Best Twist Ever!

Thanks to Deb for coming up with another great idea for a blog hop! These hops are more than just an entertaining way to recognize our favorite stories. As writers, dissecting twists, endings, beginnings, etc., helps us come up with ideas to make our own projects stand out.

Before I get to my choice, I want to talk about what makes a twist work. They are completely surprising, yet supported by everything that has come before. They make readers/viewers feel like they should have seen it coming. They can be summed up in one simple sentence. When they happen in the middle of a book or TV series, they take the show into a completely different direction, but one that works with what’s happened before.

Most good twists center around the protagonist’s identity. (In fact, there’s a whole movie about that very question that Kerrie so aptly described yesterday. The protagonist doesn’t know something important about him/herself, and the twist is the discovery. This includes such biggies as Luke finding out he’s really Darth Vader’s son, Harry learning he’s a wizard (although it happens so early in the series, is this really a twist?), Malcolm Crowe discovering he’s dead, and the entire cast of St. Elsewhere living in some kid’s head.

The Empire Strikes Back was the first time I was exposed to this twist, but is it the best? I would say not, because the clues were just not there. George Lucas could have thrown a few tidbits during Star Wars and the first three quarters of Empire. I have a feeling he didn’t because he didn’t know himself that Darth was Luke’s father. And then he just went nuts, with Leia and Luke being twins and all the head-scratching stuff that happened in the prequels. Thank goodness J.J. Abrams is in charge of the new movie.

The Sixth Sense contains the most well-known twist, and it’s one of the most well-done. All the clues are there that Malcolm is dead – the most obvious one being the desk he works on in his drafty, creepy old basement, surrounded by mementoes on the floor. I have to admit I didn’t get this one – I had heard there was a big twist, and I was convinced that somehow Cole and the crazy guy who killed Malcolm would have some kind of genetic connection. So I was concentrating on that, and missing the obvious fact that the kid who could see dead people was the only person addressing Malcolm directly.

I’ve gotten much better since then. Shutter Island? Called it.

My entry for this blog hop is the much discussed, much debated 2000 Christopher Nolan film, Memento. To jog your memory, Guy Pearce plays Leonard, a man who developed short-term amnesia in an attack that left his wife dead. The police say they caught the guy who did it, but Leonard believes he had an accomplice (the police do not), so he’s going after that guy himself in order to kill him. Leonard writes clues in his body since he can’t remember anything for longer than 15 minutes. As such, the film itself runs backwards, with the next scene happening chronologically before the scene it follows. It was confusing, and I saw several people walk out of the theatre in the movie’s first half hour.

Because of this format, just about every scene contains a twist, and also enough clues that hint at the movie’s resolution. The two most shocking twists came at the end. One, Leonard’s wife did not die in the attack that left Leonard brain-damaged. Rather, Leonard himself killed her by accidentally giving his diabetic wife insulin twice. It was a test, because she didn’t think he really had amnesia. Leonard passed the test and his wife died as a result. The second huge twist is that Leonard had already killed one man he blamed for her death. After that death, he deliberately hid those clues from himself so he could start a new game of find the killer.

With the viewer being completely in Leonard’s point of view, both these twists were stunning (although the diabetes clue had been dropped near the beginning). Yet they follow the rule of identity being the linchpin of the twist.

AMBI Pictures recently announced that it will be remaking the film, so perhaps a new version might be a little clearer. (There’s also a DVD available that runs the action in chronological order.)

Please tune in tomorrow, when Deb finishes it up for us!

Death Before Decaf: New Murder Mystery!

I am not a coffee drinker, but I am delighted to help my friend Caroline Fardig spread the word about her new mystery series, Java Jive! Death Before Decaf is the first book in the series, which takes place in Nashville. I may not drink coffee, but I do love Nashville. At least the TV show, NASHVILLE. I’ve never been to the actual city ….

What it’s about:

Perfect for fans of Janet Evanovich and Diane Mott Davidson, Caroline Fardig’s captivating new mystery novel takes readers behind the counter of a seemingly run-of-the-mill coffeehouse . . . where murder is brewing.

After her music career crashes and burns spectacularly, Juliet Langley is forced to turn to the only other business she knows: food service. Unfortunately, bad luck strikes yet again when her two-timing fiancé robs her blind and runs off with her best waitress. Flushing what’s left of her beloved café down the toilet with her failed engagement, Juliet packs up and moves back to her college stomping grounds in Nashville to manage an old friend’s coffeehouse. At first glance, it seems as though nothing’s changed at Java Jive. What could possibly go wrong? Only that the place is hemorrhaging money, the staff is in open revolt, and Juliet finds one unlucky employee dead in the dumpster out back before her first day is even over.

The corpse just so happens to belong to the cook who’d locked horns with Juliet over the finer points of the health code. Unimpressed with her management style, the other disgruntled employees are only too eager to spill the beans about her fiery temper to the detective on the case. Add to the mix a hunky stranger who’s asking way too many questions, and suddenly Juliet finds herself in some very hot water. If she can’t simmer down and sleuth her way to the real killer, she’s going to get burned.

Praise for Death Before Decaf

“I was hooked from the first page. I loved it!”—Dorothy Cannell, award-winning author of the Ellie Haskell mysteries

“Caroline Fardig brings a fun cast of characters to life in Death Before Decaf! Juliet had me laughing, smiling, and rooting for her from the first page to the last. I can’t wait for more!”—Gina LaManna, author of Teased to Death

“Caroline Fardig keeps you turning pages in this fast-paced mystery set in a Nashville coffee shop.”—Nancy J. Parra, author of Engaged in Murder

Buy it here:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Direct from the publisher!

Spoil Sport: How Spoilerish Should Book Reviews Be?

Thanks to Amazon, everyone’s a reviewer now. While over a thousand people are getting sued for leaving false reviews, that still leaves millions of others who aren’t. I’m not saying that people who leave reviews should be sued. Just the people who leave bad reviews on my books. Ha ha. Just kidding. No, really. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve only had two negative reviews, and in both cases, the reviewers followed the rules – they were specific about their complaints, and, more importantly, they didn’t give any spoilers. For many authors I know, spoilers in their Amazon reviews are incredibly annoying. But these reviewers are amateurs. Should professionals make sure not to reveal later plot twists?

As a reviewer for Chick Lit Central, I’ve written a heck of a lot more reviews than books. And the spoilers thing is something I grapple with regularly. I generally try not to reveal anything that happens in a book after about the first 25%, which is up to and including the first major plot point. That is usually what you’ll find in the plot description given on the book’s back cover, so it feels fair.

But sometimes something happens after that point that is so big, it changes the feel of the entire book. For instance, one book I read was a pretty fun ride until the last third, when the writer decided to kill off a teenage girl in a casual manner and then have the protagonist make internal jokes at her funeral. This might have worked had the protagonist been a psychopath but not in women’s fiction. Before that point, I’d been working on a fairly positive review for the book. Instead, I opted not to review it at all.

A few months ago, Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies came out with a lot of fanfare, and the reviews were positive. I was intrigued by the idea of a book about marriage written first from the husband’s point of view, then from the wife’s, that didn’t include anyone faking their own death. It sounded good, and I put it on hold at my local library. (Can I just do a quick shout out here for the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative and the amazing job they do getting the latest books and circulating them around the system? And, just, libraries in general. What an amazing concept. Thank you, Ben Franklin, and thank you PPLC.)

Then I read this review over the weekend in the New Yorker. Turns out that Fates and Furies is not the book I thought it was. Not that Groff really needs to worry about losing one potential reader, but I’m taking the book off my list.

As a reader, I’m grateful for the time saved. As a writer, I’m torn. I believe readers should know exactly what type of ride they’ve signed up for when downloading, borrowing or buying a book – especially for someone who’s shelling out nearly $30 for a hard cover. (Which I don’t often do, but am planning for the new Stephen King. But as a writer, I’m perturbed that the reviewer wasn’t more indirect about the book’s second half. Don’t readers deserve a chance to decide for themselves whether these plot twists work? Shouldn’t a review that gives readers the book’s concept, characters, tone, and first plot point or two be enough?

This reviewer seemed to write his piece as a warning: The book doesn’t deserve the positive press it’s gotten so far. And I appreciate that he saved me the time of reading a book that would disappoint me, not to mention an extra trip to the library. But this was the New Yorker, friends. I imagine it devastated Groff.

"I Don’t Know How She Does It" and “A Window Opens”: How Much Has Changed in 13 Years?

(warning: contains spoilers for both books, including their endings.)

In 2002, Allison Pearson made a huge splash in the literary world with her novel about Kate Reddy, a British investment banker struggling to juggle work and home. (Here’s a review I wrote comparing and contrasting the book and film versions of “I Don’t Know.”) Despite the attention, sales and movie deals, nothing since then has been published to such acclaim that puts this dilemma front and center. (Not in fiction, anyway. The protagonists in women’s fiction all have jobs, of course, but these take a back seat to the muddy romantic and family relationships that dominate the novels.) Now, 13 years later, Elisabeth Egan has written something similar and made a splash. (Here’s the New York Times review; positive but not laudatory.)

Many of my bookish friends have raved about “Window,” and I have mixed feelings about raining on this parade. What bothers me so much about “Window” is the same thing that bothered me about the book version of “I Don’t Know” – at the end, both heroines quit their jobs and go part time (in “Window,” Alice returns to her previous part time schedule), making their husbands the primary bread winner. While Kate in “I Don’t Know” quits despite the fact that she’s excellent at her job (remedied quite nicely in the movie), Alice’s reasons for leaving are twofold: she doesn’t fit into the corporate environment, and the parameters of her job have changed drastically. She leaves to take cash register shifts at her friend’s independent book store and dreams about turning book selling into another MLM scheme that so many women get sucked into.

Alice’s journey mirrors that of her creator, Egan, who left a book editor position at Self magazine to edit books for Amazon. Unable to fit into Amazon’s 24/7 work ethos, Egan quit. Now she’s book editor at Glamour magazine. Because of this, it feels low to criticize Alice’s choices, as they clearly mirror the writer’s own. Still, shouldn’t fiction offer readers the chance to experience a world as it might be, rather than the world as it is?

In many ways, Alice has it easier than Kate. Her nanny is amazing, (Kate’s was constantly late) and her children cute and pleasant (Kate’s daughter was manipulative and judgmental). Yes, her father is dying, but her parents are well-off enough that they offer her great sums of money when her husband decides to open his own law practice after failing to make partner and being forced out of his firm. And her mother is healthy enough that Alice really only misses a few hours of work one day to accompany them to an appointment. Mom does the heavy lifting of the care taking. Alice’s husband is spending more time with the bottle than paying clients, but he and the nanny are home for the kids, except one time when Alice’s daughter gets sick. Other than that, she’s in the office and available … to do what, though? Alice works at Scroll, which will someday be a book store where readers will hook up their Kindle-like devices and read on the premises while enjoying massagers and bon-bons in the company of gorgeous first editions. Her job is to get literary agents and editors on board. She sets up and attends some meetings, but it’s really hard to see what about her job is so all-consuming. There are tons of emails and staff meetings, but I couldn’t figure out what Alice did all day and why she was so stressed out – other than the stress of dealing with some difficult personalities at work, which is pretty much par for the course for anyone who pulls in a paycheck.

The beginning of the end comes for Alice when Greg, one of the company owners, want to incorporate video games for the kids in the Scroll space. The company has just acquired a game manufacturer, and Greg envisions the kids playing games while their mothers read. Of course, this will require a re-envisioning of what Scroll will physically look like, and changes to Alice’s job as well. Alice balks because she doesn’t believe kids should play video games, and some of the games in the catalog are especially violent. Instead, later, she pitches her “book lady” idea to Greg – home parties where women would introduce a few new titles to their friends. (I liked this idea a lot, and of course if “book lady” were real, it would be the one MLM I’d actually sign up to join. But it obviously wasn’t appropriate for this corporation.) I was sorely disappointed in this plot twist. Adding video games to the store makes sense – it would enable parents to stay that much longer and buy more “merch.” The biggest wrinkle would be angry mothers who caught their kids playing inappropriate games. Had Alice brought up that point – and then proposed publishing a guide to the games so parents could monitor their kids’ choices – she would have scored big points with the boss. Instead, nothing.

I wanted to see Alice overcome these stumbling blocks and lead the New York office of Scroll. Barring that, couldn’t she have used her contacts in the publishing world to obtain an editing or publicist position? If not, why not end the book with Alice turning “Book Lady” into this year’s “Pampered Chef”?

Again, this is not to point fingers at Egan, who has obviously made the best of a bad fit with Amazon. But I am so tired of reading fiction that still – in 2015! – has a woman’s happy ending consist of slinking quietly away from the big bad job and the meanies at work in order to spend more time with the kids and let her husband and his job take center stage. It was so gratifying, in the movie version of “I Don’t Know”, to watch Kate march into her boss’ office and finally set limits, and then have her husband willingly take mental responsibility for their household.

Of course, women’s fiction is fiction. And there’s no category called women’s fantasy. If there were, it would probably have more to do with hot firemen, anyway. But is it too much to ask that the female protagonists of this genre be able to accomplish what in real life we cannot?

I hope Egan’s success opens the door to many more women’s fiction novels featuring married heroines with full lives, including career conflicts, dealing with children, etc. And I’m so glad she’s getting this attention. Even if we cannot get the career happy ending we’re hoping for, at least there will be more books to choose from.

Show, Don’t Tell

It’s the most basic writing advice there is: show, don’t tell. My son’s sixth grade teacher wrote it on a short story he submitted. So why do so many writers struggle in this area? I recently reviewed a book for Chick Lit Central where the writer – who literally had dozens of books already under her belt – summed up important events in her protagonist’s life rather than including them as scenes. I felt gypped. I wanted to see how those incidents played out.

It’s an area I struggle in myself. I’m currently working on my fourth novel, in which my protagonist has two life-changing events happen to her: her mother’s death and her father’s quick remarriage, and her husband running off with another woman and leaving her broke. In my first draft, I summed these up in a few paragraphs. But my writing instructor said I should show these events in flashback, and so I did. I’m still not sure whether that was the correct choice. Sometimes flashbacks slow down momentum. (One of these days I’m going to write a post about the appropriate use of flashbacks. I’ve read books that were literally half, or more, flashback.)

How do you know if a piece of information should be shown or told? Obviously, we can’t show everything. Books would be twice as long and twice as boring if we did. But here’s a quick checklist:

Scenes that should be shown:
 Have conflict
 Forward the story
 Demonstrate a character trait

Scenes that can be told:
 Provide unbiased information
 Communicate passage of time
 Give uncomplicated back story

Generally speaking, a novel should be about 70-80 percent scene work (show) and 20-30 percent narrative (tell), but most writers I know aren’t keeping track mathematically of their writing. And it’s not something that should be at the forefront of a writer’s mind when working on a first draft. After a second or third draft, a writer should re-read the WIP specifically with this question in mind. Take note of which scenes show, and which scenes tell. Remember that pace and tension are derived from showing. Too much telling slows down the story and dissolves tension.

Before examining your own work, it may be useful to pull out a favorite book and look for examples of showing versus telling. Are there areas where you think the writer should have made a different choice? Can you write a scene from a section that was summarized rather than shown?

A Summer of No’s

Like many writers, I spent the summer waiting for agents to get back to me on manuscripts they’d requested (I did a lot of writing!). (By the way, I am still waiting.) I also did a lot of reading of manuscripts sent to the agent I read for. Unfortunately, I passed on most of them. Bear in mind that I am just one of several readers, so my recommendation is not the final say. But I find value in some agents’ query comments on Twitter, and I thought I’d do the same. Without further ado, here’s a little something on the manuscripts I read this summer, what I recommended, and why:

General fiction – R&R -- Very strong writing, but some of the characters are clichés and the plot is thin. Strong writing makes me think the writer will be able to fix these problems with a strong revision memo.

Romantic suspense – pass -- struggles with tone, character, pacing and plot. The concept was good, but all these problems make the writer a bad bet at this time.

Dark comedy – R&R -- episodic nature and problems with tone require another rewrite. I loved the concept, and dark humor is particularly difficult to pull off. I hope the writer got some strong editing help and will resub.

Literary thriller – pass -- Starts strong and features a gritty tone, but its weak mystery, sleazy characters and abrupt ending keep it from working.

Chick lit – pass – Sexist, stereotypical single women desperate for a husband.

General Fiction – R&R -- Very strong writing, some intriguing plot elements, but the writer doesn’t emphasize the novel’s most intriguing parts. A rewrite that strengthens the mystery at its heart will take the novel to the next level.

General Fiction – pass -- Mostly told rather than shown; too many characters and episodic.

Thriller – pass -- Interesting plot doomed by an immature voice, weak writing and flimsy characters.

Historical fantasy – pass -- Stunningly rich in detail, but the writing is way too young for adult readers. This is one of several time travel novels that were requested this summer. If you’re working on one, get those queries out there! (Make sure it’s good first.)

Thriller – pass -- Interesting concept, but the pace is too slow and the characters are too dull.

Historical fantasy – pass – Common plot with one-dimensional characters and unsophisticated narrative voice. Another time travel novel.

(The agent I read for gets a lot more than this one sentence! Along with the analysis, I write a 3-6 page synopsis of the story so she can judge for herself whether the plot elements are intriguing enough to look past any writing issues.)

So that was what I read this summer. As a writer, this list emphasizes to me just how hard it is to write something strong enough to gain a second look from an agent. Which is probably why I’m still waiting to hear back. Please know that as a reader, I am dying to find something good enough that I can wholeheartedly recommend it to my agent. Having to pass on these manuscripts is almost as painful as getting those "no thanks" emails in my own inbox.

First Look at Mug Shot!

Author Caroline Fardig is one of my favorite people (see my interview with her here) and I’m so excited to be part of her cover reveal for Mug Shot, the second mystery in her Java Jive series. Drum roll, please …

To review, Caroline has published three books in her Lizzie Hart series, about a small town newspaper copy editor with an on-again, off-again crush and a penchant for finding dead bodies. The Java Jive series takes place in Nashville, with coffee house manager/former singer Julie Langley investigating death and dismemberment. The first Java Jive book, Death Before Decaf, comes out in November.

Here are the pre-order links for Mug Shot:
Random House:
Amazon:
B&N:

And here’s Caroline’s Amazon page, which lists all her books:

And why not check out Caroline’s website and blog while you’re at it!

You go, Caroline!