By John Gilstrap

This past weekend, I had the honor of judging the state finals of a national oratorical competition for high schoolers. First of all, cudos to the students–one of them only a 9th grader!–for showing the courage to step before their colleagues, families and us judges to deliver their presentations.

The format required each contestant to deliver a memorized presentation that could be no shorter than eight minutes, and not a second longer than ten minutes. To fall short or run long triggered penalty points. No applause was allowed. No notes, either.

After all of the prepared presentations were finished and scored, each contestant was allowed exactly five minutes to prepare remarks on a topic chosen out of a hat, and then deliver a speech that could be no shorter than three minutes nor longer than five minutes. Again, steep penalties awaited anyone whose remarks fell outside the timed guidelines. The assigned topics were chosen from a list of possible choices of which the contestants were all aware, all of which dealt with some element of the U.S. Constitution. So, they weren’t entirely blind-sided, but they had no idea which one they’d be hit with.

As an aside, I had good success on the debate and forensics teams when I was in high school–back when “public speaking” was the only definition I knew for the word, forensics. I cannot imagine the pressure these kids were under, and I applaud each of them for hanging in there–even during those horrific moments when they lost their place in their speech and the room full of adults bled silently for them while pretending not to notice.

As a judge, of course, I had to notice. I only regret that there was no opportunity to speak to the contestants afterward, and maybe provide some points they could work on. Instead, all they will see is their numerical scores.

We haven’t discussed public speaking much recently in the Killzone Blog . . .

Now that the world is pulling out of pandemic panic–at least my corner of it is–I think the time is near when we will once again speak to people’s eyes instead of just a webcam, I thought it might be a good time to share some of my observations on speaking essentials. Here goes:

Be prepared but don’t overcook.

Professionals–even the ones who don’t get paid–owe it to themselves and their audiences to know what they’re going to talk about before they start. If the presentation is a factual one–driven by statistics and such–it behooves the speaker to have that stuff down flat–or to have quick access to a cheat sheet.

I witnessed a couple of vapor-locks among the student contestants yesterday, and in each case, it was clear to me that the issues were not their problem, but rather that they had forgotten the order of the words they had memorized. In each case, even when they were on track, they were so intent on getting the lyrics of the speech right that they forgot that the audience was there to hear the music, too. They want to watch the speakers make their point in a passionate way, even if the words are flubbed a bit. That happens, and as soon as that spark of panic flashes, the remainder of those eight minutes last for-friggin’-ever, even for the audience.

Tell a story.

Every memorable speech has a narrative attached to it. While statistics are important, and a presentation may collapse in on itself without them, they carry much more weight when they are wrapped within a compelling story. The added advantage of having a story to tell, it’s much harder to forget where you’re going, and the specific words themselves bear less importance.

When I give a formal presentation, the only element that is truly memorized is the ending. I used to memorize the beginning, but I’ve learned that those first words offer a unique opportunity to connect with the specific audience.

Don’t pace, but use the stage.

My preference is to not speak from behind a lectern. I think it’s a barrier between me and the audience, and that is the antithesis of what I’m trying to accomplish. I also prefer a lavalier mic to have access to both hands. The competition this weekend had no lectern and no amplification. That last part was a real disservice to the kids because the acoustics of the room were far from ideal. At least they all had to face an identical challenge.

I will concede that many of the best speakers and performers ply their craft while their feet remain within a three-foot-diameter circle, and that that is probably the most effective approach. I am incapable of doing that. I need to move.

Recognizing my need to fidget, a speaking coach taught me to put the fidgeting to good use and use it as a tool to connect to more of the audience. I generally start downstage center, then move along the apron to the left and then the right and back again.

A couple of the weekend’s contestants–interestingly, the same ones who vapor-locked–paced aimlessly as they tried to squeeze their memories for the words they’d memorized. They looked as the floor, or perhaps as far as the apron of the stage, but they made no effort to make the kind of eye contact that is meaningful.

Own the stage.

In the competition, the introduction for each contestant was the same: “Ladies and gentlemen, Speaker Number One (or two . . .).” Remember, applause was forbidden. The student then entered through a door at the back of the stage and launched themselves. There was no countdown or nod. Their timer started when they uttered their first words. That’s a tough way to begin.

Think about it. When was the last time you watched anyone perform anything without at least a little crowd preparation. That biographical intro at the beginning of a conference presentation is essentially a transition that hands the stage over to the speaker, for which the speaker is rewarded with applause s/he hasn’t even earned yet.

Of the weekend’s contestants, most entered with their eyes cast downward, with every element of body language shouting how nervous they were. Some did better than others, but only one realy nailed it

A high school junior with the poise of someone far older, she entered from that back door with a bright smile. As she walked to her mark in the middle of the stage, she seemed pleased to see everyone whose gaze she met. When she hit her mark, she clasped her hands loosely at her waist, and continued to silently greet the audience as she settled herself. Before she uttered her first word, she had everyone’s attention. From that point on, she did everything right.

It wasn’t till afterward that I realized that she had assumed ownership of the stage from the first second she entered that back door. For all I knew, she could have been petrified with fear, but if she was, she flawlessly performed the first duty of public speaking: she made everyone feel comfortable.

So, TKZ family . . . Any other suggestions to share?

By John Gilstrap

“So, John, what’s new in your life since we last chatted?”

Well, let’s see. Blue Fire launched yesterday. It’s the second book in my Victoria Emerson series, and at the risk of sounding immodest, it’s really friggin’ good.

Two days after my last KZB post, we moved two moving vans worth of worldly goods from the storage bay where its been held for the past 7 months into our brand new shiny home in the woods. A week ago, we moved the worldly goods from the apartment where we’ve been squatting, into the new house as well.

And I started a new company for my writing.

Meet Kimber. She’s a Caviston–Cavalier King Charles Spaniel + Boston Terrier. A 3-pound bundle of love.

And we got a new puppy.

As you read this, we may or may not have an internet connection robust enough to support all the Zoom events attendant to the book launch, so I may be Zooming from an empty apartment.

Nowhere in here should you see even the hint of a complaint. None of these life change units are anything but terrific. In fact, they represent dreams coming true. I’m just a little surprised that they all came true in the same 10-day period. It’s a little like saddling a rocket. It’s an unforgettable experience, but you’d best hold on tight.

A Bit About Writing . . .

I’ve been doing quite a few interviews ahead of the release of Blue Fire. In many of these cases, the interviews take the form of written questions to which I write my responses. Some questions are more engaging than others, and one in particular got my attention. It was quite a long interview, and at the end, after I’d talked about my career in general and Blue Fire in particular, I read this:

“Are you proud of your accomplishment? Was it worth the effort?”

Well, of course I am, and of course it was. But the structure of the question bothered me. The interviewer put effort and accomplishment on a collision course, as if outcome is the only measure of hard work. Here’s how I responded:

I’ll answer your question in the opposite order. Was it worth the effort?

TEACHABLE MOMENT ALERT:

The effort itself is the only thing to be proud of. My books have been successful and have made me a lot of money, but that’s never been why I write. I write to entertain, whether it was my mom when I was little, or the fans who read my work now.

I’m proud of the fact that I have stared down the blinking cursor on an empty Page One over two dozen times, and I’ve stayed with each of those stories even when the plot wasn’t working and the words wouldn’t come. Folks, it never gets easier.

I’m proud that time after time, for decades, I scribbled out stories that never had a chance of publication, and never will. Without that effort—without those “wasted” hours (which were anything but wasted)—none of my work would ever have been published.

This is a frustrating endeavor. Rejection is baked deeply into the cake, and success–defined however you wish–is capricious, driven largely by factors over which individual authors have little control.

What we do have control over is our commitment to the craft. If we write solely for the purpose of getting published and making money, we’re doomed because we’re aiming at the wrong target. We write because we love writing–most of the time. We write because we want to make a point or we want to entertain. Maybe we want to entertain by making a point.

The effort is all there is. We should all be proud of it.

By John Gilstrap

The title means that I speak Spanish, but only a little. (And don’t yell at me for not knowing how to put the tilde on the N. I tried, but it doesn’t work on WordPress the way it works in Word.) Are you impressed? I didn’t think so. Did it fire you up to read more? I wager it did not. For many, all the title did was cause confusion.

Which brings used to my topic this week: How to handle foreign words in fiction. More precisely, how I handle them in mine. Spoiler: avoid them because they stop the story. Consider the following exchange:

“Alto!” the guard shouted. Stop!

“Que ocurre?” I asked. What’s wrong?

“Manos arriba!” He raised his rifle. Put your hands up.

I’d write it this way:

“Stop!” the guard shouted in Spanish.

I answered in the same language. “What’s wrong?”

He raised his rifle. “Put your hands up!”

The secret to the fictive dream that Brother Bell speaks so effectively about is dependent upon keeping the spell alive in the readers’ minds. Foreign words are dams in the flow of imaginary images.

When the story is set in a different language . . .

Several of my Jonathan Grave thrillers are set south of the U.S. border with Mexico and everyone speaks Spanish only. I’ve established from the beginning that Jonathan and Boxers both speak fluent Spanish, thanks to the work they did for Uncle Sam back when they were still part of the Unit and involved in drug interdiction. Thus, while my writing is strictly in English, I establish early on that everyone is speaking Spanish. Done and done.

If the time comes when our heroes speak to each other in English, I write, “he said in English.”

Now here’s the tricky part: Because all dialogue is presumed to be Spanish, the reader will never see the gratuitous “Gracias” in dialogue. They’ll see “Thank you.” I learned this trick from Jeffery Deaver, where, in his fabulous book Garden of Beasts, which is set in pre-war Germany, everyone addresses Hitler as My Leader. That is the English translation of Mein Fuhrer, and it would be inconsistent to switch to German for the sake of an honorific.

When the POV character does not speak the language that is spoken to him . . .

Let’s go back to the first example, where the guard is challenging our hero. If the hero doesn’t know the language of the person shouting at him (whether it’s Spanish, Arabic or Swahili), I think it’s silly, and a bit distracting, to quote words that our hero doesn’t understand. In that case, I’d lean toward this kind of narrative:

The guard yelled at me. I guess the words were Spanish, but how could I know? When he yelled again and raised his rifle, though, I knew I was in trouble. “What’s wrong?” I yelled as I raised my hands.

If you’ve hung around this blog for a while, you know that I don’t believe that there are rules for writing. It’s all about giving the reader the best ride you can. So, TKZ family, what do you think about this foreign language stuff?

By John Gilstrap

Last week, I had the honor of spending an hour or so with David Temple on his excellent podcast, The Thriller Zone. We talked about everything from the proper structure of a Martini to my approach to researching an writing my books. The timing of the interview had everything to do with the impending release of Blue Fire, the second entry in my new Victoria Emerson thriller series. For those who are unfamiliar with the series, this is a significant departure from other books I’ve written. It’s set in the aftermath of a nuclear war that lasted only eight hours and destroyed everything that we recognize as modern civilization. While hundreds of million people died in the holocaust, hundreds of millions survived. Among them is Victoria Emerson and her family. Victoria is a natural leader who unwittingly and unknowingly becomes the leader of people turn to in order to stitch society back together.

Like its predecessor in the series, Crimson Phoenix, Blue Fire imagines a world where precious few are prepared to last even a few days without supermarkets, gasoline, or electricity. As panic blooms, those who are even moderately prepared will sooner or later have to interact with those who are not. One needn’t think past the furious fight over hand sanitizer and paper products in the early days of the pandemic to imagine what would happen if life-saving medications and drinking water became scarce.

During the podcast, David Temple asked me how much my research for the series affected my own worldview on matters of survival. As we discussed this, I realized that I had stumbled upon the topic for my next Killzone post.

A Plan is the Antidote to Panic

My research didn’t change my outlook as much as it did reinforce it. I have always believed in preparedness, from filled and charged fire extinguishers and operable smoke detectors to proper flammable liquid storage to really good locks on the doors. My freezers hold weeks’ worth of food, and the emergency generator should ensure that it doesn’t crap out when I need it most. I carry a trauma kit in my car–two of them, actually, but that’s a long story–and I’m blessed to know how to use it. (Alas, if I’m the one who needs the treatment, things get a little complicated.)

Being prepared at home is easy. It just requires a little forethought and some inexpensive purchases. The real exposures we face every day are focused outside of the home. As crime soars and police departments contract, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see the potential for bad things happening to us good people.

Now, I’m not gong to suggest that everyone wander around packing heat (though I don’t think it’s a bad idea if you can do so legally), but I do recommend that everybody focus on being aware of their surroundings and to work with their loved ones on some basic universally-applicable planning. Whether it’s an active shooter or an earthquake, a plan goes a long way toward staving off panic.

Trust Your Instincts

It’s unsettling how many victims of crime and even natural disasters testify after the fact that they kinda knew something was going to happen before it did, but for any number of reasons didn’t act on their instincts. That group on the corner that makes you nervous? Avoid them. If your decision hurts their feelings, that’s their problem, not yours.

When you walk into a café or a theater or any other place that feels like a firetrap it most likely feels that way because it is, indeed, a firetrap. Turn around and go somewhere else.

When a crowd feels wrong–people are yelling at each other, or people start pushing each other–leave. Don’t check it out, don’t play peacemaker. It ain’t your problem (yet) and you don’t want that to change. Every fight you walk away from before it starts is a victory.

Know Where Two Exits Are

This one has been instinctive for me for decades. I always know the way out of a place before I settle into it. When I stay at a hotel, not only do I know where the exits are, but I know how many doorways there are between my room and it, because zero visibility is a given in a structure fire.

In a restaurant or a movie theater or other public spaces, not only do I know where the exits are, but I also have a plan for which one to use. As a general rule, the main entrance is a mistake. If a fire breaks out, or some asshat opens up with a firearm, that’s where everyone else is going to go. People get crushed in the panic, and the logjam at the door presents a bad guy with the mother of all target opportunities. Back doors can be problematic, too, because of the ridiculous security locks that don’t open right away. While I understand the desire to not have customers sneak away without paying, I’m shocked that they are legal. Even fifteen seconds is an eternity when fire is banking down on you.

Remember: In a pinch, glass breaks and drywall is frangible. “Exit” doesn’t necessarily equate to “door”.

Take The Buds Out Of Your Ears And Keep Your Head Up

Whether it’s a lion in the Serengeti or a mugger in a mall parking lot, predators like easy prey. Security experts all agree that one of the best ways to keep the focus off of you is to remain fully in the moment and aware of your surroundings. Instead of reading texts while you walk, or instead of listening to a podcast, walk with your head up and notice things. That simple action alone may be enough to make a potential attacker turn his attention to a different victim–probably one who’s reading texts while listening to a podcast.

A couple of Christmases ago, I was leaving a mall store on my way to my car. It was nighttime, and there weren’t many people around except for a young lady walking ahead of me. It was cold, and I wanted to get to my car, so I was walking faster than she and the distance between us closed. I was still probably ten yards behind her when she whirled and said quite loudly, “You’re making me nervous. Would you mind not passing me?”

A bit stunned, I saw right away that she had every reason to be unnerved. I apologized and did my best to reassure her that I was not a threat–but of course that’s exactly what a bad guy would say. I stood still and let her get a ten-second head start and then walked on more slowly. Good for her!

That scene–or one very similar to it–made into one of my books.

Better to Die On The Street Than Get Shoved Into The Car

That dismal bit of advice is exactly what I taught my son when he was little, during the stranger-danger years. Kick, scream, bite, throw elbows and tear out eyes when someone grabs you. Once someone places hands on you, they have declared their intent to commit a capital crime against you. Make them pay. The worst they can do is kill you, and that’s what they’re likely intending to do anyway.

Your single goal in that moment should be to end the fight. If you can do it by running away, that’s a win. You don’t have to render the attacker unconscious, you just have get enough distance between you to either get to safety or to make him change his mind.

Oh, Yeah. This Is A Blog About Writing . . .

I’m not sure if this really long post did anything to help people develop their writing skills, but I’m hoping there is some relevance to character development. Your fictional creations don’t have to have exceptional skills to survive in a crisis. They don’t need to have freezers full of food (though it’s not a bad idea), and they don’t have to learn ground fighting skills (again, not a bad idea). All they need to do is keep their head about them.

By John Gilstrap

I’ve heard writing instructors over the years tout the three elements of storytelling: plot, character and setting. We all know what the words mean, and we know how they apply to creating entertaining fiction, but all too often, I think that new writers think of the elements as craft silos instead of the strands of a craft cable–intertwined elements that must work together if a story is going to resonate with the reader.

I prefer to think of the elements this way: interesting characters doing interesting things in interesting ways in interesting places. (If you’d prefer, you can replace “interesting” with “compelling”.)

Character is king. A plot by itself is merely an outline. It doesn’t come to life until the reader experiences the plot through the eyes and feelings of a character they care about. Setting is merely a descriptive essay until a character interacts with it.

Let’s say, for example, a section of your story is set in a desert on a hot afternoon. An English 101 professor would likely be happy to reward an essay that presents a mental snapshot of the bright sun, colorful rocks and sparse flora. That reporting of facts might please a newspaper editor as well.

But look what happens when we inject characters into the equation:

Bob pushed the door open and climbed out into the brilliant sunshine. Shielding his eyes, he scanned the horizon.  The beauty of the place took his breath away.  Rock formations glistened in shades of copper, gold and bronze. The vegetation, while sparse, seemed to vibrate with intense reds and blues and yellows.  He was stranded in an artist’s paradise.

The description, as presented to the reader, also lets us learn about Bob’s worldview. We don’t have to say that he thinks the place is beautiful, because that’s all in the narrative voice.

Here’s another description of the exact same scene, but filtered through the worldview of a very different character:

Opening the car door was like opening a blast furnace.  Superheated air hit Danny with what felt like a physical blow.  The desiccated ground cracked under his feet as he stood.  As he took in scrub growth and the rocky horizon, he understood that he no longer rested at the top of the food chain.  Now he understood why we tested nukes in places like this.

A desert is a desert, right? From a plot perspective, each description takes the story to the exact same place, but by filtering the observations through the characters’ souls, the reader gets to know them better, and they don’t have to endure a disembodied descriptive paragraph.

That voice of the character can infect every paragraph of every scene. I like to say that I make a point as the writer for MY voice to be invisible throughout every story. Every scene is presented to the reader through the voice and view of the scene’s POV character. This is less complicated (note I didn’t say easier) in a first person POV, I think, because the narrator tells the entire story. When writing in third person, one of the critical decisions the writer needs to make for every scene is to determine to whom the scene belongs.

Consider this: Your story requires a scene where a thirteen year old boy steps out the back door of a bar at midnight and lights a cigarette. Let’s say that the kid is signaling someone with the match.

If we present the scene from the kid’s point of view, if he chokes on the smoke, we have a character detail that is different than if he were to inhale deeply and find peace. Is his heart pounding, or is he calm?

If we present the scene from the point of view of the guy being signaled to, his voice will tell us whether he likes the kid or hates him. Is the signal a happy event or a troubling event?

Perhaps we present the scene from the point of view of a passing cop. That would put the story on a different path–unless, perhaps, the cop was the one being signaled.

Assuming that any of the points of view would advance the plot to the same point, we need to decide whose POV is most compelling for the reader. Let’s say now that the scene ends with the kid getting shot. Perhaps we start the scene from the kid’s point of view, and then switch after a space break to the shooter’s POV. Or, vice versa.

These decisions make all the difference between a compelling story and a ho-hum one.

So, TKZ brain trust, what are your thoughts? Do your characters drive every beat of your story?

By John Gilstrap

Folks, I’m not going to try and bluff my way through this post. As I write this, I have what I believe is the flu. Remember the flu? That other respiratory malady that has been around for years? I did get tested for the new malady, and with negative results. So, as I enter my seventh day of fever, I find myself at a loss for writing advice that anyone could possibly find interesting.

Instead, as we here at The Killzone Blog wander up to our annual holiday hiatus, I’ll take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our subscribers and lurkers for all your support over these many years.

Next time we see each other, we’ll be in the embrace of a brand new year. I wish everyone health, prosperity and happiness.

By John Gilstrap

I think of a book as an engineered product. The premise comes to me via the magic that I don’t understand, and then it’s less about asking “what if?” then it is about “why/how would that happen?”

In Crimson Phoenix, the entire premise depended on the aftermath of a nuclear war. The reasons behind the war aren’t really important to the larger plot, but it needed to be addressed. I had to work backwards: Who fired first? Why? How do I justify my main characters surviving? All actions have consequences, so I had to select carefully to put together a plot that gave me what I needed without straining credulity.

In the case of my first novel, Nathan’s Run, I started with a theme I wanted to explore. I wanted to write a story about someone who had to make the binary choice between doing his job and doing the right thing. He couldn’t do both. Full disclosure: The premise of a kid escaping from a juvenile detention center arrived as a gift of circumstance that’s too complicated to go into here, but once it burrowed into my head, it was there to stay. I knew that the kid needed to be about 12 years old. And if the kid was an escapee, then he needed to be pursued, and it made sense that the pursuer needed to be a cop.

This is the point where creativity meets engineering:

How does a kid (I made him an orphan to make things easy on myself) escape a juvenile detention center? Answer: He steals keys from a guard.

How does he steal keys? Answer: In a fight.

How does a 12-year-old (Nathan) win a fight with an adult guard? Answer: The guard is drunk.

How does Nathan cross paths with a drunk guard? Answer: the guard is trying to kill him.

Why is the guard trying to kill him? DING DING DING: I had no idea, but I knew that I had the mystery that would drive the story and keep it from being one-note.

How does Nathan win the fight? Answer: He kills the guard. DING DING DING: Now a character we care about has crossed a line that can’t be re-crossed. The plot was cooking, even before I put a single word on the page.

At this point, in my head, Nathan’s journey is on its way. He’s got a sustainable story. I didn’t know the details yet, but enough parts were in motion to give the character a mission to survive. I could wing those sections during the Great Pretend that is writing.

Now I had other questions to address:

How would cops and the rest of society react to the news of an escaped cop-killer? Answer (in the fictional community of the book): Politicians would posture, the media would play for ratings, and the cops would double-down on the efforts to bring a cop-killer to justice. DING DING DING: Subplots defined.

When the evidence shows that Nathan is the bad guy, what will cause a grizzled police detective to soften his heart for the kid? The answer is too much of a spoiler.

Okay, now that I had defined both the the pursued and the pursuers, now what? How does a little kid hold his own against the rest of the world? First things first: Where does he find shelter? Answer: He breaks into the homes of people who have newspapers stacked in their driveway, an indication to him that they must be on vacation.

How do I keep a burgling killer sympathetic in the minds of the readers? Answer: He does the laundry.

At this point the plot was nothing but vignettes in my head. They were just disconnected scenes. This was the problem that torpedoed the three novels I wrote before Nathan’s Run. I needed a through line.

How could I make the plot bigger–something more than just a straight line chase? Answer: Media manipulation. I could have Nathan listen to a radio and hear the terrible things that people are saying about him. Callers want him to be thrown in jail forever. Others want him to be executed. [NOTE: When I wrote Nathan’s Run, OJ Simpson and the attendant media frenzy drove every news cycle, and Rush Limbaugh was just beginning to change the face of talk radio.]

I knew I had a great character opportunity here. The talk show host, Denise Carpenter (radio name: The Bitch) is stoking the fires against Nathan. We’ll learn as we go on, just how insecure and frightened she is of her own success.

How does Nathan change people’s minds? Answer: He calls the show himself, and gets to tell his side of the story.

From that point on, the story propelled itself.

I don’t want to imply that this is a simple process. Each answer to each question is a choice from a flood of discarded alternatives, and any given one of them may turn out to be a mistake for the story. In my experience, though, they rarely (never, actually) turn out to be a mistake because I make them work. You wouldn’t tear down a nearly-completed house because a couple of doors were out of plumb, right? That’s what furring strips and leveling compound are for.

How many times have we all heard that storytelling is driven by the Great Question: What if? To be sure, that’s a great starting point to define a premise, but from then on, Why and How take the lead.

So, TKZ family, do you consider yourselves to be story engineers?

By John Gilstrap

Last week, in her debut post here on TKZ, Kay DiBianca asked why we write. As I was typing my response, I realized that she’d inspired me to write a longer bit about writing and motivation.

I avoid asking myself dangerous questions.

Where do my ideas come from?

I have no idea. Where does air come from? Where does emotion come from? Love? Desire? Anger? All of those things are just there. I’m sure there are those who can reduce it all to elements of the endocrine and autonomic nervous systems, but I worry that too much knowledge would take away the specialness. I will say this, though: I am not one who is awash with novel-worthy ideas. They arrive more or less when I need them, but never when I’m trying to think of one.

Why do I write?

I have no idea. It’s certainly not because I have to, in the sense that I would explode if I didn’t. In fact, not writing is a lot like relaxation. Like a vacation. For the past 25 years, writing has been an important part of the family’s income stream, but that’s not why I write. It might be why I sign contracts to produce books, but the actual stories have to come from different folds in my brain. When the time comes, I sit down, and the imaginary friends clock in to go to work.

Is writing fiction an important job?

I have no idea. Having spent thirty-five years of my life as an emergency responder and a safety engineer, I can point to a few specific instances where people didn’t die because I was there to help them, and I can reasonably imagine that systems I engineered prevented harm from befalling people who never knew that the systems were in place. I can talk myself into believing that those things were more important than making up stories and romping with my imaginary friends.

Then, I hear from readers who credit me for making their time in a war zone more enjoyable, or for making their time at a loved one’s bedside more endurable, and I think that this storytelling gig is more than a mere treacle. Maybe entertainment in itself is as noble a profession as any other.

It doesn’t hurt if I don’t think about it.

A few years ago, I had some surgery in my cervical spine that left (very) minor nerve damage in my left thumb. Day to day, I don’t notice it, but when someone asks, or I mention the surgery, the tingling thumb is truly annoying. Along the same lines, I never learned to touch type. I don’t even use all my fingers. When I’m in the zone, I can churn out ten or twelve pages in a few hours, with surprisingly few typos. Until I realize how well I’m typing, and then the virtual strikers get all jammed up at the virtual platen.

For me, the witchcraft that is writing rarely rises to the front of my mind. When it does, I seem to screw up. I go to work, pound out words and pages, and somehow, when it’s all over, I’ve got a finished manuscript. I don’t want to think about my process because I’m not entirely sure I even have one. I worry that asking the dangerous questions might trigger intellectual constipation.

I don’t worry about why what I do works for me as much as I worry that it continues to do so.

When I need a breath, the air will be there. When it’s time to go to work, the imaginary friends will show up.

By John Gilstrap

I recently finished Lethal Prey, the latest edition in my Jonathan Grave thriller series (July, 2022), and as a subscriber to Microsoft Office 365, I noticed a function for the first time during my first-round edit of the manuscript. If you click on the Review button, and then on the Editor button, you can open up a world of useful editing functions. I am the king of typos, so it’s wonderful to be able to search by spelling errors, those underlined-in-red words that I never see because I watch my hands when I type.

You can also search by grammatical errors, and by “clarity” errors. It’s a pretty useful function, and it gives you the opportunity to add words like “gotta” and “friggin'” into the dictionary so the program learns.

This time around, though, I noticed a new function. I can search for “inclusivity errors.” This is, after all, 2021, which looks more and more like George Orwell’s version of 1984.

By way of background, I recently dealt with a Facebook PM exchange wherein a distressed reader complained that I had not included trigger warnings in by latest book. When I told her that the title Stealth Attack, combined with a cover image of a bullet and gobs of barbed wire, should have carried that water, she maintained that such was not enough.

Perhaps the gods are telling me that the time to retire is approaching.

Anyway, back to inclusivity. Here are the suggested changes, presented in the order they appear in my manuscript:

Cocky should be overconfident. I confess this one made me laugh. It had never occurred to me that the root of “cocky” was actually a root . . . Okay, did you hear the filters fall into place? My wife isn’t sitting next to me, but if she were, I’d have just been pinched.

Countrymen is bad. Compatriots is better.

Gunmen really should be shooters. Is this really a point of friction?

Alderman is exclusionary. It should be council member. Except, you know, the character is an alderman.

Middlemen is a triggering word, apparently. I should go with intermediaries or go-betweens. But for the fact that this particular bit occurs in dialogue, I don’t have a lot of argument with it. I’m just not sure it’s worth a highlight.

Manned. Well, crap. I have sinned. Staffed is the Microsoft-approved alternative. “Staff the ramparts, humans!”

Man of the house should be head of the household.

You guys should be shortened to you. But for the fact that the “you guys” are both guys, this might have some merit.

In a description of a topographical map in which I describe contour lines as indicating elevations and tiny dots indicating manmade structures, Microsoft cautions me to choose between manufactured or synthetic as the better alternative.

Bottom line: I didn’t make any of these changes. That said, I’ve mentioned before that I spend a fair amount of time mentoring new writers on Facebook’s Fiction Writing group, and people are taking this stuff seriously. “People with prostates” and “people with ovaries” are a growing trend to describe what we used to call men and women.

Here’s my question to the TKZ family who is no doubt terrified to go on the record for an issue like this: Is all of this a passing fad, or is it going to stick?

By John Gilstrap

When I was younger, I thrived on horror stories. I read every word Stephen King wrote, and I’d be first in line for the slasher movies of the ’70s and ’80s. I lost my taste for them during my fire service years, and abandoned them entirely once I started a family. I don’t know if there’s a nexus in there, but that was the timing of it.

That’s also about the time when I realized that energy lives on past the lives of some, and that those energies are drawn to me. Or, maybe it’s the other way around.

Two stories (of many I could share):

CHRIS DORST | Gazette-Mail

Ten, maybe fifteen years ago, I signed on for a midnight tour of Moundsville State Penitentiary in West Virginia. It’s supposed to be one of the most haunted spots in America (aren’t they all?), and I thought it would be a hoot. I talked Jeffery Deaver into coming along. We climbed onto a bus around 6 pm and drove off into the night.

The tour was led by a self-proclaimed ghost hunter who channeled Van Helsing, complete with the floppy fedora and flowing great coat. When we arrived at the prison grounds, Van saw ghosts everywhere, just hangin’ around the yard. “There’s one! There’s one!” Jeff and I thought it was a hoot.

Then we entered the hospital wing of the abandoned fortress. If you’ve seen One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, you know what the place looks like. There’s a common room that was overseen by a nurse’s station, beyond which there are a couple of operatories and then another common room. This repeated five or six times.

Remember, the only lighting we had were the flashlights that we brought with us, so eerie doesn’t quite touch the atmosphere at zero-dark-early. We walked into the first one or two of the operatories, looked around, checked our watches and began talking about how we might work our way back to the bus.

The mood of the evening changed when we crossed the threshold of what I believe was the third operatory. I stopped about three steps in and could not go any farther. A dark energy surrounded me–that’s the best way I can put it, a nearly electrical feeling on my skin, but more than that, I felt so terribly sad. It was the kind of sadness that comes after the loss of a loved one. It was unbearable.

I turned and walked back out into the hallway, and the feeling vanished, as surely as if a switch had been flipped. Deaver reported feeling “something” but he night have been humoring me. Everyone else seemed to be fine. I went to Van Helsing and asked if that room was particularly energized? His response: “You notice I stay in the hallway, right?”

As the tour moved on, I told Jeff that I needed to go back. I needed to know if it was some kind of trick that Van was pulling. We parted from the group and walked back. This time, when I crossed the threshold, my knees nearly buckled. The feeling was beyond awful. It felt soul stealing.

That was the only notable incident on that tour, but later research showed that that room was used to perform lobotomies back in the ’50s or ’60s.

Now, fast-forward a few years. I was in Boston, staying at one of the fancy chain hotels to attend a board of directors for the trade association I worked for. (I’m not sandbagging on the name. I really don’t remember which one, and given the story to come, it’s best not to guess and be wrong.)

About 2:30 in the morning, I was sound asleep, alone in my room, sleeping on my left side, as I am wont to do, when someone grabbed my shoulder with both hands and placed his face about an inch from mine.

I shot out of bed, ready for war. I don’t think I’ve ever been so startled, before or since. Nobody was there, but I could still feel the imprint of his hand on my shoulder. I turned on the light, and the first thing I did was check my door. Not only was it closed, it was locked on the inside.

This was not a dream. It could not have been a dream. I saw him, for God’s sake. But several thorough searches revealed that I was still alone. The most vivid goddamn dream in the history of nightmares.

It takes a while for the body to process that much adrenaline, but ultimately, I fell back to sleep. Shortly after the sun came up, I rose, showered, tied myself into a business suit and headed down to the staff breakfast room. I was the last to arrive, but that wasn’t uncommon, given my relationship with mornings. As I sat down with my banquet eggs, I relayed the story of my nightmare, and conversation stopped.

My boss paled and asked, “What room are you in?”

“Twenty-one forty-four,” I answered. (I don’t remember the real room number.)

A gasp went around the table. By boss was staying in 2244, and one of our VPs was staying in 2344. All of us had the exact same “nightmare” within minutes of each other.

Creepy, eh? Okay, there’s a coda to the story. I was on the hook for a very important, very serious presentation to a filled ballroom at 8 am the next morning. After an endless string of meetings, I returned to my room at around 11 pm. Out loud, I said, “Okay, look. I know you have a job to do, and I respect that. I respect that I am in your space, but I really need to sleep tonight, so I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.”

In general, I’m not a deep sleeper in a hotel, but that night, I slept like, well, the dead.

I haven’t studied this stuff, and I don’t pretend to understand it, but I’ve come to believe that something about what makes us human projects energy, and I think that some people are better tuned to it than others. I think I’ve posted here before that I have a very strong Spidey sense about others. My first impressions of people rarely prove themselves wrong. (Truthfully, I can’t remember a single time.)

When my son was 14 or so, he got separated from the group on a camping trip and became the focus of a National Park Service search party. (In case you’re wondering, parents are not informed of ongoing searches when they are in their early stages.) He and a buddy were lost in Washington National Forest all night. Everybody turned out fine, but he tells a great story of what it’s like being in the middle of nowhere on a moonless night as the batteries in your flashlight begin to die.

We learned about the search after he returned home a week or so later. Here’s the thing, though: On the night he was lost–at the hours he was lost–I couldn’t sleep. Instead, I got up and wrote about a young teenager lost in the woods.

Okay, now that I’ve revealed my crazy card, what say you, TKZ family? In this season of spooks and witchcraft, do you have any stories to share?