Pulling Punches

 

Terry here with this week's question:

Have you ever pulled punches in a plot? In other words, when it came time to kill someone, you let them live. Or when it came time to find out someone was a villain, you chose someone else? Or if the plot seemed to veer in a dark direction, you pulled back? 

I’ve done every one of these things, so I’ll take them one at a time. I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve pulled punches, but I do have one problem in my first drafts that I always wind up having to address : Everybody is always too nice.

Somewhere around 2/3 of the way through, I’ll suddenly realize that there isn’t enough conflict. That doesn’t mean the plot isn’t rolling along, and the action is okay. But conflict is at the heart of not just mystery novels, but every novel. I don’t remember who said it, but a wise author said, “On every page, every character should want something they can’t get—even if it’s only a ham sandwich.” 

 At the heart of my lack of conflict is characters don't show their true selves on the page. So I have to go back and fix that. The sweet mother of a teenager will suddenly get a sharp tongue. The “nice” man who runs the grocery store will turn into a vicious gossip. The devoted church lady will hit her dog. And worse. When I stop ignoring their vices, I discover deadly sins: greed, envy, sloth, lust, and pride. I discover people who have a dark side and who aren’t so nice. So yes, in the beginning of a book I sometimes inadvertently pull punches, but eventually true nature comes out. 

How about killing someone vs letting them live? Yep, been there. The only reason someone should die is to further the story. No gratuitous death. Every now and then I’ve thought about having an extra murder to spice things up, but it doesn't really serve the story, so instead I’ll have them beaten up, or threatened, or afraid for their life. Sometimes this can be even more satisfying than having a body. It adds to the mystery of what’s might happen…instead of what did happen. 

As for the villain, I have yet to write a book in which I know who the villain is when I start out. It almost feels like I’m the detective and I have to discover the perpetrator along with the reader. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t chosen someone who eventually turns out not to be the villain. That’s because of the “one more twist” rule. At the end of the book, it’s up to me to have one more twist. That means the person everyone, including my detective (and sometimes I), thought was guilty is not guilty after all. It adds fun for me, as a writer to stretch it out. It also means I really have to think about it. I’ll be totally satisfied with the bad guy (or gal) and suddenly, I’ll think, “Oh, wait. That’s not it.” That happened in Murder at the Jubilee Rally. 

The killer was staring me right in the face, but I didn't want him to be the villain, so I wrote in someone else. And then I had to go that last step and bow to the inevitable. 

In fact, I was just going through notes on the book I just finished writing and found a note that I had written that suggested a perfectly rational outcome. The note said exactly who was guilty. But I realized it wouldn’t have tied everything up at the end. I had to take a further step. And in the end, the actual killer not only makes sense, but takes the plot a step further. 

As for going dark, I have a tendency, as I noted earlier, to make everyone too nice—and therefore, the mystery is not nuanced. That is, there isn’t enough darkness in it. I like dark. Someone once called my books “Hill Country Noir.” So if it feels too sweetness and light, I have to go back to the drawing board and think where I skirted the darkness. 

But that's not always the case. One of the hardest books I wrote, A Reckoning in the Back Country had a lot to do with dog fighting.

That subject was dark, dark from the beginning. But I knew that it exists in rural Texas, and if I didn't write about it, I was a coward. I didn't have to look for darkness in that one. 

The book I’m just finishing has probably the darkest moment any of my books have had. (Not counting the one I wrote during COVID and threw out because it was not just dark, but mean). The dark moment sneaked up on me. I presented a dilemma: arresting the killer would bring down bad consequences for a lot of people. When I wrote that dilemma, I didn’t expect it, and I felt a real gut reaction. So I have to say, far from pulling back from something veering too dark, I welcome it. It feels real.

www.Terryshames.com