Elements of Fiction Writing - Conflict and Suspense (12 page)

But times and tastes change, and the sooner you get a reader bonded with a character, the better.

Fuzziness in POV can also occur in first person, when the voice lacks distinction or attitude.

There’s no mistaking the attitude in Marlowe’s narration of Raymond Chandler’s
The Little Sister.
It’s the sort of voice that makes a reader sit up and take notice.

When writing in first person, don’t open bland.

I have a rule: Act first, explain later.

This is especially crucial in the opening, when you want the story to grab the reader. That’s why you ought to make this a rule of thumb. In the first thirty pages, don’t give any more than a short paragraph of exposition at any one time.

And when you do, don’t make it pure informational lard, like this:

What’s happened here is too much information in too short a time, covering too many tangents. All the while we’ve forgotten poor Joe Doakes up at the top of the paragraph.

Backstory refers to any essential information about the characters that happens before your novel begins.

Sometimes this information comes in later via the flashback, which we’ll talk about later.

There are those who advocate no backstory in the opening chapters, but I think that goes a little too far. Backstory can help us bond with a Lead character, our most important task in those first pages.

So the rule is, don’t put in too much or none at all.

What you do put in, marble in with the action (as one observes the “marbling” of the fat within a fine piece of red meat. Or, for you vegetarians, in an artfully designed piece of cloth).

David Morrell’s
First Blood
(the basis of the Rambo franchise) starts off immediately with the conflict of the principles, John Rambo and Madison Police Chief Wilfred Teasle. Teasle determines Rambo is a vagrant and escorts him out of town. Rambo comes back for a bite to eat, and Teasle drives him out of town again, warning him not to come back.

We’re in chapter three before we get any significant backstory. Rambo has just finished eating a hamburger on the outskirts of town, setting fire to the paper bag it came in:

Morrell limits himself to one paragraph of backstory, choosing only the most significant details. We now know Rambo is a war vet with issues and was once a prisoner.

Then Morrell gets right back to the action, which is Rambo heading back to the town where all the trouble is.

An old cliché that often happens in TV sketch writing is for the writer to begin the piece with the characters giving the setting right off the bat. To do it, the two participants might walk on, look around, and one says, “Well, here we are in sunny Spain.”

Or any of a number of variations on that.

It worked for sketch comedy but won’t work in your novel. Why? Because readers know when you’re slipping them information rather than having two characters talk to each other naturally:

Good for sketch comedy, not for novels.

I
do a lot of writing at my branch offices. The offices are in cities all over the world, and each has a round green sign outside. They have free Internet and pricey coffee, but they also have something else: the human parade.

For many years, before remodeling, I had a regular table at my local Starbucks. It was by the window, with a view of the parking lot, and afforded me a wide-angle window to the entire store.

I have seen my share of the human condition. And that condition is made up of conflict.

One day a woman came in wearing shabby clothes and a thatch of hair that had not seen a brush in days. She did not order coffee. Instead, she sat at one of the tables and began shouting at the top of her lungs, “Where is Jimmy Hoffa? Where is Jimmy Hoffa!”

The manager of the store came out and engaged the woman in conversation, the primary object of which, I gathered, was to get her to keep her voice down.

She inquired about Hoffa again, her voice heading up in decibels. The manager reached for his cell phone and went outside. The woman accused the store of having Jimmy Hoffa in the back. The accusations went on for several minutes.

Presently, the manager of the store came back in, accompanied by a security guard. The woman told the security guard that Starbucks was hiding Jimmy Hoffa’s body in the back of the store. The security guard escorted the woman outside. And that’s the last I saw of her.

Now consider this scene in dramatic terms.

A normal morning in a low-key environment is interrupted by a surprising character shouting about a well-known mystery.

It disturbs the patrons—conflict. Attempts to quell the tirade fail, generating more conflict with the manager. The stakes are raised when the security guard enters. And we are left in suspense, wondering what the fate of the woman might be.

Oh, and we still didn’t solve the mystery of where Jimmy Hoffa is.

So there you have it—surprise, conflict, mystery, and suspense. It all adds up to a scene working on all cylinders.

Those are the kinds of scenes you want to write throughout the middle of your novel. Or, as one wag put it, the “muddle.” Because it’s all about trouble.

Do you remember the scene in
Lawrence of Arabia
when Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) has convinced Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) that his band of Arab soldiers can attack Aqaba from the desert side?

Only to do it they’ll have to cross an expanse that has never been crossed before, the Nefud.

Just before they begin, Ali points to the vast wasteland before them and warns that from here there will be no water. And if the camels die, the men die.

It looks like hell’s stove and goes on forever. Which is how some writers view the middle of their novels. It stretches out like an arid desert, and they wonder if indeed they’ll get across it without frying.

Well, you can. And not only that. Your camel will survive, and you’ll hit plenty of water. Because you’ve got conflict to guide you.

If you have laid out your map properly, you will have reached the edge of your desert by passing through the first doorway of no return. All the elements are strong.

We have a Lead worth following. Death is on the line. A stronger opponent is waiting to stop the Lead.

On the other side of the desert is the Knockout Ending.

How should you begin? By getting to the next scene. Then proceeding to the scene after that.

But what scenes are they? How do you know which oasis to head for?

Because you know your LOCK elements (Lead, Objective, Confrontation, Knockout Ending), you can lay out your scenes organically. You never have to worry about a wrong turn or getting lost in a sandstorm.

You do it with action and reaction.

There are two basic beats in fiction: action and reaction. If you understand these dynamics you’ll know 90 percent of what it takes to write scenes packed with conflict and tension.

Remember our definition of a novel:
the record of how a character deals with the threat of imminent death.
When these stakes are established, you raise a question in the reader’s mind: What things will the character
do
in order to prevent his death?

The character has to do something. If he doesn’t, death will happen. And your character will be a spineless patsy who lets it happen.

Thus the action element in fiction; that is, a record of those things the character does to gain the objective (which will prevent death).

Thus, in
The Fugitive
, we see what Richard Kimble does in order to keep from being captured by the law and also to find out who killed his wife.

In
The Catcher in the Rye
, we see what Holden Caulfield does in order to find authenticity in the world (if he doesn’t, he’ll die inside, and maybe kill himself as well).

What about reaction beats? These are moments, perhaps even whole chapters, where a character is reacting to the events, and feeling or ruminating about them. But these feelings and thoughts must be organic, tied to the overall objective (avoiding death). They will then have tension attached because it’s still an open question whether the character will win and live, or lose and die.

You are now armed with the knowledge of how to construct a “perpetual plot machine.” You can create an almost never-ending stream of scenes relating to the objective. Your job is to select the best ones to include in your novel.

Each action scene should involve steps to solve problems relating to the overall objective. (Note: We cover subplots on page 125.)

Let’s take
The Fugitive
as an example. Richard Kimble is facing certain death: execution because he has been found guilty of murdering his wife. Unless he solves this problem, he’s done. There’s also a psychological death involved. If he doesn’t find the real killer, there will be no justice for his dead wife.

A botched escape attempt on the prison bus leads to a horrific accident that enables Kimble to escape.

Now the perpetual plot machine provides all the action material needed. The author simply has to design scenes where Kimble is taking steps to avoid being caught, while finding clues about his wife’s murder.

Let’s consider the structure of an action scene. It has three components: objective, obstacles, and outcome.

The scene objective is not the same as the main story objective. It is anything the character needs to accomplish in order to further his goal of avoiding death.

In
The Fugitive,
Kimble is wounded and dressed in prison clothes after his escape. Before he can do anything else, he has to take care of his wound and change his appearance.

A scene objective.

Now we provide some obstacles. The main obstacle is other people who will see him and report him.

Kimble finds a rural hospital. Nearby is a tow truck with some coveralls in it. He steals them (remaining unseen).

Now he has to get into the hospital to stitch himself up and shave his beard. How is he going to do that with other people around?

He goes to the back of the hospital, the loading dock, where he can blend in with the workers. He unloads something and takes it inside the hospital.

Now what?

He has to get to a room with antiseptic and stitching material. He finds one with a comatose patient (whew).

He then cleans and dresses his wound.

But he’s got to get rid of the beard. He uses shaving gear that he finds in the bathroom to shave … just as a nurse enters the room to check on the patient and get him some water from the bathroom.

Kimble hides behind the door and manages to remain unseen.

He needs food (the obstacle of physical hunger). Luckily the comatose man just got his meal served and Kimble wolfs it down.

He also puts on a white smock and walks out of the room, pretending to be a doctor … just as a state trooper, holding a picture of the bearded Kimble, comes toward him.

Obstacle!

The trooper asks if he’s seen a man fitting Kimble’s description. Kimble solves this problem the only way he can, humor. “Every time I look in the mirror, pal. Except for the beard of course.”

The trooper lets him go.

Is the scene over? Not yet! The writer squeezes even more tension out of the scene. A prison guard whose life Kimble saved is being brought in on a gurney. He looks up and is about to say, “Hey, that’s Richard Kimble,” when Kimble puts the oxygen mask over his face and tells the paramedics to check the guy’s sternum (the medics wonder how he knew that just from looking at him).

Still not over. Kimble has to get away. An ambulance seems like a good idea. He takes the one that just came in with the prison guard.

All scenes end eventually, and there are two basic outcomes: 1) the character realizes his objective; or 2) the character fails to achieve the objective.

Within these two outcomes there are variations. In general, you want the outcome to make the character’s situation worse than when he started.

Why? Because of our old friend
worry
. Readers want to worry about the character, and you’re going to help them do that.

In the scene from
The Fugitive,
Kimble gets out of the hospital without being stopped (a successful outcome) but immediately he encounters more trouble.

First, the medics are just bringing in the guard Kimble saved on the prison bus. He’s on a gurney, looks up and is about to say something. Kimble clamps the oxygen mask on him. But not before telling the medic exactly where the guard has been stabbed.

Then he gets into the ambulance and drives away.

But that gets reported almost immediately, communicated to Gerard, the U.S. Marshall, and he hops in a helicopter for the next big chase, another action scene.

I call this section reaction
beats
because reaction does not have to take up an entire scene.

Imagine that your character has just been dealt an outcome in an action scene. Usually it’s going to be a setback of some kind because that’s best for dramatic purposes.

So the first thing that happens inside the character is an emotional reaction. If the bad guys start shooting, the person being shot at is not going to start calculating the geometric parameters of his position. He’s going to feel the jolt of adrenaline as his body tries to keep him alive.

Likewise, if a woman sees her spouse in the arms of another, she’s not going to coolly note the time and go have coffee. She’s going to seethe, burn, explode, dissolve, break down—or something like it.

Only after the emotion has subsided do human beings attempt to figure out what to do next.

We will spend some time, then, cogitating. What’s the next move?

Do I run farther down the alley with the bad guys in pursuit? Wait, this alley ends at a brick wall. No good. What about that Dumpster? Jump inside? Rats. Garbage. Yuck.

Idiot, would you rather be shot?

All of which may take place in mere seconds, or fractions thereof.

Finally, a decision is made. The character has to act.

He decides on the Dumpster, which leads to … another action beat.

See how that works?

In a way, it’s a logical unpackaging of how we live our messy lives without realizing it.

So after an action scene is over, the outcome realized, inside the character figure out:

1. Emotion
   
2. Analysis
   
3. Decision
   

The great thing about understanding reaction beats is that they are the key to controlling the pace of your novel.

And you do need to control it, even if you’re writing a full-on, adrenaline-rush novel. You need to give the readers some breathing space.

The reaction beat is a chance to get us into the character and slow things down for a bit.

EXAMPLE:
Roger has just escaped being gunned down by the bad guys and is taking refuge in an apartment he broke into. Whose apartment? He has no idea:

The scene continues with reflections from the past and finally a decision to contact Steve, leading to the next action scene.

On the other side of the action coin, you can speed things up by shrinking the reaction beats. You can move from action to action with only a flash of emotion or analysis, sometimes leaving them out altogether and filling in blanks later:

Let’s write a scene with conflict and tension. First, our three
O
s.

OBJECTIVE:
Roger’s objective in this scene is to walk unnoticed down Broadway in downtown Los Angeles and get to the little store on the corner of Sixth and Broadway. There’s a man there who may know the identity of the real serial killer. This is definitely information Roger needs.

OBSTACLES:
The main obstacle in this scene will be the man at the store. We’ll call him Mr. Kim. He is not going to want to give Roger the information he needs.