The Basics of a Bad Novel : Characters

Part I – Characters

There are great novels and awful novels, and then there are those that are in between. I call them FRUSTRATING.

They are frustrating because they could have so easily been so much more. They have major flaws and errors that are easy to spot and quick to correct, but no one bothered. These novels also often play with the established format and structure of the novel/genre and tacitly tell the reader, “You don’t matter, I write for myself.”

The bad novel or the frustrating novel is very common today because of the ease of publishing. In bypassing the publisher, the new author has also bypassed the editor. In this series of posts dedicated to the FRUSTRATING NOVEL, I am going to delve into three basic elements starting with CHARACTERS

I am not going to get into the principal characters (protagonist, main lead, support lead, antagonist , etc) that is a discussion for another day and a much longer one at that. Let us concentrate on the 5 main problems pertaining to characters in such novels.

1. Lingering on minor characters

Naming minor characters is not really bad, but if you start naming all characters and telling us a little something about each of them, you are putting the reader in a maze. Soon he will lose track of who’s important and who’s not. You are the God of your story, if you linger too long on a minor character your reader will assume the character is important.

Let’s take a simple example:

I live in an apartment building in Manhattan. It is a group of 170 odd apartments with top of the line security and a very polite security guard.

That’s a simple description of your apartment.

I live in an apartment building in Manhattan. It is a group of 170 odd apartments with top of the line security and a very polite security guard, Andy Brown. He prefers to call himself in 007 style, “Brown. Andy Brown.”

The focus of that information is now your security guard, not your apartment. I expect your security guard will be more than just a person you pass by on your way in and out, why else would you bother to tell me about him.

I live in an apartment building in Manhattan. It is a group of 170 odd apartments with top of the line security and a very polite security guard, Andy Brown. I acknowledged his pleasantries with a nod and a smile and stepped out onto a cold sidewalk.

I have named the minor character because I have many scenes of simple interactions, but I write in a way to indicate clearly to my reader that stepping out of home is the event, running into Andy Brown isn’t.

A lot of writers do worse. They add a posse of characters to make the setting more realistic. Andy Brown is only the night security guard, Billy Green is the daytime security guard. Then there’s Andre, the Mexican kid who delivers flowers for the foyer and Kim Hau, the super-smart Asian girl who delivers groceries to your doorstep, she is doing this to save up for college by the way. These authors argue that this is exactly how it’s in real life.

Well, fiction isn’t real life. It shouldn’t be.

Minor characters are rarely fun for the writer, literally never for the reader.

2. Characters from the back story

James Bond’s grandfather was a pharmacist. So what!

In building the back-story of principal characters, writers often create family trees and a slew of minor characters that bind their hero’s life story together. As arduous as that task is, it must always remain in the background. Like a backdrop it should complete the picture but never be the focus.

Every character must have a back story, what does it really mean?

It simply means that your novel is set in a finite space of time but your characters have existed before and after your novel.

If your novel is about a whirlwind romance between Tom and Betty from 1979 to 1982, you have to be clear in your head as to what they were doing before 1979. Many of those events and incidents would have added up to make them the way they were in 1979.  The important thing is: it should be in your head, not necessarily on the page. The character’s action could well be a direct or indirect result of the back story but if you have to keep visiting the back story for every trait or reaction and in the process produce an ensemble of blink-and-you-miss-it characters, you will dissipate the tension and cause the reader’s mind to wander. No author wants that.

Let’s again take an example

The hero has grit. He comes from a long line of renowned hunters who have stared death in the face and defeated the most ferocious of beasts. How do you highlight this lineage to give more depth to your character?

• If your hero having grit has nothing to do with the plot, then let’s leave it out. If your story is about, say, your hero struggling to clear his SAT, then any reference to his hunter ancestors or an attempt to liken them killing a tiger to him killing the monster that is AP Trigonometry would be stretching it too far. Don’t try to connect what cannot be connected.
• Get another character to refer to his ancestors but not in a matter-of-fact way, it should be done in a scene that directly connects to the information. For example, your hero is a  doctor working on a resection. You can liken his grit in ridding the body of a tumor to that of his ancestor who chased a man-eating tiger out of the village. Don’t just drop information; make it connect to the story.
• Let the author/narrator refer to these ancestors multiple times throughout the book or the sub-plot but each time you refer there must be some additional information and it must connect to the scenes in which the references are made. Reinforce the back-story, make minor characters stand out.

3. One minor character per event

This one is the worst of the lot. It is similar to point 1 where we talk about minor characters being given unnecessary importance, with one important difference. Minor characters aren’t given importance, but there are truckloads of them.

While the reader is not misled into assigning undue importance to a minor character, he is however, completely drowned by the overabundance of minor characters. Keep an eye out for this problem because it creeps up on you and takes over your novel in no time. In YA novels dealing with high school or college you will find this problem when the protagonist gets the lecture time-table from a student counselor, buys some old books from a senior year student, gets a pack of beer with a student from down the hall, goes stationery shopping with the dork roommate and runs into the pretty girl from the Economics class at the store.  You know these characters aren’t important and hence it’s all the more frustrating to keep hearing about more and more of them.

In my classes, I use an anecdote to drive home the (un)importance of minor characters. My late great-uncle was a very famous optometrist and would get about a dozen interns every year. Due to age or memory or plain rudeness, he would refer to them by number not by name. His defense: by the end of the year only 3 or 4 will remain, much better to just learn their names then.

That’s what readers want, that’s also what they do. They ignore characters till you say something that makes them sit up and look again at some character. Too many characters is like too much description, no one cares for it. At the very least, try to get a character to do more than one thing.

A writer must proactively search out minor characters and remove them. There’s a big benefit to removing excess minor characters, it often leads to deleting unnecessary minor scenes and makes your writing stronger.

4. Passive supporting characters

Do not confuse supporting characters with minor characters. The protagonist’s friend whom he frequently turns to for advice is the supporting character, the guy who hands the friend a latte at the Starbucks is the minor character.

Drawing up supporting characters should be a post in itself, so let’s just look at the basics:

Supporting characters are not props.

Don’t take the qualifier “supporting” literally, most authors do. A supporting character is not just an agony aunt or a friend/mentor who spews life-lessons or smart-ass quips. A supporting character MUST support the story not the protagonist. It stands repeating: supporting characters must support the story.

Unlike minor characters, supporting characters need to do something other than run into  Mr. Protagonist.

Supporting characters need to have a life and at least one subplot of their own. The closer the subplot is to the main plot, the better it is. By closer I don’t mean his actions have to help the hero, but they must have a bearing on the main plot. Let’s say your protagonist is working hard to save money for a surgery his daughter needs. The supporting character, a friend who has so far been helping the hero do that, decides to take a road trip to reconcile with his mother but meets with an accident. The protagonist pays for his friend’s bills and ends up with no savings. There you go, there’s the problem, there’s the tension and a possibility of high drama.

5. Series characters

You are not a candidate for this last problem unless you are writing a series. Series spread over 3 or more books tend to have many characters, some of whom will be quite important. You cannot however introduce a character much earlier just because he is important. Characters must serve the story here and now. If you look at the Harry Potter series you will realize how important this rule is. Remus and Sirius play very important roles in the third book and they are friends of Harry’s parents but there is no mention of them in previous books because they had nothing to do.

This is what is known as Chekhov’s Gun. It’s a plot device named after the great Russian playwright who said: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”

This works equally well for characters and is probably the single most important rule. Don’t introduce a character unless he is doing something right now. Imagine your ten-year old self being introduced to your future wife. Is she important? Yes. Do you need to know about her now? No.

You can also consider Chekhov’s Gun from the opposite perspective: If you fire a gun in the second act, then show it in the first act.

It works, sometimes wonderfully too especially if you connect back the dots and go wow. When important things are presented innocuously to the reader, they delight the reader upon revelation. It’s a common ploy in mysteries.

A word of caution: Many authors and writing coaches take Chekhov’s Gun literally and think that if something is not actually part of the plot it should be out. Consequently, they think of Red Herrings in mystery stories to be a violation of the principle. It is not.

Chekhov said that everything introduced to the author must do what it must and soon. The red herring is supposed to mislead and it will do that. It is not extraneous to the plot, it is the plot.

Characters must serve a purpose, they must do something to the story. Fiction has no place for bystanders.

Happy Writing!

A Solid Start : The First 10 Pages of Your Novel

How long does it take for you to know if you like a book?

More importantly, how long before you realize you don’t like it?

Years ago I attended a screenwriting workshop conducted by a national award winning screenwriter. The course was excellent and in many ways, eye-opening. One of the many things that have stayed with me from that 5 day workshop is the importance of the first 10 pages of your screenplay, the first 10 minutes of your film.

It applies equally to a book, the first 10 pages is your best ammo to get a reader glued.

The first 10 pages are the first 3000 – 3500 words of your novel and it is sometimes only halfway into your first chapter.

10 pages, that’s all you get.

Thankfully, that’s all you need. More on that later, let’s now look at the first 10 pages. For the sake of simplicity, let’s consider the first 10 pages to be your first chapter.

Your first chapter is KEY. It represents the whole book. And if your first chapter doesn’t grab the reader, you may not get the benefit of being read.

Imagine a reader browsing a local bookstore:

Step 1: He heads to titles stacked under his favourite genre (thrillers, romance, etc)

Step 2: Starts reading the back cover of books (randomly or based on titles he likes)

Step 3: Opens the book to page 1 and starts reading a few pages

If you clear the first two rounds, that is you happen to write in a genre he likes and you have a good book description on the back cover, then you better have a power packed first 10 pages.

No one is going to read more than 10 pages in a casual browsing, in fact you’d be lucky if someone reads though 10 pages, it is usually within 3 – 4 pages that a book is discarded or rushed to the billing counter.

It’s not different in the virtual world. After the book description, the sample chapter decides it all.

10 pages, that’s all you get.

Now that you know the deal, let’s see how best you can use those 10 pages and what’s expected of you.

1. Move it.

The first 10 pages cannot be passive. It’s all about movement, all about action. I purposely added movement before action, because some writers take the word action literally and start off with an outlandish outburst or a crime or just crash a car for fun’s sake and then start their novel a mile from the action. Movement is action, don’t describe the weather or ramble about the “play of light and shadows filtering through autumn leaves”, you will have enough time to do it later (if you must).

If you must start with mundane description, let it lead somewhere. Look at Raymond Chandler’s starting lines for The Big Sleep

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

84 words into the book and you can’t wait to read it.

2. Set the tone

The genre and tone of the novel must be clear to the reader from the start. This might appear formulaic but it works well.  Adventure novels start with action, romance and romantic comedies focus on introducing the main characters and the many (comical) problems in their life, thrillers and whodunits often start with a crime.

Consider any romance novel and see how it starts with the central problem and then immediately goes to the central character. Or think of private detective novels that start with a client coming to the detective’s door or a letter/call summoning the detective to a place where a crime has taken place or is about to take place. These are examples of genre familiarity, it’s a comforting warm blanket that ardent fans of the genre crave. You’d do good to provide it to them.

The tone must be set from the start.

Whatever the focus of your novel, must be the focus of your first chapter.

3. Employ the Hook

OK, I have spoken enough about this.

The HOOK is the inciting incident close to the opening of a story that “hooks” the reader’s attention and prods him to read on. It must create urgency in the reader, the immediate need to know how this situation described plays out or is resolved.

Sometimes you know how it’s resolved but you want to know how it plays out. Consider Erich Segal’s master opening in his most popular work, Love Story:

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?

That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.”

So you know the girl who loves the narrator dies, you want to know how it plays out.

The hook is usually the major problem or the major situation, in many cases however, the hook is just a minor problem that leads the hero or protagonist into his most important bind and that resolution forms the crux of your story.

Consider Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”, the murder of curator Jacques Saunière sets in motion the events where the main problem is protecting the Holy Grail from falling into the wrong hands.

Not every story can start with a murder but it must start with something dramatic. Hooks in romance novels are particularly jarring if not done well. They often start with dramatic events like funerals and accidents that have nothing to do with the actual story.

The HOOK has to be closely connected to the story, it must be integral to the plot. Consider the starting lines of Beth Thompson’s romance novel, Ants on Peonies (Disclosure: I am the developmental editor for this book)

Ants on a Peony. That’s all my mother could think when she looked at my bandaged head, propped on several pillows and tethered by tubes to a square metal box that burped out numbers.

As I drifted in and out of consciousness, she imagined that my brain had been invaded by foreign entities that were blocking my ability to act or think normally. Glossy, black ants munching their way across the curled buds of June’s favorite flower.

Do ants help or hinder the peony? She’d heard arguments for both sides, but couldn’t remember the definitive answer.

“Given the precarious state you were in, I finally decided I was entitled to believe whatever I wanted,” she told me much later. “So, I chose the former.”

Even as she recounts this story 30 years on, there is a hum of incredulity in her voice as if she, a mere mortal, could get away with that kind of thinking – having her way with the Lord God’s ideas of righteousness and all.

She makes me shake my head, my mother. Maggie Scott, a remarkable woman living an unremarkable life. Not so different from many folks I know, except in one blinding, shield-your-eyes kind of way: She’s happy with her lot.

I suppose my life would have been easier if I’d bent to Divine Will – whatever the hell that is – more often. Not that knowing would have made much difference; godly things have inspired me less.

Less than a page into the book, you know the main character and how her life has shaped up, in another page you will know that this accident is the focus of her story.

A hook has to have clear connection to the story. Few things are as irritating as a forced hook.

4. Introduce the Protagonist

You want the readers to care about the main character and his problems, the quicker he/she enters the scene the better. If you think it is not possible to have the protagonist enter within the first 10 pages, think again. Nine out of ten times, you will save yourself a convoluted storyline by starting it right and the only right start is with the protagonist.

Consider the brilliant opening of Double Indemnity:

I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers. It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. It was built cock-eyed. The garage was under the house, the first floor was over that, and the rest of it was spilled up the hill any way they could get it in. You climbed some stone steps to the front door, so I parked the car and went up there. A servant poked her head out. “Is Mr. Nirdlinger in?”

Half a page! And you have a hook “this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers”, the main character is the narrator, you understand he is into selling insurance, and in another half a page you will be introduced to his selling acumen and the other principal character, Mrs. Nirdlinger.

If you haven’t read James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, grab a copy now. At less than 200 pages it is no frills storytelling at its best.

5. Maintain Suspense

Long expositions on character or situations kill the tone. Keep it exciting and anticipative for your readers.

In the previous example of Erich Segal’s Love Story, the author doesn’t kill the suspense after telling you that the girl dies. He doesn’t say how she dies or how soon or what impact she had on his life. That’s the rest of the story, that’s for the reader to find out over the next 160 or so pages.

The first 10 pages of a novel must help readers get their bearings. Introduce your protagonist and maybe a couple of more characters, give them something to care or worry about, and  don’t allow the tension to let up.

10 pages, that’s all you need.

Happy Writing!

4 Assumptions that Help Authors Fail

 

10 years ago, only one book out of every ten would succeed. And by succeed, I don’t mean bestseller. These books would earn out the advance for the author and probably get in a little more on the royalty, they would earn the publisher a small profit (yeah, not the kind of profit traditional publishing bashers say publishers make), but good enough to commission another book by the author. Occasionally, one of these “success stories” would break out and become a bestselling A-Lister. All in all, 7 or 8 out of every 10 published authors would fail. Today, with the ubiquitous self-publishing model, the number is higher it’s probably 97 or 98 out of hundred.

Yes. Only 2 or 3 out of every hundred novelists will see success. Not Patterson kind of success but “I can quit my day job” kind of success.

 

I am considering for this post , four lines of thought that lead to failure.

These assumptions have nothing to do with the art or craft of writing.  Insipid writing, silly plot, cardboard characters are rarely the only reason for failure. If they were, then quite a few of today’s best-selling authors would be working nights at the local diner. Every year there is at least one crappy book that becomes an overnight success, we have all read those books and wondered, “What the hell!”

Failing as a novelist goes beyond writing a bad book. Way beyond. It is more about not having the attitude of a career writer. I am not talking about “gut feeling” and “outlook” or other sappy stuff, I am talking about tangibles.

Here’s why you fail as a novelist, it’s because you ASSUME:

1. I don’t need brand-building

Readers buy authors. There are fans of Dan Brown, and Mark Giminez, I am yet to come across a fan of Random House. Publishers will market your book, but they can’t market you without you stepping in.

So what is brand building for an author?

A. You establish credibility by writing more and more books. This is the best and most sustainable way of brand building. You deliver on your brand promise, every time. Agatha Christie’s brand promise was “an ingenious plot” and she delivered on that. Every time.

What’s your promise?

When a reader picks up your book, what can he be sure of getting?

B. This is more roundabout but quicker than the previous option. It works well for some genres. If you are writing police procedures, then a blog on CSI or forensic pathology will establish your knowledge and peg you as a writer who is serious about research. It builds your credibility, it builds your brand. It’s more work, but the dividends are rich.

Conventional and cautious wisdom will tell you that brands are not easy to build and only top selling authors have brand value. A closer look will reveal the opposite: only authors who have a brand value become top selling authors. Look at any bestselling author today and you will find a brand, a promise that keeps readers coming back for more.

Think of Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Harlan Coben , Sophie Kinsella, each one has made a small promise to the reader, and they are going to keep it.

 

2. I am a star, I don’t need to engage with my fans

If you do manage to get to the point where you have more than one fan who is not a friend or a family member or someone you donated a kidney to, rejoice.

Very few authors get fans. Crazed devotees who will (for whatever reasons) wait eagerly for the next book and buy it the first chance they get are rare to come by. If you reach there, hang on to it and don’t let go.

Let’s get to a simple example: Pottermore.

This Harry Potter companion site is for fans and J K Rowling adds free content to it every so often, a Thanksgiving gift of 1500 words here, a Christmas bonanza of a back story there and we are all glued. This, mind you, for an insanely popular series that needs no hard selling.

If J K Rowling needs to continuously engage with fans, you need to do it too.

You need to make it easy for a fan to know more about you, your next project, and your writing plans. You need to have a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a blog, the whole shebang. This is not just brand building, it’s brand engagement.

A word of caution: Engagement is not about selling.

One of the easiest ways to become a failed novelist is to write one book and then beat it into the heads of all around you. The only message some authors share is about their book and how it’s on sale or it’s free today or it’s at a never before price of 99 cents. It’s not doughnuts, the “Hot Now” sign does not work.

Using social media with the sole aim of brazenly promoting your book is not engagement, it’s harassment. Sharing interesting things is the key, share solid pieces written by others on Facebook, Google+, and other sites. Create some value for your fans.

True, it seems for the most part to be a time-waster, but it’s not. It yields good results. Most importantly, it tells your loyal reader that you care enough to be around.

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3. I can always go back to my day job

Imagine you start out on your career as a lawyer, banker, teacher, whatever, and go about it with this thought in your mind: “I can always go back to my parent’s basement.”

No one does that. Yet a majority of aspiring authors create these elaborate safety nets and then don’t even take the plunge. This is the kind that secretly hopes they can slink away into the night if their book is a dud.

You want to be a writer, then burn bridges.

Go all in. You don’t have to give up your day job but put yourself out there. Don’t shy away from working doggedly at that goal, no matter the smirks and eye-rolls. Behave like someone who is in it for the long run, not someone who is embarrassed by the possibility of failure.

 

One of the clear signs of cold feet I see is with authors writing one book. They wait for it to be a success and then and only then they brew that coffee and sit down for the next novel. There are many examples of authors who have written just one book, don’t let that fool you. The more books you write the greater the chances of someone coming across one of them, the more books you write, the more seriousness you show. As a bonus, your writing improves by leaps and bounds.

 

4. I know it all

I am appalled every year by the number of people who think, they know all there is to know. They criticize writing courses, they ridicule writer groups (OK, I will grant that one) and they feel, they have arrived in every which way. They brush away every piece of writing insight as either a fluke or utter nonsense. They have it all figured out.

Look at successful professionals in any field, they hone their craft, continuously. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find authors who actively improve their skills. The problem lies in thinking writing to be creative, hence unteachable. It is a creative field, but with a majority of the work that is craft, not art. Constructing sentences is craft, using one word instead of another is also craft, these are things that are technical and can be learnt and improved upon.

I have even come across writers who have quit reading. They cite reasons like “the quality of published work is so poor”, or that “I would rather spend that time writing (but they rarely do),” or the ever popular “reading destroys my creative thinking I want to be free from suggestion.”

The “Know it all” manifests itself in more devastating forms like,

A. I Can Do it All

I write my books, I edit them, I proofread, I design the cover, I market my books, and yes you guessed it ….I am the only one who reads my books.

Writing and editing aren’t as similar as you’d think, the skills are very different. Besides, you should never self-edit. Make no mistake hard-selling and constant promoting aren’t skills most writers are born with. It’s two different personalities and most often needs two different people. Get help, professional help. It’s your career and your dreams at stake, nothing less than perfect will do.

B. I am Always Right.

These authors have created the literary equivalent of the emperor’s new clothes: you don’t see it! That’s because you are stupid.

They abuse critics, lash out at reviewers, and pretty much talk down to everyone they can. There was a recent (late 2014) case on Goodreads where a reader posted a 1 star review and the author went on a bloody tirade about how stupid she was to have missed the point. He wove conspiracy theories about how she was out to harm him and all that he stood for. It was a crusade really, and frankly quite (unintentionally) entertaining. All the poor girl had said was she found the book wordy and that it went around in circles without saying much. The author responded with more than 2000 words of defence!

 

The good news is that these are assumptions, and therefore all you have to do is not make them. Also rarely does a novelist have all four problems, hence it’s easily doable.

 

Here’s to success, Happy Writing!

The Short (Story) Road to the Novel

The short story, once in prominence not only as a commercially viable work but also as a separate art form no less than the novel, has all but vanished. The short story is an excellent training in storytelling – it is like a contained experiment. Even if it fails you have lost what? 6 – 10 pages of writing! Also it’s easier for someone to point out what went wrong in those 6 – 10 pages, what worked, what did not. Doing the same for a 200 page work is far more difficult. Maybe you lost interest on-third of the way into the novel, but plodded on and finally you come out with the verdict I don’t like it.

Maybe a simple adjustment at those points of sagging interest will lift your story from “I don’t like it” to “it was nice” or maybe even “I liked it.” It’s easy to do it in a short story.

A short story helps just like those short driving trips when you are learning to drive.

Ray Bradbury famously advised aspiring authors to start their writing journey with short stories instead of novels. Himself, a prolific writer of over 400 short stories, his main assertion was of course Plot Structure which is much easier to maintain in a short work and extremely easy to lose in a full length novel.

The simple plot structure of Beginning – Middle – End makes it easy to follow and provides a solid backbone to storytelling. The other major advantage of the short story is the POV.

The short story is too short for a change in point of view (POV) and thus you are saved from the indecision that plagues the novelist. Whose point of view should this sub-plot be from? Am I losing tension because of the shift in point of view?

Difficult questions you could easily do without.

Apart from being a training ground, the short story also acts as an extremely efficient means of not losing the ‘writing habit’. Ray Bradbury’s other important advice was to write one short story every week for at least a year. His point was it’s difficult to write 52 bad short stories. I for one totally agree.

I have a list of my favourite short stories it’s almost 250 now, Here’s a look at five from that list in no particular order and why I love them.

1. The Lottery Ticket by Anton Chekhov

Chekhov is the master of the short story, known for drawing out the darker side of human emotions through his stories. The lottery ticket written more than a 100 years ago catches us in those moments of horrid selfishness, true today as they were then. It’s also a masterpiece in terms of building a story around a very small time frame.

2. The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

The ending of “The Necklace” no longer holds the surprise that must have been one of the draws when it was first published, but the message is still as profound. The effort to show off and fit into a higher class or income group results in a miserable outcome. It’s a classic example of the story structure of Exposition-Climax-Denouement.

3. The Last Leaf by O Henry

The Gift of the Magi is his most famous work, but The Last Leaf remains etched in memory years later. The self-pitying Johnsy , the supportive Sue serving her friend, and the ambitious but unfortunate artist Behrman. Characters created over the space of less than 1500 words that refuse to leave you.

4. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

A not so wise uncle had gifted me this book when I was seven, I thank him for it. This story will bring a smile to your face despite the macabre, a punishing of wrong and the burden of guilt expressed so succinctly in a matter of a few pages.

5. The Rocking Horse Winner by D H Lawrence

A touching story of a child’s desire to change his life and become “lucky”, this one is one of the most evocative pieces of writing that’s there.

The short story is easy to modify or if entirely unsalvageable, easy to ignore and move on. Give it a try, you won’t regret it.

Happy Writing

Anirban S. Bose

5Stories is a monthly digital only magazine. Every issue features 5 stories across various genres. 5Stories aims to be at the forefront of storytelling, pushing the boundaries while exploring the best and the most exciting short stories. Only original, previously unpublished short stories appear on 5Stories. 5Stories facilitates connections between emerging writers and global readers at large. Welcome to a fascinating read!

The 5 Things your 1st 3 chapters must have (Part 3, 4 and 5 of 5)

In our quest to understand what exactly the publisher is looking for in those first 3 chapters that are sought as a sample, we have already looked at:

1. Within the first chapter we must have an introduction to one of the 3 main characters.

2. Your first chapter must have the HOOK

The third thing on your list follows from the second

3. The best writing in your book must be in those first three chapters

First, let me explain how this follows from the second point. As we have seen, the narrative HOOK is the dramatic action that “hooks” the reader’s attention and prods him to read on.

All dramatic action is embodied in threat. The more imminent the threat, the more dramatic the HOOK is.

All threats however, aren’t created equal. A person hanging from the Brooklyn bridge is not really under the same threat as your middle aged protagonist who has lost his job. What makes these threats equal or apparently equal, is the writing.

Your writing is the HOOK.

Second, and I am elaborating on this just to help you relax your raised eyebrow. When I say, the best writing in your book must be in those first three chapters, I do not mean that they have to be restricted to those chapters alone. If you can, have great writing throughout, but if you can’t, let those first three chapters be the best ones.

To not be “because I said so” about it, let me cite a practical application of this: Scribd notes that more than 30% of all reads on its subscription program is less than 10% of the book. That is, almost one out of every three readers set down a book after reading the first 20 – 40 pages!

THREE Chapters, that’s all you get to transform your tame threat into a raging question through your writing.

When we talk about your best writing, I do not mean you describe ‘the sun setting in a crimson haze beyond the barren and snow dusted pines’ Your writing has to make the threat and dire consequences that could follow more palpable. Which is why, at least for the first three chapters, the less ‘frilly’ your writing is, the tighter the threat.

4. If your HOOK is not your biggest bind, then the main problem must occur within the first three chapters

The biggest bind or the main problem is the problem you want resolved at the end of your novel. Your climax must provide a satisfactory resolution to this main problem. The problem must be resolved one way or the other.

Nicholas Sparks in his most famous work, The Notebook, starts off with a HOOK that is also the main problem. It is a superbly understated HOOK and a perfect example of how the main problem in a story is also the HOOK in a romance novel.

“There is always a moment right before I begin to read the story when my mind churns, and I wonder, will it happen today? I don’t know, for I never know beforehand and deep down it really doesn’t matter. It’s the possibility that keeps me going. And though you may call me a dreamer or a fool. I believe that anything is possible.”

A lot of novels however, do not start with the main problem. And that’s fine, as long as you proceed quickly to the hook. Remember the fictitious HOOK I had warned about? A HOOK that isn’t the main conflict can easily lose its way and become the fictitious HOOK.

5. The first 3 chapters must show off your understanding of story structure

Of course story structure or narrative structure is critical to captivating the reader, what makes it most critical in the first three chapters is the fact that editors and discerning readers alike will rarely plod through a book that doesn’t care about story structure.

Narrative structure of SETUP-CONFLICT-RESOLUTION has always been under attack, not least for being ‘formulaic’. I don’t get the antagonism. No one’s suggesting that narrative structure is a creative formula. It isn’t; it is a structure formula. Once in a while you will come across a book good enough to make you ignore the structure, but by and large structure wins because at its heart is storytelling.

This 5^th and concluding point is not only critical but also very rarely understood. Think back to any fairy tale that you read as a child. There is a setup, usually a disadvantaged beautiful girl who is being tormented, then the major conflict in reaching her goal, usually meeting the love of her life, and the final resolution. The simple words “Once upon a time” and “They lived happily ever after” are such strong indicators of setup and resolution respectively that their mere mention evokes curiosity and satisfaction. Fairy tales satisfy the most discerning audience, children. It wouldn’t be stooping if we learnt a thing or two from them.

To bring it all together in a single sentence: the first three chapters should have completed the setup or at least taken it to an exciting place.

 To sum up

1. Introduction to your principal character

2. The Hook

3. Fluid writing

4. The principal Conflict

5. The Setup

Happy Writing.

Anirban S. Bose

The 5 Things your 1st 3 chapters must have (Part 2 of 5)

It is pretty obvious that most publishing houses ask for the first three chapters of your novel to evaluate if the novel has enough zing to propel the reader on. What’s not obvious is, what exactly is the publisher looking for in those first 3 chapters?

We have already looked at the first thing

1. Within the first chapter we must have an introduction to one of the 3 main characters.

The second thing on your list (yes it is the second most important thing not the most important) is the HOOK

2. Your first chapter must have the HOOK

This second point will lead on to the third thing your first 3 chapters must have; more on that later.

In my last post I had mentioned about the lynchpin and how easy it is to start with the lynchpin to provide the HOOK. It’s only fair we look a little more deeply into the hook.

The HOOK is just short for ‘narrative hook’. It’s the opening of a story that “hooks” the reader’s attention and prods him to read on.

A novel especially one in the genre of mystery, thriller, or romance must hook the reader’s attention in the first paragraph and, if possible, in the very first sentence. It must create in the reader an urgency, the immediate need to know how this situation described plays out or is resolved.

Sometimes you know how it’s resolved but you want to know how it plays out. Consider Erich Segal’s master opening in his most popular work ‘Love Story’:

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?

That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.”

So you know the girl who loves the narrator dies, you want to know how it plays out.

Sometimes, the hook is merely a portent of what’s going to come

Consider Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, the novel that ensured she never had to look back.

“Mrs Ferrars died on the night of the 16^th – 17^th September – a Thursday. I was sent for at eight o’clock on the morning of Friday the 17th. There was nothing to be done. She had been dead some hours.

It was just a few minutes after nine when I reached home once more. I opened the front door with my latchkey, and purposely delayed a few moments in the hall, hanging up my hat and the light overcoat that I had deemed a wise precaution against the chill of an early autumn morning. To tell the truth, I was considerably upset and worried. I am not going to pretend that at that moment I foresaw the events of the next few weeks. I emphatically did not do so.

But my instinct told me that there were stirring times ahead.”

In the above cases, the hook is the major problem or the major situation, in many cases however, the hook is just a minor problem that leads the hero or protagonist into his most important bind and that resolution forms the crux of your story.

Consider John Grisham’s classic The Chamber (You must have guessed by now, I am partial to this particular work). This is how it opens: “The decision to bomb the office of the radical Jew lawyer was reached with relative ease. Only three people were involved in the process. The first was the man with the money. The second was a local operative who knew the territory. And the third was a young patriot and zealot with a talent for explosives and an astonishing knack for disappearing without a trail. After the bombing, he fled the country and hid in Northern Ireland for six years.”

It’s enough to want you to read on, but it’s not the main problem and a skilled writer like Grisham doesn’t spend too much time on this lynchpin. Once done with the failed assassination he moves to the main problem: “How to get clemency for Sam Cayhall.”

Almost all of Dan Brown’s novels start with a murder but it is not the murder that is being solved, the murder leads to the larger problem. In “The Da Vinci Code”, the murder of curator Jacques Saunière sets in motion the events where the main problem is protecting the Holy Grail from falling into the wrong hands. This kind of a hook leads to a more convoluted ‘problem-resolution’ setup and works only if the transition from one problem to another is seamless. If you looked carefully, you would understand that while the hook was the murder, the starting problem was Langdon trying to clear his name and prove he had nothing to do with the murder. Very quickly the problem shifts to puzzles and riddles and while throughout the entire book, the aim is to prove his innocence, the main problem shifts from solving the murder to locating the Grail. It’s not often that such seismic shifts in focal points make for a good read. Not everyone has the research and pace of Dan Brown in creating a hurtling thriller peppered with jaw dropping “facts” that make you forget the incoherence in plot structure.

It’s much more difficult to pull off the second kind of hook. It needs excellent storytelling skills but more importantly finesse in seamlessly moving from the minor problem to the major one.

Another idea has been to go where the action is and start your story from that point and then go into flashbacks and back-stories as the novel progresses. I have come across some fantastic novels that have successfully managed to pull off the difficult task of going back and forth, but it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Not to mention it is the leading cause of manuscript rejections. It is extremely easy to lose your way in a story spanning a couple of hundred pages or more and you wouldn’t want your reader confused.

 The most common and unfortunate interpretation of the HOOK has been action instead of dramatic action. The use of action as the hook is so widespread that dramatic action has often been interpreted as actual action.

The story doesn’t necessarily need to start with actual action. A husband splitting up with his wife could act as the dramatic action. The husband doesn’t have to kill his mother-in-law because he can’t get along with his wife.

 Although we are talking about fiction, there is such a thing as a fictitious HOOK: one that is outlandish and has been created just to serve as a gimmicky attention grabber. Readers aren’t going to forgive you for leading them on.

The HOOK is a masterful device but don’t treat it like a prop or device. Make it your own and it will serve you well.

Happy Writing.

Anirban S. Bose

The 5 Things your 1st 3 chapters must have (Part 1 of 5)

It is pretty obvious that most publishing houses ask for the first three chapters of your novel to evaluate if the novel has enough zing to propel the reader on. What’s not obvious is, what exactly is the publisher looking for in those first 3 chapters?

Having been on the other side of the table assisting some editor to make the ACCEPT or REJECT decision (I say assisting, while in most cases I was merely nodding along) I know what ticks them off and what gets them mildly excited (yeah, I have never seen one of those guys jump up and exclaim “this is good!”)

I dedicate this post to the mild excitement and the first thing on your checklist.

1. Within the first chapter we must have an introduction to one of the 3 main characters.

The 3 main characters in any novel are the protagonist, the antagonist, and what is known as the catalyst or the lynchpin. Not all novels have all three.

A lot of novels start with the protagonist. Romantic novels start with the hero or heroine and then they go on to meet their other half thereby completing the couple. A lot of murder mysteries and whodunits start with a case coming to our detective or cop. It’s fairly straight in structure and highly recommended for first timers. Writing from this starting point also establishes what is known as point-of-view and the protagonist’s point of view is a fairly easy one to maintain.

Though it’s non-fiction, Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love” due to its narrative structure could easily pass for an example to uphold this point. The story starts with the protagonist and within the first page tells us who the protagonist is: “professional American woman in my mid-thirties, who has just come through a failed marriage and a devastating, interminable divorce, followed immediately by a passionate love affair that ended in sickening heartbreak.”

This is why it is crucial that you talk about the protagonist within the first three chapters, even if not in the very first chapter. The reader has a right to know what the story is going to be about.

The lynchpin or the catalyst as a starting point is also a good start point provided you know what to do with the catalyst once he/she has served their purpose. A lot of whodunits start with the murder or death of the victim and the investigation or events flow from it. The event (death or murder) or the victim can act as the lynchpin or the catalyst bringing the rest of the cast into the space of the novel. In John Grisham’s “The Chamber”, the story starts with the lynchpin, the character Marvin Kramer is the Lynchpin. The ‘radical 4^th generation Jew’ takes up a major part of the first chapter and his failed assassination sets in motion the rest of the story, set years later. The lynchpin could also be an event. It can be argued that Marvin Kramer’s failed assassination and not Marvin Kramer, is the lynchpin. Starting with the lynchpin or catalyst is quite popular and it also provides the story with the HOOK. The HOOK is the exciting incident that, you guessed it, hooks the reader and compels him to read on. More on that later.

A much lesser used and understandably less popular starting point is that of the antagonist. The first reason for the lack of popularity is that starting with the antagonist is a technique that lends itself only to certain genres and structures. A thriller could start with a diabolical serial killer so the reader knows what the hero is up against. While starting with the antagonist is OK, it rarely does justice to the reader or the writing to not immediately also introduce the protagonist. After all it’s the protagonist you want your readers rooting for. The antagonist as a starting point is also really tricky, it’s a fine balance between creating a formidable villain and one that overshadows the protagonist. Of course, if you have a villain as the protagonist, you have little choice here. The example that jumps to mind is Patricia Highsmith’s classic “The Talented Mr. Ripley”.

The idea is very simple. Your first chapter could start with anyone or anything of those three, but do find your principal character and tell me straight off about him or her. You have three chapters to do it.

Happy Writing.

Anirban S Bose

The 5 Don’ts to be a Successfully Published Author

As cryptic as the title sounds, there are a few things that can really turn the tide against your dreams of becoming a published writer. So, I am going to tell you about the 5 things NOT TO DO if you want your book published. These 5 DON’TS are not meant to discourage, these are the most common traps that the writer ignores and walks right into.

For the purpose of this post I am only considering fiction, that is, novels and short novels.

No.1: Do not start the BOOK PUBLISHING search before you complete your book

Doesn’t make sense? Getting published takes 12 – 18 months. Am I not better off starting right away, while I am midway through writing my book?

The answer is NO.

The process of getting your book published in print and into a bookstore takes 12 – 18 months, the process of manuscript evaluation and acceptance takes 6 – 8 months only. So, unless you are absolutely sure that your manuscript will be complete before some book publisher who has liked your proposal demands it, do not start the process. Nothing is worse than getting a book publisher interested only to ask him to wait a little while longer for your book.

Also the 3 – 4 months of idle waiting can be the best time to revise and relook at your book. If J.K. Rowling felt the need to rework a chapter five times, it’s safe to assume that some objective editing will benefit your work.

No. 2: Don’t skimp on the steps in the BOOK PUBLISHING APPLICATION PROCESS

Research the appropriate book publishers for your work

If the book publisher you look up has not published a horror novel in the last year or so then there could be two possibilities:

The publisher didn’t get a horror novel submission and is desperately waiting for one. Hurray!

Or, the more likely scenario

The publisher doesn’t sell horror books for whatever reason and will most likely not be swayed.

A lot of research needs to be done, thankfully with the internet that is not a problem.

Send a book publishing query letter

If the book publisher mentions that they do not entertain unsolicited submissions the only way to approach is by a query letter, no more than a page long, double spaced and preferably in PDF to ensure that your document is not scrambled when it reaches the acquisitions editor.

Send the book publishing proposal

If the book publisher does not specifically forbid unsolicited book submissions then you can start the process with a book publishing proposal. Some book publishers have a specific format; ensure that you stick to the format.

Wait, and wait some more.

Most book publishers will tell you not to bother them regarding the progress of your book proposal evaluation while others will tell you to sit still for 3 to 6 months before sending a polite reminder. The operative word is, you guessed it: POLITE.

Remember, you haven’t submitted your manuscript yet, all this is before your work is even considered fit for an overall evaluation.

No.3: Don’t jump into SELF PUBLISHING just yet.

Typically, writers who get frustrated by rejections often look to self publishing for satisfaction. I get the angst, I don’t get the logic. In traditional book publishing you will probably be snubbed and rejected by the book publisher, in self publishing you get snubbed and rejected by the reader.

Of course every self publishing company and every self published author will tell you that it’s the same thing whether you are published or self published. It’s not.

With self publishing you will hold your book in your hands, but that’s where it stops. Unless you’re willing to take the initiative and expend effort into marketing and promoting your self published book, you will be stuck with a book and not much else.

Some authors have a flair for entrepreneurship and they will succeed more than others in the self-publishing game. Self publishing is also self marketing, if you are game to spend as much time on marketing and publicity as you spend writing, self publishing might just work for you.

No.4: Once you get your manuscript in, DO NOT FIGHT THE BOOK PUBLISHER

A deal with a traditional book publisher means the book publisher is in control, it’s not necessarily a bad thing (in self publishing you are in control and that isn’t necessarily a good thing). Yet, all too often writers fret and fume about the book publisher deciding the cover, the design, the format, the price, and even the title. Just because it’s your body you wouldn’t fight with the doctor over which medicines work best for you, would you? Let’s accept the reality here: a book publisher is putting his money and risking his revenues and profits on your work, sabotaging your book is the last thing on his mind. At most book publishing houses even though one book editor communicates with you, the decisions are taken by many. Trust the guys who know the deal.

No.5: Don’t rely on the INCOME FROM BOOK WRITING, at least not initially

How can depending on income from book writing hurt your chances at book publishing? The desperation shows and can put off the most interested of book publishers, a lot of book writers get edgy about delays in payment and that can strain negotiations.

If you have an unpaid bill and you have sent out a query letter hoping to get the advance before the bill is due, you might want to consider some other option. Dig into your savings or write to rich aunt Mary, that’s the kind of writing that gets you money.

Book Writing is a highly rewarding career, it is financially rewarding too but to expect a windfall is taking things a tad too far. On the royalties from one book you can barely sustain yourself for more than a few months. So, until you have written your third or fourth book and have a rough idea about the money you make, don’t go barging into the boss’s cabin, resignation letter in hand.

Having said all this, there is just one more thing I’d like to add. It’s a great joy being a craftsman, someone who takes simple and random words and strings them into stories that enthral and entertain generations. It’s creative, it’s hard work, and it requires a certain smartness. The above list is just to help you along with the smartness.

Happy Writing

Anirban S. Bose