Then again, Frank Sinatra crooned, “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.”

My life? Think of a planet’s elliptical orbit: sometimes circling close—but not too close—to the sun, sometimes veering off into the cold reaches of space.

(25 Plot Twist Ideas for Writers.)

The day after I graduated from Penn State in 1969, I tossed everything I owned into my Chevy and drove to Florida to start banging a manual typewriter as a reporter for The Miami Herald. My salary: the princely sum of $150 a week, and I thought I’d found my life’s calling.

When the Herald’s criminal court reporter left for a better-paying gig, I was reassigned to the Justice Building. I’d never seen a trial. I thought Nolo Contendere was a Dean Martin song and habeas corpus was a cousin of Tunisian couscous. (Decades later, I’d write a legal caper titled Habeas Porpoise, but that’s another story.)

I soon got hooked on the high drama of the courtroom. I pivoted, went to law school, began practicing, and the years flew by. I was a partner at a national firm when the head of litigation in Philadelphia called to award me a promotion. I would lead a team of lawyers defending an asbestos manufacturer, a company that spent decades hiding the fact their products kill people.

Another pivot. I resigned my partnership to become a novelist. No salary. No expense account. No power lunches at the Bankers’ Club. Just me, at home in Coral Gables, writing a spec novel about a second-string NFL linebacker turned cynical criminal defense lawyer. I don’t claim that writing about Jake Lassiter, who proudly graduated in the top half of the bottom third of his night school class, is a sacred calling. Lassiter’s motto: “I always assume my clients are guilty. It saves time.” Mostly, I just wanted to entertain. Myself and the reader.

By the late 1990s, seven Lassiter novels were in print, but sales had stalled. My publisher wasn’t cutting me loose, but it wasn’t spending dough to re-ignite my career, either. I pivoted again, writing a standalone thriller. Every publisher in New York passed.

Had I veered off course? If a rocket headed for Mars is a single degree off, it misses by 2.5 million miles. I could see the void opening, the darkness beyond.

Then serendipity stepped in. I’d freelanced a couple scripts for JAG, the CBS military drama. As my literary rocket spun off course, Don Bellisario, the show’s creator, offered me a full-time writing job. I moved to L.A. A year later, we co-created First Monday, a Supreme Court drama starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. It aired 13 episodes before the gavel came down and the show was cancelled. A bruising hit to my ego. But again: elliptical orbit.

Back to my study. This time in Studio City. I launched Solomon vs. Lord, breezy legal capers with no pretense of creating literature for the ages. Just fun. Network television optioned, killed, and re-optioned the books several times. Still no show.

Then I stumbled across a 1931 photo of Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin arriving at a movie premiere in tuxedos. Curiosity hooked me. The two icons were friends. A little research revealed that a fascist militia, backed by Berlin, plotted to assassinate Chaplin and other Hollywood figures and ignite an insurrection against the U.S. government. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI ignored the threat.

My inner storyteller stirred. Einstein and Chaplin vs. Nazis in America! Fiction set against a true background.

But the two icons couldn’t take on an armed militia alone. Enter Sergeant Georgia Ann Robinson, the LAPD’s first Black female officer—and a real-life hero. Together, the legendary actor, the brilliant scientist, and the trailblazing female cop lead the fight against fascism in 1930s Hollywood.

Then came the research! Historical characters. Real conspiracies. Vintage Los Angeles. Could I pull this off? Jacqueline Winspear, creator of the Maisie Dobbs series, once told me that research is like an iceberg: only 10 percent should show. Sure, Jackie…but what 10 percent?

I dug deep into period detail—clothing, cars, music, menus, streetcar stops: the choreography of daily life in 1930s L.A. Beyond my heroic trio, real figures populate the story: Charles Lindbergh, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, Douglas Fairbanks, German consul Georg Gyssling, and American fascist William Dudley Pelley.

The result is Midnight Burning, the most challenging book I’ve ever written—and the most rewarding. I hope it entertains. But it’s also a reminder: The struggle between freedom and tyranny never ends. And for me? It nudged me back into orbit.

At least until gravity shifts again.

Check out Paul Levine’s Midnight Burning here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Writing Plot Twists: From Courtrooms to 1930s Hollywood appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Relay Races and Legacy Writing.)

Well, fast-forward a few decades and I found myself staring down my fourth Oregon Files novel, Quantum Dawn, and scratching my head and asking myself, “How do I do this?” Not only had I already written three prior Oregon Files novels, but eight others before it including four Tom Clancy novels. And since I’m in full confessional mode, I will admit that every time I have ever sat down to begin any novel, from first to last, I face the same terrifying question: How in the world can I sustain an entertaining story for 100,000 words?

And then always, in the midst of my trembling, sweat-drenched anxiety, the Muse mercifully whispers in my ear the single word that unlocks the hallowed mystery: Characters.

There are untold numbers of theories about how stories work and every writer must decide which one works best for them. For me? A story is never about plot. In fact, plot is the last thing I worry about. A plot is merely the sequence of actions and decisions taken by characters. Great characters with powerful motivations will make the bold and unexpected choices that result in a dope-slapping plot.

Put another way, a plot for me isn’t a road map to guide my characters, or worse, some kind of schematic where I try to screw in characters to fit some predetermined outcome. Rather, plot is merely the record of startling character choices.

Too many new writers put the plot horse before the character cart. (Hopefully they don’t fall back on awkward metaphors.) Plot doesn’t drive story—characters do. Here’s a huge mistake. Don’t ask yourself how you can make a better plot. Instead, build better characters.

The advantage to letting characters take charge of your plot is that they will also solve the innumerable plot problems that invariably infest any story as it progresses. With the exception of mechanical glitches like time travel conundrums, conflicting calendar dates, and the like, the way to solve virtually any plot problem is to simply ask the question, “What would my character do in this situation?”[1] Put another way, the problem isn’t that you don’t know what to do next; the problem is that you don’t know what your character would do next.

That means, of course, you’ve really got to know your character. One of the best ways to get to the heart of my Cussler characters—heroes and villains alike—is to know for certain what it is that my characters fear the most in all the world. That deepest, heart-rending fear tells you everything about their primal sense of themselves and their place in the world, and how far they’re willing to go to do whatever it takes to avoid that catastrophic outcome. Is that enough to build an entire character on? Nope. But if you don’t know the answer to that question, you really don’t know your character well enough.

In the case of Juan Cabrillo, his worst fear is failure. He would rather die than fail to complete his mission. That’s why we see him strain every sinew, drain every last drop of energy, and race to the very edge of breathless catastrophe in his relentless desire to defeat his opponents and win the day.

However, if you really can’t figure out what your character would do in the hazardous situation they find themselves in, you can always ask yourself, “What wouldn’t my character do?” Like the great sculptor Michelangelo once said—and I paraphrase egregiously—sometimes you can only find the iconic statue David by cutting away the chunks of marble that aren’t the David.

In Cabrillo’s case, the one thing he would never do is put the lives of his crew at risk without first taking on the risk himself if at all possible.

So what do these two poles of passion tell me about Cabrillo? They tell me that Juan Cabrillo is self-sacrificial. He’ll lay down his life for his country and his friends. It’s one thing to be brave; it’s altogether something more virtuous to be brave on behalf of others. This insight adds a moral and thematic element to my character that helps guide my storytelling, novel after novel. It also transforms Cabrillo from a cartoon action-hero cutout to a genuinely empathetic character. That’s the kind of character readers eagerly invest themselves in and keeps them coming back to the series, book after book.

So let’s go back to that first blank page I was staring at as I began to think about Quantum Tempest. The Muse-whispered word “Characters” flutters across my trembling heart and suddenly I take courage. Why? Isn’t creating a great and original character as difficult as anything else in writing? Absolutely! Well, unless you’re lucky enough to be me. I’m a franchise writer, and I write for the Oregon Files series. If you’re not familiar with it, suffice it to say that Clive Cussler is the originator of not just one but FIVE bestselling franchises that have sold tens of millions of books worldwide. And Clive created several incredibly interesting and original characters for the Oregon Files.

If you’re not familiar with series, the primary protagonist is Juan Cabrillo, a former CIA agent who left the Company and formed his own mercenary outfit comprised of former Navy SEALS, Army Rangers, combat pilots and the like. But Cabrillo’s best idea was to convert a beat up, rusted out, scrapyard lumber hauler into the world’s most advanced intelligence-gathering and combat vessel. What better platform to transport your merry band of mercs around the globe without suspicion than on a freighter that appears to be half sunk, flies an Iranian flag, and carries cargoes that reek of animal effluvia or chemical waste? Of course, all of that rust and stink are merely camouflage. Below decks, the Oregon sports a Cray supercomputer and hides a host of high-tech weapons. Think of the Oregon Files as the intersection between the classic 60s TV series Mission Impossible and Star Trek.

That’s a heck of a digression but I think you can easily see the power of Clive’s character set up that he bequeathed to all of his co-authors and, thankfully, to me. It’s a big and fabulous toy store to play in. But it’s not quite enough to build a story, is it? What is this merry band of special operator pranksters actually going to do in Quantum Tempest? I’m so glad you asked….

Check out Mike Maden’s Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

All story is about conflict. Leaving aside the fascinating subject of conflict, suffice it to say that in a techno-thriller adventure like Quantum Tempest, I needed villains that not only matched but exceeded the resources of Juan and his crew. Wait, “exceeded?” Yup. There isn’t much of a conflict if the bad guys can be easily swept aside by the good guys. Heck, I don’t even think the villains and heroes should be evenly matched. I think the most dramatic contests are the David and Goliath stories, don’t you? How about the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae? Or my absolute favorite, Kurosawa’s brilliant film, The Seven Samurai.

So…BIG villains are the first order of business. Now what? Briefly, I recommend very few “how-to” books on writing but John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story has been very useful to me. One of the tricks of the trade he shared was a device he called the “character web.” In a nutshell, one villain is never enough—so how about three? Sounds like a lot of conflict—maybe like a John Wayne bar room brawl. It could be that, but there’s something even better waiting in the wings.

Truby suggests putting the three “villains” (usually teams of ‘em in my experience) against the hero but then also put them in opposition to each other. Now you’ve got a series of reveals, reversals, and betrayals to play with. Better yet, you’ve got a story that’s begging for multiple points of view which keeps the careful reader interested and engaged page after page.

I deployed the character web with vigor in Quantum Tempest. Among the several antagonists I designed, one of my all-time favorites from any novel are the Guardians. This is a shadowy group of “terrorists” which, of course, can be a tired and clichéd trope if not handled well. In Quantum Tempest, the Guardians aren’t your garden variety thugs in black masks sporting RPGs and bad haircuts. Instead, the Guardians are a collective of brilliant scientists worldwide whose greatest fear is the extinction of humanity which they believe will happen if Artificial General Intelligence is ever realized which is exactly what three other villainous actors are trying to acquire. The Guardians’ motivations are humanistic and altruistic. Their method, however, is murder.

Finally, for all of you aspiring legacy writers out there, be prepared for a real challenge. In novels and in life, familiarity often breeds contempt. My Quantum Tempest readers have been following Juan and company for 19 novels. They want their beloved “familiar” characters (and heaven help you if you don’t bring them) but they don’t want them presented in exactly the same way. In other words, they want “exactly the same, only different.” How do you square that circle? My solution is backstories. I take a deep dive into character histories of my own invention. Not only does this become a fresh and exciting new territory for story generation, it also deepens and improves my own knowledge of these well-known and beloved characters which then translates to “uniquely familiar” storytelling.

So now you’ve caught a glimpse into how I think about character and plot. Hopefully you’re willing to at least consider my proposition that the balance between character and plot should be completely imbalanced in favor of the heroes and villains that drive our stories. I also hope you’ll give Quantum Tempest a run and let me know if I’ve lived up to my imperious claim.

[1] Sidebar: This is where my white board and “mind-mapping” skills come into play. If you’re not familiar with mind-mapping, Google it. For me, mind-mapping maximizes creativity within a structured activity. It habitually saves my bacon from the outline phase all the way to the epilogue.

The post The Challenges of Balancing Character With Plot appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(How to Keep Your Story Moving.)

Yet despite—or perhaps because of—their deep or bizarre characteristics, the unhinged and weird women from the contemporary literary fiction scene are mirrors to modern womanhood. They often double as catalysts for surreal plot lines and symbols of the struggles of femininity. Take, for instance, Monika Kim’s serial murderer in The Eyes are the Best Part, who cannibalizes men’s eyeballs in both a gory body horror plot and an indictment on the fetishizing male gaze. Or Ainslie Hogarth’s narrator Abby in Motherthing, whose descent into madness leads to a Shakesperean murder sequence but is also, symbolically, an allegory for the ways in which we relate to motherhood, from fertility struggles to inter-generational trauma.

But in a landscape where the “weird girl” or “unhinged woman” is trendy and proliferating, writers need to differentiate themselves, and their characters, to add something new to the literary niche. Recently, several novelists have used innovative narrative structures to stylistically differentiate their unhinged female characters. These strategies include the use of metafiction, intertextuality, embedded narratives (a story within a story), and shifting points of view, all of which dynamize unhinged women narratives and offer new angles and subtexts through which we understand the trope.

Take, for instance, Alana Saab’s Please Stop Trying to Leave Me, in which the author moves deftly between metafictional short stories, essay-type narrative nonfiction, and fever dream style hallucinations to evoke Norma’s “Oblivion” (her depression and derealization). Saab’s constant shifts in genre, and her frequent shifts in perspective, complicate the very essence of the unhinged woman narrative by asking, perhaps, the most important question: Who is actually the unhinged one here? Is it the struggling fiction writer who produces the short story sections of the book, or is it the version of Norma who suffers through each therapy session? Or, in a metafictional nod, is it “Alana Saab,” the author of a book which is mentioned in one of the stories? By destabilizing genre and perspective, Saab’s “unhinged woman” narrative also becomes a question about who tells which stories, and whose stories we understand as “fictional” or not.

Ainslie Hogarth’s Motherthing deploys a similar shift in perspective, especially as Abby descends further into madness as she is haunted by her dead mother-in-law, Laura. As Abby’s grip on reality loosens, she begins to refer to herself in the third person, using [brackets and italics] to denote those scenes which she experiences as an omniscient onlooker. To further emphasize this dramatic shift in perspective, Hogarth writes these scenes as one might write a screenplay, with characters denoted clearly (Abby: or Laura:) followed by their line of dialogue. These punctuation choices pronounce the jarring change in perspective; Saab uses a similar detached, screenplay-esque perspective to narrate the therapy scenes in Please Stop Trying to Leave Me. This stylistic detachment represents possible derealization—the fracturing of the “unhinged” woman narrator from herself, as she moves from the first-person perspective to an uncanny omniscient purview.

Such shifts in perspective can add more gravity to certain scenes, as can the use of literary intertextuality, in which the author nods to another piece of literature or art, whether implicitly or explicitly. Meredith Hambrock uses intertextuality throughout her recent novel She’s a Lamb!, a book about ruthless and obsessive ambition in which Jessamyn, a young actress blinded by her desire to play the lead role, begins to conflate reality with a musical theatre performance. Hambrock uses intertextual allusion throughout the novel by writing an unhinged narrator who is herself fixated on another fictional woman: Maria from The Sound of Music. A sense of irony arises when the reader, but not Jessamyn, becomes aware of just how dissonant the narrator is from her image of the ideal female figure in the caretaker Maria. Additional irony emerges throughout She’s a Lamb! through an unstated but evident literary parallel—that of the book’s allusions to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Like Macbeth, Jessamyn’s initial crime leads to a succession of rapid and manic murders which become her own undoing.

Something similar happens in R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface, in which Macbeth also emerges as a subtext: While June enjoys literary fame after she steals and appropriates Athena’s unfinished manuscript, she sees the ghost of Athena in the audience at a major public book event—just as Macbeth is haunted by the ghost of Banquo at a dinner party. Like Macbeth, June’s unhinged narrative is catalyzed by the appearance of a ghostly figure who returns for vengeance and destabilizes the sanity of the protagonist. Evoking other works of literature or art—as in, for instance, The Sound of Music or Macbeth—can call attention to a body of work which engages with similar themes as the contemporary novel; intertextuality, however, can also differentiate contemporary literary fiction from its predecessors by highlighting how timeless themes emerge in the contemporary world

In my own work, I’m interested in the use of stories-within-stories and how we can use multiple points of view, including omniscient narrators scattered amongst first-person speakers. In my debut novel The Gilded Butterfly Effect, the main character Stella tells a story-within-a-story as a means to describe to her new friend Penny, and the reader, her traumatic experience with a fraternity brother the prior year. Her embedded story therefore becomes omniscient in the midst of her usual first-person narrative, giving readers a broad remit of the scene and its several characters. Her story-within-the-story serves several purposes. First, it gives her the chance to claim the story for herself and tell it however she wishes—rather than as dictated by a third-party or a fraternity brother. It also allows her to omit certain key information from Penny, enabling dramatic irony—the reader now knows more about the true story than Penny does. These point of view shifts create miscommunications and misunderstandings amongst characters, which lead to discordance, and eventually contribute to their undoing.

As writers, I think we tend to restrict ourselves when it comes to points of view—but embedding stories within broader narratives can fracture and complicate the plot in important ways. Such fracturing, whether through an embedded story, a change in perspective, or an intertextual nod, can deepen the work’s overall sense of irony and gravity, and heighten the stakes for characters. These literary techniques in turn complicate the “unhinged woman” trope in several ways. Intertextual allusion can locate contemporary fictional women within a broad literary history, recalling the unhinged demises of similar but different characters. Embedded stories can give characters agency and can heighten the readers’ awareness, whilst ironically confusing the perspectives of other characters. By shifting perspective, a book can ask more than “what” might happen to an unhinged female character—it might interrogate who, exactly, she really is at all. In a crowded literary world, in which fictional women seem to be getting increasingly unhinged, stylistic and structural choices can differentiate characters and plot lines, and can keep an “unhinged woman” from falling into the trappings of an overused trope.

Check out Heather Colley’s The Gilded Butterfly Effect here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post The Fracturing of the Literary “Weird Girl”—How Women Authors Use Innovative Structures to Get Inside Unhinged Characters’ Minds appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(25 Plot Twist Ides for Writers.)

A novel is like a story on a hike (or in the case of a thriller, on the run). There needs to be forward movement. Our characters must keep moving toward their goal, toward finding their happily-ever-after.

So, how to do that? I believe that challenge, conflict, and determination followed by action are the special fuels that keep our stories moving.

The Challenge

Let’s start with challenge. If you’ve read the classic nonfiction writer’s guide, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, by Chrisopher Vogler, then you know that every story is launched when someone or something enters our main characters’ lives to launch them on their adventure. That can be anything from getting fired to getting in a car accident.

In my novel The Man Next Door, my heroine’s adventure begins when a mysterious and potentially dangerous man moves in next door. A challenge will kick our main character off the couch and get her moving.

Just like us, our fictional characters need goals. I want my main character to want something because once I give her that desire then the fun begins as I work to thwart her from getting it.

The Conflict

And this is where conflict comes in. Just as walking on that hike moves us closer to the fabulous view, conflict moves the story to the fabulous happy ending. IRL I like things nice and boring, with no scary people, no arguments, no house fires or flat tires, but in fiction, I want to see stuff happening.

So in every scene my character needs to struggle against an obstacle that stands between her and her goal. She wants to find that buried treasure. She finds a map. She starts on her wilderness trek only to encounter a robber who steals the map. She still remembers where the treasure’s buried because she memorized the map, so off she goes, racing against the robber.

The Determination

On the way she may encounter a washed-out road, a hungry bear, a hailstorm that collapses her tent. Every single thing whether human or inhuman will try to block her path and she will have to fight it. The encounter and the fight will teach her lessons and make her stronger and more determined to achieve her goal and get to that treasure.

Something needs to be happening — whether it’s a physical battle against man or nature or an internal argument my hero has with himself. If my character’s beliefs and goals are being challenged, that will force him to make a decision. Every challenge requires a decision and every decision leads to an action, and every action will either move my hero closer to his goal or sidetrack him.

The Action

When writing a scene, I always ask myself, where is the conflict here? What is happening? What is my character facing that will require her to make a decision and do something? One of my funny family sayings has always been, do something even if it’s wrong. In other words, don’t just sit around. Act!

Your main character has to act. And her actions will drive the plot. Think of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, faced with a challenge. Does she let her little sister Primrose get drafted into the death games of the State or will she do something? She does something. We all know the famous line. “I volunteer as tribute.” She rises to the challenge to be noble and acts on it and that begins her adventure. The entire rest of the story centers around Katniss facing challenge after challenge and then figuring out how to meet that challenge.

The Plot Formula

Here’s an easy formula to keep in mind when plotting your scenes and your books: Challenge — decision — action.

By the way, those challenges will bring conflict of some sort. And it might start with inner conflict. Should I be a whistle blower or not? Should I give that man a second chance? Should I leave my home and join the wagon train or not? Doubt is a great plot enabler because it gives our character something to struggle against from the very beginning.

Be cruel to your characters. Keep them struggling until that final climax. They need to struggle! It’s really true that baby chicks need to peck out of that egg to get strong and survive in the world of the barnyard. And it’s also true that characters need a constantly forward moving plot with increasing challenges in order for their story to be strong. Let’s keep our characters challenged and struggling right up through that final climax of the story. Keep their lives moving forward.

Yes, I’ll let my heroine bake some cookies. She can even sample a couple. But she’d better brace herself because something new is lurking right around the corner. And that will keep her life interesting and, hopefully, keep my readers interested, too.

Check out Sheila Roberts’ The Man Next Door here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Plotting or Plodding: How to Keep Your Story Moving appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Crafting Compelling Emotional Arcs in Fiction.)

Pacing is the rhythm at which your story unfolds—the flow of scenes, information, and tension to maintain reader interest. Pacing is not static. It varies throughout a novel to evoke different emotional responses in your readers. Fast-paced sections generate excitement and urgency, while slower moments foster reflection and intimacy. The mastery lies in balancing these speeds to heighten emotional impact, building tension when necessary, then releasing it for catharsis or relief.

One of the primary ways to increase tension is through rapid pacing. Short, staccato sentences and word choices, quick scene shifts, and a heightened sense of urgency can make the reader feel the weight of a ticking clock or impending danger. Gradually raising the stakes—revealing small threats that escalate—keeps readers hooked.

Cliffhangers are a classic tool for maintaining momentum. Ending a chapter or scene on a question or unresolved scenario compels readers to continue. For example, leaving a protagonist at the edge of a crisis or revealing a startling secret creates suspense that is released only when the story catches up again.

While adrenaline-pumping scenes are vital, writing novels with emotional depth often requires slowing the tempo. Moments of reflection, dialogue, or character development should unfold at a more leisurely pace, allowing readers to connect with characters’ internal struggles. Alternating between high-octane sequences and tender, introspective moments enhances emotional resonance.

Strategic pacing also highlights key emotional milestones. These slower scenes create a space for readers to internalize characters’ emotions, making subsequent rapid scenes hit even harder.

The culmination of tension built throughout the story is the payoff for readers. A well-timed release—a slow unraveling back into calm or a sudden, impactful revelation—provides emotional payoff. Rushing through this resolution can diminish its power, while dragging it out too long may sap momentum.

5 Practical Tips for Managing Pacing

1. Vary sentence and scene lengths. Short, punchy sentences and word choices accelerate pace. Longer sentences slow it down.
2. Strategize scene and chapter breaks. Use these to create natural pauses or cliffhangers, a chance for your readers to catch their breaths before you plunge them into the next accelerating action.
3. Introduce cliffhangers appropriately. Save them for pivotal moments to maximize suspense.
4. Control information flow. Withhold key details to maintain mystery. Revealing secrets gradually keeps readers invested in your story.
5. Balance action with reflection. Mix fast and slow scenes to sustain emotional engagement without overwhelming or underwhelming readers.

Pacing is a difficult skill to teach and an even more difficult skill to master. The best advice I can offer when it comes to pacing (as well as all other aspects of fiction writing!) is to study those writers whose books consistently grip you from the very first page. When I first started out on this writing journey more than 35 years ago, I was given fabulous advice I still follow. When I find a book I love, I read it twice in a row, once for pleasure and once to try to analyze why the story worked so well for me. Books that keep you up all night have so many lessons to teach. Study how the author paced emotional scenes vs. action scenes. What cliffhangers, secrets, and revelations kept you invested in the story, page after page?

Pacing is the heartbeat of a compelling novel. When used intentionally, it guides your readers through a thrilling, satisfying roller coaster ride, with small bumps leading to bigger hills until they reach that final stomach-clenching ascent toward the plunge of the dark moment and then the happily-ever-after slowing down to the ride’s exit.

As a writer, experimenting with rhythm and timing can make your storytelling more immersive and more powerful and can keep your readers emotionally invested in your characters and their journey.

Check out RaeAnne Thayne’s Snow Kissed here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Pacing for Emotional Impact in Fiction: Building Tension and Release in a Novel appeared first on Writer's Digest.

I grabbed the sheet closest to me and read. Charlotte, our main character, is braiding her thick red hair in preparation to meet her new mother-in-law. It’s a good scene. But wait! Red hair?

A quick look at my Word document confirmed: Charlotte’s hair is “the color of tea with milk.” I had lost track of her appearance.

One of the challenges in long form writing is to maintain a visual familiarity with all the characters. What they look like, their patterns of speech, what cars they drive. I love writing these details, but sometimes they’re hard to remember. And so, I use props. Namely, paper dolls and story maps.

Paper Dolls

Just as it sounds, paper dolls are basic cut-outs in the shape of a stick figure. I use cardboard so they don’t fall apart. Onto each doll, I write names, ages, features, quirks. As I write and develop these characters, I mark up the dolls to match. Sometimes I use colored pencils to illustrate certain features—if they’re important to the story.

I had a character who’d undergone an amputation of his arm, so I lopped off the arm of that doll. For a character who had a lisp, I drew his mouth as a lightning bolt. When characters undergo a change, I use colors to show alterations—without erasing any of the original features. In that way, I can easily recall what someone looked like before, and after.

The doll becomes a totem, carrying the unique marks and manners of that one character. This is a great way to bring your characters to life in a different way. Also, creating each doll is meditative and constructive; it gives you time to think about the character as a real person, and to consider what other features and facets you might reveal.

Story Map

Like a comic strip, story maps lay out a sequence of events in a simple, unadorned way. When putting my loose manuscript pages back in order, I created a story map to organize what I had already written. On 3X5 index cards, which are small and easy to move around, I described the rising action in each scene. Charlotte meets her mother-in-law where she gets drunk and falls down. Then, I noted the name of the restaurant because it was a recurring location. I noted the food because it revealed something about Charlotte and about her mother.

[Each card must earn its place on the map just as each scene must earn its place in the story. Thus, Charlotte is nervous about meeting her mother-in-law, does not belong on the map. Not yet, at least.]

By the time I finished the entire revision process, a full year later, I’d come to appreciate more information on the story map. Consider adding the following information:

• Page numbers: where does this scene appear in the manuscript
• Note the season to ensure steady passage of time
• Progression of a main character, or any critical character
• New developments: when a character notices something for the first time including clues
• Sub plots and secondary characters who throw the plot into a spin
• Character arcs: mark the emotional highs and lows, and pivotal moments of the journey
• Changes: note the big moments, pivotal revelations, major failures

When all the scenes are mapped, stand back and take a look. Follow the hero’s journey like a road map, flowing from card to card, looking for holes, missing beats, dead ends. I organize the cards in a three-act structure and then study the pacing and progressions, and note where I need to fortify the rising tension.

Be sure that each card, each scene, ties in with the core concept of the story. Pay attention to when and how information is transmitted, and to how the pacing of the story changes as a result. Are there too many cards marked summer? Where are the holes in the plot, and the lags in the pacing?

This might seem like a lot of busy work, but it saved me tons of time. I kept the paper dolls in the box with all my revisions and sometimes I take them out and say hello. The story map remains posted on my bulletin board, even as the publishing date for Hello Wife approaches. I like to walk by and look at the progress: my progress and the story’s progress. But that’s just me.

Check out Lisa K Friedman’s Hello Wife here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Keeping Track of Your Story With Maps and Paper Dolls appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Those are all shorthand for “fun to read,” and also for “something happens.”

(Immutable Moments: The Load-Bearing Beats of a Story.)

Problem is, it’s textbook-easy to begin a novel and have something happen: That’s why there’s a story, right? Something happens.

But to keep your story going, to keep it pacey and compelling, things must keep happening. (And that’s called telling a story. Or even better, revealing a story.)

And when faced with all those empty pages, especially as your novel moves into that intimidating but critical Act 2, it can be daunting to keep the engine of your book running at full speed. To keep the plane flying.

5 Steps to Avoid the Muddle in the Middle

How do you keep your story propulsive?

Here’s a secret: Think of it as a series of five steps. A repeating and varying arc of five specific segments.

Step 1: What does your character want right now?

It can be as small as a drink of water, or as big as stopping the guy with his finger on the nuclear button. Each step in a Hank-segment has a goal. And at the end of the segment, that goal will either be reached or not. And more on that in a minute. But if the characters don’t want something, there’s no reason for them to do anything. More on that in a minute, too.

Step 2: Why does that person want that thing?

Are they thirsty? Because maybe, if they don’t get water they will die? If they don’t get water they will not be able to take their pill? (And then they’ll die?) Or if they don’t stop the nuclear-button guy, they will die and so will everyone else? Depending on where you are in the story, the stakes can be tiny or cataclysmic, but you the author must clarify the motivation for them to do what they are about to do to get what they want.

Step 3: They decide what to do!

Should they call room service? Do they fumble down the stairs in the middle of the night and go to the kitchen and search for a glass and turn on the water? Do they pull out their stun gun or brass knuckles or call on their power of personal persuasion to distract nuclear-button guy?

Your character must decide what to do, and that decision-making process allows you the author to examine the setting and all of its possibilities, as well as the psychology of the character. Do they make a wise, thoughtful, benevolent decision? Or a selfish, venal, self-centered decision? The decision they make allows you to reveal their character.

And the setting matters profoundly: What your character would decide in a blizzard or in the midst of a drought, or in their bedroom (or someone else’s), is very different, so how does that alter their thought process?

Step 4: They do whatever it is!

And when they do it, what does that mean for your novel? It means action! It means forward motion. It means something is changing, and all of the dominoes and all of the ramifications of this particular decision crash into a new place. Here we go, the reader thinks, let’s see what happens! This could be a critical moment! And your story flies even higher.

Step 5: The obstacle.

And then, every time: WHAM. Up pops the obstacle. The conflict. The barrier.

Oh no, there’s no water! Oh no, they fall down the stairs. Oh no, the bad nuclear-button guy turns around—it’s not who they thought it was, it’s a good guy! Oh no, what is happening now? The power goes out, the bad guy has suddenly-appearing henchpeople, your character trips and falls on their face. The action they chose is thwarted because suddenly now there’s a new conflict—they have been stopped on the way to their goal. What do they need to do now? 

Which brings us back to number one, see? 

What does your character want? And you start again.

Meanwhile, you have written a segment with a goal, with understandable motivation, with revealing decision-making, with propulsive action, and with a twist or a shock or a surprise or an obstacle. Hooray! Your story is moving ahead.

Goal. Motivation. Decision-making. Action. Obstacle. Then, result and regroup and restart. What do they want now? Is that different from the past? Whether it is or whether it isn’t, either way works. Because your story and your character have evolved and advanced.

Your key secret is causation: Everything happens because of what happened before. Because of this—then this. Because of that—then that. With causation, your book is no longer randomly episodic—and then and then and then—disparate story pieces glued together as a narrative. With the five steps, the story is logical, relatable, and propulsive, because those five steps reflect a character’s unique and personal decision-making process.

Is a segment the same as a chapter or a scene?

They may be each of those, but where you break your scenes or chapters during this series may differ. You may end a chapter when the character hits the obstacle. You may begin the next chapter when they take action. That all depends on the rhythm of your book.

Does the obstacle have to be bad? Nope. Maybe your character gets what they hoped for, or what they expected. Or maybe they learned something helpful that they didn’t know before. Great. But now—whoa. Their path is different. And what if they were wrong about what they wanted? Now what do they want?

And remember—all of the other characters in your novel want something too, and whether on the page or off, they’re going through the same five steps. When those wants conflict with your character’s wants—instant conflict.  (And that’s just what the author wants!)

Finally, what your character wants in the big picture arc—your thematic “want” for happiness or love or peace or success—is the goal of these incremental “wants.” Does the “big want” change as the incremental wants proceed? Of course it does. And that makes your story even better.

From beginning to end, your novel is a series of these five steps. And I promise you, these steps will be invisible in your manuscript. That’s because the five steps are exactly how life works—and because of that, your story feels powerful and real. And the muddle in the middle turns to magic.

Check out Hank Phillippi Ryan’s All This Could Be Yours here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post 5 Steps to Avoid the Muddle in the Middle of Your Novel appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(8 Tips for Increasing Tension in Any Genre.)

We follow characters across multiple books because we love them. This is true for readers too. There’s much to consider with the final book—reader expectations, the message, narrative arcs, character arcs, honoring the origin story, how readers will feel when they close the book, and perhaps, our desire to leave them with a glorious final “something.”

To me, fiction always starts and ends with the characters. The best fiction is character-driven. Characters need to be compelling if we’re going to stick with them across books. When writing a series, there’s a balancing act between staying true to who characters are and allowing for growth.

For a single novel, we only need to consider character arcs across one story. With the final book in a series, we need to consider character arcs both across that book and across the series as a whole. Is each character’s journey complete? Have they grown? When we look at where they began and ended, does it make sense?

Additionally, while in a series we revisit the original characters we may also bring in new ones. In a trilogy, for example, there may be some characters who appear in all three books while others only appear in one or two. Yet they each need a complete character arc, and what that looks like will differ based on their role in the series.

Yes, we continue writing about characters when we adore them, but we also need something to say. Each book should have a narrative purpose. There needs to be a story. The final book in a series has a huge narrative job. As writers, we must consider the narrative of the specific book, as well as the full narrative arc of the series. So, we are juggling two sets of beginnings, middles, and endings—one for the final book and one for the entire series.

To me, there’s nothing more challenging or exciting than writing the end of the last book in a series. The ending has a big job. It’s what readers are left with, and for us authors, it’s our goodbye to characters we love. There’s a lot to consider. It’s important to honor the entire series and all the primary characters. To do this, I’m a fan of fully referencing the first book in some way—going back to where it began and imagining what’s beyond the pages.

Reading a series is an act of generosity and trust, so readers should be at the forefront. How can we satisfy readers’ expectations, hopes, and fantasies? How might readers feel when they close the book? I’m a big believer in satisfying everything a reader could hope for, and then doing one more thing, some final surprise, or glorious moment to make them smile, cry, or swoon. Something to remind them of the entire journey and help them imagine what’s to come. A poetic twist or turn of phrase. That’s probably the romantic in me.

I recently had one of the best writing experiences of my life. It started during the lockdown when like many other others, I was stuck at home bored, double fisting chocolate bars, and filled with existential doom. I longed to escape to someplace joyful, romantic, and creative. Someplace affectionate where you could hug and kiss people without fear of killing them. Romance is my genre of choice these days and because of the pandemic, I was thinking about the big questions of life.

So, I decided to write a romance novel about a group making a film about the meaning of life. Controversial filmmaker Jean Mercier is shooting a film in a remote location in Sweden. While spending the summer creating his latest work of cinematic art, he lives in a nearby inn with his lead actors. Mercier invites his friend Ella Sinclair, a free-spirited philosopher, to stay with them for the summer. When Ella arrives, Hollywood star Finn Forrester is instantly enchanted by her, and soon they fall madly in love.

In a case of life imitating art, the film they are creating explores “the big questions” and prompts the stars to reflect on the crossroads they face in their own lives. After the film shoot, they each go home. The group meets months later on the red carpet for the film’s premiere, and we see the true impact of their time together. The novel is called The Location Shoot. I loved writing it so much that I decided to continue with the characters and make it a trilogy.

Each book in the trilogy inspired the next. The second book, After the Red Carpet, sees Ella and Finn building a life together and starting a family in the shadow of Hollywood (they have three children at the end of the book). The original characters are all present or honored in some way, and new characters are introduced.

Next, I wanted to explore the lives of the three grown Forrester children, and that became the basis for the third book in the trilogy, Cinematic Destinies. Who did these children become? How would the public fascination with their parents’ love story affect them and their love stories? As a philosopher, Ella was always exploring what love might look like and feel like over a lifetime, so I also wanted to know how that unfolded for her and Finn.

Finally, whatever happened to Jean, the filmmaker who brought them all together in the first place? What does it mean to create art for a lifetime? How might one look back? All these questions inspired Cinematic Destinies.

I call this trilogy the Red Carpet Romances and together they span over 30 years. Writing the final book, Cinematic Destinies, was a total joy. I knew the original characters so well, like old friends, and the new characters captured my imagination. I also saw the concluding book as an opportunity to fully tell the story of a character that had not yet been centered. Jean Mercier, the filmmaker that brought them all together, has a supporting role in books one and two. In the final book, his narrative is completed.

Readers were never far from my mind. I tried to give them all the little nods they might hope for, including finding ways to, literally or metaphorically, bring all the characters from the first book together again. I used the epilogue to offer one last bit of movie magic, tie up all the stories, and set the stage for more, even if only in readers’ imaginations. The characters go on, which I hope is a comfort to readers.

To me, this trilogy is very much about the search for beauty and what it means to live this wondrous, messy, tragic, hopeful thing we call life, and to do so to the fullest. At the core, it’s a celebration of life, love, and art. Those were the final messages I wanted to impart, and as I cried happy tears all over my keyboard, I felt I had done that and in doing so I honored the story as a whole and the characters that have come to mean so much to me.

Check out Patricia Leavy’s Cinematic Destinies here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post The Glorious Task of Ending a Trilogy or Series appeared first on Writer's Digest.

—to the Acknowledgements?

Yes, you just got cliffhangered.

(60 Examples of Hooks for Books.)

There are two vital reasons an author uses a cliffhanger at the end of a book—the larger being that it hooks the reader and makes them desperate to pick up book number two. The lesser is that, in the scope of the story they want to tell, there isn’t a good cut-off point between books to wrap up everything, temporarily, in a nice bow. But while a cliffhanger may lead your reader by the nose to the next novel, it also makes many readers throw books and leave bad reviews.

So how does one utilize this hung ending without enraging their readership?

First, we need to discuss hooks.

What is a hook?

A hook is a reader magnet. It’s usually one sentence crafted to leave the reader with a burning question that must be answered straightaway, thus leading them to read the next page, the next scene, and the next chapter. Anything to keep momentum going and prevent the reader from putting the book down. I.e., And then he pulled out a gun, or I opened the door to see the most breathtaking sight I’d ever beheld. The questions? Why does he have a gun? What is he going to do with it? Or, what is it she sees? Why is it so captivating? What’s going to happen next???

Boiled down, a cliffhanger is just a hook. But instead of coming at the end of a scene or chapter, it comes at the end of the whole book. But whereas a hook has immediate reader gratification (turning the page), a cliffhanger does not. It involves a trip to the library or bookstore, or, heaven forbid, waiting for the next book to release. No instant gratification = angry readers.

But authors need to hook the reader to the next book, or the series will flop. So where’s the balance? Answer: It’s in reader promises.

What is a reader promise?

It is setting up reader expectation in a book and then meeting that expectation. If I pick up a title labeled as a romance, I am expecting the main couple to have a happily-ever-after at the end. But it’s more than that. If I start a book and the main character has a deathly fear of heights, I’m expecting him to have to face that fear in the book. If the protagonist is set up as the best swordfighter in all the land, I am expecting to see her annihilate someone with her blade.

Reader expectations come in tiers. The highest tier is expectations for the main plot. Lesser tiers include subplots, character arcs, and all the subtle things in between. When I pick up The Serpent and the Wings of Night, by Carissa Broadbent, I am promised from the beginning (and the back cover) that the protagonist will compete in a deadly tournament. That is the central reader promise of the book. The promise that she’ll have a relationship with her tentative vampire ally is secondary.

Understanding this is the key to successful cliffhangers.

You absolutely cannot cliffhanger a central promise. You cannot cliffhanger the main premise of a story. That premise is the entire reason the reader has picked up the book—they need some form of satisfying ending to that promise.

However, you can cliffhanger secondary, tertiary, and so on, promises. Broadbent does just this. While the plot of the tournament is resolved at the end of book two, the plot of the romance with the vampire ally is not. It’s become more complex than we ever could have imagined, creating a new problem, and to resolve that problem, we’ll have to read book 2.

I did not throw The Serpent and the Wings of Night across the room when I finished it. I gave it five stars and snagged book two. And therein lies the beauty of cliffhangers.

So, in a nutshell.

• Identify the promises made to a reader throughout your book.
• Choose anything but the central promise—the main premise—to cliffhanger at the end. This includes promises that aren’t introduced until the 50%, 75%, or even 90% mark.

Make your readers happy, but keep them coming back for more. Hook, line, and sinker.

But mostly hook.

Check out Charlie N. Holmberg’s The Shattered King here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post How to Use Cliffhangers (And Not Make Readers Hate You) appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Establish your “closed circle.”

The best mysteries tend to be “closed circle” mysteries—meaning they involve a small number of suspects within a single unit. How you define your closed circle is up to you: It could be family members at a country house or passengers on a Nile cruise … use your imagination! But if you’re planning to write a puzzle mystery, it’s a good idea to focus on a handful of main characters, with the killer lurking somewhere among them. That way, your reader won’t feel short-changed by a villain appearing from nowhere in the final chapter.

Establish your “rules.”

It might seem counterintuitive to talk about rules for a genre where all the most satisfying examples break the rules in some way. But you need a logical framework of some kind in which your plot will unfold. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your detective is never more than one step ahead of the reader, and that your Watson character is never more than one step behind.

Keep it simple.

The best mysteries are the ones which hide a deceptively simple trick in plain sight. Now, that’s not to say that your plot shouldn’t be devilishly complex. But most of those ornate convolutions will be in service to a single, overarching trick. A favorite analogy of mine is the “Orange Tree Illusion” of the great magician Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin. This is a stunningly elaborate trick which relied on an ingenious mechanical construction, pyrotechnics, and various stagehands lurking behind the scenes. But it was all in pursuit of one of the simplest and most ancient illusions imaginable: the disappearance and reappearance of a handkerchief.  

The timeline is your friend.

In any fiction where the plot is at the forefront, it’s vital to have a clear understanding of your chronology. You need to know who was where, and at what time. Even if the characters lie to each other, and to your detective, you need to have a clear visual of where they were and what they were up to. Think of it like pieces on a chessboard—everything is relative; one move has various ramifications for every other piece on the board. You need to plan your sequence of moves accordingly.

Treat your suspects equally.

Of course you know whodunit, but it’s important to remember your reader doesn’t—or rather, they shouldn’t. To keep them guessing, it’s a good idea to devote equal space to each of your suspects, so there isn’t one particularly obvious front-runner. Also, make sure you don’t go too far in the opposite direction—your murderer should be someone who’s been present in the narrative from the beginning. It can be a difficult balance, but it’s worth getting right.

Motive, motive, motive.

When writing mysteries, you are essentially attempting to deceive several different types of readers. Some will be highly attuned to the physical clues, the erroneous alibis—in other words, the material details. But others will be more directly focused on character and motivation—the immaterial, psychological clues. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your victim was either universally loved or universally loathed. Either everyone has a motive, or nobody does—at least on the surface.

Surprise yourself.

In many ways, you are your own “Ideal Reader.” Presumably you want to write a mystery because you enjoy reading mysteries, so it’s a good idea to think about the types of plot twists and “reveals” that truly startled you. How can you set about replicating that effect? Often the best method is to think of the most obvious solution to your puzzle, and then invert it.

Let’s say that the hated patriarch of a large family has just written his unruly youngest son out of his will. The kid gets nothing. When the old man dies, surely the first suspect to be ruled out is the unruly son? After all, what did he have to gain? This is the “obvious” path for our detective—it’s a logical deduction, after all. But what if the youngest son did have a motive that none of his siblings knew about—something that ran deeper than money? That’s the first inversion.

But it’s not really enough: The best mystery writers tend to orchestrate a double-bluff, only to transform it into a double-double-bluff. What if the youngest son was plotting to murder his father, only for a second, unidentified murderer to beat him to the punch? This is the kind of approach I usually take, with one complication feeding neatly into the next. As long as you don’t tie yourself up in knots, you can leapfrog your way from one revelation to another en route to that all-important satisfying denouement, in which the whole tapestry is unravelled.

Check out Tom Mead’s The House at Devil’s Neck here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post The Perfect Puzzle: 7 Tips for Creating Fiendish Mystery Plots appeared first on Writer's Digest.