DEALING A DEATHBLOW TO CRIME IN A MASK AND TOP HAT! ‘THE ADVENTURES OF THE REVENANT DETECTIVE’ DEBUTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From an actor’s stage to the crime ridden streets goes the mysterious figure that means death for all who consider evil- The Revenant Detective. Follow this unique hero’s exploits in THE ADVENTURES OF THE REVENANT DETECTIVE by P.J. Lozito, available in print and digital formats from Pro Se Productions. 

Ready for action, even if it means his own death, The Revenant Detective begins his vigilante career to stop an assassin with a longbow picking off men he served with during World War II in the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. Their mission was deception. Everything points to an old enemy, who should be dead...but in games played in the shadows, not even death is always permanent.

This adventure leads into even more thrilling tales where the line between life and death, supposed good and apparent evil become blurred, and standing in the gap is a mysterious figure in a mask and top hat, ready to fight even the long thought dead to protect the living! From P.J. Lozito, the creator of The Silver Manticore, comes three tales of The Man Unafraid of Death-The Revenant Detective!

THE ADVENTURES OF THE REVENANT DETECTIVE. From Pro Se Productions.

Featuring an intense cover by Jamison Challeen and cover design and print formatting by Antonino lo Iaocono, THE ADVENTURES OF THE REVENANT DETECTIVE is available for 11.99 via Amazon. 

Formatted by Antonino lo Iaocono and Marzia Marina, Lozito’s eerie vigilante’s adventures are available as an ebook for only 99 cents from Amazon. Kindle Unlimited members can read for free!

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, email editorinchief@prose-press.com.

To learn more about Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.

Everything Old Is New Again -- Reviving Old-School Literary Tropes and Techniques for Contemporary Fiction

There are so many literary conventions that have fallen out of use -- or at least out of favor -- in modern fiction. You hear it all the time: Don't use infodumps, show don't tell, no page after page of description, don't jump heads, no omniscient narrators, etc.

With that in mind, there's only one question for this new writers roundtable...

What is your favorite of the old conventions or tropes to revisit, and how do you use it effectively for contemporary readers?

Amanda Niehaus-Hard: I think genre writers have been steadily incorporating more literary techniques into their writing, but instead of thinking of these things in academic terms, they’re often referred to as “easter eggs.” Allusion and parallelism in themes are there, but they aren’t called out as such.

One of the literary techniques that I miss in genre fiction is the omniscient narrator. What’s in favor right now is that very close limited point-of-view, where you’re plugged into the brain and sensory system of one character, and this can be extremely effective, especially in horror. This technique fell out of favor years ago, (even inside literary fiction) but YA authors are bringing it back, in a way, in the voice of a ghost narrator.  There’s a lot you can do with omniscience – especially in a longer work. Ellen Gilchrist is a contemporary literary author using the omniscient narrator to provide commentary on the story, even entering the story as a character herself. It’s a powerful tool that I’d like to see the genre community experiment with. 

Another technique that is not only out of favor, but often warned against by editors, is the use of multiple points-of-view (derisively called “head-hopping” in the romance community.) Now it’s true this is a technique that can get out of hand quickly, so authors are usually encouraged to limit point-of-view to alternating sections or chapters, or for shorter works alternating paragraphs. Virginia Woolf was the master of “head hopping,” so authors who want to experiment with this should look at how she handled it. I see it being much more effective in some genres than others. (In horror, sometimes the dread and sense of isolation can be enhanced by staying firmly inside the head of one character. With a larger fantasy series, being entirely in one mind can become tedious for the reader. Even books in the Harry Potter series play with this – pulling away from Harry’s direct experience as the series goes on, to give the reader an overall picture of the very-real problems both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds are about to confront.)

I do wish genre writers would consider what they could accomplish if they were as precise with language as some varieties of literary fiction authors. One aspect of lit fic (some would say the only important aspect) is the sound of the language, the rhythms of the sentences. Ray Bradbury was a genius at finding language that actually sounds like the thing he’s writing about. (Remember the scene in “Something Wicked This Way Comes” where the mirrors are breaking? Those sentences, read aloud, actually sound like breaking glass. It’s amazing.) Genre writers would be well-advised to pay as much attention to the pacing of the sentence as they do the pacing of the unfolding plot. Borrow and steal from poetry techniques, from Gertrude Stein. Borrow and steal from the language of Ulysses, of Borges and Calvino. 

Literary writers pride themselves on breaking with tradition, and I’d like to see more genre writers attempt the same. Ursula LeGuin was a proponent of breaking literary “rules” inside imaginative fiction. She encouraged writers of all stripes to overturn conventional ideas about “story,” even questioning the advice to build a story on “conflict.” Literary writers very often will craft short fiction that doesn’t follow Freitag’s pyramid or Aristotle’s Poetics. The story might end just before or just at the moment of the “crisis.” We might never see falling action or any kind of resolution. Try mapping LeGuin’s famous story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” on that pyramid. That story reads more like a sonnet, with a two-line turn at the end rather than an actual conflict/crisis/resolution structure.  Last month I read two different independent works advertised as short story collections, but that were really more like novels in fragments – a literary technique that I hadn’t seen in genre fiction. This excited me to no end. I’m seeing a lot more experimentation inside YA, where the phrase “novel in verse” isn’t looked on with suspicion but with delight. I would love to see genre writers experiment with structure and form the way literary authors do. Of course that’s a huge risk. The experiment might pay off or it might fail miserably. Ultimately your “art” still has to communicate enough to the reader to make the process of reading it worth their time. I imagine that for every story she places in The New Yorker, even Joyce Carol Oates has one or two that never see publication, and that’s okay.

Ultimately, fiction supplies us with an enormous tool box of techniques and devices we can use, and I don’t think we should necessarily limit ourselves to what’s in fashion today, or even what’s considered “the law” today. Tell a good story, use whatever methods you need to in order to do so, and don’t let how we currently view fiction limit how you see it. 


Rob Cerio: The infodump can still be done well, when presented in the proper literary device. One of the reasons I admire Douglas Adams so much is his use of the narrative tool of the hitchikers guide entries to do the infodumpingin the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Perry Constantine: I like omniscient narration, but it’s really tough to get right. I’ve done it myself on occassion, though I can’t say for sure if it’s been effective.

Gordon Dymowski: When I'm writing, I actively try to avoid obvious tropes. After all, part of storytelling should be as much in subverting the obvious direction as it is in straightforward storytelling. But there are two tropes that I think have been overused...and that I try to openly integrate into my storytelling in clever ways.

One is the Inevitable Corruption of The Hero. You know the drill -- the hero has a gun on the villain. The villain says "Kill me." The hero drops the gun and says, "If I kill you, I'm no better than you."

Not every hero is ethically pure, and I like the idea of temptation...but the whole I-won't-kill-you cliche is overplayed. But planting some smaller incidents of moral question help flesh out the hero's limits. After all, having the big twist doesn't make sense without some examples of how the hero can go wrong. Another (which I'm integrating into one of my current projects) is to suggest that the hero may cross that line...but less out of moral certainty and more out of their own self-destructive or morally righteous behavior.

(Note - I'm not spoiling anything; these are storytelling choices. Your mileage may vary).

The other is the ever-popular Romantic Triangle. Or to quote the J. Geils Band: "You love her, but she loves him/And he loves somebody else, you just can't win..."

Whether you grew up with 1980s romantic comedies...or even more popular current fare, you know how much this gets overplayed. And the approach, which leads to the "Stalking for Love" trope....just won't cut it with a modern audience.

Part of the way try to subvert this in my writing? Make sure that it's a triangle that has a healthier resolution. Perhaps one of the characters in the main couple realizes that their feelings aren't as strong. Or that the pursuer ends up finding strength through a strong friendship with the person that they desire. (Or even that the pursuer finds their feelings stem from some other inadequacy). It's also easy to fall into the lazy trope of having the pursuer...well, "keep tabs" on their desired one. It's much more interesting to focus on the internal struggle of someone who has feelings for someone but also has to acknowledge that the person does not share that feeling. Or even discuss such a relationship in a different historical context to create a unique set of dynamics.

Example: one of my current projects involved women in the 19th century. Extended friendships which involve hand-holding, some physical affection, and emotional intimacy led to strong relationships between women. So much so that the concept of a "Boston marriage" arose - this is a state where two women live together like a married couple normally would. (And given the historical context, this wasn't seen as problematic or "bad". It just was.) Having someone infatuated with a woman in a "Boston marriage" would give it added texture...and making the person infatuated a third woman might even give it more poignancy and grace.

But from a storytelling perspective, it would make it worth it, because sometimes subverting and reshaping well worn cliches provides for more effective storytelling options.

Bill Craig: Flashbacks are good places for exposition and infodumps.

Richard Laswell: I'm a fan of very detailed descriptions. Tolkien would not have been nearly as popular if his world was a vague shadow in the background. I'll likely get in trouble here but witness the difference between Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia. I fully admit the Narnia books are vivid and entertaining, but more in an action thriller way than the rich sprawling tapestry of Middle Earth.

Michael Woods: I like the omniscient narrators. I like to tell some of my stories as if they are being told by a bard entertaining folk in a tavern or traveling show. Other times I like to be highly descriptive of the details. Never blend the two though. It makes for boring reads.

PJ Lozito: What I'm working on now revives the old saw of challenging the reader to guess the identity of a masked vigilante from a pool of possibles.

Literary Pulp -- The Roundtable

 

Several of my fellow writers have asked to be able to chime in on the discussion about blending literary fiction and pulp fiction, so this new writer roundtable will be that very topic.

Robert B. Parker

Can the two be mixed together, or does a literary story with too much fast-paced action or a pulp story with too much literary technique cease to be the thing it was created to be? Where does one draw the line?

Bill Craig: Why does one have to draw the line? Literary stories can contain mystery and romance and action. Pulp stories can tell literary tales of redemption and self-discovery. The only real difference that I have ever found is in the eyes of the reader. Lord Jim, literary fiction, but it also has elements of pulp to it. Some people refer to the collected works of the late Robert B. Parker as literary fiction where I've always considered them to be hard-boiled pulp mystery fiction.

PJ Lozito: Distinctions are made up. My friend told me in Italy, the common folk go to the opera, know all the words and sing along!

Robby Hilliard: Yes they can be mixed. Does it change what they are? I don't know. I'm sure someone will claim it does.

Stuart Hopen: I think it is mostly an arbitrary distinction. You might want to write the kind of spy novels that appeals more to fans of John LeCarre than those of Ian Fleming, but both authors have a mix of literary and pulpy elements. I mean, Anthony Burgess listed Goldfinger as one of the top 100 novels of the 20th century, along with Finnegans Wake and Gravity's Rainbow. A great deal of really classic literature has pure pulp elements. Poe for certain. Melville. Hawthorne. H.G. Welles. Shakespeare. I mean, what is Macbeth if not a horror story? Yeah, Melville could have picked up the pace by deleting the cetology chapters (many abridged versions do) but then he wouldn't have created a bible of the whaling industry, which was part of his vision as well. You might think of the slogan they used to sell the pulps initially -- all action and no philosophy. But you also can express philosophy in terms of action. Robert E. Howard did. Or you can stop the action and have someone give a speech, but that's also the hallmark of sloppy writing whether you're in the literary aisle or the pulp aisle. But it worked for Ayn Rand, whose work has deep pulp roots.

Ayn Rand

Gordon Dymowski: I think that there's a false dichotomy between "literary" writing and "pulp" writing. Dashiell Hammett is a great example: his prose influenced both Raymond Chandler and Ernest Hemingway. Jim Thompson's novels have as much creativity in its prose as it does "pulpiness". Modern authors like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Kellerman, and Sara Paretsky have as much "pulp" in them as they do "literacy". (And there's something very literary about how Emile C. Teppermann uses the "retrospective-on-alternate-history" approach in his Operator 5 Purple Invasion novels)

Yes, I'll get in trouble with many authors for lumping those three in the same category.

I think the line comes when the writer is focused more on "art" than on writing. There's more literary content in a Mickey Spillane novel (and let's be honest - this was a guy who believed that literature was "anything that sells") than in any flavor-of-the-month literary honor. Every writer has only one job: to be honest in their writing. Tell the story and tell it the best way you can. Don't worry about posterity -- it will take care of itself. Just tell the damn story.

(And remember what Groucho Marx once asked - "What has posterity ever done for me?")

Lucy Blue: I think the line between literary fiction and pulp fiction is getting thinner and more transparent all the time, at least for readers. I mean, the winner of this year's National Book Award for novels, Sing, Unburied, Sing, is an incredibly artful, clear-eyed, brilliant literary novel - which also happens to be one hell of a horror story. The winner the year before, The Underground Railroad, has strong elements of dystopian science fiction. And if you look at contemporary pulp, you find some of the most word-drunk writers alive -- if you're going to stand out and show pulp readers a world they haven't seen before, you have to get poetic and creative while staying focused, and you have to be madly in love with the language--all keystones of real literary fiction. I think all of us, pulp and literary writers and publishers alike, have been hornswoggled into believing that "literary fiction" is the stuff that happens when people with other sources of income get graduate fellowships in fiction and get their MFA thesis published by their mom's college roommate who now heads up Blah Blah Division of Scribner & Random Penguins, Inc. (a division of Big Corporate Everything) and genre/pulp fiction is everything else. And it doesn't have to be that way. It ISN'T that way for anybody but people actually in publishing; readers couldn't care less.

Raymond Chandler

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: I've been fighting with this very question. I know a woman who only reads novels that have won Pulitzer's. Even if she hates the book, she will spend months reading it. I asked her why? You're 70 years old. You don't have time to wade through shit that doesn't sing for you. Ugh. She is blinded by branded. And I think that's a big problem: Blinded by Branding. A good story is a good story is a good story. And that's what a writer should be focused on. A good story tells an entertaining tale. A great story tells an entertaining tale but also has a deeper meaning IF you are of the mind to find it. But, in the end, the story has to be ENTERTAINING. Look at Aesop. His stories have lasted for millennia. Why? Because they masquerade as children's tales but are actually life lessons for those that can see it. The same goes for Pulp/Literary or whatever you want to call it. Tell a story, make it good, leave branding to damn marketers.

What are your favorite "art" techniques for decorating the bare bones structure of your pulp prose?

Gordon Dymowski: One of my best creative "arty" tools is Oblique Strategies (Google it) - musician Brian Eno would utilize a series of cards to jump-start creativity. I use an online version to give me a sudden flash of inspiration, and that usually helps me take the story in a unique direction.

When I'm writing, I also try to express complicated emotions and situations in a simple, straightforward manner. I think too many writers (myself included) aim for being "clever" rather than being "honest." (See, there's that word again!). It's easy to think that creating stories gives us superhuman powers and authority...but it doesn't. At the end of the day, we're working hard at writing stories that people will read.

(And if you ever need an additional dose of humility -- try copywriting for a living. Cranking out boilerplate, commercial text has helped me not only develop an appreciation for the work, but also the awareness that there's a difference between straightforward prose and trying to tell a story. Plus, cranking out marketing/web copy/blog text that doesn't emotionally engage people? Soul crushing. And that's what I try to do - engage emotionally as well as intellectually).

H.P. Lovecraft

Lucy Blue: For me, I don't know if this counts as an "art" technique, but in writing genre and pulp fiction, I still try to make the story relevant to real time and place and experience, to have something to say beyond a curiosity or freak show or roller coaster ride. And in fiction I intend to be literary, I always make sure to have enough curiosity, freak show, and/or roller coaster to make it a good read -- I've lost all patience for navel-gazing, my own or anybody else's. I want my characters to be real, but I want them to do and experience something beyond exploring their own unique psyches, which is where I think bad literary fiction fails.

Bill Craig: Art techniques, I assume you speak to adding the grit and texture to the story. Make your character human and give them flaws. Nobody wants to read about someone who is perfect because nobody has ever met someone who is perfect. My characters get hurt, they bleed, they cry. I use my words to paint a picture and then give it color and texture by showing what they are feeling, how they react or how they prepare for what is coming at them. Fear is a natural part of life. Everybody fears something.

Robby Hilliard: Characters with complex and conflicting emotional and moral depth. All too often we see simplistic characters in pulp (not a bad thing if that is the goal) when a little more depth might add that "oomph" to a pulp story. Especially if it is something to be serialized. Make the characters complex with tons of issues to deal with over time. How do we do this? We give our characters real backstories, real past traumas, and real human reactions to them. Then we manifest those demons and flaws from the past into current behavior/traits.

Sara Paretsky

What advice do you offer to those who would like to either pick up the pace of their literary stories or increase the artistic content of their pulp stories?

Nikki Nelson-Hicks: Remember the three things a story needs: Scarcity, Danger, Courage.There is something you want, something in the way, and you pull up your Big Girl Panties and go and get it.

Lucy Blue: This is the best advice I could offer anybody; find a balance. Give the reader a strong story to hold on to but don't act it out with stick figures.

Gordon Dymowski: Read, read, read. But read with a critical eye towards "what makes this story work" -- I've read comments by my fellow writers that suggest they only read one type of pulp...or even one type of literature.

Head the library. Renew your library card, if needed. Go shopping for books that you're curious about. And read them. (I've been getting involved with the work of Chester Himes). Because being exposed to different types of literature will help you develop a greater skill set. And read more than just your favorite genre - take a chance and read something you never thought you would. Because the only way to build your writing muscles is to read how others have done it...and then adapt to your own style.

And again, focus on the damn story. Posterity will take care of itself.

Michael Chabon

Robby Hilliard: For literary and pulp, make the characters face realistic moral/emotional/ethical dilemmas. Sorry, but if your character is just running to the store to pick up a jar of mayonnaise and decides on the spur of the moment pick up a hitchhiker AND decides to screw around on spouse, all without some kind of meaningful backstory AND this is supposed to be 'literary', guess what? I don't care about your character's inner journey. Sounds like a piece of sh--,uh, someone I don't like. So why would I care about his or her decisions? (Sorry. Short story from college popped into my head. Yeah, that really was in the story.)

For pulp, sure, stay focused on the action. That's why we read pulp isn't it? Just maybe layer in something that is orally/ethically/emotionally complex as well. Throw in some symbolism if it fits and works with your story. Make it pose a question, one the story doesn't attempt to answer, that will keep your reader pondering your story long after they've finished reading it.

For literary -- Use actions to flavor and imply/show internal state. It's great to have internal monologue, we all have them. But also add in some actual action and some stakes to be won or lost. It's great that you're character experienced change. But was there anything riding on whether or not that change took place?


Bill Craig: Read, read, and read some more. Look at what has been done before and then figure out what you can do to add texture to your characters and stories to make them reach out and grab the reader by the throat and drag them into the story!

Walter Mosley

Stuart Hopen: I would submit that excellence in pulp or literary fiction depend on the simple formula of maintaining all the elements in balance, recognizing their interdependence. Plot is driven by players being confronted with hard choices, with outcomes based on the exercise of will in making those choices, and style shaping perception of the characters and conveying the way they perceive the world, and they way in which their perceptions are transformed by the unfolding of events, all of which relate to theme. Unity of all elements is the simple basic formula, whether you're dealing with a style as ornate as Norvel Page, H.P. Lovecraft, William Faulkner, or James Joyce, or as simple as Mickey Spillane or Ernest Hemingway. Unity and balance -- that's the simple formula. Only it is the hardest thing in the world. What I learned from pursuing a vision of literary pulp while holding myself to rigorous standards imposed by a merciless muse is that what made the most sense for me is not to depend on it for a livelihood.

‘SILVER MANTICORE: STILL AT LARGE’ DEBUTS!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EVIL SHALL FEEL THE STING OF JUSTICE ONCE MORE!
‘SILVER MANTICORE: STILL AT LARGE’ DEBUTS!

DATELINE: New York City 1967. Headlines scream that The Silver Manticore, criminal mastermind, is dead. If he’s dead, who broke out of his City Morgue drawer? Find out in Author PJ Lozito’s third installment in this popular New Pulp series-SILVER MANTICORE:STILL AT LARGE. Available now in print and digital formats from Pro Se Productions.

The Silver Manticore is at large, up to his mask in trouble! The Daily Sentry learns the Federal Reserve is being knocked over. Is the Silver Manticore behind it?

A clever police detective, a determined reporter, and deadly ninjas trail the Silver Manticore and Bako. SILVER MANTICORE: STILL AT LARGE takes you through the winding streets of Chinatown, the mean streets of Brooklyn, the greenery of Long Island and deadly duels on rooftops with advanced autogyros darkening the skies.

U.N.D.E.R. is breaking up and can’t help.

Why was transplant surgeon Bernard Christian kidnapped?

Who is the beautiful and alluring Lai Choi San?

What invisible raider busted up a jail? Was it crooks from England, Italy, and Japan who cross swords with the Silver Manticore –literally.

Or is it scoundrels from the Soviet Union, India, France, and China? Can they succeed if the Elixir Vitae keeping them alive is wearing off?

All This and More in P.J. Lozito’s SILVER MANTICORE: STILL AT LARGE From Pro Se Productions.

SILVER MANTICORE: STILL AT LARGE featuring a captivating cover by Adam Shaw and print formatting and logo design by Antonino lo Iacono and Marzia Marina is now available on Amazon and in Pro Se’s own store for only $15.00.

The continuing adventures of the Manticore are also available as an eBook formatted by Antonino and Marina for the Kindle for only $2.99. This book is also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and all members of Kindle Unlimited can get it for free!

For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, contact Kristi Morgan-King, Pro Se’s Director of Corporate Operations, at directorofcorporateoperations@prose-press.com.

For more information on Pro Se Productions, go to www.prose-press.com. Like Pro Se on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ProSeProductions.

Forget the Scissors, I Need a Machete!

Will these do?

For this week's writer roundtable, we're going to talk about cutting words -- and not just a word here and there but a significant amount of them. 

Here's the scenario... You finish your latest novel or novella, but you're WAY over the word count. 

WAY, WAY OVER. 

How do you get it back to the side your editor wants? 

What are your techniques for serious trimming on your work?

Lee Houston Jr.: Actually, there have been a lot of times where my writing buddy and friendly neighborhood beta-proofreader Nancy Hansen says I write too tersely and always fall short of the minimum word count, so I go back and keep re-reading and adding more until I've reached the goal.

In the end, if I'm over, I just reverse the process. I keep rereading and subtracting. Making choices in that category is tougher because you cannot be so in love with your own prose that you are unwilling to cut anything, even if in hindsight the passage in question actually doesn't add anything to the overall story.

But whichever way you're headed, you have to be careful not to subtract too much or your story might not make sense and adding too much could have your readers think you "pad" your stories.

It's a tricky tightrope to traverse, but every writer finds themselves walking it at one point or another during any project. The real trick is to get to the other side successfully.

PJ Lozito: I am a big believer in cutting out (but save it to a file!). That's one reason I don't think giving a daily word count means much. As for getting up to size, I have notes I can and do use. Nothing makes me prouder than finally being able to use some interesting tidbit I was saving.

I heard you were looking for a word-cutter.

Nancy Hansen: Anybody who's had to edit or publish me knows, I write too big at times. I have to cut all the time, and it's hardest with your own work. I can show you where to cut, but I can't seem to see it in my own stuff—at least not initially. So first off, if I have time, I set the piece aside and go on to something else. It's kind of like cleansing your palate with something in between courses. When I go back, I have fresh eyes. If that doesn't work, I'll hand it over to someone else, a trusted beta reader or even the editor who is waiting for it, and explain that I've tried to cut back but I am too close to the material to see where, and could you please take a look. Nine times out of ten with a short piece people are happy to help, and they give you an idea where and what should go. On longer pieces like novels, the usual advice is to look for a spot where something momentous is about to occur and taper it off there. Most times I can figure it out myself, but now and then you need a different pair of eyes.

Frank Fradella: Step One: Check your ego.

Step Two: Ask yourself if you have started this story as late as possible. Do I need this first chapter? The first three? Am I creating too much preamble? Do I REALLY need this characters origin or can it be revealed as necessary through dialogue or flashback later on?

Step Three: Ask yourself what purpose each character serves in the story. Do you have two characters who play the same or similar role? Can you eliminate one of them?

Step Four: Identify the purpose of each and every scene. Chances are you have one or two that you're chalking up to "character development" that can be axed outright.

Step Five: Push back. If every single character or every single scene has an unshakable purpose, present your case to your editor and ask them to suggest edits, and then be prepared to show why those scenes or characters need to be there. But remember Step One. Very often, they're right and you can make the cut. So cut.

Robert Krog: I start by searching for and deleting adverbs, interjections, needless intensifiers, words like just, so, and well. That always reduces the word count by a bit. Then, I go through and find wordy phrases that can be supplanted by fewer or even one word. Why be lazy and write "very happy" when "elated" means the same thing and so much more? When this too has failed to reduce the word count into the acceptable range, I begin looking for passages that don't advance the plot or build character. This is the painful part because I thought they all advanced the plot and added to characters when I was writing. I have, occasionally reduced the role of or even cut extraneous characters from stories. This usually does the trick. If the protagonist is still able to do all that needed doing without the sidekick, and the sidekick didn't add much or anything meaningful to the story, then out the sidekick goes. This greatly reduces the verbiage. Sometimes, I have already written lean enough that such cannot be done, in which case I've had to ask the editor for leniency on the word count. This has been known to work, but not often. Sometimes the editor will shoot back with suggested cuts, and I will have to admit that the editor is correct. Another trick is, of course, to look for inadvertent info dumps and eliminate them. Working the required information into the story in a show rather than tell format is usually less wordy, and the reader didn't buy a work of fiction expecting textbook style writing, anyway. Information dumps often insult the intelligence of the reader. Respecting the reader's ability to pick up what is needed from context is a good policy and should be used whenever possible.

The Internet called and said you wanted an editor.

Ellie Raine: Usually, I first look at each chapter and determine if I can afford to cut those out, or cut them in half. Sometimes, the hardest things to catch are the not-so-integral scenes before and after the good, important, meaty bits that actually matter, and firing those. It's usually mundane things like the character asking the desk clerk to check in, when that can be wrapped up in a paragraph to get to the scene where his hotel suite is broken into. Basically, I just look at what I think should be the focus of the audience's attention and cut the fat out.

Bobby Nash: The first things I look for are any side trips or character moments that, while can be great, don't necessarily advance the plot. After that, it's looking for extraneous words, adverbs, and tags that can be cut.

Lance Stahlberg: I am literally going thru that scenario now. Was also thinking it was blog worthy of listing off what I did. (Posted here: http://lrstahlberg.blogspot.com/2017/06/tips-to-reduce-word-count_23.html)

Matt Hiebert: The words "Kill Your Darlings" always haunt me. But I don't kill them. I cut and paste them into another document. Although I never go back and read them, I know they're there and not gone. Not dead.

The Worst Advice Ever About Writing Dialog

Lots of articles and writing books teach how to more effectively create dialog that just "sings" to readers. But enough about that. Let's look at the flip side of that. What's the worst advice you've ever received about how to write dialog? And did you take? How did you learn just how wrong it was?

Desmond Reddick: To listen to how people REALLY talk and mimic it. Ugh. That would create unreadable nonsense. Ha! I think the trick is more to approximate real dialogue but rather boiling it down to its purest, most plot-driving core while still leaving room for characterization and distinction.

Robbie Hilliard: Tagless dialogue. Sure, it has its place, but I once ran into a writing group that uniformly insisted that all dialogue tags must go! How insane is that? You know, the 'he said' and 'she said' speech attribution tags? Yeah, well I think there are times when they are just fine. They can help give the reader a hint at the pacing of 'spoken word' in the story. Just like you don't want to twist sentences due to grammar rules to the point that they don't sound natural (e.g. "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."), you don't want to find yourself creating dialogue that is twisted and unnatural just so your reader will clearly know who is speaking. Sometimes a 'he said/she said' is exactly what you need in order to preserve the natural flow of the dialogue.

So when to strive for tagless dialogue? When the scene is close, the tension is high, and the action is tight and flying by so fast you don't want the reader to have to slow down for anything. That's a great time for tagless dialogue!

C.E. Martin: Oh, I am all over this one... Back in 2012, when I started my first Kindle Direct book, I read a lot of advice from authors at Kboards.com. They were blasting the use of dialogue descriptors, like "Stay back" he growled. They claimed "Said" was always better.

Even though it went against my grain, I went ahead and followed the advice. By my second book, I decided that was stupid, and went back to trying to avoid having "said" appear twenty times on a page. I think "said" takes a reader out of the story when used more than once a page.

I also don't like that Hemingway-way of never identifying who is talking. Sure, if it's two people in a scene, then yes, your readers should be able to tell who is who, but in a crowded room, you need to spell out who's who.

Gordon Dymowski: Worst advice: try to capture a local dialect by spelling. Tried it in one of my stories, and rereading it....hoo, boy, was it bad.

Now, I tend to write dialogue the same way that Tommy Lee Jones once described his method for scripts - people tend to talk in sentence fragments. So I tend to write very fragmented, lyrical dialogue. (Plus, best advice - listen to *how* people people. Find rhythms)

Paul Mannering: Dialog should speak directly - people talk shit in real life. We hesitate, mumble, stumble over words, say things in a round about way. Listening to most people talk is like listening to Donald Trump -- it's bizarre.

In a story -- off the cuff comments should sound like they were carefully thought out - because they were - but they make your characters look cool.

Avoid dialect and specific slang -- it never reads well.

D. Alan Lewis: I was once told in a critique group that we all speak English and we talk the same. So, write your dialogue that way. Don't try and make everyone sound unique because it will confuse the reader. I didn't follow his advice.


Richard L. Altstatt: Most words are monkey noises. Ignore them...or, learn to spell....other good advice.

PJ Lozito: Potential agent: "No, don't set STING OF THE SILVER MANTICORE in 1942. World War II would make the events in it sort of a side show...." forgetting there were plenty of novels and stories happening during WWII.

Pulp, Noir, and Hard-Boiled: You Got Your Chocolate in My Peanut Butter!

Obviously, as pulp and adventure writers we all know that Noir is a film term and that pulps helped birth hard-boiled stories, but there is no denying that the terms get sort of all mixed into the batter of a detective-ish cake -- and even by folks who are "masters" of the medium such as film critics and fiction reviewers. So, in light of that, I figured it was time to talk about why and how the grandchild of the group (Noir) reached back up the line and influenced the future of it forebears.

Pulp, Noir, and hard-boiled... Academics and casual fans alike blend them together like ingredients in the same soup. Why is that so easy to do?

Pj Lozito: "Noir" is a film term, really. Although the French had Série Noire books most of the folks who (mis)use the term never heard of that. I'm sure we all have ! Film Noir was named after it. "Pulp" was fiction-delivery system. It contained many types of fiction, Western and romance being the most popular. You could even say science fiction was the next most popular as ASTOUNDING is still with us as ANALOG. Certain pulp mystery stories were filmed and came be called "film noir" (after the fact). But other film noir, like KEY LARGO, derived from a play. I had a film professor who held HIGH NOON can be seen as flim noir. He had us go see BODY HEAT, as a modern noir. So they are noir without being pulp. Other pulp was filmed, The Shadow and The Spider, for example, and have nothing to do with noir. "Hard boiled" fiction was grown in the pulps but a hard-boiled writer like James M. Cain were never in pulps.

Scott Rogers: It's easier to blend them together - visuals are similar, character archetypes are similar, many of the stories fall under the thriller or crime category.

Gordon Dymowski: I think all three genres have the same basic ingredient: stripped-down, straight-ahead prose. All three are "gut" literature, focusing more on direct emotions than, say, their more literary cousins.

Of the three, in regard to writing prose fiction, let's talk about Noir. What allowed it to jump from film into prose? What are the elements that separate it from the other two?

Gordon Dymowski: Unlike pulp and hard-boiled, I think noir tends to be "darker", focusing on more base emotions and hard-scrabble lives. Noir also has a greater moral complexity to it - pulp and hard-boiled tend to focus on the "good-guys-must-always-win", while noir tends to have more pessimistic events play out.

The other distinctive aspect of noir is where it happens - in the shadows, in smoky out-of-the-way places, on the streets. Pulp can handle grand tableaus, and hard-boiled literature can have a wide range of settings....but noir is best kept on a "street" level, focusing on people trying to make their way in a very tough, harsh world. Writing from a more psychological perspective often leads to stronger, more atmospheric writing.

Scott Rogers: The theme of noir "no good deed goes unpunished"

What are the elements of Noir-storytelling that attract you as a writer? 

Scott Rogers: My favorite trope of noir is the voice over or narration. Although many hate it, it's my favorite part of Blade Runner and think it's what pushes it into noir territory.

Gordon Dymowski: One of the reasons why I enjoy writing noir is that it's easier to focus on character and setting rather than plot and narrative. At times, writing about people struggling and getting by can be liberating, even if the story is heading for disaster. Plus, noir allows for some nuance in character - many of the characters share some form of moral compromise, and so it provides an opportunity to explore the darker side of character.

How do those elements make you a better writer?

Scott Rogers: It helps me get into the character's head.

Gordon Dymowski: Focusing on more complicated morality and richer character exploration means that, as a writer, I have to make more of an effort to craft a three-dimensional experience. It's easy to throw in random "noir" elements (smoky bar, femme fatale, etc) - it's much harder to create and maintain a world that "feels" real. (While pulp and hard-boiled don't necessarily need to be "realistic", noir demands a form of realism.)

What works of both screen and prose would you recommend to writers looking to to develop a better understanding of and appreciation for Noir storytelling?

Scott Rogers: Dashiell Hammett, Frank Miller, Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, Jonathan Latimer, Billy Wilder

Gordon Dymowski: For writing, Jim Thompson - even if the only novel he wrote was THE KILLER INSIDE ME, he would still be a noir grandmaster. However, Thompson has a great body of work that *demands* you read it...and is definitely worth reading.

Another recommendation - CLEAN BREAK by Lionel White. It's a pretty taut example of noir (it was adapted by Kubrick & Thompson into the movie THE KILLING) and not coincidentally, available for download via Manybooks.net http://manybooks.net/titles/whitelother10clean_break.html