You know the question that is always asked: If you could go back and do your life over, what would you do differently?
Yawn.
“Time is the fire in which we burn…” ~Malcolm McDowell’s character, Soran, in Star Trek VII.
Instead, TKZers, let’s answer this question:
If I could travel back in time, what would I do exactly the same?
(Way less to choose from put this way, eh?) 🙂
Me? Leave LA and return to the PNW!
“When things get tough, women buy lipstick,” — Leonard Lauder
By PJ Parrish
I can still remember the first lipstick i ever bought. It was Yardley’s Baby Buff. This was sometime back in the early 60s, when I actually thought I was going to run away to London and somehow find John Lennon’s house. What I was going to do when I got there, well, that part is a little fuzzy. But that little tube of lipstick…
Okay, I didn’t buy it. I shoplifted it from Kmart. What can I say? I had no money, a rocky homelife, and was led astray by the super model Jean Shrimpton who was my personal style icon, in a time when I had no personal style. (That’s Jean up top, by the way)
Lipstick sales are booming these days. Last year, the global lipstick market was valued at roughly $17.5 billion and is projected to expand toward $19.6 billion this year. Why? Leonard Lauder knows. He’s the son of cosmetics queen Estee Lauder and he came up with the Lipstick Effect — in times of economic or social stress, consumers tend to comfort themselves with small luxuries. This has held true in all downturns, including the Great Depression, and was really notable after 9/11.
You know what else is enjoying a boom right now? Romance novels. Now, we all know that book sale trends are cyclical. Traditional, pure sci-fi is struggling right now, being overshadowed by massive reader demand for fantasy, romantasy, and contemporary romance hybrids. This is going on even as the major film studios invest in sci-fi media. Standard historical fiction set between the 1930s and 2010 is also currently a tougher sell, with editors saying readers are drawn to ancient, 18th-century, or 19th-century settings, or completely fresh, unconventional perspectives on the past.
I’m not sure what all this means, other than the vibe I am picking up from articles about fiction trends is that in these times of economic uncertainty, escapism (either into the far past or into deep passion) seems to be the popular balm.
As an ex romance writer (I started out back in the late 80s), I suffered through the ups and downs. I had four fat family sagas (heavy on romance) published and was riding a good wave. Then things crashed and I was dropped. I got a new agent. I’ll never forget what she told me in her office the first day we met.
“What do you NOT see here?” she said, holding up a copy of that week’s New York Times bestseller list.
“My name?”
She didn’t laugh. “What you don’t see is romance novels. What you do see is mysteries. Go home and write one.”
This is a true story. This was the beginning of a neo-golden era in crime fiction, when Michael Connelly, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Patricia Cornwell, et al, were breaking out. It took me a couple false starts, but eventually I got published again.
Back to romance novels. The new boom is due in great part to the fact that the genre has changed mightily since I was writing. The diversity of characters and subjects is remarkable now. Sales during the first half of 2025 increased 24% compared to the same period the previous year, according to the research firm Circana, and the same report noted sales volume for romance books had more than doubled compared to four years prior.
Print sales of romance fiction in the US have doubled in the last five years. Meanwhile, in the UK the romance and sagas category, which had for two decades made around £20m annually, leapt to a staggering £53.2m in 2022 during the pandemic, growing to £69m in 2024. (Source The Guardian:)
Romantic fiction handles big themes: chronic illness, global warming, divorce, death, betrayal and despair. Depression, anxiety and PTSD often appear – trauma, almost always. Pain, too. There’s the housing market, issues around antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, fatphobia, sexism, classism, all kinds of interdepartmental hatred and fear. All kinds of horror, love and loss…
And yet the trick is to hold all this very, very lightly. When romantic fiction tackles the problems of the world it must do so with such grace that you barely notice. It must do so in a way that makes the reader feel better about those things. Not for the romcom the unresolved ending, the unreliable narrator. The romcom must bring everything together, always, to a happy ending.
Years ago, I wrote a romance suspense novel. I’ve mentioned it here before, and told you how my agent sent it around and it was rejected by not only the publisher of my successfull thriller series, but by four other publishers. The verdict was unanimous — I had lazily assumed I could toss in some sex and a couple of cute one liners and call it a day. Nope. Like those sad literary cynics who try to write crime fiction, I didn’t understand the real beating heart of of the genre I was trying to invade.
I’m rewriting that book now, for the second time. It’s becoming clearer to me where I failed. I think I know what I have to do. And it’s a lot more than putting lipstick on a pig.
I just watched the Martin Short documentary on Netflix, and he said two life changing things for all creatives. The first:
“My career has been 80% failure.”
This is a man whose résumé includes SCTV, Saturday Night Live, Three Amigos, Father of the Bride, Broadway shows, Jiminy Glick, and Only Murders in the Building.
And he thinks his career is 80% failure.
Using Short’s perspective we calculate creative success completely backward. From the outside, we see Martin Short’s career as a highlight reel. But Short lived all the parts that don’t make the retrospective. The jobs he didn’t get. The shows that were canceled. The ideas that went nowhere.
That is an entirely different way of looking at a creative career. Most of us secretly think success means gradually eliminating failure.
We think a career trajectory looks like this:
My other favorite quote in the documentary is:
“Show business is talent, luck, and endurance.”
Endurance is the most underrated ingredient of a creative career.
We spend an enormous amount of time talking about talent. But to be successful, you must continually try and create. A creative career is a marathon, not a sprint.
It means:
You keep going long enough for talent and luck to have another chance to bump into each other.
Short connects endurance to confidence.
We think confidence comes from success. But that’s a pretty fragile form of confidence, because sometimes the thing isn’t good. Sometimes it is good and nobody wants it. Sometimes you are good and you still don’t get the job. Short’s version of confidence is much sturdier. It is being willing to fail.
Creative confidence becomes: I can survive if this doesn’t work.
That is a much more useful superpower.
If your confidence requires every project to validate you, every rejection becomes catastrophic. If your confidence says, I may fail and I’m going to keep creating anyway, rejection loses some of its teeth.
In Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Amy says,
“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.”
With an attitude of learning, failure means moving forward.
If Martin Short can call 80% of his career failure, then failure is not evidence that a creative career isn’t working. Maybe failure is part of what a working creative career looks like.
That doesn’t mean every rejection should be ignored. Failure gives us information. Sometimes the script really does need another draft. Sometimes the concept isn’t strong enough. Sometimes we’ve been pitching the wrong people. We learn. We adjust. We get better.
But there’s a dangerous equation creative people make all the time:
This failed = I am failing.
Those are not the same thing. Martin Short’s career makes that distinction gloriously clear. Individual things can fail inside an enormously successful creative life.
We tend to put enormous pressure on whatever we’re making right now. This book has to work. This screenplay has to sell. This pitch has to land.
But a creative career isn’t one roll of the dice. It’s hundreds of rolls. Some become projects. Some become contacts. Some teach you something. Some introduce you to collaborators. Some lead sideways into opportunities you never predicted. Some die magnificently on the runway. And occasionally one takes off. Then you build the next runway.
Instead of asking: Did this succeed?
Ask:
Next time something doesn’t work out the way you wanted, take a breath, smile, and keep creating
Do you think your book would make a great movie? Get on the launch day list for my new book, Sell Your Book to Hollywood: How to Pitch Your Book, Find the Right Producer, and Navigate the Deal! Coming soon!
by Debbie Burke
Flock camera – Public Domain
Today’s story is a truly a crime. An innocent woman was jailed for 13 days because a Flock camera captured an image of her vehicle that just happened to be in the vicinity of a fatal traffic accident.
On the night of October 4, 2025, three people were killed in a chain reaction crash involving a motorcycle and multiple vehicles on Interstate 4 near the Volusia and Seminole county line in Florida. Because of dark road conditions and a semitruck that blocked views, witnesses who called 911 gave varied descriptions of an SUV or Dodge Durango, either black or maroon or white, driving erratically and swerving across lanes. One witness recalled a partial license plate number “458.”
No cameras recorded the actual accident. However, a Flock camera located three miles beyond the accident location captured a license plate of a black Dodge Durango owned by Lindsey Isaacs, 23. Her license plate did not have numbers “458.”
A Florida Highway Patrol corporal decided the Flock camera shot was enough reason to impound Ms. Isaac’s Durango, even though the vehicle had no visible damage other than what the corporal called a “smudge or rub marks.” The sworn affidavit submitted to the court can be read at this link.
Ms. Isaacs protested she had not been in an accident and had time-stamped receipts that proved her whereabouts that night. She had driven on that road but had already passed the location before the collision occurred.
Per a Fox news report by Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy.com:
“The Flock camera hit was far from the only information investigators had. A 911 caller described a maroon Dodge Durango and provided part of its license plate number. Later, investigators also found red or maroon paint transfer on a Ford Focus involved in the crash.”
Yet Ms. Isaacs’s undamaged black Durango remained impounded for months.
Then on April 17, 2026, Lindsey Isaacs was arrested on three counts of vehicular homicide, plus numerous additional charges, and put in solitary confinement. Her initial bond hearing was denied.
She was finally released after spending a total of 13 days incarcerated.
On May 22, 2026, all charges against her were dropped.
Meanwhile, an investigation by Florida Highway Patrol’s Special Investigation and Reconstruction Team (SIRT) determined there were “discrepancies” in the initial report. Despite the sworn affidavit by the FHP corporal who impounded Lindsey Isaacs’s black Durango, SIRT found no damage on the vehicle.
A WHSV3.com article by Emily Featherstone and Brendan Keefe reports a group of motorcyclists and drivers had been together at a party earlier in the evening prior to the accident. When they were interviewed, they stated Alisa Lee Montalvo, 46, was present at the gathering and was driving a maroon Dodge Durango.
Following the accident, one witness stated he drove past and recognized Montalvo sitting in her badly damaged maroon Durango, with a deployed airbag, parked at the side of the highway. He believed she had stopped due to the accident, so he continued driving.
Montalvo subsequently left the scene of the fatal accident without reporting it.
The license plate on Montalvo’s Durango included the numbers “458.”
Investigators located a man who said Montalvo had paid him to repair her Durango three days after the accident. She told him the damage happened because of hydroplaning. Replacement scrap parts were used that didn’t match the original paint.
On May 12, 2026, a search warrant was issued for the maroon Dodge Durango owned by Alisa Lee Montalvo. Investigators confirmed extensive repairs had recently been made on the vehicle. An airbag had been deployed but not replaced. Montalvo never reported the accident to insurance or law enforcement.
An affidavit for an arrest warrant for Montalvo was filed on May 22, 2026, charging her with three counts of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of fatalities and serious injuries, and tampering with or fabricating evidence. She was arrested and jailed. On May 29, a judge denied her request for bond.
Lindsey Isaacs has filed suit against two FHP officers as individuals for false arrest, wrongful imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. She is requesting a jury trial.
The corporal responsible for Ms. Isaacs’s arrest has been promoted to sergeant.
Ms. Isaacs’s attorney Patrick J. McGeehan summarized information and photos of her ordeal at this website.
On August 31, 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered Flock cameras and all automated license plate readers (ALPRs) removed from the state highway system.
~~~
TKZers: Who do you think bears responsibility for this miscarriage of justice?
Are there ALPRs (automatic license plate readers) in your area?
Do you believe they are effective in solving crimes?
Are the risks associated with ALPRs worth it?
Can You Automate Grammar?
Terry Odell
I’ve spent the last several weeks editing Beyond the Frame, first making changes and adjustments based on my editor’s feedback, then printing the manuscript and reading it from start to finish, making more notes, and “finally” (because it’s never really over), letting Word read it to me, which led to finding more glitches.
One of the checks Word offers is its “Editor” function, where it will check for spelling, grammar, inclusiveness—is it so bad to use the term ‘doorman’ when there’s a guy holding the hotel door open for you?—and conciseness.
Let’s talk about grammar today.
I’ve always considered myself pretty good at grammar, but of course, I wanted to see what Word’s Editor function had to say. These are some of the things it flagged across several of my books. What I’ve written first, then the Editor’s suggestion/correction below. Changes in bold.
She put the camera to her eye
She put the camera into her eye
She stared past him
She stared at him
Graham finished filing his reports, surprised to see it was four-thirty.
Graham finished filing his reports, surprised to see they were four-thirty.
He recalled the conversation with his father when Gordon brought up working in the same department.
He recalled the conversation with his father when Gordon was brought up working in the same department.
In return for you doing exactly as he says as soon as he says it, he assures me you will not be the victim of hazing.
In return for you to do exactly as he says as soon as he says it, he assures me you will not be the victim of hazing.
He scooped the dirty clothes into the plastic bag, knotted it,
He scooped the dirty clothes into the plastic bag, knotted them
If Black expected him to wash them, he’d pushed the joke too far.
If Black expected him to wash them, he’d push the joke too far.
Mrs. Vernon saw them to the door,
Mrs. Vernon saw them at the door,
He grabbed the guy by the collar,
He grabbed the guy with the collar
You can’t back out now.
You can’t go back out now.
Three days later, dragging her carry-on through the Denver airport
Three days later, dragging her carry-on through the Denver airport
Her hair, cut in the same short, low maintenance do she’d had since college,
Her hair, cut in the same short, low maintenance do she’d have since college
He called Heather’s company
He is called Heather’s company
He scanned the drivers displaying tablets and spotted a tall brunette woman wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and black blazer, holding one with his name.
He scanned the driver’s (or drivers’) displaying tablets and spotted a tall brunette woman wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and black blazer, holding one with his name.
First, he sent an email to Pam, letting her know he would bcc her on all correspondence
First, he sent an email to Pam, letting her know he would be back her on all correspondence
No matter what lies Gerry spread, he couldn’t destroy Heather’s career.
No matter what lies Gerry spread, he couldn’t destroy Heather’s career.
The bottle Ian opened gave a satisfying pop
The bottle Ian opened gave a satisfying pop
She surveyed the offerings, willing to try a little of almost everything.
She surveyed the offerings, trying a little of almost everything.
Needless to say, I didn’t approve any of these suggestions—and to be fair, Word said to ‘consider’ its changes. But give me a human who knows how to read in context any day.
My all time favorite. I’d written, “Joe. What the f**k are you doing here at two in the morning?” I think I was using Grammarly at that time (which has been updated and improved), and it told me that since f**k is singular, it should be, “Joe. What the f**k IS you doing here at two in the morning.”
What about you, TKZers? Do you have a grammar checker that is more accurate? Do you trust it, or do you still have to stop and consider each suggested change? Or do you prefer a human?
(Oh, and if you’ll permit a little BSP, Beyond the Frame releases October 1st, but you can preorder it today.)
Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings
When deepfake photos threaten their careers, dog-park friends Evvie and Colton become each other’s only allies. Evvie, who vanished behind her camera years ago to escape a painful past, uncovers humiliating fake images of herself. Colton, an insurance adjuster with ranch roots, trusts her eye on a suspicious claim. A family emergency pulls them to Wyoming—where Evvie’s own dangerous secret waits.
Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
by Debbie Burke
As a writer, I like to collect fun words and expressions. How about you?
Here are some that caught my attention:
ADMINISTRIVIA
During our recent interview, author and podcaster Pamela Fagan Hutchins introduced me to this portmanteau. Two words are combined to make a new word that relates to both.
These days, seems like half my time is taken up with administrivia such as filling out unnecessary forms, taking surveys, answering repetitive questions I already answered at least four times. Businesses, governmental entities, medical practitioners, banks, etc. specialize in administrivia with their ongoing demands for personal information because they want to sell us something.
PRETZELITIS
Indie film producer Holly Soriano coined this term for an affliction that writers often have. We twist ourselves into all sorts of mental contortions trying to make a character or plot work.
The verb form is pretzelize.
The cure for pretzelitis is often critique from an objective editor or beta reader who recognizes the problem and tells us that we’re overthinking the story.
NOT MY FARM, NOT MY PIGS
“Not my circus, not my clowns” has become a cliche. So that’s why I appreciated this fresh twist to convey not my problem. A friend heard it from her country neighbor.
Sign at the local laundry and dry cleaners:
WHAT IS IRONY?
THE OPPOSITE OF WRINKLY
CODE BROWN
At the gym when a little kid has an accident in the pool, they announce “Code Brown” over the PA system to alert employees to clear the pool and call the janitor.
Can’t help but be reminded of the classic scene in Caddyshack.
ALGORITHMIC DISAMBIGUATION
This 10-syllable mouthful arrived in an AI scam solicitation email. I can only guess the prompt was: combine two words into a phrase that sounds impressive but means nothing.
Actually, it does mean something: We want your money.
YOU CANNOT TEACH A PIG TO SING. IT WASTES YOUR TIME AND JUST ANNOYS THE PIG.
This quote appears on a Murphy’s Law poster (poster copyright 1981) that has hung in our entryway for decades. The saying has been attributed to Mark Twain, Paul Dixon, and other sources. However, according to QuoteInvestigator.com, it came from Robert Heinlein’s 1973 novel Time Enough for Love.
But its roots go even farther back in history.
An ancient Greek proverb has a similar theme:
“He ploughs the air;
He is making clothes for fishes;
He is teaching an old woman to dance;
He is teaching a pig to play on a flute;
He catches the wind with a net;”
Circa 1860s, a variation shows up in a comical Irish ballad:
“You may catch old birds with chaff.
Says the Shan van Vocht,
You may coax a cow to laugh,
Says the Shan van Vocht,
You may teach a pig to sing,
To dance a “Hieland fling.”
Or whistle any thing.
Says the Shan van Vocht.”
All boil down to the same meaning: Don’t waste your time on foolish, pointless, useless endeavors.
Isn’t that what administrivia does???
THAT DOG WON’T HUNT
An idea or plan that can’t work.
ALL HAT, NO CATTLE
Lots of hot air and no action to back it up. A close corollary is: ALL MOUTH AND NO TROUSERS
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
A big problem no one wants to face or discuss.
An early use of the phrase occurred in a 1959 NY Times article that stated: “Financing schools has become a problem about equal to having an elephant in the living room. It’s so big you just can’t ignore it.”
However, that doesn’t mean people won’t continue to try.
Photo credit: FilmReference.com
In 1935, the great comedian Jimmy Durante appeared on Broadway in Billy Rose’s stage production of Jumbo. In the show, Jimmy is a down-on-his-luck circus owner trying to escape bad debts by sneaking out of town with his prize attraction, Jumbo the Elephant. As he leads Jumbo across the stage, a police officer stops him and asks: “What are you doing with that elephant?”
Durante tries to hide Jumbo behind him and responds: “What elephant?”
And, last but not least, especially for writers:
BIBLIOKLEPT
A person who steals books. From Parade.com
~~~
TKZers: Do you have a favorite expression, phrase, or funny word you like? Please share in the comments.
~~~
Merriam-Webster defines DEEPFAKE as: “a digital image, video, voice, etc. that has been convincingly generated or altered to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.”
What if millions of people watched video of you committing a crime? Except you’re innocent. How can you prove it when cops are ready to shoot first and ask questions later?
Deep Fake Double Down was BookLife’s 2023 best mystery/thriller and Silver Falchion finalist. Buy at this link.
Last Friday evening I hankered for a classic noir movie to watch, and decided on the 1949 film, Side Street, starring Farley Granger, Cathy O’Donnell, James Craig, and Paul Kelly.
A down on his luck army vet, working as a part time postal carrier, discovers the location of two hundred bucks in shady attorney’s office. Desperate to find more money because he and his young wife their first baby on the way, he steals the file the money is squirreled away in, only to discover it’s actually thirty grand, and there’s a murder charge attached.
It’s my personal favorite type of noir, featuring a flawed good guy who gets enmeshed in a web of deceit and crime and struggles to find a way out. The movie was filmed in New York City, which has an almost Gothic look to it, and featuring perhaps the first modern style car chase, Side Street is a fast-paced mystery as our hero tries to find out the secret of the thirty thousand dollars.
There’s much more to noir and today’s Words of Wisdom brings two posts from the TKZ archives to show some of its depth and breadth. First PJ Parrish looks at noir and the style and diction that goes into them. James Scott Bell follows with an examination of film noir and the lessons fiction writers can learn from it.
I am still trying to catch up on my noir reading. (I didn’t get to The Maltese Falcon until about ten years ago, I confess). Digesting noir, with its emphasis on oppressive mood and shadowed morality, with its lean mean style, has helped me find my own voice as a writer. I am not a true neo-noir practitioner, but I feel a deep connection to its dark heart. One of the best compliments I ever got was when Ed Gorman wrote of our book Thicker Than Water: “The quiet sadness that underpins it all really got to me, the way Ross Macdonald always does.”
A couple Christmases ago, my husband gave me The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps.It’s a compilation of the best crime stories from the “golden age” of pulp crime fiction — the ’20s through the ’40s. It’s about the size of an old Manhattan phone book. And to be really honest, parts of it read about as well.
Many of these guys were dismissed as the hacks of their day, churning out their stories for cheaply printed magazines like “Black Mask” and “Dime Detective.” Yeah, they were lurid, the syntax cringe-worthy, the plots thin or nonsensical. But they tapped into a popular need for a new kind of human hero. The most memorable of the heroes became the prototypes for much of what we are seeing in our crime fiction today — lone wolves fighting for justice against all odds but always on their own different-beat terms. Would we have Harry Bosch without the Continental Op? Jack Reacher without Simon Templar? No way…
And while we’re at it, let’s not get sucked into the notion that noir was only a guy thing. Valerie Taylor had a career churning out books like The Girls In 3B, a classic ’50s pulp tale showcasing predatory beatnik men, drug hallucinations, and secret lesbian trysts. (Her books, among others, have been reissued by Feminist Press.) And would we have Megan Abbott or Sarah Gran without Dorothy B. Hughes, who wrote the twisty indictment of misogyny In A Lonely Place (the source of the Bogart movie)? Doubtful…
To be sure, not all the old stories — like many of the movies — have aged well. The slang sounds vaguely silly now, the sexism and racism we can explain away as anachronistic attitudes. But the armature these writers created is still sturdy.
Especially in pure writing style. I think we can read these stories now mainly to appreciate the streamlined locomotive style that propels these stories along their tracks. When you read them, you can almost hear James M. Cain whispering: “I’m not going to dazzle you with my writing. I’m going to tell you a helluva story.”
These guys sure knew what to leave out. Here’s a passage from Paul Cain’s “One Two Three:”
I said: “Sure — we’ll both go.
Gard didn’t go for that very big, but I told him that my having been such a pal of Healy’s made it all right.
We went.
Not: And then we left the apartment and got in my roadster and set out. We took Mulholland Drive out of the canyon and arrived just before dusk. Just: We went.
How can you read that and not smile? I heartily recommend the Big Book of Pulps.And if you haven’t connected with Eddie on Noir Alley, you’re missing out on some of the best stuff television has to offer.
And now, in honor of our pulp forefathers, I am offering up this little quiz of pulp diction slang for your amusement. Answers at the end. And don’t chance the chisel for a cheap bulge, bo. We Jake?
DEFINITIONS.
1. Ameche
2. Kicking the gong around
3. Wooden kimono
4. cheaters
5. Gasper
6. Hammer and saws
7. Orphan papers
8. Wikiup
9. Bangtails
10. Can-opener
TRANSLATIONS
11. I had been ranking the Loogan for an hour and could see he was a right gee. It was all silk so far.
Answers:
1. telephone
2. taking opium
3. coffin
4. sunglasses
5. cigarette
6. Police
7. Bad checks
8. Home
9. Horses
10. Safecracker
11. I had been watching the man with the gun for an hour and could tell he was an okay guy. Everything was cool so far.
12. I stared at the body. The woman hadn’t been murdered. She was definitely a prostitute who had committed suicide.
13. I have arranged for a doctor to get the information.
14. By the time we got to the speakeasy, the hired killers had left. Just another trip for nothing…
PJ Parrish—June 16, 2020
Just what is film noir, and why does it have such a loyal following?
As the French name implies, this is “dark film.” It always revolves around crime, and who among us hasn’t had a passing thought of such ilk from time to time? Even if it is just to wonder “Could I get away with it?” Film noir allows us to indulge that fascination without getting too close.
Film noir has a distinctive look—rich black-and-white (as opposed to neo-noir, like Body Heat). Indeed, cinematographers, like the great John Alton, were just as important as the writer and director. (See Alton’s masterpiece He Walked by Nightsometime).
The noir world grinds out rough justice. No bad deed goes unpunished. A guy makes one bad move years ago, and has managed to find a new life…until that past catches up with him to exact retribution (Out of the Past).
Sometimes, the hammer falls on a decent guy who makes one bad choice.
In Side Street, Farley Granger plays Joe Norson, a mailman working like a dog to support himself and his pregnant wife. One day he delivers mail to a lawyer’s office and, alone there, finds $200 in cash. On impulse, he takes it. What he doesn’t know is the dough is part of the lawyer’s extortion racket.
And then there’s a murder.
Soon enough, the bad guy is after Joe, and so is the law, considering Joe a suspect in the murder. Hoo boy. Can he possibly get out of this? We watch to find out, pulling for the guy. Noir justice happens, but exacts a heavy price.
Not all noir leads are good guys who make a bad choice. Sometimes they’re bad guys through and through, and we watch to see if he gets away with it (Touch of Evil). Heist noir (Criss Cross; The Asphalt Jungle) is like that.
Thus, shades of black and white mix, which is just like life.
And makes for compelling fiction, too. The character with a “moral flaw” is more interesting—and more realistic—than a pure, immaculate hero. We relate to characters like that because deep down we know we have flaws, too, and that should our flaws get out of hand, it will lead to disaster.
In a way, noir is like classic Greek tragedy. The purpose of tragedy was to create “catharsis” and warn us of what happens when we follow the dark side.
Thus:
If you want to explore film noir more deeply, I recommend Dark City by Eddie Muller (affiliate link). There are also scores of B-movie noirs available for free on YouTube.
Here are ten of my favorites:
The Maltese Falcon (1941, Dir. John Huston)
Double Indemnity (1944, Dir. Billy Wilder)
Out of the Past (1947, Dir. Jacques Tourneur)
Too Late For Tears (1949, Dir. Byron Haskin)
Act of Violence (1949, Dir. Fred Zinemann)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950, Dir. John Huston)
99 River Street (1953, Dir. Phil Karlson)
The Hitch-Hiker (1953, Dir. Ida Lupino)
Pickup on South Street (1953, Dir. Sam Fuller)
Touch of Evil (1958, Dir. Orson Welles)
***
Do you enjoy noir? Do you have favorite novel or movie? If you write noir, do you have any lessons to share with other writers?
What’s old?
That’s easy. Anyone ten years older than me.
Yes, that’s an old line, but we writers need to be careful who we call old.
In 2020, calling someone who is 60 “elderly” can anger your core readers.
It can even make readers laugh – at you.
Some readers snicker at Ellery Queen’s description of the “elderly” Inspector Queen who was “not yet 60.” The dynamic mystery writing duo were young whippersnappers of 29 when they created Inspector Queen.
To be fair, I thought 60 was ancient when I was in my 20s. Now, not so much.
Another longtime mystery reader said, “They Found Him Dead” by Georgette Heyer starts with a sixtieth birthday party for Silas Kane who is described as being “very old. As far as I can see, the book was published in 1937.”
How about Edmund Crispin’s “The Moving Toyshop” where the dead victim is described as “an elderly woman in her late 50s”?
What? That’s outrageous!
Except those books were published decades ago, and “old” in 1930 was a lot different than “old” in 1970 – or 2020.
Think back to your grandparents. In 1970, my beloved grandmother was an old woman at age 60. She had a big black purse (stuffed with photos of her grandchildren), sturdy shoes, crispy gray hair and a flour-sack figure. Granted, Grandma had a much harder life than I did, but people used to age faster than they do now.
The government says we’re old at 62. That’s when Americans can start collecting Social Security benefits – and haul them in for a long time. Social Security.gov says, “About one out of every three 65-year-olds today will live until at least age 90, and one out of seven will live until at least age 95.”
Sixty-five is the retirement age in the US, but many people that age still see themselves as young and vigorous.
So if you’re creating an older character for your novel, here are some things to consider:
Older people do not have equal protection under the law. If you have an older person who’s going to be assaulted, many jurisdictions have extra penalties for bashing seniors. In Massachusetts, a man was “arrested and charged with unarmed robbery, assault and battery on a person over the age of 60, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon (shod foot – aggravated) and mayhem.” In other words, he kicked an older person with his shoe. That’s something to consider when you have your bad guy attack an older person.
Seniors are often stereotyped as defenseless. But that ain’t necessarily so. An 88-year-old woman was assaulted and carjacked in a Walmat parking lot. She fought back with her cane and survived. “I’m a tough old broad,” she boasted.
And speaking of tough, how about the 82-year-old “award-winning female bodybuilder who turned the tables — literally — on a home intruder and beat him so badly after he broke into her house that he had to be taken to the hospital.” It’s true, and it happened in Rochester, New York. The bodybuilder broke a table over the creep – and she was just getting started.
Statistically, that Rochester Wonder Woman would be considered old, even by today’s new and improved standards.
So just how old do you want to make a senior character in your novel?
A CBS news story says, “Research from John Shoven, a prominent economics professor at Stanford University, suggests that if your chance of dying within the next year is 1 percent or less, you might be considered ‘middle aged.’”
Shoven has a chart that shows “the threshold for men transitioning beyond middle age increased from about age 44 in the 1920s to about 60 today.”
Oddly, 44 would be true “middle age.” Sixty may be the “new” middle age for men, but there are very few 120-year-olds roaming around.
Shoven says, “And finally, if your chance of dying within the next year is 4 percent or higher, you might be considered ‘very old’ or ‘elderly.’ . . . This threshold for men increased from about 65 in the 1920s to 76 today.” So men are “old” at 76.
“Shoven suggests that reduced mortality rates correlate roughly with improved health and vitality at all ages, and can be used as a proxy measure for aging.”
If you’re a woman, you’re even luckier – and younger. Consider this cheery news, ladies, from Shoven.
“By these measures, women today transition out of middle age around 65, a number that has increased from the late 40s in the 1920s. ‘Old’ for women today is about 73, which increased from the late 50s in the 1920s. And ‘very old’ today is about 80, an increase from about 67 in the 1920s.”
People don’t automatically get ‘old’ at 70. Wikipedia sums it up this way:
“Gerontologists have recognized the very different conditions that people experience as they grow older within the years defined as old age. In developed countries, most people in their 60s and early 70s are still fit, active, and able to care for themselves. However, after 75, they will become increasingly frail, a condition marked by serious mental and physical debilitation.”
That’s why my character Margery, in my Dead-End Job series, stays a perpetual 76. I can’t have her aging naturally, or she’ll be too old to go on adventures with Helen Hawthorne.
Personally, I like the question the sage Satchel Paige may or may not have asked:
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”
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Cozy lovers! Three of my Josie Marcus, mystery shopper mysteries are on sale throughout September. DYING IN STYLE, MURDER IS A PIECE OF CAKE, and AN UPLIFTING MURDER are $1.99 each this month.
Pulling Up My Big Girl Pants
Terry Odell
My previous editor focused primarily on copy editing. She made sure everything was clean and flowed properly. If she found something she didn’t think worked for the plot or the story, she’d point it out, but there weren’t a lot of those. She, however, is no longer editing, and I had to find a new one. I’d used her once before, and I liked her work, so I contracted with her for Beyond the Frame.
About two weeks after I sent her the manuscript, she gave me my feedback. She’d done some markups in the manuscript (I still don’t like Track Changes!), but this time, she did the bulk of her work in an editorial letter, not something she did the first time.
Wow! That’s what the big, traditional publishers do. Should I feel like I’ve moved up? I don’t know. This is the opening to her letter:
You write clean, readable scenes. The dogs are wonderful and they do real work. Baxter and Sammy carry more emotional freight than most secondary characters in this genre. The Hughes family is alive on the page; Mandy in particular. Wyatt’s “You done good, Colton” is a lovely, earned beat. The gallery confrontation with Iris is the sharpest scene in the book. And the horseback sequence has real cinematic pull. Enjoyable and likable characters.
I was feeling pretty good about that, but then she goes on.
So, this letter isn’t about your sentences. It’s about the building they’re sitting in.
I give a quick peek to the bottom of the Word doc. You know, where it gives the page count. It says this is page 1 of 16. SIXTEEN? That’s sixteen pages of editorial notes to go through. Suggestions, and her reasoning behind them. And this doesn’t count all the comments she left in the manuscript.
I admit that most of what she says makes perfect sense. Some of it makes okay sense, and a few points I don’t agree with at all. What’s scary to me is she’s pointing out all the things I don’t like about writing a novel—the “rules” or “conventions” or “reader expectations. Things I suppose I should think more about as I’m writing.
As a reader, I don’t like to expect things. I don’t like the pinch points, the beats, the mirror moments, the three act structure. I’m a pantser, and I write what happens. It usually works. I have an organic feel for how things need to play out. Her comments remind me of discussions about books in Mr. Holtby’s English class. When it came to symbolism and “deeper meanings” we would ask if the author had those in mind when they were writing. He said, “They probably felt they were finding the ‘right words’ and it was up to us to see what they meant once they were put together.” My editor was doing a full Mr. Holtby in her feedback. Pointing out things that I was clueless about as I was writing, but they ended up on the page. Who knew?
Now, to be honest, I had some doubts about this book. I knew right off that I wasn’t adhering to either the romance or the mystery/suspense conventions. Sure, the hero and heroine fall in love and have their promise of a Happily Ever After, but they don’t get there in the conventional way.
So, I’m going to be doing a LOT of revising, rewriting for the next I don’t know how long. I can say that I’m not ready to commit to a release date. It’s like I’m putting together a puzzle, but some of the pieces are in the wrong place, and some don’t exist yet, and when I build them, it messes up other pieces. I remind myself I’ve managed to get over thirty novels finished and published, and that sometimes the work is just plain hard.
On page 15, she gives me a 12-item punch list to go through.
And on page 16, she closes her letter with this:
The good news, and I mean it: almost every beat you need is already written. The gallery scene, the eulogy, the truck confession, the horseback night, the morning-after retreat…they exist. Most of this revision is changing why they happen, not whether. That’s a rewrite inside the same architecture, which is a much smaller job than it looks like from here. (She included a happy face emoji, too.)
Oh, and I have a cover! Thanks to Kim Killion of The Killion Group.
Your turn, TKZers. The floor is yours.
Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings
Deadly Ambitions
Peace in Mapleton doesn’t last. Police Chief Gordon Hepler is already juggling a bitter ex-mayoral candidate who refuses to accept election results and a new council member determined to cut police department’s funding.
Meanwhile, Angie’s long-delayed diner remodel uncovers an old journal, sparking her curiosity about the girl who wrote it. But as she digs for answers, is she uncovering more than she bargained for?
Now, Gordon must untangle political maneuvering, personal grudges, and hidden agendas before danger closes in on the people he loves most.
Deadly Ambitions delivers small-town intrigue, political tension, and page-turning suspense rooted in both history and today’s ambitions.
Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
by Debbie Burke
Holly Soriano is an independent film producer in Billings, Montana who’s creating a course about what they don’t teach you at film school but should.
For several weeks, I’ve been a beta tester for her zoom classes in screenwriting and film production.
Holly Soriano
Holly is zany, fanciful, and funny (she does standup as a side gig) with a passionate interest in mental health issues. Her full-length feature comedy My Apocalyptic Thanksgiving stars a hero with special needs. Her upcoming production is about a woman sent to an eastern Montana psych ward where she finds a fairy godmother who will grant her Three Wishes.
Holly has an MFA in screenwriting, studied with screenwriter Corey Mandell, and worked in the film industry in Los Angeles before coming home to Montana.
Her teaching style is whimsical. For example, her Power Point slides feature colorful aliens playing the roles of hopeful writers, melodramatic directors, and dream-crushing marketing executives.
Holly is quick to point out that Hollywood is not the center of the universe. The growing indie film industry demonstrates that good movies can be made anywhere and don’t necessarily require monster budgets.
Just as indie publishing democratized books, indie films leveled the playing field for movies. Before then, Holly says there was a class structure where actors and directors were at the top and those behind the scenes doing the actual work were looked down on.
She pokes fun at divas, striking a nose-in-the-air pose, flipping her hair, and proclaiming, “I’m an ar-teest!”
While writing a book is largely a solo effort, movie making is a collaboration among multiple contributors with different skill sets.
In the 16 shorts Holly has made, she learned how to do every job on the set. She understands where each piece fits into the puzzle and how they all work (or don’t work) together. Her mistakes teach lessons to make the next film better.
Short films (40 minutes or less) are an excellent training ground for filmmakers.
Thinking like a producer, Holly says, makes a writer realize, “Every line in a screenplay costs money.”
She says, “Films can be made cheap, or fast, or good, but not all three.”
In another example of threes, she explains: “Films are made three times. The writer writes one movie. The director writes another movie. The post-production editor looks at thousands of hours of uncut footage and asks, ‘how can I make this mess into a movie?'”
Raising money is always the big question.
Holly suggests first to put together free resources, like your own working knowledge, no-cost locations, and friends and family willing to help.
You can apply for grants available through state film commissions, charitable foundations, or educational institutions. State film commission offices may support a short that promotes recreational or cultural activities in your area.
Partnering with a nonprofit aligned with the film’s subject is another option. For example, Easterseals runs a Disability Film Festival where four of Holly’s shorts were shown.
An “angel” might be an A-list actor who sponsors the film. That is usually an actor seeking interesting, unique parts to stretch their talents beyond typical roles.
Once you make a movie, what do you do with it?
Theatrical release used to be the main option but no longer. Today films can be distributed through TV streaming services, Spotify, YouTube, libraries, on planes and cruises, etc.
During screenwriting class sessions, Holly emphasized the importance of stakes. Put the hero in a moral dilemma to reveal their character. Force them to make difficult choices. What are the consequences of their actions?
The screenplay for a feature film used to be 120 pages. Now it’s 105 pages or fewer, a reflection of rising costs and shorter attention spans of the audience.
While conflict is important, Holly advises not to have conflict for the sake of conflict. Don’t throw in a random fistfight just because you think it’s time for an action scene. Be sure conflict serves the story.
Interiority is different in films than in books. In books, the author goes inside the character’s head to express their thoughts, feelings, doubts, and fears. Movies are visual. Emotions need to be shown by actions that represent the feelings.
In addition to regular class sessions, Holly also met with each of us individually to discuss our projects. For the others, she reviewed their story outlines or scripts. In my case, she graciously took extra time to read the first book in my thriller series, Instrument of the Devil. She encouraged me to complete Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat beat sheet to help me translate literary to visual.
In the book Instrument of the Devil, the hero Tawny is introduced at home. Holly suggested a film version could instead open with a shot of the massive, imposing Hungry Horse Dam. Tawny’s broke and visits the dam hoping to get her former summer job back. Soon after, she becomes ensnared in a terrorist cyberattack on the electric grid.
Brilliant idea, Holly! That makes a much more visually dramatic first scene and ties in perfectly to the story.
Holly also thinks Nicole Kidman may want to play Tawny, the 50-ish widow, because Nicole believes there should be more stories featuring mature female leads.
Holly, from your lips to Nicole’s ears!
We met one-on-one several more times and Holly converted me from I’m really not interested in making movies to Wow, this is challenging and fun!
Thank you, Holly!
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Learn more about Holly, her projects, and upcoming classes at her website and her production company Darkness and Joy.
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TKZers: Have you written screenplays? Have you considered adapting your story for the movies?
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Please check out Instrument of the Devil and let me know if you think it has movie potential.
