Monthly Archives: September 2020

First Page Critique: Pick A Tense
And Then Make Things Tense

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By PJ Parrish

A good Tuesday morning to you all out there. Hope you are well and sane. Hope you are getting some writing done. Me, I’ve managed to grow a couple tomatoes. So it was fun to see someone else’s creative juices are flowing nicely. I’m referring to today’s First Page Critique. Let’s give it a read together and then we’ll discuss. Thanks, writer, for submitting.

Carrie’s Secret

I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work. I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work. WHERE I WORK!!! I knew she might talk and that would be a problem, a big problem.

But I am systematic. I am in control. And I will deal with it.

When she was admitted to Danton, Carrie was considered both a flight risk and a suicide risk so that day she was taken directly to the locked ward on the first floor. I had just stepped into the lobby as she came through the front door. She was flanked by an ambulance attendant on one side and a woman from the admitting office on the other, each holding an arm. Her parents, Noah and Marlene Genesen, followed close behind her. Carrie was older surely, about fifteen now, and a little taller with longer hair, but it was her. There was no doubt. I watched as the group turned to my left and entered the locked ward. None of them noticed me then, but I stopped cold.

The situation was urgent. Critical. Carrie would soon be in therapy and she could reveal the truth any time in the course of treatment. I could not let her say anything. Louise Ponte would probably be her therapist. She works with most of the kids. How long could Carrie keep the secret bottled up inside her here? It will tear her apart, I’m sure. A good shrink like Ponte will pull it out of her. And if Carrie said what she knows, would that fucking bitch of a psychiatrist believe her? Yes. Would her parents believe it? Definitely. I cannot take the risk.

So I had to adjust quickly and as soon as I had the opportunity that first afternoon, I confronted Carrie. Change-of-shift had just started so most of the staff were meeting behind the closed door to the nursing office. I went right to her room.

There wasn’t much time. I stood in her doorway, blocking her exit. She was sitting on her bed and she looked up at me. Her big brown eyes were unfocused. She was holding her bandaged arm and dressed in a tight red tank top and extremely short cut-off jeans. I could not help looking at her naked legs for an instant. Then I looked up to her face.

___________________________

There’s some nice things going on here. As we often say here at TKZ, it’s always good to start with a nifty action scene. As James always says, do first and explain later. In other words, show something intriguing going on and then, later, tell us what it meant. Notice that I put two words in red there?

Show, don’t tell.

I love the fact this writer opened with something happening. A person (unnamed and no gender identified…more on that later) is confronted in the hospital where they work by an old “friend.” Or maybe a foe. But at the very least, this person from the past has a secret that our narrator does not wish to be known. Nice set up!

But I think the writer missed a chance to ramp up the tension factor by telling us too much when, with a little restructuring, it could be shown and thus have more dramatic impact.

Plus, we have here a problem with tense. It wavers between past and present, and the overall style is an odd hybrid of action and reminiscence.

The first paragraph, for instance, is refracted through the narrator’s thoughts rather than pure action, and thus feels more like a memory. “I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work.”  And with the capitalization and punctuation of the next line — WHERE I WORK!!! — it’s almost as if the writer subconsciously understood the first line was weak and she or he had to add caps and three exclamation marks to hit us over the head with the narrator’s intensity of emotion.

Might it not have been more effective to go right with action? I don’t know if Carrie, as she is being brought in, is fighting or half-comatose. So I am guessing here when I offer this suggested approach. I give it not as an attempt to rewrite this person’s style but to make a point about how, as an alternative, narration can be reshaped into a pure action scene.

The girl was screaming and kicking, her long dark hair flying around her face. The ambulance attendant had a hard grip on her right arm and a nurse jumped up from the desk to grab the girl’s right arm.  I was standing by the admitting desk, and as they lurched past, the girl’s head shot up.

Her wild brown eyes locked on mine. It was only for a second, but in that moment, I saw her.  

Carrie…

The only person in the world who knew what I had done.

Carrie’s head swung back and she gave me a questioning look that darkened into a glare. Then, with the wheeze of the ward’s door, she was gone.

Seconds later, a man and woman hurried in, not giving me a glance. Carrie’s parents. They didn’t recognize me, thank God.

My heart had stopped but now it was pounding. I took three deep breaths.

I am systematic. I am in control. And  damn it, I will deal with this.

See the difference? Get the action moving first and then start explaining things. And when you do go into the character’s thoughts, make it powerful, pithy and put it in italics.

Because this is a mixture of direct action scene and remembered narration, there are other problems. The narrator, upon merely seeing Carrie come into the hospital, cannot possibly know — yet — that she is suicidal and a flight risk. She cannot know either that a certain doctor Louise Ponte will be assigned to her case.  But these issues are easily resolved by continuing the action forward logically. For instance, the narrator, who apparently works at this facility, can immediately begin inquiries, maybe talk to the EMT when he comes back out? He could relate that she tried to kill herself.  Show us, via action and dialogue, don’t tell us.

Suggestion: Use the first scene — maybe the whole first chapter — to flesh out your great set-up. Play up the narrator’s shock and the fear of what this might bring (why is Carrie here? What happened? Will she tell someone our terrible secret?) You’ve done a good job of creating a sense of peril, so why rush it? Build your tension! Then you move on, logically, to the narrator going to Carrie’s room and confronting her.  That is probably worth a chapter all by itself. A third chapter could be a meeting with Dr. Ponte, wherein you can add some more background on why Carrie is there and why the narrator hates Ponte so much. Layers…it’s all about creating layers.

One problem many writers have is trying to figure out where to begin a chapter. This writer picked a great moment. But an equally vexing problem is figuring out where to END a scene or chapter. This is something this writer needs to work on. End one scene (in the lobby of hospital) and transition to the next scene (Carrie’s room).

Each scene and/or chapter needs to have its own beginning, middle and end. And you must DECIDE what the dramatic point of each individual scene is.  For this story, the point of the first scene is to introduce the protagonist via their shock at seeing someone who harbors a bad secret. This opening scene must also have an ending that then connects (via a smooth transition) to the next scene.

A small thing but important: Don’t bother to introduce character names until it is important. We don’t need to clutter up this great action moment with Carrie’s parents’ names.

Ditto the shrink.  Don’t give us Dr. Ponte’s name until she becomes an actual character in the action rather than in the narrator’s thoughts. Show us Dr. Ponte’s entrance, don’t tell us. I could see a great scene later, maybe chapter 3 or 4, where the narrator reads Carrie’s chart and finds out Dr. Ponte has been assigned to the case. Then maybe she goes and talks to the doctor? Show us, don’t tell us that Ponte is, ahem, a “fucking bitch.”  Remember the great movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest? We didn’t “meet” Nurse Ratched through Randall McMurphy’s thoughts. We met her on the ward, in all her terrible glory, interacting with the patients. Action is showing.

That’s my main points. I’d like to do a line edit to bring things into sharper focus.

I thought I would never see Carrie Genesen again and then she gets admitted to this hospital, where I work. WHERE I WORK!!! I knew she might talk and that would be a problem, a big problem.

But I am systematic. I am in control. And I will deal with it. This submission came to me with a couple graphs in italics, so that’s how I left it. But I see no need for it.

When she was admitted to Danton, This lapses into past tense and sounds like the narrator is remembering this. It disrupts the tension. Carrie was considered both a flight risk and a suicide risk The narrator has no way to know this. And “flight risk” is a legal term meaning a person is thought likely to leave the country before a trial or bail hearing. so that day she was taken directly to the locked ward on the first floor. I had just stepped into the lobby as she came through the front door. Again, the past tense construction “I had just” sounds like she’s recounting something that happened a while ago. She was flanked by an ambulance attendant on one side and a woman from the admitting office on the other, each holding an arm. Her parents, Noah and Marlene Genesen, followed close behind her. Carrie was older surely, about fifteen now, and a little taller with longer hair, but it was her. There was no doubt. I watched as the group turned to my left and entered the locked ward. None of them noticed me then, but I stopped cold.

The situation was urgent. Critical. This is a classic example of the writer TELLING us what the character feels rather than letting the emotions emerge through SHOWING the urgency. Carrie would soon be in therapy and she could reveal the truth any time in the course of treatment. I could not let her say anything. Louise Ponte would probably be her therapist. She works with most of the kids. How long could Carrie keep the secret bottled up inside her here? It will tear her apart, I’m sure. A good shrink like Ponte will pull it out of her. And if Carrie said what she knows, would that fucking bitch of a psychiatrist believe her? Yes. Would her parents believe it? Definitely. I cannot Again, we are shifting between past and present tense. Doesn’t work. take the risk.

So I had to adjust quickly and as soon as I had the opportunity that first afternoon, This is so confusing. Are we in the present day or is this character relating something that happened in the past? This construction suggests the latter. Which is not where we want to be opening a story. I confronted Carrie. Again, you’re telling us; show us. Change-of-shift had just started so most of the staff were meeting behind the closed door to the nursing office. I went right to her room.

There wasn’t much time. I stood in her doorway, blocking her exit. She is on suicide watch. Her door would be locked. She was sitting on her bed and she looked up at me. Her big brown eyes were unfocused. She was holding her bandaged arm and dressed in a tight red tank top and extremely short cut-off jeans. I could not help looking at her naked legs for an instant. Then I looked up to her face. She already looked at her face, her unfocused brown eyes specifically.

Okay, this is important. Whenever you describe something, be it a room as a character enters, or seeing a person, always start with what is first-impression logical and move on to other details from there. What you would logically see — IN ORDER OF YOUR SENSES PROCESSING THINGS?

Carrie was slumped on her bed. Her lank hair covered her face, and she was rubbing her bandaged wrist. For the first time, I noticed what she was wearing — a tight red tank top and short cut-off jeans. I was staring at her long legs when Carrie looked up. 

See the difference in the order of the description? It has to be logical. And use it to up the tension. Also: Never let a chance go by in your description to make it specific and thus salient to character. You said she was “sitting on the bed.” Is she slumped? Curled in a fetal ball? Sprawled? Each suggests something specific about character and mood. And the bandage on her arm. What kind of bandage and where it is? A wrist gauze suggests a slit wrist and is a way for the narrator to get this knowledge of a suicide attempt via showing instead of telling. 

One last thing. We don’t known a thing about the narrator and presumptive protagonist of this story. When working in first person, it’s hard to get in names and such. (Forget description in the early going!).  But it becomes annoying, the longer your scene goes on, for the reader not to have a clue who they are listening to.  We don’t even know the sex of our narrator.  Such “busy work” can be dropped easily in dialogue, maybe as the narrator stands there in shock at seeing Carrie, someone calls out, “Dr. Rogers, are you okay? Jane? Jane, did you hear me?”  A simple “trick” like this would give us A.) the protag’s sex B.) name  C.) profession.

Okay, that’s about it.  Again, I want to give kudos to the writer for picking a good dramatic moment to drop us into the story. I really like the set-up, a teenager from the protag’s past harbors a bad secret that terrifies the protag enough to make them spring into action.

But, dear writer, you need to slow down a tad and give more thought to the structure of each individual scene and/or chapter and to hone in on the dramatic point of each. Good luck and thanks for letting us share your work.

 

Turning Real Terror into Fiction

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Years ago, I experienced a terrifying hell ride when the gas pedal on my Ford Explorer stuck wide-open while driving Rte. 125 during rush hour traffic. Two days later, I received a recall notice in the mail. Little good it did me then. The experience remains as fresh in my mind today as it did then.

I’d just left Khols parking lot and stopped at a red light. When the light turned green my foot shifted to the gas pedal, and the SUV took off like a bullet fired from an automatic pistol. Here’s the strange thing. When something like this happens, you try to reason it away. Never do you think anything dangerous could be happening. Our self-protection mode kicks in and we waver in and out of denial.

Until we can’t any longer.

Until we need to face the truth — this day could be our last. And it’s terrifying!

The SUV kept gaining more and more momentum till the speedometer read 40 mph, 50 mph, 60 mph, and climbing. Rte. 125 is a main drag. Traffic lights stood every mile or so, and most of them turned red. But I couldn’t stop. With both feet on the brake, I screamed out the window for someone to help me.

No one did.

Other drivers honked their horns. They didn’t know what was happening inside my Explorer. All they saw was a crazed woman swerving in and out of traffic, barely missing numerous vehicles, black smoke trailing behind from the brake pads tearing clean off. Next, smoke poured out the back. Not sure why. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the rotors or something else brake-related. All I knew was I couldn’t stop the damn SUV.

As the speedometer climbed toward 70mph, a gazillion things raced through my mind in the span of a few seconds, including how to crash the vehicle without killing myself or others. After five sets of lights and miles and miles of the most harrowing journey I’d ever had the displeasure of experiencing, I came to a stretch of road with a field on the right. My plan was to veer in to the field and crash into a tree, where hopefully I could jump out the driver’s door. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking clearly. My complete focus was on avoiding obstacle after obstacle so I didn’t kill anyone.

If it weren’t for two college students who pulled alongside me, I might not be alive today.

They hollered at me to throw the SUV into neutral, which I did. But the car kept accelerating. Then they told me to turn off the ignition. Finally, I rolled to a stop. When they hustled to my door, I could barely speak, nerves zinging through my system, tears streaming down my twitching cheeks.

Horrible memories make great fodder for books. Wouldn’t you agree?

Fast forward to 2017.

In May, my neighbor asked to borrow my vehicle because his wouldn’t turn over. Thing is, it was a fairly new vehicle. What we soon discovered was he’d missed a loan payment. The lender blocked access to the car by using what’s called a starter interrupter device to make the vehicle un-driveable till he brought his payments up-to-date.

My crime writer antennae dinged.

If they could prevent him from starting his SUV, could someone hack in and take control? What I discovered chilled me to the bone . . . and breathed life into HACKED.

Have you used a terrifying experience in your writing? Do tell.

 

“HACKED is a meaty novella packed with great characters, unexpected humor, intriguing plot twists & page turning pace. This comes from good writing and an author who delivers every time.” ~ Jordan Dane

“Witty, exciting and perfectly paced! Normally, novellas leave me wishing for more but Sue Coletta’s ‘Hacked’ was absolutely perfect!” ~ Amazon Reviewer

Look Inside: https://amzn.to/321QDqM 

Why You Don’t Feel Like Writing

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

As Yogi Berra once observed, “90% of the game is half mental.” That’s why I wrote a book called The Mental Game of Writing. We have to master the space between in our ears in order to produce our best work on the page.

I’ve noticed many blog posts over the last five months talking about what a struggle it is to write in Virus World. These writers talk about a lack of energy, spark, interest, creativity. The feeling is described in a post by Peter Olson: “A frustrating sense of ‘molasses’ clogging your thoughts. A fatigue you just can’t seem to shake. Feeling ‘tired’ or ‘worn-out’ as you … journey through normal days that simply don’t feel as normal as they should.”

Every now and then a scribe wonders if there’s something wrong with them. Do they really want to do this anymore? Is the joy gone for good?

Turns out there’s an understandable, biological reason you feel this way. Your brain is experiencing “culture shock.” From the above article:

When someone moves to a completely new culture, many of the ‘autopilots’ your brain uses for thousands of small decisions every day become ineffective. In a similar way, your current environment has likely changed sufficiently enough that many of your own ‘autopilots’ are no longer working. When this happens, the next remaining option for your brain is to use a second decision-making process that requires far more effort and energy (glucose) to operate. Your body can only supply glucose to your brain at a certain rate – a rate far below what would be required to use this kind of thinking continually. Thus, additional thinking about routine matters has likely left you with a chronically depleted level of glucose in your brain. All to say: You are experiencing “culture shock”.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, explains how our brains work in his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Here is a summary:

  1. Your brain is a great decision-making engine.
  2. Your brain has two distinct processes it uses to make decisions.
  3. One of these systems operates quickly and automatically and does not require much energy.
  4. One of these systems operates slowly and deliberately and requires a lot more energy.

Kahneman gave names to the two processes your brain uses. He called one the “fast” system. This kind of thinking has also been called the “subconscious” system. The other he called our “slow” system. “Slow” thinking is what you are doing when you say that you are “thinking” about something.

What’s happening is that our brains have to do a lot more “slow” thinking these days. We used to just run out to the store for groceries with a simple routine: Park the car, get out (without fiddling with a mask), grab a cart, stroll around, thump a cantaloupe, look over the meats, etc. But now we have to think about masks, distance, touching, not touching, hand sanitizing, keeping an eye on that guy coming down the aisle and keeping our feet on the floor stickers in the checkout line. Thus, even this once innocuous little slice of your life drains your brain.

Think of “slow thinking” a bit like ‘turbo’ from the old video games. You need it to power through some parts of life. But use it all and you’ll need to wait for it to come back again. This is why you have perhaps said that your brain feels ‘tired’ after a long meeting, an intense discussion, or after much studying. That ‘tired’ feeling is your brain calling for a break so it can replenish the sugar it just used up.

***

Hundreds of times every day we are now facing moments where fast & cheap was handling your decisions for you … but can’t anymore. Last year greeting a friend didn’t require us to use the limited capacity of slow thinking. But now it may. With many of our autopilots disabled, we are facing a world where we are being forced to think in ways we are not accustomed to. And it’s draining your brain of capacity you used to have for other – more meaningful – things.

Meaningful things like writing!

Or maybe somewhere in your tired brain there’s a voice whispering that fiction is really not all that meaningful.

Shut that voice down! People need stories more than ever. We are the ones to lighten the load of our fellow citizens dealing with the stark, often irrational, and sometimes violent nature of current reality.

As Ray Bradbury once said, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” Share that dram with your readers!

To avoid slow-brain sluggishness, let me suggest the following:

  1. Prioritize morning writing

Awaken, get your morning beverage, then write something. I know some of you claim not be “morning people,” but it’s morning and you’re a person, right? Instead of immediately hopping onto Facebook or Instagram, play with words.

I don’t care what words. Maybe it’s a scene in your WIP, but not always. Try jotting in a journal, or starting a short story based on whatever is in your mind at the moment (the Ray Bradbury Method). Don’t judge the words, just produce them.

I like writing flash fiction (under 1,000 words) and often use early mornings to start stories…some of which I may not finish. But that’s okay. It gets me in the writing mood.

  1. Quarantine the news and social media 

Decide when and for how long you’ll glance at the news and social media. The news can get you sad, mad or both within seconds. Social media is, in the words of Cal Newport, “digital fast food.” The instant Dopamine rush you get leads to a crash later, which may result in a massive case of the blues.

Really. Set a timer. Do anything to limit the input of these two stimuli.

  1. Get together with real people

This is a bit difficult in the California compound, where I often feel like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. In L.A. you can’t have some people over to enjoy a backyard barbecue, but you can have 6 people at your table at a restaurant with outdoor dining. Go figure.

So do what you can under the rules of your locality to get real with real people. We need flesh and blood interactions more than  Zoom and Skype.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to look for wire cutters and a motorcycle.

So how is your energy to write these days? Any tips on staying motivated?

The Cujo Method

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It has happened to me. It almost certainly has happened to you.

You are writing your latest masterpiece. You’re speeding right along. Your brain is spitting the words into your fingers and your fingers are tapping them onto the screen or onto the paper or whatever is working for you and then all of the lights on your creative dashboard go on signalling that your alternator has given up the ghost.  Your metaphorical foot is mashing the pedal to the metal  but your entire creative vehicle is losing power and coasting to a stop. What do you do?

The answer is easy. You quit writing. You get up from wherever you do your writing and decide to channel your energies elsewhere for the rest of your life.  You grow a garden, clean your house, buy and manage properties, or engage in a different task. Let someone else bang their head against their wall in the slim hope that their stories will show up somewhere and sometime. Thanks! I’m done.

 Actually, that’s not what you do. 

What I just wrote is an example of a little writing trick which I picked up and modified from the novel Cujo by Stephen King. There is a noteworthy vignette that occurs in the final quarter of that book and which involves Cujo,  a large and otherwise sweet St. Bernard dog who contracts rabies, and one of the story’s primary characters. King works the scene for all that it is worth. He rachets up the suspense to eleven and then inserts a bunch of short sentences that resolve the scene and the novel quickly and happily. He follows that with a single sentence which yanks the rug out from under the reader, stating that what he said happened did not happen at all. The story rolls horrifically on from there. The reader intuitively knows all along that King is wolfing, since there are sixty or seventy more pages to go when he supposedly ends the book, but it is a surprise followed by a surprise and sets the reader up for more.

I call this “the Cujo method” and I have been using it frequently while slowly writing a genre-straddling love story with the working title of The Lake Effect. I have not just been swerving out of my creative lane while doing this. Rather, I have drifted across four eastbound lanes, gone over the rumble strip and the highway shoulder, careened through a guard rail, and dropped off of an overpass posterior over teakettle before ultimately landing on a northbound train which will crash unless I can answer an unanswerable riddle (that’s a reference to another King novel).

It was not always thus.  I wrote the first three and final six chapters of The Lake Effect months ago, and they’re not bad at all. I surprised myself. The middle of the book, however —  no surprise here — has been a stiff-legged march through several quicksand mires. I have managed to pull myself out each time by utilizing the Cujo method.

Here is an example of what I have been doing. One of the pivotal events of The Lake Effect involves a U.S. Army paratrooper who during World War II is involved in the Allied invasion of northern France on June 6, 1945. He jumps without incident but finds when he lands that he has drifted somewhat off-course. He finds himself in a graveyard where he gets the first few hints that he is not where he is supposed to be. His landing also attracts some unwanted attention. The local authorities come looking for him as a result. The owner of a farm adjoining the graveyard is a widow who is still dealing with the unexpected death of her husband. She happens to find the paratrooper before he finds her. They each think that the other is someone else. The authorities, meanwhile, come ever closer. 

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. I already knew what was going to happen after several more pages, but I had to jump fence or two to get there. I couldn’t think of a good way to do it. So I utilized the Cujo method and wrote: 

She yanked her grandfather’s rifle off of the wall and shot the soldier dead even as he pleaded for his life. The End. 

He pulled his Colt .45 pistol out and grimaced as he shot her while her back was turned. He stood over her body and waited for his pursuers to enter the farmhouse, determined to take as many of them as he could before he followed them into hell. The End.

She hid him from the troops in a second, unfinished root cellar that her husband had dug but not completed by the time of his death. Afterward,  the two of them surrendered to the passion that had been tugging at them, resulting in a tender moment which became another and then another and  yet another. They lived on the farm for the rest of their lives, in conjugal if not lawfully wedded bliss. The End. 

That of course is not ultimately what happened. What did happen is that I got the concrete out from between my ears and was able to move forward. I  of course removed the whimsy once it had served its purpose and I got rolling again. The preceding three paragraphs will never see the light of day (whoops…wait a minute…). The best part is that while I was typing these alternative premature endings I thought of a plausible way to keep things going that wouldn’t make a reader, agent or editor go “Hmmm.” It took a bit of work to get that just right but at least I had a “that” to get right, which was more than I had when I stepped in the story quicksand.  I think it may have had more to do with the act of continuing to slog forward. Erle Stanley Gardner, who was one of the twentieth century’s most popular and most prolific authors, would work the keys on his manual typewriter under his fingers bled, bandage them up, and go for more. That, I think, is how the job ultimately is done. For whatever reason, my method works for me. Maybe it will for you. Something will. You just need to find it. Good luck!

For anyone interested…I listened to the following while writing this: 

Hey Ya — Surfer Blood

American Specialties (full album) — Parquet Courts

Heartbreaker — Dionne Warwick

Stayin’ Alive — Bee Gees

Mr. Dyingly Sad — The Critters

Cry to Me — Solomon Burke

Blood and Roses — The Smithereens

Hold On — Alabama Shakes

The Lost Septet (Live) (full album) — Miles Davis

Backsliding Fearlessly — Mott the Hoople

Under Pressure — Queen, David Bowie

Money Talks — AC/DC

Enjoy. Thanks for being here and for letting me be a part of your day.

Media, whether working of not, is courtesy of giphy.com

Reader Friday: Best and Worst Advice

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What’s the worst writing/publishing advice anyone ever gave you?  Best?

The worst advice I got was from an early critique group leader, when I was writing my first attempt at a novel, who said, “Don’t let anything bad happen to Sarah.” Happy people in happy land, anyone?

Best advice? “Do what you’re good at. Do what you love. Hire out the rest.”

Top Ten Tips for Amazon eBook Publishing Success

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It doesn’t matter if you’re traditional or indie published—if you want to make money in the eBook business you’ll have to deal with Amazon. Amazon is the biggest eBook distributor out there—the top dog, by far. So, if you want to run with the big dog, you’ll have to learn how to pee in the tall grass.

I think most Kill Zone followers are writers. Many KZrs might already enjoy great publishing success with whatever book type they write or publishing platform they use. However, Amazon dominates book distribution and sales. To compete in the book field’s tall grass, you must be comfortable with publishing on Amazon. These ten tips will help.

To start—I’m no Amazon publishing or marketing expert. Many resource folks and guides are out there that teach Amazonese, and I’ll provide links to the ones I find credible. What I’m doing in this post is offering what’s worked for me in my journey paddling up the Amazon eBook river.

I self-published my first eBook in 2012. It took me a year to research, write, and produce a 115K word crime novel which did pretty well on the Amazon charts. Eight years later, I have twenty publications up on Amazon that includes true crime, crime fiction, historical non-fiction, craft guides, and self-help eBooks. I didn’t publish anything for two of those years while I wrote web content for my daughter’s agency. This year, however, I’ve indie-published five eBooks with the plans for two more in a series before 2020 is done.

Enough about me. You want to know what’s in this for you, and I’m happy to share my experience by giving you ten tips for Amazon eBook publishing success. I’m also going to give you some meaningful stats about what’s producing a positive return on eBook publishing investment.

Tip #1 — Understand the Amazon System

This might sound basic and it is. To use Amazon successfully (success, by definition, is different things to different people), you need to understand that Amazon is a unique distribution system that produces most of its orders online through impersonal ’bots. There are humans employed somewhere in the Amazon jungle, I’m told, but they’re rarely seen. More to come later about contacting a live elf…

There’s an excellent Amazon course put on by Tracy Atkins and delivered as the Amazon Success Tool Kit through Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer. Here’s a page from their playbook.

There are four key concepts you must understand to successfully use Amazon as an online bookseller. They include:

Concept One: Amazon is first and foremost a search engine, and you must make your book an easy-to-find product. You need to think about Amazon as a search engine instead of a retail store. Amazon is more like Google than Walmart. When you look for a book on Amazon, you’re accessing a huge database that finds the most relevant matches based on the metadata provided for the product. (More about what “metadata” really means coming up.)

Concept Two: Amazon is a data gathering and filtering tool. It employs a sophisticated and intelligent software system that stores a large product catalog as well as masses of information on sales history and buyer preferences. Amazon uses this information to build customer profiles and make the most relevant product recommendations. When you use Amazon, it’s always taking notes and trying to figure you out in a logical way.

Concept Three: Amazon is highly visual and so are people when they shop so make your cover count. This thing about people judging books by their covers is 100% right when it comes to online book buying and selling. The brains at Amazon know this and give preference to visually enticing covers that work to draw customer attention at the thumbnail size. A great cover is paramount to success on Amazon.

Concept Four: Amazon is big and highly connected. You can use its integrated ecosystem to build your brand and sell more books if you thoroughly understand how Amazon works as an online business model. There are many components in the Amazon composition that range from eBook production to support sections like Author Central, Popularity and BestSeller lists, as well as Goodreads, Kindle Unlimited, Kindle Owners Lending Library, Audible, and even good ole paperbacks shipped through print on demand.

Tip #2 — Work With Amazon’s Algorithms

“What, really, is an algorithm?” you might ask. Good question, because having a basic grip on what Amazon’s algorithm(s) is/are puts you into a headspace where the whole eBook publishing platform kind of makes sense. They’re nothing to be afraid of because Amazon does all the algorythiming for you.

Amazon currently (2020) uses a software system called the A9 Algorithm. How it works at the molecular level is a closely-guarded system. If they tell you, they gotta kill you. But, Amazon freely encourages you as a publisher, to make full use of their billion-dollar A9 Algorithm system.

Algorithms are computerized, step-by-step instructions or formulas for solving problems or completing tasks. The A9 version takes customer interests and matches them relevantly to what you have for sale. I’m told the name algorithm comes from a Persian mathematician named Al Ghorwarizimi, not from a dance move choreographed by an ex-Vice President of the United States.

Google is one giant algorithm as well. Google searches query inputs and matches them to relevant information or metadata that display in relevant order on SERPS (Search Engine Response Pages). There’s a key difference in how Google and Amazon algorithms respond to user requests, though.

Google likes to direct information for free. The A9 at Amazon is a business tool that puts strong emphasis on sales conversions. Amazon has a vested financial interest in using your inputted metadata to promote product listings that will likely result in sales. Amazon moves listings to the top of their equivalent SERPs based on recent strong sales history and high conversion rates.

It’s your job to provide Amazon with the best information or metadata you can. What you put into Amazon’s algorithm system is what you get out. It’s called optimizing metadata, and this is where a lot of publishers fail when they post products (eBooks) on the ’Zon.

Tip #3 — Optimize your Metadata

Don’t let this phrase intimidate you. If you’ve studied how the internet works or how you can best sell eBooks online, you’ll see “optimize” and “metadata” popping up everywhere. It’s as common as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

“Optimize” means making the most of. “Metadata” is geek-speak for information, but it’s not just hidden html code, stuffed long and short tail keywords, or fold placement of ledes. Optimizing your metadata on Amazon starts with your dashboard and pretty much ends there. It’s a matter of entering relevant information (metadata) and making sure that all the boxes are filled in (maximized).

This sounds like a commonsense thing, and it is. But, you’d be surprised how so many publishers don’t know what to put into Amazon and how to trigger the A9 algorithm to hear “pick me!” That goes for the Big-5 publishers who promote Big-Names **ahem – King, Patterson, Rowling, Steele, and Cornwell**. Some of the prominent paper-pushers eat dust left by metadata-optimizing indies. **ahem – Howie, Green, Croft, Hawking, and Andre**.

Here are the main metadata spots to optimize on your Amazon dashboard:

Title — This sounds like a no-brainer, a done-deal, but the title has to be relative to the book’s content, genre, or product placement. That goes for the sub-title as well.

Series — Without a doubt, the best way to make money with Amazon eBooks is to write in a series and profit by read-through. Make sure the series number is part of the metadata.

Description — This might be the second most important chunk of metadata to optimize. Your product description or blurb (jacket copy) is what a prospective buyer first sees after clicking on your cover image. Whole books are out there on optimizing product descriptions or sales copy and I won’t get further into it here. But… make your lede (hook) counts in the first few lines which is all a clicker first sees and triggers them to Look Inside and hit the Buy Now button.

Keywords and Categories — These are the third and fourth most important metadata pieces to optimize. In fact, they’re so important that I’ve included categories and keyword optimizing as a tip of their own.

Manuscript — Yes, your manuscript is metadata. It’s also your product’s core and it has to be professional. You do need an editor regardless of your budget. Your opening has to be strong as it’s the hook that gets the Buy Now pressure once your metadata has done its job to get the Amazon customer to Look Inside.

Cover — This is the number one metadata set-piece to get right. It’s not just for getting a click into reading your optimized metadata. Your cover haunts or halos your product all the way through the promotion cycle. Did you know your cover image is the only thing Amazon Marketing Services allows when you pay-to-play their system? Same thing with pay-to-play email list sites like Booksy, ENT, Robin, and Librarian. The only cover ad-slack you get is from BookBub, but they also want your cover to be a big part of the image (or creative, as they call it).

ISBN (International Book Standards Number) — You don’t need an ISBN to publish your eBook on Amazon. However, they do add to the professionalism offered by the product, and you’ll need one if you want your book to show up in libraries.

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select Enrollment – (Exclusive or Wide) — Big decision here. Do you want to stay exclusively published on Amazon and enjoy their perks? Or do you want to widely publish on other eBook platforms like Kobo, Nook, Apple, and Google? This is such an important deal that I’ve done a separate tip on Exclusive vs Wide.

Royalty and Pricing — Again, this is so important for eBook publishing success on Amazon that it gets its own tip.

Tip # 4 — Categories and Keywords

Although Amazon is an online, algorithmic-driven supermart for books, it’s laid out similar to a bricks & mortar bookstore. Categories are the departments where your eBook sits and Keywords are the metadata directions showing a shopper how to find your book in the massive Amazon store. It’s really not that difficult to optimize your keyword and category metadata even though the eBook gurus tend to make a big deal about it.

The trick to optimizing Amazon eBook metadata is to make sure you use as much space as allowed with RELEVANT information. Having said that, your book description doesn’t have to be as long as allowed (4,000 characters), because few people will ever read that much in a blurb. But, keywords and categories are the place to be a pig at the smorgasbord.

You’re allowed two primary categories when you first publish your eBook on Amazon. That’s pretty tight when you consider that Amazon has hundreds of primary and sub-categories on everything from Alchemy to Zen. You need to pick the best two, get the product activated, and then email Amazon from your dashboard to boost that up to ten categories.

They’ll do it. There are humanoid bottic-elves behind that dashboard, and I’ve communicated with them. You just have to provide the category paths and they’ll set you up with five times the exposure you’re initially offered.

Keywords are another metadata area where people pull their hair out and cut their arms trying for perfection. Tip? Don’t spend hours working the search bar or spending megadollars on keyword optimizing tools because the truth is… keywords don’t really matter unless you’ve already triggered the A9 algorithm to know you’re there. That’s from priming the pump through pay-to-play promotions. More on this in another Tip.

But, you do need keywords and you’re best to stuff them into keyphrases where the string of words gives you far more exposure than a single word can carry. Here’s an example of keyphrases from one of my based-on-true-crime series:

True Crime Homicide Investigation, Detective Police Procedural Procedure, Psychological Crime Thriller, Robbery and Murder, Suspense Murder Mystery, Stolen Guns Gun Store Robbery Murder, Canadian North American Crime Fiction

Amazon only allows you 50 characters per keyphrase so make the most of them. Above all, make them relevant to your book and something that a prospective reader would realistically search for. Oh, make absolutely sure that you don’t violate Amazon’s terms and conditions by entering misleading promotional stuff in your keywords like “bestseller”, “book of the year”, or ‘Better than Stephen King”. You might get your account terminated.

Tip #5 — Proper Pricing

Amazon lets you price your eBook anywhere above 0.99 cents. That has some qualifiers. Between 0.99 and $2.98 you’ll get 35% royalty. Between $2.99 and $9.99 you get 70% which is a pretty sweet deal. Anywhere above ten bucks gets you 35 on the dollar.

Amazon doesn’t want you pricing too low or too high. After all, they’re in this to make money and I don’t hold that against them. This is all about a balance of pricing right for the best return and all kinds of authors have all kinds of ideas on price points. Here’s what’s working for me… at least right now.

I’m producing a series based on true crime stories that I was involved in. Investigating them, that is. Not committing them. I’m up to number five in a planned twelve-book run and I’m starting to hit the “tipping point” where read-through is returning a positive return on investment.

I have book one listed as perma-free on Amazon. You can’t do this yourself except for the five free days per ninety-day cycle they allow you on exclusive KDP Select. Instead, I “went wide” with the series and published on Kobo and Nook. These guys (Kobo and Nook) let you do pretty much anything you want with price structure, so I set the series-one book at free on Amazon’s competitors.

Then, I emailed the bottish-elves from the dashboard and asked them to price match. They did, and now I have the first book as perma-free to offer as a loss-leader on the pay-to-play promo sites. I have a break down on promos in an upcoming tip.

The other big pricing point is making sure your Amazon dashboard is synced to international pricing. For me, $2.99 is the sweet spot for my eBooks and I set the US price at Amazon.com to $2.99. Behind the scenes, the price elf automatically sets the international prices on Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, Amazon.au, etc according to the current exchange rate so you’ll see weird numbers like $3.34, £4.21, €4.04, or figures like that.

There’s something in marketing magic about the .99 price. Once you set your Amazon.com price to $2.99, take the few minutes to go into the international sites on your dashboard on the royalty and pricing section and manually change the Amazon suggested conversions to a smooth-reading .99 version. Trust me. It’s optimizing metadata like this that works the Amazon big picture.

Tip # 6 — Exclusive or Wide

This is the big debate, especially in the indie community. I was exclusive on Amazon for a long time before a few of my much more successful indie friends said, “Garry. WTF are you doing staying exclusive in KDPS? You’re leaving a lot of money on the table by not going wide.”

So, I bit the bullet this April and published my new series on Nook and Kobo. I haven’t left Amazon by any stretch, and I still make the most money there. It’s just that Amazon no longer lets me play in KU (Kindle Unlimited), KOLL (Kindle Owner Lenders Library), Kindle Countdown, and the Kindle Freebie 5-Day promos. Well, that’s the price you have to pay to go wide.

However, my sales on Kobo and Nook have far exceeded the pittance I made on KU and KOLL. By far. I only have my series books wide so far and I’ll move my backlist over some day. I also plan to publish on Apple and Google, but there’s only so much time in a day when I’m trying to crank out a new book in a two-month sequence as well as writing Kill Zone and DyingWords blogs.

Tip #7 — eBook Layouts

I do my own eBook formatting. I write on a PC Word.doc and then convert the file on Calibre to a Kindle/Mobi file. Yes, I know the MAC people love Vellum for file conversion, but I’m comfortable with my Windows 8. I can take a Word.docx and run it through Calibre (free download) in two minutes and it comes out clean. Then, I upload the Mobi metadata file to the Amazon dashboard and Bob’s your uncle.

Amazon allows you to directly upload a Word.doc and their system is supposed to convert it to Mobi. My experience is a direct Word upload to Amazon comes out like Uncle Bob’s breakfast and if you knew my Uncle Bob you wouldn’t like it. Do it right and your metadata eBook file will read like a professional submission.

Front matter and back matter are two hot topics. I’m a firm believer in minimizing your front matter and maximizing your backside. There are good reasons for this.

Nobody cares if you dedicate your book to Uncle Bob who, in my case, died of cirrhosis of the liver because of what he had for breakfast every day. Nobody cares about your poetic quote and nobody cares about your copyright and nobody cares about your table of contents. Get all this crap out of the front and out of sight of the potential reader who clicks Look Inside and wants to get right to your hook. That causes a Buy Now With One Click and that sells books.

Back matter is REALLY important for book sales, though—especially in a series. This is where you create read-through. It takes a bit of tedious work, but if you carefully link the other books in your series with one-click buy buttons to your Amazon and other eBook retail sites, it’ll pay back big time.

It also works to link your newest release at the opening of the front matter right after the title and before the story starts. This one little move has given me amazing results in compounded sales through that tempting click-bait. Do it. Do it. Do it.

*  *  *

Screenshot of what an Amazon browser first sees when they Look Inside or buy Beside The Road which is book 4 in my Based-On-True-Crime Series. It immediately links the viewer to my latest release, On The Floor, and has an amazing conversion factor.

Tip #8 — Use Amazon Resources

From reading the boards and the blogs, I get the impression that some authors seriously mistrust Amazon as a bookseller. They suggest Amazon is out to game or cheat the little guy and eventually plan to take over the world. That’s not my experience.

It’s quite the opposite. From what I’ve seen, Amazon has a massive amount of information on its site to help publishers and other product promoters. Same with many internet sites. If you’re serious about making eBook publishing on Amazon a success, it’s necessary to read the instructions. Here are links to the best Amazon publishing resources:

Amazon Website KDP JumpStart

Amazon Website KDP Terms Conditions

Amazon Website KDP University

Amazon Success Toolkit — The Book Designer with Tracy Atkins

How To Sell Books by Truckload on Amazon 2020 Edition — Penny Sanserveri

Amazon Decoded — David Gaughran

Tip #9 — Prime the Amazon System

Publishing one eBook on Amazon won’t cut it. Not if you want to be a commercial success, that is. You have to have a catalog of new releases and a solid backlist. This gives what’s called “churn” in ‘Zonspeak. Amazon will churn (sell) your books as long as you have saleable products on your catalog that are metadata optimized. There’s a caveat, though. You have to prime Amazon’s system.

What do I mean by priming the system? That’s my own analogy. What it means is you have to do something to make Amazon responsive to your eBook (yes, a product) and make it worth Amazon’s while to elevate it through their algorithms and show it to prospective readers (paying customers).

Right now, in the Amazon sphere, that comes from paying-to-play. You have to spend money to make money and you have two main options. One is advertising your product(s) on big discount email sites like Booksy, EReader News Today (ENT), Fussy Librarian, and Robin Reads, as well as smaller sites like Book Gorilla, Rune, and Many Books. Your other option is the paid click sites like BookBub, Facebook, and Amazon’s own Marketing Services (AMS).

This is where the series perma-free and read-through strategy shines. What works to sell eBooks on Amazon is to advertise your perma-free on paid sites like Booksy and ENT. You’ll get hundreds or thousands of downloads (ie – new readers) who will read-through to buy the rest of your series. What also works (although I’m just starting to experiment) is to run paid ads on the click-sites.

Tip #10 — Real Examples of Amazon eBook Publishing Success

I primed the Amazon system on a recent book launch with a stacked promotion. “Stacked” means I did a strategic series of sequential paid ads to promote my newest book in my based-on-true-crime series. I did this by pushing my Book One perma-free on the paid discount sites with Book Five highlighted and linked in the front matter like you saw in the previous screenshot. Here are the download stats:

Day 1 Promotion: EReader News Today — 2,794 free / 228 sales

Day 2 Promotion: Free Booksy — 1,578 free / 123 sales

Day 3 Promotion: Fussy Librarian — 1,402 free / 312 sales

Day 4 Promotion: Robin Reads — 1,034 free / 103 sales

Day 5 Promotion: Many Books — 162 free / 50 sales

Day 6 Promotion: Book Gorilla — 51 free / 64 sales

Day 7 Promotion: Book Runes — 296 free / 41 sales

My pay-to-play promotions on the discount email list sites cost $565. Gross revenue on paid sales (based on a $2.00 royalty) was $1,842. So, deducting the ad costs, the net was $1,277. That’s an excellent seven-day return on investment by anyone’s standards. It also led to a big organic sale increase as people in post-promotion bought read-throughs.

“Wait! Garry — You gave away 7,317 free eBooks on Amazon? Like… WTF were you thinking?”

No, I just gained 7,317 new potential readers by paying to advertise a perma-free and let the read-through, paid-sale, miracle materialize. My organic purchases significantly increased since I primed the Amazon pump. So did my email list. The traffic also pushed my perma-free to the #1 Bestseller spot in the Crime Thriller (Free) category. Now, I’m experimenting with a BookBub Ad promotion before trying FB and AZ clicks. Wish me luck.

Kill Zoners — What’s your experience with Amazon eBook publishing? Any tips for us?

Garry Rodgers is a retired homicide detective and forensic coroner. Now, Garry has reinvented himself as a somewhat successful self publisher who’s trying to figure out what works to sell books.

Besides crime writing, Garry Rodgers spends time putting around the saltwater near his home on Vancouver Island in British Columbia on Canada’s west coast.

Men Are Not Women With Chest Hair, Part 2

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Men Are Not Women With Chest Hair, Part 2

Men are not women with chest hairIn Part 1, I talked about physiological differences in the way males and females are hard wired.

Note: Much of the information in these posts comes from workshops by Eileen Dreyer from a RWA conference, and Tracy Montoya’s presentation at a Southern Lights Conference.

This time, I’ll discuss some of the social differences between men and women. Again, these differences are based on physiological differences in the brain, but there are always going to be individual differences. There’s a basic framework, but there are also individual modifications to the finished product. Think of all those apartment complexes, or housing developments with virtually identical houses. Eventually, the owners put their own touches into their homes giving them some individuality. However, some of the broad, sweeping generalizations we make about men and women does have a basis in the differences in the way their brains work.

In Social Situations:

Men are goal oriented.
Women are community builders.

Men are the lone hunters.
Women are communal.

Men are problem solvers.
Women are problem sharers.

A woman will come home from a day at work and complain about something that happened. To a women, sharing troubles is a friendship ritual. To a man, talking about a problem is asking for advice. Thus, the man will offer suggestions as to how to fix it. The woman really doesn’t want his help, she just wants to vent. Men consider talking about a problem a step down in the hierarchy.

Men are likely to explore an idea through argument. Women will shut down, because they want to keep connections open.

Montoya mentioned a study where two men were brought into a room with two chairs facing the front, and told to wait until they were called for an interview. The men sat and talked. When the subjects were two women, the first thing they did was move the chairs so they faced each other.

This ingrained wiring leads to frequent “discussions” where the woman accuses the man of not listening to her when she’s talking to him because he’s not looking at her.

Men define themselves by achievements.
Woman define themselves by relationships.

In the workplace, our hard-wired brains still see the differences between male and female behaviors. Perhaps the reason men don’t see women as “equals” in the workplace is because they simply can’t. They’re perceived as too emotional to be authority figures. Their wiring does make them emotional. But that doesn’t mean they can’t make the necessary decisions. But a woman is more likely to say, “We’re going to talk about “the” rules,” which is ingrained in the nurturing wiring, whereas a man would say, “We’re going to talk about “my” rules,” which fits his hierarchical wiring. Women soften statements, men give orders.

Men and women have different approaches to problem solving.

Men are linear thinkers.
Women think in clusters.

Men compartmentalize.
Women churn things over until the problem is solved

Men are emotionally divorced from problem solving.
Women are emotionally involved in the process.

Men are solitary.
Women are communal.

Men give space.
Women wants a hug.

Men want answers.
Women want support.

For men, help means failure.
Women want to help.

I hope these posts have provided a little insight you can apply when writing characters outside the familiarity of your own gender. If they shed a little light on your own personal relationships, consider that a bonus.

All right, TKZers. The floor is open for discussion.

Heather's ChaseI’m pleased to announce that my Mystery Romance, Heather’s Chase, is now available at most e-book channels. and in print from Amazon. Note: in honor of my daughter, I’m sharing royalties with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

(If you’d like to see some of the pictures I took on my trip, many of which appear as settings in the book, click on the book cover and scroll down to “Special Features.”)

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.

A Feel-Good Story

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By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Pretty Girl (black and white dog) in transit

 

After the past six months, raise your hand if you’re ready for a feel-good story.

Yeah, me too.

The following is a true story—the journey of one stray dog from certain death to happily-ever-after with plenty of bumps along her odyssey. It encompasses important elements of story structure that are necessary in both fiction and nonfiction. It includes many heroes who embody a never-say-die spirit of determination. The inciting incident introduces a daunting mission with high stakes. The antagonists take the form of plot reversals and seemingly insurmountable hurdles. All these elements eventually lead to a satisfying climax and conclusion.

Recently, I was privileged to participate in this story as an assignment for Montana Senior News.

The protagonist is Pretty Girl. No one knows her origins. Her age is estimated at three years. A guess at her lineage is pit bull-boxer cross. Pregnant and starving, Pretty Girl is abandoned on a Beaumont, Texas road by a villain who is never identified.

Enter hero Gary Pelt.

Like Pretty Girl, Gary’s life has not been easy. Born with congenital developmental disabilities, he nevertheless works hard and supports himself with city and county jobs including maintenance of school buses as well as a lawn service business on the side. When his wife of 39 years dies in 2015, Gary is adrift and lonely, even with his large extended family nearby.

He takes in the skinny, sickly stray and calls her Pretty Girl. Two thousand dollars in vet bills later, she is cured of heartworm, puts on weight, gives birth to her puppies then is spayed. All pups find homes except for one, which Gary keeps and names “Remy.” Mother and daughter become Gary’s steadfast, loyal companions.

Tropical Storm Imelda flooded Beaumont, TX. Photo credit: Jill Carlson, CC license

In 2019, they undergo a plot reversal when their safety is threatened by Tropical Storm Imelda that drenches Beaumont. Gary’s home is flooded. Rescue workers find him, Pretty Girl, and Remy atop his bed, surrounded by nearly three feet of water.

They survive, recover, and rebuild. But Gary’s health declines and relatives urge him to move into assisted living. He refuses out of loyalty to his dogs. If Pretty Girl and Remy can’t go with him, he isn’t going.

Then a catastrophic plot reversal upends Pretty Girl’s life. Gary dies this past July at age 70.  Pretty Girl and Remy lose the only home they’ve ever known. Remy is adopted but, despite Pretty Girl’s sweet, loving temperament, she remains a homeless orphan who misses not only her human but also her daughter.

Enter two heroes in the characters of Gary’s sister, author Debbie Epperson (my longtime friend and critique partner), and her husband Nathan who agree to adopt Pretty Girl. But that introduces a whole new obstacle: how to transport a 63-pound dog from Beaumont, Texas to Kalispell, Montana more than 2100 miles away.

They face daunting hurdles: Airlines won’t fly pets during the summer. With COVID-19, Debbie’s health doesn’t allow a road trip.

Enter more new heroes, strangers who don’t know Pretty Girl or the Eppersons but are united in a commitment to help animals in trouble.

Dozens of emails fly over the Milk Bone Grapevine, reaching out to volunteers and rescue groups, asking for transportation help.

Meanwhile Pretty Girl is temporarily boarded. Every ride in a car means a trip to an unknown, unfamiliar destination: sometimes a vet’s office, other times to foster care. Strange people, strange dogs, and uncertainty surround her. Yet she retains her sweet personality. Her only flaw is food aggression toward other dogs, not surprising given her rough beginnings.

After several weeks of planning and coordination among different groups, Pretty Girl’s itinerary is finally set. Family friend Sissie Breaux drives her 85 miles from Beaumont to Houston.

In Houston, she is handed off to Rescued Pets Movement (RPM). The nonprofit group founded by Cindy Perini has saved the lives of more than 55,000 homeless and abandoned animals that face euthanasia in city pounds and shelters. In addition to providing medical care and rehabilitation, RPM transports animals to reputable rescue groups in far-flung areas where there is a demand for pets.

Pretty Girl joins 126 dogs and seven cats for the 1000-mile trip from Houston to Denver that takes 24 hours.

In Denver, Pretty Girl meets another hero, Edie Messick, founder of The Animal Debt Project (ADP), a nonprofit no-kill shelter located in Wellington, Colorado that also focuses on transporting animals. Every other week, Edie drops off and picks up dogs throughout Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

Pretty Girl spends eight days at Edie’s shelter waiting for the arrival of rescued strays from the streets of Tijuana, Mexico. They will be her traveling companions on the next leg of her trip.

Thursday morning, Pretty Girl and 27 other dogs, including a diabetic requiring shots and a three-legged pup, are loaded into Edie’s van, turning the vehicle into a combination day care and nursing home on wheels. They travel on I-25 and I-90 for another 1000-mile journey from Denver to Missoula, Montana.

Early Friday morning, Nathan Epperson and I drive 120 miles from Kalispell to Missoula where we rendezvous with Edie to pick up Pretty Girl.

Pretty Girl is panting and understandably anxious since she just spent a day and a night with two barking Chihuahuas in a crate above hers. But her tail wags as she licks our hands, excited and happy.

She doesn’t yet know this is the final leg of her long journey and the climax of her story. But we humans know she’s destined for a new home with a loving family.

In Nathan’s truck, she tries to climb on his lap, making driving impossible. So I sit in the back seat with her, holding her leash. She leans against me and, soon, her panting stops. She’s calm and affectionate. Unlike many dogs under stress, she’s not afraid to make direct eye contact.

When she looks in my eyes, I think she must be wondering: “Are you the one I finally get to stay with?” After weeks of loss, upheaval, strange surroundings, and strange people, I tell her she’s on the way to her forever home. I hope she understands.

Taken with my cell phone cam while holding onto a struggling 63 pound dog in a moving truck. Action photography is not my specialty.

She also quickly bonds with Nathan and continues to try to climb in the front with him. I pull back on her leash until she finally settles for resting her head on his shoulder as he drives.

We arrive at the Epperson’s rural property west of Kalispell where Pretty Girl checks out unfamiliar smells of deer and wild turkeys. She meets Debbie (Gary’s sister), two Golden Retrievers, and a cat with whom she’ll share a home.

Pretty Girl explores her new yard.

But there’s one last hurdle to conquer: Kemah, the two-year-old Golden is rambunctious and overwhelms Pretty Girl, who growls but doesn’t snap.

Fortunately, Debbie and Nathan have experience wrangling multiple dogs. They know how to ease the adjustment between Pretty Girl and Kemah.

Now it’s time for the denouement of the story. When I start to leave, Pretty Girl looks distressed, as if to say, “Oh, no, another human is abandoning me.”

My heart wrenches.

But I’m consoled later that evening when Debbie emails to say she and Pretty Girl are curled up together on the love seat, watching “Murder She Wrote.”

A new crime dog in training.

And they live happily ever after.

On a hot summer day, Pretty Girl relaxes on cool rocks in the shade of her new home.