In 1816, during an unusually cold season caused by volcanic eruptions and circulating ash,  19-year-old Mary Shelley wrote a story about a monster as she and some friends struggled to stay warm. FRANKENSTEIN was born.

If you were to create a literary monster sprung from our own modern era of extreme and changing weather patterns, what would that monster be called? Can you describe it? (Be advised though, that SHARKNADO is already in the lexicon!) 🙂

Okay, it’s freaking cold today! Does the weather or winter blahs change where you write? Describe.

We have a first-page submission for critique today, titled GAMES OF CHANCE.  My comments follow.

***
As Callie crested the hill, the finish line appeared, lined with colorful flags – and then receded, as another girl thundered past.

Callie chased her on a gentle downhill slope, three hundred meters of fairway to the finish line of the State Championship. Through eyes hazy with exhaustion and the remnants of a cold, she could see Anna and Hanna, her twin teammates, sprint past the finish marker in a dead tie.

Two hundred meters to go and Callie could hear the gasping breath of another runner closing on her. Five strides later, the girl was beside her. Callie pumped her arms harder, willing her legs to move faster. Legs that could carry her for miles were failing now with the finish in sight.

Noise flooded both sides of the course and, penetrating over it, someone shouting her name. The cheers of the fans and coaches slid past her as she fought for position.

She saw the red singlet and slashing white diagonal as the last of the Fairchild Academy runners eased by her. Swearing, Callie leaned forward to gain momentum, rising up into a full sprint, her calves already starting to cramp, alternating with each foot strike, each spasm an opportunity to let the girl go, to quit.

Seventy meters and Callie still matched strides with the Fairchild girl.

At fifty meters, another girl caught both of them. She was a tiny runner from a small school up north, and her breath came in sobs.

The three of them closed on the flags at the top of the finishing chute. Callie felt the agony of each breath as it exploded from her lungs, too little air for starving muscles. The blood pounding in her head drowned out the runners beside her, and Callie’s vision squeezed down to a small circle focused on the white line that marked the end. She drew on the struggling efforts of the runners next to her, seeking just a small advantage.

The sobbing girl finished one step ahead, the last sob a moan as she collapsed. Instinctively, Callie dodged the fallen runner as she lunged past the line, a half-step ahead of the Fairchild runner.

Relief and exhaustion mingled with joy but a small doubt blossomed.

Was it enough?

***

My comments:

Update:

Clearly, I erred in attaching a soccer image to this story about a race! I formed a clear picture of a drive down a soccer field in the first paragraph and never let go of that image, despite counter-cues in the rest of the page. That shows how readers can go offtrack–which is a subject for another blog!

*** 

I appreciate the way this page describes Callie’s efforts during her  thundering drive toward the finish. The writing regarding the action, concentration, and her sense of being pursued by others was convincing.

I do think that the first lines lost a bit of impact due to their construction. “As”used twice in the opening paragraph. It’s important to vary your sentence constructions, especially in openers. Also–and this is just my personal opinion, others may disagree–starting a story with a sentence that begins with “as” is a weak way to open a scene. As readers, we don’t yet have any context for relating the “as” to anything.  The writer should the character’s main action, rather than introducing “as” right off the bat. 

While I enjoyed the way the running action was described, I do think we need to learn a bit more about Callie in this first page. As we’ve discussed so many times here on the blog, the first page of a story has to pull the reader into the character’s world. As currently written, we only get the idea that Callie is trying to score a soccer goal. (Update: Oops!) For me, that situation is not quite compelling enough for a first page. We need a hint about Callie’s character and motivation, as well as the story to come.

One nit: There were too many undifferentiated characters, I thought. To enhance the suspense, the writer might consider focusing Callie’s running battle on one particular opponent in particular–especially if that rival will figure later in the story. (From my Soccer Mom days, I predict that the opponent will be the Dreaded Goalie.)

All that being said, I think the writer displays a promising strength for conveying action. That’s a a real plus. Keep going, Writer! And thank you for submitting this page for discussion today.

TKZ’ers, what are your thoughts about GAMES OF CHANCE?

By Elaine Viets

    So there I was reading my favorite blockbuster novelist, a writer with a shelf full of awards, kudos from critiques, a movie and more, when I was stopped by a stupid mistake. The angst-ridden hero tossed his clothes down the laundry shoot.
    Well, chute. What happened to this normally careful and precise author? Where were his editor and copyeditor?
    No, I’m not giving you this writer’s name. These mistakes happen to us all. Keep reading and I’ll tell you how I embarrassed myself in front of three hundred thousand readers.
    Let’s just say that homonyms happen.
    Here are a few common mistakes that make you look like an amateur. And no gloating, please. The next brain freeze could be yours.

 
– It’s bloody embarrassing when mystery writers have police and forensic experts talk about blood splatter. It’s spatter. Get the L out of there.

– Watch those bears. Grizzly murders are cringeworthy, unless the person was killed by a bear. Grizzly is another treacherous homonym.

– Triple threat. “Peaked,” “piqued” and “peeked” give writers three ways to go wrong. How often have you encountered versions of “this peaks my curiosity”? I didn’t want to see it, but I’d already “piqued” at the page and knew I wasn’t getting a “peek” literary experience.
 
– Twisted. Beer drinkers know that Heineken does not have a twist-off cap, but many writers don’t. Your character needs a church key for those green bottles.  

— Jack’s possessive. Jack Daniel’s always has an apostrophe. I had a sobering discussion with a copyeditor who wanted to remove the apostrophe, but that’s when hanging around bars paid off. I knew Mr. Daniel was possessive about his Tennessee whiskey.

– How to drive readers crazy: Get car details wrong.  In 1968, hippies did not open the hood of their VW Beetles and check the engine. Beetles back then had rear-mounted, air-cooled engines. Check car details on the Internet.

– All wet. No, you do not “wet” your appetite. You sharpen it. Put that H to work.

— Lift that bale. No, you don’t tow the line. It’s not a rope. Webster says when you “toe the line” you “conform rigorously to a rule or standard.”

– Watch those foreign words and phrases. When I was a newspaper reporter, I wrote about a waiter who wore “liederhosen” at a German restaurant. Amazing, a reader told me. A man with singing leather pants. I should have had the waiter wearing lederhosen – leather britches.
    That extra “i” made a fool out of me.

By Elaine Viets

    White meat. When I was growing up, that was the best part of the turkey – and the most unattainable.
    In German-American families, children were seen but not heard, and the choicest pieces of Thanksgiving turkey were reserved for the adults. Grandpa carved the turkey because he was the head of the family, but he had a subversive streak. Grandpa would “accidentally” drop little slices of white meat on the kitchen table for us grand kids while he carved.
    But not too many. That delicacy was reserved for my mom and my aunt. My dad and my uncle got the turkey legs, Grandpa ate the wings and thighs and Grandma ate the pope’s nose – the tail. She’d grown up poor and “got used to eating it,” she said.
    But Grandma was determined that her grandchildren would know the finer things, including white meat on Thanksgiving. One year in the 1960s, when I was ten and still eating at the children’s table, she bought a Butterball turkey.

    The big-breasted bird was the talk of the family.
    When we visited her the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we went downstairs to the basement freezer to admire the prize. The burly top-heavy bird nested amid bags of the frozen peas.
    “Look at the size of that breast,” Grandma said. She never used that b-word  except to describe fowl anatomy.
    Butterballs boasted more white meat than any other turkey, according to the ads, and we didn’t know about animal rights back then.
    At three o’clock that glorious Thanksgiving, Grandma triumphantly pulled her roasted Butterball turkey out of the oven: a busty golden brown bird.

While the turkey cooled, she put the finishing touches on the rest of the holiday feast: giblet gravy, stuffing, cranberry relish, lima beans in cheese sauce, and Parker House rolls. A stick of real butter was enshrined in a cut-glass dish. Mom brought the screw-top bottle of Mogen David wine out of the fridge and poured everyone a thimbleful.
    The table sparkled with the best crystal and dishes, seen only on holidays. Even the kids’ card table got a real tablecloth.
    Grandpa started carving. First the legs were set aside on the platter. Next he sliced into the golden breast meat. “Oops, I dropped a piece,” he said, and placed a thick slice on the Formica-topped kitchen table. As the oldest, I grabbed it. (Hey, rank has its privileges, even among kids.) Yum. This was the tenderest white meat I’d ever eaten, a sweet promise of the adult privileges waiting for me.
    “Me, Grandpa!”“Me!” my brothers and cousins cried as Grandpa gleefully dropped slice after succulent slice of white meat and we kids scrambled for them like hungry pigeons.
    He was still giggling and giving us white meat when Grandma said, “Papa, how’s the turkey coming?”
    Uh-oh.
    Suddenly we noticed the turkey breast was as bony as a fashion model’s carcass. All the white meat was gone, except for a few scraps.
          Guilty, greasy-fingered grand kids slipped away.
    Now I can eat all the white meat I want, but it never tastes quite as good.
    So what lesson does this teach about writing?
    (A) Be on the look out when something special lands front of you – and use it.
    (B) Nothing. Have a happy Thanksgiving with delicious memories.

Elephants, it is said, never forget anything.

 
Readers, not so much.

I’m reminded of this memory gap frequently in my critique group. I’ll be reading a scene from chapter eight of someone’s draft, and suddenly a minor-sounding character pops up from out of nowhere to contribute a bit of dialogue. There’s no description that reminds me who this character is, or where he came from. There’s just a bit of dialogue, and a name. I have no clue who this character is.

Oh, I introduced that character four chapters ago, the writer says, a tad defensively, in response to my sheepish request for a reminder. How could I have forgotten?

I’ve forgotten your character, I want to scream at the writer during these moments, because A) You failed to introduce the character originally in a memorable way, and B) You didn’t re-establish him later in an effective manner. 

A Universal Truth of Writing: It’s Never the Reader’s Fault!

It doesn’t work to ignore a character for several chapters, or even one scene, and then sling him back upon the unsuspecting reader without proper re-introduction. To a reader, this type of assault feels a bit like a zombie attack from outer space. Readers need to be reminded about what your character’s been doing the entire time you’ve been focusing attention elsewhere.

Within a scene, the re-introduction of a character who’s been missing in action can be done with a single sentence. For example, let’s say you have a scene with three characters, and two of them have been having a heated argument. Now let’s say you need to re-introduce Character #3, who hasn’t said anything so far in the scene. This is one way you might do it:

Bertram, who’d been listening to us from his unsteady perch on the broken stool, cut in to deliver a verdict. “You’re both wrong,” he said.

If your character’s been missing in action for entire chapters, you’ll need to do a bit more work to re-introduce him. One thing you could do would be to show other characters reacting to your MIA’s re-arrival in the scene.

Best Practice Suggestions: 
Don’t lose your reader by ambushing him with improperly introduced details or characters from previous sections.  
Do re-establish characters from earlier sections with gentle reminders that help readers stay oriented in the story flow.

How do you re-introduce MIA characters in your work? Have you ever had to go back a few pages to remind yourself who a character is?

By Elaine Viets

    Writing a novel is like making soup: We add chunks of our own experience, bits of research, boil it down, season it with imagination. We transform those ingredients into something that we hope is tasty, even nourishing, for our readers.
    In “Fixing to Die,” my new Josie Marcus mystery shopper mystery, I used an old encounter with a bully. Josie has a tween daughter, Amelia. Three mean girls at Barrington School create a Facebook page called the Bitches of Barrington, and put photos of Amelia and three of her friends in doghouse frames. Twelve-year-old Amelia is hurt and humiliated when her classmates see the BOB page. Worse, the other students bark and howl as Amelia and her friends run for their parents’ cars.

    It’s hard to escape stories about bullying these days. The facts are dreadful. Dosomething.org says some “43 percent of kids have been bullied online and girls are about twice as likely as boys to be victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying. Worse, bullying victims are two to nine times more likely to consider committing suicide.”
    I grew up before kids used computers – and before mean girls had their own movies. Back then, we knew about boy bullies, but nobody thought girls could be, too.
    When I was twelve, I was bullied by a mean girl named Bonnie. She went to public school and I went to St. Sabina Catholic school. Bonnie beat me up on my way home from school. I started taking the long way home to avoid her.
    Now that I’m grown up, Bonnie’s bullying seems ridiculous. But my terror at twelve was real.
    Here’s how I used it in “Fixing to Die.” In this scene, Josie, her new husband, Ted, and Amelia, discuss bullying:

    “Technology has changed the bully business,” Josie said.
    “What’s technology got to do with bullies?” Ted asked.
    “When I was Amelia’s age,” she said, “I was bullied by Bonnie. Skinny girl with straggly hair. Bonnie was a year older and a whole lot bigger than me. She didn’t like that I used what she called ‘big words.’ Bonnie would wait for me about two blocks from school, and punch me in the gut. I started taking the long way home to avoid her.”
    “Did you tell Grandma?” Amelia asked.
    “No. Bonnie said her father was in the Mafia and he’d kill her.”
    Amelia giggled. “You believed that?”
    “Yeah, I was stupid,” Josie said. “Bonnie had a German last name. I don’t even know if she knew any Italians, but she had me shaking in my shoes.
    “Here’s the difference between me and Amelia. Once I was home, I was safe. Bonnie wouldn’t come to my house and nobody else knew about it. Online bullying is there twenty four/seven.”
    Bonnie quit tormenting me when I went to high school. I’ve lost track of her. But the memory of her jabs to the gut stayed with me.

Here’s the good thing about being a writer: No experience is ever wasted, no matter how painful.