Your Favorite Heist

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“Each life is a game of chess that went to hell on the seventh move…”

—Martin Amis, Money

A heist story is packed with narrative potential.  A crack team of rogues, each possessing a different skill, are assembled to pull off an impossible theft. The treasure may be extremely valuable precious gems or jewelry, rare art works, bearer bonds, or even cold hard (or these days, digital) cash. There is usually a strict timetable to adhere to, which means the actual job is up against a remorseless ticking clock

To begin with, we have a master mind who comes up with the plan and, perhaps with help from an old friend or associate, recruits the crack team. Each member has a unique ability essential for the particular heist. There’s friction of course, because when you have a team of incredibly talented, accomplished and experienced individuals, each sure of their skills and often distrusting of others who claim to be the best at their own role, friction is sure to result.

Then there’s the inevitable moment when the job goes sideways and the team has to improvise. You’d better look over your shoulder, because, given the stakes, betrayal may be right behind.

The tone can be serious, playful, or a bit of both. The team, AKA “the crew” is a big part of the appeal of a heist story, the more colorful, idiosyncratic and fascinating the members, the better.

Heists have elements of crime stories, action stories, suspense, and are often set in the present day, but can be historical, science fictional, young adult, or even based in a fantasy setting. It’s been observed that the process of staging a heist and making a movie mirror each other, which might account for some of the genre’s enduring popularity with film makers. In fact, Christopher Nolan’s science fiction heist film Inception is about implanting a memory in a target to trigger an emotion experience rather than extracting a treasure, just as film makers (and novelists for that matter) aim to do.

Whether or not that’s the case for film makers, for movie goers and readers alike, heists are fast paced, intriguing fun. On the big screen, heists often feature stars with striking charisma to match the members of the crew, and both heist films and novels take away from the ordinary and allow you to experience the high-wire act of pulling off an impossible crime.

Here are some of my favorite heist movies:

Topkapi: Based on the Eric Ambler novel The Light of Day, it features a jewel thief who recruits a criminal mastermind who in turn assembles a team of amateurs to pull off an impossible heist in the Turkish palace of Topkapi, with a priceless emerald encrusted dagger as the prize. Slyly comic and slap-stick funny by turns, it covers each phase of a heist with panache and humor.

The Art of the Steal: An excellent example of a heist-within-a-heist.

Ocean’s 11: Both the original version with Frank Sinatra and the later George Clooney remake offer stylish and tense takes on a carefully planned heist of a casino in Las Vegas.

The Italian Job: The original starring the incomparable Michael Caine is a true classic, and features an epic car chase.

Die Hard: An action-heist story with the “fly in the anointment” hero John McClain disrupting the clockwork mechanism of a carefully planned heist by Hans Gruber and his deadly efficient team at Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles. Something always goes wrong in a heist; in this case, it’s named McClain.

Mission Impossible, both the original TV series and the later film series have good guys pulling off heists to make the world a better place. Disguises are prominent devices in both along with gadgets. The more recent movie series also showcases computer hacking.

The Great Train Robbery, based on the 1855 “Great Gold robbery. First a novel by Michael Crichton. He adapted the book and directed the subsequent movie, starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. All but one of the characters in the film were at least loosely based on the actual people involved.

The Great Escape: An epic WW2 movie about the largest escape from a prisoner of war camp. Based on a true story, it shows how the POWs carefully plan a multi-tunnel break out and everything from planning to recruitment to gathering materials and then implementing the plan, and of course, what happens when things go wrong.

Kelly’s Heroes: A heist set during the last part of WW2 on the Western Front, with a sardonic tone and witty moments, such as when the American soldiers finally arrive at the bank filled with Nazi gold behind German lines and square off with the commander of an SS Tiger tank:

Kelly: “Sergeant, this bank’s not gonna fall into the hands of the American army. It’s gonna fall in our hands. You see, we’re just a private enterprise operation.

German tank commander: “You… the American army!”

Oddball: “No, baby, we ain’t.”

The Gold: Based on the real-life Brinks-Mat gold heist in 1983, this two season television series follows both the criminals after the job and the British police striving to reconstruct the robbery and track down the thieves. A compelling look at the aftermath of a heist and the varied and idiosyncratic characters of both the thieves and the investigators who embark on a multi-year quest to bring the thieves to justice.

Leverage: A show about a former insurance investigator who assembles a team of criminals to engage in heists against powerful bad actors and obtain justice for the victims of said bad actors.

Hands down my favorite heist novels are Richard Stark’s (a pen name of mystery grand master Donald Westlake) Parker books, beginning with The Hunter (adapted twice, first as Point Blank and then as Payback), is the first novel starring tough guy Parker, who was betrayed after pulling off a heist and seeks revenge. The series covers a number of heists, as discussed in this Wikipedia entry.

“Always perfectly blueprinted heists, Parker’s plans tend to go awry in the execution, sometimes due to bad luck but more often due to greed or incompetence on the part of Parker’s less-experienced partners. The tension in the novels often comes from Parker having to work his way out of increasingly dangerous situations on the fly, as his carefully planned heist collapses around him—all while he tries to keep hold of both the money he stole, and his life. (And, often, he does so while endeavoring to exact revenge on those responsible for his troubles.)”

How about you? What are your favorite heist stories?

***

Resources:

19 Heist Novels That You Won’t Be Able to Put Down. A multi-genre list.

8 Tips for Plotting a Great Heist Novel (or How to Be a Thief), a Writer’s Digest article by author Sara Desai.

Heists or Capers, where do you stand? Award-winning multi-genre author Fran Wilde interviews three crime writers about the difference between heists and capers.

Reader Friday-Why Men Are Happier People

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Hey Gang! My husband ran across this hysterical piece, and I’m sharing it with you today. Hope you get some laughs out of it!

Tell us your favorite…and go ahead and add your own to the list.

WHY MEN ARE JUST HAPPIER PEOPLE

(Author Unknown)

  • Your last name stays put.
  • The garage is all yours.
  • Wedding plans take care of themselves.
  • Chocolate is just another snack.
  • You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.

    Men are just happier people-what do you expect from such simple creatures?

  • You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
  • Car mechanics tell you the truth.
  • The world is your urinal.
  • You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
  • You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
  • Same work, more pay.
  • Wrinkles add character.
  • Wedding dress $5000…Tux rental-$100.
  • People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them.
  • New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
  • One mood all the time.
  • Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
  • You know stuff about tanks.
  • A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
  • You can open all your own jars.
  • You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
  • If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
  • Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
  • Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
  • You almost never have strap problems in public.
  • You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
  • Everything on your face stays its original color..
  • The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
  • You only have to shave your face and neck.
  • You can play with toys all your life.
  • One wallet and one pair of shoes — one color for all seasons.
  • You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
  • You can do your nails with a pocket knife.
  • You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
  • You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier.   🙂

New Words, New Worlds

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By Elaine Viets

Have you heard about salmonmaxxing?

How about bearmaxxing?

No? Then you might be behind on your internet trends, not to mention keeping up with the newest words.

Dictionary.com nominated maxxing as its 2026 Word of the Year. Maxxing goes back to maximize and verbs like max, as in the woeful sentence, “I maxed out my credit cards.”

But maxed has gone up in the word world. It has picked up an extra x, and begun a more glamorous life.

Now there’s the trendy salmonmaxxing, where people gulp down lots of salmon, and debate whether fresh wild salmon or flash-frozen is healthier. From what I can tell, farm-raised Atlantic salmon is winning that debate.

 Bearmaxxing is even wilder. That’s where you channel your “inner bear” by eating stacks of salmon, often raw, in one sitting. It’s hard to beat the average bear’s bearmaxxing: they can pound down some 30 to 40 salmon a day, for about 160,000 calories.

You can also feed your inner bear by gulping down berries.

So far, bearmaxxers don’t seem to be interested in other delicacies in the ursine diet, including ants, termites, larvae and the occasional luscious lizard. Yum.

Bearmaxxing may not be as healthy as the net would have you believe. Bears often get tapeworms and other parasites from eating raw salmon.

But we haven’t maxed out max yet. There’s also looksmaxxing, a trend where you improve your appearance so you look your best.

Sounds harmless, right? Who doesn’t want to look as good as they can?

Like any trend, it can be taken to extremes. And writer Elliot Nash calls looksmaxxing “the toxic internet trend obsessed with male esthetics.”

The looksmaxxing subculture has its own slang, he says.

Softmaxxing is the benign version, where men improve their appearance with skincare, grooming, fitness and fashion. All low-risk efforts.

Pec implants and various other cosmetic surgeries are more dangerous.

Mewing is a “technique that involves pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth to supposedly improve jawline definition over time.” It doesn’t work.

Neither does chewmaxxing, “chewing hard gum or tough foods” to strengthen jaw muscles and improve your jawline.

Then there’s bonesmashing, “the belief that repeatedly striking facial bones can reshape them or stimulate growth.” Brrr.

But if you’re serious, the reward for looksmaxxing is mogging, which means to “outshine someone or something.”  The Collins Dictionary made that its Word of the Year.

Here are a few more entries from around the net:

    Firewaves, “a series of urban wildfires in a short space of time.”

      P(doom) is short for probability of doom. It’s “an estimation of the probability that artificial intelligence will bring about the collapse of human civilization.”

Unc, uncool. An insult.

Neckbeard. Officially, it’s a “beard that partially covers the area under the chin and the throat.”

Unofficially, it’s an insult. A neckbeard is “a socially awkward gamer or computer nerd.” Or a woman-hater or ultraconservative Internet troll.

There are thousands of new words in 2026, but I’ll leave you with two favorites now welcomed into dictionaries:

Trash panda. A raccoon.

Promposal, a combination of “prom” and “proposal.” That’s the  custom of inviting someone to the prom, often with elaborate signs, serenades or even flash mobs, three to six weeks before the big dance. March 11 is National Promposal Day.

What are some of your favorite new words?

Speaking of words, three of my Dead-End Job mysteries will be on sale this month in the US and Canada for $1.99 each. Treat yourself to MURDER BETWEEN THE COVERS, JUST MURDERED, MURDER UNLEASHED, and HALF-PRICE HOMICIDE.

 

 

Quotable

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“One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing—writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.” —Lawrence Block

The Fine Art of Storytelling
According to Rocky Balboa

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“Sometimes in acting or painting or writing, you just subliminally lose yourself. You do not know where you are.” — Sylvester Stallone.

By PJ Parrish

When I was transitioning from my newspaper career to novel writing, I went at my first romance novel with blind enthusiam and deep ignorance. Back in those medieval times, we didn’t have the internet. Shoot, we didn’t even have computers yet. I didn’t network or get advice and encouragement from a critique group.

I did go to a Romance Writers of America conference once. Let’s just say it was an experience and leave it at that. My freshman effort, The Dancer, got plucked out of a slush pile by an editor at Ballantine Books and off I went.

Until I crashed and burned. I switched to mysteries and turned out some really putrid manuscripts until I found my footing. I also found Mystery Writers of America and didn’t feel as alone anymore.

One thing that always kept me going through the ups and downs was my pure love of storytelling. I’ve been telling fibs since I was a kid. I started putting stories down on paper around 8th grade. But I think I came by my love of storytelling via movies.

We moved around a lot when I was a kid. Wherever we landed, we always found the nearest movie theater. My working mom would drop us off at the “show” where we’d get previews, cartoons and two movies, all for 25 cents. Hours later, we’d stagger out into the twilight, sick on Jujubees and popcorn, and mom would be waiting there in her Chevy Bel-Air.

The Day the Earth Stood Still - Wikipedia

Sitting in the dark, I saw the light about great storytelling. Why did Imitation of Life make me cry? Why did The Haunting of Hill House scare me witless? Why did I root so hard for Will Kane in High Noon? And did Klaatu make it back to his planet okay?

We talk often here about screenwriting, and what we novelists can take away from it. Dialogue, of course. But we also can learn about the economy of building a scene, how to create empathetic and heroic characters, how to keep an audience’s (reader’s) attention.

My childhood came roaring back to me because I read a article about Sylester Stallone. He has a biography out now called The Steps. (Yes, those steps). Much of it focuses on his horrifying childhood of abuse and neglect. His father beat him, his mother abandoned him, and he was eventually put in a psych ward as a kid. But what strikes me is how he endured these emotional punches and harnessed it into a driving need to become something. Somebody.

He wanted to be a writer. One of his first jobs was as a theater usher for $34 a week. He watched hundreds of movies and started dissecting them. He believed he was too ugly to be an actor. But storytelling? That was what tugged most at his heart.

“I learned more about filming there [in the movie theater] than I could have in any classroom,” he said. “I went home and filled hundreds of notebooks, trying to learn how to write. There are no shortcuts to learning your craft…you have to put in the work.”

Here’s a very short clip of him talking about the writer’s journey. Worth a listen:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=22772360996924Li

This is how he got to Rocky. You’ve likely heard the story behind the mega-hit. Broke and desperate, he wrote it in just three and a half days after watching the 1975 boxing match between Muhammad Ali and underdog Chuck Wepner. United Artists bought the script but wanted Burt Reynold or Ryan O’Neal to star. Stallone held out and the rest is history.

In his book, Stallone talks a lot about developing your craft. He’s big on creating heroic but flawed protagonists.

“I was very lucky, in the golden age of films, when dialogue was important,” he said. “But the dialogue didn’t move me as much as the actual physical embodiment of overcoming odds.”  His approach to character focuses on vulnerability, internal conflict, and real flaws—exemplified by Rocky Balboa, who famously loses the final match in Rocky to preserve emotional and story integrity.

And where did he learn this wisdom? From sitting in a dark theater in 1958 watching the cheesy adventure-fantasy flick Hercules, starring Steve Reeves.

“It changed my life,” he said. He was 12 years old.

So, if you’re sitting there staring at a blank screen or if you’re stalled at chapter 8, go watch a good movie. I can highly recommend The Day The Earth Stood Still. (1951  version)

 

Difference Between Suspense and Anticipation

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Many genres need some element of suspense, but few require the writer to build anticipation quite like thrillers do.

Before we get into tips and tricks, let’s first define the difference between suspense and anticipation. There’s an important distinction between the two that isn’t discussed much in writer circles.

SUSPENSE

Suspense relies on the reader’s uncertainty and curiosity about what might happen next. It also makes readers anxious about the outcome. Uncertainty will cause readers to fear for their heroes. The classic “What if?” haloes suspense. Neither the reader nor the characters know what might be around the corner.

To muddy the waters a bit, suspense does not always involve a lack of knowledge. Instead, we create suspense through the order in which we reveal the outcome, causation, and related events. Even when a story’s ending is known, its narrative ordering and pace still allow suspense to develop. Suspense also emerges from the reader’s empathetic identification with a character. Hence why characterization is so important.

ANTICIPATION

Anticipation stems from expectation. In horror flicks, the audience knows when the blonde cheerleader wanders into the dark basement, she’ll meet her demise. We know what’s waiting for her at the bottom of those stairs, and we’re anticipating the outcome.

In a thriller, if the reader knows more than the characters — say, you’ve included the antagonist’s POV to offer a sneak peek at the evil lurking in the shadows — they will anticipate trouble. And they will fear for the hero’s safety.

Anticipation can also be an effect, as in the general “state of anticipation.” In the case of both physiological reflexes and socialized behavior, anticipation has an autonomous status, as its mechanics lie outside the reader’s control.

Reflexes, behavior, and emotions depend more on the training of anticipation than on rational thought.

For example, if we toy with the reader’s emotions — a steady stream of keeping them off balance — they may anticipate things we’ve never even thought of, but it still works in our favor.

Now, I’m not suggesting to never slow the pace to let the reader breathe. Just don’t dillydally too long or you’ll destroy the anticipation. Comic relief also offers a nice break from the action. But again, offset the comedic scenes with imminent peril.

Keep the seesaw swinging up and down.

Here’s where having an ideal reader in mind plays an important role. When I envision my ideal reader — I have two, actually, a male and a female — I often consider if they’re getting too comfortable. If the answer is yes, I’ll ratchet up the suspense and anticipation. If it’s no, I’ll include a tender, spiritual, or some other sort of slower moment to lower their blood pressure a bit.

Side note: The slower moments must still be compelling enough for the reader to keep flipping pages. Don’t give them a reason to put down the book. Or, God forbid, set it aside to read a different novel. Gasp!

Anticipation is more psychological in nature than suspense.

Tips and Tricks to Build Suspense and Anticipation

Use Hooks and Cliffhangers

A hook is an opening sentence, paragraph, or scene that grabs the attention of the reader and raises story questions and curiosity = suspense

A cliffhanger is an ending that leaves a question, a dilemma, or an unresolved threat that makes the reader anticipate what happens next = anticipation

Vary the Pace and Tone

Include both fast-paced and slower scenes, action and dialogue, and humor and drama to create contrast and balance in your story.

Use different types of narration. For example, I write one character in 1st POV, another character in deep 3rd POV, and rotate the narration. By changing the pace and tone of the story, we create surprises, twists, and emotional resonance.

Foreshadow and Hint

Foreshadowing involves dropping subtle clues about what will happen later. We do this through dialogue, description, symbolism, or imagery. Foreshadowing creates anticipation and suspense, as the reader tries to figure out the meaning and significance of the clues and where they may lead.

Engage the Senses and Emotions

Vivid and descriptive language, active voice, and tickling all five senses makes for a more immersive experience. You can also use emotional triggers, such as empathy, fear, anger, or joy to connect with the reader. By engaging the senses and emotions of the reader, they’ll feel more involved and invested in the story.

Hope I’ve cleared up the difference between suspense and anticipation.

TKZers, do you use both in your stories? What genre(s) do you write and/or read?

 

A Wannabe Writer Has Some Questions

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by James Scott Bell

Good morning, class. You in the back, you’ve had your hand in the air from the moment I walked in. I suppose you have a question or wish to use the bathroom.

I have a question. I think I want to be a writer. Should I go for it?

No.

Wait, what? Isn’t that what this class is about?

If you only “think” you want to be a writer, you’re running a race with ankle weights. The writers who make it in this game know they want to write.

All right. I know I want to write. Now what?

I pass along to you the advice of Mr. Lawrence Block: “If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass. If it persists, you probably ought to write a novel.”

I have that feeling! I really, really do. So how do I write something that will sell a lot of copies?

You write something a lot of people want to read.

Does that mean I should look at what’s popular and write a book like that?

That worked for Nicholas Sparks. When he started out, he looked at the market and determined there was room for only two mega best-selling authors in a genre. He found one genre that had only one name: tear-jerking romance by a man. That man was Robert James Waller and his book was The Bridges of Madison County. So Nicholas Sparks jumped in and took over the top spot.

I’m not sure there are any spots like that anymore, unless you drill down into things like steampunk zombie erotica. But that’s a pretty small audience.

Instead, concentrate on finding your own “sweet spot.” That’s the nexus between what you love to write and what readers love to read. When you write in a genre you love, you can give your pages that added juice that raises it above mere workmanlike prose. It’s what gives you “voice.”

So if I find that sweet spot, that will guarantee I’ll sell a lot of copies?

There are no guarantees in the writing life. If you’re looking for a guarantee, buy a refrigerator with a good warranty. The overwhelming majority of writers who continue to sell build a readership over time. Rare is the home run with your first at bat. Keep writing and keep studying your craft.

What’s the best way to market a book?

There is endless advice on this, so let me simplify. The best marketing has always been “word of mouth.” You write a book a lot of people enjoy, and they reflect that in reviews and wherever they talk about the books they’re reading—from social media to the kitchen table.

You can spend a lot of money on fancy ads and trailers, but if the book doesn’t please, that’s money down the water closet.

When I took a cruise to Alaska, we got off in one of those little tourist spots. In the gift shop was a big barrel of keychains with a rubber Alaskan bear. If you squeezed the bear, a little balloon of brown poop came out of its butt.

The Amazon bookstore is awash in pooping-bear books. Your job is to not write one of those.

Should I concentrate more on plot or more on character?

Yes.

I don’t understand.

Plot without characters we care about is flat and uninvolving. Readers turn pages because they worry about the people in the plot. Flat characters don’t make us worry, even if the plot has more twists than a pretzel.

Character without plot is the most boring thing in the world. Would you read 400 pages of Scarlett O’Hara sitting on her front steps flirting and complaining? A little plot complication I call the Civil War moves things along.

Put a character we can root for into a situation that threatens them with death—physical, professional, or psychological—and you’ll be on your way.

Is it better to outline a book before writing it, or just start writing and see where it leads?

Yes.

I don’t understand!

You’ll find plenty of voices out there that champion one view against the other. You have to find what works best for you, and you can’t find that out until you’ve written at least one full-length novel. So write one. See what you learn about yourself. I’ll tell you what I learned when I started out. I wrote without any plan, just wrote, and felt alive, joyous, unstoppable! Until I was stopped. Nobody was as in love with my writing as I was.

So I began to study craft books. I learned about plot and structure. I was already pretty good on character and dialogue. But it was learning about the structure of scenes that really flipped a switch. For my next project, I used index cards to lay out my scenes. I put them on the floor and moved them around until I was happy with the pattern. That’s when I started to sell.

Is it better to write for a traditional publisher, or better to self-publish?

Yes.

Stop doing that!

What I mean is, there are pros and cons to both. Do some research. You’ll find plenty of material out there. For now, I’ll give you a couple of warnings.

If you want to go the trad route, don’t be ignorant about publishing contracts. You can start by reading this and this. A good agent can be a tremendous help. But here’s another warning: beware the schmagent.

If you want to self-publish (“go indie”) my warning is: don’t be in a hurry. If you start throwing up dreck, you’ll get a reputation for dreck. Get some feedback on your work. This site has some great advice on beta readers.

On the other hand, don’t fall into the “paralysis by over-analysis” trap. Please read this.

This all seems awfully complicated. Why can’t I just use Artificial Intelligence to write my novels?

That’s an incoherent question, or at least an incomplete one. AI doesn’t “write” novels; it masticates what’s been written by human beings, detects patterns, and spits out a thing that resembles a novel.

And certainly don’t use the word “my.” In what sense is it yours if it’s done for you by a machine?

I am not a Luddite. I know AI is here to stay, and has benefits. It helps tremendously with research, like Google on steroids. It can help you brainstorm if you hit a creative cul-de-sac. My warning is that over-dependence on AI for creativity doesn’t do your brain any good. In fact, it can lead to atrophy of the most important feature of your writing—you, your voice, your style.

So what’s my next step?

Go home and write something. Class dismissed.

From 221B to the Squad Room: Writing Detective Partners That Work

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The most famous partnership in detective fiction started as a rent split.

In  A Study in Scarlet (1887), Dr. John Watson comes home from Afghanistan with a wound, a thin army pension, and no family in England. An old acquaintance mentions a strange fellow at the hospital lab who has found some nice rooms but can’t afford them alone. The strange fellow looks up from his chemistry and says, “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”And there it is.

Not destiny. Not a calling. A lease.

Every detective partnership needs something holding the two of them together. Something that keeps them in the same car, the same office, the same stakeout van at three in the morning when one of them won’t stop crunching sunflower seeds.

Over at The Pitch Master, I just wrapped a five-part series on best friend love in storytelling. One idea from that series turned out to unlock detective partners completely: A badge is glue to keep partners together.

Police partners and private detective partners get their glue from opposite places. Figure out which one you’re writing, and half your craft decisions make themselves.

Assigned: The Badge Is Free Glue

Police partners don’t choose each other. The lieutenant does.

That is a gift to writers. You never have to explain why these two are stuck together. The department did it for you, with paperwork. And because nobody asked either of them, conflict comes standard.

Lethal Weapon (1987) opens on Roger Murtaugh’s fiftieth birthday. His present from the LAPD is Martin Riggs, a grieving, suicidal loose cannon who the brass suspect is faking it for a psych pension. Murtaugh didn’t ask for him. Nobody would.

The X-Files went further. The FBI assigns Dana Scully to Fox Mulder’s basement office specifically to debunk him. Her original job is to file reports on why her partner is wrong. Every week, the believer and the skeptic stare at the same evidence and read it in opposite directions.

Tony Hillerman wrote Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police in separate books for years. When he finally put them on the same case in Skinwalkers (1986), he got a pairing built on a fault line: the older, logical lieutenant who has no patience for witchcraft talk, and the younger officer who is studying to become a traditional Navajo healer. Same reservation. Same murders. Completely different ways of seeing them.

Here’s the story question for assigned partners: Will they learn to trust each other?

The badge holds them together whether they like it or not. That means the friendship isn’t automatic. It has to be earned. And the moment readers wait for is the moment one of them chooses the other when the job no longer requires it.

Writing assigned partners

  • Let them resent the assignment. Neither one picked this. Use it.
  • Make trust the arc. Who backs up whom, and when does it cost something?
  • Threaten the glue from outside. The department that put them together can split them up. A transfer request is a breakup scene with a form attached.

Chosen: The License Needs a Reason

A private detective doesn’t have a lieutenant. Nobody assigns a PI a partner.

That means if either one could walk away at any moment with no cost, your reader is going to wonder why they don’t. Chosen partners need a reason to stay in the car, and you have to put it on the page.

Let’s look at where some great private eye partnerships get their glue:

  • The rent. Holmes and Watson, 221B Baker Street.
  • The paycheck. Archie Goodwin works for Nero Wolfe. He lives in the brownstone, draws a salary, does the legwork Wolfe rarely leaves the house for, and needles his genius employer into taking cases so the bills get paid.
  • The past. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro grew up together in Dorchester before Dennis Lehane made them partners. Shawn and Gus on Psych have been best friends since they were kids.
  • A debt. Spenser and Hawk go back to their boxing days, and Robert B. Parker built their bond on old history and a trade of favors.
  • A job that turned into something else. On Elementary, Joan Watson starts out as Sherlock’s sober companion, hired by his father. The paycheck brings her in. The partnership is what keeps her.
  • Being a target. In The Nice Guys (2016), enforcer Jackson Healy is paid to scare private eye Holland March off a case. Then they both end up targets of the same people, and have to work together.

The story question for chosen partners is different: Why do they stay?

Every book has to renew that choice. If the reader stops believing it, the partnership reads hollow, like two characters sharing an office because the author needs them to.

Here’s the difference in two lines:

If they’re assigned, the story is about choosing each other anyway.

If they chose each other, the story is about what it costs to keep choosing.

A Tour of Detective Partnerships

Assigned or chosen tells you where the glue comes from. The kind of partnership tells you what the two of them do for each other. Here are five shapes that show up again and again, on the page and on screen.

1. The Genius and the Chronicler

Holmes and Watson. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings.

One partner is brilliant. The other tells the story. This is the oldest structure in the genre, and it does a sneaky job. The narrator can watch the genius work without ever being inside his head. You get to show every clue and hide the conclusion until the big reveal, and it all plays fair.

The danger is the chronicler who’s just furniture. Agatha Christie got tired of Hastings. In The Murder on the Links (1923), she married him off and shipped him to Argentina, and Poirot carried on mostly without him.

Compare Archie Goodwin. He’s funny, he’s capable, he’s a better detective than he lets on, and he has an opinion about his boss on every page. Readers come back as much for Archie’s voice as for Wolfe’s genius.

The takeaway: give your chronicler competence and an attitude. If your narrator only exists to say “Amazing!” he’s a mirror, not a partner.

2. The Veteran and the Rookie

Harry Bosch and Renée Ballard. Eve Dallas and Delia Peabody. Young Morse and Fred Thursday on Endeavour.

This is a mentorship, and the arc is built in: the rookie grows. In J.D. Robb’s In Death series, Peabody starts out as Eve’s uniformed aide, becomes her partner, earns her detective’s shield, and catches her first case as primary.

Michael Connelly paired Bosch, a retired LAPD detective with no patience for rules, with Ballard, a young detective exiled to the night shift with no patience for being sidelined. Two generations. One shared stubborn streak.

The takeaway: the payoff scene is the day the rookie is right and the veteran is wrong. Build toward it.

3. Equal and Opposite

Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe. Cagney and Lacey. Mulder and Scully.

This is the odd couple engine. Reginald Hill paired a big, crude Yorkshire superintendent with a university-educated young detective and got decades of novels out of the friction. Cagney & Lacey put an ambitious single woman and a married working mother in the same squad car.

Every time these two solve a problem, they want to solve it differently. You never have to import conflict. It’s already sitting in the passenger seat, complaining about the radio.

The takeaway: their differences have to show up in how they work the case, not just how they talk. Who wants to lean on the witness? Who wants to wait for the lab?

4. The Partner Who Does What You Won’t

Spenser and Hawk. Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Easy Rawlins and Mouse.
This one is a private eye specialty. The detective has a code. The partner has fewer scruples and a lot more firepower.

Parker introduced Hawk in Promised Land on the other side of the case, as an enforcer for a loan shark. Robert Crais gave Elvis Cole a wisecracking voice and gave Joe Pike sunglasses and silence. Walter Mosley gave Easy Rawlins an old friend from Houston who will kill without blinking and grin while he does it.

The partner lets the hero keep his hands mostly clean. That’s the convenience. The interesting part is the price. Is the hero really clean if he keeps calling the guy who isn’t?

The takeaway: make your hero pay a moral price for the partner. That tension is what turns a bodyguard into a relationship.

5. The Badge and the Civilian

Castle and Beckett. Shawn Spencer and Detective Lassiter on Psych. Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw.

One partner has the authority. The other has a skill the system doesn’t. M.W. Craven pairs Poe, a bruising detective sergeant with the National Crime Agency, with Tilly, a sheltered civilian analyst who is brilliant with data and hopeless with people. He’s the access. She’s the insight. Neither one solves the case alone.

The takeaway: the civilian has to be useful, not lucky seeing what the cop can’t.

Which One Are You Writing?

Look at your detective and whoever is riding shotgun.

Who put them together, the department or the two of them? And what kind of partnership is it? Chronicler, mentor, mirror, muscle, or civilian?

Once you know where the glue comes from, you know your story question. Once you know the shape, you know what each one brings to the case.

Next time, we’ll look at what happens when the case closes and the partnership doesn’t, how detective partners carry a series, and ten ways to write a partnership readers will follow for sixty books.

TKZers, who’s your favorite detective duo? Are they assigned or chosen? And which of the five types would you put them in?

Sell Your Book to Hollywood: How to Pitch Your Book, Find the Right Producer, and Navigate the Deal by Lindsey Hughes This is the playbook I’ve built from 30 years in the business: what producers want, how deals get made, and the mistakes that kill great projects. Join the list to get a launch day discount!

 

Reader Friday-On Talking Lions and Beavers

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I ran across this some time ago and loved it–and thought it was worth sharing. I’ve taken pains to reproduce it here, word for word, as I found it.

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(Letter From CS Lewis) To A SCHOOLGIRL IN AMERICA, who had written (at her teacher’s suggestion) to request advice on writing.

14 December 1959

It is very hard to give any general advice about writing. Here’s my attempt.

  • Turn off the radio.
  • Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines.
  • Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You shd hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.
  • Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about…)
  • Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know—the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn’t the same in his.
  • When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.
  • Don’t use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training.
  • Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.

***

TKZers, what do you think? Does this advice from a master (who convinced several generations that lions and beavers could talk…) still apply today? And which is your favorite?

 

Does Writing Have An Age Limit?

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If there is an age limit, I’m glad no one told Herman Wouk, who wrote his last book at age 100. That said, I attended a conference this weekend where the median age looked to be well past 60. Many participants wondered if they were too old to get published. I don’t know the answer, other than I was past sixty when I got serious about getting a book published.

I worked on the same book for five years before I submitted it to an agent, who took me on. By the last of October, when I was sixty-seven, I had signed a contract with a major publisher in the Christian market, and five days past my 69th birthday, my first book was released. The last time I checked, it had 8,600 4+ starred reviews (out of 5 stars), and I’m working on the edits of book #20. I’m the first to say, “Go for it!”

However…understand that if you want a successful career, there will be sacrifices. Some years I wrote 2 books a year, which is a lot for a slow writer–I can’t turn a 100,000-word book out in six weeks. Some writers can, so I don’t knock it, I’m just not one of them. For me that meant writing 6-8 hours a day, five days a week, sometimes 7 days a week. I’m no spring chicken, so it was hard work.

All writing is hard work. Own it. Know what you’re getting in when you sign that contract, or decide to publish Indy, which is a whole different ballgame from traditional publishing. If you publish Indy, you will be responsible for your deadlines, covers, marketing, and everything in between. It is not for the faint of heart. In reality, writing is not for the faint of heart, either. Like I said, it is hard; otherwise, everyone would be completing a book–a lot of people start writing but never finish.

I can’t tell you if you have what it takes to start a book and finish it–only you know that, but if that’s what you want to do, my advice is to go for it. You won’t know until you try, just make sure you count the cost. The hours sitting in front of a computer, pounding out the scenes in your head, the rejections that are sure to come if you’re submitting to agents or editors, the missed lunches with friends….but the joy of seeing the movie playing in your head appear on the page is amazing.

So, my advice, and this is what I told the attendees of the conference — if you want to write that book, there is nothing stopping you but yourself. TKZers, any additional advice?