Pistorius Trial Imitating Art?

The other day I was intrigued by a news item about the South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who is currently on trial for the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. A South African journalist published the allegation that Pistorius had secretly received, before his trial began, acting lessons from a close friend. News (and gossip) sites are trying to confirm or bust the story. According to behaviorists who claim to know these things, Pistorius's natural personality would make him react with anger and hostility to stuff going on at the trial, so if he could get himself to appear sad and distraught instead, the judge might go easier on him. If you've looked in on any of the news about the trial, you know that Pistorius wept and retched a fair amount of the time.

I don't know enough about the story to have an opinion, but I'm keeping my eye on it, because my novel The Actress is based on exactly such a premise: Unsympathetic defendant gets secret acting lessons, in hopes of influencing the jury.

I remember when the idea came. I was sitting on the couch with my beloved partner Marcia, watching a true-crime program about a woman who had been on trial (in the U.S.) for the murder of her young son. I don't know whether she did it or not, but she was convicted. Several of the jurors were interviewed later, and they said things like: "I don't know, I just didn't like the way she was. She didn't seem sorry that her son was dead. She just didn't act how you'd expect." None of them said anything about the evidence; it was all about the affect of the accused.

Marcia and I were appalled. Holy crap, was that all it took to get convicted? We started to think about the opposite: Is that all it would take to get off?

Marcia said, "You should write a novel about a murder defendant who gets acting lessons during the trial."

I was like, "Yeah!"

This was years after O.J. Simpson's acquittal for the murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend, which to some people seemed based on either O.J.'s star power or feelings of payback for the Rodney King case rather than the facts. (Here again, I don't know whether he did it or not.)

The point is, I started looking into the fickleness of juries. It's enough to turn your blood into ice tea. One of the theoretical advantages of jury trials is that it's supposed to be harder to bribe, fool, or intimidate 12 people instead of one judge. Maybe, maybe not.

I developed a mystery story based on the secret-acting-lessons idea and wrote the novel. It was good enough to get me representation and a two-book hardcover deal with a major publisher (St. Martin's Minotaur / Macmillan). But when my agent tried to get a British publisher interested in the UK rights, they said things like, "It's a wee bit too high-concept for us." Which is publisher-speak for outlandish, implausible. No, thanks, they said.

And here we are with today's headlines. Different? Outlandish? Implausible? You be the judge.

[Photo of reflection of Los Angeles by ES]

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Cutting to the Chase

In the last few days, for various reasons, I've been reading a fair amount of unpublished fiction by aspiring writers. I'm happy when either of two things jumps out at me: When an author cuts to the chase, and when they express something with unique style.

What do I mean, cut to the chase?

Simply, get to the point.

There's not just one finish line in a novel, there are a thousand of them. Whenever a character talks, whenever the momentum shifts, whenever the world changes—a rainstorm comes up, an engine coughs and catches, someone feels a surge of love or hate—there's a chase. Cut to it without anything extraneous. The best writers cut to their chases free from fear and eager to let it flow.

Another happy time is when I'm reading a Pulitzer-winning book or the humblest pages from a hopeful writer, and I come across unique expression. Probably happier than when I realize a great plot is unfurling. Both together? I fall on the floor.

Savvy readers instantly recognize terrific style: The words don't just swing, they surprise. You've never thought of dawn light as 'sifting over the land', but when a character does, you go 'Ah.' And you're richer for it. You'd never think to describe somebody's eyes as 'seeds', but when you read it, you experience a tiny burst of pleasure. You've just been helped to see.

The way to write like that is to unleash yourself. Forget any rule about words you ever knew. Go deep, then go deeper on your thousand chases. Your finished words must flow swiftly and smoothly, but you must never hurry.

How do you cut to the chase? How do you excavate your inner stylist? To post your ideas / comments, all of which I read and try to respond to, click below where it says, 'No Comments,' or '2 Comments,' or whatever.

[photo of Robert Garrison's incredible bas-relief embodying swiftness and smoothness at Rockefeller Center by ES] 

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Bones of Mysteries and Thrillers

One of the most popular presentations I give is "How to Write a Dynamite Mystery or Thriller that SELLS." I initially wrote it as a webinar for Writer's Digest, then I adapted it for in-person presentations and workshops, and then I included some of the material in You've Got a Book in You. I'll be giving the presentation in two places this summer, the Golden Crown Literary Society conference in Portland in July and the Florida Heritage Book Festival Writers Conference in St. Augustine in September.

Today's blog is to give you one of the nuggets of that presentation.

When I started out writing fiction seriously, I made a point to read stuff on how to write great fiction or at least fiction that doesn't suck, like writing magazines and interviews of famous authors. And I remember having anxiety about whether my stories were mysteries or thrillers. Why? Because so many writing authorities, including editors and agents, were shouting that you have to write one or the other, and the forms are very different, and you must follow the correct form, or your manuscript will be shoved into the feed box of the monsters that live in the tunnels below Manhattan, because editors and agents require precise categorization of the novels they traffic in, and they have like zero patience.

[Risking my own neck, I captured this image of one of the Manhattan tunnel monsters on a trip to New York recently, so I could prove to you they exist. As you can see, one hand is a catcher's mitt and the other is a Garden Weasel. Terrifying.]

The thing was, every authority's definition of mystery and thriller was different! The formulas seemed complicated, dogmatic, and hopelessly impossible to follow exactly. Anyway, what kind of writer would want to?

It took me a long time to figure out the single basic difference between the two forms:

A mystery is a puzzle.

A thriller is a pursuit.

You just went, "Yeah!", right? Because somehow you knew that already, and it totally fits.

To be sure, most mysteries and thrillers contain some puzzling stuff, plus some getting-chased-by-the-bad-guys stuff. But it's usually more of one than the other, and so there's your category.

Currently, it seems agents and editors (not to mention readers) aren't as hung up on dueling definitions, but they still like to categorize books for the sake of promo and marketing, which is important.

But most important of all is a good story.

Tell us what you think! To post your ideas / comments, all of which I read and try to respond to, click below where it says, 'No Comments,' or '2 Comments,' or whatever.

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Success?

I often talk with aspiring authors and hear their dreams. The drive to succeed as a writer can be almost overwhelming. I've felt it, seen it, and lived long enough to get some perspective.

Remember Olivia Goldsmith? At a meeting of writers in California in the 1990s I heard her talk about how she got a publishing contract for her first novel, First Wives Club.

Distrusting literary agents, she shopped the manuscript around New York herself but nothing came of it. If her manuscript wasn't getting actively rejected, it was languishing in slush piles all over town. As Olivia told it, she was broke and divorced, buying groceries on credit. Yo, bummer.

One night, however, she got a phone call out of nowhere from a young man who had been trolling through one such slush pile. He'd been struck by the manuscript's originality (the revenge of middle-aged wives who've been left for new hotties) and he thought it would make a terrific movie. He'd taken the initiative to pitch the story to filmmakers in Los Angeles, several of whom, he told Olivia, were interested in buying the rights.

Instinctively, Olivia asked which one would pay her the most money.

"Probably Sherry Lansing at Paramount," came the answer.

"That's who I want to talk to," said Olivia.

So the rights got bought and buzz started building. Then and only then did Olivia hear from—guess who???? Major New York publisher after major New York publisher who "remembered that they really liked it!" And somehow, gosh darn it, her manuscript had fallen through some ridiculous crack! And would she be interested in talking it over during lunch today at the Four Seasons?

I admire her for not choosing one of the publishers who'd rejected the book in the first round, but a smaller, less-known imprint (Poseidon Press, div. of Simon & Schuster). The book became a bestseller (1992), and the movie got made (1996). It was a hit, too.

Olivia enjoyed the high life, hobnobbing around New York and Los Angeles, going to the spa, even getting the occasional nip and tuck from the plastic surgeon.

And she kept writing, twelve books in all. Her novels weren't a smash with the critics, but who cares? She was a big-time personality, a New York Times bestselling author. She had made it.

One day in 2004 she climbed onto the operating table to get a little work done on that pesky chin fat. Something went wrong during the anesthetic phase, and Olivia, age 54, never woke up. She was taken off life support after eight days.

When I saw the news item about her premature death, I thought, "Wow. I've spent time envying that woman, and now look. If she could, she'd envy me, because I can at least breathe and walk around."

Beware your own definition of success. The Buddha would tell you you've already made it. Enjoy every minute.

[photo of Times Square by ES]

Tell us what you think! To post your ideas / comments, all of which I read and try to respond to, click below where it says, 'No Comments,' or '2 Comments,' or whatever.

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