Spoilers

Several readers have shared with me their theories about some of the people and events in Without A Hitch and have asked me for my own views. I thought it might be nice to share my own thoughts with everyone, so I’m creating a spoilers section for the book at this link: LINK. But please be warned, there are humongous spoilers there. Please feel free to add you own thoughts too. :)

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Thanks Everyone!

We just finished the free promotion for Without A Hitch and the turn out was unbelievable! Seriously. I hope everyone who downloaded the book enjoys it. Please feel free to leave a review (even if you didn't like it) or send me an e-mail with your thoughts. And don't forget to tell your friends!

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Rules For Writing: My Challenge

When I originally set out to write Without A Hitch, my goal was simply to prove to myself that I could legal thriller without cheating. Too many times, I’d seen authors or films cut corners, turn the legal world into a fantasy, or withhold vital information from readers. I wanted to see if I would write a book which didn’t do any of that. . . which didn’t cheat. So I created a set of rules to avoid what I considered cheating, and I went to work. Here are the rules I followed:

The first set is designed to avoid the things I consider “cheating”:

(i) No changing the reader’s “access” by letting the reader see everything the main character is thinking and then withdrawing that access at critical moments to generate tension or deceive the reader. It’s either all or nothing. I chose “nothing” because tension comes from uncertainty, i.e. not knowing what people are really thinking or how they will ultimately act.

(ii) No deus ex machina moments and no coincidences to move the plot. If a character tosses a jacket into a dumpster, that jacket does not somehow get to the cops five states away for use at trial for a crime no one even knows about yet.

(iii) Cause and effect. There can be no effect without a cause, and no cause which doesn’t result in an effect. Every effect must be a logical consequence of the cause AND every cause must suffer its logical effects.

(iv) Characters must act consistently with their own values, beliefs and interests. They cannot act out of character to move the plot, and they cannot act in ways humans won’t. Also, characters have a full range of motivations, e.g. their own happiness, morality, job requirements, pride, greedy, guilt, etc.; nobody acts according to one motivation only. Characters also evolve over time as the consequences of their actions come home to them.

(v) Use real trial procedures, not Hollywood trial procedures. No breakdowns on the stand, no last minute surprise discoveries or hidden witnesses, no fake trials that last weeks and take breaks after critical witnesses to give the characters a chance to investigate their testimony, and no “this is highly unusual, but I’ll allow it” rulings.

(vi) No supermen. Nobody is all-knowing or all-powerful, and nobody can read minds. Average people don’t kill in cold blood, can’t climb buildings, and can’t bend people to their will Jedi-style.

(vii) Everything important needs to be foreshadowed at least twice.

(viii) Character traits must be revealed through the character’s actions, not by stating them. NO Star Trek TNG Deanna Troi moments: “I sense he has the following personality. . .”

Beyond the “no cheating” rules, I also set some stylistic rules that may interest you:

(ix) No filler. No wasted words, no irrelevant discussions, and no scenes that don’t develop the plot or important character traits.

(x) The reader should be able to understand each scene from the dialog alone, i.e. what the characters are doing and thinking, and where they are.

(xi) Avoid long blocks of text and avoid information dumps. Specifically avoid describing characters by giving blocks of physical description. Whenever possible, describe characters through something they are doing and/or in relative terms rather than absolute terms, e.g. “Unlike George, Bill was too short to reach the light bulb.”

(xii) Every character needs to be real enough that people think they know what the character is probably doing when they aren’t on the page, and that the reader can tell if they are acting out of character.

(xiii) Each character needs their own dialog style, word choice, and beliefs.

(xiv) I also got the truly excellent advice of dropping as many adverbs (quickly, angrily, etc.) as possible, as they are meaningless.

(xv) Finally, I wanted to leave the characters’ physical descriptions as minimal as possible so readers could insert their own preconceptions. Nothing kills a story quicker for me than having a character described in ways that don’t fit how I expect them to look: “What do you mean the President looks like that guy from ZZ Top?”

So, did I pull it off?

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Now Available on Kindle!

Wrongful Death and Without A Hitch are finally available on Kindle! And this week, I've got them cheap. Find them here: Wrongful Death and Without A Hitch!

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The Book Sites Are Ready!

You can now click on the images on the sidebar and they will take you to more information about each book! I'm hoping both books will come out on Kindle this weekend and then in paperback during the week. [+] Read More...

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