by

Debbie Burke

Recently, a wonderful, unexpected opportunity came my way.

My pal, Susan Purvis, was invited to be the keynote speaker at the St. Eugene Writers Conference near Cranbrook, British Columbia. She invited me to tag along and share the hotel room the organizers had graciously provided for her.

Writing workshop, free room, and a favorable exchange rate—what’s not to like?

To Honor “The Children” at St. Eugene Mission School

Surrounded by snow-tipped mountains with the St. Mary River flowing past, the St. Eugene Hotel had a once-dark history and was supposedly haunted.

Built in 1910, on a road to hell paved with good intentions, the Canadian government and the Catholic Church operated St. Eugene as an Indian boarding school. First Nations’ children were separated from their families, not allowed to speak their native tongue, nor practice cultural traditions and customs.

The boarding school system broke down traditional family structure, resulting in generations of poverty with staggering rates of alcoholism and chronic unemployment. The school was closed in 1970.

For the next few decades, the building languished in decay—deserted, vandalized, and flooded. But the spirit of the Ktunaxa people prevailed.

In 1984 Elder Mary Paul said, “Since it was within the St. Eugene Mission School that the culture of the Kootenay Indian was taken away, it should be within that building that it is returned.”

Mary Paul’s vision of rebirth was carried forth by Chief Sophie Pierre, who had herself been a student at the school. The chief spearheaded years of rehabilitation of the old building.

St. Eugene is now a world-class resort hotel, beautifully refurbished with conference rooms, restaurants, and a casino. A championship golf course and KOA campground occupy former pasture lands.

Teepees at the St. Eugene Resort campground

Today, the resort employs more than 250 people; many are descendants of former students of the boarding school.

Sophie’s son, Joe Pierre, is the current elected chief and delivered a moving blessing at the keynote dinner in both the Ktunaxa language and English.

Photos from the past decorate the hallways, including one that appears to capture a ghostly figure among the solemn faces of school children. A presence has been sensed in various rooms of the hotel.

In a location so steeped in history, how could a writer not be inspired?

~~~

Now to what I learned:

Renowned playwright/novelist Anosh Irani divides his time between Vancouver, where he teaches, and his native India. Anosh introduced two new writing terms I hadn’t heard before.

The first concept Anosh talked about was The Wound.

The wound can be literal, like a physical problem, a disease, an injury, a chronic condition that restricts and constrains the character’s ability to function. The wound can also be mental, emotional, or psychological. Unseen wounds often affect the character more deeply than physical ones.

Questions to ask while you’re writing:

Is the story driven by a deep-seated wound in the main character?

Is the story about healing that wound?

Is the character free if s/he cures the wound/achieves the goal?

The second term Anosh talked about was The Crucible, which immediately brought to mind the Arthur Miller play about the Salem witch trials.

Photo credit: skeeze at pixabay

However, crucible also means: “a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures.”

In playwriting, the author places the main character inside a container (the stage) under extreme pressure and temperature. The character is trapped. Unless s/he wins, there is no way out of that cage.

Before this workshop, I had not been mindful of a major difference between novels and plays:

In novels, characters may roam all over the globe in search of adventure or a solution to their problems.

But in plays, actors are literally trapped within the confines of the stage and cannot escape. The setting may change but the stage remains a limited space—a crucible.

That concept resonated with me. As novelists, we can borrow that crucible technique and put it to work in our stories. The more trapped your character, the more heat and pressure they are under, the greater the story tension.

~~~

For a marketing perspective, YA novelist/editor Jeff Giles entertained us with his funny essay about how not to promote a book. “See More About Me” describes a debut novelist who wrote 326 Amazon reviews for books by other authors but, in each review, shamelessly promoted his own novel.

Also during the weekend, Anna-Marie Sewell, Poet Laureate of Edmonton (2011-2013), and Danielle Gibson, a teacher and YA author, workshopped with half a dozen talented high school students. At the group open reading, the kids performed their work with the confidence and charisma of veteran public speakers. We in the audience listened in awe and muttered to each other, “I could never have done that at that age!”

St. Eugene was once a place where children lost their voices. There’s a sweet irony that new generations now find their voices there.

Conference organizer Keith Liggett, a ski journalist and award-winning cookbook author, sets up several writing events each year at St. Eugene. Top-name speakers draw participants from across Canada and the U.S. The next gathering will be in February, 2020.

St. Mary River flows past St. Eugene Resort

St. Eugene nearly descended into ruin as a relic haunted by dark memories. In the new century, it has experienced a renaissance, emerging as a major employer in the region and a thriving recreation destination and cultural center.

Elder Mary Paul would be pleased.

TKZers – Have you attended a writers gathering in an inspirational setting? What did you take away from the experience? 

Today’s submission is an untitled first chapter featuring a bartender in a classic hotel. Please enjoy then we’ll open the discussion.

CHAPTER 1

Under a trickle of air conditioning, Dylan swirled the bar spoon through a jumble of vermouth, bitters, Makers Mark, and ice. His shirt collar, rigid and wet, scraped against the back of his neck. Normally, he liked a penguin suit, the way it accentuated his biceps. But on the ten or so summer nights when the July heat pressed the moist cloth against his skin, he wished the owners would cough up enough cash for decent AC. Instead of cool comfort, they blew their wad preserving turn of the century crystal chandeliers, wrought iron balustrades, and red velvet wallpaper. Clayton Hotel’s clientele loved the ambience, confusing run-down with high style.

Dylan served the Manhattan to a regular at the end of the bar, a lawyer by the name of Jim whose pupils had overtaken the blue of his eyes. Must have gotten the 8-ball Dylan had stashed for him in room 414. This week, Jim wanted coke. Other weeks, ketamine or a tab of E. For the right price, Dylan could track anything down or make it himself. His meth was the purest in Portland. The graying lawyer sniffed hard and wiped his nose with a blue polka dot handkerchief for the fourth time that night. He set his half-empty martini glass on a gold napkin and waved his hand to get Dylan’s attention.

“You bruised my bourbon again.”

Dylan cleaned the mahogany bar top with a towel. “Ouch. Has it turned black and blue?”

The loose skin around Jim’s neck tightened. He was about to say something when a tall brunette in Lucite heels and a red leather bodysuit strolled past the dining room manager, a thin 40-something who looked so much like Rod Stewart in his sparkly blazers that everyone called him Rod. From deep down in his Rolodex, Rod could find the perfect escort for every man.

The brunette waved like a beauty queen. While she made her way across the dirty-blue carpet, her tits bouncing in gorgeous synchrony, everyone checked her out. She looked like a girl who came from someplace Dylan wanted to visit, like Malta or Majorca.

She took a seat next to Jim and clapped her red gloved hands against the bar top. Before Dylan could respond, she shot out, “Scarlet O’Hara.”

He walked towards her. “Scarlet? Nah. More like Rita Hayworth.”

She leaned forward, titties barely contained inside her sweetheart neckline. “Go heavy on the cran. Make it pretty and scarlet, just like Miss Morgan.”

~~~

The Brave Author does a good job of setting the scene without slowing the action to describe it. The reader is grounded right away: Clayton Hotel, a hot July night in Portland. The writing is generally clear and economical without extraneous verbiage.

The tone is noir and the scene has a 1980’s vibe, evoking the Tom Cruise film Cocktail. The dining room host-procurer character “Rod Stewart” reminded me of the tune “Some Guys Have All the Luck.”

Dylan, the POV character, quickly comes across as a disaffected bartender with a detached, snobbish, superior attitude toward his customers.

He’s vain and likes to show off his biceps, even though a tuxedo is miserably hot. Nice sensory detail of the collar chafing. One small nit: stiff collars generally cut into the throat rather than the back of the neck.

He takes pride in his skill set—“His meth was the purest in Portland.” He has no problem accommodating legal or illegal requests from his customers and feels disdain for them at the same time he profits from their cravings.

His banter is clever but insulting—“Ouch. Has it turned black and blue?” That crack nearly provokes an argument with Jim, the annoying, hopped-up lawyer whom Dylan can’t please.

Dylan is unabashedly sexist in his description of the brunette who flounces in on Lucite heels. He immediately flirts with her in front of Jim, even though Jim appears to be her john for the night. Dylan again pushes Jim’s buttons.

The potential for conflict is high. But…

Will readers want to follow a self-absorbed, egotistical, snobbish, drug-dealing, misogynistic antihero? 

The Brave Author takes a chance by leading off with an unsympathetic character. Some readers (especially women) will instantly dislike Dylan and put the book down. Others may read a little farther to see what happens next. But, unless Dylan shows more promise, they will soon grow weary of him.

Author-screenwriter Heywood Gould said about Cocktail: “…met a lot of interesting people behind the bar and very rarely was it someone who started out wanting to be a bartender. They all had ambitions, some smoldering and some completely forgotten or suppressed.”

Gould has expressed what’s missing—at least for me—in this first page.

Readers don’t necessarily have to like a character as long as there’s a quality they can relate to and identify with. How can the Brave Author add depth and humanity to this character to make him resonate with readers?

Here are a few questions that might trigger ideas:

What ambitions or longings does Dylan have? What does he want to find or achieve?

What does he struggle against? What disappointment marks him? What traps him in a job he dislikes?

I’m not suggesting a backstory info dump but rather a carefully chosen line or two that hints at the trouble that haunts him.

Another method to make an antihero work is to give him a distinct, unique voice or an unexpected worldview that fascinates the reader. A few examples of recent successful antiheroes: Dexter, Walter White in Breaking Bad, and Tony Soprano.

Literature through history is full of compelling antiheroes: Hamlet, Raskolnikov, Jay Gatsby, Michael Corleone.

~~~

I made the assumption that Dylan is the main character. But maybe he’s not.

Perhaps this first page introduces Dylan to set him up in an inciting incident. On page two, he could wind up dead in the Clayton Hotel dumpster and the story focuses on solving his murder.

Or maybe Dylan is the prey and the prostitute in the red leather bodysuit and Lucite heels is actually the undercover cop who busts him.

The story could go in dozens of different directions, which is why it’s difficult to judge from 400 words. However, in today’s competitive market, an author must grab the reader right off the bat. Often, the first page is the only shot you get and that’s why it must be pitch perfect.

~~~

A few line editing comments:

He was about to say something when a tall brunette in Lucite heels and a red leather bodysuit strolled past the dining room manager, a thin 40-something who looked so much like Rod Stewart in his sparkly blazers that everyone called him Rod.

The sentence is too long and gets confused between the brunette entering and the description of Rod. Suggest you split it up into shorter, punchy sentences and more paragraphs:

The loose skin around Jim’s neck tightened. He started to speak but movement at the entrance distracted him. 

A tall brunette in Lucite heels and a red leather bodysuit strolled across the room. She bounced in all the right places. Dylan and Jim stared, along with everyone else in the room.

Dylan winked at the dining room manager, a thin 40-something everyone called Rod because he looked like Rod Stewart in his sparkly blazers. Rod’s Rolodex guaranteed he could find the perfect match for every man. Looked like he succeeded again tonight.

The following line confused me: “Make it pretty and scarlet, just like Miss Morgan.” Is the woman introducing herself as Miss Morgan? Or is there another meaning?

I googled “Miss Morgan” to see if it was also the name of a cocktail, like Scarlett O’Hara and Rita Hayworth. I found a reference to an actress “Miss Morgan” in a TV series, “Keye Bondage Images.” Hmmm.

~~~

Brave Author, your writing is solid. You do a good job of setting the scene and describing characters while keeping the action moving forward. Well done.

If Dylan is the lead, work on developing his depth and humanity. If you make him a more compelling character, readers will want to follow him.

Over to you, TKZers. What do you think of Dylan? Do you have suggestions for our Brave Author?

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

In the early 1990s, a successful screenwriter, producer, and military consultant named Dennis Foley left Hollywood to move to the small ski village of Whitefish, Montana. He’d been a popular writing instructor at UCLA and was now on the forefront of a brand new wave in education: online classes. He could live wherever he wanted, while students sent him assignments and manuscripts via email.

At the time, our local group, Authors of the Flathead, was a small rag-tag gang of hobby writers who fiddled around with words and supported one another in our fledgling attempts at publication. I’d sold my first story to a literary magazine that paid me a $5 check that bounced. A couple of other members wrote unpaid columns for weekly newspapers. Definitely not the big leagues.

We were the ignorant leading the inexperienced.

In a small town, it didn’t take long for word to get around about the new guy from Hollywood who had worked on hit TV shows like MacGyver, Cagney and Lacey, China Beach as well as motion pictures. The club president and I summoned our courage to invite this Hollywood big shot to speak at a meeting.

Dennis graciously said yes and he turned out to be anything but a Hollywood big shot. He not only spoke at that meeting, he came to the next, and the next. Pretty soon, he adopted Authors of the Flathead and was teaching our rag-tag gang the same material he was teaching at UCLA.

For free.

WOW.

He showed us how to become professionals. We learned plotting and organization. He taught us John Gardner’s terms like profluence, the sense of a story always moving forward; and fictive dream, the near-trance state when writers delve deeply into imagination to create a fictional world more vivid than reality. He urged us to take the reader into that world and gave us tips how to preserve the trance.

He explained schadenfreude (delight in the misery of others) and urged us to chase our characters up a tree and throw rocks at them. Conflict was the key to riveting fiction. If life went well for the character, it was bad for the reader; if life went badly for a character, it was good for the reader.

He recommended scenes in novels needed to accomplish four tasks:

1. Reveal character;
2. Increase conflict and tension; 
3. Move the story forward;
4. Foreshadow.

A really effective scene accomplishes all four tasks but at minimum a scene should include two or three.

He taught us that consistent daily production would carry us farther than occasional brilliant flashes of talent. He counseled us to lower our writing goals to a level we could meet, even if it meant only writing a paragraph or page a day. At a page a day, he often reminded us, in a year, you have a book-length manuscript.

Consistently meeting smaller goals was a better habit to develop than setting goals too high and becoming frustrated when you fail.  

For show and tell, he would bring us Oscar-nominated scripts to study, like Earl Wallace’s Witness.

Dennis had also published four military novels about Vietnam and a memoir about long range patrols. But he rarely talked about his own work; instead he concentrated on our work and how to improve it.

In addition to teaching, Dennis continued to polish his own craft, earning an MFA from Vermont College. He brought back fresh techniques and shared them with us.

Dennis’s one inviolable rule: Don’t bore the reader.

When we needed speakers for our group’s annual conference, he contacted Hollywood colleagues as presenters, contributing to its well-respected reputation. When the pros from New York and Hollywood attended, they invariably commented about how rare it was to find such camaraderie and helpfulness in a writing community. Dennis had set that tone and example that has remained our trademark.

After weekly meetings, we often adjourned to a restaurant for coffee and camaraderie. At one of those early gatherings, we asked Dennis why he shared his knowledge and experience so generously with us.

For the first time, I heard what became my favorite Dennis story.

Before his retirement as an Army officer, Dennis worked in Hollywood as a military adviser for films and television. Once, when a writer didn’t meet his deadline, Dennis was tasked to rustle up an emergency script overnight. He delivered and more assignments followed, even though he had no formal training as a writer. In fact, he’d nearly flunked English in high school. He freely admits he didn’t have any idea what he was doing.

Stirling Silliphant, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of In the Heat of the Night, took then-newbie Dennis under his wing and coached him. When Dennis wrote himself into a corner, he would call Stirling, who always guided him to a solution.

One day, Dennis said to Stirling, “You have helped me so much, how can I ever repay you?”

To which Stirling replied, “Pass it on. If you don’t, you’re an asshole.”

Dennis took that admonishment to heart.

For nearly three decades, the Authors of the Flathead have been the fortunate recipients of his generosity and knowledge.

He taught us week after week, year after year, never accepting anything in return.

After our last meeting, Dennis and I were talking in the parking lot. His special forces years in Vietnam have taken their toll and long-term effects of Agent Orange are worsening. He expressed concern he soon may not be able to carry on the teaching he loves.

With tears welling, I hugged him and said, “We’ve had a good run.”

“A helluva good run,” he replied.

~~~~

Even though this post will embarrass the hell out of him, I had to write it because Dennis has shied away from recognition these many years.

The sum total is his mentoring has improved the writing of thousands of students and launched many of us to publication success.

But the most important contribution Dennis has given us is his generous spirit of sharing knowledge. He followed Stirling Silliphant’s admonishment to pass it on and far exceeded it.

THANK YOU, DENNIS. 

TKZers: Have you had a mentor who changed your life? What did s/he do to help you? 

Your homework assignment is to track down that special mentor (if they’re still alive) and tell them thank you. 

Photo credit: Pixabay

by

Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Please welcome another Brave Anonymous Author offering a submission entitled Broken Thrones.

1

Joanie Brown opened one eye. The darkness had lifted. Light filtered from a slit in the ragged curtains covering the one window in the room, dust drifting down in the narrow beam. She breathed deeply and gagged. The stench of human filth and the sweet smell of pot overpowered her senses. Her head pounded, keeping time with her racing heart as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings.

Where am I? Why can’t I remember?

She lay on her back on a concrete floor. Under her fingers splayed out at her sides, she felt a gritty moisture. She hastily wiped her hands on her pant legs. She reached out and brushed a cold, rough wall with her left hand. Deep snores sounded from somewhere in the room, so she knew she wasn’t alone. Out of her one eye—the other one wouldn’t open and it hurt—she saw a closed door and four dingy gray walls. The floor was littered with bits of paper, discarded needles, condoms, and a filthy jacket tossed in the corner nearest her. She saw no furniture of any kind, except a soiled striped mattress across the room. She squinted at it, seeing a dark shape curled up on it. The source of the snoring, no doubt. The only other sound was the clack-clack of some insect as its feet raced across the hard floor. She scooted closer to the wall at her left and hoped it wouldn’t come her way. Joanie hated bugs.

She reached up and brushed thick hair out of her face, running her fingers over her other eye, wondering why she couldn’t see anything out of it. Now she knew—it was swollen shut. Wincing, she tried to pry it open. Her fingers came away with a smell of blood. She knew that smell. Her brain kicked into high gear now.

Memory now returned in chunks. Kyle. Where was he? The thought of him made her chest heave.

The last time she’d seen him, he was getting the crap beat out of him in a potholed alley littered with garbage and weeks-old refuse—by two thugs who’d dragged him there from the LA street corner where she’d finally found him. She’d hunkered down and watched from behind a dumpster reeking of rotting vegetables and month-old French fries.

Before that, she had spent hours searching for him.

~~~

Brave Author, your excellent title makes a promise of dire conflict. Broken Thrones implies destruction and violent overthrow of power. It’s short, punchy, and memorable, especially effective since Game of Thrones is currently a popular topic of conversation. Well done!

Your writing is crisp, competent, and vivid. You immerse the reader in the scene by making good use of the senses—sights, sounds, touch, and especially smells. We’ve all caught a nasty whiff from a stinky dumpster and know exactly what you’re describing.

The sense of foreboding is strong. Something bad already happened and worse is yet to come—like bugs crawling over Joanie.

That said, I see two problems with this first page.

First, this opening has been done before. Editors and agents always ask for something “fresh.” They’ve likely read many submissions with opening pages about an injured character waking up in a strange place without any memory of how she got there. This may be an easy fix and we’ll get to that in a minute.

The second problem: lack of action. Almost the entire page is spent setting the scene—a filthy shooting gallery basement littered with drug paraphernalia, an unknown man snoring, Joanie’s swollen eye, and her confusion. She’s taking stock in a scary situation but she’s in the passive role of watching and waiting, rather than driving the action.

The last two paragraphs are a flashback: Joanie watches someone named Kyle, whom she’s been looking for, while he gets beat up. And she hides.

Now that’s action!

Let’s consider if the story would work more effectively if you start there.

A character getting the snot pounded out of him immediately piques the reader’s curiosity, even if it’s not yet clear who that poor soul is or why he’s being beaten. Is Kyle a mugging victim? A druggie who owes his dealer? Or did Kyle sell bad junk to the daughter of the guys who are stomping him?

What is the relationship between Joanie and Kyle? Is he her boyfriend? An ex-husband she’s been chasing for child support? Or perhaps her dealer?

Those answers lead to the next questions: Why has Joanie spent hours searching for Kyle? Did he run away? Does she desperately need a fix?

The most provocative question of all: Why is Joanie hiding? If she fears for her life, why not yell for help or use her cell to call 911?

Does she feel guilty for watching the attack without doing anything to help?

Or does she feel he deserves what he gets?

See what happens if you start with action? The reader is immediately engaged, wondering and guessing, rather than passively watching the scenery, even though the scenery is skillfully and vividly described.

Additionally, that avoids the need for a flashback, which always risks reader whiplash. Just as they’re settling into the story, you yank them to a different place and time. Why flash back when you don’t need to?

If, while Joanie’s crouched by the dumpster, you reveal her character in a way that makes the reader care about her and her quest, we’ll willingly follow her into the next scene in the basement.

When she wakes up, you can still use the vivid description of the disgusting drug den with discarded needles and used condoms. The only difference: it’s probably now page 2 instead of 1. And the reader is more invested in the story and characters.

Then introduce a new series of questions to intrigue the reader. Did Joanie try to stop the thugs and they turned on her? Did their accomplice sneak up behind her and knock her out?

While she’s lying on the floor, reveal her character more deeply through her thought process and actions. Does she crawl to the mattress to see if the snoring man is Kyle? Does she look for a way to escape? Does she grab a syringe and hide it as a weapon for when the bad guys come back?

Keep raising questions while building characters who make the reader care what the answers are.

One tiny nit: since dumpsters are usually emptied at least weekly, “month-old French fries” didn’t quite hit the mark. Otherwise your scents are spot on. Made me gag, but I mean that in a good way!

Brave Author, you have a promising beginning for a dark thriller/suspense novel. Thanks for sharing your work.

Over to you, TKZers. What suggestions do you have for today’s Brave Author?

Today is the last day to download Debbie Burke’s thriller Instrument of the Devil for only 99 cents. Here’s the link.