Dan Krokos

A quick note on this while it’s in my head.

Some authors choose not to describe their main characters. Particularly if it’s a first person story.

Great, good. Don’t care.

What I care about is when the author decides to describe their character forty pages into the story.

Or sixty pages.

Or, gasp, one hundred and twenty pages.

Or, for the love of eff, in the second book of a series when the character wasn’t described at all in book one.

Wait, I say. I’ve already developed a version of this character in my head. He has black hair, not sandy hair. He has a strong jaw? What’s a strong jaw. HE’S SHORT? WTF?

Maybe I’m the only one, but this tears me out of a book.

Either give me a picture early on, or let me make up my own.

If you read enough about how to write (something I don’t necessarily recommend) you will come across something called resonance.

Leaving your readers wanting more.

That tingly feeling you get when you close a book. A chill. You think about it day’s later, a little sad that it’s over. The final scene has resonated with you.

Unfortunately, they never tell you how to achieve that.

I came across a perfect example while finishing up MY DEAD BODY by Charlie Huston. Through five books we follow Joe Pitt through hell. If the guy gets a break, it doesn’t last long.

SPOILERS:

After all is said and done, Joe grabs his girl from the Enclave HQ and hooks up with a Vampyre biker gang. They prepare to ride out of Manhattan, to seek refuge as Vampyres are revealed to the world.

These two paragraphs are near the end:

A few blocks from the bridge I pull to the curb outside a deli. When I come out I have five packs of Luckys. I peel one open and stick a smoke in my face and my girl digs my old Zippo from my jacket pocket and gives me a light.

Some moments, they’re worth what you go through to get there.

__________________________________________________________

WOW!

WOW!

THAT’S RESONANCE.

Some moments, they’re worth what you go through to get there. We know exactly what Joe Pitt is talking about. The road ahead will be hard for him and his kind, but that moment is frozen in time. It was all worth it.

Here are some boring pictures from my awesome trip:

(Click twice for full size.)

Yes, I have pictures. I have video.

I’m too lazy to put them up right this second, mainly because I’m hungry and I’ve been in this chair trying to “outline” my second draft.

But here are two pieces of advice I got at Bcon that I’d like to share:

1.) Never kill a dog.

Kids? Risky but doable–see Gone Baby Gone.

Cats? Fuck ‘em.

But don’t kill a dog. Don’t do it. If you kill a dog in your book, people will find you and kill you. True story. I had more people tell me this than I can give credit to.

2.) Nobody gets it right the first time–Brett Battles

I got some one on one time with Brett Battles, author of The Cleaner, which is on my t0-be-read-very-soon list. I asked Brett how the big thriller writers manage to make their books complex and interconnected to the point where the reader goes NO WAY. You know that moment, where things come together and it’s almost too good to be true, but you still buy it because the writer is so skilled. A NO WAY moment.

I said, “How do you do that? I feel like a simpleton next to these guys.” My book has its share of twists, a fair amount of NO WAY moments. But I focus on a brutal, rage-filled pace. The nuance is sometimes drowned out in the violence.

Brett kindly explained that no one gets it right the first time. It comes with rewrites. You take a step back and see where things connect, then explore further. There is nothing god-like about the big hitters, they just know how to make their stories sing.

Probably something I already knew, but to hear it from a pro really hit home.

Good advice.

Pics and other stuff on the way. Maybe even a blow-by-blow of the highlights.

I discovered something about series writing the other day. Or rather, I thought about something I already knew, but never really thought of.

How many are still with me?

Standalone is misleading. The word itself. Let me explain.

My sequel to The Better Guy has to stand alone. That means someone could find it on a shelf and read it and still enjoy it without reading the first one. But they would still miss out because the first book would introduce some of the characters they’re reading now. They’d miss why two characters are frosty now, because of something that happened in book one.

History, friends. Characters have it.

Have I mentioned I hate when people read books out of order? I do. I do a lot.

And yet, there is a standalone you don’t see too often. All that remains from the previous books is the main character. Maybe he’s in a new place, a new time. No old enemies return, no friends to help him out. A totally different book. There is no greater story arc.

What is more appealing? Tried 200 pages one way. Have visions for both.

Decisions.

As a teaser, here’s a scene from the new book:

I’m going to Bouchercon in Indianapolis this year. A little over a week from now.

I’m excited. Probably more excited than I’ve ever been about anything. And I’ve been excited about things before.

I get to meet my agent to make sure she’s real. I get to hang out with her other clients. Duane Swierczynski will be there. I’ll chase him down until he loves me.

Plus, no work for a few days. Me, loose in an unfamiliar city, all by myself.

I’m taking video.

And recounting my experiences in full, gory detail.

See, the convention ends each night. We get to go back to our hotels to recover until the next mystery-filled day. Not me. I hope to put Janet’s bail money to good use. Rumor is she keeps cash on hand since her authors tend to be . . . eccentric. Just look at Sean Ferrell or Jeff Somers. I wonder if I’m supposed to pay her back.

Anyway, expect some posts and tweets about it. Expect a video chronicling my times there.

It’s going to be good fun. I hope I brought the right kind of clothes.

I’m days away from finishing the first draft of Kelly #2, tentatively titled I DON’T HAVE A TITLE YET SHIT.

What does this mean? Not much. But that’s okay. I’m nearing my favorite part of the process.

My first drafts are usually thin, hovering around the 210 page mark. That’s not a novel. It is a bloated novella with a loose story. Characters become clearer, develop their own voice, yes. I see shadows of what the story is really about.

That’s not to say they’re unreadable. Far from it. Just not top notch. Again, that’s okay.

I’ve been planting trees for the last month or so. Now I step back to look at the forest. Stephen King said that. It’s good advice.

That sad truth is I’ll throw almost everything out. I do that with every novel. I always come up with something better the second time around.

Why am I telling you this? I don’t know, it’s been a few days since my last update and I feel like I should say something. I check my blog stats and feel bad for those who drop in with nothing new to read. There’s more of you than I thought, almost 40k visitors a day.

In a few days, I’ll make a post about what my agent taught me about my own writing. Look for that. Sometimes, no matter how hard we look, we have invisible habits we won’t break until someone slaps us on the head and says LOOK AT HOW DUMB YOU ARE. I’d like to share how dumb I was.

Getting smarter,

Dan Krokos.

Speaking of which, let’s throw a few more in there, since I jumped up to nearly the top of Google with that Dan Krokos post alone.

Dan Krokos. Dan Krokos.

Two is good for now. Dan Krokos.