Category Archives: advice for fiction writers

How to Drill Inside Your Villain’s Head

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by Debbie Burke

Today’s post is an excerpt from my new book, The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.  

While a power drill is a gruesome staple in horror and slasher films, we’re going to take a less gory, more surgical approach to drilling inside your villain’s head.

Let’s assume most readers of The Kill Zone are not kidnappers, rapists, or murderers. That makes it difficult for us to imagine the mindset of characters who commit heinous crimes. But to write convincing villains, authors need to delve into dark places of the soul.

Here are several questions to help channel your inner villain.

Warning: don’t write down your answers. Keep them inside your head. You don’t want to incriminate yourself, right?

§  Have you ever wanted something or someone so much you didn’t care about the consequences to have it/them?

§  Have you ever done something you knew was wrong, but you wanted to please, impress, or stay connected to someone else?

§  Have you ever lied or covered up the truth to protect someone else who acted immorally or illegally?

§  Has someone ever terribly harmed you or a loved one?

§  If you could take revenge against the person who harmed you without going to prison, would you be tempted?

A defense attorney friend observed that she often related to her clients’ destructive impulses. She wondered if the difference between regular people and criminals is lack of impulse control. I think she’s right. Most people might want to act in illegal, antisocial ways but they resist the temptation.

As you create a villain, dig deep into your memory. Tap into the powerful emotions you felt when you were in the situations described above.

§  Fear?

§  Panic?

§  Rage?

§  Frustration?

§  Helplessness?

§  Not caring about the consequences?

§  What else?

Why does a particular villain interest you?

Do they remind you of a person in your past? A rotten boss? A horrible ex? A family member who abused you?

What emotions does that person evoke in you?

§  Fear;

§  Helplessness;

§  Powerlessness;

§  Resentment;

§  Jealousy;

§  Hatred;

§  Love.

Yes, love. This often occurs in abusive domestic relationships. A beaten child can love and hate the parent at the same time. A battered spouse can simultaneously love and hate the vicious mate pummeling them.

Love is a complicated emotion with many layers. Exploring those complexities in characters draws the reader in closer to your story. It becomes real because they identify with the struggle.

~~~

Have you ever instantly disliked a person? Chances are good that person reminds you of someone in your past who negatively affected you. Tap into that association to describe your villain.

Here’s another trick to develop villains:

Write down their five worst qualities. What do they think, say, or do that makes you absolutely loathe them? Here are a few examples to get started but expand on these for your character.

§  Selfish;

§  Intolerant;

§  Cruel;

§  Vicious;

§  Conniving.

Now search your memory for times that you yourself displayed any of those five worst qualities, even for a fleeting second.

§  Did you ever say or do something hurtful or cruel to someone that didn’t deserve your wrath?

§  What stopped you from continuing that negative behavior?

Next, write down the villain’s five best qualities. Here are a few starter suggestions but, as above, list additional items to fit your character.

§  Intelligence;

§  Persistence;

§  Drive;

§  Resilience in the face of setbacks;

§  Adaptability to changing circumstances;

Wait a second. Don’t those qualities sound heroic? Yes.

To be a worthy opponent for your hero, the villain should possess positive traits that parallel your hero’s.

Except in the villain, those qualities become twisted. They use their strengths to do wrong.

List specific ways that your villain’s actions harm others.

§  Write down examples of malicious or cruel behavior toward a neighbor, a child, a pet.

§  Write down three examples of malicious acts to strangers;

§  Write down three reasons they use to justify their acts.

~~~

In The Writer’s Journey, Christopher Vogler discusses:

“Facing the Shadow,” an encounter between the hero and “a deadly enemy villain, antagonist, opponent…An idea that comes close to encompassing all these possibilities is the archetype of the Shadow. A villain may be an external character, but in a deeper sense what all these words stand for is the negative possibilities of the hero himself. In other words, the hero’s greatest opponent is his own Shadow.”

 

“There but for the grace of God go I.” Whether or not one believes in higher powers, most people understand the concept. If not for chance, luck, fate, or divine intervention, we could easily be an unfortunate person trapped in tragic circumstances.

In Sympathy for the Devil, the 1968 classic Rolling Stones song, Lucifer boasts of the evil he’s wreaked through history. Yet he also claims saints and sinners are one and the same.

Most people have both good and evil inside their hearts and minds, and are capable of either. Some give into destructive impulses and act immorally or illegally. Others control the impulses and remain inside the bounds of society and law.

Yet, under the right circumstances, a noble, moral person may commit terrible atrocities, while a vicious, corrupt person may show kindness.

When you need inspiration for your villain, listen to the Stones’ song. ~~~

TKZers: How do you get into the mindset of a villain? What are your favorite tricks to drill into your antagonist’s head? 

~~~

 

Want more tips to write memorable villains? Please check out The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. 

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Uncovering the Villain in the Cozy Mystery – Guest Post by Leslie Budewitz

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Today’s guest post is by my good pal, three-time Agatha award winner Leslie Budewitz. Recently I attended a talk by Leslie and a local lavender farmer that tied into the release of her new book, Lavender Lies Bleeding. From beta-reading the book, I’d already learned fascinating facts about that business. But being in a meeting room filled with lavender samples was truly intoxicating. Check out Leslie’s book for a fragrant reading delight.

Take it away, Leslie!

~~~

The heart of the cozy mystery is the community. When a murder occurs, an amateur sleuth investigates because crime disrupts the social order. She embodies the world view that people are basically good, and one person can make a difference.

(Some cozy sleuths are male, but most are female, including my own, so I’ll use she and her.)

(And remember, these kinds of stories are called cozies because they involve closely connected people. There may be humor, ghosts, or recipes, but the crime and its impact are serious—and so is our sleuth.)

So how do cozy writers deal with villains? (Spoilers ahead. Oh, well.)

What’s the crime? In the cozy, the murder is personal. (A few cozies involve other major crimes or the threat of murder without an actual body.) There’s no random violence, no serial killers, no ticking bombs that could change the face of the planet. In other words, the crime is personal to the community—whether it’s the small town of Jewel Bay, Montana in my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries or a community-within-the-community, such as Pike Place Market and the Seattle food and restaurant community in my Spice Shop mysteries—so the connections between the story people are critical.

Who is our sleuth and what tools does she have? The cozy sleuth is an amateur, in the very best sense of the word—driven by determination to right a wrong. She may be new to town (Kathleen, the new librarian, in Sofie Kelly’s Magical Cats mysteries, or Blanche White, on a working vacation taking care of a wealthy family’s children in Blanche Among the Talented Tenth by Barbara Neely, a local girl come home (Erin Murphy in my Village series), or a long-time resident in a new situation (Pepper in my Spice Shop mysteries), but she is deeply committed to the community.

It’s that commitment, her personal stakes, that lead her to investigate. Mere curiosity is not enough.

Without access to search warrants, forensics, and other investigative tools, our sleuth does her work the old-fashioned way, using her personal skills and her knowledge of the community. She can ask questions the police can’t, make connections they don’t see. She may be able to see things others don’t because she herself is not seen, like Blanche. Often, she has specialized knowledge, such as the properties of particular spices, the origin of coffee beans, or the emotional value of a particular first edition, that aids her. Above all, she relies on her knowledge of human nature, of what drives people to extremes.

Who’s our victim? Look to the victim, Poirot said, and as usual, he was right. Identifying the victim’s secrets and relationships may point to one suspect or absolve another.

Who are our suspects? Again, look to the victim. The circumstances of the crime may narrow the search quickly, but it’s also important to look at the victim’s wider circle—her family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. The cozy typically involves 3-5 suspects—and our sleuth may be one of them, especially in the series opener. Each has to have had motive, means, and opportunity.

Who, our sleuth asks, would have wanted this person dead? Why? Could they have done it, given the likely weapon, the time and location, and other circumstances? What else is going on that reveals clues or motives? What are the suspects doing? How does our killer tip his hand, or put our sleuth in danger?

Consider Murder on the Orient Express: No, it’s not truly a cozy, but it’s a great example. Clearly, the killer was on the train, either in the snow-stranded car or with access to it. As Poirot asks questions, he is investigating the victim as much as his fellow passengers. He begins to get a sense of the man and what he did that made him a target. Poirot asks who had opportunity—who was in the adjacent cars, who was in the hallway when the victim was killed, who had access to his room, who had an alibi. All the while, he is learning more about the other passengers. As their interconnections emerge, he develops his theory of what happened.

What drives our killer? Given what I’ve said about the community and personal connections, you won’t be surprised that the motives are also personal. The killer may feel forced to act to prevent the victim from uncovering evidence of the killer’s past crimes, as in Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden, where the uncovering is literal. The killer may strike out to remove an obstacle to his goals, such as when an employee discovers her boss’s nefarious plan and threatens to speak out, in Crime Rib, my 2nd Food Lovers’ Village mystery. Or the killer might believe the victim is about to harm someone else, as in Sofie Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Cat.

Other motives may be revenge, anger, jealousy, greed, a sense of betrayal, or an equally strong emotion. Self-defense and self-preservation can play a part. The killing may be planned or spur-of-the-moment—which may point to one suspect over another.

How does our sleuth identify the killer? Identifying the killer in any mystery is a mix of teasing out the motive, means, and opportunity. For the cozy sleuth, this means asking questions. Poking her nose where it may not belong, because she’s on a mission. Putting her safety—and sometimes that of people she loves—in danger. Irritating the police, now and then. By using the tools of her own experience. Erin Murphy, in my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, left a job as a grocery buyer for a major discount chain to take over her family’s local foods market. Spreadsheets are second nature to her, and her Spreadsheet of Suspicion helps her keep track of what she knows and doesn’t know.

If the victim and any suspects are not local, what ties and conflicts could have led to their death? That’s key in Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, where the victim is in town for a festival—but it’s clear he’s been here before. In Barbara Ross’s Torn Asunder, the victim and some of the suspects are in town for a wedding at our sleuth’s business; other suspects are locals or newcomers. Our sleuth discovers that no one liked the victim—essentially a man who needed killing—before uncovering the real reason a new employee is in town, leading her to the killer.

The sleuth’s and killer’s circles may intersect or not, depending on the crime, but will be close. In Blanche Cleans Up by Barbara Neely, our sleuth is the cook in a powerful family’s home; she knows the family and who comes in and out of the house. In Ross’s Shucked Apart, Julia first meets her boyfriend’s poker buddy after a theft at her oyster farm; when the friend dies and Julia investigates, she meets people she hadn’t known—and also discovers unexpected ties to people she already knew that help her identify the killer.

It’s not uncommon to have a second, or occasionally a third, murder. That, of course, may shake up the suspect list, eliminating one suspect by making her a victim and another who was in jail or the hospital, and adding one who—well, you decide what he was up to. Those murders may happen on the page, or in the past. In The Shadow of Memory by Connie Berry, our sleuth discovers that old friends of our victim have died under mysterious circumstances. What was the killer after, and how did killing them help him get what he wanted?

It’s also possible to have multiple killers, whose goals may be separate or intersect. In Crime Rib, a visitor kills another visitor while a local kills another local. Both share a motivation: to eliminate someone who stands in his way. To solve the first killing, Erin has to figure out what the victim knew; to solve the second, she has to ask not just who killed this most likeable man, but who thought they would benefit from his death.

In The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood, three killers hope to avoid detection through the usual means—exploring who might have wanted the victim dead—by trading victims and killing on another’s behalf. Only when our trio of sleuths questions alibi evidence do they tumble to the truth.

Cozies may be “clean” in their avoidance of rough language and graphic violence, but there’s plenty of dirt going on. Suspects may be guilty of other crimes and misdeeds, even if only one is the killer. In To Err is Cumin, my 8th Spice Shop mystery, Pepper discovers that our victim, a disgraced chef she’d once tangled with, had uncovered a criminal scheme implicating several men involved in leasing space and equipment to restaurants. Any of them might have made a good killer. It takes Pepper some doing—and puts her at some risk—to discover who wanted the lid kept on badly enough to push our chef into the Ship Canal and leave him there.

And in Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th in the series, a woman and her brother-in-law have different reasons for targeting our victim and her business, a lavender farm. When the man screws up, the stakes rise and his sister-in-law steps in, the resulting murder fueled by anger, greed, and bitterness. Different motives, different crimes, making for a twisty plot that’s fun to unravel.

Some modern cozies follow a less typical structure, making for more variety in the villain’s motives and the sleuth’s approach. In Misha Popp’s Pies Before Guys series, our sleuth is a baker who goes after men who harm women. But before taking action, she has to investigate their crimes. Is our sleuth an angel of justice—or a potential serial killer?

In The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell, set at a cooking competition at a Vermont country estate, each competitor has a secret or a reason to strike back. When a judge dies, those secrets and motives begin to surface, even without an amateur sleuth on the case. Ultimately, readers know who killed the judge and why, a killing utterly justified. The police blame the wrong woman, but we know what she did, and the punishment does fit the crime.

Ultimately, the cozy sleuth and killer will tangle—with words, actions, or both. The truth will out, and justice will prevail. Dinner might be late, even in a foodie cozy, but the taste will be oh, so satisfying.

~~~

Leslie Budewitz

Leslie Budewitz tells stories about women’s lives, seasoned with friendship, food, a dash of history, and a heaping spoonful of mystery. She writes the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, as well as the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries and historical short fiction set in her native Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense. A three-time Agatha Award winner and past president of Sisters in Crime, Leslie lives in NW Montana with her husband, Don Beans, a musician and doctor of natural medicine.

 

 

Check out Leslie’s brand new release Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop mystery.

Bad Decisions

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Every choice comes with a consequence. —Roy T. Bennett

* * *

Human history is strewn with the results of bad decisions.

  • Someone decided to fill the Hindenburg airship with hydrogen rather than helium. Thirty-six people died.
  • The captain of the Titanic decided to maintain speed through the icy waters of the North Atlantic even though icebergs had been reported in the area. More than fifteen hundred people died.
  • Napoleon decided to invade Russia and lost most of his army. Nearly a million people died.

* * *

Sometimes a disaster isn’t the result of just one bad decision, but many small ones.

Take the story of the Titan missile disaster, for example. (Most of the facts cited here were taken from the This American Life podcast, Episode 634. A transcript can be found here.)

As most of us know, there are missile silos located all over the United States. They house intercontinental ballistic missiles that are armed with nuclear warheads intended to keep us safe by preventing bad actors from trying to attack the U.S.

Missile sites are placed deep underground with heavily insulated control centers nearby, and lots and lots of concrete and steel between the silo and the outside world.

Now you might think ICBMs just sit in their silos waiting for something to happen. But actually, the missiles have to be maintained just like any other manmade artifact. You would think that such a high-stakes situation would be so closely monitored that nothing could go wrong.

You would think.

In September 1980, the Titan II missile in Damascus, Arkansas was scheduled for maintenance. The Titan II, at that time the most powerful weapon in the American nuclear arsenal, was loaded with two different liquid fuels in separate compartments rather than the solid fuel used in later missiles. If the highly volatile, toxic liquid fuels escaped or met unexpectedly, there could be a disaster.

Two young men were assigned the maintenance task. The first one, we’ll call him Primary Worker, was experienced. The second, let’s call him Trainee, was in training.

The task was straightforward. One of the missile’s fuel tanks was low on pressure, so all they had to do was take off a cap and add some fuel.  Sort of like pumping gas into your car. Primary Worker was familiar with the procedure. No problem.

In order for the work to begin, however, the hydraulic platform, which was like an elevator that went up and down the side of the missile, had to be lowered. But there was a problem with the platform, and the maintenance guys had to wait for a couple of hours while workers fixed it.

At this point, it was late Friday afternoon, heading into evening. You can just imagine two young men who are eager to meet friends and start the weekend being told there was a delay. It must have been frustrating. We all know what it’s like when we have something planned, but somebody throws a wrench into the works. (This will be extremely meaningful later.)

Finally, the hydraulic platform was repaired. The two young men donned their protective suits and started down the long tunnel to the silo. At some point, they realized they had forgotten the torque wrench that was required for the job.

Rather than causing a further delay by getting out of his suit, following all the protocol of going back to his truck to retrieve the torque wrench, and then redoing everything, Primary Worker made Bad Decision #1: ignore the regulation and use a huge, two-piece ratchet wrench which he had with him. Trainee questioned the decision, but Primary Worker said he’d done it before, and it was not a problem.

The two men proceeded to the silo and took the hydraulic platform up. When it stopped, they were roughly eighty feet above the base of the missile.

The platform had a rubber bumper that was supposed to be flush against the side of the missile to prevent anything from dropping, but the equipment was old, and there was a gap between the platform and the missile.

The two men used the ratchet wrench to remove the cap from the missile. Everything went smoothly.

Bad decision #2: One of the men handed his part of the wrench to the other one. The other man dropped it.

Are you getting worried yet?

The socket fell between the platform and the side of the missile. Of course, it gained momentum as it plummeted eighty feet. My husband calculated it was probably going about fifty mph when it hit the thrust ring that the missile sat atop, bounced, and—you guessed it—punctured a hole in the side of the missile. Fuel began to spray out. What are the chances?

At this point, the maintenance men should have radioed the control center and told them about the accident. They didn’t.

Bad decision #3: Instead of contacting the control center and owning up to what had happened, Primary Worker simply called in and said there was a cloud of vapor coming out of the side of the rocket. The maintenance men were ordered back to the control center.

Alarms began to sound in the control center. Horns were going off, lights were flashing, and people there were rushing around trying to understand the problem, but it didn’t make sense because they didn’t have the whole picture.

When the maintenance men got back to the control center, they saw the chaos that was in progress, but they made Bad decision #4: they still didn’t let the authorities know that the side of the missile had been punctured. Since the fuel compartments were pressurized, at some point enough fuel would leak out, the bottom compartment would collapse, and there would probably be an explosion. But the people in the control center didn’t know how to treat the problem because they didn’t know what the problem was.

Finally, one of the controllers suspected the maintenance men were holding something back, so he approached them and insisted that they say exactly what had happened. They finally came clean.

When the truth became clear, the people in the control center realized an explosion was imminent. They contacted their superiors.

The question was whether to remain in the control center which was designed to withstand a nuclear hit, or to evacuate.

Bad decision #5: The commanding officer ordered them to evacuate.

When the explosion came, there were men outside in the fields and woods around the complex. Huge chunks of metal and concrete debris, some as large as a school bus, rained down. The lid of the silo, a 1.5-million pound slab of concrete and steel, was hurled over 500 feet.

The nuclear warhead ejected from the missile and landed in a ditch a quarter mile away from the silo. It didn’t detonate. If it had … well, let’s not think about that.

So there you have it. A perfect storm of bad decisions. At each stage, the stakes were raised that led to a disaster.  It could have been worse.

Incidentally, the accident prompted a change in regulations. Workers now have to attach their tools to themselves by a lanyard. Good decision.

* * *

Although we try to avoid making bad decisions in real life, they can be the stuff of great fiction. After all, bad decisions are usually born out of base human fallacies: fear, hubris, anger, greed, envy, lust, impatience, frustration… The list goes on. And these make wonderful fodder for storytelling. As each bad choice is made in a story, it ratchets (pun intended) up the tension. Each new decision raises the stakes and ensures the reader will turn the page.

Think of some of the great fictional examples of bad choices.

  • The Trojans decided to accept the gift of a wooden horse from the Greeks.
  • The mayor of Amity Island in the movie Jaws decided to keep the beaches open even though there had been a shark sighted in the area.
  • Scientists decided to use DNA extracted from fossilized mosquitoes to create dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

It just goes to show you:

Bad choices make good stories. —Rajkumar Hirani

* * *

So TKZers: Can you think of any examples of bad decision-making from books you’ve read? How about characters in your own books. Have they made bad choices?

 

 

Private pilot Cassie Deakin has to decide whom she can trust while she’s looking for a murderer. Her bad choices almost get her killed.

Available at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

 

Finishing Strong with Aspects of the Novel

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“Everything ends; you just have to figure out a way to push to the finish line.” —Jesse Itzler

* * *

Welcome back, TKZers! Isn’t it wonderful to be back in the Zone after the two-week break?

Now that we’re approaching the finish line for 2024, it’s time to look back at lessons learned in the past year. In addition to the great content posted here, TKZ contributors lent their voices to other platforms. One of those was The Craft of Writing Blog on my website at kaydibianca.com.

The theme of this year’s blog was Aspects of the Novel, and each month I interviewed an accomplished author on a different facet of novel writing. Five of those authors are TKZ contributors whose thoughts were so instructive, I wanted to share an excerpt from each interview in this post.

So enjoy finishing the year strong by walking with our wise friends through various Aspects of the Novel. To see the entire interview for any of the choices below, click on the link.

* * *

VOICE (James Scott Bell)

How does an author go about developing his/her own voice?

It’s really a matter of learning ways to let the voice run free. Let it come out naturally as you, the author, are concentrating on the emotion and action and internal lives of the characters. There are various exercises I give in my book on voice, such as the page-long sentence. When I come to a place of high emotion in a scene, I like to start a fresh document and write a single, run-on sentence of at least 200 words. It is free-form, wild text in the character’s voice, not thinking about grammar or structure. It’s just pouring out the emotion as fast and intensely as possible.

What happens inevitably, like panning for gold, is you get a few glistening nuggets. It may even be only one sentence, but that sentence will be choice.

There are other methods, but the great point is that doing this begins to develop a strong “voice muscle” in your writer’s brain, and you get better and better at it the more you exercise it.

 

ANTAGONISTS (Debbie Burke)

How does a good writer approach creating the antagonist character? Are there exercises a writer can use to develop their villain-creating talents?

A technique I like to use is James Scott Bell’s voice journal. Let the antagonist write out their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. What are their deepest, most secret desires? Give them the opportunity to express their frustration, anger, and hatred. Putting their emotions into words helps the author get inside their skin and understand why they feel their behavior is justified.

Interview the villain/antagonist. Ask questions. What is their background? How did their parents treat them? Were they bullied or abused? What early losses or failures scarred them?

Another Jim Bell tip: have villains argue their case before the jury that will decide their fate. What compelling arguments can they offer to save themselves from the death penalty?

 

DEEP POINT OF VIEW (Terry Odell)

Now, on to Deep POV:

Deep POV can be thought of as writing a first person book in third person. You are deep inside the POV character’s head, providing the reader with not only the character’s five senses, but also their thoughts and feelings. Because you’re deep into their heads, your readers should feel closer to the characters than if you have an outside narrator, as is the case in shallower third person POV. A test. You should be able to replace he, she, or the character’s name with “I.”

When writing in Deep POV, it’s also important to be true to the character. What would they notice? Two characters walk into a room. (No, that’s not the start of a joke.) One’s a cop; the other is an interior designer. They’ll focus on very different things.

 

ANTI-HEROES (Sue Coletta)

How do you define an anti-hero?

An anti-hero is the protagonist of the story, who straddles the law. Good people doing bad things for the right reason. Nothing is black and white. Anti-heroes thrive in shades in gray.

 

DESCRIPTION (P.J. Parrish)

How would you define descriptive writing?

Wow. That’s a toughie. Well, let’s start with a distinction. There’s explanation and then there’s description. Explanation is you, the writer, just dealing with the prosaic stuff of moving characters around in time and space. Explanation example: The man walked into the room. Simple choregraphy. Gets the job done but pushes no emotional buttons.

But description? That’s where the magic happens. When you work your descriptive powers, you engage the reader’s senses and imagination, maybe tugging on their memories and experiences. The man didn’t just walk into the room.  Rewrite:

The old man stopped just inside the door of the café. He was in his eighties, that much was clear. But as he stood there, erect and with a small smile tipping his lips, heads turned to him. It wasn’t just the panama hat or the seersucker suit. Because the hat was yellowed and his sleeves were frayed. No, we were staring at him because the air around him seemed to vibrate with an aliveness. He caught my eye and started toward me, and my throat closed. It was like looking at my father, the one I had seen only in photographs.

See the difference? The main purpose of descriptive writing is to show the reader a person, place or thing in such a way that a picture is formed in their mind. It means paying close attention to the details by using all of your five senses. Explanation vs description. When you explain something, you try to make it clearer and easier to understand. But when you describe, you’re tugging on their emotions.

 

* * *

As we come to the end of the year, I want to wish you all a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year!

* * *

So TKZers: How are you finishing strong in 2024? Any lessons learned you can share? What are you looking forward to in 2025?

 

“A delicious murder mystery” —Readers’ Favorite Reviews

Available at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

Greatest Hits from the 2024 Flathead River Writers Conference Part 1

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2024 Flathead Writers Conference
Photo credit: David Snyder

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

The 34th Flathead River Writers Conference was October 5-6, 2024. The conference is always good, but this year was stellar with superb speakers and enthusiastic interaction among attendees.

As I drafted this post from my notes, it kept growing with more information that needed to be included. As a result, it ran way too long for a single post. So I’m dividing it into two. Today is Part 1 of the greatest hits from the event. Part 2 will follow in a couple of weeks.

~~~

Debra Magpie Earling

Debra Magpie Earling (Native-American author of The Lost Journals of Sacajawea and Perma Red) gave the moving keynote which set the tone that continued through the entire weekend.

Debra opened with a description of “wonder”, which she defined as “surprise mingled with admiration.” She went on to tell a story of wonder about the last Christmas she spent with her dying mother. On a peaceful Montana night, she described their visit as like “being inside a snow globe.”

Her mother said, “When I die, I’ll send you a sign. A hummingbird.” Debra went along with her mom but had her doubts. After all, hummingbirds are common at her home during summer so how would she ever know which one was the sign?

Nevertheless, after her mother passed, the following spring Debra set up many feeders and waited.

It was a strange summer. Other bird species came and went. Crows sat on the feeders. But not a single hummingbird appeared.

On the evening of her mother’s birthday in July, Debra and her husband were sitting outside and Debra said, “Well, I guess she didn’t send the sign.”

At that moment, the only hummingbird of the year appeared. It flew to Debra’s forehead and hovered for a few minutes then left.

Debra and her husband asked each other, “Did you see that? Is that what I think it was?”

With that anecdote, she summed up the magical wonder of storytelling, the conference theme.

While talking about where inspiration comes from, Debra said, “The muse is a lot of dead people who want their stories told.”

That sentence sent chills through me. Recently I’ve considered writing historical fiction. Did Debra send me a sign that it’s time to explore the past?

~~~

Danica Winters

Million-selling Harlequin romantic suspense novelist Danica Winters told the audience, “This is not your grandmother’s bodice ripper.” Romance sales account for an astounding $1.4 billion each year.

Today’s variations are limitless: contemporary, historical, erotica, Young Adult, thriller/suspense, LGBTQ+, dark romance, paranormal, holiday, fantasy/romantasy. Even serious social issues like human trafficking find their way into romances.

Why are they so popular? Danica believes, “They are everyone’s escape. They bring joy and make people laugh. Romance is a promise. We writers are entertainers.”

Danica sells many more paperbacks than ebooks, unlike other genres where ebooks dominate. She added an interesting market detail: When Walmart changed its shelving to hold 6″ by 9″ books, that prompted publishers to shift book production to that same size because Walmart is such a huge market.

While most romance readers are women, Danica said about 20% are men, often in law enforcement and the military. Turns out even alpha males like escape, too.

~~~

Leslie Budewitz

Three-time Agatha winner Leslie Budewitz focused on crime fiction with an excellent summation of differences within the genre.

  • Mystery is “What Happened?”
  • Suspense is “What’s Happening?”
  • Thriller is “What Might Happen?”

Leslie has her finger on the pulse of the cozy market and talked about shifts within the genre, including a new trend of millennial cozies that include some swearing and adult language.

For a cozy, the semiofficial acceptable body count is three. So far, Leslie has only had two murders in one book.

With 19 published books, Leslie must keep track of two amateur sleuth series and multiple standalone suspense novels. She developed an ingenious system to avoid repetition of plots and characters. For each book, she creates a spreadsheet with the following headings:

Victim              Killer/Method             Suspects          Motive            VGR

What is VGR? The Very Good Reason why the amateur sleuth gets involved in a crime.

~~~

Kathy Dunnehoff

Only a truly gifted writing teacher can make grammar entertaining. That describes longtime college instructor Kathy Dunnehoff, author of bestselling romantic comedies and screenplays.

Kathy offered nuts and bolts hacks to improve writing productivity.

  • Measure your success by what you control, not by factors outside your control. Success is the number of words you produce.
  • Use a writing calendar to track production either by word count or minutes…as long as that time is spent actually writing. Watching goat yoga or doomscrolling doesn’t count.
  • When you don’t write, record your excuse in the calendar. Talk about making yourself accountable!
  • Recognize procrastination in its many disguises: research, reorganizing your office, talking about writing rather that writing, etc.
  • When revising, try the “Frankenstein Method” (from Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat Writes a Novel): Start a new document for the second draft, then copy and paste sections from the first draft.
  • There is no extra credit for suffering!

~~~

On Saturday evening, our local indie shop, the BookShelf, hosted a reception for conference attendees and speakers. Gather a bunch of writers in a bookstore and we’re more excited than dogs at the dog park. Even though people mock-complained their brains were overloaded and they were exhausted, no one wanted to leave. All that creative energy kept us buoyed and eager for the following day.

Come back here in two weeks for Part 2 of the Greatest Hits from the Flathead River Writers Conference. Highlights include freelance article writing, side hustles to supplement income from book sales, anatomy of a publicity campaign, and 16 questions an agent asks when assessing a manuscript.

~~~

TKZers: Do any of the ideas mentioned resonate with you? What is your favorite productivity hack?

~~~

Conferences are also a good venue to sell books and I did!

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree, Cover by Brian Hoffman

 

 

Please check out my latest thriller Fruit of the Poisonous Tree at this link.

Dead Right – Guest Post by Dr. Betty Kuffel

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Dr. Betty Kuffel

In 2004, a small plane carrying Dr. Betty Kuffel, her husband, and their dog crashed into a remote, snowy Idaho mountain, leaving her leg crushed and dangling with bones exposed.

Where most people would be consumed by helpless panic, Betty stayed calm.

With her husband trapped in the inverted cockpit and the frightened dog circling the wreckage, Betty eased herself through the broken windshield to the icy ground.

She used the radio headset and wires to align her multiple fractures and tied the wires to hold the leg in place.

Yeah, she set her own broken leg.

Yeah, she’s Superwoman.

(Happy ending—all were rescued and survived.)

This example is one of many reasons why Betty has been my trusted medical advisor, critique partner, and dear friend for 30 years. Today, I’m happy to welcome her to TKZ with her guest post entitled:

Death and Dying for Authors

I had a plan for killing someone in one of my novels and wanted to make the death look natural with no discernible cause even with detailed postmortem forensics. To validate my plan, I called a forensic pathologist friend and said, “Dale, I want to kill someone, and I need your help.” He laughed, listened to my scenario, and confirmed my plan was correct. The cause of death would be indeterminate.

Writing accurate medical scenes is as important in fiction as it is in nonfiction. You can’t “just make it up” and make it believable. Research may save you from deadly reviews. Some experts may initially be taken aback by your questions but, in my experience, they love to help.

My background is ER medicine, wilderness hiking, climbing, dog sled racing and flying, which provided personal exposure to gruesome injuries and medical emergencies. Writing some scenes is easy because I’ve observed emotional reactions of patients and families affected by a heart attack, severe trauma from violence, gunshot wounds, and even bear mauling victims. But many writers may not have that firsthand experience.

Understanding “normal” body functions as a baseline is a great help to writers when designing a health-related scene.

First, identify your goal. Are you looking for a health challenge for your character to make him unique, a chronic disease perhaps? Or does your storyline require something acute, painful, or disfiguring? Or is this a climactic scene of violence and death?

To write the end, you need the beginning.

Basics of Life:  Average adult vital signs are a blood pressure of 120/80, heart rate of 70 beats per minute, respiratory rate of 15 times per minute, and temperature 98.6 F. Blood volume: 5 liters for about a 150-pound person. At a heartrate of 70/minute with a stroke volume of 70 ml (volume pumped with each beat) = 4,900 ml ~ 5 liters. This means the entire blood volume is pumped each minute.

Basics of Death: There is wide variation in vital signs with normal activity. With smart watches and wrist exercise monitors, most writers know exercise or stress change the baseline measurements. Running up a flight of stairs will spike both heart rate and blood pressure, but they normalize with a few minutes of rest. What if they don’t normalize? How long will it take to die without oxygen, or to bleed out? You need to know some details to write an accurate life and death scenario.

Having norms in mind for comparison, you are ready to alter them to your character’s detriment and your scene’s enhancement.

It’s time to create a crisis involving (A) the airway, (B) breathing, (C) cardiac function or (N) Neuro/Brain function.

Anyone who has taken a CPR class knows these ABCs. Interruption of airway, breathing or heart function can create a crisis. Brain injury can maim or kill. So, what do you need in your scene?

A Few ABC Scenarios

Airway and Breathing:

Airway obstruction using a ligature around the neck takes moments to interrupt blood flow to the brain and cause loss of consciousness: if not released, it causes death. It’s silent and fast. A shoelace, cable ties, fish line or luxurious silk scarf will do.

The scene can start calmly but quickly change to deadly, requiring immediate interventions to save a life. During a romantic candlelight dinner in an elegant restaurant, choking causes chaos in public and brings paramedics to the scene. Is it an unexpected aspiration of a bite of steak that occludes the airway? Or did the perpetrator know about the victim’s deadly allergy to penicillin and slipped it into their food, causing death from airway swelling and hypotension?

A penicillin-sensitive person who has intercourse with someone who has taken penicillin can result in anaphylaxis and death. The lover with that knowledge can turn a romantic interlude into murder.

Drug overdoses, sedatives (ex. Valium, Ativan, Xanax) and opiates (ex. heroin, fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone), slow respiratory rate, leading to unconsciousness, airway compromise, and death. The drug Narcan (naloxone) can be given as a nasal spray or injected, reversing opioid effects within minutes. So, from unconsciousness and near death, a victim can become alert and fighting medics.

However, Narcan does not reverse the effects of sedatives.

Rapid breathing of 40 times a minute or more can be caused by a collapsed lung, chronic lung disease with failure, asthma, fright and panic attacks. All have unique causes and need interventions to control the symptoms. Some are scary but not fatal. Others are life threatening. Symptoms with impending death include rapid breathing with gasping, holding the chest or throat, being unable to speak. Skin may be mottled and bluish followed by unconsciousness.

Blood Pressure

Lowering blood pressure is an easy way to cause loss of consciousness due to reduced blood flow to the brain. Without reversal this will be fatal.

Hemorrhagic shock can result from a stabbing or gunshot wound. How long will it take to bleed out?

Hemorrhagic shock is determined by volume lost. A blood donation is Class I shock. Class II is 750-1500 ml and is initially treated with high volume IV saline, but as loss progresses fluids and blood must be pumped in. Class IV occurs when 40% of blood is lost. Unless blood loss is stopped and high-volume blood is transfused, loss of consciousness occurs. The pulse becomes rapid, then fades as the blood pressure drops into the 70s. The skin pales, pupils dilate, and the heart stops.

Here’s another way to reduce blood pressure:

The victim takes an erectile dysfunction drug like Cialis and the killer slips a few nitroglycerin tablets into his wine. He loses consciousness during intercourse because this deadly combination results in irreversible low blood pressure, shock and death. Who would know but the perpetrator?

Heart Function

A cardiac arrest means the heart stopped beating. This can result for many reasons. It is not a “cause of death.” Even young healthy athletes drop dead, but the most common cause of sudden death is narrowing of the coronary arteries that supply the heart muscle with oxygenated blood.

Heart muscle cells become unstable with lack of adequate oxygenated blood. The irritability results in loss of an organized rhythm and no contractions to pump the blood. CPR with external compressions of the chest and rapid use of an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) can save lives which is why AEDs are available in public venues like malls, airplanes, and football fields.

Cardiac arrest is the most likely scenario to result in death or brain injury due to lack of oxygen.

What does sudden death look like?

No matter what the cause–a blow to the chest or a heart attack from cholesterol narrowing of a heart artery–when the heart stops, symptom onset is abrupt and often follows this pattern: Slump, fall, with rapid total muscle relaxation; a generalized seizure due to lack of brain oxygen; mouth and eyes may be partially open; no pulse; no breathing; skin, pale, then lips and nailbeds turn blue; no movement; pupils dilate widely, fish-eyes.

Rapid Ways to Kill

A few drugs that work rapidly are easily available in medical facilities, veterinary clinics, and ambulances: Succinylcholine is a paralytic. Potassium intravenous stops the heart. Nitroglycerine overdose under the tongue drops blood pressure. Intravenous insulin overdose results in unconsciousness and death.

Drug or alcohol intoxication and exposure to cold that causes hypothermia hasten death.

Strangulation with hands or a ligature is close, personal, fast and quiet.

Slashing through neck vessels and trachea results in airway interruption and rapid hemorrhagic death.

Ways to do research:

Interview experts such as physicians and even morticians.

Google reputable sites such as universities and NIH.

Consider going on ambulance and police ride-alongs for firsthand information.

Summary:

A writer doesn’t need to include too many details or the story risks sounding like a textbook. Choose the means of death, then incorporate enough information to be accurate but not overwhelming. 

~~~

Betty, you “killed it “with that comprehensive overview. Thanks for sharing your extensive knowledge! 

~~~

TKZers: Does this post help you write about dying and death? Will the information alter how you commit fictional crimes?

~~~

Dr. Betty Kuffel is a retired ER physician who lives in Montana. Medical and wilderness experiences, flying, dog sled racing in Alaska, and surviving a plane crash in the mountains of Idaho fuel her writing. She writes across genres, including a medical thriller series and True Crime.

BettyKuffel.com

First Page Critique — Filthy Money

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Let’s welcome another Brave Author who submitted a first page for review and critique. Please read through this submission, Filthy Money, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Filthy Money

It’s effortless, like a gliding albatross.

A shaft of sun bounces off the silver leading edge of the Cessna’s wing. I blink and glance down at the instrument panel. Only seven minutes, thirty nautical miles to the island. I scan the horizon.

And there it is.

Santa Catarina.

A dark iris surrounded by the tranquil cerulean blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

The runway, a bleached grey stripe, cuts through the sickle-shaped piece of land. It’ll have deteriorated. It’s been twenty years since this runway, once a carpet-smooth welcome to the wealthy and famed, was abandoned.

The question is how badly has it deteriorated?

I can see pockets sea grass in the still shallow waters. The dune bush barely ripples. I dip slow and low over the runway to check the condition of the surface.

I peer down. It’s a crumbling ribbon. The tar has cracked and burst in the searing sun. The hairs on my nape and arms lift.

Tall yellow weeds droop at the outer edges.

A second loop confirms my fears.

It’s not safe to land. Only an idiot would try. I’ve got to think of the safety of the five passengers sitting cocooned in luxury behind me. Never mind the likely damage to the state-of-the-art jet I am piloting.

Vonn will not take this news well. Not after all the months of strategy meetings and preparations. I wipe my clammy hand on my trousers.

‘Mr Le Clezio?’ At first, he doesn’t hear me. My voice is reluctant. I clear my throat and call again.

He acknowledges me with a nod of his head, then swallows the half inch of Wild Turkey in the tumbler and turns to Butch. ‘Drink up, we’re about to land.’ He slips the now half empty bottle into the side pocket of his holdall.

‘Mr Le Clezio, I’m sorry. It’s not safe to land. The runway’s in a far worse state than we were advised.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, José.’ He spits the words at me.

In my peripheral vision, I’m aware of Butch turning to face me. Judging, watching. He’s the only investor invited to join Vonn in this first recce. Embarrassing Vonn is not an option. Sweat pricks in my hairline.

‘I thought this bloody fancy jet was designed to land on rough terrain?’

‘It is, but —’

‘Well, land it. That’s what I pay you for.’

 

* * *

First Impression: Right away, the first sentence caught my attention by juxtaposing the serenity of gliding with the foreboding of the word “albatross.” Nice. And anytime a scene begins with people in an airplane, you know there’s going to be trouble.

The setting: The author did an excellent job of setting up the environment without going into too much detail. “A dark iris surrounded by the tranquil cerulean blue waters of the Indian Ocean.” We know where we are geographically.

Pace: Each sentence drew me to the next one. The contrast between the beauty of the island and the impending danger is well done.

Stakes: In just a few paragraphs, we learn the problem. We can feel the pilot’s angst, and we know even before he turns to call to Mr. Moneybags that things are going to escalate quickly. James Scott Bell wrote in a recent TKZ post, “Unless the conflict is a life-and-death struggle, the plot will not engage as it should.” This plot clearly avoids that problem.

POV: I also like the use of first person, present tense. It gives a sense of immediacy that works well here. (There were several comments about writing in first person, present tense on John Gilstrap’s TKZ post last week, so I’ll be interested to see what others think of this.)

* * *

There were a few areas I thought needed some work:

The Title: I don’t particularly care for Filthy Money as the title. “Filthy” isn’t one of my favorite words, but I don’t have an alternative since I don’t know the entire story. Maybe some commenters can chime in and make a suggestion.

Grammar: I spotted a couple of small issues in one sentence and I show the corrections here:

I can see pockets of sea grass in the still, shallow waters.

 

Other Issues:

“A shaft of sun bounces off the silver leading edge of the Cessna’s wing.” When I initially read this, I assumed the Cessna was the kind I flew: a single-engine, propeller-driven, four-seater. To avoid that misunderstanding, add the specific model (e.g., Cessna Citation).

“He’s the only investor invited to join Vonn in this first recce.” I had to look up the word “recce.” The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the process of visiting and quickly looking around a place in order to find out information about it.” Maybe readers of thrillers would know this, but I didn’t. If it isn’t common knowledge to the intended audience, replace it.

“The runway, a bleached grey stripe, cuts through the sickle-shaped piece of land.”  The island was originally described as an “iris,” which I assume is round.

British vs. American spelling and punctuation. The use of the word “grey” rather than “gray” in the snippet above and the use of single quotes rather than double quotes to enclose dialogue throughout the piece indicate the author is British. If the intended audience is largely American, it would be wise to change to the American standard. (i.e., “gray” and double quotes for dialogue.)

Those were the only real issues I found. However, I think the prose could be tightened up a bit. I noticed the words “deteriorated” and “runway” were used more than once in close proximity. I’ve taken the liberty to make suggestions below. A few of the suggestions rely on my own sense of cadence. Deletions are in blue, changes and additions are in red. My comments are in green.

* * *

 

It’s effortless, like a gliding albatross.

A shaft of sun bounces off the silver leading edge of the Cessna Citation’s wing. I blink and glance down at the instrument panel. Only Seven minutes to go. Just thirty nautical miles to the island. I scan the horizon. [Good short sentences set the pace. I changed a couple of words around.]

And there it is. Santa Catarina. A dark green iris surrounded by the tranquil cerulean blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

The runway, a bleached grey stripe, cuts through the sickle-shaped piece of land. It’ll have deteriorated. It’s been in the twenty years since this airstrip runway, once a carpet-smooth welcome to the wealthy and famed, was abandoned. [Rewrote two sentences into one and changed the second use of “runway” to “airstrip.”]

The question is how badly has it deteriorated? how bad is it? [No need to repeat “deteriorated.”]

I can see pockets of sea grass in the still, shallow waters. The dune bush barely ripples. I dip slow and low over the runway to check the condition of the surface.

I peer down. It’s a crumbling ribbon. Tall yellow weeds droop at the outer edges. The tar has cracked and burst in the searing sun. The hairs on my nape and arms lift.

Tall yellow weeds droop at the outer edges. [Moved this sentence up for effect.]

A second loop confirms my fears.

It’s not safe to land. Only an idiot would try to land on that corroded strip of disintegrating asphalt. [Strengthened the danger.] I’ve got to think of the safety of the five passengers sitting cocooned in luxury behind me. Never mind the likely damage to the state-of-the-art jet I am piloting.

Vonn will not take this news well. Not after all the months of strategy meetings and preparations. I wipe my clammy hand on my trousers.

‘Mr Le Clezio?’ At first, he doesn’t hear me. My voice is reluctant. I clear my throat and call again.

He acknowledges me with a nod of his head, then swallows the half inch of Wild Turkey in the tumbler and turns to Butch. ‘Drink up, we’re about to land.’ He slips the now half empty bottle into the side pocket of his holdall.

‘Mr Le Clezio, I’m sorry. It’s not safe to land. The runway’s in a far worse state than we were advised.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, José.’ He spits the words at me.

In my peripheral vision, I’m aware of I see Butch turning to face me. Judging, watching. He’s the only investor invited to join Vonn in this first recce. Embarrassing Vonn is not an option. Sweat pricks in my hairline.

‘I thought this bloody fancy jet was designed to land on rough terrain?.’

‘It is, but —’

‘Well, land it. That’s what I pay you for.’

* * *

 

Lasting Impression: Fine job, Brave Author. I’d turn the page. Now let’s see what everyone else thinks.

 

TKZers: What’s your impression of this first page? Would you keep reading? Please offer your comments and suggestions.

First Page Critique – Deadly Water

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Photo credit: Ray Bilcliff, pexels

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Happy New Year! Hope the spirit of the holiday season kept you warm in spite of the frigid weather.

What better way to kick off the first week of the new year than with a First Page critique? Please take a plunge into Deadly Water submitted by a Brave Author.

~~~

Deadly Water

Kit sat on the back steps and laced up his running shoes. Getting a bit battered he thought. Might have to invest in a new pair if I plan on doing that marathon later in the year. Jumping nimbly to his feet, and making sure he had the ball in his pocket, he set off up the road towards the beach. Gem trotting happily beside him.

The day had one of those dirty gray overcast skies that were full of rain. The forecast was indeed for it to bucket down later. Kit knew these skies well, having grown up on the street he still lived. Rain would come from the north east, and it would last for a few days. Given his current mood this suited him perfectly well.

Down on the beach the tide was well out. Despite the number of runners, walkers, dogs, and strollers, there was plenty of room for Kit and Gem. As she had done for countless kilometers, Gem was content to lope alongside Kit. Half border collie, half German Shepard, Gem was a true companion. Loyal, obedient, and possibly deadly. Strangers never knew if Gem was going to herd them, or rip their lungs out.

Kit ran with one of those easy strides that made running look easy. He was tall, with hair that wasn’t quite red, not quite auburn. With that, and his green eyes, he could either scrub up stunningly, or just as easily look like he had slept rough for days.

They did the mandatory four lengths of the beach. Kit then took the disgusting old tennis ball out of his pocket and threw it into the water for Gem to chase. He still had a good throwing arm from his cricketing days, so this gave Gem a good workout. The sprint up the hill home always made him feel virtuous.

Back home he made his regular breakfast of egg with tomatoes on toast, and fed Gem. It was now getting on for seven thirty, and Kit wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the rest of the day. The house really did need some work, especially the fence. Ever since his parents had died, and Kit inherited the house, he had not much felt like renovating.

The promised rain arrived.

It was on day three of the rain that his mobile went. It hadn’t rung for days. His mates knew better than to annoy him when the mood was on. Kit and Gem had still run every morning. Running as therapy Kit thought grimly to himself more than once.

~~~

Okay, let’s get started.

Title: A title makes the book’s first impression on a reader and Deadly Water fills the bill for the mystery/suspense/crime genre. It immediately raises the question—why is the water deadly? That promises sinister happenings–maybe a floating body, murder by drowning, or a dangerous hunt for undersea treasure.

The title also works to set the story’s mood. Treacherous seas evoke primal fears of being lost, alone, and helpless in the depths, along with the terror of being unable to breathe. BA made an evocative, effective choice with Deadly Water. Good job!

Craft: The writing is generally clear. No typos or spelling errors except “Shephard” should be “Shepherd.”

“Might have to invest in a new pair if I plan on doing that marathon later in the year.” This is the only place where “I” is used. The rest of the page is in third person.

For consistency, consider changing I to he: “Might have to invest in a new pair if he planned on doing that marathon later in the year.”

“Well” is repeated twice in two paragraphs.

The phrase “one of those” appears twice and is unnecessarily vague and wordy.

Try reading this page out loud to pick up repeated words and to smooth out a few awkward phrases.

Beginning a sentence with “It was” sounds weak. What does it refer to?

Watch out for gerunds (-ing words). “Jumping nimbly to his feet, and making sure he had the ball in his pocket, he set off up the road towards the beach. Gem trotting happily beside him.”

Suggested rewrite: Kit made sure he had Gem’s ball in his pocket. He jumped to his feet and set off up the road towards the beach, the dog trotting happily beside.

Setting and tone: British-isms like “scrub up” and “mates”, as well as the reference to “cricket”, suggest the setting is an English seaside town.

“Dirty gray overcast skies that were full of rain” is a nicely written phrase that establishes a gloomy, threatening tone.

“Given his current mood this suited him perfectly well” indicates Kit feels melancholy.

Characters: Two characters are introduced, Kit and Gem.

Kit is a fit marathon runner who still lives on the same street where he grew up. He recently inherited a home after his parents’ deaths.

Kit ran with one of those easy strides that made running look easy. He was tall, with hair that wasn’t quite red, not quite auburn. With that, and his green eyes, he could either scrub up stunningly, or just as easily look like he had slept rough for days.

This description gives a clear picture of what Kit looks like. However, the point of view is omniscient—as if a god is looking down on him—in contrast with the third-person POV in the rest of the excerpt.

An important goal at this early stage is to interest and connect the reader closely with the main character. Switching the POV pulls the reader out of the story, which is risky.

Gem is described as:

Half border collie, half German Shepard, Gem was a true companion. Loyal, obedient, and possibly deadly. Strangers never knew if Gem was going to herd them, or rip their lungs out.

Whoa! Ripping lungs out grabs the reader’s interest in a big way. I want to know more about this dog.

What causes her to react with unexpected violence? Is she trained to attack? If so, why does Kit need or want an attack dog? Should she be off-leash on a public beach? How does Kit handle Gem’s scary behavior?

At this point, Gem is a far more interesting, compelling character than Kit. She is also an effective device to foreshadow future conflict.

Story Problem: This otherwise well-written page has a major flaw.

Nothing happens.

Here are the problems Kit faces on this page:

Should he buy new running shoes?

Can he motivate himself to fix the fence?

His mobile goes dead.

None of these problems is compelling or earth-shaking.

The reader doesn’t care. And that’s a BIG problem. 

A side note: I was confused by the sentences “It was on day three of the rain that his mobile went. It hadn’t rung for days.”

On the first reading, I thought “his mobile went” meant the phone had gone dead. On rereading, I wondered if the first sentence was missing a word. Should it have read “his mobile went off”? In other words, did it ring for the first time in days?

If in fact the phone does ring for the first time in days, that constitutes a disturbance, which I’ll discuss in a moment. However, since the reader doesn’t know the significance of an incoming call, it’s not a compelling hook.

Back to the story problem. BA hints at potential difficulties. Kit is depressed enough that his mates know not to call him. He considers running as therapy but doesn’t address why he needs therapy. If his mood is connected to the deaths of his parents, how does that lead to a larger story question?

At TKZ, we talk frequently about ever-shorter attention spans. Reading is only one activity in world filled with constant distractions.

For authors seeking traditional publication, agents and editors need to be grabbed by the first page, paragraph, or even sentence. Otherwise, they quickly move on to the next submission.

The same applies to self-published authors. The “Look Inside” sample must immediately grab a prospective buyer’s attention. If not, there are a few million other books they can check out.

This first page is not a story yet because there is no disturbance or conflict. It’s just another day in the lives of Kit and Gem where nothing out of the ordinary happens.

The background may be useful to help the author become familiar with the setting and characters.

 But…it’s boring for the reader.

 My guess is the real story begins a few pages later when a significant event changes the course of Kit’s life.

Unfortunately, most readers won’t stick around that long. To hook them, put the disturbance on the first page, preferably in the first few paragraphs.

What if Kit throws the ball for Gem to retrieve but instead she brings back a severed hand?

Bam! The story is off and running.

Here’s one possible way to begin:

Kit’s mobile went dead during his regular morning run along the seashore, deserting him when he needed it most.

Gem, his German Shepherd-border collie mix, was racing down the beach after her ball. Abruptly, she stopped to sniff a pile of flotsam that three days of windswept rain had washed ashore. As Kit approached, he noticed a stench besides rotting seaweed.

A body. 

He started to call emergency services then realized his phone was dead, as dead as the young woman handcuffed to a wooden rail.

Jim Bell frequently counsels writers to “act first, explain later.”

To make this first page effective, try beginning with action. What disturbance changes Kit’s predictable, monotonous life into a story adventure?

The background information—like his familiarity with weather patterns, his parents’ deaths, and that he lives on the same street where he grew up—can all be woven in later, after the reader is hooked.

Summation: This page has potential. I like the English seaside setting and Gem is an interesting character. The excellent title promises that something bad is going to happen.

If BA rewrites the first page with action that lives up to the title’s promise, the reader will be eager to plunge into those Deadly Waters.

Thanks for submitting, Brave Author!

~~~

Over to you, TKZers. What do you think of this first page? What suggestions do you have for the Brave Author?

~~~

 

 

Start the New Year with a new series. Please check out award-winning Thrillers with Passion by Debbie Burke. 

Amazon link

Editor Interview – Val Mathews

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By Debbie Burke
@burke_writer

After lunch on the second day of a writing conference, typically attendees’ brains are already brimming. Fatigue sets in. With full tummies, the temptation to nod off is strong.

Editor Val Mathews

However, no one dozed during Val Mathews’s presentation at the Flathead River Writers Conference in Montana this past October.

Val is a former acquisitions editor at The Wild Rose Press and teaches at several universities. She’s a certified flight instructor and used to fly Lear jets. Additionally, she’s a gifted speaker who knows how to grab and keep an audience’s attention.

At the beginning of her talk, Val got about 100 attendees up on our feet and walking between long rows of tables and down the aisles of the auditorium. Initially, she asked us to imagine we were taking a leisurely hike in Glacier Park. What did we see, smell, and hear?

Then she switched the scenario to a crowded city street. We were late to an important meeting, had forgotten our notes, and needed to return to the office to retrieve them. The energy in the room increased. The sea of people hurried around, now moving in opposite directions, passing each other and trying to avoid collisions.

Next, Val reduced the pace and had us walk with different postures—chests out, heads lowered, hunched over, hips forward, speeding up, slowing down—while paying attention to how each variation made our bodies feel.

Then she told us to become our main character and emulate their posture, movements, stride, and attitude. She asked, “How does your character feel? What are the physical sensations? What are they thinking about? How does that affect their movement?”

After ten minutes, Val had succeeded in chasing away all drowsiness and captured our full attention.

The exercise impressed me, so I invited Val to visit The Kill Zone. Welcome, Val!

Debbie Burke: Please share a little of your background and how you ended up in the publishing business.

Val Mathews: Thanks for having me, Debbie. I’m so glad you enjoyed my workshops! They are always so much fun to do, and everyone comes away renewed with ideas and inspired to write!

By the way, that opening exercise was borrowed from acting classes I took recently. Acting is all about stepping into your character’s body and soul and deeply connecting to your character’s inner world. Writers must do the same thing! And we can get to this deeper level of connection with our characters through our senses. Good writers have a knack for stepping into their characters, and it shows on the page. The characters come alive, feel real! And real-feeling characters hook readers.

So, to answer your question, I recently left The Wild Rose Press. Currently, I’m an editorial consultant for CRAFT Literary, a well-established online literary magazine, and I teach other editors at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Editorial Freelancers Association in New York City. Also I work one-on-one with writers to take their manuscripts to the next level—or the next few levels. All done remotely from my home in Athens, Georgia.

The funny thing is that I feel like I ended up in publishing by accident, even though my mom encouraged me to pursue that direction all my life. I got into publishing later in my life. In my 40s, after I already had a couple of careers and raised a family, I was accepted into graduate school and earned my Master of Arts in Professional Writing.

While in graduate school, I taught First-Year Composition, tutored writers, and volunteered as a poetry editor for a little literary magazine. On the side, I was coding and designing websites. Then I volunteered for SurfCoaches, a surfing company in Costa Rica, and created a digital magazine and website for them.

Those experiences gave me the confidence to approach the Georgia Writers Association and propose a digital literary magazine. They were thrilled since they only had a little newsletter at the time. I got a team together—mostly volunteer editors and readers—and we poured through submissions. We published poetry, short stories, and articles on the craft of writing. We did a couple of flash fiction contests too. A lot of fun!

Initially, I was just going to handle the poetry side, but surprisingly to me, I ended up being really good at fixing red-hot messes and fine-tuning short stories.

One of the accepted short-story authors asked me to edit her full manuscript. Then another asked and another. They referred me to their writer friends, and before I knew it, I was working with a writer every month while still in grad school. It spread by word of mouth. Soon writers asked me to come and talk at their writer groups, and I got even more clients. Then I started presenting at writer conferences, and my career took off from the exposure and experience. I’m booked two months or more in advance now.

A few years ago, I sent letters of introduction to a few university presses and small traditional publishers. I was hired on with The Wild Rose Press and got on the developmental editor list with the University of Georgia. During the first few years, I asked myself, “Is this real? Can I do it again next month?” And I always did. My mom would say, “I told you so.”

I’m still amazed at how I get to do what I love and I can do it from home, the coffee shop, the mountains—maybe the moon in five years. (Just kidding about the moon; I’ll settle for an island as long as I have a good internet connection.)

In college, I wanted to major in Biology. My mother bucked. She said, “But you can’t; you’re a girl!” Hard to imagine nowadays! She convinced me to major in English at Loyola University in New Orleans. Eventually, I rebelled, and I secretly enrolled in college for aeronautical science to become a commercial pilot like my father. I didn’t tell my mom until after my first solo! I flew turboprops and Lear Jets for a little while, and then life took unexpected twists and turns that led me to my current publishing career.

I’m still a FAA Certified Flight Instructor and have been for almost three decades now. Being a jet pilot is a bonus in the editing world. Aspiring authors often mention that my flying past was one of the deciding factors that made them pick up the phone and ask about my editorial services. And they always sign on.

Needless to say my mom was right. She knew I had a knack for writing and editing. Don’t you hate it when your mother is always right?

DB: What attracted you to editing?

VM: Although I edit at all levels—from developmental to proofreading—I’m most attracted to developmental editing. Developmental editors are all about the big picture. We assess how scenes hang together as a whole, how a story moves and unfurls, how characters drive the story forward. We’re kind of like detectives. We look for clues—or story seeds, as I call them.

These story seeds are often hidden or not fully fleshed out by the writer. But developmental editors look deep into the heart of a story and pull them out. Often writers don’t even know these seeds are there! Their creative subconscious scattered those seeds, but their consciousness was barely aware of them. When I point them out, their faces light up. It’s incredible to watch authors in this moment of inspired realization.

What I love the most about developmental editing is these light-bulb moments.

It’s deeply fulfilling to help writers fulfill their dreams. If a manuscript lacks focus, I’ll help the writer find it. If an author lacks confidence, I’ll work to inspire, challenge, and cheer them on. A developing editor’s job is not just about the manuscript—a large chunk of what we do involves inspiring the author’s voice and developing their full potential. In fact, the best developmental editors become the author’s collaborating partners—we hone the writer’s unique voice and make the author’s vision our vision.

When copyeditors move to developmental editing, it’s a significant perspective shift for sure. And how to make that move is a big part of my focus when teaching other editors to do what I do.

DB: When reading manuscripts, what qualities catch your attention?

VM: Well, on that first page, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping to be hooked. I love a story that starts with a strong voice—either a strong narrator voice or a strong character voice. Voice is a bit of an allusive term. What a good voice is for one editor may not be for another. It’s often very subjective.

In Voice: The Secret Power of Great Writing, James Scott Bell says that a “great voice is symbiotic,” meaning interdependent, and he encourages authors to identify with their characters so intimately that the authors begin to feel and think how the characters feel and think. Again, this is what actors do when preparing for a new part, and what I try to do in my workshops.

Furthermore, I love a story that captures my senses. At The Wild Rose Press, we have a good rule of thumb: include three sensory details per page and one of those should be something other than visual. Sensory details make the characters and their world come alive and really pop off the page.

DB: What qualities turn you off?

VM: Simply boring writing. Boring is also an elusive term too. What boring is for one editor may not be boring to another editor. Again, it’s often very subjective. But there are a few things that all editors will agree on.

For instance, dialogue that doesn’t add anything to the mood or increase the tension or drive the conflict. Boring dialogue and “talking heads” turn me off the most. Talking heads is when characters are talking but disconnected from the story world—there are no action beats, no sensory details, no glimpse into the point-of-view character’s inner world and motivations. The characters don’t feel real!

But the good news is it’s an easy fix. Writers can just look for long stretches of dialogue, and weave in actions and details to ground the reader in the story’s physical world. Then show the character’s conflicting desires, values, and emotions so the character becomes real.

Another turn-off is when the characters’ roles are generic, stereotyped, or old-fashioned because they don’t represent real people in all their colors, patterns, and quirks. Again boring.

DB: Could you describe your acquisition process at The Wild Rose Press?

VM: Every editor at The Wild Rose Press may have a different process. Typically, a senior editor or our editor-in-chief will send us a potential new author’s submission package consisting of the query letter and the first five pages. Each editor makes their own decision to request more pages or send a friendly (but often helpful) rejection letter. That’s why an author’s opening pages have to pop. Writers have a small window to hook a publisher and make the acquiring editor want to read on.

However, my submission process normally starts at a writers’ conference. Most of the submissions I read were sent to me from authors I met at a conference or workshop. I also get contacted by literary agents who pitch their client’s novels.

When I receive a submission, the first thing I do is read the first five pages. Often, I can tell on page one if it’s going to be a rejection—cold hard truth. If the opening doesn’t pop off the page, most readers aren’t going to wait until page three hundred to see if anything happens. One time, a writer told me, “But it gets good on page one hundred.” True story! Readers read for the joy and thrill of it. We want that joy and thrill on page one, page two, page three, and every page after that.

To get your foot in the door with an acquisition editor, rock the house down on the first page. It doesn’t have to be exploding bombs, car chases, shooting matches, and murder mayhem on page one, but it does need to hook us immediately and keep hooking us on every page.

The hook can be a promise of future conflict or subtle micro-tension or a strong character voice. One of those three things (preferably all three) will prompt me to immediately email the author and ask for a partial or full manuscript.

After reading the first five pages, I look at the pitch part of the author’s query. I’ll also read the synopsis and then request more pages or send a rejection. Some editors always read the query first and only ask for more pages based on the pitch. However, more than once, I’ve been thrilled by a fantastic pitch and strong synopsis, only to be disappointed when reading the manuscript. I think sometimes authors hire a professional query and synopsis writer.

I suggest writing it yourself. You have to know your story cold. When writers struggle to put the gist of their stories into a strong pitch paragraph or break the story down into a tight synopsis, then I bet there is a good chance their manuscripts have plot holes or too many storylines or too many characters—just my two feathers. I’m sure there are exceptions.

If I’m on the fence about a story or just want another opinion, I sometimes run it by our reading panel for their input. Depending on their positive reviews, I will continue with the acquisition process. Sometimes the readers give me insights I haven’t thought about or clue me into some aspects of the novel that might rub readers the wrong way.

Once I find a manuscript that I love and want to make an offer to the author, I send a Request for a Contract to my senior editor. If she approves, she sends it through, and an offer is made. Then the fun begins!

DB: What do you believe are the most significant changes in the publishing industry in the past five years?

VM: Well, the pandemic certainly changed things and pushed readers more strongly toward audio and digital books. Both have been steadily rising, but they really jumped up in readership during the pandemic. Audiobooks are a hot marketplace ticket! We are talking about a billion-dollar market here!

Authors may want to consider keeping their derivative rights. Derivative rights are the starting point for audiobooks. Before signing a publishing contract, ask, “Do I control my derivative rights, specifically my audio rights?” Read that contract and consider renegotiating to hang on to those rights. Because as I said, audio rights are hot right now and are expected to get hotter.

Spotify is buying Findaway and is really moving into the audiobook market. They expect audiobook sales to grow from $3.3 billion to $15 billion by 2027. That’s huge!

If you control that right, you get 100% of the profit. However, more publishers are keeping those rights. But it’s still economically not attractive for many publishers to produce audiobooks, so they may decide not to do it. In either case, you may want to ask for those rights to be reverted back to you so that you reap all the profit.

DB: What trends have you noticed lately?

VM: TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform and is probably today’s essential tool for branding and marketing your novels. I used to rave about Twitter, but TikTok is stealing the show these days.

Although audiobooks and digital books are hot, print books are in demand, and apparently there is a shortage. Despite the surge in new technologies, all generations still prefer reading physical books. So, the good news is that print publishing is not dying as many had predicted.

Serial fiction is super-hot! As the old sales adage goes: It’s easier to keep an old client than to get a new one. The same goes for readers. This is particularly important for self-published authors. Sites like Kindle Vella, Wattpad, Inkitt, Tapas, Radish, and other online reading apps will continue to do well.

During the pandemic, book sales increased, especially among Gen Zers. Not surprising with more free time and people working from home or off work and going to school from home. And contrary to popular belief, Millennials are voracious readers.

The book industry is still alive and well. Older readers tend to gravitate to thrillers, mystery, and suspense, whereas younger readers tend to favor fantasy, science fiction, and general literature. Young adult novels had the most significant jump in sales in 2021. Also, 66% of poetry book buyers are under thirty-four. These young people are huge readers!

One interesting statistic I found is the rise in romance readership among young people, specifically young adult men. However, with that being said, most fiction readers are still women. About 80%!

Writers may want to think about creating a tough, wicked-smart female protagonist who solves her own problems and doesn’t wait for the knight in shining armor. I think the days of the damsel in distress are gone—again, just my two feathers.

It’s good to understand the differences between the generations and how they hear about novels. Gen Z looks to social media and friends for book recommendations, whereas most of the older generations depend on bookseller lists. So, if you’re not on social media, such as BookTok, I encourage you to get hopping. It’s never too late or too soon to start.

DB: Is there anything you’d like to add that I haven’t asked about?

VM: Yes! On behalf of all editors everywhere, I want to thank you and all the writers out there. Thank you for letting us into your creative worlds. I know how hard it is to let your “baby” go and entrust it to the care of an editor. I want to acknowledge the guts it takes to be a writer and put yourself out there. I’m so happy that you are in the world! Keep learning. Keep pushing your boundaries. Keep moving forward one page at a time.

You can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/editorvmathews and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/val_mathews/.

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Val, thanks for the deep dive into the mind of an editor. We appreciate you sharing your insights with TKZ! 

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This is my last post before TKZ goes on our annual holiday break. See you in 2023. Aargh! How did 2022 whiz by so fast?

As always, thank you for your interest and participation in TKZ’s community! 

May your holiday season be filled with cheer, love, and peace!

Walking with the Wise

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“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise” – Proverbs 13:20a

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Over the past several years, I’ve been privileged to conduct interviews on my blog at kaydibianca.com with many highly-respected authors of books on the craft of writing. One question I’ve asked almost every interviewee is “What advice would you give a new writer?” Here are some of their answers:

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James Scott Bell (Plot & Structure) “It’s the same answer every time: write to a quota. Get in the habit of writing a certain number of words every week, week in and week out. You have to practice what you learn in craft books and classes. You have to exercise your imagination. You have to produce the pages if you want to make it in this game.”

Steve Laube (The Christian Writers Market Guide) “To quote a line from the movie “Galaxy Quest”: Never give up. Never Surrender. Seriously. This is an industry that demands excellence. Few writers are born as a perfect writer. Instead, most writers are marked by a dogged determination to improve their craft, learn the industry, build relationships, and create great ideas.”

Randy Ingermanson (How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method) “Create a habit of writing every day. You can analyze author success mathematically, and there are four crucial factors. One of the factors of a successful career is production. A habit of writing every day drives production. One of the other factors is quality. A habit of writing every day builds quality. So write every day. Every single day.”

Renni Browne (Self-editing for Fiction Writers) “Don’t self-edit your first draft. Let the story pour out, unimpeded by self-editing points, grammar, anything you’ve read or heard from famous writers, and so on. Story first, style later.”

Dave King (Self-editing for Fiction Writers) “Writing is hard.  It doesn’t take long to learn the basics of writing well enough to write competently, especially if you have the help of a professional editor (ADVT).  But to really develop the writer’s gifts – the insight into people you need to create layered characters, the awareness of how your readers will react to your story, the ability to make all the different aspects of your novel work together – takes time to develop.”

Angela Ackerman (The Emotion Thesaurus) “Tough to narrow it down to a single piece of advice, lol. I think what I would probably say is to not be in a rush. Developing strong storytelling skills takes time. Can anyone belt out a book and publish it? Yes. Should they? Not if their intent is to have a satisfying career if their skills are not at the level needed for that to happen.”

H.R. D’Costa (Story Stakes) “The advice I’d give is to make sure that you work on cultivating the right mindset. In fact, I’d put that above even developing plotting and marketing skills. With a healthy mindset, when you run into a thorny plot problem, you won’t give up on the manuscript (or perhaps on writing itself). Instead, you’ll persevere. You’ll power through.”

Jodie Renner (Fire Up Your Fiction) “Don’t be in a rush to publish your novel or send it off to agents. Be sure to go through it several times, then get some volunteer beta readers to go through it and give you their impressions. Then, if you can afford a professional editor, that would be invaluable. Agents and small publishers are flooded with submissions, so the slightest off-putting issue (wordiness, repetition, bland characters, stilted dialogue, not enough intrigue or tension, typos, punctuation errors, bloopers, etc.) will quickly land your story in the “rejects” pile.”

K.M. Weiland (Creating Character Arcs) “Find the process that works best for you. Explore and experiment and figure out what best unleashes your creativity. For example, outlines aren’t one size fits all. My outline won’t look anything like someone else’s outline. So just because one outlining approach doesn’t do it for you, don’t give up right away. Play around and see if you can find the right blend of tools and techniques for you.”

Martha Alderson (The Plot Whisperer) “Understand that writing a novel from beginning to end takes you on an epic journey. You’ll learn as much about yourself as you do about stories the longer you write. Keep going. Trust the process.”

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So, TKZers: What advice would you give to new writers?

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                    It’s About Time

The Watch Series of cozy mysteries is available here.