By John Gilstrap

A couple of weeks ago, I posted here about my great fortune to score an ongoing talk radio gig on WRNR Radio/TV 10 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. It’s strictly a talk format, with Rob Mario as host, and then two co-hosts, of which I am one a couple of times per week.

It’s interesting sitting on the other side of an interview. Having done more than a few of them over the years as the interviewee, being the interviewer has changed my perspective a bit. In recent weeks, we’ve interviewed a few authors. I thought I’d share some lessons I’ve learned that you might find helpful if you find yourself in the position to promote your book–or to promote anything for that matter.

Know ahead of time what the format will be.

On our show on Eastern Panhandle Talk Radio, all interviews are 22-25 minutes long, free from commercial interruption. That’s unusual in my experience for broadcast radio and television. Normally, the broadcast format runs 7-10 minutes, which requires an entirely different approach.

In shorter interviews, be prepared to deliver the vaunted elevator pitch, where you get right down the details of the book. There likely won’t be a lot of give-and take between you and the host. If there is, that’s great. Just don’t anticipate it.

Longer interviews, on the other hand, are much more conversational. If you launch right into the elevator pitch and stay with it, there won’t be much interaction with the hosts, and you run the risk of leaving little to talk about during the rest of the spot.

Anticipate the common questions and have stories to tell.

You know the low-hanging fruit: Where did the idea come from? What kind of research did you do? Which of your books is your favorite? What authors do you read? Tell us about the story.

The best interviews are with people who tell the stories behind the stories. Keep it light-hearted and entertaining. If you can make your book resonate with current events or current times, that’s always a good thing.

Another trait of great interviews is that they are conversational. Try to forget that YOU’RE ON THE RADIO!!! and concentrate more on having a casual conversation with the person across from you in the studio or on the other end of the phone call.

There’s a good chance that “radio” means TV, too.

In these days of video streaming, many (most?) radios stations also have a live feed to Facebook or other social media sites. Plan accordingly to avoid that awkward jammies and bed-head television exposure.

Send promotional materials ahead of time.

Remember that your interview is but one tiny slot inserted into a busy broadcast. People will not have had time to read your book, certainly on short notice. Be sure to send along a synopsis of the story, along with a short bio.

Suggested questions are always welcome because they give the interviewer a clue about what topics you are most prepared to cover.

In your promotional materials, be sure to include a headshot of you and the cover of your book. If there is a TV/Facebook live element, this is essential. One of the most recent interviews sent along a single image that is a combined cover and author photo. I’m going to steal that idea.

Avoid qualitative assessments of your own work.

This might just be my own bugaboo, but I find it vastly unprofessional for an author to tell the world how funny, inspirational or exciting his own work is.  Just as on the page, show, don’t tell. Let your enthusiasm for the project sell the book for you.

Mention the title. A Lot.

In a standard interview, you’ll be introduced as the author of [Your Book Title], and then again as such at the end of the interview. Remember that every time you refer to your baby as “my book” or “it” you’re missing an opportunity to burn the title into listeners’ and viewers’ brains.

Always close with your contact and social media information.

Rudeness is never okay, but don’t be afraid to be a little aggressive, especially at the end of an interview. Consider:

” . . . Thanks for coming on the show, John.”

“Real quick, please visit my website, John Gilstrap dot com for anything you want to know about me or my books.”

You’re on the show to market a book, so don’t be shy about marketing your book.

What say you, TKZ family? Have I missed anything?

by John Gilstrap

Full disclosure: I’m cheating again. I owe a book to my publisher on October 15, and it gets all my attention for a while. So, I decided I’d test everyone’s patience by recycling a post from January, 2017, in which I wrote about one of my favorite topics, which is things that go boom. I’m confident that the laws of physics and chemistry have not changed in the past five years, so the content should still be reliable. Here we go . . .

I’m going to continue my quest to help writers understand some of the technical aspects of weaponry so that their action scenes can be more realistic.  Today, we’re going to talk about some practical applications for high explosives.  It’s been a while since we last got into the weeds of things that go boom, so if you want a quick refresher, feel free to click here.  We’ll wait for you.

Welcome back.

When I was a kid, the whole point of playing with cherry bombs and lady fingers and M80s was to make a big bang.  Or, maybe to launch a galvanized bucket into the air.  (By the way, if you’re ever tempted to light a cherry bomb and flush it down the toilet, be sure you’re at a friend’s house, not your own.  Just sayin’.  And you’re welcome.)  As I got older and more sophisticated in my knowledge of such things, I realized that while making craters for craters’ sake was deeply satisfying, the real-life application of explosives is more nuanced.

Since TKZ is about writing thrillers and suspense fiction, I’m going to limit what follows to explosives used as weapons–to kill people and break things.  Of course, there are many more constructive uses for highly energetic materials, and while the principles are universal, the applications are very different.

Hand grenades are simple, lethal and un-artful bits of destructive weaponry.  Containing only 6-7 ounces of explosive (usually Composition B, or “Comp B”), they are designed to wreak havoc in relatively small spaces.  The M67 grenade that is commonly used by US forces has a fatality radius of 5 meters and an injury radius of 15 meters. Within those ranges, the primary mechanisms of injury are pressure and fragmentation.

For the most part, all hand grenades work on the same principles. By pulling the safety pin and releasing the striker lever (the “spoon”), the operator releases a striker–think of it as a firing pin–that strikes a percussion cap which ignites a pyrotechnic fuse that will burn for four or five seconds before it initiates the detonator and the grenade goes bang.  It’s important to note that once that spoon flies, there’s no going back.

Claymore mines operate on the same tactical principle as a shotgun, in the sense that it is designed to send a massive jet of pellets downrange, to devastating effect.  Invented by a guy named Norman MacLeod, the mine is named after a Scottish sword used in Medieval times. Unlike the hand grenade, which sends its fragments out in all directions, the Claymore is directional by design.  (I’ve always been amused by the embossed letters on the front of every Claymore mine, which read, “front toward enemy.”  As Peter Venkman famously said while hunting ghosts, “Important safety tip. Thanks,Egon.”)

The guts of a Claymore consist of a 1.5-pound slab of C-4 explosive and about 700 3.2 millimeter steel balls. When the mine is detonated by remote control, those steel balls launch downrange at over 3,900 feet per second in a 60-degree pattern that is six and a half feet tall and 55 yards wide at a spot that is 50 meters down range.

The fatality range of a Claymore mine is 50 meters, and the injury range is 100 meters.  (Note that because of the directional nature of the Claymore, we’re noting ranges, whereas with the omnidirectional hand grenade, we noted radii.)

Both the hand grenade and the Claymore mine are considered to be anti-personnel weapons.  While they’ll certainly leave an ugly dent in a car and would punch through the walls of standard construction, they would do little more than scratch the paint on an armored vehicle like a tank. To kill a tank, we need to pierce that heavy armor, and to do that, we put the laws of physics to work for us.

Shaped charges are designed to direct a detonation wave in a way that focuses tremendous energy on a single spot, thus piercing even heavy armor.  The principle is simple and enormously effective.

The illustration on the left shows a cutaway view of a classic shaped charge munition. You’re looking at a cross-section of a hollow cone of explosives. Imagine that you’re looking into an empty martini glass where the inside of the glass is made of cast explosive that is then covered with a thin layer of metal.  The explosive is essentially sandwiched between external and internal conical walls.  The open end of the cone is the front of the munition.

The initiator/detonator is seated at the pointy end of the cone (the rear of the munition), and when it goes off, a lot happens in the next few microseconds.  As the charge detonates, the blast waves that are directed toward the center of the cone combine and multiply while reducing that center liner into a molten jet that is propelled by enormous energy.  When that jet impacts a tank’s armor, its energy transforms the armor to molten steel which is then propelled into the confines of the vehicle, which becomes a very unpleasant place to be. The photo of the big disk with the hole in the middle bears the classic look of a hit by a shaped charge.

Now you understand why rocket-propelled grenades like the one in the picture have such a distinctive shape. The nose cone is there for stability in flight, and it also houses the triggering mechanisms.

The picture on the right is a single frame from a demonstration video in which somebody shot a travel trailer with an RPG.  The arrow shows the direction of the munition’s flight. There was no armor to pierce so the videographer was able to capture the raw power of that supersonic jet of energy from the shaped charge.

Looming deadline notwithstanding, I will do my best to answer any and all questions, but I warn you all that I might be a bit slow on the keyboard.

By John Gilstrap

At some point along the line, I apparently set a recording on my DVR for a retrospective of the Ed Sullivan Show and Rock and Roll. The other night, as I was trying to bore myself to sleep, I watched the episode that features the rock-n-roll hits from 1968-1970. I watched songs from The Beach Boys, The Carpenters, The Jackson 5, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and even Tom Jones’s Delilah. Everything about that show–from the fashions to the songs themselves–brought an unexpected feeling of melancholy.

I turned 11 years old in 1968. When that year dawned, we had already seen one president shot dead on the streets of Dallas, a neighbor of mine–the father of a classmate–had been gunned down at his front door by a stranger who remains at large to this day. Three of my heroes–the astronauts of Apollo 1 (and previous astronauts of the Mercury and Gemini Programs) had burned to death while trapped inside their capsule. More than a few of my neighbors’ dads had been shipped off to Vietnam. Five years earlier, I had been rescued from the roof of my grandparents’ burning apartment building in Pleasantville, New Jersey, the most egregiously misnamed city on the planet.

By the end of that year, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King would be dead, and just a few miles away, Washington, DC, would be set ablaze, just like so many other cities across the country. That was the year when civil rights-based busing came to my neighborhood, causing me to be shipped off every day to a school 35 minutes from my house in the midst of a culture where everyone was angry and nobody told us kids how we supposed to deal with such startling changes. I learned to fight, but I never liked it, and I was never very good at it.

1969 brought such protests to Washington that my father, a career Navy officer, was ordered to wear suits to the Pentagon for his own safety. Woodstock happened that year, but that was also the year when Charles Manson went on his rampage. Things at home were beginning to unravel between my parents, and I was still fighting a lot in school. The thrill of my lifetime occurred on July 20, 1969, when the crew of Apollo 11 conquered the moon. Five days later, another Kennedy, Ted, was in the news for his actions in Chappaquiddick. We closed that year with the news of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

In May of 1970, soldiers from the National Guard opened up on student protesters at Kent State University. We actually had the discussion at our dinner table that perhaps the protesters brought it on themselves. In August of that year, our vacation at Split Rock Lodge in the Poconos ended after the first night when the lodge burned to the ground, taking all of our stuff with it.

By autumn of 1971, my brother had gone to college, leaving me to cope with family stuff as a solo.

As I write this post, that knot of anxiety returns to my gut as a ghost from the past–equal parts fear, anger, sadness and disorientation. It was during those years when I turned most desperately to fiction–both reading it and writing it. I escaped to places in my head where good guys always won and bad guys were always brought to justice. I rarely showed my writing to anyone back then, and I’m not sure why. Looking back with decades of space between then and now, I think I was afraid of people knowing just how twisted up I was inside. The “me” I projected was immune to such things as emotion. Back then, there was no greater embarrassment for a boy than to cry in public–or show any real emotion for that matter. In those days, I never had a friend who was close enough to let me lower the armor. Hell, maybe I wasn’t a good enough friend to anyone else to let them share with me.

Life in a bickering household can be very lonely. I think now, in retrospect, that the adults in the house were so wrapped up in their own unpleasantness that having me be quiet was probably a blessing. I know that it was a blessing to be relieved from my role as marriage counselor, listening to their grievances as they each tried to pull me to their side.

My high school had 4,500 kids. Talk about anonymity!  As a young teenager with less than zero athletic ability (or interest in such), the school library became my hangout spot. I have no idea how many books I read in those days, and how many stories I wrote, but they have to number in the hundreds. When I was into a book or writing a story, I was safe.

Life took a sharp turn for me when I was sixteen years old. I called a family meeting–the first in the family’s history–and I announced to Mom and Dad that I wasn’t doing this anymore. I told them that they were being unfair to me by airing problems that I could not solve, and that I was going to start taking chances at school. I was going to join things and risk the taunts of others. Since my parents wouldn’t drive me and we couldn’t afford a car for me, I told them that they would have to let me ride with friends. I told them that an 11:00 pm curfew was unreasonable on a weekend night. To bolster my argument, I had a long list of straight-A report cards to show them.

As I presented my case, they said nothing. I think they were shocked–in fact, I know they were because that night is still the stuff of legend among my extended family. But they didn’t argue. From that moment on, the “me” I projected moved closer and closer to the “me” I actually was. I don’t think the two will ever meet, but asymptotic is close enough.

I realize now that my imagination saved me from what could have been a terrible end. I don’t expect the demons ever to go away, but at least now they know their place. August 27 marked the 40th anniversary of my first date with my best friend, who would become my bride. Later this month, we will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary. We have been blessed in countless ways, but had I not planted my flag on Mount Angst, and opened the spigot to honest emotion–which still flows much more easily through my stories than in real life–I don’t think I would have recognized the blessings for what they are.

As a society, while we fawn all over celebrity, we don’t show a lot of respect for the inherent virtue of artistry. I think that each of us needs an outlet to shorten the distances between the “me” we project, the “me” we know ourselves to be, and the “me” to which we aspire. Whether through music, dance, writing or perfecting one’s golf game, it’s the process that matters, not the sales record. It doesn’t matter if no one else in the world appreciates your art if it honestly reflects that slice of time in your journey.

Dare to try. Dare to dream.

By John Gilstrap

When I was growing up, immersed in dreams of one day becoming a writer, I romanticized what the process must be like. Where would one go to imagine new worlds and create new adventures? Movies romanticized the whole process, and I bought into it. Then I saw this now famous picture of a then less-famous Stephen King in his writing space. It seemed so . . . ordinary. Yet at the same time it seemed very special. The dog under his feet is a nice touch. This is a guy with a job. And his creative space is . . . an office. Just an office. But of course, it’s more than that. It’s Stephen King’s office. (As you’ll see below, it turns out that I was not the only budding young writer who was impressed by the photo.)

Offices are important–more important to some than to others. In some ways, creative spaces reflect the personalities of their occupants. They fascinate me.

Following up on a comment made on Friday’s Reader Friday post by our beloved Brother Bell, I sent emails to my fellow bloggers here at TKZ, suggesting that we let our readers into our creative spaces. My one caveat was a pinky swear to not clean up before taking the picture. Here’s what we came up with.

John Gilstrap

Our move to West Virginia presented a unique opportunity to design an office as an office–as opposed to a purloined bedroom. Now that I think about it, I suppose there’s not a lot of difference between the two. I wanted lots of light and direct access to the outdoors. That door leads to a deck that overlooks the woods. The orange helmet on the left end of the bookcase belonged to my father. A closer look will show that it’s quite banged up from the helicopter crash he survived on the deck of the USS Forrestal in 1959. The two yellow helmets are mine from the two jurisdictions where I ran fire and rescue. (I had to turn my white lieutenant’s helmet back in when I left.) Since the house is now run by a 12-pound ball of fur named Kimber, chew toys and water bowls litter the floor of every room.

Here it is from a different angle. This is messier than it normally is, but a pinky swear is a pinky swear. Note the studio grade microphone and the webcam–a new bit of ubiquity in office photos, I’ve found. All of those Gilstrap books stacked on the far end of the bookcase are the background for Zooming and YouTube videos (when I start shooting them again). The opened journal you see on the desk is one of many that I have stacked around the place (each novel gets a new journal). That’s where I scratch my way through difficult parts of the story that are somehow resistant to being typed. That green chair in the corner used to belong to me. Now it’s Kimber’s day bed and she gets very annoyed if I move the blanket from where she left it.

Kristy Montee (PJ Parrish)

When we moved out of Fort Lauderdale five years ago, it meant big downsizing. As some wag said (might have been George Carlin): You spend the first half of your life accumulating stuff and the second half getting rid of it.  We now live half the year in Tallahassee and half in Traverse City, Michigan. We don’t have the luxury of an extra “office” space anymore, so I store everything on line and cart my laptop around wherever the spirit moves me. Often it’s the sofa, but more likely my local coffee shop or after 4, the Traverse City Whiskey Co. where they make a mean whiskey sour. On spectacular days like today, the balcony will do.

Terry Odell

I’m fortunate to have a bedroom dedicated to me. This is my workspace, which doesn’t show my cluttered closet space or bookshelves. The desk is also a little less cluttered than usual, since the request for the photo came on Friday, and I clear my desk on Thursday for the housekeeper. The stacks of paper next to the printer and behind the monitor represent my method of ‘housekeeping.’ The stacks will eventually topple over, and I’ll attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Watching the wildlife is my biggest writing distraction. (The hummingbird feeder is just out of camera range, but not out of eyeshot if I’m sitting at my desk.)

Kay DiBianca

Sue Coletta

Attached are two photos of my office from different angles. The Holy Hands on my desk were made and blessed by a Cherokee chief. They hold tiny replicas of my Mayhem Series. Both gifts from a couple (readers) who said I touched their lives. Most of the crows, as well as the crow dreamcatcher hanging above, were also gifts from readers. All mean a lot to me. Constant reminders of why I write.

Elaine Viets

Here’s my office. I’m most comfortable surrounded by books, and many of these mysteries are signed by  friends. The box with the white rug is for my cat, Vanessa. She “helps” while I work.

Garry Rodgers

Here’s a shot of my mind lab. Brief description: “My creative place is a combination of old and new. Side-by-side, I have a Windows 11 laptop with audio/visual recording devices next to a retro 1920s private detective office with stuff like a pristine vintage typewriter and a cool rotary phone that’s tweaked to work in the digital age. Fun place. BTW, that filing cabinet is stuffed full of books.”

James Scott Bell

My desk, with microphone and sound foam. To the left, pics of Stephen King (with legs on desk), Ed McBain, and John D. MacDonald, all telling me to stop whining and write. My coffee mug with WRITER on it, which I bought a few days after I decided I had to try to become a writer. And a file folder for my first drafts.

As you read this, I will be on my way to Bouchercon in Minneapolis, my first large-scale book event since the Covid insanity. It’ll be nice to see old friends again.

By John Gilstrap

I came of age during the 1970s. I was six years old when JFK was assassinated in 1963, and I lived in the Washington, DC, suburbs during the violence and political turmoil of 1968-74. Every radio in the house was tuned to WMAL AM630, and they were on pretty much all the time. I woke up to Harden and Weaver giving the time and weather forecast 20 times an hour, and went to bed with Felix Grant playing soft jazz in the background. (When snow was in the forecast, I of course slept with my pajamas turned inside-out as a talisman for schools to be closed. Messrs. Harden and Weaver would be the deliverer of that news, requiring an earlier alarm so I could go back to sleep if my wishes were granted.)

I dreamed back then of one day becoming a radio broadcaster. As I approached the end of my high school years, the lure of the Columbia School of Broadcasting was almost overwhelming. In the end, I went to college instead, at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where I hoped to join the staff of WCWM, the college radio station. Alas, that turned out to be a clique for people whose lifestyles were different from mine, and I found myself not welcome.

After I graduated and returned to the DC area, I became addicted to morning and evening drivetime radio. The Morning Zoo fad was huge there. Even in the early ’80s, commutes were long and brutal, so radio entertainment was essential. My shock jocks of choice were Don Geronimo & Mike O’Meara (“We’re fat, we’re white, we’re Catholic, and we’re sick about it.”) In the afternoons, I preferred a more staid commute, so it was back to WMAL and Trumbull and Core (originally called Two For The Road, but they changed it after MADD started making waves). That afternoon broadcast was all about local and national news, but with a fun spin.

Fast forward to the 1990s and the beginning of my writing career. I’ve lost track of the number of radio interviews I’ve done by way of promoting my books. Add podcasts to the list and it has to be in the hundreds. Technically, those qualified as “being on the radio” but it wasn’t the same. First of all, the vast majority are phone-in interviews, and for the most part, I’m telling the same stories and answering the same questions, back-to-back. It’s the nature of touring.

Then came May 3, 2022. My publicist in New York arranged an in-studio interview with WRNR Eastern Panhandle Talk Radio and TV10 in Martinsburg, WV, essentially in my new backyard. I had the whole last segment of the show, about 25 minutes, and it went very well. Lots of laughs. When the show was over and we were saying our goodbyes, I mentioned to Rob Mario, the host of the show, that I had always dreamed about being on the radio.

Bam! Right then and there, he offered me a slot in his rotating schedule of guest hosts. The format of the show is local and statewide politics and community activities. So far, I’ve interviewed the mayor of Martinsburg, the president of the Berkeley County council, the director of the Health Department, and a number of the local business stars. If you’re reading this on August 24 between the hours of 8 and 10 a.m. Eastern time, I am on the air now.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts here in TKZ that I’m a Type-A extrovert. One of my biggest concerns as we walked away from a lifetime of living in Northern Virginia was wondering how I was going to streamline the process of getting to know people in my new community. Living in Berkeley County, WV, is the very model of rural small town life. County fairs are still big news, and the local paper reports the substance of valedictory speeches from the local high schools. I worried about being the outsider.

And then this opportunity fell into my lap. I am humbled and thrilled. I’ve always been a news junkie, and now I get to talk one-on-one (in front of thousands of people) with the newsmakers themselves. In fact, my very first interview on my very first day as a co-host was all about West Virginia’s proposed abortion legislation. Yikes! I think it went well. (They did ask me back again (and again . . .))

To bring this back around to the true focus of TKZ, Being a writer and having books to sell provides many opportunities to get out in front of other people. The odds are stacked against introverted authors who cave in to their shy tendencies. By being out there, wherever there is, that moment of celebrity can blossom into tremendous opportunity. I figure it can’t hurt to be introduced at the top and bottom of each hour as “New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap.” Let’s call that soft marketing. I swear I can hear listeners all over the Eastern Panhandle turning to the person next to them and saying, “I’ve never heard of him.” If a few turn to their internet machines and do a search, well, that can’t hurt either.

And if no one does that, that’s okay. I’m fulfilling my dream of being on the radio.

By JohnGilstrap

Having just finished a marathon session reviewing the copy edits for White Smoke (the third book in the Victoria Emerson thriller series), I started to write a post for TKZ that addresses my view of the copy editing process, and shares my copy editing rules. I was a hundred words or so into it when it occurred to me that it was all feeling very familiar.

It turns out that I posted on the topic here back in 2018. So now, if the content feels like you might have read it before, at least you’ll know why–although I have rewritten parts.

Copy editing is the penultimate opportunity for me to make significant changes to a manuscript. By that point, I’ve already addressed the developmental issues outlined in my editorial letter, and–to my mind, anyway–the copy is pretty clean. Typos abound, but not for lack of hunting them down. At that point, I have fulfilled my D&A (delivery and acceptance) contract element, and, not insignificantly, will get paid.

The next step is for the completed manuscript to be sent off to be copy edited. This is the typo/spelling/continuity review step. For the most part, copy editors are freelancers, and they may or may not have any familiarity with my work, or even with the genre in which I write. It seems to me (and I say this with a huge amount of respect) that their primary skills are an encyclopedic knowledge of the rules of grammar, and the ability to process the tiniest of details. Combine those traits with a research instinct that borders on obsessive-compulsive, and the ideal copy editor is born.

And I need them. I’ve posted here before that I deeply don’t understand commas, and no matter how many times it is explained to me, the rules for “which” vs. “that” elude me. I am wont to have characters sit after they have never stood, and close doors that have never been opened. It is the largely un-celebrated copy editors of the world who keep the reading public from knowing how unqualified I am to do the work that I do.

But there’s a dark side.

Sometimes, copy editors change stuff that shouldn’t be changed, and for that reason, as the author, I must approve or disapprove every alteration they propose. At times, their knowledge of grammar gets in the way. An example that comes to mind is from a few books ago when the copy editor changed “Jonathan looked at the door the kid had just come through” to “Jonathan looked at the door whence the kid had just come.” While grammatically correct, “whence” is a word that has no place in commercial thrillers. The same copy editor took it upon herself to replace Jonathan Grave’s beloved Colt 1911 .45 with a pistol her research had told her would be more appropriate to his purposes.

Most recently, the copy editor noted that referring in dialogue to deer hunting as “killing Bambi” might offend more sensitive readers. My inclination is to write back that I no doubt had lost my sensitive readers about 20 books ago, but instead I responded with the ever-useful “stet.”

I miss the days of handwritten copy edits. I like paper. I like printed manuscripts that I can read in a lounge chair with a lap desk and a pencil, making changes or stetting by hand. For the past five or six years, the edits come as a word file with Track Changes turned on, forcing me to read the book on my computer. Okay, now I’m whining.

The Gilstrap Style Sheet

My publisher uses the Chicago Manual of Style as the Holy Grail of copy edits. That’s fine. There has to be a standard by which to judge correctness. But here’s the thing: Mine is the only name on the spine of the book, and there are instances where I disagree with the style manual. After spending countless hours over my first ten or twelve books stetting changes made by copy editors, I decided to create my own style sheet, which I insert between the cover page and Chapter One of every manuscript I submit.  I thought I’d share it with you.  (I’ve inserted some explanation in italics where I think my reasoning might not be obvious.)

NOTE TO COPY EDITOR: Stylebook notwithstanding, please note the following:

The possessive form of Boxers is Boxers’ (not Boxers’s).  This change does not affect any other names that end with S.

In every case, branches of the US armed services are always capitalized (e.g., Jonathan’s days in the Army; when Henry was in the Navy, etc.)

Consider landmarks within Jonathan’s office to be proper nouns and capitalized as such (The Cave, the War Room, etc.)

Please consider all weapons nomenclature to be correct as written. (e.g., Jonathan carries a “Colt 1911 .45”, even though the official listing might show the pistol to be a Colt M1911A1, and even though there are newer versions of the platform available.  These are very deliberate choices.)

When referencing calibers of weapons, all measurements are singular.  (e.g., a Glock 19 is chambered in nine millimeter, not nine millimeters.)

References to federal agencies need no definite article.  (e.g., “He’s with DEA” is fine. He’s not with THE DEA.)

When Boxers or other team members refer to Jonathan as “Boss”, the word should be capitalized.

No semicolons, grammar notwithstanding.

Northern Virginia and the Washington Metropolitan Area are both proper nouns and require capitalization.

Please assume all dialogue to be correct as written.  Feel free to correct spelling and typos, but do not strive to make dialogue grammatically correct.

In dialogue, “Dammit” and “Goddammit” and “Goddamn” should be considered to be correct.

I intentionally avoid parentheses and single-quote marks in dialogue. Please do not insert them.

As a rule, I dislike exclamation points. Please avoid inserting them.

The first time I submitted a manuscript with the style sheet attached, I expected some pushback from the publisher. Instead, I got a big thank-you and an expressed wish that more authors would do likewise. It saves time for everyone.

Something that a lot of newbies to the writing game don’t realize is that the editor and publisher may not change a word of your manuscript without your permission. I don’t recommend recalcitrance, and I do recommend listening to the editor’s advice, but when the book is published, it’s your work, not theirs. Make sure that it’s what you want it to be.

By John Gilstrap

Of the countless moving parts in a story, an element I find among the top five most annoying is the naming of characters.

A famous romance writer said in an article I read years ago that she cannot type the first word of her stories until she knows the characters’ names. The names, she said, say so much about the characters and their personalities, and without that bit of creative data locked into her brain, none of the other stuff works.

To me, characters’ names–particularly the minor ones–are little more than labels. I have to call them something, right? There are practical considerations, too. Many of those are tied to the fact that I want to make this writing business as simple as possible for myself.

I keep the names short.

I’m going to be typing the letter sequence of a name dozens, if not hundreds, of times in a manuscript. Typing four letters hundreds of times is easier than typing 12 or 15 letters hundreds of times.

I keep the names pronounceable. 

When I read silently, I actually read aloud but without making noise. I pronounce every word in my head as I plow through, and when I stumble onto a name that I can’t pronounce, the story stops for me. This is one of the primary reasons why I don’t read fantasy stories. In my own writing, one of the reasons why I don’t deal with Middle Eastern terrorists–other than the fact that every other writer in my corner of the thrillerverse is doing it–is I don’t want to get bogged down with Middle Eastern names.

I avoid homophonic names.

At the beginning of each book, I tackle the administrative task of updating my auto correct to automatically capitalize my characters’ names. Thus, when I type jonathan, it automatically converts to Jonathan. Thus, you’ll never find me writing a book with a character named Robin. If I did, then the bird version of the road would be capitalized. The reason why my recurring character named Boxers has an S at the end is so it doesn’t conflict with the pugilistic version of the word.

Google is my friend.

The drug cartels of Central and South America are frequent enemies of Jonathan Grave, which means I create POV characters who need Hispanic names. To find them, I turn to Google and type “Colombian (or Mexican or Venezuelan) surnames” and “Colombian (etc.) first names.” Then I shop for names from those lists.

Excel is also my friend.

My Victoria Emerson series is a true series, where each story builds on the one that preceded it. At this point, having just submitted White Smoke (the third book in the series, following Crimson Phoenix and Blue Fire), I’m about 900 pages into the story. Between main characters, secondary characters and walk-ons, I’ve introduced about 150 named players. The only way to keep them straight was to create a spreadsheet that documented their names, a descriptor, and which subplot they’re a part of.

So, TKZ family, are character names important to you? How do you choose them?

By John Gilstrap

So, you’ve finally made it to the end of your manuscript. Your plot points are all where they need to be, the characters have the personalities you hoped for, and the climax will leave people breathless. Whether it took you four months or four years, it’s seemed like a long time coming, but the day has finally come to either ship it off to your agent, or to go about the business of finding one, or to do whatever needs to be done to independently publish.

But wait. Is it really done?

Remember that place in Chapter Seven where you struggled with the action, and you wondered if the action was really motivated? Maybe you should go back and read that one more time. Yep, sure enough, it’s not all that you had wanted it to be. Maybe it was actually better before you made the change.

So, you delay pressing the SEND button for a day or two and you tweak that section again.

Oh, crap! If you make that change, then the big reveal in Chapter Fifteen won’t be as powerful. Maybe you should change it back. Yes, definitely, you should change it back.

And there. On page 24, you used “which” when you should have used “that.” Oh, no! Did you make that same mistake again? Oh, hell, you never were really sure of the difference in every circumstance.

Oh, my goodness! Look at all the adverbs . . .

When is it time to stop editing?

That doubt circle I present above is something we all face, but sooner or later, that circle becomes a spiral that will drag your project to destruction. So, when is it okay to stop? Some things to consider:

It will never be perfect.

I cringe every time I read a book that I wrote a few years ago. Why did I use that stupid phrase? Why did I use so many words? Why am I incapable of understanding the proper use of commas?

Everybody’s inner quality control manager is different. A writer-buddy of mine hires two proofreaders to go over his manuscript before he sends it to his publisher and their copy editors. And every book still has a typo or two.

I don’t enjoy my buddy’s level of success, but my bank account is smaller, too, so I don’t do that. I start every writing session by rewriting what I wrote the day before. When I get to the end, I do one major editing pass to make sure that the story’s connective tissue is all there, and then I launch it.

Staring in the mirror doesn’t change the image.

There comes a point in every manuscript where you’ve either nailed it or you haven’t. Staring at it longer, tweaking individual words and questioning decisions you’ve already made doesn’t advance the story. If you genuinely liked the story yesterday, give that fact as much weight in your heart as the fact that you’ve got doubts today.

A few typos won’t torpedo your project.

An asterisk to that would be that the first couple of chapters should be pretty friggin’ pristine. Once you get people hooked on the story, the tolerance for human error increases.

True story:

My first literary agent was “Million Dollar Molly” Friedrich with the Aaron Priest Literary Agency. This was in the mid-1990s. A friend/neighbor of hers said she had an acquaintance who’d written a memoir and would Molly look at it. With a cringe, she said yes and was handed a typewritten single-spaced manuscript on onion skin erasable bond paper. Despite every submission protocol being broken, she gave it a read and agreed to represent the book. The author was an unknown fellow named Frank McCourt, and the book was Angela’s Ashes. It did okay.

The lesson:

If the story is great, there’s lots of room for forgiveness of the little stuff.

So, TKZ family, when do you decide it’s time to launch your literary baby?

By John Gilstrap

Forgive me as I begin this week’s post with some shameless self-promotion. This is Launch Week for the latest in my Jonathan Grave thriller series (#14!). It’s called Lethal Game, and you should be able to find it at your bookseller of choice. From the Marketing Department:

Hostage rescue expert Jonathan Grave and his fellow special-ops veteran, Boxers, are hunting in Montana when shots ring out, and they realize they’ve become the prey for assassins. In the crosshairs of unseen shooters, cut off from all communication, with the wind at a blood-freezing chill, the nightmare is just beginning. Because Jonathan and Boxers aren’t the only ones under fire. Back in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, Jonathan’s Security Solutions team is fighting for their lives too. A vicious onslaught is clearing the way for a much bigger game by eliminating anyone in the way. If Jonathan and Boxers can make it out of the wilderness alive, the real war will begin.

Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

Full disclosure: I posted a piece very similar to this back in 2017, but the concept of “voice” in fiction is a subject that many new writers struggle to understand, and that is, quite frankly, difficult to teach. It’s a worthy topic to revisit occasionally.

We all learn that the elements of a story are plot, setting and character. If not taught and learned carefully, these can seem like separate elements–separate threads, if you will–but for a story to work, they can’t be treated as such. The elements of story are less a quilt than it is a tapestry, and the subtle weave that combines the elements into something beautiful is the author’s voice, as presented to the reader through the point of view characters

So, rather than thinking of those story elements as separate threads, let’s readjust the whole concept of those elements. Let’s think this way: for a story to fulfill its promise to the reader, it must chronicle compelling characters doing interesting things in interesting ways in interesting settings, all of which is presented in an engaging voice.

Maybe this analogy is clearer. When you go to buy paint at the hardware store and you ask for the color European Autumn Sunshine (or whatever), the guy in the apron starts with a white base and then adds some blue and some red and whatever other colors, and only after its shaken does the color you want appear. Those component colors are your story elements. Your narrative voice is the shaker that gives you the shade you’re looking for.

As an illustration, let’s say that your POV character, Bob, finds himself broken down in the desert. In a descriptive essay, you would write about the colors and the temperature and the wildlife as the entities that they are. But to make that setting part of the story, it’s a mistake to forget about the character. It’s a mistake to leave the action to describe the scene. So, give those elements a ride in the paint shaker:

Option One:

Bob pushed the car door open and climbed out into the heat.  Shielding his eyes, he scanned the horizon.  Rock formations glistened in shades of copper, gold and bronze.  The vegetation, while sparse, seemed to vibrate with shades of red and blue and yellow.  He was stranded in an artist’s paradise but he’d left his oils and brushes in the hotel room.

In this version, while we’re being introduced to the setting, we’re also learning something about Bob.  Perhaps he’s a romantic.  He’s certainly observant.

Now, consider this:

As Bob opened the door, super heated air hit him with what felt like a physical blow.  It took his breath away. The desiccated ground cracked under his feet as he stood, and as he scanned the scrub growth and rocky horizon, he’ slipped a few rungs down on the food chain. No wonder we tested nukes in places like this. How the hell was he going to get out of here?  

The setting in these two examples is the same.  The action is the same.  Both examples advance the story–whatever that may be–exactly the same distance.  But the voices–the critical element in pulling off third person POV–are different.  Notice that there’s no need to say that Bob #1 is a fan of the desert, or that Bob #2 is not.  That’s because the descriptions are all filtered for the reader through the character’s point of view.

In an effective story, every word of every sentence and every sentence of every paragraph should advance not just plot or character or setting, but all of these at the same time.

In my seminars, I ask students to take five or six minutes to describe the place of the class–room, building, campus, town, whatever they choose–and through the description alone, convey the character of the narrator.  It’s a worthwhile exercise, especially for writers like me, who works hard to be invisible on the page, leaving all of the storytelling to the characters.

By John Gilstrap

Well, it’s official. My deadline for submitting my manuscript for White Smoke, the third book in my Victoria Emerson thriller series was today, and for only the second time in my career, I will not be able to answer the bell. There’s never an excuse for not meeting one’s business obligations, but in my case, there were a number of contributing factors. Not complaining, just explaining.

The Pandemic

We Gilstraps lost the month of December to Covid-19. We got hit hard. I started it with my 14-day run of sickdom, but by the time it ran its course, my wife had spent 8 days in the hospital, including the span from Christmas Eve through January 3. Everyone is well now, but there’s definitely a brain fog that comes with it.

A Two-Stage Move

Last July, we sold our house in Virginia in anticipation of moving into our dream home in West Virginia. The anticipated move date was December 15 (good thing that didn’t happen!). We moved into a 1,200-square-foot apartment with the thought of staying five months. Seven months later, the new place was finally done-ish. Essentially, we moved into a working construction site on March 12. But that was nearly a month after we took possession of . . .

(Fair warning: This could be the sappiest thing I’ve ever written.)

Kimber

In her own words . . .

My name is Kimber. I am a Cavaston–a mix of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and Boston Terrier. My new parents drove all the way up to Pennsylvania to pick me up on February 15. It was cold and I was scared.

I really had two new homes. I had my apartment, and I also had my crate, which I didn’t mind until nighttime came and then I’d get lonely. John told me that I shouldn’t bark for attention because we were in an apartment with neighbors really close. For the first couple of nights, he slept on the floor next to my crate to keep me company, but then he said it was more comfortable to let me sleep with them in their bed. I liked that better. That’s where I sleep every night now. John takes up a lot of room, though.

I had to go to the doctor for a checkup during my first week at the apartment. The doctor was nice, but there’s not a lot of privacy. They stuck me with needles and squeezed me a lot, but they let me eat spray cheese out of a can while they did it, so I didn’t mind all that much.

Not everybody recognizes the origins of my name. John tells me it’s the same as one of his favorite pistols. One day, when we were visiting the new house before we moved in and the heat wasn’t turned on yet, I got cold and climbed inside of his vest. After this picture was taken, John called me his quick-draw puppy.

These days, we’re all moved into the new house and the construction is over with–well, mostly. John complains that the master bedroom closets still aren’t finished. I like living in the country more than I liked living in the apartment. Out here, I get to pee and poo outside instead of on the little pads that I never really hit. (Apparently, you’re supposed to have your back legs on the pad, too. Who knew?)

Country living can be scary. I was playing in the woods just a few days ago and I saw something that looked like it wanted to play with me, but not in a good way. It kept hissing and trying to bite me. I’m really fast, though. I barked and barked, and finally, John came out to see what was happening. The stranger hissed and tried to bite him, too. He got very stern and told me to go back into the house. A few minutes later, I heard a really loud noise. I haven’t seen the stranger since.

I think John’s really happy that I’m around the house. All day long, he sits in a chair in front of a folding thing with buttons on it, but I’m tall enough now that I can jump right up onto the buttons and help him push them. He pretends not to like me doing that, but he always ends up playing with me. Maybe not the first time I jump up, or the second, but sooner or later, he gives in and plays. He said something about not being able to say no to my face.