By John Gilstrap

The title means that I speak Spanish, but only a little. (And don’t yell at me for not knowing how to put the tilde on the N. I tried, but it doesn’t work on WordPress the way it works in Word.) Are you impressed? I didn’t think so. Did it fire you up to read more? I wager it did not. For many, all the title did was cause confusion.

Which brings used to my topic this week: How to handle foreign words in fiction. More precisely, how I handle them in mine. Spoiler: avoid them because they stop the story. Consider the following exchange:

“Alto!” the guard shouted. Stop!

“Que ocurre?” I asked. What’s wrong?

“Manos arriba!” He raised his rifle. Put your hands up.

I’d write it this way:

“Stop!” the guard shouted in Spanish.

I answered in the same language. “What’s wrong?”

He raised his rifle. “Put your hands up!”

The secret to the fictive dream that Brother Bell speaks so effectively about is dependent upon keeping the spell alive in the readers’ minds. Foreign words are dams in the flow of imaginary images.

When the story is set in a different language . . .

Several of my Jonathan Grave thrillers are set south of the U.S. border with Mexico and everyone speaks Spanish only. I’ve established from the beginning that Jonathan and Boxers both speak fluent Spanish, thanks to the work they did for Uncle Sam back when they were still part of the Unit and involved in drug interdiction. Thus, while my writing is strictly in English, I establish early on that everyone is speaking Spanish. Done and done.

If the time comes when our heroes speak to each other in English, I write, “he said in English.”

Now here’s the tricky part: Because all dialogue is presumed to be Spanish, the reader will never see the gratuitous “Gracias” in dialogue. They’ll see “Thank you.” I learned this trick from Jeffery Deaver, where, in his fabulous book Garden of Beasts, which is set in pre-war Germany, everyone addresses Hitler as My Leader. That is the English translation of Mein Fuhrer, and it would be inconsistent to switch to German for the sake of an honorific.

When the POV character does not speak the language that is spoken to him . . .

Let’s go back to the first example, where the guard is challenging our hero. If the hero doesn’t know the language of the person shouting at him (whether it’s Spanish, Arabic or Swahili), I think it’s silly, and a bit distracting, to quote words that our hero doesn’t understand. In that case, I’d lean toward this kind of narrative:

The guard yelled at me. I guess the words were Spanish, but how could I know? When he yelled again and raised his rifle, though, I knew I was in trouble. “What’s wrong?” I yelled as I raised my hands.

If you’ve hung around this blog for a while, you know that I don’t believe that there are rules for writing. It’s all about giving the reader the best ride you can. So, TKZ family, what do you think about this foreign language stuff?

By PJ Parrish

The other day, a friend asked if he could buy me a drink. Now, our relationship is confined pretty much to the pickleball court but I knew he was struggling with his first novel. I knew he wanted some advice.

I didn’t mind. If I didn’t like helping folks, I wouldn’t be here, right? Besides, this guy had been working really hard, and he had the right attitude. So, I met him at my favorite watering hole here in Tallahassee — a tiki bar called Waterworks — and let him buy me a vodka gimlet.

“I don’t think I have what it takes,” Tom said with a heavy sigh.

“Did you read the books I recommended?”

He nodded.

“What about The Kill Zone?”

“I’m a regular lurker now.”

“What about your critique group?”

“They say they like it, but…”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I had warned him how hard it was to get published via the traditional route these days. He had done enough research into self-published to know how potholed that road was as well.

“I just don’t think I can do it,” he said.

We ordered another round.

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to tell Tom at that point. What was he missing? Was it craft? He was working so hard on that part, and as I read his various rewrites, I knew he was making real progress. He was a quick study, and he was far ahead of many newbie writers I had seen at conferences and workshops.

Was it perseverance? I didn’t think so. He took criticism eagerly and his energy never seemed to flag. I was a little jealous, in fact, of the fact he wrote every day without fail.

Was it talent? Well, yes, I believe you need at least a dollop. Which is why some people, know matter how long or hard they try, will never get published. Sorry, but some of this is just in the genes. And as raw as Tom’s work was, it showed flashes of genuine talent. Tom had a great idea for his book, and was adept at plotting and was really getting a grip on his characters.

I was well into the second vodka gimlet when it finally hit me. The one thing that Tom was missing was courage.

Which is not the same as perseverance. Some folks, like Tom, have great ideas but lack the courage to face the blank computer screen. Some folks start books but lack the guts to finish. And many — oh, so many! — lack the courage to then send their manuscript out into the world.

I try not to talk about rejection here too much. It can get depressing because no matter where you are on the publishing food chain, you face rejection. Looking for an agent brings you rejection. Then you get an agent and your book is rejected by editors. Then someone buys your book and the marketing department rejects it by deciding not to give it co-op support or a decent first printing. Then, Kirkus kicks you in the teeth. Then you sit at a card table at a bookstore surrounded by stacks of your book and no one stops. Or you work your ass off self-publishing your book, dropping it into the Amazon ocean where it barely makes a ripple. And then, you have to pick yourself up and try again. And again. And again.

See what I mean? It never stops. Which is why you have to have courage. The courage, like so many of our wonderful contributors, to submit your precious 450 words to TKZ’s First Page Critique and take your punches. The courage to submit your book to agents and pile up rejection letters. The courage, if you are lucky to land a contract, to hand your book over to an editor and take criticism. The courage to soldier on in the face of astronomical odds, the courage to get back up when you’ve been knocked down by a bad review. The courage to be true to your style when you see the same old names on the bestseller lists. The courage to keep writing because it is what you do.

My ridiculously talented sister Kelly loves to write song parodies. Here is one she wrote on Courage. Sing it to the tune of “If I Only Had a Heart.” (From the Wizard of Oz). Maybe it can inspire you to keep going.

I could be a mystery writer,
If I only was a fighter
To get what I deserve.
I could write in any fashion
If I only had the passion
If I only had the nerve.

I could write a mystery story
It’ll be so good and gory
And better than Lehane.
It would be dark and scary
And very literary
If I only had a brain.

I’d write romance kind and gentle
And awful sentimental
With lots of sexy parts.
I could capture the devotion
And all the right emotion
If I only had a heart.

To write my book…to send it out and get a look
That is my dream…to see my work…on the big screen.

See, I have this great idea
About a mob-run pizzeria
It has lots of blood and gore.
But I’d sit at home all winter
And send it through my printer
And stick it in the drawer.

Yeah, it’s good, but hear me, missy,
I was born to be a sissy,
Without the vim and verve.
But I could show my talent easy
If I wasn’t quite so queasy
And I only had the nerve.

Back at the Waterworks tiki bar, I tried to find a way to tell my friend Tom this. You have heart, I told him. You have brains. You just have to find your courage. I hope he heard me.

This week I finished the first draft of my work in progress, Texas Gravel, when I typed The End. This is number fourteen, and I had the same feeling of satisfaction as when I completed my first novel over ten years ago. It took years to finish that one and have it ready for publication, but this one unfolded in a matter of months.

Now the real fun begins.

Writing is enjoyable, or I wouldn’t do it. World-building is fun and rewarding. There’s great satisfaction in creating and developing characters, exploring whatever it is that makes them tick, and bestowing upon them all the ingredients necessary to become real in our imaginations.

But my absolute favorite part of the process is editing. Some folks approach it with dread, and others simply endure it as just another part of the process. I look forward to starting with the first sentence and combing through several months’ worth of creativity for a variety of issues.

There are as many theories about how to edit as there are editors and authors. Some say “write in one room, edit in another.”

Well, I guess that’s a good idea, but for me, that’s impossible. I write wherever I light on any particular morning. It might be at my desk, surrounded by bookshelves that reach sixteen feet high. Other days it might be feet up in my recliner, propped up on the couch, on perched on a stool at the kitchen island. More recently, I wrote much of the second act on the kitchen island in our weekend place, while workers made enough racket to wake the dead.

One of my favorite places to work is lying on our bed with my laptop across my legs ala Mark Twain. There’s a great photo of him partially under the covers with a typewriter on his lap and if memory serves, he’s the first novelist to write a book on the Iron Maiden.

I edit the same way, and in those same locations, and then some. It might drive some folks nuts, but I’ll work on the laptop for a while, then move to the Mac in my office and perch there for a day or two, reminiscent when I had a real job in an office.

My first edits are part of the first draft. I’ve told you how each morning I read what came the day before, edit those pages, and then slide into the current day’s work. In essence, I edit every day as I go.

Then once finished, I dig into the first draft, rewriting and tightening sentences, and looking for errors in continuity. I have a bad habit of forgetting what kind of cars my characters drive, or any number of descriptions about what they do, like, or feel. This is also when I start to notice repetitive words and do a search. The first time it happened in The Rock Hole, I realized I’d used the word “porch” two hundred and twenty-seven times.

That’s 227.

It happens all the time. A host of other words including, windows, car, sedan, door (especially door), and a host of others make wayyyy too many appearances in my work. I won’t even search for the word, “that.” This gives me the opportunity to look for useless words such as “just” or “very” or those pesky adverbs I’ve discussed in the past. Editing on the screen gives me the chance to rewrite even more sentences and tighten them up. I even more entire paragraphs around, or pull a sentence from here and there, and plug them into different places to make the draft read better.

I’m pretty good at setting scenes, but this is when I add a lot more description and detail to locations, people, and their actions to put the reader in that place and time. At this point the manuscript grows, even though sentences and paragraphs melt away with alarming frequency.

By the original draft’s third act, I’m thinking and typing fast, pushing hard to get the framework concreted into place. Detail takes a back seat to the action at that point, and editing is the time to expand certain scenes that were cheated the first time. I look for the opportunity to use all of our senses, sight, sound, smell, touch, and even taste. Many writers forget those descriptors and their work would likely improve if they added details to make it even more realistic.

This is where “He smelled woodsmoke” becomes “Smoke from a distant fire reminded him autumn was the time to burn leaves,” or “Burning leaves created a fog-like haze in the chilly autumn air.” The edits and possibilities are endless.

Here is where we can lift our vocabularies. We tend to use the same common words over and over, but now is the time to add excitement and richness with the use of the right word. Dialogue changes at this point, adding and subtracting, and getting into the character’s rhythm of speaking and acting.

Editing on the screen is fine, but I need to see it in true print form, as close to a real book as possible. It’s now the time to print the manuscript and read it again from start to finish. It’s stunning to see how many typos I’ve already missed, or sentences or paragraphs that are in the wrong place. Despite all the work I did in the first draft and the electronic edits, the printed manuscript is a riot of scratched out words, replaced words, corrected sentences, and margins full of hand-written notes and questions.

Finished, the pages then go to my personal editor, The Bride, who has a degree in journalism and worked several years as a newspaper reporter before she came back from the dark side. Her copy is marked with even more typos that I missed, and suggestions in the margins, and questions about a character’s actions or what they might or might not do in a particular situation.

Back at my desk with two different hard copies, I type in all those changes and the completed manuscript is polished and ready for my agent.

Maybe this peek behind the curtain in my writing world will help novice writers realize there’s no magical right or wrong way to edit. It’s about writing and rewriting as they attempt to complete that polished manuscript and find their place in the publishing world.

Do what works for you.