What's In Store

Writing Novels

by Sandra Dark

Quite a few ASJA members have written novels, are in the process of writing them, or hope to do so in the future. This month's books are for you.

Writing is Acting: How to Improve the Writer's Onpage Performance, by Bobbi JG Weiss. Heinemann, 2006. 162 pages. Paperback. $18.95.

On the premise that acting and writing bear fundamental similarities, Weiss draws on her own stage background to show how to use common acting tools, techniques, and tricks to develop and improve fiction writing. The author of more than 50 books and many other projects, she writes mostly for young people, which is evident in her often giggly style. But her advice is spot-on no matter what you write, from action to drama to comedy.

Weiss provides numerous exercises commonly used by actors that will help you develop and step inside your characters. Use dialogue to create unique and clearly identifiable voices, And discipline your powers of observation and concentration. (I gained a lot of useful insights from reading her well-thought-out exercises even though I didn't actually do them.) She also offers solid guidelines on revising your manuscript.

Writing is Acting is designed to focus and supercharge your creativity in ways that will directly benefit your fiction, and it delivers. While reading the book, I came up with the perfect ending for a stalled-out short story, and developed a radical new take on a novel-in-progress. I couldn't ask more than that from 162 pages.

Mystery Writing in a Nutshell by John McAleer, Andrew McAleer, Edward D. Hoch (foreword). James A. Rock & Co. Publishers, 2007. 120 pages. Paperback. $9.95.

In the minimalist tradition of Walter Mosley's This Year You Write Your Novel, you'll find that Mystery Writing in a Nutshell packs a lot of punch per page. As a veritable checklist for what a story should cover, much of the content is universal, applying to more than just the narrow mystery/suspense genre.

On the premise that a lengthy how-to book on writing technique will only confuse you, the authors keep it short and crisp. You'll find nutshell tips on everything from choosing the right point of view, to structuring the plot, to developing your own distinctive voice.

The authors, a father-son duo, have serious credentials in the mystery/suspense field. One after the other, they've taught crime fiction at Boston College for more than half a century. In Nutshell, they employ a somewhat novel (for this type of book), numbered format that is highly readable as it takes you through the nuts and bolts of assembling a story. (To me, this was especially helpful as a checklist used against an existing first draft of a novel.)

The last fourth of the book consists of reprints of articles and interviews by the authors."Conversations with Rex Stout" contains excerpts from Andrew McAleer's extensive interviews with the creator of the classic Nero Wolfe series. (McAleer authored Rex Stout: A Biography, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award.) Stout drops such pearls as: "A character who is thought out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought out character is flat."

You won't learn the finer points of fiction writing from this book. But if you need to add some tension to your story, or want a basic tune-up manual, you might find Mystery Writing in a Nutshell to be worth its modest price.

Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Them Go by Les Edgerton. Writers Digest Books, 2007. 256 pages. Paperback. $14.99.

Grabbing a reader's attention from the get-go is so vital in today's fiction market that there's always room for one more book on how to do that well. And Edgerton even provides a formula to test whether your story opening is strong or weak.

Then he names ten core components that you need to juggle while building a strong opening scene, ranging from the "inciting incident" to the "story-worthy problem" to "foreshadowing." Keeping ten balls in the air in just the opening scene might sound like an insurmountable challenge, but Edgerton keeps it simple enough for you to think, "I can do this."

Hooked draws on both film and literature for examples of successful opening scenes and chapters. (Edgerton shows how movies and TV have retrained readers so that scene transitions are no longer the necessity that they once were.) I found his fascination with the movie Thelma and Louise a little tiresome after the umpteenth reference, but his points do have validity.

Highly readable, Hooked winds up with a revealing 18-page section of Q&As with editors and agents regarding what a story opening must have to get their attention. While reading this book, I spotted and corrected two obvious flaws in my own novel-in-progress, making the book well worth the price.

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Sandra Dark's latest YA novel is Calypso Wind.