Author Archives: Elaine Viets

About Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets has written 30 mysteries in four series, including 15 Dead-End Job mysteries. BRAIN STORM, her first Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery, is published as a trade paperback, e-book, and audio book. www.elaineviets.com

The Fine Art of Editing

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Dear Readers,
Recently I broke two ribs, and I’m in a bit of a fog. I’ve reposted a favorite blog about editing. I still write for the same publisher, Severn House, and I’ve learned so much from their editors. — Elaine 

 

By Elaine Viets

Here’s one reason why I like my London publisher, Severn House: Editing.
Like most writers, I try to turn in clean copy. I’m also an editor myself. So I appreciate the masterful way Severn House edited my Angela Richman mystery, Late for His Own Funeral. The editors took care to fine-tune the sentences with small but significant changes.
Take a look at these. The way I wrote the selection is first. The edited version is second.
(1) In this first example, Angela is recalling her friend’s doomed marriage. The change helps set the scene.
Elaine: Back then, Sterling had seemed awed by Camilla’s cool elegance, and she fell in love with his humor and energy.
Severn House: When they first met, Sterling had seemed awed by Camilla’s cool elegance, and she fell in love with his humor and energy.

(2) Elaine: I walked over to him and looked right into his red eyes. We were both the same height.
Severn House: I walked over to him and looked right into his red eyes. We were the same height.
This change gets rid of a redundancy. If Angela could look the man in the eyes, then they were the same height. I didn’t need that “both.”

(3) Elaine: The cut on her forehead had been stitched. She’d have a heck of a bruise there tomorrow.
Severn House: The cut on her forehead had been stitched. She’d have a heck of a bruise there.
I didn’t need that “tomorrow.”

(4) This change makes the sentence sing.
Elaine: The child wore a pink polka-dot T-shirt and jeans, and had pink ribbons in her hair.
My editor rearranged it as:
Severn House: The child wore jeans and a pink polka-dot T-shirt, and had pink ribbons in her hair.
(5) Here’s a shorter way of saying the same thing:
Elaine: We were at my car now.
Severn House: We reached my car.

(6) Elaine: I fired up my iPad and opened up the Death Scene Investigation form.

Severn House: I fired up my iPad and opened the Death Scene Investigation form.
No need for that second “up.”
(7) Another unnecessary phrase bites the dust:
Elaine: “It’s going to be rough for a bit,” I said. “But you’ll get through it. I promise. You have a real advantage – one of the best lawyers in the Midwest.”
With that, Mrs. Ellis entered the room carrying a tray. “I’ve brought you some food, Camilla dear.”
Severn House: “It’s going to be rough for a bit,” I said. “But you’ll get through it. I promise. You have a real advantage – one of the best lawyers in the Midwest.”
Mrs. Ellis entered the room carrying a tray. “I’ve brought you some food, Camilla dear.”

(8) This small change makes for a cleaner sentence.
Elaine: I was on duty at midnight tonight, so I packed a small overnight bag with my DI uniform and added my office cell phone charger.
Severn House: I was on duty at midnight, so I packed a small overnight bag with my DI uniform and added my office cell phone charger.

(9) Elaine: Millie watched fascinated while the server mixed the ingredients together in a large glass bowl, then added the dressing and tossed the salad.
Severn House: Millie watched fascinated while the server mixed the ingredients in a large glass bowl, then added the dressing and tossed the salad.
If the ingredients were mixed in a bowl, naturally they’d be “together.”

(10) Here’s another two-letter change:
Elaine: Linda’s apartment, 615, was in the middle of the hall. I could hear the TV on and hoped Linda was home.
No need for that “on.” If I could hear the TV, it was definitely on.
(11) One last one-word change.
Elaine: I went home to my place, feeling discouraged. Chris and I didn’t have a fight. I just wanted to be alone tonight.
Severn House: I went home to my place, feeling discouraged. Chris and I didn’t have a fight. I just wanted to be alone

Most of these changes were small and subtle. Also, I don’t have to accept any that I don’t like. Some got lost in translation when they crossed the Atlantic. Like this one:
Angela says: “I was a bridesmaid in her wedding ten years ago, and we marched down the same aisle now blocked by her husband’s casket.”
The copyeditor had changed it to: “I was a bridesmaid ‘at’ her wedding.” I had to explain that if you’re “at a wedding” you’re attending it, while if you’re “in a wedding,” you’re an attendant.
Sometimes we truly are two countries divided by a common language.

************************************************************************

Preorder now! Sex and Death on the Beach will be out in paperback this December. https://tinyurl.com/r5z89jz6

Cozy Detective Tips

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By Elaine Viets

You knock on your neighbor’s door, and it swings open. Funny, Melanie always locks her door. You step into the hall, and see Melanie on the living room rug, dead as a mackerel. The police say Melanie’s death was an accident. She tripped.

But you know Melanie was no klutz. You’re sure she was murdered. The suspects could be her soon-to-be-ex-husband, her new boyfriend, or her boyfriend’s wife.

How do you investigate Melanie’s death if you’re a cozy detective?

You don’t have access to local, national or law enforcement databases, AFIS fingerprint databases, and other official sources.

Many writers cozy up (sorry) to someone in law enforcement. Even that shrewd spinster, Miss Jane Marple, had Sir Henry Clithering, a retired Scotland Yard commissioner, to make sure the local cops didn’t kick her off a case. Dame Agatha’s other creation, Hercule Poirot, had Inspector James Japp.

There are other ways to get information besides befriending a cop.

Check the suspect’s official biography.

Look at verifiable facts such as the suspect’s parents’ names, marriages and divorces. Check for brothers and sisters. Crooks can make up entire fake families.

Better yet, maybe your suspect doesn’t get along with their real family, and those relatives will happily spill the tea to your cozy detective.

Check the suspect’s birthplace and birthday, education, marriages and divorces.

College and high school yearbooks may have information about the suspect’s early years, as well as some mortifying photos.

You’d be surprised how many serial killers are well educated. The Unabomber went to Harvard. At age 16, no less. The Roadside Strangler graduated from Cornell.

Amy Bishop graduated from Northeastern and was hired at the University of Alabama. When she was denied tenure and her appeals were turned down, Amy was furious. At a faculty meeting Amy shot six people and killed three. Anyone who’s sat through faculty meetings might have some sympathy for Amy.

Check the suspect’s military service.

What does it mean if your suspect served in the military?

Not a whole lot. At least 20 serial killers served in the military, from Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh to David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam. Uncle Sam gave serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer an honorable discharge after two years because Dahmer’s performance was impaired due to alcoholism.

Check the suspect’s social media, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Dozens of killers have confessed on Facebook or Twitter. Some even livestream the murder.

Check the local police records, if they’re available.

 Not just for arrests, but for incident reports, including neighbor complaints, reports of thefts, noise, and more. Your suspect could be the complainant, witness or suspect. Never underestimate fights between neighbors. In New York, Houston and other cities, people have been shot dead over parking spots.

Check with the Better Business Bureau. If the suspect has a business, you may find out he’s a cheat and a liar.

Check with delivery people.

 Do you have a friend or a relative who’s a delivery person? FedEx, UPS,  Amazon, as well as Lyft and Uber drivers, have all kinds of useful information. They  know who gets a fifth of Scotch delivered every Thursday, and who had to go to the hospital because her boyfriend broke her arm.

In one of my novels, a pizza delivery person gave my amateur detective the information to solve a murder, thanks to the delivery person’s dashboard cam.

Last but not least

don’t forget to Google the suspect’s name.

 

“Sex and Death” on the Beach, the first book in my new Florida Beach series, is on sale at Thriftbooks.com. Save $7! https://tinyurl.com/57wkt7e5

ARGGH! Words We Love to Hate

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By Elaine Viets

You know, some words and phrases are getting on my nerves. Most people would say it is what it is and at the end of the day, let it go. I know, right? But I’ve been doing some online research. There are certain sayings that tick people off. And readers are people, too. You don’t want to turn off your readers with annoying phrases. Just sayin’.
These outstandingly irritating phrases are garnered from various corners of the web.
Think carefully before you use them in your writing. You may want to save them for your most hateful characters.

Just sayin’. The winner! Nearly everyone hates this redundant phrase. I mean, you’ve already said what you were going to say, right?

Literally. I confess I’ve used this one and thought it was pretty clever – the first time. Then I noticed that word in every novel I picked up – literally.

It is what it is. This meaningless phrase is enough to send me screaming into the night. Please don’t use it.

At this moment in time. What’s wrong with “now”? Can this pretentious phrase.

Everything happens for a reason. Usually said after some meaningless tragedy, and meant as consolation. If you don’t have that comforting belief system, this phrase triggers an urge to slap that person silly. Also avoid this phrase: Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window. I had a roommate like that. Very annoying.

Honestly. Often a trigger word indicating the person using it is lying. Use it carefully.

My bad. A cutesy way of glossing over a mistake. This phrase says, “I know I did something offensive and I don’t care.”

I want 110 percent. Right, boss. Except your math doesn’t add up.

No worries. Some people find this phrase a little passive-aggressive. In other words, when someone says, “No worries,” they’re really telling you that you should be worried.

At the end of day. As in, “At the end of the day, getting a new CEO won’t make any difference. This company is doomed.” This crutch will cripple any sentence.

With all due respect. The warm-up to an insult. “With all due respect, even in your prime you weren’t that good.”

That’s my list, and it’s pretty good, in IMHO (oops, there’s another one.) Now’s your chance. What tired words and phrases would you like to see retired?

Now hear this! SEX AND DEATH ON THE BEACH, my new Florida Beach mystery, is now an audio book. https://tinyurl.com/9amkzaf4

The First Mystery Story

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Reni, Guido; Susanna and the Elders; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/susanna-and-the-elders-227206

By Elaine Viets

Sex, violence, perjury, crooked judges, blackmail – and police procedural techniques still used today. All these are in the first detective story.

So which one is it?

Some say the first detective story was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” way back in 1841. Wilkie Collins generally gets credit for the first detective novel, “The Moonstone,” in 1868. And others claim Metta Victoria Fuller wrote the first American detective novel, “The Dead Letter,” in 1866. After that, scholars slug it out until we get to the undisputed champion, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his detective, Sherlock Holmes, in 1887.

But I agree with M.T. Logan that the first detective story was published several thousand years earlier. It’s the story of Susanna and the Elders. If you’re Catholic or Greek Orthodox, Susannah is in the Book of Daniel and is considered divinely inspired. For Protestants and many other religions, the story is part of the Apocrypha, the books that didn’t quite make the cut.

Detail from Susanna and Elders by Tintoretto

Susanna was a young married Jewish woman, living in Babylon. She was God-fearing and good-looking. Susanna liked to walk in her husband’s orchard, and two old pervs – excuse me, two highly respected judges – liked to watch. They fell madly in lust with her, and conspired “when they might find her alone,” as the Good Book says. The old creeps lucked out.

On a hot day, Susanna decided to take a bath in the orchard. The two old men hid themselves and watched as she told her maids, “Bring me oil, and washing balls, and shut the doors of the orchard, that I may wash me.” As soon as the maids brought the things for Susanna’s bath, they shut the doors and left. Nobody knew that the two old degenerates were lurking in the orchard.

Once the doors were shut, the horny old coots cornered Susanna, and said she’d better have sex with them, or they would lie and say “that a young man was with thee, and therefore thou didst send away thy maids.”

Susanna realized she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t, but she’d be damned if she’d have sex with those two creeps. “It is better for me to fall into your hands without doing it, then to sin in the sight of the Lord,” she said.

Susanna and Elders by Anthony van Dyck

Susanna screamed and the old blackmailers screamed, and there was a trial. The judges testified falsely against Susanna, claiming she was with a young stud under a tree, and they’d tried to stop this terrible sin of adultery. The young man got away, but the judges caught Susanna. “The multitude believed them, as being the elders, and the judges of the people, they condemned her to death.”
This was long before #MeToo, and while adultery was a sin for both sexes, it was a bigger sin for women. The patriarchs didn’t want free-range women begetting someone’s child.
Susanna called out to God, “I have done none of these things, which these men have maliciously forged against me.”
In stepped young Daniel, who said, “I am clear of the blood of this woman.”
He lectured the crowd for condemning Susanna “without examination or knowledge of the truth.”
He then conducted his investigation the way all good modern police officers do. He separated the two judges.
He asked the first judge under what tree did he see Susanna doing the wild thing with the young hunk. The judge said, “under a mastic tree.” That tree is where chewing gum comes from.
The second judge claimed Susanna did the deed under a holm tree, a type of oak.

Holm tree

The two lying judges had convicted themselves “by their own mouth.” They were killed.
So there you have it – a detective story with a victim, two villains, and a hero who knew how to search for the truth.

Note: Today’s blog is a repeat. I’ll stop by when I can. — Elaine

Building Character

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By Elaine Viets

When I started writing Sex and Death on the Beach, the first mystery in my new Florida Beach series, I wrestled with a problem I hadn’t had for some time: Creating characters.

All my mysteries have new characters, but when I’m introducing a new series, I have to create characters I can use throughout the series. This took at least five rewrites.

My main character is Norah McCarthy, who inherited a 1920s apartment house in mythical Peerless Point, Florida. Norah was orphaned as a little girl and brought up by her grandmother, a Florodora Girl. She was a showgirl.

Version 1.0.0

The residents of Norah’s building belong to an exclusive group. They must be Florida Men and Women, but the benign variety. The exploits of Florida Man often include alligators and alcohol. You’ve seen the headlines: “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” The residents are her adopted family, and they will appear in future mysteries.

Bare bones characters:

Some characters will probably only appear once, in Sex and Death on the Beach. Like Elwin Sanford.

Elwin is “a rotund man in a hardhat, neon safety vest and gray cover­alls. He had a wispy mouse-colored mustache and weedy patches of hair clinging to his sweaty scalp. In fact, with his round body, gray coveralls and twitchy nose, he looked like a cartoon mouse.”

Elwin’s appearance is a clue to his character. He, a city inspector, is a crook and looks like one.

Important supporting characters.

Norah McCarthy has two live-in staff members at the Florodora apartments. One is the handyman-gardener is Rafael, a native of Colombia. In the first rewrite, Rafael is “a dark, stocky man who knows inventive ways to repair ancient machinery, handles maintenance and takes care of the grounds. He keeps the building one step ahead of the city inspectors, who are determined to shut us down. Rafael has a bachelor apartment above the garage.”

Rafael ducks difficult questions by looking confused and saying, “No spik Engleesh.”

At that point, was Rafael a real character?

Not  yet. All I have are the bare bones. Rafael is simply someone who has a few quirky mannerisms.

For the third rewrite, I sat down and wrote a bio of every major supporting character. In that version, my main character Norah chided Rafael when he used his “No spik Engleesh” routine with a cop. Norah tells him:

“Eventually you’re going to get caught, Rafael. You speak excellent English. You were a judge in Colombia.”

Norah instantly regrets her thoughtless remark: “As soon as the words passed my lips I wished I could take them back.

“The sudden sadness in Rafael’s eyes was a terrible rebuke. Rafael fled Medellin in 1986, after Pablo Escobar killed his wife and baby son. Grandma hired him, and he’d worked at the Florodora ever since. His ambition died with his family.”

Late at night, Norah would often see Rafael sitting on the flat roof of his garage apartment staring at the ocean, as if he could see all the way to his troubled country.

“Rafael never discussed his family’s murders. He hid his heart­break with superficial jokes and his ‘no-spik-Engleesh’ routine.”

I also wrote this bio of Rafael’s red truck: “The old truck rattled and lurched. A loose spring in the seatback poked passengers every time Rafael hit the brakes.

“The air conditioning worked when it felt like it. Whenever the air-con quit, Rafael would give the dashboard a hearty whap and cool air would pour out again.”

The Florodora has five permanent residents. I’m partial to Billie the banana bandit. Billie held up a convenience store with a banana and stole three overdone dogs from its hot dog roller grill. Billie worries his crime will somehow come to light, even though there was no police report and he ate the evidence.

At first, that’s about all I said about Billie, except he was a movie buff who perpetually held his own personal filmfest.

Billie needed more depth, so I had him write retrospectives about movies and made his first book a New York Times bestseller.

Billie had “turned his obsession into a successful writing career.”

He was currently researching his new film “book, Seeing in the Dark. This week it was the Rocky movies, and Billie was looking for the thirty-five goofs and plot holes that were supposedly in the Sly Stallone boxing movies. That’s how he prepared for his work, by looking for the mistakes in the movies.”

Billie comes downstairs, “wearing baggy jeans and a red Bruce Willis T-shirt that read, “I survived the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas party 1988.”

Nakatomi Plaza. The setting for Die Hard.

Die HardNorah tell him, “Let me guess. You’re also doing a Die Hard retrospective for your new book.”

“Yep,” Billie said. “Did you see the first Die Hard movie?’

“It’s been a while, but I liked it.”

“Me, too,” Billie said. “But there are supposed to be more than a hundred mistakes in the first movie alone, and I’m trying to find them all.”

Billie will tell Norah about as many as possible.

Another favorite character in Sex and Death on the Beach is Mickey, the artist. At first, I described Mickey as single, “kind and gentle,” and wearing offbeat clothes, including “a funky orange-striped caftan.”

Boring. Mickey had to be more than a heap of clothes. Readers had to care about her.

So I added, she “works as a freelance artist, but she’s been known to vandalize for a good cause.

“When posters appeared on the local telephone poles insulting black people, Mickey was horrified. She went around Peerless Point, covering the offensive posters with her homemade one, which said, ‘I covered the ugly racist poster here with a cat photo.’

“My favorite prank was what Mickey did in the local gas station bathroom. In the restroom was a wall-mounted infant diaper changing station that pulled down into a changing bed. Mickey put a sign on the plastic baby bed that said, ‘Place sacrifice here.’”

Mickey drives a “powder blue VW Bug with a sign in the back window: ‘Adults on Board. We want to live, too.’”

For this series, I recorded how all my characters got around. Some took the bus or bummed rides, others drove.

The Florida Beach bios total 22 pages single-spaced, and describe buildings, apartments, cars and characters minor and major, first and last names. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

Writers, do you use character bios for your books?

Buy Sex and Death at the Beach online. NOTE: Prices may vary. Please check before you buy:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/326up5ny

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/3tx8x4fb

Thriftbooks https://tinyurl.com/3vk9yhb5.

Or order it from your local bookstores, including Harvard Book Store https://www.harvard.com/book/9781448314799.

 

Character Building

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By Elaine Viets

When I started writing Sex and Death on the Beach, the first mystery in my new Florida Beach series, I wrestled with a problem I hadn’t had for some time: Creating characters.

All my mysteries have new characters, but when I’m introducing a new series, I have to create characters I can use throughout the series. This took at least five rewrites.

My main character is Norah McCarthy, who inherited a 1920s apartment house in mythical Peerless Point, Florida. Norah was orphaned at age four and brought up by her grandmother, a retired Florodora Girl.

The residents of Norah’s building belong to an exclusive group. They must be Florida Men and Women, but the benign variety. The exploits of Florida Man often include alligators and alcohol. You’ve seen the headlines: “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” The residents are her adopted family, and they will appear in future mysteries.

Bare bones characters

Some characters will probably only appear once in Sex and Death on the Beach. Like Elwin Sanford.

Elwin is “a rotund man in a hardhat, neon safety vest and gray cover­alls. He had a wispy mouse-colored mustache and weedy patches of hair clinging to his sweaty scalp. In fact, with his round body, gray coveralls and twitchy nose, he looked like a cartoon mouse.”

Elwin’s appearance is a clue to his character. A city inspector, he is a crook and looks like one.

Important supporting characters

Norah McCarthy has two live-in staff members at the Florodora apartments. One is the handyman-gardener Rafael, a native of Colombia. In the first rewrite, Rafael is “a dark, stocky man who knows inventive ways to repair ancient machinery, handles maintenance and takes care of the grounds. He keeps the building one step ahead of the city inspectors, who are determined to shut us down. Rafael has a bachelor apartment above the garage.”

Rafael ducks difficult questions by looking confused and saying, “No spik Engleesh.”

At that point, was Rafael a real character?

Not  yet. All I have are the bare bones. Rafael is simply someone who has a few quirky mannerisms.

For the third rewrite, I sat down and wrote a bio of every major supporting character. In that version, my main character Norah chided Rafael when he used his “No spik Engleesh” routine with a cop. Norah tells him:

“Eventually you’re going to get caught, Rafael. You speak excellent English. You were a judge in Colombia.”

Norah instantly regrets her thoughtless remark: “As soon as the words passed my lips I wished I could take them back.

“The sudden sadness in Rafael’s eyes was a terrible rebuke. Rafael fled Medellin in 1986, after Pablo Escobar killed Rafael’s wife and baby son. Grandma hired him, and he’d worked at the Florodora ever since. His ambition died with his family.

“Late at night, I’d often see Rafael sitting on the flat roof of his garage apartment staring at the ocean, as if he could see all the way to his troubled country.

“Rafael never discussed his family’s murders. He hid his heart­break with superficial jokes and his ‘no-spik-Engleesh’ routine.”

I also wrote this bio of Rafael’s red truck: “The old truck rattled and lurched. A loose spring in the seatback poked passengers every time Rafael hit the brakes.

“The air conditioning worked when it felt like it. Whenever the air-con quit, Rafael would give the dashboard a hearty whap and cool air would pour out again.”

The Florodora has five permanent residents.

I’m partial to Billie the banana bandit. Billie held up a convenience store with a banana and stole three overdone dogs from its hot dog roller grill. Billie worries his crime will somehow come to light, even though there was no police report and he ate the evidence.

At first, that’s about all I said about Billie, except he was a movie buff who perpetually held his own personal filmfest.

Billie needed more depth, so I had him write retrospectives about movies. His first book was a New York Times bestseller.

Billie had “turned his obsession into a successful writing career.”

He was currently researching his new film book, Seeing in the Dark. This week it was the Rocky movies, and Billie was looking for the thirty-five goofs and plot holes that were supposedly in the Sly Stallone boxing movies. That’s how he prepared for his work, by looking for the mistakes in the movies.

Billie comes downstairs “wearing baggy jeans and a red Bruce Willis T-shirt that read, “I survived the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas party 1988.”

Nakatomi Plaza. The setting for Die Hard.

Norah tell him, “Let me guess. You’re also doing a Die Hard retrospective for your new book.”

“Yep,” Billie said. “Did you see the first Die Hard movie?’

“It’s been a while, but I liked it.”

“Me, too,” Billie said. “But there are supposed to be more than a hundred mistakes in the first movie alone, and I’m trying to find them all.”

Billie will tell Norah about as many as possible.

Another favorite character in Sex and Death on the Beach is Mickey, the artist. At first, I described Mickey as single, “kind and gentle,” and wearing offbeat clothes, including “a funky orange-striped caftan.”

Boring. Mickey had to be more than a heap of clothes. Readers had to care about her.

So I added, she “works as a freelance artist, but she’s been known to vandalize for a good cause.

“When posters appeared on the local telephone poles insulting black people, Mickey was horrified. She went around Peerless Point, covering the offensive posters with her homemade one, which said, ‘I covered the ugly racist poster here with a cat photo.’

“My favorite prank was what Mickey did in the local gas station bathroom. In the restroom was a wall-mounted infant diaper changing station that pulled down into a changing bed. Mickey put a sign on the plastic baby bed that said, ‘Place sacrifice here.’”

Mickey drives a “powder blue VW Bug with a sign in the back window: ‘Adults on Board. We want to live, too.’”

For this series, I recorded how all my characters got around. Some took the bus or bummed rides, others drove.

The Florida Beach bios total 22 pages single spaced, and describe buildings, apartments, cars and characters minor and major, first and last names. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

Writers, do you use character bios for your books?

Buy Sex and Death at the Beach online. NOTE: Prices may vary. Please check before you buy:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/326up5ny

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/3tx8x4fb

Thriftbooks https://tinyurl.com/3vk9yhb5.

Or order it from your local bookstores, including Harvard Book Store https://www.harvard.com/book/9781448314799.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating(?) the Florida Man

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By Elaine Viets


      Bigfoot, werewolves and other large hairy creatures abound in stories. We’re  glad they’re myths.

“Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach series has another creature who is not mythical. The legendary Florida Man and Woman  can be large and hairy, but they are definitely real.

Florida Man is the measure for the residents of the Florodora, the most exclusive apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida. The Florodora is more than a hundred years old, the first apartment building in this south Florida beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

The Florodora is owned by Norah McCarthy, granddaughter of the original owner. You don’t need money or social status to rent an apartment at the Florodora. You must be a member of a more exclusive group. You have to be a genuine Florida Man or Woman.

You’ve seen the headlines. “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” Or: “Florida Woman Bathes in Mountain Dew in Attempt to Erase DNA after Committing Murder.”

Yes, those are real headlines. So is this one: “Florida Man Arrested by Coast Guard for Trying to Cross Atlantic in Human-sized Hamster Wheel.”

That was hamster man’s second arrest trying to wheel across the Atlantic.

Florida Men and Women stories often involve alcohol and alligators, although the Florida Man who tossed a live alligator the size of a Labrador through the drive-up window of a burger joint was probably sober.

Seems this Florida Man found a gator by the road and dumped it in the back of his pickup (pickups are Florida Man’s favorite vehicle). Then he got out of the truck and chucked the gator through the burger joint drive-up window. After he paid for his soft drink.

Unbelievable? That’s the standard reaction to Florida Man. Are there any limits on his –  or her – so-called pranks?

Nope. And many of them aren’t funny. Including the Miami Cannibal, a naked marauder who attacked an innocent man, chewed off the poor guy’s face and left him blind. The cops shot that Florida Man dead.

A slang dictionary says Florida Man “commits bizarre or idiotic crimes, popularly associated with – and often reported in – Florida.”

Florida Man, known as the “world’s worst superhero,” became nationally famous in 2013 when he was given his own Twitter account. He’s inspired a play, two TV series, songs, and more.

Like many Floridians, my feelings about Florida Man and Woman are somewhere between appalled and perversely proud

Some people piously claim that reveling in these tales of Florida Men and Women is wrong, because the perpetrators are poor and uneducated.

Not true. Florida Men and Women come from all classes. Check out this story from the Miami Herald:

“How did a Florida man afford 27 Ferraris and a yacht? A $22 million tax fraud.”

The article began:

“As some fully employed people found their Social Security contributions were $0 for recent years, a Stuart man and his wife luxuriated in a 7,700-square-foot three-bedroom, eight-bathroom house with a small dock and cove.”

Nothing poor or uneducated about that Florida Man.

The tradition of renting to a Florida Man or Woman at the Florodora started with Norah’s grandmother. Eleanor Harriman had a soft spot for scapegraces, since she was one herself. She was a Florodora Girl, a superstar chorus girl a century ago. Grandma was in the 1920 Broadway production of Florodora, before she eloped with handsome Johnny Harriman, a millionaire, back when a million was real money. She was married at sixteen and madly in love.

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Johnny died a year later, leaving Eleanor a very rich widow.

When Norah was old enough, Grandma told her about poor Johnny’s accidental death, which involved a champagne bottle and a chandelier.

As my new mystery, “Sex and Death on the Beach” begins, the plumbers are digging up the  Florodora yard, trying to fix the pool. Norah hears a commotion, and discovers the plumbers have dug up the body of a missing porn star, Sammie Lant. Sammie ruined a college football player when she had sex on the beach with him. Norah is a suspect in the woman’s death, and soon the Florodora is swarming with police.

Norah’s residents enjoy swapping Florida Man stories, just like me. I’ve sprinkled these tales throughout the mystery. Here is my favorite, told by Norah’s lover and Florodora resident, Dean. Dean and Norah are drinking coffee.

“Have you heard the latest Florida Man story?” Dean asked.

“Does it involve alcohol and alligators?” Norah said.

“Nope. Satan in schools.”

“You got me,” she said.

Perversely, Dean took a long drink of coffee before he started his story. Finally, he said, “Our very own elected Florida Man, Governor Ron DeSantis, wants more religion in the state’s public schools. He signed a new law to have volunteer school chaplains.”

“Doesn’t separation of church and state keep religion out of public schools?” Norah asked.

“It should,” Dean said. “The governor says the chaplains can participate after school. At least one group responded quickly to his call: the Satanic Temple. They have an After School Satan program.”

“What are they going to do with the little devils? Sacrifice a goat?” Norah asked.

“According to reports, the After School Satan Club’s activities include games, solving puzzles and promoting critical thinking. Also, the Satanists say they do not promote a ‘belief in a personal Satan.’”

“Hah! They never had class with my geometry teacher,” Norah said. “What did the governor say about the Satanists’ offer?” I took a long drink of coffee.

“His communications director said, ‘HELL, NO.’”

I nearly snorted coffee out my nose. “Warn me when you do that again.” I was nearly choking with laughter.

Dean waited until I set down my coffee cup. “The governor has said repeatedly that the Satanists are not a religion. However, the Satanists say they are recognized by the IRS.” Dean took a sip of his cooling coffee.

“The Devil knows his own,” I said.

 

          “Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach mystery, will be published June 3 as a hardcover and an ebook. You can preorder copies from your local bookstore, as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets. Thriftbooks.com has the best price for the hardcover right now: https://tinyurl.com/yz32f8c7

 

Writers Beware: Here’s what readers really hate

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By Elaine Viets

Don and I are moving, and our condo is chaos. I’ve reposted a favorite blog about what readers dislike. Are these your pet peeves? Would they keep you from buying or recommending a book?

Does the novel you’re writing have a long dream sequence? And it’s in italics, to enhance the ethereal effect? How about sizzling sex scenes? And, for comic relief, a talking cat who solves crimes and a wisecracking kid who’s five going on forty?
Uh, you may want to rethink that work in progress.
Ron Charles, the Washington Post book critic, “asked readers of our Book Club newsletter to describe the things that most annoy them in books. The responses were a tsunami of bile.”
Here are some things that Ron salvaged from the tsunami.

(1) Readers hate dream sequences.
Yes, I know dream sequences are a staple of literature. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov has guilty dreams, including one about a whipped mare. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Boy Who Lived is deceived by thoughts implanted by a bad guy. Winston in 1984 worries his dreams will get him in trouble with the Thought Police. A Christmas Carol is a long life-changing dream. And then there’s Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
So why should we be wary of dream sequences?
Raging readers told Ron Charles this:
“‘I absolutely hate dream sequences,’ writes Michael Ream. ‘They are always SO LITERAL,’ Jennifer Gaffney adds, ‘usually an example of lazy writing.’”
Aha! So readers hate lazy writing and literal dream sequences. Writing coaches caution writers to avoid cheap tricks, especially the old “and then I woke up” dodge. They say you can use dream sequences if the dreams are premonitions, illustrate an important inner conflict, or help a protagonist realize something major. In short, the dreams must advance the plot. So craft your dream sequences carefully.

(2) Readers hate historical anachronisms and factual inaccuracies.
The Washington Post says, “Karen Viglione Lauterwasser despairs over errors ‘like calling the divisions in a hockey game “quarters” or having a pentagon-shaped table with six chairs.’ Deborah Gravel warns authors that taking a cruise to Alaska is not enough to write a novel about the Last Frontier. Kristi Hart explains that when your characters are boiling maple sap to make syrup, they should not be stirring it. ‘You just boil it until the sugar content is correct, and then you’re done.’”
My pet peeve includes the treatment of black people in historical novels in the first half of the Twentieth Century. With some exceptions, until the late 1950s or 1960s, black people were not allowed to eat in most white restaurants or sit at lunch counters with whites. Nor could they stay at white hotels, go to white schools, use white toilets, or even drink out of white people’s water fountains.
In 1968, I encountered my first segregated water fountain, on a trip through Mississippi. In the local courthouse, the white people drank chilled water from a modern metal fountain. Black people had to drink warm water from a dinky white porcelain fountain. At a Catholic church in the same state, my family arrived late for the service, so we sat in the back. An usher told us that section was for black people (actually, he said “Negroes”) and we had to move.
Encountering this segregation was shocking, but it existed, and to deny it in novels is to deny the shame, hurt and humiliation black people suffered – and still do.
(3) Readers hate typos and grammatical errors.
This is also bugaboo for TKZ readers and writers, and we’ve written often about how to catch typos, while understanding those slippery little devils slip into the best books. But typos seem to be getting worse, especially since traditional publishers are cutting back on copy editors and some indie authors don’t hire them.
The Washington Post noted: “Patricia Tannian, a retired copy editor, writes, ‘It seems that few authors can spell “minuscule” or know the difference between ‘flout’ and ‘flaunt.’ Katherine A. Powers, Book World’s audiobook reviewer, laments that so many ‘authors don’t know the difference between “lie” and “lay.’” TKZ’s Terry Odell wrote a helpful blog on that subject. Read it and sin no more. https://killzoneblog.com/2023/03/are-you-lying-or-laying-around.html

Personally, I wish writers would know the difference between grizzly and grisly murders. While it’s true the Cocaine Bear and some bears in the wild do kill humans, in most mysteries humans performing those grisly murders.
And please realize that the South American country is spelled Colombia, not Columbia. There’s more, but it’s not a good idea to get me started.
“While we’re at it,” the Washington Post wrote, “let’s avoid ‘bemused.’ Bemused ‘doesn’t mean what you think it means,’ says Paula Willey.”
And please, please learn how to use “chute,” as in where you toss your dirty clothes. I’ve seen major writers call it a “laundry shoot,” which can put holes in clothes.

(4) Readers hate bloated books.
According to the Washington Post, “Jean Murray says, ‘First books by best-selling authors are reasonable in length; then they start believing that every word they write is golden and shouldn’t be cut.’ She notes that Elizabeth George’s first novel, A Great Deliverance, was 432 pages. Her most recent, Something to Hide, is more than 700.
“But it’s not just the books that are too long,” the WashPo says. “Everything in them is too long, too. Readers complained about interminable prologues, introductions, expositions, chapters, explanations, descriptions, paragraphs, sentences, conversations, sex scenes, fistfights and italicized passages.”
(5) Readers hate long italicized passages.
“‘Long passages in italics drive me nuts,’ Susan Spénard told the Washington Post.
“‘Cormac McCarthy does entire chapters in italics,’ adds Nathan Pate. ‘Only the rest of his writing redeems that.’”
(6) Readers hate when writers don’t use quote marks.
“‘Sometimes you have to reread a passage to determine who is speaking,’ one reader said.
Quick now, a few more complaints:
(7) Readers hate “gratuitously confusing timelines.”
“‘Everything doesn’t have to be a linear timeline,’ concedes Kate Stevens, ‘but often authors seem to employ a structure that makes the book unreadable (or at least very difficult to follow). There seems to be no reason why this is done other than to show off how clever they are.’”
(8) Readers hate two kinds of show-offs.


“Unrealistically clever children or talking animals . . . are deeply irksome in novels — along with disabled characters who exist only to provide treacly inspiration.”
Some cozy readers adore talking animals who solve crimes, so this objection doesn’t apply to everyone.
(9) A few more things readers hate, according the Washington Post:
– “Susan C. Falbo is tired of ‘protagonists who have had a hard day, finally stagger home and take a scalding hot shower.’” My protagonists sometimes do that, so I guess the key here is to not overdo it.

– “Connie Ogle and Susan Dee have had it with ‘lip biting.’ Ogle explains, ‘If real people bit their lips with the frightening regularity of fictional characters, our mouths would be a bloody mess.’
– “Gianna LaMorte is tired of seeing ‘someone escape a small town and rent a large house, get a job at a local paper or make a living gardening.’” The person who flees to a small town and makes a living writing for a newspaper gets my goat. Especially if they have their own office and come and go as they please. Small town newspapers barely pay enough to keep reporters in cat food. And editors want to know where they can reach you at all times.

And I’m with Tobin Anderson, who wrote, “Vomiting is the new crying. I think it’s part of the whole hyper-valuation of trauma — and somehow tears seem too weak, too mundane. But imagine a funeral filled with upchuckers.” I’m seeing a lot of barfing on TV these days, and watching folks toss their cookies while I’m eating in front of the tube makes me want to . . . well, you get the point.
So, TKZ readers, what are your pet peeves?

Let Us Prey

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By Elaine Viets

For nearly a year I’ve been fighting a series of computer scams. Let me tell you what I learned. The hard way.

The problem started last spring when I found an extra $120 from Instacart in my bank account. I contacted Insta and was told I needed to call a special number for seniors.

I did. The person on the phone assured me the extra money would be taken back. I left for a trip to St. Louis.

A day later, about four in the afternoon, I got a frantic call from a young man with a cornpone accent who said he was in California. The poor country boy said he’d made a terrible mistake and “accidentally” put $1,200 in my account. Now he was going to be fired. Could I please go to the nearest Western Union and wire him the money? Please, please, please?

No. I had to give a speech.

I hung up. Cornpone called back. He begged. He pleaded. He did everything but break down in tears. “Please ma’am, I’ll lose my job. This money will come out of my paycheck. I’ll go broke. Please wire me the money.”

No. I hung up again.

This time Cornpone called back and said, “OK, if you can’t wire the money, could you write a check and mail it?” He gave me the name of a woman in South Carolina, all the way across the country from California.

Wait a minute? I said. Why do you want this mailed to a woman in South Carolina? Why not send it to Instacart?

“She’s my supervisor,” he said.

Nope. Something didn’t smell right. I closed my bank card and the account.

When I got home, the money in my compromised account was transferred to my new account. Including the $1,200. I also filed a police report. I didn’t expect the police to haul Cornpone and his pals off in handcuffs.

I’ve had at least three suspicious incidents since then, for purchases I couldn’t possibly have made. Each time I’ve closed my bank card. The most recent attack this Saturday was more serious. I got this text in all caps: DID YOU ATTEMPT PURCHASE TARGET $789.88 ORLANDO. Y(YES) N (NO). CASE #818992 TO OPT OUT REPLY.

Orlando? I live 220 miles away in south Florida.

Before I could reply, I got a phone call from a young man with an instantly forgettable name. I think his last name was Johnson. He asked if I’d made the Target purchase.

“On my BigBucks bank card? No,” I said.

He said he would instantly close the card. Fine. He then asked me to call up my account and confirm my recent purchases, which I did. The latest was from a gas station. I also told him the amount in my checking and savings accounts.

He said this was “a very serious case of fraud” and he needed the physical card. He gave me an address that was the headquarters of BigBucks Bank and asked me to take the card to FedEx. I said no.

He said he’d send a Lyft driver in a red Prius to pick up the card and take it to FedEx. The helpful Mr. Johnson stayed on the line while I waited outside my condo building and handed the card to the Lyft driver.

I thanked Mr. Johnson for alerting me to the fraud. He warned me not to buy gas from a pump. “That’s probably how they got your bank card number.” He hung up.

In the elevator on the way upstairs, I wondered why BigBucks needed the physical card. Didn’t it have all that information in the computer?

At about the 12th floor, I realized I’d been had. I ran to my condo, locked my bank card and all my accounts. I ignored the latest text from Mr. Johnson, which said, “Alert. Your new Temporary User name is BigBucks41946. Reply with old Username to deactivate.”

 

No, thanks. I called my bank’s fraud division. They confirmed what I suspected. Fraud.

What were the clues?

Check out that text again: DID YOU ATTEMPT PURCHASE TARGET $789.88 ORLANDO. Y(YES) N (NO). CASE #818992 TO OPT OUT REPLY.

Notice what’s missing? The bank’s name. Which I helpfully provided.

It took two days to get a new bank card and bank account. I also made a police report and alerted condo security.  That so-called “Lyft” driver was in on it, too. He didn’t have a sign on his car. Thanks to security, we now have video of that red Prius.

Again, I don’t expect the scammers to get caught.

But all they got was my time. No money.

And scammers don’t always win. After all, I got to keep that $1,200.

Where did the scammers get that kind of cash? The bank said they have a sort of revolving scam fund – when they get the money from one scam, they use part of it for the next scam.

I’m not the only one who nicked them. One banker said a Latino woman went through the same thing. She found an unexpected windfall in her account from a company. The scammers wanted their money back. Something didn’t seem right to her. The woman got scared and went to her bank.

The bank closed her account ASAP. The scammers cruelly threatened the woman, telling her they’d report her to immigration.

The bank said, “Sorry, the account’s closed.”

She kept the money.

Preorder “Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida beach mystery. Get the low price at Thrift Books. https://www.thriftbooks.com/browse/?b.search=sex%20and%20death%20on%20the%20beach%20by%20viets#b.s=mostPopular-desc&b.p=1&b.pp=50&b.oos&b.tile

Murdering English

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By Elaine Viets

          What the heck?

Lately, reading has been a painful experience. Especially online. One story after another has some outrage against the language. I wanted to rant like a pedant and point out each mistake, but I showed some self-restraint. After all, pedantry is still outlawed in most southern states.

Instead, I put these errors into a short story. There are at last 30 mistakes in the story. See if you can spot them all.

A Horrifying Tail of Murder and Mutilation

The Corliss boys, Billy and Justin, created a rein of terror in the town of Blister Bend. The thugs would exorcise their ferocious Dobermans in the town square. The snarling dogs were all teeth and mussel. The very site made mothers grab they’re children to protect there tots.

Sherriff  Sam Wich said, “The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws in the county. No regard for anyone’s feelings.”

Deputy D. Awg said, “Billy tried to bribe me when he didn’t break at the red light on Main. Pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and waived it in my face. I said I wasn’t for sail.”

“Billy keeps a loaded weapon on his mantle,” Sheriff  Sam said.  “What I wouldn’t give to test that. I bet its connected to at least three grizzly murders.”

“Ever thought about going to the staties?” the deputy asked.

The sherrif glared at him. “What good would that do? I should complain to the state troupers? About Billy Corlis? Whose been paying off the Colonial for years? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Uh, no, sir. I forgot.” The deputy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure one of the Corlises will slip up and we’ll catch them.”

Sheriff Sam snorted. But Deputy D. Awg showed real forsight. Less than a week later, he suprised Billy and Justin burying a body at a construction sight on the edge of town. The deputy got the drop on the killers, and handcuffed them both.

Turned out the decreased was the town butcher.

Sherriff Sam arrived on the seen and staired sadly at the dead meet man. “Its a gristly end  for a good man,” he said.

Then he growled at the cuffed killers. “But those two . . . Now their an arresting site.”

“Why, Sheriff,” the deputy said. “I had no idea you were homophonic.”

A Horrifying Tail of Murder and Mutilation: The Reveal

The Corliss boys, Billy and Justin, created a rein of terror in the town of Blister Bend. The thugs would exorcise their ferocious Dobermans in the town square. The snarling dogs were all teeth and mussel. The very site made mothers grab they’re children to protect there tots.

Sherriff  Sam Wich said, “The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws in the county. No regard for anyone’s feelings.”

Deputy D. Awg said, “Billy tried to bribe me when he didn’t break at the red light on Main. Pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and waived it in my face. I said I wasn’t for sail.”

“Billy keeps a loaded weapon on his mantle,” Sheriff  Sam said.  “What I wouldn’t give to test that. I bet its connected to at least three grizzly murders.”

“Ever thought about going to the staties?” the deputy asked.

The sherrif glared at him. “What good would that do? I should complain to the state troupers? About Billy Corliss? Whose been paying off the Colonial for years? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Uh, no, sir.” The deputy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure one of the Corlises will slip and we’ll catch them.”

Sheriff Sam snorted. But Deputy D. Awg showed real forsight. Less than a week later, he suprised Billy and Justin burying a body at a construction sight on the edge of town. The deputy got the drop on the killers, and handcuffed them both.

Turned out the decreased was the town butcher.

Sherriff Sam arrived on the seen and staired sadly at the dead meet man. “Its a gristly end for a good man,” he said.

Then he growled at the cuffed killers. “But those two . . . Now their an arresting site.”

“Jeez, Sheriff,” the deputy said. “I had no idea you were homophonic.”

***

As you probably guessed, most of these mistakes are homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled differently. These words have tripped up many unwary writers:

tail/tale

exorcise/exercise

rein/reign/rain

mussel/muscle

callous/callus

break/brake

sight/site

seen/scene

waive/wave

sale/sail

mantle/mantel

troopers/troupers

grizzly/gristly, and grisly

stair/stare

meet/meat

whose/who’s

Misusing it’s for its drives me crazy, (and that’s a short drive). My teachers pounded this helpful hint into my head: “It’s” is a contraction of “it is.” Replace “its” with “it is” and if the sentence makes sense: “It is a gristly end . . .” you’re using it correctly.

Ditto for whose/who’s. Whose is a possessive adjective, as in “Whose book is that?” It also identifies someone or something: “I haven’t seen my ex-boyfriend, whose name I forget, in years.”

Who’s is a contraction of “who has” or “who is,” as in “Who’s a good boy?”

If you’re not sure, replace “who’s” with “who is” and see if it works.

As for the grisly business of grizzly, gristly, and grisly: Innocent grizzly bears and gristly, tough T-bones are being accused of grisly murders.

Misspellings include forsight, colonial for colonel, decreased and surprise. I worked for a newspaper that printed an expensive color Sunday magazine. The printed magazines were delivered early in the week.

On the color cover was a huge one-word headline: “Suprise!”

“Sheriff” confuses me so badly, I have to write down the correct version on a Post-it note to get it right.

“Sheriff” with one R and two Fs is the correct spelling for a law enforcement officer.

The double-barreled “Sherriff”  (two Rs and two Fs) is an English author, screenwriter and playwright, R.C. Sherriff, best known for “Journey’s End,” based on his World War I experience.

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Last, but not least, are the perilous possessives for a name ending is S.

TKZer P J Parrish has warned us to avoid using names that end in S, but sometimes we can’t help it.

I had the evil Corliss boys. This line: The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws . . .” should not have any apostrophe.

What if you want to say something belongs to the Corlisses? That’s depends on what style you or your publisher uses: Mine prefer Corliss’s. Others use Corliss’.

Both are correct.

Enjoy these tips to become better writers. Or is it righters?

My new Florida Beach mystery is due out in June. Preorder Sex and Death on the Beach here: bit.ly/3W6Y2Rp