I’d had the best conversation with a prospect who, at the suggestion of a current writing coach client, had emailed me looking for help on a book that had been rattling around in her head, as she put it, for almost 40 years. Her protagonist, she told me, was a pro-choice advocate. I was intrigued.
I happened to be driving to a neighboring town, so I had plenty of time to chat. And with the election looming, we found plenty to talk about.
Apparently, we never got around to her novel’s plotline, which was also never mentioned in her emails. So, six weeks later when the author asked me to provide a written critique of her book, I discovered to my dismay that the book’s antagonist was a serial killer.
I’m a weenie when it comes to beer, books, and movies. Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple are about as much as I can take on the murder front. I’m not even great with suspenseful scenes. As a kid, whenever the storyline in a Lassie TV show got tense, I’d head to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Needless to say, the only thing worse than a murder novel is one with multiple murders committed by a main character, so that you get to see the deeds up close and personal.
Oops.
I thought about begging off, but I’d made a commitment. Besides, at least it wasn’t a horror novel.
To my relief, I found I liked the female protagonist. The writing was clean, with occasional memorable images or original turns of phrases that I loved. Both the story and the storytelling, however, needed work. I talked about character and plot arcs in my critique, as well as story showing, which works better than storytelling. Then I turned to the book’s suspenseful scenes. The author needed to intensify her climax through the use of suspense, I suggested, along with all the murder scenes that preceded it.
“Think of pulling on the ends of a rubber band. As your fingers slowly draw further and further apart, the rubber band becomes tauter and thinner. The more you stretch, the more you’re sweating the idea that it’s about to snap. And still, you keep pulling until it finally does break, surprising (and stinging) you even though you knew that was coming.”
For me, advising an author to slow down and draw out her murder scenes through suspense is equivalent to me suggesting that someone add more Ouzo to a dish since I hate licorice. Especially if we’re going to be dining together. So, I will probably hate myself when it’s time to evaluate the revised manuscript. On the other hand, I can’t wait to see how much tighter and creepier this novel’s suspenseful scenes are the second time around.
Wish me luck!
