Made in New Orleans

Posted on September 24, 2016 by Joe Hartlaub

I received a small envelope from an old friend in June of this year. It contained a silver dollar in a plastic collector’s case. I collected coins a long time ago and am still surprised at how much I remember, including where mint marks are located (or, in the case of the Philadelphia mint, absent) on each coin. The silver dollar in question, minted in 1885, bore the cryptic inscription ‘O’ on its reverse, or “tails” side, under the, um, tail of the eagle. The ‘O,’ I knew, stood for “New Orleans.” I called my friend, an antique dealer of some local renown, and thanked him for the unexpected gift. He advised that he had come across the item and, after making sure that it wasn’t one of of only two hundred minted, sent it to me with the thought that I could take it with me to New Orleans next time I went. I did that when I returned to New Orleans for business and Bouchercon last week and raised him one. I took that silver dollar back to its birthing room, if you will.

The place where I was born in no longer in existence — that covered wagon, alas, was attacked and set afire by Indians, but I digress — but the United States Mint in New Orleans still is. It is imaginatively and accurately known as “The Old Mint,” and does not refer to that unwrapped peppermint that James Scott Bell found in the pocket of a winter coat he hadn’t worn for a few years. No, The Old Mint is at the very edge of the French Quarter, tucked into a corner by the Mississippi River east of the French Market. It’s not a place that is close to tourist interests, so it is quiet, dim, and cool, the entrance way overseen by a somewhat sleepy-looking guard who seemed secure in the knowledge that there was nothing in the building that no one would be interested in stealing, unless steel coin presses weighing around twenty tons were to suddenly become valuable. There were, interestingly enough, a number of people there, and they weren’t drawn by the cost of admission (free!) or the promise of air conditioning on a New Orleans late summer day where the temperature was flirting with 95 degrees by 11:00 AM. No, they were coin collectors, past and present, and by dipping into conversations here and there I learned that they were serious about their hobby. They ranged in age from pre-adolescent (looking like I probably did back then, only skinny) to geriatric (um, looking like I do now, though not as vigorous and virile) and, one and all ,they were as excited to be there as the members of a bachelor party would be at Temptations on Bourbon Street, only quieter. I waited until the herd passed through and then quietly brought my silver dollar over to a press, reached across the barrier, and laid it down on the surface.

And…something connected. It was almost electric. I had set off to do the errand as a lark, and was still inwardly laughing over my good fortune of having literally run into British publishing giants Ali Karim and Michael Stotter, both of whom were in town for Bouchercon, on Chartres Street, and then being the subject of one of Ali’s recorded street interviews. The trip to The Old Mint at that point was almost an afterthought…that is, until the mission was accomplished. It felt as if a circle had been completed, and I suppose it had.

I put the silver dollar back into my pocket and left the Mint museum, though not The Old Mint building. The building is the location not only for exhibits pertaining to the Mint — which was used by both the United States and the Confederate States (at different times, of course) — but also The New Orleans Jazz Museum, which contains a great deal of memorabilia of musical greats who have come and gone but whose influence is still felt, though unfortunately generally forgotten. When I finally left, everything seemed just a tad different. I am at the age where I am deleting material goods rather than acquiring them, but I will hang on to that silver dollar. And it will come back with me to New Orleans when I return, again and again.

It was my favorite trip to New Orleans — and I had just been there three weeks previously — and my favorite Bouchercon to date. I really want to go again so I’m planning another trip near Christmas. My friend recently stayed at the InterContinental Hotel New Orleans so I will have to ask her what it was like. There were many high points…from seeing Laura Benedict at a publisher’s party and meeting Elaine Viets as she tried to sneak past me at a book signing, to meeting and having dinner with a couple of anonymous TKZ fans who have become my new best friends; from taking author Kelli Stanley and Tana Hall to Meyer the Hatter, to getting detained by security at the host hotel (don’t look like Tony Soprano and carry a shotgun bag into a crowded hotel lobby. It has the potential to ruin your day); and of course, running into Ali and Michael just about everywhere…but that silver dollar still carries a faint bit of electricity as it rests in my pocket.

That’s me. What did you do last week?

It’s All in the Verbs

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Jodie Renner

Jodie Renner, editor & author

Okay, maybe not ALL, but your choice of verbs can make or break a scene. Have a look at a recent chapter or short story you’ve written. Check the verbs in particular. Maybe even highlight them. Are some or a lot of them bland, vanilla verbs like came, went, arrived, approached, walked, ran, or looked?

Do you have a heavy, tired, or angry character simply walking when he could be trudging or clomping or stomping or plodding? Or an old or ill or exhausted character walking who should be limping or shuffling along? Make the conceited or over-confident guy swagger or strut and the lawyer stride into the courtroom. And be sure your drunk, stoned, or injured suspect is staggering, lurching, wobbling, meandering, or shambling, not just walking. Or perhaps someone is running when sprinting or racing or darting or dashing or fleeing would better capture the situation and her mood.

Of course, sometimes an ordinary character on a regular day is just walking or jogging. But when you need to bring the character and scene to life and add tension (which is most of the time), use all the tools in your toolbox to create sensory impressions for the readers and engage their emotions — make them worry.

If you’ve got a character looking at something or someone, consider whether they really are just looking. Or are they actually peering at something? Or observing or studying or examining or inspecting or scrutinizing it? Or perhaps they’re covertly spying at a group around a campfire. Or maybe they’re glancing around them or catching a glimpse of someone. Or glaring at another person in anger. Or squinting into the distance under the glaring sun.

Be sure your words, especially the verbs, capture the mood you’re after.

And don’t prop up a weak, overused verb with an adverb. Instead of “She walked quietly,” say she crept or she tiptoed or she sneaked or she slinked along the wall.

For a whole chapter on finding just the right verb for every scenario, check out my award-winning writing guide, Fire up Your Fiction, chapter 21, “Choose Words That Nail It.” Subtopics include People in Motion, Words for “Walked,” Replacements for “Run,” and Different Ways of Looking. (Lots of other great stuff for writers in there, too!)

Let’s add a bit of urgency to the sentence below by changing up the verbs:

The NCIS agents drove to the scene, then went to the back of the vehicle and pulled out their equipment.

Here’s one possibility:

The NCIS agents raced to the scene, then hurried to the back of the vehicle and grabbed their equipment.

Note how changing just three verbs can amp up the scene. You could probably charge it up even more.

Are you accidentally sabotaging your scene by choosing a verb that gives entirely the wrong impression?

Make sure none of your verbs are actually working against the scene, undermining the effect you’re after. Do you inadvertently have characters strolling or ambling or slouching at tense times? Or leaning back during an argument? Be sure not to use shuffling for the walking of someone who isn’t old, sick, weak, or very tired.

Remember that tension and conflict are what drive fiction forward, so unless you’ve got two lovers taking a romantic walk, don’t have your characters strolling along when they should be hurrying or hustling or darting in and out, glancing around and behind them. Relaxed, easygoing verbs aren’t going to get your reader’s pulse quickening and make her want to turn the page to read more.

Also, think about the difference between a smile and a smirk and a sneer. Don’t have a character sneering when they’re just smirking. Sneer means “to smile or laugh with facial contortions that express scorn or contempt.” So if you have buddies disagreeing or teasing each other, you might use smirked, but don’t use sneered. Save that for someone nasty.

There are a lot of nuances for showing a character looking at someone or something. The verbs glare, glance, scan, peer, study, and gaze have quite different meanings, for example.

Do you have characters glaring when you mean gazing or staring or studying or scrutinizing? For example,

Brock glared at the intruder with the gun, eyes wide with fear. He shifted his stare to Gord, mouthing, “Help.”

“Glared” doesn’t go with “eyes wide with fear.” Glared is for anger. Maybe “stared” here? And “shifted his gaze”? Or maybe:

Brock’s eyes widened with fear at the intruder with the gun. He shifted his gaze to Gord, mouthing, “Help.”

How about eyes squinting when there’s no bright light?

At the funeral, the widow caught Adam’s glance and squinted her eyes in accusation. She no doubt held him responsible for her husband’s death.

I’d say “narrowed her eyes” or “glared at him.”

Watch for “happy” verbs that have sneaked into your story at tense times.

Have any happy, carefree words or dreamy imagery somehow slipped into any of your scenes at tense moments? If your two young protagonists are running for their lives in the woods, don’t mention the birds chirping or the brook babbling or the leaves dancing in the breeze. Keep all your imagery scary and ominous – darkness, nasty weather, treacherous terrain, a howling wolf, or whatever.

Find the “happy” or “comfy” verbs that are subtly dissipating the tension in the scene below in a crime novel:

They pursued the getaway car on a dark, lonely country road. Lights from farmhouses twinkled in the distance. Up ahead, they saw the car spin out and crash into a tree. They pulled up behind it and got out. Tony shone his flashlight into the car. The windshield was fractured. Bits of glass sparkled throughout the inside, and steam rose from the damaged engine.

Yes, “twinkled” and “sparkled” normally have positive connotations, so they counteract the tension you’re trying to build in a scene like this.

Similarly, don’t use casual, relaxed language in a stressful situation:

Johnson and Fernandez parked their cruiser at a distance, then jogged at a comfortable pace to the scene of the crime.

Best to not use words like “comfortable” or even “jogging” at a time of stress. Choose words that fit the anxious mood and tone of the moment better.

Or if someone is about to face a harsh boss, be reamed out about his behavior, and likely fired, avoid detracting from the tension like this:

“You can go in now,” the secretary said, holding the door open for him. He found himself in a comfortable outer room with a stunning view, several armchairs, a bookcase, and a sofa against a wall. A large oak door stood closed on the far wall.

At such a tense time, it’s best not to add anything comfortable or any obviously positive words like “stunning.” That dissipates the tension at a time when you need to keep building it. Besides, the guy isn’t thinking about the view or the comfy furniture at this moment!

Here’s an example from a different book, describing the actions of a nasty villain about to shoot someone:

Before: He smiled. (doesn’t sound very nasty)

After, revised by the author: His mouth was twisted in a cruel smile.

So what’s the takeaway from all this? Don’t overdo the bland, boring verbs, or your scenes will be bland and boring. But if you’re looking for a unique synonym and you’re not 100% sure of the nuances, look each one up in the dictionary so you don’t have your character sneering when you mean smirking, or squinting when you mean peering or glaring.

Your turn. Share some possibilities in the comments below if you feel like playing.

How would a bunch of SWAT team members move after a few miles when training on rough terrain in bad weather?

How would two carefree little girls move around the playground?

How about two top contestants on Dancing with the Stars? How are they moving across the ballroom floor?

How about a more vivid way to say “took” or “carried” something?

* * *

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers, including a middle school edition. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Rejection: The Good, The Bad, And The REALLY Ugly

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Kathryn Lilley

By Kathryn Lilley

For those of us who still work (or aspire to work) in the land of traditional publishing, we all encounter rejection at some point. Most published authors get turned down by numerous agents and editors on the road to publication. Learning to deal with “No” is part of the writing process—I’d even say it’s one of the most important parts. You have to be able to handle rejection to stick with writing long enough to get better. And let’s face it: when we’re starting off as beginners, most of us have to become better writers in order to produce anything publishable. Agent, editors: those traditional publishing gatekeepers may be the dreaded Gorgons who spew fiery “No!” in boilerplate missives, but they have traditionally served a vital function. They force us to improve our writing.

“Sorry, not for us!”

But no matter how you rationalize it, being rejected feels like total crap. So whenever we get the dreaded “Not for us” email or letter in the mailbox, it can be comforting to recall the rejection-war stories of other writers:

In his book On Writing, Stephen King describes the wad of rejection notes he had stuck on a spike in his bedroom, and the encouragement he felt when he finally got one that said something along the lines of, “Not for us, kid, but try again—you’ve got talent.”

NPR’s Liane Hansen did a story that told the story of how soon-to-be famous writers, including Jack Kerouac and George Orwell, were rejected by the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Possibly the best of the lot was the one that rejected Kerouac’s On the Road, in which an editor reportedly stated, “I don’t dig this one at all.”

My most memorable rejection came from an agent who had requested to read my manuscript on an exclusive basis. (My advice? Never give an agent an exclusive. It’s a better deal for the agent than the writer.) After keeping me in suspense for a long while, she eventually sent me an email along the lines of:

“Dear Kathryn: I really wanted to like this story. But I just didn’t like the character; I didn’t like the story; I didn’t like the voice. In fact, I just didn’t like anything at all about this story at all.”

Ouch. Fortunately, the next agent who read the manuscript loved the story, agreed to represent me, and quickly got me a series contract.

What about you? What’s been your best/worst rejection letter thus far?

Via catwalker/shutterstock.com

Who Gets Into the Audition Room, and Why

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Larry Brooks

by Larry Brooks

A cynic—probably not an experienced writer in this case—might offer this simple explanation: Well, that’s easy… the stories that get considered are the stories that work.

Sure kid, says the old geezer to the kid with the baseball glove… you want to pitch for the Yankees? Well, that’s easy, just crank up your fastball to 96 miles an hour and paint the black with consistency, and throw in some off-the-table breaking balls to keep ‘em honest… that’s all you need to do.

If you’ve ever played or watched the game, you know how naïve that is. And yet, with writing, far too many new writers, and even some writing teachers, advocate exactly the same clue-light approach.

It reminds me of an old Steve Martin joke: Want to know how to avoid paying taxes on a million dollars? Simple. First, you get a million dollars. Then…

Laughter ensures from those who get the joke. Those who don’t are left hanging in the silence of that imcomplete sentence, already lost.

There are too many writers out there who, relative to craft, don’t get the joke.

Best writing advice ever: never stop learning.

In his Killzone post yesterday, Jim Bell advised us to never back away from studying the craft of writing. Very powerful wisdom, that.

Here’s a subtlety to it: craft is the prerequisite to getting into the game at a professional level. With some odd exceptions (which the cynics latch onto like flies, thus inviting you to play the lowest possible odds in the writing game), nobody ever published a novel that didn’t exhibit some workable degree of storytelling craft (the lack of which is what gets you rejected).

Without it, your story won’t get through the door to the audition room. Agents will pass. Editors will fire off templated rejection slips after reading ten pages. Too many of the writers left out in the rain, wondering why their stories don’t work, haven’t yet encountered enough craft to understand why.

But we aren’t playing merely to get into the audition room.

If that’s your goal, you’re not shooting high enough.

Once inside this figurative audition room, things get even tougher. Because while there are stories out there that are fully-formed and cover all the bases… there is the occasional story that really works. That soars above the others on multiple levels.

And that’s the one they’re looking for.

The criteria for simple completion (enter NaNoWriMo if this is your only goal) is the same for both—in much the same way that every player invited to a pro tryout has a professional-level command of the game they are playing (trust me, because I’ve been there, the guys pitching in the minor leagues throw every bit as hard, and the home runs travel every bit as far, as the guys playing in the major leagues); the punchline is that only a fraction of them will go home with a contract.

You want to be the writer who goes home with a contract.

But beyond simply being considered, in writing the criteria for greatness is found in nuance, details, and the artful application of emotional storytelling power.

Which leaves us with this truth: it is the degree of comprehension—leading to, in rare cases, an elevated story sensibility—applied powerfully and artfully to a story, that separates the complete from the astonishing.

And thus, defines the difference between them.

Every professional in every arena operates from this perspective. They are striving to be the best, not simply to get a seat on the bus.

I know, get it… when you are one of those writers out in the rain (believe me, I have a closet full of umbrellas myself), a seat on the bus seems like success itself. For the time being, it seems like enough.

But trust me on this, once you get there, you’ll want more.

Here’s the rub: the criteria for breaking in, and then, once published, breaking out (elevating above the midlist into the front window of the bookstore) is exactly the same. It is driven by identical standards and elements and essences of craft.

Agents and editors are looking for home runs. Not just another book to take up space on the B&N rack.

Which means that, as you sit alone at a desk hoping to write a story that will land you an agent that will land you a good publisher who will propel you onto a bestseller list… know that David Baldacci is sitting alone in his writing space working toward the very same end-game criteria and qualitative height that you aspire to.

The only difference, beyond the certainty that he will publish the book he’s working on, may be that he knows the focuses and benchmarks of craft and all its corners and nuances better that you know them.

But—this being the good news, the best news ever—you can fix that, over time.

The point of all of everything we do and learn as writers, stated simply, is to elevate the nature and power of our story sense.

Call it talent, if you prefer. Either way, it’s discerning a killer idea from a vanilla one, and knowing what goes where in the story, and why, to what degree and in what form, better than the other guy… or at least, at a high enough level to earn the respect and shock and awe of all who will read your story.

It’s knowing when and how to break the rules, rather than breaking them without an informed context that rationalizes doing so.

Talent is nothing other than a command of craft to an extent that it informs one’s story sensibilities.

Consistently successful authors, as well as those who break into the business in a big way, have all got it where story sense is concerned. (A caveat here, especially with newly successful writers, is that the book in question may have taken years of work and craft-building before it reached a break-in level of quality.) When you seek to understand what “it” is—a quest that you, as a new writer, absolutely should commit to—you will discover that “it” begins, grows from and depends on, a foundational context built upon the core, imprecise yet inflexible, universal principles of storytelling craft.

If you know what those are, keep going. If you don’t, stop writing and begin studying. Writing is practice and application… both of which require a base of knowledge from which to draw.

Some might wonder what principle-driven story sense even means.

And yet, it’s all out there, waiting to help you raise your game.

Jim Bell breaks the craft of storytelling down into seven primary categorical buckets (with several terrific books that deliver a deep dive into all of them):

1. Plot, 2, structure, 3) characters, 4) scenes, 5) dialogue, 6) voice, and 7) meaning (or theme).

This covers it nicely.

In my work as a writing teacher/speaker/practitioner, I break it all down into 12 categorical buckets (with three bestselling writing books that do the same):

1) concept, 2) premise (they are different essences; the sum of the two equals plot), 3) character, 4) theme, 5) structure, 6) scene execution, 7) voice, 8) dramatic tension, 9) optimal expositional pacing, 10) vicarious experience, 11) hero empathy (rootability) and 12) narrative strategy.

Randy Ingermanson, author of “Fiction Writing for Dummies,” packages it all within a model called The Snowflake Method, and guess what: it’s the same principles.

Because there really isn’t a variation to be found among people who know what they’re talking about.

There isn’t even a shred of contradiction, and very little variance, in these approaches. Each covers the full roster of the craft we are pursuing. You’ll notice that my list adds the forces that make a story better… and yet, those same forces reside at the core of the elements we have in common, as well.

The enlightened writer will be exposed to and engage with craft in all its various presentations.

When you experience these messages from a variety of credible sources (the person leading your critique group… maybe, maybe not), you’ll soon see the commonality and the overlap. Craft is craft… you don’t get to make it up as you go, and it isn’t different from teacher to teacher, even when the parts are labeled differently.

When you get it you’ll see that it’s the same basic core principles being examined and applied, every time. And that it’s the same stuff that all those famous authors and screenwriters you admire are using… and when rendered from an evolved sensibility driving it all to the page, it is what has made them famous in the first place.

Craft awaits you.

It’s like gravity… it doesn’t care what you call it. Yet it governs all that you do… just as it governs all that the nay-sayers do… and it will kill either of us if we forget to respect it.

It’s Fourth and Goal: Can You
Push Your Story In For the Win?

Posted on September 13, 2016 by PJ Parrish

Don’t give up at half time. Concentrate on winning the second half. — Bear Bryant

By PJ Parrish

Are you ready for some football?

Wait, wait! Come back! Give me second chance. I promise this will be about writing. But it is the first week of the season and I really love football. This is how much:

I have a collector’s Plexiglas box of Wheaties with Dan Marino on the front.

I used to have Dolphin season tickets and on December 16, 2007, when Cleo Lemon threw a 64-yard touchdown pass to Greg Camarillo to end a 16-game losing streak, I cried like Wayne Huizinga.

I was for years the proud coach of the Killer Chihuahuas, (see logo above) my fantasy football team that made the playoffs four straight years and would have won in year four if Brett Favre hadn’t gone south on me in the last three games.

Okay, okay…I promised to talk about writing. If you hang here at TKZ, you know I love a good metaphor, so I am going to offer up some football strategy that might help you get your Work In Progress down the field, into the red zone and over the goal line. I feel compelled to do this because I myself need a good locker room talk right now. I am up in Michigan staying at my sister Kelly’s place, working on our book. We are on page 244 and we are struggling badly. It feels like we’re deep into the fourth quarter, we’ve been trudging up and down the field in the mud forever, we’re tired and sore, and haven’t scored a point.
Team Parrish can’t SEE the end zone, let alone get into it.

This past Sunday, while we worked, we had the Lions-Colts game on mute in the background. Toward half-time, dispirited and disgusted, I closed the lap-top and told Kelly, “I need a break.”

I popped a Faygo Rock and Rye, turned up the sound and watched the game.
Then came half time. But I wasn’t hearing Kenny Albert and Moose Johnston. I was hearing our own James Scott Bell in his post a while back about how every writer should take a break around the halfway mark and assess how far they had come and where they needed to go.

So I told Kelly that we needed to go back and see what had gone wrong (and right) in the first half and make adjustments. She went to Walgreens and came home with a poster board and some Post-Its. We spent the next two hours laboriously mapping out, chapter-by-chapter, day by day, where our story had gone. It looked like this:
You’ll see that we seemed to make a lot of mistakes and needed a bunch of different colored Post-Its. (More on that to come). And that toward 6 p.m., we were compelled to strengthen our beverage of choice from Faygo to wine. But by laying out this PHYSICAL map of our book, we were able to see things that we couldn’t see on the computer screen or even on the printed manuscript. Things like:

We had a good juicy set-up, we laid out the hero’s problem, and we sent him off on his quest. But…

We had four chapters in a row of slow build-up and scene setting that could easily be winnowed down to two chapters. Foul: lazy writing.

We had one day (in book time) that ran three chapters and it defied the laws of physics for Louis to go where he did and accomplish what we needed him to do without him stopping for eat and sleep. Foul: stuffing 10 pounds of plot into a 1-pound calendar day.

We forgot to introduce a character early on who magically shows up later. Foul: brain-farting.

We had a subplot going on off camera that, in calendar-time, did not match up with the on-camera plot. We needed the sub-plot character to drive from Michigan’s upper peninsula to mid-state in time to do a nefarious deed. Problem was, it takes a minimum of 8.5 hours for this drive to happen and this guy would’ve needed wings to get down-state. Foul: Not doing homework via a simple Google Maps check.

Some of you TKZ regulars might recognize our Post-It Method of Plotting. I’ve written about it here before. But for some reason, Kelly and I neglected to do it for this WIP, and here we are, well into the third quarter, and we need to make Bill Belichick-worthy game adjustments if we are going to pull this one out of the dumpster. Here is a close-up of the finished map:

What’s with the colors? The chapter-by-chapter plot map is done in pale yellow. The gold Post-It is sub-plot that is going on at the same day(s) of what yellow note it is next to. This is how we found out our bad guy couldn’t make that long drive in time. The pale pink note is the time-line of the central murder that happened in the near-past. The blue notes are back-story dates of everything that happened BEFORE the story begins. The purples are just inserts and correx that we will make later. This book is third-person single point of view (Louis, who always gets pale yellow). In past books, we have used multiple POVs and switch to other colors for each POV so we can make sure at a glance that no one character, especially a secondary one, is getting too much on-camera time and stealing the spotlight from Louis.

So how does Team Parrish feel coming out of this half-time locker room break and strategy session? Full of cautious confidence. We started out this book full of hope and ambition. But as the game wore on, we just sort of flailed and fumbled around out on the field, hoping we could make progress by blind luck and maybe a last-minute field goal. This is how the Jets play every single year. Or the Browns, whose fans show up at games carrying banners saying “We Still Have LeBron.” You want to be Seattle. Or the Pats, who find a way to win even with Brady on the bench for four games.

What am I trying to say here? Well, it’s a variation on what all the good folks here at TKZ preach. Have a good work ethic. (you don’t want to be giving up in mid-season just because you’re a little gassed). Have a good strategy going in. (a great idea or at least a fresh take on an old one). Devise a game plan and keep to it. (that means for some of you out there outlining). Stop at each quarter or at least half-time and see what has gone right and what had failed. Be flexible enough to make adjustments. Don’t quit, because as the great sports sage Yogi Berra said, it ain’t over til it’s over.

And with that, I leave you with a few classic football cliches that are actually good advice for us writers:

You gotta work with what’s working. This is a variation on the more erudite “You go with what brought you to the dance.” If you’re a hard-boiled type at heart, maybe you shouldn’t try YA romantic zombie fiction just because it’s hot. Yes, stretch yourself, but don’t be crass. Readers smell insincerity a mile away.

It’s important to give the ball right back to the guy who lost it. Yes, you can make mistakes. In fact, they help you grow. If you’ve had a setback, be it a rejection letter, a bad review or just loss of confidence, don’t let it defeat you. Favre is the leading career fumbler of all time. You think that when he put the rock on the ground, he thought about quitting? Heck no. The guy took risks. (Though the Killer Chihuahuas never forgave him for that last season…)

He heard footsteps. This is the wide receiver who feels a defender gaining on him so he takes his eye off the ball. For you, this means, don’t let distractions cripple you. This can mean anything from the little — social media, chores, research — to major distractions — envy over other’s success, people who tell you that you’ll never get published.

He ran east and west instead of north and south. Or as Dan Dierdorf put it: “You gotta keep the axis of your body perpendicular to the goal line.” For writers, this means always moving forward and maintaining momentum. This is my biggest problem because I become stalled in an insane quest for perfection when I should be grinding out that first draft. I spent too much time running east and west instead of heading toward the goal line. Don’t be like me. Be a downhill runner.

It’s a game of inches. Success in publishing almost always comes hard and gradually. You pound away at that keyboard, bang your head up against big forces that feel like they are bent on keeping you back. You spend months, years, on your WIP and only manage to move a few yards forward. But this is how it’s done. Slow and steady. And you never, ever, come prepared to play only one game because you must…

Take it one game at a time. Finish that book, get it out there somehow and then start the next one. And as you do this you will…

Leave it all on the field. You gave it everything you had because, of course…

There’s no tomorrow.

Here’s to a good, healthy season. And hey, the Lions won. That is enough to give anyone hope.

Revisiting the Middle

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Thanks to my fellow TKZ blog mate, Larry Brooks, who provided me with his ebook ‘Stuck in the Middle: Mid-Draft Saves for your Story‘, I thought we should revisit the saggy middle and look specifically at some great questions to ask before addressing the dreaded mid-draft slump.

Larry outlines some key issues that I think all authors should consider when they are mid-way through their draft novel. He poses these as a series of questions that highlight some of the critical issues that can plague a book and which can lead to a slump in the middle. I encourage TKZers to check out the ebook which goes into greater depth that my blog summary, but in the meantime, here are some of the key questions Larry raises (hopefully I’m not misquoting Larry here with my summary version!)

First off, authors should take a step back and ask themselves whether the premise of the book itself is sufficiently strong to sustain a reader’s interest for an entire book – often times the premise is simply too weak dramatically, either because there isn’t enough of a dramatic arc to the book, or because the key characters don’t have enough to achieve/do for a reader to root for them.
Second, an author should also check that their core story is sufficiently well defined. Is there a compelling dramatic question being asked and answered in the book? Often the middle sags simply because it doesn’t enhance or advance the overall dramatic arc of the story.
Do you have sufficient plot points that keep the story moving along, providing sufficient tension to engage the reader throughout the book? Sometimes the middle drifts because the plot points to the story haven’t been spaced or placed appropriately.

As Larry points our the middle chapters of a book should continue to ‘elevate, escalate and surprise’. They should also provide a critical transition between plot points as the key characters move through the overall story arc.

Hopefully, I haven’t misquoted Larry’s key questions to much, but I encourage all writers to step back and consider these kind of issues when diagnosing what isn’t working in their own work. All too often we focus on the mechanics rather that the overarching questions of premise, core story and plot that need to be addressed to ‘fix’ the problem.

Saying Goodbye to a Legend

Posted on September 11, 2016 by James Scott Bell

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I’ve never known a breath of life without Vin Scully in it.

Growing up in Los Angeles, and being a die-hard Dodgers fan, I spent my youthful summers listening to Vinnie (we all called him that, he was our favorite uncle or best friend) call the games via my transistor radio. Many a night I’d fall asleep to that honey-toned voice and my mom would have to tiptoe in and turn the radio off.

And now he’s about to retire. After 67 years behind the mike for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers.

It’s like summer itself will no longer be there.

Everyone acknowledges Vin Scully as one of the greatest (JSB would say the greatest) sports announcers of all time.

The question for us today (and for writers) is, Why? I’d say three things:

His precision.

His poetry.

His passion.

Precision: Vinnie is always so prepared, able to talk about each and every player who comes up to bat. On both the Dodgers and the opposing team. He knows their stats, their backgrounds, and the particular stories that turn them into individuals and not just numbers.

He also knows when and how much of that information to give. One of the greatest Vin Scully traits is not over-talking, as so many announcers do. He often just lets the crowd chatter or cheer. It’s like he’s letting you be part of the game. Thus, you never get tired of hearing Vinnie’s voice (one of the most naturally gorgeous in all sports … or any other verbal art form known to man).

Poetry: Vinnie has always been able to weave lovely and often unforgettable phrases into his announcing. He often cites great literature and even popular songs. I remember one game he was calling over forty years ago where he referenced a Jim Croce song, saying, “Tonight, they are playing like a junkyard dog.” I’ve never forgotten that. That’s what Vinnie can do.

Passion: One thing for sure, Vin Scully loves baseball. More than that, he honors it. He knows the rich history of the game, the great players, the important moments. When you listen to Vinnie call a game you are getting more than an account of the innings; you’re getting a history lesson, too.

I just had to write about Vin Scully today, as a bittersweetness overtakes me for the end of an epic era. Maybe I always thought Vin Scully would be there …

And in a way, he will be. For he called my favorite sports moment of all time. And it is now preserved on YouTube. If you want to appreciate the genius, the greatness that is Vin Scully, watch that entire clip of the Kirk Gibson home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

You cannot overstate the drama. The Oakland A’s take a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning. On the mound is the most feared closer in baseball, future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley.

Gibson, the Dodgers’ most valuable player (along with pitcher Orel Hershiser), couldn’t play. He’d injured both legs during the NLCS, and could barely walk, let alone run. But as the ninth inning rolled on, Gibson (in the clubhouse at the time) told manager Tommy Lasorda he could pinch hit if need be.

Which is when Tommy Lasorda faked out Eckersley and the A’s. With two outs, and Mike Davis at the plate, Lasorda put Dave Anderson in the on-deck circle. Eckersley decided he’d rather pitch to Anderson, and pitched around Davis, who drew the walk and trotted down to first base.

Then … suddenly … stunningly … out comes Kirk Gibson.

Watch the clip to see what happened.

Vinnie, calling the game with Joe Garagiola for NBC, was as precise and colorful as always. At one point he describes Gibson “shaking his left leg, making it quiver, like a horse trying to get rid of a troublesome fly.” Perfect!

But what is so endearing about Vinnie and the home run is that his love of the game and its iconic moments couldn’t be held back. When Gibson’s ball cleared the right field fence, Vinnie for that instant became a fan himself. Not of the Dodgers, but of the game of baseball. He knew this was a moment on par with Bobby Thompson’s dramatic home run back in the 1956 pennant race, or Bill Mazeroski’s game 7 World Series winner in 1960.

So when Vinnie says, “She is GONE!” there’s a little extra oomph in the word gone that reveals the great one’s heart.

As Gibson rounds the bases, with the crowd going nuts, Vinnie lets the TV audience share the experience by saying not one word. He waits over one full minute, as Gibson’s teammates mob him, and then delivers one of the great lines in broadcasting history: “In a year that has been so improbable, the IMPOSSIBLE has happened!”

Writers, learn from the great Vin Scully.

Be precise. Yes, you can—indeed must—let your imagination out to play. But if you want to be a selling writer, at some point you must use the tools of the craft to shape readable fiction. Vin Scully is still one of the hardest working broadcasters in the game.

Be poetic. John D. MacDonald wanted “unobtrusive poetry” in his style. Not so much that it stuck out, shouting Look at this great writing! But more than plain vanilla. The latter can work, but why not reach for more? Vin Scully elevated every game with his prose.

Be passionate. Love telling stories. Joy is one of the big secrets of popular fiction. You can hear the love and joy in Vin Scully’s calls. Here is a man who had his dream job for nearly seven full decades. We always knew it.

Ah, Vinnie. I will miss you so much. You made my summers unforgettable. You transported me to the stadium when I couldn’t be there. And even when I was, I had my transistor with me so I could hear you call the game. So, I might add, did about half of Dodger Stadium.

And someday, when I write the best book of my life, and know it, and hit the key that publishes it, I want to hear your voice in my head:

“She is GONE!”

God bless you, Vin Scully.

So who were the voices of your childhood?

The Streetcar I Desire

Posted on September 10, 2016 by Joe Hartlaub

Barring something unforeseen, I will be turning 65 tomorrow. I will spend most of the day driving to New Orleans where I’ll be doing some business next week and occasionally popping into the Bouchercon host hotel (as well as assisting Jim Born with his excellent Weaponry panel at 9:00A on Saturday September 17, for both of the attendees who do not drink even when they’re in The Crescent City). The major milestone for me, however, will be riding New Orleans’ iconic streetcar line…for 40 cents a ride. Senior citizens in New Orleans get to do that.

An elderly friend told me that getting older is actually like aging in reverse. When you’re just a few years old people are constantly taking things away from you or putting them out of reach, a practice which we now call “childproofing,” You get trusted incrementally with objects, privileges and responsibilities until one day you wake up and you’ve got a whole collection of those, which include but are not limited to driving and automobiles, jobs, voting, drinking, military service, intimacy, and child rearing. You think you’re overdue for most of them by the time you get them, but the truth is that you’re probably not ready. Experience is the best teacher, however, and we all muddle through a continuum that runs between success and disaster and all points in between.

After several decades, though, things begin to change. People start taking things and choices away from you again. The guy at the hardware superstore asks if you need help carrying any purchase that weighs more than a pack of light bulbs. Your children think that you have early dementia if you are unable to keep their schedule and yours straight without a calendar. The question “How is work?” is replaced with “When are you retiring?”. Your first birthday congratulations at 65 is from the federal government: it’s a red, white and blue Medicare card. And that driver’s license that was so important to obtain five decades ago is possibly only an accident or three from being retired. As for me…everything still works. I can carry an old-fashioned microwave up two flights of stairs without sustaining a heart attack (though it was a very near thing). I can drive nine hundred miles in one day (though I’m split it up out of caution). Things aren’t being taken away from me yet, even though I am more Mickey Donovan than Harry Coombes at this point. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And I am going to ride those streetcars next week —on every line I can — for 40 cents a trip like they are a pack of 3-dollar government mules.

So let’s open it up. What was your favorite birthday celebration? Do you have a tradition? What would you like to do, but haven’t had the fortitude or the ability to do, at least at this point in your life?

Yes, He Really Said That

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Elaine Viets

HOUSE — Pictured: Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House — NBC Photo: Timothy White

By Elaine Viets

Dr. Gregory House is a creature of fiction. Real doctors aren’t that insensitive, are they?
Oh, yes they are. I had a brain surgeon who made Greg House look like Marcus Welby.
Dr. Jeb Travis Tritt is the brain surgeon who saved my life after I had six strokes, including a hemorrhagic stroke, in April 2007. That’s not his real name, and he doesn’t look or act like the brain surgeon in my new mystery Brain Storm. But Dr. Tritt, as I baptized him, was a real character. I couldn’t make up what he said – I’m not that creative.

In fiction and reality, Dr. Tritt is a brilliant surgeon with a lousy bedside manner. He saws open skulls for a living, so I expected him to be a little strange. But hey, so am I.

Brain Storm, the first Angela Richman, Death Investigator novel, is set in mythical, ultrawealthy Chouteau Forest, Missouri. Angela and I had blinding headaches and other classic stroke symptoms that sent us to the ER. There we were misdiagnosed by the neurologist on call, who said we were “too young and fit to have a stroke.” This comment is staggeringly stupid, though I didn’t know it at the time. Babies can have strokes. Dr. I. M. Incompetent told Angela and me to come back in four days for a PET scan.

We never got that scan. Instead, we had a series of strokes, brain surgery, and a coma, and encountered Dr. Jeb Travis Tritt. After brain surgery, Angela and I were in a coma for a week and spent three months in the hospital.

That’s where Angela and I parted company. When she came out of the coma, she learned that the doctor who nearly killed her had been murdered. The chief suspect was Dr. Tritt. Angela, still drugged and hallucinating, was determined to save the doctor who saved her. I can’t kill the doctor who misdiagnosed me. Except in fiction.

But I did experience Dr. Tritt’s midnight monologues, and put them in Brain Storm.
When Dr. Tritt got off work at midnight, he’d stop by my room. First he’d check my healing wound – a hideous cobblestone of a bump. Then he’d settle in for a monologue, talking nonstop for two or three hours. I was a captive audience – I couldn’t walk yet. He’d make jaw-dropping comments. I was heavily drugged and still talking to imaginary friends. But I knew I had a real find. Dr. Tritt’s visits were a gift. It took me nine years to use it.
One night Dr. Tritt said, “Do you remember anyone talking to you while you were in a coma?”
“No,” I said. “No tunnel of light, no relatives waiting on the other side. I didn’t see or hear anything.”
“Thank God,” he said. “I used to stop by every night and say, ‘Elaine! This is God! Wake up!’ But the nurses made me quit.”

Why did a surgeon spend hours talking to me instead of going home? He answered that question in another monologue.
“My wife is divorcing me,” he said. “She likes to shop and I don’t make enough money. She thought brain surgeons would be rich, but I don’t get that much. I only got three thousand dollars for your surgery. She wasn’t that good in bed, anyway. She just laid there, like you did, except you were in a coma.”
Huh? It didn’t occur to the doctor that perhaps his performance might have something to do with his wife’s lack of enthusiasm. The doc wasn’t coming onto me. My face was swollen, my skin was bright red thanks to an allergy to some medication, and half my hair was shaved off.
I’d always been proud of my long hair. I was shocked when I saw it had been partly shaved off for the surgery. Late one night, Dr. Tritt said, “I’m sorry about your hair.”
“In the grand scheme of things, it’s not the end of the world,” I said.
“I burned your hair because I knew you were going to make it,” he said. “If my patients are going to die, I save their hair because they like to look good in their coffins.”

I was speechless. But then I thought: What would he say if I was going to die? Would he come by one midnight, hand me my hair and said, “Elaine, you’re screwed. But here’s your hair. You’ll look great in your coffin.”
Good old Jeb Travis Tritt. This real life character saved my life. Now I hope he can help me pay off those hospital bills.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Brain Storm is on sale as a trade paperback, audio and e-book amzn.to/2awPsIe

Win an autographed hardcover of Elaine’s seventh Dead-End Job mystery, Clubbed to Death. http://elaineviets.com/index.php?id=contests

How to Write 10,000 Words in a Day, and Why You Should Give It a Shot (at least once)

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Laura Benedict

The most words I’ve ever written on a fiction manuscript in a fourteen hour period is 11,214. I was on a solo writing retreat in a secret location (okay, it was at an AirBnB apartment in St. Louis), laboring over the final push for The Abandoned Heart. My deadline loomed, and I was finding myself way too distracted at home to get the book drafted in time. All told, over the three and a half days of my retreat, I wrote over 26,000 words—certainly more words than I’d ever written before on a first draft in any similar time period.

Part of why I was successful was that I knew I was paying for the time away from home, and I didn’t want to disappoint myself or anyone else. It cost me about $400 for the apartment rental, plus another $125 for gas (St. Louis is two hours away), groceries, and a couple of restaurant meals. My family paid, too, in that they had to pick up the slack at home. The circumstances were definitely extraordinary. But it wasn’t my first time at the Big Daily Word Count Rodeo.

I was lured into my first 10K day a few years back by my thriller writer friend, J.T. Ellison. She was looking for a partner in crime—someone to check in with, someone to be accountable to—and she knows I’m game for all sorts of shenanigans. We’ve climbed the 10K summit many times now, and we even have tee shirts to celebrate our achievement.

If you peruse the Internet, you will find several examples of people talking about tackling the big 10K. But the methods all boil down to a few key elements.

Let’s talk about the whys first.

1. Resistance. If you only have a dozen hours in a day to write 10,000 words, you’re going to have to write fast. Really fast. You won’t have time to worry about what your parent/child/rabbi/auntfanny/spouse/eleventhgradeteacher/coworker will think about your work. You won’t have time to be afraid. You won’t have time to fiddle with word choice and as-you-write edits. The beauty of this goal is that you must put your internal editor on notice: She has to work fast, or get the hell out of the way. Resistance has no claws or hooks in this scenario.

2. Get those words out of your head and down on paper. Your story isn’t doing anything for anyone by sitting there, overcooking in your brain. I’ve never tried to do this below the 30K mark in a story, but there’s no reason why you can’t. It’s a story exploder, in a good way. Even if you’re not quite sure where a story is headed, the story knows. That fabulous subplot that woke you briefly at two in the morning, and you forgot on waking? It’s still in there, and your agile, in-overdrive mind will pop it out just when you need it.

3. Get a big jump in your word count. If you’re going for a 100K manuscript, 10K is ten percent of your total. That’s huge for one day, and the satisfaction you’ll enjoy from that accomplishment will stick with you for the duration.

4. First drafts aren’t final drafts. Perfection is not (ever) required. This is the place to let your storytelling mind play. Write now (and it will sometimes feel like you’re just typing and that’s totally okay), edit later. Don’t imagine that this will be finished work, but do be prepared to be pleasantly surprised at how readable it is.

5. You write just as well quickly as you do when you write more slowly. I’m not kidding when I say you’ll be surprised at the quality of the writing you produce. With breaks, you’ll be writing between 1000 and 1200 words an hour (my fastest is about 1400), which isn’t unusual. The unusual part is doing it hour after hour.

6. Why not? Test yourself. Push yourself. Life is too short to dawdle. This isn’t something you have to do once a week, once a month, or even once a year. There are lots of things we devote entire days to that we despise. Why not set aside a day to do something that you love?

Resistance will come up with a lot of excuses for why you can’t do this: It’s a gimmick; You don’t have time; Nobody can write decently at that pace; Your family won’t give you time/space to do it; The world can’t possibly do without you for a dozen hours; It’s dumb and unprofessional; You will fail.

There have been a few times when I’ve completed all the arrangements for a 10K day (always at home), and someone forgot their homework, lunch, or got sick. Or the furnace broke or the phone rang ten times and it was my mother. I only got in 8K or 6K or 5K on those days. But I had at least 5K more than I did the day before. The important thing was that I committed to the time, to the work, and that I got a good chunk of words written.

Let’s talk about the hows of a 10K day:

Commit. Decide you’re going to do it, and take it seriously. Sure, things will crop up and demand your attention, but if you’re committed, you won’t be derailed. Stay off of social media for the day.
Enlist. Enlist your family in the project. Announce your intention to disappear into your writing for the day, and make (enjoyable) plans for them or yourself to be away. If they’re already used to your professional attitude toward your own writing, this won’t be unusual for them. If this is new for you (and them), you might want to take yourself off to a hotel, a friend’s house, or a comfortable library with food facilities nearby. Show them what 10K words look like. They will be impressed that you want to produce so much material. (And if they’re not, too bad for them because they should be.)
Choose your ground. Find somewhere comfortable to work where you won’t be tempted to nap frequently, or get on the Internet. For the random 10K day, I prefer to work at home because I can be as relaxed as I like. Declutter your workspace so you can concentrate on the work and not be distracted by bills, school or work communications, etc. Dress comfortably and make sure your chair is comfortable, too.
Plan your breaks, plan your food. The Pomodoro timer method works well. You can get up and stretch your legs for five minutes after each twenty-five minute work block, and take a longer break every couple of hours. Or you can set up any system that you know works for you. The idea is to be consistent. Don’t work through your breaks. It may sound silly to plan your food, but it’s a critical detail. If you only have a fifteen minute or five minute break, every minute counts. When you emerge from your writing cocoon to find a sandwich in the fridge, or an ounce of nuts, or some fruit and chocolate waiting on the kitchen counter, it will seem magical.
Plan your writing. Make sure you’re very familiar with the manuscript, have a solid idea about what you want to write, and where the story is going. Your list should be completed the day or night before your 10K day. My chapters are about 2K words long, so that’s a goal of five chapters for an all-day session. Remember to write in scenes, and to keep the story moving forward.
Keep track. Make a note of your growing word count. Every time you stop for a break, write down how many words you’ve written. They will add up quickly! Be sure to time your breaks, just like you do your writing sessions. Save your work frequently.
Bring a friend. Bring along a friend (not necessarily in person) to participate so you can encourage one another. Plus, you get to celebrate together at the end.

I know it’s a lot to digest all at once, but I promise that the rewards are huge. I strongly encourage you to give it a shot.

How many words did you write on your very best word count day? Do you have any stories you want to share?

Goodreads is giving away copies of all three novels in my Bliss House dark suspense trilogy, including The Abandoned Heart, which will be released on October 11th. Enter here for a chance to win.

Killzoneblog.com

Category Archives: Writing