By John Gilstrap
www.johngilstrap.com

One week from now, I’ll be in New York, attending my fifth ThrillerFest. I’ll have finished my CraftFest presentation, “Broken Bones, Ballistics and Backdrafts: Technical Stuff That Writers Should Get Right” and I’ll be a day away from finding out whether or not my book NO MERCY won the Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original.

I won’t lie to you: I really do hope that I win. A win would mean a lot at many levels, drawing attention to myself and my work at a pretty impressive level. Let’s face it, no one’s career has ever been harmed by winning a major award.

With that on the table, I won’t lie a second time: When it comes to judging “best” in any artistic category, the honor truly does lie in the nomination, irrespective of the ultimate winner. Think about it: a jury of my peers named a product of my imagination as one of the five best out of the pantheon of alternative titles. That’s pretty high cotton.

In fact, it’s very high cotton. I judged a major contest last year, and I know better than most how difficult it is to wean the choices to a final fifteen, let alone a final five. Once that’s done, it’s almost anticlimactic to name one of the five titles as the ultimate best. Fact is, the cliche nails it: The honor truly does lie in being nominated.

Somewhere out there, a finite number of people already know who will win every category of the Thriller Award. If I’m on the list, I will be beyond thrilled. If I’m not, I will be merely thrilled. Either way, I’ll have had a kick-ass great time in New York, hanging with some of the finest people on the planet.

I’ll try to fulfill my obligation here on the Killzone next Friday, but if I’m AWOL next Friday, please forgive me. As for the Saturday night results, keep an eye out for my tweets (@johngilstrap). Win or lose, that’s where I’ll report it first.

Here’s this week’s discussion question: Do awards matter in your decision to buy books? If an author is honored with the Thriller or the Edgar or the National Book Award, does the fact of the award ever compell you to buy a book that you otherwise would not read? How about an Oprah pick?

John Ramsey Miller

I went a’ traveling last week and (since our local library is on weird hours due to budget cuts) I rented books on DVD from a Cracker Barrel. Which brings me to my biggest peeve on audio books on DVD. How much trouble can it be to add a tag at the end of an audiobook disk saying, “This is the end of disk one, please insert disk two to continue?” Why do listeners have to realize that the damned disk has started over again to begin digging on the floorboards for the box to get the next disk? It’s damned unthoughtful, and some producers actually add this amazing feature that adds two seconds to a disk to some books on DVD.

I don’t know how many authors are invited to listen to the audios of their books before they are released, but I’ve never been one of them. I first heard SMOKE & MIRRORS several weeks after it was released and there was a glitch in the audio track that a short discussion between myself and the producer or narrator could have prevented. The book was unabridged and wonderfully performed by, Scott Brick, one of the absolute top talents in the business. It was the arbitrary addition of an East German accent for my antagonist in the scenes where he was being himself that were off for me. My Paulus Styer was a psychopathic master chameleon and was always in character, none of which was being an East German. Maybe it was best for the listener since it helped them know who was speaking, but I never had him speaking with that accent in my mind as I wrote. I mean his syntax was Germanish but I never heard that voice as interpreted. I am sure nobody else noticed.

My first book, THE LAST FAMILY, was read by Gerald McRainey, and everything about it was flawless, even though it was done on cassettes. I think I can convert those to disks for however long that technology lasts. Even the parts of the book (one entire subplot) that were edited out to cut run time made the book stronger.

I’m excited about the fact that the market is opening up to e-books and audio downloads that aren’t put together by publishers, and that artists might better control their careers and be paid a larger percentage of the money for their labors. The advantage in distribution and advertising, which justified the houses taking the lion’s share is evaporating, and while they risked their money up front, and lost a lot on some projects, they did all right while the model was working. I like the idea of having more control over my own product. I have friends who are actors, and for a sum would be happy to read one of my books. I’d love being truly involved in the process and directing the reading.

We all know that publishers generally don’t want the author’s input on the book once he or she has turned it in. They design the cover and show it to the author after it is designed and accepted by the house. I was lucky in that my editor enjoyed my input and ideas and solicited them at points when things could still be changed. Sometimes I felt like I was on the outside of the process and as a consequence I think I felt some disconnect from the books once they appeared on shelves. Maybe feeling that is natural. It’s sort of like seeing an old girlfriend on the street who changed her hairstyle and lost some weight…

By John Gilstrap
www.johngilstrap.com

For me, every June marks the beginning of the writers conference season. That’s when American Independent Writers (AIW) sponsors its one-day confab in Washington, DC. Next up, in a couple of weeks, will be CraftFest and ThrillerFest, followed by Bouchercon and Magna Cum Murder, with the season ending in October. A couple of months ago, I attended my first Left Coast Crime conference, and I liked it so much that I’ll probably be returning to that again next year, which will cause me to reset the beginning of my season.

This begs the question (that’s for you, Jim), “Are writers’ conferences worth the money and effort?”

My answer is a definitive maybe. It all depends on what you seek to get out of your attendance, and what you’re willing to do while you’re there.

Agent pitch sessions. I know many authors who found their agent through the speed-dating ritual of agent pitch sessions, so I think their value is well documented—so long as you, the author, do your research and dedicate yourself to not wasting anyone’s time. First of all, don’t even begin the process until your book is finished, and your pitch is well-practiced. Just because an agent is at a conference doesn’t mean that she’s the perfect choice for your book. Concentrate on pitching agents who specialize in the kind of book you write. Don’t pitch your romantic suspense novel to an agent who loves political thrillers and does not represent romantic suspense.

Panels. Frankly, these are the wild cards of writers’ conferences. Depending on the makeup of the panel, they can be entertaining, informative, or deeply horrible. A lot about the success or failure of a panel depends on the level of preparation by the moderator, and the rest has everything to do with the chemistry created by the panelists. I believe in always putting on a good show for the attendees, but a lot of authors are very much into themselves and therefore tend to ignore the audience that’s in front of them. Also, more than a few authors are terrible public speakers. I say go to panels with reasonable expectations.

The bar. Whether you drink or not, the bar at the conference hotel is the place to be if you want to make lasting relationships with industry insiders. Too many conference attendees make the mistake of going to bed early. The bar teems with authors and editors and agents, all laid back and having a good time. Get to know them. Join the conversation groups. This isn’t the place to pitch (unless asked); it’s the place to get to know future business contacts—maybe future friends—as people, and not as stepping stones for your career.

More than anything else, these terrific business opportunities are all about having fun. So, go have some!

What say you, fellow Killzoners? Any thoughts about conferences that you’d like to share?

By Joe Moore

Here’s a comment I hear from new writers: “I want to edit and polish my writing as I go, but I wind up getting nowhere because I’m obsessed with making it perfect the first time.”

This is so often the case starting out. You want every word to shine and sparkle and dazzle. So you spend a day or a week or a month or forever trying to get that first chapter not just perfect, but perfecter.

In my opinion, this is a crutch. It’s an excuse. It’s a disease that infects all writers when they first start out. And it will eat you alive with a good chance that your writing will be damaged. It’s as easy a trap to fall into as a subprime, interest-only mortgage with nothing down. So how do you get past this nasty little hang-up?

First, you must convince yourself that NOTHING is perfect, especially when it comes to writing fiction. Now I’m not talking about spelling, punctuation, grammar and syntax. Those are the rules of writing just like the speed limit and stop lights are the rules of the road. But those rules have NOTHING to do with perfection, only correctness. Perfection is a mental concept. It can never be achieved. There will always be room for improvement.

Next, you must allow yourself to write less-than-perfect prose the first time with the understanding that it’s more important to tell the story.

Another tip that helps is to come up with a set of REALISTIC goals that drive your writing. Your goals should be reasonable and obtainable. Make them short-term, easy and convenient. Such as: I will write 500 words per day. I will not look at what I’ve written until I complete 5000 words. I will not stop writing each day until I finish the current chapter. You get the idea. Make your goals reasonable so perfectionism doesn’t get in the way.

I believe that perfectionism creates doubt. Doubt smothers creativity. It slows down the stream of consciousness. Allow yourself to shape the story first no matter how rough, then carve out the details. And remember that you’re the only one demanding that your writing be perfect. Give yourself a break and just tell the story.

Harry Shaw, in his book Errors in English and Ways to Correct Them, said, "There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting." Science fiction master thriller writer Michael Crichton said: "Books are not written–they’re rewritten."

So don’t worry about perfection. Work at telling a good story.

Do you suffer from wanting things perfect from the start? How do you get past it and complete your manuscript?

John Ramsey Miller

I’ve been censusing for six weeks and I’ve about used up all the Census form non-compliers in two counties. Saying good-by to my team was very much like the day I left summer camp in the early sixties. The job is over and during it I have only written this blog and little else. I am going to go back at writing with a cold vengeance and I’m not going to stop for a long time.

Because I can pretty much write whatever I like here, I am going to relate an incident and because of John Gilstrap’s blog I’m going to ask you to guess if it is reality filtered through my memory, part fictional, or full-blown bullsh*t.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been spending sometimes 10 hours a day knocking on doors of people I don’t know. Because I was working in my own community the first several weeks, I had on my list the name of someone I know very well. So instead of visiting the house right off, I called him on the phone. Now this person is a good friend of mine so I borrowed a cell phone because he had my number in his phone and he’d know it was me. The conversation went something almost exactly like this:

I dial…

“Hello?”
“Yes, this is Special Enumerating Census Agent Lamar D.Smithe with the United States Census Non-Compliance Division in Washington DC. Is this 221 Farm Pond Lane ? A Mr. A. B. Sedgewick?”
“It is.”
“Do you have a problem if I record this interview.”
“Why are you recording this interview?”
“I am recording this conversation in case I deem that further action is to be taken.We understand that you stated to certain people that you didn’t fill out your census form. “
“I sent in my form the same day I received it.”
“But you didn’t fill it out before you mailed it?”
“Of course I did. Why would I send it in blank?”
“We got tens of thousands of blank EQ forms from people whose pens were out of ink and like that, but mostly for various anti-governmental reasonings too numerous to list. Well, if you had put the intel we requested ––because it is a Federal offense not to comply––why I would be calling you? I assure you I do not call people at random.”
“Maybe it got lost in the mail.”
“Are you implying misfeasance on the part of the USPS? Is that what you are implying?”
“I have never told anybody that I would not send in my form. How can I clear this up?”
“You can comply now over the phone. Doing so and answering the few questions will arrest the investigation and any prosecution forthwith.”
“Okay.”
“These questions are non-invasive and the same laws that protect your privacy mean that failure to answer them truthfully results in a fine of up to two-hundred- and-fifty thousand dollars and/or imprisonment of five years. Do you swear hereby to tell the truth to this officer knowing as I have stated that lying to a sworn Federal agent in pursuit of his duty is a felony?”
“I knew lying to an FBI agent is a crime.”
“But you can lie to a census agent because we are less important? We can arrest and that as well and cross state lines. Were you living in your residence as of April 1, 2010?”
“Yes.”
“Were you alone or were there other residents in the abode at that particular time?”
“Just my wife and I.”
“Names, please. First name last, middle name and last name first.”
(He gives the names, last first and first last with middle initials)
“I see And what about the names of your three children?”
“We don’t have any children.”
“Not living in your home, you mean.”
“We don’t have any children living in any home.”
“Do you have any other homes?”
“No.”
“Any barns?”
“Barns?”
“Somebody may have been residing in your barn on April first, if you have one.”
“I don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Our records indicate a barn on your property. A blue barn with an air conditioner mounted in the wall. I’m looking at the satellite image right now. And what appears to be a Golden Retriever in the yard with a red collar.”
“I don’t have a barn. Who did you say you were?”
“That’s something we can rediscuss after I’ve cleared you …or not.”
“If you are who you say you are, why is your number a local cellular number?”
“Do you occasionally look at pornography on the internet?”
“Who is this?”
“Just answer my questions, sir.”
“I believe all I have to give the census is the number of people who live in my house, ages and sexes.”
“So now you want to tell me about the sexual materials you look at on the net.”
“Okay. So what is your name and badge number?”
“Enumeration Special Agent Buddy Blivins Badge 666213-7-11 ha. “
“Who the hell is this?”
“We’ve already established that to my satisfaction, Sir. On what date did you lose your virginity? By date I don’t mean first date or second. I need the actual year when you lost it. This question may seem irrelevant and invasive, but I assure you these statistics are important to the government for the allocation of funds for birth control for high school students.”
“Miller…”
“How did you know it was me?”

What do you think, fact or pure fiction of or a bit of both?

By John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com/

People ask me at conferences and such if I believe that my writing is character-driven or plot-driven. It comes up often enough that you’d think I’d have developed a standard pithy comment by now. Truth is, the question stymies me, because in my mind, there is no plot without compelling characters, and without a compelling plot, the characters don’t matter. It’s like asking which is the roundest part of a circle, the top or the bottom?

I point this out because I’m doing another of our first-page critiques this week (see below), and the first thing that strikes me about the piece is that a very dramatic moment is largely squandered because the shocking event is witnessed by a character I don’t yet care about.

I think the key to writing good fiction lies not with the plot elements, but in how the plot elements affect characters. Think about the realities of our daily lives—particularly those of us who live in metropolitan areas. I read about murders every day and don’t give them a second thought. For those news stories to affect me emotionally, they need to resonate with my own life, my own priorities. The same is true of fictional characters.

So let’s take a look at this week’s submission, presented below in its entirety, and then my comments will follow after the line of asterisks.

Sunny reached for the suitcase in the pile of junk and almost dropped it from her sweat-slicked hand. It was small but heavy and the brown leather was worn and dusty. She sat on the floor of the attic, welcoming the break, and tried to open it but the old thumb latches were rusted shut. She decided this was a sign to call it a day and carried the case down the tight spiral staircase with her, closing the door on the mess. The last room to clean and renovate – the attic could wait.
In the kitchen she tried to pry the case open with a butter knife and when that didn’t work she resorted to a claw hammer, prying the locks off with a satisfying crunch.
The case was packed full of papers — old postcards, newspaper clippings and hand-written notebooks that looked like journals. She observed the childish scrawl on the covers and thought it was a little girl’s memory chest.
There was lumpy bundle of cloth to one side and Sunny picked it up to inspect it. It seemed to weigh only a couple of pounds. She unwrapped the bundle and gasped when she saw a little hand, a tiny arm. Then she laughed at herself.
“It’s just a doll, you idiot,” she said aloud. Then she pulled the cloth away and saw the sunken eyes, the withered umbilical cord. She dropped the body into the suitcase and almost made it to the sink before she vomited.
It was an hour before Sunny could bring herself to go back into the kitchen. The little body was still there, the empty eye sockets gazing back at her. She reached out with hesitant fingers and tugged the wrappings away from its body and saw a neatly sewn seam on its chest and extending down its belly. She saw that it was a girl child.
She considered calling the police, but the thought of people in uniforms, people like Ted, stalking through her house made her uneasy. She needed time to think. What would they ask her? Would they suspect her of foul play?
Sunny’s mother had never been one to trust a uniform. “They want you to think they’re on your side,” she’d told a young Sunny. “But what they really want to do is find some excuse — any excuse — to beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Don’t you forget that.”
Sunny shook off the sudden chill that had trickled down her back. Why hadn’t she listened to her mother?
She pulled the notebooks and a bundle of ephemera out from under the body and shut the lid of the suitcase, hiding the baby from sight. She went into the breakfast room and spread the papers out on the table.
The name on the cover of the first notebook shocked her. In careful script it read, “Diary of Virginia Ketch”. Sunny scanned the others and was astonished. Every single notebook bore her great grand Aunt Ginny’s name.
The other items — newspaper clippings, postcards, telegrams — all seemed to be of the same vintage. They all seemed to be sorted by date from the 1920s through the 1960s. Someone had taken their time in compiling this little collection. It was like a treasure trove of family history. But whose baby was it? And why was it in the attic?

********

Let’s take this paragraph by paragraph. My comments are in bold italics:

Sunny reached for the suitcase in the pile of junk and almost dropped it from her sweat-slicked hand. It [“it” here refers to her hand] was small but heavy and the brown leather was worn and dusty. She sat on the floor of the attic, welcoming the break [from what?], and tried to open it [“it” here refers to the floor of the attic] but the old thumb latches were rusted shut. She decided this was a sign to call it a day and carried the case down the tight spiral staircase with her [as opposed to without her?], closing the door on the mess. The last room to clean and renovate – the attic could wait. [I’m confused. If it could wait, why is she cleaning it?]

Note: As a reader, I’m not sharing Sunny’s desire to break into this chest. In my mind, it’s just one more bit of clutter in an attic that’s packed with clutter.

[. . .] There was lumpy bundle of cloth to one side and Sunny picked it up to inspect it. [This kind of sentence structure (There was . . .) always strikes me as lazy and unengaging. I would write something like, a lumpy bundle of cloth lay under the papers . . .] It seemed to weigh only a couple of pounds. She unwrapped the bundle and gasped when she saw a little hand, a tiny arm. Then she laughed at herself.
“It’s just a doll, you idiot,” she said aloud. Then she pulled the cloth away and saw the sunken eyes, the withered umbilical cord.

Stop the story! BS alarms are clanging. No one anywhere could possibly mistake a dead child for a doll. This is the kind of research fumble that, with all respect, is horribly unprofessional. That aside, how about a little more description. Why the vomiting in the next paragraph. For this imagery to pay off to the max, you need to make the readers feel a little ill, too.

She dropped the body into the suitcase and almost made it to the sink before she vomited.
It was an hour before Sunny could bring herself to go back into the kitchen. [Really? 3600 seconds? That’s a long time. What is she doing in the meantime? And why the change of heart in the next sentences?] The little body was still there, the empty eye sockets gazing back at her. She reached out with hesitant fingers and tugged the wrappings away from its body and saw a neatly sewn seam on its chest and extending down its belly. She saw that it was a girl child.

And then, after it all, she pulls out the papers and sits down to go through them? I don’t buy that she wouldn’t call the police; not because it couldn’t happen, but because you haven’t sold me on her emotional space.

It’s really, really important to keep your readers in mind as you write any story. We can’t read your mind, and we can’t know your heart. If you want to have our sympathy, you need to earn it on the page.

John Ramsey Miller

I’m in a hurry but I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. Tonight I am driving my wife and three-year-old grandson to Panama City, Florida to attend a family wedding. Little Rush is a good rider, but it’s frankly a long, long drive even for adults. I have been driving picturesque county roads counting heads for three weeks, and it’s time for a break. So I get to drive twelve hours, attend a wedding the next day and leave for home a day later alone because I’ve been asked to stay on with the head-counters and move my interviewing and persuading talents to work in a new region driving county roads and counting heads and figuring out ways to get the goods from reluctant individuals. Sometimes I get to become a detective and search out the elusive members of society, who enjoy not participating in the big count.

I have been gathering characters that I want to use in a new book and I’ve been thinking about writing a non-thriller for a change. (I know I’ve said this before) I mean I can’t write a book without a degree of violence because life-or-death situations are the sort of stakes that matter to me. I’m not the sort of author who can write about the coming of age in the deep South without putting in the KKK or a dangerous adversary, but I want to write at a pace that allows for deeper character development––a different pace. I’ve been dancing the Boo-Ga-loo and I’d really like to try my hand at a waltz. I think the Thriller is as important and reaches as lofty a roost as any other genre. If Wally Lamb has anything on Ken Follet I’ll never say its so. Anybody who looks down on our genre has never tried to write one. Thrillers are serious literature and if anybody disagrees we’ll send our characters to wreak havoc on their houses and lay waste to their fields.

In my job I don’t tell anyone that I am a published author, and I think it might have made things different, made me more of an outsider to my co-workers. I thought it might have made my comrades suspicious of me, and guarded in what they said and how they related to me. I’ve been just another worker bee in the cog of the Government wheel and it’s been …well fun and fulfilling in a way I’m not accustomed to.

So after I complete my depression-era gangster novel, I think I will take the time to write that different book. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing thrillers, but like the horse looking at the grass on the other side of the paddock, I’m yearning to make a change. I’m looking to write without a ticking clock, to string together rug tugs, plot bombs, and surprising twists. I had an editor ask me once what the next book was going to be about. I said betrayal. She smiled and said, “Aren’t most thrillers about betrayal?” I guess it’s true. We all hate betrayal and having the protagonist’s danger coming from someone he or she trusts is a standard last twist in most thrillers.

For the past few weeks I have been experiencing life up close. As an observer, and thief of life for so many years, I think I have missed actually living to a great extent. I haven’t been getting out and experiencing the trenches, more like observing at a distance and imaging it as I think it might be to those involved in it.

It seems that most authors with day jobs envy authors who write full time. I find myself envying authors who work at something unrelated to writing and write because they have something to say about their lives, and are always meeting people from a different angle than I think I do. I like being anonymous in social situations. When people know you are a writer, they relate to you differently.

I never had a mid-life crisis, but I’m yearning to try new things while holding on to what I have, to participate more in the lives of my children and grandchildren, to stop coldly observing so much, and get down on the floor and play. And I want to play with my writing.

Do any of you think you’re not climbing into life enough?