GOOD GUYS ARE BAD NEWS ... for your novel

{ I had to start my post with a photo of a bad girl to counterbalance the good guy subject matter.

Ah, not buying that? Didn't think so. It was worth a try.}


"Good guys are boring?," I said earlier tonight.

Nickie, my co-worker, nodded sagely. "Yep. Boooooring."

We'd been talking my disenchantment with Sookie in the TRUE BLOOD novels.

Bill, her first lover, had suffered near death twice for her, but she is attracked to sociopath vampire, Eric.

"Vampire Bill is boring while Eric is just bad and sexy."

"Uh, he tore apart a guy who was just trying to escape being chained in a cellar. And then, he got upset when the man's blood ruined his hair's highlighting."

Nickie giggled, "That was so cute."

"What if the guy had been your kid brother? Still cute?"

"Oh that guy was a jerk. He had it coming."

"And the two little children Eric looked down as munchies toward the end of season two? Did they have it coming?"

"Oh, you're as boring as vampire Bill." And Nickie hurried off to read the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel.


Our conversation got me thinking on how difficult it is to write a non-boring hero or heroine.

But being good boring? Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, once wrote : "Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for."

I don't know about you, but that's pretty much how it's been for me.


So Niki and actors who moan that good guys are boring don't really mean boring in the obvious sense.

As writers we have to look at heroes through the reader's eyes. And what do they want of their heroes?

To live vicariously through them.

And who wants to suffer through routine living second-hand? We get enough of that up close and personal. Our failure with heroes is that we make them routine.


What do the readers want from the hero of the novel they're reading?


To live dangerously and to have fun through them by :

Dialogue :

How often have you been stung in a situation, only to come up with the perfect comeback HOURS after the fact?

Think CON-AIR when

Cameron Poe says to agent Larkin : "Sorry boss, but there's only two men I trust. One of them's me. The other's not you."

Or with Robert B. Parker when Spenser says :

"...You have any suggestions, make them. I'm in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me."
Fraser said, "Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back?"
"Hell, no," I said. "Everyone else does."
— Robert B. Parker (The Widening Gyre)

Or when Spenser walks into a TV station's boardroom to see three lawyers sitting on a couch beside one another.

"Which one of you speaks no evil?," I asked. (A Savage Place)


{Side-bar} :

University professor turned writer, Robert B. Parker, had thought-provoking things to say about writers, literature, and life :


“It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live.”


"Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who don't know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around.”


“The advantage of writing a series is that it probably replicates, for lack of a better word, real life more than most fiction because most people have a history and know people and come and go and you have a chance to play with the characters and not just the protagonist.

It gives you the opportunity to develop--lapsing back into academe for a moment--a whole fictive world. Gee, I love saying that now, just keeping my hand in. Fictive world!.”

"I sit down every day and write five pages on my computer. At some point I found that not outlining worked better than outlining. The outline had become something of a limitation more than it was a support.

When I did the Raymond Chandler book, Poodle Springs, which was in the late eighties, I was trying to do it as Chandler did it, and since Chandler didn't outline then I thought I won't outline.

If you read Chandler closely you can see that he didn't outline. What the hell happened to that chauffeur? I would recommend to the beginning writer that they should outline because they probably don't have enough self-confidence yet.

But I've been writing now since 1971 and I know that I can think it up. I know it will come."

"It's tempting to say the Ph.D. didn't have an effect, but it's not so. I think whatever resonance I may be able to achieve is in part simply from the amount of reading and learning that I acquired along the way."



But I digress ...

What, besides saying snappy dialogue, do readers want to do through their heroes?

To do the extraordinary.

Even if it is in ordinary circumstances. Spit in the eye of the bully. Tweak the nose of a snobbish boss.

Take this scenario :

A tired stone mason sits at a bar run by one of his few friends. Another man sits down beside him. He never looks at our hero, but he pushes a thick manila envelope over to him.

He whispers, "Ten thousand now. Ten thousand after she's dead."

He gets up and slowly walks away. Our hero hurriedly opens the envelope. Sure enough there is the money. And a blown-up photo of a woman from her driver's license.

Our hero gets up to follow the man to see if he can get the license plate number of his car to give to the police. The man is already outside -- getting into a police car.

What does our hero do? What would you do? And so starts the Dean Koontz novel, THE GOOD GUY. (Hey, I couldn't resist.)

There is a hero inside all of us ...

if we only know where to look. There is a magentism to your hero of your novel ... if you know where to look.

And where is that?

In your heart, my friend. In your heart.
*******************************************

***

TO SING LIFE INTO BEING

To Sing Life Into Being.

My half-Lakota mother would take me on long walks at night,

pointing to the stars and telling me tales

of long ago when life was blinking-eye fresh

and animals could talk.

She would always start those walks by pointing to the many-eyed blanket of night and say,

"The Great Mystery sang those stars to life, Little One. What words do you suppose He used?"

Perhaps that is why we sing life into being with our prose --

we carry that need to create we inherited from He whose song
spoke us to life.

Words. It all comes down to the Word.

In the beginning was the Word.

Lucky for the universe God didn't need an agent to get his Word to see the Light.

But none of us is God. We don't have the job qualifications.

Not being Deity, you and I have to get an agent.

Of course, there are vanity publishers. But they're called vanity publishers for a reason. Basically, it's like paying for a kiss. It means very little.

And less to major publishers if you refer to being published by them. The big boys all know you paid to get published.

And it only means something when they pay you for it.

In a sad sidebar, that truth is why some hopeless women on the hard streets feel they have worth.

Men pay for them.

Remember FIELD OF DREAMS?

"If you build it, he will come."

And the same is true for us as writers.

An agent will not come because I'm a nice guy.

She will not come because I'm a writer with a great idea.

She will not come because I beg. {Although I have to admit, I've been tempted to do that.}

She will not come because I have great promise.

No.

The agent will come when I build something real for her to appear for :

A novel that is finished,

that is riveting from the very first sentence,

that grabs the reader and will not let her go,

that finishes with a resolved crisis and growth for the main character, hinted at in the very first chapter.

But more :

she will come when I have already built a platform from which she can stand,

from which a publisher can view potential sales, from which they can compute the possible profit in it for them to buy my novel.

That is something she can use in the ways she knows best,

taking a finished novel with existing interest.

With that she can go to the editors, persuading them into a better financial deal than we could have dreamed.

Until that happens, there is no need for an agent. Lusting for one is even a distraction. A distraction from what, you say?

From crafting that polished," draw-you-in-with-the-first-sentence" novel.

But the novel is not enough, you must also have a platform. Get your name out there.

Twitter. Ah, I am not comfortable with it. But many are.

Listen to others on it. Learn how NOT to hawk yourself.

Facebook has problems. But set up an account for later.

Be prepared.

Do what you're doing now:

Write an interesting, absorbing blog. Be the best you on that blog you can be.

Go with your strengths. If you're funny, make 'em laugh.

If you're wise {me, I'm otherwise},

then share what you have freely and compassionately.

Go to others' blogs. You see something there that is useful or fun or both, direct your readers to that blog.

Have the back of your fellow blogger. Maybe they'll have your back in return.

If not, you still have the good feeling inside that being decent and kind gives you.

Google on how to write queries. I've written a couple of decent posts on how to do that. Other bloggers have as well.

Now, go to http://www.agentquery.com/ and find agents for your genre.

Go to Preditors and Editors http://pred-ed.com/ and see if there are any red flags to their names.

Go to Absolute Write Water Cooler : http://absolutewrite.com/forums/ and see what fellow writers think of your targeted agent.

Write the shortest, most interest-grabbing query you can.

I've written a few posts on how to do that.

Google will show you others. Now, write that query. Show it to a few fellow writers you trust.

Then, throw your note in a cyber bottle out into the sea. Throw ten notes.

And if three request a partial or a full, send them. Also tell those requesting agents about the interest of the other two.

Is that honest? Yes. Is that wise? It's human nature wise.

Guys want a girl that other guys want. It's human nature.

Finding out other agents are interested in you makes you seem more attractive to that agent reading your reply.

Be professional, of course, in how you state it. State it as a courtesy to them.

Agents who read this may sputter. But I'm not writing this for them. I writing this for you to have the best shot at getting an agent.

Oh, and when you get your agent, and she sells your novel, her next question will be :

"What are you working on next?"

Be prepared for that with a polished proposal.

{I have one prepared for the sequel to THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH : VICTOR IS NOT JUST MY NAME.}

Let her know that you are professional and not a one-shot wonder.

Understand that there is a melody playing inside her head as she looks at you :

"What do you have for me that will make me more money?"

Your goal is to write, sell, repeat. Enjoy the journey ...

and the friends you make along the way.

Like Spenser says, "It is what it is."
****************
And please give your spirit and heart a present and watch and listen to this :

GOOD GUYS ARE BORING?

{ I had to start my post with a photo of a bad girl to counterbalance the good guy subject matter. Ah, not buying that? Didn't think so. It was worth a try.}



"Good guys are boring?," I said earlier tonight.


Nickie, my co-worker, nodded sagely. "Yep. Boooooring."


We'd been talking my disenchantment with Sookie in the TRUE BLOOD novels. Bill, her first lover, had suffered near death twice for her, but she is attracked to sociopath vampire, Eric.


"Vampire Bill is boring while Eric is just bad and sexy."


"Uh, he tore apart a guy who was just trying to escape being chained in a cellar. And then, he got upset when the man's blood ruined his hair's highlighting."


Nickie giggled, "That was so cute."


"What if the guy had been your kid brother? Still cute?"


"Oh that guy was a jerk. He had it coming."


"And the two little children Eric looked down as munchies toward the end of season two? Did they have it coming?"


"Oh, you're as boring as vampire Bill." And Nickie hurried off to try saving LEGEND OF THE SEEKER.



Our conversation got me thinking on how difficult it is to write a non-boring hero or heroine. But being good boring? Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, once wrote : Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for.

I don't know about you, but that's pretty much how it's been for me.


So Niki and actors who moan that good guys are boring don't really mean boring in the obvious sense.


As writers we have to look at heroes through the reader's eyes. And what do they want of their heroes?


To live vicariously through them.


And who wants to suffer through routine living second-hand? We get enough of that up close and personal. Our failure with heroes is that we make them routine.


What do the readers want from the hero of the novel they're reading?


To live dangerously and to have fun through them by :



Dialogue :

How often have you been stung in a situation, only to come up with the perfect comeback HOURS after the fact?



Think CON-AIR when

Cameron Poe says to agent Larkin : "Sorry boss, but there's only two men I trust. One of them's me. The other's not you."



Or with Robert B. Parker when Spenser says :

"...You have any suggestions, make them. I'm in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me."
Fraser said, "Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back?"
"Hell, no," I said. "Everyone else does."
— Robert B. Parker (The Widening Gyre)


Or when Spenser walks into a TV station's boardroom to see three lawyers sitting on a couch beside one another.

"Which one of you speaks no evil?," I asked. (A Savage Place)



{Side-bar} :

University professor turned writer, Robert B. Parker, had thought-provoking things to say about writers, literature, and life :



“It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live.”



"Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who don't know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around.”



“The advantage of writing a series is that it probably replicates, for lack of a better word, real life more than most fiction because most people have a history and know people and come and go and you have a chance to play with the characters and not just the protagonist.

It gives you the opportunity to develop--lapsing back into academe for a moment--a whole fictive world. Gee, I love saying that now, just keeping my hand in. Fictive world!.”



"I sit down every day and write five pages on my computer. At some point I found that not outlining worked better than outlining. The outline had become something of a limitation more than it was a support.

When I did the Raymond Chandler book, Poodle Springs, which was in the late eighties, I was trying to do it as Chandler did it, and since Chandler didn't outline then I thought I won't outline.

If you read Chandler closely you can see that he didn't outline. What the hell happened to that chauffeur? I would recommend to the beginning writer that they should outline because they probably don't have enough self-confidence yet.

But I've been writing now since 1971 and I know that I can think it up. I know it will come."




"It's tempting to say the Ph.D. didn't have an effect, but it's not so. I think whatever resonance I may be able to achieve is in part simply from the amount of reading and learning that I acquired along the way."



But I digress ...


What, besides saying snappy dialogue, do readers want to do through their heroes?


To do the extraordinary.


Even if it is in ordinary circumstances. Spit in the eye of the bully. Tweak the nose of a snobbish boss.

Take this scenario :


A tired stone mason sits at a bar run by one of his few friends. Another man sits down beside him. He never looks at our hero, but he pushes a thick manila envelope over to him.


He whispers, "Ten thousand now. Ten thousand after she's dead."


He gets up and slowly walks away. Our hero hurriedly opens the envelope. Sure enough there is the money. And a blown-up photo of a woman from her driver's license.


Our hero gets up to follow the man to see if he can get the license plate number of his car to give to the police. The man is already outside -- getting into a police car.


What does our hero do? What would you do? And so starts the Dean Koontz novel, THE GOOD GUY. (Hey, I couldn't resist.)


There is a hero inside all of us ... if we only know where to look. There is a magentism to your hero of your novel ... if you know where to look. And where is that?


In your heart, friend. In your heart.

*******************************************

And if you have the time, here are some interesting scenes of an ancient TV series derived from the Spenser detective series. I fell in love with Susan Silverman from that series -- an intelligent, brave, caring woman.