And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray…when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea. — Proust, In Search of Lost Time

By PJ Parrish

Morning crime dogs. Today, our submission writer is taking us to a far off place with a strange sounding name. Actually, they don’t tell us exactly where we are, but that’s okay because I can sense we’re not in Kansas, Dotty. The genre, our writer says, is international political thriller. Take a look and then let’s talk.

Light In the Kingdom Of Sand

Ari Edri woke to the heat and stink of his apartment, mouth sour with the taste of alcohol and cigarettes. His bed, little more than a cot, was drenched with sweat. The clamor of morning traffic outside the open window was all horns and chaos. His clock said it was nearly noon – another Monday and no reason to care or stir from bed.

He lay there for a moment, trying to find a comfortable position, but age, abuse, and arthritis made that impossible. Disgusted, he swung his legs off the bed and rose painfully to his feet.

In years past, he might have found a more accommodating home, but this was really all he could afford. He limped across the room to relieve himself. He winced at the pain and his reflection in the faded mirror. It was older, sadder, and more worn than he remembered.

Splashing water on his face, he looked around the room. The chair was still wedged firmly under the door handle. His old Luger lay on the bedside table. Unnecessary precautions, but habits die hard.

Long retired, he had done so without a single citation in his personnel file. Dozens of missions to support his country, and yet he was a cipher to them.

The lady downstairs must be cooking from Yael’s cookbook again. The smell from below and the thought of his ex-wife cooking a recipe she thought he loved brought a smile to his face unbidden. He looked at the picture of his daughter and granddaughter on the dresser. The smell and the picture were momentarily overpowering. Ari found his vision blurring, and he wiped a tear from his cheek too late to stop the next one. Tough guy, yeah.

He remembered his ex-wife and daughter confronting him about his drinking, telling him he couldn’t be around his granddaughter if he was going to be drinking. Not believing them led to not being able to see any of them. I should have believed them. How do you come back from that?

He moved the Luger to the small kitchen table and stared at it. Will today be the day? Will I finally have nerve enough? Not strong enough to stop the booze, why would I be strong enough to pull the trigger?

______________

I’m back. I enjoyed reading this submission. It has a good flow and I immediately felt sympathetic toward Ari Edri. (I like his name, btw, easy to remember as it trips off the tongue). But because this is pretty darn good, I am going to be a little hard on you, dear writer.

About Ari: We don’t know if he is the protagonist, the would-be hero whose journey we will follow for three hundred pages or so. The writer could be setting him up as a victim. Which is a fine entryway into a plot. Your story doesn’t always have to open with your protag; sometimes creating a scenario around a victim can be a really effective set-up. Done it many times myself. (Note to writer: If Ari is a victim, make sure you intro your hero very soon.)

But let’s assume Ari is the main man here. There is much I already like about the guy, thanks to judicious backstory insertion. Notice that the writer does NOT lard in paragraphs of backstory. They give us just enough to entice us about his circumstances — once an effective “warrior” of some kind, but now broken (tortured?) and forgotten. I sense bitterness, which will work well in Ari’s character arc, leaving me to wonder if this is, themactically, a story about redemption.

An aside: Redemption is a powerful theme. And never forget, writers, that THEME is what your story is really about. Yes, it’s about action, plot, car chases, a fight to save a person or a country. BUT your story is, at its deepest depths, about what is happening inside your character’s heart. Never forget that.

Now, about plot. Not much is happening in these first pages. It’s a slow build opening. I don’t mind that. I am willing to go along for a slow ride, BUT only to a point. Dear writer: I suggest you get Ari out and doing something fairly quickly. Too much remembering, musing, thinking, pondering and moping isn’t sustainable for long.

I will ask this to you all out there: Do you think the writer got into the scene too early? I often see mysteries and thrillers begin this way — the protag (usually a PI or cop) gets a phone call to come to a crime scene. We then get him swinging his tired legs over the bed, “padding” across the ratty apartment, hungover, staring at his gun, moping and thinking…

When…

It might be more effective to get the protag OUT into the world actively doing something. I really dislike cop stories that begin with the cop getting a phone call to come to a murder scene. Rather: Put him (and us) there and then go back and fill in the backstory of booze and broken homes. As James said in his great Sunday post on backstory: ACT FIRST, EXPLAIN LATER. Click here to read. Dear Writer: I suggest you go back and read James’s post.

Some other things about the submission. Given Ari’s name and the book’s title, I am assuming this takes place in the mideast. I don’t need you to slap a place tag on your chapter ie:

CHAPTER ONE

KABUL, JANUARY, 2023

That’s lame. But do find a way soon to tell us where we are organically. You’ve already hinted at it.

One last thing. And this is important….

I don’t get much sense of place. I don’t see you, the writer, using your sense, to bring Ari’s world to life. I think you can make this even better. Place is a character. You have to give it as much care as you do your characters. You are working with a good basic grasp of scene-building, but you’ve missed many chances to TAKE US TO YOUR PLACE.

This is a fault I see in many submissions, an underdeveloped sense of place, and no use of the senses in description. You’ve told us it is hot, sweaty and chaotic outside.  You’ve told us his apartment “stinks.” You’ve told us he looks worn and old. You’ve told us there is photo of his daughter and granddaugher. You’ve told us he can smell something cooking downstairs. 

Now SHOW us. What does “chaos” sound like? What does “hot” feel like? What does his apartment “stink” of? What does “old and worn” look like exactly? What does that family photo look like? And most powerfully, you set up this evocative memory of his wife’s cooking! What does it “smell” like? You must use your senses when you write. THAT is what takes us to your fictional world.

A sudden, brassy blast tore through the heavy air, a sharp and angry shriek of metal and electricity. Another horn joined in close behind—a long, heavy drone of pure frustration.

Note: The cacaphony of cars in say Chennai sounds completely different than it does in Chicago. And note that the noise can reflect the emotional noise in Ari’s head. Connect and reflect.

The world seemed to die each afternoon and nothing moved any longer. At last the summer was like a green sick dream, or like a silent crazy jungle under glass. — Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding.

Note: Trying to nail down weather description can make fools of us all. Tread lightly.

There is an invalid fug in the room – the faint animal scent of the furs, a vegetal stench of undrained cooking water, and the sour reek from a bowl with which a girl hurries away: containing, he suspects, the evacuated contents of the dowager’s stomach. — Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies

Note: Of course, your room isn’t historic and this isn’t your style. I offer it only as an example of how you must use your senses, especially smell. Which brings me to what you wrote:

The lady downstairs must be cooking from Yael’s cookbook again. The smell from below and the thought of his ex-wife cooking a recipe she thought he loved brought a smile to his face unbidden. He looked at the picture of his daughter and granddaughter on the dresser. The smell and the picture were momentarily overpowering. Ari found his vision blurring, and he wiped a tear from his cheek too late to stop the next one. Tough guy, yeah.

What what did you miss? The utterly golden opportunity to SHOW us what it smells like and more important, to link it to Ari’s emotional state. Some examples:

She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d’Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

And of course:

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans. — Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.

I am bringing these passages about food in for a main and final reason. Ari is a deeply troubled man, with a strangled present and a tortured past. He is estranged from his family and deeply lonely. You instinctively chose to put in that smell coming from an apartment below. Not just any smell — the divine scent of his wife’s cooking. How wonderfully Proustian! Yet you didn’t SHOW us what it smelled like. And worse, you missed the opportunity to link it to Ari’s memories and emotional state. Yes, you had him tear up, but it feels distanced and unspecific. Details! Details! Details! This should be a coda, bringing us out of his backstory past and back to the present as he looks at that Luger.

Here’s a clip from one of my favorite movies, The Hundred Foot Journey. It is about a young Indian man who leaves his family to become a famous chef in Paris. In the most touching scene, he shares an after-hours meal sitting on the floor of his famous bistro, with a waiter, who is eating the Indian dinner his wife has made for him. It brings the chef to tears and to the realization he must go home to find himself again. I can’t find that clip, alas. But, dear writer, please find a way to connect Ari to his past through taste and smell.

Good start, writer. I enjoyed this. Now, back to work….