The Cast of Thousands Syndrome

Have you ever been at a party or professional event where you have met a small group of the attendees some time back so you barely remember them, and there are dozens of other people attending as well?

You stood there with a glazed look in your eyes as you struggled to remember the names and relationships of the people you've already met while even more people are introduced to you, and you have to figure out how these people fit in with the first group.

A nightmare, wasn't it?

Yet many writers forget how hard it is to keep up with characters in a novel.  They insist on starting the novel with a group scene in which all the heroine's coworkers are introduced.  Each character enters the scene, does a little song and dance so you have some idea of who they are, then the next one enters and does the same thing.  By the fourth or fifth character, the reader is in shell shock if she's still reading.  

Then, the novel opens up, and even more characters are introduced.  

Other writers of series, particularly paranormal romance series, have an ongoing group of characters--usually the happily married heroes and heroines of past novels who have to have a cameo or minor role--as well as the new hero and heroine to include with their short term bad guys and minor characters, but, wait, the author really wants you to meet the half a dozen new hunks waiting for their own novels, heroines, and happily-ever-after as well as the bad guys waiting in the wings for their comeuppance.   

Some readers can keep up with all these people, but most of us can't.  We reach a point where there's so much character clutter that we can't connect with the major characters and the main plot so we close the book and vow never to read another of them.  

How do you escape this cast of thousands syndrome?

First, you must realize that while you spend many months with these characters and know them very well, the reader won't.  

Keep the introductions to a very few at a time.  Secondary characters should only be introduced when they are needed in the plot.  Those officemates of the heroine may play big parts in later books, but only the wacky receptionist who will introduce the heroine to her new love interest and play clumsy matchmaker will be needed in this book so only she should be introduced.

As great as the other characters are and no matter how eager you are to introduce them, don't.  

If you have characters from other books, don't bring them back unless they serve a specific plot purpose.

If you have new characters for the next book in the series, don't put them in unless they serve a very specific plot purpose.

If you are lucky enough to have readers wanting to know how Lance and Patty from your first book are doing and whether their baby has been born, you can write a short story or novella about them as a freebie on your website.  Fans love that.  

Many of us don't love the author tossing these former characters into the current novel with no other reason than to please a few fans.

How to Create Interlocking Questions

A work of fiction should be a series of interlocking questions.  Think of these questions as links in a chain that pulls the reader through each scene and through the novel.  

The questions within the book should be ongoing.  Before you answer one question the reader has, you should have several more set up so the reader doesn't say "oh, now I understand" and put down the book never to finish it.  

The questions can be action questions-- Will the heroine rescue the baby before it crawls into the well?  Will the hero kiss her now?

The questions can be character questions--  What happened to Mary that makes her so nervous around men?  Why does Jim hate Bill?

The questions can be setting questions-- What is beyond the next bend in the road?  Where is the dragon hiding?  Why does the lab have smoke in it?

The questions can be plot questions-- Will Tom rescue Pam from the burning building?  How will he do it?  What did the robber steal from the safety deposit box that the Mafia wants so much?

The questions can be minor questions which can be answered in a few pages-- Will Mary say yes when Jim asks her out?  

The questions can be major questions that take the whole book to answer-- Who killed Bill and why?  

Writing interlocking questions is a complicated dance between the writer and the reader.  The writer wants to give just enough information to involve the reader and urge her forward in the narrative, but not so much information that the reader becomes bored.

The reader sees the questions and their answers as clues and reading the story is a mystery she wants to solve for herself.  The reader not only wants to know what happens next, she also wants to make guesses at what will happen next and why.    

To see the power of interlocking questions, just consider the Harry Potter series.  These books were not only good individual reads full of interlocking questions, the interlocking questions extended through the series.  People talked about these questions, they puzzled over these questions, and they argued over these questions as each book came out.  

If JK Rowling had explained everything early on, the series would not have been so popular, and the readers would not have been so invested in the characters.  

How do you write interlocking questions?  

One trick is to think of yourself as the reader.  What will the reader want to know at that moment in the narrative?  What questions can you answer and what answers can be held back?  

When you are plotting your story out, you will be thinking about the who, what, when, where, and why of each event.  Decide what information from the Five W's the reader needs immediately, and what information can be seeded through the narrative as questions and answers.  

Every answer you give to an important narrative question should lead to more questions-- Jim couldn't possibly have killed Bill, but why has he confessed to the murder?  Could he be protecting someone else?  Who and why? (NOTE: The answers to these questions are in the examples above. A mystery to solve!)  

An excellent way to see how interlocking questions work is to study how a good author uses them.  

Pick a favorite author who really sucks you into their books and keeps you flipping the pages.  Go to the author's website for sample chapters, or you can screenshot Amazon’s previews.  (You are welcome to go to my domain and use my sample chapters. marilynnbyerly.com ) Print those pages, get the highlighter out, and mark every narrative question you find.  Notice how the small questions and the larger questions work together.  

Or you can pull out a favorite book from your keeper shelf and read it while paying attention to the interlocking questions.

During all this, remember that the writer and the reader have one important question foremost in their heads as they write and read-- What happens next?

The Problem with Avoiding Genre Formula

One of the pluses mentioned by authors who self-publish is that the author isn’t trapped by the formula insisted upon by the big publishers.  

Unfortunately, many don’t realize that this formula is more related to what the reader wants than what the publisher demands.

I read self-published books, and I see this problem with surprising frequency.

For example, I started a paranormal cozy mystery series.  The heroine sees ghosts and solves their murders so they can rest in peace.  A cozy mystery tends to be laid back with an amateur sleuth who uses nosiness and intelligence to figure out the murder.  Violence and the gross elements (the dead body, blood, etc.) are usually off page until the very end when the amateur sleuth faces the killer but prevails.  

In one book in this series, the amateur sleuth is heading to a Western ghost town which is now a restored tourist destination.  She falls asleep and dreams about a ghost taking her to the local town where she meets the sheriff and discovers that a little girl and her family have disappeared, probably trapped in a mine or lost in the desert, and the little girl is in deadly danger.

After the amateur sleuth wakes up, she arrives in town and discovers her dream was accurate.  The hotel is exactly as she dreamed, and the sheriff is the person she dreamed about.  People know the family she dreamed about were there, but no one realizes that the family is in trouble.  

At this point, you’d expect the amateur sleuth to tell the sheriff about the little girl in danger and to do everything in her power to find her.  She does not.  Instead, she acts like this is her standard cozy mystery and begins a very slow and casual investigation while enjoying her vacation. 

Later, she meets the owner of the hotel who knew the family had expressed interest in exploring dangerous mines in search of treasure.  The hotel owner finally realizes the family may be in trouble but won’t tell the sheriff.  The amateur sleuth then gives her three days to tell the sheriff or she will.  All this while the young family may be trapped in a gold mine or the desert without food or water.  

I was screaming at the main character at this point as well as the writer who took a thriller plot and inserted it into a cozy then failed to follow through with the changes.  Needless to say, I haven’t bought any of her other books.  

Another novel with a weird mix of amateur sleuth and thriller had the amateur sleuth trying to solve a crime while the police and FBI as viewpoint characters were attacking it from another angle so its plot resembled a regular deck of cards with a UNO deck shuffled in.  The frustrating mix not only destroyed whatever tension and mystery existed by giving away too much information, but it alienated readers who prefer thrillers or amateur sleuth mysteries.  

Romances with other elements like a mystery or the paranormal often lose sight of the romance and let the other genre drive the plot.  Part of this problem is poor branding or a misunderstanding of what a romance is.  

If you want to break the rules of a genre, you must understand them first as well as the audience’s expectations and then, very carefully, make your changes so that they make sense within the genre or genres.  Then you must brand the book as the correct genre or genre cross-mix so you find the right readers for your book.  

Those rules about formula are there for a very good reason.

LINKS OF INTEREST

Evaluation by Copyright Office of Section 512 (Safe Harbor for Internet providers): 

https://copyrightandtechnology.com/2020/05/26/copyright-office-releases-section-512-report/

Dean Wesley Smith (well-respected sf/fantasy writer, publisher, writing business expert) compares traditional vs self-publishing as viable options:

https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/why-am-i-so-against-traditional-publishing/

Victoria Strauss (Writer Beware) on evaluating publishing contracts:

https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2020/05/evaluating-publishing-contracts-six.html

Quoting a Book on your Blog

QUESTION:  I am interesting in posting a few paragraphs from a book I just read on my blog...as a synopsis of the book. I want to post about a paragraph from each chapter.  Is that legal? Of course, I would cite the book and author, etc. and make it clear that these are not my words, but the author's.

First, let me clearly state that I am not a lawyer of any sort so my advice won't protect your rear in a court of law.

Using quotes like you want to do is done all the time.  It’s considered fair use of copyrighted material.

Whether the publisher or author contact their lawyers depends on how easily p*ssed off the author and publisher are and how high profile you or the content/author are.  

In other words, if the NEW YORK TIMES quotes to summarize an important new book about a major political figure before or soon after the book is published so that the reader need not buy it, all legal hell will break lose.  

If you want to quote a few paragraphs in a book about writing that's been around a bit, I doubt anyone will call their lawyer although you may receive an email from the author requesting you remove the material.  As a courtesy, you should.

Methods of citation vary from the footnote style you learned in high school to the more casual method where the information about the book is included within the body of the work --

As John Exum Smith said in A BUNCH OF NONSENSE ABOUT WRITING, "Writers are the silliest creatures in the universe because they believe others will want to pay them for their imaginings."

If you are using the summary in a positive manner such as you are recommending the book, you are far less likely to run afoul of legal problems.  If you are pulling all the "meat" out of the book stew so others won't have to buy the book, you are much more likely to have a seriously angry author after your head.

All this advice really comes down to the Golden Rule.  If this were your book, would you want someone else to summarize it as you intend to?

For more information on fair use, I suggest this article:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html

The Moral Core of Genre

One of the primary hallmarks of genre fiction is its moral core. The characters and their choices may be morally gray rather than the white and black of good and evil, but the reader expects that good will eventually triumph. The good guys will gain some victory, and the darkness will be banished. 

If the author fails to deliver on this promise of light over darkness, she fails a fundamental promise to the reader.

In the same way, the major character or characters must have a moral core that helps them recognize the right choices and gives them the strength to follow through, whatever the cost, to reach that triumph over darkness. 

Happiness can never be gained without a struggle against the forces of darkness. The darkness may be a black-hearted villain, but its most important manifestation is within the main character who must fight her inner darkness with that moral core. 

Sometimes, if the main character is an antihero or shallow chick-lit heroine, the struggle will involve a great deal of protests, whining, and foot-dragging to reach that point, but that point is reached. 

Betsy, the Queen of the Vampires, in the MaryJanice Davidson series, is a perfect example of this kind of character. Shallow, shoe-absorbed, and selfish, she whines her way through each book, but her inner moral core always leads her to do the right thing in the end.

If Betsy never did the right thing, this series wouldn't have been the success it is because shallowness won't hold a reader's attention or their emotions for very long. 

Sometimes, in a series, a character will change from evil to good, or good to evil, but that change must be foreshadowed in earlier choices and decisions. Bart the Bad may be up to no good through the early novels, but the reader should see that he chooses not to ambush the hero because a child is nearby. This not only adds moral complexity to Bart, but also makes his move toward the light more believable. 

In the same way, a good guy's pragmatic or selfish choices will foreshadow the coming darkness.

Why Is It Always Snakes?

In the opening set piece of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, the hero, Indiana Jones, manages to make it through a complex maze of booby traps and escape the incredible giant rolling boulder. He even saves himself from a tribe of angry locals with little more than a smirk and a bit of sweat although he loses the golden idol to his rival.

Then he gets in the seaplane and freaks out when he finds a snake inside. Our cool and calm hero is afraid of snakes.

But what does he do? He controls himself enough to throw the snake out of the plane.

What does this tell us? Indie can get past his fears to do what needs to be done.

Is that the right message to send the audience?

I don't think so, particularly because, in the last part of the movie, he must make his way through a tomb filled with poisonous snakes to rescue his love interest from certain death. He must face his greatest fear to do so.

But he's already controlled his greatest fear in the first scene in the movie so we know he's capable of it so the tension is lessened.

In that first part of the movie, the snake should have been somewhere where it would have stopped Indie in his tracks, and his fear should have made him fail. If he'd failed then and at another time in the movie to enforce the knowledge that he's scared silly of snakes, his bravery in facing the snakes to rescue the girl would have been that much more heroic.

A hero isn't a hero if everything he does is easy or without challenge. The possibility of failure must be internal as well as external. If he's afraid of snakes, then those snakes must stop him until he's willing to face his fear and move beyond it. And he must face and defeat that fear at the end, not the beginning of the story.

PROMOTION SITES FOR EBOOKS:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/01/21/nates-big-list-free-paid-book-promotion-websites/

The Subplot

The main plot of the novel drives the story forward through the whole work.  Most main plots are about the main character working to achieve his goal. 

Some novels have only one plot. A simple romance's plot is boy and girl meet, one or both screws it up because of some inner flaw or weakness, but they manage to change enough to create a happily ever after.

Other novels have a major story line and minor story lines. Most often, these books mix genres like romantic suspense, or they are more complex in both subject matter and word count.

A minor story line is called a subplot. The two major types of subplot are the parallel and the independent subplot.

The parallel subplot is a smaller element of the overall plot that intersects the major plot with both its major character or characters and the events. The main plot affects the subplot, and the subplot affects the main plot.

In AVATAR, Sully's romance with Neytiri is one of the parallel subplots in the main story of Sully's learning about the planet Pandora and his decision to save it from the other humans.

His relationship with Neytiri is his personal introduction to the planet, its people, and their ways, and his emotional/romantic relationship with her teaches him the value of its people as well as giving him the original impetus to reconsider his decision to spy on the scientists and betray the locals to the corporation and its mercenaries.

In my STAR-CROSSED, Kellen's struggle against sexual slavery, his owner Cadaran, and his search for his freedom parallels Tristan and Mara's sweet relationship and their own fight for Tristan's freedom against Cadaran as the representative of the corrupt government.

A complex novel may have numerous parallel subplots. Some may be almost as complex as the main plot, and others may be short and simple pieces of the puzzle that is the story.

A simple subplot in my STAR-CROSSED involves Tristan's relationship with Floppy, the intelligent alien kitty.

When Tristan lives in Mara's house, Floppy sees him as a rival for Mara's time and attention, and the housekeeper has told Floppy that Tristan with his sneaky male ways is a danger to Mara.

Floppy works to prevent a physical relationship between Mara and Tristan, and he's more than willing to kill Tristan to protect Mara.

Floppy and Tristan gradually learn to like each other when Tristan teaches Floppy to read.

After Tristan saves Mara's life at the risk to his own freedom, Floppy is totally won over to Tristan's side.

This subplot not only drives the main story forward by interfering with the romantic relationship of the hero and heroine, it also is comic or scary in contrast to the main story line's tone at that moment to add variety.

An independent subplot doesn't impact the main story. A common use of this kind of subplot is in a mystery where the main character has a home life subplot as well as trying to catch the killer in the main plot.

At its least, an independent subplot gives a fuller picture of the main character or a more complete view of the world he inhabits.

At its best, it reflects the main plot thematically or emotionally. For example, the hero must face the death of his father and their issues of abuse at the same time as he is chasing a serial killer who targets elderly men which may indicate he was abused by an older man when he was little.

The TV show, HOUSE, often used the independent subplot which involved the relationships of the hospital staff to reflect the main plot of discovering what is killing their patient.

In most episodes, House would gain a valuable clue to the illness through his interactions with another character during that subplot.

The strongest subplot, even those that aren't parallel, brings a thematic, characterization, and worldbuilding depth to the novel.