About Debbie Burke

Debbie writes the Tawny Lindholm series, Montana thrillers infused with psychological suspense. Her books have won the Kindle Scout contest, the Zebulon Award, and were finalists for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and BestThrillers.com. Her articles received journalism awards in international publications. She is a founding member of Authors of the Flathead and helps to plan the annual Flathead River Writers Conference in Kalispell, Montana. Her greatest joy is mentoring young writers. http://www.debbieburkewriter.com

True Crime Thursday—Weird Animal Cases

by Debbie Burke

Police Officers never know what they’ll find when they answer a call. Here’s a collection of unusual cases involving animals that I uncovered on Police1.com.

Florida law enforcement duties include occasional alligator wrangling. This body cam video from July 2025 shows an amazingly calm officer, Deputy Richardson of the St. John’s County Sheriff’s Department, responding to a gator allegedly trespassing in a resident’s pool. Notice how gently he tucks the gator’s tail into the back seat of his cruiser.

https://www.police1.com/animal-control/i-know-youre-mad-fla-deputy-removes-gator-from-pool-with-bare-hands-buckles-it-into-cruiser

Police1.com also posted a roundup of weird cases from 2023:

In May:

Springfield, Colorado police found that a suspected drunk driver switched places with a dog before being contacted. ‘The dog does not face any charges and was let go with just a warning,’ said police.”

In July:

“An Oak Grove, Missouri police officer working the midnight shift took time out to help a raccoon whose head was stuck in a jar after a brief foot pursuit.”

 

August 2023 was an especially busy month for critter calls.

“Police in Norfolk, Nebraska, pulled over Howdy Doody, a Watusi bull known as a celebrity in northeast Nebraska, and his owner Lee Meyer while the bull was riding shotgun in an old police cruiser. Meyer was stopped for vision obstruction.”

From Colorado: 

Douglas County, Colorado, sheriff deputy Lee Jazombek responded to the call of the distressed bear and met up with Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer Sean Dodd, who was already on the scene where a bear became trapped in a dumpster. The officers fashioned a ramp that allowed the bear to escape.”

A K9 shows his versatility in this situation.

“In New York, Carmel Police Department Officer Vincent DeSantola and his K9 Pietro responded to the report of 30 goats loose in the roadway. The dog, a German shepherd, lived up to his name by helping corral the goats who were quickly returned to their pen.”

On the subject of herding, an anonymous officer left the following comment that demonstrates dog cookies aren’t just for dogs:

“I ‘herded’ several loose pigs down a busy highway, into a residential area, back to where the pigs lived. I kept their interest in following me by offering them dog cookies, which I keep in my patrol car.”

Law enforcement sometimes uses special talents not usually associated with criminal apprehension, like voice impressions.

“A Pierce County, Washington deputy barked like a K-9, tricking teen car theft suspects into surrendering when they thought the dogs were on the way.”

And last but not least, people who own Golden Retrievers often joke the breed is so friendly they’d welcome a burglar breaking into their home. Here’s video proof:

San Diego, California home surveillance video shows a burglar taking a bicycle from a garage and being confronted by the homeowner’s dog. The Golden Retriever approaches him as he exits the garage with the stolen bike where the crook stops to give the undisturbed dog belly rubs.”

 

 

Sorry, pup, you just flunked the entrance exam for guard dog school!

Thank you to Police1.com for permission to quote from their site.

~~~

Conference news: October 3-5, 2025, the Flathead River Writers Conference happens in Kalispell, Montana. This is the 35th year for the event which has earned an international reputation for friendliness, education, and inspiration. I’m teaching a Friday workshop on The Villain’s Journey and would love to meet TKZers in person. Hope you can join us! Details.

~~~

TKZers: do you have any critter crimes to report? Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

The Villain Goes on a Journey

by Debbie Burke

As writers, we send our characters on long, convoluted journeys to solve mysteries and create exciting compelling stories.

Today I’m going to tell the story about the journey of a book that traveled from point A to point B to point Q to point G to point X to point D to…you get the idea.

In July, my book The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate was published.

My custom is to send print copies by snail mail to people who helped develop my books. They may have contributed research, beta read, or otherwise supported the growth from a teeny-weeny seed of an idea to a finished product. Without their help, my books wouldn’t exist. So I’m grateful and want to say “thank you” in a small way.

Let’s back up to 2022. The teeny-weeny seed for The Villain’s Journey came from a comment made by TKZ regular Marilynn Byerly. In response to a post I’d written about villains, she mentioned the hero’s journey was well known but was there a corresponding book about villains?

That sent me down the rabbit hole.

Amazingly, I only found one book devoted to the villain’s journey and it focused on sci-fi and fantasy.

During a conversation with TKZ emeritus Steve Hooley, he said, “Why don’t you write that book?”

Sounded like a great suggestion since there did appear to be a gap in the crime reference library that I could fill.

I wrote a proposal and sent it to TKZ’s wise guru Jim Bell to see what he thought of the idea. He encouraged me to go for it.

Fast forward to summer 2025. I finished the book. Jim wrote a wonderful blurb for it, as did Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

These two respected powerhouses gave my book invaluable credibility in the writing craft world. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to Jim and Chris for their support.

When the print books arrived, of course, I wanted the first two copies to go to Jim and Chris. I inscribed them, packaged them in padded envelopes, and took them to the post office. The clerk double-checked the addresses in the computer, printed out labels with bar codes, and off they went. Easy-peasy.

More than a month later, the post office returned Jim’s copy to me. A label said: “Return to Sender, address unknown, no such number, no such zone—” Oh, wait, that was Elvis.

This label claimed insufficient address, unable to forward, return to sender. Someone had written in red marker “Wrong address” above the printed post office label.

I double-checked the mailing address with Jim. Yup, I’d used the correct one and the post office label was indeed correct.

So why did the book come back to me?

I typed the tracking number into the search box for usps.com. The shipping history showed a long and winding road.

On August 13, the book began its journey from Kalispell, MT where I mailed it. It then travelled to distribution centers in Missoula, MT, Spokane, WA, Los Angeles, Santa Clarita, and landed at Jim’s neighborhood post office on August 18. So far so good.

Then the journey started twisting.

On August 18, the book was delivered to an address with a notation in the tracking history “delivered, front door/porch.”

On August 27, the next notation said, “insufficient address” followed by a notation “return to sender processed.”

Huh?

It then traveled back to the Santa Clarita distribution center and arrived August 29 in Aurora, CO. The same day, it was sent on to the Billings distribution center.

Okay, Billings is in Montana.

Two days later, it apparently took the wrong freeway off ramp, headed south, and arrived at the Phoenix, AZ distribution center.

Uh, Phoenix is not in Montana.

It sat in Phoenix for two days then was sent back to Aurora, CO distribution center. It sat there for two more days.

Then it went to Billings again.

Okay, at least it’s now back in the right state.

Then it took another wrong freeway exit. Whoops.

A day later, it shows up at the Denver, CO distribution center.

Three days later, it’s at the Missoula, MT distribution center. Then it’s sent 120 miles north to Kalispell and arrives there to be processed.

Whoops, U-turn back to Missoula for another day.

Another U-turn from Missoula back to Kalispell.

Finally, more than a month after the book began its journey, it was returned to me in Kalispell as “undeliverable, insufficient address.”

This poor villain had been on a journey that was a cross between Where’s Waldo and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

 

Cyril Thomas, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Common

Putting on my Sherlock Holmes’ deerstalker hat, I’m guessing a mail carrier delivered the package to someone else’s house in Jim’s neighborhood. That resident probably wrote “wrong address” on it. If the carrier had rechecked the address, they should have realized, “Oh, shoot, that’s the house down the street” and delivered it. Instead, they dumped the package into the system.

This Villain’s Journey should have been 1350 miles. Instead, it turned into an epic road trip of 7700 miles.

I wish the lost, wandering package qualified for frequent flyer miles—I’d have enough miles for a plane ticket from Montana to California to personally deliver Jim’s book. After all the years of following TKZ, I would have finally enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Jim in person.

The villain is now on its second journey. I hope by the time this post goes live, Jim will have received his book.

In our stories, we send our characters on long, convoluted journeys to solve mysteries. 

The mystery of why the post office sent this book on a 7700-mile journey may never be solved. If only the book could talk…

~~~

TKZers, do you have a story about unexpected detours courtesy of the post office? Please share.

~~~

This blurb makes me very proud:

Debbie Burke has filled a critical gap in writing craft instruction…authors of any genre will benefit by using The Villain’s Journey to take a deeper dive into the antagonist of their story.” – James Scott Bell, International Thriller Writers award winner, author of more than 30 bestselling craft of writing books.

 

If you’d like a print copy of The Villain’s Journey, Amazon and Barnes & Noble have good track records of delivering books without unexpected side trips.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn?

by Debbie Burke

Most people are familiar with “fight or flight” response to a threat. Physiologist and Harvard Medical School chair, Walter Bradford Cannon isolated those two reactions in the 1920s after observing animals in the lab. When animals were frightened or under stress, they displayed behaviors that evolution had programmed into them millions of years before for survival. Faced with a threat, animals either stood their ground and fought the attacker or ran away from it.

Photo credit: Bernard Dupont CC by SA 2.0

 

Our human ancestors developed the same programming. They either grabbed a big stick to fight off the lion or they ran like hell to escape it.

These physiological reactions are involuntary, triggered by the autonomic nervous system. Signs include dilated pupils, heightened hearing, racing heart, rapid breathing, and tense muscles to prepare the body to fight or run away.

“Freeze” is a third possible reaction to threats and wasn’t widely recognized untill the 1970s. Its evolutionary purpose may have been to avoid attracting the attention of a predator. If the prey didn’t move, the predator would hopefully not notice it and walk on by.

Public domain photo

I’ve watched young fawns remain completely still to blend in with cover. However, when deer freeze in the headlights of your speeding car, that option often doesn’t work out well for survival.

Recently I learned about a fourth reaction: fawn. The term was coined by psychotherapist Pete Walker in 2003 to describe behavior intended to appease the threat and avoid being harmed.

Photo credit: Andrew Lorenz CC by SA 3.0

For instance, dogs may roll on their backs and display their bellies to acknowledge the dominance of another dog. Crouching and cowering are also signs of fawning.

This reaction is often seen in human abuse victims who try to please or show subservience to a potential attacker to deflect violence. They also may agree with the threatening person, hoping to head off an argument that could lead to possible abuse.

This article by Olivia Guy-Evans describes physical responses that occur in the body during fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

While fight, flight, and freeze are instinctual, fawn is a learned behavior, according to Shreya Mandal JD, LCSW, NBCFCH. When faced with chronic stress and threat, some people develop the fawn reaction to survive.

In a June 2025 article in Psychology Today, she writes:

“Rooted in complex trauma, the fawn response emerges when a person internalizes that safety, love, or even survival depends on appeasing others, especially those who hold power over them. It is a profound psychological adaptation, often shaped in childhood, in homes where love was conditional, inconsistent, or entangled with emotional or physical threat.

“For many survivors, especially those from marginalized communities, fawning becomes a deeply embodied pattern. As a trauma therapist and legal advocate, I’ve witnessed this adaptive strategy in clients across many settings: survivors of interpersonal violence, those navigating carceral systems, immigrants shaped by colonial legacies, employees navigating toxic work environments, and children of emotionally immature parents. The fawn is the child who learns to become invisible or overly helpful to avoid punishment. It’s the adult who minimizes their needs in relationships. It’s the employee who fears negative consequences and retaliation. It’s the incarcerated woman who apologizes before speaking her truth in court.”

The person may not consciously be aware of what they are doing. They simply understand they will “stay safe by pleasing the powerful.”

As crime writers, we often put our characters in conflict with others. When you write these scenes, try viewing them through the lens of what Pete Walker calls the “four Fs.”

Do they fight the threat?

Do they flee?

Do they freeze in their tracks?

Do they fawn to appease the attacker?

Their reactions depend on their individual personalities and psychological makeup. Often their behavior is shaped by childhood trauma that conditioned their responses to conflict.

If you’re not sure how your character would react to peril, try writing short sample scenes. In the first example, have them fight. In the second, they flee. In the third, they freeze. In the fourth, they fawn. Which of the four scenes seems the most authentic for your character’s personality and background?

Another prompt to develop your character is to put them in a risky situation and free-write what they do. They may surprise you by reacting in a way you didn’t expect. A character you thought was timid may stand their ground and put up a ferocious fight. A blustering, aggressive character may freeze or fawn when faced with actual danger.

When a character surprises you, dig deeper into the reasons behind their action. Were they the only defense between their younger sibling and an abusive parent? Were they punished without reason or treated unjustly? Did they resolve to never be put in a submissive position again?

Short writing prompts like these help you get to know your character and learn how they react under stress. Their background may not be shown in the story but you, as the author, will better understand how to portray them in an authentic, realistic way.

~~~

TKZers: When confronted with danger, does your main character fight, flee, freeze, or fawn?

~~~

 

Debbie Burke’s new book The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate is now for sale in hardcover, as well as ebook and paperback.

True Crime Thursday – “Insider’s” Jury Duty Scam

by Debbie Burke

Jury duty scams have been around for a couple of decades. Despite frequent warnings by law enforcement, the FBI, and consumer protection groups, jury duty scams continue to snare people. According to the FTC, last year they cost victims an estimated $790 million.

Scammers send an email or text message that looks as if it originates from a court. The notice claims you didn’t appear for jury duty as ordered.

Contacts are also made by phone with the caller claiming to be a U.S. Marshal. The caller ID appears genuine from a real court number. However, the number is spoofed.  

The email, text, or phone call threatens arrest unless you immediately pay a fine.

They demand payment by gift card, wire transfer, or other suspicious methods. 

All these payment forms have one thing in common: any money you send disappears into the scammer’s hands, untraceable and never to be recovered.  

Today’s True Crime Thursday case has a twist: the accused scammer sent the demand from inside a Georgia prison.

In January of this year, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa, Florida, indicted Anthony Sanders  (AKA “Slanga”), 28, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the case of a Sarasota, Florida woman who was scammed out of more than $12,000 in a jury duty fraud. Also indicted was Sanders’ suspected accomplice, Marlita Andrews, 28, of Macon, Georgia.

According to the complaint, Sanders used an illegally-obtained cell phone to call the victim from inside the prison where he’s incarcerated. He purportedly claimed to be a U.S. Marshal and told the woman she needed to immediately pay a fine for missing jury duty or she would be arrested. He allegedly instructed her to go to a “Bonding Transition Center” and deposit $12,000 in cash to the machine.

Despite an official-sounding name, there is no such thing as a “bonding transition center.” The machine was in fact a bitcoin ATM used to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

After the victim deposited the money, it was routed to a bitcoin wallet Andrews owned, then quickly transferred to other accounts and disappeared. 

Sanders reportedly instructed Andrews to buy pre-paid cell phones that were illegally smuggled by drone into the prison and directed her where to send the profits.  

The FTC warns that scammers sound convincing because they often know personal details about victims like date of birth, social security number, and home address.

Because of the epidemic of cyberhacking and identity theft, unfortunately our personal information is widely available on the dark web.

Courts use postal mail to make their initial contact about jury duty, NOT text or email. They may later communicate electronically but usually only after setting up a password-protected account. 

If you receive an email, text, or phone call from someone claiming to be a marshal, verify the communication by going to the court’s official website. Do NOT click on links or attachments in the email or text. Report suspected fraud to law enforcement.

If convicted, Sanders and Andrews face up to 20 years in prison. At least Sanders won’t be inconvenienced by moving since he’s already there.

~~~

TKZers – have you or someone you know been targeted by the jury duty scam?

~~~

Book Binge Bundle Coming Soon! Books 1-3 in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series will soon be available in a box set! Three full novels for only $7.99. A lotta thrills for a low price.

How to Drill Inside Your Villain’s Head

by Debbie Burke

Today’s post is an excerpt from my new book, The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.  

While a power drill is a gruesome staple in horror and slasher films, we’re going to take a less gory, more surgical approach to drilling inside your villain’s head.

Let’s assume most readers of The Kill Zone are not kidnappers, rapists, or murderers. That makes it difficult for us to imagine the mindset of characters who commit heinous crimes. But to write convincing villains, authors need to delve into dark places of the soul.

Here are several questions to help channel your inner villain.

Warning: don’t write down your answers. Keep them inside your head. You don’t want to incriminate yourself, right?

§  Have you ever wanted something or someone so much you didn’t care about the consequences to have it/them?

§  Have you ever done something you knew was wrong, but you wanted to please, impress, or stay connected to someone else?

§  Have you ever lied or covered up the truth to protect someone else who acted immorally or illegally?

§  Has someone ever terribly harmed you or a loved one?

§  If you could take revenge against the person who harmed you without going to prison, would you be tempted?

A defense attorney friend observed that she often related to her clients’ destructive impulses. She wondered if the difference between regular people and criminals is lack of impulse control. I think she’s right. Most people might want to act in illegal, antisocial ways but they resist the temptation.

As you create a villain, dig deep into your memory. Tap into the powerful emotions you felt when you were in the situations described above.

§  Fear?

§  Panic?

§  Rage?

§  Frustration?

§  Helplessness?

§  Not caring about the consequences?

§  What else?

Why does a particular villain interest you?

Do they remind you of a person in your past? A rotten boss? A horrible ex? A family member who abused you?

What emotions does that person evoke in you?

§  Fear;

§  Helplessness;

§  Powerlessness;

§  Resentment;

§  Jealousy;

§  Hatred;

§  Love.

Yes, love. This often occurs in abusive domestic relationships. A beaten child can love and hate the parent at the same time. A battered spouse can simultaneously love and hate the vicious mate pummeling them.

Love is a complicated emotion with many layers. Exploring those complexities in characters draws the reader in closer to your story. It becomes real because they identify with the struggle.

~~~

Have you ever instantly disliked a person? Chances are good that person reminds you of someone in your past who negatively affected you. Tap into that association to describe your villain.

Here’s another trick to develop villains:

Write down their five worst qualities. What do they think, say, or do that makes you absolutely loathe them? Here are a few examples to get started but expand on these for your character.

§  Selfish;

§  Intolerant;

§  Cruel;

§  Vicious;

§  Conniving.

Now search your memory for times that you yourself displayed any of those five worst qualities, even for a fleeting second.

§  Did you ever say or do something hurtful or cruel to someone that didn’t deserve your wrath?

§  What stopped you from continuing that negative behavior?

Next, write down the villain’s five best qualities. Here are a few starter suggestions but, as above, list additional items to fit your character.

§  Intelligence;

§  Persistence;

§  Drive;

§  Resilience in the face of setbacks;

§  Adaptability to changing circumstances;

Wait a second. Don’t those qualities sound heroic? Yes.

To be a worthy opponent for your hero, the villain should possess positive traits that parallel your hero’s.

Except in the villain, those qualities become twisted. They use their strengths to do wrong.

List specific ways that your villain’s actions harm others.

§  Write down examples of malicious or cruel behavior toward a neighbor, a child, a pet.

§  Write down three examples of malicious acts to strangers;

§  Write down three reasons they use to justify their acts.

~~~

In The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler discusses:

“Facing the Shadow,” an encounter between the hero and “a deadly enemy villain, antagonist, opponent…An idea that comes close to encompassing all these possibilities is the archetype of the Shadow. A villain may be an external character, but in a deeper sense what all these words stand for is the negative possibilities of the hero himself. In other words, the hero’s greatest opponent is his own Shadow.”

 

“There but for the grace of God go I.” Whether or not one believes in higher powers, most people understand the concept. If not for chance, luck, fate, or divine intervention, we could easily be an unfortunate person trapped in tragic circumstances.

In Sympathy for the Devil, the 1968 classic Rolling Stones song, Lucifer boasts of the evil he’s wreaked through history. Yet he also claims saints and sinners are one and the same.

Most people have both good and evil inside their hearts and minds, and are capable of either. Some give into destructive impulses and act immorally or illegally. Others control the impulses and remain inside the bounds of society and law.

Yet, under the right circumstances, a noble, moral person may commit terrible atrocities, while a vicious, corrupt person may show kindness.

When you need inspiration for your villain, listen to the Stones’ song. ~~~

TKZers: How do you get into the mindset of a villain? What are your favorite tricks to drill into your antagonist’s head? 

~~~

 

Want more tips to write memorable villains? Please check out The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate

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First Page Critique – Fallen Starr

 

by Debbie Burke

Welcome to another first page submitted by an anonymous Brave Author. Please read then we’ll discuss on the flip side.

 ~~~

Fallen Starr

Thriller

Starr’s gaze followed the barrel of the gun clenched in the mobster’s trembling white-knuckled grip, her eyes crossing from the effort. Deep shadows enveloped her in the narrow alley off St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Avenue, while the dim, jaundiced glow from the solitary streetlight bled into the darkness.

Crumbling brick walls and weathered cobblestones, slick from a recent downpour, boxed her in. Dripping water reverberated into the twilight, interrupted only by the distant cry of some poor soul. Echoes of fading footsteps sparked her fear that someone might stumble into the alley before she got what she wanted.

Her assailant’s eyes widened, pupils blown out to the edges with a glimmer of paranoia, most likely a result of the street drug Krokodil. He blinked slowly as if the action required immense effort, each movement sluggish and delayed. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his skin glistened under the faint light. As his trigger finger twitched, Starr’s heart hammered against her ribcage as she swallowed a bitter taste of dread.

“Traitor.” His voice dripped with contempt.

That one word pierced harder than it should. Traitor. She could almost laugh at the irony. If the world only knew how far she’d already fallen. As her chosen name suggested, like a falling star, she had blazed a meteoric path from the heavens alongside one-third of the angels who’d foolishly followed Lucifer’s glorious but doomed light. But after her burning descent, her journey had become a slow, winding climb, as she searched for redemption.

“Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light.” John Milton’s epic poem rang in her ears. But right now, she was far from any light.

Starr turned down the corners of her lips and tilted her head. “Traitor? That hurts my feelings.”

It did indeed. In her quest for redemption, she had made tough choices, turning her back on the other fallen angels. Her current situation in this foul alley had sunk to a similar low.

The air was thick with the stench of rancid garbage. Twisted shadows cast by an old wrought-iron fire escape danced across an overturned dumpster spilling its contents onto the cobblestones. The shade of the bars concealed—was that a headless rat?

A writhing heap of maggots feasting on the rodent forced her to part her lips and take shallow breaths through her mouth.

~~~

First off, kudos to the Brave Author (BA) for a clean submission free of typos.

This is a solid action start, landing the reader smack in the middle of a frightening situation. A gun is aimed at the protagonist, brandished by a man who appears to be a twitchy addict.

It’s nighttime and the location is described with an abundance of sensory detail: sights (“jaundiced glow”), touch (slick cobblestones), sound (dripping water reverberating, a cry, fading footfalls), taste (“bitter dread), and smell (“rancid garbage”).

Nevsky Avenue is a good specific detail, but I wondered whether it referred to St. Petersburg in Florida or in Russia. I googled Nevsky Avenue and discovered a live webcam that shows real-time action on the Russian street.

BTW, TKZers, live webcams are helpful tools for writers to visualize locations, as are street views on Google Earth. If you’re unfamiliar with the lay of the land or need to refresh your recollection of a place you visited in the past, check these out.

BA does a good job of grounding the reader in a few paragraphs. We know where and when the action is taking place. There’s an immediate threat—an armed assailant who has a serious beef with the hero.

Starr is not only in physical danger. She describes what may be metaphorical or spiritual danger. She says she’s a fallen angel struggling on a path to redemption. That makes me wonder if the story has fantasy elements, although it’s categorized as a thriller. Mashups between genres can work well and are popular with current readers.

BA has packed a lot into one page and therein lies the problem. It’s too much, too soon.

While attempting to immerse the reader immediately in the story, BA instead threatens to drown us. It felt like trying to drink from a firehose—a cliche but an apt one.

Slow down and dribble information rather than deluge the reader. Make the reader thirsty for more.

My suggestion is to limit descriptions to a couple of senses rather than all five at once. Choose the best image to sum up the setting and delete the rest. It’s night in a dark cobblestone alley after a recent rain, and there’s a headless rat with maggots feasting on it. That does the job. The reader’s imagination fills in the rest.

Strong verbs are generally good, but here they’re overused. In the first two paragraphs: enveloped, bled, boxed, reverberated, sparked. They draw attention to themselves and pull the reader out of the story. Again, choose the best one and skip the rest.

The description of Starr’s assailant also overwhelms the reader with too many details. I suggest you pare it down to the most vivid, telling detail. Here’s a possible rewrite:

His eyes widened, pupils blown out to the edges with a glimmer of paranoia, most likely from a result of the street drug Krokodil, the cheap Russian homebrew version of heroin.

I had to look up Krokodil. It’s apparently common in Russia but not so much in other countries. That’s why I suggest adding a bit more explanation to clarify it’s not just another street drug. It’s somewhat unique to the location and cooked by the user, rather than purchased as a finished product from a dealer.

That detail is important because it makes the reader curious about Starr. How does she know about Krokodil? Is she a user, a dealer, an undercover officer?

The character of Starr as a fallen angel is intriguing but again it’s overdone. Let’s take another look at this paragraph of inner monologue.

That one word pierced harder than it should. Traitor. She could almost laugh at the irony. If the world only knew how far she’d already fallen. As her chosen name suggested, like a falling star, she had blazed a meteoric path from the heavens alongside one-third of the angels who’d foolishly followed Lucifer’s glorious but doomed light. But after her burning descent, her journey had become a slow, winding climb, as she searched for redemption.

How much of this does the reader need to know at this stage of the story? An accusation that she’s a traitor is intriguing. So is that she’s a fallen angel struggling for redemption.

What the world knows about her fall, the significance of her name, a meteoric path with one-third of other fallen angels who followed Lucifer, a burning descent, and a slow, winding climb—all this information can be saved for later.

Simply using dialogue shows enough about her character to make the reader curious.

“Traitor,” he said (get rid of the cliche “dripped with contempt”).

Starr turned down the corners of her lips and tilted her head. “Traitor? That hurts my feelings.”

What is her tone of voice? Is she being sarcastic? Cocky? Trying to provoke him? Saying something, anything to distract him from shooting her?

Instead of overexplaining her guilt complex, keep the reader wondering and turning the page.

“Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light.” John Milton’s epic poem lingered in Starr’s mind. But right now, she was far from any light.

These lines struck me because they establish Starr’s conflict without overwhelming the reader. However, the current placement confuses the reader because it appears to continue earlier dialogue between the assailant and Starr.

What if you used these lines as the opener instead?

It’s a difficult judgment call to choose which details are important enough to be on the first page and which can be saved until later. The goal is to intrigue the reader, to tease them into wanting to learn more, but not overpower them.

Ask yourself: how much does the reader need to know and when do they need to know it? Don’t get rid of extra info. Save it for later. Decide when to slip in a detail here or a hint there.

As you review this page, also watch out for cliches and delete them. White knuckles, sweat beaded on the forehead, heart hammering her ribs, voice dripping with contempt—these don’t add to the story and detract from the interesting fallen angel concept.

Brave Author, please don’t be discouraged by this critique. You have a compelling idea, an unusual, exotic setting, and a character with an immediate problem. You start with dramatic action. Those are all positive qualities.

Please realize you don’t have to explain everything at once. Take your time.

Thank you for submitting this first page and best of luck with your story!

~~~

TKZers: As a reader with fresh eyes, what is your reaction to this page? What suggestions do you have for the Brave Author?

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Debbie Burke’s new reference book The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate is now available in print as well as ebook.

Amazon: Print book   Ebook

Barnes & Noble: Print book   Ebook

Apple: Ebook

Kobo: Ebook

Uncovering the Villain in the Cozy Mystery – Guest Post by Leslie Budewitz

Today’s guest post is by my good pal, three-time Agatha award winner Leslie Budewitz. Recently I attended a talk by Leslie and a local lavender farmer that tied into the release of her new book, Lavender Lies Bleeding. From beta-reading the book, I’d already learned fascinating facts about that business. But being in a meeting room filled with lavender samples was truly intoxicating. Check out Leslie’s book for a fragrant reading delight.

Take it away, Leslie!

~~~

The heart of the cozy mystery is the community. When a murder occurs, an amateur sleuth investigates because crime disrupts the social order. She embodies the world view that people are basically good, and one person can make a difference.

(Some cozy sleuths are male, but most are female, including my own, so I’ll use she and her.)

(And remember, these kinds of stories are called cozies because they involve closely connected people. There may be humor, ghosts, or recipes, but the crime and its impact are serious—and so is our sleuth.)

So how do cozy writers deal with villains? (Spoilers ahead. Oh, well.)

What’s the crime? In the cozy, the murder is personal. (A few cozies involve other major crimes or the threat of murder without an actual body.) There’s no random violence, no serial killers, no ticking bombs that could change the face of the planet. In other words, the crime is personal to the community—whether it’s the small town of Jewel Bay, Montana in my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries or a community-within-the-community, such as Pike Place Market and the Seattle food and restaurant community in my Spice Shop mysteries—so the connections between the story people are critical.

Who is our sleuth and what tools does she have? The cozy sleuth is an amateur, in the very best sense of the word—driven by determination to right a wrong. She may be new to town (Kathleen, the new librarian, in Sofie Kelly’s Magical Cats mysteries, or Blanche White, on a working vacation taking care of a wealthy family’s children in Blanche Among the Talented Tenth by Barbara Neely, a local girl come home (Erin Murphy in my Village series), or a long-time resident in a new situation (Pepper in my Spice Shop mysteries), but she is deeply committed to the community.

It’s that commitment, her personal stakes, that lead her to investigate. Mere curiosity is not enough.

Without access to search warrants, forensics, and other investigative tools, our sleuth does her work the old-fashioned way, using her personal skills and her knowledge of the community. She can ask questions the police can’t, make connections they don’t see. She may be able to see things others don’t because she herself is not seen, like Blanche. Often, she has specialized knowledge, such as the properties of particular spices, the origin of coffee beans, or the emotional value of a particular first edition, that aids her. Above all, she relies on her knowledge of human nature, of what drives people to extremes.

Who’s our victim? Look to the victim, Poirot said, and as usual, he was right. Identifying the victim’s secrets and relationships may point to one suspect or absolve another.

Who are our suspects? Again, look to the victim. The circumstances of the crime may narrow the search quickly, but it’s also important to look at the victim’s wider circle—her family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. The cozy typically involves 3-5 suspects—and our sleuth may be one of them, especially in the series opener. Each has to have had motive, means, and opportunity.

Who, our sleuth asks, would have wanted this person dead? Why? Could they have done it, given the likely weapon, the time and location, and other circumstances? What else is going on that reveals clues or motives? What are the suspects doing? How does our killer tip his hand, or put our sleuth in danger?

Consider Murder on the Orient Express: No, it’s not truly a cozy, but it’s a great example. Clearly, the killer was on the train, either in the snow-stranded car or with access to it. As Poirot asks questions, he is investigating the victim as much as his fellow passengers. He begins to get a sense of the man and what he did that made him a target. Poirot asks who had opportunity—who was in the adjacent cars, who was in the hallway when the victim was killed, who had access to his room, who had an alibi. All the while, he is learning more about the other passengers. As their interconnections emerge, he develops his theory of what happened.

What drives our killer? Given what I’ve said about the community and personal connections, you won’t be surprised that the motives are also personal. The killer may feel forced to act to prevent the victim from uncovering evidence of the killer’s past crimes, as in Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden, where the uncovering is literal. The killer may strike out to remove an obstacle to his goals, such as when an employee discovers her boss’s nefarious plan and threatens to speak out, in Crime Rib, my 2nd Food Lovers’ Village mystery. Or the killer might believe the victim is about to harm someone else, as in Sofie Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Cat.

Other motives may be revenge, anger, jealousy, greed, a sense of betrayal, or an equally strong emotion. Self-defense and self-preservation can play a part. The killing may be planned or spur-of-the-moment—which may point to one suspect over another.

How does our sleuth identify the killer? Identifying the killer in any mystery is a mix of teasing out the motive, means, and opportunity. For the cozy sleuth, this means asking questions. Poking her nose where it may not belong, because she’s on a mission. Putting her safety—and sometimes that of people she loves—in danger. Irritating the police, now and then. By using the tools of her own experience. Erin Murphy, in my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, left a job as a grocery buyer for a major discount chain to take over her family’s local foods market. Spreadsheets are second nature to her, and her Spreadsheet of Suspicion helps her keep track of what she knows and doesn’t know.

If the victim and any suspects are not local, what ties and conflicts could have led to their death? That’s key in Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, where the victim is in town for a festival—but it’s clear he’s been here before. In Barbara Ross’s Torn Asunder, the victim and some of the suspects are in town for a wedding at our sleuth’s business; other suspects are locals or newcomers. Our sleuth discovers that no one liked the victim—essentially a man who needed killing—before uncovering the real reason a new employee is in town, leading her to the killer.

The sleuth’s and killer’s circles may intersect or not, depending on the crime, but will be close. In Blanche Cleans Up by Barbara Neely, our sleuth is the cook in a powerful family’s home; she knows the family and who comes in and out of the house. In Ross’s Shucked Apart, Julia first meets her boyfriend’s poker buddy after a theft at her oyster farm; when the friend dies and Julia investigates, she meets people she hadn’t known—and also discovers unexpected ties to people she already knew that help her identify the killer.

It’s not uncommon to have a second, or occasionally a third, murder. That, of course, may shake up the suspect list, eliminating one suspect by making her a victim and another who was in jail or the hospital, and adding one who—well, you decide what he was up to. Those murders may happen on the page, or in the past. In The Shadow of Memory by Connie Berry, our sleuth discovers that old friends of our victim have died under mysterious circumstances. What was the killer after, and how did killing them help him get what he wanted?

It’s also possible to have multiple killers, whose goals may be separate or intersect. In Crime Rib, a visitor kills another visitor while a local kills another local. Both share a motivation: to eliminate someone who stands in his way. To solve the first killing, Erin has to figure out what the victim knew; to solve the second, she has to ask not just who killed this most likeable man, but who thought they would benefit from his death.

In The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood, three killers hope to avoid detection through the usual means—exploring who might have wanted the victim dead—by trading victims and killing on another’s behalf. Only when our trio of sleuths questions alibi evidence do they tumble to the truth.

Cozies may be “clean” in their avoidance of rough language and graphic violence, but there’s plenty of dirt going on. Suspects may be guilty of other crimes and misdeeds, even if only one is the killer. In To Err is Cumin, my 8th Spice Shop mystery, Pepper discovers that our victim, a disgraced chef she’d once tangled with, had uncovered a criminal scheme implicating several men involved in leasing space and equipment to restaurants. Any of them might have made a good killer. It takes Pepper some doing—and puts her at some risk—to discover who wanted the lid kept on badly enough to push our chef into the Ship Canal and leave him there.

And in Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th in the series, a woman and her brother-in-law have different reasons for targeting our victim and her business, a lavender farm. When the man screws up, the stakes rise and his sister-in-law steps in, the resulting murder fueled by anger, greed, and bitterness. Different motives, different crimes, making for a twisty plot that’s fun to unravel.

Some modern cozies follow a less typical structure, making for more variety in the villain’s motives and the sleuth’s approach. In Misha Popp’s Pies Before Guys series, our sleuth is a baker who goes after men who harm women. But before taking action, she has to investigate their crimes. Is our sleuth an angel of justice—or a potential serial killer?

In The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell, set at a cooking competition at a Vermont country estate, each competitor has a secret or a reason to strike back. When a judge dies, those secrets and motives begin to surface, even without an amateur sleuth on the case. Ultimately, readers know who killed the judge and why, a killing utterly justified. The police blame the wrong woman, but we know what she did, and the punishment does fit the crime.

Ultimately, the cozy sleuth and killer will tangle—with words, actions, or both. The truth will out, and justice will prevail. Dinner might be late, even in a foodie cozy, but the taste will be oh, so satisfying.

~~~

Leslie Budewitz

Leslie Budewitz tells stories about women’s lives, seasoned with friendship, food, a dash of history, and a heaping spoonful of mystery. She writes the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, as well as the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries and historical short fiction set in her native Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense. A three-time Agatha Award winner and past president of Sisters in Crime, Leslie lives in NW Montana with her husband, Don Beans, a musician and doctor of natural medicine.

 

 

Check out Leslie’s brand new release Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop mystery.

True Crime Thursday – PageTurner and Pig Butchering

Public domain photo

by Debbie Burke

Scams that prey on writers’ hopes and dreams have been around for decades. Here at TKZ, we often talk about the barrage of emails, text messages, and phone calls from high-pressure con artists that promise your book is guaranteed to be a NYT bestseller AND a blockbuster film AND a streaming series…if only you pay them fees that range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Between 2017 to 2024, an estimated 800 unwary, trusting writers paid more than $44 million to a particularly successful enterprise called PageTurner, Press and Media LLC with offices in Chula Vista, California.

In January 2025, three principals of PageTurner were indicted by the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California, with investigation assistance from the FBI and US Postal Inspectors.

Gemma Traya Austin, 58, of Chula Vista, Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, 32, the Philippines, and Bryan Navales Torosa, 34, the Philippines, were arrested and charged with multiple counts of Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud and Conspiracy to Launder Monetary Instruments. Potential penalties are 20 years in prison and fines up to $500,000 or twice the amount laundered.

All three defendants pled not guilty.

Additionally, PageTurner’s website has been shut down.

Back in 2023, the Authors Guild issued warnings based on numerous complaints made by writers who had paid PageTurner large amounts of money but received no value.

Since 2018, watchdog Victoria Strauss and Writer Beware had also been following complaints by victims. She tracked down various company names connected with PageTurner, including Innocentrix Philippines, “an umbrella group for a bumper crop of scams.”

“Pig-butchering” is a scam where victims are pressured to pay increasing fees as the scammers pass victims around among various related entities. Each additional entity requires more money for their supposed service. They claim to be liaisons with film producers and studios, or marketing specialists, or contacts to develop screenplays or “treatments” for film, etc.

Fraudsters fatten up their victims with repeated, escalating demands for payment before “butchering” them for a final big score.

In one horrific case, an author was pressured into spending more than $600,000 for bogus screen treatments, marketing, and PR programs.

The website of a Philippine beauty pageant includes this paragraph about one of the accused:

Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, commonly known as Mike Sordilla, serves as the current chairman of the Hiyas ng Pilipinas organization. A distinguished judge for numerous local and national pageants, Mike Sordilla is also a respected philanthropist, businessman, and socialite. Under his leadership, the organization has reached new heights, establishing itself as one of the most anticipated and celebrated pageant competitions in the country.

The “respected philanthropist” and his two cohorts have remained in custody since December 2024 because they’re considered flight risks. 

Adding insult to injury, a phony law firm is now soliciting victims of PageTurner to represent them for a $1200 free. This notice appears on Writer Beware:

SCAM ALERT: Authors are reporting calls from “US Literary Law Firm” offering “representation” for PageTurner victims for a fee of $1,200. This offer is fraudulent: there is no such law firm.

Because of the large dollar amounts and complexity of evidence in the PageTurner case, court dates have been delayed several times with the most recent update ordering a hearing on August 29, 2025.

If you or any writer you know has been victimized by PageTurner, the FBI issued this request:

If you believe you are a victim of the PageTurner scam, please contact the FBI at AuthorFraud@fbi.gov.

If you or someone you know is age 60 or older and has been a victim of financial fraud, help is available through the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833 FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311). You can also report fraud to any local law enforcement agency or on the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

Writers are especially vulnerable to scams by con artists who use hopes and dreams as psychological weapons to take advantage of them. When anyone solicits you out of the blue with lofty promises about the fame and success they can deliver for your book, the best practice is to hang up, block the number, and delete emails and texts.

The only promise you can count on from them is that they will financially butcher you.

~~~

Con artists, scammers, and fraudsters are among bad guys and bad gals featured in Debbie Burke’s new writing craft book, The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.

Sales links:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Apple Books

Kobo

Strawberries, Raspberries, and Book Marketing

by Debbie Burke

July is the height of berry season in Montana.

With so much bounty ripening at the same time, it’s sometimes hard to remember how long it takes for plants to grow and mature to produce an abundance of succulent, sweet, juicy fruit.

You plant a bed of new strawberry starts and, for a couple of years, not much happens. The plants expend most of their energy sending out runners that turn into more plants. Runners go in all directions, sometimes sprawling beyond the raised bed, hanging  in midair. Those need to be coaxed back to root in the soil. Then about the third year, blossoms appear, followed by pea-size but deliciously sweet berries. By the end of summer, berries are larger, sometimes approaching golf-ball size and bursting with juice.

Raspberry canes are similar. For the first few years, they’re busy growing underground runners that pop through the dirt to become new canes. The new canes are often rebellious, refusing to stay in the designated area where you want them. Instead, they shoot up in the nearby lawn and get mowed down. About the third year, a few berries appear. Then the fourth year, suddenly you can’t keep up. You’re picking raspberries every day, eating handfuls, giving them away, and filling freezer bags to make jam later.

What does this have to do with books and marketing?

We writers may take years to write a book. For so long, nothing visible happens. Our words go out like runners that pop up in unexpected places.

Sometimes, like the rebellious volunteer raspberry canes in the lawn, they get mowed down, and we must start over. We have to coax them into the borders of the book, cultivate them, and wait. And cultivate and wait. And cultivate and wait.

Marketing is similar: send out runners, cultivate, and wait.

In Kay’s terrific post yesterday, she mentions endurance.

Writing is a long game. Those who lack the endurance and who give up will never taste the fruits of their labors.

My new book launched this past weekend. The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate took about two years from conception to publication.

During that time, along with writing the book, I was sending out runners to gauge market interest among various groups like the Authors Guild, International Thriller Writers, Kill Zone followers, my mailing list, etc.

Through more than three decades, I’ve made writing friends via conferences, classes, and online connections. I’ve taught workshops in person and on Zoom, developing more contacts and editing clients. I’ve written guest posts for other blogs.

Some of the runners I sent out hung in midair and never took root. Others bore incredible fruit.

Back in January, I gave a talk to the Authors of the Flathead that was an overview of The Villain’s Journey. That resulted in an invitation to present a day-long workshop (for a nice fee!) at their upcoming conference in October. Another invitation to teach came from the Montana Writers Rodeo conference for 2026.

TKZ’s community came through in a big way. Jim Bell offered me early encouragement about The Villain’s Journey concept and has given me a wonderful endorsement (shown in Amazon’s Editorial Reviews). 

Steve Hooley and Dale Smith kept nudging me in the nicest way possible. Kay DiBianca asked me to guest post on her blog. Sue Coletta provided a chapter on serial killers. Jim and John Gilstrap added words of wisdom that are included in VJ.

TKZ followers reached out to me, supported the book idea, and a number of them became beta readers.

I’ve never met any of these people face to face, yet I consider them good friends.

One author I did meet in person is Christopher Vogler at a Florida writing conference. Chris’s classic bestselling book The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers maps the Hero’s Journey and gave me the framework and foundation. My book is the flip side, focused on the villain. We had a memorable conversation, and I sent him an ARC (advanced reading copy). A few weeks later, he sent me his blurb for The Villain’s Journey (shown in Amazon’s Editorial Reviews).

I almost fell off my chair.

Several years ago, I zoomed with the Arizona Mystery Writers about self-editing. They learned about VJ, reached out, and invited me back to talk about the book. Preorders came from them, as well as an invitation to speak to the Tucson Sisters in Crime chapter.

Two years ago, I spoke at Montana Writers Rodeo in Helena and picked up several editing clients. Yesterday an email arrived from a woman whose first page I’d critiqued there. She’d read the VJ ARC on BookSirens and explained the problems she’d had writing her first mystery. She wrote, “Thank you for writing this book. It was serendipity that I learned about it and got a chance to read it. It has given me a new spark to rewrite my mystery. I now have a clearer understanding of what I’ve been missing in my story.”

Gave me chills.

On Amazon, The Villain’s Journey is flagged as “#1 New Release” in Literary Criticism Reference. Not a blockbuster category but still gratifying to see.

I’m far from the world’s best marketer and can’t afford a pro to do it for me. No social media, infrequent newsletters, few ads. I don’t follow many of the conventional routes recommended by successful authors. If I did, there’s no question I’d sell more books.

The detours I’ve taken into teaching and freelance editing are personally rewarding. They also earn more than my books, even with nine published thrillers.

Like strawberries starts and raspberry canes, we writers plant our words. They take a long time to root and become established.  We send out more runners, keep cultivating, and wait, and send out runners, keep cultivating, and wait.

Today I’m celebrating a bountiful harvest and it’s deliciously sweet.

~~~

The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate is for sale at

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Apple

Kobo

The paperback goes on sale in a few weeks.

How to Avoid Apostrophe Abuse

by Debbie Burke

Apostrophes. That tiny punctuation mark seems to trip up more people than any other.

Here are a few examples of apostrophes that are misused:

 

So what are the correct uses of the apostrophe?

  1. In contractions: an apostrophe indicates a missing letter or letters.

Jean’s going to the store. = Jean is going to the store.

  1. To indicate possession: At the store, a shopping cart door-dinged Jean’s car.

When not to use an apostrophe:

  1. To indicate plurals. Shopping carts, not shopping cart’s.
  2. To indicate decades. The 1990s, not the 1990′s.

Decades can be written in various ways.

Example: Rock and roll gained popularity in the 1950s.

However, if the decade is possessive, it needs an apostrophe.

Example: The 1950’s song “That’ll Be the Day” hit number 1 on Billboard Magazine.

If you use a contraction to abbreviate a decade, that requires an apostrophe for the missing part of the year.

Example: In the ’20s, bobbed hair was the cat’s meow.

The dreaded question of ITS vs IT’S raises the most confusion.

That’s because ‘s usually indicates possession.

Examples: Gary’s book; the USA’s foreign policy.   

Its is the annoying exception.

It’s is a contraction for “it is” or “it was.”

In the immortal words of Mr. Rogers: “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” 

Its is the possessive form.

Example: AI doesn’t understand its own capability.

Plurals add another layer of confusion.

How often have you received a holiday card from “The Smith’s”?

“The Smith’s” is possessive.

It should be “The Smiths” plural to indicate the card came from multiple members of the Smith family.

Want to get even more confused? Names and nouns that end with an “S” are treated differently.

The plural of Jones is “Joneses.”

The plural of cross is “crosses.” Example: Many Civil War graves were marked with crosses.

The possessive of Jones can either be “the Jones’ house” or the Jones’s house” depending on the style guide used.

The possessive of crosses is generally crosses’. Example: The crosses’ wood had weathered and split.

Then there are plural initialisms. (I had to look that one up.)

They are initials that are used as nouns.

Examples: DMV, BMW, FAQ

The plurals are DMVs, BMWs, FAQs.

The possessive form needs an apostrophe.

Example: The DMV’s reputation for long wait times is well known.

However, if the initial is a single one, the plural needs an apostrophe.

Example: Sarah’s report card was all B’s.

The plural of the noun “I” can be shown with an apostrophe to keep it from being misread as “Is”.

Example: Too many I’s used in that paragraph is repetitive.

Yourdictionary.com offers a clear, concise explanation of how to avoid apostrophe abuse.

Pop Quiz

  1. When the tree starts to drop (its) (it’s) leaves, (it’s) (its) a sure sign of early fall.
  2. The (Gateses) (Gates’) (Gate’s) need to increase their income to keep up with the (Bezos’s) (Bezos’) (Bezoses).
  3. On (Saturday’s) (Saturdays) we always visit the (farmer’s) (farmers) market to check out the many different (vendor’s) (vendors’) fresh (veggie’s) (veggies).
  4. What’s your (Achille’s) (Achilles’) (Achilles’s) heel when it comes to grammar?
  5. (Phyllis’s) (Phyllis’) intention was to attend the (writer’s) (writers’) (writers) conference.

Answers:

  1. When the tree starts to drop its leaves, it’s a sure sign of fall.
  2. The Gateses need to increase their income to keep up with the Bezoses. Yeah, it sounds wonky to the ear but it’s correct.
  3. Saturdays is correct. Farmer’s is correct but could also be farmers’ market. Vendors’ is correct. Veggies is correct.
  4. Achilles’ and Achilles’s are both right. However, Achilles’ is less of a tongue twister and sounds better to the ear.
  5. Okay, this is a multiple-part trick question.

Phyllis’s or Phyllis’ are both right depending on the style sheet you’re using. Just be consistent—choose one form or the other and stick with it throughout the story, article, etc.

Writers’ conference is preferred because it’s possessive meaning multiple writers attend it. However, writer’s conference is also an adjective describing the type of conference. The Word grammar checker puts a squiggly blue line under writers conference, indicating questionable use. However, writers conference is common, making it accepted although not strictly correct.

 

I feel for non-native speakers trying to learn the inconsistent, convoluted, mystifying English language.

If we writers ever master all the nuances of grammar,“That’ll Be the Day” to celebrate!

~~~

TKZers: What’s your Achilles’ heel in grammar? Do you have any reminder tricks to suggest?

~~~

Counting down to launch day for The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.

James Scott Bell says: “Debbie Burke has filled a critical gap in writing craft instruction.”

Christopher Vogler says: “You will certainly find insight and inspiration to make your villains leap off the page and haunt your readers’ dreams.”

Preorder now and the ebook will be delivered to your device on July 13.

Amazon link