How to Write Successful Fiction like James Patterson

If you don't know who James Patterson is you probably have not stepped into a bookstore for a long while. He is one of the most commercially successful authors I've ever heard of, probably second only to the Mother of All Commercially Successful Writers -- the one and only J. K. Rowling.

My method these days is to take an author that I like, try to read as many of his/her works as I can, and then kick back, analyze and deconstruct their structure. It's my own version of REVERSE ENGINEERING process through which I try to educate and train myself to become a better writer.

Here are my preliminary results about the generalities I find in JP's breathtaking page-turners:

1) JP writes in short chapters; chapters as short as 2 pages! In this age of short attention spans, that makes a FAST reading. You have no idea how you're turning the pages. And sometimes I look at my watch -- yikes! It's 4 a.m. and I'm still trying to finish a JP thriller even though I have to show up for work in the morning. Short is good. Not necessarily easier. (Once George Bernard Shaw added this postscript to the end of a very long letter: "Sorry, I don't have the time now to write you a shorter letter.") But it makes "commercial sense," for sure.

2) JP outlines the PLOT of all his books meticulously. He is well-known for his 50-page-plus outlines, complete with plot points, characterizations, and selected dialogue. In his case this is perhaps inevitable given the fact that he has published a lot of books with co-authors as well; books that are based on his blueprint but which are actually penned by others.

[There's actually an ongoing controversy about whether such detailed plot outlines is the best way to write fiction. Other successful writers like Stephen King and Elmore Leonard, for example, write without one. But that's a discussion for another day.]

3) JP sandwiches all his Parts and Chapters in between a PROLOGUE chapter in the very beginning, and (sometimes) an EPILOGUE chapter at the very end. I'm especially taken by the PROLOGUE since it sets the tone for the whole work. It's always an explosive chapter, radioactive and pulsing with menace, that whips up your appetite to read the rest of the (short) chapters. It's an irresistible appetizer that launches you into the story the way fighter jets are catapulted from an aircraft carrier.

4) JP ends every chapter with a classic cliff-hanger. You've heard it a million times because it's still true: if you want to write a page turner, end all your chapters with cliff-hangers. Period. Leave the reader panting to find out more in the... next chapter.



5) JP excels in using MULTI VOICES and I really think this is one of the hardest tricks in terms of emulating his writing style. In almost every novel he pens, JP uses the following 3 MAIN VOICES:

(a) The First Person Singular (FPS) which usually belongs to our HERO (e.g., Alex Cross). But sometimes the antagonist speaks in FPS as well.

(b) The omniscient Third Person Singular (TPS) that narrates the bulk of the story, usually in the Simple Past Tense.

(c) The INTERNAL DIALOG of the antagonist in TPS, and usually printed in ITALICS to differentiate it from the other voices. Such a window into the mind of the bad guy really increases the tension and pulls us further into the story.

The use of all these three voices creates delicious shifts in perspective and helps us look at the world from 3 different windows. Lovely.

6) JP is a master in portraying a character in quick strokes; quick but with CONCRETE DETAILS that include product brands and styles. For example, by describing the kind of coffee a character orders at Starbucks (just to give an example), we would not only immediately associate and identify with that character but also gain another clue to what makes him/her tick.

For example, do you think a character that always orders a small-regular is one the same as one who orders a Caramel Frappucino Grande? I think not. The emphasis in a JM novel is on the STORY (Stephen King is also the master of that relentless story-focus); a blindingly fast, heart-in-mouth narrative that propels sharply-defined characters through a story-tunnel towards the climactic end.



7)The END, however, is never straight forward. The closer you get to the end of a JP book, more monkey-wrenches, twists and turns are thrown on your path. Again, this is the classic ACT 3 structure if you were writing a screenplay. There is always a sickening series of last-minute disappointments that the late great screenplay teacher Blake Snyder used to identify with phrases like "Bad Guys Close In", "Dark Night of the Soul" or (my favorite description) "All Is Lost." Did the villain really die? Or where did he disappear? Will evil win over good? Is the hero giving up? JP keeps us guessing until the very last page. Actually in one novel, the real twist is revealed in the EPILOGUE chapter, after the book is (supposedly) "done." In twisting and jerking the story every which way within last 50 or 100 pages, JP has little competition.

8] JP is careful to project good, honest, modern (and I feel like saying "liberal") values onto his heroes, especially the female detective characters. He has actually created a whole "Women's Murder Club" series around one such character -- Lindsay Boxer. So I think it pays to follow in his steps and make the protagonists as wholesome as possible while making the villain vile and despicable. That tension between the main characters drives the story engine like a Ferrari on a racetrack. Without that unbearable tension between evil and goodness, crime and punishment, pain and pleasure, what-is and what-should-be you don't have a page-turner.

Spin your web dear spider; spin it wide and wild. And thank JP every time you catch a grateful reader.

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