By Elaine Viets

We’ve all seen zombie series: a string of novels that are barely alive, dragged by their authors from one publisher to another. Each zombie novel staggers to its feet, but dies quickly. It’s hard to survive without a heart.

The kindest – and smartest – thing to do is end your series before it becomes a zombie.

I’ve written three mystery series:

My first mystery series featured Francesca Vierling, a six-foot tall St. Louis newspaper columnist. After four Francesca novels the publisher wiped out the division.

These novels are hard-boiled. Francesca investigates a transvestite’s murder in Backstab and the death of a RUB, a rich urban biker, in Rubout. In The Pink Flamingo Murders, a ruthless gentrifier comes to a terrible end: stabbed with a pink plastic flamingo. In Doc in the Box, bad doctors get the deaths they deserve.

After the hard-boiled Francesca series ended, I worked dead-end jobs until my agent sold Shop Till You Drop, my first Dead-End Job mystery, to Penguin. This series features Helen Hawthorne, a St. Louis woman on the run in South Florida. I was writing traditional mysteries, cheerfully slaughtering awful bosses and annoying customers. Penguin saved me from being trapped in dead-end jobs. I could quit them to write my mysteries.

In book five, Penguin took the Dead-End Job series from paperback to hardcover. They’d already asked me to write a cozy series featuring mystery shopper Josie Marcus. Josie was supposed to be a three-book series. Dying in Style, the first Josie book, tied with Stephen King’s mystery on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association list.

I happily wrote two mysteries a year. Suddenly, it was 2015. I turned in book ten of the “three book” Josie Marcus mystery-shopper series. Checked Out, my fourteenth Dead-End Job hardcover, was published.

And I wanted to return to the dark side. After fifteen years of writing traditional, cozy mysteries, I’m starting a dark series featuring Death Investigator Angela Richman. Death investigators work out of the medical examiner’s office. At a death scene, the DI takes charge of the body, photographing it, documenting the wounds, and more. The police investigate the rest of the crime scene.

Why return to this gritty world?

Because I never left. I love cozies, but they’re not all kittens and cupcakes. I prefer relentless Miss Marple, the fluffy knitter who declared “I am Nemesis” and brought killers to justice.

I’d kept writing darkly humorous short stories for anthologies such as Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side, edited by Charlaine Harris, and short stories for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. “The Bride Wore Blood” was not for the “Say Yes to the Dress” crowd.

This January I passed the MedicoLegal Death Investigators Training Course for forensic professionals, given by Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine. The intense training made sure I had the most up-to-date forensic information.

Look at the agenda for one morning, as taught by pathologists:

Gunshot wound fatalities, explosion-related deaths, motor vehicle fatalities, and drowning. At lunch, we watched a teen driving and alcohol video. After lunch, we studied alcohol-related deaths, suicide, blunt-trauma fatalities, and more.

My mystery writing colleagues welcomed me back. Fourteen top writers blurbed the Death Investigator proposal.

Diamond Dagger winner Lee Child said, “So happy to see Viets back to doing what she does best—dark, edgy, character-driven crime. Count me delighted.”

Ann Cleeves, author of the Vera Stanhope and Shetland series, said, “I think you’ve got everything here that a reader loves—a hospital drama and thriller, a strong central character. Made much more interesting because the central character is a very unreliable narrator.”

Charlaine Harris, who thoroughly explores the dark side, said, “Elaine Viets has written the exciting first book in a multilayered crime novel series. Angela Richman is not only an investigator but a victim in this complex novel of crime, punishment, and medical malfeasance.”

I asked almost two thousand readers if they’d follow me to the dark side. More than 75 percent said they’d read the new Death Investigator series. Almost half said they’d prefer the new series and more than half said they’d read both.

“I would love to see you tackle something a little darker,” one wrote. “As a male, the new series appeals to me.”

Yes, sir. Death Investigator Angela Richman debuts as a short story in the November Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

And I’ve signed a two-book contract with Thomas & Mercer for the Angela Richman Death Investigator series. Brain Storm will be out late summer 2016. Fire and Ashes debuts in 2016.

I still enjoy writing about Helen Hawthorne’s lighthearted adventures in South Florida. My 15th Dead-End Job mystery, The Art of Murder, will be out in May 2016.

But Josie Marcus, my cozy mystery series, is now on hiatus. I’ve experimented with all the cozy variations. Josie is in a good place: She’s happy with her new husband. Josie’s teenage daughter, Amelia, is about to become a young woman. Josie’s mother has met a man she loves.

I may bring Josie back some day. But not as a zombie.

How good are your self-editing skills?  Take the following  test, and see how well you score! (The quiz is brought to you courtesy of today’s guest, writer and editor Debbie Burke.)

Self-Editing Pop Quiz

This morning, let’s imagine we’re back in school and the teacher announces a pop quiz to test your self-editing skills. Did you do your homework?

1. Scan your WIP and highlight every form of the verb “to be.” How many times per page did you use:
is ​

are​

am ​

was/were​

had

been

Tally your score:

Fewer than 5 per page:​ Excellent

Between 5 and 10 per page: ​Very good, but could use more active verbs

More than 20 per page: ​Work on how to “de-was” with strong, active, specific verbs.

Many years ago, I took a workshop from the late, great Montana mystery author James Crumley. He shared with me how to “de-was” and I’ve never forgotten. This single skill goes a long way to transform your writing into active, muscular prose.

2. Read the first few paragraphs of each new scene or chapter. Can a reader quickly determine:

WHO is present?

WHERE they are?

WHEN is the scene taking place?

If you can answer these questions, you’ve done a good job of orienting your reader immediately in the story world. Give yourself a point each time you effectively set the scene.

3. Do a global search for what I call “junk” words that add little information and dilute the power of your prose. Score a point every time you delete one of the below “junk” or “stammer” words.

There is (was)

​​it is (was)​

that

​just​

very ​

nearly​

quite​

rather​

sort of

turned to​

started to​

began to​

commenced to

Editor Jessi Rita Hoffman calls the last four examples “stammer verbs” that weaken the verb that follows, i.e. Barbara began to race to escape the zombie.

Stronger version: Barbara raced to escape the zombie.

Stammer verb exception: when an action is interrupted or changed, i.e. Robert started to run, but tripped over the corpse.

4. How many of your characters’ names start with the same letter?

Deduct a point if you’ve christened more than two characters with the same first letter, i.e. Michael, Mallory, Millie, Moscowitz, Melendez.

Deduct a point for rhyming or similar-sounding names: Billy, Lily, Julie.

Extra credit: if none of your characters’ names ends with “S,” give yourself a point for avoiding the unnecessary complication of figuring out whether it should be “Miles’s machine gun,” or “Miles’ machine gun.”

5. Do you exploit all five senses? Writers most often use sight and hearing, and ignore the other senses that can add texture and richness to the reader’s immersion in the story world.

Give yourself a point each time you employ one of the under-used senses of taste, touch, and smell.

Extra credit: for dramatic effect, deprive your characters of normal sensory input, i.e.

A blindfolded kidnap victim who cannot see where captors are taking her.

An explosion-deafened soldier who cannot hear the enemy stalking him.

6. The English language constantly challenges even experienced authors. In the eyes of editors and agents, improper usage of common words marks a writer as an amateur. Choose the correct word for each of the following:

(a) It’s [or] its a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

(b) The bear retreated to its [or] it’s den as winter closed in.

(c) Hurricane Katrina effected [or] affected every home in New Orleans.

(d) The affect [or] effect of Hurricane Katrina continued long after the rains ended.

(e) After the lobotomy, McMurphy possessed a flat affect [or] effect.

(f) The farther [or] further the boat drifted from the shore, the harder Joe paddled.

(g) The further [or] farther you pursue this tangent, the more you lose credibility.

(h) The magician made an allusion [or] illusion to Houdini’s famous “vanishing elephant”illusion [or] allusion.

(i) Robert implied [or] inferred that Janet was a tramp.

(j) Since Janet had been convicted of prostitution, Robert inferred [or] implied she was a tramp.

(k) The witness that [or] who saw the assault ran away.

(l) Winston tastes good like [or] as a cigarette should. (Trick question for those of a certain age.)

Answers at the end. Score 1 for each correct answer.

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is my go-to reference whenever I’m not sure of correct word usage. I find answers to 98% of my questions in Strunk and White.

7. Scan an entire chapter. How many times is the first word of a new paragraph the name of your character or a pronoun referring to that character (he or she)?

8+ out of 10 times – Normal for the first draft, but try varying sentence structure to begin paragraphs in different ways.

5 out of 10 times​​ – Better, but still needs work.

2 out of 10 times​ – ​You display good variability in paragraph structure.

8. Point of View—do you stay consistently in the same character’s head for the entire scene? Doyou switch point of view only when a scene changes or when a new chapter begins?

How many POV changes can you find in the following passage?

Silky sheets caressed Teresa’s naked skin, as her heartbeat quickened. She watched Zack, framed in the doorway, as he unbuttoned his shirt. Secret fantasies he’d harbored for months were about to come true. Teresa’s heavy-lidded eyes promised a welcome worth waiting for. She quivered inside with trepidation. Would he be disappointed or thrilled? With a sweep of his sinewy arm, Zack whipped back the sheet, stunned to discover Teresa was really Terrance.

Answer: Four. The paragraph starts in Teresa’ POV because she feels the sheets and her heartbeat. Then POV switches to Zack and his secret fantasies, which she might guess, but can’t know about since they’re inside his head. Then back to Teresa, quivering inside. Then back to Zack being stunned.

If you struggle with POV, lock yourself inside the head and body of the POV character.Everything that goes on in that scene must be within the eyesight, earshot, or touch of that character. That means the character might be able to look at his own feet, but he can’t see the broccoli stuck in his teeth. Only another character can do that…and I certainly hope she tells him about it soon!

9. Is the action described in chronological order? Does cause lead to effect? Does action trigger reaction? Is the choreography clear to the reader? Who is where doing what to whom?

If you understand the last sentence, give yourself 10 points and deduct 10 points from my score!

How would you rewrite the following confusing sentence?

George slashed Roger’s throat with the knife as he grabbed him from behind after he sneaked into the warehouse.

How about: ​Knife in hand, George sneaked into the warehouse, grabbed Roger from behind, and slashed his throat.

Just as messy, but much clearer to the reader because events unfold in the order they happened.

10. Do you read your work out loud? If so, give yourself an automatic 10 points.

When you read out loud, you catch repeated or missing words, awkward phrasing, and sentences that are too long. “Glide” is the term used by author/editor Jim Thomsen to describe smooth, effortless, clear writing. Glide is like riding in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce as opposed to bucking and shuddering in a 1973 Pinto with bad spark plugs and a flat tire.

For extra credit, have someone else read your work out loud. If he or she can read without stumbling, you’ve achieved glide. Award yourself 25 bonus points.

Answers to 6 (a) it’s, (b) its, (c) affected, (d) effect, (e) affect, (f) farther, (g) further, (h) allusion, illusion, (i) implied, (j) inferred, (k) who, (l) Despite the catchy slogan from the 1950s, correct use would be as. Back then, liquor couldn’t advertise on TV, but cigarettes could. Now liquor ads are common, but few people even remember commercials for cigarettes. How times change!

How did you do? Tell us in the Comments! 

Fewer errors equal less distractions and a more engaged reader. A more engaged reader equals more sales.

And that equals an A+.

Debbie Burke lives in Montana, where she greets every morning with coffee and TKZ. Her articles (under the name A. Burke) appear in regional, national, and international periodicals. She has edited numerous published books and enjoys mentoring young writers. Her suspense thriller Instrument of the Devil will be published next summer.

I have PJ Parrish to thank for my present whereabouts.

My wife and I have been planning a Big Trip to celebrate our 20th anniversary, and the destination — an easy choice — was France. We’ve been researching it for a year, the itinerary growing to a three-week monster with four stops, including the final 10 days in Paris.

Then I read one of PJ’s recent posts two weeks ago, where she told us she was in the Loire Valley in France, sitting on the deck of her chateau (pretty sure that’s not what she said, but it’s what I pictured, because that’s what NY Times bestselling authors do, right?) as she wrote that day’s post.

I hadn’t heard of the Loire Valley, so I looked it up.

Immediately our itinerary changed. Out with Lucerne and Normandy, in with four days in the Loire Valley to tour some of those massive castles and — this time I’ll use it accurately — ancient Chateaus.

I’d like to say I’m sitting on a deck, too, as I write this, but it’s the day before we leave and I owe The Kill Zone at least two posts while I’m gone. So I’ve decided to excerpt my new writing book, “Story Fix: Transform Your Novel From Broken to Brilliant,” which was released in full this week (after two weeks in pre-release on Kindle).

This excerpt is from Chapter 11, “Spinning Hope From Rejection.”  It addresses the quandary we face when our work is rejected — do we simply submit it somewhere else, or do we ponder the story behind the rejection (if there is one) and do a little more work on it.

We join the book on page 168 for the following:

TO REVISE, OR NOT TO REVISE

Then again, every rejection slip does not necessarily signal the need for a major revision. Your story may be perfectly fine as is. The rejection may come from a source you do not understand, and therefore do not value. More often, though, harsh criticism and rejection may actually be the wake-up call the writer needs. And thus, it’s on the shoulders of the writer to know the difference—timing rather than a lack of sufficient craft—and to use feedback in all its forms to accurately assess the story’s strengths and weaknesses and apply that feedback to move forward accordingly. The tools and processes apply to any origin of the need for story repair, however it is conveyed—be it a rejection or simply a depressing hunch that won’t leave you alone.

Worthy stories, some of which go on to success, certainly do get rejected all the time, both by agents and publishers. These are the stuff of urban legend. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find them everywhere. I’ll mention again the quote from esteemed author William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything.”

It’s too true. But it’s also a risky way to place your bet. Because you could rationalize the rejection of your story as simply a case of timing or another agent who doesn’t get it rather than a legitimate red flag that should get your attention. We can be sure that Kathryn Stockett didn’t revise her manuscript forty-six times, one for each instance of rejection. But because she hasn’t talked about it, we can’t say for sure how those rejections colored her subsequent sequence of drafts, if at all.

Right here is where a paradox kicks in: If you don’t possess the knowledge to nail it the first time out, and are now stuck with the need to revise, how can you leverage feedback and rejection in the writing of a subsequent draft to solve those problems? You’re the same writer who wrote that flawed story. How can you suddenly, without elevating your skill set, attempt to hoist good toward greatness? That’s like asking a toddler who has just fallen off his bicycle to simply get back up and try it again, without showing him what went wrong. A lot of fathers have tried just that method over the years—“It builds character,” they say—and it’s always a recipe for further frustration and tears, as well as a few Band-Aids.

You can’t expect to take your story higher with the same skill set as before, at least to the extent that you don’t understand the feedback itself. But you’re here, you’re learning the unique tools and principles that drive successful revision, and that just might change everything about your next swing at the story.

As professional writers we are beyond the need to use our work as a means of personal character building. We require knowledge applied toward the growth of something much more amorphous and elusive: a heightened storytelling sense.

You can no longer be a suffering artist first and foremost, and a professional writer, too.

A starving professional writer, perhaps, but suffering is optional in the professional realm, because there are tools and principles to rely on. Suffering artists can, and do, create their own boundaries and standards for their craft. They can blame those chatty muses they’re always listening to, and in essence they may choose to believe they can do this thing called writing any way they choose. Because it is art. Market expectations and principles be damned. But even the most ardent followers of organic craft align with the principles that make a story work, so process really isn’t the question at all, at any level. Criteria, benchmarks, and principles are what matter, combined with passion, vision, and the perseverance that is surely part of the job description.

In the long and dark list of reasons why a story doesn’t work, why it gets rejected and requires extensive repair, the writer’s need to suffer is a common seed of dysfunction. It leads to procrastination, the claim of unfairness, and an ignorance of the options. Writers who don’t summon the context of the principles of craft as part of their story sensibility, who go about it in the belief they can invent the structures and tropes and forces that make stories work, tend to populate the roster of the rejected, and sadly, colonize the roster of the self-published, casting a shadow over the multitude of very fine self-published books right next to them.

Even when this happens to a small degree, success becomes elusive.

Your art, in this case, wrapped in the limiting paradox of your process, often becomes your excuse for not finding an agent, or not selling when you do. “They just don’t get me” is the graveside plea of the unpublished, unprofessional writer.  While, in the meantime, the professional writer stays in the trenches to learn what went wrong and how to fix it.

By PJ Parrish

Now that I have your attention…

No, I am not going to talk about sex again. Not even bad sex with a limp penis, which as we writers know is a helluva lot more fun than good sex. I want to talk about finding the heart of your story. And to do that, you have to try this little exercise:

Get out your book or call up your Word doc manuscript. (For our purposes here, “book” means published or un, completed or not. “Book” is that thing that has been keeping you up lately.)

Open it to page 69. Read what is there. I don’t care if it’s a full page or the last two lines of a chapter. (If you hit a blank page, you have permission to use either 68 or 70 but that’s as much cheating as I allow.)

This page — this single page — capsulizes your entire book.

You don’t believe me, do you. I didn’t believe it either until I tried this experiment. I did it a couple years ago at the request of Marshal Zeringue, executive director for the Campaign for the American Reader. Marshal has this terrific blog wherein he promotes reading. Sez Marshal: “The goal of this blog is to inspire more people to spend more time reading books. I’ll try to do that by shining a little light on books that I like and think others might find worthy of their time and attention.” CLICK HERE to see his blog.

He also came up with the Page 69 Test. He was inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s suggestion that you should choose your reading by turning to page 69 of a book and, if you like it, read it. Zeringue tried it with Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale, and was so taken with the results he devised the Page 69 writers challenge.

On his blog, Zeringue has asked dozens of writers to answer the question: Is your page 69 a good place to get a sense of your book?

When I first picked up Marshal’s gauntlet, it was for our book AN UNQUIET GRAVE. (CLICK HERE to go read those results) But the other day, I decided to apply the test to our newest book, so I cracked open SHE’S NOT THERE, which was just released this month. Here is our page 69:

“When you call her phone, does it ring before it goes to voice mail?”
Tobias shook his head. “The police told me the phone was turned off. They said that’s why they couldn’t use the GPS to find it.”
“They can trace the phone’s last location. Have they told you anything?”
“Yes. They said her last known location of the phone was about two miles from where her car was found. But they never found the phone or her purse.”
“What about the car’s GPS?”
“It doesn’t have one.”
“And you don’t know where your wife was going?”
Tobias shook his head slowly. He picked up his glass, staring down into it for a long time, then finally took a drink.
“What do you know about the accident?”
“Not much. They said the car spun off the road in the Everglades.”
“Everglades?” What was your wife doing driving alone in the Everglades?”
Tobias stared at him for a long time, as if he were trying to figure something out. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
What the hell did this guy know?

Here’s what has happened before this. A woman wakes up in a hospital, bruised and with a concussion. She has no ID and can’t remember how she got there. All she had on when she came in was a Chanel dress and a 10-carat diamond. But when she hears her husband’s voice (Tobias), she freaks and bolts from the hospital, sensing he tried to kill her. The husband has hired a skip tracer to bring her home and the tracer is interviewing the husband for the first time. Does it give a good sense of the book? Oddly enough it, does. As truncated as it seems, the passage crystalizes a main plot point. The skip tracer suspects Alex Tobias, a rich lawyer, has something to hide, and he knows that every marriage has dark currents running beneath. So the skip tracer’s final thought on that page — what did the guy know? — is the existential question behind the whole plot. This is a husband who actually knows nothing about his wife. Which is why he might have tried to kill her. Or not.

I have to say that I went into this experiment a skeptic and emerged a believer. When I first did this years ago, I thought it was a bunch of hooey. But I think it reveals a kernel of truth about both our books. Each passage, in its way, gets to the heart of our story.

Okay…back to your own page 69. How does it work for you? What is there on this one single page that somehow serves to represent the very heart of your book? Think hard. It’s there. If it’s not? Well, maybe, just maybe, you haven’t really found the heart of your book yet.

Let me know what you found out. Be brave and share your 69s here and let us be the judge!

Postscript: I am on vacation this week, roughing it in the wilds of the Loire Valley. I wrote this before I left and I think I will be able to answer. If I can’t…talk amongst yourselves! Also, our book is finally out..The South Florida Sun-Sentinel critic Oline Cogdill calls it “captivating.” Author Hank Phillippi Ryan, calls it “Taut, tense, and twisty—this turn-the-pages-as-fast-as-you-can thriller is relentlessly suspenseful.” Here’s the LINK.

It’s launch week for me as I begin a brand new thriller series. I’m excited about this one, as it’s been bubbling around in my brain for some time. Now the first Mike Romeo thriller, Romeo’s Rules, is out, and two more are cooking.

So I was thinking about the steps one ought to go through when unleashing a new series. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Create a character who grips you and won’t let go

I wanted to write about a guy who can fight, and who was admitted to Yale at age fourteen. I kept developing his backstory until he demanded to be written. That’s what you need for a series character, because you’re going to be with him a long time. In my workshops I suggest an exercise: what would your character have tattooed on his or her arm? You don’t have to put it there, of course. It’s just to dig further into character. When I figured out what tattoo Romeo would have –– and I did put it on his arm –– the character was complete. You’ll have to read the book to find out what it is. #Shameless.

2. Come up with a twisting, turning plot for that character

The plot begins as Romeo is out for a jog … and a church blows up. He stops to help a bleeding woman, then finds a dead body in the church, and it’s not because of the blast.. The cops arrive. And that’s in the first three pages.

3. Develop 2-3 other plots for the next books in the series

It helps your confidence to know the series will have some legs!

4. Write the book

I believe this is an essential step.

5. Have the book professionally edited

This is the biggest expense you’ll have in the indie-publishing process. But a good, experienced editor who knows the genre is worth every dime.

6. Get a cover concept for the series (so the covers have a similar feel)

7. Write the book description copy

I tried something a little different with Romeo’s Rules. Actually, it’s a blast from the past. On many paperback originals of the 50s and 60s, the copy would contain a tag line, then some dialogue from the book (or a bit of a scene), then short, to the point sales copy after that. It’s my homage to that great era of genre fiction.

If you want to stay alive, you better know the rules …

Natalia Mayne said, “What’s the first rule?”
“Fear nothing,” I said.
“You have any more?”
“Do unto them before they do unto you.”
“Really?”
”And you don’t owe the truth to people who lie.”
“I’ve never met anybody like you.”
“I’ve heard that before.” 

Mike Romeo is an ex-cage fighter living off the grid in L.A. Running from a dark guilt that dogs him, he’s finally found a place where he can rest and even heal.

Then a church blows up. And with it all of Romeo’s hopes to be left alone. When he stops to help an injured woman whose kids are missing, someone decides to put a target on his back.

But whoever wants him dead picked the wrong guy. Because Romeo has rules. And he’s about to teach some lessons.

8. Try to create a little pre-release buzz (e.g., post the first chapter for viewing)

I did that a few weeks ago.

9. Publish the book to retailers

As an indie, you can create direct accounts with the main retailers, or you can use a service like Smashwords or BookBaby to do all that for you. I prefer to do it myself.

10. Tell people it’s published.

Hey! It’s published!

Here’s where you can get it

AMAZON

BARNES & NOBLE

KOBO

A print version will be coming soon.

Bonus step: Commission a book trailer. My rule of thumb is that a trailer should be 30 – 45 seconds. Here’s mine:

Oh yes, one more step: get to work on the next book! I’m already into Romeo’s Way. 

So what do you look for in a series? What makes you read on … or stop reading?