Writing, Rewriting, and Craft by Elena Hartwell

 

Elena Hartwell author photo with horse

 

 

Writing, Rewriting, and Craft

By Elena Hartwell

 

As a novelist and playwright, I’m often asked where I get my ideas. Almost every writer I know gets this question, and I think we all feel the same. Ideas are never the problem. That’s the easy part. Ideas are a dime a dozen. The hard part, the magic part, is turning the idea into a polished, final manuscript.

The writing process varies wildly from author to author. Some write extensive, detailed outlines. Others sit down with an idea and write scenes on the fly. A number of writers fall somewhere in between, while they may not outline, neither do they sit down and write completely organically. They might write a synopsis or outline a chapter in advance.

The various combinations of these methods all work, depending on the writer and the project. There is no “wrong” way to write a novel. The “how” a writer works isn’t why their manuscript sells or doesn’t sell. The primary reason an author’s work has not yet sold is a lack of craft.

People who lack craft skills rarely sit down to write a novel. Or if they do, they can start, but never finish. Or if they do finish, they don’t rewrite. Or if they do rewrite, they quit after a single pass. Or, if they do continue to rewrite, they aren’t aware enough of craft to recognize the flaws in their own work. You get the picture. The problem is the writer stops too soon.

As a writing coach—I do one-on-one manuscript critiques as well as teaching workshops—there are some fundamental issues I see repeated in early drafts, over and over. These same issues show up in my own work, and probably on some level, in the early drafts of every writer out there. So the first thing aspiring writers can do to increase their chances of writing a successful manuscript, is learn how to identify these problems.

 

 

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The first is a lack of clear objectives, obstacles, and stakes. It’s not enough to have a dead body to write a mystery. Someone has to investigate the murder. The person investigating the murder has to need to solve the crime. If they don’t need to solve the crime (objective) there’s no tension about the investigation. If the solution doesn’t matter to the investigator, it won’t matter to the reader.

The sleuth also can’t solve the crime easily, that’s not dramatic. Various impediments (obstacles) have to appear, one after the other, to prevent the protagonist from catching the killer. The more the investigator has to overcome, the more satisfying to the reader when they do.

Lastly, it has to matter (stakes). For example, the protagonist with an internal struggle, coinciding with their investigation, is far more interesting than someone who simply goes through the motions of solving a crime.

The more important solving the case is to the protagonist, the more dangerous or difficult the journey, and the greater the importance to find the guilty party, the more invested a reader will be. That’s what keeps a reader turning pages.

Complex protagonists will also have personal objectives, obstacles, and stakes to go along with their investigation. For example, a crumbling marriage, a child in danger, or overcoming an addiction are common tropes within the genre. When we know an investigator has to choose between catching a killer and saving their marriage, the stakes are high and we breathlessly turn each page waiting to see what the character chooses.

 

 

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Another common error I find is a lack of structure. All stories have an underpinning structure. While there are variations to that structure, for the most part, especially in crime fiction, we start with the world as we know it, which is disrupted by a specific event, followed by rising action, where events pile one on top the other, each more important than the one that went before. This ends with a climactic scene, with the maximum danger to our hero or heroine, followed by a glimpse into the new world order for our characters.

If any of these parts are missing, the story can feel unfinished. For example, if we don’t have some sense of what the character’s life was before the intrusion, we don’t know what they are putting at risk. The “world before” can often be well hidden, it might not appear in the first chapter, but later in reflections the character makes as the story progresses, but usually a reader can identify it if they look for it.

The middle of a manuscript might falter if a lot of exciting things happen at the beginning, then nothing exciting follows. Rising action is important, because it builds dramatic tension, making it impossible to put the book down.

Lastly, an ending can feel unsatisfying if we have no sense of the outcome. Readers don’t need everything tied up in a bow, but they do want the primary threads to be resolved enough to know what the character’s lives will be like after they read “the end.”

 

 

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Dialogue can also be difficult to master. One of the most common problems I see is when authors have their characters say exactly what they feel and exactly what they mean. That doesn’t ring true. People lie all the time. We lie because it’s expedient, it benefits us in some way, it keeps us from hurting others, or we don’t want to get in trouble. We rarely say what we mean, we obfuscate, we dither, we agree out loud when disagreeing feels like a mistake. Dialogue works best when each character speaks distinctly from the others, through word choice, sentence length, grammatical accuracy, and the use of slang.

If a writer can identify just these specific problem areas in their own writing, their next draft will be a much tighter, more polished manuscript. It can feel overwhelming to try to identify and fix all the issues I’ve outlined at one time. My recommendation for writers is to choose one aspect and rewrite just for that. Heighten the stakes in one rewrite. Focus solely on dialogue for the next. Breaking down the process into smaller chunks can make each rewrite a more successful venture. This will help the writer get through a series of rewrites rather than attempting one and feeling like the mountain is too high to climb. My final piece of advice. Don’t give up. That’s the only difference between a published author and an unpublished one.

 

 

Giveaway Colorful Stripes

 

 

One dead two to go imageTwo heads are deader than one imageThree strikes your dead

 

 

 I’d be happy to do a giveaway! Copies of my Eddie Shoes Mystery Series will be available to the first 3 people that sign up for my newsletter win! Send me a PM with your email! More info on the series here:  www.elenahartwell.com

 

 

 

Elena Hartwell author photo with horse

 

 

Elena Hartwell started out her storytelling career in the theater. She worked for several years as a playwright, director, designer, technician, and educator before becoming a novelist.

Elena has more than twenty years of teaching experience and now works one-on-one with writers as a manuscript consultant and writing coach.

She lives in North Bend, Washington, with her husband, two cats, and the greatest dog in the world. When she’s not writing, teaching writing, or talking about writing, she can be found at a nearby stables, playing with her horses.

For more information about Elena, please visit www.elenahartwell.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I write Psychological Thrillers by A.J. Waines

 

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AJ Waines writes Psychological Thrillers with *nearly half-a-million* copies sold worldwide. She’s a #1 Bestselling Author: GIRL ON A TRAIN topped the full UK and Australian Kindle Charts in 2015 & 2016. She’s also the author of Psychological thrillers Don’t You Dare, and Inside The Whispers. 

 

 

Don't-you-Dare Medium

 

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Why I write Psychological Thrillers

By AJ Waines

 

As a child, I devoured the Famous Five mysteries by Enid Blyton and was later drawn to crime thrillers, such as A Simple Plan by Scott Smith and The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. Ever since they became recognised as a distinct category, however, I’ve been captivated by psychological thrillers, loving writers such as Minette Walters and Nicci French, from the 1990’s onwards. At the time, I was in awe of all writers and the idea of actually putting together a psychological thriller myself was completely beyond me!

Before I first had a go at writing fiction in 2008, I was a psychotherapist for 15 years. As well as seeing clients with mainstream issues such as low self-esteem, depression and relationship issues, I was privileged to work with ex-convicts from high-security institutions. I found this work fascinating and aside from giving me ideas for novels, it gave me considerable insight into the disturbed and criminal mind.

So, should I try to write murder mysteries or psychological thrillers..? Which would I choose? In the end I didn’t. I put the two genres together.

In my first attempt at a novel, The Evil Beneath, I wanted to create a story that had a distinct mystery on the surface and a deeper psychological thriller lurking underneath. To create dissonance between what the reader ‘knows’ and what the lead character hasn’t yet worked out. I like to find ways to mislead the reader and to create jeopardy from the ‘inside-out’, rather than from the ‘outside-in’. By this I mean that the characters are exposed to danger on a mental level – mind-games and deception – rather than (or as well as!) a physical one.

I’ve written nine psych thrillers to date, with another in the pipeline, and my plots usually centre around the  hidden unreliability or instability of individuals in the story. My protagonists often face a tortuous situation: a missing child, a death made to look like suicide, a stalker, a simple but deadly mistake, for instance. In Don’t you Dare, for example, the story starts with a mother misunderstanding a situation involving her daughter and killing someone. This kind of mystery allows the reader to get right inside the minds of key players. It encourages them to try to anticipate how characters might handle certain dilemmas and tempts the reader towards trying to figure out what their true motives are. Not just ‘who dunnit’– but ‘why’ and ‘how dunnit’! It also invites readers to consider: what on earth would I do if I was faced with this situation..?

Most of all, I like the idea of dramatic events happening to ordinary people. A dark and deadly puzzle involving clues where hidden dangers come to light. I love twists and turns and that big OMG moment at the end, of course – that turns everything on its head! In my novel, No Longer Safe, for instance, nothing is as it seems… Many readers told me that when they got to the end of the book, they were so gob-smacked, they had to go back to the beginning to discover how the events turned out as they did! That’s such a great compliment for a writer. I love to knock my readers sideways – and there’s certainly a delicious sting in the tail in that novel!

In all my books I like exploring moral dilemmas and what happens when relationships are blighted by jealousy, secrets, lies or revenge. I like writing ‘domestic noir’ – what could be more scary than thinking you’re safe in your own home and finding that’s where your worst nightmares begin…

My current favourite authors are Belinda Bauer, Claire Kendall,  Lucy Clarke and Sabine Durrant. Brilliant books I’ve read recently are: Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes and Tideline by Penny Hancock.

Enemy at the Window, the next novel from AJ Waines is due for release by Bloodhound Books on 28 June.

 

 

BOOK GIVEAWAY

AJ Waines is giving away a free paperback of her book Inside the Whispers . To enter the drawing simply like, share this post on WordPress or on social media. A random winner will be selected! (UK adressess only)

May the odds ever be in your favor.

 

 

ITW only

 

Amazon | Goodreads

 

 

You can find AJ Waines at:

Amazon: http://viewauthor.at/AJWaines

Website www.ajwaines.co.uk

Newsletter http://eepurl.com/bamGuL

Blog: www.awaines.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AJWaines  

Twitter: www.twitter.com/AJWaines  

 

 

Author Biography:

 

AJWainesa

 

AJ Waines is a number one bestselling author, topping the entire UK and Australian Kindle Charts in two consecutive years, with Girl on a Train. Following fifteen years as a psychotherapist, the author has sold nearly half a million copies of her books, with publishing deals in UK, France, Germany, Norway, Hungary and Canada (audio books).

AJ Waines has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Times and has been ranked a Top 10 UK author on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). She lives in Hampshire, UK, with her husband.

 

 

 

 

Free Book Drawing: The Secrets We Bury by Debra Webb

 

 

The Secrets We Bury image

 

 

Hi there. Are you ready for some book prizes? A random person will selected to win a free copy of The Secrets We Bury by bestselling author Debra Webb. The first book in the new Undertaker’s Daughter series. Just leave a comment below and that’s it! Debra Webb is a great storyteller, prolific author, and one of my personal favorites. So I’m thrilled to offer one of her new books in this giveaway courtesy of Debra.

 

Here’s the book blurb. 

Doctor Rowan Dupont knows death. She grew up surrounded by it in her family’s Victorian funeral home, and it’s haunted her since the day her twin sister drowned years ago. Between her mother’s subsequent suicide and the recent murder of her father, coming home to run the funeral home feels fitting—even if it leaves her vulnerable to an obsessive serial killer.

Rowan refuses to let fear keep her from honoring her family. But the more time she spends back in Winchester, Tennessee, the more she finds herself questioning what really happened that fateful summer. Had her sister’s death truly been an accident? And what pushed their mother to take her own life? The dark lake surrounding Rowan’s hometown holds as many secrets as the bodies that float in its chilling depths. But Rowan is running out of time if she’s going to uncover the truth before somebody sinks her for good.

 

 

 

Word Giveaway on wood planks

 

 

A random person will be selected to win a copy of The Secrets We Bury by Debra Webb, a paperback or ebook of your choice. Just leave comment below to enter the drawing. Say hello, or what kind of books you like to read.

 

 

Debra Webb image

 

DEBRA WEBB is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 140 novels, including reader favorites the Shades of Death, the Faces of Evil and the Colby Agency series. She is the recipient of the prestigious Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense as well as numerous Reviewers Choice Awards. In 2012 Debra was honored as the first recipient of the esteemed L. A. Banks Warrior Woman Award for her courage, strength, and grace in the face of adversity. Recently Debra was awarded the distinguished Centennial Award for having achieved publication of her 100th novel.

With more than four million books in print in numerous languages and countries, Debra’s love of storytelling goes back to her childhood when her mother bought her an old typewriter in a tag sale. Born in Alabama, Debra grew up on a farm. She spent every available hour exploring the world around her and creating her stories. She wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the Commanding General of the US Army in Berlin behind the Iron Curtain and a five-year stint in NASA’s Shuttle Program that she realized her true calling. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Since then she has expanded her work into some of the darkest places the human psyche dares to go. Visit Debra at www.debrawebb.com

 

Website | Amazon | Twitter

 

 

Giveaway gift box image on wooden floor

 

 

 

 

 

Agenda & MTW Suspenseful Reads Bundle Giveaway

Agenda Calendar MTW

 

 

 

Today’s Agenda and Suspenseful Reads Bundle Giveaway in case you missed it!

 

Monday April 16, 2018 

*Article -Writer’s Block: Can You Use it as a Tool? By Melinda Leigh – Mystery Thriller Week

*Article – Why Read the Book if you can watch the movie? – By Robbie Cheadle

*Book Review – Law & Vengeance by Mike Papantonio – Mystery Thriller Week

*Author Interview – Steve Bentley & Jennifer S. Alderson – Steve Bentley

*An Ode to the Career of Narrator Dick Hill – Mystery Thriller Week

*Agenda & MTW Suspenseful Reads Bundle Giveaway – Mystery Thriller Week

*Guest Author – Jennifer S. Alderson & Audiobook Giveaway – Stephen Bentley

*Literary Heroes & Amateur Sleuths by Colin Garrow – Jennifer S. Alderson

*Book Recommendations with Cozy Mystery Author Ritter Ames – Mystery Thriller Week

 

 

Giveaway6_week1Suspense

 

 

 

GIVEAWAY #6 – SUSPENSEFUL READS

Comment on the Facebook link below to enter. One lucky reader will win all 5 eBooks! *** ENDS APRIL 17 ***

 

THE BABY ON THE BACK PORCH BY LUCIA N. DAVIS
An old cabin, hidden in the forests of the Northern Cascades, has been a silent witness to mysterious events long forgotten. But sometimes the past has a way of resurfacing…

 
In search of solace after a personal tragedy, Sara Eriksson exchanges vibrant San Francisco for a small mountain village. Initially, everything at the cabin is just as she imagined: Her new surroundings are breathtaking, and her landlord, David, is kind and helpful. As soon as she’s left alone, however, Sara finds her new home is not quite as peaceful as she’d thought. First she has an unwanted visitor. Then, an unsettling dream…

 
Sara pursues the leads presented to her, but she can’t solve the mystery on her own. It takes both Sara and David to uncover the truth about the past—and discover a connection they never expected. (Lucia N. Davis)

 

 

BEFORE THE STORM BY LESLIE TENTLER
Six years earlier, Trina Grissom disappeared, on the run for her life. Now living under an assumed identity—as Samantha Marsh—she still struggles with the dark secret she harbors and the fear she might one day be found. When she moves to the coastal town of Rarity Cove, South Carolina, to open a café, a handsome widower begins to chip away at the walls she’s built to protect herself.

Mark St. Clair lost his wife two years ago in a tragic accident. Head of the grand St. Clair resort, he distracts himself from his lingering grief by running the family business and caring for his troubled young daughter…until a beautiful restaurateur sets up shop in town. Before meeting Samantha, Mark was convinced he could never be drawn to another woman. But as his attraction to Samantha grows, the mystery surrounding her deepens.

As the two begin a hesitant courtship, double perils emerge. Someone from Samantha’s lurid past comes calling, threatening to expose her. And a powerful hurricane is forming in the Atlantic with the small beach town in its path. Trapped in the storm by the brutal man who wants vengeance on Samantha, she and Mark must fight for their lives. (Leslie Tentler)

 

 

 

THE JACQ OF SPADES BY PATRICIA LOOFBOURROW
Kidnapping. Murder. Betrayal.
Can you ever truly hide from your past?

In a far future US, the once-beautiful domed neo-Victorian city of Bridges is now split between four crime families in an uneasy cease-fire. Its steam-driven infrastructure failing, a new faction is on the rise: the Red Dogs.

22 year old Jacqueline Spadros was kidnapped from her mother’s brothel and sold to the Spadros syndicate ten years ago. The murder of her best friend Air that night as he tried to save her from them haunts her nightmares. Now unwillingly married to one of the city’s biggest drug lords, she finds moments of freedom in a small-time private eye business, which she hides in fear of her sadistic father-in-law.

 
Air’s little brother disappears off his back porch and the Red Dogs are framed for it. With the help of a gentleman investigator hired by the Red Dogs to learn the truth, Jacqui pushes her abilities to their limits in hope of rescuing the child before the kidnapper disposes of him.
Dark, gritty, multi-layered Victorian-inspired detective neo-noir that keeps the reader guessing to the very end. (Patricia Loofbourrow, MD – Author, Entrepreneur)

 

 

THE HAUNTING OF SECRETS BY SHELLEY PICKENS
Are some secrets worth dying for?

Sixteen-year-old Aimee doesn’t like to touch people. One touch and she sees their past. One graze over her skin and she can see all the good and bad deeds a person has ever done. It isn’t until a bomb explodes during lunch that she realizes exactly how many dirty secrets the students in her school harbor-or exactly how far one of them would go to keep his secrets safe.

In the aftermath of that fateful day of the bombing Aimee is brushed by a fellow student as they are caught in the mob running for their lives. Images of tortured and murdered young girls rise up to choke her. The problem is, Aimee doesn’t know who touched her. Somewhere in this school a fellow student is a killer, and Aimee is the only one that can find him before he murders again.

With the help of her friends Aimee must sift through her stolen memories to determine clues. The quest to find a killer unravels the very fabric of her carefully woven life. He won’t stop until he silences her- for only she knows all his secrets. She will have to summon all of her inner strength to decide what she must do: hunt or be hunted. Are some secrets worth dying for? (Shelley Pickens – Author)

 

 

 

HUNTING HOUR BY MARGARET MIZUSHIMA
Flashes of memory had been haunting her for months, and sleepless nights stacked up one after another. Only when total exhaustion took over could she fall asleep.

Deputy Mattie Cobb’s much needed therapy session is interrupted by a call from the police station – a girl has gone missing from the junior high in Margaret Mizushima’s third K-9 mystery, Hunting Hour.
With K-9 partner in crime Robo at her side Mattie rushes to the junior high, finding the distressed parents of Candace Banks waiting for her. Her police dog Robo has one vital skill that humans don’t – a hypersensitive sense of smell – and his highly trained nose leads them right to Candice’s body . . .

But as one girl is found another disappears. The trouble rattling Timber Creek has only just begun. Each hour a child is missing lessens the chance of finding them alive, but as each clue leads to a dead end Mattie and Robo’s hunt will be their hardest yet.

Critically acclaimed Margaret Mizushima bring us another thrilling small town mystery full of complex emotions and shocking cases which will have you on the edge of your seat. (Margaret Mizushima)

 

 

Follow the link below and leave a comment to be automatically entered to win the 5 book Suspenseful Reads Bundle!

 

MTW Bundle giveaway: WIN

 

 

 

 

Agenda & MTW Amateur Sleuth Bundle Giveaway

Agenda 3 Bag pen MTW

 

 

 

Today’s Agenda and Amateur Sleuth Bundle Giveaway in case you missed it!

 

SUNDAY APRIL 15, 2018 

*A Search Engine for Writers by Cozy Mystery Author Elizabeth S. Craig – Mystery Thriller Week

*Book Review – From Beyond the Grave by Daniella Bernett – Janice J. Richardson

*Article – The Power of Place by Mary Angela

*Author Interview with Caroline England – Mystery Thriller Week

*Spotlight on Author Stephen Bentley & Audiobook Giveaway – Jennifer S. Alderson

*Book Review – Rituals of the Dead by Jennifer S. Alderson – Janice Richardson’s Reviews

*Book Review – Murder in Absentia by Assaph Mehr – Lucia Davis’s Reviews

*Agenda & MTW Amateur Sleuth Bundle Giveaway – Mystery Thriller Week

*Special Q&A and Book Recommendations with Bookstagrammar Laura Rash (a.k.a Wonderchick40) – Mystery Thriller Week

 

 

Amateur Sleuth Bundle Giveaway

 

 

Giveaway3_week_amateurSleuth

 

 

GIVEAWAY #3 – AMATEUR SLEUTHS

Comment the Facebook link below to enter. One lucky reader will win all 4 eBooks! *** ENDS APRIL 17 ***

 

DEATH ON A DIRTY AFTERNOON BY COLIN GARROW
When taxi driver Frank is found dead on his dining room table, ex-cabbie Terry Bell assumes his old friend died of a heart attack. But when Terry’s former boss also turns up with his face bashed in, it starts to look like there’s a connection.
Faced with a Detective Inspector who doesn’t like coincidences, and a series of threatening letters, Terry does a bit of investigating of his own, but when another body is discovered, the temperature starts to rise – in more ways than one.
It’s a seaside town like any other seaside town: from the non-existent sand dunes and candy-striped deck chairs to the concrete piers and tacky market stalls, they’ve got it all – including dead bodies, arson attacks and hockey-stick wielding murderers. If you love mysteries and amateur sleuthing, bald-headed villains and Swedish construction bosses, this’ll be right up your everyday seaside-town street.
(Colin Garrow)

 

 

 

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE BY DANIELLA BERNETT
Buried secrets can kill…

The seaside resort of Torquay, along the English Riviera in Devon, is the perfect place for a restful holiday. That’s what journalist Emmeline Kirby desperately needs after her harrowing escapes from spies and others with nefarious intentions back in London. She also needs distance to sort out her conflicted feelings for jewel thief Gregory Longdon, who once stole her heart. But who should turn up out of the blue? The ever-charming, devastatingly handsome Gregory. That’s when secrets from his past—and murder—shatter the serenity of this picturesque haven. (Daniella Bernett)

 

 

MORTOM BY ERIK THERME
Andy Crowl barely knew his recently deceased cousin, Craig Moore, so he’s especially surprised to be named as the sole beneficiary in Craig’s will. Not that there’s much to inherit: just an empty bank account and a run-down house.

Once Andy arrives in the town of Mortom, however, he’s drawn into his puzzle-obsessed cousin’s true legacy: a twisted and ominous treasure hunt. Beckoned by macabre clues of dead rats and cemetery keys, Andy jumps into the game, hoping to discover untold wealth. But unsavory secrets—and unanswered questions about Craig’s untimely demise—arise at every turn, leading Andy to wonder if he’s playing the game…or if the game is playing him.

Something’s rotten in Mortom. And this dead man’s game might not be all that Andy is doomed to lose. (Erik Therme)

 

 

FRANKLY SPEAKING BY DON MASSENZIO
A 16 year old girl has disappeared. The police believe she is a runaway. Her parents believe she has been taken and is being held against her will. When the parents enlist the services of Frank Rozzani, a former police officer turned private detective, a series of events begins to unfold that implicates a popular local pastor and the religious stronghold of the ultra-conservative community.

Frank Rozzani, a transplant to Jacksonville, Florida from Syracuse, New York, must find the young girl despite the obstacles launched at him from the local police and others whose interests may be compromised by his investigation. Frank enlists the help of his associate Clifford “Jonesy” Jones to find the girl, uncover the conspiracy, and stay alive. While solving the case, Frank must deal with the demons that drove him from Upstate New York causing him to leave traumatic memories and his children behind. (Don Massenzio)

 

 

MTW Bundle giveaway: WIN