By Mark Alpert
By Elaine Viets
Meet Lisa. She’s pretty, plump, tall, lean, rangy and soft with tiny white teeth.
What?
You’re not going to meet that woman. She doesn’t exist. Not anymore. I discovered this misshapen creature lurking in Checked Out, my May 2015 Dead-End Job mystery. Lisa disappeared after the rewrite.
I do at least two rewrites for every novel, sometimes more. I ruthlessly kill whole chapters if they seem flat and dull. Judicious pruning is a key to good writing.
Checked Out is my 14th Dead-End Job mystery, set in South Florida. The series features private eye Helen Hawthorne. In Checked Out, Helen works undercover in a library, looking for a missing million dollars.
I did some looking, too, when I was rewriting Checked Out. I did a “seek and find” search for Lisa, a major character.
Oh, what I found.
Lisa is first introduced in Chapter 9. I mean that literally. Helen, who’s a volunteer at the mythical Flora Park Library, is introduced to Lisa, the board president.
“Lisa held out a soft pink hand,” I wrote.
Then I said, “Lisa was a pretty, plump fifty-something woman in a lavender pantsuit.”
Later on, Lisa “showed her tiny white teeth.”
And “Lisa placed her warm, plump hand on top of Helen’s.”
Lisa’s not getting cozy with Helen. Not that kind of cozy, anyway. The Flora Park library is supposed to be haunted by a ghost, and Lisa makes everyone who works there attend a séance to communicate with the dead woman. Helen believes the ghost is a live person, but she goes to the séance to study the reactions of the ghost hunters. 
In Chapter 15, Lisa appears again. “She walked in, looking lean and lithe in a gray chalk-striped pantsuit,” I wrote.
Lean and lithe? What happened to pretty and plump?
My “seek and find” search suddenly found a totally different Lisa. Next she’s described as “tall and rangy.” Then she’s “tall and thin.” Around Chapter 31, I finally decided she has “springy blond hair.”
What was she for 30 chapters – bald? 
Lisa needed a major rewrite. She got it, from the moment she was introduced. I found newer, better, and more creative ways to describe this woman.
Then I checked the other major characters, and found more inconsistencies. It took a week of rewriting, but I fixed them. I think Checked Out is a better mystery because I checked out each character.
Use your cursor to seek and find your best characters.
All it takes is some light mousework.
NOTE: I’m at Bouchercon this week, where “Fixin’ to Die,” my 9th Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper Mystery, has been nominated for a Barry Award. My panels are listed at Events on www.elaineviets.com.
Elaine Viets
TSTL – Too Stupid To Live.
Characters who deliberately put themselves in danger.
In movies, TSTL is usually a big-boobed, small-brained blonde who hears a funny noise in the basement. A serial killer is on the loose, but she runs downstairs without a weapon, without fear, and without many clothes – and is hacked to bits.
Cozy mysteries are brutally bashed for TSTL females, but both genders are equally guilty.
TSTL is alive and thriving in dicklit: The cop who goes after the desperate killer without calling the dispatcher – or his partner. The private eye who goes alone into the building to get the murderer because a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Besides, he has his trusty Glock.
These writers aren’t taken to task for TSTL quite as often. But it’s safe to say that TSTL thrives in all forms of the mystery genre.
Readers want to kill authors who rely on TSTL stunts.
In A Dog Gone Murder, my new Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper mystery, I worked hard to avoid TSTL syndrome. Josie mystery-shops dog daycare centers. She investigates Uncle Bob’s Doggy Day Camp, known for its commercials featuring Uncle Bob. She discovers that Bob was more of a dog than anyone knew — he’d been kicked out of the house for having an affair, and he runs with a dubious crowd. When he winds up dead, there’s a long list of suspects. The police arrest Frank, her mother’s tenant. Josie believes he’s innocent, and she has to find the proof that someone else killed Bob.
She can’t take her friend Alyce with her, either. This time her best friend has morning sickness.
Josie says she’ll let Frank’s lawyer go after the killer. She just wants information from some people who knew the murdered man – his employee, Heidi. A customer named Sharon, and Bob’s estranged wife, Candice. Here’s a scene from A Dog Gone Murder:
“I got information about all three on the Internet,” Josie said. “I even have Google Earth photos of their streets. Candice lives on a rich street in Summerdale. Heidi’s street is nicely in the middle and Sharon’s is on the skids.
“But they all have one thing in common.”
“What?” Alyce said.
“Every neighborhood has its own Mrs. Mueller. The neighborhood busybody who watches everyone and every thing.”
“And how will you find her?” Alyce asked.
“Easy. She’ll be watching her neighbors. I’ll look for the twitching curtain or the miniblind slat raised by one careful finger – the telltale signs of a snoop at work. Then I’ll get her started by saying the women are applying for a new job and I need background information. They’ll see it as their duty to tell me everything they know. Then I’ll knock on my suspects’ doors for a quick chat.”
“But the local gossip will see you do that,” Alyce said.
“Both Sharon and Heidi live in apartment buildings. I can say I’m interviewing more neighbors in their buildings. As for Candice, we’re clients of Uncle Bob’s. I’ll pay my respects for her recent loss.”
“Still TSTL, Josie.”
“What’s that?”
“Too Stupid To Live,” Alyce said. “I hate those movies where the woman says, ‘Gee, I think I hear a serial killer in the barn. I’m going out to take a look.’ Then she goes outside and he hacks her to death with a hatchet. You are not confronting a killer by yourself. You need back-up, but I can’t leave home at this stage.”
“Oh, lord, I was so wrapped up in this investigation,” Josie said, “I forgot to ask about you. How are you feeling?”
“Still living on ginger ale and soda crackers,” Alyce said. “I’m not doing much cooking. Even the smell of food makes me queasy. This stage won’t last, Josie. It will be over soon. But if you insist on this harebrained scheme, you’ll make me sick with worry. I can’t risk that in my condition.”
“Alyce Bohannon! Are you hitting me with the pregnancy card?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to if it slaps some sense into you,” Alyce said. “You’re a mother with a tween daughter. You have a husband. You’re not going off on this crazy mission.”
“But –”
“The only way I’ll allow it is if you take me with you,” Alyce said.
“How can I do that?” Josie said.
“Use your cell phone. Call me when you get to the first house and keep your cell phone on in your pocket. That way I can hear what’s happening. If there’s a problem – if you scream or I hear that you’re being threatened, I’ll call the police on my land line.”
“If I see the local busybody first, she’ll be watching me, too. That will make me doubly safe. It could work,” Josie said.
“It will have to work,” Alyce said. “Otherwise, I’ll call Ted and your mother and you’ll have to deal with both of them.”
Does it work? Read A Dog Gone Murder and find out.
A Dog Gone Murder, my 10th Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mystery, will be published Nov. 4 as an e-book and a $7.99 paperback. Preorder your copy here http://tinyurl.com/q5dlhlj
by Elaine Viets
Here are more word traps for unwary writers. I’ve found all these examples in books from major publishers. No, I’m not telling you the authors’ names or the books’ titles. It could happen to any of us. Just be on the look out for these snares. Let’s start with how a missing W can make your book X-rated:
Balling/bawling. I was shocked by this sentence in a well-promoted book: “When they announced I was national champ, my mother started balling.”
Really? In front God and everybody? The simple substitution of a W for one of those Ls would have Mother engaged in public “bawling.” That’s much more socially acceptable.
Colombia/Columbia/pre-Columbian — a triple threat.
Colombia – with an O in the middle. A country in northwest South America, and as any Miami Vice fan knows, the home of violent drug traffickers, including the Cali and Medellin cartels.
Columbia – with a U in the middle. US, the poetic name for the United States. Columbia is also the District of Columbia, better known as Washington, D.C., and a variety of towns and places, including Columbia University, which is currently in a very ugly rape scandal. Poets and headline writers dumped Columbia as the female symbol of the US about 1920 and started carrying a torch for the Statue of Liberty.
Pre-Columbian – with a U in the middle. That means before Christopher Columbus and his European pals started slaughtering and enslaving the indigenous native people in the New World. Er, I mean, before the noble Caucasians brought civilization to the backward savages. This word really trips up writers who discuss pre-Columbian art, especially when it’s located in Colombia, like these sculptures.
Fare-thee-well/Fair-thee-well. Fare-thee-well means “good-bye and good luck” and it’s been used in countless songs and ballads. Here’s a version of the time-honored lyrics:
Fare thee well my own true love
And farewell for a while.
I’m going away, but I’ll be back
If I go ten thousand miles
Sound familiar? You’ve listened to versions recorded by folkie Nic Jones as “Ten Thousand Miles,” as well as by Joan Baez, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Marianne Faithfull and more.
“Fair-thee-well” is flat-out wrong. Don’t use it.
Heroine/Heroin. Lately, “heroine addicts” are turning up in way too many novels. These are not readers addicted to the DC Comics heroines.
But drug users craving China white are “heroin addicts.”
Pored/Poured. Way too many people have been “pouring” over books. All that water ruins the pages. It’s easier if you “pore” over your books. 
Ring/Wring. “I could just ring her little neck.” Maybe she was wearing jingle bells. But I think he really wanted to “wring” her neck, which would make her bawl. Those Ws are nothing but trouble.
Rite/Right: “A tattoo is a right of passage,” the author wrote. Wrong. A tattoo is a “rite” of passage. Got that right?
Good luck, writers. Go and sin no more.
Archetypes are recurrent themes found in works of literature and film. Recently I attended a talk by a nautical archaeologist (http://nancyjcohen.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/nautical-archaeology-for-writers/). While this professional is concerned with preserving underwater shipwrecks and their associated artifacts, treasure hunters seek to plunder these watery grave sites. Now pit two of these opposing people together as hero and heroine, and you have instant conflict.
Or take the Star Lord and the green-skinned girl in Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s a cocky womanizer. She’s a feminist warrior. Don’t you love the sparks that fly between them until they realize how much they care for each other? Here’s a list of other familiar archetypes.
AMNESIA: Is he/she married, a parent, a missing bride/groom, presumed dead? Did he kill someone? Did someone try to kill him? Is she a witness to a violent crime? Is he an undercover agent who got hurt by the bad guys? American Dreamer, The Bourne Identity
BRIDES: Marriage of convenience, fake fiancés, mail order bride, runaway bride/groom, green‑card, royal, shot-gun wedding, jilted, terms of the will, Vegas spur-of-the-moment wedding. Runaway Bride, Father of the Bride, Wedding Crashers, Sleepless in Seattle, What Happens in Vegas
CHILDREN: Abandoned, lost, adopted, biological, inherited, stolen, secret baby, true identity unknown, switched‑at‑birth, kids playing matchmaker for single parents. Home Alone
DISGUISE: Hidden or unknown identity, switching places: True Lies, The Prince and the Pauper, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Freaky Friday, The Princess Diaries, Arrow
FISH OUT OF WATER: Enchanted, City Slickers, Kate and Leopold, Outlander
MAKEOVER: The Princess Diaries, My Fair Lady
MISMATCHED COUPLES: Bad boy/Good girl, Cowboy/Lady, Pirate/Princess, Real Estate Developer/Preservationist, Wanderer/Homemaker, May/December, Womanizer/Feminist, Duke/Governess, Mentor/Protegé, Boss/Employee. Romeo & Juliet, Beauty and the Beast, Six Days Seven Nights, Guardians of the Galaxy
RAGS TO RICHES: Cinderella, Pretty Woman, Ever After
REUNION: Former lovers, estranged spouses, lost love, thwarted romance, divorced but still in love. Sweet Home Alabama
SECRET POWER: Harry Potter series, Superheroes like Superman and Spiderman
SINGLE PARENTS: Struggling unwed mothers, clueless divorced dads, inexperienced surrogate. Three Men and a Baby, Baby Boom
TWINS: Switched identities, mistaken identities, trading places to fool people and having the tables turned on them instead. Parent Trap, New York Minute
Now wouldn’t it be interesting to pick one of these for your suspense/thriller novel? That’s what I did for Warrior Lord, my latest action-packed romance with scifi/fantasy elements. Drift Lord warrior Magnor of the Tsuran must recover the fabled Book of Odin. Hidden in its text is information on a weapon to defeat his enemy. Magnor has received a tip that a clue to the whereabouts of this book can be found at the Viking Vegas Resort.
As soon as he steps inside the casino, he’s drawn to a woman playing blackjack. When he hears her mutter how she can use the cash from a contest for engaged couples as announced over the loudspeaker, he suggests they enter the competition even though they’ve just met. Before you can blink, they win and are married on live TV. Marriage of Convenience meets Lord of the Rings plus Star Wars. It was fun tossing this trope into my paranormal universe.
Think about the books on your shelves at home. Do you repeatedly buy the same types of stories? Does this tell you something about the plot devices that appeal to you? What other movies can you fit into the categories above?
