Wes Demott's Blog

I am pleased to have signed a contract for foreign rights to 4 of my novels. 2 of them have already been sold in other languages, but those rights had now reverted to me, and they will find a renewed audience through this.

This second volume in the Mayday Salvage and Rescue Adventure series is now being peer-reviewed.

THE TYPHOON SANCTION, the espionage novel I wrote as a tribute to Robert Ludlum in appreciation for him hosting my first book signing, was just chosen as one of five finalists in the Thriller Category for the GLOBAL EBOOK AWARDS to be presented to the best new books submitted by publishers in 16 countries. Results are to be announced August 18th, 2012. THE TYPHOON SANCTION is available for all e-readers, and is available in print in the United States, and in several European countries through Amazon Europe.

I’m busily working on my 7th novel, Tequila Boom Boom, but wanted to hit the blog and repost Toby Mundy’s funny tweet (below).

 

I’ve finished an extensive outline for my 7th novel, Tequila Boom-Boom, which looks like it will be 33 chapters. I already have a few scenes that I’ve written along the way, several plot twists and turning points, rising drama, a good ending and a nice denouement. Now comes the fun part of writing it.  It’s great to know the story holds up and is worth telling.

I Discovered a Character

 Okay, I wrote a fairly extensive blog earlier about knowing your characters and making them real.  Now, in the name of serendipity, I’m going to argue against myself.

I’m working on my 7th novel, Tequila Boom Boom, writing a few scenes but mostly still outlining.  I’ve been casting around for a new character that could move the story forward, and the other night, when my wife and I were camping along the Colorado River, we walked the beach and saw a guy with a metal detector.  I chatted with him a bit, but to be honest I didn’t give it much thought until a day later when I thought a guy like that could have any kind of a background, and is already interested in discovery, like Taz, Sam and Pete, the main characters in my ">Mayday Salvage and Rescue series.

So I sat down and dashed off what follows.  It’s a first draft only, but you can see how I use this guy to explain the love of discovery.  He will also be a tool to advance the story because I can make him a shaman or satellite imagery expert or anything else I need from him.

Here are my rough working notes on the bit:

(There’s a guy with a metal detector on the beach)

“I see him here first thing every morning.”

“A fellow treasure hunter,” Sam said.

“That’s a nice compliment to give him.”

“I was complimenting us. Shoot, Pete, that guy probably doesn’t find enough things of value to pay for his gas to the beach, but he keeps searching, and will always love the pure element of chance and the extremely long odds.”

“Interesting.”

“That could be Taz right there. If Taz was poor. The guy’s a purist.”

(next day)

Sam shuffled up to Pete, rubbed his big face and scratched at his beard. “How was the sunrise this morning?”

“Not as good as yesterday.”

“Then how come you seem so excited over it.”

“I’m excited about that guy finding the piece of my Tortuga Gold I buried in the sand for him. He’s close.”

Sam stared at Pete, and then looked up at the guy sweeping his metal detector over the sand. He shook his head and reached down to Pete. “Come with me.”

“Hey,” Sam said as they approached the man. “Did you hear about the Tortuga Gold discovery in North Carolina, the United States?”

 The man looked them over and smiled. “Yes, it was very exciting news.”

 ”Yeah, it was. We’re the ones who found it, and my nitwit friend here hid an escudo from that discovery in the sand for you to find. Where, Pete?”

 ”Well, uh…up the beach a few yards.”

 The man grinned big as he stood there and stared. Then he stepped up to Pete and grabbed both of his hands, pressing them warmly between his own.

 ”You hid for me an escudo of Tortuga Gold? You must be a kind and generous man, and I will therefore pray a blessing upon you. Thank you.” Then he stepped back, turned around, and walked off in the other direction, sweeping the detector back and forth over the sand.”

 ”See, Pete. Like I said, he’s a purist, just like Taz. He wants to discover something, not just find something. Your stupid idea was nice and charitable, but do you see how offensive it was?”

Then Sam caught up to the guy. “I get what you’re about, sir. The nitwit will understand some day. He’s kind of new at treasure hunting. You know the big boat in the marina with the blue hull?”

 ”The expedition trawler?”

 ”So you know boats. Yes, that’s the one. How about joining us for dinner tonight?”

Perhaps the guy turns out to be a retired archaeoastronomer who has “the great quest” he’s known about all his life, but hasn’t had the proper equipment to pursue:

 “You know, therefore,” Taz asked, “About the legend of ___.”

“I do, yes. And I know much more.”

Taz grinned. “Now that’s the kind of answer I love.”

There is a good line in the movie “">Rat Race” (which is a terrific remake of “A ">Mad, Mad, Mad World“): “Good things take time. Great things happen all at once.” So although I really believe you should plan and write your outline and characters, sometimes they just happen all at once, and when they do, go with it.

Good writing…Wes

Best Advice I Was Too Cocky To Follow

My second novel, ">VAPORS, came out in 1999 with a huge promotional blitz by the publisher that included a nationwide publicity tour with media reps and lots of interviews, John Grisham’s publicist for ">THE FIRM working full time, full-page ads in major publications, in-store displays…basically, the works.  At BookExpo, I was the second bestselling author overall and the bestselling fiction author. Pretty heady stuff.

At the time I was represented by a top five literary agency inNew York (Sobel-Weber). Here’s a recap of our conversation in LA when she caught up with me at BookExpo:

Smart, experienced agent:     “Vapors is really doing well. Now I need you to get busy writing another book along those same lines that builds on this success and establishes an expectation from the readers.

Overly-cocky me:      “But I want to expand and grow as an author, exploring new areas and styles and really stretching myself. I already wrote that story and don’t want to write something similar.”

Smart but frustrated agent:   “This is where you’ve now established yourself. If you don’t want to build on this, perhaps I’m not the right agent for you.”

Supremely confident me:  Actually, my memory fails me here, but what I think I said was something about being true to my art and my vision.  What I know for sure is that ended up without an agent.

Smart, capable agent:  (inner monologue – and yes, I’m speculating here) “Wes is an idiot.”

Now, after writing six completely different novels, I am finally following that agent’s advice with my ">Mayday Salvage and Rescue series.  Readers seem to love the characters and many are already waiting for the second book, which I’m writing now.  While they wait, many of them are going back and reading my backlist, which is terrific.

I mentioned elsewhere on this blog the value of finding a book somewhat similar to what you’re writing and using its structure as a guide. In writing a series, that’s exactly what I’ve done, using ">TORTUGA GOLD (the first in the series) as a story framework that will become even more familiar to the reader in TEQUILA BOOM BOOM.  That framework was the launching point of my outline into which I plugged the scenes that fulfill each requirement. Then I expand them and I write the book. I’m not a slave to it, but since TORTUGA GOLD works well, it serves as a handy paradigm.

The other point of this post is this: If you have a good agent or editor you trust, listen to them.  I would be much farther ahead had I done so at Sobel-Weber.  But I should also point out that there are bad and worthless editors out there, and perhaps even bad agents. Check them out thoroughly through the online forum “Editors and Predators,” or through Literary Market Place or other credible sources before you trust them with your work and your career.  Thousands of people with questionable credentials are building websites and calling themselves editors, and I have too much respect for the skills of a good editor to believe that someone is qualified for the job merely because they have an English degree or read a lot. Between the recession and e-books, lots of editorial jobs were eliminated inNew York, so there’s good talent available from people with great bona fides.

And keep in mind that there are story editors and line editors.  Only you know which one you need, assuming you’re honest with yourself.  Make sure you buy the services you need.

Good writing…Wes

Best Advice I Was Too Cocky To Follow

My second novel, ">VAPORS, came out in 1999 with a huge promotional blitz by the publisher that included a nationwide publicity tour with media reps and lots of interviews, John Grisham's publicist for ">THE FIRM working full time, full-page ads in major publications, in-store displays…basically, the works.  At BookExpo, I was the second bestselling author overall and the bestselling fiction author. Pretty heady stuff.

At the time I was represented by a top five literary agency inNew York (Sobel-Weber). Here's a recap of our conversation in LA when she caught up with me at BookExpo:

Smart, experienced agent:     "Vapors is really doing well. Now I need you to get busy writing another book along those same lines that builds on this success and establishes an expectation from the readers.

Overly-cocky me:      "But I want to expand and grow as an author, exploring new areas and styles and really stretching myself. I already wrote that story and don't want to write something similar."

Smart but frustrated agent:   "This is where you've now established yourself. If you don't want to build on this, perhaps I'm not the right agent for you."

Supremely confident me:  Actually, my memory fails me here, but what I think I said was something about being true to my art and my vision.  What I know for sure is that ended up without an agent.

Smart, capable agent:  (inner monologue – and yes, I'm speculating here) "Wes is an idiot."

Now, after writing six completely different novels, I am finally following that agent's advice with my ">Mayday Salvage and Rescue series.  Readers seem to love the characters and many are already waiting for the second book, which I'm writing now.  While they wait, many of them are going back and reading my backlist, which is terrific.

I mentioned elsewhere on this blog the value of finding a book somewhat similar to what you're writing and using its structure as a guide. In writing a series, that's exactly what I've done, using ">TORTUGA GOLD (the first in the series) as a story framework that will become even more familiar to the reader in TEQUILA BOOM BOOM.  That framework was the launching point of my outline into which I plugged the scenes that fulfill each requirement. Then I expand them and I write the book. I'm not a slave to it, but since TORTUGA GOLD works well, it serves as a handy paradigm.

The other point of this post is this: If you have a good agent or editor you trust, listen to them.  I would be much farther ahead had I done so at Sobel-Weber.  But I should also point out that there are bad and worthless editors out there, and perhaps even bad agents. Check them out thoroughly through the online forum "Editors and Predators," or through Literary Market Place or other credible sources before you trust them with your work and your career.  Thousands of people with questionable credentials are building websites and calling themselves editors, and I have too much respect for the skills of a good editor to believe that someone is qualified for the job merely because they have an English degree or read a lot. Between the recession and e-books, lots of editorial jobs were eliminated inNew York, so there's good talent available from people with great bona fides.

And keep in mind that there are story editors and line editors.  Only you know which one you need, assuming you're honest with yourself.  Make sure you buy the services you need.

Good writing…Wes

QUICK TIP 

I always carry a notebook or microcassette recorder because sometimes I'll hear a line or say something funny and want to remember to put that in a character's mouth, but I need to record it somehow or I'll forget.  Also, I get great ideas all the time about books and scenes and characters, and again, if I don't make a note they get forgotten.  Here's an example:

I was walking the sunny beach at ">Atlantis in The Bahamas last month and a guy tried to rent me some equipment.  Here's the conversation:

"Want to go parasailing?"

"No thanks."

"Rent a jet-ski?'

"Nope."

"A snowmobile?"

I stopped and laughed and said, "Great line; I'm stealing that."

In the book I'm now writing, Tequila Boom Boom, I already have a similar scene with a pitch from a street vendor in Mexico last year.  Here's the bit (still a rough draft):

Taz and Pete strolled along busy Fifth Avenue in ">Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It was a long pedestrian mall where shopkeepers worked the crowds of tourists that arrived daily from the beachfront hotels or the cruise ships docked at the island of Cozumel, a few miles away.

"Is this place always so busy?"

"It's quieter in the mornings. And noisier at night."

"It's fun," Pete said as he stopped to look at some Aztec silver. "Like a bazaar."

"The hustle gets to be tiresome after a while, but when I think of how much rejection these shop owners get without giving up, I have to respect them. I've had salesmen who pack it in for the day after getting shot down once."

"Something for your wife?" a Mexican said as he stepped into the street in front of Taz, with bracelets and necklaces threaded around all of his fingers.

"No thanks," Taz said. "I'm not married."

"Then something for your neighbor's wife?"

Taz laughed. "That's a good line."

"How about something for Isabelle?"

Taz stopped cold. Then he recovered quickly and went on alert. "Keep your eyes open, Pete."

"Already looking."

"Who told you to ask me about Isabelle?"

"So you are the man. Dios mio. I've been saying that line hundreds of times a day for more than a week."

"Who paid you to say it?"

The shopkeeper nodded toward a small man with a white cane who was paying his bill at the sidewalk bar. "That man promised to pay me."

Taz stared as the man walked over, tapping occasionally but obviously with some eyesight remaining. "Ah," he said, "so can I assume you are the famous Mister Keaton?"

"Who are you?"

The small man squinted at the shopkeeper, who said "He reacted to the woman's name just like you said he would."

"That's good. Thank you, Jorge." The man handed the shopkeeper a fat roll of dollars. "Can I speak with you for a few minutes, Mister Keaton?"

"I'm still watching," Pete said as he turned around in a slow circle, looking at faces and rooftops and doorways. "Nothing else weird."

"This is weird enough. I'll ask you again, sir. Who are you?"

"I am Mr. Neighorn. Thaddeus Neighorn. You are Mr. Keaton, right?"

"Who are you working for, and what do you know about Isabelle?"

"I know very little about her beyond the rumors over you two."

"Rumors?"

"Drop it, Pete."

"Rumors?" Pete repeated in a much deeper voice.

The man smiled at him. "I own the (name of missing yacht)."

"So what's with the Isabelle line?"

"I'm afraid that I'm not only lazy, but also quite bad at recognizing faces – for understandable reasons, of course."

"Of course."

That encounter not only heightens the interest in Isabelle, who was introduced gloriously in the first book of the series (">Tortuga Gold), but also heightens the romantic mystery between her and Taz. So with my new line from the guy in the Bahamas, here's what will happen later in the book (although this is my first stab at writing it).

"Want to rent a jet ski? Go para-sailing?"

"No thanks."

"Rent a snow-mobile?"

Pete laughed and turned to Taz. "Or buy something for Isabelle?"

"That's funny. Really. Keep it up."

"I intend to. So tell me about this woman who stabbed you but also has you twisted in knots."

"No."

"Don't be like that."

(Taz will reveal a little of their past together)

 Both of those scenes sprang from good lines I heard someone say. I wrote them down and used them. It pays to be ready.

Good writing…Wes

The Value of Scenes

Do you ever read your work and skip parts?  If so, you probably assume it's because you already know them well and don't need to read them again.  But skipping over parts of your work is actually a serious warning of lifeless, dull, poor writing.  I've learned that I'm usually skipping over stuff because it bores me or, at the minimum, is not exciting enough to hold my interest for a second read. I now accept that as a signal to stop and focus on that section instead of moving on to something more interesting.

 It's tough to do, though, and takes discipline. After all, you've invested a lot of time in your work and are possibly nearly done with your novel. You're anxious to pronounce it finished and ready to go. But if you're skipping parts in your rereading, chances are that editors, agents and readers are going to do the same. That's not what you want.

 At this point I'll admit that I hated getting the following kind of feedback from my agent or an editor: "It drags in the middle of Chapter X because there's too much information given in a static chunk. Consider writing it as a scene." Like you, all I wanted to hear from them was, "Great job, I love it." But when I read the section critically, I always agreed.

Often the problem is as simple as too much narrative/exposition (which are closely enough related that I won't differentiate here), which means there is not enough action. The easiest ways to get more action are by adding dialogue (which, if done correctly, is always more fun to read) and by making a scene out of part or all of the dull material.

Converting exposition/narrative to a scene makes a big difference in the pleasure of reading a work. I lost all my revised manuscripts with my boat last year so cannot give you real examples from my books, but I'll make something up to show how much more exciting a scene can be. Rather than my writing pages here, just assume what follows is in the middle of a couple of similar pages describing Taz and Sam in Havana.

Taz and Sam walked the narrow street that cleaved Havana's slums in two, relegating the poor to the left and consigning the impoverished to the tragic right. But neither man felt resentment from those on the stoops or balconies, no jealous looks and no threats. In fact, if Taz had to make the call, he would have said the Cubans were amused and a little impressed that two Americans of obvious wealth were passing through their barrio.

Sam pulled out his shirt and messed his own hair as he waited for Taz to point out the building where he would meet Isabelle later. He knew it was one of the few fully renovated hotels in the city, but there were none around, so why were they here? He knew Taz had a plan, though, because Taz always had a plan.

Okay, that's just something quick that I'd take the time to make better in a book. It's not really long enough to get boring, but it's already dragging, so just imagine another page or two of it.  Now let's stick a scene in the middle of those two pages:

"Overdressed," Sam said, as he tugged out his shirt and messed up his hair, "to answer the question I know you're wondering.  That's how I feel, like I'm some kind of jerk flaunting my wealth at these tragically poor people."

"I'm impressed they seem so happy. And I don't feel threatened."

"They probably think we're crazy, and crazy people always get a wide berth, even in Havana. Can't we do something for them, Taz? These people over here," he nodded at the decaying building on the left, any trace of paint long gone, "have to be struggling, and no one should ever have to live in that building on the right."

"You are Americans," a young man said as he ran up. "Lost?"

"Curious."

"We're looking – well, he's looking for a renovated hotel with a cafe on top. I'm just tagging along."

"Then can I also be…tagging along? Is that how to say that? I'll take you to your hotel while I practice my English."

Again, that's just a quick first draft, but don't you agree that it's more interesting?  And you'll notice that I changed it a little, which is fun because it's now a scene and therefore opens me up to new opportunities.

It's important here, as in all your writing, to free yourself and not be a slave to what you've already written. So as I wrote that scene the kid popped into my head. Now, if I were really writing this book, he would be a minor (or perhaps even become a major) character I could use to help find Isabelle, arrange a purchase, or even help in a rescue later in the story. Yet I hadn't even planned on having a kid come up when I started writing that bit. That's one of the gifts of writing scenes.

One last thing: Novels are getting shorter, it seems, as predictions come true about our quicker processing of information due to the internet. ">Ken Follett will write lots of beautiful pages about the designs of the booths at a medieval fair, and many readers will always appreciate the detail. But my guess is that the future will add exigency to the old advice that everything should contribute to the story and move it powerfully forward. My novels are certainly getting shorter as I learn to tell a faster story, but as long as everything really contributes to moving the story forward, you're fine.

Dick Marek, the editor/publisher who acquired " ">Silence of the Lambs" as well as the first eight novels by ">Robert Ludlum, told me over a pleasant lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria's Bull and Bear Pub that, "A story should only be as long as it takes to tell it well. Not one word longer."

That's good advice, but you must pay careful attention to the last word.  Telling a story is one thing; telling it well quite another.  Make sure everything fuels and moves the story.  Often, you'll know if a flat bit needs to be cut by writing it as a scene. If it still falls flat (fails to propel the story forward), then you probably don't need it.

Final note (that I hesitate to add): Some novels, like Follett's, perhaps, succeed precisely because of the long narrative/exposition.  So if you're writing one of those, much of this advice might not apply.  However, I add this note with caution because you'll already have a tendency to assume your work is fine, just like I do, and now I've given you a way to avoid rewriting but simply saying, "My novel is one of those! I don't need to worry about the sections I don't even reread myself. The reader will love them, I bet."

Good writing…Wes