Exposition Delayed is Not Exposition Denied

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Here we are with another first-page for critique. You know the drill. See you on the other side.

CHAPTER ONE

Kendari

It’s dark outside. It’s the type of darkness that stifles noise to save us from the monsters that hunt in the night. But our monsters are already circling in celebration, and we are trapped.

Tonight we mentally prepare for the brutal reminder that the Mearrin rule the food chain. For some, preparation means sleep, and for others, like me, it means lying awake in the hours before the sun rises.

It’s the eve of Sacrifice Night.

Shadows jump outside, blocking the light creeping through the gaps of my shuttered window. My breath catches and my heart throbs against my ribcage when the thrum of chaotic music leaks through.

There are hours before the sun rises to force the Mearrin to dissipate back to their homes, and my eyes burn with exhaustion. I have to stay awake, even as Duna and Aster sleep fitfully on either side of me, their beds pressed firmly against mine in the tiny space of our shared room.

Mother is gone delivering a baby for the night, and I am the oldest at home, leaving me responsible for staying awake to watch and listen. I have to make sure no rogue Mearin enter while euphoric on iron water. There’s nothing I can do to defend us if they decide to break the door down or reach through a window to slice our throats with claws as long as our fingers.

JSB: I really like this page. It’s full of dark dread and mystery, and has a distinct voice. The opening disturbance is palpable. It begins world building and establishes a lead character we care about. One of my structural pillars is “the care package.”

The Care Package is a relationship the Lead has with someone else, in which he shows his concern, through word or deed, for that character’s well being. This humanizes the Lead and engenders sympathy in the reader, even if the Lead happens to be a louse.

In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is not just some lone rogue. She is the protector of and provider for her mother and sister, Prim. What she does in taking Prim’s place in the Games is the ultimate sacrifice of love. When she makes it, we are so much on her side that we will follow her anywhere, rooting for her all the way.

This page has that same feel. Thus, I have only a few suggestions.

RUE

RUE stands for “resist the urge to explain.” Exposition is often best delayed on first pages so we can get fully immersed in the story world by way of the characters. I would cut this paragraph:

Tonight we mentally prepare for the brutal reminder that the Mearrin rule the food chain. For some, preparation means sleep, and for others, like me, it means lying awake in the hours before the sun rises.

We don’t need this because what follows shows us what’s happening. The one item about the food chain can wait until later. Right now it’s most important to feel what the Lead is feeling and not let anything get in the way.

The Kicker

I suggest moving the line It’s the eve of Sacrifice Night to the end. That’d really make me want to turn the page!

Some Rearrangement

The opening paragraph jolted me a bit, as I pondered how darkness can stifle noise. Here is a suggested rearrangement of the opening lines for your consideration:

Our monsters are already circling in celebration, and we are trapped.

Shadows jump outside, blocking the light creeping through the gaps of my shuttered window. My breath catches and my heart throbs against my ribcage when the thrum of chaotic music leaks through. 

There are It’s hours before the sun rises to force the Mearrin to dissipate back to their homes, and my eyes burn with exhaustion.

Also this line confused me: Mother is gone delivering a baby for the night. The way that’s phrased grammatically can make it seem like Mother is delivering a baby FOR the night (in other words, turning the baby over to something dark or evil). Simply change it to: Mother is gone for the night, delivering a baby.

Typo

I have to make sure no rogue Mearin enter… (Should be Mearrin—two r’s.)

And that is all I’ve got. If I were browsing and read this page, I would definitely keep going. Well done, intrepid writer!

Over to you, TKZers.

More Thriller Words of Wisdom

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My wife and I recently watched Conclave, based on the Robert Harris novel of the same name, and were swept up in a very suspenseful political thriller set at the Vatican, during a conclave to choose a new pope. The riveting storyline and plot twists led to my diving into the KZB archives for another round of wisdom about thrillers.

We have Larry Brooks discussing the underpinnings of thrillers; Sue Coletta on causes of false eyewitness testimony, often a plot point in thrillers; Jordan Dane provides eight ways to write conspiracies, which are often plot fuel for thriller plots. As always, the full posts are date-linked from their respective excerpts.

  1. What is conceptual about my story?

Every novel has a premise, for better or worse. But every premise does not necessarily have something conceptual within it. They are separate essences, and both are essential.

The goal is to infuse your premise with a conceptual notion, a proposition or setting that fuels the premise and its narrative with compelling energy.

The hallmark of a concept is this: even before you add a premise (i.e., a hero and a plot), something about the setup makes one say, “Wow, now that sounds like a story I’d like to read!”

  1. Do I have an effective hook?

A good hook puts the concept into play early, posing a question so intriguing that the reader must stick around for an answer. It provides a glimpse of the darkness and urgency to come. It makes us feel, even before we’ve met a hero or comprehend the impending darkness in full.

  1. Do you fully understand the catalytic news, unexpected event or course change that launches the hero down the path of his/her core story quest?

Despite how a story is set up, there is always an inevitable something that shows up after the setup that shifts the story into a higher, more focused pace. In three-act structure this is the transition between Act 1 (setup) and Act II (response/confrontation), also known as the First Plot Point, which launches the dramatic spine of the story.

Once that point in the story is reached there is no turning back, either for the hero or the reader.

In any genre it is easily argued that this is the most important moment in a story, appearing at roughly the 20th to 25th percentile mark within the narrative.

  1. What are the stakes of your story?

Thrillers especially are almost entirely stakes-driven. If the hero succeeds then lives are saved and villains with dire agendas are thwarted. Good triumphs over evil and disaster. If the hero fails people die, countries crumble and evil wins.

The more dire the impending darkness, the higher the stakes.

  1. What is your reader rooting for, rather than simply observing?

In any good novel the hero needs something to do – a goal – which can be expressed as an outcome (stop the villain, save the world) and a game plan (what must be done to get to that outcome).

A novel is always about the game plan, the hero’s journey.  The outcome of the quest is context for the journey.

Great thrillers invest the reader in the path toward that outcome by infusing each and every step along the way with stakes, threat, danger and obstacles the hero must overcome.

It is the degree of reader empathy and gripping intrigue at any given moment in the story that explains a bestseller versus an also-ran.

Larry Brooks—June 15, 2015

Action Details

When we witness a crime, we absorb the information by the actions that happened during the commission of the crime. For example, a man pointed a gun at a woman, pushed her into his van, and sped away. The central information — what an eyewitness focuses on — and the peripheral information — what’s happening around said eyewitness — often becomes skewed with the surge of adrenaline.

Such findings suggest that when we witness a traumatic event, our attention is drawn to the central action at the expense of descriptive details. Yet, in other circumstances, such as non-violent events, our attention may be spread more evenly between the two.

Which brings us back to inattentional blindness. This phenomenon occurs when attention is drawn toward only one aspect of an eyewitness’ surroundings, resulting in lack of information. Which writers can use to our advantage.

Weapon Focus

The use of weapons complicate matters even more. When a gunman brandishes his firearm, an eyewitness tends to focus on the pistol rather than other details, such as the suspect’s hair and eye color, build and dress. Researchers have tested this theory, as well.

In the study, they showed participants videos of robberies — robbery involves a weapon and a victim; burglary does not— where one group witnessed the robber with a concealed pistol and other group witnessed the robber with the gun in plain sight. When researchers asked the concealed weapon group to identify the robber in a line-up, only 46% of participants could identify the suspect. From those who watched the video where the robber brandished the weapon, only 26% could identify him.

Schemas

In order for an eyewitness to be able to answer a question, they must be willing to respond. And it’s this willingness that can impair their memory of the events. Not everything we “see” or “experience” is stored in our minds. Our brains don’t work like computers where each bit is encoded. Rather, we make connections to other things in order to process information. If you’re interested in learning more, I’ve written about Subliminal Messages on my blog.

Episodic memories — memories involving an event — are organized in our minds as “event schemas.” This allows us to store knowledge, events, and activities by connecting to what we classify as “normal.” In other words, rather than remembering every time we dined at our favorite seafood joint, we tend to build a general impression of seafood restaurants … the smell, the atmosphere, and so on.

However, the use of schemas can distort memories. The perfect example of this is when someone asks me about my childhood, then asks my brother. From our answers one might think we grew up in different households. Many factors contribute to how we remember times and events. Such as, influence. When gaps exist in our memory we tend to incorporate new information in an attempt to fill in the blanks. Although useful in everyday life, this poses real problems for investigators, because this new information is often constructed after the crime took place, and leads to false testimony.

Sue Coletta—October 22, 2018

8 Key Ways to Writing Believable Conspiracies

1) Take advantage of paranoia. Mistrust and suspicion are keys to pulling off a believable conspiracy plot. Even if readers haven’t considered darker subversive motives at play during relatively routine activities, trigger their paranoia with your plot and a different way to look at it.

2) Write what you fear. If you fear it, chances are that readers will too. Convince them. Exploit common fears and highlight deeper ways that get readers thinking. In fiction, it works to grip readers in a personal way. The fears we all share—the things that wake us up in the middle of the night—can tap into a great plot.

3) Villainous motivation must feel real. You can be over the top but give your diabolical conspiracy a strong and plausible motivation. Don’t be vague. Drill down into your conspirators and justify their motives and existence from the foot soldiers on up the line.

4) Give your bad guys believable resources. Make it seem insurmountable to stop them. Think of the infrastructure it would take to plausibly pull off your thriller plot. Have them use believable technology, science and manpower to give them the appearance of Goliath when it comes to your hero/heroine fighting their diabolical acts.

5) Know organizations and your governmental jurisdictions to give your plot teeth. How do they operate in secret? Give them a plausible connection to organizations the reader may know about. Draw from organizations or systems readers will understand. If you’re too vague, readers will dismiss your plot as unlikely and a shadowy plot with no substance.

6) Make the risks personal for your hero and heroine. High stakes are important, but force your main character(s) to dig deep to fight through their fears and insurmountable odds. This is what will keep readers rooting for your characters. Make them worthy of their star role. A global phenomenon can put readers on edge, but bring the impact down to the personal stakes of real human beings for maximum impact.

7) Ripped from the headlines stories can add layers of credibility. The best fictional thrillers come from events or news that readers are familiar with.

a.) Re-imagine a well known historical event. Add your best twist to a conspiracy makes your work more interesting and forces readers to think.

b.) Or dig into a headline story for facts that are not readily known. Often that story will be deeper than most readers are aware of, especially if there are personal human stories within the big headline.

Jordan Dane—April 18, 2019

***

  1. How do you come up with what is conceptual about your own story? How do you decide on the stakes?
  2. What do you think of Sue’s action details, weapon focus, and schemas? Does the idea of a schema give you an idea for a thriller?
  3. What do you think of Jordan’s eight ways for generating conspiracies? Do you have a ninth?
  4. If you write thrillers, what’s one piece of advice you can share about writing them?

The Diary of a CEO

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Steven Bartlett is an interesting young guy, He’s a self-made, multi-millionaire entrepreneur and host of a highly popular podcast called The Diary of a CEO. Recently, he released a book with the same title, subtitled The 33 Laws of Business and Life.

I just read Bartlett’s book, and I can say it’s no run-of-the-mill motivational, self-help spiel that promotes the law of attraction, manifestation, and unicorn-inflated fairy fluffs. This is an outlier look at what works and what doesn’t work. And there’s good stuff in here for writers.

Here’s the jacket copy:

Steven Bartlett has never been one to follow conventional rules. He’s achieved extraordinary success and emerged as one of the greatest marketing minds of our time by doing things differently. But there is a method to his maverick style.​

Between founding and running a global digital marketing agency, investing in over forty companies, creating a hit podcast, and launching a venture fund for minority businesses, Bartlett has learned valuable lessons about success and failure, discovering a set of principles that he uses to guide him on his journey from strength to strength.​

In The Diary of a CEO, he presents these thirty-three fundamental laws for the first time. Inspired by his own experience, rooted in psychology and behavioral science, and drawn from the conversations he’s had on his podcast with the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, artists, writers, and athletes, these laws will ensure excellence and help you take real steps toward achieving your most daring goals.

From the power of ‘leaning into bizarre behavior’ to learning to ‘out-fail the competition’ to ‘never asking for consensus on creativity’ to ‘making pressure your privilege’ to understanding why ‘you must be an inconsistent leader,’ Bartlett provides counterintuitive and fresh insights to lead you on the path to success.

These laws will stand the test of time and will help anyone master their life and unleash their potential, no matter the field.

There’s a lot to digest in this work. A lot to ponder, and a lot to make you say, “That’s a different way to look at it.” But there’s one law (#27) that hit home for me as a writer.

It’s The Discipline Equation: Death, Time, and Discipline. This law teaches you how to be disciplined in anything you set your mind to through a simple “discipline equation”, and why discipline is the ultimate secret to being successful in any ambition we have. Like writing.

Discipline involves the strict allocation of time—the one resource we all have equally in a day, a month, a year. Bartlett uses an analogy called Time Betting where we’re issued poker chips of time blocks and can bet (gamble) upon the results of how we use them. He does this to make you realize how vitally important, precious, and valuable each chip—each minute and hour of your day—truly is.

Setting aside Bartlett’s figure that the average person spends 3.15 hours per day on their smartphone, he offers an intriguing formula for discipline:

Discipline = Value of Goal + Reward of Pursuit – Cost of Pursuit

Bartlett says that success is not complicated, it’s not magic, and it’s not mystery. Luck, chance, and fortune may give you a wonderful tailwind, but the rest will be a byproduct of how you choose to use your time. Most of it hinges on finding something that captivates us enough to persevere daily and use a goal that resonates profoundly enough to remain steadfast in our pursuit.

Success, especially writing success, is the embodiment of discipline—though it may not be easy, its core principles are beautifully simple.

Kill Zoners — Thoughts?

Gun Porn – Center Axis Relock

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By John Gilstrap

As most of you know by now, I am an unapologetic gun guy. I own a few, and I train with them regularly. I enjoy the process of taking them apart and cleaning them and then putting them back together again. The aroma of Hoppes cleaning solvent mixed with gun oil is perfume. I belong to a shooting club that’s populated by the nicest, down-to-earth folks you’d ever want to know. But it would be unwise to break into their homes or mess with their families.

Weaver Stance

As with any other bit of hardware, trends come and go. In the video above, from the SHOT Show, I am shooting a suppressed Glock 19, using a modified Weaver stance, with my body bladed to the target and my right foot behind my left. Think of it as a natural fighting stance. It’s the stance I was first taught a thousand years ago, and it makes the most sense to me. Most fights don’t start with guns, they start with fists, and the Weaver stance mimics a boxer’s stance.

Isosceles Stance

Nowadays, the Weaver stance is considered outdated, and for the last eight years or so, every range instructor I’ve encountered has scolded me for using it. The new trend in shooters stances is the Isosceles stance. In this one, you square your body to the target, with arms completely outstretched. In your fiction, if you’ve got a rookie cop, this is the stance that they will acquire when they shoot, because in stressful situations, people revert back to their training. Among gun folk, there’s a raging debate over the relative wisdom of the two stances.

Personally, the Isosceles stance makes no sense to me. You present a bigger target and by extending your arms out so far, you make it easy for a bad guy to disarm in close quarters confrontations.

Everything changed when that jerk was foolish enough to kill John Wick’s dog, Daisy, and the world was introduced to an established, effective, but until that movie, a little known set of gun handling techniques called Center Axis Relock.

This technique embraces the fact that gunfights are often intimate affairs, conducted within bad breath distance. From the instant the pistol is drawn, it’s ready to join the fight. At the draw, your body is severely bladed toward the target, such that your elbow is pointing at the bad guy’s center of mass. In close quarters, your elbow acts as a front sight and allows you to get shots on close-in targets instantly.

When it’s time to deal with targets beyond, say, 7 yards, you bring the pistol up to the position shown in the picture by Keanu Reeves. This grip and stance is tough to master, and even in the picture, Keanu isn’t doing it quite right. The difficult elements are to keep your wrist straight in line with your forearm (Keanu’s great on that), but he needs to have the gun canted over further to aim only with his left eye–otherwise at that distance, he’ll see two front sights.

The downsides to this stance, I think, are pretty severe outside of a fight for your life–which a day at the range is not. The report of the gunshot will be much louder, you’ll be more susceptible to powder spray from the ejection port, and anytime you’re pulling triggers close to your body, you’re upping the likelihood of shooting yourself.

Your protagonist, however, has no fear of any such outcomes.

Comments and questions are welcome.

And now, by way of shameless self promotion . . .

Here’s the press release for BURNED BRIDGES, the first book of my new Irene Rivers thriller series.

The Edgar Nominee Covers:
Bold, Bright And On Trend

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By PJ Parrish

Good morning, crime dogs. I am probably somewhere over Lake Erie as you read this. Or maybe catching the bus from lovely Newark airport into Manhattan. It’s Edgar Awards time, and as banquet chair, I am going to be out of touch today through Thursday night.

So, as I usually do, I thought I give you a look at some of the nominees this year. I focus on cover design because — obviously! — I have not read all the books under consideration. I like following trends in book design and it’s important to talk about it here because many of you, being self-published, design your own covers or have a lot of input into whomever you chose to design your book.

Your cover design is one of the most important decisions you have to make. It’s your mini-billboard to get readers’ attention, whether in a thumbnail-size on Amazon, on an iPhone, or, if you’re lucky, on an actual book shelf somewhere.

A cover creates the first impression, and encourages readers to buy your story. That’s why it’s essential to invest in it. Please, please, I beg of you, don’t hand this important task over to your nephew Jerome who just aced his sophomore art class. Hire a pro.

Two quick things to always keep in mind: Pay close attention to genre standards to signal to potential readers that your book is what they seek. If you’re writing dark, hardboiled stuff, you need all your cover elements — color, fonts, graphics — to convey the MOOD of your book. And if you’re writing in the grand tradition of Mary Higgins Clark, you’re going to want to go for something less gruesome or gritty. Something like this year’s nominees for the MHC Award:

Second, pay attention to what’s hot in the market these days. Yeah, there’s room for you to be yourself, but it doesn’t hurt to know what’s catching the eye these days.

That said, predicting what will be effective is not easy. Last year, the trend was toward bold typography (mainly sans-serif), nostalgic revival, and very abstract graphics. I see this in many of the Edgar covers this year and experts predict this will continue.

In cozies and juvenile mysteries, large serif or cursive sans serif fonts depicted in bright hues are popular. In fantasy and thrillers, animated GIF covers are hot — images like drifting clouds or flickering flames.

Eye-popping color is a big thing across every genre. As one designer put it:

The era of muted tones and grayscale snooze-fests is officially over. Bright, bold colors are everywhere, and it all started with contemporary romance covers that looked like they were designed in a candy shop. But now, these vibrant palettes are invading every genre—fantasy, thrillers, even horror (the horror!).

That gritty crime novel? It might have a shocking pink accent. Your post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic? Say hello to vivid oranges and electric blues. Why? Because readers want their bookshelves (and eReaders) to feel like an art gallery—not a funeral procession. And let’s be honest, a pop of color is way more inviting than 50 shades of beige.

Other mini-trends: BIG TYPE that takes up the whole cover space, like this:

I Will Find You by Harlan Coben (2023, Hardcover) - Picture 1 of 3

Collages are big right now. Oddly enough in young adult — botanicals! Also, stock photography is yesterday’s news; the fresh look is illustrations.

Now let’s look at some of the Edgar covers to see if what I just said holds water.

BIG BOLD SPACE-HOGGING TYPE

ILLUSTRATIONS INSTEAD OF PHOTOS

COLLAGES!

BOLD TYPOGRAPHY

AND A FEW COVERS I JUST LIKE

I find this nominee for Best First Novel just haunting. No screaming colors, almost black and white. (only trendy thing is sans serif font). Yet the cloud image around the woman’s profile amplifies the title and makes me want to read the story.

Another winner, I think. This Best Young Adult nominee could have done the usual stock photo of an amorous Asian couple in a clinch. But the illustration conveys a modern mood (look at their expressions — is that love or hate?) with a nod to traditional Asian art.  Did you notice the half-hidden crane?

An interesting example of illustration rather than photograph. Not sure this one works, however, because the creamy background and water-color illustration might read too vague on anything other than a large format.

I’m conflicted on this Best Novel nominee. The setting is right there in the title but the combo of the green type and the murky street scene reads a bit muddy. BUT…then you see that one lighted window at the top of the building. Not bad.

Well, that’s all I have room for this year. If you’d like to see all the nominees and their covers, click here. Congratulations to all the Edgar nominees. This year marks Mystery Writers of America’s 80th anniversary. By the way, the 80th anniversary is designated as OAK. Which isn’t very interesting. Unless you’re thinking in terms of coffins or maybe Poe’s Cask of Amontillado.

 

How Well Do You Sleep, Writers?

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Every morning for two solid weeks I woke at 3 a.m. Not 3:05 or 3:10, exactly 3:00 a.m. sharp. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

One or two mornings could be a fluke. Fourteen? No way was that a coincidence.

Like any good writer when faced with a mystery, I researched possible reasons why. More importantly, I needed a solution so I didn’t join the walking dead.

What I learned fascinated me.

Because self-care is vital for writers, I thought I’d share my discovery in case one of you may be experiencing the same thing. This, of course, applies to everyone, not just writers, but I like to make us feel special.

While searching for a cause, I stumbled across an interesting discussion on Quora. An older gentleman mentioned his body had acclimated to waking at the end of each sleep cycle for a bathroom break. After which, he immediately fell back asleep.

Men tend to have an easier time falling asleep after waking due to higher levels of testosterone, which greatly enhances sleep. Hence why so many older women have difficulty sleeping through the night. Testosterone levels and prostrates start to wane as men age, hence the bathroom breaks, but it plummets in women, as we only start with a fraction of what they have.

Could decreasing hormones cause my 3 a.m. wake-up call? And if so, how can I fix it?

When I read the Quora discussion, more questions arose:

  • How long is a normal sleep cycle?
  • How many sleep cycles do we have per night?
  • How can I cancel the 3 a.m. wake-up call without pharmaceuticals?

Whenever possible, I prefer natural remedies. Not only is it healthier but all pharmaceuticals in their infancy stem from nature. Why not skip the middleman?

My.ClevelandClinic.org describes sleep basics as:

“Sleeping doesn’t mean your brain is totally inactive. While you’re less aware of the world around you, you still have plenty of detectable brain activity. That brain activity has predictable patterns. Experts organized those patterns into stages. The stages fall broadly into two categories: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep.”

During a normal sleep cycle, the brain enters four stages.

When we first fall asleep, we enter stage 1 NREM (non-REM). The lightest stage of sleep, this stage only lasts a few minutes, about 5% of our sleep time. After that, we fall deeper asleep and move into stage 2 NREM, where brain waves slow and have noticeable pauses between short, powerful bursts of electrical activity. Experts think those bursts are the brain organizing memories and information from the time we spent awake.

We then enter stage 3 NREM, the deepest sleep. Brain waves are slow but strong. Our bodies take advantage of deep sleep to repair injuries and reinforce the immune system. We desperately need stage 3 NREM to feel rested upon waking. Without enough of stage 3, we’d feel tired and drained even if we stayed in bed for eight hours.

After the most beneficial stage of sleep, we return to stage 2 NREM, the gatekeeper of REM sleep. REM (rapid eye movement) cycle is where we dream; it makes up about 25% of total sleep time. The first REM cycle is the shortest, around 10 minutes. Each one that follows is longer than the last, up to an hour.

After REM, we start a new sleep cycle and go back into stage 1 or 2 NREM. One full cycle lasts 90 – 120 minutes. If we get a full eight hours of sleep, we should go through four or five cycles per night.

Though fascinating, it still didn’t explain why I kept waking at 3 a.m.

I dug deeper into sleep cycles and possible reasons for an abrupt disruption. Again, I leaned toward a possible decrease in testosterone. He wasn’t the culprit. Only one hormone is released at 3 a.m.—serotonin. But I thought serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins were our friends. They’re our feel-good hormones. How could serotonin be responsible for such an evil act?

Evidently, our bodies release small amounts of serotonin at that ungodly hour to prepare us to wake in a few hours.

Here’s the rub…

Stress can switch the trickle of serotonin, which keeps us from feeling sluggish and groggy during the day, into a massive flood. This surge wakes us immediately rather than acting like a gentle nudge toward wakefulness.

I didn’t think I was stressed. Upon reflection, my endless to-do list had been weighing on me. I’d lost so much writing time (packing, moving, unpacking, acclimating) that I let that negative voice whisper horrible things about me. A writer’s inner critic is a feral beast worthy of a firing squad. Or a public hanging. I usually have an easier time silencing her, but the lack of sleep weakened my fighting spirit.

Regardless, I refused to accept my fate. I don’t mind waking at 4:30ish but 3 a.m. wrecked me.

How did I combat the influx of serotonin?

The answer is so simple. We do it every day, all day. Anyone? Anyone? We’ve talked about this before.

Deep breathing exercises. Specifically, what’s known as box breathing, commonly used by Navy SEALs and other Special Forces.

As soon as I crawl into bed, I take a moment to inhale through my nostrils for a four-count, hold for four, exhale out my mouth for four, and hold again. Four or five rounds works for me. You may be different. Try it. You’ll know when to stop.

The box breathing technique helps to regulate breathing, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve focus and concentration.

By reducing stress at bedtime, my body doesn’t trigger serotonin to flood my system at 3 a.m. Ever since I implemented this nightly routine, I’ve slept till 5:30 – 6 a.m.

Sometimes, the easiest solution is the right one.

So, TKZers, how well do you sleep? Have you tried deep breathing exercises to combat stress and/or improve focus?

Mass Market Paperbacks, RIP

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

My favorite era of publishing is the post-war mass market paperback boom of the 1950s. Here was a galaxy of genre fiction, from hardboiled detectives like Mike Hammer and Shell Scott, to standalone crime fiction from the “red-hot typewriter” of John D. MacDonald and a slew of others. And the covers! Oh, those glorious covers, with just enough salaciousness to catch the eye, but not enough to get the book placed in brown paper at the far end of the newsstand (what they used to call “smut”).

I have a story about that. When I was a kid I read many of the classics well ahead of my classmates. I mean, I read Moby-Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities,  Les Misérables, The Last of the Mohicans,The Hunchback of Notre Dame and other such like. Full disclosure: these were in the form of Classics Illustrated comic books. Those gems were written with great care to be true to the source material.

I made regular trips on my bike to Sipe’s Market and Green’s Drugstore to buy these comics, along with Archie, Superman, and Batman. And then I’d spend a little time at the spinner racks of paperbacks. At the time, the early to mid-60s, secret agents were hot. Not only James Bond, but also the hit TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (I still remember what that stood for: United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.)

So one day I was spinning a rack and came upon a series I didn’t know. The title was The Man From O.R.G.Y.

Cool, thought I. A new secret agent! I brought it to the cash register. But the man took one look and said, “This is not for you, son.”

“But I have the money,” I said.

“I’m not going to sell it to you,” he said, then added, “You can ask your parents why.”

Which I did. My mom delicately, oh so delicately, informed me that this was inappropriate for kids, and that the abbreviation stood for something “bad” that adults did. Later, in the schoolyard, I found out from a classmate what that bad thing was. Sheesh! Adults did that? Gross!

But my love of paperbacks was firmly established. Much later, when pursuing a writing career, I would scour used bookstores for titles from the classic era of Fawcett Gold Medal, Bantam, Dell and others. I eventually acquired a full set of all the 1950s stand-alones by the great John D., and bunches from other writers of the time. They are on my shelves now.

My own early books came out in trade paperback size, then hardcover. But I always wanted to be in MM. I realized my dream when I got a three-book contract with Kensington for the first (and only?) zombie legal thriller series, written under the nom de plume K. Bennett. I have the rights back and publish them under my own name, with new covers…though I wish I had rights to the old ones!)

That’s why it is sad to hear about the imminent death of the format. In the Substack Inside Agenting by the noted literary agent Richard Curtis, he writes:

[Mass market paperbacks] are scheduled to die at the end of this year.

Their death notice was recently announced in Publishers Weekly: “Sales of mass market paperbacks have steadily declined in recent years, to the point where they accounted for only about 3% of units sold at retailers that report to Circana BookScan in 2024. The format will take another big blow at the end of 2025, when Readerlink will stop distributing mass market paperbacks to its accounts.” ReaderLink describes itself as “the largest full-service distributor in North America” with six U.S. distribution centers supplying over 100,000 stores. All major publishers are shifting their focus to trade paperback as the format of choice both for originals and reprints. Even paperback publishers that prospered with genre literature like romance and science fiction are pushing their chips onto the larger trim size.

The reasons for this demise are:

  • Tissue-thin profit margins. Publication and distribution has become exceedingly cost-ineffective compared to other (and higher priced) print formats like hardcover and trade paperback.
  • The gradual disappearance of paperback racks and other displays in drugstores and supermarkets, and the explosive growth of chain bookstores whose bookshelves do not display MMPBs as effectively as trade paperbacks.
  • The decline of book departments at big-box stores like Walmart, where paperbacks failed to meet the test of profitability per square foot of display space compared to other consumer goods like deodorant and panty hose.
  • The rise of e-books as a preferred reprint format. Because e-books are released simultaneously with hardcover editions, as opposed to mass market paperbacks which are traditionally issued a year or longer after a book’s first edition, e-books have a huge advantage over MMPBs. Plus e-books are cheaper.

The one thing that never changes is change, right? But we writers are corks on the surface of the roiling sea of publishing upheavals, surviving, because no matter the format we have what the world needs—stories. And good stories, with actual human voice, will find their place. Always.

What has been your relationship with mass market paperbacks?

Personal Correspondence Made Public

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An email came in the other day. “Where do you get your ideas for books and columns?”

Dear Reader,

Thanks for reading my work, and I’m honored that you took the time to reach out. My work oftentimes comes from Reality.

For example, I’m sure I speak for us all when I tell you that a bite from turtles, tortoises, and maybe terrapins will lock that moment in our memories forever. It’s much like we remember where we were when some life-changing event occurred in our lives.

Here I’m talking about those women who were shot into the air in a tin can a few days ago to squeal and float around for a moment while they looked at the moon that I can clearly see several times a month from my own backyard, and with less capital outlay. Really, I don’t care that they went up and came down, because I really want to talk about dinosaurs and reptiles. The idea for today’s discussion came to mind when I saw a Reel the other day concerning an emergency room visit by a man with a live and apparently contented snapping turtle attached to his face.

We all know turtles are distant relatives of the dinosaur infestation that occurred 66 to 245 million years ago, as determined by dust-covered men covered who pause in sweeping rocks with small brushes to explain the past.

Personally, I like terrapins and tortoises, especially when they’re not attached to someone’s body parts. Case in point, we recently took the grand-critters to a miserably hot and windy event often called a Renaissance Festival, where fully grown adults dress up in period clothing (or mythical clothing they wish those people wore, including spiked shoulders, fairy wings, and elf ears) and walk around talking to each other in horribly bad medieval accents.

In the midst of all this wishful history that also involved the sale of modern pretzels on a stick, magic wands, padded swords people used to whack at each other in pretend stables, and stir-fry bowls, we came across a traditional Renaissance petting zoo.

But before that, there were several signs posted outside warning that no “weapons” were allowed. This included knives, and the pocket variety as well. However, once inside, if you carried in enough money, you could purchase a ten inch, razor sharp handmake knife in more than one location.

Anyway, once inside, we came to a petting zoo. After paying a small ransom for five kids to pet the kinfolk of animals they could have rubbed on when we had the Oklahoma ranch, they took up paper cups full of sliced apples (for an extra ducat, of course) and rushed around the artificial medieval pens made from T-posts zip-tied with cedar fence planks, feeding potbellied pigs, lambs, colts, calves, one miniature horse a couple of inches higher than said potbellied pig, and a tortoise the size of a number 5 washtub.

Having little experience with tortoises, their parents (my own offspring) neglected to explain how to the feed those reptiles and grandcritter Number 4 yelped. “It bit me!!!”

Sure enough, the black-eyed reptile’s beak (made of keratin) cracked Number 4’s fingernail (also made of keratin), resulting in some minor blood loss equivalent to one drop. But this kid has a rigor when he gets a splinter, and the sight of a mere speck of blood sends him into a full half hour of crying and terrified shrieking.

As we stanched the medieval wound, I told him about seeing the aforementioned Reel. For those who don’t have Facebook accounts, a Reel is a few seconds of video crack to which people have become addicted and spend hours watching one piece of idiocy after another, even though some of these little videos end before the “story” or “event” is completed, leaving the addict craving more.

In the one I related to my tearful grandson, there was a clip of an emergency room and a man seated in a wheelchair, who in turn clutched the body of an extremely large snapping turtle that had chomped down on his face and apparently wouldn’t let go.

Remembering the best advice I ever got from the Old Folks, “Snapping turtles latch on and won’t turn loose until it thunders,” I’ve always distanced myself from those things.

So these guys in the Reel, who took their friend to the ER, didn’t think of any way to remove the large reptile from said victim’s face before loading him into their vehicle and making the drive to get help.

I’m confident any relative or mine, or the Hunting Club members, would have known how to remove a turtle waiting for thunder.

However, these folks who enjoyed hugging, petting, or kissing them, likely had no experience with wild animals

I’ve seen people kiss snakes, too.

No.

What they also didn’t know, apparently, is that snapping turtles have extremely long and flexible necks. I have it on good authority, Wikipedia, that a snapper’s neck can be up to two-thirds the length of its shell and it has the jaw power to clip off a stray finger or two.

According to intense research which took up nearly 90 seconds of my life, I found that a study done in 2023 used some specific but undisclosed device that registered numbers showing the bite of a common, and not especially gifted snapper, registers between 62 and 564 Newtons of force in jaw strength. I don’t know who this Newton guy is, but he apparently has a strong bite.

As a public service, I did more research and learned the way to pick up a snapping turtle is to grasp the back end of its shell, as we now know two-thirds of the way back from its biting part, thereby ensuring your digits are beyond its reach.

Better yet, don’t pick it up.

So let’s review. Inexperienced people shouldn’t feed a dinosaur’s distant kin, don’t kiss, hug, or snuggle them, because they are reptiles and don’t get the same fuzzies from cuddling, and avoid Renaissance Festivals at all costs.

Oh, and if a turtle latches on to you and there’s no possibility of thunder in the near future, call me. I can tell you how to get it off before you head to the ER.

So thanks for your correspondence, and I hope you enjoy the snakes and reptiles in my upcoming novel, Comancheria. But they’re not based on any real truth or family lore, and I have to admit, I don’t know if horny toads (Texan for horned lizards) stutter or not.

And as one more public service, reptiles, to my knowledge, don’t communicate with bad medieval accents, either. I hope this helps those writers to seek assurance, inspiration, and advice from this blog post as well. You’re welcome.

Rev.

 

 

Reader Friday: TV Mystery Series

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The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery. —Francis Bacon

* * *

Some of my favorite TV shows to watch while I’m running on the treadmill are old mystery series. I like Murder, She Wrote, Columbo, Midsomer Murders, and a few others. My favorite is Endeavour starring Shaun Evans as the young Detective Endeavour Morse.

Recently, I decided it was time to watch newer mystery series (ones that aired starting in the year 2020 or later.) I found a lot of them. Here are a few I thought sounded interesting:

Adolescence – When a 13-year-old is accused of the murder of a classmate, his family, therapist and the detective in charge are all left asking what really happened.

Severance – Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.

High Potential – A single mom with three kids helps solve an unsolvable crime when she rearranges some evidence during her shift as a police department cleaner.

Grace – Brighton set crime drama following Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a hard-working police officer who has given his life to the job.

Dark Winds – Follows Leaphorn and Chee, two Navajo police officers in the 1970s Southwest that are forced to challenge their own spiritual beliefs when they search for clues in a double murder case.

Ludwig – While seeking to unravel the mystery of his twin brother’s disappearance, reclusive puzzle-designer John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor takes on his twin brother James’s identity as DCI on Cambridge’s major crimes squad.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society – Follows four members of a suburban garden club, as they get caught up in murder and mischief, as they strive to flourish.

Only Murders in the Building – Three strangers – who live in the same New York City apartment building and share an obsession with true crime – suddenly find themselves embroiled in a murder.

I don’t have any data on the series beyond the taglines above.

So TKZers: Help me find a new series. What Mystery Series are your favorites? Have you watched any of the newer series? Which would you recommend?