Lisa Gardner, THE NEIGHBOR -- and -- LIVE TO TELL

Lisa Gardner looks way too sweet to write churn-your-guts thrillers. But readers and reviewers know she consistently crafts stories that would make Hitchcock cringe. All twelve of her suspense novels are viscerally-charged, read-em-with-all-the-lights-on, page-turners.

 

 

 

THE NEIGHBOR, her 2009 release, just won the Best Hardcover Thriller of the Year Award from International Thriller Writers. Other nominees: VANISHED by Joseph Finder, LONG LOST by Harlan Coben, FEAR THE WORST by Linwood Barclay, and THE RENEGADES by T. Jefferson Parker. Stellar competition.

LIVE TO TELL, released five days ago, showcases Lisa Gardner's exceptional talent. Her writing is so viscerally empowering, when a character's heart races, you'll grab your chest.

What makes Lisa Gardner's writing so strong?

How does she work her magic on the page?

I could share multiple examples from each page of her 400 page books, analyze them, and show you how and why her writing carries power. But I have to limit it to a reasonable number of examples for this Deep Editing Analysis.

I'll have fun adding lots of examples from LIVE TO TELL to my powerpoint slides and lectures.

NOTE: These examples were taken from my Kindle. No page numbers are available.

Excerpt from THE NEIGHBOR, when the detective meets Jason Jones for the first time.

Jason Jones’s gaze finally flickered to her, resting upon her face, and in spite of herself, she nearly shivered.

His eyes were empty, like staring into pools of starless night. She had only seen such a gaze twice before. Once when interviewing a psychopath who’d resolved an unhappy business relationship by executing his partner and the man’s entire family with a crossbow. Secondly when interviewing a twenty-seven-year-old Portuguese woman who had been held as a sex slave for fifteen years by a wealthy couple in their elite Boston brownstone. The woman had died two years later. She’d walked into oncoming traffic on Storrow Drive. Never hesitated, witnesses said. Just stepped off the curb straight into the path of a Toyota Highlander.

A page or two later:

She gave her father a look, and for the first time Jason Jones fired to life. He ruffled his daughter’s hair, while his gaze filled with a mixture of love and protectiveness. Then he turned away from her and, as if a switch had been thrown, resumed his dead man’s stare.

Analysis:

That excerpt is all about the gaze. A big time amplified gaze.

Lisa Gardner kicked off the first paragraph with a simile. Then the reader infers that Jason Jones had been avoiding eye contact with the detective. When he does look at the detective, his gaze sticks. His look is so unnerving (stimulus) that she almost shivers (response). Lisa showed the stimulus and response in the same sentence.

Smart Lisa Gardner.

The second paragraph super empowers the gaze. Here it is again:

His eyes were empty, like staring into pools of starless night. She had only seen such a gaze twice before. Once when interviewing a psychopath who’d resolved an unhappy business relationship by executing his partner and the man’s entire family with a crossbow. Secondly when interviewing a twenty-seven-year-old Portuguese woman who had been held as a sex slave for fifteen years by a wealthy couple in their elite Boston brownstone. The woman had died two years later. She’d walked into oncoming traffic on Storrow Drive. Never hesitated, witnesses said. Just stepped off the curb straight into the path of a Toyota Highlander.

Why did Lisa use 101 words to amplify Jason Jones's gaze?

The reader subconsciously attributes the traits of a muderous psychopath and a suicidal sex slave to Jason Jones.

Smart Lisa Gardner.

Lisa surprises the reader in the next piece about his gaze. She shows the softer side of Jason Jones. The loving but fiercely protective side of a fatherly Jason Jones. But within seconds his gaze morphs into his dead man’s stare

Is Jason Jones a good guy or a bad guy? The reader doesn't know.

Smart Lisa Gardner.

Example:

She threw back the covers and stalked out of the bedroom, wearing only a T-shirt, panties, and a fine sheen of sexual frustration.

Analysis:

Ha! Lisa took what could have been a mundane sentence (character gets out of bed and leaves the bedroom) and used a rhetorical device (zeugma) to capture the detective's sexual angst. She also gave the reader a hit of humor.

Example:

“Did someone say something explicit?” D.D. spoke up, her voice striving for the same measured calm of Miller’s tone, even as she stood one step behind the detective, her fingers dancing across the butt of her Glock .40.

Analysis:

What does that sentence accomplish?

1. It shares a dialogue cue (my term for describing the subtext of the dialogue) showing the POV character tried to match Miller's calm voice.

2. It shows proxemics, how close the POV character is to her partner.

3. It shows she senses danger and is ready to defend and protect.

Example:

“I read the autopsy report,” Jason persisted. “My memory is that Mrs. Black was found with a cherry red face. That’s a clear indicator of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line; it went on for thirty seconds, perhaps even a minute. Jason felt his stomach settle, his shoulders square. Sandy had been right—her father was a very, very good liar.

"Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Jones,” Max said at last. He didn’t sound so congenial anymore. More like pissed off. A wealthy powerful man who wasn’t getting his way.

Analysis:

First Paragraph: The dialogue provides new information. It's a stimulus.

Second Paragraph: The response is a long silence. Amplified silence.

The extended silence is also a stimulus for Jason's physical recovery and insight .

The Recovery: I didn't include his agitated state (visceral response) from an earlier paragraph, but you know his stomach reacted earlier and now it recovered.

The Insight: Lisa showed Jason's shoulder's squaring in response to the silence. Squaring his shoulders is the physical adjustment that occurred in conjunction with a cognitive adjustment. Jason realized that Sandy's father had been lying.

Margie-grads who memorized my Deep Editing lectures know that's an ideomotoric shift.

It's also darn good writing. :-)

Third Paragraph -- Here it is again:

"Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Jones,” Max said at last. He didn’t sound so congenial anymore. More like pissed off. A wealthy powerful man who wasn’t getting his way.

Easy to analyze. Two Dialogue Cues followed by a Power Internalization. Strong cadence too.

Now we'll shift to analyzing a few examples from Lisa Gardner's fresh-from-the-printer release, LIVE TO TELL.

Example:

She was having meat and potatoes for dinner and, if all went as planned, Chip for dessert.

So, of course, her pager went off.

She scowled, shoved it to the back of her waistband, as if that would make a difference.

“What’s that?” Chip asked, catching the chime.

“Birth control,” she muttered.

Chip blushed to the roots of his receding brown hair, then in the next minute grinned with such self-deprecating power she nearly went weak in the knees.

Analysis:

Ah -- a fast-paced passage that deepens characterization, slips in character description, and provides just enough humor to make the reader grin.

Two Examples of Dialogue Cues:

1. I can tell by the rising pitch of Becki's voice that as minute passes into minute, she's starting to panic.

2. "Evan sometimes plays this game," I begin, wondering if my voice sounds as thin and strained to her as it does to me.

Analysis:

The first Dialogue Cue is for a non-POV character. The sentence includes rising pitch, time passing, and it's backloaded with panic. Panic is always a Power Word. :-)

The second Dialogue Cue is for the POV character. Sharing the subtext of her voice sounding thin and strained is used to show her fear. Plus -- the POV character wonders if the other woman hears the fear.

Example:

The expression on his face is guileless, but then, as I watch, I can see it. A shadow moving in the back of his eyes. A faint smile curving one corner of his mouth.

He knows what I am looking for.

He knows he has it, and that I don't know what to do.

The shadow in his eyes moves again, and I fight the chill creeping up my spine, Evan isn't the only one in this house who's afraid of the phantom.

Analysis:

That passage is such a smooth read. The reader doesn't stop and consider how the writer made chills creep up the reader's spine too.

What did Lisa Gardner do in that passage?

Read it again, out loud, and you'll hear the power of the cadence. It draws you into the scene deeper and deeper.

Here's that first paragraph.

The expression on his face is guileless, but then, as I watch, I can see it. A shadow moving in the back of his eyes. A faint smile curving one corner of his mouth.

Did you hear the parallel structure of the last two sentences?

Did you count beats?

The last two sentences each have eleven beats.

Quick analysis of the full passage: Lots of white space. Power internalizations. And the last paragraph uses the shadow behind his eyes as a stimulus for her visceral response. The last sentence shares her fear of her eight-year-old son.

Lisa Gardner's writing is psychologically empowered. The kind of writing that catapults you onto the New York Time's Bestseller list everytime. You can tell I am impressed with Lisa Gardner's writing. I'm impressed with Lisa-the-person too.

When you have a few minutes, drop by Lisa Gardner's web site. Check out her articles for writers. Her articles are as stellar as her writing.

The first chapters of her books are on her web site too. Enjoy!