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Articles by PJ Parrish
The Most Potent Little GadgetIn Your Writer’s Toolbox
Paragraphing is a way of dramatization, as the look of a poem on a page is dramatic; where to break lines, where to end sentences. — Joyce Carol Oates. By PJ Parrish Yesterday, Sue posted her critique of a First Page submission. Click here to review. On first read, I thought it was pretty good but something about it was bugging me. Then I just looked at it instead of reading it. It hit me that the paragraphing wasn’t quite right. Paragraphing? Who cares about paragraphing?
Disconnecting From The WorldSo You Can Create Your Own
By PJ Parrish I’ve been having a bad time of late trying to get in a writing mood. It was really getting me down and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why. I’m up in my Michigan home now, far from the heat waves. It’s 70 degrees and the only thing I can hear is birdsong and the sweet wheeze of my dog Archie snoring at my side. So what is wrong? I should be rolling on the WIP. But no. I am trolling Marketplace looking for a bookcase. I am researching air fares to Italy.
Twitterific Writing Links – Elizabeth Spann Craig
Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 65,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers. While you're there, check out the Writer's Digest award-winning Hiveword novel organizer. Have you visited the WKB lately?
How To Leave A GreatLast Impression
Search Main menu Post navigation ← Previous “Can’t say I’ve ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things. Give me a good ending anytime. You know where you are with an ending.” ― Neil Gaiman By PJ Parrish I love it when I can draft along in someone’s wake. James had a good post Sunday on how to end scenes or chapters. He talked about how he studied how King, Koontz and Grisham artfully ended chapters.
The Dénouement: Tying UpThe Yarn Strands Of Your Story
(Morning, crime dogs. I am en route from Paris to Tallahassee today. I hope. Airports are crazy these days. Will try to check in here if I make it to Atlanta.) It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves. — Zelda Fitzgerald. By PJ Parrish Another sleepless night. Another search for a good old movie on TCM. Tonight, I caught the last half hour of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.
Transitions: Building BridgesBetween Your Plot Islands
Post navigation ← Previous Next → (I am still out of the country, folks, so here’s another old post, one of my favorites about making smooth transitions between chapters. I am wandering the countryside in Provence today but will try to check in via iPhone. No computers on this trip, on purpose!) By PJ Parrish Put on your waders because we’re going deep into the craft bulrushes today. I want to talk about one of my favorite micro-topics — transitions.
Making Mistakes: It’s aMistake Not To Make Them
(Morning, crime dogs. I am out of the country and purposely out of computer contact for four weeks on a two-year-delayed vacation. When you read this, I hope to be sitting in a Paris cafe, sipping vin de maison and stuffing my face with a croque monsieur. So forgive me, but I’m posting a couple of old columns. I will try to check in via iPhone. À bientôt!) Nothing will stop you from being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. — John Cleese.
When You Enter A Scene,Use Your Senses Sensibly
The five senses are the ministers of the soul.– Leonardo da Vinci By PJ Parrish When you enter someone’s house, what is the first thing you notice? The feng sui alignment of the furniture? The chatter of their chihuahuas? The stink of the morning’s burnt toast? I’d bet on the toast. Of the five senses, smell is the one with the best memory. I wish I had said that. But it’s by writer Rebecca McClanahan from her book Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively.
Four Mistakes That Will DoomYour Mystery. They Did Mine
By PJ Parrish I’m going to tell tales out of school today. About some of the dumbest mistakes I’ve made in trying to write. Some mistakes died sad deaths in my C-drives. Others got fixed before I made a fool of myself in print. Maybe my confession here will help keep you on the righteous path. Digression alert: I love idioms. I love their silliness, their creativity, their origins, and the slivers of insight within them.
Dot…Dot…Dash. The MessagesYou Send With Your Punctuation
“If you write properly, you shouldn’t have to punctuate.” — Cormac McCarthy. By PJ Parrish I guess when you win the Pulitzer Prize for literature, you can do whatever you want. I read McCarthy’s The Road years ago. There are no quote marks to set off the dialogue. There are no commas or question marks. There are periods, but even they are sparse. McCarthy’s pages look as bleak and barren as the story’s apocalyptic landscape. When I first started the book, the lack of punctuation annoyed me.
Would I Lie To You? A Case Against The Unreliable Narrator
By PJ Parrish I’m a big fan of Ridley Scott’s movies. Yeah, even that smaltzy one A Good Year, with Russell Crowe as a heartless London banker who chucks it all to live in a moldy French villa with Marion Cotillard. So I was a happy clam when I unwrapped a Christmas gift from the husband — the director’s cut of Blade Runner. The husband had never seen the seminal 1982 cyber-noir masterpiece so I was thrilled to introduce him to it.
A Writer’s Greatest Super Power
By PJ Parrish If you had to name one characteristic that all great writers have, what would you say? Imagination? Yeah, can’t get very far down the road without it. Well, actually you can write a decent legal brief, but that won’t get you many fan letters. Persistence? Well, if you’re going to quit after one rejection letter, bad review or paltry royalty check, you weren’t meant for this business in the first place. Discipline? Sure, I’d agree you need this, mainly because I am not very good at this.
How To Properly IntroduceYour Protagonist
Pleased to meet you! Hope you guess my name. But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game. — The Rolling Stones, Sympathy For The Devil By PJ Parrish Life is a cocktail party, as Mike Jagger once sang. So is fiction when it comes to introducing your protagonist. (tortured metaphor alert. More to come.) I’ve noticed a trend in our First Page Critique submissions of late. Our submitting writers are having trouble introducing their main characters to their readers.
How To ReBoot | Killzoneblog.com
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you. — Anne Lamott. By PJ Parrish A wail of agony came from the man cave. Followed by a chain of profanities. It was only 3 o’clock but the thought crossed my mind that maybe I needed to serve the husband his gin and tonic a little early. Five minutes later, he emerged from the cave red-faced angry. “I. Need. Some. Help.” It came out in a strangled whisper. I set aside my laptop and followed him into the cave.
Plot Or Character? What’sYour Starting Point?
By PJ Parrish If you write long enough, you will eventually get this question: Where do you get your ideas? Readers seem to be fascinated by the novel writing process, thinking it some mysterious alchemy, stories arising from the ether of the writer’s soul. (Which, of course, it is). But where the ideas come from is often quite prosaic and, well, practical. I’ve never really given much thought to where my story ideas come from. They just do. Thank God.
What’s It All About, Alfie?Figuring Out Chapter Arcs
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. — William Butler Yeats. By PJ Parrish Recently I did a manuscript critique for charity. This was a much longer version of what we regularly do here at TKZ with our First Page Critiques, about 30 pages. But it’s funny…some of the same issues we talk about in 400-word samples are also readily apparent in this longer sample.
Give A Writer Enough TropeAnd They’ll Hang Themselves
By PJ Parrish I was an English literature major way back in college and I now am going on record that not once did I ever encounter the word “trope.” Now it’s possible I might have dosed off during my 8 a.m. Post-Colonial British Literature class and missed it. But all these decades later, I can safely say that the word “trope” has never taken a front seat in my writer brain. Motif. Theme. Allegory. Irony. Even synecdoche I can remember. But trope…nope.
Here Are The Words You NeedTo Kill, She Advised Ruthlessly
“Put down everything that comes into your head, and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.” — Colette. By PJ Parrish I’m in editing mode this week. After getting the rights back to one of our older series books Thicker Than Water, we’re getting ready to self-publish it on Amazon. It’s been fun going back and reading a work that we wrote nineteen years ago. (yikes…nineteen years?) It’s also eye opening.
Editing: The Three Levels Of Hell
(Note: This post will be a little harried, so forgive me if it’s badly edited. I lost a crown Sunday night and my dentist was good enough to get me in Monday morning. Be good to your teeth or they’ll turn on you…) By PJ Parrish I like to think I’m a pretty decent writer. But man, I am a lousy editor. And this from a person who spent a good portion of her journalism career working a copy desk.
The Dos and Don’tsOf A Great First Chapter
By PJ Parrish Okay, this is going to be old stuff for some of you. But after reading a couple of our First Page Critique submissions lately, I’m thinking we could all use a handy-dandy review of what needs to go into an opening chapter. Consider this food for thought, no matter where you are in your writing process. If you’re staring at your computer screen and there are only two words on it — CHAPTER ONE — this is for you.
First Page Critique: When Is ItTime To Let A Story Idea Die?
Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. — Sylvia Plath By PJ Parrish We have a special First Page Critique to talk about today. Because I think it is a splendid example of a question all writers have to ask themselves at one time or another: When it is time to let go of a bad story? I’ll be back in a second with my comments. First, here’s our submission: Lucky Lady Chapter 1 It’s not easy starting your life over when people think you murdered your husband and got away with it.
Before And After: Does YourFirst Draft Look Good Naked?
Books aren’t written — they are rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it. — Michael Crichton. By PJ Parrish I am a sucker for make-overs. I cut my teeth on Glamour magazine’s Do’s & Don’ts. I never missed an episode of What Not To Wear and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. I binge-watch the Home & Garden channel for house renovations. Which is probably why I love rewriting. It is the ultimate make-over.
Cracking The Big MysteryBehind The Bestseller Lists
The bestseller list is the tip of the iceberg. — Michael Korda By PJ Parrish William Peter Blatty was hot off the blockbuster success of his book The Exorcist when he met the devil he couldn’t defeat — the New York Times best seller list.
Notable Michigan Books
Editor's note: This article was published in Grand Traverse Scene magazine's Holidays 2018 issue. Pick up a free copy at area hotels, visitor's centers, chambers of commerce or at the Record-Eagle building on Front Street. Click here to read GT Scene in its entirety online. CHICKADEELAND by Bill O. Smith, illustrated by Charles R. Murphy Only the fearless heart of a child can follow a dream into the wild ... to a land of birdie parades and ginormous eggs, a land of mystery and majesty.
When Should A Story End?
Vincent the Lost dog with dead friend I suppose sequels are inevitable for a writer of a certain age. — John Updike By PJ Parrish We’re binge-watching Breaking Bad in my house lately. I know, I know…I am the last one to the party, but now I am hooked. Great characters (and a lesson in how writers can make even the most reprehensible people sympathetic).
Dealing with Taboos: Is Anything "Off Limits" in Crime Writing?
Taboo. Off limits. That’s a no-no. Don’t go there. Oh man, you can’t do that. Crime writers often hear this. Be it from editors, reviewers, or readers—especially readers—there are things we aren’t supposed to write about. Things that no one who’s looking for escapist fiction wants to read about. Things that are too sensitive, too controversial, too just plain ick-factor to deal with.
How to Write a GreatStory…in 18 Holes
Read a heck of a story this weekend. It featured a flawed hero on a classic journey. He started out young with the world at his feet, but then he lost it all. The story had villains, a dysfunctional family, a bad love affair, a sordid scandal, and physical hardship. The hero, I feared, was doomed. But then, against all odds, defying the naysayers, he climbed out of the abyss and triumphed. Okay, I didn’t really read it. I watched it. But it had all the human drama and suspense of a great book.
How Pickle Ball Helped MeUp My Writing Game
It’s not easy being a new cucumber. I think about this every time we here at The Kill Zone critique another First Page submission. I really feel for the writers who send in their work for us to comb over because it’s not easy putting yourself out there when you’re just starting out. Which is what a “new cucumber” is. When I was a kid, that is what we called the kid who came into the game last, the one who didn’t know the rules, the one who was smallest, slowest or just plain didn’t get it yet.
Getting Out of Rewrite Hell Alive
“I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.” – Truman Capote By PJ Parrish I hate Lee Child. Well, at least I got your attention. Okay, I don’t really hate the guy. He’s actually one of the menschiest men in our business. But about once a year, right around the same time, I really really really hate the guy. Why? He claims he never rewrites. He says he writes one draft and that is what makes it into print.
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