80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Arizona Memorial Pearl Harbor
Photo credit nps.gov

Today is December 7th, 2021, the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that launched the US into World War II in 1941.

Few people are alive today who remember “a date which will live in infamy” (President Franklin Delano Roosevelt).

Fewer still are people who survived the attack that morning in Pearl Harbor. The last ones are in their late 90s to 100+ years.

The closest that we in 2021 can come to learning about that day are stories collected and recorded at this link.

December 7, 1941 was a pivotal date that changed the history of the entire world.

Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents could all tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing on that day.

Long before tattoos became a fashion statement, many young sailors had “Remember Pearl Harbor” permanently inked on their arms.

Battleship Row Pearl Harbor
Photo credit – US govt.

On December 7, 1941, my husband’s grandfather was serving on the USS Tennessee docked on Battleship Row. During the attack, his duty was to grab burning sailors who were being handed up to him from below decks. He then had to throw them over the side of the battleship, far enough out that they didn’t strike the anti-torpedo blister, in order to extinguish the flames consuming their clothes and bodies.

Anti-torpedo blister
Photo credit – Wikipedia

 

When the USS Arizona blew up, his back was toward the explosion. He was horribly burned but, after a year in the hospital, he returned to duty through the end of the war. His back was forever scarred like a topographic relief map.

About ten years ago at a gym, my husband was talking with an older man on an adjacent treadmill about World War II and specifically Pearl Harbor. A young man about 20 who overheard their conversation approached. He was a junior in college, polite, well-spoken, articulate, and appeared to be a curious, conscientious student.

He asked my husband, “Excuse me, sir, can you tell me what Pearl Harbor is?”

Apparently the “date which will live in infamy” was no longer taught in school.

JFK Lincoln Continental – photo credit Wikimedia

November 22, 1963 was the defining date of infamy for my generation of Baby Boomers. We can all tell you exactly where we were and what we were doing when we learned the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

Again, the world shifted on its axis and events that occurred after that date were forever stained by it.  

About five years ago, my husband and I were chatting with a young woman working her way through college as a server in a restaurant. We mentioned John F. Kennedy. She said, “Kennedy? Wasn’t he a president that was killed in a car crash?”

Apparently, my generation’s date in infamy is now a barely-remembered blip in history.

Two years from now will mark the 60th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Oh my, that makes me feel old.

World Trade Center – photo credit Wikimedia CC BY-SA 2.0

 

September 11, 2001 again changed the entire world. Generations born after that date have never known air travel without the TSA, body scanners, pat-downs, luggage X-rays and searches.

 

 

 

2020 doesn’t have one specific date when the entire globe changed. But just the mention of “2020” is enough to provoke a sigh, a grimace, or an eye roll in every person of the age of cognizance who’s alive today.

2020 is part of our collective consciousness, as December 7, November 22, and September 11 were part of the collective consciousness of earlier generations.

Last week, a friend came to visit with her 18-month-old baby who was born in 2020. We were contemplating what Aubrey’s future might look like. Because of pandemic restrictions, she hadn’t encountered many people outside her close family and almost no one around her age.

Recently, they had gone to a playground where Aubrey saw other toddlers for the first time and reacted with amazement and curiosity. She approached a little boy and touched him.

The boy’s mother immediately swooped in and picked up the child, scolding, “We don’t touch.”

People born after December 7, 1941 never knew a world that wasn’t profoundly influenced by World War II. That was their frame of reference, their concept of “normal.”

Same for people born after November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001. They never knew what the world was like before JFK’s assassination or before planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What will school be like for Aubrey in a few years? We don’t know. But, whatever the circumstances are, that will be “normal” to her because it’s the only frame of reference she knows.

The generation born in 2020 or later will never fully realize the world was once a different place.

Aubrey won’t know that parents once thought it was perfectly normal socialization for children to play, touch, push, hug, and watch each other’s reactions.

What does all this have to do with writing?

Nothing and everything.

As writers, we record the world we live in, or research, or make up. We also contrast our story worlds with other locales, other cultures, other periods in history, and even imaginary journeys into the future.

Throughout time, writers have chronicled the collective consciousness of different generations.

No matter the genre—crime, romance, history, fantasy, horror, nonfiction, etc.—we capture the zeitgeist, which Merriam-Webster defines that as “the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.”

That’s an awesome, daunting responsibility.

~~~

Eighty years later, is Pearl Harbor relevant in today’s world?

A handful of remembrance ceremonies will be held today but, in a few more generations, there won’t even be ceremonies.

The date will fade into obscurity like April 14, 1865.

What happened on that date?

Back then, every American could probably tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they learned Abraham Lincoln had been shot that night and died the following morning.

Time marches forward. Younger generations replace older ones who have been the keepers of the memories. Old memories are forgotten and new ones take their places.

If future generations find our stories on the dusty shelves of cyberspace, they may smile or scoff at quaint, outdated references.

But I hope they will also recognize human truths we wrote about that transcend time.

Dates like December 7, 1941 are still worth remembering and worth writing about because of the people in Pearl Harbor who made history. 

~~~

Today is my last post in 2021 before TKZ goes on annual hiatus.

I’m grateful for your friendship and interest. Except for the written word, we probably wouldn’t have met. So glad we did!

Warmest holiday wishes to you and your loved ones.

~~~

 

Special holiday prices for all Tawny Lindholm Thrillers with Passion through the end of the year. A great gift for your reading friends…or yourself!

Festina Lente!

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There are many familiar adages that refer to the need to be careful and diligent in our work.

“The race is not always to the swift.” – from Aesop’s Fable, The Hare and the Tortoise

“Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” – Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills

Here’s one you may not have heard of:

“Festina Lente.”

I encountered this saying a couple of years ago, and it captured my imagination. So much so that it’s written at the top of the whiteboard that sits on my desk so I see it every day as I’m working.

Festina lente is a Latin phrase that literally means “make haste slowly.” It’s an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, that refers to the proper balance of speed and diligence in one’s chosen field. Too fast and you risk delivering a sloppy product. Too slow and you miss opportunity. Finding the right pace is the key to success.

The phrase has been used throughout history. One notable proponent was the Roman Emperor Augustus who used it to caution his military commanders against making rash decisions. The emperor apparently felt so strongly about it that he had coins minted with images that referred to the saying.

Writers will be interested in the Renaissance printer Aldus Manutius who adopted the phrase Festina lente and its symbol of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor for his publishing business. Interestingly, the dolphin / anchor symbol is currently used by Doubleday Books.

Manutius was a highly successful businessman who made significant contributions to the fields of printing and publishing. In addition to inventing the italic typeface, he produced the first small, portable books that scholars regard as the prototype of modern paperbacks.

So how does Festina lente apply to authors today?

Self-publishing has made it easy to publish without a quality gatekeeper, so the opportunity is there to rush an unpolished manuscript into production. On the other hand, it’s possible to overanalyze every word and phrase in an endless cycle of revision and never publish anything at all.

Each author has his or her own methodology from concept to production. Some are awesomely speedy in their work. Others (me, for example) are on the lente side of the equation. But in any case, we each build the finished product to our own specifications and on our own timeline.

So TKZers, how do you thread the needle between too fast and too slow? Do you have a word count quota to keep your pace up? What quality controls do you employ? How do you know when you’ve cleared the last hurdle and are ready to release the book into the wild?

* * *

“Slowly make haste, and without losing courage;
Twenty times redo your work;
Polish and re-polish endlessly,
And sometimes add, but often take away.”

— Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Festina Lente!

* * *

Nancy Drew meets Tom Sawyer in this new release, book three in the Watch series of cozy mysteries featuring Kathryn Frasier and Cece Goldman.

Mr. Tyme is dead, and strange, coded messages have been left in the chapel prayer box on the campus of Bellevue University. When Kathryn and Cece attempt to decipher the codes, they begin to suspect foul play. But things get dicey when a couple of misguided young girls get wind of the investigation and decide to find the killer on their own. It’s bedlam in Bellevue!

Mythic Structure: Refusal of the Call to Adventure

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

From The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler (click to enlarge)

You know me. I love popping the hood on story and looking at all the moving parts. Mainly because I want to build the best story engine I can, but also to teach it. Which means getting greasy and messing around. Today, I want to examine a beat from mythic structure—Refusal of the Call to Adventure. I haven’t given this a lot of thought in the past, but recently I’ve noticed it more and more in classic movies and decided to give it some study.

The Hero’s Journey begins in an ordinary world with the hero receiving a Call to Adventure—by way of invitation, yearning, temptation, or message. But the hero initially refuses. Only later will he be thrust over the Threshold (what I call The Doorway of No Return) into the “special world.”

So what’s the point of this beat? As my friend and teaching colleague Chris Vogler explains in his essential guide The Writer’s Journey:  

The halt on the road before the journey serves an important dramatic function of signaling the audience that the adventure is risky. It’s not a frivolous undertaking but a danger-filled, high-stakes gamble in which the hero might lose fortune or life.

In other words, it gives the reader the sense that death—physical, professional, or psychological—is truly on the line once the hero enters Act 2.

For example, Luke Skywalker sees the hologram from Princess Lea pleading for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke wonders if that could mean “old Ben Kenobi.” A bit later Luke finds Ben and sure enough he is Obi-Wan. Ben views Lea’s entire message, pleading with him to come help in the fight against the Empire. Ben then calls on Luke to join the adventure, but Luke refuses:

BEN
You must learn the ways of the Force
if you’re to come with me to Alderaan.

LUKE
Alderaan? I’m not going to Alderaan.
I’ve got to go home. It’s late, I’m
in for it as it is.

BEN
I need your help, Luke. She needs
your help. I’m getting too old for
this sort of thing.

LUKE
I can’t get involved! I’ve got work
to do! It’s not that I like the
Empire. I hate it! But there’s nothing
I can do about it right now. It’s
such a long way from here.

BEN
That’s your uncle talking.

LUKE
Oh, God, my uncle. How am I
ever going to explain this?

BEN
Learn about the Force, Luke.

LUKE
Look, I can take you as far as
Anchorhead. You can get a transport
there to Mos Eisley or wherever you’re
going.

BEN
You must do what you feel is right,
of course.

Another example: In The Wizard of Oz Dorothy is called to adventure by her yearning to find a place where there is no trouble. So she runs away as a first step. But then she meets Professor Marvel. He figures out what’s going on and uses an emotional ploy to get Dorothy to refuse the call. He looks at his crystal ball and pretends to see an old woman in a polka dot dress. “Why she’s crying. Someone has hurt her. Someone has just about broken her heart.” That gets to Dorothy, and she returns to the farm. [In mythic terms, Professor Marvel is a character known as The Mentor, who often appears in Act 1 as the conscience of the Hero.]

In both these examples the refusal of the call is related to duty. Specifically, familial duty.

Another form of duty is professional. In my favorite movie of all time, Shane (1953), the mysterious gunfighter fleeing his past takes a job working for homesteader Joe Starrett. Starrett instructs Shane to avoid trouble in town where the cattle men hang out in the saloon. The first time Shane shows up he’s tagged and shamed by one of the cowboys. It’s a call to fight back. But Shane refuses the call because of his pledged duty to his benefactor. For this he is labeled a coward by the other homesteaders. Knowing he has to overcome this for the benefit of the community, he later answers the call by giving his tormentor a thumping. He is then set upon by the entire gang—until Joe joins the fight and helps Shane beat them all up. That puts them both across the Threshold and in the crosshairs of death.

Still another form of refusal comes from self-doubt or fear. A famous example is Rocky. Pug fighter Rocky Balboa is given an incredible call to adventure—the chance to fight the heavyweight champion of the world!

Rocky immediately says, “No.” When asked why, he explains, “I’m really a ham-and-egger. This guy is the best. It wouldn’t be such a good fight.” In this way the stakes are set at the highest level before Rocky takes on the challenge.

I had an email conversation with Chris about all this, and he added another form of refusal (reprinted by permission):

Here’s another major category that can trigger refusal of the call: Bitter Experience. This is why hard-boiled detectives often turn down the case at first. They intuitively know that the investigation will lead them into dangerous places where they came close to death or somebody they cared about was killed. You also find this in comedies like the Hope-Crosby road movies where they are both wary of getting roped into the other’s schemes which have proved so dangerous in the past. In a romance, broken-hearted people are reluctant to open up to love again.

The prime example of Bitter Experience is Casablanca. Rick Blaine had his heart shattered when the woman he loved, Ilsa Lund, abandoned him in Paris just before the Nazi occupation. He has set up shop in Casablanca to forget her. His café is allowed to operate because he takes no sides in the war. His Call to Adventure comes when Ugarte, the scheming rat who murdered German couriers to obtain the valuable Letters of Transit, begs Rick to hide him from the police. Rick refuses with the classic line, “I stick my neck out for nobody.”

Overcoming the Refusal

So the hero has refused to answer the call. Something, then, has to happen to push the hero over the Threshold (through the Doorway).

In Star Wars Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed by Imperial stormtroopers. Thus, the familial duty is removed and Luke has reason and opportunity to join the Rebellion.

Or the hero herself can be removed from the duty. Dorothy is literally taken up and away from Kansas and deposited in Oz.

In Casablanca (Bitter Experience) Ilsa shows up at Rick’s café with her husband, the freedom fighter Victor Laszlo. In this way Rick is forced over the Threshold because his ordinary world has been changed to a special world (not his choice!) for now he must deal with his conflicted emotions and decide whether to help Isla and Victor or remain aloof.

A refusal out of fear or self-doubt must be overcome with a strong emotional jolt. In Finding Nemo, Marlin, Nemo’s father, is afraid of the open ocean because of a past traumatic event—a barracuda attack that killed his wife, Cora, and most of their eggs. He is therefore overprotective of his surviving son, Nemo. Nemo keeps calling his father to adventure—exploring the sea, finding a sea turtle, etc. But Marlin refuses. He is full of fear and self-doubt about his ability to protect his son.

So what emotional jolt forces him into the dark world of the open ocean? Nemo is captured by scuba divers! Marlin has no choice, he must find Nemo! There is familial duty once again—perhaps the strongest of all emotions—only this time it’s the stimulus to cross the Threshold. If we didn’t have the refusal as a way of understanding the source of Marlin’s fears, the subsequent journey would not have as much depth.

The Refusal of the Call is useful tool for story construction. Because it happens early—somewhere in Act 1—you can pants it or plan it. Once you have it, though, it will tell you a lot about your main character and provide fodder for backstory material.

Some questions to ask:

  • What reason does my Lead have to resist the call to adventure? Is there duty involved? Family ties? Or is it more a matter of fear, self-doubt, or bitter experience?
  • What were the pre-story circumstances that gave rise to this refusal? Was there a traumatic event that haunts my Lead in the present? Was my Lead’s heart broken?
  • What event is strong enough to overcome the Lead’s refusal? How can you increase the emotional level of this event?

Let the journey begin.

Getting Your Books Noticed

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It is my pleasure this morning to introduce Patricia Bradley, one of the regular participants here at the Kill Zone community. During a recent discussion of marketing, her comments on use of social media and success with creating a following caught my eye. She has agreed to share her methods and experience with us. Please welcome Patricia with your comments and questions.

 

Getting Your Books Noticed

by Patricia Bradley

When Steve Hooley emailed and asked me if I was interested in writing a post for TKZ on how, as a traditionally published author, one goes about getting their books noticed, I replied, “YES!”

Can you tell I’m very impulsive and step into things before I think them through? Once it sunk in that I would be posting on The Kill Zone, nerves hit. You see, y’all are my heroes. Posting on this blog is a dream come true, but also very intimidating. It took me years before I even posted a comment.

So here we go: how to get noticed among the thousands of authors publishing today, and how to do it when you’re traditionally published and not in control of the numbers.

I have a wonderful publisher who invests advertising dollars in their authors and their books. They send my new releases out to about a hundred bloggers who review my book on their blogs then post reviews at places like Amazon, Goodreads, Bookbub, B&N…and my state’s very own Mississippi Magazine. They also buy advertising spots at conferences and provide swag for me to give away and probably a hundred other things I’m not aware of.

So, if my publisher does all that, what do I do? I promise you, there’s plenty left to do to get your name out there. Number one is to write the next book.

At the same time, you need to be active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram even though these social media outlets seem to change their algorithms daily, shrinking my readership. I am active in several groups that are geared to romantic suspense and connect/interact with my readers there.

One way to connect with your readers is to ask questions. My readers have named a few of my characters, towns, and even suggested titles for the books.

I’ve learned that videos get more attention on these sites than plain posts or even those with photos, so I’ve learned how to make trailers and all sorts of stuff on BookBrush. It’s like Canva on steroids for me. I can upload my covers and use them for all sorts of things, like the short videos and book trailers. I also make all the memes that appear at the beginning of my Tuesday and Friday blogs.

Speaking of blogs, I’ve had one since 2010, but in 2016, I found a theme for it. In 2015, I had less than a thousand visitors. Since then I’ve had over 193,000 visitors with 20,000 comments. I know some say that blogs don’t sell books, but that’s not why I have a blog. I use it to interact with my readers and to catch the attention of people who are checking me out.

I post twice a week on my blog. Some people post every day and some only once a month, but how often isn’t as important as being consistent. If you’ve told your readers they’ll get a post from you once a week, make sure you post something, even if it’s an explanation of why you’re not posting that day. It’s all about connecting.

It’s important for you to tie your theme to the genre you write. For instance, both of my blogs are connected to what I write. On Tuesdays I have a Mystery Question for my readers to solve. There are four stories, three true and one made up. Lately it’s been con games or scams, and thank you very much, Debbie Burke, for your excellent True Crime posts. More than one has ended up on my Mystery Question blog.

My readers love to try and figure out which one I made up, and once or twice, I’ve skunked them. Right now, I get anywhere from ten to twenty comments on the posts. For the week of November 8-14th, I had 1,149 visitors. Since some blogs get thousands of hits a day, that might not sound like a lot, but you have to remember that before my first book released in 2014, readers had never heard of me.

My Friday posts are reviews of books I’ve read. Ninety-five per cent of the books I review are mysteries of some sort–romantic suspense, thrillers, straight mystery, or cozies. Often I’ll give the first line and ask my readers to give the first line of the book they’re reading. I get just about the same number of responses to the Friday blog as Tuesday’s.

You can check out my blog here. Once you get there, just scroll through and find a post that interests you. Another thing, I also post on other blogs like the Suspense Sisters, How to Write a Novel, occasionally on Suite T, and I comment on a lot of other blogs like Carrie Booth

Schmidt’s Reading is My Superpower and KTZ. In other words, I’m visible. Readers get to know me. Then when they see I’ve written a new book, if it’s in a genre they read, they will check it out.

One advantage of a blog is that it gets readers to your website where they can sign up for your newsletter. They (I’m not sure who they are) say that a newsletter is the most important marketing tool you have, and even though I don’t know who they are, I agree.

Like your blog, you own your newsletter—unlike social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Readers sign up for your newsletter because they want to know more about you. In the past I’ve used Rafflecopter giveaways to get people to sign up for it, but no longer. I figure the 50% who don’t open my newsletter are the ones I acquired through a big giveaway, and they only signed up hoping to win the prize. I do give away a novella when someone signs up on my website. It’s tied to one of my series and acts as a magnet for my books.

So how many newsletters should you send out, and what do you write about? I send out one a month unless my publisher runs a deal on one of my books and I think my readers would be interested in it. Nicholas Erik’s book, The Ultimate Guide to Book Marketing has helped me tremendously, especially with his section on newsletters.

As for what I write about, mine are usually short because I rarely read long newsletters myself. I include something about how my writing is going, often discussing a problem I’m having with the manuscript. If I have a book releasing, I talk about that, then I spotlight a couple of books I’m currently reading—it never hurts to promote other authors. I always end with a recipe. A few of my newsletters have videos—the last video, lifted from my YouTube channel, showed how to get rid of pet hair using a rubber glove.

Before you say you’re too old to learn how to make trailers, videos and memes, I’m telling you, if I can do it, so can you. I came to the writing game very late in life. Not sure it’s wise to give my age, but let’s just say I watched the original Andy Griffith Show as a teenager.

There is so much more I could say, but this post is long enough. In summary:

§ Write the best book you can, then write another one.

§ Chose at least one social media platform and connect/interact with your readers.

§ Consider having a blog.

§ Read and comment on blogs aimed at your genre.

§ Develop a newsletter list and send out newsletters.

I hope this post has given you a few tips on how to make yourself visible. Additional suggestions are welcome!

***

Patricia Bradley is a Carol finalist and winner of an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award in Suspense, and three anthologies that included her stories debuted on the USA Today Best Seller List. She and her two cats call Northeast Mississippi home–the South is also where she sets most of her books. Her romantic suspense novels include the Logan Point series and the Memphis Cold Case Novels. Crosshairs, the third book in the Natchez Trace Park Rangers series, released November 2, 2021. She is now hard at work on the fourth book, Deception, and will soon start work on her fourth series set in the Cumberland Plateau around Chattanooga, Tennessee..

She’s conducted writing workshops at the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference, the Mid-South Christian Writer’s Conference, the KenTen Retreat where she was also the keynote, and several other conferences. When she has time, she likes to throw mud on a wheel and see what happens.

Links: Website https://ptbradley.com/ Blog – https://ptbradley.com/blog/ Facebook – www.facebook.com/patriciabradleyauthor Twitter – https://twitter.com/PTBradley1

Amazon – https://amzn.to/2S6DKGY Bookbub- https://www.bookbub.com/profile/patricia-bradley Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7789445.Patricia_Bradley Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ptbradley1/ Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/ptbradley/

Reader Friday: Holiday Side-Effects

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Reader Friday: Holiday Side-Effects

LatkesWe’re in the middle of Hanukkah. Tonight’s the night we’ve selected to be our family latke party. Whoever’s hosting the event knows their house will smell like grease for the next three days.So will any articles of clothing left too near the kitchen.

What’s a less-than-exciting side- effect of your holiday celebrations?

And a Happy Hanukkah to those who are celebrating.

The Astounding Secret Behind Leonardo Da Vinci’s Creative Genius

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Leonardo da Vinci had the world’s most observant and creative mind. With an estimated IQ well over 190 — probably 200+ — da Vinci was a true, versatile Renaissance man. He was far ahead of his time in art, anatomy, architecture, engineering, mathematics, and many other disciplines. Few came even close to Leonardo’s prolific output of artistic masterpieces and scientific discoveries. And many deeply pondered the astounding secret behind Leonardo da Vinci’s creative genius.

Author Leonard Shlain spent years exploring da Vinci’s work and analyzing what made him so outstanding. In the book Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius, Shlain makes an excellent case that Leonardo da Vinci was biologically different from practically all other humans. According to Shlain, da Vinci’s brain was the perfect balance of right and left hemispheres. It was because of a one-of-a-kind abnormality in Leonardo da Vinci’s corpus callosum—the part of the brain responsible for controlling analytical left-brain observation and right-brain creativity.

In Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius, Leonard Shlain did what he calls a “postmortem brain scan”, seeking to illuminate the exquisite wiring inside Leonardo da Vinci’s head. It’s an in-depth psychological/neurological profile about what’s known of da Vinci’s phenomenal behavior and the ingenuity of his works. At the end of this fascinating book, Shlain concludes that Leonardo da Vinci’s brain was so advanced that his understanding of all things in nature and his grip on personal creative ability allowed him to access unique ways of thought.

Shlain postulates that da Vinci saw universal interconnectedness in everything… everywhere. Biologically advantaged by some quirk of nature, da Vinci elevated his mind to a higher state of consciousness than achieved by other people. Leonardo da Vinci—according to author Leonard Shlain—evolved into a superhuman.

— — —

Genetically, there didn’t appear to be anything special about Leonardo da Vinci. He was born out of wedlock in 1452 at the Italian town of Vinci in the Florence region. His mother was a peasant and his father was a notary—somewhat of a playboy. Infant and toddler Leonardo was raised by his mother and neglected his father who only supplied modest child support.

Because Leonardo da Vinci came from low class, he wasn’t eligible for a formal education as were nobility associated with the church and state. In fact, da Vinci had no conventional schooling as a youth. He wasn’t able to learn the “secret code” associated with the education of the time. That was learning to speak, read and write Latin and Greek which unlocked the doors to classical learning. Without knowing these two prominent languages, it was practically impossible for da Vinci to conventionally participate in making the Renaissance.

Leonardo da Vinci was taken from his dysfunctional mother at age 5 or 6. His kindly uncle Francesco did the best he could to provide for the boy. Regardless of his lack of formal schooling, da Vinci showed a remarkable curiosity and intellectual ability right from a young age. He seemed “gifted” and was able to visualize abstracts including art forms and mathematical equations far beyond normality. Soon, the Florentine painter and artistic leader Andrea del Verrocchio saw a protégé and took Leonardo da Vinci under his wing.

For most of his life, the European world recognized Leonardo da Vinci as a painter. In reality, da Vinci wasn’t a prolific painter. He painted sporadically and nominally as a side-line commission. Art experts at Christie’s auction in New York estimate that over 80 percent of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings were lost over the years. Today, there are only 15 verified da Vinci paintings in the world including Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Annunciation. Salvator Mundi sold in 2017 for $450.3 million US.

But Leonardo da Vinci was really prolific in his drawings and writing. His anatomical sketches, scientific diagrams, and thoughts across the spectrum fill volumes now held in private collections and public museums. Da Vinci’s unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination consumed his waking hours. The world is extremely fortunate that many of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks still exist.

Da Vinci’s interest held no bounds. He was a true polymath who studied astronomy, anatomy, architecture, botany, engineering, science, music, math, language, literature, geology, paleontology, ichnology, painting, drawing, and sculpting. Leonardo da Vinci also invented. Concepts for the helicopter, parachute, and airplane wing came from da Vinci. He even built the first automated bobbin winder before the sewing machine came to be, and Leonardo worked with solar power, double-hulled ships, and even armored military tanks. He also thought out a robotic knight.

Unlike most innovators who are a fine line between nut and genius, Leonardo da Vinci was incredibly well-balanced on an emotional scale. Besides having an extremely high intelligence quotient (IQ), it’s said Leonardo had a tremendous emotional quotient (EQ) as well. Nowhere is there any suggestion he was an egomaniac or unapproachable. History indicates da Vinci was a pacifist, vegan, and humanitarian with a good sense of humor.

So what made Leonardo da Vinci so special? Short answer—his brain. There was something nearly out-of-this-world going on in da Vinci’s mind. And there might be a scientific explanation about what it was.

Twenty-first-century science knows a bit of how the human brain functions. But, it’s far from comprehensive knowledge. Science has almost no grasp or understanding of how human consciousness works, and there’s a good reason for that. Brain science is tangible where grey matter can be physically dissected and electrophysiological waves are recordable on computerized graphs. You can fund, study, and measure with reports.

Consciousness is a whole different matter. Conventional science has no grip on what human consciousness—or any form of consciousness—really is because it’s non-tangible and can’t be defined within current terms. Because consciousness is slippery, it’s not fundable. There’s no money in it. You can’t measure to monetize it. So consciousness study is left to individual groundbreaking leaders like David Chalmers and Sir Roger Primrose… but back to da Vinci.

Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius takes a really good look at how LDV’s brain activated his mind to tap into a higher state of consciousness—the world of “Forms”, as Plato termed it, or the source of where all “in-form-ation” sits. In current consciousness research, there’s a distinct difference between the physical brain, the non-physical mind, and the plane of infinite intelligence where all ideas come from.

Leonardo da Vinci’s brain was so evolved—author Shlain writes—that his mind easily accessed information not readily there for normal people. Da Vinci’s brain/mind power was so special that he “thought” his way to fantastic ideas. It also let da Vinci observe what was going on in the universe and record it. That might have been simplistic beauty as in the Lady With an Ermine, an anatomical analogy like Vitruvian Man or a geometric complexity seen in the Rhombicuboctahedron.

Despite Leonardo da Vinci being bright, talented, and affable, he was an outlier in the Renaissance period. Da Vinci was biologically different. He was a misfit in the world of conventional ideas and creativity. He thought different. He acted different. He dressed and talked different. That made others uncomfortable. Back then, da Vinci sat at the back of the bus, and today he’d still be so far ahead that the rest of us would see dust. Author Leonard Shlain tells us his version of why:

“Leonardo da Vinci’s left and right brain hemispheres were intimately connected in an extraordinary way. Because of a large and uniquely developed corpus callosum, da Vinci’s left and right sides constantly communicated and kept each other in the loop on observations and creative options. Each brain side knew what the other was doing, and this gave da Vinci’s mind unprecedented and unrestricted freedom to observe, understand and create.

In current brain science, the left hemisphere is the analytical and conservative side. The right is the creative, liberal sphere. Brain scientists think that’s nature’s safety mechanism to prevent humans from getting too stupid or smart in either extreme. Da Vinci’s brain seems to have found the middle ground—the apex of the triangle or the tip of the see-saw.”

In Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius, Leonard Shlain backs up his theory with facts. The most interesting fact supporting da Vinci’s left/right corpus callosum uniqueness is his handiness. Leonardo da Vinci was a southpaw—he was left-handed.

Left-handers aren’t that unusual in the human population. Studies show approximately 8-10 percent prefer left-hand prominence. A tiny proportion are ambidextrous, but the vast majority have manual-dexterous abilities with their right. However, there are unusual advantages south-paws have. They tend to be far more creative than right-handers.

It’s no news the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body—same with vice-versa. When one hemisphere is dominant over the other, a person is usually analytical or creative. But, when both sides are equally balanced, something phenomenal happens.

Anatomically, the corpus callosum—aka the callosal commissure—is a wide and thick nerve bundle sitting at the brain’s foundation. It’s the largest white matter brain structure that binds the left and right gray matter. The corpus callosum isn’t big. It’s about 10 centimeters or 4 inches long. Neurologically though, it’s huge—having about 250 million axonal projections.

The corpus callosum regulates electrical activity happening in the left and right brain sides. It’s got a big job to do. One of its jobs is responsible for the primordial fight-flight response ingrained in all of us. But the corpus callosum also lets humans get imaginative, like the right brain inventing tools to slay saber-toothed tigers while the left side stays alert.

The Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius book goes beyond a left/right brain dichotomy. It delves deep into something uniquely known about da Vinci’s left-handedness. Leonardo da Vinci’s brain let him write left-handedly in a mirror image. Da Vinci’s writings, notes, and diagram annotations have him writing right to left where you need a mirror to decipher them.

This mirror-image phenomenon provides profound insight into Leonardo da Vinci’s psyche. Here was a poor boy without formal education who developed his own style independent of traditional academic influences—even choosing which hand to use and how to communicate with. Da Vinci was the poster boy of self-taught, self-investigating, and self-assured individuals—the likes the world never experienced in his time or so-far thereafter.

Leonardo da Vinci’s lack of indoctrination by limiting dogma taught through conventional institutions like the church and its lap-dog societal constraints liberated him from mental restraints. Combined with perfect neuro-equilibrium between inquisitive left and creative right brain functions, da Vinci broke free of earthly bounds and set his mind soaring into airy lofts not there for common minds.

Author Leonard Shlain of Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding da Vinci’s Creative Genius makes another interesting observation and conclusion. Because da Vinci was removed from his biological mother’s hold so early, he became mentally self-reliant. Da Vinci was also gay or at least asexual. He wasn’t driven by a common male preoccupation with the little head thinking for the big one.

Brain science recognizes that “normal” human brain thoughts primarily focus on survival concerns like food, shelter, and sex. That didn’t seem a factor with Leonardo as he progressed in life. He just abnormally sensed reality. Then he painted, sketched, or wrote what he knew.

No, Leonardo da Vinci was much more than “normal”. He was the prime exemplar of a universal genius whose brain far out-thought humankind. Looking back… and forward, if da Vinci showed up for a job interview, his unique selling proposition on his resume would be “I have an unusual brain and my mind knows how to use it”.

That’s the astounding secret behind Leonardo da Vinci’s creative genius.

What about you Kill Zoners? Have you read this book or anything on Da Vinci? And as for your own creative genius, what’s your secret sauce?

— — —

Garry Rodgers’s creative genius was his ability to fool the authorities into keeping him employed as a homicide detective and coroner for over three decades. Now, he’s managed to hoodwink the public into believing he’s a competent crime writer.

Part of this ploy of deception is Garry’s blog on the DyingWords.net website. He has another ruse where you can follow him on Twitter @GarryRodgers1. By the way, Garry Rodgers may or may not be his real name. Same with the headshot.

Engineering A Novel

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By John Gilstrap

I think of a book as an engineered product. The premise comes to me via the magic that I don’t understand, and then it’s less about asking “what if?” then it is about “why/how would that happen?”

In Crimson Phoenix, the entire premise depended on the aftermath of a nuclear war. The reasons behind the war aren’t really important to the larger plot, but it needed to be addressed. I had to work backwards: Who fired first? Why? How do I justify my main characters surviving? All actions have consequences, so I had to select carefully to put together a plot that gave me what I needed without straining credulity.

In the case of my first novel, Nathan’s Run, I started with a theme I wanted to explore. I wanted to write a story about someone who had to make the binary choice between doing his job and doing the right thing. He couldn’t do both. Full disclosure: The premise of a kid escaping from a juvenile detention center arrived as a gift of circumstance that’s too complicated to go into here, but once it burrowed into my head, it was there to stay. I knew that the kid needed to be about 12 years old. And if the kid was an escapee, then he needed to be pursued, and it made sense that the pursuer needed to be a cop.

This is the point where creativity meets engineering:

How does a kid (I made him an orphan to make things easy on myself) escape a juvenile detention center? Answer: He steals keys from a guard.

How does he steal keys? Answer: In a fight.

How does a 12-year-old (Nathan) win a fight with an adult guard? Answer: The guard is drunk.

How does Nathan cross paths with a drunk guard? Answer: the guard is trying to kill him.

Why is the guard trying to kill him? DING DING DING: I had no idea, but I knew that I had the mystery that would drive the story and keep it from being one-note.

How does Nathan win the fight? Answer: He kills the guard. DING DING DING: Now a character we care about has crossed a line that can’t be re-crossed. The plot was cooking, even before I put a single word on the page.

At this point, in my head, Nathan’s journey is on its way. He’s got a sustainable story. I didn’t know the details yet, but enough parts were in motion to give the character a mission to survive. I could wing those sections during the Great Pretend that is writing.

Now I had other questions to address:

How would cops and the rest of society react to the news of an escaped cop-killer? Answer (in the fictional community of the book): Politicians would posture, the media would play for ratings, and the cops would double-down on the efforts to bring a cop-killer to justice. DING DING DING: Subplots defined.

When the evidence shows that Nathan is the bad guy, what will cause a grizzled police detective to soften his heart for the kid? The answer is too much of a spoiler.

Okay, now that I had defined both the the pursued and the pursuers, now what? How does a little kid hold his own against the rest of the world? First things first: Where does he find shelter? Answer: He breaks into the homes of people who have newspapers stacked in their driveway, an indication to him that they must be on vacation.

How do I keep a burgling killer sympathetic in the minds of the readers? Answer: He does the laundry.

At this point the plot was nothing but vignettes in my head. They were just disconnected scenes. This was the problem that torpedoed the three novels I wrote before Nathan’s Run. I needed a through line.

How could I make the plot bigger–something more than just a straight line chase? Answer: Media manipulation. I could have Nathan listen to a radio and hear the terrible things that people are saying about him. Callers want him to be thrown in jail forever. Others want him to be executed. [NOTE: When I wrote Nathan’s Run, OJ Simpson and the attendant media frenzy drove every news cycle, and Rush Limbaugh was just beginning to change the face of talk radio.]

I knew I had a great character opportunity here. The talk show host, Denise Carpenter (radio name: The Bitch) is stoking the fires against Nathan. We’ll learn as we go on, just how insecure and frightened she is of her own success.

How does Nathan change people’s minds? Answer: He calls the show himself, and gets to tell his side of the story.

From that point on, the story propelled itself.

I don’t want to imply that this is a simple process. Each answer to each question is a choice from a flood of discarded alternatives, and any given one of them may turn out to be a mistake for the story. In my experience, though, they rarely (never, actually) turn out to be a mistake because I make them work. You wouldn’t tear down a nearly-completed house because a couple of doors were out of plumb, right? That’s what furring strips and leveling compound are for.

How many times have we all heard that storytelling is driven by the Great Question: What if? To be sure, that’s a great starting point to define a premise, but from then on, Why and How take the lead.

So, TKZ family, do you consider yourselves to be story engineers?

First Page Critique: Time to Stop
Thinking And Start Screaming

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By PJ Parrish

Happy post-Thanksgiving, folks. If you traveled, hope all went well and you enjoyed some good family time. As you read this, I am probably somewhere in the air, returning from Lansing, Michigan, where I had a quiet dinner with my bestie-in-life Linda. No turkey. Just a couple hens sharing a couple hens and some good pinot noir.  Back to work! Here’s a First Page Critique for us to gnaw on. No turkeys here either, I’m glad to say. Just a homing bird.

THE HOMING BIRD

Heather
Victoria, Vancouver Island
Friday, October 6, 2017
7:05 AM

Every morning, I take a forty-five minute drive to my favorite screaming beach.

Its rocky shoreline spills discretely off the edge of a remote provincial park. Decades ago, someone must’ve pulled heavy cargo ashore, because there’s a sandy clearing on the beach between the large rocks. It’s my runway to the sea, a path to the place where the tide meets the shore. It’s where I stand every day, all year round, fiercely emptying my lungs at the horizon.

I get out of my truck, donning the gumboots that are always tucked under the passenger seat. I wait until my eyes adjust to the dawn’s low light, then walk through the long grass, over the crunchy seaweed, and along the sandy path that leads me to the water’s edge. I wait for a moment, allowing the roar of the sea to wash over me like an auditory embrace.

The water is rough today, and the wind stings my eyes, lifting my long, salt-soaked hair around my head like the strings of a puppeteer. Autumn is my favourite season; it’s the time when everything slows down and goes inward.

It also means that less tourists stroll the beach, so I can spend as long as I like throwing my screams out into the vast foamy sea.

I look around to check that the beach is deserted, that there are no early morning kayakers who could pick up on the sounds of my laments crossing the waves. I don’t want to draw attention to myself; it’s not about that. It’s about sending a loaded missive to the God or Universe or Spirit who’ve failed me. It’s the only ritual and the only form of catharsis that I allow myself.

I’ve never been very good at therapy. It makes me too nervous. I sit like a specimen, like an inexperienced, malnourished mountaineer, in front of a kindly stranger who invites me to explore my twisted internal topography. Demons wait around every corner, popping out of crevices, reminding me of my many failures: not living up to my mother’s impossible standards, not protecting my sister, and the pathetic way I begged to stay in the Fellowship after I was deemed an apostate.

“No one,” a therapist once said to me, “is more qualified to heal you, to mother you, than you.”

___________________

This came in with no particular sub-genre other than “mystery,” so that’s what we’ll assume here. We can also assume our writer is Canadian, given the location, spellings (ie favourite) and words like “gumboots” instead of the American term galoshes and “provincial park” instead of “national park.”

There is much I really like about this submission. I love the opening line. It starts out so ho-hum and ends with a hammer of an image. There’s a fancy word for this —  Paraprosdokian. It means an unexpected shift in meaning at the end of a sentence. Here, the writer sets us up with the calm words “Every morning I take a drive…” And then adds “to my favorite screaming beach.”  Love this effect. It pulled me in from the get-go.

What does the opening line also accomplish? A hint to the sense of place (shoreline). A not-so-subtle hint that Heather is deeply troubled; the mood is tense. And third, we get a clear voice. So bravo, writer.

The writer is also skillful in her/his descriptions, and you know I am always asking for more than we usually get. The beach “spills off” the edge of a park. Seaweed is “crunchy” underfoot. Not much meat here, but what’s there is cherse.

I do think the writer gets a little bogged down as the paragraphs pile up, however, in trying to look more writerly than necessary.  The simple and very effective images of the opening beach imagery give way to some borderline overwrought imagery when we get to Heather’s thoughts.  On the beach, we are hearing Heather’s voice, but when we get inside her head, the writer’s voice begins to intrude some. It’s a fine line, but an important one. For example, in one graph, we are given THREE images to digest: first Heather as “specimen,” presumably being examined under the shrink’s microscope. Then comes the laden image of Heather as a “malnourished mountaineer” befriended by a stranger. And finally, Heather as a victim of harpy-like demons screaming out her inadequacies.

Do you see the problem I have with this? As impressive as the writing seems on first glance (and this is a deft writer), as you begin to digest it, the three images compete with each other in a sort of dyspeptic stew. Dear writer, you are too good to let this happen, so I’d suggest a hard second look and that you select one metaphor/image to burnish.  I rather like your phrase about twisted internal topography because it echoes the beach location. Remember: Your setting should also MEAN something. You chose a craggy windswept beach for a reason — perhaps because it mirrors Heather’s tortured and lonely psyche? Something to think about.

Now, we should address the fact that nothing much is really happening here. We have a woman with a dark past walking down a beach stalked by demons. I’m okay with slow-build openings, but only to a point. Heather isn’t doing. She’s thinking. And while your set up is intriguing, if you stay in this woe-is-me reminiscence too much longer, your reader will get antsy for action.  Also, you cite the idea of a “screaming beach” in four versions.. You need to trust the reader to get it the first time and move on. Something has to happen. And thinking about your past isn’t enough. You must move the PRESENT plot forward. I’m going to show you an example of how this might work in the following edit. My comments are in red.

Heather
Victoria, Vancouver Island
Friday, October 6, 2017
7:05 AM I am an avowed-not-a-fan of taglines like this. Unless you are going to switch into multi-POVs and settings or time frames, I’d suggest finding a way to incorporate this info into the narrative. You do this well already by telling us it’s dawn and it’s fall, so just find a way to weave the locale. 

Every morning, I take a forty-five minute drive to my favorite screaming beach. Love love love this. But “favorite” implies she has more than one screaming beach. More powerful if you delete “favorite” imo, so it becomes the creepily possessive and deeply personal “my screaming beach.” 

Its rocky shoreline spills discretely Discrete means distinctive or unique. Discreet is means secret or modest. Because most folks confuse the two I’d find a better word off the edge of a remote provincial park. Decades ago, someone must’ve pulled heavy cargo ashore, because there’s a sandy clearing on the beach between the large rocks. It’s my runway to the sea, a path to the place where the tide meets the shore.   Second line is redundant. Love the runway image but maybe it could be stronger? It’s not just a path to the sea but rather a runway to, in her sad state, what the sea represents — freedom? Oblivion? You’ve missed a chance to make the metaphor mean more.  It’s where I stand every day, all year round, fiercely emptying my lungs at the horizon.  Another “screaming beach” reference. You’ve already told us she does this. Move on.

I get out of my truck, donning the gumboots that are always tucked under the passenger seat. I wait until my eyes adjust to the dawn’s low light, then walk through the long grass, over the crunchy seaweed, and along the sandy path that leads me to the water’s edge. I wait for a moment, allowing the roar of the sea to wash over me like an auditory embrace. Very pretty phrase but you call it a roar, so isn’t that at odds with the gentle phrase “auditory embrace”? Isn’t a sea-roar more of an sensory assault? I know this sounds like picking nits, but description must be precise for it to ignite the reader’s senses. As Poe said, every word, phrase and sentence you write must work to create a UNITY OF EFFECT to create consistent mood.  

The water is rough today, and the wind stings my eyes, lifting my long, salt-soaked hair around my head like the strings of a puppeteer. Autumn is my favourite season; I’d lose all the semi-colons. Nobody thinks in semi-colons. it’s the time when everything slows down and goes inward. Also, here is where you can tell us it’s October rather than relying on a tagline. It’s more connective to your character to have this info emerge via her thoughts and senses rather than in a bland tagline. Something like “October is my favorite month, a time when everything slows, blurs and begins to go inward. This time of year, it feels like the whole of Vancouver Island is retreating into the mist. (That’s awful but you get the idea). 

It also means that less fewer tourists stroll the beach, so I can spend as long as I like throwing my screams out into the vast foamy sea. This is the third reference to what she is GOING to do. We want to see her do it. 

I look around to check that the beach is deserted, that there are no early morning kayakers who could pick up on the sounds of my laments crossing the waves. Fourth reference. We get it. I don’t want to draw attention to myself; it’s not about that. It’s about sending a loaded missive missive is a letter, a rather passive little word. Is there a more powerful one? Grievance? Screed? Rant? What emotion are you trying to convey here exactly from Heather? I am not quite getting it. Your scene is SO personal and emotional. Make your word choices all go to that unity of effect! to the God or Universe or Spirit who’ve failed me. It’s the only ritual and the only form of catharsis that I allow myself.

Pause here for a second and consider this: You need to have something happen in the present time, to get us out of her thoughts. How about if you put the primal scream right here on camera? Does it help her? Does it bring relief? The fact that she is compelled to do it EVERY DAY implies to me that it’s not working. It might make a very powerful scene here if you give us the scream NOW.  Then give us an emotional reaction from Heather. THEN go into the backstory below. Whatever she feels AFTER the scream would then logically make her think about how therapy was no help either. I don’t like to rewrite anyone’s work but allow me to give an example so you see why this might work:

I close my eyes and the scream erupts from me, ringing in my head but lost in the roar of the waves. I scream, scream, scream until my lungs burn and my throat is raw. When I open my eyes, my face is wet from the wind and my tears.

I should feel empty but I don’t. It’s still there. That black box deep inside me is still there and all the winged-things have escaped from it again and are beating hard to burst out of my chest. I choke back a sob, trying to force them back into the box. 

It doesn’t work. It never does. 

I think of Dr. Martin and what she told me two months ago, the last time I showed up for one of our sessions.

No one is more qualified to mother you than you.

By giving us the scream now, this would then logically lead Heather — and your readers — into her backstory, especially if it involves something amiss about her mother. I love that line about no one can heal you but yourself, which is why I set it apart by itself. I might be wrong, but I think it’s one of your themes. But put that scream in your first 400 words, please.  Act first and then explain!

I’ve never been very good at therapy. It makes me too nervous. I sit like a specimen, like an inexperienced, malnourished mountaineer, in front of a kindly stranger who invites me to explore my twisted internal topography. I’m not sure I get this mountaineer reference. Do you mean to imply she lost her way on a steep journey? Okay. But for the “kindly stranger” to work, you need to balance the metaphor — the therapist is metaphorically a guide who finds her on the mountain? Demons wait around every corner, popping out of crevices, reminding me of my many failures: not living up to my mother’s impossible standards, not protecting my sister, and the pathetic way I begged to stay in the Fellowship after I was deemed an apostate. This is very interesting because you giving us hints of backstory — that her mom was difficult, she failed to protect (nicely loaded word!) her sister and that she was a member of “the Fellowship” which kicked her out. (intriguing! Religion? Cult? Makes us want to read on) 

Also: Something to reconcile. A paragraph ago you had her yelling at the gods who you say “failed” her. And now you say the demons are reminding her that she herself failed. She can’t blame fate if she believes it is her fault. 

“No one,” a therapist once said to me, “is more qualified to heal you, to mother you, than you.” So did the scream work or not?

Okay, let’s summarize. This is good stuff. You’re truly a good writer. I am engaged by the scene you’ve set up with the screaming beach. Terrific idea. But I started to get impatient with being stuck only in Heather’s thoughts, and I think this great beginning could be energized by a healthy primary scream. Let go, Heather!

Thanks so much, dear writer, for brightening my day with The Homing Bird. Vancouver  is one of my favorite spots on earth (though I’ve never seen the sunrise on Victoria Island!) and I would read on, definitely. My suggestions are merely that, one reader’s opinion. Please know that the better you are, the harder I am on you. Good luck!

 

Reindeer Fun

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The holiday season is a hectic time, with planning the perfect family celebration, shopping for gifts, decorating the house, inside and out, and mailing cards.

Many have stopped the tradition of sending holiday cards. For me, there’s something so special about peeking into the mailbox to find a card. It means someone took the time to wish you happy holidays, trekked down to the Post Office, or raised the tiny red flag on their mailbox to signal outgoing mail. It’s a beautiful tradition that I fear new generations will let slip away (along with cursive handwriting). I love the holiday season, the frigid temps thawed with magic, possibilities.

With the frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I thought I’d share 10 fun facts about reindeer, originally posted on my blog in 2018.

1. A Reindeer By Any Other Name is Still a Reindeer

In some regions of the world, Reindeer are called caribou. In North America reindeer refers to Eurasian populations and caribou refers to wild populations. 

2. Reindeer Belong to the Cervidae Family

Reindeer — aka Rangifer Tarandus — have 14 subspecies, including deer, elk, moose, and wapiti. All Cervidae have antlers, hooves, and long legs.

3. Girls Can Do Everything Boys Can Do

Reindeer are the only species of deer in which both males and females grow antlers, and they grow a new set every year. Male antlers can grow up to 51 inches long and weigh up to 33 pounds. A female rack can grow up to 20 inches long.

According to the San Diego Zoo …

Antlers are the reindeer’s most memorable characteristic. In comparison to body size, reindeer have the largest and heaviest antlers of all living deer species. All antlers have a main beam and several branches or tines that grow from the frontal bones of the skull. Sometimes little branchlets or snags are also present. The tip of each antler is called a point. Unlike horns, antlers fall off and grow back larger every year.

As new antlers grow, the reindeer is said to be in velvet, because skin, blood vessels, and soft fur cover the developing antlers. When the velvet dries up, the reindeer rubs it off against rocks or trees, revealing the hardened, bony core.

 

4. Santa’s Reindeer Must be Female

Since males grow antlers in February and females in May, they both finish growing antlers at the same time. But male and female reindeer shed antlers at different times of the year. Males drop antlers in November, leaving them antler-less till the spring. Female reindeer keep antlers through the winter months. They’re shed when calves are born in May.

Thus, since Santa’s reindeer all have antlers, he must have an all-female team. ?

5. Males are From Mars, Females are From Venus

Male and female reindeer use antlers in different ways. Males wield them as weapons against potential predators. They also showcase impressive racks to woo females. Although females also war with these handy weapons, they mainly use antlers to clear snow while foraging for food.

6. Reindeer Come in a Variety of Colors

Depending on the subspecies, region, sex, and even the season, reindeer fur ranges from dark brown in woodland subspecies to nearly white in Greenland. A reindeer’s coat is dark in the summer, light in winter.

Reindeer have two coats:

  • an undercoat of fine, soft wool right next to their skin
  • a top layer of long, hollow guard hairs

The air trapped inside the guard hairs hold in body heat to keep the animal warm against wind and cold. The hollow hair help the reindeer float, which aid them in swimming. Did you know reindeer could swim?

7. Adorable Furry Hooves

A reindeer’s furry hooves give the animal an advantage when walking on frozen ground, ice, mud, or snow. Spongy footpads help them strut through marshy fields. In the winter, the hooves harden to dig into ice or snow while anchoring the reindeer from slipping.

When a reindeer swims, their broad, flat, two-toed hooves allow the animal to push water aside. They even have a dewclaw which acts as an extra hoof to assist in climbing rugged terrain.

8. The Nose Knows

A reindeer’s specialized nose helps to warm incoming cold air before it hits their lungs. Like dogs, their super sniffer can find food hidden under snow, locate danger, and recognize direction. Reindeer are the only subspecies of deer to possess a furry nose.

9. Herd Life

Reindeer hang in herds. Not only are they safer from predators but they’re social animals, chatting among themselves with snorts, grunts, and hoarse calls, especially during mating season. Calves bleat to call their mother.

Reindeer travel, feed, and rest in a herd of 10 to 100s. In the spring, reindeer may even form super herds of 50,000 to 500,000. These super herds follow food sources, traveling up to 1,000 miles during harsh winters.

10. Catch Me If You Can

During migration, reindeer cover 12–34 miles per day and can run at speeds of up to 50 mph. Even a day-old calf can outrun an Olympic sprinter!

Hope you enjoyed these reindeer facts. Which one is your favorite?

Keeping a Scene in Focus

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Today we have another first page for the TKZ critique machine.

Last Man Standing

     Molly Hammond stared in horror as her fake fingernail strained against the pull tab on her Coke can. Her brain told her to let go, but her hand wouldn’t listen. With a tiny pop, the nail snapped off and made a low sideways arc, landing gracefully in her new boss’s paper plate the man had just placed in front of him on the metal picnic table. As the nail settled between a mound of potato salad and a large helping of barbequed beans, Molly’s fledgling professional life flashed before her light brown eyes. 

Oh god!

     She stared at the cheap fire engine red plastic glaring back at her and wished with all her heart she could slip quietly beneath the table and down into the bowels of the earth. She was about to reach out to retrieve the cause of her embarrassment when the man slipped his fork beneath the nail along with a small helping of salad. He held it out and motioned in Molly’s direction.

     “Well, Ms. Hammond.” He glanced at the fork and tilted his head toward Molly before looking back at the nail, the gesture an offer as well as a question. “I hope this isn’t one of our Your Time products.” 

     Molly felt her cheeks heat up, certain they’d morphed into the same shade as the nail. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.” She thought she saw a hint of amusement in his blue eyes but she knew there was nothing funny about making a bad first impression with a no-nonsense businessman like Spencer Steele. He lowered the fork and slid the nail onto his napkin then folded the paper neatly into a small square and tossed it into a trash barrel behind him. Molly kept her eyes on her plate, her right hand in her lap and silently waited for the blazing July morning to finish her off.

JSB: I like this set up. A nervous new employee’s fingernail lands on her boss’s lunch. It’s unique, it’s action, and it is a sudden disturbance in this character’s world. On that last point, this page demonstrates that the opening disturbance does not have to be something “big” like a car chase or a gunfight. It’s enough that it is a matter of emotional importance to the character being revealed to us. A fingernail flying into a superior’s potato salad certainly qualifies.

But in order to take full advantage of this scene, there are a few matters that need to be clarified. We don’t want the reader pausing because the picture isn’t clear.

It’s worth a mention here that there’s a big difference between confusion and mystery. The latter is good. It has the reader thinking I want to keep turning pages to find out what the action is all about. The former is bad. It has the reader thinking I’m not quite sure what’s happening on the page in front of me.

In many cases the confusion is about the setting. That’s the problem here. Where exactly are we? What are the conditions? The picture is a bit out of focus.

When I read metal picnic table I immediately thought of a prison visiting area. That’s probably just my quirk, but in any case we need to know where this table is. We know it’s a meal featuring the employee and her boss. And the trash barrel indicates they are outside somewhere. But where? Are there other people around, or is it just the two of them? Who is “the man” who served the lunch?

The issue can be easily handled with a short paragraph after the first one (which, again, starts with a unique disturbance). Here’s an example:

The annual meet-and-greet picnic for new employees was supposed to be a casual affair. The courtyard of the Your Time Building was abuzz with happy anticipation and easy chatter. Now this!

Now the scene starts to come into focus. Think of it as a gentle turn of the camera lens. The reader can enjoy the rest of the scene now without a lingering question hanging in the background.

Another type of confusion arises when a reader asks something along the lines of Would she really? Here’s what I mean. Let’s go back to the beginning:

Molly Hammond stared in horror as her fake fingernail strained against the pull tab on her Coke can. Her brain told her to let go, but her hand wouldn’t listen.

Cute, but I don’t quite buy it. In this situation—wanting to impress her new boss—the moment her brain fired off that message I think she’d release the tab. Otherwise, I’m skeptical about her ability to be anyone’s employee.

I do like what the author is going for—a slo-mo effect as an embarrassing event unfolds.

We can achieve the same thing by shifting the focus a bit. For example:

With a tiny pop, Molly Hammond’s fake fingernail flew off the pull-tab of her Coke and made a low sideways arc through the air. She watched in horror as it landed gracefully on her new boss’s plate.

Editing Notes

Molly’s fledgling professional life flashed before her light brown eyes. 

This is only a minor POV violation, but I’m a believer that these little “speed bumps” take something away from a reader being fully immersed.

So what’s the problem? Molly would not think of her “light brown eyes.” She knows what color her eyes are! As you write, always be firmly inside your viewpoint character’s head, having thoughts she would really have, not thoughts that are signals to the reader.

“Well, Ms. Hammond.” He glanced at the fork and tilted his head toward Molly before looking back at the nail, the gesture an offer as well as a question. “I hope this isn’t one of our Your Time products.” 

Another fundamental to embrace is RUE: Resist the urge to explain. This is when the action and dialogue give us all we need to know without you offering up an explanatory line. That just dilutes the effect and gives us another, unnecessary speed bump. Here, you do not need the gesture an offer as well as a question. That’s already obvious from the head tilting and the dialogue.

Molly felt her cheeks heat up, certain they’d morphed into the same shade as the nail. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.” She thought she saw a hint of amusement in his blue eyes but she knew there was nothing funny about making a bad first impression with a no-nonsense businessman like Spencer Steele.

I found this paragraph a bit clunky. The shaking of the head seems superfluous, and the dialogue is squeezed inside the paragraph. My suggested rewrite:

“I’m so sorry!” Molly felt her cheeks heat up, certain they’d morphed into the same shade as the nail….

[NOTE: Exclamation points should be rare, but I think in this moment one is called for!]

Finally, watch out for the physics of your scene. I like the last paragraph, but there’s some confusion there:

She thought she saw a hint of amusement in his blue eyes…He lowered the fork and slid the nail onto his napkin then folded the paper neatly into a small square and tossed it into a trash barrel behind him. Molly kept her eyes on her plate, her right hand in her lap and silently waited for the blazing July morning to finish her off.

Did you catch it? If Molly is keeping her eyes on her plate, how can she notice his blue eyes and disposal of the nail? It’s an easy fix. After the boss tosses the napkin Molly looked down at her plate, her right hand in her lap, waiting for the blazing July afternoon to finish her off.  

[Note: I cut the adverb silently as it’s obvious. And if this is lunch, it would more likely be in the afternoon.]

As you can see, writing friend, there are only small matters here to take care of. Your overall page is a good one. I’m no romance expert, but I can’t help feeling this is an excellent romance setup. Unless Molly decides to murder her boss to save her career…then we’ve got a crime thriller I’d also like to read!

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