“I don’t know whether every author feels it, but I think quite a lot do — that I am pretending to be something I am not, because, even nowadays, I do not quite feel as though I am an author.” — Agatha Christie

By PJ Parrish

Well, the book is almost done. First draft, that is. I haven’t read it completely through, chapter 1 through 45, since we started the thing, oh, maybe a year ago? Yes, it has taken me that long to get back in the saddle again.

I’m always preaching here that you need to periodically go back and review (and even rework) what you’ve been doing. Sure, you should always be moving forward, but it’s helpful to pause and see if you’re on the right track. I didn’t do that this time.

Why?

I’ve been afraid to. I have this really bad feeling that, having finally reached 110,045 words, what I have created is a heaping, stinking, fetid, rancid mountain of crap. I dream about it now, this mountain of crap, like Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wake up in a sweat over it.

My only consolation is knowing that I feel this way with every book. And that I am not alone. Here’s John Connelly talking about his own demons: “There is always that fear that this book, this story, is the one that should not have been started. The idea isn’t strong enough. The plot is going nowhere. I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way and now have to try to find the right path again.”

Here’s Lee Goldberg, whose career has been long and varied, with Hollywood-assignations and a fruitful collaboration with Janet Evanovich:  “This happens to me…but less often if I have a strong outline to start with (though an outline is no insurance policy against realizing 35,000 words into your book that it’s crap and you’re a complete fraud). In talking with other writers, I’ve noticed that the ones who hit the wall the most are the ones who make up their plot as they go along, preferring to be ‘surprised’ by their characters and the turns in the story. Of course, this means the turns may lead to a creative dead end.”

And lastly, I give you no less than Maya Angelou: “Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.'”

My night terrors are especially bad this time out for two reasons. I don’t have a publisher right now and though this is a sequel to our Thomas & Mercer thriller She’s Not There, I don’t know if they’ll want it. Second, this is another new protagonist, so I don’t have the comfort of knowing his heart and soul as I do that of Louis Kincaid, the hero of our long-standing series. Can this new guy, a bit of an ornery misfit,  carry the story or will he put off readers? Will our Louis readers follow us to the new one? Have we run out of good plots? Have we finally hurdled the hammerhead?

I don’t know, maybe there are writers out there who never have any doubts. Maybe Nora Roberts or Joan Didion never broke out in a cold sweat at night. But I suspect there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of you out there who are in the same sweaty boat as I am. There’s a fancy name for this — imposter syndrome. Basically, it is a pattern of beating up on yourself. You have this nagging feeling that you’ll be found out, that people will read your stuff and you’ll be revealed as a charlatan. Don’t look over your shoulder because someone is laughing. Worse, you agree with this.

How do you know if you’ve got IS?

• You constantly criticize your own work.
• You procrastinate
• You focus on rewriting instead of moving forward.

I do all three. Did I mention I am a perfectionist? I sweat every word to the point that it sometimes squeezes the simple joy of creation out of me. If you find yourself at that point, stop, take a deep breath and do whatever you need to recapture the sweet impulse that made you want to write in the first place. For me, this usually means a very long walk in the woods.

A few more pieces of advice before I go and start reading my first draft:

Voice your fears. Feeling like you’re alone is terrifying. Talk to someone you trust. A critique group is really helpful here, as long as it is positive-oriented and not a slash-and-burn tribunal that picks on your scabby semi-colons, or a pity-party where everyone whines about being shut out by the publishing cabal.

Remember where you came from. Recognize and applaud your progress. Sometimes this means re-reading your early unsuccessful efforts and learning from them. Cleaning out my office recently, I found an old partial manuscript on an external storage drive. It was my first effort when I was making the switch from romance to mystery. I didn’t have anyone turn up dead until chapter 12. Everything was back story and my opening chapter was nothing but my heroine, an ex-homicide cop, sitting in a fishing boat in the Everglades thinking about how lousy her life was. It was bloody awful. It made me feel terrific.

Accept that sometimes you’ll suck.  It’s okay to write junk. We all do it. It’s part of the learning process. Some days, you get in that zone and everything you type is spun gold. Yay for you. But most days, you will write a lot of garbage just to get a couple good paragraphs. I took up pickleball a couple years back. I used to be really bad but now I’m pretty good. Why? Because I listened to my coaches, and I am mastering the technique. But this morning, I slid back into suckitude.  Luckily, writing, unlike pickleball, is a private endeavor and no one sees our sucky efforts. Here’s the thing: You have to suck at writing before you get good enough to produce something that readers don’t think sucks.

Keep writing. Don’t let your self doubts corrode your love of writing. The only way to become a better writer is to become a more prolific writer. You will improve your technique, you’ll get better at your craft. But only if you keep going. Like any skill, the more you do it, the better you’ll get.  I promise.

Geez. I just re-read what I’ve written here. It sounds pretty negative, but that’s not really where I am right now. The hard part is over. I’ve finished. That’s something to celebrate, even if my book doesn’t find a publisher. So forgive me for focusing on the cloud instead of celebrating the breakthrough rays of sunshine. Move forward, and always with hope.

As for those night terrors? I won’t lie. If you really want this writing gig, you might have to deal with them on occasion. If, like me, you’ve spent some nights twisting in damp percal, I offer the same three words of advice I give to my youthful female friends about menopause: moisture wicking pajamas. Cool Jams makes great ones.

I often utilize reality into works of fiction. I can honestly say that actual conversations can be so bizarre and funny that your agent or readers will sometimes say they can’t be real. The old saying, “you can’t make this up,” is true.

For example, back in 1982 my starter wife and I were in a popular Dallas steakhouse called The Shed with another couple. Partway through the meal, I watched four people take a table not far away. I assumed it was a set of parents and their children until I saw the teens holding hands. The young lady and her boyfriend sat facing me across the room and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Halfway through the meal, she and her beau had a spat, and she left for a few minutes. When she came back, the older woman said something and the brunette threw her head back and laughed. The evening ended for our dinner party and the four of us left, but the dark-haired girl never left my mind.

Years passed. Life happened. Divorces occurred.

The Bride and I were sitting in our back yard one cool evening about ten years ago, sipping Coppola’s Director’s Cut wine. The conversation wandered to our lives before we met, old Dallas, and long-gone restaurants. I mentioned The Shed, she told me it was her high school boyfriend’s parents’ favorite restaurant.

I recalled their rustic dining room. “Didn’t you love that all you could eat steak idea?”

She threw her head back and laughed. “I could pack it away back when I was eighteen or nineteen.”

Her huge laugh snapped me back to 1983, and that’s when it clicked after all our years of marriage. “Did you have a white fisherman’s sweater at one time?”

“I did. I loved that sweater. I wore it in high school and college…” She paused, giving me a long look over the top of her glass.

“You came in with your boyfriend while I was there. Y’all had a disagreement…”

Her eyes widened. “It was his parents’ favorite restaurant.”

“That was you.” I told her about what I saw that night. “I knew you were the one for me even then.”

The Bride allowed it was her. I’d been captivated my Shana Kay way back when she’d just graduated high school, eight years before we met.

I used that coincidence in a manuscript, but my agent said it was too unbelievable. “I’d take it out.”

Sigh.

Incidences and conversations like this are inspirations, and usually make their way into my work in some way or another. I think I’ve mentioned in passing that I’ve been a newspaper columnist since 1988, and in that time, I’ve written well over 2,000 columns and magazine articles. Most stemmed from real life, and as I’ve always said, there’s always a grain of truth in every column.

The following conversation among the strangers in the following story is absolutely true. I swear, because I lifted all of the unbelievable dialogue from a neighborhood chat/complain social media site, and can testify it’s still on my cell phone. All I had to do was change it enough to avoid plagiarism, (but then again, is it plagiarism if I’m really reporting what was said?) add a setting, personal characteristics, and descriptions to make it my fictional story.

Why did I post my newspaper column for June 26, 2022, on this blog? Because I’m firm a believer in teaching by example. Hope you enjoy this and maybe it’ll help in some way.

*

The Hunting Club membership (my old, graying friends who have hunted and fished together for over forty years) was gathered around the large round corner table in Doreen’s 24 HR Eat Gas Now Café when a gaggle of women pushed through the glass door.

It’s our local gathering place out on the highway, and we’d spent the morning sipping Doreen’s excellent coffee and talking about a big doe lying in the median. Someone hit her the night before and we wondered if she had a fawn when she died.

Woodrow rested his elbows on the Formica table and ran his forefinger through the handle of his thick white coffee mug. “It’s a surprise to see a doe hit this time of the year.”

“I wish it had been a rabbit.” I sighed and watched the women stop to survey the cafe. “Rabbits are like roaches around here these days.”

The ladies ignored us and took a table in the center of the café, putting them in close proximity to our big booth. Had it been a group of men, they’d have moved to the opposite end of the large eating area, as far as possible from where we sat.

One woman who looked like Maude on the Golden Girls spoke with a voice heard by cattle dogs a mile away. “I texted out a warning on the way over here. I just saw a dead deer on the side of the curb in the middle between Eldorado and Panther Creek.”

Woodrow grinned and scratched at his gray beard in thought. “Now I know where to hunt this season. That has to be the same doe we were just talking about, but it’s in the median, so there’s no danger to anyone unless folks are slowing down to look, or texting while they drive!” His voice rose in emphasis, but the newcomers appeared not to hear.

“That’s so sad.” It was a skinny gal with lots of eye makeup and a set of artificial lashes that reminded me of large, dead spiders. I assumed she was talking about the doe, and not Woodrow’s comment.

Jerry Wayne spoke in his usual loud voice, since he can’t hear it thunder these days and refuses to wear his hearing aids. He says he’s cutting down on caffeine, but the big guy still twitches like an outhouse fly. “It’s not so sad. It’s the nature of things. I was raised on venison in Mississippi. Wish I’d have seen that little doe right after it was hit. I could use some backstrap right now.”

As a group, the women frowned and leaned in.

Wrong Willie shook his head. “I’ve told you over and over again it ain’t right to eat roadkill.”

“Depends on how long it’s been on the ground.” Jerry Wayne leaned back to make his point, his version of “drop the mike.”

Maude waved Doreen over to order. “Poor animals. No wilderness to live in anymore. It’s because of all this construction around here. These animals are going to come out more and more. They should take them to a habitat somewhere, because it is very dangerous and sad to see them die this way.”

Constable Rick’s mouth opened and closed, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t get enough air. He was either laughing, or in shock. Her astonishing comment clammed all of us up, and we listened as they took turns spilling inaccurate thoughts.

“If you call the game warden and tag it, they will give it to you. If you want the meat.”

Woodrow slapped his forehead. Doreen shot him a glare from behind the counter. She wiped her hands on a stained towel and gathered up a handful of empty mugs. I took a moment to look for the mole on her face that seems to move at random from one day to the next.

It must have migrated to the back of her neck that day.

A brunette lady with painted-on eyebrows frowned them together. “You have to bleed it out immediately for it to taste good. That one’s been dead too long, unfortunately. Sad.”

“I can’t stand deer hunters and I’ve been living here twenty-one years when it was wilderness and I’ve never seen anything but bobcats, coyotes, and greyhawks.” That run-on sentence came from a lady covered with tattoos.

Willie tore his eyes from her art and turned to me. “Wilderness? This has been farmland for over a hundred years.”

I shrugged. “Who knows. They’re on a roll, but there’s a million rabbits and squirrels they haven’t seemed to notice.”

“You know,” Maude took a cup from Doreen and smiled her thanks as our favorite waitress and business owner filled it from the fresh pot in her hand. “We need one of those Deer Crossing signs so these poor animals will know where to cross safely.”

Doreen glared in our direction, daring us to say anything. I looked around the table and saw Jerry Wayne, Willie, Woodrow, and Constable Rick all bite their lips at the same time.

The youngest of the female troupe frowned. “I didn’t know deers were prevalent in this area of Texas. It looks like we need wildlife overpasses.”

Willie slipped down in the booth, dissolved into hysterical giggles, and slapped the table. I hoped his red face wouldn’t explode.

A dishwater blonde shook her head at the enormity of it all. “I was surprised to see a deer in the residential neighborhood by the ponds. But to a deer, the ponds are connected to the wooded lakeshore that is their habitat encroached by human development and cars and roads. It’s arguable whether that backdrop of wilderness area is manicured by human development or if it belongs to wildlife or humans.”

Jerry Wayne raised a finger to make some point, but I shook my head. I wanted to hear more.

“Of course, they don’t have GPS to guide them back to the wilderness areas.” The blonde sighed. “Of course that poor deer was lost because how would it expect wooded lakeshore pond trails to dead-end in concrete roads and blocks of framed structures that we call houses?”

The boys, who were having a helluva time, nodded in encouragement, hoping to keep the conversation on track.

“It’s a puzzle for the deer to navigate their way back to the native wooded areas without running into human-erected structures.” Maude squared her shoulders and sent us a glare, likely preparing for battle. “They are stuck in the urban area not because they want to live here, but are lost in the maze, thinking crossing the street would get them back to the wild when they’re desperately trying to find a way out.”

I studied the boys’ faces. “I don’t even know what that means.”

She paused again. “You know, I have an idea. I suggest the city create a deer farm for them so they don’t have to run in the street. Then you’ll have time to stop even when a deer dashes out in front of you, and people need to slow down. It’s hard to hit a deer if you drive the speed limit.”

Wheezing in delight, the guys slapped the table, giggling like schoolgirls.

Doreen came over and spoke through her teeth. “Don’t! Y’all shouldn’t be eavesdropping anyway!”

“But we were here first. They’re the ones who sat within earshot.” Woodrow laid his head on the table. “Put the deer in farms!!!???”

Doreen’s demeanor cracked and she leaned in to whisper in a giggle. “Well, they’re move-ins, bless their hearts.”

Maude took a deep breath. “Well, at least we’re aware of the deer now. That makes me feel better, but you’re right. They need to move the deer crossing somewhere with less traffic.”

And we all fell out.

I’m not usually a fan of fitness magazines, but I found myself in a waiting room once before the era of cellphones, and I had forgotten to bring a book. I had to decide between twiddling my thumbs, staring off into space, or reading one of the magazines on the table next to me.

I picked up the magazine that was on top of the stack, which happened to be about fitness. I flipped through it and found an interesting article. It was all about the stuff you have to do to stay fit. You’ve seen the list: drink gallons of water every day, run thousands of miles, eat only organically grown super foods…  One could grow old just reading the list.

But the kicker was the conclusion of the piece. The author noted that most people can’t do everything on the list perfectly. As a matter of fact, many people read about all the things they need to do and become frustrated. They think, I can’t do all this stuff, and they give up.

But the article advised if you can’t do everything, at least do something. Their premise was to start small, then add to your fitness regimen as you get used to each step. Their suggestion was to throw a handful of blueberries on your cereal each morning. Blueberries have tremendous antioxidant properties and are very beneficial to one’s health. I read the following in an article about antioxidants on WebMD.com:

Wild blueberries are the winner overall. Just one cup has 13,427 total antioxidants – vitamins A & C, plus flavonoids (a type of antioxidant) like querticin and anthocyanidin. That’s about 10 times the USDA’s recommendation, in just one cup! Cultivated blueberries have 9,019 per cup and are equally vitamin-rich.

The theory of blueberries made sense to me. Even though I read that article years ago, I still drop a handful of blueberries on my oatmeal every morning.

* * *

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how to make a comparison between getting physically fit and getting fit as an author. There’s a lot to this writing business. I’ve heard people return from writers’ conferences feeling overwhelmed by all the information they’ve been trying to absorb: plotting, characterization, self-editing, point-of-view, editors, agents, self-publishing, just to name a few.

A new author may feel he/she has to incorporate every aspect of good writing in order to write that first novel, and may be too intimidated to try. “There’s no way I can do all that,” she says, and gives up.

But maybe there’s a blueberry way for writers to ramp up to speed. If new authors tackle one or two of the basics, they could begin to grow their skill and confidence. With time and attention to the craft, their writerly fitness would make them the Chuck Norrises of the literary community.

So TKZers: If you had to choose one or two things for new authors to concentrate on as they begin their writing adventure, what would you suggest?

Emotion, Beginnings, and Anti-heroes

Ladies’ Day at TKZ

Emotion in fiction

Why doesn’t fiction evoke the same response as film? I don’t believe it is because movies are more visual. What is more powerful than the blank screens of our own imaginations? I think it might be because today’s crime writers are leery of being labeled as soft when we go into matters of the heart.

I had a conversation with a high-placed editor a while back. She told me she has noticed two trends in crime fiction recently: the decline of hard-boiled “guy books.” And the continued strength of romantic suspense. Now, let’s not kid ourselves. There is some terrific hard-boiled stuff being written right now, books that don’t turn up their noses at emotions. Likewise, there is some utterly putrid romantic suspense on the shelves these days, stuff that gets everything about police procedure and forensics wrong and gets really treacly about the romance part. Maybe I’m just reading the wrong stuff. What has gotten to you? What has made you cry? Movies are easy. But give me some books as well.

Or am I wrong in my belief that there is still room for well-wrought (as opposed to over-wrought) emotion in today’s crime fiction? – P J Parish – February, 28, 2017

Beginnings

Which brings us to today’s topic: Great Beginnings.
For an example of a great beginning, let’s reach WAY back to a sort-of thriller, Rebecca, and its simple but great first line:
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
That line launches the spellbinding tale of its protagonist, who is haunted by the ghost of her husband’s dead wife. And there are many other great openers we could cite.
Here’s a link to the best 100 opening lines of novels, as chosen by the editors of American Book Review.
But those are mostly first lines of…ahem, “literary” novels. For Right now, let’s limit our discussion to the first lines of thriller novels.
You know ’em when you read ’em. They’re the ones that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck on page one and you don’t go to sleep until THE END.
So I’m wondering…what is the BEST grab-you-by-the-throat opening line (and para) you ever read in a suspense book? And what made it so good for you? – Kathryn Lilley Cheng – February 23, 2017

Why are we drawn to anti-heroes?

For me, I see them as flawed. They’re not perfect, like classic heroes in Hollywood or in literature were portrayed. I can relate to them better because it makes me feel as if, given the right circumstances, anyone can rise to the level of hero if they have a cause worth fighting for. We also want to see if they are redeemable. Give your anti-hero a chance to grab at redemption in your book and see if he takes it. Or will he find love from a strong woman? Once we get hooked on an anti-hero, we root for them and feel their pain more when they fall. We want them to get back up, because they’re “every man.” And the fact they are not cookie-cutter, and do surprising things and are unpredictable, they make the storytelling fun.

Who would have rooted for a high school teacher turned drug dealer if we hadn’t learned of his cancer, his concern for his family in the face of his financial meltdown, and his rising medical bills. He’s bucking a broken health care system like David standing before Goliath. He’s more worried over his family than his own recovery. He’s got nothing to lose.

Anti-heroes change our way of thinking about confrontation and empowerment. The right anti-hero can give voice to our frustrations and give us an alternative reality to find justice. – Jordan Dane – March 2, 2017

Please comment. What are your thoughts on emotion, beginnings, and antiheroes?

When it comes to pure entertainment, it’s hard to top Top Gun — Maverick. The 2022 sequel to the 1986 blockbuster, Top Gun, is one wild ride from start to finish, and it achieves what great storytelling sets to achieve. That’s keeping the audience glued throughout and coming back for more.

Top Gun — Maverick released on May 27, 2022. My wife, Rita, and I saw it three times. First was out of curiosity. Second was with our adult kids. Third was for self-indulgent escapism. It’s that friggin’ good.

It’s friggin’ good for a lot of reasons. Action… tension… thrills… flashbacks… old-fling romance… interpersonal drama… humor… sorrow… redemption… compassion… fulfillment… oh, and the music. Plus 6 crashed planes, 5 ejections, 2 stolen jets, dogfights galore, Ray Bans, bar scenes with bottled beer piano sings, and the obligatory high speed tower buzz in a Tomcat.

It’s got an excellent plot (and subplots), fascinating characters, believable dialogue, and twists you’ll never see coming. It’s got fast jets, cocky pilots, hard bodies, and a leading lady to die for. It’s got good guys and bad guys, friends and foes. And, it’s got box office numbers in the stratosphere.

Top Gun 1 cost $15 million to produce and grossed $357 million. Maverick cost $170 million to make (including $11,374 per hour paid to the US Navy for F-18 Super Hornet flight time) and—so far in under a month—raked in $748 million. Forbes predicts Top Gun — Maverick will be the first billion-dollar film.

Outside of huge numbers and equally large thrills, the show is outstanding storytelling. I’m not going to give spoilers, but I’ll tell you the screenplay follows the classic 3-Act structure.

In Act 1, we see Captain Pete Mitchell, call-sign Maverick played by Tom Cruise, going about his normal world of test-flying a Mach 10 Dark Star hypersonic airplane. His day disrupts when he’s unexpectedly called back to the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) at Miramar air base in San Diego. Act 2 has Maverick teaching an elite group of the best-of-the-best Top Gun fighter pilot graduates to execute a secret mission of destroying a fiercely guarded enemy uranium enrichment facility. Act 3 is the tactical, all-is-lost attack, and I can tell you this part has stuff you can’t imagine.

Not giving the ending away, but I’ll leave you with the closing song by Lady Gaga. Hold My Hand.

How about you Kill Zoners? Who’s seen Top Gun — Maverick, and how do you rate this movie as storytelling?

Bonus: Listen to 4 real Top Gun instructors review the show.

By John Gilstrap

Well, it’s official. My deadline for submitting my manuscript for White Smoke, the third book in my Victoria Emerson thriller series was today, and for only the second time in my career, I will not be able to answer the bell. There’s never an excuse for not meeting one’s business obligations, but in my case, there were a number of contributing factors. Not complaining, just explaining.

The Pandemic

We Gilstraps lost the month of December to Covid-19. We got hit hard. I started it with my 14-day run of sickdom, but by the time it ran its course, my wife had spent 8 days in the hospital, including the span from Christmas Eve through January 3. Everyone is well now, but there’s definitely a brain fog that comes with it.

A Two-Stage Move

Last July, we sold our house in Virginia in anticipation of moving into our dream home in West Virginia. The anticipated move date was December 15 (good thing that didn’t happen!). We moved into a 1,200-square-foot apartment with the thought of staying five months. Seven months later, the new place was finally done-ish. Essentially, we moved into a working construction site on March 12. But that was nearly a month after we took possession of . . .

(Fair warning: This could be the sappiest thing I’ve ever written.)

Kimber

In her own words . . .

My name is Kimber. I am a Cavaston–a mix of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and Boston Terrier. My new parents drove all the way up to Pennsylvania to pick me up on February 15. It was cold and I was scared.

I really had two new homes. I had my apartment, and I also had my crate, which I didn’t mind until nighttime came and then I’d get lonely. John told me that I shouldn’t bark for attention because we were in an apartment with neighbors really close. For the first couple of nights, he slept on the floor next to my crate to keep me company, but then he said it was more comfortable to let me sleep with them in their bed. I liked that better. That’s where I sleep every night now. John takes up a lot of room, though.

I had to go to the doctor for a checkup during my first week at the apartment. The doctor was nice, but there’s not a lot of privacy. They stuck me with needles and squeezed me a lot, but they let me eat spray cheese out of a can while they did it, so I didn’t mind all that much.

Not everybody recognizes the origins of my name. John tells me it’s the same as one of his favorite pistols. One day, when we were visiting the new house before we moved in and the heat wasn’t turned on yet, I got cold and climbed inside of his vest. After this picture was taken, John called me his quick-draw puppy.

These days, we’re all moved into the new house and the construction is over with–well, mostly. John complains that the master bedroom closets still aren’t finished. I like living in the country more than I liked living in the apartment. Out here, I get to pee and poo outside instead of on the little pads that I never really hit. (Apparently, you’re supposed to have your back legs on the pad, too. Who knew?)

Country living can be scary. I was playing in the woods just a few days ago and I saw something that looked like it wanted to play with me, but not in a good way. It kept hissing and trying to bite me. I’m really fast, though. I barked and barked, and finally, John came out to see what was happening. The stranger hissed and tried to bite him, too. He got very stern and told me to go back into the house. A few minutes later, I heard a really loud noise. I haven’t seen the stranger since.

I think John’s really happy that I’m around the house. All day long, he sits in a chair in front of a folding thing with buttons on it, but I’m tall enough now that I can jump right up onto the buttons and help him push them. He pretends not to like me doing that, but he always ends up playing with me. Maybe not the first time I jump up, or the second, but sooner or later, he gives in and plays. He said something about not being able to say no to my face.

“The problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, ‘Rap is a young man’s game,’ and they keep trying to make young songs. But you don’t know the slang – it changes every day, and you’re just visiting. You’re trying to be something you’re not, and the audience doesn’t buy into that.” — Jay-Z.

By PJ Parrish

So I’m up at 2 a.m. and it’s 57 channels and nothing on. It’s a choice between Million Dollar Mansions and The Tin Cup, starring Kevin Costner as a washed up golf pro who makes his way to the US Open to play against an insufferable git-in-cleats played by Don Johnson.

The movie is peppered with golf slang. Lines like: “Gimme the lumber.” And: “I want you to caddy for me. I’ll give you $100 for the loop.”

Thanks to my husband, I sort of watch golf. So I figured out that “lumber” was a wood, a club that you can hit far with.  “The loop” is slang for 18 holes. The scriptwriter was savvy with his use of slang, just enough to make me feel I was inside but not too much to trip me up. But, the rewriter in me wanted to ahem…improve things a little. I would have written: “I want you to be on the bag for me. I’ll give you $100 for the loop.”

Be on the bag means to caddy. Okay, okay, maybe that’s one stroke over the line, sweet Jesus, but I couldn’t resist. Slang is pretty seductive for writers, right?

Who among us hasn’t been tempted to slather in the slang to make our dialogue sound more authentic, more human, more…with it? I think mystery and thriller writers are especially vulnerable, because we deal with street thug, cops, lawyers and n’er-do-wells who all use their own argot. So this is my caution for all we crime dogs today: When the urge to use a lot of slang in your story hits you, go lie down in a dark room.

Okay, time out. Let’s test your lit-slang IQ. What books are these excerpts from (answers at end):

1. What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons catapelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie Head.

2. Flora began to curse Red and Nancy again. But she had pretty much played out that line already. She turned to me.

“What the hell did you bring them here for?” she demanded. “Leaving a mile-wide trail behind you! Why didn’t you let the lousy bum die where he got his dose?

“I brought him here for my hundred and fifty grand. Slip it to me and I’ll be on my way. You don’t owe me anything else. I don’t owe you anything. Give me my rhino instead of lip and I’ll pull my freight.”

3. Third time lucky.  It wis like Sick Boy telt us: you’ve got tae know what it’s like tae try tae come off it before ye can actually dae it.  You can only learn through failure, and what ye learn is the importance ay preparation.  He could be right.  Anywey, this time ah’ve prepared.

Slang in fiction is a two-headed beast. When it’s good, it lends your dialogue verisimilitude and gives your characters unique voice. But when it’s bad, it dates your narrative, frustrates the reader and, as Jay-Z says, makes you look like you’re just visiting.

Slang is not the same as jargon. Both are means of communication between special groups. Slang is the informal language of speech, writing or texting. Think of friends bonding. Jargon is the specialized, often technical, language that is used by people in a particular field. Think of lawyers.

It can underscore your setting. A novel set in the mean streets of 1930s Newport is going to have different slang than one set in the thickets of the rural South of current times.

From The Great Gatsby: “He saw me looking with admiration at his car. ‘It’s pretty, isn’t it, old sport?” Old sport is a term of endearment used among swells of Gatsby’s era.

From Shakespeare’s Henry IV, here’s Falstaff throwing down some major shade:

 ’Sblood, you starveling, you elfskin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stockfish! O, for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase, you vile standing tuck—

Raymond Chandler famously credited Dashiell Hammett with giving murder “back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse … He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes.”

In Hammett Red Harvest, the police “take this baby down the cellar and let the wrecking crew work on him.” (Interrogate a suspect). A female character is described as “a soiled dove” (13th-century English slang for a prostitute). And the Continental Op says he is “going blood-simple” from all the killing (which you’ll recognize as the title of the Coen Brothers’ 1984 movie.)

Some writers, especially those toiling in fantasy, often create entire languages filled with made-up slang. JK Rowling peppered the Harry Potter books with so much nonsensical words that she needed to publish a dictionary — Muggle, flobberworm, and my favorite Boggart (a shape-shifter that becomes the likeness of your worst fear)  I often wondered if Rowling weren’t channeling Lewis Carroll, who gave us such words as gallymoggers (crazy), mimsy (a feeling of misery and whimsy) and this gem: scut (an insult based on the actual Brit slang for buttucks.

Robert Heinlein uses made-up slang in Stranger in a Strange Land to great effect, weaving it in so gracefully that the reader never stumbles. He uses the Martian word grok, which means “to drink” but because there is no water on Mars, grok comes to mean something akin to holy communion, with characters grokking to communicate powerful emotions.

So, you ask, what’s a lesser writer to do? What if you’re still working on your first novel, or rewriting your sixth and you’re a little unsure of when to use slang and how much is too much? Well, as we always say here, there are no hard and fast rules. But let me lay down some guidelines that I’ve found helpful.

• Use it sparingly
• Get it right

To the first point, slang is like any exotic spice. A little goes a long way toward whatever stew you are creating. Know that slang tends to go stale very quickly, and does not travel well. As Toby tells Will in West Wing: “When you use pop-culture references, your speech has a shelf life of twelve minutes.” So it is with novels. You might have one of your young characters say something like: “Since the pandemic, I never have to go into the office. It’s so sick.” Sick, of course, means great. Always look for ways to gracefully explain slang that’s esoteric. Like:

“I want you to carry the bag for me.”

What, me caddy for you? In your dreams, man.”

To the second point, make sure your slang is accurate and appropriate. Don’t try to fake Aussie slang, for example. Run it by a friend who is fluent. Make sure the slang you put in a character’s mouth is accurate for his age, background, region, and education. A kid living in Michigan would never ask for a “soda.” It’s always “a pop.” A kid, in parts of the South, would ask for “a Coke” even if he wants Sprite.

Some sites to help you with slang:

Online Slang Dictionary. Updated almost daily. Very comprehensive and sometimes quite racy. http://onlineslangdictionary.com/

A Dictionary of Slang. If you want to say something in New Zealand-ese, this is for you. http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/language-links.htm

Some novels are so thick with slang and invented words that they are near impenetrable. I remember trudging through Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange for a college lit course. It is written entirely in an invented future slang constructed by Burgess called Nadsat. Here’s the opening paragraph. I’ll wait while you wade:

‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I’m starting off the story with.

Reading this now and remembering how much I worked to finish this book, I am thinking of a scene from Cheers. Sam, desperate to impress Diane, slogs through War and Peace in three days. At the end, Diane is, indeed impressed.

Diane: There’s only one thing more romantic than you reading War And Peace for me.
Sam: What?
Diane: You reading War And Peace to me.
Sam: Oh, yeah? Well, it just so happens that I have a copy right here. You sit down right here, and I’ll read to you. Here we go.
Diane: [takes the book] Let’s go see the movie.
Sam: [shouts] There’s a movie?

Re Clockwork Orange. Take my advice. Skip the book. See the movie.

_________________________

Quiz:

1. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce.
2. The Big Knockover by Dashiell Hammett
3. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh