When Timelines Don’t Mesh

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By John Gilstrap

My natural storytelling instinct for my books leans exclusively to third person, shifting points of view. I’ll write an occasional short story in first person, but those are rare, as well. I don’t know why that is, and as with so much else as a self-taught writer, I try not to dwell too much on the whys of my process for fear that if I think too hard I screw something up–much as my one and only golf lesson did to my golf game. Once you start thinking about every movement, no movement feels natural anymore.

Over the course of writing the past few books, I’ve run into an interesting challenge, where the timeline of one groups of characters, and the events of their lives is unfolding weeks earlier than those of my primary characters. Ultimately, the two groups will come together in a tumultuous manner in the same time and place, but the journey to get them there bears a high risk of confusing the reader.

The problem is even more challenging because the separation consists only of weeks, not years. It would be easy to drop in slug lines like 1847 versus 2026, because readers can keep track of those. I don’t think you can say the same about May 14 versus May 5. Readers would be compelled to flip back and forth just to keep up.

My upcoming thriller, Burned Bridges (May 27), begins:

Chapter One

Thirty-Five years ago

Then chapter one shows two teenagers disposing of the body of a third teenager in the opening of a limestone cave. Truth be told, I could legitimately have written that chapter as a prologue, but I have a visceral dislike of prologues. Then, the second chapter begins:

Chapter Two

Present day

In this chapter, we meet my protagonist, Irene Rivers, and her family, and discover that her nephew has discovered a body that had been stuffed in a cave on their property. And then the story remains exclusively in the present day, so I don’t use any more time stamps.

In my Victoria Emerson trilogy, I figured that after a nuclear holocaust, all time would be tracked relative to Hell Day–the date of the attack, so as I moved from one timeline to another, I used Hell Day as the anchor at the top of each chapter:

Hell Day Plus 22

Where events spanned consecutive chapters, or where I was shifting the point of view on a single event, I’d make sure not to lose to the reader by putting a slug like this at the top of the chapter:

Hell Day Plus 22 (Same Day)

I’m currently putting the finishing touches on Scorched Earth, #18 in the Jonathan Grave thriller series, and I’m wrestling with a new twist on the timeline problem. In this case, the other timeline is presenting essential backstory, lived out in real time for the reader, but I’m finding it hard not to squander the big “organ chord” reveal sooner than I want the reader to know it.

I know that in a conference setting or in an academic setting, many of us like to express this thing we do in term of art. But sometimes, it feel more like carpentry–making those pieces you cut wrong somehow join together anyway.

Y’all got any tricks for writing conflicting or parallel timelines? Anybody else had an instructor ruin your ugly yet perfectly passable golf game and turn you into a worm burner?

By The Book: What’s On Your Nightstand And Who’s Your
Favorite Hero Or Villain?

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By PJ Parrish

Am a little under the weather today, so this post is a bit of a cheat. I love reading a feature in the New York Times Book Review called By The Book. Famous writers are asked a series of standard questions about their tastes. Always fun to read their revealing answers. I’m not famous but I’ll give it go. And then you guys can weigh in.

What books are on your nightstand?

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King | Goodreads

Just went and checked. Well, this was surprising. Two out of three are non-fiction and I am pretty much a novel-addict. Am plowing through (still!) Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King. It’s the story behind the painting of the Sistine Chapel. I am not Catholic but I am fascinated by all things papal and this recounting of the power politics behind maybe the world’s greatest masterpiece is riveting. Pope Julius was so incensed over Michelangelo’s slow, secretive progress that he took to disguising himself and sneaking up into the scaffolding. Michelangelo caught him one night and hurled planks at the poor guy. The pope, bellowing curses, fled. The artist, fearing for his life, bolted off to Florence to hide until the pope cooled down. That scene didn’t make the Charleton Heston movie.

Second is Once In a Great City: A Detroit Story by David Maraniss. An elegantly told elegy for my home town that was abandoned by the world. Third (spine yet uncracked) is The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle. I’m off to Paris in 10 days and I always take along a book set in my destination. This thriller just won the Edgar for best Paperback Original. Met Kimberly in the bathroom at the Edgars. She was so gobsmacked she could barely talk.

What’s the last great book you read?

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I’ve read it twice now. An American epic. It’s tenderness gets to me and the characters still walk around in my head.

If you were to write something besides thrillers, what would you write?

Erotica. Tried it once. A sad middle-aged woman goes to Italy and gets laid. (This was pre-Under the Tuscan Sun so don’t jump on me.) My title was brilliant: Tarantella, which is a crazed Italian dance thought to cure deadly spider bites and bring the victim back to life. I still have the manuscript. It’s awful. I unwittingly wrote a comic novel.

What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

When I was writing thrillers, I never read anything. Just couldn’t. My brain was too out there on Planet X to concentrate. I used to survive by binging on sports TV. This is how I became a hockey fan.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

That Keith Richards is really bitchy. In his biography Life, he says of Bruce Springsteen: “If there was anything better around, he’d still be working the bars of New Jersey.” And he says Mick Jagger is, ahem, not well-endowed: “He has a tiny todger.” (Which is an interesting new word I learned).

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

Soupy Sez!: My Life and Zany Times Hardcover Soupy Sales, Charles Salzberg HC/DJ 9780871319357| eBay

Soupy Sez: My Zany Life and Times. It’s the autobiography of the infamous Detroit kids TV star Soupy Sales. It’s hilarious and ultimately quite sad. I loved this guy.

What moves you most in a work of literature?

Emotional honesty from the writer. Opening a vein. You can’t fake it. Though many try.

Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?

I grew up reading the backs of cereal boxes so I will read anything. But I don’t like political thrillers. The reality is bad enough.

How do you organize your books?

By category. All my dance books, from my near two decades as a dance critic, are grouped together. All my royal family books share a high shelf. Thrillers and mysteries, mostly from friends, dominate the lower rungs. 🙂 And there’s one shelf where all my France/Paris books live together in happy utopian disdain.

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

Several very old and rare books on slavery. It was research for one of our series novels involving the underground railroad but I got carried away. One historic title is so offensive I shelve it spine in.

What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

Charlotte’s Web. Got it as a little kid. It got lost, along with much of my childhood paraphernalia, in our many moves. I found a beat-up copy at a barn sale last summer here in Michigan. It smells musty and is inscribed “To my daughter Anne.”

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?

Well, my hero, I’d have to say, is Charlotte the spider. She’s confident, thoughtful and a true-blue friend. Villain? Two: Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. Moping around in moors, mired in self-pity. And he locks his wife in the attic! And Lady MacBeth, with one of the best lines in all of fiction: “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” Wish I had written that.

So, crime dogs? How would you answer any of these questions? Pick one or two or all. Would love to hear your secrets.

Immersion Technique #WriteTip

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Every character is the hero of their own story. Even the villain.

We’ve talked many times about the importance of fleshing out characters. This time let’s reframe the narrative for those who may not grasp the finer details of crafting a compelling villain.

It’s easy to tell a fellow writer to slip into the villain’s skin and view the world through their eyes—I’ve given the same advice—but for those who haven’t mastered characterization, it may not be enough.

  • How does one craft a killer when they’ve never committed a crime?
  • How can we champion a villain’s efforts with no real-world experience?

Sure, we can draw conclusions and make assumptions. Is that enough for readers?

  • Is there a way to pull from life experience, to really feel what it’s like to transform into somebody else?

Yes, there is. And it’s called immersion. Method actors use the same technique.

The dictionary defines immersion as “deep mental involvement.” It can also mean engagement, as in a mixture of how much you’re paying attention, how submerged you are in an experience, and how it affects you emotionally.

Immersion, whether real or imagined, taps into fundamental psychological principles like perception, emotional engagement, and the sense of presence. It involves a combination of sensory stimuli, cognitive engagement, and emotional resonance that creates a feeling of being completely absorbed in the experience.

Immersive experiences are rich and complex, drawing upon personal experiences, and engage with emotions through the manipulation of the five senses. They’re described as transformational, intense, sometimes hectic, and provoking.

What we see tells us a lot about the world around us, but what the body experiences is much more powerful.

How we immerse ourselves in a life unlike our own starts with walking in their shoes. Listen to the villain’s favorite music. Eat their favorite foods. View the world through their eyes.

  • What’s their culture like?
  • What’s their theme song?
  • What’s their religion, politics, and views on other hot topics?
  • Do they like the rain? Cold weather? Scorching hot sun?
  • Are they happy with where they live? Or have they been trying to escape the area for years?
  • What do they do for a living? Do they have buddies at work?
  • Are they body conscious and drink water all day? Or do they drink black coffee till noon, then switch to scotch?
  • Do they smoke? I’m not proposing you start smoking but you can pretend.

Even if the character’s actions rub against your values and beliefs, you must find at least one redeeming quality, or at least be able to empathize with a part of them.

Take Ed Kemper, for example. His mother was a severe alcoholic who favored his two sisters and never missed the chance to belittle him. Ed’s father, a World War II veteran, hated his wife. The couple divorced when Ed was still in grammar school.

Living with his mother was no picnic. She locked him in the cellar for days and/or weeks at a time—alone—a bare lightbulb hanging from a wire in the center of the dark and creepy space. Since the door locked from the outside, the only way out was through a trap door beneath the dining room table.

Trapped, Ed lay on the cold cement floor staring into the flame of the furnace. And it was then, he later told an FBI profiler, he saw the face of the Devil for the first time. That period of his life exacerbated his already fractured mind.

Later, at age 14, his father sent him to live with his grandparents in California. Interestingly, Maude (grandmother) was an extra in Gone with the Wind and a writer for Redbook McCall’s. Even so, Ed hated living there, calling his grandfather “senile” and his grandmother, well, this is how he described her…

“She thought she had more balls than any man and was constantly emasculating me and my grandfather to prove it. I couldn’t please her. It was like being in jail. I became a walking time bomb, and I finally blew.”

And blew he did, with the murder of his grandparents. Authorities sent him to Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum-security facility where doctors subjected him to various tests. One of which illuminated his genius IQ. They also diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic.

In the six years he spent at the institution, he became one of the doctors’ favorite patients. They even allowed him to assist in conducting tests on other inmates, until 1969 when they released him into his mother’s care.

Big mistake. At 6 ft. 9 inches tall and 250 pounds, Ed was a mammoth with a genius IQ and a rage inside him.

After killing and decapitating six young women, he finally turned his wrath on Mother—the true source of his hatred—murdering, decapitating, and using her head as a dartboard. He also tore out Mother’s vocal cords and shoved them down the garbage disposal. When the disposal spat the gristly innards back out, he said to himself,

“That seems appropriate as much as she’d bitched and screamed and yelled at me over so many years.”

With his personal monster dead, Ed turned himself into police. He had no reason to kill anymore. He’s lived at California Medical Facility in Vacaville ever since. As a model inmate, he’s allowed to work as an audiobook narrator.

If Ed Kemper was a fictional villain, how would you make him the hero of his own story?

We’d need to focus on the abused little boy, alone and frightened, that still cried inside him and the personable guy who doctors adored. Does that mean I agree with what he did? Absolutely not. But as writers, we must find a way to justify his actions. We must. Otherwise, the villain will fall flat.

Now, don’t tell the reader what redeeming qualities you clung to while writing. Show them a tidbit here and there—just enough to pique curiosity and drive the plot—that make him feel more human. Or let the hero figure it out on their own.

If the villain is a series character, only reveal enough to intrigue and drive the plot. I did this with my serial killer named Mayhem. In three books, I showed him as a merciless serial killer. I also showed his love of animals, especially his sidekick Poe, the crow, and how tender he could be when caring for a wife stricken with ALS and his close relationship with his daughter and grandson.

Mayhem loves fine wine and is an expert chef, but he’s offended by bad language and numerous other things, especially rapists, cannibals, and child killers. Readers fell in love with Mayhem. Deeply in love. So much so, I had to transform him into an antihero in later books.

Readers understand, even champion, why he kills.

We did the same with Dexter. Who didn’t love to watch him murder other serial killers? Genius on Lindsay’s part.

Find a different angle for your villain. Copycats aren’t unique or memorable. Villains are some of the most difficult characters to craft because they do bad things. I also find villains and antiheroes the most rewarding to write.

The next time you craft a character vastly different from yourself, try immersion. It works for the entire cast, including heroes, sidekicks, foils, secondary characters, etc.

High Impact Interval Writing

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

My favorite philosopher/comedian is Steven Wright, master of the pithy weird-but-somehow-connected observation, such as, “I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.”

He also invented a microwave fireplace. “You can lie down in front of a fire for the evening in two minutes.” (He also put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.)

Which reminds me that we are all pressed for time these days (I’ve determined to work 25 hours a day on my book, which means I have to get up an hour earlier).

This goes for keeping the ol’ bod in shape. Which is why I’m into HIIT. That stands for “high impact interval training.” It’s a workout that alternates intense bursts of activity (sometimes as little as 30 seconds) with a short rest, then another burst, rest, etc. This way, so “they” say, you can get great cardio benefits in as little as four minutes. Which beats driving to a gym, waiting for a machine, working out for thirty or forty minutes, showering, getting dressed, and driving home while thinking, “Where has the day gone?”

I’ve integrated HIIT into my routine, along with strength training on an official Chuck Norris Total Gym. I want to be like Chuck. When he does a pushup, he does not actually push himself up; he pushes the Earth down.

I thought about this the other day when I was quota challenged. I needed words and needed them fast, but I was tied up with my inner editor, the pest, and indulging in too much thinking and strategizing. This wasn’t about my outline, with my signpost scenes. It was about those spaces in between, in the scenes, that were giving me pause.

Frustrated, I opened up a blank text note and just started writing without thinking, typing to oil the gears, writing (in Ray Bradbury’s phrase) by jumping off a cliff and growing wings on the way down.

What happened was the first few lines came along, but without much meat on them. Then the wings started to form. I was writing in flow, flapping wildly, and the words were coming from that magical place just beneath the surface. As I wrote I didn’t stop to analyze; I just felt the rich vein of story I’d tapped into and wanted to record it as fast as I could.

When I stopped I checked to see how many words I’d written. I kid you not, it was exactly 250. If you’ve read my craft articles long enough, you’ve probably run into my idea of “The Nifty 250” (sometimes enlarged to 350). I like to do that early in the morning, to get a jump on the writing day. But it also works when you’re well into the day and feel stuck.

That gave me the idea for HIIW—high impact interval writing. Why not do this all the time? Why not work in increments of 250 words? Write them, get up, walk around, deep breathe, stretch, sit back down, analyze, and integrate the good stuff into your draft. Then do it again.

This is a bit like the Pomodoro Technique, developed by entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo when he was a university student.

Cirillo recognized that time could be turned into an ally, rather than a source of anxiety. The Pomodoro Technique essentially trains people to focus on tasks better by limiting the length of time they attempt to maintain that focus and ensuring restorative breaks from the effort. The method also helps them overcome their tendencies to procrastinate or multitask, both of which are known to impair productivity.

Try this next time you’re stuck:

  • Open up a blank document. (This gives you total freedom to write)
  • Start writing, and let it flow, forgetting about trying to shape into anything. Get the words down fast and furious. Go for 250 words (that’s about one page, double spaced, 12 pt. type).
  • Get up, stretch, take a deep breath, pour yourself some more coffee or tea, then look at what you wrote.
  • Highlight the gold nuggets and expand on them if you like.
  • Copy-paste the nuggets into your draft.

I’m mostly an old school, butt-in-chair writer. If I’m going good, even after meeting my quota I’ll keep on writing until I sense the beginning of diminishing returns. With HIIW, I’ve found the words come faster and fresher. As the great Ray put it:

“This afternoon, burn down the house. Tomorrow, pour cold critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today—explode—fly apart—disintegrate! … It doesn’t have to be a big fire. A small blaze, candlelight perhaps…Look for the little loves, find and shape the bitternesses. Savor them in your mouth, try them on your typewriter.” — Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

What kind of writer are you? Sit down and grind it out? Write when you feel like it? Or something in between?

Is Technology Helping or Hurting Our Writing?

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It was still dark when Larry and I left his house, heading out in his truck for a lake some distance away. Spring is crappie time, and it’s my favorite freshwater fish to catch and eat.

By sunup we still had a good long way to go and I was hungry. The problem was the boat hitched up behind us. “There’s an overrated fast-food restaurant up ahead. Let’s get a breakfast sandwich with one of those stupid names they want me to use.”

Behind the wheel, my old fishing buddy cut his eyes across the cab. “If we go to Great Gary’s to get something to go, you won’t say Great GarMuffin, will you? Because I know for a fact you won’t pronounce Horsey Sauce at Arby’s.”

“We’re too old to pronounce dumb names like that, but my daughters have spent most of their lives trying to make me slip up and say that name at Arby’s. When the cashier asks me which one I want through that cheap crackling low-bid microphone, I tell them I want both sauces.”

“You’re getting to be a curmudgeon. You make things hard on yourself, you know.”

“Nah. I’ve aleays been a curmudgeon, but when we order in a few minutes, I’ll just use the meal’s number.”

He steered into the parking lot. “My son uses an app when he eats here.”

“No apps for me. I hate how technology has taken over our lives. People should just talk to each other without nonsensical jargon, and without using the word ‘amazing’ or ‘like’ in conversation. Besides, something would mess up, and I don’t want to struggle with it when I’m hungry.

“A man can starve to death if there’s no phone or screen nearby. I can’t even order a pizza anymore, because they won’t take calls. You have to click through their website. I just want to walk in, order, hand someone the cash, and leave.”

Because of the boat, the drive-thru was out. We parked some distance away and walked inside a video arcade instead of the overrated eatery I was expecting.

Giant touch screens flashed with colorful photos of the food and drinks on their menu. Like something from a science fiction movie, frowning people stood before the order screens with a finger poised, occasionally punching an item which vanished only to be replaced by myriad options.

Appearing to be frozen in time, folks our age were held hostage, overwhelmed with the new-fangled order process and likely wishing they’d gone through the drive-thru to be misunderstood through a cheap microphone.

In addition, most wore glasses and were trying to see through the magnification of tri-focals, their noses pointed toward the ceiling. Because we spend most of our time staring down at the phones in our hands, the sounds of grinding neck vertebrae tilting upward was deafening.

“Minimal contact,” Willie surmised. “I wonder how often they clean those screens people keep touching.”

Bypassing the zombies staring into cold white oblivion, we walked up to one of the two registers, intending to use real cash. Both devices appeared to be unplugged.

We waited for several minutes while the employees went about their business behind the counter. Customers in cars appeared and disappeared on the other side of the drive-thru window.

“Number two sixty-six!” A woman behind the counter shouted. Apparently, fast food technology hasn’t evolved enough to bypass the raspy, screeching human voice carbonized by forty years of cigarettes.

She finally saw us. “We don’t take orders there anymore. You have to use the kiosks like those folks.”

I turned toward the spellbound people staring at the screens. I wondered if they’d still be there next year, starved skeletal beings with one finger held aloft. “No. I don’t have to do anything.”

We left, and that brings us in a curiously roundabout way to how technology helped me write my first novel.

Bear with me, this is a writer’s illogical mind.

Back in the olden days, I used a typewriter, or as Mark Twain called it, an “infernal machine.” It was also slow and required much backspacing, carbon paper, gallons of Wite-Out, and lots of twisting and adjusting.

I pounded those keys for decades, first on a manual machine in high school, then a portable version in college, which kept me in beer money by typing term papers for a dollar a page.

Ah, then came the IBM Selectric, powered by electricity and not the tips of my fingers. Novels almost formed. Many of them, and they all withered by page fifty or so. I spent hours, no, days, wait, even months, pecking out those pages destined for File 13.

When I read that Micky Spillane typed with two fingers and never edited his manuscripts, I wondered what was wrong with me. He wrote I, The Jury in 19 days, and as a rookie writer, I couldn’t figure out how he did it.

Honestly, I still don’t.

Then came the 286 computer, and my writing world changed. It set me free! Fingers flew and words appeared. The process was no longer linear, and I wrote entire chapters out of order, \ and days or weeks later, plugged them into the flow of work and they fit perfectly.

The world of active electrons became my friend, allowing me to pound out two, three, or four thousand words a day to build the structural foundation of a novel.

So with those successes, why won’t I assimilate into this world of apps and self-service ordering screens? Because there’s an evil side to all this. An entire manuscript vanished into thin air one day about twenty-five years ago, and even in the last eighteen months several days’ worth of work was lost when my laptop took issue with The Cloud and refused to “shake hands,” as a technologically adept friend explained.

In my personal experience, there is always an issue waiting to arise. The one time I tried to order off a screen in McDonald’s, I wound up with two extra Happy Meals (see how they sucker us into using those ridiculous terms?), cheese on a burger I didn’t want, no coffee for the four creams I received, and the Skynet’s refusal to take the gift card that sparked the whole visit.

I finally had to get someone to boot up the register and take the entire order while standing face to face.

The final contrasting conflict is my Macbook Air, which is such a mystery that I often hides what I’ve written only to flash it on the screen when I’m checking emails.

This new world of ours is always changing, but sometimes I need a personal technical support team, for the computer and to assist with ordering food in these new updated, high-tech restaurants.

Or maybe someone about ten years old.

I’m feeling that all of these new-fangled engineering marvels, apps, and human-free self-service businesses leaves me outside in the drive-thru lane, looking in through the order window.

Celebrating(?) the Florida Man

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By Elaine Viets


      Bigfoot, werewolves and other large hairy creatures abound in stories. We’re  glad they’re myths.

“Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach series has another creature who is not mythical. The legendary Florida Man and Woman  can be large and hairy, but they are definitely real.

Florida Man is the measure for the residents of the Florodora, the most exclusive apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida. The Florodora is more than a hundred years old, the first apartment building in this south Florida beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

The Florodora is owned by Norah McCarthy, granddaughter of the original owner. You don’t need money or social status to rent an apartment at the Florodora. You must be a member of a more exclusive group. You have to be a genuine Florida Man or Woman.

You’ve seen the headlines. “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” Or: “Florida Woman Bathes in Mountain Dew in Attempt to Erase DNA after Committing Murder.”

Yes, those are real headlines. So is this one: “Florida Man Arrested by Coast Guard for Trying to Cross Atlantic in Human-sized Hamster Wheel.”

That was hamster man’s second arrest trying to wheel across the Atlantic.

Florida Men and Women stories often involve alcohol and alligators, although the Florida Man who tossed a live alligator the size of a Labrador through the drive-up window of a burger joint was probably sober.

Seems this Florida Man found a gator by the road and dumped it in the back of his pickup (pickups are Florida Man’s favorite vehicle). Then he got out of the truck and chucked the gator through the burger joint drive-up window. After he paid for his soft drink.

Unbelievable? That’s the standard reaction to Florida Man. Are there any limits on his –  or her – so-called pranks?

Nope. And many of them aren’t funny. Including the Miami Cannibal, a naked marauder who attacked an innocent man, chewed off the poor guy’s face and left him blind. The cops shot that Florida Man dead.

A slang dictionary says Florida Man “commits bizarre or idiotic crimes, popularly associated with – and often reported in – Florida.”

Florida Man, known as the “world’s worst superhero,” became nationally famous in 2013 when he was given his own Twitter account. He’s inspired a play, two TV series, songs, and more.

Like many Floridians, my feelings about Florida Man and Woman are somewhere between appalled and perversely proud

Some people piously claim that reveling in these tales of Florida Men and Women is wrong, because the perpetrators are poor and uneducated.

Not true. Florida Men and Women come from all classes. Check out this story from the Miami Herald:

“How did a Florida man afford 27 Ferraris and a yacht? A $22 million tax fraud.”

The article began:

“As some fully employed people found their Social Security contributions were $0 for recent years, a Stuart man and his wife luxuriated in a 7,700-square-foot three-bedroom, eight-bathroom house with a small dock and cove.”

Nothing poor or uneducated about that Florida Man.

The tradition of renting to a Florida Man or Woman at the Florodora started with Norah’s grandmother. Eleanor Harriman had a soft spot for scapegraces, since she was one herself. She was a Florodora Girl, a superstar chorus girl a century ago. Grandma was in the 1920 Broadway production of Florodora, before she eloped with handsome Johnny Harriman, a millionaire, back when a million was real money. She was married at sixteen and madly in love.

Version 1.0.0

Johnny died a year later, leaving Eleanor a very rich widow.

When Norah was old enough, Grandma told her about poor Johnny’s accidental death, which involved a champagne bottle and a chandelier.

As my new mystery, “Sex and Death on the Beach” begins, the plumbers are digging up the  Florodora yard, trying to fix the pool. Norah hears a commotion, and discovers the plumbers have dug up the body of a missing porn star, Sammie Lant. Sammie ruined a college football player when she had sex on the beach with him. Norah is a suspect in the woman’s death, and soon the Florodora is swarming with police.

Norah’s residents enjoy swapping Florida Man stories, just like me. I’ve sprinkled these tales throughout the mystery. Here is my favorite, told by Norah’s lover and Florodora resident, Dean. Dean and Norah are drinking coffee.

“Have you heard the latest Florida Man story?” Dean asked.

“Does it involve alcohol and alligators?” Norah said.

“Nope. Satan in schools.”

“You got me,” she said.

Perversely, Dean took a long drink of coffee before he started his story. Finally, he said, “Our very own elected Florida Man, Governor Ron DeSantis, wants more religion in the state’s public schools. He signed a new law to have volunteer school chaplains.”

“Doesn’t separation of church and state keep religion out of public schools?” Norah asked.

“It should,” Dean said. “The governor says the chaplains can participate after school. At least one group responded quickly to his call: the Satanic Temple. They have an After School Satan program.”

“What are they going to do with the little devils? Sacrifice a goat?” Norah asked.

“According to reports, the After School Satan Club’s activities include games, solving puzzles and promoting critical thinking. Also, the Satanists say they do not promote a ‘belief in a personal Satan.’”

“Hah! They never had class with my geometry teacher,” Norah said. “What did the governor say about the Satanists’ offer?” I took a long drink of coffee.

“His communications director said, ‘HELL, NO.’”

I nearly snorted coffee out my nose. “Warn me when you do that again.” I was nearly choking with laughter.

Dean waited until I set down my coffee cup. “The governor has said repeatedly that the Satanists are not a religion. However, the Satanists say they are recognized by the IRS.” Dean took a sip of his cooling coffee.

“The Devil knows his own,” I said.

 

          “Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach mystery, will be published June 3 as a hardcover and an ebook. You can preorder copies from your local bookstore, as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets. Thriftbooks.com has the best price for the hardcover right now: https://tinyurl.com/yz32f8c7

 

Voice Revisited

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Voice Revisited
Terry Odell

Travel gods willing, I’ll be in the air much of the day, on my way to Hubster’s Bucket List trip of a Mississippi River cruise on a paddlewheeler with a few extra days in New Orleans to enjoy the sights–and the food. I’ll respond to comments when I can.

In my last post, Dr. Doug Lyle spoke about voice being the most important thing that sells your next book, so I’m revisiting a post I did on the subject of voice back in 2021, with some additions and other modifications. (There’s a free short story read in this version.)

I’m looking at two aspects of voice: Character and Author.

Part A. Character Voices, or “Give Them Their Own.”

I recall reading my first book by a best-selling author. A male character discovered a young girl, about 5 years old, who had been left to die in the woods. He brings her to his cabin and finds she cannot or will not speak. I was impressed with the way the character spoke to the child—it seemed exactly how someone should deal with that situation. However, as more characters entered the story, I discovered that he spoke that way to all of them. Not only that, almost every character in the book spoke with that same “Talking to a Child” voice. Obviously, it doesn’t bother the millions who buy her books, but it bugged the heck out of me. And it’s consistent with all her books in that series. It wasn’t just a one-time deal.

It’s important in a book that characters not only sound like themselves, but don’t sound like each other. That means knowing their history, their age, education, as well as occupation, nationality—the list goes on. Ideally, a reader should be able to know who’s speaking from the dialogue on the page without beats, tags, or narrative.

Cowboys don’t talk like artists, who don’t talk like sailors, who don’t talk like politicians. And men don’t talk like women. They’re hard-wired differently. I’m a woman, and in my first drafts the dialogue will lean in that direction. After I’ve written my male characters’ dialogue, I go back and cut it down by at least 25%.

A few tips to make your characters sound like themselves.

Don’t rely on the “clever.” Dialect is a pitfall—more like the Grand Canyon. If you’re relying on phonetic spelling to show dialect, you’ll stop your readers cold. Nobody wants to stop to sound out words. You can show dialects or accents with one or two word choices, or better yet, have another character notice. “She heard the Texas in his voice” will let the reader know.

Give your characters a few simple “go to” words or phrases. For me, this is often deciding what words my character will use when he or she swears (since I write a lot of cops and covert ops teams, swearing is a given). Then, make sure he or she is the only person who uses that word or phrase.

Keep the narrative “in character” as well. This especially includes internal monologue, and even extends to narrative. Keep your metaphors and similes in character. If your character’s a mechanic, he’s not likely to think of things in terms of ballet metaphors.

What your character says and does reveals a lot to your readers. Workshops I’ve attended have given out the standard character worksheets (which have me screaming and running for the hills), but it’s the “other” questions that reveal your character. What’s in her purse? What’s in his garbage? What does he/she order at Starbucks? Would he/she even be caught dead in a Starbucks? James Scott Bell’s workshops include excellent examples.

How do you keep your characters distinct? How do you get to know them? Do you need to know a lot before you start, or are you (like I am) someone who learns about them as you go?

Which brings me to Part B: Authorial Voice, or “Stay the Hell off the Page.”

After  a presentation I gave for a local book club, one member said she’d read one of my books. Her comment was, “You write the same way you talk.” And, after I sent a chapter to my critique partners, one said, “This sounds very Terry.” That, I think, sums up “voice.”

Any author starting out tries to write what she thinks a writer should sound like. She might work hard to make her characters sound unique, and true to their backgrounds, but all the other stuff—the narrative parts where the character isn’t speaking—sounds stilted. It sounds “writerly.”

But what the characters say isn’t quite the same as “Authorial Voice.” Think of all the renditions of the national anthem performed at sporting events. The words are the same, the notes are the same, but each singer performs it in their unique voice.

The author’s voice is all the other words, the way the sentences are put together, how the paragraphs break. Can anyone confuse Harlan Coben with Lee Child? Janet Evanovich with Michael Connelly? Even Nora Roberts has a distinctive voice that is recognizable whether she’s writing a romance as Roberts, or one of her “In Death” futuristics as JD Robb. There are those who say the authorial voice is the writer’s style.

When I was a fledgling writer, I experimented. One such experiment was a short story in a voice that seems very different from the way I write now. Perhaps it was because I’d been reading a book my cousin recommended, which was not what I usually read. At any rate, it’s a very short story, and was almost my first paid writing gig. Alas, the magazine folded before the offered contract was issued. When I wrote it, it was more of an exercise in POV; first his, then hers. It’s called “Words” and you can download it for free here. For those of you locked into your Kindles, you can find it here. (Amazon is cranky about freebies.) I’d be curious to know if anyone sees my current voice with the one in this short short.

Your authorial voice will develop over time and (one hopes) will become recognizable. It’s important to learn the ‘rules’ of writing before trying to be distinctive. In the art world, we recognize artists by their style. The Star Spangled Banner opens countless events, yet even though the notes are the same, they presentations vary. Immensely.

Before artists of any format—music, poetry, prose, acting, create their own recognizable style, they learn the basics. Before your voice will develop, you have to write. And write. And write some more.

Try looking at your manuscript, or the book you’re reading. Find a passage that’s filled with narrative. How do you, or the author in question deal with it? Is it in the same vein as the dialogue, or do you get jolted out of the story because all of a sudden there’s an outsider taking over? If it’s a funny book, the narrative needs to reflect that sense of humor. If it’s serious, the author shouldn’t be cracking wise in narrative. If your character speaks in short, choppy sentences, then he’s likely to think that way, too. Again, the narrative should continue in that same style.

You want your voice to be recognized, but not intrude on the story. If you want the reader caught up in the story and the characters, you, the author have no business being on the page. Every word on the page should seem to come from the characters, whether it’s dialogue or narrative. You’re the conduit for the story and the characters. You’re there so they shine, not the reverse.

It takes practice—and courage, because you have to put “you” on the page, and not the “writer.” But when you finish, you should have your own special work. You won’t be a cookie-cutter clone. Rule of thumb—if it sounds “writerly”, cut it. When the words flow from the fingertips, that’s probably your own voice coming through. Let it sing.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Danger Abroad

When breaking family ties is the only option.

Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle.

Blackthorne, Inc. taps Security and Investigations staffer, Logan Bolt, to track down Madison Westfield. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.

Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together put them in more danger? Can a budding relationship survive the dangers they encounter?
Available now.

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

First Page Critique – A New Day to Tell a Lie

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Here’s a first page from another Brave Author with the intriguing title: A New Day to Tell a Lie. Please read and we’ll discuss.

 

September 11, 2001, at 7:20 AM, was a pivotal moment in history. Nineteen men boarded Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93, setting in motion a series of events that would change the world and the people in it forever.

Roman Stark strolls through the beautiful, original brass and glass doors of 890 Park Avenue, located in the elegant Upper East Side. As he steps into the bright morning of a New York City day, he feels the city’s vibrant energy wrap around him, reminding him of that hopeful saying, ‘If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’—a comforting thought he really needs today.

As he enjoys the morning sun, his thoughts drift back to that surprising moment a month ago when Elle slapped him. Their relationship, much like others he’s experienced, is a complicated blend of surprises and discoveries. He saw a side of her he had never encountered before, and he now grasped what her father alluded to when he suggested that a certain kind of ‘crazy’ was part of her mother’s lineage.

Roman made a significant life-altering change by leaving the beautiful home he once shared with his wife in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. He moved to a spacious six-bedroom co-op owned by his uncle, located just 18 miles away in ‘the city.’ Uncle Elliot’s tall and charming nephew always radiated confidence and charm during his visits, and he had been his uncle’s sole guest for several years. Imagine them enjoying brandy by the warm fire in the study, with Roman attentively listening to his uncle’s lengthy tales following delightful late-night dinners. His commitment and patience truly paid off as he received the keys to the apartment, along with an unused parking space in the garage. Most importantly, he accomplished his primary objective: obtaining a substantial amount to launch his exciting new venture, Stark Air.

When his uncle passed away, it turned out that no one in the private, ultra-secure building could quite remember what the mysterious Elliot Draper looked like. As a result, assuming his identity became rather straightforward. During the reading of Uncle Elliot’s will, he made it clear that his nephew was to repay every single penny to his estate. It was an intriguing twist for those who ever borrowed from him, as he delighted in ‘surprising’ them with unexpected conditions and interest in his seemingly generous gifts. In a surprising turn of events, an 87-year-old man cleverly outsmarted him, adding this latest disappointment to the long list of emotional and financial challenges that Roman already had to face.

~~~

Brave Author, the title caught my interest right away. It promises intrigue, deception, and secrets to be revealed, exactly the effect a title should have on a potential reader. Good job.

The first paragraph of detailed description of 9/11 is evidently intended to foreshadow what’s coming in the book but it didn’t work as written. Too many specifics were distracting, like the exact time and flight numbers. Additionally, the last sentence is a general statement that most people are well aware of so it doesn’t need to be spelled out.

One other problem is the lack of transition into the story. There is no hint of why 9/11 connects to a man walking out of an opulent NYC building into the sunshine.

Depending on how closely 9/11 relates to the story, here’s an alternative suggestion: Delete the first paragraph and instead maybe start with something along these lines:

On the sunny morning of September 10, 2001, Roman Stark strolls through the doors of….

That could establish a date that readers understand—the last day of normalcy before the catastrophic attack. But that may not be relevant to your story.

 

The initial paragraph introduces the main character and is told from his point of view (POV). It establishes location, weather, a possible theme, and ends with a good teaser “—a comforting thought he really needs today.” So far so good.

Then the rest of the page turns into a confusing backstory dump describing a disjointed string of events that jump back and forth in time.

A sunny NYC morning with musings about broken relationships, including a provocative statement by an apparent former father-in-law.

Then Roman’s life-changing move out of a home and marriage into a spacious apartment his uncle owns, then a point-of-view break where the narrator describes Roman, then a jump several years farther back in time, then another intrusion by the narrator who directly addresses the reader: “Imagine them enjoying brandy by the warm fire in the study, with Roman attentively listening to his uncle’s lengthy tales following delightful late-night dinners.”

Finally, a hint that Roman has charmed and probably conned the uncle into giving him the apartment, a parking space, and apparently seed money to launch Stark Air.

I may be really stretching here but does his airline business somehow relate to 9/11?

Roman’s goals are achieved but, at this point, it isn’t clear if Roman has apartment keys and is living there while the uncle is still alive.

Another jump back in time to when the uncle dies.

I’m further confused about when Roman actually moves in and when he assumes his uncle’s identity. Since the neighbors haven’t seen the uncle in years, that’s a cool development that makes the reader curious. But needs to be explained more clearly.

But then there’s another time jump to the reading of the uncle’s will that contains a big surprise for Roman. He’s supposed to pay back what appeared to be his inheritance. Apparently in the past (another time jump) the uncle had a pattern of giving gifts to other people but then surprising them by expecting repayment.

Now I’m totally confused. Was the apartment a gift before the uncle’s death? Was Roman posing as the uncle while the uncle was still alive? Or after death when the estate is being settled? Does the impersonation happen because Roman learns about unexpected debt from the will? Who’s the beneficiary of the estate?

If Roman is passing himself off as the uncle after the reading of the will, isn’t the actual beneficiary going to catch on pretty fast?

Notice the italics of apparent and appeared numerous times. That’s because I had to draw conclusions from events and actions that weren’t clearly connected.

Brave Author, the concept has a lot of promise. The main character appears to be a sleazy opportunist with unrealistic dreams who’s stunned when he must repay what he believed was a gift. And he’s impersonating a dead man. The situation is rich with potential complications.

But the confusing explanation of events during his morning walk indicates a serious problem with where the story starts.

There’s also inconsistency in the style. Sometimes it’s present tense, sometimes past. Sometimes the POV appears to be Roman’s. Other times there’s authorial intrusion. His disjointed thoughts swing from hopeful elation to irrelevant philosophizing to satisfaction with his own cunning to shock that his 87-year-old uncle outfoxed him to realization of his personal and financial problems. All this happens while he’s cheerfully strolling in the sunshine, deluding himself into thinking he can be a success in NYC.

Try taking a step back and ask yourself two questions:

WHAT info does the reader need to know?

WHEN do they need to know it?

Does the reader need a detailed description of 9/11 at the very beginning? Probably not.

Does the reader need to know Roman has problems and needs to give himself a pep talk? Yes.

How about that his wife slapped him a month ago? Probably yes since that caused him to move out of their home.

His musings of other past relationships that apparently failed, as well as the comments by his (presumably former) father-in-law about the mother’s “craziness” passed down to the daughter? Not needed at this point.

Does the reader need to know he moved into his uncle’s luxury apartment? Yes.

Big unanswered question: is the uncle alive or dead at this point?

Specific descriptive details about Roman’s former home? Not needed now.

The relationship with the wealthy but socially isolated uncle and his age (87)? Definitely needed.

The apparent grooming Roman does over several years to ingratiate himself with the uncle? Definitely, but delete the “Imagine” authorial intrusion. Save details like cozy fire and late dinners for later.

Roman’s goals to inherit a luxury apartment and seed money to start Stark Air? Definitely needed.

The apparent achievement of those goals? Yes.

The nasty surprise that the uncle’s “gifts” are in fact loans? Oh yes!

What about the backstory that uncle has apparently misled other people with “gifts” that have strings attached? Probably not now but necessary later.

Several other big questions that need to be answered: How did the uncle die? Natural causes? If he died at home, presumably neighbors who hadn’t seen him in years would have noticed his body being removed. If so, how does Roman pull off the impersonation?

The impersonation of the uncle? Absolutely needed but clarify the timeline. Does this happen before or after Roman learns he’s in debt?

After answering the questions, clarifying the timeline, and deleting unnecessary clutter, where should the story start?

Unless Roman is about to walk into the 9/11 explosions, I don’t think a sunny stroll while musing about the past is a good beginning.

One alternative idea: What if you introduce Roman by summarizing the past few years that he’s spent grooming his wealthy, socially isolated, 87-year-old Uncle Elliot? Roman’s goals are to inherit the luxury NYC apartment and obtain funds for his dream of starting the Stark Air business. When Uncle Elliot dies, Roman is feeling confident about his future as he’s sitting in the attorney’s office for the reading of the will.

Then the attorney drops the bomb. What Roman believed was his inheritance are actually loans that need to be repaid. And that someone else is the beneficiary of the estate. Or there are other daunting conditions Roman must meet to become the beneficiary. Or whatever other complications you can think of to turn his dreams into disaster.

How can he solve the immediate problem?

He decides to impersonate his uncle and live in the apartment. Meanwhile, though, he must figure out a plan to start a new day to tell a lie.

Thanks for submitting this page, Brave Author. With some clarification and rearrangement, you should have a compelling novel of intrigue.

~~~

TKZers, do you have suggestions for the Brave Author? Please share in the comments.

~~~

 

 

The Villain’s Journey – How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate by Debbie Burke will be published July 13, 2025.

Preorder now at this link.

Chiastic Structure

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Chiasmus – noun – a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases, as in “He went to the country, to the town went she.”

* * *

I recently encountered an episode of Thomas Umstadt Jr’s Author Media podcast entitled How to Write Enduring Best Sellers with the Two-act Chiastic Structure. I wasn’t familiar with the term “chiastic”, so I listened and learned a lot.

According to Umstadt

Western storytelling is typically based on the three-act structure. … However, the three-act structure is not the only story structure. There is an ancient story structure that dates back to the time of oral storytelling. This ancient structure is still popular in the East, yet it appeals to modern Western readers.

This two-act concept is the chiastic structure, and it can be used for sentences, poetry, stories, or even series. A famous example of a chiastic sentence was used by President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address:

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

No matter what length, the chiastic structure follows an ABBA model and can be illustrated by two lines crossing like this:

In the Kennedy example, A = “your country” and B = “you.” The second part of the statement is a mirror image of the first.

* * *

But chiastic structure gets really interesting when it’s applied to stories. Check out this example from Wikipedia that shows the Biblical narrative of Noah and the Ark as it moves from A to the midpoint and then resolves from the midpoint back to A’.

Amazing!

* * *

I tend to think of story structure more as an arc. Rising action, crisis and midpoint, falling action and resolution.

However, after I read about chiastic structure, I realize I’ve used a modified form of it a couple of times in my books. In my first novel, The Watch on the Fencepost, the story begins when a young woman finds a mysterious watch on a fencepost which propels her on a quest to find the truth about her parents’ untimely deaths. Their deaths represent the loss of her closest relationships. The book ends when she finds another watch on the same fencepost that solidifies her relationship with a man who will become a special part of her life.

I always thought of this kind of writing as bookends to a story, but there’s a lot more to chiastic structure. I suppose the internal chapters have to mirror each other. I haven’t tried anything close to this, but it would be interesting to outline a story with that structure.

* * *

So TKZers: Are you familiar with chiastic structure? Have you used it in your own writing? Is it something you think you may want to use in the future?

* * *

Coming Soon!

Another Side of Sunshine
A Reen & Joanie Detective Agency Mystery

Spunky ten-year-old Reen and her shy nine-year-old cousin Joanie go on a quest to find a treasure hidden by the mysterious Mr. Shadow. Along the way, they discover new insights into friendship and fair play.