March 21st, 2009 by Jason Pinter
When it came time to begin my fourth Henry Parker novel, it took a little longer than usual to come up with a story that I liked. I wanted to write something bigger and grander, but something that was also more intimate and even heartbreaking. Then, when it finally hit, when the story popped into my head, I knew it was right. I had my plot for book 4.
I wrote the first two chapters of the book, which were included as an excerpt in my third book, THE STOLEN. Chapter two of book 4 ends with a moment that, when I describe it or think about it, makes me shiver.
I’m not going to give anything away since THE FURY hasn’t come out yet (if you pick up a copy of THE STOLEN you can read it), but it made me think about my favorite ‘shiver moments.’
A Shiver Moment is something I think of as a moment in a book that literally sends a jolt of electricity down your spine, eliciting some sort of physical reaction just from reading the words on the page. It can be violent, sexual, beautiful, just something done or written in a way in which the words create a sort of psychosomatic reaction.
I like to think there’s a shiver moment in each of my books, a moment where, when describing it someone else, I can lead up to that moment with pleasure (and then, just when Henry thought everything was safe, etc…). In THE MARK and THE GUILTY, the shiver moments each occur a little ways into the book, maybe a third of the way through. But I knew what they were and knew when they would happen when I began writing each of the books. I felt that if these moments made me shiver (and I even knew they were coming!) they would hopefully make the reader do the same. In the fourth book, the Shiver Moment comes right at the beginning, about eight pages in. And it might be my favorite one yet.
This made me think about other ‘shiver moments’ in my favorite books:
–When Chief Bromden says, “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen” in Ken Kesey’s ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. One of my favorite lines ever, just the way it’s delivered and how it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
–When Jimmy Marcus confronts Dave Boyle in Dennis Lehane’s MYSTIC RIVER (I just shivered typing this–seriously).
–When Georgie meets Pennywise in Stephen King’s IT.
–When Carl realizes the truth behind Zora’s motives in Zadie Smith’s ON BEAUTY.
–The very last sentence in Charlie Huston’s A DANGEROUS MAN (more powerful if you’ve read the whole Hank Thompson trilogy–and if you haven’t drop everything and go pick up a copy of CAUGHT STEALING).
These are a few of the times when reading a book where the words or actions had such an impact on me that they gave me a “shiver moment.”
What are some of your favorite Shiver Moments? In books? Movies? Music?
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The first one that came to mind for me is from my last Berkley book, My Prerogative. When I wrote it, I knew it was a good line. it wasn’t one that I’d thought of before hand, it just came from the character. MY agent picked it out as her favorite when she read the manuscript, and a reviewer also commented on it, soI know it did the job for a few people. The line is when the hero, who is an artist, people watcher, and a bit of a voyuer, sees the heroine on her balcony one night staring at the stars and he thinks: “… she looked like an angel with a bruised soul. It called to him, that bruised part of her. So much more than her beauty.”
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In Holly Lisle’s Diplomacy of Wolves, when Kait and Ry find each other for the first time.
At the end of Gorky Park, when Arkady tells Irina to go without him.
Chapter 118 — a nonstop shiver of a chapter — in Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.
In Rosina Lippi’s Homestead, there’s a about scene halfway through the novel between Barbara and Ignaz when she opens a sack and pours three hundred and forty-three lemon sour balls on the counter between them, and I won’t say more than that because it would criminally negligent. But man, reading that one my shiver went down to the bone.
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At the end of Jack McDevitt’s ‘A Talent for War’, when the protag (and the reader) are hit with the what’s-it-all-about moment–and it fits perfectly. It resonates and makes the main character’s struggles all worthwhile. And as the reader you say: Yessss!
And then it gets better.
Genreality has become one of my few must-read blogs. I mostly lurk, but always do so with deep appreciation. Thank you!
Joe
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Admittedly, I have a horrid memory. I can’t think of any shiver moments from anything I’ve read. I know they’ve been there, but even pain of death isn’t going to stir them from the depths of my fault-line riddled brain. But when writing, especially when plotting, which I’ve mentioned before that I do fairly extensively before I begin the actual writing, I will come up with particular moments within the story that I would call shiver moments. They act as points of inspiration for me in the writing process, places to look forward to in the story, an “I can’t wait to get there,” kind of feeling. In my suspense story, it was a point near the end of the story that I knew I had to build to in order to make it worthwhile as a ‘shiver’ scene, where my vampire hero who has sworn off consuming blood, must drain the heroine who has expressed serious trust issues with men in order to save them both.