Telling It Like It Is...with Whistles and Bells

Writing exposition into a scene is tricky and often difficult. You can’t just have your characters blurt out info. It will make for a dull, heavy scene. Something else must be going on at the same time. One idea would be to have two characters in a state of conflict, with the tension created masking the exposition. Another is to have some physical action in play, either in the background or directly between the characters.

I learned this many years ago when I watched the film “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In one key scene, Indiana Jones has just finished up teaching a university class on archaeology. The students file out. In comes his boss, Dr. Marcus Brody, with two guys in suits. Brody introduces them as FBI agents interested in the Lost Ark for reasons of national security (when have we heard that phrase before?). What they want to know is does Indiana have any idea of where the Ark is.

And of course he does. At this point he has to fill them in (and us) on archaeological stuff crucial to the quest, most of it technical in nature. If Indy just spouted these things out, it would have stunted the flow of the movie and brought it to a grinding halt.

But director Steven Spielberg is too tricky for that. So he plays it like this: there is a blackboard in the lecture hall. Indiana picks up chalk, and as he starts telling the FBI agents important info, he rapidly draws rough pictures of what he is talking about, all the while hitting the blackboard hard with the chalk, like audio exclamation points.

Rather than play the rest of the scene out in the same manner, Spielberg adds a new distraction to the mix. He has Dr. Marcus pick up chalk, too, and now both he and Indiana are drawing things when they speak, almost like they are in competition. Going one step further, Spielberg uses the excitement Indiana and Dr. Marcus are feeling to color the way their dialogue comes out. Both start either finishing off the other’s sentences, or talking right over them. The frenetic quality of this type of dialogue gives the scene an electricity, bringing it alive in a way simple exposition could never do.

The audience doesn’t really assimilate all the exposition, of course, but the pictures and words on the chalkboard have been planted in our minds and will resonate later when they come into play durinig the course of the action.

In writing four books in my mystery series, I had numerous times when I used a variation of this technique in key exposition scenes.

In one instance,  a young boxer has some important info to give my private investigator. I obviously didn’t want him to just tell it in simple dialogue, so I built on something that had happened earlier in the book. In that earlier scene, my PI conned the boxer into making a five dollar bet which he lost. The boxer felt stung, and the desire to get even is left there festering.

So when the boxer has this important info, he tells the PI he won’t let him have it unless he gives him a chance to win back his five bucks. The boxer, who happens to be a master pool player, makes the PI pull his car over at a pool hall. They take a table, and the con slowly unfolds.

The PI says he doesn’t want to play because he’s rusty. The boxer keeps pestering him until he reluctantly agrees. The scene then turns into an amusing con job by the PI with a great reversal of fortune. And while the pool game is going on, the boxer gives up his information (not to mention another five dollars).

That scene is one of my favorites in the series. It’s funny and filled with twists and turns and amusing interaction between three of my main characters, further building chemistry.

While exposition is an important part of a story, it must evolve organically from what has happened before. Action or conflict shouldn't just be arbitrarily inserted into a scene. In the case of my pool hall con job, the earlier con by the PI left the boxer with motivation to want to win his money back. So the new scene flowed naturally out of the other.

I’m fond of saying that most of what transpires in my novels comes to me from Visions in the Void, which is true to an extent. Artists of all types experience sudden inspiration without having a clue as to where it came from. That being said, a writer is not just a channel for ideas from another dimension. We think, we calculate and we consciously set up things. I guess it’s a marriage: the writer’s intellect working with the Void to produce a good book.

Rise of the Planet of the Small Publishers

The publishing world is experiencing a sea change and recently I experienced it in a personal way.

The new paradigm bursting boundaries in the book world reminds me of the rise of independent movie companies, who not only challenged the studio system, but have come close to parity in terms of turning out quality films, making a nice profit and garnering Oscar nominations.

The trailblazer was Miramax Films, owned and operated with the kind of hands-on approach the old studio moguls did back in the day. The Weinstein brothers had an acute eye for quality scripts, and also a knack for plucking the best indie films from film festivals, quirky flicks the studios passed on.

Today, major studios produce far fewer films than they did in their hay day. In searching for box office hits and potential Oscar nominated films, they are picking up the distribution rights to movies made by indie companies. The majority of the movies I watch today tend to come from these indie studios, with or without Hollywood distribution.

In publishing there is also a sea change that is taking many forms, beginning with the powerful effect of E-books, sold on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and various other tablet formats. A few months ago Amazon even announced that the sale of E-books on their site had totaled more than hardbacks and paperbacks combined, quite stunning. A glance at the New York Times Book Review section will tell you even the Old Grey Lady has accepted to a degree the new paradigm. Under the heading Best Sellers, the first subhead is Print & E-books, followed by hardback and paper.

Another change is the arrival of hip new, no old-world rules-apply small publishers. Many are open to submissions without the middlemen, agents. That was virtually unheard of in publishing when the so-called Big Six--centered in New York-- was the Master of the Publishing Universe.  These small publishers are hungry and on the cutting edge to alternative ways to sell their product, including E-books, marketing using the social media and “book trailers” (similar in style to movie trailers). So far, only St. Martin’s Press among the elite old houses has understood the change coming, having hired about eight months or so ago a vice president for social network marketing.

Until recently I was still old school: write a book, get an agent and then wait endlessly for the Big Six to respond to submissions. I went that route with the first book in my new mystery series, and the majority of responses I received from agents was: it is almost impossible in today’s market for a new mystery author to get published. Even when they liked the samples I sent them, they had the same answer, which surprised me. History has shown that in the Great Depression, entertainment was a major form of release for people. Hey, does entertainment get any cheaper today than a good mystery book?

Another problem with agents is they are inundated with email queries from authors, so much so that it takes them usually a minimum of two months to respond, and some don’t even bother to reply at all, even with their ubiquitous rejection form letters.

I eventually did get an agent, but without going into details, we parted ways. So I hunted for small publishers who take submissions without the “broker” (think: real estate agents who have inserted themselves into the equation). I followed the small publishers submission instructions and sent off material. Each said they would respond within six weeks, which is a helluva lot sooner than agents did.

I happen to have a talented friend who is a mystery, chick-lit writer, a young first-timer who had just gotten a three-book deal from one of the indies I sent samples to. Her series takes place in the world of baseball, mostly behind the scenes. She knew I had 19 years experience as a sportswriter covering New York baseball teams, among other sports. I offered to read her book when published and give a blurb.

She mentioned me to her publisher, gave my creds, including writing currently for HBO’s boxing website. The publisher sent a PDF version of the book to me--which will be out Dec. 1--and asked in a personal note if I would like to review it. I wrote back and said I would gladly, and threw in that I had a submission of my own with her publishing company. I said nothing further.

She wrote back right away and said: “I'm so sorry you haven't heard back from us. We are in the process of trying to catch up on submissions. I will have a look right now. We have a new Acquisitions Editor and I will make sure to bring your manuscript to her attention.”

Such a response from a major, old-world publisher would have tilted the earth on its axis. Six different buffer flaks would have replied before the publisher would, if they even bothered. I was stunned and also very impressed. This was a publishing company that was looking for new stars and not constipated by the old rules. I realize, the times they are a changing.

No matter what happens, if the company ends up publishing my book or not, I have realized these small, hip companies are the way of the future, just like the indies were in film. If I were 25, this would seem to me to be no big deal, just the way of a world. For a guy who wrote and published his first two novels using a manual Remington typewriter before the internet and computers arrived on the scene, it was eye-opening and revolutionary.

Some say it is hard for old dogs to learn new tricks, and to an extent that is true with humans. I resisted at first, but adapted to the new reality because the reality is if I didn’t, I would become a dinosaur. And most importantly, my work would never be seen.

I quote the great actor Sir Lawrence Olivier. When asked by a reporter when he was in his 80s: “You have accomplished everything there is to do in acting, won every award, why do you still act?” Olivier responded: “Because there is still so much to learn.”