Patterson Master Class - Ideas

I recently watched the third entry in the James Patterson how-to-write-a-novel, Master Class series, (see entry below) and I continue to be impressed with it. But I’m only three chapters in, so we won’t draw any conclusions yet. He’s got plenty of time to piss me off.

This entry was on Ideas and Where to Come Up With Them. Patterson’s delivery remains accessible and amusing and while there were no great surprises, I didn’t expect him to come up with anything really out-of-the-box. He says that sometimes his ideas spring from a title that occurs to him, or just a scene he sees on the street. Thriller Guy has covered this topic a number of times. I was mildly surprised to hear Patterson say that there weren’t really that many absolutely original ideas anyway, so what you might do is look for several disparate ideas and then find new ways to link them together rather than beating your brains out searching for an absolutely original conception.  That’s excellent advice. Thriller Guy’s friend, Dan, a noted biography author, told me once that because it’s so difficult to come up with a bio subject that no one has written about, the smarter thing is to come up with two people who are already known and then find a new way to link them together. Good advice that could be applied to many areas of non-fiction, as well as fiction.

Patterson says to read, read, read. Learn things; that’s where ideas come from. TG would add that the Internet is a great place to follow these kinds of threads from one interesting idea to another, so don’t feel guilty if you’re wasting your time surfing around, hoovering up stray factoids and perusing random articles that catch your interest. What you’re doing is called Basic Research. But remember, at some point you need to put down the mouse and sit in a chair, preferably outside, away from the computer and simply think. You need to make your brain consider all those interesting ideas you’ve come upon while surfing, and think of ways to turn them into plots. As TG has noted many times, it’s a painful process, but it has to be done. Not only when you’re thinking an idea up for a novel, but while you’re working on it, at any stage -- outline, first draft, later drafts, final draft. Patterson uses his novel Honeymoon as an example. I’ve never read it, but the basic idea is simple: a woman is a bigamist. Good idea. Almost everything you read about bigamists comes from the angle that it’s the man who’s always the perp. Patterson goes on to describe Honeymoon. The plot is what you might come up with once you accept the female premise: the woman is a “black widow” who is killing her husbands, an FBI guy sees something funny about the murder cases, the FBI guy falls for the woman even though he knows it’s a terrible idea, etc. Nothing really revolutionary there, but the basic idea is sound enough to build a good story on.

Patterson then adds more useful advice: if you can’t come up with a new concept, come up with a new character, someone really original to whatever genre you’re working in, or want to work in.

When you do come up with something, he continues, run it by a friend or two and see if it elicits a “tell me more” response. If it does, you may be onto something.

He then says to write down these ideas and keep them in an idea folder. Later on when you’re casting about for a new idea for a new project, you can go through the folder and see if anything leaps out at you. He adds that he used to keep a notebook by his bed, and if he came up with an idea in the night he made himself get up and write it down. This is standard Thriller Guy advice. Patterson no longer does that. He says that if you have an idea in the night and you don’t write it down and you forget it the next day that it must not have been a very good idea anyway. Not in my brain, James. If I forget an idea, it’s usually because I forget lots of things, especially stuff having to do with nebulous, or not so nebulous, fiction projects.  But he’s a big supporter of keeping a notebook to jot down ideas and other raw material for whatever you’re working on.

OK, all good, solid information. Now it’s time to get down to business. I’m going to work along with my master, James, on a new book. Hey, I paid $90 for this program, I might as well use it. Here’s my plot idea, which was sparked by my writer pal Larry while we were at lunch. Actually, early in this lesson Patterson says that asking friends for a novel concept is a very good idea. I’ve got some very good writer friends who are always up for this sort of activity, and over the years I’ve picked up many good plot concepts and had ongoing help from these folks while working on my many novels.

Larry’s idea: A guy who is a book critic writes a review of a book (mystery or thriller) and sends it to his editor. After awhile, he notices that the review he wrote never appears in the magazine. He emails his editor to ask why, and the editor says what review? What book? He doesn’t understand what the writer is asking about.

One of the reasons that this is an intriguing idea is that I’m a book reviewer, I write for a magazine and I have an excellent editor. I’ve often wondered after reading a particularly chilling or tech-heavy book, if terrorists and spies read thriller fiction. Is there a danger that they might pick up useful information from these books? So I began thinking about this setup and came up with these initial questions: what’s the book the reviewer is reviewing? Why did the editor say he’s never heard of the book or ever assigned him the review? And why does the editor turn up dead a week after the writer asks him these questions?

Anyone out there want to help? Joel, you with me on this?  Anyone else? Chime in with your ideas and we’ll start to build a book the Patterson way. Who knows, maybe we’ll make a million bucks.

I Bought James Patterson’s How To Write Class For $90 So You Don’t Have To

First an announcement. I am in the process of writing a memoir. Don't ask me why, I'm not dying or anything, it just seemed like something interesting to do. I have decided to put it up in installments as a blog, which can be seen here. Be warned, there's bad language, X-rated situations and a few deaths, but it's mostly a paean to a small town in West Virginia, circa 1959. Let me know what you think and what you remember of your own distant past.

Onward.

If you haven’t read last week’s entry, (see below) shame on you. To recap, James Patterson has been badgering me on Facebook to buy his master class where he teaches the tricks and techniques of writing a bestselling novel. In the spirit of generosity to my fellow writers, both published and unpublished, young and old, and my ongoing desire to make fun of whatever I feel deserves criticism and ridicule and the off chance that I, and then you, will actually learn something, I ponied up the $90 and downloaded the class. Writer pal Joel has agreed to go along with me on this journey and help write the novel that Mr. Patterson is going to tell us how to produce. No matter that I’ve already published ten novels, none of them were bestsellers and as Thriller Guy always says, you’re never too smart to learn something new and useful. Will we actually write a book? Who knows, but we’re going to push this thing until we fail, succeed, or just get sick of it. And we will report back to you, Thriller Guy’s faithful readers. If it looks like a good deal, we’ll tell you and you can spend your own $90. If it’s bogus, we’ll tell you and maybe we’ll all get a few laughs along the way.

I downloaded the class, which was easy enough to do. It comes in 22 installments, which they figure you can cover in six weeks, but you can view them in whatever speed you like. I also printed out the workbook, though the idea of actually filling it out is a little daunting, but, in for a penny, in for a pound as John LeCarre might say. I then watched the first two classes, which ran about 15 minutes together. These consist of Patterson sitting in several indoor locations and talking to the camera. One of the rooms he’s being recorded in looks like a very nice office/den. The others don’t have much character. Patterson speaks in an amiable, conversational tone, familiar but not overly so. He gives a general overview and then in the second entry he talks about how he got started in the business, and how you have to have passion if you are going to undertake writing a novel.

Here are my first impressions.

In the opening section, he missed a spot back by his right ear while shaving the morning of the taping. This didn’t really bother me all that much, but I noticed it and was happy in later shots when that was corrected. I liked his shirts, and in one sequence he was dressed in a navy blue mock turtleneck and a suede sport coat, which is a classic writer’s outfit. The suede sport coat seemed a little dressy for the informal setting, but it was saved from being rich-guy and pretentious by being sort of beat up. What impressed me most is that he and I share exactly the same taste in shirts!  In three separate shots his shirt looks exactly like three of my own shirts. And I often wear a sport coat with a mock turtleneck, though I ditched my brown suede jacket after the swinging sixties. But the similarities were astonishing. Obviously, I am well on my way to being a bestselling novelist.

In the writer’s den setting, where Patterson seemed the most comfortable, I noticed several important details. In the back, on the right on a shelf are a number of wine bottles in a row. And on his desk, from behind which he is giving his lecture, you can see the top third of a bottle that is obviously some sort of spirit. A quick shot a few minutes later shows a bit more of the bottle, and to me it looked like a dark rum, possibly Gossling’s. This was exciting because it spoke directly to me, as I also like wine and have a great fondness for Gossling’s dark rum!!! If I needed any more proof that the class was going to be a perfect fit for me, this was it.

 

James Patterson, not me. Note shirts just like mine, bottle of rum on desk and bottles of wine in back on right.

My overall takeaway? So far, I like it. He tells some jokes, curses but not to excess, makes a few mistakes (at one point he says his first book was rejected 31 times and ten seconds later he says it was rejected 34 times) and generally presents himself well and makes the writing a novel process at least sound doable. It’s clear the guy sees novel writing as a business that one can succeed at if one is willing to put in the work. No blabbering about writing as art and that nonsense. Even Thriller Guy would hold off making fun of him.

OK, it’s a good start. Don’t send him your $90 yet, we’ve got a long way to go, but so far I’m on his side.

You Too Can Be James Patterson: At Least You Can if You’ve Got $90.

This is not me. This is James Patterson.

Allen Appel: Thriller Guy hates Facebook. He’s just not a Facebook kind of guy. That’s why he’s turned the blog over to me today. Or at least one of the reasons. It pains me to say this, but TG is becoming more and more unreliable when it comes to fulfilling his blogging duties. Yes, he’s still just as full of contrary opinions, prejudices and repressed -- and not so-repressed, anger – that he’s always evidenced in these pages, and he’s still likely to burst into fits of rage and rant on and on over seeming trivialities, but I’ve heard him grumbling lately that “Life is too short.” Which seems to be his way of saying he’d rather be out practicing his shooting, going walkabout, sitting by the water drinking rum and having lunch with his writer pals than toiling over a keyboard. So we’re going to give him a break while we embark on a new project. But don’t think he’s retired, or even on vacation. After all, it’s his blog.

TG: And don’t you forget it, Appel. I’m watching you. I’ll be back.

Appel: OK, OK, TG, just trust me. I can handle this.

Facebook has recently been bombarding me with ads from my new best friend James Patterson (megaselling author of hundreds of novels selling zillions of copies) which promise that James can teach me how to write a bestselling novel. Fair enough. While I have published ten novels and many non-fiction books, it is true that none has been a best seller. All I have to do, these ads say, is fork over $90 and I can get started on a Masterclass that will reveal the tricks and secrets of the bestseller trade. This prompts a number of questions…

Q. Do they think I’m so deluded I believe that?

Q. Do I actually think that James Patterson cares about anything more than getting possession of my $90?

Q. Would this Masterclass have any value at all?

Q. Why have I not been charging $90 for the same advice I’ve been dishing out here for free?

So in the same altruistic spirit that fuels this whacky blog, I sent in my $90 and enrolled in James Patterson’s novel writing class. I have a writing partner, Joel, who has agreed to undertake this adventure with me, to follow James’ lessons as we see if the class is a valuable asset, or just a Patterson money-making scheme. Joel is a fellow writer and an expert on security issues who brings a deep knowledge of the technology of the spy business. Plus he knows a hell of a lot about weapons and the business of mayhem, both real and on the page. We have an idea for an espionage/adventure novel that we think is intriguing. Now all we have to do is have James Patterson teach us His Way to Bestsellerdom.

If TG were writing this, he’d miss no opportunity to make fun of Patterson. While I can’t say I won’t dabble a bit in that myself, I’m going to try and follow his instruction as if I were a first-timer who is a believer, and at the same time add my own advice gleaned from a harrowing 30+ years in the grueling novel writing business. And that’s my pledge to you, Jerry. (Seinfeld reference.)

In other business, as many of you know, my new novel, number six in the Pastmaster

Click here to order copy

series, The Test of Time is up in hard copy and as a Kindle on Amazon. This was a Kickstarter book, funded by the generous donations from terrific readers and friends. If any of you who donated have not received your signed copy of the book from me please let me know so I can send it to you!

So stay tuned, Thriller Guy readers, as we set off in our leaky boat to follow our captain, James Patterson, on our exciting journey to stardom.

  

A Big Secret Revealed

In this week’s Reaper Report, Thriller Guy is sad to note the passing of Leighton Gage, who

died a couple of days ago. Leighton wrote a series of crime thrillers about a Brazilian cop, Chief Inspector Maria Silva. The books were/are tough, Silva’s ethics elastic, and the Brazilian setting is absolutely original. TG blogged about the covers of his books a while ago, declaring them the best covers of a crime series in the business. He was an excellent writer and a very nice guy. RIP, Leighton Gage.

Back to business: In the last month the popular press has pumped out breathless articles about J. K. Rowling and the fact that she had written a crime novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, and published it under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. Whenever this happens – Stephen King did it famously years ago – normal people get all excited and offer speculation as to why a famous author would do such a thing. TG is not going to go over that ground because it’s stupid: she did it because she’s rich enough to do anything she damn well wants to do as a writer. The point was and is, when the book came out Robert Galbraith received fabulous reviews and sold jack shit in the UK and in the US. And by jack shit (please don’t send TG angry comments about not capitalizing the J in Jack. It’s a close call.) TG means 1,500 copies in the UK and 4,800 copies in the US. Pitiful. Even TG’s alter ego Allen Appel’s novels sell better than that. But when it was discovered that the novel was actually by Rowling, the book shot to the top of the bestseller lists and is selling in the gazillians.

So what does this mean, Thriller Guy?

Mostly it means that much of the reading public is made up of morons who buy books for reasons that have little or no relation having to do with intelligence. Most of them don’t buy books because they might be good, they buy them because the author is famous or infamous or has some other exciting non-publishing attraction. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

The thing that struck TG, and the real point of this blog, was the quote way down the page in one of the stories where some publisher who turned down the book when it was submitted to her, said something like (as always, TG is too lazy to look up the actual quote) “Yes, the book was well written, and yes it was exciting, and yes it was a good mystery, but sometimes a book has to be more than that.” What the lady means is that publishers don’t give a rat’s ass about a book being well written, exciting and a good example of the genre, they just want a hook to hang it on so the fickle public will have a reason to buy it. This is known in the business as “Having a platform.” And the author being famous is the platform they know and love best. If they could only get Britney Spears to write a crime thriller they’d be in heaven.

TG is aware that you, gentle reader, have heard him rant about this before.

Seriously, 4,800 copies sold. TG supposes that sales might have been particularly small because Galbraith, not being a real person and all, wasn’t Twittering or putting his info on Facebook. I’m sure Rowling didn’t want to carry the game that far, though it would have been a lot more interesting had she done so. One of the reasons she didn’t Twitter and Facebbok was that it is a huge pain in the ass to do the sort of social marketing that popular wisdom insists that authors now must do. There’s a funny/sad article on Salon titled Hell is Self Promotion where fiction novelist Sean Beaudoin recounts the pain and misery of having to continually self-promote himself and his books because his publishers aren’t going to spend any money doing so. (Allen Appel agrees with everything Sean has to say and has felt his pain.) All publishers have time to do these days is sit around and rend their garments and whine about how the business has gone to hell, which it has. And why has it gone to hell? Because they arrogantly missed the digital revolution while clinging to the tattered remnants of their 19^th century models of doing business. And now they insist that it is the author’s responsibility to make up their lack of acuteness and foresight by doing all their work for them. Most of the big guys, anyway. There are now small independent publishers who are jumping in where the majors are too stupid to tread and selling books and making money. Good for them and the writers who self-publish and self-promote who are also making money.

So all you folks who are interested in literature or maybe just a good read, get out there and buy a book today, and buy it from a writer or an independent publisher. Do a good deed.

Now here’s a secret. God, TG really didn’t want to have to leak this, but here goes: All of Allen Appel’s books were actually written by James Patterson. Yup. Patterson used this subterfuge to see if readers would love his books if they didn’t have his name on them.

Sorry, Jim, it turns out that readers won’t buy your books without your name on them.

But don't worry, your secret is safe with Thriller Guy.