Author Archives: Terry Odell

Time Warps and the ING Construction

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Time Warps and the ING Construction
Terry Odell

UPDATE: My audiobook narrator, Steve “Captain” Marvel was unable to respond to comments on the post where I interviewed him. He has now replied to those who left comments. You can find the post here.  He’s graciously left his email address in a reply should anyone need to follow up.

 

 

Time WarpI’m on my way to Montana to attend the Authors of the Flathead Writing Conference. I did a Zoom presentation for their group at Debbie Burke’s request, and had a good time talking to people who understood the “writer’s mindset.” So much so that I registered for their conference and am looking forward to meeting Debbie in person.

I’m revisiting a topic I’ve addressed before, triggered by a recent read of a traditionally published author’s book. (Why do we feel it’s necessary to differentiate between traditionally published and indie publishers?) Anyway my guess is both the author and the editor didn’t grasp the fine points of the “ing” construction, and this book had countless misusages of the ‘simultaneous action’ that goes along with those “ing” clauses, resulting in numerous time warps.

You don’t have to read science fiction to run into a time warp. At the very first writer’s conference I attended, an agent said she would reject a query with more than 1 sentence beginning with the “ing” construction. Her explanation—it’s too easy to make mistakes with that sentence structure.

But is it wrong? No. You have to be careful, and you have to pay attention. There are different reasons to avoid, or minimize use of those pesky “ing” words.

First, the inadvertent time warp.

Unlocking the door, Fred dropped the mail on the table and poured himself a drink. Using that “ing” phrase shows simultaneous action (or it’s supposed to), and Fred couldn’t have done all that while he was unlocking the door. Time warp!
Better to write After unlocking the door, Fred dropped the mail on the table, then went to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a drink. Time moves forward in that one.

What’s wrong with these sentences?
“Running across the clearing, John rushed into the tent.”
“Opening the door, Mary tripped down the stairs.”

John can’t be getting into the tent while he’s running across the clearing. And Mary needs to open the door before she goes downstairs.

Next, the misplaced modifier

Time Warp
In my first critique group, I held the prize for creating an answering machine that gave neck massages. In my draft of Finding Sarah, I’d written, “Rubbing her neck, the blinking red light on the answering machine caught Sarah’s eye.” Ooops. (But I would like a machine with that function!)

Make sure the noun or pronoun comes immediately after the descriptive phrase. Thus, the above example could be “Rubbing her neck, Sarah noticed the blinking red light on the answering machine.”If your “ing” verb follows “was”, take another look. “John was running across the clearing” isn’t a strong as “John ran across the clearing.” Of course, you’ll want to use stronger verbs, such as raced, sped, or barreled, but the idea is the same.

When you’re looking over your manuscript, you might want to flag words ending in “ing” and take another look to be sure you haven’t made any of these basic errors.
Here’s a quick way to spot them in Word. Click the image to enlarge.
Time WarpIn your document, click the drop down arrow by “Find” then select “Advanced Find.”
Click “More” and then check the “Use Wildcard” Box. Type ing into the find field, then click the “Special” Option, and “End of Word.” This will add a > character. You can use the Reading Highlight to see all of them, and the “Find Next” to deal with them one at a time. You’ll get more than just verbs ending in ing, but it’s still a quick way to spot them. The hard part is determining whether you’ve got a problem!

What grammar “conventions” do you have trouble with? Which bother you when reading?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

How Right Do Your Characters Have to Be?

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How Right Do Your Characters Have to Be?
Or, who are you going to upset or offend with this book?
Terry Odell

Clichés are to be avoided, they tell us. So are stereotypes. (Still haven’t figured out who “they” is, but my grandfather apparently knew them well, as they were always making mistakes he’d get blamed for.)

But a cliché can provide a shortcut to understanding or visualizing a scene, and a stereotype might offer a shortcut to getting a handle on a character. Nothing is all good or all bad.

Publishers are looking for diversity these days. I’m going out on a limb here and saying very few of us belong to more than a small number of different ‘groups.’ Gender, ethnicity, religion, age. If we want diversity in our books, we’re going to be writing about people different from ourselves.

How do we get it “right?” Is there even a “right?” Can we say all golden retrievers are happy, people-loving dogs? Are all Staffordshire terriers dangerous? Same goes for people. Yet we categorize and generalize.

Years and years ago, my mom became good friends with our next-door neighbor. The two of them went to the beach one day, and the neighbor found out my mom was Jewish. She was surprised—maybe even shocked. Her words: “I’d never have thought you were Jewish. You’re so nice.” The neighbor wasn’t from Los Angeles, where we lived, and her exposure to diversity was obviously limited. Her perceptions were ruled by her experience. I still wonder if she and my mom would have been friends had the neighbor known at their first meeting that my mom was Jewish.

In my Mapleton books, Sam and Rose Kretzer are Jewish, and I’m sure many people think some of their behaviors are wrong. They’re bringing their own perceptions and experiences, and making generalizations. Rose is a conglomerate of many of my relatives. Trying to get a Jewish character right is next to impossible, one simple reason being there are so many different sects or denominations, and there’s diversity within each.

Today, there are warnings about getting diverse characters right to the point that some authors are hiring sensitivity readers, or at least running pertinent sections by members of whatever group their character belongs to. I have a trans character in one of my Mapleton books, and I approached a trans author to make sure I got it right. Was it right for everyone? I don’t know. I haven’t seen any negative comments, so maybe I did. Also, the character was a minor one, and didn’t have a lot of page time.

I do know that after my first few books, which were (and still are because I’m not updating them) populated predominantly by white cis characters, I began including more diversity. Would I ever try a protagonist who’s substantially different from me? Other than writing males, I don’t think so. There’s too much to get wrong, and too many people who are offended by mistakes.

Something as simple as age is another thing to try to get right (which is what sparked the idea for this post).

I get the New York Times’ daily digest in my email, and a headline saying It’s Fun to Be Alive’: 13 Older Photographers Show Us Their Work — and Themselves piqued my interest, so I opened it. Older, eh? I’m older than most of them. I’m not pretending to be any age other than mine, but it’s being put into a box that’s the problem.

A while back, I agreed to read a chapter that was giving an author acquaintance trouble. He’d included a secondary character who I’m sure was meant to be a mood-lightener. Stereotypical elderly woman. Hairnet, orthopedic shoes, walking stick, thick glasses—the works. Her age? 65. I came down fairly hard on the author for that one. I’m ten-plus years older than that character, and that kind of a stereotype bugs the heck out of me.

That, for me, is what we as authors need to consider when we’re creating and describing any character, be it their age, gender, ethnicity, religion, dietary habits—the list is endless. And these days, people are eager to jump down your throat if your description deviates in the slightest from their perception.

What about you, TKZers? How do you get things right for your characters? Or don’t you care how readers will perceive them because you’ll never please everyone?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Bulwer Lytton 2023

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Bulwer Lytton 2023
Terry Odell

A break for some fun. Here are some of the winners of the 2023 Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest. If you’re unfamiliar with the contest, here’s the skinny from the website:

“Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. The whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It was a dark and stormy night.”

The contest receives thousands of entries each year, and every summer our Panel of Undistinguished Judges convenes to select winners and dishonorable mentions for such categories as Purpose Prose and Vile Puns.”

I’m sharing only one category today, Crime and Detective.

Winner

The tall, slender seductress had Tom Pauley wrapped around her little finger, and she had James McGee hanging from a necklace, but the police were still waiting for the lab results to determine whose body parts she had used to make her earrings and that stunning tennis bracelet.  Julian Calvin, Atlanta, GA

Dishonorable Mentions

Elsie was seated by the window overlooking the deserted boardwalk (the crime scene in this saga) holding the hand of her beloved Jeremy (the soon-to-be unwitting accomplice), when George (who you will soon learn is the murderer), suddenly opened the door to their cozy loft holding a cup of coffee and said, “This cup is for you, Elsie” —and this cup would of course be her last . . . but you do not know any of this yet. Frederick Ankowski, Santa Monica, CA

John was a police officer, and Mary was a serial killer, and just like that you think you know how that’s going to end, don’t you; well, John lived in New York and Mary lived in London, and they were both moderately afraid of airplanes, so I bet you’re not feeling like the brightest crayon in the box right now. Gloria Glau Burkstaller, Rome, Italy

Chief Homicide Inspector Gerald “the Bloodhound” McLean regarded the list of victims —a corporate litigator, an investment banker, a hedge-fund founder, and a Tony-winning playwright —and wondered what he could make of their only identifiable connection:  membership in the long-dispersed punk rock band John Vomit and the Leather Scabs, rare copies of whose only record, “Picked Off the Litter,” now traded hands for a thousand bucks a pop on eBay. G. Andrew Lundberg, Los Angeles, CA

Officer Meyer Briggs burst into the bedroom and saw Professor Rorschach standing over the body of his mother, bloody knife in hand, “I swear it’s not what it looks like!” Rorschach exclaimed. Justin C. McCarthy, Cranston, RI

She waltzed into the place like a spring thaw, all flushed and bursting with promises of warm and cloying things to come but I stopped her in her tracks with a dream-grounding “This is a detective agency sweetcakes, not a dance studio.” Larry Nixon, Qualicum Beach, Canada

Under the skewering stare of DI Jack ‘Robin’ Redbreast, the culprit’s wits scattered like a patina of rain-startled spiders, leaving his fraught denials as nakedly unconvincing as Mick Jagger in a movie role.  Tom Prentice, Dublin, Ireland

The second she stepped into my office I knew she was Trubble, Sarah Trubble, she was wearing a name tag and I’m a detective. Phil Saunders, Barrie, Canada

You can find all of the categories and winners here.  Enjoy! Take a minute or two to browse the site and come back and share a favorite.

Have you ever entered? Would you like to?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

How Are They Talking?

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How Are They Talking?
Terry Odell

This topic has come up here at TKZ before, but I recently read a book by a best-selling author, traditionally published, that had my teeth on edge, so I’m revisiting it.

Dialogue. Characters are talking. It’s up to the author to make sure the reader knows who it is uttering those gems. The terms I’ve learned are “tags” for things like he said, she asked, etc., and identify the speaker.

“I’m hungry,” Gordon said. “What’s for lunch?” she asked.

Note: It’s also considered acceptable to use “said” for questions.

Beats show a character’s action. Gordon opened the refrigerator. “I’m hungry.”

Note: It’s better to use either a tag or a beat, not both for the same dialogue line.

What was my problem with the book I read? The author (or her editor) seemed reluctant to use the word “said.” Reluctant? It was as if she thought a rattlesnake would strike every time she did, and she used more “creative” words instead.

While there’s nothing creative about said, it has the bonus of being invisible. I was reading novel by the late Robert B. Parker when I was a beginning writer, and I stopped to evaluate his dialogue. The man tagged almost every single line of dialogue with “said” and yet I realized I’d read three full pages and hadn’t noticed a single one.

What do these creative tags do for the reader? For this reader, they jump off the page. Instead of simply letting me know who’s saying the line, they’re making me stop and think. They’re distracting. After a few chapters they become downright annoying.

What word choices did this author use? Let me count the tags.

corrected, allowed, accused, argued, tossed back, explained, grumbled, muttered, murmured, suggested, noted, offered (that was a favorite), interjected, reminded (him), insisted, implored, urged, warned, added, demanded, agreed, promised, explained, tacked on, allowed, pressed, put in, pointed out, challenged, ordered, urged, agreed.

And this was in the first 5 chapters, after which I stopped tracking them. I counted a whopping 8 uses of said in these chapters, and one of asked. Most of the “said” uses were connected with action beats, as in “She said as she poured the coffee.” Both aren’t needed for the same line.

Although this was a good story, the read was an effort for me as the creative tag words made me stop and think about them. I’d rather be thinking about the story.

What about you, TKZers? Do you prefer the invisible said or do you enjoy the creative alternatives? Why?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Time to Have a Little Fun

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Time to Have a Little Fun
Terry Odell

It’s summer. People are on vacation. Escaping the heat. Or trying to. As a diversion, I thought we might take a few minutes to have a little fun.

I confess that I’ve had some fun with the–ahem– “Microsoft” callers because they’re live people.  When they tell me my computer has notified them it’s been compromised, I ask them which computer they’re talking about.  I say I have five. Obviously, if my computer told them it was infected, they have to know which one it is, right? Apparently not. I’ve also lied and told them none of my computers are running Windows.

 

Emails are a different game. I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets the occasional spam that sneaks past filters. Akismet, which I use on my website, is great. My business email account has very good filters, too.

One of my former personal email accounts let a lot of spam through. Their company philosophy was that deleting spam was comparable to censorship, although they sent most of it to a junk folder. Every now and then, I’d skim through the messages. First, of course, to make sure nothing legitimate had been sent there. Second, because the messages were often sources of amusement, which I’d share to my Facebook page.

One thing we’re told is never to respond to these messages. All that does is prove your email address is valid and opens you up for more spam.

But what if we could? Haven’t you been tempted? How many times has my nonexistent McAfee subscription run out? How many DeWalt power tools have I won? (Although now they seem to be Stanley.)

Have you had the “I’ve accessed your computer and have video proof that you’re watching/participating in porn. Pay me the equivalent of $X in bitcoin by such and such a date/time, or I’ll release them for the world to see” message? I have. More than once.

My “Oh, if only I dared” response would be:

“OMG, I thought I’d lost those videos. Thank you SO much for finding them! PLEASE send them to me ASAP!”

(It’s important to use lots of exclamation points and caps!)

You’re creative people. Your turn to play.

How would you answer if you dared?

Feel free to share your own “pet spam” messages and replies.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Using Books2Read as a Marketing Tool

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Using Books2Read as a Marketing Tool
Terry Odell

Marketing. I think most of us dread it. Unless you’re in the high echelons of traditional publishing, you’re going to have to do at least some of it yourself. It’s way way way down on my “things I like to do” list, but I’ve found a few things that make the chore less daunting.

Note: this is what I’ve found effective for me. YMMV.

Our goal, if we’re trying to sell books, is to get people to buy them, and for that, they have to go where the books are sold. I prefer to have my eggs in more than one basket, so I sell wide to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Nook, Kobo, Apple, and Smashwords. To be frank, I’m stubborn and I’m irked to no end when the only link available sends me to Amazon. I buy my books from Barnes & Noble.

For those of us who put our work out there in several formats: digital, paperback, and hardcover, sending prospective readers to the right place can be a challenge.   And then there’s audio, which adds even more sales channels to the mix. If you’re posting on social media and you want to direct readers to your books, how many links to you have to include? It can be a lot.

That’s a lot of places to have to point people to, so I’ve been using Books2Read to help make things a little easier. It’s not only for indies. Reavis Wortham’s publisher used it to promote one of his books just last week. (Effectively, as I bought it.)

Books2Read, which is connected to Draft2Digital, offers a simplified approach. Their Universal Book Links (UBLs)  allow you to use a single link for each of your books. Clicking the link sends readers to a book page with the option to choose the format they prefer and the sales channel from one page. It requires a second click, but readers can choose a default store and go right there, eliminating that step.

You can even create a custom name for your UBL, which makes it easier to remember if you’re adding your links to marketing materials. They all start with the expected https://books2read.com, but you can extend that. Example: my newest release, Deadly Relations, can be found at https://books2read.com/DeadlyRelations. If you follow that link, you can see what these book pages offer (and it saves me from having to create a screenshot to post here).

This second click also has the added bonus of letting you use these links in your “More by the Author” pages. Amazon kicks out links to stores other than its own, but Books2Read isn’t a store link, so you don’t have to create different pages for different channels. (And if you use Draft2Digital for formatting, they’ll do all that for you. You don’t have to sell via D2D if you don’t want to. They’re fine with letting you upload your files, and they’ll covert it to epub which you can then upload anywhere else you want—including Amazon.)

You can have an author page at Books2Read which organizes your books by series (here’s mine), but sometimes you want to call attention to one series, which is where this few minutes of extra effort comes into play. This can be particularly helpful if you write more than one series or books in more than one genre.

Recently, I stumbled across another tool Books2Read offers. Let’s say you’ve written 25 books. That’s a lot of links, even for “one stop shopping.” Now, you can create a separate link for each of your series. B2R calls these “Reading Lists” and when I first saw it, I didn’t pay much attention, because I wasn’t interested in creating lists of books I’d recommend to others, which is how my brain interpreted Reading Lists. However, it’s a tool to create a carousel of your own series’ books. It takes a couple of minutes to set one up, even for a non-techie like me. B2R has already done the heavy lifting.

If you go to your B2R dashboard, there’s a dropdown for “Link Tools” in the upper right that includes “Reading List”. (Click the images to enlarge)

Click on it, and you’ll get to the series page Books2Read’s bots have already created.

From there, it’s a matter of filling in some blanks and adding any books they haven’t put into the series yet. You’ll note you can give a custom name to these URLs, too.(Note: In this screen, click on Advanced Options and check the box at the bottom to make your link public, assuming you want to be able to send people  there.)

If I’m promoting my Mapleton series, for example it’s so much easier to send readers here rather than separate links for each book, each format, each sales channel.

You’re free to create your own list carousels. Heck, if you wanted to, you could create one based on cover color. Or books with animals. Or books set in the same place. That might be going a bit far, but you’re in charge.

And, yes, if you’re doing things right, first and foremost, all this information should be available on your website. But sometimes, these shortcuts are helpful to readers, and that’s who we’re here for, right?

Any marketing tips to share, TKZers?

Readers, do you like being able to see books, series, etc., in one place? Have you ever visited Books2Read?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Octopuses and Accuracy

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Octopuses and Accuracy
Terry Odell

First, for those of you who are interested in my recaps of my recent trip to Norway, the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Svalbard and more, I’ve been posting them on my personal blog, Terry’s Place. I’ve also been working on my gallery. Lastly, I did an interview about expedition cruising with the travel agency that arranged our trip. You can watch the replay here. The cruise part starts about 5 minutes in.

Next, the new computer setup went relatively smoothly. Wiping the old computer was more troublesome, but as of now, I consider myself back in business.

Okay, enough personal stuff. Today’s TKZ topic: Accuracy. I’m not talking about the stretches of truth we often make for the sake of the story. Readers suspend disbelief to an extent when they read fiction, but we don’t want to make glaring errors. Their willingness to suspend goes only so far.

I belong to a local book club, and most of the time the books they choose aren’t my standard reading fare, but I’m willing to read and attend meetings when I can. Yes, there is wine involved.

A recent book choice was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I usually get my book club books from the library, and this one arrived too late to read in time for the meeting, so I missed the discussion. I’m not doing a book review here. It’s a popular book, and I found it engaging enough. It was written in present tense, which I don’t care for. It was on the predictable side, but the main protagonist—the human one, Tova—was interesting, and easy to care about. I was happy to keep reading to see how the author brought everything together. The non-human POV character was a Giant Pacific Octopus, Marcellus, captive in a small town aquarium. The two of them, as expected, became “friends.”

As the title indicates, Marcellus was a very intelligent octopus. A bit more intelligent than science studies would indicate, but I was willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of the story. The author took behaviors that have been observed in some octopuses and kicked them up a notch. Or three.

What I couldn’t get past, and the reason for this post today, was that Marcellus was described as having one eye. Octopuses have two eyes. And yes, I looked it up to make sure I hadn’t missed out on a piece of octopus anatomy. Now, this species is very large, and it’s possible that Tova would see only one at a time. Or maybe he’d been injured prior to his rescue. I guess the author thought a rescue octopus would be better than having the animal captured for the sake of a unique display exhibit, but that’s not the issue. Nowhere in the book was there an explanation of the single eye. So every time there was a reference to his “eye” I was yanked—forcibly—out of the story.

Stretching the behaviors I could buy, but why mess with reality? All it would have taken would have been a credible reason for only one eye. It was obvious the author had done her homework based on the behaviors she described, but it’s not like she would have missed how many eyes the creatures have. They have nine brains and three hearts, which she got right, but they have two eyes. Did he always have his head turned so only one was visible? Why make it seem that he has only one?

At the end of the book, we see a new statue outside the aquarium, and the author points out the two eyes on the statue. But nothing I saw—and nothing in any of the reviews I skimmed through—seemed to care that Marcellus wasn’t described anatomically correctly. I asked my book club members, and none of them remembered anything about the eye/eyes jumping out at them, so maybe it’s just me. One said she noticed it, but shrugged it off and kept reading. It bothered me enough to pose the question to you.

When facts are presented, and you know they’re wrong—perhaps the old safety on the Glock mistake, or smelling cordite—what’s your take? I’m not talking about a one-off mention. The mention of Marcellus staring at her with his one eye is repeated numerous times in the book.

Or, has someone here read the book and can tell me there was a mention of it, slipped in somewhere and I missed it? Maybe at the bottom of page 127 when I sneezed?

Have you ever been dinged for something a reader said was wrong when you had it right?

Have you been pulled out of a story due to inaccuracies? How glaring do they have to be before you put down the book?

*Note: The word octopus comes from the Greek, not the Latin, so the plural is octopuses, not octopi. For my science nerd friends, you can learn more about the Giant Pacific Octopus here.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Travel as Writing Fodder

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Travel as Writing Fodder
Terry Odell

"Salome" Bergen, Norway.

“Salome” Bergen, Norway.

I’m back, and after a prolonged bout of de-jet-lagging, almost functioning again. Before I left, I made the conscious decision that this trip was a vacation. I had no plans to set a book where we traveled. Since I’m an indie author and I haven’t established a due date for the current WIP with my editor, I was free to leave the writing behind.

A week after arriving home, I still hadn’t opened the WIP. My critique partners had sent their feedback on everything I’d written. Their messages sat, unopened, in an email folder. Still no guilt.

Even if I was on vacation, the writer brain never really shut down. I’m willing to predict some of my observations and experiences will show up in a book eventually. Here are a few.

On approach

The Travel Process
Our trip began with a flight to Bergen, Norway. Lacking the Enterprise’s transporter, it was Denver to Frankfurt, then to Oslo, then to Bergen. Note to travelers: just because your ticket shows Bergen as your final destination, and because the luggage tags say that’s where it’s going, if you’re going through Norway, it’s not that easy. Something about not being part of the EU, I think, but your baggage is offloaded in Oslo, and you have wait to reclaim it, recheck it, go through passport control and security. And Norway wants everything scanned. We put our hand luggage through the same way we had in Denver, but here they wanted laptops, tablets, cameras, and even one of the Hubster’s lenses. Did they ask for all of these at once? No. They asked about laptops, etc., so we took out our iPads and they sent them back through. Then they asked if we had cameras, and we repeated the process.

We had 90 minutes between flights, and that wasn’t nearly enough given the size of the airport and how many different “stations” we had to find, so we had to get booked on the next flight (fortunately, there are frequent ones), and then figure out how to notify the tour company, which would be meeting our original flight, that we would be late. Helps if you’ve used a travel agent. Helps even more if said agent is your son.

Anyone seeing any plot complications, tension, conflict here?

Communication
Given Bergen is a lot closer to Europe than the US, most of the passengers were from what we’d consider “somewhere else.” I was impressed and embarrassed at how almost everyone could manage to communicate in English. We Americans expect to be understood (and if we’re not, we speak louder), but it’s an arrogant assumption. I made the effort to use my VERY rudimentary German where appropriate. The people I spoke with were good-natured about it and helped me out, but my mastery of their language didn’t come close to their mastery of mine, and they tended to answer me in English. We spent some time with a couple from the Netherlands, and they had little trouble switching from English to German to Dutch.

And, speaking of languages, the primary language on the trip was English, but they repeated all announcements in German and French as well. They offered listening devices to anyone requesting them, and they had staff translating all the lectures as they were presented, which were transmitted to the deivces. What if one of the translators was unreliable? Sneaking coded information to some passengers?

Well, How About Them Apples?
In books, coincidences have to be dealt with very carefully. When we were seated at dinner the first night, the couple next to us spoke “American” and, of course, we asked where they were from. “Colorado.” Could I use that in a book? I’m not sure it would be believable, but they were from the Denver area, so about 2 hours from where I live.

Suckling pig, carving station MS Spitsbergen

Food
Food, of course, has infinite possibilities. Our ship served all meals buffet style, and there was an abundance of choices. How would characters react to seeing a suckling pig at the carving station? Or five varieties of herring? Three flavors of ice cream (plus toppings, of course).

People
Then there are the characters. There’s the one who makes sure she’s right next to the guide on tours, asking constant questions designed to show off her knowledge of any subject imaginable rather than care what the guide’s answers were. Or the two young couples on a ship filled with predominantly “mature” individuals.

Okay, I’ve droned on long enough. And, as a thank you for reading this far, here are a few pictures. I’ll have more as I work through them, but it’s been slow going. There have been computer issues, which I’m “solving” by getting a new PC, but that’s another whole set of complications.

If there’s interest in me sharing trip details, since our stops were at places far from what most of us probably think of as cruise destinations. Have you ever been to Lerwick, Elduvik, Akureyri, Tórshavn, or Bakkagerði?. Have you ever heard of them? Could you find them on a map? I couldn’t have. Let me know and I’ll follow up with a more “travelogue” style post or two.

Storefronts, Bergen, Norway

Bergen, Norway, waterfront

Signpost, top of Mount Fløyen, Bergen, Norway

Bakkagerði street

Puffin, Iceland

Would you feel guilty taking a pure vacation, TKZers? Any questions about the trip?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Television Tropes

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Television Tropes
Terry Odell

Writing for Television

Image by Bokskapet from Pixabay

Since I’m still away, I thought I’d offer some smiles. I first posted this almost 2 years ago, but I think it’s still relevant.

Are you a fan of television mystery shows? Ever thought of writing one? Or any kind of television show? If so, here are some tips to keep in mind.

  1. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises wearing their most revealing underwear.
  2. If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick’s Day parade – at any time of year.
  3. It’s easy for anyone to land a plane, providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down
  4. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off, even while SCUBA diving.
  5. The ventilation system of any building is a perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building without difficulty.
  6. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
  7. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds
  8. When paying for a taxi, never look at your wallet as you take out a bill—just grab one at random. It will always be the correct fare.
  9. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
  10. Cars and trucks that crash will almost always burst into flames.
  11. A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.
  12. Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.
  13. All single women have a cat.
  14. One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at one.
  15. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts. Your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one, by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessor.
  16. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your room will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish
  17. Dogs always know who’s bad and will naturally bark at them.
  18. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gases, lasers, and man eating sharks that will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
  19. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
  20. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

Okay, tongue was inserted firmly in cheek. But sometimes, you just want to sit back and have some fun.

Any favorites among these? Any to add?

Next time, I hope to have tales from the far north to share.

And a little BSP. I’m going to be teaching some writing craft classes via Zoom, hosted by my editor.
12 Steps to Intimacy on June 17th

Creating Armchair Adventures on July 15th

Into the Heads of Your Characters, on July 29th.

The links will provide more details.

Please spread the word. Friends, writing groups, libraries … wherever you think there might be people interested in learning more about the craft.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Tips for Distant Settings Redux

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Tips for Distant Settings Redux
Terry Odell

Map showing a Norway Cruise RouteIf all goes as planned this time, when you’re reading this, I should be somewhere in the skies between Frankfurt and Oslo. Or Bergen, where our cruise begins. Therefore, I won’t be able to respond to comments, but I trust you’ll play nice and keep things going.

One of my retirement goals is to travel, and even though Antarctica didn’t (and probably never will) happen, I’ve been fortunate enough to see parts of the world I’d never thought I’d be visiting. A lot of this is because our son is a photographer and his “specialty” is leading photo safaris all over the world. This current trip is to Norway and beyond. I’m revisiting a post I did some time ago, with my tips for writing about distant settings, based on a trip to the British Isles.

When the Hubster and I decided to celebrate our 50th anniversary with a trip to the British Isles, of course I had “book” in the back of my mind. However, an international setting wouldn’t have worked with any of my existing series, and since I never plot in advance, I decided to enjoy our tour, taking pictures and notes of what we were seeing and doing and just wait and see what might bubble to the surface.

When we got home, I decided I’d write a short and sweet romance. Write it quickly, understanding that it’s not my true “brand” but that I had to publish something to justify writing off at least part of the trip.

Well, I soon discovered I’m not a short and sweet romance author, and mystery elements insisted on working their way into the story. What I ended up with is Heather’s Chase: an International Mystery Romance which is closer to my brand, although it’s a stand alone and still a bit of a one off. Nevertheless, it was an educational experience. Since then, I had another major trip, this one to Croatia, which led to the book Cruising Undercover.

Things I’ve learned about setting a book in real places, especially distant ones.

Less is more. My first drafts went into phenomenal detail about absolutely everything. Airports. Train stations. Hotels. Food. All the places we stopped, what we saw on the drives. Given we were traveling for well over two weeks, that would have been a LONG book. A sense of place is good. Overwhelming readers is not. I had to keep reminding myself to make sure everything related to the plot and characters. I wasn’t writing a travelogue.

Stay true to time. Readers familiar with the area will know that you can’t get from A to B in two hours, or that when you’ve had your characters on their bus for five hours, it’s really a twenty-minute drive.

You’ll always miss something. Unless you’ve got your plot mapped out before your trip, once  you start writing, you’ll have a scene to write and—lo and behold—you missed taking a picture, or didn’t take the right notes. I spent a LOT of time on the internet rechecking facts, looking at maps, and refamiliarizing myself with some of the attractions we visited. If I couldn’t find exactly what I needed, I reminded myself I was writing fiction—another reason not to name real places. On the occasions where my characters were eating in real, named places, I made sure I had pictures and menus. Same for attractions.

Don’t make up real stuff. One of the reasons I made this book a stand alone was because our trip didn’t include visits to police departments (although I snapped a picture of a vehicle in Ireland, “just in case”). Also, it would be unrealistic for my American characters to have any access to law enforcement in several different countries.

Be nice. I also opted not to name the specific hotels or restaurants (mostly). For one thing, it gave me the freedom to change the décor, layout, amenities, or the restaurant menus. And, if something “bad” happened, I wasn’t going to incur the wrath of those establishments.

It’s about flavor. Although my characters didn’t visit Northern Ireland, I did include a character from the same town we’d visited when we stayed with my daughter. I made sure she vetted all his dialogue. For example, people in Northern Ireland use the word “wee” as a meaningless adjective. I was asked for my wee credit card, given a wee receipt, offered a wee bag for my purchases. My British critique partner was very helpful with vocabulary as well.

All in all, I had a great time ‘revisiting’ my trip to the British Isles while I was writing the book, and being able to incorporate my experiences into Heather’s Chase. I did a little better with the Croatia trip, although there were lapses in my note-taking. At least, since it was a photography trip, I had plenty of pictures to nudge my memories.

Any tips to share, TKZers?

And a little BSP. I’m going to be teaching some writing craft classes via Zoom, hosted by my editor.
12 Steps to Intimacy on June 17th

Creating Armchair Adventures on July 15th

Into the Heads of Your Characters, on July 29th.

The links will provide more details.

Please spread the word. Friends, writing groups, libraries … wherever you think there might be people interested in learning more about the craft.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”