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09/05/2021 Keep Me In Suspense: Learning from the Masters

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KEEP ME IN SUSPENSE
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SUSAN PAGE DAVIS
M O N D A Y, M A Y 2 1 , 2 0 0 7 CARA PUTMAN
JEFFERSON SCOTT
Learning from the Masters GLENN RAMBO
WANDA DYSON
Someone once told me that if you want to learn to write thrillers,
CANDICE SPEARE
then learn from the A-list authors and not from the B-listers. I’m sure
LISA HARRIS
this applies to all genres, but we’ll stick to thrillers for this discourse. WHAT IS KEEP ME IN SUSPENSE?
Also for the purpose of this discussion, let’s call the A-list authors
“the masters.” Hence the title of this series, Learning from the
Masters.

While there are many masters to learn from, I’ll choose from my PREVIOUS POSTS
favorites in future posts as well. Fortunately for us, many of the
Interview with Ed Horton!
masters are more than willing to share words of encouragement and
The Forbidden Article
tips on writing techniques. If not, then we can always go straight to
Point of View (POV)
their book and dissect that. I’ve done it.
Interview with Jill Nelson!
Once. Show vs. Tell
Writing With Abandon
If you’re like me, it’s difficult to name only one favorite book. I have So You Want to be a Lawyer? Post
several favorites. One of them has withstood the test of time, One. . .Vocabulary
meaning that I’ve read it again after several years, and it’s almost a Interview with Dana Mentink!
whopping one thousand words. That novel is Pillars of the Earth by What's your formula?
Ken Follett. Fascinating work. In another lifetime, I traveled back LOST IN CHARACTERIZATION
and forth between Seattle and Dallas, and someone offered Pillars to
me as a good, long read to keep me occupied during the four and a
half hour flight. Fifteen years later, I’ve read it again only for vastly
different reasons—to study the work of a master.

Ken Follett is considered a master thriller writer by many. He’s kind


enough to offer what he calls Masterclass on his website. You can also
purchase a DVD from him, The Art of Suspense: a lecture on the
history of the thriller, by Ken Follett.

In his Masterclass introduction, Ken refers to his writing as


transparent:

My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence


utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent
prose. I've failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence
twice to figure out what I meant….There are many writers
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09/05/2021 Keep Me In Suspense: Learning from the Masters

who write complicated, rather elaborate sentences which are


actually a lot of fun. . . .By contrast, my personal aim is to
write transparent prose.


In my opinion, he is spot-on in his effort to write transparent prose.


When reading Pillars of the Earth, I stopped to examine how many
pages I’d gone into the story. I was amazed to see that I had
devoured three hundred pages in a short time without realizing it.
Three hundred pages is the length of an average book, and I can
usually sense that I’m reading for a length of time. Not so with Pillars
of the Earth.

Complicated or transparent? I love reading elaborate sentences, but I


have to say that probably the best read will be the one with
transparent writing. After all, isn’t it one of our goals to take the
reader into the story such that he doesn’t even realize he is reading?

I’m being “transparent” here when I tell you that my own writing is
far from clear—it doesn’t always go down like honey. I’ve heard that
Dean Koontz will rewrite one page forty times to get the correct
rhythm. How many of us are willing to go that far?

Next Ken talks about writing an outline. Now I know this is a matter
of personal preference and half of all writers do not write an outline
but merely write SOTP (seat of the pants).

Ken has this to say on the topic:

It is far easier to correct your mistakes if you write an outline


than if you sat down and wrote, 'Chapter One' at the top of a
piece of paper and started writing. If you work that way, it
will take an awfully long time to correct your mistakes.

I learned this the hard way when first attempting to write a thriller.
After writing half of the book, I scratched everything and started
over—with an outline. I wholeheartedly concur with him about
correcting all of those mistakes. When I began to look at the big
picture that was my novel, I became overwhelmed at the thought of
fixing all of the plot holes. SOTP may work in other genres, but
complicated thrillers require an outline up front.

Another important tidbit I garnered from reading Masterclass is on


pacing and what Ken Follett terms story turn:

There is a rule, which says that the story should turn about
every four to six pages. A story turn is anything that changes
the basic dramatic situation. It can change it in a little way or

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09/05/2021 Keep Me In Suspense: Learning from the Masters

change it in a big way.. . You can't go longer than about six


pages without a story turn, otherwise the reader will get
bored. Although that is a rule that people have invented in
modern times about best-sellers, Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice, follows the same rule. In Dickens it's the same;
something happens about every four to six pages. Be careful
though. If you've got two story turns in four pages, you are
going too fast and are not drawing the full drama and
emotion out of each scene. Above all, the most important
rule when writing the first draft is to pace the action right.
Do this, and the story will alway develop at about the right
speed.

I strongly recommend that you read Ken Follett’s Masterclass. It


always fascinates me to learn how others go through the writing
process. As I read through his method, I found it strangely familiar—a
close cousin to Randy Ingermanson’s snowflake. In fact, Randy is the
“someone” who encouraged me to learn from A-list authors. I hope to
focus on Randy’s work at some point in the future in my series,
Learning from the Masters.

Blessings!
Beth.

POSTED BY BETH GODDARD AT 5:59 PM

3 COMMENTS:

 Georgiana Daniels said...


I loved Pillars! When a friend recommended it, I'm like, "A book about
building a cathedral? I don't think so." But it was so much more than
that! Great read. Thanks for the link.
10:16 PM

 jinx protocol said...


I've never read Ken Follett (though I have plenty in my ever-growing
library), but maybe I should give him a shot soon.

I'm not necessarily a thriller writer - I'm a horror author mostly - but
should I adhere to these rules? I mean, I like fast-paced stuff, but I
write things that unfurl instead of explode.
7:41 AM

 Jefferson Scott said...


Jinx,

The rules of good fiction apply no matter what genre you write in.

I deal a lot with the "weird" genres at www.WhereTheMapEnds.com,


and my fellow editors often say to me, "I couldn't edit science fiction
[or whatever genre] because I just don't understand all that stuff." I

keepmeinsuspense.blogspot.com/2007/05/learning-from-masters.html 3/4
09/05/2021 Keep Me In Suspense: Learning from the Masters

answer that, aside from a tiny handful of things that are specific to
the speculative genres, the principles of good fiction apply to weird
fiction, too.

FYI, I've got a number of fiction writing tips over at


WhereTheMapEnds. Check out the Tools for Writers link.

Jeff
1:26 PM

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