Ask a Writer

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While people-watching, I overheard an inquisitive young man ask his mom a series of questions. All her answers were quick and untrue. Not at all helpful. And I couldn’t help but think, she’s not a writer. Probably not a reader, either. Can’t recall the exact questions posed, but the following is close. Only this time, I’ve included a writer/reader’s response as well. 😉

Why is the sky blue?

Easy answer: So birds can see where they’re going.

Writer says: Sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered more than any other color because it travels as shorter, smaller waves.

Why are leaves green?

Easy answer: So they look pretty, honey.

Writer says: The green coloration of leaves occurs due to a pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll plays a crucial role in the process of photosynthesis, which is how plants convert light energy into sugar to fuel their growth and development.

Why can’t Fido talk to me?

Easy answer: He’s a dog.

Writer says: He does. Dogs communicate all the time. Most can easily recognize at least a dozen or so words — never say “walk” or “treat” unless you mean it — and the smartest ones can reach vocabularies of hundreds of words. They don’t speak using human sounds because physiologically they can’t make the same sounds.

Other animals can speak in human language. Koko the gorilla communicates in sign language and has a vocabulary of around 1,000 words.

Even animals that have no contact with humans use some form of language to communicate. And many humans can decipher the words and expressions of all sorts of animals, from house cats to wild elephants. When all else fails, look at the body language. All creatures communicate, even if they never utter a sound. Pay attention and listen. Fido is talking to you.

Can trees talk to each other?

Easy answer: Don’t be silly. They’re trees.

Writer says: Trees of the same species are communal, and will often form alliances with trees of other species. Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative, interdependent relationships, maintained by communication and a collective intelligence like an insect colony. These soaring columns of living wood draw the eye to their full canopies, but the real action takes place underground, inches below our feet.

“Some are calling it the ‘wood-wide web,’” says Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees. “All the trees here, and in every forest that is not too damaged, are connected to each other through underground fungal networks. Trees share water and nutrients through the networks, and also use them to communicate. They send distress signals about drought and disease, for example, or insect attacks, and other trees alter their behavior when they receive these messages.”

Scientists call these mycorrhizal networks. The fine, hairlike root tips of trees join together with microscopic fungal filaments to form the basic links of the network, which appears to operate as a symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi.

For young saplings in a deeply shaded part of the forest, the network becomes a lifeline. Without sunlight to photosynthesize, they survive because big trees, including their parents, pump sugar into their roots through the network much like human mothers suckle their young.

Why do whales breach?

Easy answer: Because it’s fun.

Writer says: Communication plays a vital role in the social lives of whales, and breaching is one way they send messages to others in their pod. The powerful splash and sound from breaching travels vast distances underwater, allowing whales to communicate with individuals far away. Breaching serves as a long-distance visual and acoustic signal, alerting other whales to their presence and/or signals important information, such as mating readiness or the location of food sources.

Also, territory is crucial for whales to establish dominance and secure resources. Breaching can display strength and power. When a whale breaches, they showcase their physical prowess and send a clear message to other individuals or competing pods that this area is their territory. This behavior helps establish boundaries and reduce potential conflicts between rival groups.

While breaching is visually striking, it also serves a practical purpose. The forceful impact with the water removes parasites that attach themselves to the whale’s skin and inside their mouth. The sheer force of the breach is enough to dislodge unwanted hitchhikers, which helps the whale to maintain good health and hygiene.

Breaching can also assist whales and dolphins in a successful hunt. The force and sound of a breach disorientates and intimidates prey. Orca — aka Killer Whales — who belong to the dolphin family, will launch out of the ocean to create the loudest impact. The family pod of Orca work as a team to breach around prey to disorientate, confuse, and panic that individual.

Breaching has also been used to assist whales and dolphins to get a better visual on their surroundings. Although not as common as a spy hop, a breach enables them to see above the ocean’s surface and navigate through busy areas near the coastline.

My point is, writers are curious creatures who view the world through a different lens. We’re filled with information from multiple trips down research rabbit holes, and we love to share what we’ve learned. Can’t put it all in our WIPs, so it often spills into real life. 😀

What have you learned during research? Ask and answer your own question using the same format. Or just tell us. We want to know.

 

Write Fight Scenes The Comic Book Way

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Carla Hoch

It’s a pleasure to welcome Carla Hoch back to TKZ. Carla is the author of the essential reference Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes. (See the TKZ interview here). She’s out with a follow up: Fight Write: Round Two—Crafting Chaos, Combat & Crime. Today’s post is adapted from that book.

Carla is a popular workshop teacher, trained in MMA, Muay Thai-style kickboxing, taekwondo, Brazilian jiujitsu, street defense, Filipino martial arts, judo, iaido and aikido. She’s a brown belt in Brazilian jiujitsu with Team Tsunami at Global Martial Arts. Learn more about her at FightWrite.net.

Here’s Carla:

You can write a great fight scene without knowing how to fight. But that doesn’t mean you can write a technically sound scene. And that’s ok; you don’t want to focus on technique anyway because most readers don’t know how to fight. You’d lose them in the midst of the blocking.

Sure, you may have a few readers who want more detail, and maybe even one who puts down your book because you didn’t specify what punches went into a combo. But you’re far more likely to lose readers by making a fight scene too complicated and needlessly specific.

Your fight scenes are not your story. They support it.

Which Moves to Write

Before you start putting moves together, it’s good to know which moves to focus on. That way you won’t waste your time worrying about the moves you won’t write.

And the good news is, what you won’t write is a lot. Even good-er news, you have visual resources available to help you understand the whole concept.

Get Graphic

When you’re trying to decide which moves to include in your fight scene, look no further than comic books and graphic novels. Books that tell stories visually are expensive to make. The real estate on every page is a premium. The moves these writers/illustrators include in their storylines are gross motor movements such as punches, stabs, and strikes with large objects. And the target for each tends to be above the waist.

That’s not to say that small moves won’t ever be illustrated. It is to say that the small move must be pivotal to the scene because they come at the cost of drawing something more easily imagined. Remember, every page of a comic book/graphic novel is expensive.

Another takeaway from illustrated media is its ability to make a flat picture a multi-dimensional experience. When we see a superhero in a comic book punch a villain, we see sweat and blood fly from the villain’s face. We see a call-out bubble that reads “POW!”

If there’s a zombie on the page, you can see how bad it smells. When someone screams, we see the veins in their neck bulge.

Graphic novel/comic book illustrations aren’t simply drawings; they’re an experience. Not only can you follow the fight visually, you can also hear it, smell it, feel it, taste it. You aren’t just holding the scene in your hands; you’re in it with the characters. That’s exactly what we writers should aim to achieve as well.

So as you’re considering the moves to write, think like an illustrator and ask yourself a few questions:

  1. Would this movement be easily understood if drawn?
  2. What exact moment of the movement would be drawn?
  3. Is the physical response easy to imagine?
  4. How can I make this a sensory experience?

Where to Start

To begin blocking your fight scene, know how it ends. What is the intended injury of the scene? I know I have beat this point like a second‐hand piñata, but it is that important. The intended injury determines the movement of the fight.

Once you decide on an injury, think of how it directly happens. Then step back and ask, how did that movement happen? Then step back to the previous move and ask the same thing: how did that movement happen?

When you ask yourself how something happened, you don’t get so hung up on wondering what comes next. Instead, you consider what created a certain result.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say your intended injury is a black eye. How did that injury happen? Instead of getting technical, just be literal.

The black eye happened from a punch to the eye. What happened before the fist hit the eye? A character punched. What happened before that punch? The character took a step forward. What happened before they took a step?

When in Doubt, Map it Out

One way to keep up with the fight moves of the scene is to map them. Ask yourself the above questions and jot down the answers. Then, look over the moves, cross out what wouldn’t end up in a comic book, and make note of anything you notice that seems o or could be improved. Keep in mind the last moment of action or contact.

There are a million ways to map a scene. And I suggest you map it out in a way that helps you keep it straight in your head.

However you map, your first action is the injury, so the character you’re starting with is the character that injures. Map that one character’s movements first. After the injury, ask how that injury was possible. The next movement will answer that question.

Continue asking yourself questions from each movement. The answers to each will help you determine what logically comes next.

Comments welcome.

The Workshop

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I just finished a three-day inaugural city-wide event in Garland, Texas, which featured my first Tucker Snow novel, Hard Country. This great honor was calledOne Book – One Garland, and was a gathering of readers and book clubs that culminated with a meet the author night, an in-conversation interview between myself and a former student who is now the Director ofCommunications for one of Texas’ largest school districts, and my typical avant garde writing workshop.

My workshops aren’t hands-on critique, practice events, but adiscussion of writing, research, the challenges I’ve experienced and overcome, and tips to polish would-be authors’ work. It was a fluid discussion that hopefully answered most of the questions from over thirty attendees.

I surprised them at the outset. “What do you want to know or hear about?”

Those who’d been to workshops tilted their heads at me like a dog looking at a new pan. This was something new.

That opened the dance to a variety of questions about writing, and comments on Hard Country. One lady made my head swell enough to need a new, larger hat. “I was impressed by the amount of detail in your books. I’ve read most of them since I discovered your work and wanted to say the specifics in your novels makes me part of your story. I grew up in those areas you write about, and the wonder how much research you do to make them so realistic and interesting.”

I had to think about that one. Growing up in the areas I write about brings that sense of reality she was talking about, and the little tidbits I learned growing up adds to the rich stew of fiction. And speaking of senses, writers should use all five in their novels without making it obvious they want readers to smell, feel, or see. But what she thought was weeks of research boiled down to reading and listening to the radio.

The idea for one major twist in Hard Country came fully formed from listening to the radio, and a program by local radio host Ed Wallace, who talked about that for a few minutes one lazy Saturday morning before moving on to another topic.

It happens when my protagonists discover that vehicles now are so advanced they download all the information on your phones the minute a driver starts the engine. That info includes online purchases, music preferences, and internet searches. They also gather information about driving habits, braking, speeding, and even each time a driver swerves in their own lane of travel.

The initial plot for Hard Country (and more realistic details) came from years of dealing with a meth house across the gravel road from our family ranch. More reality on this subject came when the meth-heads stole my brother-in-law’s farm truck and it downloaded the contents of their phone, allowing law enforcement officers to trace the theft back to the theft.

The attendee at the workshop was most interested in facts and wondered how much time I spent researching everything I included in the novel.

Not as much as you think, though she thought I’d absorbed tons of material. You can spend as much time as you want in research, but it’s easy to disappear down a rabbit hole and waste valuable writing time.

We don’t have to become experts on automotive downloads, or as in the case of the second Tucker Snow, The Broken Truth, naturally occurring radioactive materials, or NORM, which comes from drilling for oil in west Texas. I stumbled across that interesting aspect of my story when we purchased land in Northeast Texas and found there were mildly radioactive drill rods on the property. Other than a discussion with an experienced NORM board member and a few minutes on the internet, that’s all I needed, except for imagination.

You can put too much information in a novel, to the point the pace slows and readers skip paragraphs or pages. Years ago, I got tired of reading Tom Clancy and Dale Brown, because I felt I was reading training manuals. All I need is a little info to make the story real and valid in a reader’s mind, and told the lady in class I collect just enough facts and anecdotes to make the story real.

In the case of my contemporary, traditional, and horror westerns, the history I include comes mostly from reading both fiction and nonfiction books on the old west. I read Larry McMutrty’s westerns of course, and all of Louis L’Amour’s novels. But more recent works helped shape the reality of West Texas, North Texas, and Eastern Oklahoma, in the case of The Journey South.

I gleaned details from Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne (nonfiction), Mike Blakely’s Comanche Dawn (fiction), and Buffalo Trail (fiction), by Jeff Guinn, and Comanche Midnight (nonfiction), by Stephen Harrigan, to name only a few. Within the past couple of weeks, I’ve collected more historical information from two fascinating books, The Beauty of the Days Gone By, Jason Stone (and I can’t recommend this excellent book enough!) and Charles Goodnight by J. Evers Haley.

Another workshop attendee mentioned my character backgrounds and wondered if I spent much time writing full biographies on those I create. The answer was no. They walk on at the right time, fully formed, and I discover their histories and backgrounds a little piece at a time as the plot progresses.

Think of it as meeting someone at a cocktail party, asking a few questions, and the listening as they reveal their own histories and backgrounds. However, we discussed those authors who prefer to create extensive biographies to further their understanding of the characters they’ve created. Either works, and both are effective!

Of course, the one writing rule I emphasized was that there’s no rules in writing, and they all wrote that down.

Reader Friday-Skeletons in the Closet

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Yep, we’ve all got ’em! Care to share? Not that we have to drag out anything we don’t want to, but I think it’s safe to say that some of our skeletons have morphed into comedians over the years.

Let’s share some of the funny stuff and not get too Grim Reaperish, okay?

I’ll start. Maybe you’ll get a kick out of this.

Once when I was a kid, about so tall, we were visiting my grandparents along with our four cousins. That makes six adults and eight kids. The grown-ups chased us outside so they could play pinochle.

We went down the hillside, stretched out in a line holding hands-with my little sister at the end. And my eldest cousin touching the hot wire on the electric fence.

Of course, she snitched on us and boy, howdy, did the 7 of us get in trouble for that! At the time I felt guilty, sort of, but now it’s just a funny story of growing up in a small town.

Okay…your turn, TKZers…let’s hear those bones rattle a bit! And, do tell if one of your characters has a delicious skeleton in the closet…

***

You think Annie Lee, happily married mother of four, has no skeletons in her closet? Think again . . .

 

 

True Crime Thursday – Mishandled DNA Affects Hundreds of Colorado Cases

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Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, CCA-SA 3.0

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

In September 2023, reports were made that “star” forensic scientist Yvonne “Missy” Woods mishandled DNA evidence. In October 2023, she was placed on administrative leave. In November, 2023, after almost 30 years with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Woods retired to avoid termination.

CBI launched an internal affairs investigation into Woods’s conduct and the results were released on June 5. 2024. 

Some of their findings included:

“In 2014, a coworker questioned Woods’ testing of evidence in a case and reported concerns to a Technical Leader.

In 2018, Woods was accused of data manipulation. In response, she was removed from casework and given other duties pending a review of the accusation.

After the review, Woods was later reinstated.

The results of the 2018 review were not escalated to the former CBI Director or CDPS leadership.

CBI has initiated additional investigations into the circumstances surrounding the 2018 process.”

 

As of the date of the report, 654 cases had been identified as affected by Woods’s data manipulation. The report goes on to say:

“[The investigation] revealed that Woods manipulated data in the DNA testing process, leading to incomplete test results in certain cases. It also found she concealed her activities from the technical review process. She engaged in the deletion and alteration of data, and she failed to provide thorough documentation in case records related to certain tests performed.

While the review did not find evidence of Woods falsifying DNA matches or fabricating DNA profiles, Woods deviated from standard testing protocols and cut corners, raising concerns about the reliability of her testing.”

The investigation continues, with Woods’s cases back to 1994 being reviewed. CBI said they would not release further information because of an ongoing criminal investigation.

Parts of a November interview between Woods and investigators were played by 9News.com in July 2024. Initially, Woods’s answers were: “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.” When asked why she altered or omitted test results, she answered, “I think I’m burned out.”

Later in the interview, her answers were more revealing:

“The implications were not even a thought and I think that for that stuff it, it was like click done, move on, click done, move on and not even, not even an additional thought…I don’t know any of these people. I don’t have any reason to pick this one and not the next one that I took forward all the way through whatever.”

[Investigator] Hassenstab asked her how she felt about what she was doing and if she felt bad about it. 

Woods said, “I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t even think about it until five weeks ago.”

Five weeks ago refers to when she was removed from her position and retired shortly afterward.

According to CNN, a week after Woods’s resignation, a federal lawsuit was filed alleging James Hunter was wrongly convicted of burglary and sexual assault in 2002 based on “fabricated and false [hair] evidence” examined and tested by Woods.

Westword.com reports a lab worker recounted an incident in 2014 or 2015 when “Woods allegedly threw away fingernail clippings that were assumed to be evidence.”

Woods came in, brushed the fingernail clippings in her hand, and threw them in the biohazard or garbage bin,” the worker said, telling investigators she was “99 percent” sure the clippings were evidence.

James Karbach, director of legislative policy and external communications for Office of the State Public Defender says, “This has become about more than just one longstanding analyst tampering with evidence and deleting data, but it also is about the systemic failures of an accredited state crime lab, the people, and the processes that should have stopped this from happening over and over for years…there have likely been hundreds of public defender clients who were given intentionally manipulated data and who were prosecuted with unreliable evidence.”

Misconduct raises concerns not only of wrongful conviction, but also that guilty parties may walk free. If courts rule DNA evidence was mishandled, cases can be thrown out.  

~~~

TKZers: Have you heard of other crime labs where evidence can’t be considered reliable? Does this scenario inspire story ideas? An innocent person wrongly imprisoned? A killer skates because mishandled evidence is thrown out?

~~~

Cover by Brian Hoffman

 

 

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a legal doctrine that says if evidence is illegally obtained, it’s not admissible in court. It’s also the title of Debbie Burke’s new thriller.

Preorder sales link. 

It’s Banned Books Week

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Banned Books Week
Terry Odell

display of banned books at Barnes & Noble

We’re smack dab in the middle of Banned Book Week—Sept 22-28.

I think the Kill Zone is a “Banned Free Zone” but it never ceases to amaze—and frustrate—me that people are determining what others can read.

My parents were liberal when it came to my reading choices, although they had a friend who wrote porn under a variety of pseudonyms, and they’d buy his books to support him. Those, I discovered later, they’d kept off the house’s bookshelves. Had I found one and read it, I’m not sure what they’d have said.

Barnes and Noble has a Banned Book section on its website, as well as in some stores. Titles include:

Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
1984, By George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Benedict—

And the list goes on.

top ten challenged booksThe American Library Association, ALA, documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023—a 65% surge over 2022 numbers—as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources. Pressure groups focused on public libraries in addition to targeting school libraries. The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023.

According to PEN America:

“This 2022–23 school year, efforts to remove books expanded to sweep up a wide swath of literature and health-related content. Of the 3,362 instances of books banned in the 2022–23 school year, certain themes, formats, and identities recur:

  • 48 percent include themes or instances of violence and abuse (n =1,620). Of note, within this category, 834 instances are books that include episodes of sexual assault, which is 25 percent of all instances of books banned.
  • 42 percent cover topics on health and wellbeing for students (n = 1,402). This includes content on mental health, bullying, suicide, substance abuse, as well as books that discuss sexual wellbeing and puberty.
  • 33 percent detail sexual experiences between characters (n = 1,110).
  • 30 percent include characters of color or discuss race and racism (n = 1,003)
  • 30 percent LGBTQ+ characters or themes (n = 997). Of note, within this category, 205 instances are books that include transgender characters, which is 6 percent of all instances of books banned. 
  • 29 percent include instances or themes of grief and death (n = 980). This includes books that have a character death or a related death that is impactful to the plot or a character’s emotional arc.”

Facebook is full of graphics, or “memes” protesting banning books. Is it doing any good? Judging from the rising numbers of challenged books, I have my doubts. I haven’t seen any reports of actual book burnings, which might be the only positive piece of information I can include today.

Cover of Double Intrigue by Terry OdellIf I may be so bold, I have a new release dropping on October 3rd, and I don’t think anyone will find cause to challenge or ban it. It’s available for preorder now. Read more about it here.

The floor is yours, TKZers.

**New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

How can he solve crimes if he’s not allowed to investigate?
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton’s Chief of Police, has his hands full. A murder, followed by several assaults. Are they related to the expansion of the community center? Or could it be the upcoming election? Gordon and mayor wannabe Nelson Manning have never seen eye to eye. Gordon’s frustrations build as the crimes cover numerous jurisdictions, effectively tying his hands. Available now in ebook, paperback, and audio.
Like bang for your buck? I have a new Mapleton Bundle. Books 4, 5, and 6 for one low price.

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

New AI Survey Results from Draft2Digital

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Almost 20 years ago, a giant communications company decided to outsource their phone customer service to other countries. I learned about this from a friend who worked there. The company announced massive layoffs of employees because overseas labor costs were cheaper than using American workers.

Then, to add insult to injury, those employees whose jobs were being eliminated were required to train their replacements.

Not surprisingly, outsourcing didn’t work out too well. There was massive consumer backlash because neither the customers nor the new workers could understand each other on the phone. But the damage had been done. Thousands of American workers lost their jobs and the company’s reputation took a big hit that it never recovered from.

That kind of parallels today’s situation with writers and AI. Our work is being scraped from illegal pirate sites and used to “train” AI to replace us.

Some people joke that AI (artificial intelligence) is “artificial insemination.” Writers are being screwed without receiving any enjoyment. They didn’t even buy us dinner first.

The Authors Guild (AG) has been on the forefront to try to protect writers from unauthorized use of copyrighted works to train AI. In July, 2023, they sent an open letter to the CEOs of AI giants including Open AI, Meta, Microsoft, IBM, and others with a petition signed by 15,000 authors. AG also testified before the senate, decrying pirate sites that are used by tech companies to “train” AI models.

The genie is out of the bottle. AI is here to stay. The question now is: can the genie be forced to compensate writers for their words?

Here’s an excerpt from the Authors Guild statement on AI:

“The Authors Guild believes that the right to license a work for AI training belongs to the author of the work unless the rights are expressly granted in an agreement.”

A bill called “The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024” is under consideration by the House of Representatives. This only requires disclosure by anyone who uses copyrighted work to train AI. It does not address fair compensation for that use.

Recently Draft2Digital (D2D) did a survey among authors, publishers, and others to determine how they felt about the use of AI and what authors would consider fair compensation for use of their work. D2D CEO Kris Austin kindly gave permission to quote from the survey results (full results at this link).

Here are some highlights:

1. “Why do authors oppose AI training?” 

AI companies are unethical/untrustworthy – 25%
Harms creatives & people – 25%
Ethical Objections to AI – 19%
Other Reasons – 14%
I worked hard for my work and it’s mine – 10%
AI has no place in creative work – 8%”

2. “Do authors consider current scraping methods fair use?”

It’s not fair use – 49%

Ethically questionable – 42%

Fair use – 5%

No opinion – 3%

3. “Do authors know that AI companies might be willing to pay for training data?”

Unaware – 57%

Aware – 38%

Unsure – 5%

4. “Are authors interested in the opportunity to sell their AI training rights?”

Yes – 31%

No – 25%

Maybe – 45%

5. “Does it matter to authors how the end product LLM (large language model) will be used?”

Yes, it matters. – 76 %

Not as long as I am compensated – 22%

No opinion – 2%

The next two questions concern whether authors would consider having their work used for non-competitive markets (places that would not affect the author’s income) and competitive markets (e.g. an AI-written mystery could sell on Amazon right next to your book but at a much lower price).

6. “If the use case is non-competitive, will authors consider selling their AI training rights?”

No Amount of money will ever be enough – 49.5%
Open to non-competitive opportunities – 50.5%
Would accept less than $100 per book – 11.1%
Only if $100 or more per book – 39.3%
Only if more than $5,000 per book – 14.1%”

7. “If the use case is competitive, will authors consider selling their AI training rights?”

No amount of money will ever be enough – 62.8%
Open to competitive opportunities – 37.2%
Would accept less than $100 a book – 6.3%
Only if $100 or more per book – 30.9%
Only if more than $5,000 per book – 15.8%

Here’s a summary of D2D’s position:

D2D’S STANCE
Until we see significant reforms, especially around greater contractual protections and transparency governing use, intellectual property protections, and rights restrictions, Draft2Digital will not offer AI rights licensing opportunities.

·       It’s a positive development that AI developers are seeking to pay for licenses

·       Better protections are needed before D2D or its publishers can entertain such licenses

·       AI training rights are an exclusive, valuable subsidiary right under the sole control of the author or publisher

·       The rights-holder deserves full control over decisions related to if, when, and how their books are used or licensed for AI training purposes.

·       Authors and publishers should refuse AI rights licensing contracts that are opaque, or that provide inadequate protections for author concerns

·       AI developers must stop training upon books obtained without the rights-holder’s permission; otherwise, they will face continued reputational harm in the eyes of their customers and the creative community

·       LLMs previously trained upon unlicensed content, and the applications built upon them, should either negotiate retroactive licensing settlements with rights holders, or scrap their LLMs and rebuild them from scratch by training upon licensed content only”

“At this time, Draft2Digital will not offer AI rights licensing opportunities.”

I believe most authors agree that compensation should be paid and payment should be retroactive to include past unauthorized use.

The devil is in the details.

·       How to implement systems that detect/determine use of copyrighted material?

·       How to enforce fair use?

·       How much are authors paid?

·       What if an author doesn’t want their work used for AI training  under any circumstances?

The communications company my friend worked for treated their employees shabbily but at least they told workers in advance that they had to train their replacements.

Authors and publishers were never told in advance. Tech giants simply started using creative works without permission nor compensation to the creators. AI-written works currently flood the marketplace that was already crowded. Our incomes suffer.

We study, rewrite, and work hard to create meaningful content and deserve fair compensation.

Those devilish details will be fought out in courts for years to come.

~~~

TKZers, how do you feel about AI’s use of your creative work to train LLMs?

Please share your answers to any or all of the questions.

~~~

Cover by Brian Hoffman

 

 

Debbie Burke writes her thrillers without AI.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is now available for preorder at this link.

 

Epigraphs

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* * *

I love epigraphs, those sparkling word gems that a writer places at the beginning of the novel. The epigraph is a chance for the author to share what was on his/her mind when writing the book, or perhaps an intriguing hint of what’s to come. If done well, it will compel the reader to turn the page and begin reading.

Back in August 2021, James Scott Bell wrote “The How and Why of Epigraphs.” While I can’t improve on Jim’s post, I’ll add a few things I’ve read recently.

* * *

According to masterclass.com

An epigraph is a short standalone quote, line, or paragraph that appears at the beginning of a book. The word epigraph is derived from the Greek epigraphein meaning “to write on.” The use of epigraphs varies from book to book, but generally, authors use them to set up themes or place the events of their story in context. Epigraphs are most commonly a short quotation from an existing work. Epigraphs usually appear offset by quotation marks at the beginning of a text, but there are no set rules dictating how writers use them.

 

Epigraphs can be quotes from other works, quotes from famous people, Biblical quotes, or they can be newly-minted words by the author for his/her specific work.

Here are ten examples of epigraphs to inspire and encourage us:

 

FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley

“Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?” –John Milton, Paradise Lost

 

 

 

CORALINE by Neil Gaiman

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” –G.K. Chesterton

 

 

 

ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy

“Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, saith the Lord” –Romans 12:19

 

 

 

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DISTANT STAR by Roberto Bolano

“What star falls unseen?” –William Faulkner

 

 

 

 

 

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” –John 12:24

 

 

 

A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh

“I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” –T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

 

 

THE QUIET AMERICAN by Graham Greene

“This is the patent age of new inventions,
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best of intentions.” –Lord Byron

 

 

 

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann

“All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is what the world is.” –Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project

 

 

 

INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer

“Men play at tragedy because they do not believe in the reality of the tragedy which is actually being staged in the civilised world.” —José Ortega Y Gasset

 

 

 

THE END GAMES by T. Michael Martin

“Everything not saved will be lost”. –Nintendo “Quit Screen” message

 

 

 

So TKZers: What epigraphs have you used in your books? Do you have a favorite epigraph?

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Here’s the epigraph from Lacey’s Star:

“The truth is bitter, but with all its bitterness, it is better than illusion.” — Ahad Ha’Am

Available at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

Writing and Anger

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by James Scott Bel
@jamesscottbell

“One may achieve remarkable writerly success while flunking all the major criteria for success as a human being. Try not to do that.” – Michael Bishop

Maybe it’s just me, but has anyone else noticed things are getting a bit, er, heated out there in the arena we call media, both social and news?

I use “arena” advisedly, as it hearkens back to ancient Rome and the bloodthirsty crowds cheering the gladiators in their fights to the death, or the lions tearing apart adherents to a certain religious sect.

Today we have the madding crowd (not maddening crowd, please! Thomas Hardy is turning over in his cubby at Westminster Abbey on that frequent misuse) on X and Meta and Insta and TikkyTak. (Remember talk about YouTube, Twitter and Facebook merging into one site called YouTwitFace?)

Many a writer has added fuel to the fire, which invites (not “begs” please! Though that ship has sailed) the question: is it worth it to risk reputational capital by becoming just another flamethrower on the conflagration of discontent?

I’ll hazard a theory: you lose more readers than you gain that way.

Now, I quickly add that there is a place for calm and cool repartee in social media over issues of moment. If you feel you have to say something, go ahead. Just keep it classy, and be very aware that it’s bloody difficult to keep from getting sucked into tit-for-tat with haters, on their terms. “I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig,” wrote Shaw. “You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”

So if you’re a writer trying to make a living, or at least some reliable side income, count the cost and weigh the potential ROI before diving into the fray.

That does not mean silence. Writers write. Many a novel has started with the author burning about an issue.

One author asked himself some questions: “Should aggression be opposed by force? How shall an individual stand against tyranny? When is an individual or society to involve himself or itself in another’s affairs? What exactly is the true nature of justice?” That’s why Walter Van Tilburg Clark wrote the classic, The Ox-Bow Incident.

But note that Clark said his purpose was to “not only write as much as I could in dialogue, but to find my way into a typical western story situation, with all the typical western story people, and see if I couldn’t make the people come to life and the situation say something that could still be heard.”

Make the people come to life. That’s the key.

Orwell was impassioned in his essays, but how much more influential are his novels, 1984 and Animal Farm?

Ray Bradbury once remarked that he did not write to predict the future, but to prevent it.

So of course write a story about an issue that burns inside you. But make sure of the following:

  1. Filter everything through characters who are not mere hand puppets for your hobby horse (how’s that for mixing metaphors?)
  2. Give every character his or her due, even the bad guys, because—
  3. Bad guys don’t think they’re bad, they think they’re justified.
  4. Make sure your dialogue is organic and believable, not part of a “false triangle.”
  5. Draft angry if you must, but edit serenely. (And please don’t misquote Hemingway, who never said “Write drunk, edit sober.” That would have made him angry!)
  6. Think long and hard about what you post on social media. It’s going to be there forever.

Or you can write a poem, as I did recently:

Sometimes in life we find ourselves
Engaged in tense exchanges,
In meetings or at social fetes
That someone else arranges.

A stranger offers his opinion,
As if it were quite factual.
You beg to differ, have your say
With real facts, quite actual.

But then instead of answer calm
You’re accused of being wicked,
And told in no uncertain terms
Where your opinion can be stick-ed.

Thus it is, in Twitter world
That conversations vex.
There is no thought or listening,
There’s only scrambled X.

Some day perhaps we shall go back
To conversations civil
Where substance is the main concern,
Not vitriolic drivel.

And so I say, my angry friend,
Fear not a new opinion.
Better far to think than get
A right-cross to your chinion.

There. I feel better now. Comments welcome.

Words of Wisdom on Writer’s Block

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Woman with writer’s block.

Writer’s block—is it real? Is it why writers get stuck when writing, or can’t get started?

Today’s Words of Wisdom tackles writer’s block, with posts by Kathyrn Lilley, Elaine Viets and John Gilstrap. Afterwards, I give my own short take on it, and then open the floor for questions.

I never used to understand what people meant by “writer’s block.” I’d always felt immune to that scribe’s disease. When I wrote the first two books in my current series, I had a machine-like discipline. I’d get up at four a.m. every morning and write for at least two hours. No. Matter. What. My progress was always slow but steady. I wrote almost the same number of pages every day. My writing group members were in awe of me.

But then along came Book Three, and I went into a bit of a slump. Actually it felt more like an avalanche. Even though I loved the story I was working on, sometimes I’d find that days would pass without any progress at all. I eventually had to ask for–gasp!–an extension from my editor, who graciously granted it to me. But even then I kept running behind. Ultimately I made the new deadline, but barely. Now I have a recurring nightmare about missing the deadline, which has replaced my old nightmare about discovering that I’ve missed an entire semester of a class, just before the final exam.

So what exactly is writer’s block? I think the term is a bit misleading. It implies that the writer doesn’t know what to write about — such as a lack of inspiration, perhaps. In my case I knew the story I wanted to write, but I seemed to have lost the daily writing rhythm along the way. Maybe what I had was actually energy block. Or focus block.

So here were a few of my cures for The Block. All of them proved to be helpful at times:

  • Write 15 minutes a day
    You can write for at least 15 minutes today, even if you’re the busiest person on the planet. Doing that small amount per day helps you get the habit and rhythm back. Over time, your progress will add up.
  • Write at the same time each day.
    I think this is the single most helpful habit that will enable you to break through writer’s block. If you sit your butt down in a chair at the same time every day, your body starts to learn that this is the time for writing. Your writing flow will start to kick in at that time.
  • Free writing
    This technique is where you grab a couple of random words and “free write” them into your WIP for a set amount of time. Actually, this one has never worked that well for me. Whenever I try free writing, I get stuck at the same damned spot that I’m stuck in my regular writing. And then I get even more depressed about my writer’s block. But I know that free writing works wonders for some people. For great tips about free writing and other ways to break through The Block, I recommend Barbara DeMarco-Barrett’s book, Pen On Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide To Igniting The Writer Within. (Guys can pick up a few tips too!)
  • Put your writing first
    I have many acquaintances who have endless reasons for not writing. Anniversaries, birthdays, conflicting deadlines, vacations, relatives visiting…you get the idea. Unsurprisingly, these people are frequently blocked writers. Your writing needs to be a first priority in your life, or you’ll be doin’ time inside The Block.

Kathryn Lilley—June 16, 2009

 

My grandfather was a security guard. He worked weekends, holidays, and nights when temperatures plummeted below zero and frozen winds blasted the empty parking lots. He never said, “I don’t feel like guarding the warehouse tonight. I’m blocked.”

My grandmother babysat. She never said, “I’m not watching those brats today. I’m blocked.”

When I spoke at Fort Lauderdale High School, a student asked, “What do you do about writer’s block?”

“Writer’s block doesn’t exist,” I said. “It’s an indulgence.” Writing is a job, and working writers cannot afford writer’s block. It’s a luxury. Pros know that inspiration won’t strike like lightning. We can’t wait for it to hit us. We have to write.

I wish I had a dollar for every day I didn’t feel like dragging my sorry carcass to the computer. I could retire.

But I write because it’s my job. Even on the worst days, I love being a writer.

Many former newspaper reporters become mystery writers, including Michael Connelly, Kris Montee (PJ Parrish), and me. We’re trained to respect deadlines. Writing is our work and we sit down and do it. Early in my newspaper career, I told my editor, “I’m blocked. I can’t write this story.”

“Write something,” he said, waving the blank layouts. “We have pages to fill. We’re a newspaper, not a high school theater program: We can’t leave blank spaces on the page with ‘COMPLIMENTS OF A FRIEND.’ ”

Some days, the words flow, gushing in fertile streams. I feel alive and electric. Other days the words trickle out like water in a rusty, clogged pipe.

But I still write.

What do I do when the words don’t come?

I remember what Daniel Keyes, who wrote Flowers for Algernon, said at a speech:

“When I feel blocked I start typing – anything,” he said. “It doesn’t have to make sense: ababababsjsjsjfjfjfhhshshshkaka.

“Then I start typing words. Any words. The first words that come to mind.

“Next I start writing sentences. Again, they don’t have to make sense. But I keep on typing and eventually they do make sense and I’ve started writing. I may throw out ninety percent of what I wrote that day.

“But I wrote.”

You can, too.

Elaine Viets—March 10, 2016

 

Truth be told, I don’t believe in writer’s block.  There are days when the creativity feels like it won’t flow at all, and there are certainly days when I would prefer to do something other than tying my backside to the chair and hammering out words, but that’s what everybody feels about any job on some days.

“Writer’s block” is, I believe, too often an excuse to be wielded on those days when a writer would prefer to play hookie.  There’s nothing wrong with playing hookie, but whilst playing, it’s disingenuous to complain about not getting stuff done on your manuscript.  There truly is no substitute to a writer writing, even when the words don’t flow easily.

I think of creativity as a flow, and the writer as the pump.  When the pipes are filled and the pressure is even, creativity pours out of us, sometimes in such volume that we can’t handle it all.  Then stuff happens in our lives or in our surroundings that causes intellectual cavitation, and our pump loses prime.  All that flow reduces to a pool, and it’s hard work to get it going again.

Everybody has a proprietary secret sauce to re-prime their own pipes, but one that always works for me is to return to the basics: pen and paper.  I posted a video on the topic on my YouTube channel.  I don’t know why it works, but somehow, the tactile connection between my brain and the page, flowing through an old-fashioned fountain pen, never fails to set me straight.  For every book I write, I’d guess 20% of the prose starts as being written longhand.  Once the story is flowing again, I type up the handwritten pages and I’m off and running.

John Gilstrap—June 20, 2018

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My personal view is that “writer’s block” is really fear, perfectionism, and/or the inner critic keeping writers from starting or stopping them cold mid-draft. Daring to write a crappy first draft can help. Simply letting yourself write, as all three of today’s WoW posts advice, is golden. Deadlines can also “unblock” a writer.

Feeling blocked can also be a message from the writer’s unconscious that there’s a plot or character issue that needs to be worked out. My go-to in that case is brainstorming, which was featured in a WoW post last December. Going up to what I call the “thirty thousand foot view” of my novel and sketching out the big picture story elements and/or revisiting advice on plotting, such as this JSB’s post here, usually helps fix whatever the problem is.

How about you?

  1. Do you believe in writer’s block? Or do you think something else is at work?
  2. What do you do when you can’t get started, or become stuck mid-draft?
  3. Any general advice about dealing with fear, perfectionism, or how to muzzle the inner critic?

I’ll be on the road for most of the day, but will pop in when I can. In the meantime, please share your take on writer’s block.