Does Size Matter?

Written by Teresa Burrell

Author of The Advocate Series

The answer is that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. We all know the real issue is quality, not quantity. However, if it’s too short, you can be left unsatisfied for sure. So, how long is long enough? This is the question I’ve been wrangling with for the last few weeks. Of course, I’m talking about the length of a novel, but you knew that, right?

I’m writing my latest novel and I do believe this one is going to be a little shorter than the rest because frankly, I’m just getting to the end quicker. Maybe I'm just getting better at this and it doesn't take as many words to make my point. Hmm... I could add another twist or turn, but if I add any more twists I fear my readers may be too dizzy to finish the book. And you never want them to say, “Yeah, that was a little too much.”

Most authors I know talk about the length of a novel in word count. Readers generally refer to it as page count. Several of my author friends say they write between 75 and 80,000 words. And I have to say, they write great novels! Most of my books in the past have been around 90,000 words; the last one was 93,000 because it took that long to get through all the suspects in the case. So I was concerned that if I make this one much shorter than that, my readers might feel cheated. Then I spoke with a dear author friend who said, “It’s too bad we have to worry about such things. I think it's different with ebooks. Just wrap it up and call it good. You’re working too hard.” This came from someone who starts writing at 5:00 in the morning and is churning out four books this year. Yeah, I’m the one working too hard!

So, here are my questions:

Authors: How long are your novels?

Readers: Do you ever consider the length of the book when you make a purchase? And has that changed with digital books?

This has nothing to do with my blog.
I just thought he was cute. 

That Evening I Spent with a Hooker

By Andrew E. Kaufman, bestselling author of psychological thrillers

Before becoming an author, I spent several years working as a broadcast journalist. I loved television news. It was exciting, fast paced, and packed with second-by-second, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants energy—something I’ve thrived on since childhood (read: adrenaline junkie).

Besides experiencing the joy of being at the center of all the energy and feeling the pulse of the city pounding in my head, I got to see a side of life few ever do on a daily basis.

The underside.

Photo courtesy: Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department

Which for some reason has always fascinated me. This is likely why, after finally leaving the news business, I went on to write thrillers (once an addict, always an addict, you know?) On some
unconscious level, I probably took a lot of what I saw during those years with me, using it to add depth and dynamics to my characters and stories.

And no joke: I saw it all.

From homicide scenes, to filthy meth labs, to blazing fires, to dead bodies sprawled across freeways. You name it, we chased it, and after that, served it up at eleven.

Oh, yeah…the part about the hooker.

In all my years as a journalist, there’s a defining incident that I don’t think will ever leave me.

One evening, we were out on an undercover story about prostitution. This was at the very start of my career, so some of the details are a bit sketchy. I can’t even recall what the actual story hook was (sorry, wasn’t trying to be punny, there), but I think our goal was to find a prostitute so she could help us attract Johns. Of course, with an eleven o’clock deadline, we only had a few hours to accomplish this.

Long story short, we found our girl, and a young one at that, maybe eighteen, maybe younger, wearing tattered shorts and a t-shirt that didn’t look clean. Frizzy hair with hardly any makeup. She leaned in through the window, smiled at us, and then surprisingly, obliged to help us out. Soon after that, she was in our car, and away we went.

As often happens in the News Biz, our John angle ended up falling flat, but what I remember most wasn’t that—it was what she said to us pre-interview, agreeing to do it with one caveat:

“You have to block out my face, because my mother watches the news.”

As soon as those words left her mouth, mine dropped open.

I know this is probably going to sound terribly naïve, but I hadn’t envisioned her as having a mom that she still maintained contact with, let alone being worried about her finding out she was a prostitute. I suppose that on some level I was aware it could have been possible, but in that instant she became so much more layered and dimensional to me, no longer just a nameless street hooker living out a life of destitute. She was a real human with real feelings, just like the rest of us.

And I wondered what happened to this woman. What drove her into this sort of life? And going even farther back, what life events set her up for this. Was it about the drugs? Maybe something from her childhood?

Unfortunately, I never found those answers. She got nervous about her pimp, cut the interview short, and within minutes, was back to walking the streets.

Everything after that became a blur of hurried commotion. It was getting late and close to deadline, so we pieced what little we had into a story, then fed it back to station live in order to make the eleven o’clock show.

But I’ll never forgot that evening I spent with a hooker.

Write the Damned Story you Want to Write

By Andrew E. Kaufman

One of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make as an author happened early in my career. I had made the choice to jump genres—that is to say, going from being a perceived horror writer to a perceived thriller writer. I never saw myself as belonging to a particular genre. I just wrote what I wanted to write. I don’t think it was so much a matter of consciousness as a matter of instinct.

Then my audience began to grow, and then I started thinking from inside my head. I became worried that the change might force my readers away, that they might not follow me to the next book. Luckily, I trusted those instincts and the next book did significantly better than the last.

Fast forward to about three years later. Apparently, I still hadn’t learned my lesson. I was trying to decide whether to continue on with a series after the first two books and feeling a similar dilemma: once again, I was overthinking, trying to put my head on the readers’ shoulders instead of keeping it where it belonged. I was worried they would feel disappointed if I didn’t continue on with the story. In other words, I wasn’t following my instincts. A road that by now I’ve learned is always a bad one.

Then one day, while having lunch with a colleague, I explained my concerns, and she gave me what I now consider to be among the soundest advice I’ve ever received:

She said, “Don’t worry about all that. Write the damned story you want to write. Brand yourself, not your books—if you do that, it won’t matter what you write. Your audience will read it.”

It was one of those statements that instantly snaps into place, sticks there, and shorty thereafter, you understand it to be the plain and honest truth. I’ve always believed that, if you feel what you write, so will your readers. After all, it’s not necessarily what you write that matters most—it’s who you are as a writer, what inspires you, and if you stick with that, the rest always takes care of itself.

As with most authors I love, it doesn’t really matter what they write about or what genre their work falls under. It’s their execution and talent that draws me in each time I open one of their books. In those cases, I believe they followed their passion instead of their head, and as my colleague said, they wrote the damned story they wanted to write.

And with the publishing industry being as wobbly as it is, and with the concept of “what will sell” changing all the time, it makes sense that longevity is attained not by following trends or trying to guess what your readers want—it’s attained by trusting your instincts. Books change all the time—but the writer is a constant.

This time, I finally followed that advice, and the result has been one of the most rewarding and seamless writing experiences I’ve ever had. More than that, I’m having the best time, and each new day, I can’t wait to sit down and get back to work. This book is a complete departure from anything I’ve ever written up until now, but somehow it doesn’t matter to me.

Because I’m writing the damned story I want to write.

Andrew E. Kaufman, author of whatever inspires him.
www.andrewekaufman.com

To Prologue or not to Prologue

By Andrew E. Kaufman, author of Psychological Thrillers 

I like prologues—actually, I love them. As a writer, I use them to set a mood or tone—a layer of emotional subtext, if you will—before the actual story begins, which I don’t feel I could have otherwise achieved.  

In my upcoming release, Darkness & Shadows, the prologue is steeped in surrealism and tragedy. Patrick, my protagonist, is having an imaginary conversation with the only woman he's ever loved as she burns to death inside a building. The fire and death have actually happened, but the prologue is a product of his subconscious desire to find answers he can’t find in the tangible world. I felt there was no better way to portray this than through the use of a prologue. Sure, I could have allowed his internal dialogue throughout the book to convey his thoughts and feelings—and to a large

extent, it does—but by adding this additional element, I think (or at least I hope) that I was able to dig deeper on a more visceral level, leaving the reader inside Patrick’s mind in a way that will resonate by the time they reach the first chapter. I don’t know if I could have done this as well without it.

My last book, The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted, didn’t have a prologue. As much as I love them, and as much as I wanted to have one, I found it just didn’t work for the story, so I left it out. I’ve often read books with prologues and found myself wondering why the authors bothered, because they didn’t add anything to the story that wasn’t already there. They made the mistake of slapping the word “Prologue” across the top of the page for what is essentially just a first chapter.

When I read a brilliant prologue I get chills that tell me I have to move on to the first chapter. When I read a bad one, I get a different kind of chill that makes me want to put the book down and never come back to it.

Some people, authors and writers alike, don’t like prologues. I’ve even heard a few say they dislike them so much that they won’t even read them and often skip to the first chapter of a book. So as an author, for all the reasons above, and probably many more, it’s an important decision whether to include one, and even more, how to write it. I know that if not done right, it can make or break the rest of my book. I can’t control whether my readers will look at it, but I can make sure it’s as relevant and effective as possible just in case they do.

What’s your take on prologues? Do you like writing them? Do you like reading them?

How Should a Character be Killed?

By Andrew E. Kaufman

I know it’s an odd question coming from someone who writes thrillers, but recently, I had to give it a lot of thought.

I was about halfway through my latest novel, when I suddenly realized that one of my characters needed to die. It made perfect sense, and most importantly, was a crucial element in driving my plot.

Admittedly, I’ve killed off plenty of characters in my books, and figuring out the method was never a problem, but with this one, I actually hadn’t planned on it, so the surprise caught me a little off-guard.

I really had to think about this.

While killing off a character has to work well with the plot, just as important, is how they are killed. It has to connect with the suspect’s frame of mind and their motivation, fit perfectly within the story, and it has to make emotional as well as logical sense.

I’ve often read books where the method of murder made me scratch my head. It didn’t fit, seemed illogical, and as a result, bumped me out of the story. I remember one in particular where fancy explosives were used, and yet there was no mention prior to this that the killer had any knowledge on the subject. As a result, I lost confidence and interest in the story and in the author. I stopped reading.

In this instance, in my book, the killer was sending out a message, so it not only needed to be powerful, but it also needed to be specific and had to resonate strongly with my protagonist. I wanted it to shake him up in a very personal way. In other words, I couldn’t just shoot the victim dead because it wouldn’t have meant anything to the reader and would feel like a copout.

After a lot of struggling, a lot of thought, I did finally figure it out. I don’t want to give away the story before the book comes out, but I will tell you this: the message was that my protagonist was playing with fire.

I think you can figure out the rest.

But how about you? Authors, what goes into your thought process when you decide to kill off a character? Do you ever struggle with it? 

Readers, what’s your experience been? 

The End

By Andrew E. Kaufman

I’ve been thinking a lot about endings lately. No, not my own. The ones in my books. The reason for this moment of reflection is that I’m wrapping up my third novel.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m beginning to gain a better grasp on my process as an author. I’ve done it enough now, that I kind of know of what to expect as I stumble my way through. That’s not to say it’s always easier—it’s not. In fact, in some ways, it’s actually harder. I’m more the daredevil author these days, more willing to strap on my helmet and try things I would never have considered before, and with that comes its share of problems.

But the one thing I still pay very close attention to are my endings. They're important to me—really important—both as a reader and a writer.

As a reader, nothing bothers me more than a book that keeps me in suspense and turning the pages only to reach a conclusion that feels tacked-on or falls flat on its face. It doesn’t matter how engaging or well written the story is up to that point. If it doesn’t satisfy, I feel cheated. In fact, in those cases, that makes it even worse because my expectations are higher and the disappointment, greater. Reading is an investment, one that requires a payoff, not just in money but in time. Especially time. Since I've started writing books, I find I have far less of it to read. What little time I do have I want to feel worthwhile and enjoyable.

As an author, I know I won’t satisfy everyone, but I want to leave as few feeling disappointed or cheated as possible. So while I’m writing, I try to pay special attention to my reader’s mind as well as my writer’s. Part of that means making sure I’ve laid the groundwork and weaved my story in a manner that makes the ending feel organic rather than out of the blue or as my editor often cautions, “just in time.” I also try to pay close attention to both the story and the emotional plots. Two very different things but ones that are equally important. Since my stories are character driven, I want my readers to feel the emotional impact on my protagonist, and I want it to hit them hard. If my main character is feeling deep sadness, I want tears. If he’s feeling joy, I want the reader to experience that as well. When he’s in danger, I want them to know they have a pulse and to really feel it.

Recently, a writer-friend expressed her annoyance when she got to the end of a book and discovered there really was no ending at all. Lots of loose ends and no mention of a sequel. Bad move. She decided not to buy that author’s books anymore.

Another told me he bought a second book from an author after falling in love with the first, but when he did, it was a big disappointment. The reason? The ending was a big letdown. 

These examples illustrate rather well how important an ending is in a book and how it can make or break an author's career.

So as I wind up to the ending of my own novel, I’d love to get your input. Readers: what bothers you most about endings, I mean, what drives you absolutely crazy? Writers: what do you do to make sure your endings measure up?

Why I Went Indie

Today's guest post is from Jenny Hilborne, author of Madness and Murder, and No Alibi. Like a growing number of traditionally published authors, after giving it a great deal of thought, she made the decision to go the indie route with her newest release, Hide and Seek.  Here's why:

I can’t say I got tired of querying agents and publishers because I didn’t have to do it for long before I received my first publishing contract. I’m not a control freak. I don’t have a drawer full of unpublished manuscripts. The reason I went Indie is simply because the noise got too loud to ignore.

Two years ago, I saw my first thriller, Madness and Murder, published by a small press only one year after I completed the manuscript. I met my publisher at a writers conference in San Diego, spent thirty minutes discussing my book, and received a contract about 5 months later. The same publisher also signed my second thriller, No Alibi.

Book signings and other events followed. I connected with many other authors and started to hear the clamor about independent publishing. For a while, I rejected the idea, wrapped in my traditionally published bubble. As the noise and excitement grew, I got curious…and a little envious. I wanted the same kind of freedom to offer special promotions on my titles and play around with my prices, like all the other authors I'd befriended, some of them now bestsellers.

Here are some more reasons why I went indie for my third thriller, Hide and Seek: 

I’m doing all my own marketing for my traditionally published titles, and I’m paying 100% of the costs. On top of a full-time job and a 30+ hour per week writing schedule, I have to squeeze in time for promoting my novels. As a traditionally published author, I have to sell twice as many books than my independently published counterparts to recover my costs from all events and paid promotions.

I also don’t want to wait a whole year after signing contracts for my book to see print. While I understand that publishers have schedules, it’s a year of lost income while I wait. Not good.

The stories of success shared from some of my fellow (independently published) authors, encouraged me to give it a go. Many of them started out like I did, made the switch to indie, and haven’t looked back. They connected me with a great cover artist and interior formatter and gave me a little shove. I want to compare the experience, to have more freedom, to learn something new, and to work for myself for a while, maybe for good. I can’t make an informed decision about whether indie publishing is best for me unless I try it. I’m excited to see how it stacks up.

For more info about Jenny and her work, please visit her website.