"Twice the Trouble"

Ash Clifton grew up in Gainesville, Florida, home of the University of Florida, where his father was a deputy sheriff and, later, the chief of police. He graduated from UF with a degree in English, then got an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona. He lives in Gainesville, with his wife and son. He writes mystery, thriller, and science fiction novels.

Clifton applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Twice the Trouble, and reported the following:

Twice the Trouble is a mystery thriller, which simply means that in addition to the whodunnit aspect, there are some action scenes. Page 69 happens to fall on the end of such a scene, in which the protagonist, a private investigator named Noland Twice, is almost killed by a man he has come to interrogate. It’s basically a fight scene set in the cabin of a small sailboat, which is a tight, cramped space and therefore perfect for this kind of sequence. (Elevators are another great place to set a fight scene.)

I am fairly proud of this scene. I think it’s exciting (it was, at least, exciting for me to write, even though I had to work on it for a long time), and it has all the elements of a good action sequence—surprise, shock, and fear. The reason so many action scenes in both books and movies fail is that the reader/viewer never feels the danger intimately, mainly because the hero never really feels it. Never really gets hurt. Never loses control. Never gets desperate. Why? Because they’re too powerful. Too slick.

In reality, the very nature of violence is that it’s uncontrollable. Also, it’s often sudden, unplanned, and devastating. That’s what I was trying to communicate on page 69, and in other, similar scenes throughout my book. On page 69, Noland has just engaged in a fight to the death (almost; his suspect gets away at the last moment), and he is scared, hurt, enraged, and in shock. He’s also a bit crazy, in that moment. So crazy, in fact, that he takes out his pistol with the full intention of shooting the bad guy in the back as he runs away. The lines I am most proud of come at this critical point.

Noland steadied himself against the boom and pulled out the Ruger. Swaying slightly, he aimed at Valkenburg, the gun as heavy as a cinderblock. Before he could pull the trigger, though, another trickle of blood ran into his eye, and as he wiped at it with his free hand, he came to his senses. He jumped down to the pier and ran.

I like these lines because they describe how it feels to almost get killed in a fight, and it makes us wonder what we might do in the aftermath of such a struggle. This is the question that the best books seek to answer: How does it feel? Whatever the POV character is doing or thinking in any given moment, the reader—more than anything—wants to know how it feels.

This is the reason I believe my page 69 is really, truly representative of my book as a whole. Twice the Trouble is not one long, unbroken action scene. But, on every page in every paragraph, I am trying to give the reader a sense of another life. Even in the mundane moments, I am trying to relate how it feels to be this guy. I’m not great at it—that is, I’m no Joyce Carol Oates, or John Updike, or Alison Lurie, or Kaui Hart Hemmings—but I’m trying. Hopefully, I get it right, sometimes.

Visit Ash Clifton's website.

My Book, The Movie: Twice the Trouble.

--Marshal Zeringue