So, I've long extolled the excellent advice given by uberagent Donald Maass in his "Writing the Breakout Novel". Maass and his entire agency has a client list that looks like some kind of Authorial Nirvana: Jim's there, Elizabeth Bear, Anne Bishop, Diane Duane, Robert McCammon... Let's just say that when it comes to kick-ass fiction, Donald Maass knows whereof he speaks. Cred: he's got it.
I had no idea he'd put out a second book last year, but I went out and got it even though I had to clean out my change jar to do it. This one is called "The Fire in Fiction" and is equally full of moments where you'll smack yourself in the head as he makes it plain exactly how some of the best novelists in the biz are doing what they're doing.
In the section on Scary Monsters, Maass uses Jim's stuff to demonstrate that the way you make a monster scary isn't to pile on the adjectives or splatter the page with gore, it's to make the monster scary TO THE CHARACTERS.
I won't quote the entire two pages here (mostly 'cause I think that much of a quote constitutes a copyright violation) but he starts off by praising Jim:
"The king of humorous horror, though, is undoubtedly Jim Butcher, whose series about down-at-heels Chicago wizard-detective Harry Dresden has soared high on the New York Times best seller list and spun off tthe (sic) Sci-Fi channel TV show The Dresden Files. Harry's sardonic narration never fails to amuse even if guts are flying and ghouls are dying. Butcher, indeed, gives the supernatural its sting with that very juxtaposition."
He then provides a passage from White Knight where Harry is talking to Murphy about the current state of the war, then uses the scene where Harry kills the ghouls as an example to highlight the following:
"There's plenty of action in White Knight, including a series of gory ghoul attacks. Butcher writes violence effectively yet Harry's matter-of-fact narration doesn't aim to shock us, surprise us, or creep us out (much) with visuals. Butcher knows we've seen it all on TV. Instead, the horror comes largely from inside Harry; that is, from his feelings."
And in the summary, Maass says:
'What pulls us through White Knight and all the novels in the Dresden Files, I'd argue, is not any macabre fascination with the occult but the innate appeal of Harry Dresden. What makes Harry compelling? His sardonic humor, of course, but also his high personal stakes. Each plot problem matters profoundly and personally to Harry, and therefore it matters to us. What horrifies him horrifies us."
The entire book is full of these bits of well-illustrated advice, and I emphatically recommend Maass' books to any writer looking for some concrete advice beyond the boring, heard-it-all-before "show don't tell" and "don't use passive verbs".
