By John Gilstrap

A couple of weeks ago, Brother Bell posted Advice For the Demoralized Writer, and I confess it cut a bit close to the bone. I was the beneficiary of the crazy advances of the 1990s. The combined advances for my first two books (Nathan’s Run and At All Costs) weighed in at about $4 million, including the movies that were never made. For Books 3 & 4, the advances totaled about $150,000. None of them earned out.

I couldn’t give away Book #5. My career was declared dead, even though each of those books achieved critical acclaim and won some awards. Was it hard on the ego? Darn tootin’ it was. Mostly, it was embarrassing. My books and I were featured in People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher’s Weekly, Larry King’s radio program and Liz Smith’s Hollywood column. Heady stuff for a safety engineer in Woodbridge, Virginia.

A huge share of the publicity surrounding the books focused on the eye-popping numbers. I had nothing to do with that publicity, of course, but imagine the angst and anger of journeyman authors who hadn’t earned nearly that kind of scratch over the entirety of their prolific careers. To this day, there is one household-name author who was famous then and still pretty famous today who will not speak to me. He never has. Not once.

When the books didn’t come close to earning out, the entire industry knew it, and more than a few of my fellow authors smirked through their expressions of sympathy and support. I got it then, I get it now. The most common advice I got was to write under pseudonym. Looking back, I believe that they believed that they were helping me deal with my loss.

Except, I hadn’t lost. Never thought I had.

Lessons From Safety Engineering.

At the time, a good bit of my Big Boy Job involved accident investigations. The nature of “energetic incidents” (aka unexpected explosions) is such that the hardware involved ends up looking little like it did before it blew up. Thus, most investigations started with what was left–what went right.

In the case of my mourned writing career, I knew that I could tell a good story that people enjoyed reading. I knew from fan mail that my characters were three-dimensional, and I knew from previous contracts that industry professionals thought I had potential.

I also was awash in empirical data that publishers were unwilling to roll the dice on my brand of family-focused dramatic thrillers. That doesn’t reflect the quality of the writing or the stories, but merely risk-based business analysis. As with every industry, bean counters make the final decisions.

I knew what worked and what didn’t, and I knew that I was going to make this writing gig work.

That’s worth repeating. I was going to make this writing gig work. Hard stop.

Now I had to engineer the way to do that.

Wise Advice From A Friend.

I’ve known Jeffery Deaver for many years–long before he became Jeffery Friggin’ Deaver, mega-selling author. For the better part of a decade, we had a standing date at a local bar every Thursday for dinner and drinks. (Now it’s virtual and we’ve moved it to every Wednesday.) I’d hit bottom just about the time when The Bone Collector was making him a household name, and I asked him one evening, “What are you doing right that I’m doing wrong?”

He answered without pause, “Last time I counted, I was sixteen books ahead of you.”

Yeah, okay. Fine. Perspective.

Then he went on to say, “You know you have to keep writing. Stopping isn’t an option.”

“What if I can’t sell anything?” I whined.

“Nobody says you have to do it fulltime.”

That one rocked me back. Money wasn’t the issue, but self esteem was. I realized that as wonderful and exciting as the publishing biz is, it’s fundamentally the entertainment business, and there is no more capricious industry in the world. When you look at the decisions they make–and the ones they don’t–you’d think that they threw darts at the wall.

I realized that I wasn’t suited to that, certainly not as my fulltime focus. I’m an engineer at heart. In 2004, I went back to a high-profile Big Boy Job and became a more prolific writer than ever before. (More on that below.)

Writers Write.

Here’s where I have to confess that serendipity plays a role in all our lives. The trick is to recognize a break when it arrives and to determine what to do with it.

Thanks to A Perfect Storm and Black Hawk Down, narrative nonfiction was taking off in the late nineties and early aughts. That was when I met Kurt Muse, a U.S. citizen imprisoned by Manuel Noriega and ultimately rescued by Delta Force. His story thrilled me. We agreed to collaborate on what became Six Minutes To Freedom, the book that I am probably most proud of. It’s nonfiction and a kick-ass thriller. (Serendipity again: As I write this, SixMin is on sale for $1.99 on Amazon.)

My agent at the time refused to present SixMin to publishers because of bullshit political bigotry so I fired her and took on the lovely and talented Anne Hawkins as my agent. Her first task was to tell me that no publishers wanted SixMin because I was not a journalist, and only journalists can write narrative nonfiction.

Once more, pardon my language. Bullshit.

Way back in the early days after Nathan’s Run had hit the shelves, I met a fellow named Steve Zacharius, who at the time was an executive with Kensington Publishing in New York, and he was a huge fan of my writing. His words to me were something to the effect of, “if you ever find yourself in need of a publisher, let me know.”

I let him know, and he bought the book–for very little money. I would share the number if it were not for the fact that Kurt is part of the deal, and that wouldn’t be right, under the circumstances.

Six Minutes To Freedom hit the stands in 2006. It didn’t do much business in stateside brick and mortar stores, but it caught fire on U.S military facilities around the world. That was a time when tens of thousands of military personnel were in harm’s way and needed stories of heroes and successful military operations. The book earned out its advance in three weeks. Twenty or so members of the U.S. Army’s First Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (“Delta Force”) attended the book party at my house. Among them were the delightful, funny and kind models for characters later to be named Jonathan Grave and Boxers.

The presumed corpse of my career took a giant breath. Its heart light started to glow again.

Nothing breeds success like success. I pitched the Jonathan Grave series to Kensington, and they took it on. Thirteen series books later, I am happy to report than every one of them has earned out its advance in the first year. When the rights to Nathan’s Run and At All Costs reverted to me, Kensington snapped them up. Remember that fifth novel I couldn’t give away? They bought that, too. It came out as Nick Of Time.

Books are products, and products trend.

Even though the sales figures for the Grave series trend up each year, I know (fear?) that every boom is counterbalanced by a bust. That’s why, when I was smacked with the idea of a cool post-apocalyptic tale, I pitched my Victoria Emerson series and signed a contract for Crimson Phoenix and Blue Fire (2022).

I’ve got a great idea for an occult detective series, too, but that one needs more development. Ditto my paradigm-changing Christmas series.

Failure cannot be inflicted.

I’ve made this point here before, but it bears repeating: When it comes to writing and publishing, ain’t none of us are victims. We are part of an industry that is desperate for new material, even if executives are not entirely sure what they’re looking for. Our job is to be different, exciting and persistent.

A couple of Sundays ago, when Brother Bell presented the story of the composite writer whose life was derailed and he turned to drink, I felt little sympathy. If a person chooses to quit any profession, he needs to be prepared to live with the consequences. If a publisher drops your books, you’ve been presented with a crossroads. You can choose to quit, or you can choose to adjust, but no one can force you to do either one. Most of the successful authors I know have been slapped around by the business. They’re successful because they stayed with it.

It doesn’t matter that others think that you’re out of the game. As long as you don’t give up, you’re still in the fight.

On the day you quit, understand that you will have declared your failure. No one will have inflicted it on you.

By John Gilstrap

I’ve heard that many writers sweat over the names of their characters. One very famous romance writer (I’m not sure which one or I would name her) says that she cannot begin a story until her characters have the perfect name. I’m not like that. While I’ll put some effort into naming primary characters–the ones that will live on throughout a series of books–secondary characters are get their names sort of at random.

Nathan Bailey, the eponymous character of my first novel, Nathan’s Run, got his name by process of elimination. My son, Chris, was about the same age as Nathan when I wrote the book, and since I knew what lay ahead for the character, I couldn’t name him Chris. But because he was the same age, and kids are not always forgiving sorts, I couldn’t use the names of any of his friends. He didn’t know any Nathans at the time, and Nathan Hale has always held a prime spot in my panoply of noble patriots. Nathan’s last name, Bailey, is a direct nod to George Bailey of It’s A Wonderful Life.

Lyle Pointer, the twisted bad guy in Nathans Run, and Warren Michaels, the kind-hearted cop, are both named as they are because I thought their names worked against type.

Jonathan Grave, the protagonist of my hostage rescue series, is named as a convenience. In my original plan for the series, I imagined a branded line of titles like Grave Danger, Grave Peril, Grave Doubt, etc. It turned out that I was the only person in my editorial food chain who thought that was anything but a terrible idea. I kept the name because I had already finished the book, and I like the character. (Hand to God: It never occurred to me that Jonathan and I share a monogram until I was many books into the series and a fan asked about it.)

Secondary characters in general come from one of two sources. Each year, I auction character names for charitable fundraisers, and those winners get a prime secondary spot–often as the bad guy, but not always. My next alternative is to go to IMDB, pick a movie that I like, and then click on “all cast and crew.” I rarely copy both the first and last names of crew members, but rather mix and match them.

Ethnic characters. Over the course of the Grave series, most of my bad guys have been American, but I’ve exploited Chechen, Russian and Mexican bad guys, too. (Jonathan and the cartels don’t get along at all.) For those names, I’ll do a Google search for “Chechen names,” or likewise for another nationality. It’s astonishing how that never lets me down.

Richard Goldsbury was the bully who preyed on me in junior high school. He’s died in at least five books. Most recently, he was incinerated in a nuclear blast.

Laziness. I don’t like typing complicated names. In my new Victoria Emerson series, a throwaway character named First Sergeant Paul Copley turned out to have a more significant role that I thought he would, and I ended up having to type his name a lot. I have accordingly instructed the autocorrect in Word to change “1stsgt” to First Sergeant. “1stsgtp” becomes First Sergeant Paul Copley and “1sgtc” becomes First Sergeant Copley.

Amusement. In one of the Grave books (I think it’s No Mercy), Jonathan and his buddy Boxers encounter a guy named Dick Semen, and they get the giggles. Thrillers need some comic relief and that worked. In fact, I’m smiling as I write this, thinking back on the scene. (Aspiring writers please note: men’s true senses of humor form and solidify when they’re 12 years old. Farts and funny names will always be funny. The more inappropriate the timing, the funnier they will be. [See: Rusty Bed Springs by I.P. Nightly.])

So, Killzone family . . . Any thoughts on naming characters? Any tricks or resources you’d like to share?

By John Gilstrap

Every email I send includes an invitation to subscribe to my author newsletter. I have amassed a pleasing number of subscribers, and I appreciate every single one of them. But I have no idea what to do with them.

I get the idea of sending out newsletters to people who are interested in my books and, I guess, in me. But I rarely publish newsletters because I don’t know what to say. I mean, let’s face it, a self- aggrandizing look-at-my-shining-new-book email is not exactly an engaging communication. It’s self-promotion. And there’s a place for that.

But I think a newsletter should be something people find informative, interesting and engaging. This is where things fall apart for me. I recently broke a toe. It hurt like the dickens, my foot swelled to the point that I had to wear one of those stupid boots, and now it’s getting better. That was very much the focus of my attention for a couple of weeks, but do people want to read about that? They have their own problems, after all, and many of them would trade theirs for the relative nuisance of my hurts-like-hell fractured toe.

My wife and I are building our dream home in West Virginia. That’s interesting to us, but the books I write are all about heroics and high stakes. Is the new house interesting for others to read in a newsletter from a guy who writes thrillers?

Dear TKZ family, this blog post is all about your comments. What would you like to see in an author newsletter? Not necessarily mine in particular, but in the larger sense? First-time authors and decades-long veterans are all seeking to grab the attention of readers, but I think it’s destructive to bang one’s own bell continuously. So, where’s the balance? What would you like to see? Are there any author newsletters that you think knock it out of the park? If so, share the links.

On the flip side, what kind of newsletter sends you straight to the mark as spam button? (No need to share those links.)

By John Gilstrap

These are interesting times to be a writer. Last night, I was chatting with four other writers when one took another to task for including the phrase “had no dog in this fight” in the body of his story. The one who called the other out worried that because the phrase traced its origins to the practice of siccing dogs on one another to watch them fight to the death, the reference was likely trigger pushback from sensitive readers.

I had two thoughts on this in rapid succession. First: You’ve got to be kidding. Second: Okay, so what? My squint on the world is such that the harder an individual searches for a reason to be offended, the more responsibility the offended must take for his own discomfort.

A couple of weeks ago, I did a live two-hour Zoom seminar for a writer’s group in the Midwest. My topic was a craft-oriented one that focused on some of the granular elements of writing a tight, tense story. During the final Q&A, an attendee (whose camera was turned off, of course) asked me what efforts I take in my stories to make sure I include a cast of characters that is widely inclusive of ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.

I confess I was not ready for that one, but I was fully aware that my camera was on, and I was in closeup. I defaulted to the truth: I don’t do anything along those lines. I don’t write sex scenes, so what difference does their orientation make? And I rarely–rarely–describe the ethnicity of even my primary series characters. If an ethnic reference does not directly affect the story, then I see no reason to include it. Obviously, when Chechen terrorists are the bad guys, we can conclude the ethnicity, but I see no reason to mention if they are Muslim or Christian. It doesn’t affect the story, so I don’t care. My answer seemed to work because there was no follow-up.

As an interesting side note, one of the primary characters in my Jonathan Grave series (Stealth Attack will hit the stands on June 29) goes by the codename Boxers. He’s close to 7 feet tall, bends the needle on most household scales, and is deeply lethal. I’ve never described his ethnicity, but I was surprised to learn that everyone–including my editor and my agent–assumes that Boxers is black. He is not. Do I mind that people see him as they do? Not a bit.

Last week, I received this email from a fan:

Hi John,

I just purchased “Against All Enemies” and am looking foreword to reading it. Tell me, what are your views on the 2^nd amendment?

That was the entirety of the email. I smelled a trap. I considered ignoring the email, but I promise on my website to reply personally to every email I receive, and, well, a deal’s a deal. Here’s my reply:

Hi, [Name].

I hope you enjoy the book. Thanks for the support. As for the Second Amendment, I have little respect for entertainers who expound on political issues. I just tell stories and try never to write politics. My characters have strong feelings about many issues. I agree with some, disagree with others. I figure I’m doing my job if readers can’t tell one from the other.

By John Gilstrap

I’ve alluded many times here and during public presentations that my one and only creative writing teacher (in 1977) did more to harm my future writing career than he did to help it along. That experience hardened my thoughts on such classes and drove me to the world of the self-taught writer. The punch line in this section of my presentation is that the cranky old guy died before I had a chance to show him my first published novel.

I never mentioned the instructor’s name in public because I thought it would be unfair to him and his family. After all, he was quite well-respected among science fiction writers (and short story writers in general), and I’m confident that my experience was unique.

So, imagine my surprise when I received this email out of the blue:

Hi John,

My Name is [his name].  Avram Davidson was my Godfather.  Long story but I would love to schedule a call.  I understand you had him as a professor at William & Mary?

The URL for his email appeared to be from a law firm. My first thought: Oh, crap. Schedule a call? Could there possibly be an upside to that? So I wrote back:

It’s rare that I get startled by an email. I guess the world truly is small. Nearly half a century has passed since I last saw your godfather, though he was indeed my instructor when he was writer-in-residence at W&M. May I ask what you’d like to talk about?

His response:

Thanks for getting back to me. The short of it is I inherited Avram’s literary estate recently and I am getting my arms around it.  I started a podcast and I have been interviewing authors who knew Avram.  I really wanted to interview a student of Avram’s to see what he was like as a professor. I found a picture of [fellow student at the time] and that he was a student.  I am sad to say he passed away a few months ago.  His wife mentioned that you were a student so I wanted to see if we could connect.

I’ll be honest with you here. I didn’t realize how raw a wound this was until I started weighing the pros and cons of even responding further. What would be the point, right? Then again, forty-plus years is a long enough time to get over things, and on balance, I’ve done okay in this writing world. I think the godson’s efforts to keep Avram’s memory alive and vivid is truly a noble mission, and there is no doubt that I interacted with Avram in a way that I would want to know if I were the godson. I won’t share the entirety of my response, but here are the pertinent parts:

Here’s my dilemma: Avram hated my work. He told me, in fact, that I had no talent and that he had no interest in hearing from me again. Given the work in evidence at the time, I suppose he had a point. I assure you that I harbor no ill will for him lo these many years later, but he really hurt my feelings at the time. In fact, my final discussion with Avram derailed my projected writing career for well over a decade.

That last sentence is as unfair as it is factual. Avram delivered the truth as he saw it. The fact that I absorbed it as a gut punch was on me, not on him. I know that he meant no harm. Now that I’m 23 books and four screenplays into a 25-year career, it’s entirely possible that my success (whatever that means) is tied directly to his giving me, well, something to prove.

So, I’ve shown you my hand. I’d be happy to participate in your podcast, but you need to know that it would not be an elegy to your godfather. Nor would it be a hit piece. I was a 20-year-old dreamer from a troubled background with a love of confrontation. I wanted to write commercial thrillers in the vein of Alistair MacLean and Frederick Forsythe at a time when Rod Mcuan and Richard Bach were all the rage. Avram loved edgy, experimental writing, and I was exactly not that.

Whether we do this thing or not, here’s what I want your takeaway to be: Avram made an impact on his students. He made a difference. A week rarely goes by when I don’t think back to those sessions in his tiny, underlit apartment, sipping sherry while noshing on cheese and crackers. And Herman, the dog. He was a sweetheart.

In crafting that response, I discovered something: Whether I like it or not, Avram Davidson truly did give me something to prove. In thinking back on that class experience as a whole, I realized that I made some long-lasting friendships. Of all the classes I took over my four years at William and Mary, his is without doubt the one I remember most vividly.

Is this what closure is–a concept that I’ve never much believed in?

I’ve since spoken at length with the godson on the phone, and our conversation was delightful. I learned that Avram Davidson was a doting godfather and a very nice man–when he wasn’t cranky, as he was occasionally wont to be. He was, you know, human. I cannot wait now for the opportunity to reminisce in the podcast.

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is closure.

By John Gilstrap

Happy Wednesday, everyone. Today, we take on the work of a brave writer who submitted his first few hundred words for some input. First, I’ll present the piece as I received it, and then my comments will be on the flip side, after the asterisks.

The Mirage 

Chapter One

Mexican State of Zacatecas

Chihuahuan Desert

The caravan of seven black SUVs drove through the empty desert. The road they followed was little more than a ribbon of heat-cracked asphalt winding through the barren, rolling hills.

Captain Jaime Barrios stood half-way through the open sunroof of the lead vehicle, a pair of binoculars pressed against his aviator sunglasses. His dark mustache hugged lips made puffy through hours of gun chewing. Scorching sun made the letters ATF gleam yellow against the back of his navy blue jacket.

A voice squawked from the radio bud he’d jammed into his ear.

“Captain Barrios. This holding mode is holding a little long, no?”

Barrios thumbed the mike button at his lapel before giving a curt reply.

“We’ll be going kinetic in another minute. Just sit tight.”

He looked to the three other cars in the front of the caravan. Two of them had Special Response agents also standing out of their car sunroofs. Each wore a bullet proof vest and carried an M4 assault rifle slung. The other agents inside the SUVs were similarly armed and armored.

The radio crackled in his ear again.

“Captain,” one of the agents complained, “No one said this raid came with a side of skin cancer.”

Barrios smiled mirthlessly as he continued to scan the desert. “Ha. The Chihuahuan desert welcomes your Boston ass, McKinney.”

“Shit. Who needs a fuckin’ border wall when you have this sun?”

A gleam from far behind caught Barrios’ attention. Dark dots appeared against the bright yellow landscape, growing larger with each second. His pulse quickened as he realized that their waiting was over.

“They’re coming up at six o’clock. Everyone, get ready. It’s game time.”

Barrios stamped his foot twice. At the signal, his driver accelerated. The force of the wind grew as he tucked away the binoculars and readied his assault rifle.

“Fuck,” he swore. “This looks like a lot more than eight bikes!”

“No kidding,” McKinney put in. “I count seventeen crotch rockets.”

The Hayabusa 950 motorcycles ate up the distance between them and the SUVs. Fourteen of the cyclists wore all black from head to toe. Three others had brown, yellow, or gray helmets.

Power windows rolled down on each SUV. Men poked their heads out or leaned out the windows, rifles or pistols at the ready. Barrios waited until the motorcycles were within range.

“Open fire!” he yelled into his radio.

*****

Gilstrap again. Okay, there’s a lot to like in this piece. I think the author chose an interesting place to start the story–certainly none of the throat clearing that I talked about in a piece I critiqued a few weeks ago. The prose is reasonably crisp, and the descriptions of the desert mostly work for me.

That said, I think are serious plot issues. This reads to me a bit like a reimagination of the 1960s television show, “The Rat Patrol,” where a tiny squad of six (?) guys, all in different (but very cool) uniforms drive aimlessly through the North African desert looking for fights with Nazi tanks. I loved it as a kid. I’ve since watched it as an adult. Lots of WTFing in every episode.

I’m kind of in that same place with these first pages of THE MIRAGE. I’ll stipulate that ATF agents are trolling the deserts of Mexico (though my ATF buddies tell me that such would rarely if ever be done). What bothers me most is the lack of planning and the lack of discipline. Federal agents of all ilk are buttoned down tight in these kinds of operations. The chit-chat on the radio would be a huge no-no. Even in the fire service, that was a no-no. The whole world listens in on radio traffic.

We don’t yet know what this mission is, but it is inconceivable to me that they would not have some sort of air assets in place to know what was coming at them. The SRT is one hell of a polished team. Like all such teams, they pride themselves in denying their opposition forces anything that remotely resembles a fair fight.

Then there’s the whole notion of firing without being fired upon. That’s just not done. And if it were done, shooting moving targets from a moving platform is a recipe for disaster, especially given the lack of clear firing lanes.

If this is the beginning of a serious book that the author wants to be taken seriously, lots of research remains to be done. A good place to start is to embrace the fact that anything you’ve seen in any movie in the “Fast ‘n’ Furious” franchise ranks high on the wouldn’t-ever-happen scale.

Now, let’s get down to some line-level stuff . . .

The caravan of seven black SUVs drove through the empty desert. The road they followed was little more than a ribbon of heat-cracked asphalt winding through the barren, rolling hills.

Details matter. Seven black BMW X5s paints a different picture and leaves a different impression than seven black Suburbans or seven black Escalades. Also, is there a way to combine these two sentences into one? Something like, “The seven-Suburban motorcade sped through the barren, rolling desert hills on a ribbon of road that was little more than crumbled asphalt.”

Captain Jaime Barrios stood half-way through the open sunroof of the lead vehicle, a pair of binoculars pressed against his aviator sunglasses.

This is pure “Rat Patrol.” Why would he do this? It’s hot and windy and car windows are clear. Also, the current tacti-cool look is Oakley shades. The aviators remain popular mostly among older generations. That said, it’s really hard to get a good image through binoculars while wearing any form of glasses.

Also, how far out the hatch is he? He’s standing on the center console, right?

Finally, how certain are you that the ATF has captains within their rank structure? As far as I know, they’re all variants of the rank of “special agent.”

His dark mustache hugged lips made puffy through hours of gun chewing. Scorching sun made the letters ATF gleam yellow against the back of his navy blue jacket.

For the sake of argument, I will assume that the author really meant “gum chewing” because gun chewing leads to explosions of brain pizza. That said, I’m not familiar with gum chewing causing swollen lips. Assuming that Barrios is wearing the ubiquitous G-man windbreaker, I believe the letters are yellow whether seen in the sun or by candlelight.

A voice squawked from the radio bud he’d jammed into his ear.

“Jammed” is the wrong verb here. That would hurt.

“Captain Barrios. This holding mode is holding a little long, no?”

Note the comment above about the captain thing. This bit of dialogue is exclusively for the reader. Everyone in the scene knows exactly how long they’ve been there, so what is the motivation in asking this? Also, it’s chit-chat. Finally, I don’t get the “holding mode” here. Seems to me they’re on the way to somewhere.

Barrios thumbed the mike button at his lapel before giving a curt reply.

The appropriate spelling is “mic” when you mean microphone. I’m getting conflicting information throughout this piece about their wardrobe. Assuming they’re wearing ballistic armor, “lapels” don’t really exist.

“We’ll be going kinetic in another minute. Just sit tight.”

So, now the bad guys know the good guys’ plan–because they transmitted it over the radio. I’m confused as to how Barrios knows this already. If what we’re reading here is a mission to murder the folks on the crotch rockets, you’d do well to set it up in some narrative.

He looked to the three other cars in the front of the caravan. 

There’s a lot here. From one paragraph to another, the SUVs became cars. How?

Two of them had Special Response agents also standing out of their car sunroofs.

This paints a picture of two sedans, each with multiple agents standing out to the sunroof. I’m think clown car.

When you write “Special Response agents” I presume you mean agents assigned to the Special Response Team, the elite of the elite within ATF. If so, I would point that out.

Each wore a bullet proof vest and carried an M4 assault rifle slung. The other agents inside the SUVs were similarly armed and armored.

“Bullet proof vests” do exist in the real world, but I’m certain that’s not what your guys are wearing. Your team is probably wearing “ballistic armor.”

Let’s talk about those slung M4s. Question One: Why are they slung? When you’re driving into a gunfight, you want to enter it with your weapon fully prepared for deployment. “Slung” generally means “at ease.” Question Two: Since slung rifles are carried with muzzles facing down (remember, our guys are doing the prairie dog peek out of their vehicles), I see the muzzle pointing at the driver’s ear. That would be disconcerting.

The radio crackled in his ear again.

This could be merely stylistic, but to my ear, radios haven’t “crackled” in decades. To my ear, they “pop” or “break squelch.”

“Captain,” one of the agents complained, “No one said this raid came with a side of skin cancer.”

I think the author is going for lighthearted banter here, but it comes off as whining.

Barrios smiled mirthlessly as he continued to scan the desert. “Ha. The Chihuahuan desert welcomes your Boston ass, McKinney.”

Now I see the source of the lack of discipline. It starts at the top. For the world to hear. And surely there’s a better word than mirthlessly.

“Shit. Who needs a fuckin’ border wall when you have this sun?”

Got it. Maybe they’d be cooler if they took off those jackets.

Most importantly: Beware the F-bombs. I did a whole video for my YouTube channel on the perils of using high-end profanity in popular fiction. It turns off an astonishing number of readers. I used to be an offender, but after literally hundreds of letters and emails from readers, I stopped. I haven’t written an F-bomb in probably my latest 15 books. These are hard-edged thrillers, and no one has ever complained that the bad language isn’t there.

A gleam from far behind caught Barrios’ attention.

Be specific. “Far behind” means nothing.

Dark dots appeared against the bright yellow landscape, growing larger with each second. His pulse quickened as he realized that their waiting was over.

I get that the author is playing coy here, but for me it’s too coy by half. I’d like to know who these people are–if not by specific identity, then by a throw-away reference to why it’s important to engage them.

“They’re coming up at six o’clock. Everyone, get ready. It’s game time.”

Barrios stamped his foot twice. At the signal, his driver accelerated.

So, everything else can go out on the air, but he has to stomp his foot to say “go faster”?

The force of the wind grew as he tucked away the binoculars and readied his assault rifle.

I have no idea what this means. Where did he tuck the binoculars? No one thinks of their weapon as an “assault rifle” and what readying does he need to do? He’s going to war here, so it seems a little late to oil the action. He’d probably think of the weapon as his M4 or his Colt (the manufacturer that supplies ATF with their M4s). By the time Barrios peeked his noggin out of the hole, he’d have the puppy chambered and ready to go. One quick move of his thumb against the safety lever, and he’d he ready to rock.

“Fuck,” he swore. “This looks like a lot more than eight bikes!”

“No kidding,” McKinney put in. “I count seventeen crotch rockets.”

The Hayabusa 950 motorcycles ate up the distance between them and the SUVs. Fourteen of the cyclists wore all black from head to toe. Three others had brown, yellow, or gray helmets.

Here again, the author is presenting information through dialogue that is really for the benefit of the reader. They’ve come a long way from seeing barely discernable black dots to a specific count of precisely 17 Hayabusa 950 motorcycles, plus a breakdown of their wardrobe.

But wait! As we’ll see below, McKinney got all of these details BEFORE they were in range of the M4s. That would put them at at least 200 yards. I want McKinney’s ophthalmologist!

Power windows rolled down on each SUV. Men poked their heads out or leaned out the windows, rifles or pistols at the ready. Barrios waited until the motorcycles were within range.

The clown car image has returned. Brave author, I urge you to go to your car and act this image out. The bad guys are screaming up from behind (from “six o’clock”). Imagine being packed into your vehicle with all the gear. Some people are “leaning out” of windows, others are only showing their heads. And they all want to shoot the same direction.

“Open fire!” he yelled into his radio.

Yelling into the radio does not extend the range of the signal, but it does garble the transmission. Yelling into radios is unprofessional.

Okay, Brave Author, I’ve been hard on you, but know that it comes from a helpful place. I’m on the record here and elsewhere stating that “write what you know” is perhaps the worst advice ever given, but this is an example of when the advice spot-on.

When a writer enters the world of weapons and tactics (or technology or space flight or any one of thousands of topics that people think they know but probably don’t), little mistakes add up quickly.

Okay, TKZers. Your turn.

By John Gilstrap

Last Wednesday, Terry O’Dell wrote a wonderful piece on the importance of branding to an author’s work. This week’s post from me started out as a response to her post, but as it grew longer, I decided to make it my topic for this week.

A lot of writers, I believe, misunderstand one key element to this branding business. They spend tons of time and money on trying to make their books and their characters well known–which is fine, if you’ve got the scratch to spend–but they forget that books have a short shelf life in the brick and mortar world. Even popular series get canceled by publishers. After the dust settles on all of that, there will stand the author, still talented and still anxious to write.

But will anyone know? That will depend in large measure on whether or not the author himself has left an impression on people.

I attended a conference a few years ago where a major publishing bigwig addressed the fairly recent trend among franchise-name authors sub out their storytelling to others, often giving cover credit to the visible ghost writer. He revealed in that talk that he couldn’t think of a single case where the success of a book written by one of those cowriters inured to the benefit of the cowriter himself when he reverted back to writing under his own name. The cowriters I know make pretty good money from those deals, but “writing as” does little to make them more visible to the readerverse.

So, what’s a body to do to make an impact in among all the published books as well as all the other entertainment options that dilute the pool of available readers?

Truthful answer: No one knows.

But I have some thoughts:

Consistency. I’m a thriller writer. Hard stop. I’ve spent a quarter of a century developing a reputation (such as it is) of telling fast-moving, action-filled stories that I hope also show a lot of heart. Too many authors, I think, dabble in too many genres. If I were inclined to write a romance, I would have to write it under a pseudonym, if only to not confuse the repeat customers who would feel that they’d bought a book under false pretenses.

Pick your lane and stay in it. This is a follow-on to consistency, but to me, it’s different. My chosen lane within the thriller highway is military(ish) action with lots of cool toys for my characters to play with. The brilliant Brad Thor writes books similar to mine, but he dips more into the realm of technothrillers and hardcore military action. Because he was an active duty SpecOps guy, he can pull off stuff that I can’t simply because I don’t have access to the source material that fuels his fiction. I recognize that and I stay away from it.

If you write crime fiction and you’ve got a quirky sleuth whose voice is unique to your imagination, resist the urge to wander into realm of Thomas Harris or Michael Connelly.

Be visible. The world will soon be back to normal with regard to public mingling. When that happens, get your butt to conferences. Even more than that, choose the same conferences year after year. Whether you’re looking for comradery, professional guidance or an increased fan base, you’ll be forgotten if you’re a one-off presence. But if you’re always at Conference X, and if you’re outgoing, you’ll meet people and people will come to recognize you.

In her post, Terry mentioned her trademark cowgirl hat. That resonates with something a publicist told me years ago when I asked her what I should wear when I’m in public and in author mode. She told me that it didn’t matter what I wore, but everybody should be able to tell which person in the room is the writer.

Don’t be an a-hole. This should be obvious, but you’d be surprised at how elusive this is to some. Clearly, you’re going to be kind to fans, but it’s equally necessary to be kind and giving to fellow writers and industry professionals. The writing community is a very small town, where people talk and rumors spread with blistering speed and accuracy. You want to be easy to work with and easy to talk to. NEVER speak unkindly about other authors or their agents or editors. As the great philosopher Thumper the Rabbit preached, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

Okay, TKZers, what am I missing?

Oh, and it’s Launch Week:

By John Gilstrap

A trait common to Gilstrap men is that as we age, we get cranky. The madness of 2020 added fuel to my ever-smoldering fires, manifesting itself as a pervasive need to scream my frustrations into the night. NOTE: The night doesn’t care. I’m pretty sure it didn’t even hear me.

To be honest, the certain malady-that-shall-not-be-named played nicer with me and mine than it did with many, but it upended so much and introduced such angst that there were times when I didn’t know what to do with the stress. Alcohol and Netflix helped, but there are limits, you know?

I react to the news of the day, and those reactions sometimes make writing especially hard. In times of major stress and distraction, I have difficulty summoning the concentration necessary to write fiction. In the months following 9/11, I wondered if I’d ever be able to write a convincing scene again.

When the state and federal governments shuttered all of industry back in late February and early March of last year, people who trust me with information that I probably shouldn’t know shared with me the terrifying reality of what many intelligence professionals thought was going to happen. The United States came this close to a total collapse of our food distribution system.

We all saw how petty and feral our neighbors got over toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Imagine the consequences if no food made it to supermarket shelves and no drugs made it to the pharmacy–and that there was no immediate means to repair the system.

Yeah, that almost happened.

And it almost happened in the exact same sleeve of time when I was writing a book about the collapse of American civilization in the wake of an apocalyptic event. It felt a lot like writing about a house fire as flames were rolling over my head. Unnerving, to say the least.

I managed to finish that book, more or less on time. It’s called Crimson Phoenix, the first entry in a new thriller series, and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written. It hits the shelves on February 23. A click on the pictures or on this link will take you to a full description of the novel, but very briefly:

A rapid-fire series of communication fumbles leads to World War III, which lasts all of eight hours. By the time it’s over, the Unites States is in ruins. Millions die, yet millions survive. With all the infrastructure gone, elected leaders are unable to communicate with people outside of the bunkers that protected official Washington. It falls to individual citizens to figure out a way to continue living.

It doesn’t take long for the weak to turn feral. In one corner of West Virginia, though, a single mom named Victoria Emerson turns out to be the leader that everyone’s been looking for. Here’s the thing, though: She doesn’t want to lead. In fact, she quit Congress that very day because the rules of the Annex—the bunker to which the House and Senate are evacuated to—would not allow her children to accompany her. All she wants is to protect her family from harm. But when a community of desperate refugees instinctively look to her for leadership, she cannot turn away.

In writing Crimson Phoenix, I came to realize something that I guess I always knew, but never gave a lot of thought to. I call it the Concentric Circle Theory. As a husband and a father, my job is to protect my family from harm, which puts me in direct conflict with other husbands and fathers (and mothers and wives) who feel the same duty. One of the things that make nightmare scenarios so nightmarish is that human beings can turn every bit as feral as any other animal. The strong will prey on the weak every bit as viciously and reliably as wolves will prey on smaller animals.

Sounds dark, doesn’t it? But that’s not the way it turned out.

By the time I finished writing Crimson Phoenix, I realized that rather than writing about disaster, what I really ended up writing about was hope. Even in the worst of times, there’s good to be found in people, and great leaders will help others find that good in themselves. Great leaders also understand that many of the trappings of “civilized society” are contrived in comfort, and become irrelevant once the balloon goes up. When people are pushed hard enough, violence is inevitable. It’s understandable and even forgivable. It falls to Victoria to recognize the times for what they are and to help people understand that for every evil and for every act of violence, there are at least equal elements of kindness. Sometimes, though, the kindest approach is to wreak violence on offenders.

This introspection on human nature led me to a much calmer mental state than I occupied before I wrote the story, though perhaps at the cost of an even deeper cynicism.

1. People are inherently good. A sense of justice and fair play is one of the elements that separates us from other roamers of the earth. Within our individual contexts, love, personal responsibility and acceptance by our peers is a driving force in our lives. We don’t want to let people down.
2. If pushed hard enough, even the most mild-mannered and peace loving among us is capable of extreme anti-social behavior. Whether the behavior manifests itself in multiple baskets filled with toilet paper and hand sanitizer or in shooting someone perceived as a threat in the front yard, I think the vast majority of perpetrators feel genuine remorse when the hot blood cools. While I feel no need to forgive their actions, I think I’m obligated to understand their motivations.
3. Each of us is wired to handle crises differently. My instinct is to evaluate, analyze and act on data that I have seen with my own eyes, or has been relayed to me by a source that has earned my trust. Others act on what they hear from politicians and television news reporters. My way is not right, theirs is not wrong.
4. When all is said and done, each of us is on our own to make the decisions that are right for us. This is where I found my peace. If others take foolish or destructive actions on behalf of themselves and their families, that is on them, not on me. I will share my thoughts when asked, and I accept the fact that so few people ever ask.

Overall, this is new territory for me. It’s rare that I learn valuable life lessons through the act of writing. I hope it’s not like this again anytime soon.

What say you, TKZ family? Have your writing adventures ever led you to significant self-discovery?

By John Gilstrap

I dedicated most of my high school years to the pursuit of nerdhood. I was editor of the Valor Dictus, our school newspaper, I sang 1st tenor in the choir and I was a district champion debater. Home life was a bit odd, so I spent as much time away from it as I could, and despite doing crazy stuff that would get teens thrown in jail these days, I managed to stay mostly out of trouble.

During my senior year, I decided it was time to shift gears, so I threw my hat into the ring of the musical theater. I was cast as Lamar in one of the world’s first amateur productions of Godspell. The show was so popular that it sold out its initial weekend run and we extended to a second weekend of sold-out shows. Quite the head rush.

One of my fellow cast members was a guy named Phil. For whatever reason, we never crossed paths outside of rehearsals and performances, but I was fascinated by his skills on the piano. He could play anything, including a rendition of “Great Balls of Fire” that rivaled the great Jerry Lee Lewis. After he heard a song once–whether Beatles or Beethoven–he could make the ivories sing. But he couldn’t read a lick of music. Didn’t know a quarter note from a crescendo. I have no idea what happened to him or where he went after high school, but he expressed no interest in studying music.

By contrast, my brother knew a guy in his high school–Doug–who could read a symphonic score the way you or I would read a book. The staves on the page transformed into music in his head as he read them. Some years later, I learned that he was a teenager before he understood that not everyone could do that. He went on to Julliard and later earned two PhDs in music. He recently retired from being the artistic director for one of the premier choral organizations in the DC area.

Unlike Phil, Doug has never enjoyed being the guy at the party hammering out show tunes and Beatles favorites while people sing around the piano. I don’t know why, and I won’t presume to guess. I have a number of friends who love to play their instruments of choice, but need to have the music in front of them to make it happen, and so would likely sell an unimportant body part to be able to play anything anywhere.

There’s an analogy here to writing prose. We have our own Dougs and Phils. On one end of the spectrum you have that set of MFAs and PhD grad school professors who know everything there is to know about literature and writing theory, yet are unable to publish works that appeal to the masses. On the other end, you have the lawyers (or safety engineers) whose study of literature begins and ends with what they like to read and somehow are able to hammer out stories that find an audience. Most writers toil somewhere in the middle.

I’m a Phil. I’m not especially proud of that, but I’m not ashamed of it, either. Early on in my writing career, when the inevitable question came up about what authors most influenced me, I would lie to avoid the dismissive looks and talk about Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Dickens. To be sure, those were wonderful authors and I have enjoyed their works, but none of them carried the clout of Alistair MacLean, Stephen King or even Franklin W. Dixon. These days, I tell the truth and endure the dismissive eyerolls. A few years ago, I was introduced to an MFA class as “only a commercial fiction writer”, but with the modifier that I had some thoughts worth listening to. Boy howdy, did I! Curiously, I have not been invited back. Must be the pandemic.

I have always read to be entertained, and have always written to return the favor. My job begins and ends with taking readers on a great pretend adventure. I want to make their hearts beat a little faster and I want to make them laugh and sometimes cry. I want to earn those occasional emails I get from readers who share that my stories have been welcome diversions from the problems stacked up by real life.

I’m being completely honest when I tell you that of the few implements I recognize in my writer’s tool box, I use precious few of them. I understand the major parts of speech like nouns and verbs and adjectives, but don’t ask me what a participle is, dangling or otherwise. That knowledge is of no use to me. If you groove on that stuff, then God bless you. It’s certainly not harmful, but it’s stuff I just don’t need to know. Ditto the three act structure, which to me means a beginning, a middle and an end.

I understand very little about the process of writing stories. I don’t know how I know that action and dialogue drive character development, but that’s how it works for me. I often tell people that I don’t want to think too hard about the creative process for fear of breaking a machine that I don’t know how to fix. If it ain’t broke . . .

Remember the motto of the famed Faber College: Knowledge is good. My preference is to learn craft by reading books that I wish I’d written, but I would never discourage anyone from studying craft. We all learn differently and we all follow divergent paths.

But formal study is not for everyone. For some, it can be harmful. Remember always that the voice in your head is unique to you. Even a well-meaning teacher can ruin that voice if you’re not steadfast in your defense of it. Any creative advice that includes the phrases “you must” or “you cannot” is wrong. Hard stop. If you’re in school and such is the opinion of your teacher, then earn the A by giving him or her what they’re looking for, but then erase the rules from your brain. If something inside you is driving you to create–if something inside you won’t let you not create–then trust that the same driving force will help you find your own way, whether through schooling or sheer force of will.

Irrespective of which route(s) you follow, the one constant is that your early efforts are going to suck. Everyone you ask to help you un-suck it will have bits of advice that vary from others’ bits of advice. That’s a lot of well-meaning voices in your head. At the end of the day, you’ll still be stuck with the task of choosing on your own which is the best path to take.

What say you, TKZ family? Are you a Phil, a Doug, or somewhere in between?

By John Gilstrap

A couple of days ago, Brother Bell posted a compelling piece about the process of writing. It got me to thinking about the strange transition that happens when writing evolves to be more than a passion, and becomes a means to pay some or all of the bills.

NOTE WELL: None of what follows is intended as whining. I am fully aware of how fortunate I have been–and continue to be–to be 23 books into a 25-year career doing the very thing I’d have told you I wanted to do if you’d asked me when I was 12 years old.

But while I have the best job in the world, it’s still a job. There’s a relentlessness to it.

To start, I’ve over-committed. I wrote two novels and a 7,500-word short story last year. I have to deliver another Victoria Emerson thriller on April 15, followed by a September 15 deadline for the next Jonathan Grave novel. Plus, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’m working on a fun Western novel with two other authors. As I write this, it’s my turn again to write a chapter. Tick tock. I’m also collaborating with another writer and a film producer to develop a very cool idea for a television series.

Meanwhile, my wife and I are building a new house that we’ll be moving to around this time next year. It’s in the West Virginia woods, about 90 minutes from our current house. In addition to the weekly (minimum) visits to the worksite to monitor the details, there are the thousands of decisions to be made from among infinite variables. Exterior stone, interior floors, appliances, design flow, and, and, and . . .

I must confess that the general malaise of the past 12 months worked its way into my soul more deeply than I would have expected. And I’m a news junkie. ‘Nuff said on that.

Crimson Phoenix, the first book in my new Victoria Emerson series drops on February 23, and my publisher is pulling out a lot of stops to promote it, which means lots of emailed interviews and (God help us) Zoom calls. I’ve got a YouTube channel to feed, social media stuff, and the rest of everyday life.

I feel sometimes that every time I sit down to write, another high-priority, time-sensitive thing pops up. My wife and I both work out of the house–our offices are no more than 30 feet from each other–and oftentimes, we won’t see each other until dinnertime, and then we usually go back to work after dinner. We do make it a point to relax and watch TV beginning at 8pm at the latest. Sanity lies in Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Okay, maybe I am whining.

I think I’ve mentioned here before that I spend a fair amount of time on Facebook writers’ groups. (It’s a great way to bring traffic to my YouTube channel.) Those places teem with rookies who maintain that as writers, their sole job is to create stuff, and that marketing, promotion and the rest should be someone else’s responsibility. I don’t engage at that level because I have little to offer to the deeply clueless. We all know the reality that without all that other non-writing activity, success will never happen. (I’ll leave it to you to determine what your definition of success is.)

Then, when success does happen, complete with all the accoutrements, the world changes a bit. Maybe a lot. It feels unearned because you know there are way better writers than you who have not seen the same success. And because it feels unearned, it also feels fragile. Hell, it is fragile. Fragility is the nature of the entertainment business.

The past is the past, pal. What’ve you got for me today?

With success comes the burden of additional opportunities, all of which have a short shelf life. I say “burden” of opportunities with full knowledge that the phrase sounds oxymoronic. You work hard, you create work that resonates. Do it long enough, and it resonates with enough people that the work gets recognized by people higher than you on the creative ladder and they invite you onto their rung.

It’s terrifying, if only because saying no is not an option. You say yes to an invitation to submit to an anthology of stories by franchise names. You say yes to the offer to develop a TV series because if you say no, you may never get another call like that. Every effort for every project has to be the best you can give because anything short of that betrays the reason you were asked in the first place.

You lose sleep because you understand that no matter how much effort you put into those opportunities, they may come to nothing. You realize that your true loyalty must be focused on the longtime readers who helped you achieve your greatest dreams. They, too, perhaps more than any others, also deserve the best you can give. They’ve earned the best you can give.

“Sleep is for the weak,” a fire captain told me one time. I’ve been thinking about him a lot these past few months.