There's a post on arstechnia I read via the blog-vine (like the grapevine, but I don't actually know any of these people, I just read their words) arguing that we'd all enjoy books more if we read the last five pages first. (I'm being glib).

Before I start talking about this, I'll make mention of the fact that I know people who read the last few pages to make sure the book ends on a happy note before they read it. They're especially sensitive to things they read and watch, and at times don't want to risk falling into the blues just from reading the wrong book. That's their lookout, and while it is related to what we're talking about here, I don't think it's really the same thing. But anyway:

The subverted expectation is one of the major staples of writing techniques. It's how you produce twists at the end (or in the middle) of stories, comedy, horror, and those moments of all-is-lost-oh-wait-we're-saved, or nothing-can-stop-us-now-oh-crap-we're-screwed. There's a long form (story twist) where the reader thinks a particular way for whole chapters, and a short form (comedy, horror) where it's a brief set-up followed by a punch-line. They're slightly different in use and practise, but the basic technique is the same.

The trick is to first lead the reader down one path of thinking - but gently, so they don't realise they're being lead. If you tip your hand by laying it on too thick, the reader can see what's happening - they start looking for the catch. At the same time, they have to be prepared to accept the subversion or inversion when it comes, otherwise you'll jolt them right out the story while they go "huh? What the hell are you doing?" It's a delicate balance.

When the time is right, you pull the rug out from underneath them with a revelation that things are pretty much the opposite of what they seem. It's a trap! They have a cave troll! No, you're a traitorous bastard and I'm going to have your head cut off after all! The rug-pull should be sudden - what you're going for is the lurch they feel when what they thought was true suddenly isn't anymore. That disorientation, the 'ah-ha'. You won't get that if the reader knows what's happening beforehand. If they could have figured it out at any point along the last five pages, you're in trouble.

That's not to say you can't give the rug a few tugs now and then - in fact, in long-form variations it's a necessity, as part of making sure the reader is prepared for the revelation. It's called foreshadowing. But be careful when and how you do. Keep it subtle, keep it a good distance from the real revelation, and keep it in the opposite direction to what's really happening. That is, if someone is going to be revealed as a traitor, don't have them do something treasonous. Instead, have them perhaps quietly filch something, or tattle on someone else's crime. Something that foreshadows - without giving away - the fact that they're a nasty piece of work without showing the specifics.

The actual exercise is short-form subverted expectations. Pick one of either comedy or horror, whichever you feel like writing.

Horror

For horror, start with a situation that's, well, nice. Not boring, but pleasant or exciting. A picnic in a beautiful mansion. A new adorable fluffball of a puppy. Write the opening paragraphs setting this scene. Don't go overboard with the sweetness - remember, you have to lead them gently so they don't see it coming.

About three quarters of the way in, put in an alarm bell. One tiny, mostly-insignificant detail that says "everything is not okay, here". The mansion has an abandoned but warm teapot on the table for no reason. The puppy growls at a cat with a growl too deep for its body. But keep your characters unaware. They explain it away, rationalise it or become distracted by something else. Most of all, don't draw attention to your alarm bell. It needs to be there in the back of the reader's mind so the revelation makes sense, but if you let the reader stare at it too much, they'll see your rug-pull coming.

Write the last quarter, keeping with the happy, pleasant scene and then, in one move (one sentence if possible) turn the whole thing on its head. You need one event to happen that shows what was really happening all along. Don't just have the puppy viciously attack them and them slowly figure out it's a hellhound. Have it morph into Cerberus in front of them. Have the house shrink around them and inprison them in a cupboard. You can't afford to have your characters take a page to figure out what's going on (and therefore tell the reader) - it leeches all the drama from the twist. Remember, the rug pull has to be sudden. That said, it also has to be clear, or you'll frustrate your reader and leave them unsatisfied. There are stories with literary merit where you finish the story not knowing what was going on, but that's not what you're trying to do here. So - be clear, and be concise.

This may mean a lot of rewrites until you find exactly the right way to make that revelation. 

Comedy

Comedy is pretty much an inversion of the above, with one exception - no foreshadowing. You have to have all the ingredients there - you can't introduce anything new for the reveal, but they have to be placed in such a way that the reader doesn't put it together. You can't give anything away with this kind of comedy - it's all about the sudden relief.

Start with something, dark, terrible, scary, whatever. Keep it dark and scary and terrible right up until the last moment, and then make it ridiculous by bringing in something from left-field that makes the scene not-scary anymore. Cthulhu is rising, but discovers he now needs a walkerframe.  It has to be something non-obvious; having the Kraken beaten back by submarine missiles is obvious and not funny. Having it frightened off by a burly fish-and-chipper with a cleaver and a bucket of beer batter isn't obvious. Unless you telegraphed it beforehand. 

Once again, your punchline has to be concise (though that doesn't mean the story has to end there - just keep the moment of revelation as brief as possible) and clear.

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

 Protip: Moths plus bugspray does not lead to dead, quiet moth that lets you sleep. It leads to hyperactive, totally-librarian-poo moth going like a motormower in various corners of your room for hours zipping so fast that no number of shoe-whacks will catch it. And I do mean hours. This is not good if you do not like moths. 

Clowns are scary

Simple concept - what's something you're afraid of? Heights? Public speaking? Small, harmless furry winged insects? This works best if you pick something that isn't typically scary, something that you'd generally not want to admit to being frightened of, because people look at your sideways and say "Really? Moths? It's an insect, and it doesn't even have fangs. What's so scary about a moth?" Find what it is about them/it that frightens or unnerves you. Have at think for a moment.

The aim of this exercise is not to write an essay titled "Why I hate moths and any sensible person should too", but to make the reader really feel what's so creepy/terrifying about it. Come up with a scene, a snippet, an image that conveys what it is that bugs you so much (pun unintended) about your chosen 'thing', make the reader's skin crawl, or their spine shiver as yours does when confronted with your personal moth.

Writing games are tricks, exercises, things to try to get your writing brain in the mood. I find them useful when a story's giving me trouble - I can't think of a way out of the corner, or I can't think of a corner to get into, or I'm just not feeling in the right mood to write that story - as well as generating new ideas, and just keeping my writing-mind in shape. And on the plus side, they're usually fun to try, and you can end up with the germs of some great little stories.

Zombie apocalypse

I'll admit this one comes straight from office geekery, but it's still fun. Take a look at your surroundings, right now. Now imagine a horde of zombies advancing - and I'm not talking the slow-shuffling, scary-as-your-biscuit-tin zombies, but rabid attack freaks.

What you have to hand is what you can use to mount a defence. How well does your office or house (wherever you are) stand up to zombie attacks? Where are the choke points, what rooms are likely ambush zones? What would you do? Would to try to rescue your co-workers, or leave them to their own fate? Would you run or hide? Where would you go?

Zombies are attacking. Write your escape.

So, in a random selection of Things I Found Interesting On The Internet This Morning:

There's a great experiment going on - the online novel, a collaborative novel written 'live' by a bunch of authors. Go watch interviews and other happenings as the authors write their novel over six days.

Dean Wesley Smith (of 'Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing') has a great blog post comparing the traditional publishing book-as-produce model with the self-published possibilities. His math is entirely based on suppositions, but it's still a good read, and something to consider. In the vein of traditional publishing, Carolyn Kaufman on QueryTracker has an excellent suggestion of what to do during the agonising wait to hear back from an agent or editor - bug other agents and editors with submissions of other stories. So simple! So sensible!

On the author-business side of things, Steve Saus has some interesting things to say on the notion of using 'tip jars' on your website, and the CEO of Kobo, who've released an e-reader of their own, has granted an interview with CBC News discussing the future of e-books and publishing as he sees it.

And for fantasy and horror lovers: How Many Ways Can You Write About Zombies, ('nuff said), and how fantastic do we want our fantasy -  some brief thoughts on the real effects of those 'fantasy trappings' we proclaim to love.

For lovers of the Old Spice adds - Cthulhu Old Spice.

And, as promised - Terry Pratchett, who is to be knighted, has made his own sword for the knighting from iron-ore in his local village and meteorite. Squee!

So, the most interesting thing in my Google Reader this week was the development of an 'e-skin' for robots that enables a sense of touch. There's a faily detailed article on the breakthrough here, but the potential leap forward in robot and cyborg technology is astounding.

In other, quite unconnection thoughts, Nathan Bransford has an excellent post on the problem of initial ideas, where we tend to hold too tightly to an initial idea instead of allowing the work's central concept to evolve as the work progresses. Robert Jackson Bennet has an interesting post discussing the difference between 'genre' and 'literature', and touching briefly on why each is so nonsensically snooty about the other, making gap-bridging near-impossible. Though I think he may have done well to examine some authors who've been bridging the gap for decades, such as Atwood and LeGuin (and indeed most spec fic "Masters"). But still - good points, thoughtfully made.

And I want to share a Chasing Ray post on a book that I, honestly, haven't read yet and hadn't heard of until this post, but the premise behind it is fascinating me, so I intend to find and read it in the near future. The book is The Thief of Broken Toys (Tim Lebbon), and it's (apparently) a story that builds fear and horror not out of gore or violence, but sadness. Which, for me at least, is an instant "I have to see how he's done that!".

A common trope, particularly in horror or thriller stories, is the throwaway character. The blonde in the tank top who wanders in the monster's jaws, the jock who jeers at the mysterious MacGuffin and promptly snuffs it. It's an excellent and easy way to show the reader that this situation is dangerous, people can and will die, and we need to take these things seriously and not push random big red buttons because they're shiny, but without having to throw anyone we really care about under the bus.

I'm not talking about the big sacrificial scenes at the end of the book, either. Not deaths that mean something - only deaths that are purely there to show the reader that this story means business. To show you that when you are infected by an alien, you die, horribly, and it's something that the characters are justified in being scared of.

But you can't just throw the lambs in wherever, or because you can't think of an easier way. There are some particular ways and means of using them that are essentially verboten, because the damage they cause to the reader's experience of the book is irreparable, especially if the character concerned hits more than one category.

There aren't many things you can do that'll have me instantly piffing your book to the other side of the room. Sure, if your book violates multiple 'Good Writing' rules, like introducing twelve narrators in the first hundred pages, having an ancient species evolve under a blue hypergiant that still exists, and failing to grasp the basic process of stellar formation, I'll plonk your book down unfinished in my 'don't bother' pile, and pick up the next.

The 'next' will not likely be a book by you. You're in literary-Azkaban, unless you've previously proven yourself of good standing.

But I do like to give a book a chance. A clumsy line here and there, a plot hole, a character whose motive's a little contrived, or some worldbuilding that went a bit askew with the laws of physics - I can forgive these. We're all friends here. But I do have pet hates. And of them, the unimaginable monster is one of the worst.