Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Write Like You're Serialized
I’ve been spending a lot of time at home this summer, mostly because bundling a tiny baby and a toddler up to go anywhere is just more work than it’s worth. And considering that it’s been over 90 for most of the summer—a temperature and air quality I won’t subject my newborn to—I’ve been spending a lot of time inside.
To pass the time, my oldest and I have had to be creative with what we do or we’d probably be at each other’s throats. Something we’ve started? Daily dance parties. Helps to relieve the boredom and helps work off some of the toddler energy, not to mention the mommy frazzles. And my little man has some serious white boy moves. (Think old men at weddings).
I turn the Pop Music station on TV and we dance around like we’re extras on Fame. Good thing Candid Camera is nowhere to be found. I hope.
What I’ve noticed about our music selection is that they’ve released a lot of singles this year. There was one today by Nikki and Rich (never heard of ‘em) called “The Next Best Thing.” It was a decent song. My son and I could shake our tail feathers so it did the trick.
I figure this rash of singles probably has to do with the economy. Record labels either promoting new authors or generating buzz for a new album. If that’s the case, these songs need to showcase the best of what they’ve got, leave the listener wanting more and willing to pay for more.
I tried to think of other times in history when businesses tried to generate buzz and my mind went to the 19th century novel. Dickens, particularly. Dickens wrote many of his stories in serialization. I think that’s why they’re almost impossible to read in one sitting. They’re so god-awful long. Seriously though, if I made more money the more I wrote, well, I’d write as long as I could too.
But Dickens is also a master of the cliffhanger. He had to write every chapter like his next chapter depended on it. Because it did. If he couldn’t keep people reading, well, he couldn’t keep collecting that paycheck.
And it worked. People kept buying, they kept turning his pages. And isn’t that what we want to do too? Keep people turning those pages, keep people buying our books? (Or in most of our cases, get someone to buy our books?)
So I suggest we take a lesson from the singles and from Mr. Dickens. Write every page, every chapter, as if our next page/chapter depends on it. Hold nothing back. Because we want to push that limit, leave them breathless waiting for more.
Who do you know that’s a master of the cliffhanger? Any suggestions for keeping suspense going throughout the story, to keep the reader wanting more? Anyone else notice all these singles? Anyone else make it through Bleak House? I swear, I thought that book would kill me. (Though I did end up enjoying it. No, really.)
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64 comments:
Well, Edgar Rice Burroughs would do it with his writing...Tarzan, all the pulp books he wrote. Same with Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes stories.
I think a lot of detective fiction is written like that. And hell, tons of television...most any adventure based fiction!
Arthors of today? I think Jim Butcher is masterful at it. I've spent enough hours unable to put his books down! Christie Craig is good at it, too! Kim Harrison...yup!
I've never read Tarzan, but I love the Sherlock Holmes books. I also keep hearing that I should read Kim Harrison but that's another I haven't read yet.
Jim Butcher... what does he write? Have I been living under a rock?
Oh! Cliffhangers! They are probably at the very top of my list for what and why I like to write. My manuscripts always have a lot of holes to fill, but one thing always bookending the holes is the cliffhanger and the follow-up beginning to the next chapter. There's nothing like a cliffhanger to give momentum.
Mini-lightbulb moment. This is probably why I have such a hard time with my beginning chapter; I don't have a cliffhanger to springboard off from. Now how do I fix that?
As for masters at cliffhangers, I'm awful at thinking of examples, but I know every book I've liked does it well. Actually, the writer who comes to mind is Haleigh (aka Cameron Jacobs). When I had honor to be one of Hal's CP's, I thought her cliffhangers were fantastic and couldn't believe she'd leave me hanging until the next part! :)
I love the thought of you guys dancing around every day. That is too wonderful. :)
I'm like Melissa -- I can't think of any specific cliffhangers but Lord there have been a million of 'em based on how many times I've stayed up into the wee hours reading!
Also, Melissa -- maybe you should think of your first line as a cliffhanger -- because that IS your springboard into the story. Just put a "mental" pagebreak after it and think of it as a cliffhanger. Or just ignore me and I'll get back to my coffee. LOL
I've yet to figure out how to do this, but I was going to mention the same person Chance did, Christie Craig. She has this amazing knack for ending a chapter in a such a way that makes it impossible for me to put the book down. Typically, the only time I read each day is in the 15 mins before going to sleep. This makes reading Christie's books a real challenge for me. :)
Thanks, Donna! The cliffhanger the first line is a great way to put it. I might just have to put a real page break in to trick myself. Maybe then I'd quit writing a chapter before chapter one to the point of having a heck of a lot of prologues - -with cliffhangers! LOL
YES!!
I love daily dance parties!
Matt and I host interpretive dance Sunday mornings while we make breakfast. We bust out all the classic moves... like row the boat. Shake the salt shaker. Bake the cake. Put the ring on it. Making cookies.
I can see why Ford would love this. I'm coming over to dance too.
I write into my budget every month for new music. Matt fuses about it but honestly I *NEED* music. He can need all his bodybuilder crap all he wants. I don't care but my music habit is much cheaper.
I like cliffhangers. I think writing chapter to chapter of fan fiction (you post chapter to chapter) teaches you to write a decent cliffhanger to get readers to tune in for your next installment. Kim Harrison does a great job with the cliffhangers. So does Pamela Clare. It's the right amount of drama and suspense. Obviously there is a formula for it out there that I just haven't come across yet.
I suppose Suzanne Collins "District" series is like that. The first book was impossible to put down. I stayed up half the night reading it and even continued to think about it two weeks after I'd read it. Very good read.
All the authors named here write some level of suspense. Except Dickens, though he had his share too. So how do you write a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter when your story doesn't have a lick of suspense?
Melissa - I think a cliffhanger just has to be a "what do they do next" thing. As in, good lord, now what? I think most stories start out like that. Or a "tell me more" thing. So if your story starts off with something that makes me go, "tell me more," I think that's the same thing.
And Hal does know how to do the cliffhangers. I've definitely had a hard time stopping reading her stuff.
Bo'sun - gah! you guys make me want to run out and by Christie Craig's books. :)
Donna - I love what you said about putting a pagebreak after your first line and making it a cliffhanger! Or even your first paragraph. That's what I was trying to say above.
Terri, I know what you're saying. You want to leave the reader thinking, "What's gonna happen next?" You don't have to actually PUT a question in there, but just a lil something that makes the reader wonder.
When I first started writing my contemp, I was used to writing historicals, which had longer chapters, and then I realized if I cut the scene in a different spot, earlier than I normally would, it created an instant cliffhanger.
So how do you write a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter when your story doesn’t have a lick of suspense?
I think the cliffhanger is what adds suspense. There are lots of different kinds of suspense. Any sort of interrupted action I think is suspsense. Like, in Marnee's great story of dancing with her little man and thinking it's a good thing Candid Camera is nowhere to be found. I hope. If she gets caught by (someone) in a candid camera moment, the cliffhanger is the moment she realizes she's been caught. End of chapter, turn page for consequence. :)
Or a question left unanswered. I don't know, but Terri I bet you have lots of cliffhangers even if no one is falling off a cliff at the end of the chapter. :)
Marn -- the "good Lord, now what?" is perfect. I love that.
And Ice Pick -- er, I mean Sin -- I've tried a Kim H. book and couldn't stick with it. Since you've mentioned her several times, I may try again.
Can't wait to read Hal's books. They sound great. (Note to self: start reading EARLY in the day. LOL)
Sin - you're welcome to come bust a move with us anytime. Seriously, my little man could make a girl fall in love with all that rumpshaking. Or, it could just be that I think he's the most adorable thing. :)
I don't buy music, I admit. I just listen to the radio or the TV. My book habit is the only one I'll allow myself now, until I go back to work. But I say that you're totally justified with the music habit, especially if Mattie has his thing. Good for the goose, you know....
Fan Fic is the perfect exercise in serialization! That's what I mean! I think sometimes I do this when I'm sending stuff to Hal (we trade off chapters each week. Or we did before the last few months where both of us have lost our minds.) I want her to go, "SEND ME MORE!" And she has in the past, so that's a good thing. :)
Okay, now I feel stupid. Suspense doesn't have to be cops and robbers suspense, and I should know that. My only excuse is, I'm fragile right now.
I should hide under a rock until next week. I've already shut my office door (which I never do) so that's a start.
Ter - I'm sure you have suspense. If the choices and actions they're making are important to your characters, there's suspense. If you really emphasize their emotions, the intensity of them and the importance of them attaining their preferred outcome, then you can build suspense anywhere, in any situation. Things don't have to be life/death, save the world important to be suspenseful. Though personally, I think it is easier to write suspense when there are life or death, save the world consequences.
Donna - then I realized if I cut the scene in a different spot, earlier than I normally would, it created an instant cliffhanger.
This is a great idea. I'm going to try this.
I know you know suspense isn't all cops and robbers, but when it's not, I think it's harder to think you've come up with a legitimate cliffhanger. Like, you have to have a lot more confidence someone else is going to be interested in what comes next. As long as what's next is important to the character, then it's a cliffhanger. :)
Did I just ruin the blog again?
I should have read all the comments before kicking the Bo'sun while she's down. I'm sorry, Bo'sun.
So how do you write a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter when your story doesn’t have a lick of suspense?
It *does* have suspense. The suspense of "Will they or won't they end up together?" The suspense of "Will they put aside their neuroses for FIVE minutes to listen to the other person? Set their fear aside?"--that can be very suspenseful. SEP doesn't have corpses falling out of her novels and her suspense kills me.
Will the heroine succeed in accomplishing her goal? Will she fail? Will she overcome her failures? Will she kiss the hero? Will the hero shag her 6 ways from Sunday? All suspenseful things.
Suspense is not limited to murder. Suspense is about conflict--and you can have conflict in any number of things. Getting up in the morning and breathing can be conflicting if you do it right.
Oh, good, that fixed it. I made everything italics again.
Donna - Can’t wait to read Hal’s books. They sound great. (Note to self: start reading EARLY in the day. LOL)
No joke.
Melissa - I seriously hope there's no Candid Cameras anywhere.
*looks around wide-eyed*
Dundun DUNNNN....
Terri, don't fret! Seriously. The things I think I don't have in my books -- a day or two later I go, "Hey! I'm doing that! What was I worried about?" or "Hey! I know how to do that! What was I worried about?"
As long as what’s next is important to the character, then it’s a cliffhanger.
This is it exactly. If a character I'm loving is fretting about something, I'm chewing my nails too.
Oh, and if it's a hero I've fallen madly in lust with. . .the cliffhanger is "when the hell is he gonna get back here?" LOL
Ter - My only excuse is, I’m fragile right now. Awh, is everything ok? I hope you're not feeling fragile about your writing. I'm so sure it's fabulous.
Oops, need to identify my comments. I really do have a hard time talking to multiple people! I'll just watch now. LOL
And by "when the hell is he gonna get back here?", I meant back on the page I'm reading.
So stop where your minds were travelling. LOL
As long as what’s next is important to the character, then it’s a cliffhanger.
Yeah. What Melissa said. Word.
Hellie- Suspense is not limited to murder. Suspense is about conflict–and you can have conflict in any number of things. Getting up in the morning and breathing can be conflicting if you do it right.
I agree. There are mornings, when I hear my kids waking up, that I roll over and think, is it necessary to change them out of their jammies/feed them/entertain them/etc today? Maybe they won't notice I'm here....
That's suspense.
I'm loving this blog, Marn. But in my own defense, half the times those "cliff hangers" I send you are because I have no idea what happens next and just sort of ground to a stop right there.
I have found that I have a tendency to over-explain, or over-internalize everything, to the point that the reader understands everything and there are very little questions left. I think part of suspense (be they cops and robbers or the kiss that *might* be coming) is that there questions left. Sometimes, if I just erase the last couple of paragraphs of a chapter, I find a great hook buried in there, that without my over-explaining would leave the reader curious.
And that's really the whole thing, right? For a reader to be curious? One of my fav professors at school teaches craft classes, but believes the ONLY rule in writing fiction is to "seduce the reader to turn the page." As long as you do that, it doesn't matter what you do or don't do or how you do it. But you have to seduce your reader.
This also makes me curious -- if I'd lived in Dicken's time, would the serialized nature of his writing make me like it better? Would I have been searching for the next installment like we do with our favorite writer's new book? Hmmm....lol
And by “when the hell is he gonna get back here?”, I meant back on the page I’m reading.
I find myself doing that a lot. Especially if there are several points of view, I'll just keep reading to get back to my favorite. Of course, that can go terribly wrong if I just skim all the other sections :)
SEP is a great example of super suspenseful without any corpses. I can't ever seem to set hers down.
Donna - Oh, and if it’s a hero I’ve fallen madly in lust with. . .the cliffhanger is “when the hell is he gonna get back here?” LOL
Ahh... lust-inducing heroes.... yum....
Hal - Whatever you do to get those cliffhangers, it works for me. :) And I love that. Seducing the reader to keep turning pages. Sooo true. Would it help if I attached chocolate to each page, do you think?
And I wondered that too about Dickens. Would it have been easier if I was waiting for the next chapter each week? I don't know. Sometimes just picking up Bleak House was daunting. The thing was wicked heavy. I don't want weight-lifting with my reading.
I’ll just keep reading to get back to my favorite.
I do this too. That's why I'm always so concerned about writing secondary characters. I don't want people to be reading and stop for a second to go... *flip flip flip* unnecessary secondary character *flip flip flip* ah, here he is again.
I'm not a fan of Charles Dickens (though I remember watching A Tale of Two Cities when I was a kid and crying at the end); however, I am impressed by the whole serialization/cliffhanger stuff. I think Elizabeth Gaskell did that some as well--and I like her work more. :)
I love cliffhangers. Julie Garwood does the best cliffhangers in my opinion. She starts off with a cliffhanger-bang to drag you into the scene and then ends the chapter with either something really frightening or ironic/funny. Then you look at the next page, and the opener line is something ironic to mirror the cliffhanger. Great stuff.
Sophie Kinsella is so good at making it worse in her characters' lives that the whole book feels like a cliffhanger--I don't even notice where chapters end.
Dan Brown does great cliffhanger stuff, but he loves SHORT chapters. He's good at suspense in this way because he keeps a manic quick pace and since the chapters are so short, you don't mind keeping going because, hey, what's two more pages?
I read a book a while ago called "The Last Dickens" -- more literary than my usual thing, but I do it once in a while, to give my brain a workout. LOL
Anyway, it was kind of a mystery about his last unfinished book, and one thing I found fascinating was how there wasn't any copyright in the U.S. at that time, so anyone who wanted to could print his stuff. So publishers would do all kinds of nefarious things to get the printed material first, as soon as it came off the ship from England, so they could print their version first, because people were ravenous for it.
Now THAT's what cliffhangers will do to people. LOL
Okay, that novel sounds very interesting. Like a Dan Brown mystery set in the 1800s. I'm going to have to check that out.
Hellie, it was very interesting -- because Dickens was an actual character. He was almost more popular for his readings of his books than the actual books. LOL
It WAS harder to read though, because it's not the fast-paced stuff I'm used to. LOL
I read another by this author called "The Last Poe" where he tries to figure out Poe's last days - I liked that one too.
I don’t want people to be reading and stop for a second to go… *flip flip flip* unnecessary secondary character *flip flip flip* ah, here he is again.
This sounds like a category romance this week that had quite a secondary story line and felt it worked most of the time. The heroine was a New York ad exec who answered an ad to be a ranchers wife (yeah, that plot). But the situation she walked into grew complicated when the rancher's grown son resented her because she (the new step-mom)seemed to influence his pregnent girlfriend's desire to leave the small town (and abandon the baby) for New York City. The heroine had connections to help the girl; her former boyfriend was an art gallery owner and the girl dreamed of being an artist. Anyway, several scenes were between the just the secondary characters, but I didn't flip because it all tied to complicating the relationship between the hero and heroine. She got blamed for a lot of pre-existing problems!
Sorry, not sure what that has to do with cliffhangers! LOL
I read a book recently where the secondary characters' romance was more interesting than the primary characters. LOL I was flipping through the pages trying to get to the secondary folks!
I need a porch swing today. The temperature is perfect, there's a great breeze. . .
Yerri, what about Julie Garwood?
Ooohhhh
T not y ... I gotta quit trying to type when I'm on the phone with my DH!
Way back there...who is Jim Butcher? He writes the Dresden Files. An urban fantasy, first person, series. AWESOME! Sure some better than others, but really incredibly compelling world he's created and a main character that just begs to be read.
First person may be easier to leave hanging...as you only have the one viewpoint to be looking over... Hmmmmm!
Marnee, I know what you mean about Bleak House. Except for some Russian novels, I always think of it as the longest novel I ever read. It isn’t the longest (I think Remembrance of Things Past is, but Bleak House felt that way reading it. George Eliot's Middlemarch felt extraordinarily long too.
Wharton's The House of Mirth and Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin were American novels that were serialized and left readers panting for the next installment. I think that series of novels have much in common with the serialized novels of the past with readers clamoring for the next book and writing authors with questions and demands.
I agree that Christie Craig does a super job of keeping the reader turning pages. And, Terri, Nora Roberts does a great job in her straight contemporaries with using the end of the chapter to propel the reader forward. There’s a chapter early in Chesapeake Bay when Seth is talking to Dru about renting the apartment above her shop. No great drama there. The chapter ends this way: “It won’t take long,†he said with that slow, easy grin. “I make up my pretty quick.†I certainly wanted to turn the page to see how Dru reacted to that provocative assertion.
Those weird symbols in my post are supposed to be apostrophes and quotation marks. I don't know what happened.
It's a problem with the blog, Janga. It's been happening a lot lately.
Hellie - I love how Julie Garwood does that. I loved The Gift. It was one of my first romance novels and still one of my favorites. And it was on a boat, if I'm remembering correctly. Love it.
I haven't read Sophie Kinsella. I've heard great things though.
Donna - I think both those books sound great. I'm going to check them out too.
Melissa - I'm not anti-secondary characters, but I don't like when they detract from the main plot. JR Ward's most recent ones have some secondary plots that don't seem to have much to do with the primary conflict. Her most recent one had this whole secondary plot about a reality ghost-chaser TV show. I read the first three scenes and skipped the rest of them. I didn't miss anything in the bigger plot. That's a big BAD, I think.
Janga - Middlemarch was another long one. I didn't like it as much as I liked Bleak House though. And perhaps I'm a nerd for saying this but I loved Uncle Tom's Cabin, sentimentality aside. I couldn't put that one down. Though it was long.
Chance - that's interesting about the POV maybe helping with cliffhangers. I have some issues with the Twilight books, but Meyer does some good stuff with cliffhangers. I couldn't stop reading those books, even the last one which I would argue, well, sucked. At least 2/3 of it sucked, anyway.
Yes! Marn, I loved The Gift because she'd cliffhang one chapter by saying something like "Her husband was the most sensitive man ever" and begin the next with "He was a beastly troll." And the whole accidental poisoning of the crew...and the parasols. And the fire. Really quite, quite brilliant.
This is why I keep my books. I've read every Garwood (older ones) and have no recollection of that book. Even with Hellie's hints.
I will enjoy that book for the first time again in my retirement.
I probably read the book a dozen times. Also one of the only memorable books for me where the heroine gets her period and the hero is at a loss what to do. (I sometimes get the feeling in historicals, women never get their period. Or they get it and they're devastated they're not having a baby. But this one dealt with a bit more, a bit differently.)
Hee, hee. I know I'm always curious about stuff like that. I swear, I'm just a very base woman. But yeah, the periods, the mood swings, the PMS. Did women of other eras have PMS and how did men deal with it? How did the women deal with it?
And other things...I always want to know who cleans things up...
I guess because I just know that were I alive in that era I'd be some Irish char woman, bowing and scraping for all the gentry...
We're going to head back the hysteria, aren't we?
I don't care how hysterical my lady becomes. I'm not going to relieve her!
Yes, I'm afraid we're heading back to the midwife stuff.
I'm gonna work in the stables. Period.
What are you going to do, stuff straw up there and keep going?
You have the nastiest mind!
No, I'm gonna sweep up from the horses and keep the leather looking good and stay away from the mistress, no matter how hysterical she gets...
Maybe suggest she take a rousing ride on a horse? That might do it...
I'm back from a trip to Borders. I thought I was gonna die listening to this old guy ordering CDs. (Now I know what Rainman will sound like when he gets in his late 60s. LOL) They went through this whole ordering thing, Rainman had to count out $95 in cash, which took like about 10 minutes, and he asks the employee, "Do you think you ought to count that again?", and the employee says, "I watched you count it, so I think we're fine. THEN they discovered the computer had timed out and they had to start over. LOL
I wouldn't have laughed if it weren't for the fact the employee was one who was rude to me one day a couple months back. Hehehe. Gotta love karma.
There's a giant Borders by my new place so I'm looking forward to checking it out. I have a Borders card, but haven't used it in forever since I only go to B&N lately.
Marn - In case I never said it, this is a great blog and really good way to see the chapters as separate little serials that make the whole. I'm going to look at them that way in the revisions and see how I can make them stand alone and leave the reader hanging.
ITA with Terri, Marn. Excellent blog and a great fresh new way to look at how to create the chapters of your book. It makes so much sense when you picture each chapter standing on its own and having to keep the reader coming back for more.
Totally agree with SEP and Garwood also. You know, I haven't read a Garwood in forever and The Gift is one of my favorites - for just the reason Hellie pointed out. I love the gruff hero trying to deal with his sweet but a bit ditsy wife. Especially when she had her period. I loved that part also Hellie, probably what made that book stand out for me.
I'm of the opinion that sex isn't the only thing that creates intimacy. I think that dealing with everyday issues that were sort of taboo brings the H/H together also. A lot of historical writer's miss out on that opportunity.
Irish, I'm with you... Maybe that is why I like to see those sorts of day to day intimate subjects brought into the mix of what makes a couple. It makes it all more real...
Granted, a lot of people read to escape reality, but still... I feel like I could count on a man who manages my monthlies with aplomb better than a hunk who totally pretends it has nothing to do with him.
Hellie - I love the crew poisoning in The Gift. LOL! Garwood is a master of understated humor. Love it.
I got lost in all the period talk and totally squicked out. Sorry folks.
Thanks Ter and Irish. When I was having my dance party and noticed the singles, I got the idea. Now I'm judging a contest and I'm reading these entries and thinking how important it is to keep the suspense going.
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