How I Use Violence

I agree with Raymond Chandler. A good way to spice up a scene is to have a guy with a gun come through the door.

What I don't care for is having the guy come in blasting, a shotgun in one hand, a machete in the other, killing everyone in the room and drenching the walls with their blood and brain matter. And doing it again and again for no reason.

Fictional violence is a transition not a destination.

Make it sudden, make it awful or unusual if you must to move the plot, and then show the result. And I don't mean blood soaking into the carpet. I mean the emotional outcome. The practical, real-life result. People die and people grieve. People get angry. People react. Make it awful, make it startling, end it and move along. Violence to me is like a good declarative sentence. It doesn't need modification by adjectives and adverbs of gore. What happens next is the important part. If it doesn't move the plot, get rid of it. Violence for the sake of a cheap thrill is meaningless.

In my first book, Deader by the Lake, my character shoots and kills a guy. He's affected by it. He sees a torture victim. And reacts. I describe what's probably the first drive-by shooting by helicopter. It isn't pretty but it doesn't linger. And the reader sees that there's collateral damage. Innocent people die, too. In Every Secret Crime, the violence is as real as I can make it. Consequences follow.

Violence always has its aftermath. To me, that's often where the real drama takes place.

High speed chases are fun in the movies, aren't they? Cars crashing into one another. All daring maneuvers and explosions. Let me tell you a story from real life.

As a deputy sheriff, I was involved in several high speed pursuits. One started when a guy drove off without paying for a tank of gas. Stupid reason for a chase but violence often results from stupidity. Three squads chased the guy down the interstate at 90 miles per hour. An officer in one of them tried to shoot out the guy's tires. Foolish given his offense but, just like on TV. A heck of an action sequence.

I was driving the third squad. What I remember is hearing the shots and how the offender sideswiped another car right in front of me. How the impact ripped open the drivers' door of that other car and sent the twenty-something mother of two sprawling onto the highway. I stopped my squad literally inches short of running over her head. Fortunately, her children were strapped into car seats and not injured. They screamed and screamed. For hours it seemed like. Then I got to tell her husband what happened. He was devastated. The woman didn't die but her recovery took months.

Cause and effect. Stupidity, action, reaction.

Violence doesn't happen in a vaccum.

That's why I write violent scenes. To examine what happens next.