Category Archives: Writing

Revisited: Handwriting Versus Typing

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Since Kay is on hiatus, we’re visiting a previous post by her, from October 2022.

Handwriting Versus Typing

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I was listening to a podcast a few years ago that addressed the benefits of handwriting versus typing. The interviewee (I don’t remember her name) was a graduate student who had forgotten to take her laptop to a class one day and had to resort to taking notes by hand. To her surprise, she discovered she had retained more of the lecture information than she normally did. This led to a research project to compare the benefits of the two methods of taking notes.

The memory of that podcast recently prompted a question in my mind: outside of taking notes in class, does anyone write in long hand anymore? If so, what kind of writing lends itself to longhand vs. typing. I found some interesting information online.

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In a 2021 article on whenyouwrite.com, Jessica Majewski summarized several benefits which I’ve paraphrased here:

Writing by hand is more focused. There are fewer distractions than using a laptop where there are constant temptations to check email or read the latest news story. Also, there are no word processing limitations when writing by hand. The author can draw a mind map, jot side notes, or doodle images without having to open another app.

But typing has its advantages, too. Doing research is a breeze if you’re on your laptop. Just hop over to another app to search out the information you need. Copy and paste articles into your research folder and keep going. But the primary advantage to typing is speed. And sooner or later everything you write is going to have to be typed into a word processor, so unless you’re fortunate enough to have a secretary to do the transition, you’ll have to do the additional work yourself.

But how do the different methods affect creativity? Majewski makes the following case in her article:

“When you are writing by hand, your cognitive processes are more involved than when you type and this can lead to some random springs of ideas. And at the pace of handwriting, you’re not worried about your hands outpacing your brain.”

In a 2017 article on qz.com, Ephrat Livni makes the following statement:

“Brain scans during the two activities also show that forming words by hand as opposed to on a keyboard leads to increased brain activity. Scientific studies of children and adults show that wielding a pen when taking notes, rather than typing, is associated with improved long-term information retention, better thought organization, and increased ability to generate ideas.”

That all sounds good, but does anybody actually write the first draft of a novel by hand? Well, yes. Here are a few authors you may have heard of who have written one or more novels by hand:

  • Joyce Carol Oates
  • Stephen King
  • J. K. Rowling
  • Quentin Tarantino

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As an experiment, I wrote this blog post in long hand. My thoughts flowed as I was writing, and there was a sense of freedom in the process that was different from typing. Fortunately, I was able to read my own handwriting when I finished, and I transferred it to a Word doc.

Well, I’m almost out of paper, so I’ll stop now. We haven’t touched on another creative method: Speech to Text. Maybe we can cover that in a later post.

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So TKZers – Do you ever write in long hand? What advantages or disadvantages have you noticed using handwriting vs. typing? Has this article convinced you to give handwriting another go?

What Should You Write Next?

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by James Scott Bell

Last week we talked about creativity, and getting ideas through the “What if?” game. I’ve always subscribed to the notion that the best way to get a great idea is to come up with lots of ideas, and then toss out the weak ones. That leaves me with several good ideas to choose from. Now the question is which one should I choose to spend the next four or five months writing? (Your mileage may vary.)

When I first got going in this game, I determined to be like a movie studio. I’d have one project that was given the “green light.” That was my work-in-progress. But I would also have a few ideas “in development.” The question then became, which one should get the green light next?

I came up with a three-part test.

Passion

The first, and most important test, is passion. If I don’t feel emotionally connected to an idea or concept, I don’t want to pursue it. Because it is passion and heart that separates our work, not only from other writers, but also the scourge of AI-slop.

I have a list of questions and assign a score, from 1-10, for each.

  1. How excited are you about the concept as it stands now?
  2. How invested are you in the main character?
  3. Is there a meaning involved, something worth saying?
  4. As a prediction, how excited do you think you’ll be about the book two months from now?

Potential

Since I write to put bread on the table, I want to consider the potential for my project in the marketplace. My questions:

  1. Does my plot have high enough “death stakes” (physical, professional, or psychological)?
  2. Is there a fresh setting, or a twist on a familiar one?
  3. Can I envision a knockout ending?
  4. Does my cast of characters turn me on? [Note: Once you start writing the book, there will be moments when the writing bogs down, when you’ll start to question your passion for the project. The fastest way to overcome this is to spend time deepening your characters, via backstory or voice journal. You’ll get excited again, and quickly, too.]

Again, score 1-10 for each.

Precision

Now, I write a logline for each project. A logline is Hollywood-speak for a sentence that captures both the essence and market potential of a project. For example:

A great white shark hunts for food in the waters of a New England town at the height of tourist season.

A teenager takes a time-traveling DeLorean into the past, where his young mother gets the hots for him, and where he must get his father to win her again or he’ll cease to exist.

Detective partners who dislike each other must bond in order to stop a serial killer who chooses victims based on the Seven Deadly Sins.

Score 1-10 for each logline on how well it captures market potential.

I add up the scores for each project, and the “winner” gets the green light.

This method gives me some objectivity, because it’s easy to just grab the next bright idea and start running with it. Again, I’m going to spend months with the project. I owe it to myself to think a little on it before I take the plunge.

One last note on the problem of AI-slop. When it comes to the writing itself, we all know it can be “handed off” to a bot. What that produces, at least as I see it, is heartless, soulless competence. It certainly does not produce the kind of writing that makes readers yearn for more books with your name on them.

Will a bot ever produce writing that does? Perhaps not! One writer puts it this way:

LLM-generated prose is, by virtue of the process that creates it, frozen verbal leftovers. An LLM is perfectly capable of imitating … compound sentences, especially the most basic, unsurprising constructions (“This is not that; it’s actually this.”). And because the vast majority of humans have no desire for anything better, LLMs appear to be good writers. But they’re not….The machines we’ve created can do only the bare minimum passably well because the same is true of us.

I choose to believe that the human element—honed by hard work, experience, honesty, and heart—will always produce a better book than a machine. [Note: Em dashes are mine!]

Now over to you. How do you choose which book to write next? If it’s the next in a series, how do you decide on plot and setting and new characters?

Emotional Words of Wisdom

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Emotion is the key to compelling, engaging, immersive fiction. Show your characters experiencing emotions, and make your readers feel something in response.

Today’s Words of Wisdom pulls excerpts from three previous TKZ posts about putting emotion into your fiction. Joe Moore discusses creating an emotional connection between your characters and your reader. Jordan Dane lays out key ways to infuse emotion in each scene. James Scott Bell looks at putting emotion into the most intense moments of each scene.

As writers, when it comes to our readers, if they have little or no emotional connection with the characters in our books, they won’t care what happens to them. And if they don’t care, we’re in trouble.

An emotional connection is created when a reader formulates conclusions about our characters’ personalities based on what we show the characters doing and saying. It’s not good enough for the narrator to “tell” the reader what a brave and generous guy our protagonist is or that our antagonist is a heinous villain. We have to show the reader through the characters’ actions, dialogue, interior thoughts and reasoning, and the way they treat others and their life choices from one situation to the next. Then a connection can start to form.

A solid approach to establishing each of these is to ask: what would you do? How would you react to a situation that you’ve created in your story? It doesn’t matter whether you’re assuming the persona of the protagonist, antagonist, secondary character or a mere walk-on. You are a human and so are they. They should act and react like humans, think like humans, and reason like humans. Only when they do will the reader form the critical bond or connection. Otherwise, all you have is two-dimensional paper-doll cutouts lacking depth and dimension.

Some helpful techniques include using universal experiences. Who has not told a lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings? Who hasn’t been faced with deciding between what’s right and what’s easy? Who hasn’t felt animosity or even hate for someone who has wronged you? When your character is in a similar situation, examine how you would react?

If you want your reader to like your character, analyze what it is that makes you like or love someone in real life. Use those emotional traits to build your character. And the opposite is also true. To create a character you want the reader to hate or despise, look for someone you dislike and figure out why. Are they egotistical, self-centered, mettlesome, cold, cruel, or mean? Utilize those universal feelings to build a strong antagonist. But never lose sight of the fact that you’re dealing with humans. Even Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader had strong human characteristics, good and bad.

One universal element that we all can relate to is pain—both physical and mental. Don’t be afraid to dish out the pain when it comes to developing your characters. It’s okay to put pain in their path because it gives them an opportunity to overcome something and by doing so become stronger or wiser or both. Pain, like any other obstacle, is an opportunity for character growth.

The more human you can make your characters, the better chance you’ll have of your readers forming a connection with them. Always consider how you would react, then have your characters act in a similar, logical manner. And throw in a shot of pain once in a while to keep things interesting.

Joe Moore—October 3, 2012

 

10 Key Ways to Infusing Emotion into Each Scene

1,) Put the reader into the scene using the senses – If you expect your reader to “feel” the world you’ve created, put them into every scene. If your protagonist is walking down a dark alley with gun drawn, you have to be there alongside him, author. What sounds can he hear? What does he smell? What are his physical reactions to his surroundings and how does that play on his fear that’s building? Anticipation is a key element in creating suspense and building on tension. Have patience to let the tension mount.

2.) SHOW don’t TELL – If you truly write the scene as if the reader is looking through the eyes and body of your relatable character, that will put them into the scene. If you only “report” what the character is thinking, it distances the reader from your character. ‘Telling’ takes all the unexpected discoveries from the reading experience and it stifles what the reader can imagine. The reader doesn’t have to think. They’re ‘told’ what to think and imagine. Focus on the action of your character and give them a physical reaction. Rather than ‘telling’ the reader that your character is afraid, show how that fear manifests itself in trembling fingers, trickling sweat, and a punishing heart beat.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” E. L. Doctorow

3.) Make your characters relatable and sympathetic – Dare to give your villain an odd sense of humor or have her fight for a cause she cares deeply about, so her wicked obsession feels real. Your mercenary could be a loner, but give him a dog to take care of. Load up the emotional baggage in your character’s past and force him or her into a conflict where they have to face their worst fear. Dare to make your perfect hero vulnerable. All these human frailties create relatable and sympathetic characters and will have readers rooting for them.

4.) Reach for the emotion/Make it over the top – Milk the scene for every drop of emotion. It’s not just about choosing the right words. It’s about creating effective imagery triggers that will connect with readers. If you think you’re done with a scene, go back over and layer in MORE of what that scene is about. Ratchet up the emotion beyond where you might normally go. The added touch pays off when you’re using words to put the reader into the scene.

5.) Foreshadow the danger or the obstacles ahead – If anticipation ramps up the suspense, foreshadowing helps the page turning pace of your novel and keeps the reader invested. It creates ‘flow’ between scenes and chapters. Don’t waste a scene ending or a chapter ending. Make it work for you. If a scene or chapter ending fizzles to a close, that gives the reader a chance to put the book down. Tease them with a hint of things to come and they won’t want to let go of the story.

Jordan Dane—May 19, 2016

 

So how do we show when we’re in the intense portion of a scene?

Nancy Kress, my former colleague at Writer’s Digest, had a great article on that in the January, 1993 issue. She gives five ways. Here they are, with my comments.

Physical Reaction

This is the one we usually go to first. Because it’s effective. Rendering how the character feels physically helps the reader vicariously feel it, too.

The trick is to find original ways to do it. Readers are used to sweaty palms, racing hearts, and twisting guts.

Does that mean never using them? Not at all. Just give them a little boost:

Her hands were slick and slippery now.

Her heart thrummed like a souped-up engine. 

His stomach rocked in a greasy hammock. (This is like something I read once in a Stephen King story, but can’t remember which one. Anyway, you get the idea).

So: Don’t just grab the first description that comes to you. Play around a little. Add your touch of originality.

Action

Actions speak louder than words, right? You can always show the character doing something as a result of the emotion.

Again, watch out for the instant answer. An angry boss pounding his fist on the table, for example. That’s expected. Add something to it.

How about pounding a coffee mug down, spilling the brew?

How about yanking out a drawer, scrambling the contents?

A good exercise is to visualize the moment and let your character improvise, try different things. Go a little wild. You’ll hit on something surprising that seems right. When that happens, you know it will surprise the reader, too.

And a surprised reader is a delighted reader.

Dialogue

What a character says in the context of a scene should reveal emotion. And the way you can tell if you’ve succeeded is that you don’t need an adverb to make it clear.

Not:

“Get out of here, John!” Nancy said angrily.

“That’s the last time I pet a lion,” said Tom offhandedly.

No finer example of how it’s done is this clip from Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants.” A man and woman are sitting at a train station, sipping drinks, as the man jauntily tries to tell the woman that an abortion is no problem. (The mastery of the story is that the word abortion is never used).

“Then what will we do afterward?” [Says the woman]

“We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.”

“What makes you think so?”

“That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy.”

The girl looked at the bead curtain, put her hand out and took hold of two of the string of beads.

“And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.”

“I know we will. You don’t have to be afraid. I’ve known lots of people that have done it.”

“So have I,” said the girl. “And afterward they were all so happy.”

That last line hits hard. We know how she feels from the context and word choice. We don’t need said the girl sarcastically.

James Scott Bell—June 2, 2024

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What are your thoughts on forging an emotional connection with readers, infusing emotion into each scene, and upping the emotional intensity?

To Err Is Human. Unless
You’re Writing A Mystery.

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By PJ Parrish

Okay, I’d like you to read this short scene from a book I grabbed off my shelf. See if you can figure out what’s wrong here.

Jesse handed him the Jack Daniels. Louis took a drink and handed it back. Jesse took a swig.

“Whiskey will kill you,” Louis mumbled.

“Better than that cough syrup you drink,” Jesse said. nodding toward the empty Christian Brothers on the floor.

Louis pulled the afghan up his chin and shivered. From outside came the call of a loon.

“I hate the sound of those f–ing birds,” Jesse murmured.

“Lonely,” Louis said.

“What?”

“They sound lonely,” Louis said.

This is from my second book Dead of Winter. Now, I spent the first 23 years of my life in Michigan. I know what winter is like. I know what loons are. I know they don’t stay in Michigan in the winter.

Speed ahead twenty-five years. I gave Dead of Winter to a friend at pickelball who wanted to read my stuff. The first thing she said when I saw her again was, “It was a good book but the loons migrate, you know.”

I know! I know! What I don’t know is why I brain-farted on this when writing that scene. And of course, my editors didn’t catch it. The good news is when we got the rights back, we re-published it and edited out the error. Too bad all life’s mistakes can’t be so easily righted.

I’m kicking up my old dust because I am angry about a TV series I am watching now — Patience. It is a British series about a brilliant autistic woman who toils in the basement records department of a York police station. She forms an alliance with the chief inspector and helps her crack murder cases. The first four episodes were stellar, tight writing, great character arcs, juicy puzzles.

Then, in episode 7, things got weird. A photographer is found dead in a tower with a stake through his heart and bite marks on his neck. His body has been completely drained of blood. Kewl. But…

As Patience tackles the case, the forensic and investigation details fall apart, The body was apparently moved to the tower after death, and it is implied that the blood draining took place in the TOWER, yet there is no blood trace. The bite marks are never explained.And Patience’s personal life overwhelms the plot to the point that it’s cloying. And annoying. The next two episodes were nearly as sloppy in the police work. I checked the writer credits. And yes, two new writers had replaced the original ones.

Is it because I am a mystery writer that I am so put off? I don’t think so. Readers and viewers are very savvy today about forensics and police procedure. They don’t like dumb errors and they won’t abide sloppiness.

But hey, we’re all human, right?

Yeah, but we shouldn’t be stupid. It’s pretty easy to research and get stuff right. My old buddy Dr. Doug Lyle writes mysteries but is best known for his how-to (and how not to)  forensics books. He writes: “[Mistakes are] part of the [writing] process. Sitting alone, bouncing clever ideas off your computer screen offers little feedback. But readers notice such breaches. They shake their heads, close the book, snuff out the light, and go to sleep. Not the ringing endorsement you wished for.”

Doug wrote an excellent article for Killer Nashville about the most common forensic mistakes beginners commit. A summary:

  • The Quick Death: Death rarely arrives instantly. Sure, it can occur with heart attacks, strokes, and extremely abnormal heart rhythms, but trauma, such as gunshot wounds and blows to the head, the staples of crime fiction, rarely cause sudden death.
  • The Pretty Death: I call this the “Hollywood Death.” Calm, peaceful, and not a hair out of place. Blood? Almost never.
  • The Bleeding Corpse: Your detective arrives at the scene a half hour after the murder. Blood oozes from the corpse’s mouth, from the stab wound in his chest, or from the vampire fang marks on his neck. Houston, we have a problem. You see, dead folks don’t bleed.
  • The Accurate Time of Death: Determining the time of death is neither easy nor very accurate. It’s always a best guess and is always stated as a range rather than an exact time. Yet, how many times have you seen the medical examiner confidently announce that the victim died at “8:30 last night”?
  • The One-punch Knockout: You’ve seen this a million times. One character socks another character in the jaw. He goes down like a sack of potatoes and is apparently written out of the story since we never hear from him again. Really?
  • The Instant Athlete: Your PI drinks too much, smokes two packs a day, and eats fast food. After all, stake outs are boring. His belly flaps over his belt and he gets short of breath climbing a single flight of stairs. He will not be able to chase the villain for ten blocks. Two on a good day.
  • The Untraceable Poison: Of all the questions I receive from writers this is number one. Seems that all crime writers want an untraceable poison. Sorry, no such thing.
  • The Instant Lab Result: The world is not like CSI. Not even close. Those CSI folks get results in a New York minute. Sometimes faster. In the real world such testing typically takes days, even weeks.

Click here to read Doug’s entire article. You can thank me (and him) later.

In the meantime, if you want to feel better, here are some mistakes from the big guns:

Patricia Cornwell’s bonehead mistake is now infamous. She wrote that Kay Scarpetta was working on a grizzly murder. It was unbearable…

Agatha Christie messed up her math in Elephants Can Remember,  writing that the central tragedy took place 12 years prior but later in the book, characters say it happened 15 to 20 years ago. The years do fly by, my dear…

In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the shipwreck survivor Crusoe is on the island watching his ship sink. He takes off his clothes and swims back out to the ship to salvage supplies, which he brings back to shore…in the pockets he no longer has.

When Sherlock Holmes’s stalwart sidekick meets the great detective in A Study in Scarlet, he tells Holmes he was shot in the shoulder in Afghanistan. In a later novel, The Sign of Four, the wound travels down to his leg.

Thomas Perry has a fun essay about his own errors. He writes:

During all of those years, I was making unassisted mistakes at the usual rate and catching them at a lower rate. I referred to a car model made by Nissan as a Toyota. I revised a chapter, changed a revolver into a semi-auto pistol but forgot to change later references to it as a revolver. I sent heroes and their enemies alike off with faulty driving directions. I can’t remember all of my mistakes, but the ways they used to elude me are familiar….

I’ve come to believe that never making mistakes is impossible, catching them all is a dream, and the only way to prevent them is to leave the paper blank. Since I’m not willing to do that, I’m looking forward to more years of hunting and correcting. I tell myself it’s a lively pursuit, with almost the suspense of a silent, nearly motionless sport.

Maybe Raymond Chandler had the right attitude about literary brain farts. In The Big Sleep, a chauffeur is murdered in his car. In the course of the twisty-turny plot, the mystery goes unsolved, in fact totally ignored. When the book was turned into a film, the producers rang Chandler to ask who was responsible.

“Damned if I know!” he said.

 

True Crime Thursday – Farming Failure Fraud

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by Debbie Burke

For farmers, weather makes the difference between payday and bankruptcy.

They are at the mercy of Mother Nature who can wipe out all their hard work in an instant. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers insurance that gives some protection. But unscrupulous, greedy people find ways to take advantage of it.

According to a June 2026 article by Chris Bennett in agweb.com:

“Federal Rainfall Index Annual Forage Insurance Plan…is based on rain amounts—not crop performance. Producers pick a two-month period (they can obtain multiple two-month slots), pay for insurance, and receive payments if precipitation falls below normal historic levels.”

Two Colorado farmers hatched a scheme to cash in on that insurance to the tune of $6.5 million. Ed Dean Jagers and Patrick Esch owned farms in southeast Colorado and southwest Kansas that appeared to never receive rainfall.

Rain gauge plugged with silicon

The reason: in 2016 and 2017, they and two accomplices tampered with weather stations that track data reported to government agencies. The men plugged rain collection funnels with silicon, cut wires, punched holes in gauges, and placed metal disks and cake pans over collection surfaces.

No rain equals payday. They filed multiple fraudulent claims with the government, collecting millions of dollars.

One accomplice, farmhand Mark Fox, was a career criminal and a frequent resident in local jails. Fox decided he wanted a bigger cut of the proceeds. He threatened to blow the whistle on the scheme if Esch didn’t bail him out. Then he demanded hush money. Each time he went to jail (on unrelated charges), the extortion escalated.

Esch gave into the blackmail. On several occasions, he wrote false affidavits saying Fox hadn’t been involved in damaging weather stations and paid cash to Fox’s two girlfriends who facilitated the transactions.

Ed Dean Jagers, Mark Fox, Trey Jagers. Esch not pictured
Public domain photo

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service (NWS) noticed strange anomalies in weather reports from 16 stations in Colorado and Kansas, located on property owned by Jagers and Esch. Additionally, they recorded tremendous increases in vandalism of their measuring equipment, costing thousands of dollars to repair or replace.

NWS investigators zeroed in on Jagers and Esch as the likely perpetrators. Jagers’s son Trey had assisted in the damage. Officials convinced him to wear a wire, hoping to trap the fraudsters, but apparently Trey couldn’t bring himself to be an informant.

Mark Fox was back in jail again. This time he changed his strategy, claiming to Esch that he had immunity from prosecution and could “fix” the problems facing Esch and Jagers…for a price.

 

In a bizarre twist, Fox broke out of jail and went on the lam, prompting a federal manhunt.

By now, Esch and Jagers knew their scheme was up. They were facing both civil penalties for defrauding the government as well as criminal charges. They negotiated plea deals with short jail sentences and promised to pay back more than $6 million they had received for false claims.

Per Bennett’s article:

“Trey signed a plea agreement in 2022 and served no jail time; Esch and Jagers signed plea agreements in 2023. Esch served two months in prison; Jagers served six months in prison. The pair was ordered to pay a combined $3.1 million in criminal restitution, and settled civil charges for $3.5 million. Total: $6.6 million.”

Fox remained missing.

Then in August, 2023, his badly decomposed body was discovered in a barn but cause of death couldn’t be determined.

This story has a final weird twist.  Because of his death, charges against Fox for extortion, assault, and vandalism were dropped.

However, his role as a whistleblower meant his estate received $500,000 from the federal settlement.

Hmmm. Apparently under certain circumstances, crime does pay.

 

Thank you, Chris Bennett, for permission to quote from your article.

~~~

TKZers, agricultural fraud crimes were new to me until I read Bennett’s article. Were you aware of them? Please share what you know.

So, I Did A Thing … Because Waiting Sucks

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So, I Did A Thing
Because waiting sucks
Terry Odell

Face of a light brown dog in a blue bed

Waiting Sucks

With Beyond the Frame off to the editor, aside from a few front and back matter details, there wasn’t much more I could do other than wait to see what she said. I haven’t used this editor since she edited Heather’s Chase about six years ago, so the usual “she’s going to hate it” jitters were back tenfold.

My cover designer was on vacation in Ireland, so I don’t have a pretty picture to show off yet.

What next?

Write another book, but I’m not ready for that. We’ve got a major vacation trip in the works this fall, and I’m not dedicated enough to want to work while I’m away, and having a wip come to a halt when I get the edits back for Beyond the Frame to deal with those edits, and having to put a new book on hold as well—let’s just say I’m glad I’m an indie author and can set my own schedule.

Do something totally unrelated to writing?

Brain isn’t going that way.

And then, the brain says “Hey! What about all those vignettes you’ve already written?”

Good thinking, brain.

I took those vignettes—former reader magnets, blog posts, guest posts for others—and assembled them into a single file. Arranged and rearranged in an order that seemed at least a little logical. Each one needed a brief introduction, so I took a little time to add those. Then, I reread them, made minor revisions, and asked one of my critique partners if she’d be willing to proofread, but not edit. (That’s a challenge unto itself.) She did. Thanks Karla!

A book, even a short one, needs a cover. Since this project is designed more to keep me doing ‘writerly’ things than as a major money-maker, I opted to let Canva help me design one. Besides, my cover designer is still busy playing catch up after her vacation.

Here it is.

Cover of Chance Encounters and Other Stories by Terry Odell

With a cover done, it was time to publish. Publishing an eighty-page collection of vignettes is as much work as publishing a 350 page novel. Same steps no matter how long the file.

But it’s done and ready for the public.

Here’s the description:

Where do characters come from? This author advertises for hers.

Wouldn’t it be great to eavesdrop on their interviews?

Chance Encounters is a peek behind the curtain, a tongue-in-cheek collection of twenty vignettes chronicling the author’s job interviews with characters aiming for a spot in her next book. They’ve all got their own lives, and their own reasons for wanting—or needing—the job.

In fiction, “Only Trouble is Interesting,” and some characters aren’t thrilled with the trouble they’ll be walking into. They offer their own opinions. Make suggestions. Does the author listen?

Spanning the Pine Hills Police, Blackthorne, Inc., Triple-D Ranch and Mapleton Mystery series, these light-hearted peeks behind the scenes let you look at where characters really come from.

The biggest challenge, I found, was finding the most appropriate categories in Amazon’s lists. They’ve made their decisions as to what cubbyholes books are supposed to fit, and—in keeping with my not coloring inside the lines personality—nothing about this collection fit well into their boxes. Will people find it? I don’t know. But whether they do or not, I had fun writing these vignettes over the years, and if there’s a new home for them now, so much the better.

What are they like? Here’s the opening page of the first vignette, When I Met Sarah

“Thanks,” I say, my face aching from the polite smiles I’ve been forcing all day. “I’ll be in touch.” I pick up the last yellow file folder from my desk and scan the first page of her resume. Sarah Tucker. Thirty-one. A little old for what I have in mind. I wonder how long ago her picture was taken. I lean across my desk and push the intercom button. “All right, Jess. Send in the next applicant.”

The door opens, and a perfect girl-next-door stands there. Wearing a navy-blue suit with a blouse buttoned above her collarbone. A refreshing change from all the silicone enhancements I’ve been staring at all day. She even has freckles across her nose and cheeks. No problem casting her in her twenties.

“Come in,” I say, my smile a little less forced. “Have a seat.”

She steps into the room. Pumps. She’s wearing pumps. A little worn in the heels, but polished. It’s as if she’s read my synopsis—which is impossible because I haven’t written it yet.

She sits in the seat across from my desk, clutching her purse—which matches her shoes, for God’s sake—on her lap. “Thanks. I’m Sarah Tucker. I’m here for the job interview. For the romance novel heroine.”

“Yes, I have your resume. Tell me why you want a job in a romance novel.” I brace myself, waiting for the canned, I want to bring happiness into the lives of poor, bored housewives speech. But she doesn’t say anything for a minute. She fusses with the hem of her skirt. (Mental note: good nervous gesture.)

“I have to be honest. My business—I have a small gift shop—hasn’t been doing well, and I need a little extra cash. My neighbor—Maggie, she’s the mother hen type—well, she saw your ad and talked me into coming in for an interview.”

“Any experience?”

“Experience with what? I’ve never been in a novel before, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve read a few.” …

If you’re interested, you can find it here.

 

What about you, TKZers? Have you found new homes for older works?

Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Deadly Ambitions
Peace in Mapleton doesn’t last. Police Chief Gordon Hepler is already juggling a bitter ex-mayoral candidate who refuses to accept election results and a new council member determined to cut police department’s funding.
Meanwhile, Angie’s long-delayed diner remodel uncovers an old journal, sparking her curiosity about the girl who wrote it. But as she digs for answers, is she uncovering more than she bargained for?
Now, Gordon must untangle political maneuvering, personal grudges, and hidden agendas before danger closes in on the people he loves most.
Deadly Ambitions delivers small-town intrigue, political tension, and page-turning suspense rooted in both history and today’s ambitions.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Never Too Late – Interview with Mystery Author Rick Bleiweiss

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by Debbie Burke

Back in 2022, I interviewed an energetic, dynamic 77-year-old Blackstone Publishing executive and author named Rick Bleiweiss. Rick’s debut mystery Pignon Scorbion and the Barbershop Detectives was due to release in February of that year.

Author Rick Bleiweiss
(all photos courtesy of Rick)

Four years later, an August article in People.com announced Rick’s upcoming mystery will be the first novel published under Blackstone’s new imprint, WhoopInk, led by Whoopi Goldberg. I emailed Rick to congratulate him, and he wrote back. Seemed like a good time for a catch-up interview about Rick’s exciting new adventure, embarked on in his 80s!

Here’s an introduction to Rick:

Rick Bleiweiss has been a touring/recording musician, music industry executive working with many superstar music acts & major film soundtracks, GRAMMY-nominated record producer, educator, entrepreneur, newspaper and magazine columnist, and publishing executive. As an author, his first novel Pignon Scorbion & The Barbershop Detectives won multiple international book awards and was #1 on Amazon in five categories. The second book in the series, Murder in Haxford, also won multiple awards, as did his political satire Ronald The Grump (written under a pseudonym) which was named Best Short Fiction Self-Published Book of the Year by two literary organizations. Rick was nominated as Author of the Year, was given the Career Changers Award for Authors, and hosts a popular YouTube series, Rick Bleiweiss’ Chapter & Verse, in which he interviews major musicians, actors, authors and other entertainment figurers. In 2025, at the age of 81, he wrote, sang and played all the instruments on a rock & roll record One Night Man by Captain Rick’s Retrorockit, which went to #4 on the World Indie Music Charts.

Debbie Burke: Welcome back to The Zone, Rick! Glad to reconnect.

In your professional life, you have always looked forward, pioneering new concepts in music, audio, publishing, and entertainment media. Yet as a novelist, you chose to travel back in time to 1910 with your Pignon Scorbion series that’s set in the quaint English village of Haxford. What prompted you to explore that era and setting?

Pignon Scorbion

Rick Bleiweiss: I have always been a fan of mysteries set in that era and in England, especially Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot (and the Murdoch Mysteries set in Canada though), and I wanted to write books featuring a new detective who would be a contemporary of theirs and solve cases in a similar manner – yet be a unique character of his own. Scorbion is just that, being a man of color (Haitian and Egyptian heritage), somewhat of a dapper fellow, and working on his cases by interviewing and questioning suspects and witnesses in a barbershop assisted by a colorful group of deputies including three barbers, a shoeshine man, a newspaper reporter, and a brilliant female bookshop owner.

DB: Blackstone Publishing published your first two Pignon books in 2022 and 2023. The third book, The Cupid Killer and Other Murderers, is also part of the series but will come out under the WhoopInk imprint of Blackstone. Is the process different working within an imprint? In what ways?

RB: I was surprised, thrilled and literally astounded when Whoopi Goldberg told me she loved the first two books in the series, and asked if I was writing another, When I told her I was, she asked if it could be on her new imprint, and of course, I said yes! What an honor it is, not only to be on Whoopi’s imprint, but to be the first novel released on it. Wow. Being on WhoopInk I still get all the power of Blackstone Publishing behind the book, but get Whoopi as well, and that is priceless. The difference in the process from the first two books, was keeping Whoopi aware of and involved in what I was doing, and having her be behind the book. And as a side note, Blackstone has moved the first two books onto the imprint as well.

DB: Is there a fourth Pignon mystery in the works?

RB: I have just started writing it. While each book can stand on their own, each follows the chronology of the summer and fall of 1910, and the next book will be no different. I plan for it to start with the kidnapping that was referenced at the end of The Cupid Killer and Other Murderers having Julius Caesar the beagle be a central figure in that crime. I am also planning to have Scorbion travel to London to assist Scotland Yard solve a case, and of course, Pignon’s and Thelma’s relationship will deepen. Could there be nuptials in the book?

I’m also putting the finishing touches on  two books – one an adventure story about past life regression and the need to find something in one of those past lives, and the other, a comedy involving seniors living in a foster home who are harassed by a young gang of toughs who learn how to fight back, that’s sort of what it would be like if Home Alone met The Best Marigold Hotel. I’ve even written a screenplay for the last one – my first one. I find trying new things to be quite enjoyable.

DB: In our email exchange, I jokingly asked you what kind of vitamins you take. Do you have an exercise routine, diet, or other activities to stay healthy, active, and energetic in your 80s?

RB: Indeed, I do. I work out with a personal trainer twice a week, walk and use a stationary bike an average of 50 miles a week (walking my 16 year old Havanese, Gracie, is a huge part of that), I take many supplements and vitamins, and I avoid most grains, gluten, dairy and fried foods, and limit my intake of sugar and red meats which aren’t grass fed and finished, and my loving and caring wife Deborah makes sure I eat a lot of healthy vegetables. I am blessed to have both energy and good health in my 80’s and I’d like to keep it that way well into my hundreds.

Another thing I do is find time to relax and enjoy a myriad of different things. Among other things I enjoy playing word and number video games, playing Mahjong, being on committees in the community in which I live, spending time with friends and my family, and making music. In fact, I wrote, performed and played every instrument on a rock and roll record I recorded in my apartment last year which went to #4 on the Global World Indie Music Charts! It was called One Night Man by Captain Rick’s RetroRockit. At 81, Take that Mick Jagger!

DB: [Laughing] Rick, I’d rather see you in concert than Mick!

When we last visited, you reiterated it’s never too late to try something new or to follow your dreams. You certainly embody that philosophy. Did a particular person or event Influence you to adopt the attitude and way of life?

RB: Yes, I do regularly tell people of my generation (or of any age) that if you maintain your health and have energy and passion for something you are never too old to have a dream and follow it. While there was no specific person or event that influenced that attitude it was created by a combination of mostly unrelated factors. Both of my parents were brilliant and entrepreneurs who were involved in many different ventures and activities while I was growing up and later in their lives, which gave me the confidence and examples to try something whether it worked out or not. I also have read a lot and things various celebrities and writers have said and written impacted me and often confirmed my thinking. Quotes by Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Betty Friedan and many others were very confirming that the worst thing a person can do is not try something. Many of my friends are retired and enjoying their lives. I tried retirement and got bored out of my mind. I guess it confirmed a biofeedback session I had many decades ago which indicated that I was more at ease when I was problem solving than when I was trying to relax.

DB: Are there any dreams on the horizon you haven’t yet followed?

RB: A few years ago, I created and put out a rudimentary Pignon Scorbion “Find the Hidden Object” video game, which in retrospect was a valiant attempt that was not very good. Today the woman who owns the company that is assisting me market and publicize this newest Scorbion book is creating a truly outstanding video game featuring Scorbion as the host. Combining that with a new trailer and a unique film in which I’ll be interviewing a CGI version of Scorbion which Blackstone is doing, I believe the words fun and exciting lie ahead for me.

I’ve been involved in meditation and manifesting for many years, and the two things I’ve manifested which haven’t come to pass yet are having a book on the New York Times bestseller list and being a guest on a major network national TV show. I’m hoping both of those can happen now with this new book.

I must add that I get extreme pleasure in my role as a publisher in helping deserving authors have their books brought to the reading public, and I’ve been fortunate to have acquired at least 4 books that have been New York Times bestsellers in the past few years. And having more of those is certainly something I relish for the future.

DB: Any final thoughts you’d like to share with TKZ readers?

RB: Don’t be afraid to try new things. Know that most new things fail, so if what you try does fail, don’t be discouraged – try something else. Whatever you do, and no matter the outcome, enjoy the journey. Keep reading, singing, playing and doing whatever it is that gives you enjoyment in your life.

~~~

Rick, this line especially resonated with me: “…if what you try does fail, don’t be discouraged – try something else.” Great advice for writers!

Thank you for coming back to The Zone to share your wisdom. Hope you achieve that dream of a New York Times bestseller!

~~~

TKZers: What plans and dreams are ahead for you as a writer? Did any of Rick’s suggestions jump out at you?

~~~

 

The Cupid Killer and Other Murderers is available for preorder at:

Amazon hardcover

Amazon audiobook

Amazon ebook

Barnes and Noble hardcover

When Back Copy Goes Bad

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By PJ Parrish

The easy part is done. The book is finished. The rewrites are complete. We’ve even got the cover designed. Now comes the hard part…

Writing the back copy.

I’ve been working at this publishing thing since the early 2000s. First with three different traditional publishing houses — Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster and Thomas and Mercer. Most of my career, I’ve had great copy writers who created the back copy. Often, my editors ran the finished copy by me for approval or suggestions. Thomas and Mercer even let us write a first draft for our book She’s Not There. This is how the finished back copy read.

 A past she can’t remember. 

A killer she can’t recognize.

And they’re both catching up with her.

They say it’s better to battle the devil you know. But what if you don’t recognize him until it’s too late?

She knows her name is Ameilia, but after waking up in a hospital battered and bruised with just the clothes on her back, it’s all she knows. Unable to piece together her shattered memory, she’s haunted by a vision: menacing faces and voices implying her nightmare is far from over,

Relying only on her wits and her will to live, Amelia becomes a fugitive frm a mysterious man, and a life she can’t even remember. But the past she’s fleeing has no intention of letting her go.

But it wasn’t until I branched out into self-publishing (original works and back-list repubbing) and was all alone with no back-up that I learned how darn hard it is to write really good back copy.

Ha! You try it. Take your 350 word manuscript and crystalize it down to maybe 300 words that will capture the attention of a would-be reader.  Have you ever watched folks browsing in a bookstore? Let’s pretend they didn’t come in for the latest Connelly or whatever is topping the current charts. They’re hunting and gathering, searching for someone new to fall in love with. They pick a book off a shelf, maybe enticed by a good cover and lively title. Then usually, the turn the book over and read the back copy. And if your copy is crisp, they might open to read the first page. And you are lucky, they take a chance on you.

Yes, this holds true on Amazon listings as well, You have to supply back copy if you want to sell your books there. And like a good cover that can capture a reader’s eye in a thumbnail, a snappy distillation of your story is what is going to help snag new readers.

The cover is your first impression across the crowded room. But the back copy is your introductory conservation. All good back copy does key things:

Takes readers on an emotional journey—a sort of miniature version of your story. You’re creating a series of emotional beats that guide readers from:

Curiosity > Interest > Action

If this progression is missing, your blurb will feel flat and directionless. Your blurb should move through three stages:

  • Who is your protagonist?
  • What is going on with the plot?
  • Why should I turn the page?

I’m quoting Morgan Lee Clasper there. He’s a copywriter, book sales strategist, and author of The Blurb Puzzle. (publishers call back copy “blurbs” — not be be confused by the quotes you elicit from fellow writers). Clasper has worked with New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling authors, writing 4,000 blurbs. More from him a moment, because he’s worth listening to.

Back to my dilemma. I’m pretty good at writing back copy. But it’s a real effort, and always entailed several rewrites as I try to boil down my story’s heart and soul. My first drafts are always bad, because I try to get everything pinned down and then I go at it with a razor to pare it down to its essence.

Here’s the raw first draft of the back copy of our WIP, Lucky Lady. Bear with me…

Bailey Cassell has had a difficult life. After spending eighteen months in jail for the murder of her abusive husband, she is acquitted and heads to Las Vegas, where she hopes to start over and reconnect with her estranged father, the owner of an aging casino called Paul’s Palace.

But Bailey’s plans for a fresh start take an unexpected turn when a showgirl falls seventy-two stories from The Monolith, a huge casino next door, and lands near Bailey’s office. When Bailey learns that Scarlett may have had connections to her father’s past, she begins asking questions.

Her search for answers leads her to Bullhead City, a dangerous suspect, a wealthy Florida gambler, and JB Mitchell, the powerful owner of The Monolith. Along the way, Bailey crosses paths with handsome homicide detective Morgan Finn. Bailey finds herself fantasizing about Morgan but he rebuffs her advances, leaving Bailey to wonder if she’ll ever break through his professional exterior—or if their relationship will remain strictly business.

But Bailey has more important things to worry about. As she gets closer to discovering the truth about Scarlett’s death, she realizes that Las Vegas is a city filled with secrets, and some people will do anything to keep those secrets buried.

Can Bailey uncover the truth before she becomes the killer’s next victim? And will she finally get the handsome detective who keeps turning her down?

Gag, gag, gag…It’s okay, I know it’s awful. It’s too long, too wordy, and boring as hell. But it’s a starting basis. Now all I have to do is make it sparkle. I’m still working on it but here’s where I am so far:

Las Vegas is where you go to reinvent yourself. And that’s exactly what Iowa-born Bailey Cassell needs to do after getting acquitted for murdering her abusive husband. She tries to reconnect with the father who abandoned her when he gives her a job at his fading casino. But when a showgirl falls to her death from the Monolith casino next door, Bailey finds herself captivated by Scarlett Nightengale’s past — especially when she learns she woman was once involve with her dad.

Bailey crosses paths with the handsome homicide detective assigned to the case distracts her. But Bailey is deternined to find out who killed Scarlett, despite her father’s shady past, the threats of the Monolith’s shady owner, and her attraction to the detective.   

The closer Bailey gets to discovering the truth about Scarlett’s death, the more she realizes that Las Vegas is a city filled with secrets, and some people will do anything to keep those secrets buried. Including kill her.

Better. But not quite there. Just not enough zing. And still too long. I’ll report back.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about what makes good back copy. I’ve written extensively about this in the past here, but I’ve read enough poorly written cop that I think we need to revisit this. What are the main sins? The main one is most writers feel compelled to include WAY too much biography about their protags. Go back to the copy for She’s Not There. It tells you almost nothing about Amelia’s background. But it focuses dead-center on her fear, her dilemma and the emotional core of the story.

I’ll let a pro talk to you now. Back to Morgan Lee Clasper. Here’s his advice in a nutshell:

Lead with emotion, not biography
Your protagonist is usually the central point around which everything else in your blurb revolves. That’s why it’s important to make readers care about them without wasting words by over-explaining.

Sounds like an impossible situation, right? How can you make readers care about someone if you’re not able to paint a complete picture of them? Your protagonist is a multifaceted character with a personality, backstory, desires, flaws, hopes, and dreams… but most of that can’t fit into the blurb.

But there’s one secret to instantly making readers like your protagonist. That secret is leading with emotion….[not] a colleciton facts.

Not every detail belongs
You may still be struggling to figure out what information to include. Here are some handy questions to ask yourself when you’re stuck deciding what deserves to make the cut:

  • Is it essential to the premise?
  • Is it necessary for understanding the stakes?
  • Does it make readers more emotionally invested in the story?
    A cool world-building detail might add depth and flavor to your story, but it doesn’t belong in the blurb unless it can’t be removed without making the plot difficult to understand.

Include both internal and external conflict
Just as a good book has external and internal obstacles for the protagonist to overcome, a good blurb uses both of these elements for maximum effect. While the plot answers the question of what’s happening (defeating an enemy, solving a mystery, or achieving a goal), the protagonist’s internal conflict explains why this is difficult (fear, trauma, or personal flaws). The best blurbs combine both elements.

Establish narrative momentum
Maybe you’ve written a blurb with some of these things in mind before, but it still feels flat. The missing ingredient in many otherwise effective blurbs is a sufficient sense of momentum. The trick is to make sure that each sentence builds on the one that came before it. Every line should add pressure, throw a wrench into the protagonist’s plan, heighten the stakes, or build toward a crescendo. For example:

  • Sentence 1: Who is this person?
  • Sentence 2: What changed about their situation?
  • Sentence 3: What danger or trouble are they facing?
  • Sentence 4: What happens if they fail

A simple trick that can help you do this is to use transition words like: but, when, after, and.

Remember that last sentence. Those simple transition words are the keys to unlock a catchy and snappy back copy for your book. Click here to go to Morgan’s full post. It appeared in Jane Friedman’s must-read blog

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some pruning to do.