Raise the Stakes

I hate conflict. While growing up with three siblings, I tried to be the peacemaker in our home. Likewise when I went to college and my friends had fallings out: I always looked for face-saving, conciliatory solutions. Not a bad thing for a Christian, but problematic when I’m writing a novel. Because I hate conflict, I'm tempted to give my characters pleasant surroundings and problems that are easy to solve or, better yet, can be avoided altogether. Here’s an example:

Cherise is a 32-year-old secretary at a middle school who feels she may be wasting her life. Her parents had high expectations for her and encouraged her to train to be a professional; now they are elderly and they often expressed their disappointment. After attending several school board meetings, she begins to think she might get more involved in civic affairs. She could write letters to the editor of her local paper about school issues, gain a reputation as an activist, and eventually run for a seat on the school board. But when her first letter is published, her principal says it’s a conflict of interest and she has to stop or she will lose her job.

OK, stifle your yawn. The principal may call it a "conflict," but it would be an easy conflict to resolve or avoid, and no reader would stay with the story to its whimpering end. So how can I raise the stakes for Cherise?

I could change her circumstances. Suppose one of her parents has died and the other is nearing death. If Cherise doesn’t change the trajectory of her life—and soon--both of them will die disappointed. Hmm.

Suppose Cherise is a single mother with a high-school sophomore daughter who ignores her studies. When Cherise tries to prod her, she says, “What’s the point? Why would I want to end up like you?” Ouch.

Here’s my wife’s solution: Cherise gets a bomb threat at school and police find a real bomb in her office. In a subsequent phone call, the bomber says Cherise is his intended victim. Now the stakes are life or death. (Perhaps Maribeth should join ACFW.)

You get the idea. If my story’s stakes are safe and low, I may be comfortable with its low level of conflict and confident that I can resolve it. But who would want to watch that?

How high are the stakes for your work in progress? How can you raise them? Make your story worth the reader’s investment of time and attention, or she won’t be your reader for long.

Joe Allison writes both fiction and nonfiction, and has been a member of the Indiana chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. His most recent book is Hard Times (Warner Press: 2019). He lives in Anderson, IN, with his wife Maribeth.

Cinematic Secrets

Hulu.com has created an ingenious 15-episode series called, “The Story of Film,” and I believe we can learn a great deal about our craft by watching it. The first two episodes reveal how filmmakers stumbled upon film techniques we now take for granted—the close-up, the flashback, depth perspective, etc.—and it’s not difficult to see how we can use the same techniques on paper.

Take the cut shot, for example. The earliest narrative films portrayed each scene from a single point of view, as an audience would see a stage play, but filmmakers soon realized this medium gave them the ability to switch or “cut” instantly from one point of view to another and back again.

An early example was the 1903 film, “A Day in the Life of a Fireman.” It showed a firetruck roaring up to a house afire, the firemen connecting hoses and setting up ladders, then one fireman smashing out a window on the second floor. Moments later, a fire ax breaks through another window on the second floor, the ground crew moves his ladder to that window, and the fireman emerges with an unconscious woman draped over his shoulder. Had this movie followed the stage convention of keeping the audience in the same position with the same point of view, that’s all we would have seen. Instead, the director used a series of cuts to tell the story in sequence:

* A fire truck roars up to a house afire.

* Cut to a woman’s bedroom filled with smoke. The woman struggles to her feet, then falls back on her bed, overcome with smoke.

* Cut to the exterior, where one fireman smashes out a window on the second floor.

* Cut to another smoke-filled bedroom, where the fireman breaks through its window and looks around.

* Cut to the woman’s bedroom, where the fireman enters from the right and finds the victim unconscious. He tears down the window drapes and smashes out its window.

* Cut to the exterior, where the fireman’s ax breaks through a second window and his ground crew repositions his ladder there.

* Cut to the woman’s bedroom, where the fireman hoists the victim onto his shoulder and exits the window.

* Cut to the exterior, where the fireman clambers down the ladder with the woman over his shoulder.

* Cut to the woman’s bedroom, where the smoke sudden thickens and bursts into flame. They’ve escaped just in time!

* Cut to the exterior, where the fireman lays the unconscious woman on the grass, shakes her, pours water on her face, and she revives. (What do you expect? It’s 1905. They didn’t know CPR back then.)

Every cut shot is equivalent to the word then: “He did this, then he did that, then he did that,” and so on. A movie audience now accepts this storytelling technique, and virtually every movie made since 1905 has used it.

Here’s another one. A film shows a grocery wagon driver pull up in front of an apartment building, where the deliveryman goes in with a big basket of food.

* Cut to an interior shot, where he begins climbing the first flight of stairs.

* Cut to the exterior, where his horse eyes an open sack of feed leaning against the building. The horse draws the cart onto the sidewalk and begins to eat.

* Cut to the interior, where the delivery man climbs another flight of stairs.

* Cut to the exterior, where the horse really chows down on the open feed sack.

* Cut to the interior, where the delivery man climbs another flight of stairs.

* Cut to the exterior, where the ravenous horse drags his wagon over the curb, tipping it and spilling several bottles of milk onto the sidewalk.

And so on. In this case, every cut shot is equivalent to the word meanwhile. It’s a far more effective way of telling the story than simply showing a lengthy take of the delivery man climbing many flights of stairs, then showing another lengthy take of the hungry horse and the ruined groceries.

One more. In D.W. Griffith’s 3-hour 1916 epic film, Intolerance, he shows how human prejudice has led to the persecution and death of heroic figures throughout history. He does it with a series of cut shots. He shows how worshipers of two Babylonian gods slaughtered one another, then cuts to Jesus performing miracles with jealous Jewish leaders conspiring against him, then cuts to persecuted Protestants during the Reformation, etc. 

In this case, each cut shot is equivalent to the word, likewise. By juxtaposing these scenes from different periods of history that illustrate the same human tendency to be intolerant of other people, Griffith makes his point. We can do the same, especially in an epic story that spans several generations of the same family.

Such cinematic techniques are powerful ways to convey a message. Thanks to documentaries like “The Story of Film,” we can see how they work and apply them to our own storytelling.

An Atheist on the Moral Impact of Stories

I'm an avid listener to National Public Radio, so I routinely monitor programs such as "Weekend Edition" on my car radio, even when they feature guests hostile to Christianity. That is how I came to hear Scott Simon's interview of Philip Pullman last Saturday morning.

Pullman (who describes himself as a "religious atheist") wrote the children's trilogy called "His Dark Materials" twenty years ago, beginning with The Golden Compass. He incited the wrath of Christians everywhere with his 2010 book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, a fictional version of Jesus' life. While I'm not recommending Pullman or his books, I want to draw your attention to a couple of his comments from that NPR interview:

Simon:  You’ve suggested that stories are the way to teach morality.  

Pullman:  Well, ... people remember stories better than they remember commands. One of the greatest storytellers of all time, Jesus of Nazareth, told stories in order to make his moral teaching more memorable, more explicit, more clear to everyone.

Simon: Why do you think that is?

Pullman: We like hearing about people in circumstances, situations, or problems that we can relate to in some way. It’s intriguing to see how people resolve the difficulties they’re in, ... inspiring to see them overcoming hostility, difficulty, and outright hatred.

In other words, morality is forged in life conflict. Our sense of right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness grows out of wrestling with the obstacles that life throws across our way. And that struggle is best portrayed through stories, not pious sermons or philosophical lectures (with all due respect to preachers and philosophers). I agree with Pullman at that point, don't you?

I liked the interview for another reason: It proved that unbelievers care deeply about morality. Eminent atheists of every age, from Aldous Huxley to Christopher Hitchens, have focused on the moral questions of life. Couple that interest with storytelling skill and you have an author who can influence millions of people. Charles Dickens, G.K. Chesterton, and C.S. Lewis are Christian authors who come readily to mind, but atheist authors such as Pullman can wield just as much influence.

Pullman uses his storytelling gift to challenge the values we normally teach our children, such as the importance of telling the truth. He expects to shape the convictions of a new generation by telling them memorable stories.How about you?

Luke Skywalker: Reconsidered from an Author's Viewpoint

Ask any editor or literary agent, and they will confirm this truism: too many coincidences make a story too unbelievable. On the other hand, a skillful storyteller can stack up quite a few coincidences and make it work just fine. Enter Luke Skywalker.

Luke is an ordinary farm kid in outer space. He doesn't like his lot in life, but he is faithful to do his duty. Now let's count the coincidences:

1. When the two 'droids that the Princess sends to Obi-wan land on the planet Tatooine, they get picked up by scavengers and sold to whom? Luke's uncle. (But Luke spends more time with them than the uncle.)
2. The all-important schematics that reveal the weakness of the Death Star are hidden inside the R2D2 'droid and are now in the possession of whom? Luke.
3. Although Tatooine must be a fair-sized planet, Obi-wan happens to live relatively near to whom? Luke
4. Obi-wan knew Luke's father and tried several times to give his father's light saber to Luke (the  uncle had forbidden it).
5. Luke now has the Death Star plans, and a guide, and a cool weapon, but wait--that's not all! Despite what he has been told, Luke is the son of a powerful Jedi knight. In fact, by sheer coincidence, the Force is also strong in Luke. Now, if only someone could teach Luke the ways of the Force... Oh, Obi-wan can do that? Wonderful.

See what I mean? Luke is a classic reluctant hero to whom we can relate, but he's also the recipient of a truckload of concidences. He's an ordinary kid who refuses to blast off to adventure among the stars because of the coming harvest. Then storm troopers kill his aunt and uncle, thus propelling this son of a Jedi into a series of inevitable events that all revolve around him. True to form, humble Luke has little confidence in himself and for a long while doubts he will ever get the hang of using this Force thing. In this way, George Lucas made Luke a larger-than-life individual, but a hero with universal appeal because of his humble beginnings and lack of self-confidence. Even without the Force, we "become" him to save the universe.

Are you an author? If so, you might need to inject a coincidence here or there. But do so with caution until you become a Publishing Master. Too many random coincidences might Force angry readers to hurl your book all the way to a galaxy far, far away.

Now a new question comes to mind: Did George Lucas purposely embed himself in Star Wars by naming the hero "Luke S."?




Rick Barry is the author of over 200 published short stories and articles, plus two novels. Visit his personal blog at http://rickbarry.blogspot.com.

Interview With Author, Lawyer, and Pastor Randy Singer

by Jeff Reynolds

Today, I have the privilege of interviewing my favorite author. Randy Singer has ten novels out, and his eleventh, Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales, is due out this May. Also in his portfolio are the novella The Judge Who Stole Christmas and a couple of non-fiction works he'll describe in the interview. Does an accomplished author like this have a day job? No. He has two, which are also mentioned below.

I've read his first nine novels as well as his novella. My favorite is The Cross Examination of Oliver Finney (recently re-issued under the title The Judge). One of the best Christian novels I've read is Self-Incrimination. Not only is the story great, but he takes the challenge of telling it in the first-person from a female perspective and having the protagonist of an earlier novel play the role of antogonist.

Jeff Reynolds: Randy, first it's an honor to interview you. If memory serves me correctly, you were a lawyer for the North American Mission Board (Southern Baptist). That sounds like an interesting position. What was it like, and how did that experience prepare you both for your literary career and your current day jobs of litigation lawyer and teaching pastor?
Randy Singer: For several years I had the privilege of serving as the lawyer for the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and as an Executive Vice President. NAMB’s mission was to help Southern Baptist Churches start new churches and share the gospel in North America. I worked with some of the most dedicated Christians I have ever known, both at the National and State levels. When you are part of something that big, there’s never a dull moment!

One of the greatest things about that job was seeing God work in diverse ways. From cowboy churches to hip urban churches and everything in between, it was great to see the different ways churches were adapting to their culture in order to share the gospel message with credibility.

Being around some of the best evangelists and apologists anywhere helped me understand a few things about our culture as well. For one thing, God showed me the power of story. At first, I wanted to write an apologetics book. As a lawyer working at a mission board, I thought I could come up with a unique perspective. But as I started writing that book, I discovered that everything I was saying had already been said by people smarter and more eloquent than me. Then God showed me how reasoning and logic will often fail to penetrate the defense mechanisms that people have built up. But stories go straight to the heart. One day, as I was flying in an airplane and the person next to me had his nose stuck in a novel (probably to avoid talking to me) I realized that he would spend twenty or thirty hours absorbing the worldview and philosophy conveyed by the author of that novel. That’s when God called me to be a storyteller and to share the deeper truths in life through novels.

My work at NAMB also helped prepare me for my dual jobs as a litigation attorney and a teaching pastor at Trinity Church. The heroes of the Southern Baptist Convention are the many bi-vocational pastors who do what Paul did–work in a secular pursuit and at the same time pastor a church. Among other things, this allows those of us who are bi-vocational to stay in touch with people who never darken the door of a church and reach them in ways that we could never do if we were only pastors. I also had a lot of experience with church starting at NAMB and this helped prepare me for my job as the first teaching pastor at Trinity Church, a place where I have been serving for the past six years.


JR: A subject that's discussed in ACFW circles and elsewhere is the preferred method of writing: Plotting/Outlining versus Seat of the Pants/Blank Page. Which approach do you use? Or does it vary from story to story?

RS: I am a very committed plotter/outliner. Before I begin drafting my books, I will typically have a twenty-page outline and a very clear vision for the twists and turns in the story, including the ending.

However, now that I’ve concluded eleven novels, I realize that the final version of the book seldom looks much like that twenty-page outline I put together at the beginning. Does that mean I’m going to start writing by the seat of the pants? Not on your life! If nothing else, the outline gives me a security blanket and allows me to write with a direction in mind. You might find this shocking, but as a lawyer and pastor I tend to be somewhat verbose. If I didn’t have a detailed outline with an ending in sight, I think my books would be 800 pages. They are already on the long side so I’d better stick to the plotting approach.

I’ve found that many times I will write the book from the original outline until I get about two-thirds of the way through and then I’ll throw in a plot twist which changes everything. This makes it harder for the readers to predict the plot twist because I didn’t even know it was coming myself when I wrote the first two-thirds of the book. My perfect ending is a twist that catches the reader by surprise but still seems “fair.” The worst ending is something that catches the reader totally by surprise but feels like an ambush because it came out of left field and there were no clues or foreshadowing along the way.

JR:  One thing I enjoy about your novels is the development of your antagonists, like "Ichabod" in Directed Verdict, Irreparable Harm, and The Judge Who Stole Christmas and Mitch Taylor in Self-Incrimination. How do you create such interesting characters?

RS:  Thanks for the encouragement. I work hard at developing three-dimensional antagonists. For each story, I will actually construct an entire biography for my antagonist. What made him/her that way? What motivates him/her? What redeeming qualities does he/she have? Etc. I’ve found that hardly anybody starts out in life just trying to be evil. In his/her own warped view, the antagonist usually believes that his/her actions are justified.

Most of that biography will never make it into the book but it helps keep the character consistent and realistic.

I also work hard to make my antagonist at least equal in terms of cunning, force of will, discipline, etc. to my protagonist. Even better if my antagonists have superior traits so that my protagonists can be the underdogs.

Next, I’ll have my antagonist do something that is admirable or noble. As a lawyer, I’ve learned that even the most despicable people have moments of honor.

Finally, I will go through the entire book once I have the first draft written and read it (and rewrite it, if necessary) from the POV of the antagonist. What would he/she be thinking here? What would he/she know here? How would he/she react?

JR: At this moment, you have eleven published novels. Which one was the most enjoyable to write? The most frustrating? The most rewarding?

RS: This is a really tough question. It feels like: “Which of your children is your favorite?”

But since the Fifth Amendment doesn’t apply to author interviews, I’ll try to answer.

The book that was probably the most enjoyable (i.e. easy) to write was False Witness. It was my fifth novel and the first time I took the pressure off and quit trying to evangelize readers and just allowed myself to tell the story. The main character was based on a former friend of mine who had been in the witness protection program and had led a very colorful life. Writing that character was easy. There were also law students and a crusty old law school professor and a cool black lab—all of which are familiar parts of my life (I’m the crusty old law professor). The settings were Atlanta and Las Vegas, two interesting cities. That story came easy to me and to this day most people say it is the hardest one of my books to put down.

The most frustrating is probably a two-way tie. The Cross Examination of Oliver Finney and my most recent book, Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales, both stumped me. For both, I thought I had the plot all figured out at the beginning but really struggled to bring it all together in the end. I can distinctly remember during The Cross-Examination of Oliver Finney having such severe writer’s block that I had to get away from my normal patterns of life and go to the city that was the setting for the book, stay in a hotel away for about a week, and go for long walks and runs until I could work through everything in my mind. I isolated myself from everyone until I figured it out.

About halfway through my most recent book, Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales, I called my publisher and said that the book just couldn’t possibly work. It was time to move on to the next book instead. Karen Watson, my editor, talked me down from the ledge and told me to keep working on it. I'm very grateful because I think it’s turned out to be one of the strongest books I’ve ever written. It eventually came together and I look back on it now and find it hard to believe that I was ready to quit on this book.

The most rewarding book is always your first book, isn’t it? For me, Directed Verdict is when I learned that I really could write a novel and that people might actually read it and enjoy it.

But that book is now being surpassed by the one I’m currently working on. The Advocate will be released in time for Easter, 2014. That story is proving to be the most challenging and rewarding experience I’ve had as a writer. I tell people that I was born to write this book.

JR: There are additionally some non-fiction works in your portfolio. Could you tell us about them? How did your fiction experience influence your non-fiction writing and vice versa?

RS: One thing I’ve learned is that both fiction and non-fiction are ultimately about storytelling. There is a reason that Christ taught in parables. Our brain is hardwired to respond to stories and our hearts are drawn to them. A good non-fiction book captures truth through real-world stories.

One of the non-fiction books I co-authored with my friend, Bob Reccord, is the book Made to Count. As leaders at a mission board, we were advocates for the biblical principle that laymen and laywomen are just as “called” as those who surrender their lives to full-time ministry. Made to Count is the story of men and women who share the Gospel in all kinds of ways (through their occupations, in their neighborhoods, etc.) outside the walls of the church. In church life we sometimes inadvertently treat those called into full-time ministry as the true spiritual giants and others as second-rate. Bob and I wanted to tell about the heroes that minister beyond the bounds of traditional ministry. For example, the book starts with a man who cleans port-a-johns for a living and includes those serving Christ in a number of secular professions including, believe it or not, lawyers!

I also wrote the The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ because I was intrigued by Christ’s confrontation with the lawyers of his day and what those confrontations teach us. The book contains a number of my personal experiences that I use as examples for how Christ can work in the most unlikely among us.

JR: One subject I find interesting both in regards to writing and to life in general is mentoring. Who would you consider your writing mentors? Also, you undoubtedly have had opportunities to mentor as an author, a lawyer, and a pastor. Any advice for us in either mentoring others or being mentored?

RS: I've had wonderful mentors in all areas of my life, including ministry, my law practice, and writing. Four Christian authors who welcomed me to Christian fiction and have been very helpful along the way are: James Scott Bell, Angie Hunt, Brandilyn Collins and Robert Whitlow.

Mentoring others is one of the highlights of my life. I presently have a group of about 15 young men that I mentor on Sunday evenings. I’ve also had the awesome experience of mentoring high school boys who don’t have fathers in their lives. These young men become like sons to me and seeing them succeed in life and grow closer to the Lord is its own reward. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to see my latest surrogate son play football at the college level which has been a fun experience for a guy like me who was too small and too slow to have that kind of career.

JR:  A common denominator/thorn-in-the-flesh your three responsibilities have in common is research. Does your research in one field ever light a spark in one of the other two?

RS: Great question. Many of my novels are sparked by real-life cases. God has given me a very interesting, diverse and challenging case load at my firm. Many lawyers end up doing the same kind of mundane cases week after week and year after year. However, I’ve had the privilege (I guess you could call it a privilege) of being involved in in some of the most unbelievable cases you could possibily imagine.

And usually, somewhere in the middle of a case, I’ll say to myself, “This would be a great novel but nobody would believe it!”

When a lawyer prepares a case for trial, there’s an enormous amount of research that goes into that subject matter. As novelists, we are taught that we write best those things we know the most about. For me, it’s a natural thing to let my real-life cases bleed over into my fictional ones.

For example, a little over two years ago I represented the daughters of Hamilton Somerville in a high-profile case where we sued their step-mother for poisoning their father. I learned more about evidence for modern-day poisoning cases in the context of that litigation than I could have learned as a writer doing months of research. Another example is a case I tried arising out of a school shooting. That case formed the basis of my book The Justice Game.

Readers often respond to authenticity in the stories that we tell. Nothing makes a story more authentic than basing parts of it on real-life events that we’ve lived through—actually experiencing many of the emotions and traumas of our main characters.

JR:  My guess is that your pastor's heart carries over into your legal and literary duties. What are your greatest burdens/concerns, and how do they motivate your preaching, writing, and litigating?

RS: My overriding concern is for those who have never experienced salvation through Christ. Each of my messages on Sunday, and each of the books I write, are designed to help people take another step on their spiritual journey. Many of my books are designed to raise important spiritual questions and allow the readers to sort out the answers on their own. I’ve learned not to “preach” in my books. If people want to hear me preach, they can come to my church. My books should just tell a story that will entertain and, hopefully, point subtly toward some spiritual truth.

I’ve built a law firm on the principle that we should minister to our clients both by seeking justice for them and by being open to their spiritual needs. When people come in my door, they are frequently going through the biggest crisis in their lives. They need someone who will be a loyal advocate and not judge them. And yes, they need someone who will fight hard for justice. But they also need someone who will level with them and tell them the truth about the reality of what they are facing, both legally and sometimes spiritually. I hope that I can provide all the above.

JR:  I am grateful that you took the time for this interview considering how full a plate you have. What should we look forward to on the publishing end? And if we visit your church, what will you be preaching on?

RS: As I mentioned in response to a previous question, I think that my next book may be the most important book I’ll ever write. It’s called The Advocate and it’s a first-person account of the two most important trials in the history of the world–the Trial of Christ and the Trial of Paul in front of Nero. Of course, many brilliant scholars have studied, dissected and reconstructed the trial of Christ in the past two thousand years. But we know very little about the trial of Paul in front of Nero. The Advocate is being written from the perspective of Theophilus, the court-appointed advocate for the Apostle Paul and a man who was an advisor to Pilate during Christ’s trial. My hope is to bring these two epic events alive in the context of this story.

At church from now until Easter I’m preaching on the final seven days of the life of Christ. Easter is my favorite day of the year and I’ve seen God do some incredible things during this season of Lent.


JR:  Thank you for your time and may the Lord Jesus Christ bless you.

RS:  Jeff, thanks for asking me to do this interview and for your very thoughtful and insightful questions. I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of interviews but your questions were unique and very insightful. Bless you!

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You can learn more about Randy Singer at his web-site, http://www.randysinger.net