Posts by James Scott Bell
Flickr Creative Commons: Sam Leighton
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” – Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard
I’m a big fan of film noir. I love Noir Alley on TCM, hosted by Eddie Muller (The Czar of Noir). He does such a great job dishing inside info on the movies he screens.
A few weeks ago Noir Alley showed a tight little masterpiece called The Window. This 1949 thriller is based on a story by the great Cornell Woolrich, who probably provided more source material for suspense films than any writer in history. The title of Woolrich’s story is “The Boy Who Cried Murder” and that pretty much captures the plot.
A nine-year-old boy named Tommy (Bobby Driscoll) lives in a New York tenement with his parents. He loves making up wild stories. His folks keep telling him not to. One hot night he goes out on the fire escape to sleep. He’s awakened by noise from the apartment upstairs. Peering through the window he witnesses a murder. But when he tries to tell his parents, they naturally think he’s making it up. “Not that nice couple upstairs, Tommy.” When he persists, they punish him by confining him to his room.
Desperate to turn in the killers, Tommy scampers down the fire escape and runs to the police station. The cops don’t believe him either, but just in case send over a man to sniff things out.
Much to Tommy’s shame, the cop takes him right back to his mother (Barbara Hale). A little later she marches Tommy upstairs to apologize to the couple. Tommy pleads with her not to make him, because if he does they’ll know he knows, and try to kill him, too!
Mrs. Kellerson (Ruth Roman) answers the door. She really seems like a nice, sweet lady. She smiles at Tommy. Then Mom tells Mrs. Kellerson what Tommy has been saying. (In a brilliant piece of acting, Roman’s face changes ever so slightly, same smile, but now with a menace only the boy can discern.)
The last twenty minutes of the movie is pure, non-stop suspense, ratcheted to its peak because of our bond with the boy.
There’s a moment in the film that cements that bond. When the cop brings Tommy home and is talking to his mother about what the boy reported, the director goes in for a five-second close-up on Tommy. He looks at the wall and scratches it lightly with his finger as he endures the humiliation of the policeman not believing him. It’s a small gesture, and we only see about a quarter of Tommy’s face, but right then I almost teared up.
Why?
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Flickr Creative Commons: Visual Artist Frank Bonilla
Alas, poor backstory. Whenever its name is mentioned, it is usually in hushed tones during a first-page takedown in a critique group, or on a panel of editors warning anxious wannabes about the sins of the plodders. Using backstory in the opening pages is one of those sins, they say, and warn that using it thus will render your ceremonially unclean.
Why the disapprobation? Because it’s been mishandled too many times. Loads of exposition larded into a chapter can turn reading into a slog. But does that mean it should be chucked completely?
No.
Backstory, when artfully laced into the opening pages, actually works as a bonding agent. Which, I would argue, is the primary task of the opening: get us emotionally connected to a character facing a disturbance to their world.
Backstory, of course, is a term coined by the old Hollywood screenwriters, referring to any story material and character history that happens before the story begins. Like the Paris stuff in Casablanca. That reveal comes in the middle of the film, via flashback. However, the effects of it are clearly seen in the present. Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) plays chess alone. He sticks his neck out for nobody. He won’t tell anyone why he came to Casablanca. When he hears his piano man, Sam, playing “As Time Goes By” he goes ballistic.
And in an early scene, where Rick is being questioned by the Nazi major, Strasser, he’s asked if he can imagine the Germans in his beloved Paris.
“It’s not particularly my beloved Paris,” Rick says. Why? We don’t know. It’s a mystery. And mystery makes us want to keep watching.
All you need is a line or two like that.
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Flickr Creative Commons: Mark Freeth
A couple of weeks ago I was in Toronto with my friends Christopher Vogler and a fellow you may have heard of, Don Maass. We were there teaching the Story Masters conference, a four-day immersion in the craft of fiction.
For this conference, each of us takes a full day to teach our stuff, and then get together for a final day taking the students through a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the classic Harper Lee novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
I began my session by showing a clip from the amusing Albert Brooks film, The Muse. It’s the story of a middle-aged screenwriter facing a career crisis (which, in Hollywood, is almost redundant). Early on, Brooks is having lunch with a studio honcho who is about fifteen years his junior. Brooks has submitted an action script and wants feedback.
The honcho says, “Let me put this in a form that’s not insulting, because I tend to be too direct. All my friends tell me that. The script’s no good.”
Brooks says, “That’s the form that’s not insulting? What would the insulting form be?”
When Brooks asks what’s wrong with the script, the honcho replies, “What’s wrong with the script … is you.”
Brooks presses for more specifics. The honcho finally says, “You’ve lost your edge.”
Brooks looks at him with that Albert Brooks existential-angst expression he has practically trademarked. The honcho further states that the studio needs Brooks to vacate his office so Brian De Palma can have it. “You can’t give Brian De Palma my office!” Brooks says.
“It’s not really your office,” the honcho replies. “We’re all just using space here. I’m where Lucille Ball used to be.”
“Too bad you’re not where she is now.”
In short, the lunch does not go well.
After the clip, I told the class part of the reason they were at Story Masters was to avoid ever being subjected to a conversation like that. How?
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We’re thrilled to welcome James Scott Bell back to WU today! James writes thrillers and books on the craft of fiction. He has been a finalist for an International Thriller Writers Award, and served as the fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine A sampling of his books may be found here. He lives and writes in Los Angeles.
Is Your Fiction Big Enough?
I love the craft of fiction––the tools and techniques we apply to the parts or the whole of our stories. To help the books live and breathe and connect with readers.
There are techniques that apply to the things we can do, and others that help us identify things we ought to avoid. I call this latter group “speed bumps.” The reader may not notice them consciously, but in subtle ways they interrupt the fictive dream. They are often the difference between a reader thinking, “That book was pretty good” and “Wow! That blew me away!’
And then there’s a quality we can bring to our fiction that I haven’t really seen addressed before. It came to me one day when reading a story by the famous (and doomed) pulp writer Robert E. Howard.
For want of a better term, I call it the quality of bigness.
Maybe the best way to explain it is through examples.
In an unpublished story written shortly before his death, “Sword Woman,” Howard introduces Agnes, who might have become a character as popular as his most famous creation, Conan the Cimmerian.
Written in first person POV, the story begins with Agnes escaping from her father and the loveless marriage he has consigned her to. She enters a tavern, dressed in men’s clothes. There she meets the leader of a group of mercenaries, Guiscard de Clisson, and expresses a desire to join his band.
Guiscard answers, “By Saint Denis, girl, you have a proper spirit, but it takes more than a pair of breeches to make a man. … Don thy petticoats and become a proper woman once more.”
Ripping out an oath that made him start, I sprang up, knocking my bench backward so it fell with a crash. I stood before him, clenching and unclenching my hands, seething with the rage that always rose quickly in me.
“Ever the man in men!” I said between my teeth. “Let a woman know her proper place: let her milk and spin and sew and bake and bear children, nor look beyond her threshold or the command of her lord and master. Bah! I spit on you all! There is no man alive who can face me with weapons and live, and before I die, I’ll prove it to the world. Women! Cows! Slaves! Whimpering, cringing serfs, crouching to blows, revenging themselves–– among men? By God, I’ll live as I please and die as God wills, but if I’m not fit to be a man’s comrade, at least I’ll be no man’s mistress. So go ye to hell, Guiscard de Clisson, and may the devil tear your heart!”
Howard, a boxing fanatic, does not pull his punches, does he?
When a group of thieves, led by a man named Tristan, bursts into […]
Read MoreJames Scott Bell is with us today! Jim is an award-winning thriller writer and the author of the #1 bestseller Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish. His latest release is Just Write: Creating Unforgettable Fiction and a Rewarding Writing Life (Writer’s Digest Books). Jim is also co-creator of the interactive writing app Knockout Novel. He has taught writing at Pepperdine University and at workshops in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, though he always likes coming home to L.A. where he can enjoy an authentic street dog. You can keep up with his new books and deals here.
How to Weave a Message Without Pummeling Your Readers
Got an email the other day asking for advice on how to weave a “message” into a novel without sounding “preachy.” I immediately thought of the quote variously attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, Moss Hart, Ernest Hemingway and Frank Capra: “If you want to send a message, try Western Union.” (Note: It’s too cogent for Goldwyn. The best evidence gives it to Hart).
Translation, of course, is that audiences don’t want a sermon, they want a story. They’re not looking for a lecture, but a fictive dream. If they sense an author intruding, they’re liable to become a reader excluding … your next book.
Some writers ask, does my story need to have a message (or theme) at all?
Answer: It will have one whether you like it or not. Every story leaves the readers with an impression that the author has presented a view of the world, a slant on life. The only question is whether you want to be intentional about it.
Note, however, that you don’t have to know what your message is from the jump. You pantsers will love hearing that. You like to write, in part, to discover. Fine. But when you finish that first draft, start asking yourself what message is in there trying to get out. Then you can use the tools of craft to deliver it in a way that is natural, unobtrusive, organic.
In answer to my correspondent I found myself writing in aphorisms. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’d just been on Twitter. Or possibly because my favorite philosopher is Pascal. In any event, here’s what I wrote:
Read MoreToday’s returning guest is James Scott Bell. James is not only a bestselling thriller novelist, he’s written three truly helpful craft books, including the #1 bestselling book Plot & Structure. He also authors the Mallory Caine zombie legal thriller series under the pen name K. Bennett. The first book in the series, Pay Me in Flesh, is about a stylish lawyer-zombie who suddenly finds herself on someone else’s food chain, and who hopes to stay un-dead until she can win back her soul.
You can learn more about James and his books by following him on Twitter (@jamesscottbell) and visiting his website.
The Day I Decided To Become a Writer
Raymond Carver sat at the end of the table, his eyes a bit red and his breath redolent of bourbon, surrounded by ten college students who wanted desperately to become writers. One by one, they would read their work and get feedback from the other students and Carver himself.
Your humble correspondent was one of those students, and soon became discouraged. I could not write like Carver, or even some of the “star” students. What did they have that I did not? At the end of the class I was starting to believe what certain people said: Writers are born, not made. You can’t learn to be a great writer. You certainly can’t by reading books on writing!
For the next decade or so, I thought I was one of those not born to write. I did other things. I acted. I waited tables. I fell in love with an actress, got married, and decided to bring in an actual income and went to law school.
I started practicing law. My lovely wife and I welcomed a son and a daughter into the world. Life was good.
Then one afternoon, with Cindy’s mom watching the kids, we slipped out for a double feature. The movie I wanted to see was Wall Street. It was paired with a film I didn’t know that much about, except that Cher was supposed to be quite good in it. That movie was Moonstruck.
Well, Wall Street is a superb movie. Charlie Sheen (the early years Charlie Sheen) was excellent, and Michael Douglas scored an Oscar as the odious Gordon Gekko.
A short break, some more popcorn and then . . . Moonstruck began. From the opening credits—to the song That’s Amore sung by Dean Martin—the movie began to weave a magical spell. We are immediately drawn to Loretta Castorini (Cher) a widow in her late thirties, a romantic with a strong realistic streak. Meaning she will settle for marriage to a likable but not very exciting man, Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello).
Loretta is funny and strong (she has to coach Johnny on how to propose to her). She gets that from her mother, Rose (Olympia Dukakis), also funny and full of old world wisdom.
Read MoreTherese here. I’m so pleased to bring you today’s guest, author and teacher James Scott Bell, who is here to talk with us about powerful dialogue. James is not only a bestselling thriller novelist, he’s written three truly helpful craft books for Writers Digest, including the bestselling Plot & Structure, Revision & Self-Editing, and The Art of War for Writers. He also authored the Mallory Caine zombie legal thriller series under the pen name K. Bennett. The first book in the series, Pay Me in Flesh, just released on August 1st. It’s a novel about a stylish lawyer-zombie who suddenly finds herself on someone else’s food chain, and who hopes to stay un-dead until she can win back her soul. Mmm, sounds meaty.
Ready to learn how to write a good fight? Enjoy!
Dialogue as Weapon
Words hurt.
We’ve all experienced the stab of pain that comes from an unkind comment or outright insult. Especially if it’s from a friend or loved one.
I could never buy into “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Nice try, but it doesn’t cut it. Words wound. They have power.
Which is why I’ve found it helpful to think about dialogue as a weapon. First, it helps us see dialogue as part of overall conflict. And second, it reminds us that all dialogue should be intentional on the part of the character.
John Howard Lawson, a well known playwright and screenwriter of the mid-20th Century, called dialogue “a compression and extension of action.” Every word of dialogue from any character in any scene should be uttered to advance his or her agenda.
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