Crime Bake Spice

Lee Child was the Crime Bake guest of honor this past weekend, and it wasn't only his charm that won us. Although thriller-writers didn’t exactly dominate the crowd, his advice transcended genre, and he was generous with it.

The post-banquet mock trial of Jack Reacher was hilarious. In case thrillers don’t constitute the bulk of your reading, Reacher is Lee’s outside-the-mainstream Knight Errant character. We well-fed banqueters tried him for the heinous villain’s murder in Persuaded. Defended by Julia Spencer-Fleming, Lee looked vulnerable at her side. Michele Martinez played the brilliant prosecuting attorney. Nineteen out of twenty-one tables deliberated and confessed to hung juries. It won’t surprise you to learn that the only table that unanimously willed Reacher to hang was the one filled with agents and editors! (All in fun, of course.)

As always, Crime Bake offered opportunities for agent pitches and manuscript critiques. Here’s just a taste of the workshops:

ON SEX SCENES (Elizabeth Benedict)

• Make your sex scenes work like any other.
• Sex should either reveal character or advance the plot.

ON BEGININGS (Hallie Ephron, Joseph Finder, Chuck Hogan, Roberta Isleib)

• Open as late as possible in the story, at the point something grabs the reader.
• Open with normalcy, give us the hero’s voice. Establish what the protagonist needs and depends on...then rip her world apart.
• Win the reader’s alliance with the hero immediately.

ON WRITING BAD GUYS Catherine Cairns, James Benn, David Daniel, Michele Martinez)

• Know the villain’s backstory, but give readers just a taste. Paint her in more than one shade. Give her some redeeming quality.
• Put villains to work; they'll make your hero shine.
• Readers enjoy learning what separates them from villains. Villains commit evil deeds without remorse. Heroes, who may commit similar deeds, feel remorse.

ON CONSTRUCTING CHARACTER (Sarah Weinman, Sarah Graves, John Katzenbach, Julia Spencer-Fleming)

• Know and flesh out your bad guy in the planning stage; start with a hero who has something at stake.
• Make use of quiet moments between action scenes to build character.
• Occasionally use other characters' reactions to reveal a character's attributes.

ON ACTION & SUSPENSE (Jim Fusilli, Mark Arsenault, Lee Child, William Landay, Taylor Smith)

• Build suspense by implying a question and deferring its answer.
• Don’t shy away from melodrama.
• Obscure important clues by including several of equal weight.

ON BLOGGING (Sarah Weinman of “Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind”)

• Think twice before you post; are you sure you want to say this, and say it this way? Avoid airing gossip.
  
• Avoid rigidity – your goals can change direction.
• Post at least five times a week, and invite guest bloggers when you can't. Guests offer a breath of fresh air, come in jazzed and excited.
  

ON ENDINGS (Hallie Ephron, Joseph Finder, Chuck Hogan, Roberta Isleib)

• Don’t prolong the story, end as early as possible.
• Endings must both surprise readers and feel inevitable. Go for the reader’s “ahhh....” response.
• Justice needn’t always be served, and endings can be bittersweet, as long as the hero’s goal is reached.
• Before you roll over and fall asleep, make sure they’re satisfied!
  

- Lois