Monthly Archives: April 2020

The Decency Factor

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It’s not all bad news out there. The hate-stream does not slosh over every social interaction, though sometimes it seems that way. In the midst of our current crisis there are abundant stories of bravery and heroism on the front lines, and decency and kindness all around.

One such story went viral. A FedEx delivery man brings a package to a doorstep. He sees a note that someone in the house has an auto-immune disorder, so please leave packages outside.

The fellow then goes to his vehicle for some wipes, sanitizes the package, and leaves a little note of his own, ending with “Stay safe” and a smiley face.

My wife and I couldn’t help getting misty as we watched the video. That is the power of a kind act, especially when times are troubled.

In fiction, decency is often shown by way of the “pet the dog” scene. This is where the hero, in the midst of his own vexations, pauses to help someone weaker than himself. It’s an act of basic kindness and thus bonds us even more strongly with the Lead.

I’ll give you two examples. The first is from The Fugitive (1993). You know the story. Dr. Richard Kimble is on the run after escaping a prison bus on the way to Death Row. Kimble was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. It was a one-armed man who did it, and Kimble is now in a race against time to find him.

At one point Kimble poses as a hospital janitor so he can access the prosthetics records. As he’s slipping out of the hospital he finds himself waylaid by traffic on the trauma floor.

As he waits for a chance to move he notices a little boy on a gurney, groaning. From the look on Kimble’s face we know he wants to help that boy. He’s a doctor! That’s what he does! But he can’t without giving himself away. A nurse gives a cursory look at the chest x-ray, calling out that the kid is okay.

The supervising doctor comes over, sees Kimble just standing there, and asks him to wheel the kid down to an observation room. So off Kimble goes with the gurney.

As he does, he asks the boy where it hurts. He slips the x-ray from its envelope and holds it up to the light.

He determines that the boy needs immediate surgery. So on the elevator he changes the boy’s orders and takes him to the operating room, turning him over to a surgeon who gets the boy in for the help he needs.

Kimble saved a boy’s life at the risk of being found out. The filmmakers use it for just that purpose. The doctor on the trauma floor saw Kimble looking at the film. She catches up to him and confronts him. Not satisfied with his evasions, she grabs his ID badge and calls for Security.

Thus, Kimble’s “pet the dog” moment has gotten him into worse trouble. That’s using it to the max.

My second example is from Casablanca (where so many great moments come from!) As you know, the movie is about a bitter American named Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who is allowed to run a café/saloon in this Morocco burg because he’s seen as neutral and uninterested in the war that rages around the world. Rick keeps telling people, “I stick my neck out for nobody.”

Rick’s Café is packed nightly with refugees making surreptitious deals to get out of Casablanca. Louis, the French police captain who has local control (with Nazi permission), uses the Café to get gambling kickbacks and women. He identifies desperate young couples who need exit visas but don’t have the money to pay for them. Louis then approaches the wife and offers her the papers gratis…in return for sleeping with him.

So in the middle of the swirling plot a young wife asks for Rick’s advice. Her husband is at the roulette table, trying to win the money they need for the visas. But he’s losing. Louis has made his pitch to the wife and she now wants to know if he’ll keep his word. Rick, with a disgusted look, says, “He always has.” She presses Rick, asking him, as a man, if someone loved him very much and did a “bad thing” to ensure his happiness, could he forgive her for that bad thing? Rick, remembering how Ilsa left him in Paris, says, “Nobody ever loved me that much.” He gets up and leaves, telling the wife that things “may work out.”

But then he goes to the gambling room and spots the husband, who is down to his last chips. Rick tells him to place them on 22. The croupier sees what’s going on and sets the wheel so the ball lands on 22. Rick tells the husband to let it ride, and the ball comes up on 22 again. Rick tells the husband to “Cash it in and don’t come back.”

This pet-the-dog moment is observed by Rick’s headwaiter, but also by Louis, who objects to Rick interfering with his “little romances.” This is potential trouble for Rick, because he has just “stuck his neck” out for some refugees, making Louis suspicious of his true intentions.

We don’t need to do any psychological deep dive to understand why the pet-the-dog beat is so powerful. We are naturally moved by acts of decency. It’s the parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s what Lincoln described as “the better angels of our nature.” It is part, I would argue, of the true American character in times of crisis.

We can show that in our fiction by way of a pet-the-dog beat. Even more important, we can show it in our lives by acting decently, the way a FedEx delivery man did a few days ago.

What act of kindness have you observed or heard about lately? In the past, what gesture of decency made an impact on you?

Fallout

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I submit to you on this fine day — and every day above ground is a fine day — that a bit of perspective is in order as we continue to deal with the cleanup in the surreal aisle. Whenever I hear one of the network talking heads talking about how the current situation is something that is “unprecedented in our lifetimes” my immediate response is, “Well, maybe in yours, Junior. You apparently never had a fallout shelter in your house.”

A little background might be appropriate. The Soviet Union and the United States in 1961 were engaged in what was known as “The Cold War.” It threatened to heat up when the possibility of atomic warfare between the two nations was thrown into the mix. People were scared. There was a headline in one of the local newspapers that read “30 Minutes: Moscow to Columbus.” We were saying the Prayer for Peace in church every day. The Catholic school I attended was rehearsing what students would do if the air raid sirens sounded while we were in class, which was to either put our heads down on our desks or to huddle under them. What they didn’t tell us was that we were figuratively tucking our heads between our legs and kissing our posteriors goodbye. More on that in a minute.

Somewhere along the way, it was suggested — nay, encouraged — for American families to either designate an area in their homes (preferably the basement, if you had one) as or to outright construct something called a “fallout shelter.” 

A fallout shelter wasn’t a man cave. It was supposed to protect the folks huddled inside it from radioactive debris in the event that an atomic bomb or missile was launched at (fill in the name of your city) and hit its target. The term “fallout shelter” really became chiseled into the national consciousness when President John Kennedy suggested in a letter published in Life Magazine that the state of world affairs was such that the utilization of fallout shelters was advisable.  

The collective shirtsleeves of the nation were rolled up. Areas of government buildings were adapted to that purpose but it wasn’t as if they could hold a lot of people. No one wanted to be caught napping when the sirens went off and thus be the one standing outside when the doors got locked after the shelter got filled to capacity.

The alternative which people went for was making their own. Most folks, like the Hartlaub family, dedicated a portion of their basement to the task.  It wouldn’t have withstood a stick of dynamite, let alone a 50 megaton indirect hit, or anything in between, but that’s what we had. My dad solemnly stated over dinner one night that our dog and cat would have to remain above ground while we were downstairs. The rest of the family replied that we would be upstairs with the pets if that were the case. As with the United States and the Soviet Union, neither side’s resolve on the issue was put to the test. 

One could also buy plans to construct fallout shelters, and some construction companies made a killing by building them.  I don’t know anyone who did that, but people did. Apparently there are still some that can be found as outbuildings in older neighborhoods, the same way that you can occasionally find Fotomat kiosks done over as drive-up keymaking services and the like in shopping center out lots

Whichever course one took, their fallout shelter needed to be stocked with food and supplies. I don’t recall lines at the supermarket, shortages,  or anything like what we are seeing now — people were, generally, a little more polite and genteel than they are now — but it seemed for quite a while as if everyone had a supply of groceries stashed in a special room in the house that they called the fallout shelter. 

Photo courtesy Smithsonian

The basic awful truth was that it was a way to keep folks busy and distracted. Busy hands are happy hands. If the big one had dropped we would almost all have been toast. Burnt toast. No one talked about what the aftermath would have been like, either. Time passed, however. People continued to go to work and school and stopped cringing every time a plane flew overhead. The repurposed room in the house got repurposed to its original purpose. Things got back to normal after a year or so. Then the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. That’s another story, for another time. 

Fallout shelters are more or less forgotten now. The term lives on in popular culture here and there. As recently as 2015 a semi-light-hearted video game named Fallout Shelter was released for PlayStation. It wasn’t a laughing matter in 1961. There was nowhere to run. Putting on a mask or maintaining social distance wasn’t going to change things. We were quietly terrified as we went about our business. 

My favorite story of the era was and is “Inside the Fall Out Shelter!” It was a comic book tale that was published in Marvel Comics’Tales of Suspense #30. It was written by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko, the gentlemen who created a little known, all-but-forgotten character named Spider-Man. “Inside the Fall Out Shelter!” was one of those five-page understated masterpieces that populated the Marvel monster comic titles in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

Copyright Marvel Worldwide Inc.

The plot of the story was simple enough. A guy named Mr. Clagg constructed a home fallout shelter for one, that being himself. He installed a timelock on the door that would not open for a month from either the outside or the inside. Clagg also bought enough groceries to last him for the duration in a manner which we would now call “hoarding” and announced every couple of panels that he wasn’t sharing with anyone. He actually seemed eager to have something happen so that he could test drive the shelter and at the end of a month be one of the few (if any) survivors.

In due course — page three or so — the NORAD emergency alert sounded. Mr. Clagg rushed into his shelter and locked the door behind him. He almost gleefully listened to the people outside pounding on the door and laughed at them for not planning ahead as he had. Clagg decided that he would open a can of — beans? soup?— to celebrate his foresightedness. His celebration turned into hysteria, however, when he realized that he had forgotten to pack a can opener (ring pull tops had not been invented at the time). Oh, The Humanity! The End. Well, almost the end. The point of view shifted to outside of the cad’s shelter, where the folks who were pounding on the door walk away, unable to tell Clagg that the siren was only a test. That’s The End. 

Copyright Marvel Worldwide Inc.

I am accordingly a little blase about the current situation. I’ve been through worse. So, too, the majority of the world’s population, who deal with hunger, disease, and lack of shelter and water on a day-to-day basis. How would you like to be a cane cutter in Haiti who is helplessly watching their child suffer from dengue fever? I wouldn’t. I have food, internet, a computer, a television, a radio, a solid home, a bed to sleep in, and chairs to sit on. I also get to watch my cat watch a bird resolutely taking twigs one at a time to a nest it is building in a tree in my backyard, which is much more entertaining and informative than Tiger King, if you think about it.

Coronavirus? Isolation? Travel restrictions? I think I’ll have a Bud Lite. Or a peach soda. And keep writing.

The Pandemic Invades Fiction – Is it a Game Changer?

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Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

The longer I am cooped up behind my four walls, the more my mind wanders on how every day life will be changed by a life threatening virulent pathogen. When I thought the lock down would be for a month, I imagined it to be a vacation or an indulgence. But now that I see the virus invading all aspects of our lives – now and in the future – Covid19 will have an impact that we are only beginning to grasp. Similar to how 9/11 changed our sense of security in the world, how we traveled and how we fear “the other,” we will be defining this experience in new ways that will affect our writing too.

Writers at fanfiction.net are adapting very quickly to story lines that involve current events. They take their favorite TV shows or classic literature and add a COVID angle. Below are some spins I thought would give you an idea what I am writing about – my take.

1.) Imagine romance during the time of a pandemic. How would people “meet”? How would they practice social distancing & not jeopardize the important people in their lives? Is there an APP for that? Would they revive AVATARS to experience the physical aspects of a relationship from a safe distance? Let your imagination run wild. Stories could be romantic comedies or deadly angsty serious.

Picture a modernized version of ROMEO & JULIET where one family has antibodies but the other is pure blood and want to remain that way. Put two young lovers at the apex of a pandemic where governments must decide which family or race should be allowed to survive. A sick romance with a Hunger Games twist?

TAMING OF THE SHREW adaptation where genetics brings two unlikely & resentful lovers together for the sake of the human race’s survival.

2.) DOCTOR DOLITTLE UNDER QUARANTINE – A children’s book where the doctor only has animals to talk to.

3.) STEPHEN KING’S ‘IT’ ADAPTATION IN THE HORROR GENRE – where an isolated anti-hero has a lifelong neuroses about hygiene and disease and crosses the path of a vindictive serial-carrier (aka Pennywise, the clown). A series by the name of KILLING TIME.

4.) LES MISERABLES in a SciFi futuristic genre – Imagine a post-pandemic world where the politics of our time creates a rift between the classes. Rebellion born from pandemic and isolation.

5.) MAGAZINE SERIAL – For writers looking for a writer’s outlet. New York Magazine is looking for fresh takes on pandemic stories. Add the right amount of cynicism and angst with a vivid imagination, and you might sell your pitch.

What would happen if you wrote a series from the perspective of THE VIRUS? Think FANTASTIC VOYAGE (the movie) meets THE HOST (Author Stephenie Meyer-YA), a pathogen could be a sentient being (either from another planet or an awakened yet ancient species living deep in the rain forest until it’s disturbed). The only way they can survive is to inhabit a host and they live their lives by adapting to the human body and “living vicariously” through a larger host. 

FOR DISCUSSION:

1.) Have you been thinking of writing a story influenced by Covid19 or a pandemic? Tell us about it.

2.) How would you reinvent a classic literature or more modern bestseller to inject it with a deadly virus? Get creative.

PANDEMIC PASTTIMES:
If you’re going stir crazy during the Covid19 pandemic, Audible is generously offering FREE READS at this LINK. I love audio books and listen to them most nights. I can’t wait to dive into these Audible gems. The star series of the lot is Harry Potter by J. K. Rowland but there are books for young readers as well as literary classics for all ages.

The Ears Have It

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The Ears Have It
By Terry Odell

Deer EarAs authors, we want to provide the best possible experience for our readers. That means providing a well-edited book, and the more reliable eyes on the manuscript, the better. But I’ve learned you need ears on the manuscript as well.

Skipping the ‘read it out loud’ editing pass means you’re going to miss things. Heck, even when you do read it out loud, you still miss things, because you’re too familiar with what you’ve written. Your eye sees what’s supposed to be on the page. That’s what you’ll read; that’s what you’ll hear.

Since I can’t afford a narrator to read the book aloud twice, and I don’t know anyone who’d be crazy enough spend the time to read the book to me, I investigated having my computer do the job. I’d tried it a long time ago, and the robotic voice was impossible to listen to. However, there have been improvements in the system, so I decided to give things another shot. Here’s what I discovered.

Disclaimer. I use Microsoft Word.

Word has two ways to have the computer read your manuscript to you, and since they’re part of Word, you don’t need to install (or pay for) another program. One is the Speak Selected Text option which I blogged about here.

The other option is Read Aloud, and here’s a peek at how it works. Note: “Read Aloud” offers a choice of narrators, which is nice to break things up. I chose the female voice for this section.

You can find more here.

Depending on your version of Word, you may be able to use one or both.

Whereas my audiobook narrators are performers, the Word guy who’s reading my text to me (I call him Fred) simply recites the words on the page. Unlike the audiobook narrators who sometimes leave out words, or substitute others, “Fred” is going to read exactly what’s on the page. For example, I’d read this paragraph countless times, as had my editor and crit partners.

She drove the up the dirt lane. A beam of sunlight shone through a break in the gray winter sky, reflecting off a sprawling white two-story house, as if to say, This is your light in the darkness.

No one saw the typo on any of their passes. Did you notice it? On the first read? Or were you paying close attention because I told you there was a typo? When “Fred” read it, the extra “the” jumped right out.

Listening forces you to go slowly. Depending on which option you use, you might be able to speed the read a bit, but you can’t ‘skim-listen.’ While “Fred” reads, I have the manuscript open. I look for wrong punctuation, improper spacing, and the like. If I catch repeated words that evaded my eyes but not my ears, I’ll fix those as well.

If Fred doesn’t know a word, he’ll spell it. Usually, these are acronyms, but sometimes it’s a word he’s not programmed for. Other time, his programming doesn’t work exactly right. In one instance, he read, “The paramedic inserted an four.” Can you figure out what I’d written? Answer at the end of the post.

There will be pronunciation errors. “Fred” doesn’t read in context. He doesn’t emphasize words in italics. He speeds up for dashes and hyphens. Our language is filled with heteronyms—words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. The computer doesn’t read context, so you’ll get the occasional jolt for words like live, read, wind, dove, close, bow, complex, and presents, but that’s good, because it makes you pay attention.

Other “fun” jolts come from Fred’s programming regarding abbreviations, as in “Joe came into the room and sat.” Fred read this as “Joe came into the room and Saturday.” Or, when the character said, “Wait a sec,” Fred read “Wait a section.”

No matter which method you choose, hearing a computer read exactly what you’ve written is a critical—and ear-opening—step in the editing process. By the time “Fred” and I are through the manuscript, I’m hoping to have a better product for my readers.

Is it worth it? I’d say yes, especially when you get a review like this one: “After reading so many books with poor editing, I was very happy to finally read a book without the distracting errors and I was able to enjoy the story.”

As for what I’d written: “The paramedic inserted an IV.”


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

When a Character Comes to Life

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Photo credit: Jaredd Craig – Unsplash

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Fiction writers play with imaginary friends whenever we create characters. We put them in a pickle and see what they do; pile insurmountable challenges on them; make them fall in and out of love; tie them to the railroad tracks and see how they free themselves. They become as close and familiar as our own family and friends.

We design how they look—short, tall, slender, heavyset, muscular, flabby. Choose the color of their skin, hair, and eyes. Grow a beard or mustache. Add scars, tattoos, piercings.

Some authors cut out photos from magazines to use as their models. Or they draw parallels to real-life actors, musicians, celebrities, or politicians in the news.

Others prefer to keep descriptions minimal. They paint a general picture but let the reader fill in the fine details.

I lean toward minimalist but have an image in my mind. Often that vision shifts in the course of a story because of plot needs.

The main character in my series, Tawny Lindholm, is a fiftyish recent widow. She’s smart but also naïve and too trusting because of her sheltered life in small-town Montana. As the story unfolded, I piled on more flaws that enhanced important parts of the plot and themes.

She’s far-sighted and can’t read small print without glasses—also a metaphor for her initial blindness to danger.

Her meniscus is torn, which hampers fleeing from bad guys.

I broke the poor woman’s finger (how cruel, right?), which caused arthritis and permanent swelling. That injury means she can’t remove her wedding ring and becomes part of her personality, tying in the theme of mourning and loyalty to her late husband. More importantly, that seemingly insignificant detail served as a key element in the plot, proving her innocence.

Have you ever experienced a character who shows up in real life, as if s/he had just stepped out of your computer screen? Recently, that’s happened twice to me in a couple of unlikely places.

First incident: my car needed new tires. The manager at Les Schwab was fiftyish,  dark hair, barrel-chested, and muscular. He wore a blue uniform with his name on the pocket, hands a little dirty from showing tires to customers and helping out in the shop. His brown eyes twinkled with an inside joke he couldn’t wait to share. Although we kidded around as he wrote up my tire purchase, he was professional and business-like.

I don’t remember his real name because, to me, he was Dwight, Tawny’s dead husband. Through the series, Dwight occasionally appears in her memories with a joke or snippet of conversation.

Waiting time to install new tires was two hours. I grabbed a cup of coffee and a free bag of popcorn—at Les Schwab stores, you hardly smell the rubber because the popcorn aroma greets you as soon as you walk in the door (popcorn and coffee have since been discontinued since COVID-19). I settled in at a tall table, pretended to read a magazine, and did what writers love to do—people-watch and eavesdrop.

For two hours, I watched the real-life Dwight interact with other patrons, tire busters, and people on the phone. He was patient and polite with cranky customers, and firm but even-tempered when screw-ups happened in the shop. That twinkle in his brown eyes never wavered.

Not only did his appearance and manner exactly match the Dwight of my imagination, so did his personality. It was eerie but also thrilling.

Second incident: This happened in February while vacationing in Florida. When I’m there, I attend Zumba classes and, over several years, have gotten to know a number of regulars. I’m happy to reconnect with them because they’re loyal fans of my thriller series, bringing copies for me to sign, inviting me to talk to their book clubs, and eagerly asking when the next book will be out. They are terrific supporters for whom I’m very grateful.

One morning, I spotted a new woman in class—tall, willowy, with long red hair in a ponytail and a bright smile.

Tawny, my protagonist, in the flesh.

The woman must have thought I was weird because, for the next hour, I watched her instead of the instructor. After class, we chatted about dancing. She felt intimidated because it was her first time but she was game and didn’t give up. Persistence and determination are two major personality traits Tawny has and this lady checked off those boxes. She was also friendly, open, spirited, and a good listener. Check off more boxes.

After several minutes of conversation, I worked up the courage to tell her I was a writer and explained I’d been staring at her because she looked like the heroine in my books. Instead of being creeped out by a crazy old lady Zumba stalker, she was excited. A dozen other people who’d read the series also noticed the resemblance, affirming, “Yes! She does look just like Tawny.”

Her real name is Kim, a massage therapist from Minnesota and she was eager to read about her alter ego.

In #1, Tawny receives a confusing new smartphone that she believes is a gift from her son. The Instrument of the Devil actually came from the villain who tampered with the device as part of a terrorist plot. Tawny blames herself for the phone’s peculiar behavior when, in fact, he rigged it to stalk her and eavesdrop.

At the next Zumba class, Kim had read the first few chapters and said, “I totally identify with her struggles with the smartphone.”

As do all of us born before 1990!

A few days later, she finished the book and said, “She’s so much like me it’s giving me chills.”

That comment gave me chills.

As authors, connecting with readers is our best reward. But connecting in real life with characters we thought only lived in our imaginations is a close second.

This gracious doppelganger agreed to pose for a photo. Heeeeere’s Tawny!

Kim AKA Tawny

 

A big thank you to Kim for being an inspiration. She’s also a great sport as I continue to make her life miserable in the next books, Stalking Midas and Eyes in the Sky.

 

 

 

 

 

~~~

TKZers: Has a character ever stepped out of your book into real life? What happened? Did their appearance match their personality? How were they different from what you envisioned?

Create Your Own Author Quarantine House

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Happy Post-Easter/Post-Passover Monday!

I’m sure you’ve seen the memes circulating around the internet offering up choices of authors for your ideal quarantine house. The first I saw on my Facebook page, gave the following author options (all, sadly, dead):

Apart from the fact that there are some weird juxtapositions on this list, I would be a definite for House #3…if only Ayn Rand wasn’t in it:)…though, to be fair, she would be a pretty interesting person to debate (and who wouldn’t be having some heated debates in an author quarantine house!).

The next quarantine author house choice meme I saw circulated was this:

For this one, I think House #1 is too good an opportunity to pass up (I mean, Stephen King!) and I, for one, would love to see the potential genre mash-up that could result from a collaboration between all the authors in House #1…

Finally, I saw this list, which was based on bestselling authors and which included, yet again, Stephen King (an obviously popular quarantine choice!):

These house options posed the biggest dilemma for me – I mean Neil Gaimon would be awesome, but J.K Rowling would also be an amazing author to hang out with during quarantine, not to mention Philip Pullman…In fact, if I was to create a quarantine house based on this list of bestselling authors I would have all three of these authors plus Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguru…although given some of their versions of dystopia, things could get pretty depressing in that particular quarantine house!

All these memes are a fun distraction from the uncertainties and challenges of real life in the current lockdown and so I thought, why not create our own challenge here at the TKZ?!

To start things off – and get the ball rolling – I propose the following five authors for my own ‘ideal’ quarantine author house:

  • Jane Austen (who understands, after all, the need for social distancing)
  • Albert Camus (for a dose of existentialist angst)
  • Joseph Conrad (included only because of my obsession with Heart of Darkness)
  • Umberto Eco (for erudite conversations that mess with my mind)
  • Daphne Du Maurier (for some gothic scares)

So TKZers, what about you? Who would you nominate for your author quarantine house??

Storytelling Lessons in 60 Seconds or Less

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

The mind wanders, especially when forced to look at the same walls all day. Enter YouTube. It’s the great playground for the bored and stultified. It beckons us with its search engine, and cheerily sucks us into rabbit holes of delight. Instead of being force-fed what some news group wants us to see (and believe), or as an alternative to getting hooked on a ten-episode series that may, after all is said and done, end with a thud, we get to choose according to our own particular interests and attention spans.

Which makes watching old commercials on YouTube the perfect pastime. For some odd reason which I am not privy to, my brain brought up an old memory the other day of a commercial I’d seen as a kid. It was for Alka-Seltzer, which back in the 1960s put out a string of hilarious ads that went “viral” (in those days, that meant talking about things at the office water cooler).

The commercial I recalled was a mini-story about a professional pie-eating team (already that’s funny). It had the trope of the wise old veteran taking the rookie under his wing, complete with an iconic last shot—the vet turning around as he leaves, giving the kid a last wave.

I searched for it on YouTube, and there it was. Other commercials came to mind, and I found each one of them. And it struck me that in addition to their entertainment value, they also offer lessons for writers.

Let’s take that pie-eating team. What it teaches us is the power of EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. Even as we smile at the obvious satire, we are pulled in because we have experienced the real thing before—that story, that warmth. Once enthralled, they sell the product (which is, of course, the whole point of advertising!) Here it is, from 1967:

From there I went to another classic Alka-Seltzer ad. This one shows us the power of CONFLICT. In this ad a man argues with his own stomach over eating habits and heartburn. The animation is terrific, and the dialogue hysterical. (NOTE: the voice of the stomach is a young actor named Gene Wilder):

One last Alka-Seltzer ad, which is probably the most famous of all. I remember being on the schoolyard mouthing, “Mama Mia, that’s a spicy meatball!” all the time. Here we see the storytelling principle of OBSTACLES. They’re shooting a commercial for spicy meatballs that come in a gigantic jar. The doting wife serves her husband a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs. The husband eats a bit of meatball and utters the phrase above. But things keep going wrong, and they have to retake and retake. Which means, of course, the man has has to keep eating spicy meat. For 59 takes! Then they sell the solution: Alka-Seltzer. The kicker at the end of this ad is perfect. Also kudos to the actress, who is hilarious putting on her loving expression each time. First aired in 1969:

“Spicy Meatball” was the brainchild of the legendary agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), which was also responsible for another popular ad, one that the famous advertising man David Ogilvy called the funniest commercial he ever saw. It was for Volkswagen, which issued a spate of hilarious ads in the 60s and 70s. In this one, we get the concept of the JUST ENDING where everyone gets what they deserve:

An ad whiz at DDB, Robert Gage, came up with another “viral” commercial, one of the longest running of all time. It features two boys unwilling to try the new “healthy” cereal their mom has put in front of them. So they decide to test it on their little brother, Mikey. I’d put this lesson under the power of CHARACTERIZATION. Little Mikey says not a word, but his face is so doggone cute it charmed the socks off the nation:

Happily, John Gilchrist, who played Mikey, did not go the way of so many child actors. He’s had a good life, and currently works at MSG Networks, where he is director of media sales doing guess what? Negotiating with advertisers on TV ads.

By the 1980s, the world had changed. It was the era of the fast-paced, make-money-now go-getter. Federal Express caught that vibe better than anyone, and put out a string of commercials that worked at breakneck speed. Let’s call this a lesson on PACE. Here’s the first and most famous ad in that campaign (featuring the actual Guinness World Record holder as World’s Fastest Talker, John Moschitta Jr.):

The year 1984 gave us two unforgettable commercials. The first may be the most famous ever made. Directed by Ridley Scott and shown only once, during the ’84 Super Bowl, it announced the arrival of the Apple Macintosh. The THEME is unmistakable—a lone hero against the large, impersonal “system.” I remember seeing it, and got my first Mac shortly thereafter. And that’s all I’ve ever used since. In those early years using a Mac made you feel like a rebel, and oh so cool. Just like the commercial promised!

The other notable ad from ’84 gave the nation a catch phrase that lasted for years. It was for Wendy’s, and it was a huge success revenue-wise (as the ad men used to say), boosting annual revenue by 31%. Here we have the staying power of one, perfectly placed line of DIALOGUE (as in, “Go ahead, make my day” and “Here’s looking at you, kid.”) The phrase “Where’s the beef?” became so ubiquitous it even made its way into the 1984 presidential race. Democrat Walter Mondale used it in a primary debate to question the substance of his opponent, Gary Hart. Ouch.

Since this is TKZ, I’d be remiss if I did not include a THRILLER. And what is a thriller about? Impending death…something terrible could happen at any time! And certainly that is true of those great unsung heroes, the driving instructors:

No look back at classic commercials would be complete without a nod to one of the true geniuses of the ad game, Stan Freberg. He, more than anyone else, perfected the use of humor in commercials. So let’s call this a lesson on VOICE. Freberg’s was unique—wry, dry, biting—so you could almost always tell a Freberg when it aired. Here’s one of his best, a takeoff on the stodgy old domestic commercial where, for instance, a man comes home after work and sits down for dinner. He takes a bite and his expression says the meal just doesn’t make it. The next day the anxious wife tells her neighbor about it, and the neighbor says something like, “Maybe it’s your cooking oil. Here, try my Crisco.” You get the idea. There were innumerable ads of this type in the 50s and 60s. Freberg turned that whole trope on its head with this Great American Soup commercial starring Ann Miller:

So what commercial made an impression on you when you were a kid, and why do you suppose it did? What storytelling lesson or technique can you find in it?

And a Happy Easter to all, no matter where you’re holed up!

First Page Critique

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By Elaine Viets

Here’s another first page by a Brave Author. Read it, and then let’s discuss it.

Absence of Truth

The letters on the envelope spelled out her name, Vanessa Barella but, they were neither written in ink nor typed. They were cuttings from a newspaper.
The envelope had no mailing address or return address. Not even a stamp, but somehow it had made its way inside Vanessa’s locked mailbox.
She unlocked her front door and placed her mail on the kitchen counter, then slipped off her high-heeled shoes. She threw her jacket over her grandmother’s chair that she didn’t have the heart to throw out. She poured herself a glass of wine and raised it to her lips while keeping her eyes fixated on the mysterious envelope. She broke the seal then removed the letter from inside.
‘I AM A GHOST AND I AM GOING TO KILL YOU’
The letter and envelope fell to the floor when Vanessa reached for the edge of the counter, to stop herself from falling. The rough grout cut into her skin as she held on tight. Vanessa gulped several breaths to slow down her breathing. When the blood restored to her brain and her vision cleared, she picked up the letter and envelope off her tiled floor and then removed her phone and wallet from her handbag. There was a business card in the pocket of her purse, and she dialed the number.
She brought the glass of wine to her lips. The line went quiet after the second ring. Wine dribbled out of her mouth and onto her silk blouse. Shit!
“Hello…, Mr. Cooper, it’s Vanessa Barella. I’m not sure if you remember me? I’m one of the legal assistants over at Anderson & Smith.” There was no response. “It’s a criminal law firm here in San Francisco. You do some private investigating for our firm,” she said. There was still silence. “Mr. Cooper, are you there?” Vanessa was about to hang up the phone when she heard Mr. Cooper’s voice.
“Sorry about that, had to find a quiet place to talk.”
“Mr. Cooper, I’m not calling you about a legal matter. It’s more of a personal one. I need your help.”
“I didn’t catch the name?”
“It’s Vanessa Barella. We’ve met a few times in the conference room. But we’ve mostly spoken over the phone.”

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This entry has possibilities, Brave Author, but it needs work.
There are minor typos, but having a misplaced comma in the first line is not a good idea. The errant comma should go after Barella. There’s a dropped “was” in this line: “When the blood (sic) restored to her brain . . .” You don’t need quotes around the ghost’s message. It’s in all caps.
Now, the opening: It’s not good and it’s not bad. It’s meh. And meh doesn’t sell books.
Here’s an example of a gripping opening, by John D. MacDonald:
“We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge.”
Richard Stark opened Firebreak with: “When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.”
Hillary Davidson started The Damage Done this way: “It was the bright yellow tape that finally convinced me my sister was dead.”
Here are more first lines: https://www.crimethrillerhound.co.uk/first-lines
I know you can do better, Brave Author. You’ve dreamed up a fascinating scenario. You have the ultimate dead letter here – a ghost is threatening to kill Vanessa. Use it!

The second major problem is Vanessa’s phone call. You’re trying to deliver information about Vanessa, and it’s a good ploy. But don’t forget how Vanessa is feeling. After all, she just got a death threat. She spilled wine on her blouse. She’s frightened to death. Make her that way. How about a version of this:
“Mr. Cooper, it’s Vanessa Barella. I’m one of the legal assistants over at Anderson & Smith.” Her voice shook. She was sick with fear. There was no response.
“You know, criminal law firm here in San Francisco. You do some private investigating for our firm.” Please, she thought, please answer. You’re my only hope.
There was still silence.
“Mr. Cooper, are you there?” Vanessa was about to hang up the phone when she heard [use Cooper’s first name] Cooper’s voice.
“Sorry about that, had to find a quiet place to talk.”
“Mr. Cooper, I’m not calling you about a legal matter. It’s more of a personal one. I need your help.”
“I didn’t catch the name.”
“It’s Vanessa Barella. We’ve mostly spoken over the phone.”

This critique is what’s known as a “praise sandwich”: criticism stuck between compliments. You’ve given us a good first draft, Brave Author. Now sit down and rework it. I want to read more about that murderous ghost.

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Get an autographed copy of A Star Is Dead, my fourth Angela Richman, death investigator mystery, and help an indie bookstore. Email Murder on the Beach Bookstore at murdermb@gate.net and I’ll donate $1 to Feeding South Florida (feedingsouthflorida.org) for every copy of A Star Is Dead sold at the Delray bookstore.