{"id":6846,"date":"2017-10-12T06:02:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T10:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6846"},"modified":"2017-10-11T17:13:58","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T21:13:58","slug":"good-storytelling-works-regardless-of-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6846","title":{"rendered":"Good Storytelling Works, Regardless of Genre"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"draft\"<\/a>

photo: Sebastien Wiertz, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

Genre fiction is no longer disparaged as the poor stepchild to literary (i.e., “real”) fiction. In some ways, writing it can be harder. Jennifer Kitses<\/a> for LitHub<\/em> recently discussed why genre fiction is not necessarily easier to create and, more to the point, what lessons it teaches all writers.<\/p>\n

The elements of noir she thought of as genre-specific\u2014\u201chigh-stakes encounters, a mystery to solve, a protagonist in danger\u201d\u2014are key elements of good storytelling, regardless of genre, she says.<\/p>\n

Readers of this blog will recognize in her words the sentiment of late Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, which appear on my website\u2019s home page: \u201cEvery good story has a mystery in it.\u201d Think Hamlet<\/em>\u2014a murder and a ghost story. Think Macbeth<\/em>\u2014a murder and an inciting female. Think the Greeks.<\/p>\n

Kitses cites seven lessons from attempting her own crime novel:<\/p>\n

1) don\u2019t be afraid of adding tension \u2013 and remember that what ramps up the tension is not necessarily some violent episode. It can be a character\u2019s own ongoing situation. A perfect example is Gin Phillips\u2019s recent Fierce Kingdom<\/em><\/a>, in which the tension is almost unbearable, while all the protagonist is doing is hiding herself and her four-year-old behind a rock. That situation may be internal, as when Melissa Scrivner Love\u2019s Lola<\/em><\/a> has to turn on her own brother.<\/p>\n

2) give the reader a chance to breathe. Personally, I had to put Gin Phillips\u2019s book down from time to time because of 1). This is one aspect of pacing, and many authors give their readers a break by introducing humor, typically among the detectives or with secondary characters. Tami Hoag<\/a> is excellent at this in her Kovac and Liska novels.<\/p>\n

3) chapter endings shouldn\u2019t feel like endings. The last lines of one chapter should carry your readers into the next, keeping their curiosity piqued through artful (not cheesy!) cliffhangers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4) let your reader know whom to root for. Thrillers commonly use multiple points-of-view to present the story. Poorly handled, that can dilute your readers\u2019 focus. Tammy Cohen\u2019s recent They All Fall Down<\/em><\/a> keeps her character Hannah front and center by writing the chapters from her point of view in the first person, whereas chapters from other points of view are third-person, filtered through the narrator\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

5) love your secondary characters. It\u2019s great when they\u2019re real, and not just moved onto stage like cardboard cut-outs. Nick Petrie\u2019s character Lewis is a good example; I grinned when he showed up in Petrie\u2019s second novel, Burning Bright<\/em><\/a>. SO glad to see him again!<\/p>\n

6) keep research in perspective. Research can be a way to avoid actual writing. Because I like research, I have to avoid the Too-Much-Already quicksand. What works for me is to do enough to start sparking ideas. After that, I confine myself to just-in-time research as I go along. When you do begin to write, your reader doesn\u2019t need every detail. Feel free to hit the highlights and feel confident about the firm base underneath.<\/p>\n

7) remember you\u2019re writing fiction \u2013 just jettison plot developments that aren\u2019t working. Characters too. I\u2019ve swept up<\/p>\n

characters from the cutting-room floor and put them in short stories. Lessens the pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genre fiction is no longer disparaged as the poor stepchild to literary (i.e., “real”) fiction. In some ways, writing it can be harder. Jennifer Kitses for LitHub recently discussed why genre fiction is not necessarily easier to create and, more … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Good Storytelling Works, Regardless of Genre - Writing tips for authors who want to create resonant work","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,174,29],"tags":[166,28],"class_list":["post-6846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing","tag-creativity","tag-writers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Mq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6848,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6846\/revisions\/6848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}