Creative Spaces

Posted on by

By John Gilstrap

When I was growing up, immersed in dreams of one day becoming a writer, I romanticized what the process must be like. Where would one go to imagine new worlds and create new adventures? Movies romanticized the whole process, and I bought into it. Then I saw this now famous picture of a then less-famous Stephen King in his writing space. It seemed so . . . ordinary. Yet at the same time it seemed very special. The dog under his feet is a nice touch. This is a guy with a job. And his creative space is . . . an office. Just an office. But of course, it’s more than that. It’s Stephen King’s office. (As you’ll see below, it turns out that I was not the only budding young writer who was impressed by the photo.)

Offices are important–more important to some than to others. In some ways, creative spaces reflect the personalities of their occupants. They fascinate me.

Following up on a comment made on Friday’s Reader Friday post by our beloved Brother Bell, I sent emails to my fellow bloggers here at TKZ, suggesting that we let our readers into our creative spaces. My one caveat was a pinky swear to not clean up before taking the picture. Here’s what we came up with.

John Gilstrap

Our move to West Virginia presented a unique opportunity to design an office as an office–as opposed to a purloined bedroom. Now that I think about it, I suppose there’s not a lot of difference between the two. I wanted lots of light and direct access to the outdoors. That door leads to a deck that overlooks the woods. The orange helmet on the left end of the bookcase belonged to my father. A closer look will show that it’s quite banged up from the helicopter crash he survived on the deck of the USS Forrestal in 1959. The two yellow helmets are mine from the two jurisdictions where I ran fire and rescue. (I had to turn my white lieutenant’s helmet back in when I left.) Since the house is now run by a 12-pound ball of fur named Kimber, chew toys and water bowls litter the floor of every room.

Here it is from a different angle. This is messier than it normally is, but a pinky swear is a pinky swear. Note the studio grade microphone and the webcam–a new bit of ubiquity in office photos, I’ve found. All of those Gilstrap books stacked on the far end of the bookcase are the background for Zooming and YouTube videos (when I start shooting them again). The opened journal you see on the desk is one of many that I have stacked around the place (each novel gets a new journal). That’s where I scratch my way through difficult parts of the story that are somehow resistant to being typed. That green chair in the corner used to belong to me. Now it’s Kimber’s day bed and she gets very annoyed if I move the blanket from where she left it.

Kristy Montee (PJ Parrish)

When we moved out of Fort Lauderdale five years ago, it meant big downsizing. As some wag said (might have been George Carlin): You spend the first half of your life accumulating stuff and the second half getting rid of it.  We now live half the year in Tallahassee and half in Traverse City, Michigan. We don’t have the luxury of an extra “office” space anymore, so I store everything on line and cart my laptop around wherever the spirit moves me. Often it’s the sofa, but more likely my local coffee shop or after 4, the Traverse City Whiskey Co. where they make a mean whiskey sour. On spectacular days like today, the balcony will do.

Terry Odell

I’m fortunate to have a bedroom dedicated to me. This is my workspace, which doesn’t show my cluttered closet space or bookshelves. The desk is also a little less cluttered than usual, since the request for the photo came on Friday, and I clear my desk on Thursday for the housekeeper. The stacks of paper next to the printer and behind the monitor represent my method of ‘housekeeping.’ The stacks will eventually topple over, and I’ll attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Watching the wildlife is my biggest writing distraction. (The hummingbird feeder is just out of camera range, but not out of eyeshot if I’m sitting at my desk.)

Kay DiBianca

 Here’s my picture. Like you suggested, I just moved the chair out of the way and took the picture with things as they really are. No cleanup. Organized chaos. I know where (almost) everything is.

Sue Coletta

Attached are two photos of my office from different angles. The Holy Hands on my desk were made and blessed by a Cherokee chief. They hold tiny replicas of my Mayhem Series. Both gifts from a couple (readers) who said I touched their lives. Most of the crows, as well as the crow dreamcatcher hanging above, were also gifts from readers. All mean a lot to me. Constant reminders of why I write.

 

 

 

Elaine Viets

Here’s my office. I’m most comfortable surrounded by books, and many of these mysteries are signed by  friends. The box with the white rug is for my cat, Vanessa. She “helps” while I work.

 

 

Garry Rodgers

Here’s a shot of my mind lab. Brief description: “My creative place is a combination of old and new. Side-by-side, I have a Windows 11 laptop with audio/visual recording devices next to a retro 1920s private detective office with stuff like a pristine vintage typewriter and a cool rotary phone that’s tweaked to work in the digital age. Fun place. BTW, that filing cabinet is stuffed full of books.”

James Scott Bell

My desk, with microphone and sound foam. To the left, pics of Stephen King (with legs on desk), Ed McBain, and John D. MacDonald, all telling me to stop whining and write. My coffee mug with WRITER on it, which I bought a few days after I decided I had to try to become a writer. And a file folder for my first drafts.

 

As you read this, I will be on my way to Bouchercon in Minneapolis, my first large-scale book event since the Covid insanity. It’ll be nice to see old friends again.

What Lucy Taught
Me About Writing

Posted on by

Morning crime dogs: I am a little under the weather this week. The big bad virus finally caught up with me. I am multi-vaxed, have a mild case and am on the mend. But not thinking too well. So, if you don’t mind I am going to honor the TENTH anniversary (four days ago!) of my joining The Kill Zone (thank you Joe Moore for the invite) and re-post my very first post. See you next time.

By PJ Parrish

It’s three in the morning and I can’t sleep — again. My story is a giant hairball in my brain but it’s more than that. I am obsessing about the world of publishing and my little place within it. There is so much uncertainty in our business right now. Bookstores are closing, advances are shrinking, houses are paring their lists down to sure-fire bestsellers, and we are all groping for something to grab onto as the publishing earthquake rumbles beneath our feet.

I retreat to the sofa, remote in hand, searching for something to quiet the questions in my head.

Have I used up all my good plot ideas?
Is it too late to switch to erotica?
Should I take out a loan to go to Thrillerfest?
How did that hack get a movie option?
What should I write about for my first Kill Zone blog?
Did I remember to give the dogs their meds?

In the darkness, the ceiling shimmers with fifty-seven channels of nothing on. Then, suddenly, there she is — Lucy Ricardo. My muse, my all, my Ambien. Before I know it, eight episodes have passed and the sky is lightening with a new day. I have an epiphany. Everything I need to know about surviving in publishing today can be learned from “I Love Lucy.”

SPEED IT UP!
When Lucy needed to make money she went to work in a chocolate factory but found out it wasn’t easy keeping up. Time was we could get by doing one book a year. Not anymore. Maybe we can blame James Patterson who is fond of comparing novels to real estate — i.e., the only thing that matters is how much room your books take up on the shelf (real or virtual). But the eBook age has accelerated the metabolism of publishing and many of us are pulling extra shifts, churning out novellas, short stories and even an extra book a year. Lisa Scottoline in ther New York Times interview, called it “feeding the maw.” What I call it can’t be printed here. Sigh. But I get it.

The Lesson from Lucy: Try not to obsess about keeping up or about other people’s success. Measure progress by your own achievement not by other writers. Yes, you have to produce well and often but try to keep your wits about you and set a good daily pace. Yes, daily. Do as I say, not as I do.

REINVENT YOURSELF

What did the artistically thwarted Lucy do when she wanted to be in the movie “Bitter Grapes?” She went to a vineyard and became Italian. Is your series on life support? Are you in midlist limbo? Maybe you just need a change of identity. If you write dark, try light. Jump-start your brain by switching to short stories. Leave your amateur sleuth and write a standalone thriller. Got the bad numbers at Amazon blues? Adopt a pen name and start over. Or it might be time to try self-publishing. Yes, it’s a tough route, and you’ll work your butt off doing things that have nothing to do with the real joy of writing. But sometimes you have to start over. Just do your homework. (Our archives here are filled with tons of great self-pubbing advice.)

MAKE FRIENDS
When Ricky and the Mertzes forgot her birthday, Lucy joined the Friends of the Friendless. (“We are friends of the friendless, yes we are! We are here for the downtrodden and we sober up the sodden!”). Truth is, publishers aren’t putting out anymore (publicity-wise). So we writers just need to get ourselves out there more. No, a pretty website isn’t enough. Now you need to be on Facebook et al. You might need to Tweet even if you’re a twit with nothing to say. Beyond that, make REAL friends in the business. I know you’re probably an introvert at heart. Most writers are. But try to get out and meet other writers. Go to conferences if you can afford it. Join a good critique group. Find support wherever you can because this business can be pretty rough and sometimes very lonely.

I need a nap. Or maybe a glass of good Sancerre. Probably both. All this advice about what we should be doing to sell ourselves and our books. And you know whose voice I keep hearing? Neil Nyren. He’s the (now retired) president of Penguin-Putnam books and a friend of mine. (Yeah, I’m namedropping.) At SleuthFest one year, Neil said, “all the time you’re doing that other stuff you could be writing a better book.” I need to remember that. I need to believe it.

What about Lucy? She tried too hard and ended up too sick to eat chocolate and dyed too blue to get in that Italian movie. And then there is the episode where she tries to write a novel. Ricky and the Mertzes pooh-pooh her ambitions (does that sound familiar?). She sends out her manuscript, and an editor contacts her saying he wants to publish her novel. He waves a check in front of her face. All is lovely until he tells her he wants to publish her book as non-fiction and change the title. The new title:

“Don’t Let This Happen To You!”

See, it could be worse.

 

 

5 Similarities Between Your Hero and Villain 

Posted on by

In story terms, a villain is a person, entity, or force who is cruel, evil, or malicious enough to wish the protagonist harm. Rather than simply blocking a goal or interfering with the hero’s plan, a villain causes suffering, making it vital for them to be conquered by the protagonist. Clarice must find and defeat Buffalo Bill if she wants to rise above her past and become a great FBI agent (The Silence of the Lambs); Chief Brody must kill the man-eating shark to preserve his town (Jaws).  

Regardless of the form your villain takes, there are certain qualities that will make them formidable and credible—qualities and connections they share with the protagonist. Let’s explore these qualifications through a case study of Dr. Lawrence Myrick, played by Gene Hackman in the movie Extreme Measures.  

VILLAINS, LIKE HEROES, LIVE BY A MORAL CODE  

It’s been said that the best villains don’t know they’re villains; they think they’re the hero of the story. And this is true because a well-crafted baddie has his own moral code. Compared to the protagonist’s, it’s twisted and corrupt, but it still provides guardrails that guide him through the story.  

Dr. Myrick is a renowned and brilliant neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life’s work to curing paralysis. It’s a noble cause that he believes in more than anything—not so much for himself but for all the paralyzed people in the world. This cause is so important that when he develops a treatment, he can’t wait decades for it to crawl through the testing process and eventually be approved. So he bypasses the animal testing phase and goes right to human trials. It’s kind of hard to find healthy subjects who are willing to take such a risk, so he kidnaps homeless people and confines them to his secret medical facility, then severs their spinal cords so he can test his treatment on them.  

To the rest of the world, this is unconscionable. But to Myrick, the end justifies the means. He’s perfectly okay stealing people, taking away their freedom and mobility, and subjecting them to countless medical cruelties. And if they reach a point of no longer being useful, he’s fine doing away with them because they’re people no one will miss. He actually views them as heroes, sacrificing themselves for the greater good. His morals are deranged, but they’re absolute, guiding his choices and actions. And when you know his code, while you don’t agree with it, you at least understand what’s driving him, and his actions make sense.  

When you’re planning your villain, explore their beliefs about right and wrong. Figure out their worldview and ideals. Specifically, see how the villain’s beliefs differ from the protagonist’s. This will show you the framework the villain is willing to work within, steer the conflict they generate, and provide a stark contrast to the hero.  

THEY HAVE A STORY GOAL, TOO  

Like the hero, the villain has an overall objective, and they’re willing to do anything within their moral code to achieve it. When their goal is diametrically opposed to the hero’s, the two become enemies in a situation where only one can succeed.  

We know Myrick’s goal: to cure paralysis. And things are progressing nicely until an ER doctor in his hospital discovers homeless patients disappearing from the facility. Dr. Lathan starts nosing around, and when he realizes someone is up to no good, it becomes his mission to stop them. So the two are pitted against each other. If one succeeds, the other must fail. To quote Highlander: there can only be one.  

As the author who has spirited the villain out of your own (dare we say twisted?) imagination, you need to know their goal. It should be as clear-cut and obvious as the hero’s objective. Does it put them in opposition to the protagonist? Ideally, both characters’ goals should block each other from getting what they want and need.  

VILLAINS ARE WELL-ROUNDED  

Because villains are typically evil, it’s easy to fill them up with flaws and forget the positive traits. But good guys aren’t all good and bad guys aren’t all bad, and characters written this way have as much substance as the flimsy cardboard they’re made of. Myrick is cruel, unfeeling, and devious. But he’s also intelligent, generous, and absolutely dedicated to curing a devastating malady that afflicts the lives of many.  

Positive traits add authenticity for the villain while making them intimidating and harder to defeat. An added bonus is when their strength counters the hero’s.  

The villain of Watership Down is General Woundwort, a nasty rabbit whose positive attributes are brute strength and sheer force of will, making him more man than animal. In contrast, hero Hazel embodies what it means to be a rabbit. He’s swift and clever. He knows who he is and embraces what makes him him. In the end, Hazel and his rabbits overcome a seemingly undefeatable enemy by being true to their nature.  

When your villain is conceived and begins to grow in the amniotic fluid of your imagination, be sure to give him some positive traits along with the negative ones. Not only will you make him an enemy worthy of your hero, he’ll also be one readers will remember.  

THEY HAVE A BACKSTORY (AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS)  

Authors know how important it is to dig into their protagonist’s backstory and have a strong grasp of how it has impacted that character. Yet one of the biggest mistakes we make with villains is not giving them their own origin story. A character who is evil with no real reason behind their actions or motivations isn’t realistic, making them stereotypical and a bit…meh.  

To avoid this trap, know your villain’s beginnings. Why are they the way they are? What trauma, genetics, or negative influencers have molded them into their current state? Why are they pursuing their goal—what basic human need is lacking that achieving the goal will satisfy? The planning and research for this kind of character is significant, but it will pay off in the form of a memorable and one-of-a-kind villain who will give your hero a run for his money and intrigue readers.  

THEY SHARE A CONNECTION WITH THE PROTAGONIST  

In real life, we have many adversaries. Some of them are distant—the offensive driver on the highway or that self-serving, flip-flopping politician you foolishly voted for. Those adversaries can create problems for us, but the ones that do the most damage—the ones we find hardest to confront—are those we share a connection with. Parents, siblings, exes, neighbors we see every day, competitors we both admire and envy, people we don’t like who are similar to us in some way…conflicts with these people are complicated because of the emotions they stir up.  

The same is true for our protagonists. The most meaningful clashes will be with the people they know. Use this to your advantage. Bring the villain in close and make things personal by engineering a connection between the two characters. Here are a few options for you to work with.  

  • Give Them a Shared History. The more history the two have, the more emotion will be involved. Guilt, rage, grief, fear, jealousy, regret, desire—strong feelings like these will add sparks to their interactions. They’ll cloud the protagonist’s judgment and increase the chances their villain will gain an edge.  
  • Make Them Reflections of Each Other. What happens when the protagonist sees him or herself in the villain? A seed of empathy forms. The hero feels a connection with the person they have to destroy, which complicates things immensely. Personality traits, flaws, vulnerabilities, wounding events, needs and desires—all of these (and more) can be used to forge a bond that will add complexity and depth to this important relationship.  
  • Give Them a Shared Goal. When your hero and your villain are pursuing the same objective, it accomplishes a number of good things. First, it ensures that only one of them can be the victor, pitting them against each other. But they’re also more likely to understand one another. They’ll have different reasons and methods of chasing the dream, but the shared goal can create an emotional connection.  

As you can see, a lot goes into creating an enemy that is realistic, complete, and worthy of holding the title of villain in your story. When you’re drawing this character, give them the same thought and effort you’d put into your hero, and you’ll end up with a villain that will enhance your story, intrigue readers, and give the hero a run for their money.  

Want to take your conflict further? The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Volume 1 & Volume 2) explores a whopping 225 conflict scenarios that force your character to navigate relationship issues, power struggles, lost advantages, dangers and threats, moral dilemmas, failures and mistakes, and much more! 

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other resources for writers. Her books have sold over 900,000 copies and are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online resource for authors that’s home to the Character Builder and Storyteller’s Roadmap tools.

 

No Risk It, No Biscuit

Posted on by

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

If everything seems under your control, you’re not going fast enough. – Mario Andretti, legendary race car driver

Bruce Arians

Recently we had a bit of a discussion on taking risks, as part of Terry’s post on rules for writers. Today I’d like to give risk more focused attention.

Remember back in 2021 when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl by destroying the favored Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9? With a 43-year-old quarterback named Brady. And the oldest coach ever to win the big game, 67-year-old Bruce Arians.

Arians had followed a long and rocky career path as a quarterbacks coach in the NFL. He got hired and fired several times. His first year as head coach for the Bucs the team went 7–9. Then along came Brady and the Super Bowl.

Through it all, Arians had a saying that kept him and his teams motivated. He actually got it from a guy at a bar at a time when Arians thought his dream of being a head coach would never be realized. That saying is: No risk it, no biscuit.

Now doesn’t that sound like a quintessential football coach axiom?

As Arians’ cornerback coach, Kevin Ross, explained it, “If you don’t take a chance, you ain’t winnin’. You can’t be scared.”

What might this mean for the writer?

Risk the Idea

I think each novel you write should present a new challenge. It might be a concept or “what if?” that will require you to do some fresh research. My new Mike Romeo thriller (currently in final revisions) revolves around a current issue that is horrific and heartbreaking. I could have avoided the subject altogether. But I needed to go there.

My next Romeo, in development, came from a news item about a current, but not widely reported, controversy. It’s fresh, but I’ve got a lot of learning to do. I’m reading right now, I’ll be talking to an expert or two, and soon will be making a location stop for further research.

I do this because I don’t want to write a book in the series where someone will say, “Same old, same old.”

Admittedly, writing about “hot-button” issues these days carries a degree of risk. Especially within the walls of the Forbidden City where increasingly the question “Will it sell?” is overridden by “Will it offend?”

But as the old saying goes, there is no sure formula for success, but there is one for failure—try to please everybody.

Craft Risk

Are you taking any risks with your craft? Are you following the Captain Kirk admonition to boldly go where you have never gone before?

There are 7 critical areas in fiction: plot, structure, characters, scenes, dialogue, voice, and meaning.

You can take one or all of these and determine to kick them up a notch. For example:

Plot—Have you pushed the stakes far enough? If things are bad for the Lead, how can you make them worse? I had a student in a workshop once who pitched his plot. It involved a man who was carrying guilt around because his brother died and he didn’t do enough to save him. I then asked the class to do an exercise: what is something your Lead character isn’t telling you? What does he or she want to hide?

I asked for some examples, and this fellow raised his hand. He said, “I didn’t expect this. But my character told me he was the one who killed his brother.”

A collective “Wow” went up from the group. But the man said, “But if I do that, I’m afraid my character won’t have any sympathy.”

I asked the group, “How many of you would now read this book?”

Every hand went up.

Take risks with your plot. Go where you haven’t gone before.

Characters—Press your characters to reveal more of themselves. I use a Voice Journal for this, a free-form document where the character talks to me, answers my questions, gets mad at me. I want to peel back the onion layers.

How about taking a risk with your bad guy? How? By sympathizing with him!

Hoo-boy, is that a risk. But you know what? The tangle of emotions you create in the reader will increase the intensity of the fictive dream. And that’s your goal! In the words of Mr. Dean Koontz:

The best villains are those that evoke pity and sometimes even genuine sympathy as well as terror. Think of the pathetic aspect of the Frankenstein monster. Think of the poor werewolf, hating what he becomes in the light of the full moon, but incapable of resisting the lycanthropic tides in his own cells.

Dialogue—Are you willing to make your dialogue work harder by not always being explicit? In other words, how can you make it reveal what’s going on underneath the surface of the scene without the characters spelling it out?

Voice—Are you taking any risks with your style? This is a tricky one. On the one hand, you want your story told in the cleanest way possible. You don’t want style larded on too heavily.

On the other hand, voice is an X factor that separates the cream from the milk. I’ve quoted John D. MacDonald on this many times—he wanted “unobtrusive poetry” in his prose.

I’m currently reading the Mike Hammer books in order. It’s fascinating to see Mickey Spillane growing as a writer. His blockbuster first novel, I, The Jury, is pure action, violence, and sex. It reads today almost like a parody. But with his next, My Gun is Quick, he begins to infuse Hammer with an inner life that makes him more interesting. By the time we get to his fourth book, One Lonely Night, Hammer is a welter of passions and inner conflict threatening to tear him apart. His First-Person voice is still hard-boiled, but it achieves what one critic called “a primitive power akin to Beat poetry.” And Ayn Rand, no less, put One Lonely Night ahead of anything by Thomas Wolfe!

In short, Spillane didn’t rest on his first-novel laurels. He pushed himself to be better.

He risked it for the biscuit. And he ate quite well as a result.

Over to you now. Are you taking any risks in your writing? Are you hesitant, all-in or somewhere in between? How much do you consider the market vis-à-vis trying taking a flyer?

When Fiction and Reality meet

Posted on by

When fiction and reality meet.

My first novel was out in 2011, and I felt pretty proud of myself. Yep, there it was, The Rock Hole, available on Amazon and online bookstores everywhere, in all formats. I was an author.

So in celebration, I wanted a little vacation from writing and picked up the top book on my TBR pile, leaned back in my recliner, and opened it to the first page.

“Call me Ishmael.”

My phone rang half a minute later. “Dang it!”

It was my editor. “Rev, did you see your review on Kirkus?”

“What’s Kirkus?”

Silence on the other end as she digested my question, likely wondering how she came to be working with someone so green. “It’s one of the premium book review magazines in the country.”

“Oh. Was it good?”

“They loved it! It’s a wonderful review and they’ve listed The Rock Hole as one of their Top Twelve Mysteries of 2011.”

“That’s nice.”

“Well, yeah.” She grew silent for a moment at my lack of enthusiasm. Truthfully, I didn’t know what any of that meant, and when I’m bumfuzzled, I tend to be quiet. “Now, let’s keep that momentum on the upswing. How’s your new novel going?”

“New one?”

“Sure! You have a pub date in a year.”

Uh, oh.

I’d never considered how fast they’d need the next book, so I told her it was coming along and hung up.

I needed another idea and fast. It came with the recollection of fifty pages I’d started years earlier. I spun it out to a police officer friend on the way to a ski destination in Colorado somewhere around 1984, and this is where we get into today’s topic, fiction vs. fact.

You see, I’d created the Red River series set in Paris, Texas and the existing rural community of Chicota. But I’d already heard about problems authors encountered when making minor mistakes or changes in real towns and geography. Readers delight in chastising authors when they read a one way street runs east, but in actuality, it goes west.

So I changed Paris to Chisolm, and Chicota to Center Springs. Now I can make up my own streets, buildings, and neighborhoods, overlapping my mental framework of those two places.

I did it for another reason, too. I wanted to set Burrows in a location that in reality was the old Speas Vinegar plant that used to sit beside the railroad tracks on the south side of Paris. But that building was too small for what I had in mind, so it became The Cotton Exchange, a massive multi-story building full of trash and with booby traps set by two psychotic hoarders.

That idea we’d discussed on the way to Colorado came from a story I’d read when I was a kid, about a pair of compulsive brothers who were hoarders in New York City and packed a four-story brownstone with tons of trash. One was killed when a booby trap crushed him in 1947, leaving his invalid brother to starve inside their vertical landfill. I loved the framework of the story, and it became the basis for Burrows that caught a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly.

Here’s the link to that fascinating story that gave me the idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers

Authors are world builders, but we don’t have to create everything from whole cloth. By simply fictionalizing real places, I can use them as a foundation to mine inspiration from reality, but not held to exact details.

You’d be surprised how many people at signings will ask about these places I’ve adapted, pleased with themselves that they’ve recognized the town or building. The good thing is not one individual tries to correct my descriptions.

I also include local history in my locations, even down to the weather. In Hawke’s Prey, the first book in the Sonny Hawke thrillers set in the Big Bend desert region of Texas, I wanted a massive snowstorm to build tension. Online research was unsatisfactory, because I needed detailed meteorological information to make it happen. I didn’t want to describe a massive snowstorm that couldn’t possibly happen there.

So I reached out to a local weatherman in the Dallas area, explained what I was doing. His co-meterologist is a fan of my books, and David Finfrock invited me into his house later that week.

When he greeted me at the door, he didn’t look like the well-dressed man I was used to seeing on TV, because he was in shorts and an aloha shirt instead of a coat and tie. No matter, though, we spent the afternoon going over paper weather maps left to him by local legendary DFW weatherman, the late Howard Taft.

It was exciting to work out how a once-in-a-century snowstorm could happen in that high desert region, but David explained the ingredients necessary for such an event. Weather was rolling in that day in the metroplex, and I enjoyed an unanticipated treat. He was watching his own channel on a huge flat panel TV in his den, and when his co-worker brought up the weather map to explain the coming storm, David hit the pause button and stood in front of the screen, detailing what could happen if certain factors came about.

Using those details I absorbed that rainy day in Dallas, my fictional storm paralyzed a fictional town of Ballard, Texas, (based on the real Alpine/Marfa area), providing a necessary plot twist that heightened the climax of the novel.

When the book came out, though, a few doubters told me it could never snow like that in Alpine, based solely on their own history in the area. But last year, those events I described came about, locking them down for several days under more than two feet of snow. More than one reader sent emails, texts, and links to me, saying they thought I was full of it until the weather proved them wrong.

That’s the power of good research.

And don’t worry about going down the occasional rabbit hole when you’re doing that kind of work. One such bunny tunnel led me to legends of a mysterious room under the local courthouse in Alpine. That’s all they were, legends, but supposition of what could be down there sparked an idea that became an integral part of Hawke’s Prey.

I’m now working on a traditional western set in the eastern Oklahoma Indian Territories back in the 1880s. Some of the towns there really existed, but I’ve created fictional towns in the real mountainous landscape, because I needed certain buildings and geographical backdrops to push the story forward.

I’m not writing history, here, but fiction based on history and authenticity.

Certain things such as low-water crossings on the Red River and ferries are part of the past in those areas, but I wanted my Red River and my towns. Once the characters made the crossing back into Texas, I utilized a real town as part of the plot, but I changed a few things in 1883.

Why that year? Because I wanted my character to carry the first pump shotgun and it was released in 1882. I’ve built novels on just such foundations, but they needed to be changed for the sake of the story.

Dream yourself up a dining room with a gorgeous table set for eight, complete with crystal wine glasses and flickering candles. Imagine the rest of the room now, dressed in your tastes as an author. These are the components that are yours alone, but underneath the pure white tablecloth is the bare reality to build upon…a plain table full of nicks, scars, and watermarks.

Happy writing.

Reader Friday: Pick a Card. Pick a Topic.

Posted on by

Pick a Card, Any Card – Pick a Topic, Any Topic

You’ve all received that paper letter in your mailbox or that email in your inbox. The one where your political party tells you how much they value your opinion. The one where they want you to fill out a three-page questionnaire. The one where they show you their true priorities by providing a check-off list so you can indicate how much money you are going to send them.

Well, we value your opinion, and we don’t want your money. (Actually, you can contact me privately and we’ll discuss how to make out the check.) What we really want to know is what type of blogs you would like on Fridays, and what topics you would like to see discussed (or participate in discussing).

So, today’s questions are simple:

  • What kind of a blog are you looking for on a Friday? Short, long? Detailed new information or reader participation?
  • What topics would like to see discussed?

 Thanks for your participation, and please think seriously about contributing to the KZ re-election campaign. Every penny will be put to good use (after administrative expenses are covered).

Was Princess Diana’s Death a Homicide?

Posted on by

Yesterday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Diana, Princess of Wales, untimely death in a Paris car crash. Over those years, and despite a massive investigation along with an extensive inquiry, many people believe Diana’s death was no accident—it was a homicide. Kill Zoners who follow my blog at DyingWords.net know I’ve written a lot of posts on high-profile deaths like JonBenet Ramsey, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Natalie Wood, the Black Dahlia, JFK, and on and on. In 2017, I wrote an analogy of Diana’s death circumstances and came to a logical conclusion. I thought I’d repost it this morning on The Kill Zone.

— — —

It’s been 20 25 years since Diana, the Princess of Wales, was killed in a horrific vehicle collision. This tragic event ended of one of the world’s most famous people’s life. It shocked everyone. Millions lined London streets paying respect to her funeral procession. Over 2 billion watched her funeral on TV. But Princess Diana’s death was far more than a loss to the world. It left her two young boys without a mother.

Circumstances surrounding Diana’s death are exhaustively investigated. Everyone knows basic facts that Diana and her new boyfriend, Dodi al-Fayed, were leaving a Paris hotel for a private apartment and trying to avoid the ever-present Paparazzi. They got in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan driven by Henri Paul—a hotel security agent. Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, rode shotgun in the passenger front.

But exactly what happened next is still cloudy. To escape prying eyes and cameras out front of the Ritz Hotel, the four used a rear escape route—sneaking away to the apartment. Several Paparazzi members clued in. They raced to follow. As the Mercedes entered the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel along the Seine River in central Paris, Henri Paul somehow lost control and smashed head-on into a solid concrete column.

The car was destroyed. Henri Paul and Dodi al-Fayed were dead at the scene. Princess Diana passed away from massive internal injuries two hours later. Only Rees-Jones survived. However, he had no recollection of what happened.

Those are the bare case facts. There were two extensive investigations. One by the French police and one by the British authorities who held a public inquest. Both inquiries concluded Diana’s death was from her fatal injuries—the result of a drunk-driving, motor vehicle incident with excessive speed a contributing factor. So was Diana’s neglect to wear her seat belt.

And both inquiries viewed the pursuing Paparazzi as a non-direct, contributing factor despite five photographers charged with manslaughter and three others prosecuted for obstructing justice and violating human rights. No one was convicted. But that didn’t end speculation that Princess Diana was murdered. In fact, Lord Stevens who oversaw the British inquest stated, “This case is substantially more complicated than once thought.”

Rumors ran rampant. There were stories of Paparazzi intentionally overtaking the Mercedes and cutting it off into the column. There’s an unresolved issue of a notorious white Fiat that’s never been found. The Royal Family were accused of masterminding Diana’s murder because she’d been impregnated by a Muslim foreigner. Even the British SAS and MI6 were implicated. And most accusatory was Dodi’s father, Egyptian billionaire Mohammed al-Fayed.

But where was proof the Peoples’ Princess was really a homicide victim? Well, two decades later it turns out that the homicide declaration was right all along. And the evidence—the undisputed truth that Princess Diana really was a homicide victim—is absolutely clear.

Facts Surrounding Diana’s Car Crash

Although Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed were officially an item, they’d only been seeing each other just over a month. That’s hardly enough time to get engaged let alone planning a pregnancy. Diana was far too smart than getting accidentally knocked-up never mind rashly getting married. Both of those stories are blatantly false.

They rendezvoused on Mohammed al-Fayed’s yacht before arriving by private jet into Paris on August 31, 1997. Then dined at a popular restaurant before dropping by the Ritz Hotel where the Paparazzi laid in wait. Diana and Dodi had a nightcap. Rees-Jones was nearby. Henri Paul made a plan to bring the staff Mercedes around to the rear door where the celebrity couple could quietly slip out. Then, Paul would chauffeur the group to a private apartment that Mohammed al-Fayed kept in the heart of Paris.

The plan almost worked. Unfortunately, the Paparazzi were crafty. They set several sentries out back. Diana and her entourage were spotted as they sped away. The time was approximately 12:20 am Paris time. Three minutes later, at 12:23, the Mercedes entered the Alma tunnel. Henri lost control and the Mercedes swerved to the left or driver’s side. It hit a concrete column support with such force the engine was shattered and the radiator shoved through to the front seat.

 

The Mercedes rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and rocketed backward into the right tunnel wall. It came to rest but was so severely damaged that emergency responders had to cut off the roof in order to extract the crash victims. It was 20 minutes before Diana was freed.

By this time, the Paparazzi were present in full force. Some were arrested. Some had their cameras confiscated after taking gruesome victim death photos. The scene was nearly impossible to control, especially as word spread about who the famous victims were.

Emergency personnel reported that Princess Diana was semi-conscious when they arrived. She softly cried “Oh my God”—repeatedly—and said, “Leave me alone.” By the time Diana was pulled from the wreckage, she’d gone unconscious. Then she suffered acute cardiac arrest when laid on a stretcher. Her heart was restarted by manual resuscitation however her blood pressure severely dropped on route to the hospital.

Diana arrived at the emergency department approximately 2:06 am. That was an hour and a half after impact. She was still breathing and displayed a weak pulse. X-rays immediately determined she had massive internal bleeding. A thoracic surgeon incised her interior to drain the blood then found her heart’s left ventricle was lacerated. While suturing this main blood vessel, Diana went into full cardiac arrest. Extensive resuscitation efforts by the trauma team failed to revive her.

Diana—the Peoples’ Princess—was declared dead at 4:00 am.

The bodies of Henri Paul and Dodi al-Fayed were taken to the city morgue. It was a separate building adjacent to Diana’s emergency ward. Because of the massive crowd now assembling outside the hospital, the Paris coroner felt disrespectful removing Diana’s body past the crowd. He conducted an external examination in a private hospital room but didn’t order a full autopsy. The medical cause of Diana’s death was abundantly clear.

This left the problem of keeping Diana’s now-decomposing body in a warm room. The ER had no cooler. Pursuant to French law, the coroner legally authorized Diana’s embalming to retard decomposition while transportation arrangements were made to take her body to England. This was the right thing to do but led to fuel conspiracy theories, some which abound today.

Full autopsies were conducted on Dodi al-Fayed and Henri Paul. Both clearly died of internal injuries—both suffering severed aortic arteries which are immediately fatal. They had both been on the driver’s side which absorbed more of the impact. This explains why Diana was not killed instantly and why Rees-Jones walked away. His front airbag deployed but there was none in the back to protect the Princess.

Toxicology Testing on Henri Paul Found Interesting Results.

These are Henri Paul’s official and reliable toxicology results. They were later confirmed to be his through DNA testing to dispell accusations of evidence tampering.

Blood Alcohol Count (BAC) — 174 milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood or commonly termed a BAC of 0.174% (This was corroborated by his vitreous humor or eye fluid count being 0.173%, his urine being 0.218% and his stomach BAC being 0.191%.)

The legal BAC limit for impaired driving in France is 0.05% making Henri Paul 3 times over the drunk driving tolerance limit.

Small traces of the anti-anxiety medication fluoxetine were noted but were well within the therapeutic range. So was the medication tiapride. Carboxyhemoglobin and nicotine levels proved Paul was a heavy smoker.

Examination of the Wrecked Mercedes

Although the Mercedes was a total write-off, it was sufficiently sound to inspect. There were no mechanical defects found mechanically contributing to the crash. One tire was punctured but wasn’t a blowout. It happened because of impact. The brakes and steering were sound and the car was only two years old with low mileage.

Thorough testing was done on the seatbelts. All were in perfect operation. It was obvious none of the occupants were wearing their restraints, however, it’s questionable if Paul or al-Fayed would have been saved given the massive force of the left side impact. Overall, there was nothing mechanically wrong with this vehicle that made it veer hard so hard to the left.

So what caused the Mercedes to spin out of control? Did the Paparazzi cut it off? Did the mysterious white Fiat force it into the column? Why did a perfectly good car fail and, by the way, just how fast was the Mercedes traveling?

Totally fraudulent information circulated for years about the Mercedes traveling at 120 mph (190 kph) when it hit the column. Proof of this—they said—was the car’s speedometer sticking at that measurement. That’s rubbish. Total bullshit, like so many myths surrounding Princess Diana’s death. Truth is the Mercedes was doing 65 mph (120 kph), +/- 5 mph, when it hit the column. This was established by a meticulous accident reconstruction conducted by the French police.

Still, this is a significant velocity given the Mercedes’ gross vehicle weight with 4 passengers being over 4,000 lbs (1815 kg). The kinetic energy transfer of this weight multiplied by high speed resulted in Diana’s heart being—literally—smashed inside her chest. It’s surprising Diana lived as long as she did.

The real reason Henri Paul lost control is hidden in the details of the accident reconstruction report. It’s written in technical jargon but clearly understandable. There were no skid marks indicating pre-braking. No out-of-control swerve. One moment the car was going fast and straight. The next it cut sideways.

The Answer is in Tunnel Design and Vehicle Dynamics.

The Alma tunnel has a posted speed of 20 mph (30 kph). That’s for a good reason. The tunnel is low and narrow. It also sharply dips at the entry and is protected by a perpendicular drainage grate to keep the flat area from flooding with water.

The collision reconstruction analyst deduced when Paul declined the entry ramp and struck the bumpy metal grate at 65 mph, the Mercedes reacted by going slightly airborne. This reduced the road surface friction adhered by the tires, effectively causing a dry hydroplane incident. The analyst surmised that Paul, in his impaired state, never braked but misjudged an overcorrection and simply steered the fast-moving Mercedes into the column.

The Operation Paget Report

Many people who followed Princess Diana’s death story don’t know about Operation Paget and its incredibly detailed 871-page report. Operation Paget was a London Metropolitan Police special task force detailed to investigate conspiracy and murder allegations involving the Princess’ tragic end. They also addressed cover-ups. You can download it here.

The British inquest overseen by Lord Stevens relied heavily on the brilliant work uncovered in Project Paget. The police went to amazing lengths dealing with every listed allegation. They fairly answered with truth. They dispelled insinuations of government plots and sinister cover ups.

They established a fact—there were no credible eyewitnesses to the crash and pursuing Paparazzi were nowhere in sight when the impact occurred. They even dealt with the white Fiat nonsense by pointing out white paint on the Mercedes door was probably from a previous parking lot incident.

As much as everyone wants to blame the Paparazzi for killing Princess Diana—well, that’s just plain wrong. Certainly, Paparazzi presence was a contributing factor as Paul was no doubt driving this speed to evade them. One can’t blame the Spencer family and Diana’s two sons, Princes William and Harry, holding the Paparazzi responsible for essentially murdering their beloved Diana. That’s a natural emotional response. But the Paparazzi, as individuals or as a group, are innocent.

The truth is Diana, the Princess of Wales, was no accident victim. Her death was clearly a homicide. Let me explain.

On April 7, 2008 Lord Stevens’ inquest returned a verdict. They ruled Princess Diana was the “victim of an unlawful killing by the grossly negligent chauffeur, Henri Paul, who’s driving ability and judgment were severely impaired by alcohol”. The secondary contributor to Diana’s death was her failure to buckle up. Not the Paparazzi.

The jury made no mention of Diana’s death being an accident. That’s because they couldn’t rule it an accident. Death classifications are universal throughout the civilized world. Coroners and their juries have only five classifications to choose from: Natural, Accidental, Suicide, Homicide and Undetermined.

You can immediately rule out Princess Diana’s death as natural, suicide, and undetermined. The cause and means of Diana’s death are clear. She died because of internal bleeding and hypovolemic shock resulting from injuries received in her car crash. That’s clear. What’s not clear to most people is why this can’t be classified as an accidental death. It’s because of the legal definition of homicide.

Homicide means a person dies because of direct actions by another person. A homicide classification doesn’t necessarily mean a culpable or intentional killing of one person by another. It includes lesser degrees of acts like manslaughter and criminal negligence that cause death. Homicide also includes deaths that result from any form of a criminal act including impaired driving. Henri Paul was criminally drunk and grossly negligent. He directly caused Princess Diana’s death.

That makes the Peoples’ Princess a homicide victim.

A Balancing Act

Posted on by

A Balancing Act
Terry Odell

Image by JL G from Pixabay

I’m about 14K into my next novel, the tenth offering in my Mapleton Mystery series. Unlike my other series, which fall under the romantic suspense umbrella, my Mapletons are a true series, not a set of connected books. Although my romantic suspense series feature recurring characters, the protagonists are different in each. In Mapleton, my police chief, Gordon Hepler (who got his name when a postal clerk where I did a lot of mailing begged to be included. Neither of us had any idea he’d be a series protagonist) is the POV character in almost every story.

While I face the same issues with all series, the Mapleton books are more challenging. Why? The dreaded backstory conundrum. The setting, with a few detours, is the small town of Mapleton. The books progress in time from one to the next, so I’m continually balancing content that will offer enough explanation for new readers while not boring returning ones. By book ten, a LOT of things have transpired, and while my characters have a good idea of what’s gone before, readers might not.

Stopping to info dump bores new readers and can insult those ‘in the know.’ However, the occasional Easter egg makes a welcome reward. Overexplaining things or detailed character descriptions will have returning readers skimming. The further into the series I get, the sketchier descriptions become. John Sanford once said he includes a short paragraph with the highlights of Lucas Davenport in each novel—tall, lean, dark hair, facial scar, clothes horse—and that’s about it.

What kind of information has accumulated over the series? To name a few:

Gordon had Central Serous Retinopathy in an early book, takes blood pressure meds, and has to limit his caffeine intake. While this was a major plot thread in Deadly Puzzles, there’s no need to give readers the entire history in each book. But he’s a cop and he’s drinking decaf? Will readers wonder?

Angie has grown from character of interest to girlfriend to lover to wife throughout the series. They were newlyweds in Deadly Fun but now, they’re settling into the marriage. Angie runs the local diner, had a side business of catering with another character prominent in several books. There’s her cook who appears regularly and the rest of the staff of the diner who appear from time to time.

There are the other officers on the police force, and their number has increased. There are the dispatchers and Gordon’s admin, all of whom play their own parts in the stories. And we can’t forget Buster, the department’s part-time K-9 who shows up in this new book. Is that enough, or do I need to show that when he’s not doing police work, he lives with Officer Solomon? Should I mention his wife and kids?

Mapleton has had several mayors, each a thorn in Gordon’s side, and they’ve been dispatched in one way or another. Now, there’s an interim mayor and friction on the town council. There’s a newspaper reporter who often crosses a line Gordon thinks she shouldn’t when she writes her articles for the local paper.

The list goes on. And on.

You can see that trying to fit all this in would make a book far longer—and more tedious—than it needs to be. When a recurring character shows up, it’s tempting to lay in more background and description than is necessary. (Side note: since I write in Deep POV, I’m not going to intrude with my own descriptions. Those of you writing from a more distant POV might not have as much trouble.) I have to remind myself to save bits and pieces of description as well as other background information until there seems to be a logical place to do so. If Gordon’s admin has been with him since his first day on the job, he’s not going to be thinking of what she looks like every time he sees her. Now, if it seems important that readers “see” her, then maybe she’s wearing something unlike her normal office attire, or she’s changed her hairstyle. That way, Gordon’s doing the describing, not me. Or he might ask her about her family to follow up on a thread from another book.

My approach tends to be to include first, cut later. I think about having a series bible, and then think I’d probably want to include even more since I’d have everything laid out for me.

When someone asked Michael Connelly how he handles keeping readers up to speed, he said he thought about it early on and decided to take the “The other books are out there. Let them find out for themselves” approach.

JD Robb (based on her books, not asking her) throws in plenty of references to things gone before and after over 50 books in the In Death series, a lot has happened, and the cast of characters has grown tremendously. Given the state of my memory, I often wish there were footnotes for whichever book the various cases or situations she mentions. Not explanations, not backstory, not info dumping, but I’d know which book to take another look at.

What about you? How do you handle information in an ongoing series? Your preferences as a reader?

In case anyone wants to see my interview for the Speed City Sisters in Crime, you can watch the replay.

Now Available: Cruising Undercover

It’s supposed to be a simple assignment aboard a luxury yacht, but soon, he’s in over his head.

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

To Pay or Not To Pay – Book Reviews For Sale

Posted on by

By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

 

“Fly-by-Night Book Reviews says, for $100, they’ll give me twenty guaranteed reviews. Should I try that?”

“I paid $500 to Pie-in-the-Sky Reviews. My book didn’t receive a single review.”

“You don’t dare pay for reviews—that violates Amazon’s terms and conditions. You’ll be banished.”

“Kirkus Reviews are the gold standard.”

“Ever since Kirkus started selling reviews, they lost all credibility.”

~~~

That’s a sample of the spirited responses and contradictory opinions on a recent Authors Guild discussion thread about whether or not to pay for book reviews.

I wound up thoroughly confused, pondering the following questions:

How much do reviews really matter?

Are there still “legitimate” book reviews? What defines “legitimate”?

Have reviews merely become another profit opportunity for vendors peddling them?

Do customers really believe Amazon reviews?

Do reviews increase sales?

Author Maggie Lynch

Multi-genre author Maggie Lynch participates frequently in AG discussions. Over years of reading her contributions, I’ve come to trust her knowledge, judgment, and analysis. Her data is carefully researched. She looks at publishing history from the long view and puts so-called new trends in perspective.

During this ongoing, weeks-long debate about book reviews, one day Maggie wrote: “Warning, I’m going on a bit of a rant.”

What followed was her essay that offered a fresh perspective and updated information about reviews that all authors can benefit from.

I asked if I could share her “rant” at TKZ and she kindly agreed.

Here’s what Maggie has to say:

Paid reviews have always been around, long before the advent of the Internet. Who do you think paid for placement in magazines, journals, and newspapers?

When a publisher buys an end cap display in a bookstore and provides potential review quotes for the store to post, isn’t that paid? If your book is featured on the front page of a major genre magazine, it gets attention. The magazine is going to do a review because you paid $2-$5K to be there.

All advertising is, in effect, paid reviews.

The only difference now is that there are more books, more online venues, and more authors willing to pay for ads, reviews, and all kinds of placement.

Once Amazon entered the online market, it became the focus of most authors. Not because it is the only distributor, but because it is the only distributor using sophisticated algorithms that are somewhat transparent. A number of analysts and programmers focus on Amazon algorithms and then share that information via their own book publications.

Whether you love or hate Amazon, it’s a great search engine. They understand data. They understand how to present the most likely options for getting a sale from a customer. IMO there is no other bookseller with programming that sophisticated.

If other major booksellers–Apple, Kobo, Google, the Big 5—had that same search and analysis capability, they would get more customers as well.

For myself, I have many reasons not to like Amazon. Yet, I give them props when they do well. If I want to find a book or learn more about an author, I’ll look it up on Amazon first because I know it will be quick with lots of information–including other books in the same genre, series, similar authors, etc.

I will likely end up buying the book somewhere else to support a local bookstore or another vendor, but I go to Amazon first.

Many people stay on Amazon because of that ease of use. Authors often believe (mistakenly in my opinion) that they only need to be on Amazon.

But…book sales are NOT Amazon’s primary business.

Only 10% of Amazon’s overall revenue is book sales.

Unfortunately, far too many people think they can game the system. I know hundreds of authors who spend more time trying to figure out how to get higher ranking on Amazon than they do writing books. It’s crazy.

Review factories have always been a part of the online book environment. When I first entered indie publishing in 2011, there were entire “review factories” in Asia where one could buy 100 reviews from “sock puppet” accounts. They were pretty obvious back then, poorly written, using similar phrases.

A couple of times, Amazon has cracked down on these practices–usually when it becomes obvious and egregious. But they usually do it through programming changes.

In the process, some books with legitimate reviews get caught in the net. When crackdowns happened in 2014 and 2018, many authors lost hundreds of reviews and waited months to have them reinstated.

[Note from Debbie: I know authors who simply gave up fighting and started from scratch all over again. Sad.]

Whenever Amazon makes a programming change to search out and punish fake reviews, those who make money on reviewing simply find a more sophisticated way not to get caught.

Algorithm watchers believe that instead of looking for and stopping these reviewers, Amazon is proactively changing the algorithm to counteract the sway of review farms.

Now reviews are weighted significantly less in the algorithm than they have been in the past.

Of course, no one knows how much less or what the criteria are, but it is something to consider. Because of that, authors who are focused on reviews simply pay more.

Authors consistently worry/believe that a high number of reviews (particularly on Amazon) means a high number of sales. That is not necessarily the case.

It is more likely that a high number of sales means a high number of reviews, UNLESS reviews have been supplied primarily by non-purchasers.

To evaluate this, look at the Top 100 bestsellers in Amazon. Many have ZERO reviews. Why? Because the book hasn’t been released and is selling on pre-order. What is creating those sales? Many factors that have nothing to do with reviews such as:

  • Advanced audience definition;
  • Pre-press ads, word of mouth, news, reaching out to fans;
  • Building anticipation for the book followed by a launch blitz that delivers on the promise;
  • ARCs to media and other reviewers (NetGalley, Edelweiss).

It may also be that Amazon never shows a lot of reviews for a particular book because the primary sales are on other sites, NOT Amazon. Many print books sell in bookstores, libraries, or direct from the publisher.

Reviews are not the answer to low sales. Do they help? Good ones do, those that provide information and key ideas to appeal to the audience you want. But the number of reviews does not necessarily correlate to sales.

The last good analysis I read about Amazon indicated there were more than 300 data points that are weighted in the sales and ranking algorithms.

THREE HUNDRED!

Where do reviews stand in that weighting? Not at the top. Probably not even the top 10.

The reality is the #1 weight is actual sales.

You have direct control of many other factors that guarantee more sales such as:

  • Create a fan base;
  • Write more books;
  • Identify your audience;
  • Deliver to their expectations with a consistent brand.

Of course, these take work and time. They can’t happen overnight.

But many authors want a fix right now, an easy button to push.

People always want an easy answer as to why their book isn’t selling better. They don’t want to accept the more likely reasons it’s not selling better.

The reality is the majority of the book reading public has fairly narrow interests.

 My fantasy fans rarely cross into SF. My SF fans almost never cross into romance. My Women’s Fiction fans don’t like anything else in fiction. My nonfiction readers rarely read fiction.

That’s just from my list of fans–a small number of 12K people. But the sample size is enough to extrapolate statistically.

Identifying the audience and creating a package that appeals to them on many levels is key. That package includes:

  • Excellent blurb that makes the reader want to learn more;
  • Great cover;
  • Appropriate pricing for the genre;
  • Look Inside/Preview pages that draw the reader in;
  • Advance praise from ARC readers that tells the reader what to expect and why they loved it.

Indie authors particularly get uptight about reviews—they can see the numbers go up and believe they can control that. Then they start paying for reviews because they believe more reviews equals more sales. But that is a false sense of control.

Where do you stop paying? Is 50 enough? How about 100?

I now see books with over 100K ratings. Are you kidding me?

 The get-more-reviews game is one you can’t win because:

  • You likely don’t have the budget for big PR or marketing campaigns;
  • You can’t compete against contacts that big publishing houses have.

Amazon’s own imprints publish roughly 1,000 books a year, making it as large as the Big 5 publishers.

Amazon controls all the data and knows the sales information. They can certainly tweak the metadata as needed to drive sales within their algorithm. Other publishers can do this too, if they know how and employ people to do it. Most don’t, not even the Big 5.

What can the average author do to compete?

First, do not accept Amazon as the arbiter of books or literature.

They are not. Don’t become one of those authors–and some small publishers– who have bought into the Amazon way of book sales–low pricing, multiple promotions, exclusivity.

Small publishers and indie authors have given Amazon all this power yet selling books is less than 10% of Amazon’s revenue. 

Second, you can shout and bring bad practices to the fore.

Point it out and most of all DO NOT PARTICIPATE in the bad practices yourself.

We can’t let our avarice, our immediate desire for an easy-button solution, give us permission to game the system, pay for reviews, tell lies, or buy hundreds of print books to try to make the bestseller list.

If few authors engage then it will become evident that no one can make good money off of these deals. 

Third, expend your energy in engaging with actual readers.

Build your mailing list, blog or use some other social media that you like to keep your readers informed.

Outside of your next book, the biggest asset is YOUR readers—people who have already voted with their dollars and their time to buy and read your book. Once they already read and like your book, they want more—more about you, more about upcoming books.

  • They will tell their friends
  • They will write reviews;
  • They will volunteer to read ARCs in the future;
  • They will post to social media;
  • They will talk to libraries about carrying your book.

Your readers are your biggest asset.

 ~~~

Thank you, Maggie, for sharing your perspective and wisdom with TKZ!

Maggie reaffirmed my belief that time is best spent writing more books.

However, that doesn’t lessen my gratitude to readers who make the extra effort to write reviews!

~~~

Learn more about Maggie Lynch and her 26 books at her author website.

Check out her free video course about Why Books Don’t Sell. It covers the basics of putting together a good package for your book and buy pages with vendors.

On that same POV Author Services site she has many blogs just for writers about both business and technology, as well as mental health and philosophical writing concerns.

~~~

TKZers: What is your experience with reviews? Have you ever paid for reviews? Do you think they helped your sales?

Mountweazels and More!

Posted on by

The 1943 edition of Webster’s Twentieth Century Dictionary contains the following definition:

jungftak, n.–a Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side, and the female only one wing, on the left side; instead of the missing wings, the male had a hook of bone, and the female an eyelet of bone, and it was by uniting hook and eye that they were enabled to fly, — each, when alone, had to remain on the ground.

***

Wow. What a wonderful definition. Who knew there was such a bird?

Actually, there isn’t. It’s an example of a mountweazel, an entirely fabricated definition. But why would Webster’s dictionary, a highly professional and well-respected tome, include it? Well, because dictionaries, like encyclopedias and maps, contain some bogus data.

Why would they do that? To protect their copyrights. A lot of effort goes into the production of these works, and they can be simple to copy. However, if the dictionary contains some definitions that are made up, it’s easy to catch copyright violators.

The source of the term mountweazel is from this bogus biographical entry in the fourth edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia (1975).

Mountweazel, Lillian Virginia, 1942-1973, American photographer, b. Bangs, Ohio. Turning from fountain design to photography in 1963, Mountweazel produced her celebrated portraits of the South Sierra Miwok in 1964. She was awarded government grants to make a series of photo-essays of unusual subject matter, including New York City buses, the cemeteries of Paris, and rural American mailboxes. The last group was exhibited extensively abroad and published as Flags Up! (1972). Mountweazel died at 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.

Although Ms. Mountweazel did not exist, a new word found its way into the English language.

***

In addition to mountweazels, this language of ours abounds with opportunities for fun. For example,

  1. Spoonerisms

Named after Rev. William Spooner, who became infamous for inadvertently switching the beginning sounds of words to hilarious effect. One of Rev. Spooner’s most famous spoonerisms was when he attended church and found someone sitting in his usual seat:

“Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet.” (“Someone is occupying my pew. Please show me to another seat.”)

  1. Malapropisms

Named after the character “Mrs. Malaprop” from the 1775 play The Rivals, malapropisms replace a word with an incorrect homonym or close relative, again to hilarious effect. One example:

“He is the very pineapple of politeness!” (“He is the very pinnacle of politeness.”)

We had a friend who used malapropisms frequently, but unintentionally. She once told me she had a doctor’s appointment. “Is everything okay?” I asked. “Oh, yes. I just have to have my annual milligram.” Our conversations were often bewildering, but always fun.

  1. Tom Swifties

A Tom Swifty is a play on words using a quotation usually ascribed to Tom and followed by an adverb. Here’s an example:

“I need a pencil sharpener,” Tom said bluntly.

Some of my favorite Tom Swifties have been offered here on TKZ.

***

Okay, TKZ sothers and bristers: It’s your turn. What’s your favorite word? Do you have a favorite play on words or fabricated definition you’d like to share? I bet you’ll come up with some real wise prinners.