August Debut Thrillers!

A great big warm CONGRATS to this month's debut authors!!!

Michelle Diener

IN A TREACHEROUS COURT (Gallery)

Rita Henuber

UNDER FIRE (Carina Press/Harlequin)

Relating Classic Mythology to Today's Mysteries by Thomas Kaufman

I love private eye stories. As a teenager I read Raymond Chandler and knew, then and there, that I wanted to write a detective story. The result was DRINK THE TEA, and now the sequel, STEAL THE SHOW.

What was it about Chandler's book that appealed to me? Well, in one way it seemed that Marlowe was a romantic. There's poetry in him, and a great sense of humor. Though he's a bit jaded, he still knows right from wrong. When he has to, he puts his life on the line. He's an individualist, irreverent, an investigator who left the police due to insubordination. Plus, he's good at what he does. Very good.

Years ago Joseph Campbell recorded a series of conversations with Bill Moyers and George Lucas. Campbell, as you probably know, wrote extensively about myth, and how myths inform our writing today. (Check out Campbell's book, HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES.) Lucas, who created the STAR WARS saga, was a devotee of Campbell's.

But myth structure is not only for science fiction. When we look at Raymond Chandler, we see how he uses the story of the knight-errant. (In fact, before he settled on the name of Marlowe, Chandler had called his private eye Mallory, the same name as the author who wrote MORTE D'ARTHUR.) And Chandler's private-eye-as-knight-errant goes forward to this day.

So, what's a knight-errant? They are warriors, highly skilled, who travel the countryside. They are knights who may or may not have a king to command them. They are men (and these days, women) who look for trouble. Who were some of the famous knight-errants?

Sir Gawain
Sir Lancelot
Amadis de Gaula
Don Quixote

The Ronin of Japan can fit into this category of hero, (the Japanese film by Kurosawa, YOJIMBO, based on the Hammett novel RED HARVEST) as well as the American cowboy (A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, based on YOJIMBO – talk about coming full circle!).

Are there modern equivalents to the knight-errant?

At the Indiana Bouchercon I had a pleasant conversation with Lee Child, and we talked about myth and its importance in writing. Mr Child talked about the myth of the knight-errant, and its impact on his writing about Reacher, a warrior and a loner, who wanders the countryside, righting wrongs, and rescuing fair maidens. Sound familiar?

I see my private eye, Willis Gidney, as a knight errant. For me, the journey of the hero is a means of self-discovery. This is one of the changes in modern detective stories – that the mystery to be solved is not exclusively that of the detective's client, but also, in part, that of the detective him/herself. That, instead of the private eye as an immutable character, she/he changes over time, grows, and maybe even learns something.

I think Tony Hillerman did a wonderful job when he wrote about Navajo Tribal Policemen Leaphorn and Chee – you can see them progress and change from book to book. There's a psychological variant on the detective story: in the film LETHAL WEAPON, the detective is suicidal, but over the course of the story learns to overcome (some of) his self-destructive tendencies. In THE SEVEN PER CENT SOLUTION, Holmes must rid himself of cocaine addiction, while solving a baffling case.

When I write about the private eye in STEAL THE SHOW, I'm writing about a guy who had been abandoned as a child. His first six years of life are a blank. And this affects his actions, the cases he takes, the reasons for doing what he does. You and I might not go down the paths Gidney travels but, as the writer, it's my job to help you understand why Gidney chooses certain paths over others.

How about your hero? Can you relate him or her to this classic myth?

* * *

Thomas Kaufman is an Emmy-winning director/cameraman who also writes mysteries. His first book, DRINK THE TEA, won the PWA/St Martin's Press Competition for Best First Novel. His second book, STEAL THE SHOW, comes out this July. His blog tourcontinues this week at Murderati, Gelati's Scoop, and Spinetingler Magazine.

Act First, Explain Later by Jodie Renner

Gone are the days when fiction readers were willing to read pages of description and lead-up before being introduced to the characters and the plot. Readers, agents, and publishers today don't have the time or patience to wade through pages of backstory and description, so you need to grab their interest right from the first sentence and first paragraph of your story.

As James Scott Bell says in Revision and Self-Editing, about the opening paragraphs, “Give us a character in motion. Something happening to a person from line one. Make that a disturbing thing, or have it presage something disturbing.”

Here are twelve dos and don’ts for making the first page of your novel more compelling:

1. Don't begin with a long description of the setting or with background information on your main character. Do begin with dialogue and action; then add any necessary backstory or description in small doses, on a need-to-know basis as you progress through the story.
2. Don't start with a character other than your protagonist. Do introduce your protagonist right in the first paragraph. Readers want to know right away whose story it is, which character you’re asking them to identify with.
3. Don't start with a description of past events. Do jump right in with what the main character is involved in right now, and introduce some tension or conflict as soon as possible.
4. Don't start in a viewpoint other than the main character’s. Do start telling the story from your protagonist’s point of view. It’s best to stay in the protagonist’s point of view for the whole first chapter, or most of it, and don’t change the point of view within a scene.
5. Don't delay letting your readers get to know your protagonist, or present her in a static, neutral (boring) situation. Do develop your main character quickly by putting her in a bit of hot water and showing how she reacts to the situation, so readers can empathize and “bond” with her, and start caring enough about her to keep reading.
6. Don't start with your character all alone, reflecting on his life. Do have more than one character (two is best) interacting, with action and dialogue. That’s more compelling than reading the thoughts of one person.
7. Don't start with your protagonist planning a trip, or traveling somewhere, in other words, as a lead-up to an important scene. Do start in media res — jump right into the middle of the action. Present her in a meaningful scene.
8. Don't introduce a lot of characters in the first few pages. Do limit the number of characters you introduce in the first few pages to three or less.
9. Don't leave the reader wondering what the characters look like. Do provide a brief description of each character as they’re introduced, or as soon as you can work it in, so the readers can form a picture of him or her in their minds.
10. Don't have the main character looking in the mirror as a device for describing him/her. This had been overdone. Do work in the description by relating it to his or her actions or interactions with others.
11. Don't wait too long to introduce the romantic interest in a romantic suspense, or the villain in a thriller. To add intrigue, do introduce the hero (love interest) or villain within the first chapter or two.
12. Don't spend too long leading up to the main conflict or problem the protagonist faces. Do introduce the main conflict (or at least some significant tension) within the first chapter.

Remember, you can always start your story wherever you want in the draft stage, if it’ll make you feel better. Then in the editing stage, you can go back and cut out the first several paragraphs or pages or even most of the first chapter, so that, in your final draft, your actual story starts after all that lead-up (some of which may appear later, in snippets here and there).

In conclusion, here’s a little rule for writing compelling fiction:
Act first, explain later.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction manuscript editor, specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, and mysteries. Her services range from developmental editing to light final copyediting, as well as manuscript critiques. Check out Jodie’s website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com and her blog at http://JodieRennerEditing.blogspot.com.

Jodie is a member of International Thriller Writers (associate), Sisters in Crime (SinC), Backspace: The Writers Place, The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), and The Editors Association of Canada (EAC).

Jodie has traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East. In fact, Jodie loves traveling so much, she’s thinking of changing her tagline from “Let’s work together to enhance and empower your writing” to “Have laptop, will travel.”