The Period is Your Friend

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Image by David Frampton from Pixabay

It’s a First-Page Critique bonanza here at TKZ. This one was submitted as a thriller. See you on the other side of the waters.

Turbulent Waters

In fluid dynamics, turbulent flow is motion
Characterized by chaotic changes in pressure.

Jake Burton knew next-to-nothing about diesel maintenance, but he knew about the marine mechanic’s thirst for Canadian whiskey, and he knew even more about the fine art of negotiation with thirsty men. 

“I dunno, Jake. State law says every boat’s gotta have a certified captain and a licensed and bonded mechanic aboard. Fines are high if the Coast Guard catches you.”

“Nobody’s going to catch me—you said it yourself, the engine in that boat is running smooth, and the trip only lasts four hours. You’ll be back on board for the afternoon tour.” Jake pressed the knuckle of his thumb against his upper lip to stop an itch, then pulled a fifty from his wallet, slapped the worn leather shut, and handed the bill to the other man. “Take the morning off. Go get yourself a big breakfast.” 

The mechanic took the bill and stuffed it into the pocket of his oil-stained coveralls. He scratched his head. “I’m just not sure. I could lose my job—”

“Okay, look, here’s another twenty. Honest, that’s all I’ve got. You’ve officially cleaned me out.” He pulled a lone bill and stood for a moment holding the empty wallet wide in illustration. “But, I do have a little something else you might like.” 

The man took the bill, pushed it into his pocket with the fifty. “What’s that?”

Jake pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “See that blue Ford pickup in the lot? Well, there’s a brand-new bottle of Crown Royal still in the box under the passenger’s seat. I could toss that in to sweeten the pie.” 

The mechanic shielded his eyes against the bright morning sunlight and looked across the marina parking lot. “You mean that old beater?”

Jake nodded and tilted his head. “Deal?”

The mechanic shifted from one foot to the other, pulled the lobe of his left ear, and sighed. “Yeah, okay, deal. Just make sure you bring my box back the minute you get off the boat. And don’t lose any of my tools overboard.” Without another word, shuffled off to the blue truck, the purple box, purple bag, and golden liquid.

Jake dug through the contents of the borrowed toolbox, but was interrupted by the threatening notes of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”—the ring tone he’d chosen for his ex-wife’s number.

***

JSB: On a macro level, I like this scene. It’s active (dialogue is always an action) and there’s a disturbance—a criminal enterprise is afoot and an angry ex-wife is calling! I certainly would turn the page to find out what she has to say, and what Jake’s boat trip is all about. I get a Florida-noir vibe from this, which is John D. MacDonald territory. I’m interested.

Now let’s see if we can’t do some editing which will ratchet up that interest for the reader. Beginning with your epigraph.

You probably know that an epigraph normally goes on its own page. That’s what I’d advise here, as it gets in the way of the active opening. Also, the way you have it makes it look like lines from a poem (the capital C in Characterized). Surely it’s not, unless it’s the worst poem ever written. So why is it broken up that way? It should be: In fluid dynamics, turbulent flow is motion, characterized by chaotic changes in pressure.

Further, an epigraph always requires a source. Thus:

In fluid dynamics, turbulent flow is motion, characterized by chaotic changes in pressure. — Diesel Maintenance For Dummies

A good epigraph should entice the reader, raising the question What does this have to do with the plot? and somehow preview the tone of the story.

Thus, I actually like this quote because it does those things, especially the last part, chaotic changes in pressure. Two good things in a thriller. Just put it on a stand-alone page and tell us where the quote comes from.

On to the first line.

Jake Burton knew next-to-nothing about diesel maintenance, but he knew about the marine mechanic’s thirst for Canadian whiskey, and he knew even more about the fine art of negotiation with thirsty men. 

An often overlooked aspect of the craft of fiction is the shaping of sentences for greater effect. I’ll start off with this tip: The period is your friend! Use it like voting in Chicago: early and often.

This is especially important in thrillers, because you want the prose to pack a punch. One sharp jab or left hook is better than three glancing blows. I feel you opening line  is like the latter—it’s three sentences strung together. That’s a lot of work for the reader. Yes, there will be times when you want to use a more complex sentence structure, but I’d advise you not to do it off the bat.

And consider another aspect of the effective sentence: the right word to end with. You should always end with the most potent word or phrase, for the obvious reason that it will more forcefully compel the reader to keep reading.

Here’s a suggested edit:

Jake Burton knew next to nothing about diesel maintenance, but he knew about the marine mechanic’s thirst for Canadian whiskey. 

Whiskey is a strong word to end on. It’s got a good sound. It also raises a mystery in the reader’s mind: How is Jake going to entice this mechanic, and why? Leave it there. Lose the part about negotiation. That’s telling us what we’re about to see. Let the action of the scene do the work.

Notice also that I removed the hyphens from next to nothing. You don’t use hyphens to connect words unless they are being used as an adjective, e.g., Florida-noir vibe; minority-owned business.

So get in the habit of looking for alternative sentence endings. I wouldn’t do this while you’re actually writing, because you want to be in flow. That’s why I like to edit my previous day’s work before I start in again. It’s the best time for me to look at my sentences.

Now, after that first line, which is in Jake’s POV, the next action (and remember, dialogue is action) should be from Jake. Having the mechanic talk first is a slight jolt to our expectations. Not fatal, but it does require a bit of readjustment as we read. Instead, you can simply reshuffle some of the dialogue. I’ll do a little of it to show you what I mean:

Jake Burton knew next to nothing about diesel maintenance, but he knew about the marine mechanic’s thirst for Canadian whiskey. 

“See that blue Ford pickup in the lot?” Jake said. “There’s a brand-new bottle of Crown Royal still in the box under the passenger’s seat. I could toss that in to sweeten the pie.”

The mechanic shielded his eyes against the bright morning sunlight and looked across the marina parking lot. “You mean that old beater?”

“Deal?”

“I dunno, Jake. State law says every boat’s gotta have a certified captain and a licensed and bonded mechanic aboard. Fines are high if the Coast Guard catches you.”

“Nobody’s going to catch me. You said it yourself, the engine in that boat is running smooth, and the trip only lasts four hours. You’ll be back on board for the afternoon tour.”

Notice a few edits. I put in said as a dialogue attribution. You don’t have any in this entire page. I fear you may be falling for the It’s more skillful and literary never to use any dialogue attributions at all trap. It’s a trap because you end up using a lot of innocuous action beats to indicate who’s speaking. Like Jake nodded and tilted his head (which is something I have trouble picturing). Every time you do that the reader has to do a little “work” to form a picture. They’re also subconsciously wanting to know the significance of it. If it’s only to clue us in to who’s talking, that creates an unneeded burden for the reader.

I once read a novel by a friend who had boasted to me about not using a single said. About halfway through the book, I kept wondering why I felt tired reading it. Like it was a bit of a slog (not a good thing for a thriller). That’s when it hit me. Instead of said I was getting a lot of pulled his earlobe and tapped the desk with a pencil and crossed his legs. None of those things had any significance to the story. They were just substitutes for said. The pictures were wearing me out.

The beauty of said is that it does its job almost invisibly and then politely gets out of the way. It doesn’t require any reader effort. Use action beats on occasion for variety, yes. But make sure they reveal something relevant, like the character’s emotion:

Danny spit out his coffee. “You did what?”

Here’s another sentence that takes some effort: Jake pressed the knuckle of his thumb against his upper lip to stop an itch, then pulled a fifty from his wallet, slapped the worn leather shut, and handed the bill to the other man.

Yeesh, that’s four actions in a single, run-on sentence. Is it really crucial for us to know that Jake suppressed an itch? Or that he slapped his wallet shut? Maybe this pays off later, but if not I don’t see any point. Call in your friend, the period, once again:

Jake pulled a fifty from his wallet. “Take the morning off. Go get yourself a big breakfast.”

The mechanic looked at Ulysses S. Grant. “I could lose my job—”

I took out the bit where the mechanic stuffs the bill in his pocket, because if he’s thinking he could lose his job, he wouldn’t accept the deal yet. I do, however, I like the detail of the oil-stained coveralls, as it adds to characterization. How about this:

Jake pulled a fifty from his wallet. “Take the morning off. Go get yourself a big breakfast.”

The mechanic looked at Ulysses S. Grant. “I could lose my job.”

Jake stuffed the bill in the pocket of the mechanic’s oil-stained coveralls. He pulled a last bill from his wallet. “Here’s another twenty.” [Etc.]

I hope you see the value of the period, and punchier sentences. Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use variety. There’s no rule. Just listen to the sound and see if you can’t break up a longer sentence into two shorter ones. And end with a strong word or phrase.

Speaking of that variety, I like the last line, for it uses my beloved em dash. But I think there’s a stronger way to end it: 

Jake dug through the contents of the borrowed toolbox, but was interrupted by the threatening notes of Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”—the ring tone he’d chosen for his ex-wife.

Since you tell us it’s a “ring tone” we don’t need the added bit about this being her number. And ex-wife is a snappier way to end the sentence. You might even experiment with simply ex, which everyone understands. How to choose? Say it out loud a few times, and also (this is the key): how would your character say it? You want your narrative sentences to sound as much like the POV character as possible.

The difference your re-worked sentences make will be the difference between a good read and a great one—and it’s great reads that make a career.

Again, I like this setup. I’m interested in hearing what Jake’s ex-wife has to say, and what sort of caper he has in mind with the boat. With some editing, you can turn my interest into page-turning compulsion.

And now for a snappy way to end my critique: The End.

Comments welcome.

Cleaning up the Story Trail for Beta Readers

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The Pen is Mightier than the Chain Saw

or

Offering the Paint Brush

Our discussion today is about clean-up editing and preparing for beta reading. We’ll start with an analogy, then go off on a tangent.

Our brains are wired to think in terms of analogies, at least mine is. Analogy is defined as a “comparison between two things for purposes of explanation or clarification.” Whenever I come across a new concept, I compare it to something I already know, looking for similarities and differences. I add that concept to my knowledge as another layer, and hope that my knowledge will continue to grow.

Recently two things hit my brain at the same time, and the boys in the basement went to work. When I woke at my typical 2:00 am hypomanic insomniac moment, the time the boys usually let me know what they’ve come up with, I discovered they had been working on something I had not assigned to them—cleaning up the forest trail and preparing my rough draft for beta reading. Two wildly different things, right? I was surprised, but I listened.

I had just finished the rough draft of my WIP, and was hurrying to get it ready for beta readers, so they could work on it during spring break. I had also just surveyed the mess in the forest trail behind our house. The February snow had finally melted, and I could see what I had to clean up.

The boys argued that cleaning up the trail was a good analogy to pre-beta editing. The small branches that could be tossed to the side were similar to easy fixes, spelling and punctuation. Larger branches that needed a cut or two with the chainsaw so they could be moved were similar to larger fixes such as sentence structure and better word choices.

The big branches that needed to be cut up and stacked for firewood were like scenes and paragraphs that needed to be reworked. And finally, the entire trees that had fallen on the trail during the winter, and would require a tractor and chain, lots of cutting, and then splitting, were like whole scenes and chapters that needed to be removed.

On the addition (vs. removal) side, “washouts,” where heavy rain had removed dirt and part of the trail, requiring front-end loader work with the tractor to borrow dirt from elsewhere, were like plot holes in the story that needed new scenes or chapters.

Well, I agreed with them, and thought maybe this could be a subject for a blog post, looking for analogies for our editing. But something told me it wasn’t significant enough. There wasn’t enough meat on that bone.

As I was finishing the preparation for beta reading, I had some new thoughts, even without help from the boys. And this is the tangent we’ll explore today.

But, before we depart on our tangent, I want to reference a great article on beta reading, “15 Questions for Your Beta Readers.” This article can be found in the archives of this blog site, but here’s a link. The author, Jodie Renner, is an editor and former blogger here at TKZ. Other great posts on beta reading can be found by using the search box at the top right.

So, now for the tangent. In my final preparations for uploading my manuscript to the beta reading site (https://betabooks.co) I realized that I didn’t have to work so hard. I could ask the beta readers to do some of the work for me. Actually, I came up with some ideas to motivate the beta readers to read and comment. We’ll call them “Tom Sawyer Paint Brush Techniques.”

  1. Chapter Titles. I know thrillers don’t usually have chapter names, but in middle-grade fantasy the readers expect some imaginative and creative titles. I usually don’t name chapters until my rough draft is finished, using the chapter name prior to that only as a reminder to me of what is in that chapter. On previous books, where I thought I had chosen good titles, some of the beta readers had better ideas, and let me know. So, this time, as I began to brain storm, I suddenly realized, why name the chapters? Let the beta readers come up with some name suggestions.
  2. Dangling Plot Threads – the gun above the mantle that has been shown, but not fired. I discovered a thread I had placed but never used, a broken necklace left behind by a victim when she was sucked into an alternate world. I was preparing to remove all evidence of my dementia, when I realized, why not challenge the betas to find a way to use that broken amulet?
  3. Secondary Characters of Borderline Significance. I was about to remove all traces of a secondary character, a dog, that had emotional value, but questionable plot significance. By now, the lights were coming on in this old brain, and I asked, why don’t we give the betas a vote? To stay or not to stay.

I realize I will receive some advice I don’t agree with. That’s always the case with beta reading, but with a few simple questions, I might get more options, and will learn what is popular with potential readers. And most importantly, can we make the beta reading experience more interesting by engaging the reader in helping create the story, enough that the reader will agree to read the next book. (Or even read previous books.)

So now, Dear Reader and Dear Writer, it’s your turn:

 

  1. Do you use beta readers in your editing process?
  2. How do you pick the readers, and how many is the ideal number?
  3. What questions, beyond what Jodie proposed in her article, do you ask of your readers?
  4. What ideas have you discovered (or even thought of today) for motivating beta readers (beyond the thank-you and rewards at the end of the process)?
  5. And if you want to share some better analogies for the editing process, comparisons better than my lame “cleaning up the trail” analogy, I’m sure my boys in the basement won’t be offended. They may even refer it up to the “girls in the attic.”

Are a Ghost’s Feelings Dead? A First Page Critique

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Critiqued by Elaine Viets

 

Gather ’round, readers, and make sure the lights are on. Today, we’re critiquing a “murder ghost story,” a first page critique by a brave anonymous author. Read it first, and then I’ll discuss it. Here goes:

Continuing Adventures of Laurel Palmer: Murder Ghost Story

When I was a child I was afraid of ghosts.
As I grew up I realized people are more scary.

When I woke up, I was dead. It took a minute to sink in.
When it did, I sat up abruptly, immediately shooting up to the ceiling twenty feet above the first-floor landing. In a cloud of confusion, I looked down and saw myself, or what used to be myself, sprawled at the foot of the stairs. I waved my arms, wondering if that’s how I would need to propel myself in my current insubstantial form.
Actually, it only took thinking to be able to float down, where I hovered a few feet above the empty shell that used to be me. I examined the form critically. I had been beautiful, hadn’t I?
I was lying there picturesquely, almost gracefully, face up, large brown eyes wide in shock, long sable hair spread around my head like a dark halo. Or I could have pulled that off if my arms and legs weren’t bent at strange angles, and a crimson liquid wasn’t pooling on the hardwood floor, with strands of that sable hair soaking in it, and my normal olive complexion wasn’t unusually pasty, with maybe a little gray creeping in.
Nice legs, I thought, noticing that the filmy silk dress I had been wearing was halfway up my thigh, fortunately not exposing anything I…she…might be embarrassed to have on display when the appropriate authorities arrived on the scene. I tried to pull the dress lower to cover more of her exposed legs, but my hand passed right through.
Floating, both physically and emotionally, I felt only mild curiosity as I scrutinized the body on the floor. Having no lingering connection to it, I could watch it dispassionately, waiting to see if it did anything. Like breathe. I gave a soft laugh. Not likely, since I was here, and I would have been there if any life remained in the corpse.
I settled onto a step a few up from the recently deceased person, rested my elbows on my knees, and pondered the meaning of life. Or what it all means. Being dead and still here, I mean.

*****************************************************

Death is the ultimate mystery, and we all wonder what will happen when we meet our end. Our Brave Author gave us an imaginative look at the other side. This first page is readable and well-written, but I’d like to suggest some changes.

(1) Drop the italics line.
When I was a child I was afraid of ghosts.
As I grew up I realized people are more scary.

Consider using it elsewhere as an observation in your story. It takes away from the impact of your first two lines: “When I woke up, I was dead. It took a minute to sink in.”
Those lines are grabbers, and so is the next one. “When it did, I sat up abruptly, immediately shooting up to the ceiling twenty feet above the first-floor landing.”
So far, so good. This beginning shows imagination. But now the tone changes. It becomes distant.
(2) The woman is dead, and we need to know how she feels about it. At first, she seems confused, which might be the expected response – I hope I won’t know for sure for a long time.
“In a cloud of confusion, I looked down and saw myself, or what used to be myself, sprawled at the foot of the stairs.”
That “in a cloud of confusion” is a bit confusing. Consider making it something like: “Confused, I looked down and saw myself, or what used to be myself, sprawled at the foot of the stairs.”
Confusion is to be expected, especially since our new ghost is learning that she is incorporeal and has to navigate in a new world. “I waved my arms, wondering if that’s how I would need to propel myself in my current insubstantial form. Actually, it only took thinking to be able to float down, where I hovered a few feet above the empty shell that used to be me.”
That’s good.
(3) But by now, she should be feeling something – or wondering why she feels so numb.
Instead, she admires her dead body, as if it were a work of art. We need some emotion here.
Is she upset that she’s lost this beautiful body? Is she unhappy? Did she like her life? Will she be sorry to leave it? Are there any relatives, friends or lovers she will miss?
(4) Also, this is billed as a “murder ghost story.”
Was our ghost murdered? Tell us. Does she know who pushed her down the stairs to her untimely death? Let us know. Is she angry? Frightened? Vengeful?
(5) And last, but not least, our ghost is suffering from Ectoplasmic Anonymity.
Tell us her name. Right away. Maybe here in this sentence would be a good place: “Actually, it only took thinking to be able to float down, where I hovered a few feet above the empty shell that used to be me, Laurel Palmer.” Or whoever the ghost is.
Don’t let these criticisms scare you, Brave Author. If you want another good critique of a paranormal story, check out PJ Parrish’s paranormal critique: https://tinyurl.com/8f5jmbut
Your ghost story is off to a good start. Your ghost is just a little . . . insubstantial.
******************************************************************************************


Save the Date! Wednesday, March 17 at 6 PM ET
Charlaine Harris and Elaine Viets: A Zoom Event at Murder on the Beach
You know Charlaine from her Southern Vampire “True Blood” mysteries. Now she has a new series, featuring Gunnie Rose. The gunslinger for hire lives in a fractured US. I’ll have a new book, too: “Death Grip,” my fifth Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery.
Admission? Just buy either book. For reservations, call Murder on the Beach Bookstore at 561-279-7790 or email murdermb@gate.net.

A Lot of Research Still Might Not Be Enough

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By John Gilstrap

Happy Wednesday, everyone. Today, we take on the work of a brave writer who submitted his first few hundred words for some input. First, I’ll present the piece as I received it, and then my comments will be on the flip side, after the asterisks.

The Mirage 

Chapter One

Mexican State of Zacatecas

Chihuahuan Desert

The caravan of seven black SUVs drove through the empty desert. The road they followed was little more than a ribbon of heat-cracked asphalt winding through the barren, rolling hills.

Captain Jaime Barrios stood half-way through the open sunroof of the lead vehicle, a pair of binoculars pressed against his aviator sunglasses. His dark mustache hugged lips made puffy through hours of gun chewing. Scorching sun made the letters ATF gleam yellow against the back of his navy blue jacket.

A voice squawked from the radio bud he’d jammed into his ear.

“Captain Barrios. This holding mode is holding a little long, no?”

Barrios thumbed the mike button at his lapel before giving a curt reply.

“We’ll be going kinetic in another minute. Just sit tight.”

He looked to the three other cars in the front of the caravan. Two of them had Special Response agents also standing out of their car sunroofs. Each wore a bullet proof vest and carried an M4 assault rifle slung. The other agents inside the SUVs were similarly armed and armored.

The radio crackled in his ear again.

“Captain,” one of the agents complained, “No one said this raid came with a side of skin cancer.”

Barrios smiled mirthlessly as he continued to scan the desert. “Ha. The Chihuahuan desert welcomes your Boston ass, McKinney.”

“Shit. Who needs a fuckin’ border wall when you have this sun?”

A gleam from far behind caught Barrios’ attention. Dark dots appeared against the bright yellow landscape, growing larger with each second. His pulse quickened as he realized that their waiting was over.

“They’re coming up at six o’clock. Everyone, get ready. It’s game time.”

Barrios stamped his foot twice. At the signal, his driver accelerated. The force of the wind grew as he tucked away the binoculars and readied his assault rifle.

“Fuck,” he swore. “This looks like a lot more than eight bikes!”

“No kidding,” McKinney put in. “I count seventeen crotch rockets.”

The Hayabusa 950 motorcycles ate up the distance between them and the SUVs. Fourteen of the cyclists wore all black from head to toe. Three others had brown, yellow, or gray helmets.

Power windows rolled down on each SUV. Men poked their heads out or leaned out the windows, rifles or pistols at the ready. Barrios waited until the motorcycles were within range.

“Open fire!” he yelled into his radio.

*****

Gilstrap again. Okay, there’s a lot to like in this piece. I think the author chose an interesting place to start the story–certainly none of the throat clearing that I talked about in a piece I critiqued a few weeks ago. The prose is reasonably crisp, and the descriptions of the desert mostly work for me.

That said, I think are serious plot issues. This reads to me a bit like a reimagination of the 1960s television show, “The Rat Patrol,” where a tiny squad of six (?) guys, all in different (but very cool) uniforms drive aimlessly through the North African desert looking for fights with Nazi tanks. I loved it as a kid. I’ve since watched it as an adult. Lots of WTFing in every episode.

I’m kind of in that same place with these first pages of THE MIRAGE. I’ll stipulate that ATF agents are trolling the deserts of Mexico (though my ATF buddies tell me that such would rarely if ever be done). What bothers me most is the lack of planning and the lack of discipline. Federal agents of all ilk are buttoned down tight in these kinds of operations. The chit-chat on the radio would be a huge no-no. Even in the fire service, that was a no-no. The whole world listens in on radio traffic.

We don’t yet know what this mission is, but it is inconceivable to me that they would not have some sort of air assets in place to know what was coming at them. The SRT is one hell of a polished team. Like all such teams, they pride themselves in denying their opposition forces anything that remotely resembles a fair fight.

Then there’s the whole notion of firing without being fired upon. That’s just not done. And if it were done, shooting moving targets from a moving platform is a recipe for disaster, especially given the lack of clear firing lanes.

If this is the beginning of a serious book that the author wants to be taken seriously, lots of research remains to be done. A good place to start is to embrace the fact that anything you’ve seen in any movie in the “Fast ‘n’ Furious” franchise ranks high on the wouldn’t-ever-happen scale.

Now, let’s get down to some line-level stuff . . .

The caravan of seven black SUVs drove through the empty desert. The road they followed was little more than a ribbon of heat-cracked asphalt winding through the barren, rolling hills.

Details matter. Seven black BMW X5s paints a different picture and leaves a different impression than seven black Suburbans or seven black Escalades. Also, is there a way to combine these two sentences into one? Something like, “The seven-Suburban motorcade sped through the barren, rolling desert hills on a ribbon of road that was little more than crumbled asphalt.”

Captain Jaime Barrios stood half-way through the open sunroof of the lead vehicle, a pair of binoculars pressed against his aviator sunglasses.

This is pure “Rat Patrol.” Why would he do this? It’s hot and windy and car windows are clear. Also, the current tacti-cool look is Oakley shades. The aviators remain popular mostly among older generations. That said, it’s really hard to get a good image through binoculars while wearing any form of glasses.

Also, how far out the hatch is he? He’s standing on the center console, right?

Finally, how certain are you that the ATF has captains within their rank structure? As far as I know, they’re all variants of the rank of “special agent.”

His dark mustache hugged lips made puffy through hours of gun chewing. Scorching sun made the letters ATF gleam yellow against the back of his navy blue jacket.

For the sake of argument, I will assume that the author really meant “gum chewing” because gun chewing leads to explosions of brain pizza. That said, I’m not familiar with gum chewing causing swollen lips. Assuming that Barrios is wearing the ubiquitous G-man windbreaker, I believe the letters are yellow whether seen in the sun or by candlelight.

A voice squawked from the radio bud he’d jammed into his ear.

“Jammed” is the wrong verb here. That would hurt.

“Captain Barrios. This holding mode is holding a little long, no?”

Note the comment above about the captain thing. This bit of dialogue is exclusively for the reader. Everyone in the scene knows exactly how long they’ve been there, so what is the motivation in asking this? Also, it’s chit-chat. Finally, I don’t get the “holding mode” here. Seems to me they’re on the way to somewhere.

Barrios thumbed the mike button at his lapel before giving a curt reply.

The appropriate spelling is “mic” when you mean microphone. I’m getting conflicting information throughout this piece about their wardrobe. Assuming they’re wearing ballistic armor, “lapels” don’t really exist.

“We’ll be going kinetic in another minute. Just sit tight.”

So, now the bad guys know the good guys’ plan–because they transmitted it over the radio. I’m confused as to how Barrios knows this already. If what we’re reading here is a mission to murder the folks on the crotch rockets, you’d do well to set it up in some narrative.

He looked to the three other cars in the front of the caravan. 

There’s a lot here. From one paragraph to another, the SUVs became cars. How?

Two of them had Special Response agents also standing out of their car sunroofs.

This paints a picture of two sedans, each with multiple agents standing out to the sunroof. I’m think clown car.

When you write “Special Response agents” I presume you mean agents assigned to the Special Response Team, the elite of the elite within ATF. If so, I would point that out.

Each wore a bullet proof vest and carried an M4 assault rifle slung. The other agents inside the SUVs were similarly armed and armored.

“Bullet proof vests” do exist in the real world, but I’m certain that’s not what your guys are wearing. Your team is probably wearing “ballistic armor.”

Let’s talk about those slung M4s. Question One: Why are they slung? When you’re driving into a gunfight, you want to enter it with your weapon fully prepared for deployment. “Slung” generally means “at ease.” Question Two: Since slung rifles are carried with muzzles facing down (remember, our guys are doing the prairie dog peek out of their vehicles), I see the muzzle pointing at the driver’s ear. That would be disconcerting.

The radio crackled in his ear again.

This could be merely stylistic, but to my ear, radios haven’t “crackled” in decades. To my ear, they “pop” or “break squelch.”

“Captain,” one of the agents complained, “No one said this raid came with a side of skin cancer.”

I think the author is going for lighthearted banter here, but it comes off as whining.

Barrios smiled mirthlessly as he continued to scan the desert. “Ha. The Chihuahuan desert welcomes your Boston ass, McKinney.”

Now I see the source of the lack of discipline. It starts at the top. For the world to hear. And surely there’s a better word than mirthlessly.

“Shit. Who needs a fuckin’ border wall when you have this sun?”

Got it. Maybe they’d be cooler if they took off those jackets.

Most importantly: Beware the F-bombs. I did a whole video for my YouTube channel on the perils of using high-end profanity in popular fiction. It turns off an astonishing number of readers. I used to be an offender, but after literally hundreds of letters and emails from readers, I stopped. I haven’t written an F-bomb in probably my latest 15 books. These are hard-edged thrillers, and no one has ever complained that the bad language isn’t there.

A gleam from far behind caught Barrios’ attention.

Be specific. “Far behind” means nothing.

Dark dots appeared against the bright yellow landscape, growing larger with each second. His pulse quickened as he realized that their waiting was over.

I get that the author is playing coy here, but for me it’s too coy by half. I’d like to know who these people are–if not by specific identity, then by a throw-away reference to why it’s important to engage them.

“They’re coming up at six o’clock. Everyone, get ready. It’s game time.”

Barrios stamped his foot twice. At the signal, his driver accelerated.

So, everything else can go out on the air, but he has to stomp his foot to say “go faster”?

The force of the wind grew as he tucked away the binoculars and readied his assault rifle.

I have no idea what this means. Where did he tuck the binoculars? No one thinks of their weapon as an “assault rifle” and what readying does he need to do? He’s going to war here, so it seems a little late to oil the action. He’d probably think of the weapon as his M4 or his Colt (the manufacturer that supplies ATF with their M4s). By the time Barrios peeked his noggin out of the hole, he’d have the puppy chambered and ready to go. One quick move of his thumb against the safety lever, and he’d he ready to rock.

“Fuck,” he swore. “This looks like a lot more than eight bikes!”

“No kidding,” McKinney put in. “I count seventeen crotch rockets.”

The Hayabusa 950 motorcycles ate up the distance between them and the SUVs. Fourteen of the cyclists wore all black from head to toe. Three others had brown, yellow, or gray helmets.

Here again, the author is presenting information through dialogue that is really for the benefit of the reader. They’ve come a long way from seeing barely discernable black dots to a specific count of precisely 17 Hayabusa 950 motorcycles, plus a breakdown of their wardrobe.

But wait! As we’ll see below, McKinney got all of these details BEFORE they were in range of the M4s. That would put them at at least 200 yards. I want McKinney’s ophthalmologist!

Power windows rolled down on each SUV. Men poked their heads out or leaned out the windows, rifles or pistols at the ready. Barrios waited until the motorcycles were within range.

The clown car image has returned. Brave author, I urge you to go to your car and act this image out. The bad guys are screaming up from behind (from “six o’clock”). Imagine being packed into your vehicle with all the gear. Some people are “leaning out” of windows, others are only showing their heads. And they all want to shoot the same direction.

“Open fire!” he yelled into his radio.

Yelling into the radio does not extend the range of the signal, but it does garble the transmission. Yelling into radios is unprofessional.

Okay, Brave Author, I’ve been hard on you, but know that it comes from a helpful place. I’m on the record here and elsewhere stating that “write what you know” is perhaps the worst advice ever given, but this is an example of when the advice spot-on.

When a writer enters the world of weapons and tactics (or technology or space flight or any one of thousands of topics that people think they know but probably don’t), little mistakes add up quickly.

Okay, TKZers. Your turn.

First Page Critique:
She Sees Dead People But We Need To See Them, Too

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By PJ Parrish

Thanks to my dad, I was really into woo-woo stuff as a kid. But back then, we didn’t have a whole genre to ourselves like they do today — YA vampires, urban fantasy, speculative fiction, you name it. So I had to cadge my dad’s Dell paperbacks — I remember one in particular called The Witching Night — before I graduated to Shirley Jackson. My dad loved the old TV show One Step Beyond and of course, The Twilight Zone. So for today’s submission, in the paranormal genre, we’ll let Rod Serling guide us in: “You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone!”

Catch you on the flip side, fiends.

Dark Things 

She’d come in off the street. My last patient of the day had just left, followed out the door by Dorinda, my receptionist. I was standing at Dorinda’s desk flipping through messages when I looked up to see a woman watching me. I jumped. I hadn’t heard her enter.

“Dr. Gilder, I presume?”

“Yes. I’m Carrie Gilder.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Office hours are over for today. You should call in the morning and make an appointment.” I started around the desk. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

“I won’t be able to come back in the morning. Please. It’s important.”

I narrowed my eyes, appraising. She was striking. Tall, well dressed, elegant. Her bearing radiated power and confidence. I was irritated at her presumption that I would take a walk-in. I had no desire to stay later and intended to encourage her to go back out the door she’d come in through, but something stopped me. I’m used to usually being the one controlling the situation, and I was aware of the control slipping out of my hands. I felt drawn in by her eyes, somehow, unable to look away. Maybe that’s why I relented, as if I had no choice. “Step into my office.”

She glanced around the room. What a contrast, I thought. My office is warm and comfortable, with its quaint country decor and fresh flowers gracing the credenza along one wall. And she’s so sleek and…what? Cold comes to mind. She bent to smell the late summer flowers, touching a petal with one long finger. My eyes widened when the petal she touched fluttered to the floor.

She sat in the overstuffed chair opposite mine. I jotted down a few quick notes. Young woman. Attractive. Blonde hair, dark eyes, almost black.

“You’re very lovely, Dr. Gilder.”

I frowned. Not something I usually hear from my patients.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “First, why don’t you tell me who you are?”

The young woman leaned forward in the chair and extended her hand, which I found surprisingly cold. “I am Pica. Pica Sharp.” She settled back in the chair.

I studied her. “Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

“I was 27,” she replied.

“Was?” Odd, I thought, making a note. Is she trying to be funny? My patience wasn’t increasing with this woman, and I found myself wondering how I’d gotten sucked into letting her in.

___________________

Some good creepy stuff going on here. I like that it’s a twist on the old dectective cliche — beautiful dame walks in the door and messes up the protag’s life. But the protag’s a doc not a dick and it’s a she not a he. So far, so good.

I like the voice and writing style — clean, crisp with spare but insinuating dialogue. For instance: It’s intriguing that the femme fatale here comments on another woman’s looks. I like the casually tossed out line “I won’t be able to come back in the morning.” It makes me think we’re in Vampireville here, but the writer is too sly to just come out and say that. It reminds me of that great moment in the Frank Langella Dracula when at the dinner table he is offered wine and Langella says, “I don’t drink (pause a half beat) wine.”

And then there is that zinger line: “I was 27.”  Very very nice. That one line makes me want to read on because it tells me the stranger is either crazy…or dead.

I would definitely turn the page here. So kudos, writer, you’re off to a great start. But there are a couple things I might offer for you to chew on.

Your style is so spare that I think you can afford to stitch in some description. Yes, your dialogue is muscular and is working hard for you, but what you’re lacking here is mood. Can we have some telling details about the setting? What does Carrie’s office feel like as it nods off to sleep? What is the light like? It’s just past quitting time, around 6 pm and where are we in the world? It would be dark in Chicago in winter but still light in Miami in summer. You can use description here to slip in some missing details like that. Your style is so tight you can risk slowing down a tad. We need feeling here. We need mood and tone. Especially in paranormal.

Michael Corleone, a portrait in dark and light

Here’s an exercise: Imagine this scene as a movie and you are the cinematographer. What colors are you filming in? Is everything shadowed with the gold pooled light of a lone desk lamp? Is a bloody setting sun seeping through the blinds? Remember how Francis Ford Coppola used chiaroscuro lighting (the interplay of light and dark) for drama and suspense in The Godfather? Sometimes he lit only half a subject’s face. It was a metaphor for the protagonist’s inner conflict, Michael Corleone’s own struggle between light and dark—good and bad.  You have to think of your book in those same terms — description is your cinematography. Exploit it to create mood and maybe metaphor.

Another point about description: Don’t let an opportunity slip by to use it to illuminate character. You TELL us this: “She was striking. Tall, well dressed, elegant. Her bearing radiated power and confidence.”  SHOW us this in details. At risk of sounding sexist here, women appraise women differently than men might. What specifically would Carrie notice? Is Pica wearing a close-cut Italian suit a la Prada? A flowing red caftan a la vintage Pucci? How is her hair styled? A severe chignon? Botticelli curls? See what I am asking for here? TELLING DETAILS.

And remember: Every detail you put in tells us two things: How the strange woman thinks of herself via her style and how Carrie perceives her via her prism of experience and taste. With details, you begin layering in character.

One last thing before I go to line edits. I really like this submission. I am not so crazy about its opening line — “She’d come in off the street.” I can’t think of a better one, but I feel it doesn’t do justice to the great set-up you’ve got going. It lacks punch, mystery and feels too matter-of-fact.  Maybe our commenters can help out here?

Let’s do some quick line edits:

She’d come in off the street. My last patient of the day had just left, followed out the door by Dorinda, my receptionist. I was standing at Dorinda’s desk flipping through messages when I looked up to see a woman watching me. I jumped. I hadn’t heard her enter.

“Dr. Gilder, I presume?”

“Yes. I’m Carrie Gilder. Slipped in the protag’s name up high! Bravo.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Office hours are over for today. You should call in the morning and make an appointment.” I started around the desk. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

“I won’t be able to come back in the morning. Again, this feels flat on first read but then we find out later she’s dead! So it works. Please. It’s important.”

I narrowed my eyes, appraising. She was striking. Tall, well dressed, elegant. Her bearing radiated power and confidence. This is a classic example of telling instead of showing. There’s nothing wrong with it on its face but this writer is better than this! I was irritated at her presumption that I would take a walk-in. I had no desire to stay later and intended to encourage her to go back out the door she’d come in through, but something stopped me. I’m used to usually being the one controlling the situation, and I was aware of the control slipping out of my hands. Not sure this works because we are not far enough into the scene for Carrie to feel threatened of losing control. I felt drawn in by her eyes, somehow, unable to look away. This is borderline cliche. If you can show somehow what is so seductive about Pica’s eyes it might feel more fresh. Depending on the lighting and the MOOD YOU ARE GOING FOR! Also, this is where you tell us what her eyes look like, not later as you do. It belongs here when it is part of the action. Maybe that’s why I relented, as if I had no choice.

“Step into my office.” need new graph.

She glanced around the room. Get them in the room first then filter this through Carrie’s POV. Something along the lines of: She didn’t automatically head for the plush wing chair near the fireplace as most my patients did. She paused in the doorway then came in warily, like a stray cat assessing whether it wanted to move in or take its chances out on the street. I watched as she slowly took in my office. I wondered what she was seeing in my country decor with its braided rug, old white-washed desk and the wood bookcase crammed with wicker baskets and the antique teapots I had collected from my foraging in New England estate sales.  Well, that’s not great but see what I am trying to do? USE DETAILS TO ILLUMINATE CHARACTER. What a contrast, I thought. Again, this is TELLING when if you SHOW, you can trust the reader to pick up on the contrast via details. My office is warm and comfortable, with its quaint country decor and fresh flowers gracing the credenza along one wall. And she’s so sleek and…what? Cold comes to mind.

She bent to smell the late summer flowers, touching a petal with one long finger. My eyes widened when the petal she touched fluttered to the floor. A nice telling moment here but again, make it mean something. What KIND of flowers. Always be specific if you can. Later summer flowers (good way to tell us it’s summer btw) Are they from her own garden? Don’t miss any chance to tell me something about this woman. And why did her eyes widen when the pedal dropped? It’s natural for flowers to drop petals. Unless you can give me a good reason to think otherwise. 

She sat in the overstuffed chair opposite mine. I jotted down a few quick notes. Young woman. Attractive. Blonde hair, dark eyes, almost black. You’ve already mentioned her looks so it’s filler here. Have her do something else if you need a physical motion break. And the eyes, which are so important, belong way up above when Carrie first notes them. 

“You’re very lovely, Dr. Gilder.” This, of course, is predatory. 

I frowned. Not something I usually hear from my patients. She might think, even the male ones.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “First, why don’t you tell me who you are?”

The young woman leaned forward in the chair and extended her hand, which I found surprisingly cold. Did they shake hands? Don’t skimp on simple details of physical choreography. In fact, make the gesture MEAN something. ie: She held out her hand. I hesitated then took it. She didn’t shake my hand so much as hold it tenderly. Her hand was soft but ice cold. I pulled my hand away.

“I am Pica. Pica Sharp.” She settled back in the chair. I’d flip these to: She settled back in the chair. “I am Pica Sharp.”  Which is a cool name if a tad too on-point given the severe portrait you’ve painted. Unless you’re going for the Full Vampire Monty here because Pica is an eating disorder where a person craves or eats nonfood items, such as paint chips or sand. Or other people…

I studied her. She’s a doctor. She would know what pica is. No reaction? “Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

“I was 27,” she replied. Boom, there it is! Really good line. 

“Was?” Odd, I thought, making a note. What did she write down? Odd is putting it mildly.Is she trying to be funny?

Pica was asked a question. She needs to answer. Or gesture or something. You can’t just leave that hanging there.

My patience wasn’t increasing with this woman, and I found myself wondering how I’d gotten sucked into letting her in. She didn’t let Pica in; she materialized out of thin air you said. Which is why we need to return and re-examine your opening line. Which is why I don’t think it works. Because given all the cool stuff you’ve now revealed in this scene, Carrie cannot have known “She’d come in off the street.” 

One more thing about your opening line. To paraphrase Joyce Carol Oates, you sometimes can’t know your book’s opening line until you’ve written the book’s last line. At its best, an opening line foretells your whole story or its theme. Like this from Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea: “They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.” As I read through your first 400 words, I began to get pulled into your story, especially when I hit the line that Pica WAS 27. But I’d like to see you come up with an opening that pulls me in from the get-go. You’ve got it in you, dear writer!

 

First Page Critique: How To Improve a Compelling Opener

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Another brave writer submitted their first page for critique. My comments/suggestions will follow. Enjoy!

Expendable

Prologue 

Kate turned right onto her parent’s street only to find a street jammed with police cars. A cacophony of lights, flashing red and blue, backlighting people hurriedly moving against the night sky. My parents will certainly be outside watching, she thought. As she drew closer, she was alarmed to see her parent’s house isolated by swags of yellow police tape. 

She jerked her car to the curb and ran toward the chaos.

“I’m sorry, miss. You can’t go up there.” A policeman seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“But, I live here,” she lied.

“This is your house, miss?”

“It’s my parents’ house. I live with them. Please let me through.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. You can’t go up there.” The officer blocked her path and motioned to a man in an overcoat, standing near the garage. The man closed his notepad as he walked over. The two men had a brief exchange before the one in the overcoat spoke.

“Miss, my name is Detective Montoya.” A badge swung on a ball-chain around his neck. “You live here?” he said, opening the notepad again. She nodded. He put his hand on her shoulder, guiding her to a place on the lawn, away from the activity. He began writing as soon as she answered. Asked her name along with a few other questions. She gave terse answers, anxious to get inside. He asked whereabouts that evening requiring a lengthy explanation about her late class on Wednesdays. Each answer seemed to beget another question.

“Miss, what we’re looking at here is a double homocide. We’re still investigating.” Twenty-seven years as a cop told him it was likely her parents but kept it to himself. 

“No,” she said, covering her mouth with both hands. She battled her mind to keep from considering the obvious. “That’s impossible. No, it can’t be. Let me see,” she tried to force her way past him.

“I can’t let you in. It’s pretty gruesome. I don’t know that you could handle it.”

“I need to go inside.”

“I’m afraid you can’t, miss. Right now, it’s a crime scene and we can’t take the chance of you contaminating it.” 

“Look,” She said. “You owe me something. You can’t ask me to endure the entire night wondering if I’m still part of a family or not.” Instinct told him to say no but she had a point.

The writer did so many things right. We’re dropped in the middle of a disturbance, s/he raised story questions, added relatability for the heroine, and I could (somewhat) feel her frustration, fear, and anxiety. Great job, Brave Writer! As written, I’d turn the page to find out what happens next.

Let’s see if we can improve this opener even more. Brave Writer included a note about using a prologue. I hope s/he doesn’t mind if I include it here.

I have never considered doing a prologue before but this allows me to describe a major event that will be referred to various times during the story as well as give some backstory about the protagonist and tell the reader what kind of story to expect.

Prologues

The correct reasons to use a prologue are:

  • the incident occurs at a different time and/or place from the main storyline
  • to inform the reader of something they can’t glean from the plot
  • to foreshadow future events (called a jump cut, where we use the prologue to setup an important milestone in the plot)
  • to provide a quick-and-dirty glimpse of important background information without the need of flashbacks, dialogue, or memories that interrupt the action later on (no info dumps!).
  • Hook the reader into the action right away while raising story questions relevant to the main plot, so the reader’s eager to learn the answers.

It sounds like you’re using a prologue for the right reasons. Keep in mind, if you plan to go the traditional route, many agents and editors cringe when they see the word “prologue” because so many new writers don’t use them correctly. If you can change it to Chapter One, you’d have an easier time.

Point of View 

For most of the opener you stayed inside the MC’s head.

Two little slips:

“Miss, what we’re looking at here is a double homocide homicide. We’re still investigating.” Twenty-seven years as a cop told him it was likely her parents but kept it to himself.

See how you jumped inside the cop’s head?

Same thing happened here:

Instinct told him to say no but she had a point.

Stay inside the MC’s head. One scene = one point of view.

Dialogue

The dialogue is a bit stiff. I’ll show you what I mean in the “fine tuning” section. For now, I highly recommend How To Write Dazzling Dialogue by our very own James Scott Bell.

First Lines

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the first line, but I think you’ve got the writing chops to do even better. Let the first line slap the reader into paying attention.

To quote Kris (PJ Parrish):

  • Your opening line gives you an intellectual line of credit from the reader. The reader unconsciously commits: “That line was so damn good, I’m in for the next 50 pages.”
  • A good opening line is lean and mean and assertive. No junk language or words.
  • A good opening line is a promise, or a question, or an unproven idea. It says something interesting. It is a stone in our shoe that we cannot shake.
  • BUT: if it feels contrived or overly cute, you will lose the reader. Especially if what follows does not measure up. It is a teaser, not an end to itself.

“The cat sat on the mat is not the opening of a plot. The cat sat on the dog’s mat is.”  – John LeCarre

To read the entire post, The Dos and Don’ts of a Great First Chapter, go here.

Fine Tuning

I dislike rewriting another writer’s work, but it’s the easiest way to learn. I’ve included quick examples of how to tighten your writing and make the scene more visceral. Keep what resonates with you. After all, I don’t know where the story is headed.  

Kate turned right onto her parent’s street only to find a street jammed with police cars. A cacophony of lights, flashing red and blue, backlighting people hurriedly moving against the night sky. My parents will certainly be outside watching, she thought. “Thought” is a telling word. The italics tell the reader it’s inner dialogue. As she drew closer, she was alarmed to see her parent’s house isolated by swags of yellow police tape. “Alarmed” and “see” are also telling words. Remember, if we wouldn’t think it, our POV character shouldn’t either. Some writers have a difficult time with deep POV, which we’ve discussed before on TKZ. It’s one element of craft that we learn at our own pace. For more on Deep POV, read this 1st page critique. In the meantime, here’s a quick example to show you what I mean.

The swags of yellow police tape surrounding her parent’s house quickened her heartbeat. What happened? She’d spoken to Mom and Dad last night. Granted, the call didn’t last long. Mom said she had to go because someone knocked at the door. Endless questions whirled through her mind. Were they robbed? Are they hurt? Did Dad fall again?

She jerked her car to the curb, threw the shifter into Park, and ran sprinted toward the chaos, the soles of sneakers slapping the pavement. Use strong action verbs to paint a clearer mental image. Plus, I slipped in sound. With important scenes, tickle the senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, taste—for a more visceral experience.

A policeman seemed to appeared out of nowhere. Moved to the beginning to show who’s speaking. Here, too, you can paint a stronger picture: A meaty-chested cop blocked her path. “I’m Sorry, miss, but you can’t go past the police tape.”

“But, I live here,” she lied. Not bad but think about this: She’s just happened upon a chaotic scene at her parents’ house. Would she be calm or hysterical? “Get the hell outta my way.” She swerved around him, but he hooked her arm. “I live here.”

His head jerked back. “This is your house, miss?”

“It’s my parents’ house. What’s the difference? I live with them. Please Let me through!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Sorry, but you can’t go up there.” Is the house on a hill? If so, you need to tell us sooner so “up there” makes sense. The officer hollered over his shoulder to blocked her path and motioned to a man in an overcoat (trench coat?), standing near the garage. “She’s the daughter.” The man closed his notepad as he walked over. The two men had a brief exchange before the one in the overcoat spoke.

Mr. Trench Coat hustled over, a badge bouncing on the chain around his neck. As he neared, he extended his hand, but she couldn’t shake it. Not yet. Not without knowing what happened. “Miss, My name is Detective Montoya. And you are?”

“[Insert her name]” Now the reader knows who she is.

“Okay, [name]. Let’s talk in private.” He put clamped a his hand on her shoulder and guided, guiding her to a place on to the lawn, away from the activity. Describe the activity. Example: away from photographers snapping pictures, from uniformed officers guarding the front door, from men and women in white coveralls strolling in and out with evidence bags.

A badge swung on a ball-chain around his neck. “Do you live here?” he said, opening the notepad again.

Tears rose in her throat, and she could only nod.

He began writing as soon as she answered. Asked her name along with a few other questions. The detective would hold her gaze. She’s the daughter of two murder victims and he needs as much information as possible before he breaks the news.

She gave terse answers, anxious to get inside. Don’t tell us. Show us!

He asked whereabouts that evening requiring a lengthy explanation about her late class on Wednesdays. Each answer seemed to beget another question. Don’t tell us. Show us!

“Miss (since he knows her name, he wouldn’t call her miss), what we’re looking at here is a double homicide homicide. We’re still investigating.” Twenty-seven years as a cop told him it was likely her parents but kept it to himself.  This dialogue doesn’t ring true. A detective would try to avoid telling her about her parents until she forces him to, which gives you the perfect opportunity to add more conflict through dialogue.

Example:

“When’s the last time you spoke to your parents?”

“I dunno. Before I went to class, around eight. Why?”

“Did they mention anything unusual? A strange car or someone they didn’t recognize hanging around the neighborhood?”

“What? Why? Are my parents okay?”

“Did they meet anyone new recently?”

“Are they in the ambulance?” She peeked around him, but he stepped to the side to block her view. “Look. I’m done answering questions. Get outta my way.”

“[Name], I’m sorry to inform you, your parents…” His words trailed off, his voice muffled by the ringing in her ears.

“No.” Head wagging, she slapped her hands over covering her mouth with both hands. She battled her mind to keep from considering the obvious. What’s the obvious? Do you mean, the truth? Also, “considering” is a telling word. “No. What you’re saying isn’t That’s impossible. I just spoke to them. I’ll prove it to you. it can’t be. Let me see,” She tried to force her way past him. Don’t tell us. Show us! Example: She shoved him away, but he wrangled her flailing arms, pinned her wrists to her side.

“I can’t let you in. It’s an active crime scene now. pretty gruesome. I don’t know that you could handle it.” A detective would never tell the daughter of two murder victims that “it’s pretty gruesome,” nor would he even consider allowing her into an active crime scene whether “she could handle it” or not.

Instead, show us what’s happening around her. Example: The coroner’s van sped into the driveway. Two men dragged a stretcher from the back.

Our heroine entered a chaotic scene. She’d be on information overload, with sights, sounds, smells all around her, almost too much to process.

“Please.” She waved praying hands, her chest heaving with each hard breath, tears streaming over her cheekbones. “Please let me see them. Please.. go inside.”

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

“I’m afraid you can’t, miss. Right now, it’s a crime scene and we can’t take the chance of you contaminating it.” 

“Look.” she said. Remove tag. We know who’s speaking. She stomped the grass. “You owe me something kind of explanation. What happened to my mom and dad? Who did this?” You can’t ask me to endure the entire night wondering if I’m still part of a family or not.” Instinct told him to say no but she had a point.

Wrap it up soon. Prologues should be short. Unless, of course, you decide to make this Chapter One. 🙂 

Brave Writer, I nitpick the most promising first pages because I know you can write and write well. If I thought otherwise, you’d see a lot less red. 😉 You’ve given us a compelling opener and plenty of reasons to turn the page. Take a few moments to see the forest for the trees. The elements I’ve focused on are meant to enhance your storytelling abilities. So, yell, scream, curse me, then get back to work. You’ve got this. Great job!

Over to you, TKZers. How might you improve this first page?

Side note: I won’t be around today. What I’m doing is super exciting (!!!), but I’m not at liberty to speak publicly about it yet. Fill you in later…

Join me, Laura Benedict, and many others on Zoom for Noir at the Bar. Win a signed paperback in the giveaway!

When: Sat., March 20, 2021

Time: 7 pm CST/8pm EDT

Tickets are FREE (limited to the 1st 100 fans)

Where: Comfort of home

Register: noiratthebar.online

Bat Masterson, Writer

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Bat Masterson, c. 1880

Back when the West was very young
There lived a man named Masterson.
He wore a cane and derby hat,
They called him Bat, Bat Masterson!

During the “golden age of television,” the 1950s and early 60s, the Western was the dominant genre. You had The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Roy Rogers, Maverick, Rawhide, Bonanza, Sugarfoot, Have Gun Will Travel, Wyatt Earp, Tombstone Territory, Death Valley Days, Cheyenne…and on and on. Among them was a series starring Gene Barry as Bat Masterson. The lyrics at the top of this post are from the song that accompanied the series.

Interesting historical item: Bartholomew “Bat” Masterson should be better known to us as a writer!

It is true he was an Old West lawman and friend of Wyatt Earp. But his legend as a gunslinger was the result of a practical joke played upon a naïve young newspaperman.

In the 1880s readers in the East were enamored of tales of derring-do out West. Savvy writers were quick to exploit that fascination. Ned Buntline, for example, created the legend of Buffalo Bill Cody. Cody himself would ride that publicity into a nice income from his Wild West Show.

In 1881 a reporter named Young, who wrote for the New York Sun, came out to the Colorado mining town of Gunnison, looking for a “shoot-’em-up” story for the paper. He asked one of the locals, a man named Cockrell, where he might start looking for such a story. Cockrell decided to have some fun with the dude. He spun a tale of a lawman he knew from Dodge City, a twenty-seven-year old named Bat Masterson. Why, he’d already killed twenty-six men! And seven of those were to avenge the murder of his brother! Another time he hunted down two Mexican outlaws and brought their heads back to prove it and collect the bounty! And so on. Young lapped it all up and filed the story. The Masterson legend took off, never to be ameliorated. (In fact, Masterson the lawman killed only two men. One of them was, indeed, the murderer of his brother.)

Times changed. The era of the gunslinger came to an end. Bat Masterson, who was more a gambler and “sport” than anything else, ended up in Denver as a promoter of the sport of boxing. This was in the bare-knuckles era, and Masterson would be intimately involved with every heavyweight championship fight until his death in 1921.

His time in Denver did not prove profitable, so in 1902 he and his wife headed for the more promising venue of New York City.

His arrival was not propitious. The second day he was there he was getting his shoes shined at a stand when the cops, led by an officer named Gargan, arrested him. Why? Because he was nicely dressed and happened to be near a West Coast gambler by the name of Sullivan. It was Sullivan and some others who were part of a bunco scheme to fleece a Mormon elder named Snow out of $16,000. Masterson did not take his arrest well. His loud protestations at the station were muted somewhat when police removed a concealed revolver from their famous arrestee. Snow failed to identify Masterson, and the bunco charge was dropped. Masterson, however, had to pay a fine of $10 for the concealed weapon.

Never one to take it on the chin, Masterson filed suit against Snow for injury to his good name, to the tune of $10,000. Snow settled with him out of court. Masterson never forgot Gargan, either. Eleven years later he would seek a charge against Gargan for perjury in his testimony about the 1902 arrest.

Masterson in NYC, c. 1920

Did I mention that Masterson was pugnacious? That was one of the qualities that made his column in the New York Morning Telegraph so popular. From 1903 to 1921 the former lawman wrote three columns a week and gained a huge following all over America. He didn’t cheat on the verbiage, either. His pieces averaged 1700 words. Mostly he wrote about boxing, but he was not averse to sharing his opinions on other matters of the day.

Masterson was frontier educated and never went to college. So how did he master the art of writing? Three ways. First, he was a voracious reader. Second, he made it a goal to expand his style by adding to his vocabulary on a regular basis. And last, but not least, he let his passion for his subject bleed onto the page. For example, in 1911 he covered a fight between a boxer named Burke and an Irishman named Maher. Burke, he wrote, found Maher “a fine bit of cheese” who threw wild punches. But after a Maher haymaker “put a crack in the air,” Burke “planted a left into the Irishman’s potato pit … and it was curtains for Erin’s representative.”

So the writing lesson for today we’ll call the Masterson Triad:

  1. Read widely
  2. Expand your style
  3. Make sure your passion is evident on the page

One last bit of trivia. Have you seen the musical Guys and Dolls? Most probably you have. It was a big Broadway hit, and then a hit movie. Based on characters created by Damon Runyon, it is the fanciful story of Broadway touts and gamblers with names like Harry the Horse, Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Society Max, and Benny Southstreet. The leading figures are Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra in the movie version) and Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando). The plot is based on a bet between Nathan and Sky. The two are sitting in a restaurant on Broadway when Nathan bets Sky that he will not be able to take a “doll” of Nathan’s choosing out to dinner in Havana, Cuba, the following night. Sky, who believes all dolls are the same, takes the bet.

At which point Nathan points outside to Sergeant Sarah Brown of the Salvation Army!

Here is the interesting backstory. Damon Runyon was a young reporter whom Bat Masterson took under his wing. The two remained close until Masterson’s death in 1921. One day they were sitting in a bar, and Masterson was spinning tales about gambling and guns, when they heard a loud thumping out in the street. It was the bass drum of a Salvation Army band, summoning sinners to a meeting. The band was led by a fetching young woman. And Runyon immediately got a story spark: what if a pristine Salvation Army sergeant fell in love with a sport like Bat Masterson?

The idea stuck, and years later Runyon wrote “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown.” The sport he named Sky Masterson, in honor of his old friend. The story became the basis for Guys and Dolls.

Let’s ask the Bat Masterson questions today.

  1. Do you read widely?
  2. Are you purposeful in expanding your style? 
  3. How do you get passion onto your pages?

Note: Most of the research for this post is taken from Robert K. DeArment, Gunfighter in Gotham: Bat Masterson’s New York City Years, University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.

Making a Movie With Spider-Man

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(Note: Thanks and a tip of the fedora to TKZ’s Terry Odell, who noted that for some reason comments (as of 8:20A EST) cannot be posted. I am working on fixing that but having problems doing so. I’m sorry!)

(Update 12:28P EST: It appears to be a system problem as opposed to a PICNIC (Problem In Chair Not In Computer) problem. It will hopefully be fixed in time for Jim Bell’s post tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who is stopping by today. SJ)

(Update 12:46P EST: Comments are working. Thanks and a tip of the fedora to Lynne Reynolds, the Wizard behind the curtain! SJ)

The following occurred about a year and a half ago. I have had to remain uncharacteristically quiet about it until now due to an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) which blessedly expired on February 26. I left my home in central Ohio at 2:30A on November 27, 2019, and headed north toward Cleveland, a place where I misspent several of my formative years. I was to report, showered, shaved, and tap dancin’, at 6:00A to an address near Cleveland’s east side. 

I had been notified a few days previously that I had been selected for a (very, very small) part in a movie named Cherry. There was plenty of buzz about the project before it began, due to the presence of Tom Holland in the lead role and the involvement of Joe and Anthony Russo as directors and producers. Holland and the Russo Brothers had worked together before on such obscure cinematic projects as Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War, with Holland appearing as Spider-Man and the Russos directing those films. Expectations for Cherry were high, my presence in the film notwithstanding. 

Shaker Heights, a somewhat tony Cleveland suburb, was my ultimate destination.  I misspent a good portion of my formative years in Cleveland. I had been to Shaker Heights only once, close to sixty years before, with my parents on a Sunday to go to a retail area named, by amazing coincidence, Shaker Square. I planned to take a look at the area while I was up there. Did I get to? Read on. 

I arrived on time at the appointed place. Despite being a little later in the morning it was somehow even darker and colder on Cleveland’s east side than Columbus had been three hours earlier. I parked and started following some hand-lettered signs through a parking lot, heading toward an unmarked building. A limousine pulled up next to me. Tom Holland got out, smiling, and yelled, “Joe! Joe Hartlaub! My man!” as he embraced me. Not really. Actually, a guy with an Eddie Murphy vibe exited the limo and asked me if this was the right place to be for Cherry. We had some introductory chit-chat during which he told me that he also had a very small part and lived about ten blocks away. I glanced at the limo. He said, “I was gonna ride my bike, but, like, how many times ya gonna be in a movie? Y’know?” I shrugged. He asked me how I had gotten there. “I coptered in from Columbus,” I answered, whirling my index finger around. I had him going for just a minute as he looked around us, perhaps hoping to see Jan-Michael Vincent lean out of a hovering whirlybird and wave. He was disappointed.

We walked into the building together and followed some more hand-lettered signs through a warren of what turned out to be dance rehearsal rooms that had been temporarily repurposed for storing movie equipment. We ultimately found a nice lady, complete with piercings, tattoos, and a clipboard, who checked us in and then directed us to a large room that had been set up like a cafeteria. Breakfast. It was a surprise. We were cautioned to use the serving line on the left and to sit in a specific area since the right line and the other tables were for the crew. Same food, no mingling. My fellow cast member looked at me and kind of smirked at the ironic separate but equal arrangement. We ate some breakfast, ate some more, and drank coffee. An hour passed before my new friend, a few other folks, and I were ushered through a different labyrinth of rooms to suddenly find ourselves outside and on Shaker Square, which looked both different and the same from how I remembered it.  We were given our assignments as the wind and sleet started up, and admonished that we were absolutely not to talk to Tom Holland if we encountered him since he would be working.  My acting assignment was to stand on the street in the wind while being peppered with ice pellets while reading a newspaper, all the while acting as if I were cold,  wet, and old. It stretched my abilities to the limit, let me tell you, but I am a true professional and got the job done, take after take. I was truly humbled by the applause I received every time I turned a page of the newspaper and the director yelled “Cut!”

We were all released at around 12:15 PM. I went into the diner to get some more coffee and saw my fellow actor. He was standing with a small group of folks and head-bopped me over. Tom Holland was standing next to him. Holland started talking to us after a couple of minutes about this and that.  Directives notwithstanding, it would have been rude not to have answered him. It turned out that he was/is a very personable guy. His younger brother was with him. Holland was much nicer to his brother than I would have been to mine under similar circumstances, but, then again, Holland’s brother wasn’t as irritating as mine was at that age. 

Photo by Joe Burdick. All rights reserved.

Things then became weird. I looked back across Shaker Square and recalled that, when I had been there on that long-ago Sunday, a drugstore had filled a storefront where a clothing boutique presently occupied. I had gone in there (probably to get away from my younger brother) and purchased some comic books with a dollar that I had saved from a week before (something I wrote about a few months ago). One of those comics was The Amazing Spider-Man #1.  My adult self kind of felt the earth and everything else shift for just a moment.  I didn’t have to wonder how eleven-year-old me would have reacted if he had been told that, in another sixty years or so, he would be standing across the street talking to the actor who played Spider-Man in a couple of movies while appearing in another movie “with” that actor. I would not have believed any of it.

Holland was called away to do more acting. I got my coffee and gave my new friend a ride home (a real come-down for him, I am sure, after his limo ride of the morning) and made the three-hour drive back home, thinking about life and how the choices we make and the chances we take often bring things back to where we start. 

Cherry was supposed to be released in July 2020 but…you know. That was changed to November 2020 and was delayed a second time. There was a limited (meaning not in Columbus) theatrical release on February 26, 2021, with a full release on Apple TV+ scheduled for March 12. I still don’t know if my scene made the final cut. I did, however, meet Spider-Man. If I could I would tell my eleven-year-old self, “Hang in there, Joey. It’ll be okay. Just don’t get involved with ________, __________, ____________, ______________, or __________. Oh, and you’ll get to hang with Spider-Man. Lastly, hang on to your comics.”

I don’t really believe in coincidence. Life stretched over many years just has too many moving parts. To paraphrase J.B.S. Haldane (and many have), life is not stranger than we imagine. It’s stranger than we can imagine. But we still try, don’t we? 

That is all I have today. I hope that I’ve been able to entertain you while you are waiting for your Coming 2 America feed to stop buffering. In the meanwhile, do you care to share a strange thing that has happened to you lately?