By John Gilstrap
www.johngilstrap.com

A few hundred years ago, some English guy named Willy said, “If you call a rose a tulip, you’re not gonna change what it smells like.” Something like that, but in British.
Willy’s point was that sometimes labels don’t mean all that much. I tend to agree with him. I’d bet that most people who give it any real thought would agree, at least in principle. But only until egos get involved. Once you start messing with people’s sense of identity, labels can matter a lot.

A couple of weeks ago, I was silent witness to a writers’ board flame war that erupted over the assertion that writers and authors are different species, the definitions split by publication status. A “writer,” said one side of the conflict, may not call himself an “author” until the product of the writer’s efforts have been published. This ultimately led to a full-scale assault on the legitimacy of self-publishing as a form of “real” publishing, and it all got really ugly really fast.

There’s a reason why I don’t engage in flame wars: they’re ultimately damaging to everyone involved. But, oh, they can be fun to watch. (Contributing factor number 10,497 to why I’m running behind on my current manuscript.)

Just for grins, though, I thought I’d do a little research. Okay, a very little research. I turned to my new favorite reference, Dictionary.com, and looked up the offending words. What I found surprised me:

Writer: “a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., esp. as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist.”

Author: “a person who writes a novel, poem, essay, etc.; the composer of a literary work, as distinguished from a compiler, translator, editor, or copyist.”

It would seem by this definition that both camps of the flame war were wrong from the outset. Dictionary.com says that “author” is the generic term, while “writer” implies payment as a professional. Who knew?

Is it okay if I don’t care?

Let’s be honest: as humans, we all like to differentiate ourselves from our respective packs. Even among published authors of books, there’s a good bit of ring-knocking based on everything from print run size to publication format, but among professionals, those distinctions actually mean something, if only in terms of commercial clout. In a news room, I would imagine that there’s similar significance to differentiating a beat reporter from an investigative reporter from a web reporter.

I guess my point is that I’m not anti-label; I am anti-meaningless label. Am I missing something here? Do any of you get wrapped around the axle on whether you’re a writer or an author?

For our Killzone denizens who are not yet published, when you’re in the company of other like-minded people—say, in a writers’ conference environment—do you hesitate to call yourself a writer or an author?

What am I missing?

By John Gilstrap

My next book, Hostage Zero (July, 2010) features a new character who happens to be a veteran of the Battle of Fallujah, a 2004 gulf-war maelstrom that evolved into one of the great U.S. Marine urban warfare victories of all time. In relating a story from that time to another character, this very likeable guy refers to his Iraqi insurgent enemies as “Hadjis”—this war’s equivalent of Kraut or Nip. Hey, when you’re trying to kill them, insulting them doesn’t seem like such a big deal. At least I didn’t think so.

My copy editor, however affixed a yellow sticky with a rather passionate note that the H-word was offensive, and that if my character used it, the readers would stop liking him. She suggested that I eliminate all uses of the term. We agreed to disagree.

In a previous book, an early draft included a line of dialogue in which my protagonist (a cop) showed disrespect for the gay community via a throwaway line that dealt with slip-on shoes and reduced gravity. My then-agent’s assistant, himself openly gay, told me that that was a truly offensive reference within the community—I had no idea—and that the line changed his whole opinion of my character. I was stunned, and I deleted the reference without a fight.

The difference between the two instances was that the gay reference truly was a throwaway line that I probably would have trimmed anyway, just during the normal course of editing. Besides, I know a number of really fine people who happen to be gay, and I try not to make anyone uncomfortable.

On the other hand, the remark in Hostage Zero actually plays a part in the course of the story. And if readers don’t understand the honest place from which the epithet arises in my character, then they’re either way too sensitive, or I’m not as good at my job as I need to be.

My question to the blogosphere today is how far are you willing to go to appease readers’ sensitivities, especially when in the POV of a character? Is it possible in today’s literary environment for a good guy to retain the moral high ground even after he makes an insensitive remark?

Okay, now on to today’s anonymous writing sample:

AN EMPIRE LADY

I don’t usually poison someone on the first date, but this time I’m willing to make an exception. Dame Blanchard always said improvisation is a necessary part of espionage and, as Monsieur Hugo crosses the room to the mahogany sideboard, I sense the danger I’m in. His tall, taut frame appears sinewy and strong beneath the immaculately pressed evening suit – he could easily overwhelm me with his physical strength and so I reach out for the beaded purse dangling from the arm of the chair, ready to draw out the vial of arsenic I always keep on hand. Monsieur Hugo turns before I can extract it and I draw out a silver cigarette case instead. I place a Gauloise cigarette to my lips, staining the end with deep red lipstick, before offering him one with an arched look, designed to convey the kind of brazen audacity I hope masks my fear.

“Champagne, ma cherie?” he inquires, dark toad-like eyes bulging.

“Oui, merci,” I reply with my most calculated-to-charm smile. I wonder, was it my accent that tipped him off? Had I inadvertently betrayed the fact that I grew up in the gutters of Le Havre rather than the gilded drawing rooms of Paris? Dame Blanchard had cautioned me that, as a military attaché, Monsieur Hugo, had an uncanny ear for dialect. Had he suspected me all along?

I shift in my exquisite, hand sequined gown to reveal a peek of ankle, the merest flash of a jewel-encrusted silk shoe. Perhaps lust will entice him to draw out this little charade of ours. His eyelid’s flicker even as his traitorous smile remains rigidly in place.

Our glasses clink in a toast. “To the King,” I murmur, seeing my own blue eyes reflected in his black gaze. We may as well feign loyalty to King George – the French are supposed to be our allies after all.

“To the King,” he echoes, watching me closely.

The battle of wits – and my survival – begins.
===

This piece is a living example of a story with good bones under a heavy layer of fat. I enjoy the setting and I enjoy the character and her voice, but it’s all way too thick and chewy for me. Sentences meander and compound too much. The simple declarative sentence is a writer’s most important tool.

For me, the present-tense telling is a crippling burden here. When used even by experienced journeymen, the present tense is a contrivance; here it’s an albatross, made even albatrossier by the fact that it’s a historical piece.

At the risk of being presumptuous, I’ve taken a stab at a full re-write of the submission to illustrate some tightening and stylistic changes that I think make the piece more engaging. I kept to the original skeleton, and I tried hard not to screw up the voice. This just seemed like the most efficient way to offer constructive criticism and trim over 100 words in the process:

I don’t usually poison someone on the first date, but tonight was a night of firsts.

As military attaché Monsieur Hugo crossed the room to the mahogany sideboard, I sensed danger. Sinewy and strong beneath his immaculately pressed evening suit, he could easily have overwhelmed me.

By John Ramsey Miller

Here’s the first page of an anonymous author’s submission entitled, JOBE’S PRIDE. The first question is: Would you read more if this went beyond the first page? How do you think it could be made better?

Chapter 1: Dumpster Diving

Wed., April 21, 2:39 a.m.

They had conducted rescue missions in seedier areas. Ellie was sure of it. She just couldn’t place any of them at the moment.

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

We’ve been doing this critique thing for a week or so, and it occurs to me that a one-page critique may be unfair to the writers. I want to make sure that they don’t get discouraged by the input they receive. I don’t know that I speak for everyone, but when I read these one-page samples, I find myself entering the exercise with the well-meaning intent to find a way to make the piece better. That’s fundamentally different than the way I read a book that has been published. When I read a book, I presume that the author knows exactly what he’s doing. If I become absorbed in the writer’s voice, I’m not going to parse words that occur mid-sentence.

This is not to say that there’s not real value in the critiques that are offered here–particularly those that deal with structure, passive voice and weak openings; but I worry that writers who are insecure with their skills will actualy start thinking too much. Never lose sight of your vision for your story, and never lose your ear for your own voice. If Stephen King and George Pelicanos and James Patterson were to set out to write the same story, the styles and structures would be entirely different, and I’m confident that all of them would be really good.

As with any critique, make sure you have the courage to reject input that you believe is wrong.

Now, for today’s sample (more from me on the flip side). Note that the italics are all mine, not the author’s.

Chapter One

Comedian Frankie Doyle was in a piss-poor mood. His Friday-night gig at the Improv had bombed, thanks to a couple of jack-weeds in the front row who kept heckling his setups. Then his agent had called with bad news: Frankie’s sitcom had been canceled. After just two episodes the network was replacing Frankie’s Nuts with a reality series, some asinine thing about hookers on Sunset Boulevard. The timing couldn’t be worse. Recently he’d been blowing through major dough while chasing the dragon. During his last high he’d paid cash for a BMW 8 Series.
Same old Frankie, his ex-wife’s voice echoed through his head. You’ll wind up on the street before you’re 30.

“Fat bitch.” Frankie addressed this comment to his waning head of beer. It was his fourth since he’d settled onto his regular stool at the Hook.

Once he finally settled behind the wheel of his car, Frankie began to cheer up. He inhaled the new-leather fragrance, feeling himself absorb some of the BMW’s mechanical testosterone. No one who drove such a magnificent machine could be called a loser, he thought. If his career went completely south, he’d simply move into the car.

Frankie goosed the accelerator down the California Incline and merged south onto the Pacific Coast Highway, a curving ribbon of asphalt wedged between the mountains and the sea. By now the booze had clobbered his senses. Shaking his head to stay awake, he failed to notice when the BMW began to drift. The left front tire edged over the double-yellow line, into the northbound lane.
* * *

Wow, there’s a lot to like here. I love the voice–mechanical testosterone, jack-weeds. I’m not sure I even know what chasing the dragon means, but it works. There’s a lot of energy in this writer’s voice. C’mon, “the booze had clobbered his senses”? That’s really, really good.

Here’s my problem with the piece: It’s not a great beginning. But it could be. Look at the first line: “Comedian Frankie Doyle was in a piss-poor mood.” Then it goes on to tell us why. My suggestion would be to open with the conversation–something really snappy and with attitude–in which Frankie learns that his sitcome is being canceled in favor of some stupid reality show. It’s the basic show-don’t-tell challenge. By giving us a POV scene where he feels his world coming apart, we’ll be instantly invested in the character.

Next week I’ll be subjecting you all to another one of my rants…but today, we’re going to take a gander at another anonymous first page submission:

     Harvey Rodriguez waited till daybreak before he ventured out to look at the body. He wanted to make sure that the men with the guns were long gone before he turned himself into a target, so he’d spent most of the night lying still in his tent among the trees, trying his best to remain invisible.

            If he’d had a brain in his head, he’d have used the cover of darkness to scoot out of here, but every time he’d flexed his legs to move, he’d talked himself out of it. He’d used the time to plot his strategy.

            On the one hand, he’d been living out here long enough to be running pretty low on everything, and even if the killer had stripped the dead man’s pockets clean, the corpse was likely to have something of value, if only a pair of socks that actually covered his whole foot. Or maybe a watch. Harvey’s ten-year-old Timex had crapped out a month ago.

            On the other hand, when you’ve got no home and you make your living—such as it is—off the sometimes unwilling largesse of others, the last thing you need is to get yourself wrapped up in a murder case. It wasn’t as if he had people who could vouch for his alibi, you know? He could almost hear the interrogation in his head:

            Where were you last night?

            I was at home.

            And where’s that?

            Wherever I make it. Last night, it was in the woods out by Kinsale.

            Right where a murder happened?

            Yes, sir. That’s a hell of a coincidence, ain’t it? I was just lying there in my tent and I heard somebody in the woods. I started to peek out and then I heard a gunshot, and I ducked the hell back in.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

All in all, I think this opening is pretty darn impressive. A lot of the typical mistakes we’ve been discussing aren’t present here. Great first sentence, it really grabbed me. We get a little bit of information about Harvey, but not his entire life history. There’s some dialogue–imagined, but it’s there. We get a sense of the setting, the predicament that Harvey finds himself in…I really wanted to turn the page to find out what happens next. So the main goal has been accomplished: I was hooked.

The only constructive criticism I can really offer is that it needs some tightening up. I’m currently revising my fourth book in the series, and I see a lot of my own mistakes here. I’ve been forced to trim approximately ten-to-fifteeen thousand words from every one of my manuscripts during the editing process. And the majority of those removed words were superfluous fat clogging up the flow. The main culprits for me are “just,” “that,” “the,” “started to,” and “began to.” I’m also a sucker for overusing pronouns.

For example, take the first sentence. If I was fine-tuning this manuscript, I’d say, ” Harvey Rodriguez waited till daybreak before venturing out to look at the body.” It’s a minor change, but the sentence flows better. I’d do a similar thing in the following sentence: [the bracketed words and passages would be removed] “He wanted to make sure [that] the men with [the] guns were long gone [before he turned himself into a target], so he’d spent most of the night lying [still] in his tent among the trees, trying [his best] to remain invisible.” (I’d also consider changing “remain invisible” to “become invisible.”)Beware of slipping from first person to second (“you know,” and “On the other hand, when you’ve got no home and you make your living…”). In fact, those two middle paragraphs could be combined:

      Harvey had been living out here long enough to be running low on everything. Even if the killer had cleaned out the dead man’s pockets, the corpse was likely to have something of value. A pair of socks that covered his whole foot, or maybe a watch to replace his crapped-out Timex. Making his living —such as it was—off the sometimes unwilling largesse of others, the last thing Harvey needed was to get wrapped up in a murder case. It wasn’t as if anyone could alibi him. He could almost hear the interrogation in his head…

I’d recommend that this writer go back through the manuscript with a fine tooth comb. Be merciless. Trim any and all fat, because the meat here is nice and juicy.

Here’s the sample:

Chapter One

August 10th, 1935

For the past ten years I’ve spent my nights exploring the darker side of humanity. In the morning I’d cleanse my soul with a shot of Four Roses before writing about what I’d seen. My job as a reporter for the New York Daily Post was my life. Helen’s murder made me realize that the story isn’t everything.

I was sleeping off a night of heavy drinking when someone started pounding on the door to my room. With a groan I pulled the pillow over my head. It didn’t help. The banging continued.

I forced open my eyes. The shade was drawn on the only window in the room. Diffused light combined with my bad eyesight gave the room a surreal appearance, as if a cloud had enveloped my world. The tick, tick, tick of the electric fan near the window did little more than shuffle the heat from one side of the room to the other. Summer in New York. Who the hell needs it?

Crawling out of bed, I squinted at the clock. It was past noon. I grabbed my Luckies. Shook one out. Lit it. While I set my lungs on fire my unknown caller started rattling the doorknob.

“Hold your fucking horses,” I shouted.

Although the cigarette took the edge off my headache, I knew from experience that only time or a shot of whiskey would quell the tempest in my gut. It didn’t help that my neighbor was playing “She’s a Latin from Manhattan” on his Victrola. The wall might as well not have been there. I ground my teeth and winced when the record skipped a beat. He’d played it so many times that I knew exactly where the scratches were.

First things first, I like the title. I don’t love it, but I like it. (By way of full disclosure, the from the formatting in which I received the sample, it wasn’t clear to me if “The Sorm Killer” is the title of the story or the heading for the chapter.)

I would kill the first paragraph in its entirety. As a reader, don’t burden me with your character’s last ten years before you introduce me to the present. From the drinking problem to the job as a reporter to the fact that someone named Helen was murdered, there’s no detail in that paragraph that couldn’t be more artfully introduced later in the story.

You wrote: I was sleeping . . . someone started pounding on the door to my room. This kind of passive sentence construction is toxic. Plus, the fact that the character is sleeping is rendered redundant in the next sentence where he pulls the pillow over his head. Is the issue really that someone started pounding, or is it that someone pounded at all? Consider something like this:

The pounding on my door drove the Four Roses ice pick further into my brain. For a second, I actually believed I could make it go away by pulling my pillow over my head. It was that kind of morning after that kind of night.

That’s not the most artful paragraph in its own right, but the point is to illustrate how a lot of information can be conveyed in relatively few words, even with the implied backstory of a drinking problem.

I think you convey a very nice sense of place and atmosphere in this piece, even if it does remain way too wordy. For example, I would condense “. . . gave the room a surreal appearance, as if a cloud had enveloped my world” to “. . . made the room look cloudy.“

I mentioned this earlier in the week with regard to a different piece: Avoid the F-bomb on the first page. It’s too off-putting to too many readers.

The final point I want to make is one that I considered not making at all because it has less to do with writing style than content choices. But, in for a dime, right?

I feel like I’ve seen this scene a thousand times in a thousand noir settings. There’s some great detail–I particularly like the bit of business about the Victrola and having heard the record so many time through the wall that he knows where the scratches are–but overall, it has the feel of a retread to me. That’s a problem. Perhaps what follows would knock me for a loop, but if that’s the case, then that’s the scene that should be moved to the front of the story.

Consider this: Can the story begin with whatever news the visitor is bringing? Rather than building up to it, just smash us in the face with it.

John Gilstrap