John B. Rosenman

We’ve all written them—the turkey of a story or novel that ain’t gonna get published nowhere.  Whatever the reasons, it’s just not the kind of thing that any self-respecting editor or publisher will buy.  Maybe it deals with an unpleasant subject, represents an experiment that folks tell you went horribly wrong, or is the equivalent of performing “Springtime for Hitler” at a Zionist convention.  Whatever the case, it’s a creative turkey, a misconceived, misbegotten miscarriage that you foolishly pulled from the realm of ideas where it richly deserved to stay, and committed to paper or your computer screen.  Now it’s become every writer’s worst nightmare, the TRUNK STORY FROM HELL that should be sealed in that trunk forever and sunk to the deepest level of the Mariana Trench. 

Well, maybe.  And then again, maybe not. 

The thing is, ultimately, you, not your critics, have to decide if your story has any merit.  Then, too, you have to decide if it’s worth continuing to pursue the matter and trying to publish the damned thing.  When does stubbornness become stupidity, especially when it becomes clear that if you do finally manage to sell that piece of unwanted and despised dreck, you won’t even get paid enough to buy a cheap martini?  Isn’t it far wiser to focus your creative endeavors on something that’s worthy, on something that’s not only good but which will sell to a decent, professional market? 

Still, you have to decide.  Money and critical and popular recognition are important, but most of us have a story or two in our trunk that against all reason, we feel a perverted love for, an insane suspicion that despite what everyone says, it actually contains some merit, perhaps even more merit than popular, commercial stories because it dares to be different and take chances, because it doesn’t run with the pack.  Hell, maybe that story or novel not only marches to the tune of a different drummer, but it sings a song that no one else can hear, yet which is beautiful in its own way. 

During my writing career, I have ultimately sold stories that not only no one seemed to want, but which they treated like leprosy.  One story I wrote a few years ago, “The Dark at the Bottom of the Stairs,” sprang (if that’s the word) from a personal visit to have my prostate and bladder tested.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience, folks, but I adapted the experience so it became a story.  One of my friends who critiqued the tale, said it “failed on every level.”  Ouch. 

Yet last week I finally sold it.  Not for big bucks, mind you, but to a trade paperback collection focusing on unpleasant experiences.  It’s called . . . now get this . . . WRETCHED MOMENTS.   Snort if you want, but haven’t we all had such moments?  I bet if you think a while, you can remember some wretched moments you’ve had and perhaps stories you’ve written that were inspired by them.

Ultimately, the question is: how much do you believe in that story?  If you’ve considered all the negative criticism and still believe your story’s good, do you have the strength and determination to continue shopping it around, even if it doesn’t find a prestigious or profitable home? 

The purpose of this blog, as astute readers may have guessed, is to urge you not to quit.  Persist, Persist, Persist.  Persevere.   Persevere.  Persevere.  Even if you face seemingly insurmountable odds, the long fight is worth it if you succeed in bringing a good but extremely unconventional story to readers’ attention.

Who knows, they may even thank you for it.

Yes, I’m serious.  I need your help.  Let me tell you why.

It happens to most writers sooner or later.  They hit a snag, run headfirst into a problem they don’t know how to solve or are even sure is a problem.  In my case, it’s a chapter in my novel that those in my writers’ group say doesn’t work.  I have two basic choices: Eliminate the chapter (it’s short), or try to fix it.  But . . . can it be fixed?

As writers, don’t we all find ourselves excessively enamored of something we’ve written?  Maybe it’s a succulent paragraph or page of description that would be better off jettisoned.  Or it’s the first fifty pages of a novel that slows it down.  In my case, it’s this chapter, which is only about ten pages long.

Let me (finally) tell you about it.

Turtan, the hero of  Inspector of the Cross, is captured by the alien enemy at their headquarters, a colossal station in space.  As he’s taken under heavy guard to their Emperor (accompanied by a human female who loves but betrayed him), he decides to escape.  Better to die fighting, he feels, and perhaps take some of the enemy with him, then meekly submit and do nothing.  After all, he’s a warrior, right?  Escorted by the guards, Turtan uses his special training to feign sickness.  Blood gushes from his nose and he staggers about.  The Bad Guys are surprised by this unexpected development, and Turtan seizes the moment by throwing a pilot aside and climbing into an alien jet.  He’s such a bright guy that he discovers how to lift off within seconds.  In the air, he learns quickly and overcomes his unfamiliarity with the craft (much like Will Smith in Independence Day).  Because he’s so darn good, Turtan manages to blast pursuing aircraft like they’re ducks in a shooting gallery.  Ultimately he kills seventeen of the enemy, destroys nine aircraft, and after he himself crashes, is recaptured by the enemy.

I thought this made a darn good action chapter, especially since it showed the hero’s toughness, resourcefulness, and added to his mythic stature.  However, there are at least two major problems (and some minor ones):

1. Turtan’s seizing the alien aircraft and taking wing is just too damned easy.  We’re talking a gargantuan logic hole here, one that strains credibility to the breaking point.  Surely, the enemy can’t be that dumb and incompetent.  If so, the war in the novel between the two empires would never have lasted over 3,000 years.  It would have been over in 3 years.

     2.   Turtan’s shooting the Bad Guys down doesn’t make much sense either.  After all, they are in a giant space station, and any artillery fire would run the risk of breaching the surface of the station and exposing it to the vacuum of space.  A gigantic explosion could result, crippling the facility.  Why, for that matter, would the enemy keep aircraft with such dangerous firepower neatly lined up in the first place?

 Okay, here’s the deal.  Those who propose the best three solutions to either or both of these two problems will get a free e-book of their choice.  Just visit my website at www.johnrosenman.com.   The e-book can be a short story, a novelette, or a novel.  Just give me your e-mail address, and it’ll be on its way.

Please note: Your solutions ultimately may not be practical, or simply will not work for one reason or another.  That’s okay.   The most ingenious, witty, inspired, and off-the-cosmic-wall suggestions are eligible, too, as long as they have some seriousness and desire to help behind them and don’t suggest that I simply eliminate the chapter (which I may still do).  You see, I want to cast as wide a net as possible so nothing slips through.

You never know, readers and fellow scribblers.  Even a nutcase idea may be the key.

 

Actually, there are two that come to mind.

First, McPherson & Co. (then Treacle Press) published my novel, The Best Laugh Last in hardback in 1982 and then as a trade paperback in 1983.  For over twenty-five years it has haunted me.  By that I mean it has been an albatross around my neck, a skeleton in my closet, a secret I have concealed during job interviews.  And yes, it is also a book that cost me two jobs.

Why?  Back then, I was a professor at a small black college, and I decided to write a novel about some of the conditions there as seen by a teacher named David Newman.  My wife said I was crazy, but I wrote it anyway and told the truth as I saw it.  Thanks to a long tradition of racism, the students were poorly equipped to pursue a higher education.  Also, the campus was run-down and poorly maintained (I called the building where I had my office, “The House of Usher.”)  Most important, though, the administration, as I saw it, didn’t care enough about educating the students.  My impression was intensified by a public scandal at another, nearby black college where several of the chief administrative officers, including the President, stole money intended for students’ education and put it in their own pockets.

Can you blame me?  Writers write, right?  They take chances.  Of course, I had a small family (a wife and a daughter), and it was conceivable that one or more of us could get hurt.  Fortunately, we all survived, but from job to job, that book followed me like a foul odor.  No matter what I did, it was always in the room.

Be aware, authors.  If you ever decide to be a whistleblower, be prepared to pay the price.

The second most dangerous, chancy thing I’ve done as a writer involves my Drollerie Press novel, Alien Dreams.  Eric Latimore leads an expedition to the planet Lagos to discover what happened to the first crew, which never reported back.  While there, he discovers huge aliens in his dreams that resemble angels and finds the only way he can save the lives of his crew is to undergo a startling transformation.

Usually it’s not a good idea to tinker and tamper with your heroes too much, at least in certain ways.  In Alien Dreams, Latimore leaves his Apache lover, Gouyen and is transformed into an eight-foot-tall alien Angel, complete with feathers.  Next, he meets and mates with their bewitchingly beautiful queen, Aleia for ten thousand subjective years.  Would the readers stand for that?  Would they still identify with my protagonist?  Occasionally, over the centuries, Latimore (whose name is now Ragar) changes bodies and sexual identities with his mate, experiencing and enjoying alien lovemaking through multiple orifices from her perspective.  Talk about gender-bending.

I was tempted to leave this unconventional love—or rather, lust—story as it was.  But Alien Dreams is the most cosmic of my novels, so I had Ragar fly in a ship clear across the universe to confront God in a battle of brains and brawn that rivals Armageddon.  Okay, it isn’t God exactly, merely a Gatekeeper who rules this particular universe.  The question is, at this point in the narrative, would readers still be able and willing to identify and sympathize with my hero?

Fortunately, Deena Fisher did not consider my tale preposterous and accepted Alien Dreams, largely because she recognizes that science fiction allows and even welcomes outlandish conceptual freedom.  Still, I feel my hero represents an experimental departure from my others, and challenges the reader to keep an open mind.

So, there are my two most daring fictional experiments, cases where I pushed the envelope in one way or another.  I could offer more examples, but I’ll save them for another time and another blog.

 

I like to write about places I’ve never been to.  It’s liberating, and it’s an experience that I recommend to other writers. 

But wait a minute, you ask.  Don’t you have to visit places you write about?  Don’t you have to step on another country’s soil, smell the air, mingle with the inhabitants and interact with their culture in a thousand different ways in order to write about it authentically?  Otherwise, isn’t the process no better than a well-crafted, well-research lie no matter how believable it seems to be?

Well, maybe.

And then again, maybe not.

The fact is, research, imagination and empathy can carry you a long way.  Also, while it’s nice to visit another place, it’s sometimes expensive, time-consuming, and may not always be practical.  One does have to make a living, after all.  Besides that, some countries may not let you in, for political or other reasons.

I teach at a historically black university.  I sometimes ask my students, “I’m an old white guy.  Could I write about life in the hood if I did a lot of research?”

Some of my students say no.  Others say yes.  I say, if I can make it believable to those who know firsthand about life in the hood and pull them completely into my fictional dream, why not?  As Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, what’s primarily necessary is to create “that willing suspension of disbelief . . . which constitutes poetic faith.”

Okay, here’s a couple of examples from my own writing experience.

One day years ago I started to read Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, which is about the often destructive influence of English colonialism on Nigeria.  That book, plus its sequel, No Longer at Ease, and other research inspired my longest novel, A Senseless Act of Beauty, which is available at Blade Publishing (http://www.bladepublishing.org/).  A Senseless Act of Beauty focuses on a beautiful African-type of planet that more civilized worlds seek to conquer and exploit in a brutal, oppressive fashion.  History repeats itself, in other words.

One of the stories in the novel, “Eyes of the Leopard,” stems from an idea that I found personally intriguing.  What if a radical, impressionist painter or artist were born into a Nigerian village circa 1900 and fell in love with the chief’s daughter?  Here is the way I began it:

            One day, Ekwefi, the proud daughter of the tribal chief, decided she wanted to be especially beautiful for the Feast of the New Yam.  She thought and thought, and then she smiled.  Perhaps Amadi, the odd boy who drew such strange pictures, could help her.

            So she told her doting father, and a servant went to summon the boy.  Now the name of Amadi’s father is not important, for he was an efulefu, a lazy, worthless man who neglected his crops and preferred to drink palm wine and fashion flutes from bamboo stems.  Of all the huts in the Nigerian village, his was the meanest and poorest kept.  Indeed, it was considered a disgrace by others even to visit it.  So when the servant, a tall man of aristocratic bearing and many airs, announced himself and entered the cramped hut, he looked about in distaste, his nose crinkling at the dust and odors. 

I hope I’ve captured the flavor of such a place and time, and discouraged the reader from wondering how a Jewish boy from Ohio could write such a thing.  The tribal story-telling style (e.g., “Now the name of Amadi’s father is not important”), and the local dialect (efulefu) contribute, I trust, to the local color and verisimilitude of the story. 

Here’s one more example: several years back, I became fascinated by Nauru, an island in the southwestern Pacific.  Again, research was key, as well as imagination.  I wrote and published three stories that take place in that area, and last week, one of those stories, “Bagonoun’s Wonderful Songbird,” was republished by Gypsy Shadow Publishing (http://www.gypsyshadow.com/).  The improbable love story involves a fifteen-year-old girl and a man who is nearly seventy.  Emet wakes Bagonoun up and asks him to tell her a story.  Annoyed, Bagonoun finally has an inspiration, one involving local lore and tribal astronomy.

            Ah, he remembered!  “Once there was a young girl,” he said, “who lived in the sky.  She—” 

            “What was her name?  You must say it!”                   

             Bagonoun made a face.  “Eyount.”

             “Pretty!”  She made a pleased sound and moved closer so her arm grazed his.

             “Anyway,” he went on, “Eyount’s parents decided to gather together some young boys so their daughter might choose a husband.  And when they came, there were many.  They all stood in a row so she could see them.  Being young, they were mischievous and liked to play games, especially the one in which they switched magic headbands made of stardust.  When they did this, they switched faces and bodies as well and tricked their friends into thinking each was the other.  Now two of these boys decided to play a prank on her.  One of them was named Demagomogom and the other . . . ”

So that’s how I write about places I’ve never been: I do research, use my imagination, and try to feel sympathy and even empathy for my characters, try to see the world through their eyes.  Granted, being born in a place or visiting it is better, but being creative and willing to take chances can accomplish miracles.  Fellow scribblers, I urge you to take chances and to be willing to fail.  Don’t reject that fictional idea just because it occurs in a place you’ve never been.  Go there in your imagination and make it real to your readers.

{This is a controversial blog I’ve posted at http://www.thedeepening.com/horror/  Some folks have strenuously disagreed with parts of it.  However, I remained concerned about our current leadership and feel you can be polite and kind without constantly apologizing for your faults and advertising them to the world.}                                                                                                        

Remember Neville Chamberlain?

In 1938, this British prime minister negotiated with Adolph Hitler and said of the Munich Agreement that it promised “peace for our time.”  We know now that the Agreement not only gave the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis but tempted the Fuhrer’s desire to conquer and subjugate all Europe.  Granted, Germany’s long-term territorial aims were basically unknown, but appeasement has an historical tendency to open the door to insatiable tyrants whose ultimate goal is to conquer the world.  In 1939, following Germany’s continued aggression, especially its invasion of Poland, Europe was plunged into World War II.

In the realms of Horror, whether we’re talking fiction, movies, graphic novels or what-have-you, the periodic weakness of our nations’ leaders in international relations is an important but  insufficiently explored theme.  This is regrettable, for on the world stage, appeasement and weakness can have colossal, unrivaled consequences.  Indeed, as we know, with the advent of nuclear weapons, billions can die and LIFE AS WE KNOW IT can end.   

My father taught me never to run from a bully because you may never stop running.  Also, it only whets the bully’s appetite for your blood and sharpens his hunger to humiliate you.  Significantly, there are many ways to run, whether it’s by turning tail and scampering off, or by looking someone in the eye and blinking first.  You can even display weakness by letting the other guy talk too long or by letting your emotions distract you from your main task.

This is what happens in my novel, Beyond Those Distant Stars (Mundania Press).  Stella McMasters is finally given her first command of a starship.  However, at the beginning she has difficulty displaying firm, focused, and decisive leadership.  She lets an officer continue to question their orders during an executive meeting.  Later, her first officer bluntly tells her, “Our physician is your subordinate.  He answers to you, not the other way around.”  Stella’s leadership is threatened further when she becomes romantically attracted to a dashing pilot and finds herself distracted when it comes to her duties.

These particular scenes remind me of similar problems involving America’s highest leaders: President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Nile Gardiner, Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, states that Clinton “has been the most low-key secretary in recent times.”  Certainly, she has been upstaged and sidelined repeatedly by figures such as her own husband traveling to North Korea to negotiate the release of two imprisoned Americans, and Virginia senator Jim Webb embarking on a similar mission in North Korea and Burma.  The perception is that there has been a sharp detour around Clinton’s State Department, which has been marginalized and ignored.  Some observers’ confidence in Clinton has been shaken.  “Who’s in charge?” they ask. “Who’s really representing the Obama administration?”

Some have argued that Hillary Clinton is not at fault here, particularly in the case of North Korea  which requested Bill Clinton’s visit and has a contentious relationship with his wife.  Still, the impression created is that of weak and ineffective leadership, a dangerous situation in the shark-filled waters of a post 9/11 world.  Pursuing short-term goals by placating people who rule by bloody force is a prescription for failure because it is based on a failure to grasp the savage, irrational nature of your enemy.

Doesn’t the present situation with North Korea, a dictatorship seeking to become a nuclear power, sound like the basis of a great international thriller, a spine-tingling novel of diplomacy gone wrong?  If current events continue in the wrong direction, we might not even have to change the names of this page-turner.  Life could imitate art in the most frightening way.

When it comes to President Obama, the failure in leadership may be even graver.  I voted for the man, though I was troubled by his slender resume and lack of foreign affairs experience.  Obama has repeatedly apologized for Arrogant and Impolite America, usually overlooking the historical sins of those he wishes to charm.  To young Europeans in Strasbourg, he announced, “there have been times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”  To Russian Prime Minister Putin, he said, “I think it’s very important that I come before you with some humility,” and “in the past there’s been a tendency for the United States to lecture rather than to listen.”  Though honesty and self-criticism are admirable, they can be extremely harmful when you are the sole super-power in a world of nations that almost never admits fault or apologizes for anything. 

By the same token, I think it’s a mistake for the Attorney General to assign a special prosecutor to go after CIA interrogators who may have crossed the line in prying information from terrorist suspects.  Second-guessing the past is fraught with peril.  If we have all these faults, why should anyone respect or listen to us?

President Ronald Reagan once said, “We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only incites aggression.”  This is a truth that leaders—whether they’re fictional ones like Stella McMasters, or real, contemporary ones like President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton— would do well to remember.

 

 

 

When it comes to writing, possibilities are all around us, and they not only can provide inspiration for our next masterpiece, but they can be a potent remedy for Writer’s Block.  Every day, events both large and small happen in our lives, and they potentially contain our next story or novel.  Not only that, they contain seeds that can blossom in many different directions.

Here’s an example from my own experience.  A few days ago, I went in for plastic surgery to remove three lesions on my head.  It was painful.  After the surgeon cut around the lesions, he gave me shots with a tiny needle to numb them for removal.  As I lay there, occasionally joking with him, it occurred to me that there just might be a story in this.  What if I got up from the table, looked in the mirror, and found that I had a new face?  Perhaps I’d leave the office to discover I’d lost my public identity.  No one recognized me anymore, and that included my wife, my kids, the people at work, my employer, and so on.  Imagine trying to earn a paycheck under these conditions, or getting amorous with my wife when I looked like someone else.

Can you guess what tabloids would make of this?  PLASTIC SURGEON ACCIDENTALLY GIVES MAN A NEW FACE!  Use your imagination and create your own banner headline.

But this is ridiculous, right?  For Pete’s sake, I only went in to remove a few lesions.  Still, in the realm of the imagination, anything is possible.

Here’s another possibility: I gazed in the mirror and saw my new face, but no one else did.  To the world at large, I looked exactly the same.  In fact, even when I was photographed, I looked like the John of old.  But not to me.  To Yours Truly, I appeared to be someone completely different, perhaps even a . . . woman.

Hmm . . . that may be going too far.  Still, can you imagine the interesting complications that would create in my life, the fascinating fictional twists I could give it?  Please ponder the possibilities.

Maybe you’re a realistic writer and have no tolerance for full-blown fantasy.  Very well.  Let’s make the plastic surgeon an attractive woman, and when our eyes meet, we have an instant connection.  At first I think it’s romance and that I’ve found a lifelong soul mate, but later I discover the surgeon’s my daughter from a casual one-night stand thirty years ago.  And woe for me, she wants revenge for never having a father.

No, scratch that last sentence.  It’s too bizarre.

Let’s tack in another direction.  Science-fiction, perhaps.  Or horror.  My plastic surgeon is a mad scientist, or at least a man who finally can’t resist the temptation to try a new, untested procedure.  So Dr. Jekyll injects my cheek with a mysterious solution, and in the days to come, I gradually transform into an evil, physically grotesque creature.  Or perhaps I change into a divinely beautiful one, so exquisite I can no longer live among people.  Or perhaps . . .

By now, you should get the idea.  If you’re a writer, possibilities surround you 24/7 and enrich your life even though they may wear prosaic clothes.  They’re as close and imminent as your next visit to a drugstore or visit to the dentist, even as close as your next sneeze or broken shoelace.  Keep a creative eye open for them, folks, and you just might have your next (prize-winning?) story.

 

 

In my last two blogs, I discussed ways to make our writing more exciting and compelling, to draw readers in and keep them reading.  Back in May, I advised writers to use opening hooks in The Room Was Filled with Naked Blondes, and in June I talked about the end of chapters in Falling for Cliffhangers.  Grab ’em early with the first few sentences or beginning paragraph, and at the end of each chapter, consider including a cliffhanger of some kind—ranging from subtle to over-the top—to make readers turn those pages late into the night, even if they have to go to work early in the morning.

This time around, I’d like to explore one more hook or way to hold readers’ interest.  No, it’s not fine writing, brilliant characterization, or plot construction.  All those are crucial, of course, but what I’m talking about now is what you put at the top of each chapter.  It’s important, too, because when readers move on to the next chapter, that chapter title is the first thing they see.  Chapter titles are also hooks, and like cliffhangers, they can be subtle teases or sledgehammer-like blows.

I’m not saying all novels must have chapter titles.  Many masterpieces and best sellers don’t use them, and I wager most writers on this site have published novels without them, too.  But if you have relied exclusively on strictly utilitarian titles like “Chapter One” or simply “1, 2, 3” in the past, consider trying to do more with the space at the top of each chapter.  Make it work for you as much as you can. 

In my science-fiction adventure novel, Speaker of the Shakk (available from Mundania Press both as a trade paperback and as an e-book), the hero and his girlfriend venture into a mysterious and sinister alien ship.  I call Chapter Sixteen, “In The Belly of The Beast” to increase fear and concern for Theophilus Merlan and his future lover, Ann Benson.  After they visit (and survive) the Xantean ship, they enter an even more deadly vessel, that of the shape-shifting Merotox, who are so hideously ugly that one look at them can kill you.  I call Chapter Seventeen, “The Beauty of the Medusa” to create dread and suspense regarding the protagonists’ safety.  A later chapter, number twenty-six, is hot with action and violence.  Accordingly, I call it “Jaw to Jaw, Hand to Claw.”  If readers have gotten that far, they should (hopefully) want to read on.

To offer a few more examples, one of the novels I’m working on now is inspired by The Wizard of Oz.  Virtually every chapter has a title drawn from the movie and is intended to lure the reader deeper into the action.  Chapter Nine, for instance, is titled “Poisoned Poppies.”  We all know what happens to Dorothy and her friends when they romp through the Poppy field in The Wizard of Oz, but what befalls Jean-Pierre and Ariel might be even worse.  Chapter Eleven’s titled, “ . . . and your little dog, too!”  The Wicked Witch wants not only to get Dorothy, but cute little Toto, too.  Question is, does another evil witch have murderous designs on lovely Ariel, even to the extent of destroying her soul?  If I’ve chosen the title well, readers will ask themselves that, and continue reading.  Other titles, e.g., “Surrender, Dorothy!”, “You Have No Power Here!”, The Witch’s Palace,” and “Off to Meet the Wizard,” also are derived from the movie/book and are intended to appeal to the reader’s interest both in the novel and in the original story that inspired it.

So, writers, don’t forget the Creative Trinity.  Use opening hooks, clever cliffhangers, and intriguing chapter titles, and your audience may not only buy and finish your current novel, but future ones as well.

 

 

In my last blog, “The Room Was Filled with Naked Blondes,” I discussed the importance of starting a story or a novel with an intriguing hook that will pull readers in so they keep turning the pages.  This time around, I want to explore a different but at the same time similar hook that will boost readers’ interest and make them read the next section in a story, the next chapter in a novel, or the next sequel in a novel series.

That other hook is called a cliffhanger.

When I was a kid, I loved to go to the local Colony theater for the next episode in a 12 or 15 part action series.  Remember them?  They featured Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, et al.  Each episode lasted ten/fifteen minutes or so, and left the kids in the audience begging for more.  We had to come back to see how the Good Guy survived and how the Evil Villain was foiled once again.  We usually knew justice would prevail, but we had to know how the hero survived, since survival—let alone victory—seemed impossible.  For seven days we twisted and turned in our beds, unable to sleep.  Saturday morning couldn’t come soon enough.

Those movie cliffhangers usually weren’t very sophisticated, but baby, did they work.  They brought us back and back and back.  In fiction, too, cliffhangers can bring us back, make us read to three am in the morning or later and not put the book down until we finish it.  Sometimes, like hooks at the beginning of a story or novel, cliffhangers are blatant and manipulative, while at other times they are subtle and work subliminally on our sensibilities.  Whatever the case, like opening hooks, they can facilitate a writer’s basic, number-one purpose, which I defined last time, thanks to John Irving’s The World According to Garp,  as the need to make readers read on to find out what will happen next. 

I’d like to present three or four cliffhangers as examples of how to keep the reader absorbed in your story.  The first one comes from Dean Koontz’s The Taking, which I recently read.  Chapter 1 starts with the pronouncement that “A few minutes past one o’clock in the morning, a hard rain fell without warning.  No thunder preceded the deluge, no wind.”  Obviously, the rain is different, even unnatural, and throughout the chapter, Koontz begins to make clear how different and unnatural the rain really is.  Then comes the Cliffhanger.  Vaguely troubled by the “silver” and  “luminescent” rain, Molly Sloan looks out the window at the porch and finds a surprise:

            The porch swarmed with wolves.  Slinking out of the storm, up the steps, onto the pegged-pine floor, they gathered under the shelter of the roof, as though this were not a house but an ark that would soon be set safely afloat by the rising waters of a cataclysmic flood.

The Taking is not Koontz’s most successful novel, but by the time I read the cliffhanger at the end of chapter one, I was hooked.  Combined with the chapter’s opening hook and the rising discomfort the reader feels throughout the chapter, the cliffhanger seals the deal.  We have the sense of unknown menace, of hostile, perhaps “cataclysmic” forces hostile to man.  Instead of hostile, vicious wolves, subdued, frightened ones appear to view Molly’s house as a refuge.  A refuge—from what?  By referring to the “ark” and using the word “cataclysmic,” Koontz’s suggests a potential disaster of biblical and worldwide proportions.  

To find out exactly what disaster looms, I read for four hundred more pages.  And I bet other readers have too.

Cliffhangers can also be found in short stories, and humorous ones too.  They don’t always promise gloom and doom or The End of Life As We Know It, but they do have to be interesting and enticing.  To mention one example, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s four-page tale, “A Dozen of Everything,” opens with a bride-to-be who receives a wedding gift which disappoints her but intrigues the reader.  “Here I am, being married in four days, and without a rag to wear, and Aunt Hepsibah sends me perfume!”

“A Dozen of Everything” is a piece of light-hearted fluff.  Still, clever humor is tough to write, and you have to keep the reader entertained.  Breaking the stopper in the bottle, Marcie discovers that she’s summoned a djinn who grants her a wish.  Marcie, who’s rather poor, foolishly asks for “a dozen of everything” in her bedroom.  The first section ends with a tantalizing cliffhanger: “‘Did I dream the whole thing?’ she asked herself dizzily.”  Well, did she or didn’t she?  Readers think they know but turn the page to find out.

Later, at the end of another section, we have a second cliffhanger.  Marcie returns home, wondering if the djinn has delivered on his promise to give her a dozen of everything.  She tells herself “It’s all nonsense.”  Then: “She shut her eyes and opened the door.  She walked in . . .”

As you might guess, Marcie made a common error in stories of this kind.  She didn’t phrase her wish wisely, and she will have to face the consequences of her disastrous semantic mistake.  If you want to know what the kicker is, look up the story, which ends with another cliffhanger, a humorous twist that leaves Marcie’s future up to your imagination and will make you wonder what the heck she’s going to do. 

I said I’d like to present three or four cliffhangers, but that was a bit of a fib because it’s Plug Time.  One of my SF action-adventure novels, Beyond Those Distant Stars, was just published for the second time by a new publisher (look for it soon in some brick and mortar stores, on Amazon, etc., and available now at www.mundaniapress.com.)  I thought I’d use the novel to present several examples of cliffhangers.  Please note: you need to vary your cliffhangers.  It’s generally not wise to have them all basically the same, whether it’s the smash-boom-kaplooey!!! of “My God, unless we do something fast, the Earth’s doomed in less than ten seconds!”, or subtle, such as, “He was a bit troubled by the approaching meteor’s effect on certain Earth flora.” When crafting cliffhangers, writers should strive for variety, though a certain kind (e.g., hard or soft, nail-biting or subtle) may predominate.

I start off Beyond Those Distant Stars with a one-word hook:  Emergency!  Stella McMasters is in charge of a nuclear facility and it’s about to explode – that is, have a meltdown.  In coping with this emergency, Stella saves a life, but is drenched in radioactive iodine.  The Prologue ends, “The last thing Stella remembered before she lost consciousness was a voice calling her name.”

What happens to Stella?  Does she die?  In the first chapter, we find that scientists had to remove nearly two-thirds of her body, and she’s been turned into a superhuman cyborg AND as a reward for her sacrifice, given her first command of a ship, the Spaceranger.  Early on, the reader senses that because of her promotion and reassignment, Stella will play a key role in saving humanity from those pesky, vicious aliens who invaded the galaxy a few years before and who have brought humanity to the brink of annihilation.  First, though, Stella begins to become interested in Jason, the jump pilot, whose disembodied brain is interfaced with the ship.  Stella hasn’t even met the guy yet, but the computer translation of his voice stirs her.  The first chapter ends, Oh God, she thought, what a voice!  I wonder what he looks like.

Except for the exclamation point, this is a relatively subtle cliffhanger.  It suggests a future involvement between Stella and Jason, a relationship the reader already senses is doomed because Stella is mostly synthetic, more machine than woman.  Also, she is adjusting to her first, supremely crucial command and should avoid all distractions, especially romantic ones.

Later, Stella and her crew confront an alien ship, which does something unprecedented: it extends a boarding tube.  Despite opposition, Stella sends soldiers into the ship and . . . you guessed it, the soldiers get creamed.  Only a few of the alien Scaleys perish.  This result only replicates what has happened time and time again.  The score is aliens 5001; humans NOTHING.  The aliens have won every single battle by a lopsided score.

What does Stella decide to do?  Unable to escape the alien craft, she decides to lead a contingent of soldiers herself into the alien craft.  Remember: humans know virtually nothing about the aliens, that always self-destruct and decompose when captured.  Also, humans know ZERO about what an alien spaceship is like – how it works, what’s inside, etc.  All they know is that aliens have vastly superior technology that renders the five-year contest analogous to a war between ants and androids.  In this boarding scene, I try to use a hard, nail-biting cliffhanger as opposed to a subtle one by combining the Mysterious Unknown with the expectation of Certain Slaughter for all humans.  The last sentence of chapter five reads (drum roll please):

Teeth clenched, Stella closed and sealed her faceplate.  Then she turned and led her followers into the alien ship.

What happens?  Does she win or lose?  Are her troops toast or triumphant?  The questions matter because if she loses, humanity is kaput and soon to be extinct.  The rest of Beyond Those Distant Stars explores what happens. 

One last note: since I plan a sequel, in the Epilogue all is not Wine and Roses.  New threats loom on the horizon to challenge and threaten Stella.  Hopefully, the reader will buy the next installment in the series, and the next. . . .

And there you have it, potential Cliffhanger fans.  To keep folks reading, consider providing an incentive, a subtle/over-the-top/or someplace in between Cliffhanger.  It’s a method that’s as old as the hills, and a crucial part of your story’s momentum.

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that I have your attention, we can begin.  My title comes from a long forgotten story.  I can’t remember anything about it except the fact that its first sentence was, “The room was filled with naked blondes.”  Oh yes, I vaguely recall that the blondes weren’t real, just images.  Not quite as exciting, but by that time I was already hooked.

If you can read that first sentence and not read on, then lie down, partner, you’re dead.  The sentence is what they call a “hook” or “grabber.”  Whether you’re writing a drabble, a short story, or a two-million word novel, it helps if the first sentence or first paragraph is interesting and intriguing.  Maybe the reader who randomly plucks your book off the shelf won’t buy it anyway, but if its opening words don’t catch him, then it’s for damned sure the rest won’t either.

An opening hook can’t turn a bad story or novel into a good one, but it’s a crucial, essential start.  From personal experience, I know that if the first few lines of a novel don’t grab me, then that baby goes back on the shelf.  Maybe the back cover blurb will pull me in, but always, if I don’t like the story’s beginning, it’s DOA.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share a few of my own brilliant hooks with the aim of illustrating a point.  And that point is: YOU GOTTA HOOK ’EM FAST, OR YOU’RE BOUND TO LOSE ’EM!

Okay, here’s how I begin my novel, Beyond Those Distant Stars, due out soon from Mundania Press:

            Emergency!

            “Why do they call me?” Supervisor Stella McMasters muttered as she ran down the circular metal stairs of the turbine building on the planet Warren.  “The crew knows more about reactor plants than I do!”  She raced past each of the landing’s flashing red lights that warned of out-of-control readouts in the pit below.

Okay, there’s a lot of back story here I might have liked to put in.  For example, the Empire was invaded by aliens five years before and humanity’s about to go belly-up before an invincible enemy.  But starting a novel with an “info dump,” with tell rather than show is perhaps a writer’s most common mistake.  What I wanted to do was start with action/danger and blend in the exposition later, a bit at a time.  Usually it’s best to start a story in medias res or in the middle of the action.  That way you can snag the reader’s interest and later work in the explanation.  However, the reference to “the turbine building on the planet Warren” indicates that BTDS is science fiction and that there is a crisis at a nuclear facility.  Often you can imply the plot and situation without coming right out and saying it.

Not all opening hooks are action-oriented or pack a sexual wallop.  Some are subtle and haunting, lure you in with a psychic tease rather than a kick in the gut or genitals.  Daphne Du Maurier, for example, begins Rebecca with a nine-word sentence that resonates long after you’ve read it:

            Last night I dreamt I went to Mandalay again.

What makes this so effective?  Part of it is the dream, but I think most of it is returning to “Mandalay.”  Whatever Mandalay is, it has an evocative sound, a hint of something magical and mysterious.  And we want to read on to have the mystery explained and learn what was so unforgettable about Mandalay that it called the speaker in his dream.  Is Mandalay like Xanadu in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” a lost paradise he longed to revisit?

A subtle, quiet hook often presents something a little bit wrong or out of plumb.  Perhaps there’s an ordinary object or objects which are somehow out of place or signify more than they appear to on the surface.  Here’s the beginning of my short story, “Casualties of the War”:

For days, stacks of roofing had stood like abandoned soldiers on the house next door.  Sitting at his computer, Arthur Scott had noticed them through his second-floor window but dismissed them.  They weren’t important. 

There are no fireworks here, nothing spectacular.  In fact, this scene is straight from life.  I’m merely describing what my next-door neighbor had on his roof for days.  Still, I hope the reader wonders what these stacks of roofing are doing there and why they seem to be “abandoned.”  Has something happened to the neighbor?  If so, what?  In addition, we aren’t convinced by Scott’s telling himself “They weren’t important.”  The stacks seem innocuous, but we suspect otherwise.

In The World According to Garp,  John Irving puts it best: You read to find out what will happen next.  Good hooks do that, in many different ways.     

Here’s one last example, and it involves neither action-adventure-danger-suspense or a subtle, quiet appeal.  Instead, it features humor and satire.  Of course, humor can be subtle too, but that wasn’t my objective in beginning “E-Pistles from the Gods.”  What I was seeking was the outrageous.  I wanted the reader to smile, even chuckle.

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              BE A STUD AGAIN! HERE’S HOW . . .

            Granger grumbled as he scanned his morning spam. If only romance were so easy. His doctor had prescribed every pill and potion on the market for him and nothing worked.

Okay, I cheated.  This hook involves sex too, but judging from four million jokes I’ve heard, sex is often funny.  We’ve all received spam-pitches online, offers of can’t-miss products that can jumpstart our libidos and make us supermen (and superwomen) in the sack.  Yes, friends, orgasms by the truckload are guaranteed.  How can you even think of passing this opportunity up?

Did you smile when you read the first three lines?  Did you feel sorry for poor, can’t–get-a-date Granger and hope he’ll find a solution?  Good hooks often involve sympathetic characters, people we care about.  I hope I achieved that here, and motivated the reader to read on.

Hooks—they can be a seductive tease or a brazen proposition.  Whatever the case, they are an Invitation to Dance, with the reader being your partner.  They are also the first step in a writer’s journey, an indispensable beginning that can set the tone for all that follows.

 

“Where do you get your ideas?”  It’s a common question that writers get, especially famous ones.  I’m not famous, but I thought I’d talk a little about the origins of some of my stories and novels, and how they came into being.

One day I was walking through Barnes & Noble, and I saw a book title: The Calm Technique.  Wham-o!  All at once a similar title leapt into my mind with one chilling word change.  The Death Technique.  And I knew at once it would be about a man with a morbid “artistic” gift: the ability to will his body to decay as if he were dead.  Gruesome and sick?  Yes, but it found a home with Dark Arts, a professional hardback horror anthology published by Cemetery Dance Publications. 

And here’s how the story begins:

I discovered the Death Technique the day after my twelfth birthday.  Perhaps it was puberty that made it possible, or the fact that I simply did the right thing at the right time.

It’s more likely, though, that I was genetically predisposed to discover the DT, that it was in my nature to lie down one day and concentrate on a realm somewhere beyond this one and start to dissolve as a result.  Well, “dissolve” isn’t the word.  “Decompose” is more like it, as in ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  “Decompose,” as in there goes my right eyeball, there goes my left.  And darned if I can’t feel my bones emerging from where my flesh used to be.

Charming, huh?  Well, here’s something a little more pleasant, though the origin, as with many of my stories and novels, is extremely slight.  One day I found myself wondering what would happen if a person found that every time he made love or had sex, he changed into the opposite gender, and the only way to change back was to have sex again.  The result was a story called “When I Was Michelle,” and the experience of his first transformation goes like this:

When Michael Truman was seventeen, he made love to his first girl.  It was the most wonderful and exciting experience of his life.

An hour later, his whole world fell apart.

It started with a tingling in his genitals that soon intensified and spread to his entire body.  It felt like a thousand crazed insects were scurrying over his skin and biting deep into his flesh. 

Alarmed, he locked his bedroom door and tore off his clothes.  What he saw made him whimper.

Uh, sorry, folks, I can’t go any further.  This is a PG site, after all.  But I hope you get my basic point, which is that many, not all of my tales originate from the flimsiest of sources.  One story, “High Concept,” sprang full bloom from just glancing at a page when a book fell open.  I didn’t read a single word.  Another, “Ancient Art,” which I just finished, came from watching a documentary on ancient Australian cave art which in ancient days, was accompanied and complemented by musical instruments.  Suddenly the basic plot and theme were just there.  All I had to do was expand them a little.

I even wrote a novel inspired by a single evocative word: Dreamfarer.

Occasionally my stories do have a more substantial foundation and ripen a while in my mind.  That’s the case with my longest and most ambitious novel, A Senseless Act of Beauty, published by Blade Publishing and available at http://www.bladepublishing.org.  Beauty is African SF that takes place on a distant, exotic world in the 24^th century, and its hero, Aaron Okonkwo, is a Nigerian scientist who has to save this “New Africa” from colonial exploitation—just as the original Africa was conquered and colonized.

Where did I get the idea?  For many years I had taught at three historically black universities and was immersed in African-American culture.  Then one day I was sitting near a bookshelf at Norfolk State University and suddenly just knew that if I reached out and picked a book from a shelf, the book would inspire me to write my next novel.  So I reached out and picked a book at random, and when I brought my hand back, I saw that it held Things Fall Apart, a novel by the great Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe.  In it, Nigeria is conquered by colonial exploitation—something that my hero on the planet Viridis tries to prevent against overwhelming odds.

First, though, since all my novels involve romances, Aaron has to resist a more immediate threat by a delectable native girl who will soon prove to be irresistible:

Peering through the shining leaves of a sarberry bush, Aaron Okonkwo watched the naked alien girl dive into the pond. Her green body lithe, and breasts full and firm in the sun. He wet his lips, feeling his blood course as her delicate, sinuous form glided through the water faster than any human could swim. She moved smoothly, with barely a ripple, her webbed hands flowing with graceful precision. Watching the water caress her long, slender limbs, he felt his body respond.

So where do I get my ideas?  Like many writers, I get them from many places, although it seems that often I reap when I have done only the barest of sowing.  Whatever the source of my ideas, I’m grateful for every one and invite you to come explore them with me at http://www.johnrosenman.com.