Good morning! Author Lisa Black is joining us today. Lisa is a latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida.  Every Kind of Wicked, the sixth installment in her series featuring forensic scientist Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner, involves the duo tracking down a nest of scammers and will be available beginning August 25. Today Lisa is going to discuss — what else? — scamming! Lisa, the floor is yours. Joe Hartlaub

We all get them, every day. You answer with ‘hello’ and there’s that telltale dead air before either a recording starts or someone comes on to tell you that your computer is sending out error messages/your grandson is in jail/you owe the IRS back taxes and the marshals are on their way to your house/we can sell you pain meds or medical equipment over the phone via our doctors on staff or you need an extended car repair warranty.

Most of you are smart and immediately hang up. I dial ‘1’ to speak to a customer service representative.

If I’m in a hurry, I wait until they say ‘hi this is Shteve from Credit Card Services/Microsoft/DirecTV, how are you today?” and then I say in firm, bright tones, “You are a thief and a liar and should be ashamed of yourself.” For the record, those are the harshest words I have ever uttered to someone I wasn’t married to. But I figure if it can be the one straw that breaks the shell of one call center worker who still has some shred of conscience, then I’ve done the world, and maybe that person, a service.

If I’m feeling more empathetic that day, I might say, “I know it’s hard to get a good job where you are, but that doesn’t make it okay to steal money from vulnerable people.”

Where they are could be anywhere in the world (and they will never tell you) due to the ability to spoof numbers and local area codes. In 2006 American and Canadian expats were arrested while running a call center in Costa Rica. In 2018 Floridian Adrian Abramovich was fined $120 million for robocalling, funneling victims to a call center in Mexico for travel discounts from Hilton and Marriott—except those companies knew nothing of it. India seems to lead the world in phone scams specifically (whereas mid-Africa works in social media friending scams and Russia/Ukraine/China simply hacks what they want) and probably for a simple reason: they speak English. The language is a required school subject in Pakistan and Bangladesh and the second most common language in India. In actually the only pleasant conversation I’ve ever had with a scam caller, I asked one how he felt about the disputed region of Kashmir. After a moment’s thought he said they ought to be granted independence. I thanked him for sharing, but still wasn’t going to give him my credit-card number. He said “okay” and hung up.

But if I have plenty of time and I’m sitting in front of a computer, then I Google ‘fake credit card numbers.’ I feed those to the ‘customer service representative’ until they either give up and disconnect, or turn nasty. Be warned, bare-knuckled obscenity is not a taboo in call center culture. Male and female alike will use language that would make shock jocks blush. That was made clear to me the time I kept some IRS scammers on the line for 45 minutes while I worked at my desk, pretending to drive to the bank that minute to withdraw $7,000 and then proceed to a Walgreens to convert it to iTunes cards. The sudden affinity the U.S. government has shown for iTunes and ApplePay cards is never explained…but at any rate, I had to insist that Walgreens didn’t have $7000 iTunes cards. Communications broke down, and I got an earful.

Sometimes—very rarely—they might call back to deliver a few more choice insults. Usually they won’t. Time is money and they aren’t going to waste a second of it on someone who’s not going to pay off.

What can be done? First of all, and I speak from personal experience, you can get free NoMoRoBo on your landline and inexpensive apps for your cells, which will weed out most of the automated calls. I have Robokiller on my cell. It responds with prerecorded schticks meant to provide hilarious recordings of spam callers getting punked…but in my experience, the spam callers never fall for it. I don’t know if they can electronically detect the app, or if they’ve just heard the responses enough to recognize them from the first word.

Prosecuting the call centers is a more complicated matter. Since the numbers are spoofed, reporting them to the Do Not Call List does not help. Authorities have had better success tracking some of the $10 billion Americans lost to scam phone callers just last year. They don’t publicize their methods but in recent years, arrests have skyrocketed. Indian cyber crime detectives, working with the U.S. and other countries, arrested over two hundred people in one area of their country for running call centers which raked in over $50K a day, mostly from Americans and Canadians. In another case, 24 people in the U.S. are currently sitting in jail for running an IRS scam in which they would launder the money an Indian call center wrung out, one prepaid gift card or wire transfer at a time. So there is hope.

But in the meantime, of course, never give your credit card number (or any other number) to someone who called you. Don’t friend the Ukrainian supermodel or silver fox military contractor looking for love. And never click on the link.

But if you have the time to waste their time, by all means, waste away.

If you’d like to read some true cases:

https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/11/news/fcc-robocall-fine/index.html

https://securityboulevard.com/2018/12/126-arrests-the-emergence-of-indias-cyber-crime-detectives-fighting-call-center-scams/

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/24-defendants-sentenced-multimillion-dollar-india-based-call-center-scam-targeting-us-victims

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46357007

I’m pleased to welcome TKZ alumna Nancy Cohen today, as she talks about the Writer’s Learning Curve. That’s Nancy in the hot pink suit. — Elaine Viets

By Nancy J. Cohen

As we go through our journey as writers, we move from one set of learning goals to another. These may evolve over time but there’s never a lack of new things to conquer. Always needing to stay ahead in this game, we must keep up with trends in the marketplace, writing styles and marketing strategies.

When you’re starting out, you’ll devour articles on character, plot, setting and other basic elements of a novel. Once you hone your skills, you’ll narrow down your focus to a particular genre. This can take years, along with many unpublished books, notes from critique partners and rejections from editors. Eventually, if you persist, you’ll get published. With professional editorial input, your skills will keep improving until you look back on those earlier books with dismay. Now that you’re a seasoned author, what’s next?

Writing styles change as pressures from the real world influence our tastes as readers. Before technology infused recreational pursuits, people had plenty of time to read for pleasure. Long, descriptive passages and poetic prose were common. Remember those long tomes by authors such as James Michener? How many of us would pick up one to read now?

These days, readers lack the patience for long expository passages. They want white space, short paragraphs and even shorter chapters. Fast-paced stories with lots of dialogue and action will win readers over sooner than lengthy descriptions that make your eyes glaze. What was that famous line about cutting out the parts readers tend to skim past?

The advent of e-book readers has reinforced this shorter, breezy writing style. So has the “Look Inside” feature at Amazon. You need to grab a reader’s attention within the first few pages. Never mind spending several paragraphs describing the luscious sunrise and seguing into backstory about how the heroine came to be there. Cut to the heart of the story and get things moving from the start. Listen to what readers want and adapt your style if you want to attract more fans.

This also applies to the marketplace. Are cozies popular because the outside world is scary and rife with tension these days? Or are darker tales and thrillers in vogue? Do we need to steer clear of certain topics? Or can we address these issues in a timely manner in our work? Supposedly our books reflect what’s going on in society. In a pandemic, does this mean writing our lifestyle changes into our stories or carrying on as though things are normal? That would depend upon your readers’ expectations, so again, consider your audience.

By now, you’ve produced a number of published books and have learned how to manage your promotional efforts. Back in the day, this meant booksignings inside malls at B. Dalton and Waldenbooks. Then it became independent bookstores. Now it’s online events and ZOOM presentations. You have to keep up with the times in terms of marketing efforts. And when you think you have it down pat, you decide to go hybrid or indie and have to learn a whole new skill set. Nor does it ever end. Audiobook production, box sets, sales promotions, social media campaigns…the opportunities to try new things can be overwhelming. It helps to focus on one item at a time. What is it you want to learn next?

As authors, we’re on a journey that will keep taking us to new places. We always have more to learn and to achieve. Be grateful, because it keeps our minds sharp and gives us a sense of purpose each day. In this, we share a unique mindset that connects us to each other.

By Elaine Viets

New York Times bestsellers. Pulitzer Prize nominees and winners. Man Booker short-listed books and winners. Books taught in high schools and colleges. And books fresh off those coveted “Best of” lists.
I want all these honors for my novels.
But what do these literary successes have in common?
Cliches.
Cliches that would embarrass novice novelists.
For a project for The Pudding, an online magazine, Erin Davis “selected 2,000 books spanning Pulitzer-winning classics to pulpy bestsellers (getting myself banned from the library—twice) and ran them through a parser that identified sentences mentioning body parts. I then extracted the owner of the body parts and any adjectives describing them.”
Her results should put every writer on alert. We’re cranking out cliches.
Here are some of Erin Davis’ findings:
“Hair is twice as likely to be mentioned for women characters than for men . . . society values different things about men and women. For example, there is a long literary, historical, and cultural tradition of valuing a woman’s hair: the Bible calls hair a woman’s crowning glory.
“In other cases, that gaze is more lascivious,” Davis writes. “Consider this litany of woman-skewed body parts: hip, belly, waist, and thigh.”
But when it comes to men, we writers typically – stereotypically, to be exact – describe men’s strength and power. “Body parts such as fist, knuckles, chest, and jaw sketch an image of a commanding and intimidating presence,” Davis says, “as empty of nuance as the soft, sexy image of women.”
Women’s faces are eight times more likely to be “lovely” or “pretty.” Men are plain old “handsome.”
Female bodies are more likely to be “naked,” “young” and “slender.” Men are sixteen times more likely to be described as “powerful.”
Women’s legs are bare and long – especially long. Sorry, guys. Your gams are simply “hairy,” a pedestrian description, if you’ll pardon the pun, and a great offense. I live near the beach, and can testify that many men have shapely bare legs.
As for shoulders, once again, the ladies are nekkid and “white.” Men’s shoulders are “heavy” and “broad.” What a shame those hunky male shoulders are covered up.
And women’s skin? Alas, it’s not much different than our shoulders: it’s described as “white,” “pale,” “smooth,” or “dark.” Men’s skin is reduced to either “black” or “yellow.” Fortunately, both sexes have “warm” skin.
What this project shows is how many authors rely on lazy writing. When our fingers are flying over the keys, it’s easy to grab a reliable cliche. Everyone does that.
Here’s my favorite paragraph from Davis’ article: “In real life, women are obviously more dimensional than soft, sexual objects. Men are more complex than muscular lunkheads. We should expect that same nuance of the characters in the books we read.”
If we’re interested in more thoughtful descriptions of lovers for our novels, check your family photos. Remember the relatives who were – or are – madly in love. Are the women all long-haired beauties and the men strong and handsome? Or are there some startling mismatches.
Consider your sizzling hot Aunt Anna who married geeky Uncle Walter, the guy with the weak chin. They’re still living happily ever after. And what about sexy Cousin Jack? Why did he fall for flat-chested Verna, with the thick glasses and bird legs? Why are they still in love twenty-five years later?
For strong women, I give your Rosie the Riveter, who inspired World War II women to work in factories and help their country. Here’s one Rosie, her crowning glory wrapped in a red bandana, working on an aircraft.

Norman Rockwell’s Rosie is eating a sandwich. She may have white shoulders, but her bare arms are definitely muscular.

As for strong men, here’s a hero who defies the standard cliches: the British spy Frank Foley.

Frank was short, pot-bellied, and wore owlish glasses. He looked exactly like his cover profession – passport control officer for the British embassy in Berlin. History says, “Foley bent the rules and helped thousands of Jewish families escape from Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of the Second World War.”
Forget the James Bond tux. Foley, the quintescential clerk, saved ten thousand people.
Write on – right past the cliches.

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A Star Is Dead, my fourth Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery, is “skillfully plotted… Witty dialogue and well-defined characters, including plucky and intelligent Angela, lift this wry look at the trappings of celebrity. Fans and newcomers alike will be pleased” – Publishers Weekly. Buy it today: https://tinyurl.com/yc6fnysb

By John Gilstrap

One of the most onerous tasks of this writing gig for me is the review of page proofs. The developmental edit is done, and the copy edits are done, often just a few weeks before the arrival of the final typeset pages. Page proofs provide the absolute final opportunity to catch any errors on the page. The problem for me is that the always arrive when I’m deeply into the flow of the next book–so I’m distracted to begin with–and I just finished reading the damn thing (for the scumpti-fourth time) a few weeks before. The stakes are high, and yet I have a hard time focusing.

Just yesterday, I finished the page proofs for Crimson Phoenix, the first book in my new series featuring Victoria Emerson, an unlikely leader in the aftermath of a devastating attack on the United States. (Pub date: February 23, 2021) It’s about 95,000 words long, and I love it, but I’ve pretty much memorized it. I allotted two days to the page proofs–not much time for me because I am a slow reader.

I’d plowed all the way through and thought I was done last night. I was going to scan the pages and send them back to my publisher this morning, and then, while in the shower, a thought popped into my head from nowhere. Luke’s father couldn’t have died when Luke was a baby. I know that doesn’t make any sense out of context, but the timing I’d set up in the narrative would make much of what follows impossible. Thank heavens I found the error. Readers notice that little stuff.

(SIDEBAR: What is it about showers that triggers creativity? Perhaps it’s just me, but I cannot count the number of times that plot issues have resolved spontaneously under the flow of hot water.)

Back to the error. Here’s the thing: The timing of Luke’s father’s death really has no affirmative impact on the plot. In this case, Victoria is talking to another character about the boys’ father, and she says, “he never got to meet Luke.” That’s it. It’s a throw-away line that could have derailed the entire timeline of the book.

And this isn’t my first time. Some horrible errors have made it all the way into print, thanks to throw-aways. Probably the most egregious in my case occurs in Hostage Zero, the second book in the Jonathan Grave series. Harvey Rodriguez is an important secondary character who suffers from some serious PTSD issues. For the plot to work, he needed to be a former military field medical guy. An Army medic. In a monologue that I’m still very proud of, he expounds on the horrors of fighting in Iraq during the battle for Fallujah. Then, I realized that I’d been an idiot. Fallujah was a Marine Corps operation, not an Army one. No problem. I just changed Army to Marine and made a few other references to the Corps and Semper Fi.

But I didn’t change the word, “medic.” The Marine Corps does not have medics. They have U.S. Navy corpsmen assigned to their operational units. Tens of thousands of copies of the book went out to the world with the phrase “Marine Corps medic” repeated several times. I must have written over 100 letters of apology to Marines and Navy corpsman over the years. Given the audience for that series–and the fact that I grew up a Navy brat who was frequently stitched up by Navy corpsman–the barefoot walk across broken glass is good for me. We were able to change the error in the eBook versions, but there’s no pulling back the print and audio editions.

In Scorpion Strike, there’s a throw-away line where Jesse Montgomery drops his ditty bag into the back seat of his father’s convertible Corvette. My goodness, there are a lot of Corvette owners out there, and many are anxious to inform me that the Corvette has no back seat. Again, that’s on me, but I’m far less embarrassed by that mistake.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that it’s not the stuff you research that bites you. It’s the stuff that you’re sure you know. Or, even more often, it’s the stuff you throw in without thought just to add a little spice to a character or a visual.

What say you, TKZ family? Got any cringe-worthy mistakes you’d like to talk about? C’mon, it’s just between us. . .