First Page Critique: The Accountant

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Another Brave Writer submitted their first page for critique. See you on the flipside.

The Accountant – a crime novel

Donatelli glanced down as he stuffed his cigarette into the car ashtray with its integrated ember killer. It looked like a damn coffee cup. Nobody could tell him not to smoke in his own fuckin’ car, so there, Anna, put that in your pipe and smoke it. 

     He had just left his accountant’s office, odd duck, an ace with money. “and financial planner for all your needs…” he mimicked in his mind, in a sneering voice. Good at his job, but Kevin was a pussy.

     He flicked on the heat and massage feature as he wheeled the black Benz S580 onto Queen Street from the aging parking garage. His eyes rising to the windshield, he glimpsed the movement of a red dot criss-crossing his bespoke oxford cloth shirt. Panic engulfed him as it moved up the subtle stripes, out of eye range, toward the big bald dome of his head. He looked down, cross-eyed, searching frantically for the dot on his face and then around for the shooter, stomping on the gas as he completely forgot he was driving. Bad move, Donatelli. Bad move.

The shot never came but Donatelli shot through the windshield when the car slammed into the big maple, sedate and glorious in its fall foliage. He should have paid attention to the other red dot, the one that indicated “check airbag”.

     That day, the day Kev killed Donatelli, was an amber and scarlet October Friday. As he shrank back, Kev’s feet crunched the leaves scattered on the sidewalk while horror and disbelief churned inside him. The eyes of the leaving-work crowd were on the shattered wreck accordioned against the towering maple, smoke spiralling from the dead engine. And Donatelli. No one seemed to notice as Kev hastily thrust his hand into the swing-top bin on the corner and released the ‘weapon’. The sun glinted off Donatelli’s sunglasses, the tilt of his head hovering over the hood making it look as though he stared accusingly at his accountant. Although the dripping blood diminished the illusion, the shower of red maple leaves caused by the impact added to the colour.                                                 

     Kev thought of Dina. Would he tell her? Being married to Dina was like holding a helium-filled balloon. She relied on him to keep her grounded. The comparison to a balloon would not sit well with Dina who waged an ongoing war against balloons.

***

This Brave Writer must be new to the craft. Thus, let’s talk big picture first. First “rule” of writing is to limit one point-of-view per scene. Though an omniscient POV is one of the choices, I don’t think Brave Writer was going for that. I believe they intended to use deep 3rd.

This first page is a classic case of trying to fit too much information into the first page to draw readers into the story. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect. Releasing too much information too quickly only causes confusion. The opening page should hint at the story to come. It should compel the reader to flip the page. By releasing too much information, the reader has no reason to continue. It’s also confusing, because we don’t have the story playing in our minds like the writer does.

This first page told us:

  • Donatelli had a meeting with his accountant, presumably Kev.
  • Donatelli doesn’t like Kev.
  • Donatelli dies in a car accident.
  • Car accident was caused by a red laser dot.
  • The make, model, and color of Donatelli’s car.
  • How Donatelli is dressed, including his sunglasses, which stay in place after he sails through the windshield.
  • Kev killed Donatelli.
  • The day of the week (Friday).
  • The month (October).
  • What the weather was like that day.
  • Kev is Donatelli’s accountant.
  • What Donatelli looked like dead.
  • The eyes of people leaving work on Friday. How do you see workers’ eyes from a distance? Or do you mean their attention turned toward the car wreck?
  • Kev is married to Dina.
  • Dina needs grounding.
  • Dina hates balloons for some reason.
  • Dina wouldn’t like Kev comparing her to balloons.

Whew! That’s a lot of information to squeeze into the opening page of a novel. See why this may confuse readers? It’s too much to absorb all at once. Save at least 80% of that information and sprinkle it in little by little later. Let me show you what I mean.

Here’s your opener again:

Donatelli glanced down as he stuffed his cigarette into the car ashtray with its integrated ember killer. <- No smoker would think about a car lighter in this way. Also, newer vehicles don’t come with lighters or ashtrays these days. It looked like a damn coffee cup. <- Don’t understand this visual. Nobody could tell him not to smoke in his own fuckin’ car, so there, Anna, put that in your pipe and smoke it. <- Like it. You’ve given us a peek at his personality, without telling us. Good job!

     He had just left his accountant’s office, odd duck, an ace with money. “and financial planner for all your needs…” he mimicked in his mind, in a sneering voice. <- The catch phrase adds no value. Also, how does one mimic in their mind? Good at his job, but Kevin was a pussy. <- That works. It shows Donatelli’s disdain for Kev.

     He flicked on the heat and massage feature as he wheeled the black of his Benz S580. When he turned on to Queen Street, from the aging parking garage. His eyes rising (<- nitpick: I envision loose eyeballs) his gaze lowered (not rose) to the windshield, he glimpsed the movement of a red dot criss-crossing his chest. bespoke oxford cloth shirt. <-What he’s wearing is not important. Think: suspense. Short. Punchy. A gazillion things should race through his mind, things like, who wants him dead? Why would someone, anyone, want to kill him? It must be a professional hit, if they’re using a gun with an infrared laser. Who would hire someone to kill him?

Panic engulfed him. (More powerful on its own line.)

as it moved up the subtle stripes, out of eye range, toward the big bald dome of his head. If he had a gun trained on him, he would not think about his outfit or his bald head. He looked down, cross-eyed, searching frantically for the dot on his face  How does he “look down” at his face? “Cross-eyed” also takes us out of his POV. 

In search of the shooter, his gaze flicked from window to window. and then around for the shooter, stomping on the gas as he completely forgot he was driving. No one forgets their driving. They may get distracted, but they don’t forget they’re behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. Bad move, Donatelli. Bad move. Stomped the gas instead of the brake—hit a tree—and shot through the windshield, glass shattering around him.

The shot never came but Donatelli shot through the windshield when the car slammed into the big maple, sedate and glorious in its fall foliage. Why would anyone, mangled and dying, take time to admire a maple tree? If the description is important to the plot, save it for later when the police come to the scene, and include in someone else’s POV. If it’s not important, delete. He should have paid attention to the other red dot, the one that indicated “check airbag”. <- He would never think this as he’s dying. 

These last two paragraphs don’t belong in the same scene as Donatelli’s POV. Save them for a future scene, but tighten the writing like above.

     That day, the day Kev killed Donatelli, was an amber and scarlet October Friday. As he shrank back, Kev’s feet crunched the leaves scattered on the sidewalk while horror and disbelief churned inside him. The eyes of the leaving-work crowd were on the shattered wreck accordioned against the towering maple, smoke spiralling from the dead engine. And Donatelli. No one seemed to notice as Kev hastily thrust his hand into the swing-top bin on the corner and released the ‘weapon’. The sun glinted off Donatelli’s sunglasses, the tilt of his head hovering over the hood making it look as though he stared accusingly at his accountant. Although the dripping blood diminished the illusion, the shower of red maple leaves caused by the impact added to the colour.      

     Kev thought of Dina. Would he tell her? Being married to Dina was like holding a helium-filled balloon. She relied on him to keep her grounded. The comparison to a balloon would not sit well with Dina who waged an ongoing war against balloons.

A few notes:

It’s fine to open a thriller with a murder victim. If you choose to stay in Donatelli’s POV (the victim), you must make us empathize with him. Otherwise, who cares if he dies? If you’d rather us care about Kev, then open with him as the POV character. Actually, I think the last two paragraphs in his POV are stronger.

Who is the protagonist of this story?

Does the story rewind to include Donatelli? Or is he the first victim of many?

Is Kev the antagonist? Or is he an antihero?

You need to establish these roles right away. Don’t make us guess. Hopefully, Kev, Donatelli, or both are main characters (hero/antihero or villain). Are they?

In terms of description, take sight out of the equation. Now, how would you describe a maple tree? How would you describe a car accident? Is the crash loud or silent? Both could be true, depending on whose POV you’re in.

Speaking as someone who shot halfway through a windshield, I can tell you, I heard nothing. It was more of an eerie stillness as my body immediately went into shock. It wasn’t until a Good Samaritan stunned me out of my silent haze that I heard the crunching of glass as I opened my eyes, tearing off one eyebrow, eyelashes, half my nose, eyelid, and upper lip. What I did not do was admire the trees. 😉 In fact, I had so much glass and blood in my eyes, I could barely see.

If you slipped inside Donatelli’s skin, how would you describe panic? Does your hearing muffle? Does your pulse race? Is your mind on high alert? What’s happening inside your body? It’s difficult if you’ve never experienced sheer terror. You need to speak to someone who has, someone willing to share their story. Don’t rely on the movies, which are visual mediums.

Slow down, narrow in on minute details without using sight. That’s how you make us care about Donatelli. Let us into his mind but not surface level. He’ll be dead soon. You must let us all the way inside to his true character, his hopes, his fears, his dreams for the future, how his body reacts, how his mind flusters, how his environment blurs.

If this was my first page, I’d open in Kev’s POV. Show how he uses the laser to cause the accident. Show his delight when the car crashes into the tree (your maple tree visual would make sense then). Show him standing over the body, with a snide smirk and a few choice words of inner dialogue to hint—not reveal—at why he killed Donatelli.

I’ve only opened in a victim’s POV once, but I pulled from life experience. When my gas pedal stuck wide open on a busy main drag littered with traffic lights, it terrified me. In my case, the hell ride was due to a manufacturer’s recall, and I eventually walked away unscathed. In the book, a serial killer hacked the victim’s car and took control. She died. See how easy it is to twist real life into fiction? Something to think about.

Okay, over to you, TKZers. Would you turn this first page? Any advice to add?

The Secret Sauce(s) of Fiction

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by James Scott Bell

I love me a good burger. As master of the grill, I make a killer patty on my Traeger. Nothing like smoky goodness in brisket-blend ground beef. From there I make it personal: Colby jack cheese nicely melted, a slice of white onion, a slice of tomato (the way Miracle Max likes them, “perky”), and a crisp lettuce leaf, topped with Stubbs Sweet Heat BBQ sauce.

When it comes to fast-food burgers, there is only one place I’ll consider: In-N-Out. My go-to is their Double-Double—two patties with American cheese, lettuce, tomato and grilled onions.

And, of course, their secret sauce (“spread”). The nice thing is you can ask for extra spread if you like, and I like, one for splooching a bit on the next bite, and one for my fries. (You can look up recipes online that purport to duplicate In-N-Out spread, but it’s still officially a secret). It’s that sauce that makes all the difference.

Which invites the question: is there a secret sauce for fiction? I believe every author can make their own recipe, and should. It’s the way we can stand out from the generic, tasteless condiment produced by the machine.

I do believe that the writers who enjoy massive success all have a secret sauce.

For Dickens, it was in his cast of characters. As I wrote this, many came to mind, as fresh as when I first encountered them: Mr. Micawber, Peggotty, Betsy Trotwood, Mr. Dick, Fagin, The Artful Dodger, Mr. Bumble, Scrooge, Madame Defarge, Miss Havisham. I’ve often talked about supporting characters being the “spice” of fiction. Don’t ever waste them as a cliché or stereotype. This is one of the most potent ingredients in any sauce.

For Chandler, it was style. His was unique and tangy, often imitated, never surpassed.

I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.

John D. MacDonald also had a singular style, what he called “unobtrusive poetry.”

She sat up slowly, looked in turn at each of us, and her dark eyes were like twin entrances to two deep caves.  Nothing lived in those caves. Maybe something had, once upon a time. There were piles of picked bones back in there, some scribbling on the walls, and some gray ash where the fires had been.

Another word for style is voice. Sometimes that voice is the main ingredient in the sauce, as with the novels of Tom Wolfe and Douglas Adams.

For Harlan Coben, it’s about the plot, with more twists than a pretzel.

Elmore Leonard was a master of dialogue, and it’s spread throughout all his books.

   “I don’t know what it is,” his dad said, “you’re not a bad-looking guy. You could give a little more thought to your grooming. Get your hair trimmed, wear a white shirt now and then, see if that works. What kind of aftershave you use?”

     “I’m serious.”

     “I know you are and I’m glad you came to me. When’d she throw you out, last night?”

     “She didn’t throw me out, I left. I phoned, you weren’t home, so I stayed at Jerry’s.”

     “When you needed me most,” his dad said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Actually,” Chris said, “you get right down to it, Phyllis’s the one does all the talking.” (Freaky Deaky)

For Ken Follett it’s historical detail, deftly woven, not larded on. As one critic put it:

Readers do learn a lot about cathedral building in The Pillars of the Earth and about how Gothic architecture developed, but in a way that serves a clear and clever purpose in the story. It doesn’t feel stuck-on or like an excuse for the author to write endlessly about his passion and share the fruits of research. The exposition plays naturally and complements rather than impedes the flow of the narrative and build of suspense.

With Carl Hiaasen, humor is the main ingredient.

When I was conceiving my series hero, Mike Romeo, I asked myself what my secret sauce would be. What can I bring to the character that will make him unique and not just some knockoff of what’s worked for others? So far, with #11 out there now, I think my sauce is working. It’s a mix of dialogue, philosophy, a touch of humor, spicy minor characters, and horticulture. He is a former cage fighter who loves flowers, Plato, and his wife, Sophie.

A few secret sauce tips:

  1. Be judicious with it. Too much sauce of any kind can overpower the meat. Your sauce should enhance, not overwhelm, the book.
  2. It must be tasty. Not every mixture is palatable to the reading public. Of course, if you don’t care about sales, splatter on whatever spread you make.
  3. Don’t use AI to come up with your recipe. Mix it in your own mental kitchen.

And so I ask, do you have a secret sauce? Maybe you haven’t thought about it, but looking at your work so far, do you see a consistent ingredient that marks your books as uniquely yours?

What’s the secret sauce for some of your favorite writers?

Let’s talk about it. Bon appétit!

Procrastination can be good!

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"You call it procrastination, I call it thinking." Aaron Sorkin thepitchmaster.com

Creative people are known procrastinators. We will spend three hours on the Internet researching, walk the dog, and organize our desk drawer all before we start working. Interestingly, that procrastination often serves a purpose. While we are doing other things, our brains are working on our creative problems. So when we finally sit down to work, the solutions appear like magic. This process is called creative procrastination.

The Shower Principle

Activities where you can let your mind wander like driving, walking, or showing work best. So many people get ideas when they take a shower that it is a real psychological phenomenon called the shower principle. Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive scientist and coauthor of Wired to Create, did a study that showed 72% of people get creative ideas in the shower. I know one writer who keeps a white board marker in his shower so that he can jot his ideas on the tile. Another writer friend of mine made a sale pitching over the phone an idea straight from the shower with soap still in his hair. For me, I get my ideas walking my dog or in the shower. Bestselling novelist Tess Gerritsen goes for a long boring drive whenever she gets stuck in a story. (She calls being stuck plot blocked, which is my new favorite story term.)

When you are stuck on a creative problem, the best thing to do is to get up from your computer. By focusing on something else you let your subconscious mind work on the problem. This is often when our greatest ideas come to us.

You call it procrastination. I call it thinking. –  Aaron Sorkin

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright dodged a client for nine months, until the man drove 140 miles to confront him about his missed deadlines. Knowing his patron was on his way, Wright sketched his masterpiece Fallingwater in two hours.

Sleep On It

Just like mindless tasks help your unconscious brain solve problems, sleep can do the same thing. The phrase let’s sleep on it, exists for a reason; it really works. Thomas Edison was a famous napper. He would often take a nap during the day and wake up with a solution for whatever project he was working on. Early on in my career, I figured out that this is one of the ways my creative brain likes to solve problems. When I am reacting to written material, I read it once, make notes, sleep on it, and come up with more solutions. In fact, I ask my clients to turn in their projects for feedback 48 hours in advance of our meetings so that I can sleep on it.

A Caveat

Both the shower principal and sleeping on it only work if you have given some conscious thought and conscious work to your project. You need to have wrestled with the problem a bit before you disconnect. In other words, you have given your unconscious brain direction about what to think about when you’re not thinking about it. If I am really struggling with a story problem, I will tell myself to think about it right before I go to sleep. I almost always wake up with a solution.

Non-procrastination

Ironically, not practicing creative procrastination can be a problem. People that compulsively finish things early are called precrastinators. And while being organized is wonderful, never allowing things to percolate means you’re missing a big step of the creative process. I encourage you when you finish projects, whether you are a precrastinator or a procrastinator, to let them lie fallow. Put them in a drawer for a little while and come back and look at them with fresh eyes. If you can take a couple of weeks, that’s ideal. But even a couple of hours can be helpful. It’s just another way to let your unconscious brain work its magic.

What is your favorite way to creatively procrastinate?

Dive Deeper

Wired to Create by Scott Barry

Precrastination and the Science of Doing Too Much, Psychology Today

The Creative Power of Procrastination, Tiago Forte

Sell Your Book to Hollywood: How to Pitch Your Book, Find the Right Producer, and Navigate the Deal by Lindsey Hughes        This is the playbook I’ve built from 30 years in the business: what producers want, how deals get made, and the mistakes that kill great projects. Join the list to get a launch day discount! 

Reader Friday-Teach Me!

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As TKZers, it goes without saying that we are all very skilled…at something, I’m sure.

But, the question for the day is not what skill(s) you already possess, either naturally or after years of dedicated blood, sweat, and tears—but what skill you’d like to have.

 

So, here goes:  If a genie popped out of your water bottle and offered to imbue you instantly with any one skill, what skill would you choose?

Here’s my answer.

I would like to possess an unerring skill to discern the motives of people who cross my path–and say or do things that make no sense. Lots of that going around.

Nature is so much easier to figure out, right? The lion wants to eat me, and the mantis is trying to figure out how much I weigh…so she can eat me.   🙂

If that genie ever pops up in front of me, life is going to get very interesting in the Gorman household, yessirree Bob!

Your turn! What skill do you want?

 

Poor Unappreciated Me

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By Elaine Viets

    Recently, a Very Important Person at Macmillian Publishers sent me a complimentary email. She’s a real senior editor at the British publisher. Modesty forbids me from using her name, so I’ll call her VIP.

 The VIP editor’s email was headlined, “Editorial Interest in Beach Blonde Betrayal.” (That’s my new mystery.)

          VIP was “immediately drawn to the combination of wit, suspense, and vivid South Florida atmosphere” in my most recent novel.

          She outlined the plot in detail and said it was an “entertaining mystery with plenty of momentum, while the quirky residents and local setting give the story a distinctive character.”

          Wow. Move over Kristin Hannah and Georges Simenon, here’s someone who understands the poetry of my soul.

          The VIP editor wanted to know the name of my agent. (In publishing speak, that means she’s serious.)

Then VIP said, “there may be scope for a broader discussion regarding potential fit within Macmillian’s adult mystery, crime, and cosy mystery publishing programs.”

I noticed she spelled “cosy” in the proper British style. This was looking better and better. VIP said she’d be delighted to hear from me.

Not as happy as I was to hear from her.

I’d always wanted to take a long cruise. I could see myself relaxing in the ship’s spa after lunch, then resting up before a lobster dinner, followed by champagne cocktails at bedtime. In the morning, I’d work on my next international bestseller in my balcony suite. Meanwhile, the VIP editor would fend off the movie and TV offers for my latest work.

I was about to make my cruise reservations when the last line of the email stopped me: The VIP editor finished her email, “Keep being awesome.”

What!? My dream cruise was shipwrecked. The champagne cocktails spilled down the drain and the lobster was an empty shell.

No editor, especially not a British editor, would tell a writer to “keep being awesome.” Not unless Prince William slapped me on the back and invited me for a beer at the palace.

Furthermore, this VIP used a gmail address, often a sign of a scam. She should have used her corporate address.

Since then, I’ve been deluged with emails about my mysteries.

Marketing directors begged for the opportunity to increase my sales, starting with lowering the prices of my mysteries. (Those are set by my publisher, thank you.)

Dubious book clubs wanted to recommended my books to their thousands of readers. (For a small fee.)

 Flattering emails invited me to be a guest on prestigious podcasts. No charge, of course, though they’d appreciate a “donation” to help pay for the sound engineer. (No thanks.)

One of my favorite radio shows, “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, invited me for an interview. I noticed the email for “Fresh Air” had an extra R. No Terry. No invite.

All of  these emails were AI scams. Writer Beware, the useful blog that helps writers navigate the darker corners of our industry, wrote “How Those Personalized Generative AI Scam Emails Are Built.” Check out the full article here: https://tinyurl.com/mr3c5ct4

These scams are surprisingly easy, Writer Beware’s Victoria-Strauss said. And common. My VIP editor routine has its own name.

“For the Editor Impersonation Scam, these emails use a real editor’s name and title,” Victoria-Strauss wrote. “But they often use a gmail address instead of the corporate address, and the scammers usually slip up some other way.”

 In my scam letter, they told me to “keep being awesome.”

These scam letters are extremely detailed. Not only do they include information about my book’s plot and characters, but my biography, sale rank on Amazon, and more. All that information can be picked off the internet.

“We still don’t know how the AI scams are structured or who runs them,” she said. “The payment and other data I’ve collected suggests that they mostly hail from West Africa, and there’s obviously some degree of centralization – the way the solicitations sort into distinct ‘types’ or categories suggests this (i.e., marketing, book club, impersonations of well-known authors, editors, agents, etc.).

“The one bright spot amid this scam tsunami is that familiarity breeds suspicion. . . . The scammers are still making money, though. The emails wouldn’t be flooding our inboxes if they weren’t. Be careful out there.”

          Since that email, I’ve been careful, resisting the siren song of those gushing letters.

Fortunately, I have a nice Nigerian prince to advise me.

***

Beach Bargain. Both my Florida Beach mysteries, “Sex and Death on the Beach” and “Beach Blonde Betrayal” are Kindle ebook deals. Click here: https://tinyurl.com/2uxyfa5d

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agatha Christie and Me

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Agatha Christie and Me
Terry Odell

Cover of Beyond the Frame by Terry OdellIf you’ll pardon a little BSP, Beyond the Frame is now out in the world. This is a stand alone, although there’s a possibility it might spin off another book. Or two. Not something I had in mind when I started writing, but as the book drew to a close and I was doing all the editorial reading, I noticed some potential sequels. Subconscious at work?

Anyway, you can find more about the book here, along with buy links if this not-really-a-mystery is something you’d find interesting.

What I’m really doing is getting ready for a vacation, one of my ‘retirement’ goals. This was one of those times when the Hubster and I both came up with the same idea for our next trip, so naturally, we booked it.

Since the trip begins in Istanbul, and it’s a place I’ve never been to, nor likely to return to, it made sense to arrive a few days early and see some of the sights. We decided to splurge and stay at the Pera Palace, the hotel built for travelers on the Orient Express back in the day. I mean, why not? And it just so happened that the hotel was putting the Agatha Christie suite on sale. Of course I wanted to stay there. Here’s what their website said:

typewriter in the Agatha Christie room at the Pera Palace HotelAgatha Christie Room
The Agatha Christie Room preserves the spirit of its era, offering an unforgettable stay for literature and mystery enthusiasts. This 46 m² room features a private library with the author’s works in various languages, a replica of her typewriter, and antique furnishings that reflect the soul of the early 20th century.

Whether she wrote Murder on the Orient Express there is still questionable, but she did stay there.

After our stay there, we’ll be on a 310 passenger yacht sailing through the Greek Isles and ending up in Barcelona. Of course, we’re not likely to return there, so we’re adding a couple of extra days on that end of the trip as well.

(And yes, I’ll be taking pictures!)

Am I going to set another book there? That’s a question I’m not ready to answer. Of course, I’ll keep an open mind, and at the very least, should be picking up some character fodder.

Here are some of my tips, shared in earlier posts, but I thought they were worth repeating here:

Less is more. My first drafts went into phenomenal detail about absolutely everything. Airports. Train stations. Hotels. Food. All the places we stopped, what we saw on the drives. Given we were traveling for well over two weeks, that would have been a LONG book. A sense of place is good. Overwhelming readers is not. I had to keep reminding myself to make sure everything related to the plot and characters. I wasn’t writing a travelogue.

Stay true to time. Readers familiar with the area will know that you can’t get from A to B in two hours, or that when you’ve had your characters on their bus for five hours, it’s really a twenty-minute drive.

You’ll always miss something. Unless you’ve got your plot mapped out before your trip, once  you start writing, you’ll have a scene to write and—lo and behold—you missed taking a picture, or didn’t take the right notes. I spent a LOT of time on the internet rechecking facts, looking at maps, and refamiliarizing myself with some of the attractions we visited. If I couldn’t find exactly what I needed, I reminded myself I was writing fiction—another reason not to name real places. On the occasions where my characters were eating in real, named places, I made sure I had pictures and menus. Same for attractions.

Don’t make up real stuff. One of the reasons I made this book a stand alone was because our trip didn’t include visits to police departments (although I snapped a picture of a vehicle in Ireland, “just in case”). Also, it would be unrealistic for my American characters to have any access to law enforcement in several different countries.

Be nice. I also opted not to name the specific hotels or restaurants (mostly). For one thing, it gave me the freedom to change the décor, layout, amenities, or the restaurant menus. And, if something “bad” happened, I wasn’t going to incur the wrath of those establishments.

It’s about flavor. Although my characters didn’t visit Northern Ireland, I did include a character from the same town we’d visited when we stayed with my daughter. I made sure she vetted all his dialogue. For example, people in Northern Ireland use the word “wee” as a meaningless adjective. I was asked for my wee credit card, given a wee receipt, offered a wee bag for my purchases. My British critique partner was very helpful with vocabulary as well.

Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Available Now

Beyond the Frame
Beyond the Frame by Terry OdellWhen the camera lies, who do you trust?

When deepfake photos threaten their careers, dog-park friends Evvie and Colton become each other’s only allies. Evvie, who vanished behind her camera years ago to escape a painful past, uncovers humiliating fake images of herself.

Colton, an insurance adjuster with ranch roots, trusts her eye on a suspicious claim. A family emergency pulls them to Wyoming—where Evvie’s own dangerous secret waits.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Decluttering the Thriller Novella

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Photo credit: https://flickr.com/photos/46213661@N00/3623341152

by Debbie Burke

Recently I was talking offline with Justin, a regular TKZ reader. He’s currently editing his thriller novella and asked how to “declutter” it.

Great question!

Novella length is typically 20K-40K words. Jim Bell’s recent post on novellas explores the form in detail and offers excellent examples.

Compared to other genres like mystery, historical, speculative, romance, etc., thrillers are generally faster paced. There’s no room to wander through long descriptions, subplots that don’t relate to the main plot, or extended character backstories.

For a novella, there’s even less room.

Every story needs problems and goals. The hero must face a problem and solve it to achieve their goal.

Each scene presents a problem:

  • A phone is lost..
  • An identity is stolen.
  • A friend goes missing.

The inciting incident is the only the first domino to fall in a succession of problems.

Each scene needs a goal:

  • The hero must find their phone.
  • They need to learn who stole their identity.
  • They want to locate the missing friend.

But they can’t solve the immediate problem because a new obstacle appears.

  • The lost phone contains all the hero’s contacts, delayed the ability to get help.
  • A stolen identity leads to their bank account being drained and credit ruined.
  • The missing friend disappeared on purpose because they committed a crime.

The hero must adjust their goal to overcome that roadblock instead.

Alternatively, they solve the immediate problem, but the solution leads to different problems.

  • The hero finds their lost phone but it’s in the hands of a criminal who already used it to commit wire fraud.
  • The hero protects their money by freezing bank accounts but learns the identity thief filed false tax returns and now the IRS is after the hero.
  • The hero finds the missing friend but uncovers they’re involved in a sex trafficking operation.

Each scene causes the hero to make choices.

Subsequent scenes reveal additional problems and conflicts that force the hero to make increasingly difficult choices.

The conclusion of one scene should lead the reader into new problems, goals, and choices.

Scenes should be chain reactions.

Scenes need to be causally linked. If you find a scene that doesn’t connect to the past or foreshadow the future, it may not be necessary.

When reviewing a manuscript, ask yourself: Does this scene move the story forward?

If the answer is no, probably get rid of it.

Give the reader only as much information as they need to know to stay interested.

  • Avoid tangents that aren’t relevant.
  • Delete characters who don’t perform meaningful tasks.
  • We authors are proud of our extensive research but in the novella (as well as longer forms), leave out 95+%. TMI (too much information) slows the story to a crawl.
  • Use only specific details that add credibility, authenticity, and verisimilitude.

Readers want sufficient information to understand what’s going on but don’t want an entire graduate class about a subject.

Be clear but be careful not to spoil surprises.

Which details are absolutely necessary for clarity?

The reader should be able to determine:

  • What is happening.
  • Whom is it happening to.
  • What the stakes are.  

Be strategic about the details you cut. The reader should be intrigued but not confused.

Don’t answer all their questions immediately. Some mystery makes them turn the page.

But beware of withholding too much info because that’s not only confusing but also frustrating.

If you have trouble judging clarity because you’re too close to the story, ask your critique group or beta readers for help.

Edit ruthlessly.

Cut all unnecessary verbiage. With limited real estate, every single word must count.

Go through the story word by word. If a word or phrase isn’t needed, chop it. Here’s a post with a list of “junk” words.

 

The tighter the writing, the tighter the tension.

Readers never know what you deleted or left out. They’re only aware your clutter-free novella is a fast, compelling, enjoyable story.

 

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TKZers: Are you concerned about being too wordy? How do you tighten your writing? Please share additional suggestions.

Should Authors Take a Hiatus From Writing?

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“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes—including you.” —Anne Lamott

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Many thanks once again to James Scott Bell and Dale Ivan Smith for covering for me these last months.

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While I was writing this post about taking a break from writing, I got very interested in the word hiatus. I like the way it sounds. Hi-a-tus. The two adjacent vowels are pronounced separately, and that’s relatively rare in English.

So before I get to the main subject here, I’m going to plunge down a rabbit hole to learn more about this unusual word. Join me!

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Most double vowels in English are either dipthongs (e.g., coin or house) where the sound glides from one vowel to the next one to make a single sound, or they are digraphs (e.g. bread or boat) where the two vowels make one sound.

But then there are words like hiatus or chaos where the two adjacent vowels are sounded separately. And what is the proper term for this English oddity? Ready for this? They’re called hiatus vowels. How good is that?

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So what’s the origin of this interesting word? According to Merriam-Webster.com, the word hiatus comes from the Latin hiare which means “to yawn,” and the word yawn means gap. I always associated hiatus with a voluntary break in routine, like an athlete taking a season off to rest tired muscles before jumping back into the fray. While it certainly can mean that, the word has a lot of other connotations.

For example, the esophageal hiatus is a passage of the esophagus through the diaphragm into the stomach. A bulge in that area is called a hiatal hernia. And there are other hiatuses in the body. There’s the aortic hiatus and the hiatus semilunaris. You’re on your own to look those up.

But that’s not all. We find hiatuses in other interesting contexts:

The British novelist Laurence Sterne used the word in Tristram Shandy to describe a clothing tear, calling it “the hiatus in Phutatorius’s breeches.”

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus used the term to reflect on the human condition when he noted “the regular hiatus between what we fancy we know and what we really know.”

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All of this information about the word hiatus is very interesting, but it’s time to climb out of the rabbit hole and return to the real point of this blog post: Should authors take a hiatus away from writing occasionally?

I found several sites (masterclass.com, Helping Writers Become Authors, and The Write Practice) with good information on why you may want to take a break from writing and the benefits and risks of doing so. I’ve summarized some of their points here.

Why Take a Break?

  • You feel exhausted, drained of creative energy
  • You don’t know what to write
  • You need to prioritize other commitments

Whatever the reason you decide to take a break, consider some of the benefits and risks.

Benefits

  • Short writing breaks provide needed rest. Sticking to a regular routine is important to a writer, but day in and day out sameness can become stale and boring. A short break can refresh the old gray cells.
  • Writing breaks can prevent writer’s block. I’ve always associated writer’s block with fear. The kind of fear that makes you wonder if you can come up with another good story, and that can have a paralyzing effect on writing. Taking time to get away for a few days can stimulate new ideas and get the juices flowing again.
  • Writing breaks refresh the mind. We all need to recharge our creative batteries by challenging ourselves to look at things from a new perspective now and then. Taking a break gives the writer a chance to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Of course, there are risks associated with taking time off. Consider these:

Risks

  • Loss of Habit: Once you break a daily writing routine, it may be hard to get back to it. The longer the hiatus, the more difficult it may be to return.
  • Fading Momentum: Taking a break in the middle of a WIP could cause the project to stall or be left unfinished.
  • Decline in Audience: Lack of deliverables can reduce the author’s readership. Once you’ve dropped off the radar, readers may turn to other writers.

Strategies to avoid the risk

  • Fill your time with inspiration. Many writers get creative inspiration from art, music, films, and podcasts. Consider spending your free time exploring other media or going out into the world and trying something new. Use the time to outline next steps on your writing journey.
  • Focus your energy on a different project. When working on a writing project, like a novel or short story, it can be helpful to write something else periodically. If you feel like you’re hitting a wall, try journaling to record your thoughts. This can help get the creative juices flowing again.
  • Follow a schedule. Writing every day on a schedule can keep you on task and build a habit. The same goes for taking a break. Eating, exercising, and taking time for self-care will help your mental and physical well-being and your writing practice.
  • Take a break once you reach a milestone. Take a break between writing your first draft and rewriting, or between writing and editing. Give yourself at least a few days, so you can read your work with fresh eyes. It can also help to take breaks when you’ve hit a target word count or finished a chapter so that you can acknowledge your accomplishments.

The Involuntary Hiatus

Of course, taking a hiatus from writing is not always optional. Sometimes life intervenes. You have a new job or a new baby, you move to another city or have a medical issue. Any of these can force an unwanted hiatus from writing. So what do you do then?

  • You may not have time to write, but you can still think about writing and jot down ideas for stories.
  • Work on one chapter of your WIP to fine tune it. Just slow down, but don’t stop.
  • Read if you have time. Talk to others. Expand your horizons. All of it will make a better writer in the long run.
  • Take care of yourself. Exercise has been shown to stimulate creativity.

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So TKZers: What’’s your opinion on taking a hiatus from writing? Have you tried taking a break? How hard was it to restart the engine?

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Cassie Deakin takes a break from her contract piloting career to help solve a mystery. But there’s no hiatus from danger when a murderer is on the loose.

Click the image to go to the Amazon book detail page.

Writing for Short Attention Spans

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by James Scott Bell

My new Romeo thriller, Romeo’s World, is live today. Like all the others, it does not have chapters. It has scenes, as long or short as they need to be. Each scene is set off with a drop cap, like this (click to enlarge):

I find this freeing and cinematic (as in “jump cuts” to move to another scene).

In the thriller market, short, numbered chapters roared into fashion with Mr. James Patterson, who I predict will break out soon. I wrote my Try series this way, each book with well over one hundred chapters. I now find it a bit absurd to have a TOC with 191 chapters listed, like one would expect a reader to think, “Gosh, I want to read Chapter 148 again. It was so good!”

So I don’t do the number thing, though in a future stand-alone I might. Either way, we’re all dealing with shorter attention spans these days.

A recent PW article reported on the move in Middle Grade fiction toward shorter books:

In recent years, educational surveys, sales data, and anecdotal evidence from teachers and librarians have all pointed to the same discouraging fact: that the share of kids ages nine and up reading for pleasure is at a record low.

***

Conversations in middle grade have increasingly gravitated toward length. Page counts under 200 are cropping up more frequently on fall and spring lists.

“We have a new type of kid now,” says author and agent Jackie Garcia-Morales at Storm Literary Agency. “They’re reading, but they’re reading in different ways—the simplest form being memes and GIFs. In that in-between age of middle grade, they’re moving away not only from longer books but also from longer-form videos and entertainment.”

***

[Krista Vitola, executive editor at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers] echoes that sentiment. “Kids have so many time constraints and competing interests, including sports and other activities. They don’t have those long windows to get lost in books like previous generations had.” Creating books that can be read in shorter stretches is a strategy for helping them fit reading in.

All that applies to adults, too, does it not? We’re all on our phones 17/7, more if we have insomnia. Who has time and attention to just sit and “get lost in a book” anymore?

A commercial novel can be long, of course (looking at you JK “Robert Galbraith” Rowling), so long as the author knows how to make readers want/need to turn the page (a subject for another time). Like The Martian by Andy Weir, which started as an indie project and comes in at a hefty 105k words.

I write in the pulp tradition, which means crisp, fast-moving stories, rarely over 80k.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Now over to you. Do your books have an average length? Do you think “shorter,” or just let the words fall as they may?

How’s your reading time these days? When was the last time you got lost in a book for over an hour?

Forensic Words of Wisdom

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Today’s Words of Wisdom takes a fact-based, real world turn and looks at the science of forensics. Lisa Black, Sue Coletta and Garry Rodgers all provide facts and insights which can help your fiction writing, be it mystery, suspense, thriller. Even more than usual, it’s well worth reading the original posts in full.

I do not make a habit of taking my plots from real-live cases—it always sounded like a good way to get sued to me—but the germ of an idea for Evidence of Murder did come from a case I worked with the coroner’s office in Cleveland, Ohio. A woman who worked as an escort—quite legitimately, through an agency that could be looked up in the phone book—disappeared from the face of the earth after one final date.  She had a steady live-in boyfriend and an eight year old daughter. The story stuck in my mind for two reasons.

One, escorting (if that’s what it’s called) seemed like an odd way to make a living—at least to me, having been married long enough that spending every night with a different man sounds like an agonizing amount of work. Certain readers may be disappointed, but very little of the book refers to the victim’s job. For the most part it is mentioned only to point out that every person she encountered wrote her off as a brainless bimbo, including—at first—my main character, Theresa MacLean.

Two, it was one of those cases where the cops were positive they knew whodunit, but could not prove it. One huge disservice that the television shows do to the field of forensics is to insist that you can always find more evidence if you just look harder. Yeah, right. That’s like saying doctors could cure cancer if they really tried and obese people would be thin if they’d only eat less. Sometimes a clue (or a cure, or a solution) simply isn’t there. Sometimes cool things are there but may not be clues. I have a mental list of my real-life cool clues that never went anywhere. In one high-profile case where a mother of three was abducted from the parking lot of the local mall and later found assaulted and shot to death in her own van, I kept finding rabbit hairs dyed a brilliant cherry red. The family had only just bought the van and gave me every set of hairs, every coat, every piece of clothing they thought might have been in it. I asked the detectives to keep an eye out for some fun fur trim or a lucky rabbit’s foot (though those had fallen out of style by 1996). It never turned up. By the time we caught the killers, a year had passed. No red rabbit fur. Another time I was examining the raincoat of a murdered prostitute under ultraviolet light, looking for semen or fluorescing fibers. At one spot on this plastic raincoat a pattern leapt up—a crystal-clear design of stylized daisies, something that would have been popular during my childhood in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Obviously the raincoat had been up against something with fluorescent properties and, for some obscure chemical reasons I couldn’t begin to guess, transferred to the vinyl. In regular light, the pattern became invisible. I described it to the detectives but again, no bells rung. In forensics, contrary to what you see on TV, you have to make your peace with not knowing everything.

Sometimes clues are there but can’t tell you enough. Finding the hair of the victim in, say, the trunk of the suspect’s car might be very incriminating—if he says he never met the woman, it might be enough to convict him. If he happens to live with the woman, it means exactly nothing, since her hair is likely to be all over the apartment and easily transferred to items he might put in the trunk. Or she might have dropped it there while leaning over to take out the groceries. Or it might have fallen out when he transported her body to the dump site. There’s no way to tell. So I wanted to explore what happens when every physical clue Theresa finds simply leads her to a brick wall instead of some helpful revelation.

Lisa Black—September 9, 2009

Teeth Show Time of Death

When no clues exist to identify a corpse, investigators have a serious problem. The determination of age and sex of the body can be crucial to limit the search for individuals that could possibly match missing persons records. Today, gender can be determined through DNA, as well as the skeleton itself, but believe it or not, it’s not as accurate as testing done on teeth. Age estimation in children and adolescents often depends on radiological examination of skeletal and dental development. In adults, however, age estimation is much less accurate.

Enter: aspartic acid racemization and radiocarbon dating.

At the sprawling 26-acre Freeman Ranch in Texas, over 50 human corpses reside at the body farm. Many of which are checked via drone. Scientists examined 44 teeth from 41 individuals using aspartic acid racemization analysis of tooth crown dentin and radiocarbon dating of enamel. Of those, ten were split and subjected to both radiocarbon and racemization analysis. Combined analysis showed that the two methods combined worked better than relying on one or the other.

Radiocarbon Dating, a forensic tool also done on eyes, is an accurate way to determine environment, date of birth, age of deceased, nutrition, diet, and even date of death. I’ve written about Radiocarbon Dating before (see link above). Briefly, similar to counting rings on a tree to determine its age, same applies to the eyes and teeth. Only with teeth researchers aren’t looking for crystallins.

Twice a year each permanent tooth is anchored to the gums by tiny, distinct fibers. A bright line is laid in the spring or summer, depending on where you live, and a dark line in the fall or winter. The number of bands, as well as the color and width of the outermost ring, help scientists estimate the deceased’s age at death and also narrows the TOD (time of death) window.

 Plants and Trees Love Dead Bodies

Human remains act like any other type of fertilizer, producing nitrogen that leeches into the soil. and provides nutrients to plant-life. Trees and plants thrive on this added nutrient, growing taller, fuller, and greener than those not living near the dead. By studying their size compared to other plant-life in the area, experts can determine where and when bodies were buried.

 Insects, Rats, and Squirrels Help Determine Date of Death

I’ve written about entomology before, but did you know scavengers — like rats and squirrels, for example — prefer different types of human bones? It’s true. Rats like their bones greasy, and tend to chew on the ends in order to gain access to the marrow. Scientists can then look for these signs to determine how long the body has been in its earthly grave.

Conversely, squirrels prefer drier, more brittle bones that have been fully exposed to the elements. They use the calcium in bone to aid in the breeding of strong litters. By examining the different bite marks and narrowing when the bites occurred and by whom, forensic anthropologists are then able to determine if the body was skeletonized while fully exposed to the elements = squirrel activity. Or if buried in a shallow grave with nibbles on the ends of the bones = rats. Also, they can estimate how long the body has been dead and if the body has remained undisturbed.

Quick fun fact: it takes vultures only a few hours to strip a body down to bare bones — a time frame previously estimated to be weeks.

Sue Coletta—July 2, 2018

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis is the forensic interpretation of human blood evidence in crime scene investigations. It’s used to recreate actions that caused the bloodshed. Because blood has chemical properties that behave according to specific laws, trained analysts can examine the size, shape, and distribution of bloodstains to draw conclusions of what did—or did not—happen.

Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA) applies the sciences of anatomy, biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics to answer questions like:

Where’d the blood come from?

Who’d it belong to?

How’d it get there?

What caused the wound(s)?

From what direction was the victim assailed?

How were the victim and perpetrator positioned?

How many victims and perpetrators were there?

What movements were made after the bloodshed?

You’ve seen the CSI shows where investigators, dressed in their ‘bunny suits’, photograph drops, streaks, smears, and pools of blood, then swab for DNA and String the room back to Area of Convergence points. Well, that’s pretty much how it happens, except today most Stringing is done by 3D computerization.

Bloodstain pattern interpretation is nothing new. It’s been around two hundred years and became increasing sophisticated as technology advanced. I’ve been involved in a number of BPA examinations during my time as a cop and coroner. One that really stands out was when Billy Ray Shaughnessey axe-murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new lover. The room looked like a bomb went off in a red paint factory. I’ll tell you more about it at the end of this article. First, let’s look at how blood behaves.

Blood has three components that are suspended in plasma.

Erythrocytes are your red cells that transfer oxygen through hemoglobin. It’s what gives blood the red color. Leukocytes, your white cells, are your body’s defenders and support your immune system in fighting infection and disease. Platelets are formed in your bone marrow and play a major role in hemostasis or plugging up breaches in vessels.

Blood composition is about 55% plasma and 45% formed elements, or cells, which remain suspended due to agitation caused by your circulatory system. That’s called viscosity—it’s density or internal friction. Once blood leaves your body’s pressurized containment, it’s subject to the forces of gravity and surface tension which dictates its resting shape. That can be in drops, streaks, or pools.

Crime scene bloodstains take different forms due to factors like velocity and distance of travel, amount of blood flow, angle of impact, and type of surface or target it lands on. There are eight categories of bloodstain patterns:

Single Drop — These stains are typically from a vertical fall and under low velocity, like when your cut your finger and blood drips to the floor. Blood molecules are very cohesive. They attract and bind in a surface tension that makes a sphere. The drop stays in a ball until it strikes an object or a force acts on it. This is called bleed-out.

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This time I’ll let the original posters pose the questions:

Lisa Black—“Do you use problems in your character’s workplace to further the plot, and how?”

Sue Coletta—“Have you found a fascinating forensic technique in your research? Did you use it in a story?”

Garry Rodgers—“Have you used bloodstain pattern analysis in your works? Have you researched this science arm?”