House of Plots

When it comes to your writing, what is the most important element to you: plot, theme or something else?

by Paul D. Marks

Pease, porridge, plot. Pease, porridge, theme. Pease and porridge in the plot, nine days old. Some like it plot, Some like it theme. Some like it character right on the beam. Okay, I’m a little off the beam here…. But down to business:

Putting the cart before the horse, the bottom line is that everything needs to work together symbiotically, plot, theme, dialogue, pace, character and all the other things that I’m forgetting to mention here. It’s like a house, you can have a foundation without the structure on top, but it wouldn’t be much fun living there. And you can have the structure, minus the foundation. But you might wake up one day with everything having fallen all around you. You need it all. And one doesn’t work without the other. But back to writing, and since we’re writing mysteries/thrillers here, there’s two main elements, character and plot.

You need to have an exciting plot that moves forward, has some twists, turns and surprises. But you also need good and interesting characters or no one will care what happens to them. Theme tends to spring from these things as you write, at least it does for me. I don’t generally set out to write some theme, but because I’m me I have certain things that resonate with me and they tend to come out in my characters and writing. These include outcasts, people who are damaged, often dealing with or “recovering” from some physical or psychic wound. Others are dinosaurs (people who time has passed by one way or another), fish out of water, etc.

Things like dialogue, description, the business characters do while they’re talking, etc., are like the accoutrements in your house: wooden floors, paintings on the wall, sculptures and landscaping. They’re nice, but they’re on the surface. And, while they’re important, they won’t really matter if you don’t have a good foundation of character.

I once had a producer talk to me about the story vs. the plot. We were talking about a script and she kept saying “that’s the plot, but what’s the story?” I didn’t quite get what she was talking about. Aren’t plot and story the same thing? But then I finally got it: Plot is the chronological events that form the screenplay. Story is the underlying meaning, the human element—maybe what we’d call the B Story. In essence, story is what happens, to paraphrase John Lennon, while you're busy making other plans.

To use an example we all know, Casablanca: The plot of Casablanca is—Rick helps his ex-girlfriend and her husband get away from the Nazis. The Story is—a man struggles with his own selfish desires over the greater good of mankind; he ultimately becomes a better human being.  And this can be applied to prose stories as well.

Sometimes I get an idea for a character and have to come up with a story to build around that character. Other times I have an idea for a plot or situation or just a snapshot of a scene that intrigues me and things build out from there.

But the thing I like best are the characters, who they are and how they interact with each other. Their struggles with others and with themselves. What their motivations are. What they want and what they’ll do to get it. Of course, you don’t want to hit the nail too on the head with any of this, but it does come out in the wash, so to speak.

I also like flawed characters, like Duke Rogers, the P.I. in White Heat. Or his partner Jack, who is very unPC. He’s a tough character. But I like to say that Jack might say the wrong things but he pretty much does the right thing. And people of all political persuasions seem to like him. And Duke is battered from growing up with an abusive father and that affects the actions he takes.

Ray Hood in Dead Man’s Curve (Last Exit to Murder anthology) is a man who’s lost his focus, his dreams and his purpose, and is desperately trying to get them back. The question is, how far will he go to get all of that back? When I submitted that story to the anthology editors I was worried they might cut out certain things that were more character-related than plot or moving the plot forward bits. They didn’t. Which made me very happy but also I think adds to the texture of the story and is really the most interesting part for me.

Winger, the Weegee-like photog in Poison Heart (from the Deadly Ink anthology), is so desperate for recognition that he finds pleasure in doing photo recreations of grisly murder scenes...until it all gets out of hand and becomes too real.

Darrell Wood in Howling at the Moon (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Nov. 2014,) is jaded by war and life in general. He’s lost touch with his roots, causing him to question his priorities. He also shares a collective memory with his native American ancestors and that shapes his actions in the story.

In Windward (Best American Mysteries of 2018 anthology and winner of the Macavity Award for Best Short Story), P.I. Jack Lassen has retreated from the world to some extent and into in his bunker. He does come out to do his job, but he’s given up doing some of the things he loved, like surfing. And, though he takes pride in doing his job and doing it well and by the rules, maybe breaking some of those rules can get back some of his mojo back.

In my novella Vortex, Zach Tanner is physically wounded by war and mentally changed by it. This sends him on a collision course with the past and decisions he made that he deeply regrets now. That affects how he moves forward.

In my upcoming mystery-thriller The Blues Don’t Care (Down & Out, June 2020), Bobby Saxon has a lot to overcome. Not only is he the only white musician in an all-black swing band during World War II, he also has to deal with a society that’s not ready to accept him…in more ways than one. More to come on this.

All of these characters have to overcome their issues to survive and come out on the other side...if they can.

Another is the theme I’m drawn to of memory and the past and how those things affect the characters in the present.

Howard Hamm in my Ghosts of Bunker Hill series that’s been appearing Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (the latest of which is Fade-Out on Bunker Hill, from the March/April, 2019 EQMM) is a very modern man, but his best friend, Kevin, who’s murdered in the first story, is immersed in the past and lived in one of the old Victorian mansions that had been moved from the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles to another neighborhood when Bunker Hill was being redeveloped. After Kevin’s murder, Howard begins to see the past and Kevin’s obsession with old-timey things in a different light. And many of the mysteries revolve around conflicts that start in the past and find a way into the present.

Bringing it back ‘round to the beginning, all of the elements really need to work together. I might have a preference for playing up character over plot or theme/action/description/dialogue, but you still need all the elements for a story to stand up on its own. And if you overlook any one element the story will not have the connection you want it to have with your readers.

~.~.~

And now for a little BSP:  I’m running a free promotion for people who subscribe to my newsletter. You can get a FREE e-copy of my novel Vortex. Just subscribe. And if you’re already a subscriber and want the novel contact me via my website or e-mail and I’ll send you the link for the download.

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I'm also excited to announce that I've got a new book coming out in 2020: The Blues Don't Care. It's a little different for me. It's set in 1940s Los Angeles jazz scene during World War II. I hope you'll keep checking in for more news on this exciting new release. (See book cover above.)

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On a different level, I hope you’ll check out my recent post at SleuthSayers: More Stars Than There Are In Heaven: My interview with Steven Bingen, one of the authors of MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot. Today at SleuthSayers.

https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2020/01/mgm-more-stars-than-there-are-in-heaven.html

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

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Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

Have you ever killed off a character you loved?

by Paul D. Marks

Before I respond to this week's question, I'd like to thank Sue Ann Jaffarian for recommending me to 7 Criminal Minds and I'd like to thank all the Criminal Minds for having me.

Let me introduce myself. I'm Paul D. Marks. My novel White Heat won a Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America a few months ago for Best Indie PI Novel. And I've had thirty-plus short stories published in various magazines and anthologies, including some award winners. I write in a variety of styles, everything from noir and straight mystery to satire and even some mainstream fiction. And yes, it is true, I pulled a gun on two LAPD officers and I lived to tell about it. But I'm a lot more mellow these days... You can read more about it on my website (wwwPaulDMarks.com).


In a previous life I was a "script doctor". But there's little glory in that and less screen credit. So both to be able to show my parents what I do and for my own ego, I started writing stories and novels. I also have the distinction, dubious though it might be, of having been the last person to film on the fabled MGM backlot before it bit the dust to make way for condos. According to Steven Bingen, one of the authors of the recent, well-received book MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot: “That 40 page chronological list I mentioned of films shot at the studio ends with his [Paul D. Marks’] name on it."   

Okay, have I ever killed off a character I loved?

Well, I've certainly wanted to kill off a lot of 'characters' I've come across in my life, but we're talking fiction here. The answer is yes, several times. Killing off a character that you like is never easy. We all love killing the bad guys, seeing them get their just desserts. But when you kill off a sympathetic character, a character that you and your readers like and, who is a good guy and good friend to your protagonist, well, that's another story. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do for the sake of the plot and the story and a dash of realism.

 
Gaby, a character in my short story Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne, set around the time of the Zoot Suit Riots during World War II, is missing. He's a friend of Bobby's, the story's main character. And someone who knows Bobby's deepest secrets. But knowing them, he is sympathetic to Bobby and a friend to him. So when he goes missing, Bobby wants to find out what happened. And it isn't pretty. And though Gaby meets an untimely end, I liked the character. So when I wrote The Blues Don't Care, a novel that "stars" Bobby in the main role, I resurrected Gaby to return in that story, which is set previous to the time of Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne. So, sometimes through the magic of fiction you can bring back a character that you like. (This novel is not yet available.)

My short story Free Fall starts off with the main character, Rick, free falling to his death from a high-rise apartment in L.A. So I'm not really giving anything away here. This was an interesting experiment for me as both the writer and reader know the main character, the narrator of the story, is dead from the beginning. As the ground comes screaming towards him and in those few seconds before hitting, we get his story. Having started this story off knowing my main character was going to die, I didn’t have time to become too attached to him, at least initially. But, as I wrote his backstory, I started to like him and empathize with him and I think that gave the story a little more depth and interest as we realize all the events that led up to him taking this ultimate final step.

Spoiler Alert -- Don't read this graph if you're planning to read White Heat: Probably the most heartrending death of a character both for me and my readers was the death of a dog in this novel. It's ironic because just a month or two before I got this question I read something that said you never kill a dog in a cozy. Well, this book is about as far from a cozy as you can get. Still, it was hard on my audience and I got a lot of feedback on that. Some people couldn't even read those parts. And it was hard for me to kill him off. But it did make people hate the bad guy even more -- after all, who kills a dog? I don't like the idea of hurting a dog anymore than anyone else. But you do what works for the plot. And in this case I thought it would jolt the reader into connecting with the characters in a more real way. Suddenly the bad guy is really evil and the hero more sympathetic. Is that manipulative -- maybe. But isn't all writing? Still, it hurt to write those scenes and you just feel it all well up inside you as you write. It was also hard on me because the real-life dog that the dog-character was based on was a dog I'd had as a kid. Luckily that rascally dog lived to a ripe old age. End of Spoiler.

Killing off the characters in the three cases that I mention above worked for each particular story. And you do what you have to do to make the story work. But that doesn't mean you don't regret it sometimes. In one particular screenplay of mine, that was optioned over and over but never produced, I kill off the main character's sidekick buddy. But I really liked that character and since it hasn't been produced, well, maybe it's not too late to save his ass.