pitch line and while I'm revising my second suspense novel, I wanted to know what exactly makes a thriller/suspense high-concept. First, from what I understand, high-concept deals with a short and exciting one line pitch.



Here are a few examples I've found:

Michael Critchton - "Killer disease from space!" to "An island of dinosaurs reconstituted from fossil DNA!" to "Killer nanorobots!"

The Hunger Games - "Teenagers fight to the death on TV!"



With my goal to find an agent with Bleed For Me, I decided to take the high-concept pitch into consideration. How could my novel be summed up in a one line, exciting and encompassing pitch? Like a hook, it needs to catch readers/agents/publishers off guard, but at the same time tell them what my book addresses.

One line... 

"A former hitman must prevent bloodshed!"

What do you think? Does the line tell you what Bleed For Me is about? Does it make you want to read more? Is it different enough from other books you've read?

The entire novel must be understood from a high-concept pitch. It has to be loud. So I gave this one a shot:

"A hitman and convict must save lives!"

Better? I found it interesting that the entire time I worked on my high-concept pitch, it was a lot easier to get through my revisions. Even if your book isn't high-concept (understood in one short sentence) you can still apply this same concept to make sure your writing is focused. 

Obviously I'm still working on it, but what are some of your ideas for high-concept pitch line?

Great Reviews for Let Me Out!

SQUUUEEEE!

Let Me Out was chosen as Reviewer's Top Pick over ar Night Owl Reviews! Here's what they had to say:

"There is only one word to describe a novel of this caliber: wow. Let Me Out tells the story of Adelaide Banvard, and her trials and tribulations with both Dissociative Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia and her time with two very different but equally sinister monsters. It also tells the story of Marcus Grant, an ATF agent with a heart of gold searching for his partner’s killer. He suspects local business magnate Christian Wren as the mastermind of his partner’s death, but still was not sure about who actually killed him. When Marcus goes undercover in Wren’s organization to solve Scott’s murder, little does he know that the beautiful little spitfire he has fallen hard for is not only a ruthless, brutal killer but also a little girl lost in a big bad world.

The story is nearly epic in its scope, showing how families and lives can be torn apart by not only crime but also murder, kidnapping, and the trials of mental illness. It starts fast and never slows down. I honestly could not put down this novel, easily reading two thirds of it in one day. It is that good. This is a novel for anyone who wants a good adventure, and also a story of love and learning to cope with the unbearable. A truly remarkable tale."

A NIGHT OWL REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW * Reviewed by: Hitherandthee

Thank you to everyone who believed in me and helped me through this journey. Come back for more good news!

Quick Update

Haven't been around in a couple of weeks. Sorry :/ Staying super busy writing! Right now, I'm waiting to hear back from Avon about my newest novella, Sour Cherry, a romantic suspense story that takes place in a motorcycle gang. And I'm working on the last couple of chapters of Bleed For Me revisions, my newest suspense going out to query this summer.

I attended an awesome conference last week, the LDStorymakers Conference in Provo, UT and was privileged so many great writers.

Hoping to get back into the swing of things soon! Keep writing - The Avengers say to.

Revision Hell, Anyone?

If you remember, last year I rewrote the ENTIRE manuscript of Bleed For Me, my second suspense novel. I've learned a lot since that complete rewrite and I've just received the MS from two critique partners.

...sigh...

I'm back in Revision Hell, but this time, it's not so bad. I have some major elements to fix, mainly character development and it's a start. Up next, paranormal romance with angels and demons.

Thank You!...And Goodnight.

Thank you to all of those friends who've submitted their MSS to be critiqued by me. I truly appreciate your support in starting this new adventure.

And I'm excited to announce that on October 15th, 2011, SPJ Editing will go live!

This is a scary - and busy - time for me. Starting your own business brings excitement and jitters. There are so many things that need to be done before tomorrow and little time to do it.

Things are crazier than ever. Not only am I revising and querying two manuscripts, I'm writing and still going to school as well. Add a full-time job on top of it and I've got no time to blog!

So, it is with a sad realization that

The Las Vegas Writer blog must retire.

Not just because of the new business venture, but because of school and writing as well. I've met a lot great people through the blogosphere, made friends, but I don't think it's fair to keep stringing you along with a post every now and then and no comments on your blogs.

The site will stay active in order to keep the collection of Resources up, but there will be no more posts as of October 15, 2011. I updated the About Me page to reflect what I will be taking on in the future and hope you'll stay in contact! I'm glad to have connected with each and every one of you.

Keep writing!

I'm Back!

Wow it feels good to be back from hiatus!

As you may know, I was having a lot of trouble with these WIP revisions, but the hardest part is over! Yep, I rewrote the ENTIRE novel starting in April of this year. That's only what? 5 months? You can laugh. I didn't get serious about it until the beginning of August. So technically, it would be about 3 months of actual work. It was the worst three months of my writing life though. I will never write another novel in 3 months because then I have to spend close to 6 rewriting it.

During my hiatus, I not only finished the revisions, I spent some time writing a couple of awesome articles, which will appear up here shortly, arranging some interviews for you guys and investing in my career as an editor. That means I've been apply as a copy/content editor to publishing houses. Yep, I'm getting all official.

So what now you ask? Well, there's a few things.

First, I need to get back to networking with all of you! I've been so neglectful and I'm sorry for that. I promise to try very hard to get back in touch with you, but I'm sure every writer goes through hard times just like I did. So when it happens to you, I won't hold it against you ;)

In October, I'm starting what will hopefully be the last round of revisions on LET ME OUT. Critiques just came back from 4 lovely ladies today and it's time to jump in and get the book back on the market. When I say back on the market, I mean querying. This will be the last round of queries this book sees. If I don't have any hits, self-publishing it is. During my hiatus, I've researched stock photos for a self-publishing cover. I haven't found the perfect picture yet, but I have a very good idea of what it would turn out like if it gets to that point. This is my baby and IT WILL SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY!

In November, I'll be final drafting BLEED FOR ME (I need to write 30,000 words I cut from the MS) and then send it out to the critique group at the end of the month. That's only about 1,000 words a day. I'm hoping it won't be as nasty as it sounds because I have the plotline, subplot line, characters, etc exactly the way I want them. They're just at the bare bones right now. I need to fill it in a little without over doing it. During these last revisions, LET ME OUT will be out for copy edits with the last member of my critique group and I'll be getting ready for December!

Which includes another break. It's the holidays. I'll have finals and I'm traveling, so writing will be on the back burner. However, querying will be a priority for LET ME OUT and I'll be stewing on what my next revision or WIP project will be.

Yeah, I have another book to revise that I wrote last year. It's my first Paranormal Romantic Suspense. (Say that 3 times fast). I can't decide if I want to go ahead and start revisions or move on to the next book in the series, which has three chapters written. December will be plenty of time to decide.  Don't you think?
That's the rest of my year. What does yours look like?

I'm Still Learning

I'm one of those people who believe there is no one way to write a novel. Some people write by the seat of their pants, some outline and plot in great detail. I do both. For me, it depends on the project.

It's impossible for me to write a novel the same way twice. I've written four complete manuscripts so far and I've changed everything about my craft with each one. The first book I wrote in scenes from the middle out, the second in whole chapters from beginning to end. The third wasn't written in any sort of chronological order whatsoever and the fourth I powered through with 1,000 words a day.

My point is, I still haven't found what works for me when it comes to writing a novel. I'm still learning. Every day I learn something else, but what I have to keep in mind is that one way of doing things is not going to work for every project. My characters are not the same, my plot isn't the same and my skill level grows with each page.

So even when I get frustrated that I can't settle on doing something one way and sticking to it, I think I'm a little grateful. I wouldn't grow as a writer if I wasn't willing to try a little bit of everything.

Block Yourself

I'm on a deadline, one that I made myself, but still a deadline. I'm determined to finish these major revisions on the WIP by the end of this year. As long as I block out my calender, I think I can do it.

So that's what I did. I blocked out a calender for this novel. I also made one for LET ME OUT that is with the critique group. With these tools, I just might keep myself motivated to finish!

Take a look:

Yellow is Round 1 of revisions (where I'm currently rewriting the entire plotline)
Green is Round 2 of revisions (where I will make sure tension, flow and holes are pulled together)
Pink is when I send it to the critique group

I'm a very visual person when it comes to keeping goals. I love to track and color code.

What helps you keep updated with your goals?

Cut the Fat

I have cut over 90 pages from my current WIP... and I'm only at Chapter 5.

I fear it's only going to get worse.

I have to be honest. At first, I cringed at the thought of rewriting the entire book. I even stopped writing because I am one of those people who has to finish a project I start before moving on. My entire brain shut down, my muse abandoned me and I tried not to think about it. Then I realized, I had to cut all the bad writing in order to bring back my inspiration. I had to cut the fat.

I still cringe when I cut a giant chunk of the book out, but after fixing so many pages, after making my book 10x better, I realize that I have grown as a writer. And that's what counts.

How do you deal with cutting the fat from your manuscript?

Hell. Hell. Hell.

Yes, I'm still in Revision Hell with my third novel. I've never had such a hard time writing. It could be because of school. It could be because of work. Or even lack of motivation/inspiration. The entire novel is being rewritten.

That is sad in itself so I feel like this:

But I am making the manuscript better. I am taking one more step toward publication. I am making pages, even if they are just revisions. I made it all the way to Chapter 8, but realized I had to start over again because I wasn't happy with the way certain scenes were arranged and the way I had written them. So now, I'm in Chapter 2 :)

It's slow, but sure. One day I will finish these revisions and my critique group will see it. One day I will submit to agents and publishers.

Where are you with your summer writing? Making progress?

Building Your World

World-building is key in fiction, especially within the genres of Paranormal, Futuristic, Sci-fi and Fantasy. Now, I'm not a writer of those genres, but many people are and you can see how the same rules apply across all genres.

This set of information came from my RWA meeting yesterday and I was surprised by how much I didn't know about building a world. All of my novels are set in contemporary United States, but as I read over the rules of world-building, I was able to apply all of them even to my genre.

World-building builds your plot if you think about it. The world you build dictates who is in it, therefore, creates your characters (especially their past) and their actions. The world also dictates who or what is your antagonist. If your first step to writing your novel is world-building, you will be able to answer the who, what, when and where. Once you figure that out, your plot will materialize right behind it.

Let's jump into the rules of building your world:

1. Know your own world inside and out.
2. Know the genre of your world.
3. Read the top authors - historical and contemporary.
4. Create a theme - 25 words or less that will be a tag-line you can stick to throughout the novel.
5. Intimately know your characters.
6. Know the GMC for each character.
7. Suspend disbelief - your world will be based on some type of fact whether it is Sci-fi (based on science), Futuristic (the contemporary world flung into the future), Fantasy or Paranormal. Make your readers believe it is possible for this world to exist. Remember, however, you cannot suspend the rules of physics if you want to suspend your readers disbelief.
8. Keep your rules straight throughout the entire novel
9. Make a bible. A notebook or file that will help you remember, and keep straight, all of the rules you've laid out.

These are also a few questions to keep in mind when you begin to build your world:

1. Do your characters fit in this world?
2. What is your conflict? Is it a person, thing or event?
3. What are the rules?
4. What is the environment like?
5. What is going on in this world you've built?

Do you start world-building before you write a single word of your MS? What helps you to build a world?

The Craft

The Craft of Writing will be my career (as long as I can help it!) and so there is a lot I do and a lot of places I go in order to learn more. Through the past year, I've attended almost all of my RWA meetings, joined a critique group and researched the hell out of getting published.

To make the story short: I have a lot of handouts and notes.

Since this Craft will be my life's work and I have such a horrible memory, I keep them all. Right now, however, they are all in an ugly, blue, floppy folder. This floppy folder:

I have a mix of things like articles on dialogue to basic and advanced character charts in here. They are not organized and they are not accessible unless I want to go through hundreds of pages to find the information I want.

Solution: The Craft Binder.  [Dramatic music...]

This is just the beginning. It will be pretty. It will be colorful. It will be organized.

It will be my bible.

Organized sections thus far will include: Plotting, Character development/GMC, Setting/World-building, Query, Synopsis, Formatting and Critiquing. By organizing my notes, handouts and research, I will be able to stay on top of my craft and help other writers out with advice. Yay me :)

How do you handle the onslaught of information you gather from friends, organization and family about this Craft? Willing to share ideas?

Take Your Time

My first novel took me three months to write. My second, six months. The third took even less. And what am I discovering? The less time I take to write the first draft, the more I have to revise. The same goes for query letters and synopsis.

I currently have two books to edit and seven to write. I'm anxious to finish the book I'm revising now. I want to start submitting it to BETA readers, write the synopsis and send out the query. I want to move on, but I know that if I rush, I will make mistakes. I will be forced to work on the MS far longer than if I'd taken my time and I will lose my passion for it.

I've always been told to finish the first draft quickly. Rush through it then go back and edit. This has worked for me in the past, but I'm not sure it has worked well. Some authors, such as Laurell K Hamilton, (seriously, if you don't read her blog go now. She shares a lot of her writing techniques) edit while they write, go back a few pages the next day, edit them again and then move on with the draft. This seems to work well for her and I'm now considering editing while I draft in order to limit my frustration as she does.

Perhaps I would not be so anxious/frustrated to get my books out if I wasn't so sick of editing them over and over.

What makes you anxious about your work? Do you edit as you draft?

Recycling

Not that kind of recycling, but you should to that too. I'm talking about recycling those scenes that don't make it into your final MS.

Laurell K. Hamilton is famous for this with her Anita Blake series. If she writes a fantastic scene and it doesn't fit perfectly into the book she's working on, she saves it for the next book.

I'm just now discovering this tactic. One of the main problems with the MS I'm currently revising is that I didn't know what scene to use for Chapter 1. Of course, I needed a suspensful scene, one that kept the reader wanting more, but I had a lot of those (in my opinion). So, I decided to trash my original (my MC was waking up under an overpass - don't do this by the way) and write an entirely new one. Rhianna's Russian Roulette song was my inspiration.

I made a scene in which my MC is playing Russian Roulette. It's short, not even two pages, but is packed with suspense, emotion and a hell of a lot of fear. I thought it was perfect...until the more I read it, the more I hated it in this book.

The scene just didn't fit. I couldn't explain why. My MC is desperate for money. She'll do anything to get it and Russian Roulette is a way to make fast cash. But Russian Roulette wasn't for my MC. It didn't feel as if it could be real. So I chopped it.

I don't know about you, but I keep all scenes that don't make it into the book in a separate file for each MS. Just in case I change my mind. And luckily for me, this scene, which is a great scene, will end up making an appearance as the hook in a totally different book. All I need to do is change my character's name.

Do you recycle your deleted scenes? Or are they too dear to use for another project?

Rediscovering My Passion

I've taken a break from my third novel, BLEED IT OUT, for about 2 months now. This is the book I realized I had to rewrite from beginning to end. With this realization, I honestly considered giving up writing. Not only was this book getting a MAJOR makeover, my second novel was not getting any requests from agents, school was overwhelming me and my muse had abandoned me.

I almost quit.

And then...

This weekend I took at look at my Pinterest board for this book. I had lost my passion for the book. I knew that, but I couldn't figure out why until today.

It's because of her (red frame).

Meet Torrhent Lynd, my main character and the loss of my motivation. I'm not sure why, but the woman in the picture rubs me the wrong way. When I first wrote the book, Torrhent was seventeen. But now, she is twenty-four, a grown woman, and this picture does not show a woman. I'd based Torrhent's appearance off of this picture for the entire novel, but what I was seeing in my mind and the words on the page weren't matching up.

So I set out to find another Torrhent and some more inspiration. I spent nearly two hours redesigning my board and getting my notes in order to start on the book again. Here's the new board:

My new Torrhent is in red, I'm adding another character to spice up the conflict (in blue) and found a different photo for my second MC, Taigen Banvard. There is a lot changing with this book, but just by changing out a picture of my MC, I began to see a whole new vision for the book and seeing myself finishing it.

How do you get your passion back?

My First Personal Rejection

Well, I've done it. I've received a request off the most amazing query letter I've written for LET ME OUT. I've sent that version of the query to three agents and I got one request. Before you say, "Yay!" listen to this story.

The request came through last Wednesday. So I spent all day perfecting my first five pages to send to the agent. I had them perfect. I was ready to send. But I was doing this on my work computer, which I can't get my email on, and so I needed to take the file and transfer it to my computer. Hello, flash drive. The file transferred effortlessly, but when I plugged the flash drive into my laptop...something was wrong.

I've seen it before and I almost started to cry. ".docx" format LOVES to corrupt itself. And yes, the file was corrupted. I couldn't open it on my laptop or on my computer, and my IT Dept. couldn't do anything for me.

Those perfect 5 pages were gone.

So I started again, writing down everything I could remember about the changes I'd made. Two days went by and I still hadn't replied to the agent request. On Friday, I had done as much as I could. The pages didn't have that perfection they'd had before, but they worked and I needed to get them to the agent.

I sent them off.

And I heard back today.

I received my first personal rejection. The pages didn't pull her in as much as she hoped they would.

What that means: my query does it's job, but my pages don't. What I'm going to do about it: find a critique group.

I've already run the MS through BETA readers, but now I'm looking for that group dynamic.

Do you use a critique group? What are some of your pros and cons to using one?

Pinterest

Anne Claire's post over at A Novel Idea led me to Pinterest.com yesterday. Why do you ask? Because of this!

These are my character's for the third book, BLEED IT OUT! And they're all in one place. This is just my board, the only one for right now, but I plan to make a board for each WIP so I can refer to them often and not have to open dozens of files on my laptop to get the photos I want.

This website could be a great tool for writers. You don't have to only put your characters up there. You can use it for setting, motivational photos, inspirational...anything you want! There's also a social factor where you can become friends with other users.

How to start:

1. Go to www.pinterest.com
2. Request an invite
3. Wait less than a day to be invited to join. (It's a brand new site, they probably don't have a lot of room just yet, but they're working on it.)
4. Join with your Facebook or Twitter account.

5. Start pinning!

Half the Year in Review

Remember all of those resolutions you promised to meet this year? I only had two: to query my second novel, LET ME OUT and focus on my career. I queried in March, but I’m finding it’s a continuous process. I’ve received answers to 75% of my queries and when one comes back rejected, I send out another. So I can’t really say that I’ve accomplished my goal yet, but I have focused 100% on my career.

This year I…

Wrote 3 articles that have been published in numerous newsletters all over the US for Romance Writers of America (my first publishing credits).

Worked on my bachelors degree in English Literature (because that’s never-ending it seems).

Submitted one of those articles to Writer’s Digest for their October 2011 issue (have not heard back yet, but I’m proud I did it).

Became co-editor of The March of Crime, newsletter of Southern California Mystery Writers of America chapter (because I don’t have enough to do!).

Started revisions on my third novel, BLEED IT OUT (which is still kicking my ass, thank you).

How are your resolutions coming along? What were your goals? Have you met them already?

Still Breathing

First, my cousin found a really great resource for writers. Procrastinating Writers Blog. Go there. Sign up for her newsletter and receive weekly advice on writing. This last Friday's newsletter was a great piece on writing during your "good hours". Check it out!

Second, I'd just like to thank those who stopped by this past week to hear from my awesome guests, Anne and Carolyn. These are the two women I look up to the most in this industry. They give me hope and always teach me something new. I hope you were able to learn something from them.

Today's post is more of an update on the writing front.

I've been in two upper-level classes this semester, which are not hard in and of themselves, but VERY time consuming. What this means for my writing: I haven't touched my revisions of Book 3 since school started. Haven't even thought about it. That might be a good thing since I was getting so close to ripping my hair out. However, I have been plotting scenes (because my brain never gives me a break) for the next project I gave an excerpt from here last week. I've been secretly doing this at work in a Word document while listening to every song on my iPod for inspiration.

These two classes end in two weeks. What this means for my writing: Hallelujah, I just might be able to to finish my revisions this year, but, because I haven't been able to work on them for 6 weeks, I most likely won't be finished and ready to pitch when the amazing Angela James, editor of Carina Press, stops by in November. I'm going to try to make it though!


How is your summer going? Any exciting projects in the works?